Ubuntu Linux Aims to "Do It All"

Ubuntu Linux enters the smartphone wars

Instead of going after both the tablet and smartphone with a newly-improved touch-enabled version of Ubuntu Linux, Canonical will be focusing its efforts in 2013 on smartphones.

While the smartphone interface is clearly based on Ubuntu's Unity interface, it's not just the same old desktop shrunk down to a smartphone. According to Canonical, the smartphone Ubuntu will use "all four edges of the screen for a more immersive experience. Ubuntu uniquely gives handset OEMs and mobile operators the ability to converge phone, PC and thin client into a single enterprise superphone."

[...]

This new version of Ubuntu will be "aimed at two core mobile segments: the high-end superphone, and the entry-level basic smartphone, helping operators grow the use of data amongst consumers who typically use only the phone and messaging but who might embrace the use of web and email on their phone. Ubuntu also appeals to aspirational prosumers who want a fresh experience with faster, richer performance on a lower bill-of-materials device."

At the same time, this isn't just a smartphone operating system. Jono Bacon, Ubuntu's community manager, added on his blog. that "Ubuntu for phones is not just limited to just the Operating System on the phone screen itself. Ubuntu also has the technology, as demonstrated with Ubuntu For Android, to boot a full Ubuntu desktop from the phone when it is docked with a screen. This provides a complete Ubuntu experience in your pocket, for both your phone and your desktop, with a clean consistent look across both screens, and with all your content available on your phone and desktop using Ubuntu One. This is revolutionary."

[...]

Shuttleworth also believes that "Canonical is uniquely placed with a single operating system for client, server and cloud, and a unified family of interfaces for the phone, the PC and the TV." And that, “We are defining a new era of convergence in technology, with one unified operating system that underpins cloud computing, data centers, PCs and consumer electronics." Specifically, Shuttleworth, in a press conference, said that eventually "a single Ubuntu image will be able to run with a smartphones, tablet, TV, or desktop face." He hopes that this universal version will be available in April 2014 with Ubuntu 14.04. [...]

Shuttleworth certainly seems to have his eye on the ball. Read the whole thing for embedded links and more.

Also see:

Ubuntu operating system comes to Android smartphones

     

The best ways to study, and the worst ways

I've been taking on line courses, which have final exams at the end. So I found this article interesting:

Highlighting Is a Waste of Time: The Best and Worst Learning Techniques

In a world as fast-changing and full of information as our own, every one of us — from schoolchildren to college students to working adults — needs to know how to learn well. Yet evidence suggests that most of us don’t use the learning techniques that science has proved most effective. Worse, research finds that learning strategies we do commonly employ, like rereading and highlighting, are among the least effective.

The scientific literature evaluating these techniques stretches back decades and across thousands of articles. It’s far too extensive and complex for the average parent, teacher or employer to sift through. Fortunately, a team of five leading psychologists have now done the job for us. In a comprehensive report released on Jan. 9 by the Association for Psychological Science, the authors, led by Kent State University professor John Dunlosky, closely examine 10 learning tactics and rate each from high to low utility on the basis of the evidence they’ve amassed. Here is a quick guide to the report’s conclusions:

The Worst
Highlighting and underlining led the authors’ list of ineffective learning strategies. Although they are common practices, studies show they offer no benefit beyond simply reading the text. Some research even indicates that highlighting can get in the way of learning; because it draws attention to individual facts, it may hamper the process of making connections and drawing inferences. Nearly as bad is the practice of rereading, a common exercise that is much less effective than some of the better techniques you can use. Lastly, summarizing, or writing down the main points contained in a text, can be helpful for those who are skilled at it, but again, there are far better ways to spend your study time. Highlighting, underlining, rereading and summarizing were all rated by the authors as being of “low utility.”

The Best
In contrast to familiar practices like highlighting and rereading, the learning strategies with the most evidence to support them aren’t well known outside the psych lab. Take distributed practice, for example. This tactic involves spreading out your study sessions, rather than engaging in one marathon. Cramming information at the last minute may allow you to get through that test or meeting, but the material will quickly disappear from memory. It’s much more effective to dip into the material at intervals over time. And the longer you want to remember the information, whether it’s two weeks or two years, the longer the intervals should be. [...]

It goes on to mention other effective techniques too, like "practice testing". I used that technique extensively when I was studying for my Ham radio exams, and it was really helpful. Studying is so much more productive when you study smart, by using techniques that are proven to work.


Also see:

The Benefits of a "non-credit" Education
     

"A person should not go to sleep at night until the debits equal the credits"

Luca Pacioli: The Father of Accounting

In 1494, the first book on double-entry accounting was published. The author was an Italian friar, Luca Pacioli. His impact on accounting was so great that five centuries later, accountants from around the world gathered in the Italian village of San Sepulcro to celebrate the anniversary of the book's publication.The first accounting book actually was one of five sections in Pacioli's mathematics book titled "Everything about Arithmetic, Geometry, and Proportions." This section on accounting served as the world's only accounting textbook until well into the 16th century.

Since Pacioli was a Franciscan friar, he might be referred to simply as Friar Luca. While Friar Luca is often called the "Father of Accounting," he did not invent the system. Instead, he simply described a method used by merchants in Venice during the Italian Renaissance period. His system included most of the accounting cycle as we know it today. For example, he described the use journals and ledgers, and he warned that a person should not go to sleep at night until the debits equalled the credits! His ledger included assets (including receivables and inventories), liabilities, capital, income, and expense accounts. Friar Luca demonstrated year-end closing entries and proposed that a trial balance be used to prove a balanced ledger. Also, his treatise alludes to a wide range of topics from accounting ethics to cost accounting.

Pacioli was about 49 years old in 1494 - just two years after Columbus discovered America - when he returned to Venice for the publication of his fifth book, Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalita (Everything About Arithmetic, Geometry and Proportion). It was written as a digest and guide to existing mathematical knowledge, and bookkeeping was only one of five topics covered. The Summa's 36 short chapters on bookkeeping, entitled De Computis et Scripturis (Of Reckonings and Writings) were added "in order that the subjects of the most gracious Duke of Urbino may have complete instructions in the conduct of business," and to "give the trader without delay information as to his assets and liabilities" (All quotes from the translation by J.B. Geijsbeek, Ancient Double Entry Bookkeeping: Lucas Pacioli's Treatise, 1914).

Numerous tiny details of bookkeeping technique set forth by Pacioli were followed in texts and the profession for at least the next four centuries, as accounting historian Henry Rand Hatfield put it, "persisting like buttons on our coat sleeves, long after their significance had disappeared." Perhaps the best proof that Pacioli's work was considered potentially significant even at the time of publication was the very fact that it was printed on November 10, 1494. Guttenberg had just a quarter-century earlier invented metal type, and it was still an extremely expensive proposition to print a book.[...]

Follow the link above for references. I'm just about to complete an online course about using the Double-entry bookkeeping system, and I think the system is brilliant. So I found this history interesting. More historical facts from Wikipedia:

[...] The earliest extant accounting records that follow the modern double-entry form are those of Amatino Manucci, a Florentine merchant at the end of the 13th century.[1] Another old extant evidence of full double-entry bookkeeping is the Farolfi ledger of 1299-1300. Giovanino Farolfi & Company were a firm of Florentine merchants whose head office was in Nîmes who also acted as moneylenders to the Archbishop of Arles, their most important customer.[2] Some sources suggest that Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici introduced this method for the Medici bank in the 14th century.

However, the oldest discovered record of a complete double-entry system is the Messari (Italian: Treasurer's) accounts of the Republic of Genoa in 1340. The Messari accounts contain debits and credits journalised in a bilateral form, and contains balances carried forward from the preceding year, and therefore enjoy general recognition as a double-entry system.[3] By the end of the 15th century, the bankers and merchants of Florence, Genoa, Venice and Lübeck used this system widely.

Luca Pacioli, a Franciscan friar and collaborator of Leonardo da Vinci, first codified the system in his mathematics textbook Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità published in Venice in 1494.[4] Pacioli is often called the "father of accounting" because he was the first to publish a detailed description of the double-entry system, thus enabling others to study and use it.[5][6] There is however controversy among scholars lately that Benedetto Cotrugli wrote the first manual on a double-entry bookkeeping system in his 1458 treatise Della mercatura e del mercante perfetto.[7][8][9][9][1 [...]

So perhaps it was the Florentine Merchants who invented the system? Well whoever it was, I'm a fan!

Follow the link for embedded links and more information.

     

Solve Financial Crisis with a single coin?

Yeah, sure. Geithner's just gotta mint one before he leaves the Treasury Department:

A Trillion-Dollar Coin Brings a Jackpot of Jests

[...] WASHINGTON — A bizarre but seemingly legal idea to get around the country’s debt ceiling using a trillion-dollar coin is having its day in Washington.

The proposal, which originated in economics and business blogs and has a vanishingly remote chance of happening, has won ample attention and garnered new controversy as Republicans and the White House seem to be headed for yet another standoff over a legal limit on the country’s debt — a fight that may come as soon as next month.

[...]

The workaround would come from exploiting a 1997 law that allows the Treasury to “mint and issue platinum bullion coins and proof platinum coins in accordance with such specifications, designs, varieties, quantities, denominations, and inscriptions as the secretary, in the secretary’s discretion, may prescribe from time to time.”

The idea was that a secretary might authorize the creation of a commemorative eagle coin, for instance, to be put on sale for collectors. But the law inadvertently gave the Treasury secretary the power to mint, say, a $1 trillion coin, or even a $5 trillion coin, or even a $1 quadrillion coin.

Rather than selling it, he might deposit it at the Federal Reserve. Presto! The shiny new asset would erase a trillion dollars in debt liabilities. Then, the Treasury could carry out its spending — including disbursing Social Security checks and Medicare payments — without hitting the ceiling, a cap on total debt issuance that currently stands at about $16.4 trillion.

When Congress raised the ceiling again, the administration could then take the platinum coin and destroy it. With a token the size of a penny, the White House could head off another round of Congressional brinkmanship and another run at a fiscal cliff.

Blog commentators came up with the idea in 2010, and it gained some attention from financial writers and monetary policy followers during the 2011 debt ceiling standoff. Now, with Republicans and the White House again at odds, the country is expected to run out of spare cash sometime between mid-February and early March. [...]

I find it unbelievable that ADULTS can even talk like this. Talk about clueless. And people wonder why we're in sh*t street.

How about a REAL solution:

Reforming a Congress that spends like teenagers

It used to be called common sense. Remember common sense? I do. And I say, bring it back!
   

Goodbye to Herbie, Last of the Spice Dogs

We took our 17 year old Chihuahua, Herbie, to the vet today, to be euthanized. His health had been steadily deteriorating, and this last week, rapidly so. He was in much pain, so it was the only kind choice, to end his suffering.

We had a group of dogs when we owned our restaurant many years ago. The first four were females, and we gave them all the names of spices, so we called them "The Spice Girls". Then we added one more dog, the only male. We named him Herbie (as in "herbs and spices"). Thereafter, the group was "Herbie and the Spice Girls". Here they are, at the height of their glory days:

In the above photo, Herbie is standing at the forefront. In the back, from left to right, is: Coriander, Saffron, Rosemary, and Marjoram.

Marjoram and Rosemary died while we were still living in San Francisco. The rest came to Oregon with us to live here on the farm.

Saffron died in 2007. Coriander died in 2011. Herbie, the last of the group, was also the last to go. We did a toast to him and the Spice Girls at dinner. It was the end of an era, and the end of a group that was (is and always will be) close to our hearts.

They are survived by our farm dog Digby, and our siamese cat, Smudgie, and 23 chickens and three ducks.

Here is how I'll always remember Herbie: leading Corrie and Digby in a charge attack on the Evil Vacuum cleaner:




Here is a photo of Herbie, when we adopted him from a dog rescue organization:

Here is probably the last photo I have of him, taken last summer:

He had a good long life. R.I.P. Herbie. May all of our Spice Dogs R.I.P.

Thanks for all your love. The world was a better place for having you here. And now Heaven is a better place for having you there.


   

Russian Shopping, in the Western Style

Malls Blossom in Russia, With a Middle Class

MOSCOW — Shoppers who find that 250 stores aren’t enough can go ice skating, watch movies or even ride a carousel, all under a single roof.

While it sounds like the Mall of America, this mall is outside Moscow, not Minneapolis.

“I feel like I’m in Disneyland,” Vartyan E. Sarkisov, a shopper toting an Adidas bag, said recently while making the rounds of the Mega Belaya Dacha mall.

Instead of bread lines, Russia is known these days for malls. They are booming businesses, drawing investments from sovereign wealth funds and Wall Street banks, most recently Morgan Stanley, which paid $1.1 billion a year ago for a single mall in St. Petersburg.

One mall, called Vegas, rose out of a cucumber field on the edge of Moscow and became, its owners say, larger than the Mall of America if the American mall’s seven-acre amusement park is not counted in the calculation of floor space.

A few offramps away on the Moscow beltway, another mall scored a different kind of victory: the Mega Tyoply Stan shopping center drew 57 million visitors at its peak in 2007, well ahead of the 40 million annual visits reported by the Mall of America.

As American malls dodder into old age, gaptoothed with vacancies, Russia’s shopping centers are just now blossoming into their boom years, nourished by oil exports that are lifting wages.

“It’s 1982 all over again in Russia,” said Lee Timmins, the country representative of Hines, a Texas-based real estate group that is opening three outlet malls in Russia, referring to the heyday of the American mall experience. Russians, he said, love malls.

The mall boom illustrates an extraordinarily important theme in Russian economics these days. The growing crowds at malls, and the keen interest in Russian malls on the part of Wall Street banks, are signs that the emerging middle class that made up the street protests against Vladimir V. Putin in Moscow last winter is becoming a force in business as well as politics. [...]

Moscow alone has 82 malls, two of them the largest in Europe. The article goes on to explain how the growth of malls is paralleling the growth of a large middle class with disposable income, and how and why it's happening. And the political ramifications. Interesting stuff.

Russia has a long history of mall-like structures, like their traditional GUM (department store). But the modern malls are the next generation, being driven by modern considerations and modern capitalism, with a Russian flavor.
     

Oregon: The Best Tax Preparing State

Oregon: Land of many well-prepared tax preparers

A few years ago, Congressional investigators issued a report that should've caused Oregonians to swell with pride. And irritation.

Oregon's tax returns, the investigators found, were more likely to be accurate than the rest of the country's -- about $250 more accurate as of 2001, the Government Accountability Office found.

Unfortunately, that meant 1.56 million individual Oregon taxpayers paid $390 million more in federal taxes than they would have if they lived elsewhere, the report said.

Oregon: We do our taxes right. And we pay for it.

Last year, I reviewed online tax prep sites. This year, I figured I'd help those wanting live person helping.

As you see, you're in good hands in Oregon.

Still, you can overpay for your service. Not everyone needs to pay a Certified Public Accountant by the hour to do their returns. [...]

It goes on to give some good definitions of what LTPs, LTCs, EAs and CPAs are and what they do.

His follow-up column was also instructive:

Selecting a tax professional? It's OK to be picky

[...] So, where to start looking for a tax pro? Ask a friend or someone whose judgment you trust whom he uses. If you shop around, interview more than one in person. You'll get a better feel for pedigree, fees, specialties and personality.

"Some tax pros are not great communicators," said Joseph Anthony, a licensed tax consultant with Joseph Anthony & Associates Inc. in Portland. "You should know going in what you should expect from your tax pro." [...]

It goes on to offer advice, including questions you should ask.

     

Are We Becoming Argentina?

We're now one step closer to America's coming civil war

[...] Since 1970, America’s public sector has exploded as a percentage of GDP, rising to almost 25% last year. While the national unemployment rate hovers at the 8% mark, government worker unemployment rate is a cozy 3.8%. Sixteen percent of America’s workforce now work for government. By the time the Obama administration ends, we won’t be that far away from Argentina’s 21 percent.

Yet as an economic and social enterprise, government creates nothing.

Far from adding to people’s standard of living, government is the number one cause of poverty in this country. It forces those who depend on its largesse to live hand to mouth, with no time or money to plan for the future. They become unable to fend for themselves---and increasingly resentful of those who can.

When the economy tanks and the government checks have to shrink, their only alternative is to take to the streets. That’s what happening in Argentina, and in Greece; and that’s where the growth of government is taking us here, as this current budget deal increases handouts–and more and more Americans are finding that an unemployment or Social Security disability check is their only life line.

Washington’s Republicans and Democrats alike have become the toll collectors on the road to serfdom–and the road to Rosario. [...]

"Rosario" is the name of the Argentine city the author speaks about at the beginning of the article. Read what he says about it. Is that where we are heading? God forbid.

     

My Brilliant Career. Partime. Maybe.

Well anyway, I'm thinking about it:



I took an online aptitude test, and scored 100%. It seemed mostly to be testing if I was actually paying attention. Not too hard to do.
     

A Criticism of Critics

I enjoyed reading this:

There's A Meanness Abroad in the Land

[...] In many of the reviews I read daily, on a whole range of subjects besides filmmaking, I am so struck with the underlying view the critics seem to have about intelligence. Review after review bespeaks the idea of "look how intelligent I am, I can see – more than most – everything that's wrong with this." (Whatever the this may be.) I was raised with a very different view of intelligence: it valued "look how intelligent I am, I can see – more than most – all the things there are to appreciate, about this."

In our day, and perhaps in other days as well, it is a far rarer soul who makes appreciation the defining motif of his or her life, than those who make criticism their defining goal. Criticism is easy; it takes no brains to say what's wrong with something. Appreciation however, is difficult; you sometimes have to fight to see things to appreciate, digging for example beneath ugly surface impressions, to see some shining beauty underneath. That's why prejudice flourishes. It takes brains to see what there is to appreciate in every man and woman who was ever born. Which should be the goal of every intelligent man or woman. Civilization never decays or vanishes because of a lack of criticism in a society; it decays or vanishes because of a lack of appreciation in that society. As a direct consequence of this, that society tends to preserve the commonplace, while it casually throws away treasures. And criticism causes more meanness to be abroad, in the land.

Every critic begins with assumptions, usually unexamined, that they use to justify their hammering the thing they are examining. [...]

The other day at dinner, were were talking about people we know (or have known) who are habitually critical and fault finding, and how unhappy they are as a result. This reminded me of that. I know that criticism has it's place, but you sure need to balance it, if you want to be happy.

The writer here was talking about a negative review he read of the movie "The Hurt Locker". I love what he said about that. He also ended it with a quote from the composer Jean Sibelius, which made me chuckle.
     

Why the Democrats are holding out

They feel they have little to lose. Here is one explanation:

Obama’s “small deal” could lead to bigger tax increases

[...] The Senate already passed a bill letting the Bush tax cuts lapse for income over $250,000. That bill is very, very popular. The White House expects that if we go over the cliff, the House will have to pass that bill, too, and the president would have little choice but to sign it. That bill raises taxes by a bit more than $700 billion, which is less than the $1.6 trillion the White House wants. But that $700 billion, to the White House, is the baseline: If they get nothing else, they will certainly get that.

And that’s why Boehner’s offer of $800 billion doesn’t impress. The White House already has some $700 billion in the bank, as they see it. The reason to negotiate with Boehner is that an agreement with him could, in theory, push that number well above $1 trillion while stabilizing the debt and avoiding the economic pain of falling off the fiscal cliff. But there’s no reason to cut a deal with Boehner in which the White House gives up spending cuts in order to get a tax increase they can have anyway.

The talk in Washington now is about a “small deal.” That would likely include the Senate tax bill, some policy to turn off at least the defense side of the sequester and a handful of other policies to blunt or delay various parts of the fiscal cliff.

That’s not a very good deal for the short-term health of the economy. Depending on how much of the fiscal cliff gets delayed, we could tip into recession anyway. But it could lead, in the end, to much more revenue than a “big deal” now.

Here’s how it would go. Some time in the next month or so, the small deal would pass and the White House would pocket that $700-plus billion in tax revenue. They really would get that for free, just as the president told Boehner.

But pressure would quickly mount to strike a larger deal, both because there would be another fiscal cliff coming and because the debt ceiling would need to be raised. (The White House swears they won’t negotiate over the debt ceiling, but it’s not exactly clear what that will mean in practice.)

The White House would insist that the next deal includes a 1:1 ratio of tax increases — all of which could come through Republican-friendly tax reform — to spending cuts. So a subsequent deal that included $600 billion or $700 billion in spending cuts would also include $600 billion or $700 billion in tax increases, leading to total new revenue in the range of $1.2 trillion to $1.4 trillion.

[...]

All of which is to say, if Boehner had taken the White House’s deal in 2011, he could’ve stopped the tax increase at $800 billion. If he took their most recent deal, he could stop it at $1.2 trillion. But if he insists on adding another round to the negotiations — one that will likely come after the White House pockets $700 billion in tax increases — then any deal in which gets the entitlement cuts he wants is going to mean a deal in which he accepts even more tax increases than the White House is currently demanding. [...]

Is this a bit simplistic? It's not up to Boehner alone to accept or not accept a deal. He has the rest of the Republican Party to contend with.

But if this turns out to be mostly true, then it doesn't look like it will got to well for the Republicans.
     

South Africa: Will the ANC split?

If it does, it could be a good thing:

Is South Africa following the path of 'the strongman'?

South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress, was once a post-apartheid hero. Now it is the latest caricature of African bad governance, and it no longer resonates with the people. At its upcoming meeting, the party must embrace internal debate and reject economic nationalism.

[...]

The regional cost of South Africa's backward drift is significant. The country's gross domestic product, $408 billion in 2011, accounted for roughly one-third of the combined economic output of all sub-Saharan Africa, yet the country's economy is growing at less than half the pace of the continent's economy.

During the ANC's two decades in power, health-care services have declined sharply. And although the government spends 20 percent of state funds on education, quality in the classroom is now among the lowest in Africa – and fewer than half of students finish the equivalent of high school.

Despite the rapid growth of a black middle class aligned to the ANC, the gap between rich and poor has widened. Low productivity and a failure to diversify the economy away from its dependence on mining have resulted in a perpetual trade deficit.

Both Moody's and Standard & Poor's downgraded the country's sovereign credit rating this fall in the wake of rolling wildcat strikes in South Africa's mining sector. That disturbance was punctuated by the massacre of 34 protesting miners by police in August – the worst incident of state violence since the end of apartheid. There are almost weekly local protests over poor delivery of basic necessities such as water and electricity.

ANC leaders have further hobbled the economy with uncertainty by refusing to end their flirtation with nationalizing at least parts of the mining sector, despite party studies concluding such a move would be disastrous to the country's fiscal prospects. Equally troubling are the party's repeated attempts to erode the independence of the judiciary and national prosecutor and to curb the media.

In a sure sign that the party is out of ideas, it has begun couching its economic strategy in terms of a "second transition," much the way the old Soviet Union floated successive five-year plans.

The great fear among pessimists of South Africa's move from white rule to democracy has always been that the country would go the way of the rest of postcolonial Africa. Like Zimbabwe, Kenya, and others before it, South Africa has reached the fragile point when the ruling party's claim to power no longer resonates with the people.

The ANC remains a liberation movement more than a ruling political party. Ordinary South Africans want jobs, schools, and safe neighborhoods. The ANC wants party loyalty among its ranks and supporters. Unnerved by a restive public, the party has turned to manipulating populist causes and silencing dissent. The people aren't buying it, but there's nowhere for them to turn.

[...]

To the ANC's embarrassment, the Western Cape, the one province ruled by an opposition party, outperforms the rest of the country in nearly every social index. The Democratic Alliance is predominantly white, however, with all the baggage that implies for national electoral appeal in a country still scarred by a history of violent minority rule.

For now, a change in leadership appears unlikely. No serious competitor emerged during the party's nominating process to challenge President Jacob Zuma. He's a wily politician who harnessed a populist backlash against his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, to deflect charges of rape and corruption and assume his party's mantle five years ago.

But South Africa is not without safeguards and the promise of a brighter future. Whereas similar conditions in other states led to military coups d'état and civil wars, South Africa has a strong Constitution, a vibrant civil society, and a rich protest tradition. It is unimaginable that the ANC could ever preserve its power through strong-arm tactics and constitutional violations and get away with it in the medium- to-long term, as President Robert Mugabe has done in neighboring Zimbabwe for decades.

Ironically, the best buffer may be the ANC itself. It is an article of faith among political observers that South Africa will remain a de facto one-party state until the ANC splits. That view holds – and the split looks increasingly inevitable.

The ANC governs in a coalition with its liberation-era partners the Communist Party and congress of trade unions. While that grouping served the cause of overthrowing apartheid, it has become steadily more strained in governing. If the alliance survives one more election cycle, it seems poised to fragment afterward. [...]

Somethings gotta give. An ANC split into two parties could make things very interesting.
     

Sunday Funnies; Mayan Predictions

Since getting DSL, I've been looking at some of the Mayan 2012 prediction videos on Youtube. They're pretty nutty.

Here is my prediction:

     

How about "Mental Illness Control"?

A Proper Response to the Connecticut Murders

[...] But no one can discount one over-riding issue that links every like event involving these types of mass murders, mental health. The Aurora, WV Tech and the Newton slayings all involve a significantly mentally ill individual.

We, as a nation, decided three or four decades ago, that we didn’t have the will or resources to create safe, reliable and appropriate facilities for those who suffer with mental illness. One reason we started to lose our appetite to deal with the mentally ill appropriately was the ever expanding definition that was being associated with the diagnoses. Eventually, every drunk and drug user was labeled mentally ill, and resources allocated to the mentally ill were quickly filled and demand for more and more and more resources taxed the mental health support system.

A history of tragic abuse in mental health facilities also came to light as mental institutions became the playground for every kook doctor who espoused a cure for mental health. With little or no oversight mental health institutions became a real life horror stories. One has to look no further than the lobotomy of Rose Marie Kennedy to demonstrate these abuses.

Thus, by the time the 1980′s rolled around mental health institutions were burdened with more demands for an every expanding diagnose and marked by the mark of abuse. Lost respect led to lost funding which eventually led to the closing of many public mental health institutions.

And, now, mental health, marred by expanded definitions, history of abuse and quackery, lost funding and lost public support, ranks low in the priorities of the American public.

We should realize that there are individuals, through no fault of their own, who suffer from mental illness, which needs to be recognized and dealt with. Additionally, families of these individuals need support, both in resource and emotional support. In return for this support the mental health community needs to stop the ever expanding definition of mental illness and separate those who choose to abuse drugs and alcohol from those who suffer from a non self-inflicted malady. [...]

Our country has had a long history of gun ownership, without these mass slayings. So what has changed? We used to lock up people who had serious mental problems. And now we don't.

*

     

How to seismically retrofit a doublewide

Quake Safe Products

[...] QuakeSafe® foundation systems are specially designed to protect manufactured homes in the event of an earthquake. Standard manufactured home foundations are simply stacked cinder blocks that offer no stability in an earthquake. QuakeSafe bracing is engineered to fully support your home even if the cinder blocks fail. QuakeSafe foundations are engineered and certified to meet state earthquake resistance codes. [...]

The site has a slide show of an installation.

Manufactured Housing Disaster-Resistant Pier Systems

[...] A good foundation gives homeowners peace of mind. For manufactured homes, one option is a disaster-resistant pier system -- stout members rigidly connecting the home's chassis to a slab, grade beam, or array of pads. Some systems incorporate lateral or diagonal bracing for greater resistance. Although often referred to as "earthquake resistant bracing" (ERB) systems, many also resist high winds, frost heaves, and floods. Not only are these systems cost-effective in reducing structural movement (compared to conventional manufactured housing foundations), they can save lives and property. [...]

Most of the articles I've been able to find talk about doing the install while the double wide is being installed. I've yet to see one about retro-fitting, doing the install after the home is build without the bracing.
     

Where "Liberal Democratic" means "Conservative"

San Francisco? Yes, there too, but I'm talking about Japan:

Japan's Governing Party Resoundingly Ousted in Shift to Right

TOKYO — Japan's governing party has suffered a crushing election defeat. Results of parliamentary elections Sunday show the next government will be formed by the Liberal Democratic Party. The conservatives and their allies are expected to take a more hawkish approach in confronting the country's neighbors, but what they plan to do to reverse Japan's long economic decline remains murky.

Japanese voters, as forecast, have tossed out the party they brought into power three years ago.

The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), crippled by defections of lawmakers from its ranks, lost more than two-thirds of its seats in the more powerful 480-seat lower house of parliament (officially the House of Representatives).

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda conceded at a brief news conference.

Noda says the defeat is his personal responsibility, therefore he will resign as head of the party.

Among the dozen parties fielding candidates, at the top with a landslide victory is the Liberal Democratic Party, capturing a comfortable majority of seats. It governed Japan virtually uninterrupted from 1955 until 2009.

The LDP, Japan's traditional conservative party, allied with the New Komei Party (which is closely linked to the controversial Buddhist sect Soka Gakkai), is poised to have a two-thirds majority in the lower house. That will allow it to over ride any vetoes of legislation by the upper house (also known as the House of Councilors), where the Democratic Party of Japan is the largest single party.

The next upper house election is expected in July. [...]

It's an interesting glimpse into Japanese politics.
     

Faith, and Response to a Tragedy

Newtown was a lot like the town I grew up in. I haven't anything to say about it, that hasen't been said by others. I did like this post from The Anchoress:

Newtown and the God who Knows

[...] People will ask, “where was God, in all of this.” God was in the teachers who pulled little kids into classrooms and went into lockdown, and in the first responders who got survivors to safety and reunited with their parents (pray for the first responders, too; they suffer — often in silence — after they have made safe). God was right beside everyone, and is with them in grief. Because he is the God Who Knows all we feel and experience. [...]

She's is Catholic, and is trying to respond to this as a person of Faith. I'm not a Catholic, but I think you don't need to be Catholic to understand or appreciate some of the subtleties she is communicating.

H.T. to Michelle Malkin for the link.

     

A "Martin Luther" for Islam?

Who Wrote the Koran?

For more than two decades, Abdulkarim Soroush has been Iran’s leading public intellectual. Deeply versed in Islamic theology and mysticism, he was chosen by Ayatollah Khomeini to “Islamicize” Iran’s universities, only to eventually turn against the theocratic state. He paid a price for his dissidence. Vigilantes and other government-supported elements disrupted his widely attended lectures in Iran, beat him and reportedly nearly assassinated him. In a country where intellectuals are often treated like rock stars, Soroush has been venerated and reviled for his outspoken support of religious pluralism and democracy. Now he has taken one crucial step further. Shuttling from university to university in Europe and the U.S., Soroush is sending shock waves through Iran’s clerical establishment.

The recent controversy began about eight months ago, after Soroush spoke with a Dutch reporter about one of Islam’s most sensitive issues: the divine origin of the Koran.

[...]

Soroush has been described as a Muslim Luther, but unlike the Protestant reformer, he is no literalist about holy books. His work more closely resembles that of the 19th-century German scholars who tried to understand the Bible in its original context. Case in point: when a verse in the Koran or a saying attributed to Muhammad refers to cutting off a thief’s hand or stoning to death for adultery, it only tells us the working rules and regulations of the prophet’s era. Today’s Muslims are not obliged to follow in these footsteps if they have more humane means at their disposal.

Soroush’s latest views have not endeared him to the powerful conservative wing of Iran’s establishment. Some have accused him of heresy, which is punishable by death. There have been demonstrations by clerics in Qom, the religious capital of Iran, against his recent work. But Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, unexpectedly warned against feeding the controversy. He said those who are employing “philosophy or pseudo-philosophy” to “pervert the nation’s mind” should not be dealt with “by declaring apostasy and anger” but rather countered with the “religious truths” that will falsify their arguments.

In Iran today, many opponents of the government advocate the creation of a secular state. Soroush himself supports the separation of mosque and state, but for the sake of religion. He seeks freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. Thus he speaks for a different — and potentially more effective — agenda. The medieval Islamic mystic Rumi once wrote that “an old love may only be dissolved by a new one.” In a deeply religious society, whose leaders have justified their hold on power as a divine duty, it may take a religious counterargument to push the society toward pluralism and democracy. [...]

     

Rita Hayworth is "Stayin' Alive"

We recently got DSL at our house. No more "FAP" usage to worry about, and now we can watch video in real time too. Hooray!

My dad sent me a link to this video. I thought about it tonight, because the song "Stayin Alive" was mentioned at my CPR class tonight (because it has the right 'beat' for doing CPR!).

It made me think of Rita, and I've wanted to post this for a while now, because she was a fabulous dancer. And these dance moves are timeless.
     

Coming soon to the USA?

Report: Two-thirds of Millionaires left Britain to avoid 50p tax rate resulting in billions in lost revenue for UK government