Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

The 2010 Census and The Constitution

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I think the founders of this great nation and the writers of the U.S. Constitution did an excellent job, and more-often-than-not we should look to the Constitution and its supporting documents (like the Federalist Papers) to learn how to run a government correctly. Its core values, unfortunately, aren’t at the core of our government anymore. The Constitution was predicated on a very simple, ground-breaking doctrine: The power belongs by default to the people, and only those authorities expressly granted to the government by the people (in the Constitution itself) can be validly exercised by it.

If you can find a sentence in the Constitution that expressly gives the federal government authority to partially nationalize our banking and automotive industries, I’ll give you $500. Hint: it’s not in there. Don’t waste your time looking for it.

It might surprise you to know that I don’t think the U.S. Constitution is necessarily perfect. It might surprise you even more (since our schools don’t usually teach Constitutional history very accurately) that the founders didn’t think it was necessarily perfect either. That’s why there were two explicit procedures laid out in the Constitution itself for amending the document (see Article 5) and changing the rules as we go—the House of Representatives (by 2/3 majority) can propose amendments, or 2/3 of state legislatures can call for a new Constitutional Convention to propose amendments (this second method has never been used).

If we really want to give the government authority to nationalize the automotive industry, we can simply add a new item to the list of government powers clearly enumerated in Article 1, Section 8. We’re not supposed to just ignore the Constitution; we’re supposed to change it when needed.

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The Ugliest Cars of the 2009 Model Year

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This year’s list of the ugliest cars is actually relatively un-changed from last year, since most of the cars on the list remain in production and have not been seriously re-styled. Only one of last year’s ugly cars has been discontinued—the Chrysler PT Cruiser Convertible—but Toyota stepped up to the plate to fill the void will an extremely poor redesign of the Matrix.

All-in-all, most new designs being introduced in the industry are either good looking or, at least, not offensive enough to rank in the top ten ugliest. I’m very glad to see new and redesigned models from Subaru (the Impreza), Chevy (the Traverse), Volkswagen (the CC), and others not looking stupid.

As always, it is important to note that this list is my opinion. I am picky about how cars look, and I tend to be a bit of a minimalist (I’ll take simple shapes and lines over complex and odd angles). You may disagree, and I’m always interested to hear your thoughts!

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50 Killed in New York Plane Crash

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At least 50 were killed late last night and several injured in the fiery Buffalo, New York, crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407, operated by Colgan Air. The flight, which was headed from Newark, New Jersey, to Buffalo, was on approach approx. 10 miles from its destination airport when contact was lost. Preliminary information indicates that the Q400 Bombardier aircraft, a twin-engined turbo-prop, entered a steep dive and impacted a residential home, killing all 49 aboard and at least one on the ground.

Other aircraft in the area reported icing conditions, and ice buildup on the wings can cause a catastrophic loss of lift, but it is too early to determine if the weather was a contributing cause of this crash. Much stronger anti-ice procedures were put in place after the 1982 crash of Air Florida Flight 90 into Washington, DC’s 14th St. Bridge and the Potomac River shortly after takeoff.

This is the first crash of a commercial airliner resulting in fatalities since 2006, ending a remarkably safe period in commercial air travel.

The Axis of Evil Animals

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People who have known me for a long time know that I have long considered two kinds of animals to be evil. Of course, in reality, no animal is really ‘evil’ since they are simply slaves to their instincts, but we tend to assign human qualities to them anyway.

The two I have long considered evil are deer and squirrels. I came to this conclusion based on the fact that these two animals are hit by cars more often than any others, generally because they zig-zag around like absolute morons when cars approach instead just, say, getting out of the way. Since this is fairly consistent, I figure they’ve got to be involved in some kind of personal injury insurance scam.

I’ve neglected, however, to include geese. So, as of today, consider geese the third in my newly-established Axis of Evil Animals, joining deer and squirrels.

Geese have now been formally implicated by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in the crash landing of US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson River in New York. Aside from that, they’re also just terrible, mean-spirited creatures. Ever spent any time with a goose? They’re evil, and they hiss like angry cats for no reason.

Haiku: Almost Alpha

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In the software world, a product goes through (basically) three testing phases before release.

First, in the ‘alpha’ phase, nobody is pretending that the product is totally stable or ready for mission-critical use. It is more of a ‘proof of concept’ where the product can be demonstrated and it has potential, but it’s nowhere near ready for prime time. In commercial software, regular users never get to see ‘alpha’ releases. In the open-source world, daring users usually can.

Second, in the ‘beta’ phase, the software is (or at least should-be) showing real promise. It’s mostly functional, though it might still have some bugs, and it’s ‘feature-complete’. These days, some products—like Google’s GMail email software—remain in ‘beta’ phase forever. Often commercial software makers like Microsoft will make betas of their products available to early adopters who are willing to take the risk.

The third and final phase before release is the ‘release candidate’ phase. In this phase, the product is done and—if no ‘showstopper’ bugs are discovered—the release candidate will become the final product.

One of my favorite open source software projects, the Haiku Operating System, hasn’t even reached the ‘alpha’ phase yet. The developers, for whatever reason, feel that the operating system as it stands today is still in a relatively early development phase. This is a shame, as every time I fire up a new Haiku virtual machine it’s more stable, more capable, and runs longer without crashes—to the point that a daring user with relatively limited needs can use Haiku full-time if they really want to. Its stability is certainly better than anything in the Microsoft Windows 95/98/ME line, and lots of us used those every day for many years.

Personally, I think it’s time to declare Haiku an alpha product; in fact I’d  even say it’s approaching beta quality. The Haiku team has a number of bugs marked as ‘blockers’ for an alpha release, but alphas aren’t supposed to be bug-free (or even stable) so—in my humble-outsider’s opinion—let’s throw the switch and generate some buzz!

If you want to know more about where Haiku stands today, check out Thom Holwerda’s excellent review on OSNews.com.

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.