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Bone up on the basics: reading until someone can understand the Constitution and Federalists Papers, writing until they can express themselves without internet abbreviations, and math through at least first-year agebra. After that, we can work on the essentials of being a citizen. Students should learn real American history, not "the people's history." They should learn about the constitution and what we've been given; no graduate should ever think that the US is a democracy. Anyone who intends to vote should, additionally, understand economics at least to the level of Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics. As for what we can leave off... conflict resolution, peace studies, race studies, gender studies, sensitivity training... the list could go on. Tags: school, writer's block
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I used to think that a strong resurgence of libertarian ideology, especially among the young, would be a good thing. Now, I see it growing, but there are some things I didn't factor in: - They're a bunch of whiners. I'll be honest... didn't expect that from what I thought would be a paradigm of self-sufficiency and robust individualism.
- They're a bunch of kooks and conspiracy theorists. In order to find more truthers in one place, you would have to go to a Daily KOS convention. That's aside from all the worrying about the Bilderburgs/Trilateral Commission/Illuminati/Teh Jews!!!11111
- Their libertarianism seems more like an exercise in cynicism, rather than a deep love of freedom. They worship Ron Paul, but seem to have no idea who Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard, Adam Smith, or Ludvig von Mises are. It's all Oprah-deep for them.
This is definitely not your founding fathers' liberty movement. Tags: economics, politics
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Heads up, supporters of our troops... the last of the Haditha Marines goes on trial. It's taken six years, but seven of the eight Marines involved have been acquitted or had the charges dropped. By this point, if they couldn't find enough wrong-doing to make the charges stick against 7/8 of the defendants, they shouldn't even bother with this one. These Marines were prosecuted as part of a war, not against terror or Islamism, but against George Bush. It's disgraceful. But, you know, the guy is out of office now... isn't it time to let the human sacrifices laid at the alter of Bush Dementia Syndrome go, too? Semper Fi, SSgt. Wuterich... and God Bless. Tags: military, politics, war in iraq
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Enough is enough, already. What I write here is not meant to degrade or demean Steve Jobs, only to set the record straight.
Over the past few days of eulogizing Mssr. Jobs, I've heard a lot about all the things he invented, about how he changed the world. The problem is, little or none of it is accurate. In order to properly honor the man for what he DID do, we must look at it in proper perspective.
First, Jobs did not invent the personal computer (much less the computer as a whole). In 1972, HP released the 9830A. Arguably, this was the first real PC. Granted, there was no real market for PCs at the time, and this was used pretty much for business and education purposes. However, all the things that go into a PC were there. This computer, and those that followed it, were the computers that started making inroads into homes. That is, the first home computers were relocated office computers.
Jobs made the next step, selling the Apple 1's motherboard (no soldering required!) in July of 1976, giving it an arguable place as the first PC. However, Commodore has the best claim to that title, with the January 1977 release of their PET. Unlike the Apple, this was sold as an entire unit. Thus Commodore has what would be considered the first modern PC. Even the TRS-80 made it out before the Apple ][, Apple's first real "modern" computer. Gates, on the other hand, was much farther behind, with MS-DOS not hitting the market until 1981. However, the IBM platform (which is the basic architecture for all Windows-based PCs) was around much earlier, running CP/M.
Now, credit must still be given to Jobs. His Apple was the first system to be designed for the masses. However, considering the fact that computers were already making their ways into homes, this is more of an evolutionary step, rather than a revolutionary step. Additionally, given the closeness of the release dates, it's safe to say that it's one that Commodore was working on concurrently. While Apple was first to market, Commodore was more complete.
Graphical User Interfaces - Most people point to the Mac as the first GUI. This is also incorrect. Xerox first developed the idea for their Alto. It was at their labs that Steve Jobs first encountered the idea and "borrowed it," much the same way Gates would later "borrow" the Windows paradigm from the Mac.
iPod - Five years before the iPod, Audio Highway released their Listen Up mp3 player. In the intervening years, there were several successful players, mostly done by RIO and Creative Labs. All Jobs did was make them pretty. With the iPod touch, however, he added something unique - he combined the iPod architecture with multimedia and wifi, thus creating... a Palm Pilot with a better design. But from that, we go into what is undoubtedly Apple's greatest innovation:
The Smart Phone - Clearly, nobody can recall a smart phone before iPod... well, except for maybe those Crackberry things. Actually, Big Blue was the first to the market, with the IBM Simon in 1992. Again, Jobs made the product sleeker, but he didn't originate it.
Tablet PC's - Here, too, Apple was late to the game. Engineering students at Virginia Tech can remember hearing the complaints of Mac aficionados on this subject. VT's College of Engineering required tablet computers and, for the longest time, Apple had none. It wasn't until they made an oversized iPhone, that Apple joined the game. Probably the first serious tablet PC was the Pencept, released in 1985. Unlike previous concepts, this ran a major operating system in a fully-developed product, rather than a limited-use or proof-of-concept design.
All this isn't to say that Jobs wasn't important. With the exception of the smart phone, where Blackberry already had created a significant market, these technologies took off when Apple arrived on the scene. Jobs had both a love for technology, and an eye for how to make it usable for the consumer. On top of that, he had an understanding of the need for industrial designers, whose work defined Apple more than any other department. For that, Jobs should be recognized and honored. However, he should not be given the credit that goes to others.
I now await my public beheading.
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