
State of The Union address minute by minute on Twitter - aroch
http://twitter.github.io/interactive/sotu2014/#p1
======
sillysaurus2
_That’s why, tonight, I ask every American who knows someone without health
insurance to help them get covered by March 31st. Moms, get on your kids to
sign up. Kids, call your mom and walk her through the application._

I have no health insurance, and I don't plan on getting it. This is, of
course, crazy. But the reason is because I can't afford it. I'm in the same
position as many others across the nation.

Under Obamacare, I am going to be fined some hundreds of dollars for not
having health insurance; health insurance which, itself, costs at least
$200/mo (even under Obamacare). Then next year, I'm going to be fined triple
that amount iirc, with increasing penalties each year.

Isn't this the opposite of free health care? I'm not involved in this debate
one way or the other. I don't know enough about the issues. But I will say
that I don't appreciate the government intruding on my private life, forcing
me to buy a product for at least $200/mo, a $200/mo I literally can't afford.

I don't know how this is going to play out, but the government's expectation
that everyone will buy health insurance just because they're enacting tax
penalties seems somewhat naive. People simply have no money for $200/mo of
extra costs. People are also bad at long-term planning, so the impending
threat of "next year I'll probably be fined" isn't going to persuade those who
are bad at finances (the vast majority of Americans) to sign up for an
immediate $200/mo expense.

~~~
hahainternet
I am not American, but as I understand it, if you earn so little that you
can't afford a plan, you can get vouchers to cover the cost. I'm not sure of
the specific boundaries and I think it varies per state.

If you detail more information I can always Google.

~~~
sillysaurus2
If I can't afford my lunch after being given so many opportunities to earn it
myself, then it would be unfair for me to ask my countrymen to foot the bill.
It's my problem, not theirs. I would have an extreme moral aversion to seeking
a handout, even if that aversion is to my own personal detriment.

Perhaps I should be trying to maximize every possible opportunity offered to
me. But I just can't stomach the idea of taking money away from other people
to pay for my own personal problems.

~~~
rtpg
How can you complain about the lack of a free luck, but then not take the free
lunch when pointed out that it is indeed present?

People want everyone to be covered, which is how Obamacare got pushed through
in the first place. You not getting covored can potential end up costing us
more in the healthcare system (healthcare costs being the biggest reason for
personal bankruptcy) if you don't take this and use it.

~~~
sillysaurus2
_(healthcare costs being the biggest reason for personal bankruptcy)_

This is interesting. Is this true?

I apologize if it sounded like I was complaining. I only meant I chose this
life. How is it reasonable for me to choose this, and then force other people
to pay for me?

The other alternative is that I should feel like a shitty human for choosing
not to maximize my earning potential and getting myself into this position in
the first place. But part of having freedom of choice is the freedom to choose
poorly. It's my own life, a life I'm not burdening others with. If I break my
arm, can't afford to pay for it, and then become bankrupt as a result, then I
have suffered a personal penalty which society will remember and will punish
me for. And while I may have temporarily burdened others by not being able to
pay for my emergency care, I've still been penalized as a result, which seems
quite fair. Whereas taking a handout to cover the same expense feels like I
got something for nothing.

I admit that there are some good arguments in this thread, though, so perhaps
I should reevaluate my moral perspectives. But it's extremely difficult for me
to become comfortable with the idea of encroaching on other people's lives by
force.

~~~
rtpg
[http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/25/why-people-go-bankrupt-
pers...](http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/25/why-people-go-bankrupt-personal-
finance-bankruptcy.html) Here's a citation on the bankruptcy statistic. Its
corroborated by many other sources (and many other studies).

No matter what your intentions on the topic, if you end up in the emergency
room for a preventable condition (which will lead to more treatment), you will
end up costing everybody much more than simply taking the vouchers... take
that fact as you will, but statistically speaking it's very likely you'll end
up "costing" society more by not participating in the healthcare system.

------
msvan
I always find it interesting how different the rhetoric in US politics is
compared to, for instance, Northern Europe. It's more pompous and dramatic;
certainly more interesting to listen to than what I hear here on a regular
basis. Obama's speeches also always have this left-ish air of "we're all in
this together!", whether true or not.

But then again, US politics is truly one-of-a-kind in most ways.

~~~
devcpp
As a French citizen who has visited UK and Germany, I prefer the pragmatic
data-based discourse I see in European countries. It's still bullshit but at
least it doesn't like it and all the promises are verifiable. I'm not
particularly fond of Obama's "I ask rich people to give a bit of money to the
poor" and hope that's sufficient. Hope...

~~~
Artistry121
The UK and Germany may be different but from what I've heard and read about
French politics I'm not sure I'd prefer that in any situation over America.
Isn't there lots of institutional racism and huge restrictions on enterprise?

------
welder
"And let’s pass a patent reform bill that allows our businesses to stay
focused on innovation, not costly, needless litigation."

I really hope this happens.

~~~
guelo
Whatever passes would be legislation that further entrenches the biggest
corps. It's the only thing that ever passes congress these days.

~~~
zhemao
They already passed such legislation. And you're right, it is a joke.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy-
Smith_America_Invents_Ac...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy-
Smith_America_Invents_Act)

Basically, it moves US patent law from first-to-invent to first-to-file. So it
lowers litigation costs for the big guys who take ideas from the little guys
and use their big legal departments to file the patent on it before the little
guy can.

~~~
Karunamon
.. or in a less cynical view, it makes it easier for a little guy to sue a big
guy without getting into a huge "who did what first" court battle.

~~~
Drakim
...or in an even more cynical view, let's big corporations and trolls to file
patents for things that have long been in use but nobody even thought about
patenting.

~~~
MichaelGG
That's not how it works. It doesn't allow you to patent prior things because
you're first, it is just to kill of disputes when people patent something
"simultaneously".

~~~
Drakim
Considering the patents that have been granted, I'm not so sure about that.
Maybe it's supposed to be like that in theory, but in practice it seems
companies can copyright basic shapes and colors.

~~~
Karunamon
It's not and never has been that simple. Apple didn't patent the square with
rounded circle - they panted the square with a rounded circle in combination
with a single button at the bottom and with a specific UI in the middle laid
out in a specific way with specific features.

------
taeric
Not having scrollbars on the text is... an interesting idea. Also, I see I
jumped through several "pages" in my history. Where did I go, exactly?

~~~
wmeredith
Interesting... but maybe not effective for getting people to read your
content. I scrolled around with my mouse and nothing was happening so after
about 10 seconds I just clicked back.

EDIT: So I went backed and checked it out some more. Completely breaks my back
button as they load 20+ URLs while I try to (jerkily) scroll through the text.
under ideal circumstances this interface could be really cool, but I found it
unusable.

~~~
andrethegiant
+1

I absolutely despise when sites do this. One scroll gesture and now I can't go
back to the site I came from? Another common archetype for this behavior is
sites that show a slideshow. I click through 20 slides, and now I can't get
back to the page I came from. Webdevs: you can still have permalinks to each
paragraph/slide/whatever without completely muddling the user's browser
history! Use replaceState instead of pushState to mitigate this problem.

Browsers should evolve to account for this kind of abuse. Holding down the
back button should present two options: One to list all the anchors you've
been to on the current page (in this case, paragraphs on the page), and one
list of your previous history stack that doesn't account for URL
fragments/hashes.

~~~
taejo
> Browsers should evolve to account for this kind of abuse. Holding down the
> back button should present two options: One to list all the anchors you've
> been to on the current page (in this case, paragraphs on the page), and one
> list of your previous history stack that doesn't account for URL
> fragments/hashes.

Chrome does this (as I discovered when trying to escape this page)

------
mindstab
The CBC had a great re-imagining of the speech

"The state of the union speech Barack Obama would never give"

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/the-state-of-the-union-
speech-b...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/the-state-of-the-union-speech-
barack-obama-would-never-give-1.2514862)

~~~
cookingrobot
That would be refreshing to hear.

------
larrydag
This is one of the neatest data visualizations I've seen.

~~~
md224
Indeed... it's almost like an fMRI of the national "mind", measuring
activation in both spatial and topical dimensions.

Might be interesting to see retweet patterns, to illuminate how sentiment is
forwarded through the network.

~~~
smoorman1024
Retweet patterns would be quite interesting. Especially since retweets happen
one of two ways. You retweet someone you follow or you retweet something
happening in a trend. I wonder if you could separate those two.

------
alimoeeny
More than anything it is a self fulfilling prophecy,the more people trust the
social media as a source of real time news, the more they (and "social media
experts") contribute to the social media to present the news, and it is a
double edged sword as well.

------
miggaiowski
Anyone want to sync this up with a youtube video? Just make it scroll as the
video plays.

~~~
MrZongle2
And add the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" as the backing music.

------
Zikes
I'm disappointed that he addressed energy and specifically mentioned natural
gas, but did not address the controversial "fracking" method for extracting
it.

Considering the high engagement from certain areas of the US at that point in
the speech, I'm willing to bet a lot of other folks felt the same way.

~~~
maxerickson
He did, at least euphemistically. Right after the very first mention of
natural gas he said "if extracted safely".

That's about as far as he is going to go if he isn't going to say 'no more
fracking'.

------
mbell
I found it interesting that New Hampshire, Vermont and New Jersey seem to be
pegged at the far low end of engagement for every paragraph. Bug or lack of
interest in twitter/STU in those states?

~~~
robotmlg
There was a New Jersey Devils game on TV at the same time as the SotU Address,
so that may explain NJ.

~~~
acuozzo
> so that may explain NJ.

I'd argue that it also " _explain_ "s USA.

~~~
RickHull
I'd argue that the SOTU is about as meaningful as a campaign speech, and less
so than a NJ Devils game.

------
unlimited_power
my back button!?

------
smoorman1024
This is really spectacular. Hat tip to you.

