BehindTheNet.org Finns to the left, Finns to the right

Why BCS, part 1: Who’s complaining?

With President Obama “throwing his weight around” this week as he promised immediately after his election, we’re back to the BCS/playoff debate.

Abuse of the presidential bully pulpit aside, I think replacing the BCS with a playoff would destroy college football as we know it. In my perception, three distinct constituencies want a playoff for mostly distinct reasons:

• Fans of high-profile teams not in the BCS conferences, for the obvious reason that their teams can’t make the BCS championship game; their conference schedules aren’t good enough, and rarely can they schedule enough quality out-of-conference games to cover for it. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), whose state has two such teams, has abused his own bully pulpit for years on this group’s behalf.
• Fans of the 6 to 8 teams that can count on contending for the national championship nearly every season. They’re tired of (a) not having a clearly defined path to the championship game before the season begins, and (b) even if they do make it, having their credentials challenged by talking heads taking the cause of the first group.
• People that watch college football on television and have either never been to a game or only went to home games in their student days. They don’t understand why I-A football can’t act like NCAA basketball or pro football and give them playoffs to gamble on watch on the same weekday at the same time every year.

Group one we can give a pass to. They’re operating on pure self-interest. The others, though? We’ll tackle them over the next few days.

The Garmin 2x5 series, your Palm OS Treo, and the Phone Book

Straight off the UPS truck this afternoon: my new Garmin 265WT GPS, complete with Bluetooth phone dialing. Information on the Internet about the 2x5 series’s interaction with Palm OS Treos like my Sprint Treo 755p or the Centro is lacking, perhaps because we PalmOS users are the pathetic stragglers of the smartphone world.

Be that as it may, I still wanted to get as much connected use out of these guys as I could. So, here’s what I’ve found that this combination can and can’t do, categorized by appearance on the Garmin.

• Voice Dial is a no-go. Known limitation of PalmOS with all Bluetooth devices. The only way this would work is if the voice recognition were on-board the GPS, which it isn’t.
• Call History works, no problems. Of course, this is probably the least important feature to have on-screen.
• Call Home has nothing to do with any entry on the Palm. This number is set independently.
• Phone Book pulls from the Favorites buttons within the Phone application. This pull happens about a minute after you turn the GPS on and it pairs with your phone. This is, unfortunately, not the same set of numbers as your Palm OS Contacts (the database that gets synchronized with Address Book.app, Outlook, or Palm Desktop per your platform preference). The only workaround is to load most of the numbers you’re likely to call from the Garmin onto page 4 or 5 of the Favorites (where you won’t see them in ordinary operation); you don’t need to set a speed dial key. The primary problem is that the Favorites number won’t change if you change the corresponding number in the Contacts database.
• Even when dialing from the Garmin, keep your phone at hand. The Garmin should display a red phone handset icon at top-right while you’re on a call; tapping this icon doesn’t hang up, though, but instead takes you to a call status screen. One more tap is required on that screen to hang up. Easier to grab your phone and hit the End button.

Mistakes in political capital allocation

Just a couple of links

• MLWGS AP Environmental Science Students Take Trip

  The textbook for the AP Environment Science class is The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman, a book that explores “how our planet would respond without the relentless pressure of the human presence.”

  With all due respect to the academic rigor of my high school alma mater, the textbook selection should tell you all you need to know about whether the curriculum of this course (almost certainly taught to the test) is based more on scientific rigor or religious faith.

• ICE SAD

  Visions of a Mother Nature figure in an iceberg similar to the Virgin Mary’s reputed appearance in a grilled cheese sandwich? Transference much?