Pangloss

I agree with the call for multitasking. On the iPhone the lack of it makes sense -- it's a daring and thought-provoking design choice that's given an entire industry pause. But on the iPad it's just a limitation. It also can't run Flash, btw, which is a much more serious limitation for this device, given its planned usage, than it was for the iPhone. Now I personally think the industry should move away from Flash for video (HTML5, woot), but for interactive displays it still makes a lot of sense and I don't see it going away anytime soon. So this is a real problem.

There will be a panel because the President will simply order one (see article below). The purpose of the request to the Senate was to get them on board with the plan so as to ensure an up-or-down vote on its recommendations by the end of the year. Unfortunately the panel will consist of members of Congress, so its recommendation will be to raise taxes, not to curb spending. We don't have the kind of government that knows how to spend what it takes in. We have the kind of government that reacts to public suffering and complaints, increases spending to address those issues, and then discoverers that its checks are bouncing (and increases spending again). http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/01/27/senate_rejects_deficit_task_force/

Some of the jokes I've heard around the 'net: ---------- Will my wife send me to the Apple Store in the middle of the night to buy her an iPad? If a group of women all buy iPads at the same time, will they sync with each other? Is there a scented model for days when my data isn't so fresh? Will iffy Wi-Fi coverage be called iSpotting? I've heard the iPad is slim and light, but can you swim with it? Does the iPad come with a belt? Can I get the "period tracker" app for free? Is there any truth to the rumor that L7 singer Donita Sparks once threw her used iPad into the audience? ------------ But the thing I wonder is, what woman would buy one if it leads to an automatic implied joke, e.g. "that woman is on the iPad"? Oh well. Personally I thought the idea was rather clever -- the twist on 'iPod' and all that.

Well okay but that implies that this is necessary. Why is it necessary? They're arguing that we need to save eight or nine billion a year out of a three trillion dollar budget (and actual expenditures of 4.5 trillion), which makes no logical sense at all. We are not going to balance the budget on the money we saved from the space program even if we combine it with 150 more programs of the same size! Swansont has some legitimate points, IMO, but that's just part and parcel with the same underlying problem, which is the politicization of space exploration as a budget expenditure. We can easily afford more NASA programs and have zero reason whatsoever to cut a single one. We could run a dozen simultaneous, pointlessly-redundant manned space programs, and quadruple the budget of every other NASA project, and STILL we should not even be batting an eye at the cost. But I know I'm basically preaching the choir here -- sorry to rant on about it.

Newsweek has a new piece out today summarizing the situation with Labadee and Royal Caribbean. http://www.newsweek.com/id/232770 It's an interesting article, going on to talk about the various security precautions at Labadee, and some of the resorts owned by other cruise lines on other island nations in the Carib.

The Chinese seem to be moving steadily forward with their manned efforts. Let's not be naive here -- the decision to cut this cost is socio-political, just as was the decision to have these efforts in the first place. Human space flight has always been a socio-political venture. Some find that concept repugnant, but what exactly is wrong with it? The effort still has scientific merit, at least within its own field (and sometimes outside, e.g. medical knowledge), and in the overall scheme of the American economy (or even just the federal budget), the cost is a fly on the windshield. And is it really possible that space will ever be explored by human beings without a socio-political component? And there is a political cost to this decision that should not be underestimated. One of the key political principles of all American presidents since World War II is that we can do more than one thing at a time -- we can fix the problems we have and at the same time strive for great new things. The Obama administration has pushed that even further in attempting to solve absolutely huge problems simultaneously while claiming that we're still a great country. But this decision undermines that principle. It says "we really need to focus on more serious problems", and the subtext of that statement is "we can only do one thing at a time". Scientists should see this is a very bad answer to the question "if we can put a man on the moon, why can't we feed every person here on THIS planet?" This is a statement that whenever a big problem comes up at home, it's okay to cut back on wasteful scientific ventures until we've taken care of more important things. Today it's manned space flight. But it's not hard to see the exact same reasoning applied to other ventures, including unmanned space flight. How many starving Haitians does the Large Hadron Collider feed? In the end, the only reason not to go is public opinion. Well in my opinion misunderstandings about monetary scale and global misconception of American arrogance are not a sufficient reasons to stop reaching for the stars.

Apparently the Obama administration is not going to fund Constellation/Ares. The moon is now out, there's no shuttle replacement, and NASA is subject to the budget freeze. America's human presence in space is slated to conclude in 2020. (They didn't quite make "... before the decade is out," eh?) There is some chatter about a new heavy-lifter a decade or more down the road. No talk at all about a manned vehicle. The only dim light on the horizon is the possibility of funding for commercial enterprises, the hope being that some private company could eventually build something that could reach the ISS. What do you all think? Couple stories worth a look: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/os-no-moon-for-nasa-20100126,0,2770904.story http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/os-nasa-budget-boost-012810-20100127,0,5884253.story

I did. I said that the fact that the people wanted a public option didn't indicate that they want that kind of reform. This was challenged. That's where that came from. Cool. That's interesting. The business of politics has to look pretty similar most of the time, I suppose, but I agree that it does seem to "feed the beast", in the sense of perpetuating the disconnect between politicians and what people actually need, and elevating the influence of third parties with money. It's a good point. That was well put. I don't know if there are any organizations that are free of influence. Lack of "media conglomerate" ownership is certainly no guarantee. Public radio is not free from political influence, or even corporate influence. It may not be possible to have such. But that doesn't mean they're necessarily liberal or conservative. I don't think Fox News is conservative because its board of directors or ownership is conservative, I think it's conservative because it perceived a marketing niche in being so. But at other institutions it may be more of a long-term trend influenced by reporters and management, possibly without realizing it. That's what Bernard Goldberg thought about its presence at CBS, for example.

I didn't say you did anything wrong to post it, I just said I wasn't interested in arguing the point. I respect your opinion and it's just different from mine. Thanks, no worries. I'm aware of that, and I'm indicating what would convince me that the greater public is moving in that direction. I understand those particular items are not socialist in nature. I'm not talking about ideologies, I'm talking about observing American political behaviors (and I'm posting my opinions about those behaviors -- I'm not so foolish as to believe that my opinion is never wrong). In order for Americans to move in the direction of socialism the evangelical movement would have to first either end or be essentially dismantled and reconstructed. You haven't actually "shown" that, you've just picked singular examples that suggest it. A partisan for the right would pick different examples and try to make their side look better, and what would this accomplish in the end? This is why both sides have a media watch organization that claims to be non-partisan but in reality is just a shill for one side or the other (Media Matters for America for the left, and the Media Research Center for the right, both of which originally claimed to be non-partisan, but now have given up on that and openly admit that their purpose is to expose the bias of the opposition in the media). If you recall the actual quote, I didn't say that Democrats had acted worse than Republicans -- the next phrase in that sentence had Republicans at X^4. I picked the parties at random for that sentence, and could just as easily have reversed the starters and the responders -- as far as I am concerned, they are the same -- they're BOTH responders, and that's the problem. Who is worse is irrelevant. Again, that's just my opinion. You're welcome to disagree. You seem to feel that there's an "avalanche" of evidence that Democrats have behaved in a more bipartisan manner. But all I have to do is point at MRC and MMA (as mentioned above) to show that both sides have "avalanches" of examples at their disposal. Yah I know we're talking about legislative behavior, not media behavior, but I think it just demonstrates the point that there is no shortage of circumstantial, singular examples that both sides have available to throw at one another. No shortage whatsoever. So by all means, you're welcome to believe that one side behaves better than the other side. You've got a supporter in bascule and others here (which of course does not mean that the three of you are correct). I disagree. I haven't made that claim, nor do I believe that to be the case.

If you're just messing around with apps for fun you can certainly go the jailbreak route. As I understand it you can still use XCode and the iPhone Simulator, you just can't submit to the AppStore. If you want to make money, or get the max street cred, that's where you need the AppStore (though bascule might argue the second point). I don't know much about jailbreaking, but bascule may have some suggestions for you, or you can search for some of his posts in this subforum. Not sure if he's reading this subforum while he's on the road. This Gamasutra article is useful: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4211/iphone_development_everything_you_.php The Apple developer's center can be found here: http://developer.apple.com/iphone Also, I think Stanford is about to restart its iTunes University class on iPhone development. There's not a lot of OpenGL in there but for basic interface stuff and fundamentals of Objective C programming it is HIGHLY recommended. All those videos are free, and the lecturers are borrowed right from the iPhone dev team. Check that out within iTunes. Good luck! (All of this applies only to the iPod Touch, btw -- as I understand it, the other iPods are not programmable, at least not officially. I've no idea if there are "breaking" methods for them. Only the iPod Touch and the iPhone are officially supported for development.)

I supported my opinion that the public hasn't suddenly discovered that it wants socialism. I've backed that up with examples. If you want to have the opinion that the fact that they preferred the public option DOES mean that they now want socialism, more power to you, but -- and I mean no offense by this -- I don't believe you. When you can show me polls showing that the majority of Americans want equal wages for all, an open border, and federal funding for abortion, then I will consider the possibility that Americans want socialism. Until then I'm just going to remind you that the key bogeyman in far-left politics is the existence of the religious right. You aren't doing your friends any favors by pretending it isn't there anymore and that Americans have suddenly decided that they like socialism. Sure, okay, whatever, Dems are saints, Repubs are sinners, Europe is awesome, America sucks. You two have fun with that; I'm not really interested.

Actually I've already responded on this point. If you wouldn't mind, please see this post, in the middle section that begins with "I wanted to address this point from earlier as well". It's a long post, I'm afraid. (embarassed look) Well if this was meant to challenge my point about internal strife in the Democratic party, I'm not sure how it does that, but maybe you're agreeing with me, I'm not sure. If you're just trying to make the point, as you do pretty well later in your post, that Dems have done a little better in this department than Republicans, I'm down with that. But I also see a descending spiral of action-begetting-more-action. Repubs do X (where X = partisan nastiness), Dems return to power and do X^2, Repubs return to power and do X^4, and then we just seem to rinse and repeat while the country falls apart. Neither party comes out of something like that looking very good, and that's why I cringe every time a party wins the majority and starts talking about its new ideological mandate from the people. My two bits, anyway.

What compromises specifically do you feel could have happened, but didn't because of the posturing? You mean fetuses? Oh I see, you mean adult women. No, I can't support artificial delineations that require the denial of obvious scientific facts just for ideological convenience. I don't think you can't duck a problem just because it's difficult to solve. In my opinion, abortion is a no-winners choice between freedom of life and freedom of convenience (with the latter not necessarily, but sometimes, being trivial). (I'll never forget the time a student asked for more time on a homework assignment, saying it "wasn't anything serious", she just had to go and get an abortion, because she'd partied "just a little too hard" over the summer break, laugh laugh, nudge nudge.) This is a valid point, IMO, and I have to remind myself once again that my position in the middle is ultimately no different from other people's positions at other points in the spectrum, in that what looks to me like "pandering to the left" will certainly look different to others. (Which is just a complicated way of saying I respect your opinion on it.)

How about Maxine Waters? They don't come a whole lot more progressive than her, but in August, when Pelosi considered dropping the Public Option from the House bill, Waters and the entire Congressional Black Caucus came forward and declared that they would not support the health care measure before the House unless it included the Public Option. This took place back in August, and here's a typical quote: http://blogs.bet.com/news/pamela/2009/08/17/black-lawmakers-say-public-option-is-a-must/ Democrats also argued internally over the Cadillac tax, cost concerns, and a dozen other details. Republican participation would have looked even LESS desirable to you than 100% Democratic participation. Why do you feel that the right end of the Democratic party is more conservative than the Republican party? That's really strange. "Pseudo-dems"? Seriously? Do you really know that little about the history of the Democratic party? I think Republicans have been "obstructionist" as well, but only in the sense that they could have participated in the process and chose not to. And clearly had they done so those bills would have been more conservative, not more progressive. It's not reasonable, logical or normal to expect people to change their entire ideology after losing an election. What you CAN expect is that should be more willing to compromise, but that means more moderacy -- something has to bring them on board. I would have loved to see Republican participation in health care reform, if it meant more moderation. But it sounds like you would have hated it. Beating conservatives doesn't fix health care, either, because no system in the entire world is perfect -- NOBODY thinks so. So it's perfectly reasonable and logical to bring all parties to the table, recognize all valid concerns regardless of their source, and address those concerns. In short, exactly what American politics used to be about. Compromise is the best part of American politics, not the worst. THAT's what bipartisanship means. Not "the minority party does what we say they should do". Well that's your choice, and has nothing to do with me. I'm talking about political tactics and realities, and far be it for me to say whether your opinion is valid or not, or to judge you. But for what it's worth, on the issue of abortion funding, I happen to agree with you, or at least didn't have a strong objection to it, because if the federal government is going to participate in health care, and it's normal for private health care to cover abortion, then it has to be covered. (Besides, in theory our tax dollars weren't paying for it anyway, so the argument was resting on a false premise, assuming the funding issue went according to plan.) Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedI wanted to address this point from earlier as well: This presents an incomplete picture. Let me throw a few other poll results out there, from this study from late December: http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1408 You're right to say they supported the public option, but as I said before, they weren't really interested in a social mandate. They also took the American temperature on the abortion funding issue. Are Mokele and Pangloss in the extreme here? Guess we are. (lol) Way it goes. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedBTW, I just happened to walk past the TV just as George Will came on, and he said that there are two areas that Democrats could offer compromises on that may attract Republicans to a health care bill: - Tort reform - Allowing insurance to span state lines Both of these have long-standing opposition in the Democratic party, but widespread support amongst the American people. If we're going to apply a bunch of new rules to insurance companies anyway, as the President has been promising for the last six months, then it seems reasonable to help them out with these two measures that might balance costs. That's bipartisan, and that's how you get everyone covered with a plan.

Are you kidding? That bit about concessions to moderates resulting in the trade-off of progressives during back-room negotiations was all over the news during the last stages of the health care bills. If that wasn't the problem then how do YOU explain why Dems couldn't come together to pass a bill with 60 votes? All I'm doing there is pointing out the mechanic of what we already agree actually occurred. Progressives were upset because they thought they had a mandate and they tried to push the line farther than moderates wanted it to go. That is, of course, my opinion, but it seems pretty straightforward to me. What else could it be? Folks can certainly get mad about people's failure to line up behind their extreme ideals, but they're just illustrating my point. When radicals get mad, they lose. Welcome to America, the land in which everyone has their say, not just the "strong", the "wealthy", or the "intelligent". Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedA perfect example of that negotiating problem was the abortion clause, btw. Moderates (yes, moderate Democrats) did not want the federal government paying for abortions. Progressives considered it critical that the public option health care INCLUDE funding for abortion, which they consider to be a health care expense. Some of the language got pretty outrageous, too. Here's a great one -- Terry O'Neill, the president of the National Organization for Women, talking about DEMOCRAT Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska: A "right-wing ideologue"? Wow! Win a supermajority and just LOOK at all the fur start to fly!

I believe the Pell Grant automatically calculated based on your annual FAFSA submission. Scholarships are always worth looking into -- I've read that many go uncollected. I believe the standard starting spots are scholarships.com and fastweb.com, but a quick search of Google should turn up some hits. Most require significant paperwork and have lengthy timelines leading up to annual awards, so it's not a fast process, but given the amount of time it takes to get through school it could have some benefit for you later on.

Interesting.

Exactly. That description of "inept" from the far left illustrates the perception problem that colors agenda-based politics. The supermajority was seen as a progressive mandate, instead of what it really was -- a shift of moderate, independent voters who aren't even remotely interested in European-style social "reforms". It's not that the efforts that were made were super-radical -- they really weren't. The problem was that too many strongly progressive Dems thought they had a mandate, and the moment a compromise was offered to a moderate Dem to get their vote, they'd lose a progressive Dem because of that concession. The practical upshot of the election of Scott Brown is that the progressive wing of the Democratic party will now proceed to sit down and shut up. If they're smart, moderates will control the agenda, and the result will be that bills will be passed that represent real progress in a generally leftward direction, and the party will have something real to show in November. That's actually a worst-case scenario for Republicans. Or the progressives can keep screaming about "fighting the good fight" and they can lose in November. Their choice. On a more positive note for the left, the President today appointed David Plouffe (his key campaign strategist and a long-time progressive activist) to head Dem re-election efforts this fall. That will appease the bloggers for a while.

Two separate polls out today show the majority of Americans favoring the abandonment of the current health care plan. A Rasmussen poll says 61% want the emphasis shifted to jobs. According to a USA Today poll, 55% of Democrats, 56% of independents, and 87% of Republicans say a new bill should be drafted. http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2010/01/poll-congress-should-focus-on-jobs-not-health-care/1 http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-01-22-Poll-health-care_N.htm Given that the Senate bill has no chance (according to Pelosi) of passing the House as-is, that pretty much ends the issue. It also puts most of the 2009 legislative year to waste. I think that better options need to be explored. No "public" approach is going to succeed in this environment. Congress should focus on insurance reform and regulation. What do you all think?

This story is developing in an interesting direction. China is firing back, but not solely on the basis of "it's our country and we're in charge, go away". It's saying that it HAS a free internet, and that what censorship there is is lawful, constitutional, and overwhelmingly popular with the people of China. These two articles are worth a look. The first one, from Ars Technica, reports on the Chinese perspective. The second one, an opinion piece from tech reporter Bruce Nussbaum at Newsweek, offers a first-hand perspective of what the Chinese people think. I've pasted a couple of interesting quotes below as well. The second quote below is just fascinating to me. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/01/china-to-us-stop-accusations-on-so-called-internet-freedom.ars http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/archives/2010/01/internet_freedo.html

I would point out that green corporations and labor unions benefit from these things as well. It's hardly the province of the GOP, npts2020 -- think what you like about appointees, but Democrats get just as much money from corporations as Republicans. The left is very hypocritical about this issue. Just last week Congress, with no logical basis whatsoever, exempted labor unions from the Cadillac tax, defying the entire purpose of HAVING a Cadillac tax. Get rid of some of the hypocrisy in who gets favors (and why), and the left would probably have a lot more success with this issue. The thing to remember is that while this IS a left-versus-right issue, it is NOT a Democrats-versus-Republicans issue. On this issue our elected representatives are very bipartisan in their failure to represent us.

Hm, you're right, it does. Looking back at the article, it also goes on to say this, which is what lead to my mistake: I guess the key there is "federal candidates" -- apparently they made a distinction between those and "local" candidates, though I can't imagine why.

The US Supreme Court has struck down the key element of campaign finance reform, saying that limits on non-profit corporate donations to campaigns are unconstitutional. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2010/0121/Supreme-Court-Campaign-finance-limits-violate-free-speech Limits on for-profit corporations were left intact, and unions are still limited as well. That has been often seen as the dividing line between conservatives and liberals on this issue, with conservatives preferring no limits at all and liberals preferring limits only on for-profit corporations (leaving unions and non-profit special interest groups free), however Democrats roundly derided today's decision, perhaps over a "slippery slope" concern. I'm not yet entirely clear on these points, but I wonder if their position will change once the dust settles. In my opinion this presents a huge problem, because special-interest donations are the real meat of the need for campaign finance reform. I agree that it presents a constitutional conundrum, and I hope that a better solution may be found. Perhaps they can tackle the problem from the spending side instead of the collections side. What do you all think?

Good article from today's LA Times overviewing the recent history of American relations with Haiti, including the policies of the previous two US presidential administrations. http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-haiti-ex-presidents20-2010jan20,0,6934198.story

Partisan Spin Doctoring 101: Never Answer a Question Without a Framework "Did you hit the child?" "The child did not eat all of its food." "Did you hit the child?" "As I said, the child did not eat all of its food." "Yes, but did you hit the child?" "I thought I answered that question already. The child poked at its meal. It pushed its food around the plate a bit. Then it pouted for a while and stuck out its tongue. Under those circumstances a certain degree of corporal force is warranted. I don't understand how I could be any more clear about this." So that's "the latter" -- a justification for obstructionism. You feel it's warranted based on the behavior of others -- two wrongs making a right. And you just ignore the example I gave about earlier Republican minority successes that did not use obstructionism. I always been fascinating to me that partisans don't want people to know that they are partisans. They obviously know that it's wrong and that it undermines their credibility -- so why do it? The only reason I can think of is that they think it's a necessary evil -- brought on by the behavior of other partisans and the presumption that everyone else is either ignorant or not paying attention ("I know this is stupid, but you made me say it and if I don't the other side won't be heard"). But of course this just feeds the problem, pushing the nation even farther in a descending spiral of bad perceptions and abbreviated reasoning. Jackson, I respect your opinion on health care reform. Your stubborn defense of bad behavior that harms the country, not so much.