App Smart Extra: Unusual Weather Apps

This week in App Smart, I wrote about a rather unusual class: Weather prediction apps designed to be simple or beautiful, and almost the antithesis of a brash TV weather report. Unlike watching a weather report on TV or reading one in a paper, an app of this type places interactive weather data in your hands, and can even make learning about coming rain or windstorms a very interesting experience.

One of my favorites is Partly Cloudy. It’s a $2 iOS app that turns the weather forecast for your location into an interactive circular infographic. When it loads, the app shows a clock-like display that graphs weather data like temperature, rainfall and wind strength in a circle, with a marker telling you the current time and conditions. For example, wind is represented as a gray-colored graph that is taller when the wind is stronger, while rain is a blue graph that grows and shrinks to show more or less rain predicted as you glance around the “clock.” It’s visually appealing, and it actually works You really can tell in one moment roughly what the coming weather is. The app even lets the clock represent a week, 12 hours or 24 hours, so you can quickly get a sense of whether it will rain that night or be blustery the next day, for example.

If there is one criticism of this app it is about the way of dialing forward to future weather predictions, which is done by dragging a marker around the clock to move it symbolically forward or backward in time. This can quickly lead to confusion about what actual date the graphs on the display relate to.

A different app that avoids this sort of problem thanks to its extreme simplicity is the free Android app Sunny. This app is extremely minimalist in design. Its display consists of large sheets of plain color that indicate the current weather prediction. For example, a partly cloudy but warm day is represented as a yellow segment and a gray segment. On top of these colors some very straightforward text reports the current temperature and foreca! st in large print, with words like “mostly sunny” or “cloudy.” The next two days of weather are printed beneath this in smaller text. The app is very easy on the eye, and will give you a good sense of the weather forecast in a second or two.

Another colorful app similar to Sunny is Haze, a $1 iOS app. It too has a minimalist display whose text and color react to the weather forecast, but this app contains slightly more detailed information to which you gain access via gestures. It’s designed to be both eye-pleasing and informative about weather predictions.

One advantage of all these apps is that they make weather predictions very simple to see, which could make them handy educational tools. It may be fun to play with them with your children, using the displays to teach them about how wind, sun and rain all interact to create the weather outside.

Quick Call

Microsoft has finally brought its powerful Photosynth panoramic photo app to Windows Phone 8. The app can be used to generat beautiful and surprising images of places and objects, and can even capture the entire 360-degree view to the left, right, up and down of the photographer’s position. It’s free on the Windows Phone app store.

Clinton Urges Court to Overturn Marriage Law He Signed

Former President Bill Clinton, who signed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 barring federal recognition of same-sex weddings, called on the Supreme Court on Thursday to overturn the law.

Just weeks before the court takes up a case challenging the law, Mr. Clinton said he had come to believe that the law is unconstitutional and contravenes the quintessential American values of “freedom, equality and justice above all.” In doing so, he joined President Obama in arguing that the law be overturned.

“As the president who signed the act into law, I have come to believe that DOMA is contrary to those principles and, in fact, incompatible with our Constitution,” Mr. Clinton wrote in an op-ed article posted on the Web site of The Washington Post on Thursday evening.

The former president’s argument reflected a broader shift in societal atitudes in the 17 years since the law was enacted. Mr. Clinton was never enthusiastic about the measure, but he was not on record supporting same-sex marriage at the time and, just weeks before his re-election, he felt he had no choice but to sign it. Still, to make the point that he considered it politically motivated, and to call as little attention to it as possible, he signed it after midnight.

It was an awkward moment for Mr. Clinton, who had done more than any previous president to court the gay community and promote gay rights, but he believed that Republicans were trying to steer him out of what was then the mainstream and damage his chances for a second term. As more Americans have come to accept same-sex marriage, Mr. Clinton has spent the intervening years trying to explain and distance himself from the law. In 2011, he supported a measure in New York legalizing same-sex marriage.

The Defense of Marriage Act defined marriage for federal purposes a! s the union of a man and woman. It did not ban same-sex marriage in the states, none of which then had made it legal. But the law stipulated that should one or more states eventually authorize it, other states would not have to recognize the validity of such unions. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments against the law on March 27.

In his op-ed piece, Mr. Clinton cast the decision to sign the law in 1996 as a sign of the era. “Although that was only 17 years ago, it was a very different time,” he wrote. “In no state in the union was same-sex marriage recognized, much less available as a legal right, but some were moving in that direction. Washington, as a result, was swirling with all manner of possible responses, some quite draconian.”

He suggested that the measure might have headed off a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage altogether and noted that only 81 of 535 members of Congress opposed the law. He pointed to a statement he issued when he signed it saying that te measure should not “be understood to provide an excuse for discrimination.”

“Reading those words today,” Mr. Clinton wrote, “I know now that, even worse than providing an excuse for discrimination, the law is itself discriminatory. It should be overturned.”

Obama Signs Expanded Anti-Violence Law

Standing with survivors of domestic abuse and sex trafficking, President Obama on Thursday signed into law a renewal and expansion of the 19-year-old Violence Against Woman Act, a long-sought victory made possible last month when House Republicans quit blocking the measure’s passage.

“We’ve made incredible progress since 1994, but we cannot let up â€" not when domestic violence still kills three women a day,” Mr. Obama said, “not when one in five women will be a victim of rape in their lifetime, not when one in three women is abused by a partner.”

The president signed the measure not in the more typical ceremony at the White House but in an auditorium at the nearby Interior Department to accommodate a crowd of women’s advocates, abuse survivors and Democratic and Republican members of Congress who had pressed for the law. Also with him was Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who as a senator in the 1990s sponsored the original legislation - “one of the causes of his career,” s Mr. Obama said in tribute.

The new law expands the federal protections and resources of the original act and ensures that those provisions also cover victims who previously fell through the legal cracks: those who are gay or transgender, Native American women who are victimized on tribal lands by non-Indian men, and undocumented immigrants.

Introducing Mr. Biden was Diane Millich, a member of Colorado’s Southern Ute tribe who told her own story of repeated abuse and a murder attempt by her non-Native American husband; because he acted on tribal land, he could not be arrested or prosecuted by either tribal or federal authorities. She now directs Our Sister’s Keeper, an organization she founded in 2007 for Native American women who are abused.

After the law expired in 2011, the Democratic-controlled Senate passed an expanded version with bipartisan support, while House Republicans passed a narrow bill without the changes for same-sex couples, immigr! ants and tribal populations. The Republicans especially objected to expanding the authority of tribal courts, calling that a violation of the constitutional rights of the non-Native Americans charged with crimes.

The issue died in December when Congress adjourned. But when a new Congress opened this year, the Senate quickly passed a nearly identical expanded version. This time House Republican leaders, under mounting political pressure, unexpectedly allowed it to come to a vote and pass with mostly Democratic support.

The new law builds on the original one, which, as Mr. Obama noted, created a national hot line for victims, a network of shelters, protection orders that carry across state lines, and expanded housing assistance for victims who flee their homes. New protections allow undocumented immigrants to seek help without fear of deportation.

“Because of the people on this stage and in this room, every time we reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, we improved it,” Mr. Biden sad. “Every single time, we’ve improved it. And we did this again.”

The vice president, who is heading Mr. Obama’s effort for gun safety legislation that began after the school massacre in Newtown, Conn., used the occasion to also promote the need for such action, given the impact of gun violence on women.

“We’ve all focused on the tragic gun violence that has been in the news lately, but I want to point something out to you,” Mr. Biden said. “From 2009 to 2012, 40 percent of the mass shootings in America â€" other than the celebrated ones you’ve seen â€" 40 percent where there’s four or more people who have been shot, the target has been a former intimate partner or a close family member.”

Obama Continues Congressional Outreach With White House Lunch

Following on his unusual dinner on Wednesday with a dozen Republican senators, President Obama will have a bipartisan lunch on Thursday with Representative Paul D. Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, and the panel’s senior Democrat, Representative Chris Van Hollen.

Mr. Obama’s recent spate of meals and phone calls with Republicans is a new outreach strategy to work around party leaders, especially in the Republican-controlled House, who have dug in against any more budget talks. And the lunch comes as Mr. Ryan is preparing to bring a new budget plan to a vote in his committee next week.

Since Mr. Ryan’s House budget is expected to be contrary to Mr. Obama’s plan, it is unclear what might come of the luncheon parlay. Mr. Ryan, as in the pas three years, is expected to propose balancing the budget by cutting projected spending only, especially for the fast-growing entitlement programs Medicare and Medicaid. Mr. Obama wants a deficit-reduction package that is a balance of spending reductions and further tax increases by closing some breaks for the wealthy and corporations.

Mr. Obama’s two-hour dinner with Republican senators at the Jefferson Hotel in Washington on Wednesday apparently covered more subjects than the budget, including immigration and gun safety legislation - two of the president’s other second-term priorities. As they left, Senators John McCain of Arizona and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma each gave waiting reporters a thumbs-up.

Perhaps their gesture merely expressed gratitude that the president had picked up the tab â€" out of his own pocket. Given the near blackout on information and the security cordon surrounding the hotel near the White House, Washington will be digging for days! for more substantive reports about what progress, if any, was made on bringing the two sides together.

The White House confirmed the list of those who dined with Mr. Obama only after everyone had left the private dining room, reflecting in part its sensitivity to the fact that identification with the Democratic president carries a political risk for many Republicans back in their states.

(Proof of that: Influential conservative activist Erick Erickson on Wednesday night circulated on his Twitter account another conservative’s Twitter warning: “Seriously, if you are a Senator up for re-election in ’14, the smartest thing you can do right now is BAIL on the Obamadinner.”)

Besides Mr. McCain and Mr. Coburn, the diners were Senators Bob Corker of Tennessee, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Dan Coats of Indiana, Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, Mike Johanns of Nebraska, Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, John Hoeven of North Dakota, Saxby Chambliss of Georga and â€" the only woman â€" Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire.

“The president greatly enjoyed the dinner and had a good exchange of ideas with the senators,” said a senior White House official who would not be identified.

Thursday’s lunch is a departure from much of Mr. Obama’s outreach lately, which has mostly engaged with Senate Republicans to counter the paralyzing antipathy toward him in the House. Next week, at his request, he will go to Capitol Hill to separately meet with both parties in both the House and Senate.

The president’s overtures follow phone calls to Republicans since Saturday, after across-the-board cuts - known as sequestration â€" took effect for military and domestic programs because Mr. Obama and Republican leaders could not agree on alternative deficit-reduction measures. The president insists that any alternative package must combine a balance of spending cuts and new revenues, while Republicans generally oppose new taxes on the wealthy and corporatio! ns.

In the Senate, however, a number of Republicans are known to support higher tax revenues if Mr. Obama and Democrats agree to significant long-term savings in Medicare, Medicaid and also Social Security â€" just the trade-off Mr. Obama supports. Mr. Coburn and Mr. Chambliss, for example, were members of a bipartisan group that supported a deficit-reduction plan with more additional revenues than the president has proposed.

The thinking in the White House is that with Congress’s Republican leaders â€" Speaker John A. Boehner and Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican minority leader â€" refusing to bargain with Mr. Obama on higher revenues, the president’s only route to a so-called grand bargain for deficit reduction is to go around the leaders to build a bipartisan consensus.

And if such a bargain can get through the Democratic-controlled Senate with a few Republicans’ help, that will put pressure on the Republican-controlled House to follow suit â€" even if House Democrats’ vote provide the margin of passage. That is just the dynamic that in the past two months has allowed Congress to send to Mr. Obama bills raising taxes on wealthy Americans, providing aid to victims of Hurricane Sandy and reauthorizing a law on violence against women.

Tip of the Week: Free Microsoft Office Quick-Start Guides

Software updates often bring changes like new menus, commands and keyboard shortcuts to Microsoft Office programs â€" and these new elements can temporarily slow down even the most experienced users of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. To help its customers get up to speed with the latest release, Microsoft has colorful “quick start” guides for all the programs in the Office suite available at its site.

Along with information for Word 2013, Excel 2013, PowerPoint 2013 and Outlook 2013, the page also includes 2013 quick-start guides for less-common programs in the Office suite: Access, OneNote, Project, Publisher and Visio. Available in the PDF format and free to download and print, each guide runs about five to nine pages depending on the program and covers the changes made to the software from the previous edition. Tips for using the program are included, as is compatbility advice for working with people who do not have Office 2013.

The Early Word: Pressing

In Today’s Times:
In a series examining how the gun industry lobbies Congress, Mike McIntyre writes about how the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation and a Congressional caucus provide the firearms industry with direct access to lawmakers to press industry concerns.

Having passed a resolution on Wednesday to keep the federal government operating through September, Republicans hope to advance a proposal that they say will balance the budget in a decade. Jonathan Weisman reports that the legislation is set to be unveiled next week, but that the path forward is “narrow and steep” because the measure is “politically charged.”

Abortion rights advocates plan to sue Arkansas after the state legislature passed a law on Wednesday that bans abortions after 12 weeks, when an ultrasound can typically detect the heartbeat of a fetus, Erik Eckholm reports. The bill sailed through the Republican-controlled legislature despite objections from the state’s Democratic governor and experts on both sides of the abortion debate, who said it clearly violated the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade.

If John O. Brennan receives Senate confirmation to become the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency, he will start his tenure trying to move the agency past its legacy on torture, Scott Shane reports. The Senate is expected to approve Mr. Brennan’s nomination by the end of the week.

The White House and Democrats need a new strategy to fill a vacancy on the United States Court of Appe! als for the District of Columbia Circuit after Senate Republicans blocked Caitlin J. Halligan’s nomination to the bench a second time on Wednesday. Ashley Parker reports that Republicans oppose what they see as Ms. Halligan’s judicial activism.

The sequester might cut into some of President Obama’s leisure activities, as the White House tries to reconcile the optics of the first family’s recreation with the financial hardship that many Americans will face as a result of the broad cuts, Michael D. Shear writes.

Happening in Washington:

Economic reports expected Thursday include weekly jobless claims and preliminary estimates of fourth-quarter productivity and costs at 8:30 a.m., followed at 10 a.m. by eekly mortgage rates.

At 10 a.m., the Senate Judiciary Committee will consider four gun bills, including an assault weapons ban and a school safety measure.

Also at 10 a.m., the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold confirmation hearings for Sally Jewell for secretary of the interior.

At 11:30 a.m., the Federal Trade Commission plans to announce a crackdown on text message spam.

Mr. Obama will sign legislation to reauthorize and broaden the Violence Against Women Act. The signing will take place at 1:55 p.m. at the Department of the Interior and will include speeches by the president and the vice president.