Month: June 2007

• Daring Fireball: Straws, Grasping Thereof
  “I don’t think Apple’s going to be a big player in this at all.” Yeah, that’ll one to look back on. And laugh like a hyena.
  (tags: iphone internet markets economics)

nana technology:

nana technology n. Get used to “nana technology”—technology that your grandmother might use. That’s what Andrew Carle, assistant professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., likes to call the wave of technology being developed for older people who need a little help, or a lot, as they age. —””Nana technology” tools help seniors be independent” USA Today Aug. 8, 2006.

World Hum | We’ll Always Have ‘Charlie’:

Travel makes you smarter because travel makes you humble.

This article also features the worst phonetic alphabet you can imagine:

A) Are
B) Beady
C) Cue
D) Django (helpful only to jazz guitar aficionados).
E) Eye
….

From the archives: Exactly.:

I will never believe that you want to decide for yourself what concentrations of chemical byproducts from local metalplating shops is safe for your household AND the seismic standards for the bridges you cross AND the optimal level of pesticides on the lettuce you eat AND the proper response to the introduction of West Nile disease into your county AND I could go on forever. You cannot make me believe that you want to deal with all of those personally.

Yup, there’s a reason why we have regulatory agencies, something that some hardcore libertarians/free-marketeers will never understand. An objective review of things that concern the public’s welfare and safety is one of the benefits/attributes of civilization.

whether you like the outcome or not, bureaucrats have “best for our country” at heart the way that doctors have “best for my patients” and teachers have “best for my students” at heart.

No one goes into the civil service for the money. At the professional levels, they do it out of respect for a rigorous process, and out of love for their subject area and their country. Everyone loves to hate the government official who meddles in this and obstructs that, but the water we drink, the air we breathe, the roads and bridges we drive on, the medicines we take, and the food we eat are all as reliable as they are because of the efforts of these unloved folks.

I think the chief flaw of Libertarians is the belief that they are smarter than anyone else. But their smarts are focused on one thing, the visage they see in the mirror each morning and how everyone else is interfering with their pursuit of happiness.

I think some time in an environment with poor sanitation, unsafe drinking water, lots of industrial accidents, and serious economic inequities would be more educational that a lifetime subscription to Reason. In some ways, I see them as a similar threat as the theocrats, though they only want to set the clock back about 200 years, not 1000.

• so register already: I did.
  I guarantee you that whatever your ancestry is, someone who shares your ancestry needs your help.
  (tags: health philanthropy values media)
• Daring Fireball: New High-Water Mark in iPhone Jackassery
  There must a term for an inability to feel shame or embarrassment. These folks all seem to have it.
  (tags: daringfireball apple iphone fud)
• why we could use a wider spectrum of political opinion
  “In many Western countries, communist movements often did a great deal to advance liberalism in the 20th century.” Political discourse here runs the gamut from A to B.
  (tags: values politics labor)

I saw an ad for this article — Can Breast-Feeding Hurt Your Marriage? Rabbi Shmuley Boteach Thinks So in His New Book, ‘Kosher Adultery’ — Beliefnet.com — and was gobsmacked at his attitude. The very idea that parts of the body can serve more than one function — both sexual and reproductive — seems to have escaped the Rabbi in his education. It’s no wonder that the sight of nursing mother brings out the blue-stockings, even today.

I think of myself as someone who appreciates the various aspects of feminine beauty but seeing a breastfeeding mother — a regular occurrence — doesn’t give rise to any impure thoughts. As often happens, an article like this ends up saying more about the writer than his intended subject.

Rafe suspects that Our nation has failed. I offer some ideas to recover from that:

I understand where you’re coming from with this. It does feel a lot like a failed experiment. I’m actually not convinced that Bush was re-elected in 2004 anymore than he was elected in 2000, but there’s no point in going into that now.

So why did 2004 turn out the way it did? I think it points the nature of modern political discourse. It comes down to something more like a couple of rappers dissing each other than the Lincoln/Douglas debates. There are no ideas discussed, only coded threats (liberal = tax and spend, welfare queens in Cadillacs, abortion on demand, oral/anal sex instruction in the classroom). Talk radio is all conservative all the time as a result of who owns the stations, not who listens to the stuff and the resulting ratings.

So what’s to be done?

There’s no way to make the political classes pay attention, unless the funding problem is solved. As it is now, running a national or statewide campaign costs millions of dollars. An incumbent Senator has to raise thousands of dollars a week for their entire term just to stay in office. Challengers, without the reach and name recognition, must do even more. I think public financing of campaigns and re-vamping how mass media are used is a necessary step.

TV and radio ads should have a minimum length and a maximum frequency: the ad must deliver a message longer than 10 seconds and can’t appear so often as to numb the voters. I think ad time should be donated to candidates (or deeply discounted) as part of the license grant that broadcasters enjoy. Equalize the playing field in terms of access but require an elevated tone by forcing longer spots. Instead of negative ads, force candidates to talk about their plans and ideas.

Some ideas, anyway. What do you think?