It seems like a lot of programmers cling to the dot notation. I much prefer the message-passing syntax, myself.

I’d just like to make one little correction to your example:

isEnabled = NO;
self.isEnabled = NO;
[self setIsEnabled:NO];

In this case, only the first line is accessing the data field directly. Both of the second two lines are using the setter method, and the ‘dot’ syntax can be used interchangeably with the setXXX syntax.

This is an important distinction, as the set method may be doing more than simply assigning the value, and will also allow other objects to be notified if they have registered to be informed of changes to the value (KVO). This is done automatically by the frameworks, but won’t happen if you assign the value directly to the data member itself.

Consumer line products provide such high quality that the photographer now must market; skill and artistry rather than “I have a medium format camera and can make great enlargments”.

Processing costs for the consumer have dropped considerably. I can get high quality prints from Sams club for a fraction of what my Pro Lab offers. Are they as good? no they are not, but the consumer doesn’t care. If they have the digital file they can print 12 cent prints forever compared to the $35.00 per 8×10 that I used to charge.

Back in the day my average wedding would run about $2500.00…proofs, processing, album etc…
Now I do all digital. Flat fee, you own the digital file..pay me, here is the cd ,goodbye…clean and done. Am I making as much money? almost….my costs are way down, my demand is way up. This (or something close to it) is the wave of the future…

Time and talent is what they pay me for now.

Part of not giving out proofs or allowing people to print where they want is a quality/branding issue. I don’t want people printing my work at walgreens especially if my copyright is on it. Quality gets you business.

Next time you want a good family portrait at a decent price you should give an old family friend a call. I’ll cut you a real deal.
Peace!

I say this because I should have launched the yellow rocket with the altimeter and a G80 and it would have been exactly like the iPhone launch except for the weight difference (which is only 50g).

Thanks,
Bill

http://wiki.idebate.org/index.php/Debate:_Progressive_tax_rate#Yes

The accelerometer still works fine. I was told that it is set to +/- 2.3g so that what I saw was expected. According to the GPS data the liftoff was at 3g or so.

Yes, of course you are correct to a degree. My point, which I think is valid, is that the Republican party sort of officially coddles anti-science people because they want the votes and they know that scientists tend to be liberals. I think there is a purposeful anti-science agenda in the Republican party. That is a different thing than some Democrats being anti-science and some not.

So I do agree with you that anti-science bullshit, regardless of party, should be shunned. PZ and Phil both give shit to the anti-vaxxers, for example, like Robert Kennedy. But the Right wants to be on the wrong side of science for political reasons.

And PS the Democrats are a deeply flawed party. I’m not a cheerleader for the Democrats, per se. I am a cheerleader for liberals!

And even if we were….

The Right’s argument against taxes is based on the idea that putting money into the economy makes it stronger, and taking it out makes it weaker. Money spent in the government isn’t as competitive as money in the private sector and doesn’t move nearly as fast, and these things fundamentally make higher taxes bad for economic growth.

Think about the green movement as the left’s equivalent of Right-wing evangelicals. While there are lots of sensible Green people, there are also lots of insanely backward and dumb things being done in the name of protecting “the environment” that ignore science, don’t contribute to the good of the environment, and sometimes even harm it.

And that’s just one example - I’m sure we could find many others.

Republicans aren’t the problem. Democrats aren’t the problem.

The problem is ignorant people either abusing science to make a point or flat out ignoring it. The problem is people who care more about winning and being “right” than the truth. The problem is people so caught up in sides and positions, categories and teams, that they’re not thinking about the facts, the data, and the choices themselves. And when you blame “republicans” rather than calling out the ignorant segments of that party, and when you act like that’s the only segment in society who’s wrong, then you’re part of that problem.

Just help me out here. Let’s talk about ignorant people and the problems the cause and not be so narrow as to assume the entirety of their wrongness is contained in their political perspective.

I’m all for icy cold Summit EPA and high intellectuals in the Oval Office.

I found an interesting article (can’t speak to its accuracy) http://www.eetindia.co.in/ART_8800534325_1800001_TA_3d506bb0.HTM that claims some knowledge of the 3G iPhone. According to this article, the accelerometer is an LIS331DL from ST Micro (datasheet: http://www.st.com/stonline/products/literature/ds/13951.pdf) which is a 3-axis linear accelerometer. I note two things about this device:

1) it’s linear — but you’re reporting yaw and roll type data (correct me if I’m wrong) which would require more than one accelerometer to generate (or it’s making some major assumptions, possibly the accelerometer data is relative to the center of the iPhone?)

2) it operates in +/- 2 or +/- 8 g mode. My guess is the forces seen at launch easily saturate both modes and the iPhone most likely operates in +/- 2 g mode for better resolution for the most common uses of the iPhone.

I also dug up the datasheet on the GPS module, a Hamerhead II PMB 2525 from Infineon. (http://www.infineon.com/dgdl/PMB2525-Hammerhead+II-pb.pdf?folderId=db3a304316f66ee80117824fc0d71e07&fileId=db3a304316f66ee8011782518d4a1e08). This module doesn’t seem overly powerful and might explain the data lag.

If you’re interested, I probably have a GPS/cellular unit and some accelerometers with better range sitting in a box somewhere. If not, they can be bought for reasonable prices. I’d be happy to help build a custom electronics payload.

My first response when I saw “So our debt load is 2/3 of our GDP” was “Oh, I thought there was supposed to be a problem here.”

The debt load is really a non-issue in the global economic system; it’s the deficit you have to watch out for. The way banks work is by leveraging their assets, that is to say they lend money based on the perceived value of other assets they’re holding. When the bank gives you $200,000 to buy your house, they’re using a combination of available cash, and the value of their assets (such as other homes) to make you a loan. Then, in turn, they’ll use the value of the portion of your home they own to make loans to other home buyers. Since the majority of the bank’s holdings are in the form of illiquid assets, when they need real cash they borrow from other banks.

A country is little more than a super-bank in these economic terms, but because each country’s currency is little more than fiat, when they need cash, they print it. Enter inter-country loans. In order to maintain the value of your currency in the global marketplace, you have to offset whatever currency you create with foreign debt in order to maintain balance.

So for the country to only be leveraged around 2:3 is pretty low by global economic standards. Your bank is likely leveraged 1000% or more if it’s a small, local bank; think 3000%+ if it’s one of the big multinationals. Part of the reason America is a superpower is our ability to leverage national assets the same way as a bank - just on different scales.

The problem we have right now is the deficit - the rate at which we are accruing new debt as opposed to the rate at which we are growing our economy. Given that the economy is shrinking, well…you do the math.

Did you know that in 2000 when Bush took office, we had such a large national surplus that Henry Paulson actually warned that we were at risk of paying off the national debt too fast? For the reasons stated above, this would have been detrimental to the value of the US Dollar and our global economic position.

Let’s step back and take a look at your business. You claim that you’d be shocked and worried if your business had a 3:1 debt/income ratio? I’d have to ask what investments, if any, your business holds. If there are no holdings, your equation is mostly correct, but your business is also not achieving it’s full potential.

When a client pays you, there are several options available - you can put the money into a savings account where you can quickly capitalize it, and earn some modicum of interest (say, optimistically, 2%). Or you can put it in a checking account, where it’s instantly available, but likely earning 1/2 of 1%, or less. Or you can invest it and really put it to work. By investing in commodities, equities, real estate, etc., you can take that same money and start earning 10% or more. When you need to capitalize something, you can take a loan against these assets. Since these assets are still earning interest, paying dividends, etc., they’re still working for you, and offsetting the cost of the loans drawn against them, as well as reducing impact to your gross income. Now your business starts taking on debt load, this is a normal thing, and it may exceed it’s own gross income, but this is also normal.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Economic complexity is logarithmic in relation to the scale of the economy itself. A small business’ economy is accordingly more complex than an individual consumer’s finances; big business more complex than small business; a small country vs. a big business; a big country vs. a small country…

Now, I will get a little political…

At the end of the day, what I kept trying to tell the righties here is that taxes were going to go up regardless of who wins the election, the only difference will be what it’s called and how it’s spent — but you’ll pay either way. And the other thing I still stick to is that the increase to your taxes won’t change the way the global economy works or how we interact with it, and that is the fundamental problem. Until everyone steps back and realizes that we crossed the line from growing our economy aggressively into growing our economy in an unsustainable fashion, we can’t solve the problem. And until we accept that the solution is going to involve economic contraction, which coincidentally means we’re all going to feel the pinch, we won’t make any progress. We’ll just delay the inevitable crunch another generation. But it’s coming. Oh yes, it will come, and it will be bad…

I am a “balance of power” person. I am a little concerned in that area but am anxious for change.

Surely it’s not enough to explain your data entirely, but it’s something to factor in. Also, in terms of error bars, you should be able to get the (horizontal) relative accuracy from the GPS, and you can roughly calculate your vertical error from that…

Some good reading: http://gpsinformation.net/main/altitude.htm

BTW, by “prelude” I mean that I have a lot of data and video about this launch. I’ll surely be doing more launches in the future, but I have a lot to share about this one.

And I’ll admit I’m curious to know how resilient the iPhone is — the g-forces and vibration present in larger rockets have a tendency to tear components off PCBs…. I’ve seen rockets and helicopters shake their payload to pieces.

Stem cell research? stomped politically.

the world is indeed flat in the minds of the far right.

Rocketry cemented my interest in science as a kid. It’s hand-on, exciting (almost everybody likes fireworks, this is close), and it’s raw science - physics, chemistry, mechanical engineering, electrical (simple at first, but then more advanced).

“Start the argument where it starts. I have the right to do whatever the hell I want to my own body. If it kills me slowly, happy for me, fuck you–*clack* *clack*– stop me.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd5_nTwLVEg

I love how you can have a congress full of dick-in-the-dirt drunks sit around and, without the slightest hint of irony, tell people that they should be put behind bars for smoking pot.

Because of course, it’s not which drugs you’re strung out on that they care about–but whose.

http://www.last.fm/music/Todd+Snider/_/Tension?autostart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR4aQoezl-U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0qJcGhmvqc

Karina09hdz@hotmail.com

Last night I had a dream that Obama was shot…. what a sad thing that would be..

you just prevented your house from burning to the ground.

ABC News’ Rick Klein Reports: Among the issues Sen. John McCain will have to smooth over with his new running mate: global warming.

In an interview for the September (2008) issue of the conservative magazine Newsmax, Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska, said she does not believe climate change is caused by human behavior.

“A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made. ”

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/08/palin-global-wa.html

and if ABC news is too “Mainstream Liberal Media” for you, you can look at the Newsmax site which printed the interview. Doesn’t get much more right leaning than that.

This is the direct quote from the interview taken off the Newsmax website.

What is your take on global warming and how is it affecting our country?

A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.

http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/sarah_palin_vp/2008/08/29/126139.html

I reiterate WTF!

The US EPA’s web site states (and I quote and here’s the freaking URL) http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/

“Beginning late in the 18th century, human activities associated with the Industrial Revolution have also changed the composition of the atmosphere and therefore very likely are influencing the Earth’s climate.” “Throughout the science section of this Web site, use of “very likely” conveys a 90-99% chance the result is true.”

This is from the US ENVIRNMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY headed by Stephan Johnson, A BUSH APPOINTEE, not some lefty bullshit “earth first” organization.

To deny the scientific fact that global warming is occuring and the near certainty that most of the warming in recent years is the result of human activity is ridiculous. When the best scientists in the world (who actually use science to reach their conclusions) are willing to stake their reputations on making the representation and even the Bush EPA agrees, taking a position to the contrary indicates a willingness to reach conclusions in spite of factual reality. This is a position that can not be supported by reason. Under these circumstances, I have to conclude the Palin either does not have a grasp on reality as it relates to global warming or she is willing to ignore reality. Both are unacceptable.

So I think you should concede the fact that liberalism has more support around the world than Republican-style “conservatism” (in quotes because I don’t think it is a very conservative agenda).

In regards to health care, which you make a special point of above, it’s a fact that Americans pay more than our Europeans counterparts and are less satisfied with what we receive. It’s also true, for that few percent that need the very best medical care in the world, that the US has the best to offer. That doesn’t justify, at all, the expensive and wasteful system that we have in the US and the vast amount of our population that we leave behind. It costs you and I more, this dumb ass system we have in this country.

It’s actually a great issue to use as an example — we could serve everyone better in a French-style health care system, but because of the Republicans, we serve only the wealthy better.

And I do understand.

And I’m speaking of the exact issues you are.

All of the countries you mention are indeed great countries, love them all. But the US is better. We’ve created more wealth, inventions, advancements in medicine, technology, entertainment, etc. than all of the above. This is the greatest nation ever conceived by man. It’s too bad those other guys don’t quite measure up but they’re trying.

This country absolutely has a puritan streak, but I think that has worked to it’s advantage, not it’s detriment. I don’t want this country to turn into France, or Canada. You do, great, we have discovered a real point of differentiation.

Canada and the UK, for example, may have universal state run health care which is great for non live threatening, non-chronic illnesses but God help you if you get cancer or need a major life saving surgery. It’s a totally different story.

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2000/09/25/cancerreport000925.html

We need to work on getting universal coverage in this country but it should not be done by having the government pay for all of it. It needsto be a combination of public and private and market forces need to be injected into the system. Lower health care costs will lead to greater availability

And read this…
http://www.washtimes.com/news/2005/sep/30/20050930-093555-3611r/

Better not get prostate cancer and live in Canada, or the UK, France or Germany.

Though American men are more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer than their counterparts in other countries, we are less likely to die from the disease. Less than 1 in 5 American men with prostate cancer will die from it, but 57 percent of British men and nearly half of French and German men will. Even in Canada, a quarter of men diagnosed with prostate cancer die from the disease.

And the above is just one example of cancers with bad outcomes in other countries. People in those countries who can afford it come here for treatment.

No, I do not find your views hard to understand. I believe the left in general has a lot of compassion and that they really want to do good. I just believe in practice that those policies they pursue to do good actually do more harm.

Then you don’t understand. As I heard someone say recently, there are two countries in the US, a liberal European country and a Red State country that is to the right of literally every other country on earth. There is no western country that adopts the agenda of Republicans. None. Even when countries like Canada or Australia lean to the right, those parties are still far to the left of the Republicans.

I’m talking about issues like abortion, gun control, climate change, welfare and taxes.

I like Europe. I think the UK, Ireland, Spain, France are great countries. They are imperfect and have their flaws but they are certainly not bad places. Canada is a great country, too. My views are European, in a sense and Europe has proven that these views are completely tenable and practical.

So I think the US should be more liberal. I’m a fiscal conservative, I’m not a pacifist and I admire and respect the unique qualities that makes America what it is. But the Republicans are wrong, over and over. I think Bush is a terrific example of how Republicans get it wrong. Their hawkish attitude is expensive and dangerous, their tax policy is “trickle down”, their environmental policy is based on denial and an unwillingness to invest in vital, shared resources, their gun policy puts us #1 in gun deaths every year by an order of magnitude, their welfare policy creates crime and instability in the areas most in need of help. Their view on abortion is shared only by Ireland and Muslim countries, which are theocracies.

I know you mean well. I know your views are not completely and entirely without merit. But almost.

sometimes wars need to be fought because in the long run it will save more lives than would have been lost if the war was not fought. if we do not fight, and destroy, radical islam then it will grow, and grow, and more people will die, and it will spread, and it will lead to the LOSS of freedom for many across the world.

dropping the nuke on hiroshima and nagasaki was a terrible, awful thing. innocent people died, little kids, babies, moms. i can’t tell you for sure if that was the right thing to do but historians are almost unanimous in the opinion that more people would have died had we NOT dropped the bomb.

we have lost 4,000 sons, fathers, moms and daughters fighting in iraq. i strongly believe more would have died had we not brought the fight to them. i may be wrong but this argument is a reasonable argument and IS AT LEAST DEBATABLE.

and i’m a joe sixpack. i never graduated from college, but that has nothing to do with my native intelligence. i taught myself several programming languages, oodles of complicated software, marketing strategies, management techniques, etc. and i’ve never been on an ivy league campus. i own a company, i employ people, i think i’ve done pretty well, so maybe i identify with someone who just went to the University of Idaho or whatever.

can you please set up your blog so we can edit our posts??? every other blog i’m on allows for that.

Palin’s level of experience is very comparable to Obama and he is running for president and she for VP. I see no double-standard. I don not believe Obama to be unqualified because of his experience or lack thereof, I consider him to be unqualified because of his views, how he sees the country and where he would lead it. I think he would mean well but I think the things he would do would have bad consequences.

Sarah Palin is hardly Joe Sixpack. She may identify with them but I know lots of Joe Sixpacks and Ms. Palin is much more educated, experienced and accomplished than the Joe Sixpack crowd. She knows how to appeal to them though. They see themselves in her because she has retained that “common touch.” I do see Barack as an elitist and it works against him. His talk in SF when he was caught saying that people cling to their guns and religion is such an elitist statement. No matter how true it may or may not be it smacks of elitism and doesn’t play well with the Joe Sixpacks of the world. It is not a brilliant strategy to insult the electorate. Obama would be winning by a landslide if he just had a little Joe Sixpack in him but he can’t do it. He is part of the elite, the elite media loves him, he gets a pass on everything. The elite media hates Palin, we have to hear about DWI her husband got before they even met, we here from a liberal media how a working Mom maybe shouldn’t be a VP, she must stay hoe and take are of the kids. Can you say “cognitive dissonance?”

This is another of my big problems, I have an overly developed sense of fairness and McCain/Palin, and especially Palin are not getting a fair shake from the MSM. Read the coverage on CNN, watch the interview with Couric, see the reporting every night on CBS and NBC. The interview with Couric was 2 hours! They pick and choose how they want to portray her. I’m all for tough reporting but they always cast her in the worst light while Obama is just glowing in this fuzzy soft-focused haze. The questions he and Biden get are softballs, they have so many skeletons, and relationships, and votes, and dealings, that are not even investigated. It’s just not fair and I want a fair fight.

An Ivy league education is not necessarily a bad thing but I do believe it can tend to leach a bit of common sense out of folks sometimes. Last time I checke Bush has an Ivy League education and I don’t think you like him too much.

And being a constitutional scholar is not a bad thing either. John Roberts is a constitutional scholar and he rocks and you probably hate him. I do not think your education defines your character and to me, character and judgment is as important as education.

It is 100% false that “joe sixpack” should be in the executive branch. That’s not how we hire any other executive in the world. We demand MBA’s and law degrees and we expect them to be ridiculously smart and informed.

You use the word elitist all the time with respect to people on the Left. Do you really believe that an Ivy League education is a BAD THING when it comes to this race? Is being a constitutional lawyer a bad thing?

If you answered yes to my last two questions, then you’re a brainwashed ideologue.

she does not believe that global warming is being caused by human activity. WTF

When the statement I quoted above by Palin can be characterized in no other way except that she agrees that man made activity contributes to global warming and that we must get other nations to work with us to mitigate the effects of man made activity on the climate. There’s just no way around that Michael. I think it is you all who are deluding yourselves. You are so blinded by what you think she stands for and so busy laughing at her you are not hearing what she actually said.

And fishdweed, I am trying to be polite about your candidate who I really, really do not believe is qualified and calling this fine, very intelligent and accomplished woman a “fuckstick” just exposes your bias and closed mindedness. I’m really trying to keep a polite, conversational tone and calling someone I happen to admire as much as you worship your candidate a “fuckstick” makes it very difficult.

And you guys are real smart and all, you are just so misreading this.

Biden lied, obfuscated, misspoke and stumbled way more than Palen but you won’t see it or admit it.

And lolife, please read the transcript, Palin did not say man was not responsible for climate change. She said she was not going to blame man for all of the climate change and that we need to clean up the environment. Whereas Biden said man was totally responsible for climate change. I would have to say that Palin’s characterization is much more accurate than Biden’s. Surely you don’t even believe that man is 100% responsible for all climate change on the planet, that would be absurd.

As I’ve said so many times, if you have a point, you shouldn’t have to lie.

Here is what she said, word for word, from the transcript:

I’m not one to attribute every man — activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man’s activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet.

But there are real changes going on in our climate. And I don’t want to argue about the causes. What I want to argue about is, how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts?

We have got to clean up this planet. We have got to encourage other nations also to come along with us with the impacts of climate change, what we can do about that.

And if some of the syntax is a little jumbled, so what? Let me go right back to the transcript and I’ll show show PLENTY of examples of Biden’s own problems in this rapid-fire type format. I especially liked when he referred to Bosnians as Bosniacs.

Give me a break, the 45 share was people that tuned in to watch Palin make a complete ass of herself. Which she did not do. At least not completely.

She was intelectually dominated at every turn. She barely put sentences together. She winked at the camera how many times? This is what the right wants? seriously?….

we all stopped by to watch a train wreck and instead we saw Miss Alaska’s pretending to be a VP candidate. So because she didn’t completely fall apart the right thinks she is qualified to lead?…. She was shitty. I have seen HS speech,debate or theatre students present themselves far better than what I saw last night…..

If you think that the 45 share was from her supporters you are deluded.
She is what she is period. The fact that people actually believe something other than the truth is so very astounding.

I am biased, but if she was a candidate of the left I would be embarrased and would admit that my party, indeed, drafted a complete ‘fuckstick’ .

Anyone who thinks that she “out-debated” Biden last night is blinded by ideology, missconception and a lunacy that escapes the bounds of human reality.

She is definitely a phenom for the zealots. For rational, intelligent citizens, she is a joke… a curiosity, a sideshow…. …. With the freaks that we currently have in office it is frightening to think that she could slide into the VP seat and quite possibly into the oval office….

It is an unreal time in America.

Further, Palin, a self described ” energy expert” also indicated last night that she does not believe that global warming is being caused by human activity. WTF…..The Bush administration’s own EPA site states (and I quote) “the IPCC has concluded that most of the observed warming in global average surface temperature that has occurred since the mid-20th century is very likely a result of human activities”. “Very Likely” means there is a greater than 90% chance that human activity is causing global warming. The jury is not out on this question. As an energy expert, I’d think she would know what the science actually says.

I find it disturbing that the right in this country appears to be perfectly willing to tolerate the fact that Ms. Palin’s is misinformed and unable to support her positions with anything other than parroted responses. We don’t need another idealogue.

Granted, I’m hardly an unbiased source. But come on folks! I know these debates are decided far more on style than substance, but surely at some point you have to say something. The country just can’t be so far gone that ninety minutes of contentless babbling that stops just short of utter humiliation now makes you look Presidential. Unlike in her interviews Palin this time managed to speak in complete sentences and her words mostly cohered into actual thoughts, albeit thoughts that were totally irrelevant to the question that was asked. Who outside a brain-dead contrarian pundit or an in-the-tank right-winger could possibly be impressed by that?

they were not tuning in to see biden, and if you think they were, you are fooling yourself. palin is a phenom among this huge swath of people that you guys just have no appreciation for, or understanding of.

here’s a clue for you…
we weren’t scared shitless by the couric interview. you read a couple articles by a couple nervous conservatives and then you wishfully project that onto all of us. you could not be more wrong.

my take is that she didn’t awesome last night, she showed way better than biden, and because of that the attacks from the left will be fast, furious, and hysterical.

and it will backfire.

McCain himself seems to be going literally insane. I can almost quote him. He recently said if he is elected there will be world peace, economic stability, a completely reformed government and fucking unicorns will come dancing out of his ass. He will say literally anything at this point if it will get him elected.

We are witnessing the long slow decline of John McCain.