The “Ground Game” is an interesting thing this year. Traditionally it’s about turning on “The Base.” To understand this quirk of politics, I suppose it is best to understand a little economics.
Continue reading about The economics and statistics of politics and an anecdote after the jump
While reading the comments on Balloon Juice:
“…and it takes 35 minutes to get from Erect to Climax, in NC.”
Really?
Disclaimer: I’m going to issue a non-apology for all my political articles of late. If it makes you feel better, I’ve only been posting about a tenth of the political articles that I’ve started writing and I’ll soon return to my regular rare political rant blog after this cycle is over. I’m just wrapped up in what will certainly become the most important single political event of my generation. Remember that the singular reason I started blogging almost four years ago was because of politics. You may not agree with me, but realize the motto of this blog:
Write to create context for another to think.
Last Friday at work someone asked me why I seemed in uncommonly good spirits. I replied: “Because the electoral map finally looks like a disaster for McCain.” After a dalliance into spin and absurdity, I thought I had a right to be pleased that reality, as it were, was on the march. “The only problem,” I said, “was this means McCain’s campaign will be forced to get ugly fast.”
I was sick over the weekend and yesterday, so I didn’t realize I had been right until this morning. This bothers me because spite works in spite of the myth that Americans dislike negativity. I have a Pavlovian response bourne from experience that the Democrats will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory once more by not addressing the negative campaigning with some negativity of their own or try to defeat the absurdity of the claims with logic. It seems every two years my co-workers can hear me yell randomly, “Fucking Democrats think that voters are Vulcans.”
Apparently, there is an e-mail circulating speculating that Barack Obama may be the Anti-Christ. Thank you, Oh Lord. After years of suffering their sanctimony, I finally agree with the Spiritually Correct on one thing…
We’re both going to vote Obama!
“Hours of interviews in Manassas Park turned up exactly one resident in favor of the bailout, a fellow in a Harvard T-shirt in a big house near the golf course. Richard Bejtlich, 36, who works in computer security for General Electric—its stock jumped dramatically Friday when the government banned short-selling of financial securities—says he’s a libertarian and normally wouldn’t support government intervention. But there’s no other way at this point, he says, because we’re in too deep of a hole and have been too profligate.”
—“A Sense of Resentment Amid the ‘For Sale’ Signs”, Washington Post, September 22, 2008
Shorter Libertarian:
“I was for unfettered capitalism before I was against it.”
What’s the point in trying to brainwash them to become mindless conservatives when it seems ignorance and selfishness at our top universities are doing the job for you?
(I’ve been ranting too long about this, so please read Paul Krugman and William Kristol. Newsweek has a summary of the economic philosophies of the two candidates.)
People ask me all the time how I make such awesome conference talks, so I decided to give you the gory step-by-step. Along the way I’ll even include my top-sekret speaker notes which I never share! It’ll give you an idea of the intense mental preparation it takes to be a top conference speaker in the PHP world and general PHP hero.
“Making Frameworks Suck Less”
by Terry Chay
– howto/controverse
– Rated: R (Drama, Sex, Language, Vilence)
I thought I was done with speaking for the year. I have milked my last talk for over a year now and it was time to retired it. Since I had used this talk at the conference last year, that meant skipping ZendCon. In fact, I was a little worried because I hadn’t had a clue what my next talk (to milk) was going to be about so maybe I’ll just sit out next year.
That was because I had forgotten Keith had asked me to give an unconference talk there and I had said Yes. Then, a week before said conference, I get this e-mail asking if I’d be willing to move my slot to a different day.
Doh!
I had better find out what my talk was supposed to be about. When I did, my heart sank, it was a new topic and one I had no clue what to say.
Continue reading about preparing presentations and the introduction after the jump (click)
I got a mysterious package and opened it. No, it wasn’t a unabomb, but some megalulz instead:
The book is from lulzftw, and is a best-of collection of lolcats—slightly disappointed that there are no lolgeeks. 😀
Mai awesum benny faktor tells me they’re having a book release party and photowalk later this month in San Francisco.
I think I’ll make one and give my book to the first person who asks (and I have it on me).
Make the events and you can has (mai or ur) bookz, too! 🙂
kthnxbai
Last month, when Obama was way ahead in the polls, a friend asked me if I thought the election would be close this year.
“Of course it’ll be close,” I replied.
“How is that possible that someone like John McCain might win?” He asked incredulously.
“Here is a little history lesson: Thirty years ago news divisions on television were a public obligation of media companies. Twenty years ago, those rules were changed. Ten years ago, news became profit-making divisions. Now they have a vested interest in making it close and who gives a fuck about the country.”
And sure enough, despite the most sickening display on selfish unAmerican flag-waving Constitution-burning, I’ve ever seen on television, the news calls black-white, the polls invert:
…and the most accurate prediction of elections closes in to a statistical dead heat:
It is ironic that these sort of markets would help our leaders make more intelligent decisions, but when this sort of market was proposed by conservatives, it was successfully framed by liberals as a “terrorist market” and destroyed. 🙁
Just because I knew it would happen doesn’t mean I like it. After the collapse of our financial markets, I know what you’re doing and I’m tired of your reindeer games. It’s not fun watching a mass brainwash of this country and this world doesn’t give a crap of the desperate “win”s some people need to rack up to avoid an accounting of the horrors they have visited on the it.
Anyone who votes McCain is a traitor or a moron—see, I’m generous, you can take your pick, what sort of scumbag you are. 😉
When people like me have to bother to register to vote, you know you fucked up this country—I’m registering to vote today.
Continue reading about An inspiration for political opinion after the jump
Well, Yahoo! Open Hackday has come and gone, and I’m still avoiding telling my Dave Filo story, so I suppose it won’t hurt to mention a fun pre-hackday hack I saw last August.
When the hackday registration page went up, it looked like this:
Notice the sample fields in grey? The one for the URL reads http://jrandomhacker.com/coolproject. If you go to that URL you will see the following…
No, it wasn’t me…honest!
Continue reading about The story behind the hack after the jump.
Another PHP job forwarded to me from Linda Lee and Andrew Mager, this time from CBS Interactive (née CNET).
Company: CBS Interactive (formerly CNET networks)
Title: Sr. Software Engineer
Division: GameSpot.com, TV.com, MP3.com
Location: San Francisco, CA
CBS Interactive is looking for Sr. Software Engineers in their Games, Entertainment and Lifestyles division—including GameSpot.com, TV.com, MP3.com and Chow.com. These engineers will play a key role within our development team. Responsibilities will extend to any of the applications associated with division’s initiatives. Real world experience and expertise with Linux, PHP, and MySQL are an absolute must, but a deep understanding of all web technologies from a technical and product perspective is also very important.
Please check out the job description here. You can apply online or email Linda directly at linda [dot] lee [at] cnetnetworks [dot] com.