Category: Ranting

Web Design Annoyance

I know Rolling Doughnut could use a better layout and a few technological bells and whistles. Still, this site gets the basics right.

For example, a problem among websites that I’m starting to see more is a major annoyance with Search functionality. I appreciate the extra help provided by placing the word Search in the text box. It helps me locate it among the mess. Thank you.

But when I highlight the field, the word should disappear. Some sites get this correct and it disappears. Too many, though, don’t. Often I don’t discover this until I’ve already typed a word or two of my search. I then have to edit the text or empty the field and start over. Why? Do the majority of searches include the word search? I doubt it.

If your site is so crammed that you need to include Search to make it obvious, you should probably simplify the design. That’s work, which I don’t bother with myself. Fine. But make the word disappear.

Economics Lessons: Yard Sale Edition

My homeowners association is hosting a community yard sale today, and we’re participating. It’s not going to be the most profitable yard sale possible. We’re learning Frédéric Bastiat’s broken window fallacy in the most literal way possible, which blows because I already understand this and don’t need the experience.

One item (previously) for sale was a bookshelf. It had a pleasant $30 price tag on it, ready to go to a good home. That was until the moment the wind gusted and carried it into one of the side windows of my neighbor’s car. To fix the broken window and the dent will cost us approximately $500.

The economically illiterate will suggest that this is good, because now the glass installer will make a sale he would not have received. Good for him, but I am most certainly not better off, and am unhappy to be participating in this unnecessary charade. I’m still unemployed without a contract. Money is going out without coming in to replace expenditures. The money now going to pay for this window is money that might be needed for items I might need more than new glass for my neighbor’s car. Like food.

It won’t come to that, of course, so Whole Foods has nothing to worry about. But what about the new company I might invest in but now must live without that last $500? What if I might’ve used that $500 to buy sport suspension on a new MINI (when I land a new contract)? Would MINI USA like to have that $500 instead of the local glass installer?

So, yeah, money is circulating in the economy. That’s wonderful. But there’s more than what is seen. I might start doing this.

Breaking (Not) News: Politicians are dishonest and hate freedom.

Add Montgomery County, Maryland to the list of governments that doesn’t trust its residents and business owners. Yesterday, it passed a ban on trans fats in “food service establishments”. The story offers the standard fare discussion, which misses how anti-liberty such government intrusion is. For example:

The move comes as health officials across the country decry a rise in bad eating habits, growing waistlines and an increase in heart disease and other ailments. The anti-trans fat bill puts Montgomery in the vanguard of a growing national movement to make it easier to obtain healthy foods in restaurants and grocery stores.

I disagree that easier is the correct word to use in that paragraph. Such anti-trans fat bills seek to make it obligatory to obtain healthy foods. Why bypass that? To make this sound more reasonable? Don’t bother; nothing can make this reasonable.

That doesn’t mean I like trans fats. I avoid them. But I’m not egotistical enough to believe that what I choose for myself is the best, or at least desirable, choice for everyone. We’re all unique human beings with different, subjective preferences and an individual risk aversion not readily apparent to government busybodies. Personal choice is better than institutionalized denial of choice.

Where governments go wrong with that is most apparent in this:

Council member Duchy Trachtenberg (D-At Large), the bill’s chief sponsor, said she thinks the food industry will be able to adjust. Some Montgomery establishments, such as the Silver Diner and Marriott Corp., stopped using trans fats voluntarily.

I wonder what evidence Councilwoman Trachtenberg used to come to her conclusion that the food industry will be able to adjust. Wishing isn’t evidence.

“The goal is to protect the public health,” she said. “People want to know what they are eating.”

And there’s the deceit. Mandatory menu labeling would achieve her stated goal, for customers to know what they’re eating. They’d have the information to make an informed choice. But that’s not the bill Councilwoman Trachtenberg sponsored. What she’s done speaks louder than what she said.

Will Councilwoman Trachtenberg achieve her stated goal?

Gene Wilkes, owner of Tastee Diners in Bethesda and Silver Spring, said the ban will force him to eliminate certain items, such as lemon meringue pie and chocolate cream pie, which he buys from a supplier. His popular biscuits, made in bulk at the diners from a General Mills mix that contains trans fats, will be a no-no. He said he’ll begin making them from scratch, most likely.

I guess if people in Montgomery County want to know what’s in their lemon meringue pie or chocolate cream pie, they’ll know because they’ll have to make it themselves. Mission accomplished. Right?

Is a balanced diet unnecessary if you eat meat?

There is no need to be specific in placing blame when it’s possible to place guilt by association for those who are unacceptably different.

A Superior Court jury in Atlanta convicted a vegan (VEE-gun) couple of murder and cruelty to children today in the death of their six-week old, who was fed a diet largely consisting of soy milk and apple juice.
…

Defense lawyers said the first-time parents did the best they could while adhering to the lifestyle of vegans, who typically use no animal products. …

I can accept that veganism is relevant to this story as it pertains to the parents’ approach to feeding their child since the child died of malnutrition. But this child did not die because his parents are vegans. Without a varied diet full of nutrients, a human will die on any diet. Feed a child nothing but shrimp and eggs and he will become malnourished. This is not complicated. These parents were stupid and incompetent. Their son died as a result.

To the reporting, it’s helpful that the reporter included a simple definition¹ of veganism for readers, with a handy-dandy pronunciation guide to go along with it, but veganism expects more than soy milk and apple juice. Anyone capable of stringing two words together should be able to figure this out. Implying that vegans condone such nonsense is irrational.

This story is tragic, of course. A boy is dead who should and could be alive. But the reporting on this story amounts to little more than intellectually lazy voyeurism. “Hey, look at the freaks. This is what happens if you’re a freak. Don’t be a freak.” Please. Try harder or don’t bother.

¹ The word typically makes this definition wrong. Strike it from the sentence.

Catching Up: Sports Edition

The Phillies are finally winning. After a dismal start, we’ve started winning regularly, and sometimes even convincingly, in the last two weeks. Standing at 11 wins this month, we go into tonight’s series opener against the Braves with a better April than the last two years. (Ten wins in each of the previous two Aprils.) Considering how close we’ve been at the finish line the last couple of years, maybe that will be the difference and there will be playoff baseball this October.

It couldn’t have come at a better time, as the Redskins botched this year’s draft. First-round pick¹ LaRon Landry will hopefully become a productive star. His demonstrated talent suggests he will. I hope so, as a fan, but he is not what we needed. I understand the desire to draft talent, but we have a gaping hole in our defense on the line. The Redskins brain trust should’ve addressed this early and often over the weekend. At least Landry will get to showcase his talents when the other teams have infinite time after every snap to find open receivers.

¹ We whiffed on the few remaining picks we had, as well.

Catching Up: Virginia Tech Edition

I don’t have any desire to delve into the political issues arising from the shootings at Virginia Tech beyond the issues I already discuss here. With that in mind, two issues are driving me nuts from the fallout.

Because the murderer at Virginia Tech wrote violent stories, violent stories must now become criminal, regardless of the First Amendment:

Told to express emotion for a creative-writing class, high school senior Allen Lee penned an essay so disturbing to his teacher, school administrators and police that he was charged with disorderly conduct, officials said Wednesday.

Lee, 18, a straight-A student at Cary-Grove High School, was arrested Tuesday near his home and charged with the misdemeanor for an essay police described as violently disturbing but not directed toward any specific person or location.

Such a story might signal a problem that will lead to mass murder. Ban it. Are people really this stupid and oblivious to the evidence that violence in literature and movies and television and theater overwhelmingly does not lead to acting out that violence? The answer appears to be yes, which is a reflection of our desire to ban anything and everything that might be bad, no matter how small the risk actually is. We’re only two weeks beyond the tragedy, yet we’ve already learned the wrong lessons. Brilliant.

I know what happened at Virginia Tech will always follow the school, no matter how much good happened before or happens in the future. It’s human nature to remember the awful more than the good. I realize that my years of happiness with Virginia Tech and being a Hokie are personal, not national. I accept that and won’t try to fight human nature. But I’m not ready to idle away as pontificators misuse language for their agenda.

For example, last week, the editors of the Wall Street Journal analyzed “Blacksburg’s Silver Lining”:

In the wake of an event such as Virginia Tech, our system moves heaven and earth to figure out what went wrong and how to make sure it doesn’t happen again. This of course is what we did after September 11 and after the botched response to Hurricane Katrina.

Here’s what’s really unnerving about this inevitable “process”: In June 2000, the Bremer Report of the National Commission on Terrorism described virtually everything we needed to know about preparing for the kind of attack that occurred in September 2001. Similarly–and you can guess what you’re about to read–in 2002 the Final Report and Findings of the Safe School Initiative, conducted by the Secret Service and the Department of Education, told us virtually everything we need to know to prevent a Virginia Tech.
…

…for the purposes of stopping another Virginia Tech…

After Blacksburg,…

Virginia Tech is a school, not an event. Blacksburg is a town, not an event. The murders at Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, were the event. If you can’t get this right, I won’t listen to anything else you have to say. (Not that the editors provided anything worth adopting, choosing instead for the expected dismissal of rights in favor of the appearance of safety.)

Kip mocks such language and the results of such abuse here, then here and here.

Free speech doesn’t mean it should be said.

In a recent poll Kip asked for input on the worst nonsensical claim to come out of the murders at Virginia Tech. Of the three choices, I voted for the third option, John Derbyshire and Nathanael Blake blaming the victims. Read them both, but I’m going to focus on Mr. Blake’s comments. He had the opportunity to review Mr. Derbyshire’s comments before broadcasting his opinion to the world. Rather than passing, or at least calling out the grotesque implication that the victims didn’t respond correctly to their nightmarish situation, Mr. Blake carried it further.

College classrooms have scads of young men who are at their physical peak, and none of them seems to have done anything beyond ducking, running, and holding doors shut. Meanwhile, an old man hurled his body at the shooter to save others.

Something is clearly wrong with the men in our culture. Among the first rules of manliness are fighting bad guys and protecting others: in a word, courage. And not a one of the healthy young fellows in the classrooms seems to have done that.

If these sentences offered mere speculation, Mr. Blake might earn a pass (barely) because he wrote this on Tuesday, when many details were still unknown, as many are still unknown today. But it’s not mere speculation. It’s a naked assumption that the men did nothing to stop their fates. Bullshit. Even if it happened to be true, and we’ve learned now that it isn’t, it makes no difference. These men and women didn’t deserve to die, whether they died with or without a fight. That’s what counts. It has nothing to do with manliness, for the ability to kick someone’s ass doesn’t make a man. The only male in Mr. Blake’s narrative who isn’t a man is Mr. Blake himself.

For a more thorough analysis, John Cole states the case against Mr. Derbyshire.

Surely there’s an intern who can use Google.

There have been many annoyances from the national and local media this week. I don’t intend to focus on any of them beyond this:

About our name

Our official name is Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, but using the full name is cumbersome. Thus, using “Virginia Tech” is preferable in all but formal uses.

Virginia Tech is used in news releases, feature articles, and publications and on the Web. When using the full name of the university, never use an ampersand instead of “and.” Never use VPI&SU, VPI and SU, VA Tech, or Virginia Tech University.

“Tech” is acceptable after a first reference to “Virginia Tech,” but it should not be used repeatedly or solely.

“VT” and “Va. Tech” are acceptable only in limited, informal situations, such as a news headline where space is tight. Do not use “VT” or “Va. Tech” in body copy, in titles of publications, on signs, or in any formal publication.

To every media outlet determined to continue discussing “Virginia Tech University,” please stop. That school does not exist. Those who know this, and there are many of us all over the country and world, your desire to sensationalize at the expense of even the most minimal amount of research shines through. Is that what you want?

Avoiding Capitalism Because Winners Aren’t Pre-determined

Is this the type of “research” our government listens to?

The influential research firm Carmel Group, whose analysis helped kill the 2003 merger of EchoStar Communications Corp. (ECHO) and DirecTV Group Inc. (DTV), will release a new report Tuesday that outlines arguments against merging satellite radio companies Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. and XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., The New York Post reported in its Tuesday editions.

Sponsored by the National Association of Broadcasters, which has already come out against the deal, the 11-page independent white paper includes a point-by-point rebuttal to the six main arguments put forth by Sirius and XM in favor of a merger.

I like having research back up my opinions as much as anyone, but this is shameless. I shouldn’t worry, though, because I’m sure the National Association of Broadcasters is looking out for customers and only customers, whether those customers choose to purchase the free broadcasts of its members or the non-free broadcasts of its competitors non-members. The FCC will probably fall for it, which is why Sirius’ stock price is down so much.

Retelling the story of America’s Pastime.

The window for the cable industry to make a deal with Major League Baseball for its Extra Innings package is closing. (It ends Saturday.) As time clicks away, I fear that Bud Selig and Co. have no intention of honoring their public pronouncements. Fine, I’ve come to expect that. But I flipped on Field of Dreams this morning at the most awesomest part. When Terence Mann (James Earl Jones) delivered his monologue, he reminded me why I love baseball. Consider:

Here is the text of that monologue for those who prefer a quicker read.

Ray, people will come Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won’t mind if you look around, you’ll say. It’s only $20 per person. They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack.

And they’ll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces.

People will come Ray.

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.

Oh… people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.

Thank God Bud Selig didn’t write the screenplay for Field of Dreams. If he had, Terence Mann would’ve said that only baseball fans watching DirecTV driving a Mercedes SUV could pay the $20 per person and sit in the bleachers. He might make an exception and let people watching MLB.tv riding a Segway get in for $10.

The monologue’s closing wouldn’t be nearly as powerful then, I suspect. Oh… people will come, Ray. People will most likely come.