American Rant #1

    Well, It's been quite a whie since I last blogged. Whoops. I'm trying out the mobile app today, so we'll see how things go.
    Anyways. Here's a rant about American kids.
    Recently, I overheard news of a kid I knew needing to take vitamin D supplements. Vitamin D supplements. Do you see what is wrong with that? No? I'll tell you then. Vitamin D comes naturally from the sun. Which means that, obviously, kids don't get out in the sun enough. The hell. Kids nowadays have practically no idea what going outside is. Not a chore, as many think. It's supposed to be an enjoyment. Being forced to take out the trash isn't going outside. Kapeesh?
    A funny thing about staying inside--you can get fat. Seriously. When outside, being in hot or cold temperatures actually burns calories; your body is using energy either to shiver or to sweat. If you stay inside all winter, or turn the AC to 69°F (hehe) in the summer, you're not going to burn the same calories you would have. But nobody really cares, right?
    That's all for today. A few interesting facts to tide you over. Mainly because I can't think of more things to write. Gotta get those creative juices flowing, you know?

Rooting a Kindle Fire

I hated my Kindle Fire. It was slow, had too many barriers, and in the end didn't give me my money's worth of hardware. So I hacked it. In this blog, I will explain how you can get the Google Play store on your Kindle, be able to download apps that are actually cool and fun (wow), or run a better version of Android.
Yes, I know, it's long, but it's worth it.

Notice: This tutorial only applies to Windows XP, Vista and 7. If you are running OSX or Linux, this will most likely not work. You can still read if you are interested, though.

Rooting your Kindle Fire

    You probably don't know what Android device rooting is. If so, read this excerpt from Wikipedia.

-+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+-

    Android rooting is the process of allowing users of smartphones, tablets, and other devices running the Android mobile operating system to attain privileged control (known as "root access") within Android's subsystem. Rooting is often performed with the goal of overcoming limitations that carriers and hardware manufacturers put on some devices, resulting in the ability to alter or replace system applications and settings, run specialized apps that require administrator-level permissions, or perform other operations that are otherwise inaccessible to a normal Android user. Rooting is analogous to jailbreaking devices running the Apple iOS operating system. On Android, rooting can also facilitate the complete removal and replacement of the device's operating system, usually with a more recent release of its current operating system.

-+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+-

(Your Kindle is, in fact, an Android device. Just like the Nook Tablet from Barnes & Noble.)

    If you didn't read the excerpt, that's okay too, I will just summarize. Rooting is the equivalent of Jailbreaking on an iOS-running device, except Rooting is for Android devices. And, yes, it does void your warranty.

    In order to install all these exciting (or not-so-exciting, if you are a pessimist) features on your Kindle, you will need to break the security barriers by allowing root access to the Kindle. (If the security barriers are brick walls, think of rooting as shoving an obscenely large missile into the wall with a truck, then blowing the sh*t out of it.)

    Attached to this blog is a file called "KFU.zip". (I lied. Click here to download it.) This stands for Kindle Fire Utility, which will do the rooting stuff for you. No work needed, just observation.

Actually Rooting your Device (after many lectures)

    Download the KFU.zip file. It will take anywhere between 10 seconds and 42 days to download, depending on your internet service provider. Put it in its own folder, you wouldn't want to just leave it anywhere, trust me.

    Once you download the file, make SURE that you extract the files. Run the file install_drivers.bat. This will ensure that when you connect your kindle to your computer, there will be no issues communicating with the device.

    Connect your kindle to your computer. You will either get a notification about connecting to your computer, or your screen will change to a picture of a white USB cord. Do NOT touch any on-screen buttons on your Kindle until I tell you that you can. This is vital to the safety of your device, and your bank account information.

    If any queries come up on your computer, do what you think is correct. If you get a "Device Failed to Connect" error, or something like that, leave a comment below describing what happened. (You can also talk to me in Google Talk or mention me in a Google+ post if necessary.)

    Run the file run.bat in the folder where you extracted KFU to. You will get red text on a black background, then a menu.

    Near the bottom the window should tell you your ADB and Boot Status. If ADB reads 'offline' then there is a driver problem. Leave a comment below.

    If ADB reads 'online', however, check your boot status. If Boot status reads '4002' or '5001' then press 1, enter, 1, enter (Otherwise, skip this step). This restarts the Kindle Fire, and this is normal. Afterwards, navigate back to the main menu of the program, then press 2, enter. This begins the Rooting of your Kindle Fire. Make sure to watch your kindle and computer in case any errors pop up. If nothing bad has happened yet, you are golden. Wait for the script to end, then return to the main menu. Do the same procedure for option 3 and option 5. This installs your recovery program.

    After that, navigate to the main menu (again) and select option 6. In that menu, select option 1. This adds the Google Play store to your app list. Once this script finishes, close out of the program, eject your kindle, and restart it. You have successfully (after a lot of reading and confusion) rooted your Kindle Fire. Hooray.

    (From now on, when you boot up your Kindle, you will get a blue Kindle Fire logo screen before you get the default orange one.)

    From here, you can go on to either upgrade to a custom operating system, or leave it as it is.

Installing a custom OS

    Yes, finally, we have gotten to installing a custom ROM (OS). My personal favorite as of now is Jandycane ROM, but you can look for your own. In this section I explain how to install Jandycane on your (rooted) Kindle Fire.

Download Links:

    Jandycane ROM Zip Archive

    GApps Zip Archive

    This section will be listed in steps!

1. While connected to your computer, drag and drop your downloaded Jandycane and GApps .zip archives into a folder on your Kindle. Remember where you put them.
2. Restart your Kindle. Upon restart, you will see a blue Kindle Fire logo. Hold the power button until the bottom of the screen displays three options (Normal Boot, Recovery, and Reset Boot Mode). Press and hold the power button until the moving hyphens are on either side of 'Recovery.'
3. Wait for the TeamWin Menu to load. You will have to turn your Kindle to Landscape position, unless you have sideways-pointing eyes.
4. TeamWin Menu:
1. Tap "Backup."
2. Check all of the boxes in the middle of the screen. The "Enable Compression" and "Skip MD5 generation" boxes are optional. Set the backup name if necessary.
3. Swipe to backup.
4. When finished, press the home button in the top-right of the screen.
5. Tap "Wipe."
6. Tap "Factory Reset." Confirm it.
7. Wait.
8. Upon completion, press the home button at the top-right of the screen.
9. Tap "Wipe," then tap "Cache." Confirm it.
10. Repeat step 9 but tap "Dalvik Cache" instead.
11. Press the home button in the top-right of the screen.
12. From the main menu, tap "Install."
13. On the left, navigate to the sdcard folder. This should be "/sdcard/" (you can check from the location bar in the upper-middle region of the screen)
14. Navigate to the folder in which you placed your Jandycane .zip archive. Click on the .zip archive when you find it.
15. Swipe to Confirm Flash.
16. Wait.
17. Upon completion, press the home button at the top-right of the screen.
18. Repeat steps 11-16, but look for the GApps.zip archive.
19. Restart your system after completing the second step 9.
5. Configure your new Kindle Fire!

---

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog, because it took a FRICKIN' LONG TIME TO WRITE.

Just kidding. Thanks for reading!

Going Paperless

There is this new fad in this day and age about going “paperless.” That is, we save everything to electronic data sources; flash drives, disk drives, and diskettes. But, even though there are so many benefits of doing so, the possible disadvantages loom ahead.

Disadvantage Theory One: Electromagnetic Pulses (EMPs)

Our nation has already used technologies such as EMPs (pronounced Eee-Em-Pee, not emph). They are used to knock out electronics in a certain radius. But, say another country developed an EMP powerful enough to wipe data clean off of a source? And what if that same country dropped such an EMP on multiple server sites that contain all of the data that lies within the now-internet-only-version of Encyclopedia Britannica? Well, crap.

Disadvantage Theory Two: Space Impact

What would happen if a giant space rock or meteor knocked out a data center? Well, instead of getting those photos and documents back, take a space rock. Go post a picture on Instagram, or whatever.

Disadvantage Theory Three: Finite Resources

As far as I can remember, metal is a finite resource. It does not grow. It does not magically appear under your pillow. It does not hide in the closet. So, inevitably, if we are to continue to create more hard drives and diskettes to hold all of this data, and create more and more computers to access this data…won’t we run out of metal to create new computers at some (very distant) time?

Huh. Maybe, since trees grow back, using paper is a better idea.

Why Kids Bring Guns To School (and a side of potatoes)

Well, I seem to have taken a ridiculously long sabbatical from writing blogs. My apologies if you have been waiting for one. If you didn’t really care, that’s fine too.

Anyways, today’s topic: things that you probably didn’t care about. Let me (barely) amuse you by starting off with a little segment about…flavored medicine.

Flavored Medicine.

Ask your parents about medicine. Go ahead. What did it taste like? Most likely, their description of the taste would be along the lines of “It was disgusting” or something like that. Well, too bad for them, right? They were forced to digest this revolting syrup (cod liver oil, perhaps).

But, this was a good thing. The medicine tasted terrible, thus was an incentive to not want to ingest medicine. Nowadays, medicine tastes good. Since this is the case, young children want to have more of it because they like the artificial flavoring. Next thing you know, the child is in the medicine cabinet, figuring out how to remove the “childproof cap” and downing a whole bottle of grape-flavored Tylenol. Wonderful.

Speaking of children, why not move onto a more interesting topic; kids fighting in school?

Kids get punished for fighting.

In most public schools nowadays, teachers and principals are making a move against violence in school. They are trying to reduce the amount of violence by, in essence, teaching children of the various ways to be punished for having your fist meet another kid’s face. Detentions, suspensions; basically isolating the child from the rest of the school as a punishment. And, should a teacher not be aware of a fight or conflict, a student who has seen the dispute is to report the incident to the teacher. Because, as we all know, running to a teacher always makes you the hero and fixes everything.

Let me create a scenario. Imagine we have three people in a classic school hallway; a teacher, and two middle-schoolers. Say one of the middle schoolers is a big, burly, bully-type of guy who is having a bad day. The other kid is your classic nerd; weak, helpless, focuses mainly on bringing back good grades to his parents and staying out of trouble.

Big bully (let’s call him Billy for good alliteration) is storming down the hall. Nerd kid is busy putting his belongings in his locker. The teacher walks into her classroom. Billy grabs the nerd by the shoulders, whirls him around, and shoves him towards the wall, hard. Nerd kid’s books fly everywhere, and he slumps to the floor opposite his locker. Billy then walks away.

What should nerd kid do? This has been happening every day for the past two weeks. Should he go and tell the teacher, and risk being called out by his peers as a wuss? Or should he keep it to himself, knowing yet that the same event will happen the next day? Well, nerd kid doesn’t want to ever risk being called out as a wuss. That would be his end; he would be shunned by his peers. So, he keeps it to himself.

This continues for another week. At the end of the week, nerd kid can’t take it anymore and slaps Billy in the face as he approaches on his normal routine. Billy notices a teacher nearby, and fakes extreme pain to get revenge on nerd kid. The teacher is unaware of Billy being a bully. The teacher immediately refers nerd kid to the principal, where he receives an in-school suspension for three days the following week.

I may have not clearly conveyed my point, but this is the gist of what I am trying to get across: bullies attack students, students keep quiet for a while, then the student retaliates, but the student, not the bully, receives punishment. This happens because the student is initially scared of retaliating, but in the end doesn’t really give a damn. And, there is a worse ending to this than what was previously described. That ending can be compared to events such as the Columbine Shootings: kids were picked on until their fuse finally burned out, then went berserk with weaponry, seeking revenge, trying to convey “who’s the boss of me now?”

Now, what if we allowed kids to fight in school? What if we tolerated bullies? I can draw a picture. A bully would go up to a kid and throw him down, but then that kid might get back up and throw a punch, then some of each side’s friends would come to aid, and within a couple hours, peace would be restored, truces created, and everyone could go back to their normal habits. Summary? Don’t have teacher intervention. Let things play out the way they are supposed to be. Then, from strife, peace will arise. Because in the end, having more violence leads to less violence…

…does that even make sense?

(My apologies if I don’t make any sense. Carry on.)

Age of Instant

    Modern-day electronics have major setbacks as well as advantages.

    *Somewhat* recently, Encyclopedia Britannica announced that their future editions of the encyclopedia will no longer be printed on paper. Well, what if, all of a sudden, some major electro-magnetic pulse brought on by a celestial mass wipes all of their backups clean? History would then be...well, history. This whole craze for smaller, more portable data and information results in greater risk of loss in the tangible world. It  also is what causes major self-esteem issues, and unnecessary purchases brought on by ready consumers. Somehow, almost everyone I know has an iPhone. Why? You see them everywhere, you like how it looks and feels, you feel compelled to have your own. There are advertisements on television, and in newspapers, and on billboards, and in magazines. Okay. Time for an iPhone.

    But, what real benefit do you garner from it? Honestly.

    You might argue, for example, "It's more lightweight," or "It runs faster," or maybe you just like the appstore they have. But why do you need it? To play games? To be up-to-date with Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram every single second? To take pictures of someplace and upload them to the internet that very second with a footnote "My Trip to New York?" To watch donkey porn on the go (strange, I know, but it happens)?
    Today's world is obsessed with three words.

    Instant.
    Instant.
    Instant.

    We want things at the tips of our fingers, as a puppet and his puppeteer. We want to be able to control anything, anywhere. But, even before the techno-years, we had workarounds. Our primeval instincts are slowly dwindling away. Can we honestly remember what an object looked like anymore? No, so we take pictures. Can we find where a certain house is on a certain street? No, so we use Apple Maps. (Which, if you don't know, doesn't work anyways.) Do we know why ice floats? No, so we Google it, or go to Wikipedia. There used to be methods for these before "instant." Objects? Sketch an image on a piece of paper. Usually, people carry around some sort of notebook, or scrap paper. Going somewhere for the first time? Ask a pedestrian. It's not difficult. Wondering why ice floats? Go to the library, an obsolete place full of information that nobody utilizes anymore.

    My point being; what if all of a sudden a massive natural disaster electrically wiped all of our information straight off our hard drives? What would we have left? By my estimates, books will be obsolete approximately 250 years from now. Thus, the result of a massive data purge would effectively destroy civilization if we continue down the path to electronics.

    Don't completely rely on what is close, is what I am getting  at. Rely instead on what is always there. Need to know a word? As an exercise, try going to a dictionary instead of going to Google to type "define modicum." And, in the process, learn the words above and below. And maybe on the previous page. Soon enough, your array of verbal vocabulary will make you sound smarter. Those little changes, if we all try them, could potentially influence society to raise its standards, to become one with the physical world again.

    ...did that make any sense to you? Ugh, I'm going back to Facebook...

Lorem ipsum...translated?

    Most of us have, at some point, seen Microsoft's sample paragraph text. This text is commonly referred to as the "lorem ipsum" because the first two words are...lorem ipsum. The entire script is in Latin, and can be translated. I went out of my way to translate it with Google Translate- Latin (alpha.)
    Here is the full text. Scroll down for the (awkward) translation.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas porttitor congue massa. Fusce posuere, magna sed pulvinar ultricies, purus lectus malesuada libero, sit amet commodo magna eros quis urna. Nunc viverra imperdiet enim. Fusce est. Vivamus a tellus. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Proin pharetra nonummy pede. Mauris et orci. Aenean nec lorem. In porttitor. Donec laoreet nonummy augue. Suspendisse dui purus, scelerisque at, vulputate vitae, pretium mattis, nunc. Mauris eget neque at sem venenatis eleifend. Ut nonummy. Fusce aliquet pede non pede. Suspendisse dapibus lorem pellentesque magna. Integer nulla. Donec blandit feugiat ligula. Donec hendrerit, felis et imperdiet euismod, purus ipsum pretium metus, in lacinia nulla nisl eget sapien.
Donec ut est in lectus consequat consequat. Etiam eget dui. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed at lorem in nunc porta tristique. Proin nec augue. Quisque aliquam tempor magna. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Nunc ac magna. Maecenas odio dolor, vulputate vel, auctor ac, accumsan id, felis. Pellentesque cursus sagittis felis. Pellentesque porttitor, velit lacinia egestas auctor, diam eros tempus arcu, nec vulputate augue magna vel risus. Cras non magna vel ante adipiscing rhoncus. Vivamus a mi. Morbi neque. Aliquam erat volutpat. Integer ultrices lobortis eros. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Proin semper, ante vitae sollicitudin posuere, metus quam iaculis nibh, vitae scelerisque nunc massa eget pede. Sed velit urna, interdum vel, ultricies vel, faucibus at, quam. Donec elit est, consectetuer eget, consequat quis, tempus quis, wisi.
In in nunc. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos hymenaeos. Donec ullamcorper fringilla eros. Fusce in sapien eu purus dapibus commodo. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Cras faucibus condimentum odio. Sed ac ligula. Aliquam at eros. Etiam at ligula et tellus ullamcorper ultrices. In fermentum, lorem non cursus porttitor, diam urna accumsan lacus, sed interdum wisi nibh nec nisl. Ut tincidunt volutpat urna. Mauris eleifend nulla eget mauris. Sed cursus quam id felis. Curabitur posuere quam vel nibh. Cras dapibus dapibus nisl. Vestibulum quis dolor a felis congue vehicula. Maecenas pede purus, tristique ac, tempus eget, egestas quis, mauris. Curabitur non eros. Nullam hendrerit bibendum justo. Fusce iaculis, est quis lacinia pretium, pede metus molestie lacus, at gravida wisi ante at libero.
Quisque ornare placerat risus. Ut molestie magna at mi. Integer aliquet mauris et nibh. Ut mattis ligula posuere velit. Nunc sagittis. Curabitur varius fringilla nisl. Duis pretium mi euismod erat. Maecenas id augue. Nam vulputate. Duis a quam non neque lobortis malesuada. Praesent euismod. Donec nulla augue, venenatis scelerisque, dapibus a, consequat at, leo. Pellentesque libero lectus, tristique ac, consectetuer sit amet, imperdiet ut, justo. Sed aliquam odio vitae tortor. Proin hendrerit tempus arcu. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Suspendisse potenti. Vivamus vitae massa adipiscing est lacinia sodales. Donec metus massa, mollis vel, tempus placerat, vestibulum condimentum, ligula. Nunc lacus metus, posuere eget, lacinia eu, varius quis, libero. Aliquam nonummy adipiscing augue.

    And here...is the translation. 

This page is available, please contact us. More ferry hotel accommodation. Please put down, but it's just great, pure bed's free, it's a great fit here. Now for traffic school. Admin is. Back from Earth. Beating, inhabit the sad old age and disease, spanned, and the advising hunger and the ugly need. New immigration flow information. Read and comment. All rights reserved. On the ferry. Electronic Text products. Read more pure, but more versatile life, the price of a lot, now. Read More About Flowers at teenagers. Complicated. Please do not step foot emissions. About reserved beating loud. Integer zero. Until more overall impact. Until know, cats and Family Services, the price itself is pure fear, no need for more planning.

As long as the bed is Win. Membership requirements. Contact. But at the back gate of the tank now. Do not compare. Contact-time great. Beating, inhabit the sad old age and disease, spanned, and the advising hunger and the ugly need. Now and loud. Read more Comments hatred, pain, or online, and the author, the accumsan it, lucky. Model course arrows cats. More feasible, will need more competition, more job opportunity here, or summarized or more great laughter. Tomorrow is not a complicated or before storage. More from my. Your Login. Contact. Integer's basketball job. Beating, inhabit the sad old age and disease, spanned, and the advising hunger and the ugly need. We always try to maintain the life, fear more than animation, now a mass of crime otherwise. But the pot that he wishes to, or from time to time, avenging, or, at the throat, how. Machine is, improve it needs, according to reason any man, the time of a person, Click here.

In the now. Affiliations our marriage secret from class to turn very, very beginner wedding. Until more customers soon. How's the cost benefit assessment. * Denotes required field and evenpages, a ridiculous mouse will be born. Tomorrow's throat hate. But the indicators. Home job. Background indicators and regional school basketball. In the leaven, the course of lorem not porttitor, urn diam-oriented lakes, but it is sometimes nice nibh h. As the global Information Services. Japan's no need for drugs. But more than this course. Read Display or adapter. Tomorrow protein protein information. Read More Back Pain from vehicles. More foot pure tank and the time required, the need someone funny. Why does not the masters. We just drink Bureau. Admin on Monday, what is the price of the skirt, foot alarm list, but before the News subtitle.

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A local storage products.

    Now how strange is that? Apparently Microsoft has their own legion of off-the-cuff Latin-speaking programmers. We should all be proud, though, that they attempt to make nonsense rather than the majority of America who can do it without a thought.
    If you would like to replicate this for your own use, enter Microsoft Word (2007 or later, as far as my own research goes) and type =lorem() then press enter. If you would like to format by sentences/paragraph, you can type it as =lorem(10,1) with the 10 in this instance being the number of paragraphs and the 1 being the number of sentences per paragraph.
    Happy, uhh...wasting time. Yep.

21st Century Language Issues (in a nutshell)

    Amidst a sea of rallying politicians, and bombardments of political campaign ads, and with the election phase slowly rolling to a halt, I have chosen to focus on something (relatively) minor; the grammatical issues that today's humans repeat in speech day to day.
    Take a word that we are all familiar with; the word "like." How often do you use it? Think about that to yourself. No, you most likely do not use it in composition, but if you look at the people around you I can guarantee that they will use the word "like" at least once in their next three sentences. It has become a global issue that we can't seem to eradicate. Some were brought up with the word, some grew into using it, some just found it convenient to be similar to their co-workers and implement it into their speech.
    Now, most likely, you will not have a problem with this. In fact, you might even ask yourself why you are still reading. But I will continue. We'll get back to this later.
    Let's stray from that, and move to a larger issue: tech-speak, as I call it. Mainly, this is the collection of acronyms and abbreviations that were generated due to the 160-character limit per text on your cell phone. For example; txt, lol, rofl, wtf, g2g. The list goes on and new ones are being created each day. Twitter is even less lenient than the text network, allowing only 140 characters (the other 20 are for the tweeter's unique name) per tweet.
    So what is the point? We need to try to stop this method of communication from leaking into face-to-face speech. Which brings back the "like" reference. Try to find a way to get it out of your head, don't fall into the language trap!
    If you have an issue with speaking the noun/adjective/verb/prefix "like," try to substitute the word if you consciously know when you will use it. "For example," "similar to," "as if," and just a pause in speech provide sufficient replacement for "like," "like," "like," and "like." Like, duh.
    Also try to avoid using the onomatopoeia "umm" too often. That just makes you sound unprofessional and silly. If you are just a schoolchild, it makes you sound as if you are desperate for your mother, calling "umm...umm...umm" recursively. Remember, speech is about getting your point across efficiently, not speaking as a duck would quack.
    Note: Most people who have issues similar to the above listed will most likely not be reading this blog. Feel free to share my findings with them!
    Lastly, try not to excessively use tech-speak. It get annoying after a while. Do you lol from every joke? No. Most likely, you are lqtm'ing (laugh quietly to myself), or as real English-speakers would say, chuckling.
Think about the definition of the word before you use it. If you have time, or room, use the full phrase.
    If you speak in sign-language or in Morse code, do not bother applying any above-stated rules to yourself, for speaking with tongue is not for you. If you speak in Braille, then God bless you, you are a very unique person and deserve an award.

    Heed or ignore my words, but keep them in mind.
    This is Nathaniel Rowe, signing off.