Disqus - Latest Comments for mkoby

Re: Question Your Government

scottwhite — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:40:21 -0000

agreed, Planet Money podcast (NPR) has had a great series on the cost of medicine and why it's so complicated. BTW I was wrong they passed a provision in the bill baring it from paying for abortions: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/us/politics/0...

Re: Question Your Government

mkoby — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:15:24 -0000

Well said sir. While this post is about more than just the healthcare debate, you make some very valid points.

My issue with the healthcare issue is not necessarily socialized healthcare because I think we'll get there no matter what (I'm still against it because it increases the size of government), but its more that the terms "socialized healthcare" and "health insurance industry reform" have become almost synonymous. Our president has sold a large percentage of this nation that we can't get reform without the socialized healthcare, and that just isn't true.

Granted I don't have the answer, though my proposal is to regulate the industry into having to find ways to ensure everyone can get health care regardless of pre-exisiting conditions, age, and wage. There are other solutions than to bring socialized healthcare and by forcing compliance on the citizens by MAKING it a law that they have to have health coverage (what happened to personal choice?).

I think that everyone should be looking at all the issues and questioning their leaders. Bringing the issues to the front of the media. Making it known where we as the voters stand and what we will/won't tolerate.

Re: Verizon’s Droid: $15 Per Month Extra For Exchange Support

Matt — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:47:23 -0000

You can go to RIM's Blackberry User page, sign in, and set ActiveSync to use OWA with I.T. supplied credentials. It is free, doesn't require BES or BIS, and syncs all data in real-time.

Re: Verizon’s Droid: $15 Per Month Extra For Exchange Support

film_girl — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:36:14 -0000

Yeah, exactly -- if you want to do Exchange over POP (which equates to Push anyway on a BlackBerry) and your office isn't controlling about it, you can. But you pay extra for the BES, not that one feature. It's an entirely different platform and the rate of $45 a month is standard across all carriers (and must be set by RIM to a certain extent).

This "we're going to charge more for an ActiveSync implementation of Exchange support" thing is totally different and in my mind, the very definition of nickel-and-diming.

Re: Verizon’s Droid: $15 Per Month Extra For Exchange Support

mkoby — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:31:11 -0000

Unless they've changed things, AT&T does have an additional charge for "exchange" support on their BlackBerry plans (there's a BIS plan and BES plan). But's it's not called "Exchange Support" rather it's an additional charge to connect your BlackBerry to a BES server (which MOST companies use to connect their corporate BlackBerrys to the exchange server).

Edit: I should note that you can connect a BlackBerry on a BIS account to an Exchange server via POP or IMAP, assuming the IT department of your company allows this.

Re: C# Partial Keyword

mkoby — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:13:14 -0000

Funny that you mention that I should probably move stuff out of the Twitter
class, as it's something I've been considering for a while but haven't come
up with something that makes sense to me. It'll happen eventually, but
whatever I do, I need to make sure I understand it and why there's value in
it rather than just doing it because it' simply "better".
But again, I agree, the Twitter class is most definitely doing too much and
needs a better design.

Re: ShortenURL Application Website

mkoby — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 14:39:04 -0000

I moved all my projects to Github in the last few months. Try

http://github.com/mkoby/shortenurl-csharp

--
Michael Koby
(281) 738-2255

Re: Push Gmail Comes to iPhone and Other Mobiles

mkoby — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:43:15 -0000

The same stipulation exists in Outlook, you can only have 1 Exchange account per Outlook profile. You can however have multiple profiles on a computer and switch between them, but it requires closing outlook EACH TIME you want to open a different exchange account).

I agree though, I'll be glad when I can have multiple Exchange accounts set up on my iPhone, allowing me to add my work's Exchange account as well.

Re: Is The Exclusive Deal Between Apple and AT&T Anticompetitive?

fredwilson — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:26:22 -0000

Thanks. I'll go check it out

Re: Is The Exclusive Deal Between Apple and AT&T Anticompetitive?

mkoby — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:36:35 -0000

Because my response would have been too lengthy to post here, I have written a response to this post on my own blog at

http://www.mkoby.com/2009/07/08/short-term-excl...

Re: Socialize Health Care in the United States

mkoby — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:46:55 -0000

You are correct, Medicaid coverage varies state to state. And you are also correct in stating that it is not a perfect system and doesn't help everyone. But in my original article I mention that Medicaid is not perfect. What I suggested in my original article is that instead of spending trillions of dollars on a NEW health care system, why not spend a lot less money and overall the existing system (Medicade). This would be both cheaper and more effective. Not to mention be ready a lot sooner than a new system would be.

And the tax numbers I have had nothing to do with the actual discussion of socialized health care, other than that the previous commenter had stated that "The rich pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes" which I proved to be blatantly false, in 2 instances.

Now, to look at your argument that "you have to have a good job" to get healthcare, There are a lot of people that would argue working at Wal-Mart is not a "good job" but Wal-Mart provides their full time employees (which at Wal-Mart is like 36 hours/week) with decent health coverage. My father-in-law worked at Wal-Mart for years and was able to provide decent health coverage to his entire family. Was it the best health coverage? No, but it was coverage. So 1) the phrase "good job" is relative and 2) your argument's logic is flawed. Another is example is that my friend runs a business where his only employee is himself, and he pays for his own health coverage for his family of 5. Yes it's expensive, but its 1) the cost of being in business for himself and 2) he passes that cost on to his customers.

I want you to pay careful attention to that second point. If the government starts providing health care, the cost HAS to be passed on to someone. That's an economic fact. We do live in the real world here. The point I made above is that, with Obama's plan it will be "the rich" who get taxed more (who already pay 70% of all the taxes collected by our government), they are the ones least likely to use socialized healthcare. The people that will be using government provided health care won't see their taxes go up.

I never said that the current system is not broken. But the fact remains that government provided health care already exists, regardless of it's state, it does exist. I'm simply arguing for spending less money (which means less tax), and fixing an existing system to work better and help more people. So, basically what I'm arguing for allows both sides to win.

Re: Back to Blogging Week (no FriendFeed/Twitter for a week?)

mkoby — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:47:41 -0000

I actually think this is neat. Sometimes you have to "return to your roots" so to speak to find out why things are better/worse. While I'm just kind of rediscovering FriendFeed myself, I still think blogging has a huge place in the future of the internet. I think the question will be how and what one blogs about.

Re: iPhone: The First Week

mkoby — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:21:50 -0000

I read the article and the one they did for the original iPhone. While the
FSF is something I support in theory, I think they in general go about it
the wrong way. While I agree that the iPhone needs to play Ogg files (why
it doesn't since it wouldn't cost any money to license the tech is anyone's
guess), the inclusion of DRM on movies is not the choice of Apple but rather
the content providers. You have DRM on your movies if you get them from
Amazon, or any other movie download site. If you stream a movie from
Netflix you're limited to (mostly) Microsoft technologies. So DRM is NOT
limited to Apple and Apple products. I'm sure most sites and content
sellers would love to move to DRM-Free since that makes their wares playable
on more devices.

Another point is that the iPhone does NOT expose your location without your
knowledge. In fact anytime a turns on that can do location based things, a
little dialog pops up that says "[APPNAME] would like to use your location.
Do you want to allow this" so I'm not really sure where they get that whole
"without your knowledge" thing.

Also, Fairplay has NOTHING to do with the applications. That is all the
media DRM. The applications are limited though so they are right about
that. But they are limited only in what can(not) be approved by the App
Store people. As long as an app is approved, it will be available.

The FSF does a decent job of cutting through most FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, &
Doubt) but it's articles like this one that really bug me because it creates
FUD as well. While I'm not here to say the iPhone is the best phone on the
market (in fact, far from it), it is a decent one. The FreeRunner they
mention, I researched thoroughly (and even attempted to get a review unit
when I was on Power of Information), the problem with the device is that
it's limited to GSM (no Edge, no 3G) and at last check was only available
when purchased with a development kit. So the phone isn't even available to
purchase except in a development edition. Doesn't sound "consumer ready" to
me. But I do like the idea behind FreeRunner and the company creating it.

And while I'm not hear to defend all of Apple's policies and technology, I
do think the iPhone is a nifty device (always have). It has flaws, some of
which are being addressed in the 3.0 OS update. But even then it's still
not perfect. And as long as the content makers want to "protect" their
content, there will be DRM, regardless of Apple or not.

Re: The Death of Satire

mkoby — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:01:33 -0000

There's nothing saying that the congress-person that the monkey represents
isn't black. There is something to be said about the inherit racism
displayed by some police officers (see "American Skin" by Bruce
Springsteen). I'm definitely not saying that racism isn't an issue, but
rather, like you said, in this particular instance it was blow out of
proportion.

Re: Socialize Health Care in the United States

mkoby — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:04:20 -0000

Brad,

I'll give you the first part of your response. It is up to the citizens to dictate policy in a republic/democracy. However, I will remind you that just because the majority says it's okay and that's what they want, it is always right. Remember, for a nice chunk of U.S. history, the majority found slavery completely acceptable. But again, I agree that we the people should vote what and how our government protects and betters its citizens.

However, I want to look more closely at your argument that taxing the rich is okay because "they can afford it" and that they "pay a lower % of income than the poor and middle classes" because I find that hard to believe. So using the 2008 tax tables and formulas in the 2008 1040 Instructions (http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040.pdf) here is what I discovered. For reference I used the "Single" numbers on both sides of this. This just straight tax without any deductions, credits, etc.

A person who had $250,000 of taxable income (which means they made MORE than $250k), pays $68,250 in taxes which is basically 27.3% of their taxable income. The average salary for a white household in 2007 was $54,000 (found on this table). At $54k/year that person pays $9,850 in taxes which is 18.2% of their income.

Numbers don't lie, the lower income person pays a smaller percentage of their income to taxes. Again, this is not taking any credits, deductions, donations, etc into account. Both sides of this demonstration have the same access to those options. And yes, I realize that the rich folk do things to bring their taxes down by donating to charities, giving things away, gifting money, and so on. But tax laws limit how much a person can gift in a year and charitable donations only help so much on a person taxes. So even with all of that the rich person is still going to pay a higher percentage of tax because they made more.

Just to further demonstrate my point, lets take someone who had $95,000 in taxable income. They'll pay $20,585 in taxes which is 21.6% of their taxable income. So the more you make the higher percentage of your income you pay in taxes.

What a person can or cannot afford is completely subjective. And what you or I think a rich person can afford is probably a lot different than what they actually can afford (when you consider that most of America lives on credit).

Re: America & Foreign Oil

mkoby — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:27:15 -0000

I've heard those same estimates and for the most part, they're very true.
Starting to drill today would not have an immediate affect on our oil supply
here in the states. The point is, those same people that claim "it won't
help" are the same people asking to "decrease our dependency on foreign oil"
and so they are essentially telling us we need an operation but refusing to
start the surgery.

You have to start somewhere. If you want to decrease our foreign oil
dependency, you have to take steps to do so. You can not tell us we need to
decrease the dependency but tell us that drilling on our own land in in our
own waters is not a solution. It just doesn't add up.

I have a friend who is just as concerned about the environmental impact and
I agree that it is an issue when it comes to drilling (especially in an
offshore environment). However, no one wants to take the time to research
ways to to improve the situation because they're too busy saying "we need to
use less foreign oil but drilling ourselves won't help"

I simply want people to make a choice. If you're for decreasing the United
States' dependency on foreign oil then shouldn't any steps that will help
that long term be looked at and highly considered? If not, they are then
they are just spouting propaganda and need to consider their opinion moot
because they are truly not contributing to the conversation at all.

Re: Watermarking DRM-Free Music Files

mkoby — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 08:19:46 -0000

No system is going to be perfect, however limiting the customer's ability to
use something they purchase as they need to use it is not the answer in any
way. In my opinion, watermarking the files probably gives the best middle
ground.

Re: The Death of Common Sense

mkoby — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:30:26 -0000

I have edited to post to note that you have commented and I have linked to
the original article you've linked to in your comment as well as your blogs
main page. I left my original post intact as I like to keep my posts the
way they are once they are posted.

If this is not satisfactory, please let me know :-) BTW, this is such a
great piece, my father forwarded to me via email originally and it just
screamed to be re-posted.

Re: Mp3 Tagging Best Practices

mkoby — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:21:33 -0000

While you are correct in that most albums will be a single disc, I
personally can't stand seeing a bunch of empty tags in iTunes (drives me
bonkers). Your digital music is yours to tag and label as you please,
that's the beauty of it all.

There is really no such thing as an absolute "best practice" so those listed
here are really more of my personal practices than anything else.

Re: Olbermann Kind of Misses the Point

Some Guy — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:08:43 -0000

Here here. It took black people 100 yrs to be free as slaves and finally get the rights to not be legally judged based on the color of their skin (something they couldn't help be born with).
It may take 100 yrs for LGBT people to get the same rights, but they'll eventually get it if they stay at it within the system we have...or change the system so it's not flawed (like Michael said...and I agree with).

I also agree with Diadem's post. Really the government shouldn't have the right to restrain or aid it's people in their pursuits (unless intervening will save a human life from harm by another), and maybe that's the part of the system that is flawed that we need to fix.

Re: Olbermann Kind of Misses the Point

mkoby — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:52:17 -0000

Actually, it doesn't go against it. Both were amendments to the
constitution, the only way to amend the constitution is for it to be voted
as such. Article V of the constitution states as such (abbreviated to
conserve space)

*"*...shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this
Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the
several States or by Conventions in three fourths thereof...*"* (complete
text can be found on wikipedia at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Five_of_th...)

The only way for an amendment to actually become an amendment is for it to
be voted for by 3/4's of the his country's states. So again, no, my "idea"
does not go against how women and non-whites got votes and rights (see the
19th and 15th amendments respectively).

What you are suggesting is that the minority rule the majority. You are
also further arguing that it is okay to for people to go to court and
forcibly take what they want regardless if it will cause people's vote to
not count. Basically saying, "Hey, it's okay if those people feel like
their votes don't count as long as i get what I want" and that is just not
fair to those that took time out of their day to go and vote their stance on
an issue.

I'm not arguing if the current system is right or wrong. That's not what
this post was about. The current system is flawed and I have never once
stated that it was perfect. However, the system as it stands is the system
that we must deal with. Why should gays be different than women or
non-whites and get what they want by judicial interpretation (which is what
it is if the courts in CA rule against the passing of Prop 8) when women and
non-whites had to work with in the system to achieve their goals? Are you
arguing that gays are some how different than women or non-whites and thus
should be treated with even more special care?

You argue that it is wrong and unfair for the minority to have to wait for
the majority to see their point of view. However, that's exactly what women
and non-whites had to do. And you know what? It worked for them. They
have rights to vote now. I'm sure that if the gays want to marry that
badly, they can get a new proposition on the next ballot and have it pass.
But they should still work within the system as it currently stands not find
loopholes that cause millions of voters to feel like their vote didn't
count.

Also, as of Nov. 4th I am in a minority. I'm in a minority of people who
don't believe Obama was a good choice for president. I am 1 of a VERY small
number among my friends, peers, and co-workers. In this case, the system
did not work the way I wanted it to. But you know what? That's the way it
goes sometimes. I have to deal with 4 yars under a leader i neither voted
for or wanted. You don't see me throwing a "world class hissy" do you?
Why? Because in 4 years I get another chance to vote against Obama, and
I'll do it again. Just because the system doesn't work the way one wants it
to, doesn't give a minority of people the right to forcibly take what they
want. Regardless if you like the system's results, you still live within
that system and should abide by it until such time the system can be modifed
and made better.

Re: Olbermann Kind of Misses the Point

mkoby — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:27:06 -0000

If a large number of people voted on how I could or could not practice my
religion it would further prove my theory that this country has lost it core
values. However I doubt that would happen.

My "scum" reference was very specifically focused on those that are fighting
something in court that was voted on "by the people" and how getting that
passing vote turned over would cause more people to believe that the voting
system in this country does not work. We already have a good chunk of the
population believe that their vote doesn't count. If the passing of
proposition 8 is overturned in court then it just goes to prove to those
that don't vote because they believe it won't make a difference that they
are right.

Why vote for something if it's only going to be turned over in court when
the people who voted didn't vote the way everyone thought they should. This
is exactly what's happening in California and find it to be a great
disservice to all those that took the time on Nov. 4th to vote. The PROPER
way to handle this would be to get a motion on the next ballot to overturn
the passing of Proposition 8. Since it was voted on and passed the
systematic and democratic way for those people that voted NO on it to get
what they want would be to have it on the next ballot, call a special
election, or something similar. NOT to have the fact that it passed turned
over in court of law.

The ending of black and woman's sufferage were amendments to constitution, which
means, they had to be voted on. If gays want their right to marry, then
should they not go through the same process as blacks and women?

After all, isn't that what democracy is about?

Re: links for 2008-11-12

mkoby — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:05:29 -0000

Yea, I bookmarked it because I plan on writing something about it when I get some time to sort out my thoughts.

Re: I Won’t Vote for Obama Because…

mkoby — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 11:57:22 -0000

Fred,

Regarding the bailout, I just don't believe that the answer to the problem
is MORE debt at the taxpayer's expense. I never said NOTHING should have
been done, just that the bailout was not the solution i desired.

Really? I don't agree with your world view so I'm a right wing nut and a
plagiarist? At least I'm a "creative" plagiarist (I guess). I think I've
more than proven that I can think for myself. For the record I dislike
Limbaugh, O'Riley, and most other right-wing talk radio. About the only
political program I listen to with any kind of regularity is KCRW's "Left,
Right, and Center" (http://www.kcrw.com/news/programs/lr) because its fairly
balanced and looks at ALL viewpoints. Also, if I was a "nut" I would have
deleted all comments that did not agree with MY world view. But I didn't
because I think open discussion is important when it comes to politics.
Also, I have zero intention of changing your world view (while it looks like
you are working desperately to change mine). You can rarely change
someone's world view, and you definitely can't do it on blog. I'd also like
to note that the title of this post is essentially "Why I Won't Vote for
Obama" not "Why You Shouldn't Vote for Obama" because I'm not here to tell
someone how they should vote. There are a couple of places where I somewhat
attack the other side (but lets face, compared to what the rest of the
internet is doing to people that share my views, my "attacks" were tame at
best), but it also incited debate, which is good.

Let's make this whole argument incredibly simple. If you can show me, in
the constitution where it says that the rich shall make the lives of those
less off than themselves better, I will concede. If you can show me where
it says that those that make more than everyone else are duty bound to give
their money to the poor via government intervention, I'll concede. Problem
is, you won't find it. Doesn't exist. The constitution was written with
the idea that the government would have VERY limited authority to do
anything. It was meant as a way to tell the government what it could and
could not do to its citizens. The general idea was that if the citizenry
was free of mass government control they could control their own destiny.
This has happened, for the most part anyway. The constitution says that the
basic rights of man are "life, liberty, and the PURSUIT of happiness" which
means that you can pursue happiness, doesn't mean you'll get it. There is
nothing in the constitution about making life fair for everyone. Life isn't
fair, never has been and it never will be.

Now, with all that in mind, I do believe that you should help your fellow
man. But government intervention, in my opinion at least, is not the
solution to helping out your fellow man. You want to help those less
fortunate than yourself, there are charities for that, you can donate to you
local church, you can physically walk down the street and give the homeless
guy some cash. Relying on the government (which is effectively slow at
accomplishing just about anything) to help out those less fortunate is "a
long wait for a train that don't come"

Re: Allow Me to Clarify

mkoby — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 11:06:21 -0000

Yes, I'm all for helping ones neighbor, but I don't believe that doing it via government redistribution is the way to get it done.

For example, you have helped me by teaching and educating me how to be better in my field. You're helping another friend of yours by educating them on their trade.

Helping your "brother" doesn't mean having the government do it.