Categories
meta technology

The Way Things Work

I spent a great deal of time working on a post that I thought might become a classic on my blog. The day after I posted it I got comments (real comments, not spam) on another post that was not even on my front page anymore. The comments quickly built to the point that it was obvious that the older post was a classic. I found myself wondering why the old post had suddenly been discovered. Then I noticed that the old post was listed as a related post to the one I had just posted. Obviously people were reading the post and got interested enough to look at the related posts. Apparently this helped some readers discover the post that would become the classic.

This just goes to validate the effort that I went to in adding plugins to show related posts. Hopefully the classic-posts plugin will help to assure that those posts which are of interest to my readers will never be lost in the archives. This all just goes to prove that Joshua Porter was right in his lessons for would-be bloggers about the value of linking to other posts and displaying your best work even after it is off the front page.

Categories
culture technology

New-Tech Day

I think that today marks the first time that three new technology concepts that I could get excited about have land on my desk in one day. Two of the three are quickly spreading around the internet while the third has yet to gain a widespread following (as far as I know). The first item is Livescribe. The idea of smart paper infused with an invisible grid is not particularly new, but the people at Livescribe expect to have a time-synchronized audio recording to go with the smart paper and they hope to have the smart paper available at prices comparable to regular paper. The pen would be a scant $200 and they expect to be in the market by the end of this year.

The second item is an addition to Google Maps called Street View. Some members of my family will probably be familiar with the view I linked to. I can’t wait until they expand the coverage of this. It will make trip planning much different. As it is, I can sit in my own home and explore New York City.

The third item is Microsoft Surface. The concept of multi-point interactive touch screens that this is based on was demonstrated in February of 2006. I have been excited about the possibilities of this technology for months now, but Microsoft has added the interaction with objects on the surface which makes this idea even more appealing. Like Livescribe, they hope to have this to market by the end of this year although it will not be targeted at the consumer market by then.

Categories
politics

David Koch

I discoverd David Koch I immediately went to look at his campaign sight because I was curious about this unknown candidate from my home state. One way that he has set himself apart from other candidates is that he has already chosen a vice-presidential candidate. I like the way that he made his choice – he selected someone he knew and trusted who had a very different political outlook than he did. This is only functional because they know that they can work together, but I think this has the potential to add depth to a campaign.

In spite of this, David Koch suffers from the same problem that many unknown candidates from outside the mainstream of politics suffer. Like it or not, we have a system in place which we must work with. If our goal is to reform the system, we still need a certain amount of leverage to do that. This leverage is not to be found in David Koch.

Categories
life technology

Places I’ve Been

I have been enjoying reading Mark Hanson’s blog and there I stumbled upon this way to show what states I’ve been to. I can’t count the number of times I been in discussions with people about who has traveled where so I thought this was fun. Since I’ve never been outside the United States this is, sadly, a complete map for me.

Create your map at world66.com

Categories
politics

Our Constitutional Foundation

My preferred perspective about Memorial Day is that it is not simply a day to remember those who have given “the last full measure of devotion” but also a day to reflect on what it is they were protecting. To do that we must look to the foundation of our country. In that mindset I have been reviewing the Constitution.

Our federal government is comprised of three branches. First, the Legislative branch which is composed of a Senate, with representation by state, and the House of Representatives with representation by population. The legislative branch is where laws are made. Second, the Executive branch which is responsible for commanding the military and, with the consent of the Senate, making treaties and appointing other officers of government as necessary. This power is wielded by the President. Third, the Judicial branch which consists of the Supreme Court and other courts as designated by Congress. The courts officiate in law suits, criminal and civil. The Supreme Court has appellate jurisdiction in all cases and original jurisdiction where federal official or a state is a party to the suit.

Each state is required to accept “the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.” In addition, the United States is to guarantee that each state has a republican form of government. Two thirds of each house of congress, or two thirds of the state legislatures are required to propose amendments. Three fourths of the state legislatures are required to ratify an amendment. Nine of thirteen (virtually three fourths) of states were required to ratify the constitution to make it effective.

The first amendment prohibits congress from making laws to establish religion or prohibit the free exercise of religion. This applies to our attempts to prohibit the exercise of religious belief by Iraqis in establishing their government. We should not prohibit their free exercise. This also applies to the Church of Secular Purity. This amendment also protects our rights to peaceably assemble and say/write what we think.

The second amendment rules that citizens have the right to keep and bear arms, but it does not specify that they may own any kind of arms without limitation, or that they can take those arms any place without restriction. There is a fair amount of discretion still available there. Connected to that, the third amendment states that citizens cannot be forced to house soldiers in times of peace. The fourth amendment declares that citizens and their property shall be protected from unreasonable search or seizure.

The fifth amendment provides that we may be spared repeated trials for a single crime and that we need not witness against ourselves. It also provides that citizens shall be compensated when private property is taken for public purpose. The sixth amendment guarantees that we have access in criminal cases to a public trial by an impartial jury in the place where we are accused of committing a crime. It also stipulates that the accused must be allowed counsel and the opportunity “to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” The seventh amendment stipulates that in civil cases involving more than $20 the right to trial by jury stands. The eighth amendment prohibits cruel or unusual punishments.

The ninth amendment specifies that just because a right is not listed in the constitution is not sufficient proof that such right does not exist. The tenth amendment specifies that any power not specified as the jurisdiction of the federal government shall be reserved to the state governments. (I wonder why that seems not to have been applied.)

The eleventh amendment prevents a citizen from suing a state in federal court.

The twelfth amendment separates the presidential and vice-presidential votes rather than awarding the vice-presidency to the second highest vote-getter among presidential candidates. The twentieth amendment specifies the time for changes of president. The twenty-second amendment specifies a limit of two terms per president. (Some kind of term limits should be placed on Senators and Representatives as well.) The twenty-third amendment grants an electoral vote to the District of Columbia. The twenty-fifth amendment specifies that the vice-president becomes president if a president dies in office.

The thirteenth amendment abolished slavery. The fourteenth amendment alters apportionment and other issues left from the abolishment of slavery.

The fifteenth amendment specifies that race cannot be used to discriminate in a citizen’s right to vote. The nineteenth amendment later gave voting rights without regard to gender. The twenty-fourth amendment would later clarify that defaulting on taxes could not be used as an excuse to deny voting rights to a citizen. The twenty-sixth amendment lowered the age for voting from 21 to 18.

The sixteenth amendment allows for income tax.

The seventeenth amendment changes the way senators are chosen from being chosen by state legislatures to being chosen by direct, popular vote.

The eighteenth amendment makes it illegal to produce or distribute liquor. The twenty-first amendment repealed this almost fifteen years later.

The twenty-seventh amendment specifies that congressional pay increases do not go into effect until after a new congressional election. (This would be more useful if we had term limits or pay increases were only active for the successors of those who voted for the increase.)

If we understand our foundation we might recognize the limits of the society that we can build. We can also know how and when to alter the foundation if we do not like the society that it is producing.

Categories
life

Look to the Foundation

I’m not sure what started this train of thought in my mind, but I have been thinking about how things get misrepresented in public understanding. I’m sure that makes no sense to lots of people, but perhaps some examples may illustrate what I mean.

I have often heard someone excuse something they wanted to do by exclaiming that we live in a free country. What does it mean to live in a free country? Examine the foundation – in this case that would be the Constitution.

Currently we are hearing more about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS church) in the news largely because we have a church member running for President. Once that discussion gets started there are many people inside and outside the LDS church who are eager to elaborate on the beliefs and practices of the church. It is easy to bring up the practice of polygamy in early church history. Unfortunately, we always talk about this past practice in the light of current social values and circumstances rather than in the context of the times when it was practiced.

Another topic for discussion is the history of blacks holding the priesthood. Once again there is no mention that at the time that practice began, in the 1830’s, the belief that blacks were not equal to whites in the eyes of God was quite widespread. Those who argue that other churches gave their priesthood to blacks never consider that they also had segregated congregations which would almost require that they give pastoral authority to blacks for the black congregations. The LDS church has never had segregated congregations. The only segregation of congregations is segregation of geography. In other words we have all white congregations in all white areas and all black congregations in all black areas. So long as there is a mixture of races within the geographic boundaries of the congregation there is a mixture of races in the congregation – possible exceptions would be if there was a language rather than a geographic segregation.

The other thing that is never considered is that other churches give their priesthood based on education. Those colleges who receive federal money and provide theological degrees would have been required to give degrees to black students even if they didn’t like the idea. Maybe we need to be careful to look at those different foundations to realize that we are comparing apples to oranges.

If you desire to know about the beliefs of the LDS church you have to look to the foundation which is the Articles of Faith. Whatever other information you might receive, whether from members of the LDS church or not, should be tested against that foundation.

UPDATE 5/30/2007: I just found this column on candidate religions as a political consideration (yes, it was focused on Mitt Romney and the LDS church). I think that my recommendation to look to the foundation is more valuable when investigating the religion from a theological perspective, but the guidelines in that column seem just right for evaluating a religion from a social or political perspective.

Categories
life

Prioritizing My Time

I am starting to discover how much effect my marathon training is having on my time. I had been feeling good that I was able to do my training in the early mornings so that it did not interfere with everything else I have to do. Now I realize that the fatigue from long runs on Saturdays has been causing me to put off things like planting my garden.

Looking forward I see that there will be challenges as I try to complete my race preparations while fulfilling duties at work such as helping with the conference that my company sponsors in the last two weeks before my race.

Today I cut my run short slightly so that I would have more energy to devote to getting my garden established before it’s too late in the season. I have spent the day working hard and thinking about this portion of the challenge of a marathon. I knew when I started that it would be demanding, but I am now beginning to appreciate how demanding it is on my time and energy.

Categories
life

Dutch Oven Saturday

One of the things I enjoy doing is cooking in my dutch oven. Last summer I started a habit of cooking in the dutch oven every Saturday (nearly) and I liked it enough to decide to do it again this year. Because the dutch oven cooks much more than we can eat (until our kids get older) we sometimes invited friends over to share the meal with us. This year I want to make an open invitation for anyone to come share our Dutch Oven Saturdays. The only condition is that you have to tell me in advance when you are coming – in case it happens to be a week that I can’t do it (there will be a few of those).

Technically this invitation is open to everybody although it’s not really reasonable for anyone outside of the more populous areas of Utah to expect to get here. If you want to come and need directions to my house just leave a comment and I will be happy to get back to you.

If you have a good dutch oven recipe to share I would love to hear about it – I’m always collecting new ones.

Categories
life Local politics State

Moving Language

I attended another rally sponsored by C.O.S.T. to talk about the Mountain View Corridor (MVC). Any regular reader here will know that I am very much in favor of the positions advocated by C.O.S.T. and that I have very defined positions about the correct course of action where the MVC project is concerned.

As a known sympathizer with C.O.S.T., I am sorry to report that the rally tonight was probably not helpful to what they are trying to accomplish. The problem was that the tone and language of the rally were too negative. I could see the reactions of many of the people in attendance who went from interested to apathetic.

Interestingly, I had read earlier about how words can spin an argument one way or another. C.O.S.T. stands for Citizens Organized for Smarter Transportation. This sends a positive, issue oriented message. The rally was billed as a “protest rally” which has a negative spin. Unfortunately the rally had a negative orientation as well and the positive message about better alternatives was lost.

The positive side of their argument, which has attracted me, is that there are better alternatives to fix the traffic problem than what UDOT is proposing. These alternatives can alleviate traffic more effectively than the UDOT proposals. They are in favor of a transit system and commercial development that would reduce the need for commuting by providing good jobs closer to home.

The attitude that should be taken is, “let’s work with UDOT to help them see the error of their plans.” Unfortunately the tone of the meeting was, “fight UDOT – they’re trying to destroy our city.”

There are real problems to be addressed with the current UDOT proposals, but instead os spending time showing pictures of dead animals while talking about trash and roadkill, the meeting should have spent more time talking about more substantive concerns such as the possibility that the 2100 North freeway would further impede North/South traffic through Lehi when the city is already divided by I-15 cutting through it. Instead of talking about the height of the proposed freeway there should have been more emphasis on the traffic mess that will result where the Mountain View Corridor reconnects with I-15 just like the connection between I-215 and I-15. During the heavy traffic periods those interchanges come to a standstill – so much for the benefit of another freeway.

I want to see more talking about changing our city to reduce the need to commute. We should be talking about improving the city for the future so that we don’t have to spend our time sounding like poor, picked-on little citizens in this forgotten hamlet being ignored by the big, bad, bureaucratic government agency.

Categories
life Local politics

Connect the (U)DOTs

Two big red flags went up for me this morning when I read UDOT picks Corridor link. First, UDOT is not communicating very well. Second, the media coverage is allowing some misinformation to result from gaps in the story they get from UDOT.

Flag 1: I heard from C.O.S.T., the Deseret News, the Salt Lake Tribune, the Daily Herald, and a citizens group in South Lehi that UDOT had arrived at 2100 North as their preferred alternative. The problem here is that I did not hear from the UDOT mailing list on the Mountain View Corridor that I am subscribed to. Worse than that, the UDOT website still says that they have not identified a preferred alignment in Utah County. I’m sure this is more neglect than malice, but it erodes whatever trust that citizens may have who have an interest in the project. If subscribing to the project email list at UDOT does not get citizens in the loop for news as major as selecting a preferred alternative of the project it is hard to believe that UDOT is trying to work with citizens. It looks like they’re working without citizens.

Flag 2: Two of the three news articles (Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune) mention that Lehi city and groups like C.O.S.T. have proposed an alternative plan that would include a freeway at 4800 North, but then we start to have a breakdown. Both references list the alternative as a freeway at 4800 North and two arterial roads. That leaves the impression that this plan is very similar to the Arterials option that UDOT rejected. There are some similarities, but one major difference is that the Lehi City proposal has “arterials” that are significantly smaller than the arterials that UDOT had proposed. The UDOT arterials are 7 lanes each – about the same size as a freeway. The second gap in the media coverage is that the coverage of the impact of the different alternatives shows that 2100 North is the best alternative, but it does not include any impact of the Lehi City proposal for comparison.

The “arterials” in the Lehi City proposal will be called “boulevards”. This will help clarify what plan we are talking about and it is the name that Lehi city uses in their plan. These two boulevards can be built much cheaper than the UDOT arterials and without destroying any homes. They can be built faster and for less money than the UDOT arterials and start their positive impact on the traffic earlier. They would also be slower roads which makes less impact on the community while allowing for the smaller boulevards to carry approximately the same amount of traffic as the larger arterials.

The boulevards would also augment commercial development in the area where the arterials would impede that development. Lehi would benefit from more revenue from the commercial development, but further benefit comes from local jobs which would reduce the need for commuting. More people would have the chance to have a job close to home rather than needing to commute to Salt Lake or Provo/Orem.

The freeway connection that Lehi City has proposed at 4800 North would be about half as long as the 2100 North freeway from UDOT and would not impact any homes or destroy commercially valuable zones. So while the 2100 North option is probably the best one that UDOT has proposed, it does not appear to be the best option that has been suggested.

I don’t think that UDOT can safely make a decision until they address the Lehi City plan (which UDOT helped to develop before they started the Mountain View Corridor) side by side with their alternatives. I don’t think they are really doing themselves or the public any favors by only sharing half the information and ignoring a better option than the one they are pushing.