Monthly Archives: April 2012

View 722 Monday, April 30, 2012

This is from a Huffington Post article:

A mile and a half from Apple’s Cupertino headquarters is De Anza College, a community college that Steve Wozniak, one of Apple’s founders, attended from 1969 to 1974. Because of California’s state budget crisis, De Anza has cut more than a thousand courses and 8 percent of its faculty since 2008.
Now, De Anza faces a budget gap so large that it is confronting a "death spiral," the school’s president, Brian Murphy, wrote to the faculty in January. Apple, of course, is not responsible for the state’s financial shortfall, which has numerous causes. But the company’s tax policies are seen by officials like Mr. Murphy as symptomatic of why the crisis exists.
"I just don’t understand it," he said in an interview. "I’ll bet every person at Apple has a connection to De Anza. Their kids swim in our pool. Their cousins take classes here. They drive past it every day, for Pete’s sake.
"But then they do everything they can to pay as few taxes as possible."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jared-bernstein/apples-and-health-spendin_b_1464262.html

It took me a while to remember where I had heard of De Anza College before. I was sure I had been there. Then I recalled: sometime in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s when I wrote The User’s Column for BYTE – then owned by McGraw Hill and the leading computing magazine in the world – I was invited to come up to De Anza College and take part in a weekend Faculty Symposium. I don’t recall much of the visit. I was invited by the college administration, probably by its President, and the subject was what the college ought to do given the coming computer age. The faculty were given a day of class suspension so that they could attend; I don’t think most of them wanted to come. I had been invited in part because of my computer articles, and partly because of my former professorial status. I think John McCarthy had something to do with the invitation.

They didn’t offer much besides expenses, and I told them I wouldn’t have time for much preparation, but they were more interested in my taking part in a symposium on what community colleges ought to do to prepare for this coming computer revolution. This was in the days of the S-100 buss and the Apple ][ which was invading the business world because of VisiCalc, the first spread sheet. I had personally witnessed thoroughly naïve business people going into a computer store and asking for “A VisiCalc”, only to be told that was a computer program and they would have to have an Apple ][ computer to run it on. “Yeah, yeah, whatever it takes, I got to have one of those.” Computers were not well known in the general public but they were beginning to penetrate business offices. In those days the big computer show was the West Coast Computer Faire, and Apple and Microsoft were in competition for leadership. An entrepreneur named Sheldon Adelson was starting an annual convention called COMDEX in Las Vegas.

I don’t remember the details of my weekend in Cupertino. It involved several presentations, most of which I found dull because in those days BYTE had more expertise on matters computerish than any academic institutions other than Stanford and MIT and ETH in Zurich, and the De Anza budget couldn’t afford the fees charged by major figures in those institutions. I believe one speaker was one of John McCarthy’s graduate students. I don’t recall what I told the faculty of De Anza, but I vividly recall an interchange with one of the professors. After I outlined where I thought the computer revolution was going – using, I expect, ny usual theme of the early 1980’s that “Before the end of this century, everyone in the Free World will be able to get the answer to any question that has an answer, certainly within days and probably within hours.” I thought that a fairly profound observation, and coupling that with Arthur Koestler’s observation that a sufficient condition for the destruction of any totalitarian ideology would be the free exchange of ideas within that ideological society made for some interesting predictions about the future of the Soviet Union.

After my presentation there was a general discussion. One of the professors, I think of social science, asked “but what should we do, then? Prepare our students to serve the Lords of Silicon Valley?”

As I understand it, this symposium was a required event for the faculty, and they were all present. Many to most of them indicated high approval of the question and its implications. My reply to that was to ask what else a community college in Cupertino ought to be doing. It seemed to me they were in a golden place at a golden time, and my only real question was why the Lords of Silicon Valley weren’t at the symposium. I fear that didn’t get much enthusiastic approval from the majority of the faculty, although in the reception afterwards I found that this was an ongoing question at the college. As it ought to have been.

I gave my talk and participated in the symposium and went home, and I don’t think I have thought about community colleges in Silicon Valley since; but I did find that attitude fairly common when I visited other University of California and California State University campuses over the years, and I suspect that may have something to do with the current crisis in higher education. It may even be more important than a lack of funding. It may also have a bit to do with Apple’s tax strategy.

If the local community college can’t prepare its students to serve the lords of silicon valley, you may be sure that someone else will.

Roland had this comment

The Lords of Silicon Valley.

It seems to me that the faculty of De Anza College should’ve been preparing their students to *become* the Lords of Silicon Valley.

Which is exactly correct. Instead, apparently they are unhappy because the Lords aren’t paying enough taxes and aren’t appreciative enough.

View 721 Saturday, April 28, 2012

In an hour or so Niven and I will go off to blather about something or another at a book festival that our tireless LASFS marketing director  has arranged.  Yesterday I went out to Fry’s for the first time in months, and got a 27” flat screen monitor for Alien Artifact, the new Sandy Bridge system in the highly advanced (and by me recommended for its accessibility, cool, and quiet) Thermaltake case. I’ve been working on a column, and on the novel Niven and I are doing, and trying to keep up with everything.

I confess that I haven’t seen much in the news that sparks a strong desire to comment on it. The Reverend Al Sharpton and company came out to Los Angeles to commemorate the 1992 riots that burned out the Wilshire district and was commemorated by Public Television watching as crowds “Shopped” in stores across the street from them. Many of those stores never reopened but it’s prime enough real estate that it has new uses.

Obviously having parts of your city burned out is good for business. The economists will tell us so.  Or you can read Bastiat on What is Seen and What is Not Seen http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html which will give you a better view of the effects of lowering the price of bread by burning down the bakeries. Los Angeles seems to have survived this visit by the Reverend Sharpton. One does wonder at the moral perspicacity of those who would accept him as their leader.

Anyway, I’m alive and well and working. Thanks to those who asked.  And I’ll do a mail bag sometime this weekend.

View 721 Thursday, April 26, 2012

Of course TSA followed proper procedures, shouting at a four year old girl in a princess costume and saying “the suspect is not cooperating.” The purpose of TSA is to make it understood that Americans are subjects, not citizens, and they are the hired captains who jeer at us and rejoice in their status. They are doing the job they were hired to do. They cloak it with the drama of the security theater. They also moonlight as protectors for cartel mules and smuggler enablers, but that is to be expected. As the Praetorians avail themselves of the best in the joys of degeneracy is also expected behavior. All power corrupts. Salve Sclave.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson, the Reverend Al Sharpton, and many others will be in Los Angeles tonight in a rally having something to do with the Zimmerman/Martin case that took place in Florida. This is the anniversary of the Los Angeles riots. Since there hasn’t been a full fledged Zimmerman/Martin riot, perhaps Los Angeles can be induced to substitute for it. The Reverend Al Sharpton gained national prominence in the Tawana Brawley incident in New York in 1987 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawana_Brawley_rape_allegations, and often appears in a leadership role in black demonstrations. The Reverend Jesse Jackson is another national leader. Their rally will be in the name of peace and brotherhood and more government activities in support of these principles. 

Much of the day was consumed with home matters. I hope to get at the new column tomorrow morning. I did manage to get some of it done. I also have a huge number of books to review.

View 721 Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Newt Gingrich, who always began his debate speeches by saying that anyone on the platform of Republican candidates for nomination as President would be preferable to the incumbent, has formally withdrawn from the race. Well, not quite formally withdrawn, and of course he will only “suspend” his campaign, but that’s a complication of the campaign funding laws: all the candidates who don’t win generally end up with debts, and they have to have a mechanism for trying to raise money to pay that off. It’s the toughest form of fund raising to begin with and the laws make it worse if you’re not formally running for office even if you’re really out of the game and just want to go home.

Gingrich will now go make whatever peace he can with Mr. Romney, who will be as gracious as his temperament permits. It’s unlikely that he will offer Gingrich anything important, but for that matter Newt is unlikely to ask for anything. It would be valuable for the republic if Romney were to listen to Gingrich on matters of foreign and domestic policy, and he may be smart enough to know that. Romney is not quite the typical country club establishment republican. His speech last night was quite Presidential:

Four years ago Barack Obama dazzled us in front of Greek columns with sweeping promises of hope and change.  But after we came down to earth, after the celebration and parades, what do we have to show for three and a half years of President Obama?

Is it easier to make ends meet? Is it easier to sell your home or buy a new one?  Have you saved what you needed for retirement? Are you making more in your job?  Do you have a better chance to get a better job?  Do you pay less at the pump?

If the answer were “yes” to those questions, then President Obama would be running for re-election based on his achievements…and rightly so.  But because he has failed, he will run a campaign of diversions, distractions, and distortions.  That kind of campaign may have worked at another place and in a different time.  But not here and not now.  It’s still about the economy …and we’re not stupid.

People are hurting in America. And we know that something is wrong, terribly wrong with the direction of the country.

We know that this election is about the kind of America we will live in and the kind of America we will leave to future generations.  When it comes to the character of America, President Obama and I have very different visions.

Government is at the center of his vision. It dispenses the benefits, borrows what it cannot take, and consumes a greater and greater share of the economy. With Obamacare fully installed, government will come to control half the economy, and we will have effectively ceased to be a free enterprise society.

There is considerably more in that vein , and even Rush Limbaugh approved it as conservative and perhaps the best Romney has made yet.

This election is crucial to the survival of the republic. It is a lot easier for conservatives to influence a Republican president, House, and Senate, than it is to have any say at all when those bodies are controlled by the current crop of Democrats.

And it will be a lot easier to take back our government from Republicans than from the current Democratic Party, which has pretty well become the party of ever-growing government. And yes, I understand that it was the post-Gingrich Republicans who endorsed “big government conservatism” as if such a humbug could exist; but their efforts were redoubled in spades and big casino after the election of 2006. Some of them learned a lesson from that. We may not be able to restore the republic with Romney as President and a Republican House and Senate. We certainly will not be able to do so under a reelected triumphant President Obama.

The President is concerned about the average $25,000 owed by each graduating student. Given that half of them will find their undergraduate education nearly worthless, this is a matter of considerable concern, but compare it to other numbers. Every taxpayer – and presumably those students will become taxpayers – inherits a debt of more than $100,000. If the student becomes a citizen but not a taxpayer, that student will still owe about $50,000 as a share of the national debt. Add that to the personal debt of $25,000 in student loans. The President doesn’t seem so much concerned about those debts.

I managed to write that paragraph without using the ancient English practice of assuming that the masculine is the generic pronoun, but it took a bit of thought and rewording. Damon Knight tried to get yeye accepted as the generic non-sexist pronoun, which may be a comment on Damon’s view of the feminist outrage on the subject, or may simply be whimsical. Of course yeye brings about a break in the flow of thought, she or he is simply awkward, the masculine pronoun is ignored and lets the reader get on with the subject for about 90% of the readers (a guess, of course), but the one offended by the practice are so offended that one seeks to avoid their attention. Ah well. It’s merely an aside. Sometimes I am tempted to use Damon’s yeye and be done with it.

It turns out that the coming rise in student loan interest rates is a time bomb deliberately inserted into the law nationalizing the student loan business: the rate was set at double what is being collected, with a temporary cut set to expire in the summer of an election year. One may make as much of that as one wants to. Bonaparte said one should no ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence, but this seems more a deliberate act of will. Whether that’s incompetent or malice I leave as an exercise for the reader. It was done in 2007 by a Democratic congress, and was certainly deliberate by the Democratic leadership. Then Senator Obama was not present when the bill came up for a vote, so his opinion on the subject is not recorded. He is at present in favor of extending the interest cut. So, I suspect, is everyone else.

The TSA has made the front page of the Daily Wail along with stories about Octomom and Posh Spice Beckham. Rejoice.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2134280/Weeping-year-old-girl-accused-carrying-GUN-TSA-officers-hugged-grandmother-passing-security.html