Quotulatiousness

March 17, 2011

Industrial espionage, Chinese style

Filed under: China, Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:38

Another good post at Strategy Page on the recent uptick in detection of Chinese industrial spies in the United States, and how this may not be a result of more successful anti-espionage efforts by the FBI or CIA — it may just be a by-product of stepped up efforts by China’s intelligence services:

For over two decades, China has been attempting to do what the Soviet Union never accomplished; steal Western technology, then use it to move ahead of the West. The Soviets lacked the many essential supporting industries found in the West (most founded and run by entrepreneurs), and was never able to get all the many pieces needed to match Western technical accomplishments. Soviet copies of American computers, for example, were crude, less reliable and less powerful. Same with their jet fighters, tanks and warships.

China gets around this by making it profitable for Western firms to set up factories in China, where Chinese managers and workers can be taught how to make things right. At the same time. China allows thousands of their best students to go to the United States to study. While most of these students will stay in America, where there are better jobs and more opportunities, some will come back to China, and bring American business and technical skills with them. Finally, China energetically uses the “thousand grains of sand” approach to espionage. This involves China trying to get all Chinese going overseas, and those of Chinese ancestry living outside the motherland, to spy for China, if only a tiny bit.

This approach to espionage is nothing new. Other nations have used similar systems for centuries. What is unusual is the scale of the Chinese effort. Backing it all up is a Chinese intelligence bureaucracy back home that is huge, with nearly 100,000 people working just to keep track of the many Chinese overseas, and what they could, or should, be to trying to grab for the motherland. It begins when Chinese intelligence officials examining who is going overseas, and for what purpose. Chinese citizens cannot leave the country, legally, without the state security organizations being notified. The intel people are not being asked to give permission. They are being alerted in case they want to have a talk with students, tourists or business people before they leave the country. Interviews are often held when these people come back as well.

Those who might be coming in contact with useful information are asked to remember what they saw, or bring back souvenirs. Over 100,000 Chinese students go off to foreign universities each year. Even more go abroad as tourists or on business. Most of these people were not asked to actually act as spies, but simply to share, with Chinese government officials (who are not always identified as intelligence personnel) whatever information was obtained. The more ambitious of these people are getting caught and prosecuted. But the majority, who are quite casual, and, individually, bring back relatively little, are almost impossible to catch.

AWACS in Libyan airspace

Filed under: Africa, France, Military, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:21

Strategy Page reports on the use of AWACS resources over the north African country:

A week after NATO began sending its AWACS aircraft to monitor aircraft activity over northern Libya, it’s been decided to have these radar aircraft monitor that airspace 24/7. The AWACS can fly over international waters and still monitor air activity several hundred kilometers into Libya. This may become crucial if a no-fly zone is established over the Libyan coastal area (where most of the population lives). AWACS can spot Libyan aircraft taking off, and call in fighters to deal with that problem before the Libyan warplanes can get very far.

The Libyan rebels resisted calling for a no-fly zone, but recent defeats have changed their minds. The Arab League has also called on the UN to authorize a no-fly zone, and the U.S. has agreed to participate. American and French carriers, plus, possibly, Egyptian fighters, would provide the combat aircraft needed for enforcement. While Libya doesn’t have many flyable warplanes, the few they do get into the air have proved to be powerful weapons against the rebels. In at least three cases, Libyan pilots refused to bomb the rebels. The pilots of two aircraft defected and flew to Malta. The two crew in another fighter-bomber ejected and let their aircraft crash. It’s believed that Libyan dictator is now using mercenary pilots (perhaps from Syria).

Ever wonder how a sewing machine works?

Filed under: History, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:16

H/T to Jeff Scarbrough for the link.

March 16, 2011

Guest post: Virginia Postrel and the “magic” iPad

Filed under: Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:16

This was written by Jon, my former virtual landlord, in an email to me earlier today. I’ve asked his permission to post it on the blog.

Did you see this Wall Street Journal post?

When Apple introduced the iPad last year, it added a new buzzword to technology marketing. The device, it declared, was not just “revolutionary,” a tech-hype cliché, but “magical.” Skeptics rolled their eyes, and one Apple fan even started an online petition against such superstitious language.

But the company stuck with the term. When Steve Jobs appeared on stage last week to unveil the iPad 2, which hit stores Friday, he said, “People laughed at us for using the word ‘magical,’ but, you know what, it’s turned out to be magical.”

I’m not sure what she’s on about when get gets to magic and dissing “makers” and hackers for their disdain of such. More on that later.

Sadly, I think love for the iPad is explained in much simpler terms: it is a shiny object, and people like shiny objects.

The thing is well proportioned (I’ve not looked at the specs, but I suspect that golden ratio proportions are present in its design), it has a polished surface, the display is bright and vivid — and people simply dig that sort of thing. I admit that I find the things attractive, but not attractive enough to overcome what are, for me, wallet-crushing limitations:

  • No ROI. I cannot be measurably productive on an iPad — I could not write or code or draw on the thing — so I’m never going to make back its cost. I’ve been able to pay for all of my computers by being productive on them, but that would not happen on the iPad. For that to happen, I would have to devote far more time than I have to, say, learning how to program for the thing — and that’s not likely to happen. Your mileage will, of course, vary on this: if you can measure and assign a dollar value to the time saved by having a portable internet access point around the office, plant, home, or on the road, then you’ll see more of a return here. At present, though, I don’t need that — at least not in a way that can be represented by income or cashflow.
  • Hyper-accelerated planned obsolescence. Apple is notorious for this — the next generation of device typically makes the earlier generation either less desirable or downright useless. My first — and only — Mac taught me this lesson, and I won’t fall for it again — at least not with an Apple product. The device becoming less desirable may not be an issue for most people, unless they are stylish hipsters who buy the device simply for its value as a fashion accessory. The reduced functionality, lack of updates, and lack of development support might be a real problem for people who bought the things for measurable productivity. So again, as ever and always, your mileage will vary.

Another thing that keeps me from buying one of these is that I can see that they are not going to age well. A portable device is going to get beat up, and the iPad will lose much of its Jobs-gizz-polished luster as the screen gets greasy and smudged, the case gets dinged and pitted, and then, finally — horror of horrors — the screen gets a deep corner-to-corner gouge after you read about the next generation device, drop the thing face down in shock, accidentally kick it into the next stall, and the hobo there picks it up and does who knows what with it before passing it back to you under the cubicle wall. Something as precious as the iPad just will not weather that sort of abuse. And even if it did, would you really want it back after that?

Postrel dibbles:

Even the “maker ethic” of do-it-yourself hobbyists depends on having the right ingredients and tools, from computers, lasers and video cameras to plywood, snaps and glue. Extraordinarily rare even among the most accomplished seamstresses, chefs and carpenters are those who spin their own fibers, thresh their own wheat or trim their own lumber — all once common skills. Rarer still is the Linux hacker who makes his own chips. Who among us can reproduce from scratch every component of a pencil or a pencil skirt? We don’t notice their magic — or the wonder of electricity or eyeglasses, anesthesia or aspirin — only because we’re used to them.

I’m not sure what to make of that. It sounds like she’s saying that hackers should revere the iPad simply because they could not make one themselves from scratch. By that logic, I should revere a shipping pallet because I could not make one from scratch — and I’m thinking beyond my lack of woodworking skills here. To Postrel, the shipping pallet should be seen as magic because I did not plant the acorn that grew into the oak that I cut down with the axe that I forged myself from ore that . . . oh, screw it, you know where I’m going with this and have better things to do with your time than to follow me there).

Postrel is missing the fact that clever people have commoditized magic: they’ve found methods to manufacture tedious or complicated things in ways that make them commonplace and disposable. It’s true that your average hacker could not build an iPad from scratch, starting from raw silicon and copper and gold and dead plankton transmogrified into petrochemicals. I mean, really, who has the time to farm plankton, wait for them to die, settle to the bottom of the ocean, be covered by sediment, be compressed through the build-up of rock strata over geological epochs — sorry, I’m doing it again. While your average hacker is not going to build an iPad from raw materials, your average hacker could probably build a world-changing application for a popular platform if that platform were open.

The article throws out the old groan about any sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic. To those who don’t think too much about how that technology works, it certainly must seem like magic. What’s truly magical, though, is when such magic is commoditized and becomes commonplace. It goes from being a flashy-bangy trick to something that’s actually useful. Sadly, Apple is not building magic — they are building a captive audience.

Damnit. I’ve been letting this stew for a couple of days, and I can see that it’s just going to boil down to some lame bromide about how free markets and free access to products that one actually owns after paying for them are what is truly magical, but I’m just not going to go there. So I’m going to consider this done and send it off.

Japan’s plight distracts the world from Libya

Filed under: Africa, Europe, Media, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:43

As we all feverishly check the media reports for updates on rescue efforts for survivors of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, or even more urgently try to figure out the actual situation in and around the crippled nuclear reactors at Fukushima, it’s a huge boon to Moammar Gadhafi as he works on crushing the rebellion in Cyrenaica:

The megalomaniacal Gadhafi entertains many fantasies. Not so long ago, taking control of Egypt, via assassination or divine acclamation, was among them. Now, as he and his corrupt clique fight for survival, his loyalist and mercenary forces need only take Benghazi and Tobruk.

Crack Tobruk, and the Libyan rebels have three choices: surrender, seek asylum in Egypt or head for the deep southern desert and wage a longshot guerrilla war. Surrender is defeat, followed by mass executions and mass gravesites. Asylum is defeat — as the rebels hole up in Cairo, Gadhafi will launch bloody reprisals against Cyrenaica’s people. As for a guerrilla war waged from the Sahara? Gadhafi will have an air-power advantage. The coastal cities will also provide him with thousands of hostages (the guerrillas’ relatives) to torture and kill.

Rebel options, post-Tobruk, are dreadful. The mass graves outside the cities will be hideous. The long-term strategic implications of a Gadhafi victory are also hideous.

Why can’t NATO or the UN or the G-8 agree to impose a no-fly zone on Libya’s dictator? The Obama administration, whatever its latest rhetoric, has willingly enmeshed itself in a multilateral spider’s web of narrow interests, fear and greed. At some level, Gadhafi serves Russian and Chinese commercial arrangements. Europe fears the appearance of colonialism. The pertinent phrase here is, “Gadhafi is the devil we know.”

Update: George Jonas thinks the crowding-out of Libyan affairs is a boon to Barack Obama’s administration:

The disaster also gives Barack Obama and colleagues some breathing space. Based on past performance, that’s not necessarily a good thing. Instead of talking softly and carrying a big stick, our leaders bluster and carry nothing. By letting Gaddafi know they’ll be merciless to him in a defeat they aren’t lifting a finger to inflict, they’re only telling the strongman that standing firm is his best bet.

When Gaddafi takes their advice, Obama and his mates first cry foul, then develop a sudden urge to examine their fingernails. Having shown themselves to be large of mouth, short of sight and faint of heart, the earthquake in Japan offers them a reprieve.

Can’t they use a reprieve for something constructive? In fairness, at this juncture there isn’t a whole lot anyone can do. Certain problems are solved only by hugs or bear-hugs, and the Middle East isn’t conducive to either. The West’s enemies are too numerous to maul, and who, in God’s name, is there to embrace?

Ontario’s nuclear power industry

Filed under: Cancon, Japan, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:32

I live near two nuclear power plants, and have done for more than a decade, but even with those two hints, I didn’t realize that Ontario gets 55% of its electricity from nuclear sources. For some reason, I thought we were somewhere in the 20-25% range — higher than the Canadian average of 15%, but not over half.

The Canadian Nuclear Association has posted a statement on their website (including the above nugget of information):

“Our thoughts are with the people of Japan and their relatives in Canada during this terrible time, as well as with the workers at the Fukushima station for their tireless efforts to protect the people offsite.

Over the coming days and weeks you can expect to hear many varying opinions on the events in Japan and even on Canadian nuclear facilities. Some will be based on fact and will contribute to a worthwhile discussion. Unfortunately, some of what you will hear may not be based on fact.

It’s important to remember the Fukushima plant was damaged, not as a result of any flaw in the reactor design, but from the largest ever earthquake in Japan’s history followed by a devastating tsunami. The nuclear industry — in Canada and around the world — has a history of working closely together to share technical expertise. We also have a history of examining operations and activities to ensure continuous improvements.

Nick Clegg: “These laws make a mockery of British justice”

Filed under: Britain, Law, Liberty, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:13

Every now and again, you find a politician with the right approach to solving a problem. Right now, that politician appears to be Nick Clegg:

London is the number one destination for libel tourism, where foreign claimants bring cases against foreign defendants to our courts — even when the connection with England is tenuous at best. It is a farce that has prompted Barack Obama to legislate to protect his citizens from rulings in our courts.

These laws make a mockery of British justice. They kill debate and smother scientific inquiry. They undermine our moral authority as we seek to promote the values of an open society in other parts of the world.

And it is ordinary people who really suffer: protecting their interests means ensuring corruption can be unearthed and charlatans exposed. Of course, individual citizens must be able to protect their reputations from false and damaging claims, and we cannot allow companies to be the victims of damaging, untrue and malicious statements.

But from the humble blogger to the consumer watchdog, corporate whistleblower, medical researcher, or roving reporter, public-spirited voices must be heard.

Here’s hoping that the new legislative changes will address the worst of the problems, not just paper over a few of the lesser sins.

The American “Pledge of Allegiance”

Filed under: Education, History, Liberty, Religion, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:09

Not being an American, I’ve always wondered why a country that always talked so much about being the “home of the free” had such an odd quasi-religious thing like the Pledge of Allegiance. It seemed to be such a contradiction to the notions of freedom of speech and freedom of thought, having such an authoritarian ritual being performed every day by school children.

Now, L. Neil Smith explains where it came from, and why it seems such an incongruous part of the American cultural expression:

The so-called “Pledge of Allegiance” is an oath of unquestioning fealty of a kind that Americans rightly junked when they kicked the King’s backside out in 1776.

It was written in 1892 — when the Republic was already more than a century old — by a socialist, Francis Bellamy, a preacher who got fired by his congregation for using the pulpit to preach socialism rather than whatever he’d been hired to preach.

Bellamy’s cousin and best friend was Edward Bellamy, who wrote America’s best-known socialist propaganda novel, the impossibly boring and stupid Looking Backward (which became my standard for how not to write a political novel when I started my first book, The Probability Broach in 1977).

Francis Bellamy recommended that children taking the pledge face the flag in a worshipful manner and offer it a salute which was later self-consciously copied by the Nazis.

The phrase “under God” was only added in the 1950s, in blatant violation of the First Amendment, by self-righteous twits in the Eisenhower Administration. If you want your rights respected, you must respect the rights of others, If you want the Second Amendment enforced to the letter, you must insist that the First Amendment be enforced to the letter, as well.

It is the government that owes its unquestioning fealty to Americans, not the other way around. That’s what makes America different from every other country in the world, from every other civilization in history. To paraphrase the immortal Alfonso Bedoya, “We don’ need no stinkin’ loyalty oath — especially one written by a stinkin’ socialist!”

March 15, 2011

“Obesity crusaders” use “inherently flawed instruments, such as BMI and apple-body shapes, to misinform the public”

Filed under: Government, Health, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:50

Patrick Basham and John Luik address the manifest failings of the public health crusade against obesity:

Since the anti-obesity campaign is allegedly motivated by scientific findings, it would seem reasonable and prudent to make doubly sure that those claims are factual and trustworthy. Yet, we continue to find that the case against obesity is significantly flawed. Not only are the claims of an obesity epidemic often wildly exaggerated, but the science linking weight to unfavourable mortality outcomes is also frequently nonexistent or distorted.

[. . .]

As Danesh suggests, other researchers have suggested concentrating on a measurement of the waist alone, while many cling to BMI, which calculates obesity based upon a weight-to-height ratio. Because of its easy applicability, BMI is universally used in officially defining obesity, despite its manifest shortcomings. The BMI is wholly arbitrary and has no scientifically valid connection with mortality.

“Obesity crusaders” are what we call the individuals who manufactured the obesity-epidemic story in the first place and continue, through application of inherently flawed instruments, such as BMI and apple-body shapes, to misinform the public. They are a relatively small group of public-health officials in the US, the UK, the EU, and the World Health Organisation, assorted academics (very many with close ties to the weight-loss and pharmaceutical industry), the International Obesity Task Force, and a collection of so-called public-interest science groups.

How are these obesity crusaders reacting to the unambiguously good news published in The Lancet? Surely, they rejoice at the fact there is one less thing for a health-conscious population to fret over? No, they are not in celebratory mood. Quite the contrary. The obesity crusaders did not waste any time on the New Good News; after all, the Old-Time Religion continues to serve them so well.

It gets worse for the “fat=early death” meme:

There is little credible scientific evidence that supports the claims that being overweight or obese leads to an early death. For example, Katherine Flegal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that in the US population there were more premature deaths among those who are normal weight than those who are overweight. Indeed, in this study, Americans who were overweight were those most likely to live the longest.

In the American Journal of Public Health, Jerome Gronniger found that men in the “normal” weight category exhibited a mortality rate as high as that of men in the moderately obese category; men in the “overweight” category clearly had the lowest mortality risk.

Shang-Jin Wei on the Chinese sex imbalance and its economic impact

Filed under: China, Economics, Government — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:19

China’s one-child policy not only intruded into the personal lives of Chinese couples, but it may also have been a key contributor to the economic bubble:

Could a reproductive policy have caused the financial crisis? Could it still be wreaking havoc with the world economy? During a lively discussion at the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday, Columbia professor Shang-Jin Wei said this could be the case. He claimed that the skewed Chinese sex ratio (there are more men than women) can explain much of global trade imbalances. Mr Wei reckons the Chinese sex ratio can explain the high Chinese saving rate, and this is what’s behind China’s current-account surplus.

China adopted the one child law in the early 1980s. It resulted in a skewed sex ratio because many couples preferred a male baby and aborted female fetuses. In 1980, 106 boys were born were born for every 100 girls. By 1997, it was 122 boys for every 100 girls. This means that today one in nine Chinese men will probably never marry and the situation is expected to get worse as time goes on. It’s been suggested that the large pool of single men with no marriage prospects can lead to social unrest. What that will mean for China’s political future is uncertain and potentially troubling. But the world may already be experiencing the economic impact of this policy. Trade imbalances, specifically the Chinese current account surplus and America’s current account deficit, are often cited as a cause of the financial crisis. They provided a glut of cheap, easy capital which fed the housing bubble.

[. . .]

The lack of a social safety net is often blamed for the high Chinese saving rate. Without welfare and government pensions the Chinese must save to self-insure themselves. But Mr Wei pointed out that even as the government has extended more social welfare programmes, the saving rate has continued to rise. He believes the uneven sex ratio can explain half of the increase in private saving between 1990 and 2005. He explained that the marriage market is becoming very competitive with so few girls. Chinese parents want to accumulate as much wealth as possible to ensure that their son can attract a wife. It is also important to provide sons with the best education possible. A competitive marriage market means that members of the disadvantaged gender must raise their game, which in China means greater wealth and education.

Mr Wei also reckons the sex ratio can explain capital accumulation in the corporate sector. The desire to accumulate wealth means that boys and their parents are more likely to become entrepreneurs, work more hours and take more unpleasant jobs. He found higher rates of entrepreneurship in areas with more skewed sex ratios.

This, of course, is the optimistic view of things. The pessimistic view involves those tens of millions of men who can never find wives and projects that into social unrest, civil disorder, and military adventurism. Let’s hope the optimistic view is closer to being correct.

DC residents get stiffed on their solar power subsidies

Filed under: Environment, Government, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:00

David Nakamura reports on some Washington, DC folks who are feeling ripped off by their local government over solar panel reimbursements that were promised but never delivered:

It isn’t easy going green, and it may also prove costly.

Dozens of District residents who installed solar panels on their homes under a government grant program promoting renewable energy have been told they will not be reimbursed thousands of dollars as promised because the funds were diverted to help close a citywide budget gap.

In all, the city has reneged on a commitment of about $700,000 to 51 residents, according to the D.C. Department of the Environment. The agency has pledged to try to find money in next year’s budget, its director, Christophe Tulou, said.

“It just doesn’t seem fair to go through a process with them and have them make investments in solar panels under the assumption they would be reimbursed,” Tulou acknowledged. “It’s really sad we are having these economic woes when we are.”

H/T to Radley Balko for the link.

Update on the Fukushima situation

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Environment, Japan, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:04

Colby Cosh complained yesterday about the low quality of information being provided by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), and that has not really improved since yesterday. At The Register, Lewis Page updates the situation as best he can:

The story of the three quake- and tsunami-hit reactors at Japan’s Fukushima plant continues, with indications that one of the three worst-hit reactors has sustained further damage. A fire also broke out at another reactor, shut down at the time of the quake and not previously thought to be a problem, but this has now been put out. None of this suggests that the reactors’ crucial containment vessels could be breached, however.

World Nuclear News reported in the early hours (UK time) that a “loud noise” had been heard at the site of the No 2 reactor at Fukushima and pressure readings had fallen in the doughnut-shaped “suppression chamber” situated beneath the core. The suppression chamber holds a large quantity of water and steam from the core, released into it to be condensed, so reducing pressure in the core without the need to vent to atmosphere in some situations: though reactors 1, 2 and 3 have all been repeatedly vented to atmosphere since the quake nevertheless.

Following the apparent release from inside the suppression chamber, radiation levels at the site briefly rose to 8217 microsieverts per hour — such that an unprotected person outside would receive several years’ normal background radiation dose in a single hour. Radiation then dropped to less than 2,500 microsievert/hr. (UPDATED TO ADD: The IAEA reports that as of 6am UK time this had fallen to 600 microsievert/hr). WNN reports that a statement from TEPCO, the plant operators, stated that there had been “no significant change” to the status of the vital containment vessel surrounding the reactor core.

A new way of looking at wood flooring

Filed under: Europe, Technology, Woodworking — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:39

To state the obvious, trees don’t grow in nice straight lines. As natural creatures, they bend and sway in their environment — if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be able to withstand the extremes of weather. While this is great for the tree, once the tree has been cut down, the amount of useful wood that can be harvested is limited by many factors, including just how far from “straight” the trunk of the tree grew. Much of the wood that can’t be economically used for solid wood products ends up as chips, flakes, or fibres for manufactured “wood” products.

Bolefloors may increase the amount of solid wood that can be used for flooring:

Bolefloor technology combines wood scanning systems, tailor-made CAD/CAM developments and innovative optimization algorithms for placement software developed by a Finnish engineering automation company and three software companies in cooperation with the Institute of Cybernetics at Tallinn University of Technology.

Bolefloor scanners’ natural-edge visual identification technology evaluates “imperfections” such as knots and sapwood near the edges or ends so that floors are both beautiful and durable.

H/T to BoingBoing for the link.

March 14, 2011

Government debt: “U.S Treasuries increasingly look like Wile E. Coyote running in midair; they’ll keep selling only as long as nobody actually looks down”

Filed under: Economics, Government, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 16:17

To borrow a phrase from Monty at Ace of Spades HQ, here’s a hot steaming bolus of DOOM for you, courtesy of Eric S. Raymond:

Insolvency is no longer a sporadic problem, it’s become pervasive at all levels of government everywhere. This is why the recent brouhaha in Wisconsin was so surreal. The public-employee unions weren’t just rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking Titanic, they were fighting to preserve their right to bore more holes in the hull.

When these are the objective conditions, what point is there in arguing that the whole system is corrupt and that middle-class entitlements have to go on the scrap-heap along with every other big-government program? It’s going to happen anyway soon enough. A year ago the U.S. government was only taking in a third of what it needed to cover annual outlays; today it’s so much worse that individual monthly deficits are larger than the entire Bush administration’s. The money’s all gone. Our options are closing down to default or hyperinflation.

It’s going to get ugly out there. A lot of old people are either not going to get their pensions and Social Security at all or get them in hyperinflated dollars that won’t be worth anything. Anyone else dependent on government transfer payments will be similarly screwed. Urban poor, farmers, veterans, the list goes on. Imagine the backlash when that really hits — when it sinks in that the promises were lies, the bubble has popped, the Ponzi scheme is over.

The iBoob saga

Filed under: Humour, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 14:57

Jesse Brown recounts the story of the iBoob app:

Idiots worldwide rejoiced when news came that the iBoobs app, censored by Apple, had found a home in the Android Marketplace.

For those tragically unfamiliar with iBoobs — how can I describe it? It’s boobs. They jiggle. A settings screen lets you adjust things like “boob weight,” “stifness,” and “gravity factor.” If any of this turns you on, I’d like to introduce you to a killer app called porn.

iBoobs is a Freemium product. If you upgrade from the free ”iBoobs light” app to the $2.10 paid app, you can toss the boobs around with the tip of your finger. Or at least, you could last week. It seems that Google has since followed Apple’s lead (at least partially) and banned the paid version of the app.

If your imagination isn’t enough, there’s a YouTube video of the application here.

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress