Apple WWDC 2009
April 7, 2009 | People & Society | Software | Technology
If you read my post last year and want to make plans, here's the link.
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The Twitter Inversion
April 5, 2009 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | People & Society
Perhaps another time I could elaborate further on the profound nature of Twitter's interaction model. There are flaws, but it's wired us together in as many ways as there are participants. Today, by way of illustration, here is a screenshot view into a couple of minutes of my Twitter stream:
The stream actually starts on the bottom, so right off the bat if we want to experience time progressing in the familiar direction we are reading from bottom to top, the opposite of what we expect. Thus, leaving Kansas, we hear from some characters. Context is everything.
Daniel Jalkut owns Red Sweater Software, makers of the fine MarsEdit, the weblog editing tool upon which I sculpted the very words you're reading. We've corresponded by email on a couple of topics. Nice guy. Lives about two hours south of here (in Boston) and I've always thought I should get myself down to one of the various meetups in that area and say hello sometime. His tweets and posts are each of equal quality.
Next up, Howard Rheingold, an old online friend from The WeLL, who lives in Northern California. When I got fully online in 1988, Howard was there waiting, pointing the way. We met during Internet 1.0 at the offices of Caucus Systems, maker of a well-designed multi-user conferencing system similar in interaction structure to The WeLL. I doubt I'll ever forget riding the DC metro with Howard in his bright orange silk suit, hand-painted leather shoes, and white derby. You can turn heads dressing like that. It's unlikely Howard remembers me, but no matter, I love you too buddy.
OM_o is the Open Museum (online), produced by Heritance, where I am a director serving on the board with several others, including friends and founders Maureen and Jeff Doyle. The visual design of openmuseum.org is a fork of the xhtml/css codebase I wrote for GiftEcology.com (nee Handmeon.com). I usually always check the links posted here because the objects are interesting and the stories are good. And they're friends and I'm on the board and I usually have thoughts on the interface evolution and I'll probably see them soon so I want to stay up to date with the project.
And then, look, right there, just above OM_o is Maureen, who lives in Vermont. Always nice to see her. But wait, I don't like seeing those duplicate Tweets – no no, that suddenly feels like PR. I need to email her a link to this blog post, because I want to encourage people to never do this. Don't multi-tweet with pasted text. Adopt a specific identity for each posting account, or simply tweet for yourself, as yourself. Using that imperative to make a leap to the broader issues around 'social media marketing,' I pretty much agree with everything in this 10-minute video by Perry Belcher. (Some language not safe for work.) He's coming from the Internet marketer perspective but watch it anyway, he's right on beat with the social media rap. In another video he claims to have earned in excess of $50 million on the Internet, and also that he has personally paid over $10 million to Google AdWords advertising. If you're thinking about making money online he's probably a good guy to listen to. But whatever you think about that he speaks for me on current business best practices using Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
Above Maureen is my close friend and all-around great person Meg Maker from New Hampshire. You should go and read Maker's Table, her food and wine blog, right now – this post will still be here when you get back. I've known Meg 20 years, we've worked together in many different roles and structures, and we see each other socially many times a year.
Above Meg is Dave Winer, a brilliant, visionary, hard-working nerd of the first order, who lives in Berkeley, California. Dave was instrumental in creating among other things, RSS, which is what blogs use for subscriptions; podcasts, which are now ubiquitous; and outlining, which is taken for granted but wasn't really in use much prior to Dave's "ThinkTank" and "More" software. Dave also kind of invented the idea of "bullet charts" for presentations, sort of a proto-PowerPoint feature built into More.
Finally at the top, Dan Benjamin, who I've never met or corresponded with, but who I came across because in 2007 he wrote the best-ever articles on Ruby/Rails/MySQL/etc Mac OS X installation and configuration. I think he lives near Orlando, Florida. We've corresponded a bit via Twitter. He posted something about BBEdit and opening projects, and I @replied (quickly) along the lines of, "X doesn't just work?" To which he @replied me something snotty, like "@notio, no, obviously, X doesn't just work." (I paraphrase.) [See update below.] I felt horrible, like I'd annoyed the Master, and wondered if he'd make it so that my specific computer could never read his website again, but then several other people who I also follow @replied him with the same idea, before they saw his response to me. So then I didn't feel like quite such a dunderhead. Dan's a very serious meditator, so I know in my heart that his tone to me was not personal but was just part of his practice.
Now, take another look at that screenshot and tell me: Are these, you know, inane, unnecessary, frivolous, 140-character "messages?" To me, because of the context, not so much – it reads like human conversation. Not transactional messages between humanoids, but conversation between people. If you've ever transcribed recorded conversation literally you know it's really something to read – you can hardly follow it. If I think about conversation as "messages" then most conversations don't pass for quality of messages. But what's nice about human conversation is that it has all sorts of structures and processes and norms and degrees of freedom so we can actually get to know each other and find common interests, aside and apart from the transactional and informational quality of messaging.
In that two-minute snapshot of my Twitter stream I am updated on lives and perspectives, and am provided opportunities to further engage with links to several topics. I can reply if I want, or not. Some people I know well, others only through this medium. It's not email, it's not threaded, you have to be concise, the company is growing quickly and there are a lot of hiccups.
And yes, there are ways to sort-of spam Twitter and people are discovering ways (cough, TweetBlast, cough) to make sales with viral Twitter schemes, but there's one big difference.
If you don't like your Twitter stream content, you can un-follow people, and you'll never hear from them again.
How different from email lists, where names are shared and sold and the spam never stops. Here attention is earned, not demanded. That inversion makes the whole thing worthwhile, because even if Twitter dies, we'll have experienced this form of communication.
This new form is such that the listener is in control of the attention paid to talkers, and once you experience this you will never want to go back to letting the broadcast-era talkers attempt to dominate your attention and listening. This interaction model started with RSS subscriptions, and has now hit the mainstream with Twitter.
The future? Let me know when I can watch the most creative advertising whenever I want. That will be fun.
Update: Dan Benjamin commented below, and due to a problem with my TypePad ID I am unable to write a comment response on my own blog. Gotta get off this platform. In any case, I don't mean to overstate the case – I'm sure whatever Dan said was reasonable, because after reading him for several years I think he's a reasonable guy – my intent was to convey my internal horror of tossing off a flip comment to an expert. Apology accepted, with my own apology added for good measure!
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Patrick Byrne at Dartmouth Tuck School
February 16, 2009 | Business & Commerce | People & Society
Patrick Byrne visited Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business this evening. It was something of a local event, since Patrick and his father, Jack Byrne, both attended Dartmouth. The 90-minute format was was structured such that three '09 Tuck students each asked a question and then the audience asked a bunch of questions. His answers were very complete thoughts with muti-minute responses.
Jack was president of GEICO insurance which was owned by Berkeshire Hathaway, owned by Warren Buffett. Because of this Warren was a regular houseguest at the Byrne's in the 1970s and Patrick grew up hearing Buffett describe his approach to thinking about business. Some Buffett pearls:
On buying companies: "Always try to buy a dollar for sixty cents, forty if you can." Byrne continues, "Sometimes, every once in a while, like now, maybe twenty cents for a dollar."
On buying stocks: "Here's something adults don't understand. When you buy a stock, don't think of it like a piece of paper that moves up and down. Instead, if you buy the stock, and the stock market closed tomorrow and you had to hold the stock for five years, would you still buy the stock? That's the question. Act like you're buying a part of the company that you're going to own. Because you are."
On buying bankrupt RTC real estate in the '80s: "If you're not going to kick a man when he's down, when are you going to kick him?"
After graduation Byrne started a nine-month master's program in philosophy at Stanford. He was diagnosed with cancer, and during the next four years (age 22 - 26) was in and out of treatment. He said he had three rounds of remission and return, each putting him in the hospital for three to nine months at a time. An interesting side-effect of this was that having fallen so far behind his peers he was never trying to keep up or prove anything. After beating cancer a couple of times he decided to live his life in six-month blocks, hoping for the best, and doing things he wanted to do. He went on to obtain a master's degree from Cambridge University as a Marshall Scholar, and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Stanford.
During this time he alternated between school and various real estate deals, sometimes with his brother. Often this involved buying RTC properties, doing a company turnaround, and selling for decent profits. They purchased a large (one million ft2) mill building in Manchester NH ("a skyscraper lying down") for $3.5 million ("the price of the carpet") and sold it 20 months later for $10 million.
In November 2000 the Wall Street Journal delivered an ego-puffing profile that covers this era pretty well.
Byrne spoke passionately about education reform. He is a strong supporter of school vouchers. He ties this issue directly to our competitiveness in the world economy. Byrne believes Americans are living in a cloud of illusion. We think we're such a great world competitor, but we forget at the end of WWII we had bombed all of our industrial competitors to destruction. We cleared the table and ran the house. But now the world has rebuilt it's industrial and educational capacity, and we have become the consumers, not producers. We cannot ever be competitive in the world with our current 140 year old educational system. We spend $11,000 per pupil per year, significantly higher per capita than other industrial countries, yet by any measure we rank in the bottom quintile of performance. We cannot fix this problem by throwing more money at it. The "guild" (teacher's unions, administrative apparatchiks, etc.) has little left to argue its case except fear of change.
Along the way he had alluded to structural corruption in the American capital markets, closing with an anecdote about a news story in India that presented America as a cautionary tale of capital corruption. At this point a student asked if he could be more specific in his criticisms of the capital markets, and we transitioned into a long segment on financial corruption.
The Wikipedia entry covers the basics, but essentially he claims there are loopholes in the stock settlement system – originally designed to allow some flexibility and elasticity in the case of systemic issues – that allow "options market-maker exceptions to rule 203b1." He joked this could be more memorably named, "The Madoff exception." This is related to changes in Regulation SHO exemptions. The whole ball of wax you may also know as "naked short selling."
This is wicked complicated, and I'm sure I don't fully understand it, but what I gather is: When you buy a stock a seller has sold you the stock. The two of you need to "settle" the deal, where they get cash and you get a numbered stock certificate. Sometimes, for a variety of logistical reasons, the stock certificates cannot be physically transferred at the exact moment the cash arrives. So the settlement company is allowed to write an IOU for the certificates. Most buyers don't take possession of the certificates, so they don't actually know this has happened.
He wrote an infamous slide deck about this called The Miscreants’ Ball.
For a long time the SEC took the position that this didn't matter. People didn't abuse these IOUs! But then in 2007, the SEC changed their mind and wrote:
Regulation SHO's grandfather provision was adopted because the Commission was concerned about creating buy-side volatility through short squeezes if large pre-existing fail to deliver positions had to be closed out too quickly....
That's secret code for, "If we forced everyone to deliver on the IOUs the market would realize those stock certificates had been sold several times over on various small foreign exchanges, sucking $2 trillion out of the system without anyone noticing. We don't want them to notice all at once, so we're going to forgive all the ones we know about and pretend they don't exist."
In other words, what supposedly wasn't happening yesterday is today so bad that if we acknowledge it the financial system would collapse. Again, this is wicked complicated, and I'm sure I don't fully understand it. But I have a feeling he'd agree wholeheartedly with Catherine Austin Fitts.
Long story short, when he took Overstock.com public they were the first company to do an IPO dutch auction – an OpenIPO – Google followed them two years later. They took a lot of flack from Wall Street, and since he had worked there people he knew told him he would be a pariah. He got an unusual phone call from a guy who told him he was living in South America out of a backpack so the Mafia didn't whack him, and Patrick needed to watch out. Byrne didn't believe him, but the guy said, "Watch. What's going to happen is: First these five prominent business journalists will write hack jobs on you or your company. Next you'll find your stock trading on exotic foreign exchanges where you've never listed. Then you'll have a Federal investigation that will amount to nothing but will take a lot of time and money. Finally, you'll find your company on the top-30 list of stocks with fail to deliver positions." Over the next four months all of those things played out, Byrne got in touch with the guy, and they started to piece together how it all worked.
Byrne's blog is Deep Capture, where all this is laid out is long-form detail. It's worth noting that he has critics. After last year's financial meltdown, he feels the intellectual argument is over.
He said he's paid millions of dollars over the past four years on attorneys and economists to gather freedom of information act requests, sue hedge funds and options market makers, and fend off the SEC. He believes the SEC is a "captured" regulator. In this case "captured" doesn't mean "control" but more like "cognitive capture," in that the industry behavior is considered so normal, and so obviously correct – it's a market, after all – that if there's a rule violation they must have written the rules wrong, because this is in fact what the industry does.
Toward the end someone asked about the supply chain he built with Overstock.com, and how it's different. He thinks supply chain theory is the most important and a highly undervalued aspect of retail business. The short version is the normal retail distribution system can't deal with small quantities and odd lots. Overstock built their system to account for this. Their warehouse is "random load" – there isn't a single place where items sit, because the items are always changing. Took a long time to get it right.
Byrne told the story of where the fair-trade worldstock idea came from. Again, the bio covers the basics:
During a vacation in Southeast Asia Byrne found many village artisans were held back by the lack of retail channels, as their production was fragmented and the quantities produced were small. He further realised the Overstock model was perfectly suited for their needs.
In this case "during a vacation" meant cruising the country on a motorcycle, before eventually driving over the edge of a bank and fracturing his arm, 15 hours from medical care, and being carried to a family's hut. When they say, "he further realized," what they mean is, while smoking whatever it was the family gave him to smoke – "I didn't ask" – to take his mind off his broken arm, awake and alone blazing in a hut in Southeast Asia in the middle of the night.
Byrne called it the best idea he's ever had.
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Link Love
January 16, 2009 | People & Society
Shout out to the The Macalope, who noted Notio's comment over at Megan McCardle's place, regarding her annoying Apple commentary. I had left an earlier comment, suggesting she use Daring Fireball as a primary source, but it didn't make it through moderation.
I was just connecting the dots between the Macalope nomination for Michael Wolff as jackass of the year, as outlined earlier today, and Megan, who failed to win this particular round, though not without consideration.
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Economics Blogs
January 9, 2009 | Business & Commerce | People & Society
I gave a talk to a local business group about blogs, Twitter, social media and all that, and one of the participants emailed asking for blog recommendations to learn more about economics. Here's what I suggested.
I think Umair Haque is by far the most interesting 'business strategy' writer right now. Strategy has to take account of economics, and he's pointing the way forward.
It would be hard to leave out Paul Krugman, having just won the Nobel Prize and all. I happen to agree with his politics, but he's worth reading even if you don't, simply because he's so dang smart.
Barry Ritholtz called BS on the housing market several years ago, and his irreverent take on things keeps him in my regular reading list. You will learn a lot about how to interpret relevant numbers and statistics from him.
Nouriel Rorbini is SUPER-smart, and was also a contrarian to the bubble mentality. His predictions will probably be scary, and more-so once you notice that he's been right most of the time.
There's the Freakonomics blog which is always interesting for always-different reasons.
Locally, Andrew Samwick of Dartmouth has always had good pointers and a take on things that doesn't always line up with my way of thinking.
Tyler Cowen gets a lot of linklove, and though I don't read him often, it's good to check in once in a while.
The Calculated Risk blog is interesting, as is The Cunning Realist in that they are anonymous, but the insight is obviously deep and worthwhile.
Probably the most important thing to do is follow links in the posts. When you find an author you like, and they link somewhere, it's like a citation to the background source. You'll often find good related blogs this way.
Also, look at blogrolls. These are the links of blogs the author scans regularly, something of a recommendation – "if you like this, you'll probably like that." For instance, the blogroll at Barry Ritholtz's blog is excellent for the econ topic.
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Yglesias and Ambinder and sometimes Klein
December 19, 2008 | People & Society
Now that the election is over, my main two politics blogs (i.e. daily) are Matt Yglesias and Marc Ambinder.
Yglesias came out of Harvard in 2002/3(?), did a stint at Talking Points, then the Atlantic, now at Think Progress. I like his focus on policy implications, with a snarky style that suits me.
Ambinder is a reporter at the Atlantic, with good sources and clear analysis. He's more of a "what's really going on" guy, which fits my insider identity. ;)
I still read Sullivan, but he's best when he's got a bone to pick, and after dispensing with Clinton, McCain, and Palin it will be a while before there's an opposing force of requisite magnitude.... (Although Rick Warren is taking the bait this week.)
I also kind of like Ezra Klein, who has a focus on healthcare. He's a little more rambling, and topically kind of all over the map, even for a blog, but worth checking maybe weekly, because when he's got it he's really got it. I actually really like his attitude; I can't really place why he's not a daily skim.
It's amazing how much time I reclaimed after the election. Some days I must have been spending three or four hours a day reading politics. I'm rationalizing that it was all part of raising the energetic vibration to get Obama elected....
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25 Seconds of Joy
June 25, 2008 | People & Society
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Better to ignore than to critique
June 23, 2008 | People & Society
dayna boyd: "In an attention economy, it's better to ignore than to critique."
I'm deeply disturbed by the proliferation of troll-like behavior in contemporary life. Why are public figures increasingly appearing whose whole identity is wrapped around driving others batty? Why does it seem as though more people are starting to write controversial books purely to make money off of the attention they receive when others attack them? Why are reputable publications publishing these authors' tirades against others that are intended specifically to draw them out in a public fight? I guess we know the answer... Or at least the equation. Attention = money. And in the world of media, attention = advertising revenue.
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Hot Dating Tip [SF, CA, USA]
June 9, 2008 | People & Society | Software | Technology
It's sweeping generalizations day at Notio!
I guess it's kind of a semi-secret, but once you crack the code, dating geeks is a really good move. Granted, the male/female ratio is unbalanced – but generally, if you're a woman and you're looking for a guy, you could do a heck of a lot worse than finding a cool geek to hang out with. The girl geeks tend to be really cool too, there are just fewer of them.
Here's a post that gives you the downlow howto. The comments there flesh it out. Here's another one a little more cliched. But their summary is good:
Why Geek Dudes Rule
- They are generally available.
- Other women will tend not to steal them.
- They can fix things.
- Your parents will love them.
- They're smart.
This post is decent too. The classic essay on dating geeks is called Dating an Apple Developer by Emily Hambidge, but the link is currently broken; maybe it will come back.
The reason I bring it all up is, this week in San Francisco CA, there are 5,200 Macintosh and iPhone developers – programmers, engineers, ubergeeks – mostly age ~16 to ~50, congregating downtown at The Moscone Center for Apple's World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC). These are the people who designed and built things like the iMac and the iPod and the iPhone. There are over 1,000 Apple engineers (SF local) on-site. As Kathryn said this weekend, "Hot dating pool."
Even better, Apple has provided a two-hour keynote stream live on the Internet. Why would you want to spend two hours watching Steve Jobs and Scott Forstall and Phil Schiller (and a dozen other geeky guys) do technology demos? Well, when you go crawling the hotels and pubs around Moscone, this is what everyone will be talking about. It's rocking their world. They're hanging with their peeps, and life is good. The video is two hours of ultimate inside conversation starters, background info, and geek dude archetypes. It's like a briefing book for engaging with the hot geeks this week.
If you're single in SF, go down to the Moscone at the end of the day and follow the packs of geeks to the pizza and beer joints, and ask them what's cool at the conference, or what cool iPhone apps they've seen.
And if you miss this year, it's an annual event, usually in June, so just come another time.
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Crusty old out-of-it white guy
June 4, 2008 | Governance | People & Society
History Train: "It really will say something about this country if Obama, with all his intellect, his verbal gifts and his strategic canniness, ends up losing to a crusty old out-of-it white guy who left his principles in the dumpster years ago and has nothing to offer this country but the chance for conservatives to go on playing Jack Bauer and G.I. Joe for another four years."
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Obama's Electoral Map
May 21, 2008 | Governance | People & Society
Must read for any political junkie. via Dave Winer
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Summary of political pundantry today
May 16, 2008 | Governance | People & Society
In only four minutes!
Matt Yglesias: "Conservative radio host Kevin James is on Hardball to call Barack Obama and appeaser, and Chris Matthews hits upon the nice idea of asking James to explain what it was that Chamberlain did wrong at Munich. As becomes apparent, James has no idea! He just likes to say "appeasement" a lot, but doesn't know what it means, what the context was, what was wrong with it, or how it might possibly apply today. Basically, he's an idiot, which is no surprise, but it is rare to see these things so amply demonstrated."
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The day there was no news
May 14, 2008 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | People & Society
At least I can dream...
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Spirograph
May 9, 2008 | Arts & Culture | People & Society | Products & Opportunites
Gwad, I loved the Spirograph.
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Pioneers vs Feudalists
May 2, 2008 | People & Society | Technology
Fascinating 1982 essay by Jim Bowery.
Pioneers want to be left alone to do their work and enjoy its fruits. Feudalists say "no man is an island" and feel the pioneer is a "hick" or worse, an escapist. Feudalists view themselves as lords and pioneers as serfs. Pioneers view feudalists as either irrelevant or as some sort of inevitable creeping crud devouring everything in its path. At their best, feudalists represent the stable balance and harmony exhibited by Eastern philosophy. At their worst, feudalists represent the tyrannical predation of pioneers unable to escape domination. At their best, pioneers represent the freedom, diversity and respect for the individual represented by Western philosophy. At their worst, pioneers represent the inefficient, destructive exploitation of virgin environs. [...]
In addition to the normal modes of organizational management, new modes will spring up that are impractical outside of an information utility. Perhaps the most important example involves the way individuals are given authority within organizations. Traditional organizations select authority via a top-down, authoritarian system or via a bottom-up democratic system. The authoritarian system is more efficient than the democratic system, but it is also more vulnerable to mistakes and corruption. The democratic system gets harder to maintain the larger it gets. People have a natural limit to the number of people they can effectively associate with. In large representative democracies, such as our government, a national union, etc. virtually no one voting for a candidate knows the candidate personally. This, combined with the event called "election" creates the "campaign" where the virtues of democracy are almost entirely subverted by its vices.
Bowery authored one of the first electronic mail systems (PLATO, 1974), and the basis for Postscript (and thus laser printing), among other things. Found via .
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Hubris, Denial, and the Financial Services Culture
May 2, 2008 | Business & Commerce | People & Society
Interesting behind the scenes report of the Milken Conference and pervasive "Republican/Chicago School of Economics ideology" in the face of a looming great depression.
via John Robb.
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RIP Albert Hofmann
April 30, 2008 | Arts & Culture | People & Society
At 102.
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Twistori
April 30, 2008 | People & Society
Most wonderful new Internet toy, twistori.
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US politics snapshot, all you need to know edition
April 25, 2008 | Business & Commerce | Governance | People & Society
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Quote of the Day
April 15, 2008 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | People & Society
Scott Heriferman: "Sadly, no time to really get into Twitter. For me, to stay healthy AND lead a needed meme (meetup to go from 5M to 500M people, ~$10M to $100M+ rev, and 20K to 200K successful meetup groups), can't get sucked in."
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Thriving Office
April 12, 2008 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | People & Society
Home businesses know they must seem successful to become successful. So they play Thriving Office while on the phone. This valuable CD, which is filled with the sounds people expect to hear from an established company, provides instant credibility.
It's amazing what the world has come to.
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Shine A Light
April 4, 2008 | Arts & Culture | People & Society
Martin Scorsese has a new film opening tonight, a musical documentary on the Rolling Stones, filmed in 2006, called Shine A Light. It's big news in the Intertubes Classic Rock spaces. Here's the trailer (2:44):
And here's Jumpin' Jack Flash, the (complete) first song from the movie (4:10):
What strikes me most is how healthy they look. Even Keith. Well, he's a little worse for the wear, but judged by his own standards even Keith is lookin' good.
To gain some perspective on all that, check out this version of Honky Tonk Woman from 1969 in Hyde Park (3:09):
Now, that is some classic rock, eh? Meanwhile backstage, here's an amusing outtake from an MTV television ad from the 1980s (1:48):
Kids, don't try this at home.
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Job Market 2009
March 31, 2008 | People & Society
Job Market 2009 (1:28)
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They showed me the Craigslist printout
March 25, 2008 | People & Society
A pair of hoax ads on Craigslist cost an Oregon man much of what he owned.
The ads popped up Saturday afternoon, saying the owner of a Jacksonville home was forced to leave the area suddenly and his belongings, including a horse, were free for the taking, said Jackson County sheriff's Detective Sgt. Colin Fagan.
But Robert Salisbury had no plans to leave. The independent contractor was at Emigrant Lake when he got a call from a woman who had stopped by his house to claim his horse.
On his way home he stopped a truck loaded down with his work ladders, lawn mower and weed eater.
"I informed them I was the owner, but they refused to give the stuff back," Salisbury said. "They showed me the Craigslist printout and told me they had the right to do what they did."
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Moving On
March 18, 2008 | Governance | People & Society
A smart take on the super-delgates:
Superdelegates can worry about the party, or they can preen and carry on about the importance of their role. They can't do both. The only thing the Clinton and Obama campaigns agree on is that neither can secure the nomination with pledged delegates alone. So the uncommitted superdelegates wringing their hands in the Times are the same ones who will ultimately decide the nominee. Why wait until August? If they truly cared about ending the primary, they could do so in a matter of days or weeks. All they need to do is declare their allegiance now.
If all the 352 uncommitted superdelegates (CNN's number) chose Obama, he'd have 1970 delegates and need 55 more to secure the nomination. Slate's Delegate Counter says he could draw a paltry 35 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania and still secure that many. Once superdelegates declared, the race would be over, and the remaining primaries a mere formality. The party could focus on John McCain. The same holds true for Clinton. If the uncommitteds swung her way, she'd have 1,831 delegates to Obama's 1,618. She'd need only reasonable showings through May 6th to cross the delegate finish-line.
The story is quoteing the Sunday NY Times piece, which certainly left a bad taste in this household when we read it that morning.
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You Can't Be Serious
March 18, 2008 | Arts & Culture | Governance | People & Society
From the middle section of a longer interview with the rapper DMX:
Are you following the presidential race?
Not at all.You’re not? You know there’s a Black guy running, Barack Obama and then there’s Hillary Clinton.
His name is Barack?!
Barack Obama, yeah.
Barack?!Barack.
What the fuck is a Barack?! Barack Obama. Where he from, Africa?Yeah, his dad is from Kenya.
Barack Obama?Yeah.
What the fuck?! That ain’t no fuckin’ name, yo. That ain’t that nigga’s name. You can’t be serious. Barack Obama. Get the fuck outta here.You’re telling me you haven’t heard about him before.
I ain’t really paying much attention.I mean, it’s pretty big if a Black…
Wow, Barack! The nigga’s name is Barack. Barack? Nigga named Barack Obama. What the fuck, man?! Is he serious? That ain’t his fuckin’ name. Ima tell this nigga when I see him, “Stop that bullshit. Stop that bullshit” [laughs] “That ain’t your fuckin’ name.” Your momma ain’t name you no damn Barack.So you’re not following the race. You can’t vote right?
Nope.Is that why you’re not following it?
No, because it’s just—it doesn’t matter. They’re gonna do what they’re gonna do. It doesn’t really make a difference. These are the last years.But it would be pretty big if we had a first Black president. That would be huge.
I mean, I guess…. What, they gon’ give a dog a bone? There you go. Ooh, we have a Black president now. They should’ve done that shit a long time ago, we wouldn’t be in the fuckin’ position we in now. With world war coming up right now. They done fucked this shit up then give it to the Black people, “Here you take it. Take my mess.”Right, exactly.
It’s all a fuckin’ setup. It’s all a setup. All fuckin’ bullshit. All bullshit. I don’t give a fuck about none of that.We could have a female president also, Hillary Clinton.
I mean, either way it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. No one person is directly affected by which president, you know, so what does it matter.Yeah, but the country is.
I guess. The president is a puppet anyway. The president don’t make no damn decisions.The president…they don’t have that much authority basically?
Nah, never.But Bush pretty much…
You think Bush is making fuckin’ decisions?He did, yeah, he fucked up the country.
He act like he making decisions. He could barely speak! He could barely fuckin’ speak! Can’t be serious. He ain’t making no damn decisions.Well Barack has a good chance of winning so that might be something.
Good for him, good for him.
Then come the comments!
crocker says: fucking wow. DMX has lost his fucking mind.
sooch says: why didn’t he just bark through the interview?
DirtDogggy says: Only naive young fucks wouldn’t understand what hes talking about, the wiser you get the tougher life is, he’s far from dumb, he knows who Obama is retards, he was trying to make a point, that it doesn’t mean fuck all no matter who wins the election. I’ve bin saying the presidents a puppet on a string for years, finally someone said it, it doesn’t even matter who wins it’s just a matter of timing whether people like them or not, presidents just push the button they make no decisions on their own or have any origional ideas. I have a feeling X is right, the black mans going to take the heat for fucking up the US/world but it’s really a big chain reaction of recent years of fuckery by all the politicians and presidents put together.
Diz says: Man, what the fuck kind of interview is this. I know the interviewer was ready to get the hell out of there. DMX has lost his fucking mind. But you know what they say, some of the best artists are fucked up anyway. Hopefully good music is on the way.
Real Talk says: X is on drugs, it’s no secret. He’s got a drug problem. It’s sad but that’s rock n roll man. If a normal person is on drugs, they can’t eat. If a musician is on drugs, they still got money coming in. He’s like Ozzie Osborn wit it. Hopefully he’s not completely gone, you know? I hate to see people become just a shell of what they used to be.
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A Call for Journalistic Courage
March 18, 2008 | Business & Commerce | Governance | People & Society
Important essay by Walter Pincus on the role of the press in a free society:
Today’s mainstream print and electronic media want to be neutral, unbiased and objective, presenting both or all sides as if they were on the sidelines refereeing a game in which only the players—the government and its opponents—can participate. They have increasingly become common carriers, transmitters of other people’s ideas and thoughts, irrespective of import, relevance and at times even accuracy.
At a time when it is most needed, the media, and particularly newspapers, have dropped the idea of having experienced reporters provide analysis and context and turned instead to retired public figures or so-called experts to provide commentary. It was not always this way.
From the 1950s through the 1980s, I could name reporters and columnists whose experience on their beats or in their areas made them thoughtful and respected commentators. Younger reporters today are regularly shifted around from beat to beat, never really having enough time to master totally complex subjects, such as health, public education and environmental policies. Coverage then depends on statements and pronouncements by government sources or their critics.
Jay Rosen posts a long and thoughtful comment (here quoting Josh Marshall): "The important thing is to show integrity-- not to be a neuter, politically. And having good facts that hold up is a bigger advantage than claiming to reflect all sides equally well."
Related, and best headline of the day: MSM Still In Trouble–Also Generalissimo Francisco Franco Is Still Dead.
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U23D at IMAX
March 13, 2008 | Arts & Culture | People & Society | Technology
One good thing about living in the society of the spectacle is that every once in a while it produces something truly mind-blowing. In this case, a U2 concert movie filmed in a new 3D technology, playing on the huge IMAX screens. Unbelievably good.
The experience is nothing like previous 3D movies. This is absolutely convincing, beautiful and glorious, with presence and immediacy. Band members exist in 3-space, walking around, moving toward and away from you. The drum kit looked especially impressive, with a depth and lighting that you just have never seen on screen before.
The technology is produced by 3ality Digital. Here's a semi-technical article on the production from Film & Video magazine's January issue. Even better, this companion article on software post-production has a lot of interesting details:
The toolset also allows for multiple convergence points. “This is something that doesn’t make sense at all in 2D,” says Postley. “You can have not only multiple 3D layers, but each one of the layers has a different focal plane or convergence point. If I took a shot of Bono, a shot of Edge and so on into editing, I can cut up the images and layer them to make them look like they’re standing in the same depth in the screen. It’s a 3D effect for which there is no 2D corollary.”
Here's a page written by a guy hired to do the Stereoscopic Depth Balancing:
Because so much of the project was edited in fast paced, "MTV" type cuts, and almost every scene involved multiple layers and special effect composites, we were faced with continuous alignment and dynamic artistic placement issues. This gave us opportunities to experiment with and learn from freely floating objects, people and backgrounds in a "dream-like" visual montage. We learned to "hand off" changes of depth from near to far and back again, smoothly guiding the eyes from scene to scene. The result is comfortable viewing through disolves and quick cuts, and an 84 minute movie that doesn't strain the eyes or induce headaches.
The sound also rocks hard. The clarity and auditory spatial focus seem to follow the visual focus. And the lighting is very dramatic. Crisp everywhere, with lots of variation and shading, as well as the usual knockout punches that concert light can deliver.
It's simply a tour de force of concert movie immersion. I certainly want to see it again and get the perfect seat, half-way up in the center. Kathryn and I saw this in Baltimore and sat low, in the 3rd or 4th row, far off to the side – pretty bad seats, and it was still impressive.
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Olbermann Goes Off On Clinton
March 12, 2008 | Governance | People & Society
OMG awesome liberal screed against racism being promulgated by the Clinton campaign.
Ten minutes of literate rage like you haven't ever seen on TV. Finally, someone with a pulpit speaks the truth.
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Copying Makes Evolution Possible
March 4, 2008 | Arts & Culture | Nature & Environment | People & Society
Susan Blackmore in Wired:
The whole idea of a meme is that it's information that is copied with variation and selection. So any idea that is copied from person to person is a meme. But an idea that you think up for yourself and is not expressed is not a meme. The emphasis has to be on copying, because that's what makes evolution possible.
[Some memes] succeed because they're good for us or they're true or beautiful or useful and we select them for those reasons. Some other memes succeed, in spite of not being beautiful or true or useful, by using tricks. So religions, for example, have some value, but by and large they're false ideas that use tricks to get into people's heads -- threats of hell, promises of heaven, the allure of being a good person or of God loving you. There are also memes that trick you into thinking that you're going to get popular or that you're going to get rich or that you're going to get a bigger penis, whatever it is. [Ed: ambiguous 'it.']
Wired asks, What will [the future] look like?
Well, it will look like humans are just a minor thing on this planet with masses (of) silicon-based machinery using us to drag stuff out of the ground to build more machines.
As Kottke said of this quote, Good times.
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Economics Worldview Today
February 29, 2008 | Business & Commerce | People & Society
Credit cards are as dangerous as they are convenient
Economics of the Macropocalypse
Why the Fed is compelled to lie to Congress
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Strategic Wasteland
February 27, 2008 | Governance | People & Society
Now, however, as Obama has gained steadily in the polls, the Clinton campaign has reversed field. Top Clinton aides are pleading with uncommitted super delegates to hold off making any commitments, fearful that any commitments they make would be to back Obama, not Clinton.
In language that could have been lifted from the Obama playbook just a few weeks ago, the email says Clinton backers should make the case to super delegates that: "If House, Senate and DNC members try to end this process now, it would be very damaging to those institutions, the Democratic Party and our chances in November."
It's kind of sad, at this point, as long as that sympathy doesn't earn her votes. She and her advisors (and her, um, husband, not to put too fine a point on it) were completely, utterly, and devastatingly out-smarted at every turn. Next Wednesday Clinton's entire staff should immolate themselves so we never have to watch this level of bumbling incompetence again.
I have watched this race up close here in NH for over ten months. From feet-on-the-street, to backoffice technology; from knowing when to hold your cards to knowing when to take the high road, Team Obama's bottom-up decentralized aim-high campaign has won the competition for ideas, if not quite yet the nomination. This win came from a virtually unknown young man with a funny name, against the most powerful political couple of the past 20 years. One million people have donated to his campaign. Obama is not creating our desire for a new way, he is simply channeling it.
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And Then Came New Hampshire...
February 25, 2008 | Arts & Culture | People & Society
The maker of that video has a new project alive. You can add your own photo to the montage of video. Very innovative. And beautiful heartfelt text on the Creators page. Bravo.
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Your Links For The Day
February 24, 2008 | People & Society
Ms. Pac Man: Feminist Hero
Call him Doctor 'Orgasmatron'
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The Point and Pixish
February 12, 2008 | Arts & Culture | People & Society | Software
The Point looks really interesting.
The Point is a social platform for people to solve problems they can’t solve alone. Start an ultimatum, fundraiser, or social contract. Whatever the cause, use a campaign to bring it to the tipping point.
Also, beautiful minimalist design.
Bonus link: Pixish, Visual Assignments For Creative People. Less beautiful design, but still very nicely done. It was this week's favorite new website design, until I saw The Point. Not a bad week for web design, when you've got two solid choices in the first two days.
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Just Three Words
February 11, 2008 | People & Society
I've watched this video called john.he.is a few times today, and lol each time (1:40). Very amusing guys, thanks. It's in response to, and generously parody's, the Yes We Can video from wll.i.am that appeared last week (4:26).
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Blueprint for Change
February 11, 2008 | Governance | People & Society
A lot of people say, "I don't know what Barack Obama stands for; he's all vague and lofty and aspirational. What are his actual policies?"
Well, he's got this thing called a website, maybe you've seen one? Even better, here's a 64-page pdf you can download and print out and read in the water closet that lays it all out in bullet points and details.
But for me, it hardly matters what the specifics are, because getting law through Congress is non-trivial – plans will change. I'd rather learn how someone thinks, how they approach problems, how they evaluate their options. From that point of view the website and the Blueprint are useful. But if you disagree with anything in it, don't worry too much, it's unlikely to end up as it begins.
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Lessig on Obama
February 5, 2008 | People & Society
Wonderful passionate 20 min presentation by Stanford's Lawrence Lessig on why he supports Obama.
So I want you to shut your eyes and imagine what it will seem like to a young man in Iraq or in Iran, who wakes up on January 21st, 2009, and sees the picture of this man as the president of the United States. A man who opposed the war at the beginning, a man who worked his way up from almost nothing, a man who came from a mother and a father of mixed cultures and mixed societies, who came from a broken home to overcome all of that to become the leader in his class, at the Harvard Law Review, and an extraordinary success as a politician. How can they see us when they see us as having chosen this man as our president?
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Clinton's Feminism
February 4, 2008 | Governance | People & Society
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton had a teary-eyed moment on the campaign trail today during a nostalgic visit to Yale, where she graduated from law school nearly 35 years ago. [...] Mrs. Clinton, looking teary, raised her left hand to her cheek and brushed something away with her finger.
Wow, teary-eyed, the very day before a critical election. What a coincidence. This happened one other time, here in NH:
The emotional moment echoed a similar one in New Hampshire last month, when Mrs. Clinton’s eyes welled with tears as she talked about the tensions of running for president.
Funny, with 35 years in public service (sic, coughwalmartboardcough) you'd think these teary episodes wouldn't happen so much when the chips are down and everyone's watching. Unless, of course, it's part of the sell.
Hillary Clinton's definition of feminism: Cry when you want to get your way, and when the going gets tough send your husband out to bully the mean kids (coughfairytailsouthcarolinajessejacksoncough).
I am all for heartfelt emotion, but not for strategic emotional cues designed to manipulate other people. With all that's happened to Hillary Clinton, if she were genuinely a heartfelt person, she would tear up more often then just the day before an election when all the media are watching. Gag me.
Andrew Sullivan says it better than I can.
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Thanks Bro
February 4, 2008 | Life | People & Society
Got a helpful Twitter tweet from my brother last night:
@notio: Super Bowl is starting. Just wanted to make sure you know what the rest of the country is doing right now.
Thanks bro – I had a head's up from Fake Steve on Friday...
I noticed that many of the proles seemed to be talking about some big sporting competition that will happen in the next few days. Football, apparently. I don't much care for the game -- I'm more into European sports like cycling and cross-country skiing, and I still think it's outrageous that we don't have tai chi on television in this country the way they do in every country in Asia.
Since I don't have TV reception, I couldn't verify the lack of Tai Chi, or watch the Super Bowl. (But go Pats!)
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Fully Immersed in Something
February 1, 2008 | Arts & Culture | People & Society | Products & Opportunites | Technology
For when you truly have money to burn, Ultra Geeky Home Cinemas.
Instead, perhaps consider this? (All 4:21 are worth it, lyrics and images.)
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Jeffrey Hart???
February 1, 2008 | People & Society
I find it unbelievable that Jeffrey Hart and I are on the same side of any issue, ever. Thus is the power of Barack Obama's political campaign. Amazing.
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On Politics
January 28, 2008 | Governance | People & Society
Worth it:
Kennedy Endorsements of Barack Obama (42 min, and worth it)
The Billary Road to Republican Victory
Races Entering Complex Phase Over Delegates
In Open Nomination, ‘Superdelegates’ May Hold Key to Victory
Clinton’s Camp Seeks Gentler Role for Ex-President
TPMtv: Sunday Show Clinton Pile-On (Snark alert)
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A Way To Live
January 25, 2008 | Arts & Culture | People & Society
A life. Some projects. A very thoughtful five-minute "game." (Read the creator's statement.) If you want, you can support this life.
Update: I didn't know it at the time I wrote this, but the Wall Street Journal covered the game in today's issue.
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Bill Clinton uncut
January 23, 2008 | Governance | People & Society
A fascinating CNN video of Bill Clinton, running nearly five minutes, uncut. The reporter asks him a question, and he just goes on and on, and on. He's pissed, but he smiles, and talks and rebuts, and all in all gets down and does some hard-core political jiving.
This video supports my long-held belief that political figures should be allowed in the media only when the clips are a minimum of five or ten minutes, unedited. Soundbites would be outlawed. Then you'd get to see them think, see their character and personality, get a better sense of who they were. Would that not be better? I used to like Bill Clinton. Today, not so much.
Obama: "I have no doubt that once the nomination contest is over, I will get the people who voted for her. Now the question is can she get the people who voted for me?"
From Notio's point of view, the answer is very likely, "no."
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On Twitter
January 23, 2008 | Arts & Culture | People & Society | Software | Technology
rentzsch: yay morphed a client meeting into client work-time. "Nothing new to talk about, how about I just keep working?" "Sure." I love sane clients
I never understood Twitter. I checked it out way back when, probably around when it first started, readin' the blogs and all, and I just didn't get it. "Okay, you're supposed to answer the question, 'What are you doing?' – I guess you post from mobile phones or something – SMS, I think that's a phone thing – because posts are limited to 140 characters! What can be said in 140 chars? Well, maybe someone will probably use it."
I signed up for an account though, mostly to landgrab the esteemed and coveted notio member name. I'm not sure I ever went back, even after I read about Twitter taking off and getting popular. I just figured, "I don't really have a modern phone, pretty sure it doesn't do SMS, and gosh ain't the kids just crazy these days with their Internets??"
Then in early January a friend was flying out to Iowa, and he said, "I'm on Twitter BTW. I usually post when I travel." And I said, "What is the deal with Twitter? I just don't get it." He said, "You have to get a desktop client, like Twitterific. Then subscribe to a few people, look at my friends and then look at their friends and subscribe to the interesting ones. You can't use the website this way, you need the integrated view. They're calling my flight, gotta go."
So I downloaded Twitterific, and did what he said, and it only took about half a day, before, suddenly – bing! – the bell rang inside my head. It turns out that keeping Twitterific on the the background is like sitting in a cafe where everyone there is a friend. The 140 char "restriction" drove behavior toward a new style of online banter, sort of a synthetic conversation made up of everyone announcing presence to each other. It's not really better or worse, it's just really different.
I "followed" my friend over two days, as he made his way through his business trip. Here are some examples to give you a sense of the flow:
It's Jan 2nd, can we stop the Christmas music playing at the airport yet?Delayed twice already. Looks like I'm missing my connection.
Can someone at Gate 36 in Cincinatti please tell the woman cutting her nails in public that it is disgusting.
Next to Mike Wallace while checking in at the Marriott.
Shorter than I expected.
DSL line just went down... to the backup we go.
Up and running on the backup DSL. That was a little stressful... but better now than 8:00
Romney has conceded Iowa
They are calling it for Obama here.
Adam Nagourney is an intense typist.
The live band at the Ron Paul party next door is playing "When will I be loved"
Teardown time.
Done. I'm outta here.
Happy to see and hard to beleive but the airport is totally mellow.
It's got its own vibe, doesn't it? Poetic, in a way. I had a real sense of what was going on in his life. A tight connection, over two days. And each of those "tweets" was read in-line with several other folks on-going comments and announcements. When people subscribe to each other's tweets you often see people reply to each other, in public, using the "@" to cue the recipient, as in, "@notio are you making a point?"
All this just goes to say that Twitter is an interesting place to play, and I missed it the first time because I tried to box it into existing mental models. On its own terms it's radical and super-interesting. For instance, back to that quote from the beginning:
rentzsch: yay morphed a client meeting into client work-time. "Nothing new to talk about, how about I just keep working?" "Sure." I love sane clients
Anyone who has ever worked in a professional services capacity will recognize several nuggets of humorized truth in rentzsch's tweet. It conveyed to me a complete emotional state. I laughed out loud, smiled, and when I happened to see Twitterific ask, "What are you doing?" I wrote, "Writing about twitterific"
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In Praise of Melancholy
January 17, 2008 | Arts & Culture | People & Society
Ours are ominous times. We are on the verge of eroding away our ozone layer. Within decades we could face major oceanic flooding. We are close to annihilating hundreds of exquisite animal species. Soon our forests will be as bland as pavement. Moreover, we now find ourselves on the verge of a new cold war.
But there is another threat, perhaps as dangerous: We are eradicating a major cultural force, the muse behind much art and poetry and music. We are annihilating melancholia.
My favorite line: "One would think that Keats's life would have fostered bitterness in him, but he remained generous in the face of his difficulties. He didn't flee to the usual 19th-century escapes: Christianity or opium..."
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FDA Says Food From Cloned Animals Is Safe
January 15, 2008 | Business & Commerce | People & Society
After years of debate, the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday declared that food from cloned animals and their progeny is safe, removing the last government hurdle before meat and milk derived from copies of prize dairy cows and superior hogs can be sold at grocery stores.
Tuesday’s decision means cloning technology could move into commercial use a mere decade after the world learned of the existence of Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, in Scotland. To create Dolly, scientists took an unfertilized sheep egg and removed the genetic material. They then inserted the genetic material from an adult cell. Machinery within the egg somehow reset the clock on the adult genes, and the new cell, after implantation into a surrogate mother sheep, developed into Dolly.
This technique has since become routine in laboratories, with clones produced in numerous species — not including humans, so far as is known.
At a time when population growth is the biggest driver of all the world's major problems (poverty, resource scarcity, drought, global warming, species extinction, civility entropy, etc) the last thing we need is to perfect and assimilate cloning.
Coming up next: Perfect Twins!! Is it safe to clone your own children? We report, you decide!
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Sigh
January 9, 2008 | Governance | People & Society
Oh well. It's not over yet.
About the polls: IMHO "Strategic" voting doesn't work. Vote for who you want to win. Trying to game the system always fails.
Net-net: The Republicans are relieved, they might get to run against Clinton in the fall. She would lose in a Clinton vs. McCain contest.
Finally, they didn't randomize the order of the candidate names!?!? That's got to matter.
A photo of where I spent election night.
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Could Be Game Over
January 7, 2008 | Governance | People & Society
Hillary Clinton sez:
Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act,” Mrs. Clinton said [...]. “It took a president to get it done.”
And a commenter at Andrew Sullivan's responds:
That's right. It wasn't the courage of King and local Montgomery residents standing up to legalized white supremacy in their hometown that began to change America, it was the white man. It wasn't Rosa Parks who had enough and refused to sit in the back of the bus that got things started, it was the white man. It wasn't John Lewis and others facing down billy clubs and tear gas in Selma, it was the white man. [More]
If this story gains momentum in the next news cycle, coupled with a strong NH Obama win, it could be bad news for Hillary.
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Emotive Politics Mediascape
January 7, 2008 | Governance | People & Society
Beyond his policy positions and rhetorical mad skillz, Barack Obama is setting a new standard for excellence in mass communication propaganda. Go to Barack TV and check out the "Generation Obama" video. It's just under 15 min long, documentary style, and a fascinating example of aspirational politics.
- It opens with organizing a student meeting, generating questions for a conference call. It then moves to student discussion of the Virginia Tech meltdown. The question crafted for the conference call is about international relations.
- 4:00 - Students sitting around telling their story. All student conversation; no narration or voice-over.
- 6:00 - Today's college sophomores were seven years old at the time of the Oaklahoma City bombing, 11 years old at the time of the Columbine murders, and 13 years old on 9/11/2001. Video continues with their stories about 9/11 - all their ideas and opinions.
- 7:30 - Back to Virginia Tech. Students discussion the loss of safety.
- 9:00 - Serious mood is broken to outright humor as a student acts out and mocks Barack's 2004 speech. Making fun of him! Produced and promoted by the campaign—would Clinton ever make fun of herself?
- 10:00 - Obama appears for the first time, and we're into some stump speech territory.
- 12:00 - Barack backstage with the students, joshing about cell phone photos. This short film shows students learning the operations of political operations—how to move the people and levers of democracy. This is a legacy of the Dean campaign: increasing activism. Students trying to make sense of the world—struggling to find the right response; not simply black and white reactions. Students trying to make a difference—willing to put themselves out there and have fun at the candidate the meet 'n greet. Politics is fun people.
It was filmed on April 19th, but has only just now entered rotation, taking an implicit or subconcious position that he's been a consistent candidate, the same person since Spring. All of this is powerful political propaganda. Motivational, educational, instructional. The campaign filmed all this raw material and have been producing it in due time, rolling it out when the time feels right. It's a very powerful media strategy, deploying raw media material as the situation dictates. This one models active, positive, and good student behavior. Nearly zero specific policy discussion - you can read the data on the website. This was all emotion. Closing the sale.
I have been an Obama supporter since March or April last year, which you may have first noticed as a semi-amusing blog post:
"I heard you wanted an Obama bumper sticker," he said, as he handed me the goods. I nearly fell over. "Wow! This is like a precious commodity!," I exclaimed. "Yeah, they're really hard to get," he said. I said, "I went on the website, and I couldn't believe they weren't selling them." Then Dave said, "Yeah, I was talking with Graham, and he said you wanted one." I laughed out loud. "You were talking with Graham?!?!?" Like, this is the modern political campaign. Including intrastate backchannel discussion about getting Michael J. his Obama bumper sticker? My mind reeled. "Yeah," he said, "I came a couple of times last week, but you weren't here." Three words: O. M. G. I'm thinking, here's this guy, walking the streets of Hanover, searching for Michael J., with a single Obama bumpersticker in his hand! It's like they invented some weird, inefficient, but personal, and effective, distribution mechanism.
They have long been people-powered at the grass-roots, with advanced technology (targeted CRM, portable video, web distribution, online fundraising), expressing the messages that their own audience puts in their own words!. And now everyone else is paying attention. No need to say much in person, now. Show up and inspire, support the detail online. Stay connected on a human level. Voice your campaign with your audience's own words and faces.
So, he's getting my vote this round. It's brilliant, daaahling.
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On The Obama Iowa Win
January 4, 2008 | Governance | People & Society
Nine percentage points. That's a strength you can't overlook. Look at the diversity in the slices:
- Obama beat Clinton among women 35% to 30%
- Obama beat Edwards among voters in union households 30%-24%
- Obama beat Clinton and Edwards among voters of almost every income level (Obama and Clinton tied among voters who make $15-30,000)
- As many voters age 17-29 as voters 65 and older participated last night -- in previous years senior participation has been 5-times greater than younger voters.
- Obama beat Edwards and Clinton among voters who want change (51%-20%-19%)
- Despite countless attacks and hundreds of thousands of dollars in negative mail, TV, and radio, Obama beat Clinton and Edwards (34%-30%-27%) among voters who say health care is the most important issue
- Obama won among those who said the economy was the most important issue (36%-26%-26%)
- Obama won over Clinton and Edwards (35%-26%-17%) among those who said Iraq was the most important issue
- Won across the ideological spectrum – winning among liberals, moderates and conservatives
- Won among high income and lower income voters among voters with household income below $50,000 (34%-32%-19%) and among those over $50,000 (41%-19%-28%)
If you live in NH and are undecided, please spend ten minutes watching this Obama propaganda piece. I say that with affection: I've supported this guy for nearly a year, and I continue to be very optimistic. If you are on the fence please have a look. If you're tossing a coin, do me a favor and just vote Obama.
On the video: Forgive the foolish mistake of the "Dartmouth University" (s/b "College") caption. Most of the footage was shot in the fall, demonstrating (by showing not telling) that they had a consistent message months ago. They don't have to explicitly say that Clinton changes her mind about everything every three weeks. It's also nice to reminisce about the warmer weather, so it's pleasant to watch.
If you want a shorter taste, watch this three-minute excerpt of the pre-caucus "closing" speech. Tell your friends: Vote.
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Iowa Caucus Closers
January 2, 2008 | Business & Commerce | Governance | People & Society
I had my hair cut today, and the stylist told me she supported Barack Obama in the NH primary. We chatted about that, and I asked her if she had considered Hillary Clinton. She said, "Well, it's funny, because when I first heard she was running I got really excited. People came into the salon and we would talk about it — a woman president! Sometimes, I would close my eyes, and just imagine what it would be like, what it would mean, to have a woman president. And I would just feel great — [she relaxes and collapses her shoulders, rolling her eyes up all aflutter, as if in a dreamy dream] — and then I would open my eyes and it would be Hillary, you know? And I just got sick to my stomach, thinking, 'I'd have to listen to that woman for the next eight years.' It was like, 'no way.'"
In honor of Lisa, here's Hillary's closing TV ad for the Iowa caucus:
And here's Barack Obama's:
How about this Obama propaganda ? Marching music? Check. Aspirational imagery? Check. Oratorical escalation? Check. (Still, I'm voting for the guy.)
John McCain is the only credible Republican nominee:
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On Holiday Travel
January 1, 2008 | People & Society | Travel
Patrick Smith is a commercial airline pilot, and the author of Salon.com’s weekly Ask the Pilot air travel column (and book of the same name). He's written an excellent essay for the NY Times on The Airport Security Follies.
Gift Hub takes it a step further, pointing out that this is not actually security screening, but obedience training.
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The 50 Most Loathsome People In America, 2007
December 28, 2007 | Arts & Culture | People & Society
Possibly the most sarcastic link ever posted at Notio. Also probably the funniest; an instant classic. Via Kottke, with whom I post the following excerpt:
9. You
Charges: You believe in freedom of speech, until someone says something that offends you. You suddenly give a damn about border integrity, because the automated voice system at your pharmacy asked you to press 9 for Spanish. You cling to every scrap of bullshit you can find to support your ludicrous belief system, and reject all empirical evidence to the contrary. You know the difference between patriotism and nationalism -- it's nationalism when foreigners do it. You hate anyone who seems smarter than you. You care more about zygotes than actual people. You love to blame people for their misfortunes, even if it means screwing yourself over. You still think Republicans favor limited government. Your knowledge of politics and government are dwarfed by your concern for Britney Spears' children. You think buying Chinese goods stimulates our economy. You think you're going to get universal health care. You tolerate the phrase "enhanced interrogation techniques." You think the government is actually trying to improve education. You think watching CNN makes you smarter. You think two parties is enough. You can't spell. You think $9 trillion in debt is manageable. You believe in an afterlife for the sole reason that you don't want to die. You think lowering taxes raises revenue. You think the economy's doing well. You're an idiot.
(Told you it was nasty. The other 49 are much funnier. Totally NSFW, language-wise.)
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Shopping As Hero's Quest
December 27, 2007 | Business & Commerce | People & Society
To complete my cultural survey, today we went to the mall. Had this been a comparative cultural survey, we would have also gone to this mall, where they have valet parking, which could be quite handy given the size of mall parking lots.
Nintendo has done an amazing job marketing the apparently amazing Wii video game. For two holiday seasons now they have restricted manufacturing, so it is very hard to get. Here in the Daytona FL area, local Wal-Marts are getting 15-18 units each Wednesday, with un-crating and shelving at about 11:30 AM. After a month or two of looking around, my hosts finally got one yesterday. Amazingly, after all that questing, it sits awaiting connection 24 hours later. I suppose there's no rush, but it seems like getting it was more important than using it, a decent definition of excess consumption. I make no judgments—it seems like the first video game I'd be interested in playing. It looks like I won't get to find out before I leave, though I'm sure if I was all that interested we could have set it up yesterday afternoon or this morning.
Today the quest was for 1) lunch (Chik-fil-A); 2) Books-A-Million (really low-vibration experience); 3) Sunglasses evaluation ($180 for molded plastic?!?); 4) Camera evaluation (40D definitely fits my hands better than the XTi). And: Success! We did it! It took five hours, including about two hours of driving. I used the mall stop as an exercise opportunity, getting in three walking circuits before the time was up. Now, a little zoning before supper.
On the plus side, I highly recommend Colonial Photo and Hobby in Orlando, FL. Don't let the cheesy website fool you. They are a true old-time camera shop, with a lot of experienced sales guys who really know their stuff. They sell Leica, where the M8 is $5,000 (body only) and the typical first lens is $5,300. They had the Canon XTi and the 40D in stock, as well as all the lenses I wanted to try, and they were happy to put them on the cameras and let me shoot away. Bring your own CF card and take it home to evaluate. A truly great resource in this era of know-nothing Ritz Camera minimum-wage lackeys. Like most specialized retail, the web has decimated the photography market, so it's nice that Colonial is able to stick around, offering workshops, one-day and weekend photo trips, and generally pricing stuff within reason of the online shops. Yes, a bit more, but they're offering a real service. If I wasn't waiting to see what is released at PMA in January, I would have bought a package there today.
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The Spectacle Has Not Quite Yet Been Supplanted
December 26, 2007 | Arts & Culture | People & Society
Based on my suppertime family viewing, I like Jeopardy better than Wheel of Fortune. I also note, based on a one-hour television ad review, that nobody can sleep, everyone has stomach upset, most people have aches and pains, and many people are depressed. You probably couldn't give away a Buick Lucerne to anyone I know, much less get them excited about a Red Tag Sale. The public seem to prefer fake gratuitous violence over authentic honest sexuality –nipple-slips, coochie displays, and butt flashes aside; celebrities are people who have nothing to offer but their appearance (c.f. above), and when you reduce complex interdependent issues down to 10-30 second "news" summaries, everything is banal, and frequently, simply, wrong. Thus, as has been my practice since 1980, I continue to have little need for television.
Instead, you might want to read this report (and followup discussion) by Howard Rheingold about the philosopher Jurgen Habermas' lack of thoughts "about the state of the public sphere, now that the broadcast era has been supplanted by the many-to-many media that enable so many people to use the Internet as a means of political expression." It takes half as long as a 30-minute tee-vee show, and has at least a million times more intellectual nutrients.
Also, untrained Shi Tzsu puppies are frequently annoying, though exceptionally cute.
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How the Housing Bubble Worked
November 26, 2007 | Business & Commerce | People & Society
If you want to cut to the chase on the "sub-prime mortgage meltdown," or whatever we're calling it these days, tune into this post by Berkeley economist Brad DeLong:
Let’s look at the loan history on this property.... The property was purchased in January 2005 for $1,157,000. The combined first and second mortgages totalled $1,156,730 leaving a downpayment of $270. Let’s just call it 100% financing. By April, they owners were able to find refinancing through Countrywide with a $999,999 first mortgage... Option ARM with a 1% teaser rate... a simultaneous second mortgage for $215,000 pulling out their first $58,000. So look at their situation: They are living in a million dollar plus home in Turtle Ridge making payments less than those renting, and they “made” $58,000 in their first 4 months of ownership.
If you're playing by the so-called rules, it's revolting.
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Handmeon in the Local Media
November 10, 2007 | Arts & Culture | People & Society
The Valley News published a great story about Handmeon today:
"In tiny offices in Hanover, three men are trying to use the Internet to infuse with spirituality an activity that's become increasingly fraught and expensive: gift giving. Their company's quiet launch, built up over the past few months, coincides with the gift-giving season.
"Handmeon will favor people who have much to give. A person with a lot of gifts to offer is likely to get a lot in return. But as much as Handmeon is about giving, it's also about building connections. It's a social networking site, a sort of Facebook or MySpace for adults." —Alex Hanson, Valley NewsI was so happy I wrote a blog post about it over on the company blog. Thanks to Alex and James for a super job.
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On Obama
November 6, 2007 | Governance | People & Society
Andrew Sullivan has written a strong cover story for The Atlantic supporting Barack Obama. He describes how he came to this in a great interview. Combined, they provide pretty much everything you need to know about why I'm supporting Obama in the NH primary. Summary: Obama is a meta-candidate, attempting to re-frame not just the issues, but the mode of discourse. Might not work (just yet) but the time will come, and the sooner the better given the situation.