Moe Lane

Heeeeeeere’s the situation:

In an application filed last year and made public last month by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Apple is seeking a patent for technology that displays advertising on almost anything that has a screen of some kind: computers, phones, televisions, media players, game devices and other consumer electronics.

[snip]

Its distinctive feature is a design that doesn’t simply invite a user to pay attention to an ad — it also compels attention. The technology can freeze the device until the user clicks a button or answers a test question to demonstrate that he or she has dutifully noticed the commercial message.

…and heeeeeeere’s the problem:

It’s amazing how many of these vendors fail to understand Chekhov’s first law of narrative: “A gun on the mantelpiece in act one is bound to go off by act three.” That is, if you design a device that is intended to attack its user — by shutting her out of her own files and processes against her wishes and without her consent — someone will figure out how to use that device to attack its user.

Well, one of the problems. The other major one is that forcing people to maintain constant awareness of what their computer is doing is a very stupid idea.  Particularly if you’re producing for a niche customer base in the first place.  You know how people hate pop-up ads?  This is worse.  Particularly if the company does something really dumb, like integrate this kind of technology into their new iPods.  Fastest way to lose dominance of that particular market that I can think of.

Moe Lane

Accurate enough, as far as it goes: but I don’t think that it got any more than the gist of this sort of gameplay…

Oh, wait: that was the condensed version.

Yes. Yes, this is much more accurate.

Can this be done, now?

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, 02 December, 2009 – With a vote of 111 in favor and 14 against, the National Congress of Honduras today overwhelmingly rejected the restitution of Mr. José Manuel Zelaya Rosales to the presidency of the Republic. Also, Congress passed a motion supporting the succession leading to the constitutional presidency of Mr. Roberto Micheletti Bain. Members in turn strongly and affirmatively expressed of the permanence of President Micheletti in office until January 2010, confirming Decree 141-2009, with 111 votes for and 14 against. The president-elect of the Republic, Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo will take office on January 27, when the new President of Congress will place the presidential sash.

Via Fausta.

Look, it’s over, all right?  The deposed President of Honduras tried to Chavez his way into keeping power.  His own political party, in conjunction with the military and judiciary, removed him from office.  We jumped the gun on condemning the action, and have been regretting it ever since.  They have had a legitimate election where the opposition party won.  The current government is loudly declaring how ecstatic they are over the idea of handing power over to the winners of that election.  And now their legislature has declared that they are not going to put Zelaya back in power – and a position from which to do mischief – until January.

So let’s just make an example of some scapegoat from the State Department and Move. On.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

In this respect, at least, the country would be better off if Obama really did have brilliant oratorical skills.

- Taranto, in discussing the President’s West Point speech (H/T: Instapundit).

Truth of the matter is, while the President is great at inspiring people who want to be inspired, he’s not that good at persuading people who don’t want to be, or who are going to be in opposition to what he wants them to do.  This would be less of a problem for the man if he weren’t a fairly typical bicoastal, Ivy League-educated academic who has been operating in one or another gentle bubble of privilege since the age of ten*.  Said bubbles do in fact teach many valuable life lessons.  Learning to handle fundamental disagreement on core issues is typically not one of them.

Ach, well, it’s not like I need the man to succeed (or fail!) to feel good about myself.

Moe Lane

*Although I do give him props for working in a Baskin Robbins while in high school.  Admittedly, if he’s held a real job since then, it’s news to me.

Crossposted to RedState.

Not to be sappy, or anything.

What A Wonderful World, Louis Armstrong

Yeah, I’m surprised that I haven’t done Groundhog Day yet, either. Go figure. Well, after two weeks you’re probably just as happy to not see Transformers: 25th Anniversary Matrix Of Leadership Edition [The Complete Series] anymore anyway.

That would be, like, cool and stuff: you can domesticate cheetahs (they were used as hunting animals in the medieval period, in fact). Obviously, they’re not as safe as a Golden Retriever, and I wouldn’t leave my kid alone in the same room as one – but they’re not really all that dangerous to an adult human.  Having them wander the alleyways of Manhattan would add a certain something (sayeth the person who would not be responsible for cleaning up the cheetah poop).

Unfortunately, it’s not about examples of Acinonyx jubatus literally wandering around NYC, more’s the pity.

Wait, what?

The New York Times is as predictable as the sunrise, frankly:

ALBANY — The State Senate defeated a bill on Wednesday that would legalize same-sex marriage, after an emotional debate that touched on civil rights, family and history. The vote means that the bill, pushed by Gov. David A. Paterson, is effectively dead for the year and destroys the optimism of gay advocates.

The bill was defeated by a decisive margin of 38 to 24. The Democrats, who have a bare, one-seat majority, did not have enough votes to pass the bill without some Republican support, but not a single Republican senator voted for the measure.

Actually, by definition the Democrats had enough votes to pass the bill in the state Senate: they just lost roughly 25% of their caucus to the opposition. Which is about the proportion that it looks like Democrats lost in the Assembly vote – but NY’s Assembly is more lopsidedly Democratic than the Senate, so it didn’t matter there.

Personally, I wish that they had passed the damned thing – but I’ll likewise be damned if I let the NYT blame the GOP for something that they ought to be blaming the Democrats for.  The GOP does not control the NY state Senate.  The Old Grey Lady can stop pretending that it does, thanks.   Even if it means admitting that the Democrats are rampaging hypocrites on gay right issues.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

House version (Via Instapundit):

Congressmen John Carter[*] (R-TX) and Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) yesterday introduced the Geithner Penalty Waiver Act, requiring that the IRS assess the same penalty against U.S. taxpayers that came forward in the UBS tax fraud investigation as paid by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for failing to pay taxes on his IMF income — zero.

Pretty self-explanatory, isn’t it? I like Rep. Carter. And not just because of his name.

Senate version (Via Don Surber):

In their first shot at the measure this week, Republicans decided to try to strike at the heart of how Democrats plan to pay for the $848 billion measure by attempting to eliminate the proposal’s almost $440 billion in Medicare cuts.

But instead of offering a conventional amendment, they decided to use an esoteric procedural tactic that would send the bill back to committee with instructions to eliminate the cuts. If successful, the GOP’s gambit would force Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to use time-consuming procedures and hold another filibuster-killing vote on whether to restart debate on the bill.

That takes it off the floor, requires another committee vote, delays the bill, and ticks off Senate Democrats.  The ‘delays the bill’ part is probably the most important thing, here: health care rationing just isn’t popular these days.

Moe Lane

PS: Arcane procedural tactics are fun, but they’re no substitute for a Congressional majority. Reverse the Vote.

Crossposted to RedState.

This year I couldn’t find the Drunken Office Party Elves. My wife says she has no idea what happened to them. She says it in a way that makes me think she knows exactly what happened to them, and I will never see them again.

- Innocent Bystanders, on the war between what they call the ‘white lights’ Christmas people and the ‘colored lights’ Christmas people. Fortunately, both my wife and I are ‘colored lights’ sort of folks. That’s fortunately for me, because of course I would lose this particular argument if we were going to have it.

Dragon Age Journeys:  it’s a Flash-based online game that Bioware’s put together to suck in more people to Dragon Age: Origins. Not that they particularly need to, seeing as the main game is seriously addictive.  DAJ is sort of a stripped-down version of DAO: I haven’t gotten to the point yet of finding out whether it duplicates the mass combat system, but so far it looks like a good introduction to the main game concepts.

Plus, if you play it you can unlock items.  Good news for people just starting the main game.

Erick Erickson over at RedState wasn’t the only one who noticed that the President’s speech last night contained no use of the word ‘victory:’ Andrew Malcolm over at the LA Times’ blog observed that, too.

President Obama spoke 4,582 words in his primetime Afghanistan war speech at West Point last night.

He said “al Qaeda” 22 times.

He mentioned the “Taliban” 12 times.

And here’s how many times the Democratic chief executive used the word “victory” — 0.

That telling omission says more than anything about Obama’s 322d day in office when he gave his first major address as the United States’ commander-in-chief.

Mind you, I’m not particularly surprised. The ostensible audience for this speech – the cadets – already know more about victory than the President (or for that matter, me) could hope to tell them; and the actual audience (the progressive antiwar Democratic base) reacts to that particular word in much the same way that a traditional vampire reacts to a cross.  Apparently, that means that mentioning ‘victory’ would be superfluous in the first place, and contraindicated in the second.  At least to this administration.

All that being said: Saying “We have been at war for eight years, at enormous cost in lives and resources,” in front of a room full of people who have been taught about Shiloh and Okinawa?  There’s a Presidential speechwriter out there who could use firing.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.