Android Beta Testers & Early Adopters Needed!

Hi folks! Since I'm actually doing something for a change, I thought I'd invite you to do it with me... Wait, that doesn't sound right... Over the weekend, I had a brainstorm on an app for Android based smart phones, and I've gotten it mostly done already. Soon I'll need testing done on it, by other people than myself, to try to find bugs, improve the features and ideas in the app, and all around make it better.

If you are interested in helping out and have an Android 1.6 or higher based smart phone, you can find more information at my main development web site.

K-PAX and Me

It's not a new movie, but K-Pax is one of my favorites. In so many ways, the film represents so many things that life is made of, and I can only imagine that the book is similarly filled. It touches on the mysteries of the universe, of life, love, tragedy, and the pseudo sciences of mental health. Yes, I called psychiatry and psychology pseudo science despite the advances of both in the last century simply because there is no magic cure all for any mental illness; each case is more like an artwork that needs to be balanced, which is sometimes impossible, other times impossibly simple.

Any way, from an acting perspective, both Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges are favorite actors of mine from earlier works. The first performance of Spacey's that I can recall being extremely impressed with was from the Usual Suspects. For those of you not familiar with U.S., I highly recommend watching it. Everyone else knows why I love the film, and in particular why I love Spacey's role.  Enough said. Bridges goes back further with me, however.  I first saw and was impressed by Bridges in Starman. Yes, it's another sci-fi flick, this time with Bridges playing an alien that created a human body from DNA taken from a hair sample of a grieving widow. Perhaps it was Bridge's ability to play a complete innocent in that film that links me to his character in K-PAX, a know it all psychiatrist that is learning to be human from someone claiming to be an alien.

I find the little details of this movie fascinating; piecing together the plot points and hints to this story is rewarding. You can easily make the case that Prot, Spacey's character, is merely insane, but much of what he does and says is makes his claims equally plausible. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the film is the complete lack of special effects: it's a science fiction thinker rather than thriller.It tugs at your heart and mind rather than blowing you away with dazzling 3D effects. K-PAX, in my mind, will forever be a better science fiction film than Avatar was, despite the huge difference in production costs. Hell, I'd go as far as to say it's a far better film period. (I'm not ragging on Avatar, it was nice, but it wasn't what everyone hyped it up to be.)

Even the tragic parts of the film, the murder of Robert Porter's family, touches you, as you feel the anger, sorrow, loss and despair that he did. You fully understand his loss of will to live as he wanders to the river behind his home to die.

Then the film turns around and offers hope: though Prot leaves, he seems to have taken Bess along with him. The psych ward where they've been living during the film is seemingly inescapable, so how could any one leave? Yet Bess is certainly gone, while Prot leaves behind the body of Robert Porter to be cared for by Bridge's character. That's in addition to help Prot has given to a number of patients, allowing some to go free into the world again after years of confinement.

K-PAX touches me emotionally, and despite my awareness of how and why it's doing it, it manages to do it nonetheless. That's what a good movie or story should do, and I wish there were more films like it.

An Evil Genius - Kwame Kilpatrick: Not An Evil Genius

This appears to be a fairly new web site, but this pretty much sums up my opinion:

http://anevilgeni.us/2010/05/25/kwame-kilpatrick-not-an-evil-genius/

Geoffrey Fieger and the Death of Aiyana Jones

First, let me get a couple things out in the open. My comments in this article are my opinion, which are protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution, and are not fact. Second, I have a very strong bias against Mr. Fieger. Third, I have had and still do have family members that have served with the Detroit Police Department, so I do tend to be defensive with regards to the men and women in blue, though I don't make up excuses for them.

In case you haven't heard, a seven year old little girl, Aiyana Jones, was accidentally killed by a Detroit Police Officer this past weekend. If you haven't already heard of this incident, click here. The gist of the story is that DPD's S.R.T. (as the S.W.A.T. team is known here) went to the house to arrest a suspect in the murder of a high school student on Friday of last week. After the Police fired a flash bang into the house, some thing occurred that led to the discharge of an officer's weapon, killing the little girl. The facts in this case are what's in dispute, and I'm going to give my opinion on what probably happened.

Pretty much standard operating procedure for any S.W.A.T. team entering a building to arrest a suspect is to use flash bang grenades just prior to entering a home, office, or room in which the suspect may be located. The grenade, if you're not familiar with them, explodes with a great deal of light, noise, smoke and a concussive force that will stun anyone in a certain proximity to the grenade when it detonates. Beyond that, it's generally harmless. In most movies and television shows, these are usually thrown into a room, then the team goes rushing in.

Given Sunday's situation, where the team was going to have to break open a door in order to gain entry into the house, they had to put it through a window. The window is key to this whole thing, and ultimately leave Mr. Fieger with a good deal of egg on his face, which I frankly think he deserves. The window in question had a double pane of glass. The reason this is significant is that unless the officer throwing the flash bang at the window was a Major League Baseball pitcher, it's very unlikely that the grenade would have penetrated both panes of glass, and still gotten into the room on the other side in an effective manner.

Now, I'm not disputing that a flash bang was put through the window. No, not at all. I'd be a fool to say that given the circular hole that's been shown on the evening news. What I am saying is that the grenade was put through the window using an alternate delivery method. There are several different delivery methods: hand, grenade launcher, and rifle. We can rule out hand delivery in this case since the window's glass would have made it ineffective. So we're left to grenade launcher and rifle. I'm not sure which was used, but the concept of both are fairly straight-forward. A rifle or rifle-like device is used to propel the flash bang at a significantly higher speed than a person can throw it, and it penetrated the window easily.

What Mr. Fieger claims to have seen on this video tap that he can't produce is an officer firing into the house, supposedly after a smoke bomb was set off in the house. A smoke bomb wouldn't help a tactical unit like S.R.T. when trying to breach a door and secure a suspect; it would be counter productive because the suspect could easily slip out a door or window using the smoke as cover. What Mr. Fieger probably saw, but couldn't grasp, is an officer using a rifle fired flash bang which emits smoke in addition to its other effects. It crashed through the window and appeared to Mr. Fieger and possibly the camera man or woman that recorded the footage that an officer had fired a normal bullet into the house.

Mr. Fieger is probably also incapable of denoting the difference between a flash bang and the sound of a gun shot. Though it wouldn't take a flash bang long to go off, there would have been a noticeable delay between the time that it was put through the window and when it actually exploded. Given the notice, smoke, and flash that it generates, it is easy to assume for the uninitiated and uninformed that someone subsequently fired their rifle in through the window rather than the flash bang detonating. Mr. Fieger may be a worldly lawyer, but he doesn't strike me as the sort that would have any experience at all with Police or military tactics and tools, and therefore has no qualifications to say that a smoke bomb was thrown through the window and then an officer fired into the house killing the little girl from outside.

It is my further belief, that the little girl's grandmother, responding to the sound of the window breaking, probably stumbled into the room just before the flash bang went off, temporarily blinding her and certainly stunning her. It is my belief that during that time, the S.R.T. breached the door, and the woman either accidentally or intentionally interfered with the officers entering the home, pushing or pulling against a raised rifle causing it to accidentally discharge.

Given the early morning time of the incident, the shock and fear caused by the breaking window, the stunning effect of the flash bang, and the general confusion after the little girl was shot, I'm sure that the average civilian would be extremely confused and uncertain as to exactly what happened. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that they were in quite an impressionable state when Mr. Fieger spoke with them. As I stated before, I'm extremely biased against Mr. Fieger, and it's my opinion that he's a very sleazy lawyer, so I have no qualms in saying that I believe that he probably massaged the details of the family's recollections into something that he could use to slander the men and women of the Detroit Police Department and sue them.

I think the death of the girl was a tragic accident, but I can't sit here idly and not speak up against what I see as a frivolous lawsuit filed by a lawyer I believe is a grand-standing opportunist that in my opinion doesn't hold any more respect or concern for the family than any other predator. He sees an opportunity to potentially make a few dollars, either through a settlement or a anti-Police biased court, and doesn't care for the truth or whose lives' and careers he may ruin in the process. In my opinion.

In my opinion, if Mr. Fieger really wanted to help the family, he'd be trying to set up a fund to make sure that she gets buried, and possibly donate his services to the defense of the suspect, Aiyana's uncle, instead of making this an issue about money. And make no mistake, the reason he's claiming that a shot was fired from outside, and making a huge fuss over this is indeed about money rather than justice. He was no where to be found when Officer Huff was shot and killed a couple weeks ago.

Detroit Police Officer Slain, 4 Others Wounded

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/05/03/detroit.police.shooting/index.html?hpt=T3
I take this loss personally.
Not because I knew this officer or his family, but because he sacrificed his life for me.
I take this loss personally.
Not because I am a citizen of Detroit, but because I am the son of former Detroit Police officer, and the brother of a current one.
I take this loss personally.
Not because he had to respond to a call that resulted in his death, but because he chose to.
I take this loss personally because Police officers put their lives on the line daily for us and ours, and never expect a thank you.

There has been a lot of controversy, here in Detroit if no where else, about a major news network claiming that Detroit is more violent than Beirut or some war zones around the world. It was a gross exaggeration considering that there are many other cities in this country alone that are far worse. Take Los Angeles, for example; you can't go a day without hearing about someone getting shot or killed, and it's gotten to the point that it's not even news worthy there any more. But because Detroit has long had a reputation for being a dangerous city, Detroit becomes the butt of jokes, snide remarks, and ignorant comments.

That's not to say that the city is a paradise. There are tragic accidents, such as the one near my home that took the life of a two year old girl on Thursday due to the complete negligence and stupidity of her father. And there's today's shooting that resulted in the death of one of Detroit's finest.

It's strange that while I mourn the loss of this stranger, I am angry not just at his killer, but at Mayor Dave Bing who apologized to the officer's widow. Why does this anger me? A police officer, especially one that went through Detroit's Police Academy, is trained to know and understand that they may be injured or killed in the line of duty. Rookie or veteran, they each take to the streets to do their job saving our lives, and each of them make sacrifices in terms of time they spend with their families, their career (some may be well paid, but there are certainly higher paying less dangerous jobs that they could have pursued), and potentially their lives.

You don't apologize for an officer's death because you dishonor them and belittle their memory. These officers know consciously that their lives are on the line when they go out in the streets. They are often painfully aware that their uniforms sometimes make them targets as much as they are sometimes feared for them. They choose to do their duties not out of ignorance, but out of acceptance and the desire to serve their community. This officer wasn't forced into his job, he chose it. He might not have thought he would die in the line of duty, but he was aware of the possibility. He doesn't deserve our pity or apologies, he and his family deserve our admiration and respect.

You don't apologize for an officer's death, particularly to his or her family, because they died doing what they wanted to do. They sacrificed their life for us, and there can be no shame in doing their duty. This officer and his family deserves our gratitude for his sacrifice and theirs, and his memory should be honored, not pitied. He should be remembered for his sacrifice.

We as a People

I just finished watching Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, and I'm feeling rather pensive. Before I go and wipe this mood away with some mindless video game violence, I want to ask all of you, as a people, where did we go wrong?

It never takes me too much to generally disturb my mood or mindset, and get me thinking about something with more depth than I would prefer. As I've told others, I'm always thinking, and I can't stop thinking. Even when I'm trying to lose myself in a game, I'm thinking about something. And I'm thinking after this movie that we have gone horribly wrong.

Do the Right Thing, as Spike Lee will tell you, isn't just about the obvious messages regarding racism and violence, it's about justice, fairness, love, and hate. It preaches the words of both Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and it does so without being judgmental. If you're not familiar with the film, I recommend you spend a couple of hours watching it via Netflix; it's streamable. Naturally, given that I am a Black American, you'll probably think that I'm talking about the Black community in America when I asked "where did we go wrong?". You'd be mistaken. I mean where did we, as a people, all Americans regardless of race, origin, gender, religion or sexual orientation go wrong?

I told my sister about an unusual sight earlier today. As I was on my way to a grocery store yesterday, I went down Chicago Blvd. here in Detroit, on my way to the Lodge freeway. This isn't so unusual since I've lived in this neighborhood most of my life. But what I discovered yesterday were two young white men jogging down the street. For those of you that don't live here, I suppose I need to back up a bit.

As portrayed in the media, in particular television and movies, there are two Detroits here in Michigan. When they want to show young, hip, urban people from Detroit, they typically show the "white" Detroit. They focus on the sporting events or the concerts, the big businesses like the automakers, and so forth filled mostly by Caucasians. When they want to show the violent side of things, they tend to show the burned out buildings, the vacant lots, and gangs, mostly populated by Blacks. The catch is, in reality the vast majority of the Caucasians live outside of the City of Detroit, and quite a few never set foot within the city limits unless they're passing through, going to work, or one of the aforementioned sporting or musical events. I'm not trying to say that there aren't any Caucasians in Detroit, but it is very fair to say that the population is dominated by Blacks, which can also be found at the same sporting events, concerts, and businesses. Which Detroit you see all depends on how the movie or television producer desires to portray the city.

That said, seeing to Caucasian men jogging down the street in a neighborhood that is disputably predominantly Black, is something of a rarity, especially considering the proximity to Highland Park; a traditional hot spot of danger even for those of us that live in the area. I'm telling you about this, not to state that they're stupid or foolish for being in this neighborhood, nor out of fear of a "White Plan" that involves kicking all of us Blacks out of the city so that the whites can regain power. I'm telling you this because I feel that it's a step in the right direction.

For too long, despite desegregation, Detroit has been divided. The Caucasians kept to their suburbs and looked down on us, and we kept to ourselves talking about how racist all whites were. That's not what Dr. King died for. That's not what even Malcolm X wanted. That's not how a healthy city or country can survive.

We as a people have failed to get past our old fears, our old hatreds, our old prejudices. We as a people have failed to find the Dream of Dr. Martin Luther King. We as a people as failed to evolve when it was and still is demanded of us. We as a people are dying.

Too long have we let our own foolishness divide us. Too long have we let our petty disputes wound us. If we are to heal and grow, we need to set these archaic things aside, and learn to first be kind to one another, and then eventually respect if not love one another. I know that somethings are too difficult to easily overcome, but who among us has not benefited from the labors of others, regardless of skin color or religion? How can we not remember those that have shown us the way, and how can we ignore or deny the truth before us? We are all God's children, whatever your God's name is, whatever the details of your belief!

We must learn to get along, and how to build our lives together as one people, however different and varied we individually may be, because we are indeed one people.

Find the people that hurt you, and forgive them.
Find the people you've hurt, and apologize.
Find the people you hate, and learn from them.
Find the people you love, and share with them.

I don't normally go in for chain letters and spreading them, but spread this message. We have to stop failing before we can start succeeding. Succeeding isn't easy, it never is, but we have to succeed in this.

Regarding Tiger

I've been biting my tongue on the Tiger Woods issue for months, but I can't take it anymore. Why do so many people think that he owes anyone other than his wife and family and explanation and apology for his infidelities? Just because he's a popular sports figure doesn't make him any more than a famous private individual. He has every right to privacy that any other U.S. citizen has, so I think the media and John Q. Public need to get their noses the hell out of his business. I wish he would simply answer any questions regarding this controversy with "I appreciate your curiosity, but this is a private matter between my wife and I, and I wouldn't expect anyone else to discuss the same on a global media level." After all, would you want to air out your failures on world wide television?

Because I still support him...

This may be old, but I'm still in the Obama camp...


EMBED-McCain is Barack Rolled! - Watch more free videos

Always loved Dirk Benedict...

As a child, I watched the original Battlestar Galactica, and loved the Starbuck character played by Dirk Benedict. Years later, I loved him as Face[man] on the A-Team, especially for driving a Vette, one of my favorite cars of all time. Today, while looking up something else on IMdB, I came across the trailer for the new A-Team movie, and found it slightly intriguing, so I looked it up to see who was in it. To my surprise, I discovered that Benedict and Dwight Schultz, A-Team's Murdoch (another favorite of mine!), were at least making cameos in the film. I clicked on Benedict's name, and then on the trivia link, where I discovered the following:

On "Battlestar Galactica" (2003): Women are from Venus. Men are from Mars. Hamlet does not scan as Hamletta. Nor does Han Solo as Han Sally. Faceman is not the same as Facewoman. Nor does a Stardoe a Starbuck make. Men hand out cigars. Women 'hand out' babies. And thus the world, for thousands of years, has gone round.

Now, I'm not 100% clear on what he's saying, nor am I saying that I believe as he does, but in my opinion, it's an epic quote that deserves to be examined and considered for quite some time. :-)

Always on my mind...

Last month, I entered a contest for a house in New Mexico, and the announcement of the winner is coming up at the end of this weekend. While I know that the chances of me winning are literally 2 in 40 million, I can't seem to take my mind off of this house. Every day for the last week, I've found my mind wandering back to the house, and what I will need to look into once I take possession of the house. Not if I would take possession, but when. I've only felt this certain about winning something one other time in my life, and I did indeed win in that contest as well.

Everytime I find my mind back on this house, I have to make a strong conscious effort to squash my hopes because of the odds of me winning it are so remote. I've prayed that I would win this house, and perhaps this is God's way of telling me that it will be mine, but my realistic and pragmatic side keeps shouting at me that there's no possible way for me to win it. But despite the long odds, someone will win it, so why can't that person be me? Despite the long odds of the Mega Millions and PowerBall games (both well into the 1 in hundreds of millions range), people win those on a regular basis. So why shouldn't I take this feeling, enjoy it, and fully expect to win the house next week?

I guess the bottom line is that I'm afraid of being crushed  when the all too probable outcome is revealed: that I didn't win it. Still, the house lurks in the corners of my mind, waiting to rise to the surface of my thoughts and pose questions of details regarding it: will I need to buy a security system or did  the builders already include one? Does the community have a swimming pool, hot tub, and fitness center nearby that I could use? What about internet service? Would the neighborhood association mind if I try growing an avacado tree on my property?

It's these questions that bother me the most, I guess. I've never really posed these questions about a house or apartment before. No part of my mind in the past ever dwelled on questions like these before I moved into a new residence, or even when I was looking for one. These questions are the sort that a home owner would ask when he or she has made arrangements through a realtor and has not actually laid eyes on the home themselves. These are questions I would expect someone to ask after they won this house.

Well, God willing, I will win this house, justifying my mind's obsession with it. Otherwise, I can only imagine that I'll be mentally crushed for weeks. If I win, you'll be the second to know... ;)