I have been working on an iPhone app.  In the past I've played with Objective C and even modified existing working code, but this is my first foray into creating a new app from scratch*.  Pretty interesting.  As usual learning the environment (Xcode etc) is a bigger curve than learning the language and runtime...

* where by "scratch" I mean heavily copy-and-paste-ing from others :)

Meanwhile, it's all happening...

We watched the Rewrite the other night, on iTunes, before it was even released into theaters.  A pleasant Hugh Grant romantic comedy.  I like Hugh Grant and like his character, but why does he always get written as a has-been?  (About a Boy, Music and Lyrics, and now The Rewrite...) 

As the father of four girls / women, I enjoyed this essay by Whitney Fleming very much: To my daughter, at halftime.  Since this was written by a mother of a 9-year-old, I feel like adding to her #10, which is "the best is yet to come", a #11: "you ain't seen nothing yet" :) 

From the CEO of Gallup, an unusually opinionated stance: The Big Lie: 5.6% Unemployment.  The government has been moving these goalposts for years; I've been in the workforce for ... um ... thirty-five years, and that whole time people have complained that the economy isn't as robust as the government claim it to be. 

Apropos: America's new aristocracy: the hereditary meritocracy.  An important point, well taken; as society removes the barriers which prevented people from all strata to succeed based on merit, new stratification caused by merit will form.  This is the biggest obstacle those who would battle "income inequality" face, and the more barriers they remove, the stronger the obstacle.  My opinion is that all such barriers should be removed, and after that it is what it is. 

So we've had a [half-]black President now, what's next?  Maybe a non-college graduate?  A Scott Walker Presidency would be a breath of fresh air for an ivy-league suffocated government.  Given the previous point about meritocracy, one might conclude this has become less likely than before, but of course there will always be exceptions and Governor Walker appears to be a big one. 

Powerline examine CNN's claim that this has been a Hellish week for Religion.  "What we have here is a series of atrocities carried out by extremist members of one religion, Islam. You could compile a similar list just about any week out of the year. What makes this a story about 'religion,' rather than about Islam?"  I'm not a fan of organized religions, but Islam definitely stands out as the religion most often cited as the inspiration for terrorism.  I'm tired of the media hiding this under the blanket of multiculturalism.  All cultures are not equal. 

Pebble's smartwatch now supports Android Wear apps.  Cool.  I'm a Pebble Steel wearer and I'm rooting for little Pebble against giant Apple and Google.  This compatibility makes it easier for app developers to support Pebble, and hence makes Pebble more compelling for users.