garry’s subposterous

Hat tip Chrys Bader -- this really has a good shot at winning TC50.

America's upper house, say political scientists Frances E. Lee of Case Western Reserve University and Bruce I. Oppenheimer of Vanderbilt, is "the most malapportioned legislature in the world."

...

In 1790... it was possible to assemble a Senate majority out of members representing 30 percent of the national population; today, it is possible to do the same with senators representing just 17 percent. Under current rules, 41 senators representing as little as 11 percent of the U.S. total can effectively veto any bill, while 34 senators representing as little as 7.5 percent can block any constitutional amendment. To quote Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the only senator who apparently realizes that anything is amiss: "Already we have seven states with two senators and one representative. The Senate is beginning to look like the pre-reform British House of Commons."

This is indefensible by any standard. The participants in the 1787 Constitutional Convention agreed to equal state representation in the Senate because it was the only way to win over states like Delaware and New Jersey that feared being bulldozed by transappalachian giants like Virginia and Pennsylvania. Yet while the United States has seen every sort of geographical and ideological conflict over the ensuing centuries, it has never seen one in which differences in state population have played any significant role. After all, what conceivable reason could New York and Texas have for ganging up on, say, Vermont and the Dakotas?

It is possible to assemble a Senate majority out of members representing just 17% of the population.

As a California resident, my vote to elect a senator is worth 1/60th of that of a citizen from Wyoming. That's 1.6%.

I get it -- yes, there's a reason why things are so. The founding fathers had their reasons. But that's not a good enough reason when it comes to government. Not when the reasons cease to make sense. Government exists for the good of the people, not to preserve its own creation story.

Minority states rights? I'm with the American Prospect on this one. Is NY and TX gonna start ganging up against Vermont? Why? What's the real issue?

And I ask again. Is it time for reform?

Perfect -- right around the time I'm moving to the Mission -- I'll actually be able to bike down Market possibly. Though navigating around insane East Bay drivers who have to make those right turns might not be so fun.

Let us take a breath and remember what the world was like before Apple introduced the iPhone:

1. Carriers ruled the industry with an iron fist
2. To access carriers’ networks handset makers capitulated everything
3. Carriers dictated phone designs, features, apps, prices, marketing, advertising and branding
4. Phones were reduced to cheap, disposable lures for carriers’ service contracts
5. There was no revenue sharing between carriers and manufacturers
6. There was no notion of phone networks becoming dumb pipes anytime soon
7. Affordable, unlimited data plans as standard were unheard of
8. A phone that would entice people to switch networks by the millions was a pipe dream
9. Mobile devices were phones first and last, not usable handheld computers
10. Even the smartest phones didn’t have seamless WiFi integration
11. Without Visual Voice Mail, messages couldn’t be managed non-linearly
12. There were no manufacturer owned and operated on-the-phone application stores as the sole source
13. An on-the-phone store having 65,000 apps downloaded nearly 2 billion times was not on anyone’s radar screen
14. Low-cost, high-volume app pricing strategy with a 70/30 split didn’t exist
15. Robust one-click in-app transactions were unknown
16. There was no efficient, large scale, consistent and lucrative mobile app market for developers large and small
17. Buttons, keys, joysticks, sliders…anything but the screen was the focus of phones
18. Phones didn’t come with huge 3.5″ touch screens
19. Pervasive multitouch, gesture-based UI was science fiction
20. Actually usable, multi-language, multitouch virtual keyboards on phones didn’t exist
21. Integrated sensors like accelerometers and proximity detectors had no place in phones
22. Phones could never compete in 3D/gaming with dedicated portable consoles
23. iPod-class audio/video players on mobiles didn’t exist
24. No phone had ever offered a desktop-like web browser experience
25. Sophisticated SDKs and phones were strangers to each other

This list too could go on. But it’s sobering to remember that a single device by a company with zero experience in the industry and against all odds caused such a tidal wave of change. Change didn’t come because of Nokia, Microsoft, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, RIM or any other player in the market for the past 15 years bet their company on it.

This is an astonishing story. An 18 year old engineer from Nepal comes up with an economically viable solar cell made from human hair.

Somebody hook this guy up with the green VC's in the valley!

Edit: Damn, it's a hoax.

Headache – (often described as being gradual in development and diffuse, and sometimes throbbing and severe)

Fatigue -- (e.g., fatigue, tiredness, lethargy, sluggishness)

Sleepiness/drowsiness -- (e.g., sleepy, drowsy, yawning)

Difficulty concentrating -- (e.g., muzzy)

Work difficulty -- (e.g., decreased motivation for tasks/work)

Irritability -- (e.g., irritable, cross, miserable, decreased well-being/contentedness)

Depression -- (e.g., depressed mood)

Anxiety -- (e.g., anxious, nervous)

Flu-like symptoms -- (e.g., nausea/vomiting, muscle aches/stiffness, hot and cold spells, heavy feelings in arms or legs)

Impairment in psychomotor, vigilance and cognitive performances

I've cut back my Red Bull intake and have been experiencing this of late. I thought I was getting sick or had mono, but I think it's probably just caffeine.

I just popped open a Red Bull now and I'm feeling better already. That's how you build real billion dollar companies: get people physically addicted.