The Obamas vs. the Private Sector

The Obamas are officially at war with "corporate America." Michelle Obama famously told young Americans not to, because apparently we don't need anybody in the private sector. It's ok, because their stimulus will fail miserably, proving once and for all the need for the private sector. I expect we'll be on track pretty soon. I suspect congress will be a lot less redistributionist in 2010.

a new deal

The way we treat minorities now works out badly for all parties; minorities are miserable, so we feel guilty, so we give them money, which discourages them from working, making them miserable, making us guilty... We need to break the cycle. We have to eventually give them no money, but giving them less is a good start. The poor hold us hostage by threatening to riot, rob, and ransack if we cut them off. But that is just a bluff, one that we have to call. There is a reason we have police. They are easily equal to the task. Secondly, cuts in public aid would take years and years to happen, plenty of time for any one who isn't mentally retarded or insane to start taking care of themselves.

Double Military Spending, halve Domestic Spending

We should double our military spending so we can simultaneously defeat all of our enemies: Islamists, Mexico, and various, more minor threats like piracy on the ocean. Our domestic spending is way too redistributionist, and the vast majority of it is unneeded. Worst offenders at the federal level: National Endowment for the Arts, Amtrak, foreign aid, farm subsidies, car subsidies, and all other subsidies. We could use money we don't spend on propping up domestic industries on ensuring that foreign countries stop cheating. We need less of our government at home, and more of it abroad. The best known uses for government are military, currency, and schools. I suspect everything else can be done privately. So we can spread American military and schools all over the world and leave the rest of our institutions in history. And I mean everything. We should eliminate cities, counties, and states, because they are wasteful.

Libertarians needn't worry, the world is getting privatized every day

Libertarians fret because so few government functions have been privatized, but if they want to feel better, they should note that all new technology efforts are done privately. Take the trans-Pacific fiber Google and other companies strung recently. Or the whole open-source movement. Or all the different standards: Wi-Fi, WiMax, RSS. The government can't take over these efforts because it moves too slowly. Instead of whining about what should be privatized, and asking for the government's help in doing it, libertarians should just try to put their ideas into practice. Of course, then they couldn't bash the U.S. any more, so they would never do it. One example is private schools. Libertarians want vouchers. But what's keeping them from making a network of private schools and figuring out how to finance it. Private schools are a competitor to public schools, so improve them if you want them to win. I'm not mocking libertarians; I think doing these things would work. The high-tech, private world is moving fast, and people that spend too much time whining about society and the government will be left behind.

the new world order

America runs the world, and it will for the foreseeable future. Here's how we should do it:

• Unilaterally end all our trade barriers. This way we can co-opt countries who are not contributing enough to the global economy by pulling them into the free market.
• Kill whoever kills, or credibly threatens to kill, Americans. This includes Mexican drug soldiers, Pakistani terrorists, and other enemies. We should attack them all-out. No more half-assed poking at Pakistan. We should also just occupy Pakistan, and Iran, too, because we will spend more money fighting them indirectly in Afghanistan and Iraq than we would taking the fight to them. Speaking of half measures, once we destroy the status quo in a country, we should...
• Run foreign countries directly. Giving Iraqis money to run their own country doesn't work; they just steal it. USAID doesn't help much either. Although it does do worthwhile infrastructure projects like wells and pipes, it spends too much trying to preserve a rural lifestyle that really should be eradicated. To stimulate Iraq and Afghanistan's economies, we should make them tax havens. This would bring in the foreign investment they desperately need. 60% of Iraqis are employed by the government, and they are just doing make-work. Bringing in foreign companies would get infrastructure built over there in a hurry, and pay Iraqis more, and wouldn't cost us near what giving them government jobs does. An Iraqi or Afghani military makes no sense; we already have the only real military in the world. We just need to plop a couple of bases down over there and keep defending those countries ourselves. Afghanis and Iraqis can be policemen, though. There needn't be a rule barring Afghanis and Iraqis from the government. They can join the government if they get elected or hired without racial preference.
  

Anarchy is just an Idea

There is no such thing as anarchy. It never happens. One power structure doesn't collapse without another simultaneously rising. According to more radical libertarians, Somalia should be a perfect country, because its government collapsed and they had a fresh start. This is basically what they advocate for the U.S. It doesn't work, though. In fact, such a radical transformation is just inefficient, like reinventing the wheel. Getting stopped at checkpoints along the road every couple of miles, constantly worrying about who will take power next...it's a mess. If no one else, American libertarians at least should stick to the U.S. This recession is a great opportunity to cut taxes and government programs.

browser ui

Imagine if the browser's address bar was even smarter than the awesome bar—a genius bar, I guess. As you type, it recognizes your intent. Type “browser's address bar,” and, like the awesome bar, it shows matches in your history. It also shows search results, like the omnibox in Google's Chrome. As you type, the search results dwindle. Type this entire post, and this post, and others related to it, would pop up. However, if you were just quoting this post, and you continued to write your own post, all search results would disappear. The genius bar would automatically add footnotes, and turn the quote into a link to the search for the quote. As your essay gets longer, the bar becomes a large text input area, complete with text formatting options that would pop up above the essay. Once your essay reached the bottom of you screen and required a new page, the awesome bar would now be a full-fledged word processor. By default, writings would be public. You could just drag the whole thing to a sidebar of contacts, though.Click on the person you want to send it to, and a contextual menu pops up--send it to the person, chat with person, call person?

Much like FriendFeed aggregates and improves receiving information, the unified writing interface would help sending information. One UI expressly for writing beats all the disparate ones that are tacked on to web sites and apps. A good example of this idea in practice is Posterous. This service lets you write an email, then make it a blog post by sending it to post@posterous.com. This makes your email client more useful, which is good because people usually keep their email client open all the time. It saves people from opening another app to blog, which makes good sense. I rarely blog, so even logging into blogger is a little inconvenient, as it is not routine for me;it is not as integrated into my workflow. Right now, my incoming messages are split between google reader and gmail, while my outgoing messages are split between comments on blogs and personal messages on gmail. Ideally, this would all be one service, which I guess FriendFeed is.

Bureaucrats per Acre: a new metric

Imagine a Wikipedia that could only be edited by people in New York City. Each article would be less peer-reviewed, and many topics would no longer be covered at all. Now imagine a Wikipedia that only people in the state of New York could edit. It would be better, undoubtedly, but not as good as one open to the whole U.S., much less the Wikipedia that actually exists, which integrates expertise from the whole world.
Local governments, like cities and counties are hopelessly crooked and unresponsive, because there are too few people watching them. States are better, because they have more people watching them (the whole state) and they de-duplicate government functions somewhat. The U.S. Federal Government is the best legislative body the world has ever seen. It is very closely watched, as the turnout in this years election proves. It houses some of the most effective, efficient government agencies ever, such as the U.S. military.
Topping all these forms of government would be a world government. It would, of course, duplicate functionality less than any other kind. Having one police department instead of 1,000's allows for more specialization, innovation, efficiency, and incorruptibility, thanks to the increased spotlight such a force would endure. It would also be needed in volatile places like Iraq, which increasingly needs policemen more than it needs a military presence. It would have the added advantage of bringing enough minds to bear on issues that are location-specific, such as floods or snow. There would be a state of equatorial coastal communities, a state of mediterranean coastal towns, a state of tropical tourist towns, and so on and so forth. Then the unique problems of each of these types of cities could be tackled by a larger group of citizens than ever before, working closely, when before they didn't work together at all.
Of course, this is a long way from happening, and I can't say when it will, but I know who will make it happen: America. As evidenced by our world's-best federal government, we are the greatest innovators in governance. We will start having fewer states, that make more sense. Then, as we annex countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, we will make them part of that system immediately.
Ultimately, US hegemony will mean less taxes and better government.

The Collapse of the Political Parties

While the Democratic Party seems stronger than ever and the GOP weaker, they are in fact both weaker now than before. This is borne out out by more voters identifying themselves as independents. Both the parties, and all the special interests that have supported them are circling the wagons in preparation for the attack of everyone. They are collapsing into the same policies. Look at the very bipartisan immigration reform bill. Bipartisan is supposed to make something good, but it is often bad, and the reason for the big bipartisanship push is that the partisans (Republicans and Democrats) are both weaker, and together they are stronger. Immigration may be the straw on the camel's back that makes us a more representative democracy forever. The Feds are spending more than almost anyone wants. The only people who support this waste are special interest groups, like big corporations and unions. Big corporations are shrinking by the day, and unions are history. So far, Americans have realized that liberalism doesn't work, and corporatism doesn't work, so they are desperately casting about for something...different. Obama isn't it, which people will soon realize. By then, we will have started to see a decent alternative, namely, small government at home, big government abroad, to paraphrase George Will.

idea for an iPhone competitor

The iPhone is great because of its advances, its big multi-touch screen in particular. Competitors need to out-iPhone the iPhone to beat it. The screen should be stretched to 4.3". To mitigate the increase in the size of the device, you could make the occupy the whole front of the device, even more than the iPhone's screen does. While some may find that putting power-sucking screen behind your thumbs, at the edge of the device is pointless, it would serve two purposes. One: it would make the experience more immersive, like the light some TVs emit to match what's on the screen. Secondly, the edges of the screen on the sides also serve as a dedicated navigation area on sites where content doesn't stretch to the edge of the screen. Continuing with this concept of "dead space" at the edge of the screen, these margins could be the boundary between the page you're looking at and the previous one in history. You would swipe from left to right to go back a page, but if you wanted to open a new tab, you would swipe from right to left, which would bring up your most often-accessed sites.
Put a power button on top. Give it 16 GBof flash memory. Connect to Sprint's 3G network by making an MVNO that buys minutes from them. Include Wi-Fi. Throw in GPS-connected GMaps. Create a Gecko-based browser compatible with Google Toolbar. Pare down the OS so it runs fast on a low-power processor, like the new AMD 1W processor. Have the device boot to iGoogle. Have Google subsidize the whole thing.

Review of Windows Vista

Windows Vista

A small improvement with a big price

Windows Vista looks better than Windows XP.  That's its only major advantage.  Apart from that, searching for files and programs with a mere click on the Start button is nice, and Microsoft also throws in the ability to search from any window.  The only other notable thing about is its price: $120 and up for versions featuring the better looks.

Rated 2/5 on Jun 27 2007 by Coleman Foley

LouderVoice Review Tags: operating system

Vote on this review or write your own at LouderVoice

Review of Windows Media Player 11

Windows Media Player 11

Good media player with a touch of style

Windows Media Player 11 matches iTunes' key features--such as search results appearing as you type your query, and album art-- but puts them in a more intuitive package.  The play/pause button is the size of a coin.  The close, maximize and minimize buttons are larger too.  These little touches make the program a little more enjoyable to use.  It arguably looks a little better than iTunes, too, rounding out its set of slight improvements to Apple's winning formula.

Rated 4/5 on Jun 26 2007 by Coleman Foley

LouderVoice Review Tags: audio, media player

Vote on this review or write your own at LouderVoice

Review of Mozy Remote Backup

Mozy Remote Backup

Slow online storage

Mozy automatically backs up files and folders you choose, at times you would like it to--such as when you are not using your computer.  It is fairly easy to set it up for the first time, as it automatically selects the My Documents, My Music folder, and others for backup, but you have to navigate a Windows Explorer-like file tree to choose other files and folders you want backed up. 

Then the wait begins.  Mozy moves your files to a safe location--but very slowly.  Sometimes the process fails altogether. You can pay nothing to back up 2 GB, or $5 a month for unlimited space.

Rated 3/5 on Jun 26 2007 by Coleman Foley

LouderVoice Review Tags: backup, offsite backup, online backup

Vote on this review or write your own at LouderVoice

Review of Google Desktop

Google Desktop

Solid Overall; A Boon to Widescreen Users

Google Desktop gives you a sidebar, an area at the edge of your screen where you can place a clock, a calendar, and more. The analog clock makes checking the time easy. The calendar is what you would expect, and it also displays upcoming events you have scheduled (using Google Calendar) in a list. You can search your computer using the search box. If you don't want to use the sidebar, you can tuck the search box at the bottom of the screen and get rid of the rest of the gadgets. The search returns results faster than Windows' Find feature does. This is useful for finding and playing an mp3, or finding a program without searching through the Start menu. Overall, the program is very useful, especially if you have a widescreen monitor, because then you can take advantage of the extra space at the edge of your monitor to view data you choose.

Rated 4/5 on Jun 20 2007 by Coleman Foley

LouderVoice Review Tags: konfabulator, sidebar, widgets

Vote on this review or write your own at LouderVoice

Review of Google Reader

Google Reader

Top-of-the-line Feed Reader

Google Reader aggregates RSS feeds.  Adding feeds is easy, and navigating them is a joy. You can view all items, or only those from a specific website.  While viewing an item (a summary of a story) in a feed, you can press j to move on to the next item, k to return to the previous item, or s to star the item.  Starring is handy; it's like bookmarking, but doesn't require a toolbar, so you can use it at any computer.  You can share items, too, by emailing them or putting them at a URL Google Reader provides.  This URL will display all items you share.  You can also embed your shared items in a blog.  

Google Reader is a lens to view the Internet through.  I do most of my reading on the Internet through Google Reader and find it an efficient way of browsing the news in any browser, from any computer.

Rated 5/5 on Jun 19 2007 by Coleman Foley

LouderVoice Review Tags: feed aggregator, feed reader, rss aggregator, rss reader

Vote on this review or write your own at LouderVoice

Review of Google Calendar

Google Calendar

Quick and Easy Calendar Software

Calendars are handy.  Web-based calendars are extremely handy, as Google Calendar shows.  Google Calendar is easy to use and simple, but one feature stands out; you can add events to the calendar by typing them in natural language.  For example, you could schedule walking your dog at 5 PM tomorrow by typing in "walk dog 5 PM tomorrow."  The event would then show up on your Google Calendar on the date you indicated, at the time you specified.  You could also set it to remind you by email and by text message. 

Additional options include adding public calendars, such as baseball teams' season schedules, to your calendar.   You can do this quickly.  Finally, if you use Google Desktop, you can download a Google Calendar gadget that shows your calendar, your agenda (your upcoming events) and allows you to add events using natural language as mentioned before.  This program is convenient, and a boon to web users.

Rated 5/5 on Jun 19 2007 by Coleman Foley

LouderVoice Review Tags: calendar, google, online, web-based

Vote on this review or write your own at LouderVoice

Review of Nokia N800

Nokia N800

Big-screen browsing on a pocketable device.

The Nokia N800 has a 4-inch touch screen, which enables you to do almost everything by touch. Just a few keys populate the left side of the device, including a back button and an application switching button. These are handy when you put the browser in full screen. Even when using this mode, though, text is sometimes too small, so you can press a button on top of the device to zoom in on a page. Next to that button is another one that toggles full screen mode. Another button allows you to zoom out from pages.
You will be zooming and scrolling for hours because the battery lasts a long time. You can also burn the battery up calling people, because the free Gizmo Project software, which you can download, allows calling, even to landlines and cell phones. Another useful service available on the N800 is Rhapsody, the subscription-based music streaming service. You must download and install the program to find and play music. The software is reasonably well-suited to use on a small touch screen-only device. The buttons are big enough to thumb through.
The touch screen experience is more frustrating on the browser, where it can be hard to aim your thumb well enough to land on links you want to hit. Pressing links is another issue altogether. You have to tap them quickly or they won't open. Otherwise, this device performs beautifully. Thumbs up.

Rated 5/5 on Jun 17 2007 by Coleman Foley

LouderVoice Review Tags: internet tablet, pda, touch screen, umpc

Vote on this review or write your own at LouderVoice

Google Page Creator: Easy to Use Web Page Maker

You can make a good-looking website easily using Google Page Creator. After signing up (or signing in with your Google account), you can choose a template and insert content. The default template gives your site a professional look. Updating your creation is easy. Just go to the Page Creator site and choose which page to edit and you're ready to work on your site.

Software Package for Businesses

Google Apps for Your Domain offers Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Talk (an instant messaging client) with twists that businesses will welcome. When you use Gmail as part of this package, your email address can end in your domain name. You can also create a website that uses your own domain name, which doesn't take long at all and is quite easy. Google hosts all of this, and it is all free.

Foxit Reader

If you would like to open PDFs more quickly, Foxit Reader will help you. It opens PDFs much faster than Acrobat Reader. Forget about dealing with update reminders, too, because this program doesn't give them. If this sounds good, you are well on your way to using this program. You can download and install Foxit Reader quickly. Then, you will have to manually set Foxit Reader as your default PDF viewer. Just open the program and click "Ok" to use it to open PDFs.