Why is it awful? Well, let’s start with the basics. In Android, as you start an application, its services will continue to run in the background when you start more apps.

Provided that an application is well-written, only a stub of that app continues to run, such as GMail’s message poller or perhaps a Twitter client’s notifier service.

But plenty of apps still commit a significant amount of resources to memory even when you stop using them or start a new process.

Which they really shouldn’t.

If these are left unchecked, your Android device’s performance and stability goes straight to hell.

Of course this is flat out ignorant, as Dianne Hackborn, a Google software engineer explains:

The fact that you can see an application’s process “running” does not mean the application is running or doing anything. It may simply be there because Android needed it at some point, and has decided that it would be best to keep it around in case it needs it again. Likewise, you may leave an application for a little bit and return to it from where you left off, and during that time Android may have needed to get rid of the process for other things.

…

Of course, there is a limited amount of memory, and to accommodate this Android must decide when to get rid of processes that are not needed. This leads to Android’s process lifecycle, the rules it uses to decide how important each process is and thus the next one that should be dropped. These rules are based on both how important a process is for the user’s current experience, as well as how long it has been since the process was last needed by the user.

The only evidence Mr. Perlow presents is that the existence of this myth is proof of its truth.

What’s the common fix to this issue? Well, an entire cottage industry of developers have written various task killer/task managment and memory optimization utilities for Android, which can be used with a single click of a button to wipe apps and services out of memory.

Of course there are a lot of popular apps written to kill task on Android but that is because people are constantly (and erroneously) being told that they need them. I remember that when my parents bought their phones that the store rep installed task managers on both phones. When I saw them later I explained to them why it was not necessary and it was just eating up resources for nothing. I uninstalled both apps but later, when they had gone back to the store for something, a rep again installed the app on their phone insisting that it was necessary.

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to fix stupid but such ignorance is unacceptable in people who get paid to write about technology. Readers who are looking to ZDNet looking for information are going to be sorely misled by this article and this myth will be continued by people armed by the authority that the ZDNet logo imparts.

The summary for the article states that, “When it comes to task managment, the developers at Google think they know better than the end-users that are actually using their products.” In actuality, Google designed an OS that does not require end users to have to worry about task management and yet you bitch about it. Try educating yourself about your topic before trying to actually write about it.

Related (maybe) posts:

1. Android task management
2. Randall Munroe on Android Bugs
3. Did Android force Apple’s hand?

Rick Perry is far the people’s choice when searching Google for information that he might be gay. Interestingly enough, the focus of this attention is coming from the place where the people should know him the best, his home state of Texas.

So Rick, take this piece of advice. Tone it down and if you’re hiding in the closet, come out, God still loves you (it’s just Christians that don’t).

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1. An interesting dichotomy
2. WikiWars (soon to be a major motion picture)
3. Facebook, it’s not me, it’s you

Pat Robertson has said many crazy things in his life but this is just bizarre, he is apparently unaware of Mac & Cheese.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyF8__fR8PQ

I guess he’s one of those rich guys who pays people to go to the grocery store for him.

Are you worried that your turkeys are not Christian?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh4SfLb4Pjs

Well, Pamela Geller sure is.

And since turkeys are apparently Muslim here’s more fire for the conspiracy.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMgeww4SZHc

Happy Thanksgiving everyone and remember, a mind is a terrible thing to waste.

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2. Non-euclidean Advertising
3. Aetna update

Of course, as has been recently shown, the Religion of Football is not above sacrificing children in the name of victory. To so many people, it seems, sports trumps all other concerns. The current case in point is this piece of news.

He’s been raped and abused and now he’s bullied out of school because, of all things, he being blamed for getting Joe Paterno fired. It seems that they believe that just because the man covered for a child molester as far back as 1998 that he doesn’t deserve to lose his job.

For years I’ve watched as people obsess endlessly over sports. While many people say they were shocked at the events of Penn State I can honestly say that I am not. Sports have become a god and this type of behavior is the end result.

Related (maybe) posts:

1. Hooligans in Best Buy
2. Salvador Rodriquez says he’d rather let someone be raped then be a snitch
3. I need his job

This photo was taken at the aquarium in Camden, NJ. I don’t remember what kind of fish this was but it lives somewhere in the Amazon. It was just floating there staring and staring at me when I took this picture. No flash and a black and white filter give it the look of a monster peeking out of its lair.

I took this photo while sitting on the back porch of a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia. Like most of my really good pictures, I wasn’t trying very hard when I took it but the composition turned out perfectly. I gave it a kind of dark sepia filter with center weighted highlights.

I took this a a rather dreary day at a “pumpkin patch” a ways up north. The place was rather deserted and, despite being in current operation, looked as though it had been abandoned for the last couple of years. I was standing by one of their “attractions”, a gutted school bus that had been turned into a sort of playground, when I noticed a really nice looking cloud formation coming in that lined up well with the old fence and the abandoned looking carnival rides in the background. I washed out some colors while sharpening others to give it a nice retro aged look.

The most interesting thing about all three of these pictures is that they were all taken with a cellphone. No fancy cameras here. While they are certainly limited in the types of pictures that can be taken, a carefully framed photograph can still come out looking great.

Related (maybe) posts:

1. Fun with photography
2. Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
3. This could be a problem…

Yup that’s it because they shared the same first name, the wrong Teresa ended up spending fifty-three days behind bars. That’s right a five followed by a three, damn near two months. In those two months she was kicked out of her home, car (which was by this point was in a police impound lot, and was having a hard time explaining why she missed fifty-three days of work.

What did the District Attorney have to say about this miscarriage of justice?

After investigating this matter thoroughly and discussing it carefully with the Atlanta Police Department, we have concluded that the wrong person was arrested.

Let’s see, different last names. Check.

Different addresses. Check.

Different descriptions. Check.

And it took fifty-three days for the investigative geniuses down there to figure all of that out.

Related (maybe) posts:

1. Police burn, shoot 7 year old during raid
2. Dangers of a double standard
3. GEICO, evil or stupid?

Of course, he thought he had found the perfect scam by dying before the end of the month which meant he had been payed 433 pounds that he had not earned. Luckily the MoD is sly to ploys like this and made his family return the ill gotten gains. LCpl couldn’t be reached for comment but his father had this to say about it.

When I read the letter, it felt like I’d been poked in the eye with a sharp stick. I think it’s undignified and very petty to be sent a bureaucratic letter like this.

I can’t imagine what it must be like to receive a collection letter from the government specifically because of the fact that your son had just died.

Related (maybe) posts:

1. All Apologies
2. Bring forth the whipping boy, he will suffer much for this!
3. Lawyers vs Justice

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYIOnsVmYls

Related (maybe) posts:

1. Some Thanksgiving Goodness
2. Scenes of NYPD Brutality
3. Strange occurrences

One thing that I found interesting in this video is the police officer’s (captain in the white shirt) use of force. Most police, including the NYPD train with what is known as the Force Continuum (or Continuum of Force, etc). It details how violence escalates and which actions are to be used and it what order. I could not find an online source for the NYPD’s guide (though it is apparently on page 7 of the NYPD Academy textbook), typically you are supposed to use OC spray (pepper spray) before you start striking people with batons. This is because OC spray does no lasting harm while a baton can cause bruises, broken bones, and internal bleeding.

The other thing I found interesting is how the officer is swinging almost at random, frequently striking people in the back who are either trying to escape or are unaware of his presence.

On a final note with regards to the pepper spray itself. According to the Report of the Pepper Spray Committee (pdf), NYPD Patrol manual states that: “They are taught not to fire the spray from within three feet of subjects, not to use the spray on a windy day, and not to use OC in group settings or for crowd control; they are trained to fire a maximum of two one-second bursts of the spray.”

Related (maybe) posts:

1. Scenes of NYPD Brutality
2. Another classic
3. Police burn, shoot 7 year old during raid

No related posts.