Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Real men don’t think things through
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (0) : Aug 11th, 2008
Wordle - Beautiful Word Clouds
Wordle takes your text (or blog RSS feed) and creates really nice looking word clouds. Check out the example below, from this very blog :
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (0) : Aug 11th, 2008
Welcome Muttmutt!
After almost 4 years on the job with tadfad.com, I’m trying something a little new. Let me officially welcome muttmutt as a guest blogger!
All regular readers will note that my publishing schedule waxes and wanes, so I’m hoping getting a few more fingers on the keyboard will help to even things out.
To prevent any confusion, I’ve also added a by line at the bottom of all posts (down there next to the date) so you can see who authored the post you’re reading.
Enjoy!
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (2) : Aug 6th, 2008
on Voting
I have no doubt that come November, we’ll see record numbers of voters across the county. For the first time in our nation’s history, there will be an option other than “old white man” on the ballot–and this is a Good Thing. First time voters will be arriving en mass at historically underrepresented polling places.
But guess what? Their votes won’t be counted.
Polling places will run out of ballots.
They won’t have enough voting machines.
Lines will be out the door and around the block.
New voters won’t be registered.
Registrations will be challenged.
Voters will be misinformed or intimidated by political opponents.
Disenfranchisement will be rampant.
Come November 4, we’ll all act surprised. “Who could have predicted this?”
I’m not one to subscribe to conspiracy theories, but this one seems all too obvious. In 2008, Republicans have nothing to gain in expanding the voter rolls (and everything to lose). For the past 4 years (or more?) they’ve been trying to jam increasingly stringent voter requirements through state legislatures. Many states now require photo identification to vote–never mind that low income and elderly voters often lack such identification. Worse, most states fill the position of Secretary of State–the office overseeing statewide elections–via political appointment. Recall in 2004 that the Ohio Secretary of State conveniently served as Bush Campaign Chair for his state. Go back another four years and find Katherine Harris serving as Florida Secretary of State, another Bush Chair. Even if we assume that these individuals are able to completely separate their official duties, the outward appearance is disgraceful.
Voting is without question the single most important element in a Democracy–and we’re lousy at it. Here’s how we could improve :
- Vote for more than one day. There’s no reason the whole nation needs to vote on just one day. Multi-day voting allows for personal schedules, emergencies, and unplanned events. It makes the whole system much easier to manage.
- Vote on a non-work day. Most of us work on Tuesdays. Why not vote on a Sunday? Or a Saturday? Or, heaven forbid, make election day a national holiday so we can all vote? (There’s a reason that most poll workers are old–the rest of us have to work!)
- Get serious about “voter fraud”. There’s a massive disinformation campaign regarding the specter of voter fraud. In most instances, this “threat to our democracy” comes in the way of individuals voting more than once. Let’s be clear–individual voter fraud is not a threat, nor is it prevalent, nor is it an effective way to influence an election. Real “voter fraud” comes in the way of insecure electronic voting machines, or mass-manipulation of vote counts, or intentionally ill-equipped polling places. This is the kind of “voter fraud” we’ve seen in past elections, yet few people are talking about it. We need to get serious in a hurry–and stop pretending that photo IDs will solve “voter fraud”.
Is 2008 going to be the year we raise the bar? Or just another sad reminder of how far we’ve fallen from the ideal of Democracy? We’ll see come November.
Filed under Uncategorized, politics : Comments (0) : Aug 1st, 2008
iPhone Photos
The new iPhone takes surprisingly good digital photos (for a phone). Plus, it’s simple-as-pie to upload the photos to Flickr straight from the phone.
In what can only be described as a tadfad, I’m trying to take at least one photo every day to document my life (or something like that). In case you’re not actively following my flickr photostream (what, you got something better to do?) here are the latest :
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (2) : Jul 30th, 2008
The Daily Show nails it
It’s no secret–I love the Daily Show. Sometimes, when they really fire on all cylinders, they achieve a sort of comedic zen :
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (2) : Jun 23rd, 2008
Cash Origami
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (1) : May 11th, 2008
Slamsterdam 2k8 : the photos
I’m back in the USofA after a wonderful trip to Brussels & Amsterdam. I didn’t realize how desperately I needed a vacation until now!
Here are some photos (click through to see the rest)
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (4) : Mar 5th, 2008
Slamsterdam 2k8 [Updated]
I’m heading to Europe!
I’ll be traveling to Brussels, Lille, and Amsterdam over the next week. Sure to be a great time. Photos and stories will follow.
[Updated Feb 22, 17:00]
False start. I got to the Milwaukee airport today only to discover that my flight to Newark (connection point to Brussels) was cancelled. Ouch.
While waiting in the long-and-unmoving check-in line, I called the Continental support line. After being told it would be a 30 minute wait, I employed a little hack : press cuatro por español.
I got through immediately, asked the operator ¿Sé halba ingles? and booked a new flight (in english). Unfortunately, the next flight with open seats is tomorrow, and it’s going to Amsterdam instead of Brussels. Oh well, just makes it more of an adventure.
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (3) : Feb 22nd, 2008
Fun with Google
I’ve never invested much time or energy into promoting tadfad.com, so it’s always a little surprising when Google picks up on one of my pages. Using their webmaster tool kit, I stumbled upon this today:
For all those Volvo radio hackers out there, I’m #1 in Google results. [Small victories must be celebrated.]
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (0) : Jan 25th, 2008
