North Korea

Just came upon this little tidbit. North Koreans are starving and China refuses to sell rice to western aid agencies for distribution.

SPIEGEL: How many people have been affected by the food shortages?

Göken: The World Food Program estimates between 5 and 6 million. At least 400,000 tons of grain is lacking.

Then there is this, "In addition, they are also lacking modern equipment — I didn’t see any tractors in the fields. Nor can one say that there is effective crisis management on the part of the government."

Yep, socialism doesn't work and the degree to which socialism is applied only hurries the final collapse. Hopefully, for the North Korean people, the collapse will come soon, since neither the East nor the West is any hurry to bring about 'regime change'.

Starbucks makes it easier for me

OK, I don't buy into the whole Starbucks "fair trade" thingy. In fact, I saw this article in March talking about the whole Fair Trade coffee scam. Short story, "Fair Trade" is just a marketing label, that allows wealthy coffee growers to appeal to your guilt. Why do I say wealthy? because farmers have to pay a fee to have their coffee "certified" and the fee is so enormous (even accounting for the fact that the organization makes NO effort to inspect the grower) that any extra profit they might have made has to go to licensing fees.

More here and here

BUT that is not the topic tonight. This is. I am an Android user, I have a Motorola Atrix and I am always looking for ways to simplify my life.

To manage my coffee habit, I use "My Coffee Card Pro" by Birbeck. It is a widget that allows me to see how much money is on the Starbucks Gold Card and will generate a barcode to allow me to buy coffee with my phone whenever I need to satisfy my Jones. Very convenient.
Now it looks like Starbucks is about to up the ante. According to the article, the official app will allow me to order my beverage via my phone... Just another way for them to seperate me from my money... wait, they already did that. Ok, this is just for convenience then.