I have noticed the strange bug introduced by YouTube in the code they give you to embed a video on your own web pages.  I have just been manually fixing the code, but today i decided to see if anyone else has noticed this strange blunder.

A Google (believe it or not) search led me to a YouTube video (believe it or not) that explained what is going on.

I posted a comment on this YouTube video.

I just complained to YouTube about this before I decided to search the web to see if anybody has remarked about this.

The missing protocol does not seem to work for me on the latest version of Firefox which is 28.0 as of this writing.

At least, your video explains what is going on. I don’t know why YouTube does not just insert https: in the embed code. As you pointed out, this will always work. Why would YouTube take the chance that their stuff won’t work in many cases? They are not going to force me to use Google Chrome instead of Firefox. Also, it doesn’t make any difference what browser i use, I am concerned about all the peope who will visit my website. I want it to work for them no matter which browser or version that they choose to use.

Turns out that it may not have been in the Firefox browser where this broke, but it was actually when I was viewing an HTML email in the Thunderbird email reader. Think about how this relates to measuring risk in software as mentioned below.

As an engineer and a software one at that, I always believed in risk minimization in my projects. I could never understand why others believed in risk maximization. I could never give into the fact of life that people who wrote defective software and then heroically fixed it were better rewarded than people who wrote software that just worked reliably from day one.

Maybe I have hit upon an idea for a new app that is bound to make me a fortune. I’ll create software that will insert bugs into your code. It will tell you exactly where it put the bug and exactly how to fix it. That way, when your newly released software fails, you can pretend that you are putting in a heroic effort to fix it. Miraculously, you will always be able to fix your code in the nick of time. Maybe such a software app was used on the ACA signup web sites, but they forgot the step of how to take the bugs out.

The following slide show with audio is the clearest and simplest explanation of how understanding the three parts of an economy leads to startling insights on getting the economy working again.

Anything more I could say about this slide show would be a spoiler.

Although I made no promise of balance for this blog, reader comment on my previous post The Unintended Consequences of Allowing Suppression of Free Speech has made me take a look at the text of the McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court decision.  Justice Breyer’s dissent begins on page 52 of the preceding document.

I have not read all 52 pages of the dissent nor all of the 51 pages of the majority opinion.  However, I can see that many of the nuances that my own opinion rests on are covered by Justice Breyer.  Maybe you will be able to pore over it before I can.

In this brouhaha over the recent Supreme Court decision as discussed in my previous post John Roberts Didn’t ‘Eviscerate’ Campaign Finance Law, But He Should Have, the people who decry the removal of campaign finance restrictions aren’t remembering recent history.  In that previous post, I didn’t think to raise the issue.

To get the background you may be missing because you are too young to have lived through it, read the WikiPedia articles on Joseph McCarthy and McCarthyism.

People’s lives were ruined by what McCarthy did in vilifying them publicly with false accusations and with tying people to the Communist Party in any part of their life’s history.  McCarthy is one of the reasons Pete Seeger was banned from television until the Smothers brothers had the courage to fight the ban after many years of its enforcement.  Many of the best authors and playwrights could only get published if they used pen names to disguise the name of the author.

If the First Amendment had been strictly enforced or highly regarded at the time, much of what McCarthy did and much of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings would have been avoided or at least cut short.

If we allow our side to run rough shod over the First Amendment because of political activities we do not like, we could eventually suffer the unintended consequences of losing that protection for ourselves.

So, hard as it might be, now is the time to stand on principle lest the tables be turned on us at some future time.  We may rue the day we fought to have the First Amendment be ignored for what we thought was a good cause.

Mitchell Baker has made the blog post Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO.  Here are a few words from the beginning of the post.

Mozilla prides itself on being held to a different standard and, this past week, we didn’t live up to it. We know why people are hurt and angry, and they are right: it’s because we haven’t stayed true to ourselves.

We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better.

Brendan Eich has chosen to step down from his role as CEO. He’s made this decision for Mozilla and our community.

Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech. Equality is necessary for meaningful speech. And you need free speech to fight for equality. Figuring out how to stand for both at the same time can be hard.

There are a few things that Mozilla has done recently that left me wondering.  The reaction described in the blog post makes me feel a lot better about continuing to be a fan and supporter.

Forbes has the article John Roberts Didn’t ‘Eviscerate’ Campaign Finance Law, But He Should Have.  I have been looking for a vehicle for me to use to kick off my comments on this topic on my blog.

It is very unfortunate that money plays such a big role in our elections.  I have a strong distaste for Mitch McConnell and many of the other politicians who have been on his side of the argument that campaign spending limits violate the First Amendment of our Constitution.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

For the most part, I am a strong supporter of the politicians (except John McCain) who have had a hand in writing campaign finance reform laws.

I dislike most of the Supreme Court rulings of the five justices that were in the majority here.  I favor most of the rulings favored by the four justices who were in the minority.

However, from the very beginning of my awareness of this issue, I have never been able to figure out how you could limit a person’s efforts to elect the politician of their choice without violating the First Amendment.  Political speech is the most important kind of speech that the writers of the First Amendment should have wanted to protect with their free speech clause.

You can argue all you want about your desire to place such limits, or how you think it would improve the government, or how the majority of Americans agree with you,  or whatever other argument you want to make, but there just does not seem to be a way to get around the violation of the First Amendment embodied in the current campaign finance reform  laws.

Who is strong enough to join me, step away from what you desire to be able to do, and objectively look at what the Constitution says you are permitted to do in this situation?

Think about the wording of a Constitutional amendment that would accomplish what you think needs to be done.  I’d like to see some proposals.  I think it  is going to be darned difficult to create such an Amendment that targets only how you think the First Amendment freedom harms the country and yet not trample on any rights that are an essential part of our democracy.  I cannot say it is impossible to do.  I can only say that I have not figured out how to do it.

I think the real issue is the bribing of our politicians.  There are laws against bribery already.  However, it is very difficult to prove that some of the harmful things that lobbyists have accomplished actually violate the laws against bribery.

While attacking bribery is where I think the efforts should start, I still don’t see how to word an amendment that would separate what we think ought not be allowed from what has to be permitted in order to protect our human rights.

The Wall Street Cheat Sheet has the article 10 States Most Dependent on the Federal Government.

The political rhetoric between red and blue states is not likely to end anytime soon. According to a new report, residents in red states are more likely to receive help from the federal government, which helps them keep local tax bills lower compared to blue states.

10. Arizona
9. South Dakota
8. West Virginia
7. Tennessee
6. Montana
5. Maine
4. Louisiana
3. Alabama
2. New Mexico
1. Mississippi

The rankings are a weighted average of three factors as explained in the article.  You’ll have to read the article for the details of each of the factors for each of the states.  Now you understand why some states hate the Federal Government so much.  Some of them seem to be the ones that are most dependent on it.  Maybe the neocons are right that dependency only breeds dislike.

April 21, 2014

Whereas the National Geographic Channel’s web site seems to go out of its way to obscure the sequence of episodes, I have found a WikiPedia article Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey that lists the episodes in numerical order.

I am hoping that this list will enable me to break through the barrier of confusion of The NatGeo web site that is preventing me from finding out if there is an online video for the episode that I missed.

No, Charter Subscribers are still not allowed to watch the recent videos online, even though Charter carries The National Geographic Channel on its cable service.

April 9, 2014

I have discovered that you need to use a valid cable TV subscription to view the videos on the Web.

I have such a subscription with Charter Communications, but Charter is not one of the cable providers that NatGeoTV supports.

March 31, 2014

I have finally found the links to the episodes of Cosmos on the National Geographic web site.  I found that the first episode that I watched last week was episode 3.

So here is the list of episodes already aired.

The first episode will only be on the web site for the next 30 or so days, so you’d better look at it now.  I just watched this episode on my computer.  Watching it without commercial interruption is a blessing.

The upcoming episodes on the National Geographic Cable TV channel are shown in the next table.

I think the following table lists all the remaining episodes.

I have questions to think about after watching these episodes. I don’t see a good forum for talking about those questions on the web. Perhaps this post as echoed on my Facebook page will form that place for a few of us.

The UK Express has the story Malaysian plane: 20 passengers worked for ELECTRONIC WARFARE and MILITARY RADAR firm.

Freescale Semiconductor, which makes powerful microchips for industries including defence, released the powerful new products to the American market on March 3.

Five days later, Flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing with 239 people on board including 20 working for Freescale.

Twelve were from Malaysia, while eight were Chinese nationals.

This is not the most incendiary rendition of this story I could find, but it may be close.  Of course, if you go directly to the conspiracy theory websites, you’ll find even more breathless prose.

You can compare this telling of the story to the Austin, Texas Statesman story Freescale mum on new Malaysia Airlines reports.

Now, I wouldn’t even present this if Roger and João hadn’t goaded me  into it 🙂

Naked Capitalism has the post Cokie Roberts Picked a Fight With Alan Grayson on the TransPacific Partnership. Guess Who Won?  There are several links and commentary by Yves Smith in the post.

One of the links is to Alan Grayson’s rebuttal Cokie Roberts Attacks Us: This Is How DC Works. Warning: The links in the quote below take you to the page for contributing to Alan Grayson’s campaign.

Recently, ABC infohack Cokie Roberts, doyenne of the D.C. Establishment, attacked me in her nationally syndicated column. Why? Because I dared to speak the truth about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a so-called “free trade agreement” that has lobbyists and Washington insiders alike clamoring to stuff their pockets with corrupt corporate cash. And because I dared to speak the truth about “Fast Track,” legislation whose sole purpose is to cram TPP and other corporate rip-offs down our throats.

I am not sure the size of the trade deficit in and of itself is quite as big a problem as Grayson makes it, but that is really a minor quibble with what he has to say. The problems the trade deficit causes are certainly something to worry about.  Grayson explains them very well.

By the way, I have long since given up listening to Cokie Roberts and Steve Roberts.  Her penchant for ignoring truth in order to make her point became more than I could take.  Her husband, Steve, was a little less obvious in his biased approach to “reporting”.