Patrick Soon

Grooveshark Down

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Soon) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 05:40:00 +0000

www.grooveshark.com

Little Printer adorably wastes paper and clutters up your home.

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Soon) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 10:29:00 +0000

Hello Little Printer, available 2012 from BERG on Vimeo.

Rooting T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S2 for ICS

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Soon) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 07:46:00 +0000

New Volvo XC 90 Concept Images

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Soon) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 19:48:00 +0000

Gallery: Volvo XC90 sketches - BBC Top Gear

How To Use Google Music Outside US

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Soon) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 19:43:00 +0000

How-to: use Google Music from anywhere (yes, outside of the United States) -- Engadget

Can't Send Voicemail with Google Talk?

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Soon) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 00:02:00 +0000

That's because Google killed it. According to a Google employee on on their support forums (10/25/11), the big G decided to silently end voicemail functionality and are now focused on other web chat features which will launch over the next few weeks. That sucks. I really liked Google Talk's voicemail feature. It was especially good for communicating with family overseas in a different timezone. C'mon Google, bring it back.

Programming Our Children to Kill: The Consistent Judicial and Legislative Failure to Restrict the Sale of Violent Video Games in the United States

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Soon) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 21:47:00 +0000

I wrote this short paper for a Video Game Law class last semester. The class was great fun and I enjoyed the conversations we had. We had to write three short persuasive papers on pre-selected subjects. One of them was on the topic of violent video games as the Supreme Court had not (as yet) decided the fate of the Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association (now Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association). I may publish the other two papers I wrote in the future (on patents in video game law and disproportionate
While this paper is not parody, I am inclined to remind my readers that I DO NOT hold these views I have written at all. The paper was an exercise in finding common ground with opposing viewpoints. I am publishing it on my blog for a law school's friend. This way, she can cite to a source (my blog) in her paper:

On April 16, 2007, an outcast Korean-American student massacred 30 people on the Virginia Tech Campus.[1] Later that night, after the reports of the shooting were widely dispersed, media outlets queried experts in the field of psychology for their news hour broadcasts. Dr. Philip McGraw, when asked his opinion about the connection of the shooter to violent video games, stated that:

“[t]he problem is we are programming these people as a society…[c]ommon sense tells you that if these kids are playing video games, where they’re on a mass killing spree in a video game, it’s glamorized on the big screen, [and] it’s become a part of the fiber of our society. You take that and mix it with a psychopath, a sociopath or someone suffering from mental illness and add in a dose of rage, the suggestibility is too high. And we’re going to have to start dealing with that. We’re going to have to start addressing those issues and recognizing that the mass [murderers] of tomorrow are the children of today that are being programmed with this massive violence overdose.”[2]

Though Dr. McGraw may have inaccurately implied that the Virginia Tech shooter was an avid violent video game player (post-investigation evidence and testimony of the shooter’s high school classmates differ[3]), Dr. McGraw highlighted one of the lesser-known issues surrounding the debate. While other experts argued for hours about how violent video games cause children to become violent themselves[4], Dr. McGraw noted the troubling fact that our society as a whole has now enabled children—through violent video games—to enter the social discourse on violence first-hand. That children can participate in the violent killing of others at all—let alone virtually—produces a troubling issue for our times.

Violent video games and their media counterparts, Dr. McGraw argued, have become a mainstay of adolescent pastimes the world over. Such violent themes and interactions and their effect on children cannot be dismissed, regardless of their ultimate affect on children. Others may argue, even correctly, that such interactive violence potentially enforces anti-social behavior in adolescents who may already be struggling with anger issues. Still others may communicate that the mass murderers of Columbine and Virginia Tech would not have been such efficient killing machines were it not for their hours of practice in the virtual realm of games such as Postal and Grand Theft Auto. The real issue here is not that violent games produce violent people; it is instead whether children should be exposed to interactive violent media at all.

On November 2, 2010, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments from both sides of the violent video game debate.[5] Petitioners, the State of California, argued for the removal of the permanent injunction on Assembly Bill 1179, which Governor Schwarzenegger signed into law on October 7, 2005. To its detriment, the State relied on the seminal Supreme Court case of Ginsburg v. New York which held that the state could prohibit the sale of sexually explicit material to minors (as defined by the statute) despite the fact that the material was not considered obscene for adults.[6] Unfortunately for the State, the long-line of case law before the Supreme Court intimated that the United States only interpreted “obscenity” to cover sexually-explicit material and not violent material.[7] Secondly, the State relied on the research of Dr. Craig Anderson and other research psychologists which suggests that violent video games increased aggressive thoughts and behavior in minors.[8] The findings may have boosted the State’s claims, but the general argumentation point fell flat: the correlation/causation debate is irrelevant. As stated in the respondent’s brief, “it is impossible to know which way the causal relationship runs: it may be that aggressive children may also be attracted to violent video games”[9]. That the combination of video games and children lead to aggressive thoughts and behavior at all in such children gives credence to a governmental interest in closely scrutinizing the sale of such content.

The respondents, the Entertainment Merchants Association, however, put forth even worse arguments to the Supreme Court such as the act’s lack of narrow tailoring, the similarity of video game content to other media, and the argument that such regulatory measures would open the floodgates to unprecedented censorship.

Firstly, the Association argued hyperbolically that a widespread ban on the sale of violent video games to children would hinder free speech through overbreadth and threaten to “reach a huge range of expression that has never been thought inappropriate for minors”.[10] In arguing thus, the Association forgot that many products for sale are also banned for minors such as pornography, alcohol, and tobacco. Moreover, AB 1179 would only restrict the sale of such violent video games to those under the age of 18, thus completely negating an argument that the act served to limit free speech completely. Moreover, the statute would only encompass violent video games and not media such as movies or books—any contrary argument completely misconstrues the main motivations behind the act.

Secondly, throughout their Supreme Court brief, respondents weakly analogized violent videogame content to freely available literature and other media such as novels and television. The irrationality of the the argument by analogy is only dwarfed by one other argument in the respondent’s brief: that the state’s use of stickers indicating restricted sale to minor “may physically obscure some of the ESRB ratings and content information on game packaging”.[11] In one instance, the respondents argued that “…while the act might ban a 16-year-old from buying or renting Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3 video game, it would still allow him to buy or rent Tom Clancy’s movies or books. [12] Clearly, the respondents failed to import the significance of interactivity and that violence as enacted on television and read about in novels do not deliver the same pedagogical value as does interactive media such as websites and video games. Simply stated, watching or reading about killing someone represents a thrice removed version of a killing in a video game: children play as the avatar—when they control the avatar, it’s no longer the character avatar doing the killing, the child himself is killing.

Lastly, the Entertainment Merchants Association posits that due to the vagueness and overbreadth of the statutory text, its enforcement becomes either impossible or far-reaching. This analysis is not valid and at best, is wildly speculative. (1) Many United States statutes involve text that may at first seem vague or overly broad. State senators and other such legislators are not charged with the duty to exhaustively define how the statute operates in all situations. Rather, regulatory bodies—as an arm of the government—help define reasonable limits of every statute. The United States Wildlife and Fisheries’ definition of the word “harass” as codified in the Airborne Hunting Act (AHA) represents one such example of a governmental regulatory bodies’ interpretation of statutory text.[13] Where a text provides arguably vague meaning, courts have almost always turned to regulatory agencies for their interpretations. (2) The Entertainment Merchants Association’s additional argument that the vague text of AB 1179 would lead to unprecedented censorship is also invalid.

The simple existence of such media content behooves the state and the nation to enforce strict guidelines regarding their sale. Indeed, while violent video games may not increase the likelihood of violence amongst average children and teens, there are many adolescents who may not have the mental or parental framework that allows them to adequately distinguish in-game consequences from real-life consequences. Regardless of how the causation arrow points, violent video games should not be easily purchasable in a society that values the ethical upbringing of children and appreciates that not all families make the best decisions regarding interactive content consumption. The restriction of the sale of violent video games would be in the best interests of adolescent children.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre

[2] http://www.gamepolitics.com/2007/04/17/dr-phil-blames-video-games-for-virginia-tech-massacre

[3] See Winda Benedetti, Were Video Games to Blame for Massacre?, MSNBC, Apr. 20, 2007, http://www.msnbc.com/id/182200228 and http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2007/190407mindcontrolled.htm

[4] http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-6176816-7.html

[5]http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_calendars/MonthlyArgumentViewer.aspx?Filename=MonthlyArgumentCalNovember2010.html

[6] Ginsburg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629, 643-646 (1968)

[7] Id. at 640.

[8] Craig A. Anderson, PhD., Violent Video Games Increase Aggression and Violence, http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/caa/abstracts/2000-2004/00senate.pdf

[9] Resp. Br. 40

[10] Resp. Br. 52

[11] Resp. Br. At 54

[12] http://www.amazon.com/Tom-Clancys-Rainbow-Six-3-Xbox/dp/B00008G764

[13] Airborne Hunting Act, http://www.fws.gov/laws/lawsdigest/airborn.html

iPad Hack: Bypass Password Screen

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Soon) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 03:19:00 +0000

Nexus Prime Release Date Delayed Out of Respect for Steve Jobs' Passing

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Soon) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 19:08:00 +0000

According to 9to5Google, Google decided to delay the release of Nexus Prime out of respect of passing of Apple's former CEO, Steve Jobs. Google had originally intended to announce the new phone at a San Diego press event yesterday, October 11th. According a press released, an insider stated:

We believe this is not the right time to announce a new product as the world expresses tribute to Steve Jobs’s passing.

However, insiders report that the announcement will not be made on October 27th. The release date is now slated for November 3rd according to Phandroid.

Evolution of a Law Student

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Soon) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 20:30:00 +0000

GLaDOSiri on iPhone 4S: Portal 2 Meets Apple

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Soon) — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 06:26:00 +0000

How to Stop Procrastinating

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Soon) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 22:06:00 +0000

A) Look at this - http://learningfundamentals.com.au/wp-content/uploads/Focus-mindmap-for-web.jpg

B) Look at this; http://cdn.information-management.com/media/editorial/dmreview/200407/200407_018_1.gif Which quadrant do you spend your time in? If you have lots of to-do lists, re-write them into an empty grid in the appropriate locations (important/not important.. urgent, not urgent). Do everything in Q1 first. Then do Q2. Stay on top of Q2 and you won't have as many crisis.

C) Read this - http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/10/27/procrastination/

D) Buy this book, read it - http://www.amazon.com/Habits-Highly-Effective-People/dp/0671708635 (you need chapter 3)

E) Buy this book, read it - http://www.amazon.com/Born-Win-Transactional-Analysis-Experiments/dp/0201590441

F) You need to make contracts with yourself. Contracts need to be clearly defined (simple that a child would understand) and achievable. (Example: Today I need to do 3 things. 1) Read X; 2) Write Y; 3) Review Z).

F)ii) - You state "i keep falling into the same habits", you can reprogram yourself. Say "when I start to do X, I will notice/catch myself, I will redirect to Y"

G) Watch this (1 hour) Randy Pausch Lecture: Time Management -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTugjssqOT0

H) Everything added to your to-do list needs a deadline and an estimate of how long it will take. (Example; Read X, due by Y, less than Z hours)

I) Sometimes you need to ask yourself "What am I avoiding?" "What am I afraid of?"

J) Pomodoro Method -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique -- During your breaks you need to move (pullups/pushups/crunches/walk around)

From: Reddit user district-zim

LG LSM-100 Smartscan Mouse Scans Documents Too

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Soon) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 23:20:00 +0000

This ingenious design marks the world's first scanner/mouse combination. Fear not, even that you might have wobbly hands. The built in software is such that it self-corrects for any parts of a photo or text that are missing. You just slide the most like you would if you were cleaning a window. Very smart. Check out the the video below for how it works:

Thanks Alex!

via [TechRadar]

Unotelly's Free Package Now Supports Turntable.fm

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Soon) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 23:13:00 +0000

I got this email just minutes ago. Thought I'd share:

Hi Patrick,
Awhile ago you reviewed UnoTelly which we are really grateful for.
Relating to your Aug 2. article http://www.patricksoon.com/2011/08/how-to-use-turntablefm-outside-us.html on turntable.fm, we would like to let you know that UnoTelly now supports TurnTable.FM as part of our free package. This is an alternative to users who don't like intrusive softwares like Hotspot Shield.

I hope this news is an interest to you.

Regards,

Nick (@Unotelly)

Maui, Hawaii

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Soon) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 16:28:00 +0000

Cruisin' on NCL Pride of America

T-Mobile Flexpay Eliminated (Phone Calls from Customer Service)

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Soon) — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 08:03:00 +0000

Just got a call from T-Mobile claiming they're getting rid of the flex plans - the plans that resemble a pre-paid plan but have text and data included (mine is like $65 a month for 500 minutes, unlimited text, I believe unlimited data). They're saying my two options are to go fully prepaid (which I think doesn't include data) or to go on a normal plan which requires me to sign up for a contract.
They said they couldn't provide any comparison in writing, and that the website hadn't been updated to reflect this (since it looks like you can still sign up on the Monthly4G plans).

At the time of the call, I assumed I'd have to sign up for a post-pay contract and that I'd rather get a free phone that I want (like a top of the line Android) than stick with my current phone.
I'm currently on a Nexus One with the same plan as you (500 minutes, unlimited text and data). I think this plan is awesome since I got my Nexus as a gift and there was no need to pay for a contract rate when I wouldn't need to use the plan to subsidize a nice phone.
I think we can sit tight for now as according to this site are plans are grandfathered in as of July 24th. I'm not sure how accurate these are, but it seems if we don't do anything we'll just be paying the same amount albeit for past usage and not future usage.
The calls make it seem as though we HAVE to pick a new plan right now, but I think it's a guise. The current management probably are trying to switch as many as possible off of the grandfathered plans and onto solid post-pay plans to prevent subscriber leakage to other providers. They've already been hemmoraghing tens of thousands of subscribers already to the big two: Verizon and AT&T.

How to use turntable.fm outside the US (Hotspot Shield)

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Soon) — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 05:57:00 +0000

Yes, it works (albeit intermittently for some). Normally, if you access ttfm without a proxy you get this message:

We're very sorry, but while we would love to let you in and rock out with us, we need to currently restrict turntable access to only the United States due to licensing constraints.
We are working very hard to try and get you in as soon as possible.
If you believe this is a mistake and you are located in the United States, please e-mail help [at sign] turntable dot fm
Again, sorry, and we hope to see you soon.
Billy Chasen, CEO

Others report that turntable.fm won't allow the uploading of music for those behind proxies such as Hotspot Shield. Here are the directions:

Check out http://hotspotshield.com, I've been able to use turntable.fm for many hours straight on both Firefox and Chrome Beta (some people have more luck on Firefox, this could be down to version/extension/updates/code, I don't know) and it works just fine. Obviously if you want to pay for a decent, fast, reliable, non-adware thang, get yourself a VPN or somesuch. I can't be bothered with that so I went down this route, not ideal but it does let me spin that hot hot wax!

You can be signed into Facebook already, either whilst running this program or not, what matters is when you try and hit the main page of turntable.fm
Download, install, run and you'll get a little green shield tray icon (denotes that the program is enabled, you can right click and then disable it later).
Once it's running, open your browser, a hotspot status page will show up to let you know what's happening, click okay and then start at the next screen (you'll see an ad for the first page once you're up and running, just close it or run AdBlock/NoScript/Better Privacy/etc).
Once you have logged into turntable, you should disconnect/close hotspot, so long as don't refresh the page with turntable on it, you can browse, play, and switch rooms to your heart's content.
Hotspot will auto start upon Windows startup, you can disable this in the options I believe, there is also a msconfig service to allow/disable if you so wish. A complete uninstall is quick and easy and doesn't appear to leave any nasty residue.

Software has been checked with Malwarebytes, Spybot SD and AVG 2011. Anything that happens to you or your computer due to this software, is completely none of my problem, I'm all about the music, man.

Source: Giantbomb

Can't upload to Turntable.fm with Hotspot Shield

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Soon) — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 05:55:00 +0000

Received this email today. Still don't know how to fix it since HSS hasn't been working for me lately). Any tips would be appreciated:

Hi Patrick

Your blog postings have been invaluable for me. I'm actually using HSS for accessing the wonderful Turntable FM from here in the UK, and it works great, but the only thing I can't do is upload tracks of my own…TTFM reports that it was unable to.

I'm on a mac, no firewall... Please do feel free to use this email if it would make for an interesting articlle, but please don't use my name..!

Thanks, and keep up the great work.

Richard Cave
(named changed)

Lines, lines, lines

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Soon) — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 05:11:00 +0000

I wrote this when I was 16 in high school (probably for English class in the 10th grade) :

Chan Poh Wah was my Grandma

She taught me how to color in my

Coloring book