Doh.

Me too.

If we had just lowered all taxes to zero and cut all job-killing regulations, we would have colonized the solar system 50 years ago instead of just putting a man in space.

If we had just lowered all taxes to zero and cut all job-killing regulations, we would have pwned particle physics so hard it would be taught to 4th graders today in private religious schools the way God intended.

If we had just lowered all taxes to zero and cut all job-killing regulations, you would be able to buy a spacecraft at your local Ford dealership in any of 40 different models, 5 different trim levels, and hundreds of different colors.

If we had just lowered all taxes to zero and cut all job-killing regulations, no one would care about Mach 3.35 except the hippies that own Prii today. Everyone else would be getting on with their lives commuting between the Earth and Mars in their Ford spacecraft at a quarter of the speed of light.

PS... NASA still has operating SR-71's, so we technically still have a plane capable of traveling at Mach 3.35. And, God only knows what the slow, Government-teat-sucking, mouth-breathing engineers have been able to cook up in the past 50 years. Maybe they have us up to Mach 4 now.

You know, your point that everyone is influenced by marketing is well-taken, but your examples are horrible.

Do you think the iPhone has a more attractive design than another smartphone? Yes, I do. And your point? You cannot possibly believe that attractive design is based solely on marketing. For starters, Apple's marketing of the iPhone has exclusively focused on usability from day one. Every commercial for the iPhone and iPad has this premise: show what you can do with the device. It looks sexy in the commercials because it is sexy. The D&AD folks didn't give it a black pencil because of Apple commercials. Regardless of what you think of the iPhone from a technical standpoint, it did reboot the smartphone and deserves design accolades. However, you could ask: "Do you think Apple invented the smartphone and tablet computer?" That question would show how effectively Apple marketing is on most people.

Do you think a Lexus or Porsche has better design than Chevy? Which Lexus, which Porsche, and which Chevy? Porsche design is boring and uninspired. The Lexus IS 300 had some inspired design, especially the chronograph instrument cluster, but the Lexus SC is ugly as sin. The Corvette is always beautiful if you ignore the 80's and 90's, but the thin plastic bits on newer models that flex in a stiff breeze sort of ruins it a little. I can guarantee that I have been exposed to the same amount of Lexus, Porsche, and Chevy marketing as any five other random guys and we could spend the next decade debating the merits and flaws of all three car makers.

You could ask a question about car quality and innovation, but that would be a dumb question too since you are comparing a car maker that mostly caters to the low- to middle-end versus two car makers that cater to the high- to super-high end. Yes, all three have had quality issues, but you can't compare a plastic econo-box to a $30k+ luxury sedan or a $75k+ sports car made for the unlimited speed sections of the Autobahn. Hell, even the Corvette is, overall, of a lower quality than similar sports cars with the same price despite some impressive technical innovations Chevy has achieved in the Corvette over the decades.

Why is "shiny" and "hard" considered superior to "matte" and "cushy" in handheld communications technology? Why is aluminum and glass better than plastic? Why do you think one "feels better" than another? Why do you assume people unquestionably do not like plastic? Plastic doesn't have to look like crap; the iPhone 3G and 3GS were made with semi-gloss plastic backs that had a cushy feel (also, the back of the iPhone 1 was matte, not shiny). They still looked great. Saturn did a really good job of designing good looking cars. They were definitely not as sexy as any Nissan Z or a 60's Corvette, but they were good looking cars that also happened to appeal to a lot of people. Any stigma attached to plastic is basically rooted in it being the material of choice when you want to make something cheap. As a result, plastic is associated with a lot of cheaply built, generic looking, disposable things.

I was six watching outside from Largo (almost directly west on the opposite coast from Cape Canaveral for those unfamiliar with Florida) with my class. My dad and I watched a lot of launches and I knew pretty much immediately something was really wrong. From Largo, all I really saw was the white trail puff and go gray with the SRB trails streaking randomly around...but that was enough. I do not really remember anything from that day past that moment when, as I stared at the aftermath hanging in the sky, I realized what happened.

I can't say it ever killed my enthusiasm for watching launches, though. My dad and I still watched launches whenever we could. We loved it too much. I wanted to go to the Air Force Academy and become an astronaut in those days. I was that in love with it all.

Eventually, I found my niche in engineering and dropped the idea of becoming an astronaut. But, watching those launches with my dad really shaped my interest in science, technology, computers, and aviation (I did at least become a pilot). For all those reasons, I still feel a choking sadness when seeing pictures or video of the explosion.

I'm with you. I didn't say it, but you were right, she did raise the tax. I was just responding to clarify that the tax is linked to the price of oil. Idle observations unrelated to the original issue and not really jabs at Palin specifically...

One thing that's interesting... Looking through Sunshine Review, it appears that balancing the budget had no effect.

They are running deficits again, oil revenue is back down to the pre-windfall levels (which is weird unless the windfall was temporary or oil production has gone way down), and Alaska's debt has been increasing even through the windfall surplus days.

It's not risky at all. Read the Alaska Department of Revenue's forecast report.

My cousin recently mentioned to me that Alaska is a shining beacon of responsible government. Token taxes, solvent state, and people get money back every year! She lives in Rhode Island and felt Rhode Island's taxes are just crazy and over-burden RI citizens.

So, I ran some numbers. Now, they assume direct taxation on citizens, no corporate taxes. Which is unrealistic, but it is the worst possible case. The numbers come from the states' revenue departments and are for 2009, I believe.

Alaska
----------
Citizens: ~700,000
Revenue: ~$5.6B
Revenue from oil: ~$4.95B
Revenue from taxes AND annual federal subsidies: ~0.65B
Debt: $10B
Tax burden if all revenue came from personal taxes: $8,000 / person

Rhode Island
-------------------
Citizens: ~1,100,000
Revenue: ~$3.6B
Tax burden if all revenue came from personal taxes: $2,742 / person
Debt: $9B

And, I am pretty sure oil revenue has been roughly 85-90% of Alaska's total revenue for a long time. If she negotiated any increases, it would probably be insignificant compared to shift in revenue caused by the price of oil going from $60/barrel to a steady $80-$90/barrel.

She probably didn't. Oil prices went from ~$60/barrel to ~150/barrel, then down ~$60/barrel over the course of a year and a half. The prices climbed back up fairly quickly to the $80-$90/barrel range in late 2007. She might have trimmed a few programs here and there, but she likely didn't have to change much. The state probably didn't have enough time to really go crazy during the $150/barrel days, and the price recovered to a point higher than it was before the spike.

So, have you never read this, or were you being ironic with your signature?

Oh, and as the Wikipedia article points out... The ox experience does not prove crowd intelligence. It merely points out that members of the crowd are going to have varying levels of expertise on factual matters. The crowd breaks down on non-deterministic matters unless it adheres to the author's very specific rules.

Did you read that book?

Just from the Wikipedia article (which could be wrong)... The author says that crowd intelligence needs four things to succeed: diversity of opinion, independence, decentralization, and aggregation. Aggregation being defined as "[A mechanism] for turning private judgments into a collective decision." A strong leader fits that definition.

There is a big difference between the crowd of random (but not necessarily diverse) people acting with no direction or organization to which Drew Curtis refers and the well-constructed, organized crowd to which that author refers, and both seem to be saying the same thing: crowd intelligence is based on choosing a diverse population, keeping those people thinking independently, and having a leader aggregate the information.

They may not have started the Tea Bagger movement and they may not directly organize the Tea Bagger marches, but... Having your "correspondents" take part in the "protests," having your producers fire up the "protesters" for the cameras, and constantly vomiting drivel about taking back the country from the Socialists is exactly yellow journalism. Worse even since they are using it to shape public opinion, to effect a national agenda, and their "correspondents" and "journalists" are unapologetic about being entertainment under the banner of a news organization.

By and large, video games are marketed to children and always have been. But, even if video games had always been marketed to people in their 30s, you failed to include the paragraph that follows the one you quoted: