[Winstonm]

 mike777, on 2014-August-14, 01:05, said:

I look at the universe and see poverty kids and don't see this.
You look at universe at seem to think school and more is an option.

I see rape, and if possible worse.

I see child cut off head or if alive...bury...alive.

adults claim rape is better. Rape is love or something close to love.

the point is so many claim to live in better universe that they hate really hate options to end poverty
---


They do not live in a universe where 200K or more child are raped and sold for sex in usa....

they live in universe of one..I repeat one.

Posters live in a universe where evil...true evil is a debate.

True evil is a creation of mans' minds. It is real in the sense that we are real; our actions are real; and our choices determine our actions. But evil is not a thing - it is a concept - and all concepts originate in the mind.

[Vampyr]

 barmar, on 2014-August-13, 12:59, said:

But he also has a few free Android apps, and he's earning around $70/day from the embedded ads. That's about $25K/year, probably an order of magnitude more than I made with my paper route 40 years ago.

How does this work?

[Winstonm]

 mike777, on 2014-August-08, 14:09, said:

We need all that expensive war machinery such as a world wide navy and world wide ranging airforce if the world wants us to be the policeman or world leader such as today in Iraq and Africa and South America.

ONe small example, I do not see any other countries making air drops in Iraq this morning.

IF we should not be able to have the infrastructure to do this, ok. If we should turn inward such as Western Europe, fair enough but making doing what we did today in Iraq is very very expensive and risky.

I am finding it interesting that the conservative-thinking posters like Mike777 encourage defense spending as their brains are more attuned to seeing threats. This is not necessarily wrong; nor is it automatically correct simply because one shares similar thinking patterns.

What we could use more of, IMO, is critical thinking, which attempts to remove as much as possible bias from observations and conclusions.

These forums can be beneficial. For example, I am not nearly so keenly against intervention as I used to be.

[barmar]

 Vampyr, on 2014-August-17, 15:28, said:

How does this work?

You embed ads into your app using a service like Google Adsense. Then sit back and wait -- they send you a check every month.

[Vampyr]

 barmar, on 2014-August-18, 10:00, said:

You embed ads into your app using a service like Google Adsense. Then sit back and wait -- they send you a check every month.

How do you disseminate your apps?

[kenberg]

 barmar, on 2014-August-18, 10:00, said:

You embed ads into your app using a service like Google Adsense. Then sit back and wait -- they send you a check every month.

Something for me to do in my retirement????
I suppose I would first have to find out just exactly what an app is. And I would probably have to learn how to use a smartphone. Oh well.

[billw55]

 kenberg, on 2014-August-18, 11:55, said:

Something for me to do in my retirement????
I suppose I would first have to find out just exactly what an app is. And I would probably have to learn how to use a smartphone. Oh well.

"App" is the currently popular term for what we used to call a "program". A piece of software that runs on certain hardware/OS platforms. My kids, both in high school, think this ridiculous, although they cannot tell me the difference between an app and a program.

[kenberg]

 billw55, on 2014-August-18, 13:20, said:

"App" is the currently popular term for what we used to call a "program". A piece of software that runs on certain hardware/OS platforms. My kids, both in high school, think this ridiculous, although they cannot tell me the difference between an app and a program.

Yes, I understand sort of, with the emphasis on sort of. For example, I just watched Obama's speech on my computer. I went to ABC and clicked on some stuff. (Actually the only part that came up was the Ferguson part, who cares about Iraq, but I imagine I could find the rest). Did I "use an app"? I think it ran on Flashplayer. That's an App? Becky sometimes plays games on the computer by going to the AARP site. An app?

I am loosley toying with the idea of putting a couple of mathematics based games up on a website sometime. I am pretty sure I can just set this up so people can play them, providing I get around to writing them. Would I be "writing an app"? If I ever do it, it would be free, just like the games at AARP. Please don't hold me to actually doing this!! I'm busy with some other stuff right now.

And of course I play bridge on bbo. That must be an app, right?

Perhaps we need to ask your kids for the answers here.


PS When my younger daughter was very young and was struggling with arithmetic I made up this game that involved subtraction. She generally loved games and was good at them but when i got to the part about subtraction she stood up, announced that she was not playing any stupid subtraction game, and stormed out of the house. So my record in this area is not real strong.

[blackshoe]

Regarding "defense spending," and speaking as one who spent most of his working life as a Naval Officer during the Cold War: I think the United States should be prepared to defend itself against any and all aggressors. I do not think we should be sending billions of dollars to other countries so they can defend themselves. Nor should we be sending money or arms to insurgents in other countries, even if we think they'll be friendly to us if they win. Nor should we be manipulating things, or people, or committing assassinations, in order to put "friendly" regimes in place. That's backfired on us virtually every time we've tried it. Nor should we be blowing up a couple of dozen people with drones in order to kill one terrorist. I think we need a competent Navy (and Marine Corps) designed to counter the currently expected threat (IOW fewer aircraft carriers, and more "littoral combatants", but with an eye towards threats that would change that threat (e.g. a Chinese or Indian "blue water" navy). I think we need to heed the Constitution and get rid of our standing army. The Air Force should probably be treated just like the Army - stand down most of it. Oh, and bring our overseas troops home. We don't need (except maybe for political reasons) our big bases in Europe, for example, and besides, there's a lot of sentiment amongst locals in many places along the lines of wishing we'd just go away.

In summary:

Army/Air Force: bring 'em home, draw 'em down. Sufficient cadre to provide a base if we need to "ramp up," no more. Concentrate on training. Set up a voluntary enlistment program where the enlistee gets very good combat training plus non-combat job specific training (might take a few years) and then let 'em go back to civilian life, subject to recall if needed (generally, if war is declared - by Congress).
Navy/Marines: Sufficient ships and manning (including Marines) to handle what we need to handle immediately (pirates, attacks on US citizens in foreign countries, and so on) plus the ability to "ramp up" if the threat changes. Minimum number of carriers, say two or three deployed, the same in workup, at least two, probably three, in overhaul, total six to nine. I'd also like to bring back the concept of Marine detachments on at least cruisers (and the afore-mentioned littoral combatants if they're not considered cruisers). Basically a cruiser's job is to steam independently, show the flag, and where necessary deal with problems in foreign lands before they get too big. If they're already too big, send in a carrier battle group or amphibious expeditionary force. NB: the purpose of deploying carriers and amphibs is so that it doesn't take 'em a week to get there when they're needed - the ocean is a big place.

Added thought: The idea on the army/air force above could be met by state militias, but we'd have to take care if we went back to that model or something like it that the militia are all properly trained and that somewhere along the line we don't again get "we ought to nationalize these guys, make 'em subject to direct federal control". I'm not saying that direct federal control is a bad idea - in wartime. In peacetime I'm not at all sure it's necessary, with adequate quality control. I would, in this model, give each state a specific goal to be met - so many troops at mobilization, so many 30, 60, 90, 180, 360 days after mobilization.

[Mbodell]

 kenberg, on 2014-August-18, 15:19, said:

Yes, I understand sort of, with the emphasis on sort of. For example, I just watched Obama's speech on my computer. I went to ABC and clicked on some stuff. (Actually the only part that came up was the Ferguson part, who cares about Iraq, but I imagine I could find the rest). Did I "use an app"? I think it ran on Flashplayer. That's an App? Becky sometimes plays games on the computer by going to the AARP site. An app?
I am loosley toying with the idea of putting a couple of mathematics based games up on a website sometime. I am pretty sure I can just set this up so people can play them, providing I get around to writing them. Would I be "writing an app"? If I ever do it, it would be free, just like the games at AARP. Please don't hold me to actually doing this!! I'm busy with some other stuff right now.
And of course I play bridge on bbo. That must be an app, right?

Probably you were using an app. The BBO app is definitely an app.

An app is just short for application. These things come in waves or pendulums. Here's a semi-accurate history (skipping mainframes and everyone "inventing" things by simply copying Unix and Xerox Parc):

A long, long time ago (I.e., 20-25 years ago) on people's personal computers you installed software programs. These programs (like WordPerfect, Lotus123, Excel, Solitaire, Kings Quest, Doom, etc.) were installed on your machine. Some would call them software or integrated programs, or programs, or applications.

Then there were a set of programs like Mosaic, Netscape, Lynx, Internet Explorer that let you view web pages on the internet. Originally, these web pages were primarily text (largely aol users posting "me too") but eventually you got images, animation and sound (like the dancing baby, or the hamster dance, or the especially important construction animations letting you know the web page was under construction - don't BLINK TAG or you might miss it!).

Once somebody set us up the bomb and we all got sick of geocities web pages and banner adds (punch the monkey!) and the internet bubble folded and it was all over for a while.

But people were hard at work inventing AJAX and other forms of sophisticated web pages (and rebranding it as web 2.0, post-bubble). These web pages did fancy things and were more like the programs you installed in their functionality. Things like google and hotmail and ebay and delicious. As those evolved people refereed to them and their descendants (say Google docs, Google maps, etc.) as "web applications".

Meanwhile, it was all about UCG (user generated content) and social. A mix of company/products/services/apps like Friendster, myspace, blogger, wikipedia, orkut, flickr, youtube, facebook, etc. were created.

But while everyone was distracted by cat videos on YouTube (you could follow this link - but you know the rules, and so do I), Steve Ballmer, then CEO of Microsoft, accurately predicted the future in 2007: "There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance." Or maybe the opposite. Who knows.

As people started using iPhones Apple helpfully had a mediocre web browser, making using web applications a little more difficult. Fortunately, they also had a great iTunes store which was rebranded as "The App Store" where you could publish native applications. These had the advantage that web applications would work on other devices like Android and Windows phones, while iPhone Apps just worked on iPhones. Also web applications could be written in any language, while iPhone apps had to be written in objective-C (an obscure language). Finally web applications could use any business model or pricing plan (or free) while iPhone applications would pay Apple 30% of their cost and 30% of their in application purchases. Great success! Clearly these iPhone apps were a step forward for everyone, or maybe everyone except Apple?

As Apple owned the mobile world, could anything challenge them? What would Steve Ballmer say in 2011: "You don’t need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows Phone. I think you do to use an Android phone … It is hard for me to be excited about the Android phones". Today Android devices are more and more popular and now more and more people use Android (more android devices than windows and apple combined in fact), and people are forced to write custom code for both platform (and also for blackberry and windows phone - just kidding). This custom code is a major burden for companies, as compared to the web applications, but to use the functionality of these phones and tablets (microphone, fast graphics, phone contacts, gps data) you often had to go "native" applications. These applications become square tiles or icons on your phone screen that you can click to launch. This is not to be confused with icons on a desktop/laptop computer which launch programs instead. Or icons that just launch a browser to a web application. They are all very different, needing special skills of growth hackers and ninjas to implement. Or kids aged 6-20.

So a lot of architectural purists would encourage people to stay with web applications. But because facebook had a really bad mobile web application many companies have gone to native applications instead. And I'm typing this on a desktop application. But when people say "app" they usually mean of the type you could buy from the "app store" and hence a native app.

What does the future hold? Who knows (other than not Steve Ballmer), but even right now though you can hear the pendulum swinging towards "The Cloud" (although maybe the awful movie Sex Tape will have killed it) which could power web applications (would that be web 3.0? or is that web 4.0? Or maybe web 3.0 is the semantic web and Siri and Google Now and we'll all be dating Scarlett Johansson voiced operating systems?). Maybe it will be super fancy apps (like an app to say "Yo")?

[kenberg]

That's a lot to digest but I really appreciate it. I have generally looked forward to understanding what's going on with the computer world but lately there have been a lot of devices that do things that I don't particularly want to do and so I am in danger of losing touch. Maybe seriously in danger, so it seems as I read over this history.

We were recently out on the Oregon Coast walking the shoreline, walking trails, lounging around in the local coffee shop. I logged on a couple of times, I just couldn't help myslef, but all in all it was a tech free ten days or so. Getting this balance right is a challenge but I do want to keep up with it, at least not be totally left behind.

Thanks.

[barmar]

 Vampyr, on 2014-August-18, 10:45, said:

How do you disseminate your apps?

You upload it to the App Store.

[PassedOut]

The republican party today proudly wages class warfare on behalf of the rich against the middle class and the poor. But a piece in the NY Times by historian Heather Cox Richardson lays out just how far today's republicans have strayed from Lincoln's vision: Bring Back the Party of Lincoln

Quote

The history of the Republican Party is marked by vacillation between its founding principle of opportunity and its domination by the wealthy elite. The party came together in the 1850s in opposition to the wealthy slaveholders who controlled the federal government. Democrats acting on their behalf insisted that America’s primary principle was the Constitution’s protection of property, and they pushed legislation to let planters monopolize the country’s resources at the expense of the working class.

Abraham Lincoln and others recoiled from the idea of government as a prop for the rich. In organizing the Republican Party, they highlighted the equality of opportunity promised in the Declaration of Independence and warned that a healthy economy depended on widespread prosperity. Northerners and hardscrabble Westerners flocked to that vision, and elected Lincoln to the White House in 1860.

Even as the Civil War raged, Republicans made good on their promise: They gave farmers their own land, created public colleges, funded a transcontinental railroad, took control of the national currency away from rich bankers, and ended slavery. To pay for their initiatives, they invented national taxes, including the income tax. The middle class grew, and the North and West, regions covered by the new programs, boomed.

But as soon as the war ended, wealthy Americans joined with those who hated African-Americans and immigrants to insist that slaveholders had been right: Permitting poor men to have a say in government had produced policies that redistributed wealth. Only a few years after building a federal system that cleared the way for equal opportunity, Republicans faced a racist and xenophobic backlash against an active government — and they folded. By the 1880s, the party’s leaders had abandoned their message of opportunity and tied themselves to big business. Like the slaveholders before them, they argued that the rich were the country’s true producers, directing the work of lesser men. The party strengthened laws that protected business and crushed laborers, then jiggered the electoral map to stay in power.

Republicans controlled the federal government for decades after the Civil War, and their policies funneled wealth upward — with dire consequences. In 1893, the economy crashed, and too few Americans had enough purchasing power to revive it. Lincoln had been right: Government that served the wealthy would ruin the country.

The party responded, and a new Republican Party emerged from the Panic of 1893, rededicated to Lincoln’s vision. Led by Theodore Roosevelt, the progressive Republicans recognized that government had to address the systemic inequalities of industrialization or no man could rise.

They cleaned up the cities, promoted public education, protected workers and regulated business. Their policies fed a strong and growing middle class; their vision resurrected the Republican Party.

But, as before, wealthy Americans pushed back. During the “Red Summer” of 1919, they whipped up riots against African-Americans, immigrants and workers, accusing them of sucking tax dollars from hard-working white people.

And again, the party folded: During the ensuing backlash against government activism, Republican leaders handed policy making to businessmen. In the 1920s, they slashed taxes and government programs and refused to address growing economic inequalities.

Who will be the next Teddy Roosevelt for the republicans? Beats me, but today's republicans surely need one.

[PassedOut]

For folks who love to travel, it has become increasingly depressing to return to the US because of the relatively poorer infrastructure, seeing the gap worsen every year. This goes beyond transportation, health care, and schools.

An BBC News piece, following up on an article in the Guardian, discusses one of the major sore points, the terrible internet service in the US: Why a Tennessee town has the fastest internet

Quote

The town, with a 2012 population of just more than 171,000, has used its internet speeds of over 1 gigabit per second to attract new businesses, including five venture capital funds with 2014 investment capital of more than $50m (£30m), according to the Guardian.

Chattanooga's success is a testament to the power of government infrastructure investment, writes Daily Kos blogger Steven D.

It's also, he says, a threat to the private telecommunications monopolies, which are content to offer lower levels of service, "slowly draining the lifeblood out of our nation even as they steal whatever is left in our pocketbook".

He contends that private-sector malaise and greed are part of the reason why US internet speeds currently ranks behind 30 countries, including South Korea, Romania and most of Europe.

"Uruguayans have better internet service than citizens of the 'greatest nation on earth,'" he writes. "Pretty damn embarrassing, if not a big surprise."

Companies like Cox and Comcast are trying to prevent public utilities like EPB from competing directly with private internet providers, he says.

Folks who vote republican in the US today believe strongly in the free lunch: that you can lower taxes without lowering the quality of our infrastructure and services. We're experiencing the result.

[barmar]

 PassedOut, on 2014-September-04, 11:03, said:

The republican party today proudly wages class warfare on behalf of the rich against the middle class and the poor. But a piece in the NY Times by historian Heather Cox Richardson lays out just how far today's republicans have strayed from Lincoln's vision: Bring Back the Party of Lincoln

Who will be the next Teddy Roosevelt for the republicans? Beats me, but today's republicans surely need one.

The thing I take away from that piece is not that there could be another Teddy Roosevelt, but the discouraging fact that whatever gains he might achieve, they'll only be temporary. Big business always wins in the long run, because campaigns and lobbying cost money and big business owners have most of the money.

It's like casinos. Some players may walk away from the tables with a player, but the house always wins overall. Everything is stacked in their favor.

[PassedOut]

 barmar, on 2014-September-04, 14:30, said:

The thing I take away from that piece is not that there could be another Teddy Roosevelt, but the discouraging fact that whatever gains he might achieve, they'll only be temporary. Big business always wins in the long run, because campaigns and lobbying cost money and big business owners have most of the money.

It's true that history has its ebbs and flows, but I disagree that all the gains are temporary. Long after Lincoln, slavery in the US is still outlawed. Long after Teddy Roosevelt, the US still has a system of national parks. And on the other side, long after Franklin Roosevelt, the US still has a social security system.

[kenberg]

 PassedOut, on 2014-September-05, 05:51, said:

It's true that history has its ebbs and flows, but I disagree that all the gains are temporary. Long after Lincoln, slavery in the US is still outlawed. Long after Teddy Roosevelt, the US still has a system of national parks. And on the other side, long after Franklin Roosevelt, the US still has a social security system.

And, as you are aware, the list could be made longer. The Interstate Highway system under the Republican Eisenhower, It has its good parts and its bad parts, but it was needed. Integration of the Armed Forces under the Democrat Truman (by Executive Order, incidentally) is another example. Etc.

As to poverty, a current issue of mine is the rash of casino openings in Maryland. There is a new one in Baltimore, and another to be opened soon along the Potomac. The rich will not be jetting in to Baltimore to shoot craps and I am not so sure they are going to go to National Harbor, the place along the Potomac, either. The casinos are already taking in a lot, over a half billion yearly I think, with the two new openings it will easily surpass the billion mark I think. Mostly this comes from people who cannot afford it, many of them being supported by my tax dollars. From me to them to the casino operators.


The basic problem is that a lot of people have no sense. This is really tough to fix.

[Winstonm]

 kenberg, on 2014-September-05, 08:03, said:

And, as you are aware, the list could be made longer. The Interstate Highway system under the Republican Eisenhower, It has its good parts and its bad parts, but it was needed. Integration of the Armed Forces under the Democrat Truman (by Executive Order, incidentally) is another example. Etc.

As to poverty, a current issue of mine is the rash of casino openings in Maryland. There is a new one in Baltimore, and another to be opened soon along the Potomac. The rich will not be jetting in to Baltimore to shoot craps and I am not so sure they are going to go to National Harbor, the place along the Potomac, either. The casinos are already taking in a lot, over a half billion yearly I think, with the two new openings it will easily surpass the billion mark I think. Mostly this comes from people who cannot afford it, many of them being supported by my tax dollars. From me to them to the casino operators.


The basic problem is that a lot of people have no sense. This is really tough to fix.

Or, as comedian Ron White puts it, "You can't fix stupid."

[barmar]

Casinos are a big issue here in MA, too. The legislature passed a casino bill a few years ago, but potential operators have been struggling to overcome all the hurdles to licensing -- they need approval from the state Gaming Commission, the city/town where the casino would be located, and abutting towns can also weigh in. A license was finally awarded for a casino in Springfield a few months ago, but there's a question on this fall's ballot that would repeal the casino law, so the license is provisional on that failing.

And there's a decent chance that stupidity could have a big effect on the outcome of this ballot question. It's titled "Expanding Prohibitions on Gaming". If you're against casinos, you have to vote "yes".

http://www.masslive....aling_mass.html

[billw55]

Casinos are one the most depressing things in our society IMO. A mechanism designed and intended to get poor people to voluntarily hand their money over to a few rich operators, with the government taking a cut. And it works, consistently. Really sad.