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Ask any parent what’s one of the first things they teach their kids and they’ll probably say “Don’t call people names.” It’s a lesson we all learn and one that helps keep discourse civil between functioning adults. Although we all do it occasionally, there are some that wield it so often it eventually becomes a crutch.

Right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh is one such person. Rush has never been known for his ability to discuss topics like an adult, but over at Wikipedia they actually have an entire page dedicated to Rush’s on-air jargon that he uses to belittle and berate others. You can read the entire list, but here are just a few of the more egregious examples Rush uses on his daily show.

This list is just one of many reasons why the GOP has seen its most dramatic decline in membership in decades, despite what Dick Cheney thinks.

• Banking Queen - Barney Frank. Reference to Frank’s homosexuality, his seat on the House Financial Services Committee and the controversy surrounding his views that there were no problems with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Rush would often accompany this with a parody of the ABBA song, “Dancing Queen”.

• Bela Pelosi - Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), a pun on the name of Hungarian film star Bela Lugosi, best known for his portrayal of Count Dracula.

• Benedict Arnold - Nevada Senator Harry Reid, after the famous soldier and traitor.

• Feminazi - “Feminazis” are those that Limbaugh claims are so devoted to feminist ideology (and the pro-choice cause in particular) that they are as repressive and hostile to personal freedom as members of the Nazi party were in Germany.

• Nostrilitis, Nostrildamus - Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA).

• Senator Dick Turban - Senator Richard Durbin, (D-IL). Limbaugh began using this moniker after Durbin made controversial remarks on the Senate floor which according to Durbin’s critics amounted to a comparison of the alleged abuse of detainees at Guantanamo Bay by U.S. military personnel, with the war crimes of Pol Pot and Hitler.

• “Osama” Obama - President Barack Obama. Limbaugh uses this alternate name for Obama as a reference to Senator Ted Kennedy’s (D-MA) mis-speak during a luncheon at the National Press Club (Jan 11, 2005). Kennedy, making mention of Obama’s large win during the 2004 elections, stumbled over Obama’s first name, stating “Osama bin Laden, Osama Obama, Obamamam.”

The recent release of Twitterrific 2 for the iPhone has reminded me that software development is replete with truisms. The primary thing I have to constantly remind myself is that, no matter what you do, or how hard you work, you simply cannot please everyone. Anyone who works in a creative field knows that there will always be those who are unsatisfied with the result.

For iPhone developers, these people usually fall into the “if it just had feature X, I would use it” category, but every so often you get someone who just poo-poos your efforts. It’s easy for devs to fall into the trap of trying to keep everyone happy, but years of experience have taught me that this is a losing battle. Development quickly builds into a sort of “features arms race” that usually ends with bloated software and burnt out programmers. No, the answer is to design first and foremost for yourself. If you can produce a piece of software that you are happy with, then chances are the majority of your users will be too. The trick is trust your gut enough to tell the difference between constructive feedback and the nay-sayers so you can move beyond them when it’s appropriate.

The other truism I’ve found is that there’s always room for improvement. The new posting user interface for Twitterrific 2 demonstrates this point perfectly. All through beta testing, the posting UI was the same as it was in version 1. If you wanted to change your update from one type of tweet to another, you had to toggle the tweet type using a single icon on the post bar. Although this method had served well since our initial launch, neither us nor the beta users were satisfied. Their feedback, combined with Louie’s desire to improve the posting experience challenged us to do it better. The result was a re-designed UI that fulfilled user’s desires for posting clarity while giving the Iconfactory a big new feature to tout. The amount of work required to pull off the revised posting interface so close to the end of the beta was intense, but ultimately worth it.

Lastly, if there is one axiom that Twitter has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt it’s simply that if you give an inch, the Twitterverse takes a mile. Lately I’ve been seeing more than a few requests for Twitterrific to support Twitlonger, a service that allows you to “expand” on the 140 character limit that is at the very heart of Twitter. The argument goes that allowing long updates to be read directly in-app is preferable to having to post multiple tweets. This may indeed be true, but I hesitate to support any service that, for lack of a better term, subverts Twitter. Brevity is the soul of wit, and in Twitter’s case, its lifeblood.

In my opinion, any update that can’t be held within Twitter’s 140 character limit should be taken offline to email, Facebook or Friendfeed. What’s the harm in supporting a great service like Twitlonger you ask? Seemingly none, except that Twitlonger is a very slippery slope. Imagine typing a tweet of any length right in Twitterrific. When the message length exceeds 140 characters, the app automatically creates web page entry where your followers can read your magnum opus. Sounds great, except its no longer Twitter, it’s called a blog. Given how easily such a feature would be abused (as is evidenced by the Twitterverse’s aggressive adoption of RT), I don’t see Twitlonger support in Ollie’s future.

As developers, all we can do is our best. Sometimes our best is good enough and sometimes it doesn’t cut the mustard. I’ve been very pleased with the positive reaction that Twitterrific 2 has been receiving from the Twitter community. There are updates coming that address some of the most requested issues from the initial 2.0 launch, but I have no illusions that even these updates will satisfy everyone. Not to mention all those people out there who are patiently waiting for an update to the Mac version of Twitterrific. To them, I offer one last proverb - Good things come to those who wait.

SPOILER WARNING: This post contains major spoilers for J.J. Abrams’ new film Star Trek. I mean really, really big spoilers. If you don’t want to know about things that might ruin your enjoyment of this movie, then you really should stop reading now and go somewhere else.

So much has been said and written about the new Star Trek film from J.J. Abrams that it seems to make little sense to write my own thoughts up. But seeing as Star Trek has been such a big part of my life ever since I was a little boy, and given that I’ve often written about Trek in the past, I figured what the heck.

Overwhelming consensus seems to be that the film is “Great!”, “Fantastic!” and “Fabulous!” Of all the guys from work that I went to see the movie with, I think I was the only one who came out of the theater not jazzed. I think Corey might have had some reservations too, but overall he was very excited about it. Did I like it? Yes I did. Did I love it? No I didn’t, at least not yet.

The Good

There are tons of things in the new film that I liked and others I even loved. In no particular order they include:

• The cast: Every actor in the film did a wonderful job of translating their character for a new generation. I especially enjoyed Quinto and Pine as Spock and Kirk, but also thought Simon Pegg as Scotty was wonderful and was surprised by the turns put in by the actors behind Checkov, Sulu and Uhura.

• The twists: I had seen so much of the movie in the commercials and trailers leading up to its debut that I thought I knew what was going to happen. I was surprised and delighted therefore when Kirk wasn’t the one under Uhura’s bed, but was under her Orion roommate’s instead. Same goes for the scene with Kirk sitting in the Captain’s chair with his black shirt where Spock tells him to “Get out of the chair.” It was wonderful and went against what I thought was going to happen going in.

• Spock rejecting the Vulcan Science Academy: Loved this scene to death. Quinto played it to a perfect Spock “T” when he asked the elders about his “disadvantage” and basically told them to go to hell. If you had put Nimoy in that scene instead, it wouldn’t have played any differently. Brilliant stuff.

• The action: It was quite a roller coaster romp from start to finish and had great pacing. The time seemed to fly by while we were in the theatre which is always a good sign.

• Uhura & Spock: I thought the scenes with Uhura and Spock becoming close would bother me, but they didn’t at all. They were played very well by both actors and Abrams’ direction here was wonderful. I can’t wait to see where this goes in the sequel.

The Meh

• The music: Totally didn’t live up to Star Trek standards. The main theme (which Louie pointed out was used in almost every track of the film) seemed like it *wanted* to be Star Trek, but was just slightly off. I kept expecting to hear the familiar Next Gen theme at points in the movie, but didn’t.

• Engineering: Being the die-hard Trekkie I am, I didn’t really appreciate the way Engineering looked more like a chemical plant from 24 than the heart of the flagship of the Federation.

• Enterprise in Iowa: Sorry, but the Enterprise was never built on the ground. It just wasn’t and the entire ship was never intended to land either. If Roddenberry was around today he would have told J.J. this small fact to his face. A totally unnecessary and pointless scene that would have at least been semi-credible if it had taken place in San Francisco instead of Iowa.

The Bad

• Abrams’ wanting to have it both ways: The studio promised us that this wasn’t “Your father’s Star Trek” and made a big deal about how everything was different. In reality, the only things that were different were the things Abrams wanted changed. There were so many TOS classic references that when they were thrown in, they seemed oddly out of place. More than a few of them seemed gratuitous. If you’re going to promote the film as all new Trek, have the space balls to see it through to the end.

• The Kobayashi Maru: As a huge fan, this was the scene I was looking forward to the most. I had run this classic tale of how Kirk beat the no-win scenario in my head dozens of times. I had always imagined it that Kirk reprogrammed the simulation just enough to make it seem like the rescue was plausible through heroic actions or sheer guile. What we got instead was a smug, overly-cocky Kirk eating an apple while everyone around him is astounded to find that the simulation has been reprogrammed. The most throughly unsatisfying bit in the entire movie.

• The destruction of Vulcan & death of Spock’s Mom: Listen, I get that this probably only matters to geeks like myself, but it does. The destruction of Vulcan negates HUGE portions of Star Trek history and cannon. Sure, this is an “alternate reality”, and it was probably necessary for several of the plot points, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. You know how you felt when Lucas made Greedo shoot first? The loss of Vulcan is like that for me.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter what I think of Star Trek. Everyone seems to love it and have hailed it as a wonderful re-boot of the series. To be honest, I’d rather have new Star Trek movies than not, so I can live with the parts I didn’t like, at least for now. I think by the time the inevitable sequel comes I’ll have come to terms with the disappointing parts of Star Trek and learned to see only the good stuff. After all, there is a great deal in the new film to like especially since I don’t enjoy being called a dickhead.

One of the toughest parts about owning your own creative business is having to keep secrets. During my time at the Iconfactory, we’ve had to wear many projects close to our sleeves for months, sometimes even years until the day comes when we finally can talk about them. This philosophy doesn’t just extend to our paying clients however, it also covers our internal projects.

Over the years, I’ve learned the hard way what happens when you let competitors know what your up to. If you’re lucky they merely get a jump on your idea, but sometimes, for one reason or another, they manage to beat you to market. This is one reason why I subscribe to the Montgomery Scott school of thought when it comes to product announcements. Named after the famous engineer from my beloved Star Trek, the theory is simply this: Under sell and over deliver.

By setting realistic expectations in the minds of your customers, they are pleasantly surprised when you manage to exceed them. This is how Scotty got his reputation for being a “miracle worker” on Star Trek. It’s also why we don’t typically like to give sneak peeks or announce dates for freeware and software releases at the Iconfactory unless we’re very close to releasing something. By doing this we keep competitors guessing and limit dangerous over-hyping.

Taken to its logical conclusion, the best way to keep expectations in check is not to create them in the first place. Unfortunately, this approach fuels rumors and leads some to conclude total inaction. My response to these people can be summed up in a recent tweet from my friend and colleague, Craig Hockenberry who said “When I appear to be doing nothing is when I am doing the most.”

We always have something new coming down the assembly line at the factory. I’d love nothing more than to run shouting to Twitter what we’re up to on any given day, but that would only lead to user heartache. We also firmly believe that if you’re going to do something, it’s worth doing right. So remember - just because you don’t have access to engineering, it doesn’t mean we’re not busy installing the latest dilithium crystals.

I knew she was trouble when she was elected, but today’s performance in the House of Representatives by North Carolina Republican Virginia Foxx clinches it. Foxx’s attempt to block updating hate crime legislation to include crimes committed against people based on their sexual orientation was at best ignorance and at worse, deep rooted bigotry.

Matthew Shepard was the young gay man in Laramie, Wyoming who, a decade ago, was tied to a fence, pistol whipped in the head some 50 times, then left for dead in the night, only to be found a day later clinging to life. Shepard died five days later. Even though Shepard’s murderers admitted that they lured and killed him because he was gay, NC representative V. Foxx pretends that fact doesn’t exist. Witness her plea that the motives behind Shepard’s murder were a “hoax”:

I thought the days of the likes of Jessie Helms were long gone, but incidents like this are painful reminders. I take solace in the fact that North Carolina stepped up and voted for Barack Obama this fall in record numbers, so there is still hope. If you’re moved to action as I am after watching this sorry excuse for an NC elected representative, then call or write her offices and make your displeasure known:

Phone: (202) 225-2071
Phone: (336) 778-0211
Phone: (828) 265-0240

Liberal comedian and commentator Bill Maher isn’t always my cup of tea. He often diverges into shallow attacks of the right and when he does he hurts his credibility. But friday’s New Rules was right on the money. His New Rules segment summed up what I’ve been saying for weeks about what’s happened to the right since the election.

Conservatives have nothing left except the word “No.” They have no ideas of their own, have lost the reins of power in both houses of Congress, and the President and his policies continue to be very popular. As a result, the right is floundering in tea parties, talk of secession and made up facts. It’s like the entire right-wing of the country needs to go to group therapy to work through their Obama issues. Maher recognizes this and hits the nail on the head as only he can. Skip forward to the 2:21 mark for the noteworthy bit:

A chilling report coming in about Time Warner Cable turning off some users internet access without warning for excessive bandwidth usage.

“After deciding to shelve metered broadband plans, it looks like Time Warner is cutting off, with no warning, the accounts of customers whom they deem to have used too much bandwidth. ‘Austin Stop The Cap reader Ryan Howard reports that his Road Runner service was cut off yesterday without warning. According to Ryan, it took four calls to technical support, two visits to the cable store to try two new cable modems (all to no avail), before someone at Time Warner finally told him to call the company’s “Security and Abuse” center.

“I called the number and had to leave a voice mail, and about an hour later a Time Warner technician called me back and lectured me for using 44 gigabytes in one week,” Howard wrote. Howard was then “educated” about his usage. “According to her, that is more than most people use in a year,” Howard said.’”

Oh I feel sorry for you Time Warner. This isn’t over, not by a long shot. If you thought customers were upset before, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

[hat tip to Travis for this post]

Conservative blogger and daughter of Sen. John McCain, Meghan, has been slowly emerging from her father’s shadow since his failed election bid. Meghan’s been active on Twitter and making waves in the Republican party for months, but her latest appearance before a crowd of Log Cabin GOP on Saturday could be the tipping point:

“I feel too many Republicans want to cling to past successes. There are those who think we can win the White House and Congress back by being ‘more’ conservative. Worse, there are those who think we can win by changing nothing at all about what our party has become. They just want to wait for the other side to be perceived as worse than us. I think we’re seeing a war brewing in the Republican Party. But it is not between us and Democrats. It is not between us and liberals. It is between the future and the past.”

No doubt these words only further to strengthen the perception of the ultra-right that Meghan is simply a RINO (Republican in name only), as is demonstrated by recent attacks against her by Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter. Such posturing toward the young conservative only adds credibility to McCain’s central thesis that “old school Republicans” are “scared shitless” and party shills such as Coulter, Limbaugh and Malkin represent the failed GOP past.

I find it fascinating how conservatives can dismiss the views of someone like McCain simply because she dares to speak the truth. Like many young people, her take on social issues is more tolerant than those of just her father’s generation. She courageously called on conservatives to re-examine their position on gay marriage not because she’s a closet liberal but because she’s knows that social equality always trumps bigotry.

McCain also knows the right will need to make fundamental changes in the way they conduct politics if they have any hope of courting new voters and growing the party. By striking the right balance between conservative and liberal ideals like a true Independant, Meghan may one day be able to achieve that which eluded her father. If she keeps speaking truth to power like she did on Saturday night, one day I just might vote for her.

Local blogger Dave Ribar reports on a story originally from the Greensboro News & Record. It seems as though some of the tea party participants in North Carolina and around the nation sent their state and federal tax returns in with tea bags attached to them. Responding to these sour grape antics, Dave hits the nail squarely on the head:

“…the net result of the “tea-baggers” childish behavior is to increase the costs of government and to make it more difficult to discern genuine security threats. Last November, the voters weren’t buying what these selfish, spoiled children were selling. Now, these same brats are going to show their true colors by throwing an expensive tantrum.”

Add to their waste the cost of the unused tea bags themselves and you have the ultimate example of hypocrisy this country’s seen in a long time. If I worked at the IRS and received a return that included anything but the standard paperwork, it’d be audited faster than you can say “Nestea Plunge”.

So much has happened this week that I wanted to get some random thoughts jotted down before I forgot them. So here’s a straight brain dump of what’s been running through my head these last few days. They include:

• I appreciate people’s right to organize and protest against their government. It’s extra special that the Tea Party crowd wasn’t forced into “free speech zones” like so many who protested the Iraq war just a few years ago.

• No matter how bad things got during W’s presidency, I can’t remember any Democratic governor calling for his/her state to secede from the union. Can you?

• If Texas wants to become it’s own country let them. It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes them to rejoin the union once hurricane season starts. (hat tip to Dave for this one)

• When major corporations like Time Warner say they have “no choice” but to hike internet rates by a factor of 10, what they really mean is “until legal action is threatened”.

• Newspapers could go bust at any moment, talk radio stations are dangling by mere threads and local TV stations are all but doomed.

• I’m thinking of organizing an anti-tea, “coffee day” grass roots campaign for those of us who support our President and our government. Honk if you’re with me.

• Note to tea-baggers: our President is doing precisely what he campaigned on which is one reason why the majority of the country elected him. Deal with it.

• I pay less taxes now than I did during the last administration.

• Companies like Time Warner are the reason why the phrase “by hook or by crook” exists. Don’t let your guard up for one single moment. Call for regulation and increased competition.

• President Obama is less than 1/24th of the way through his first term. If the tea-baggers don’t pace themselves, it’s going to be a very looooong 4 years.

• To protest wasteful spending, conservatives and libertarians bought over a million tea bags this past week, most of which will ultimately be discarded.

• I need to find and buy stock in tea companies. (hat tip to Brad Krantz)