That is one tasty electoral map

This makes me happy.


In particular, Obama is winning the electoral vote handily while losing both Ohio AND Florida. (Ohio is currently neutral, but Obama wins even if it turns red.)

In 2004 I looked over the early electoral maps and concluded that Kerry could win if and only if he could carry either Ohio OR Florida. Kerry lost both, and sure enough, he lost the race. Either state flipping would have won it.

It's too early to say that things won't change, but right now, unless McCain has another ace up his sleeve, he looks pretty screwed to me.

John McCain makes Adam go "sproing"

As far as I know, not very many people are readers of Adam Cadre's regular articles.  His site is not really a proper blog, and I only know of him originally through his great work writing offbeat interactive fiction.  I am a big fan of Adam's writing.  He's blunt, atheist, liberal, and has great taste in entertainment styles, ranging from comics to games to movies to food.

So I want to wave a hand in the general direction of Adam's latest article about the presidential race.  I'll qualify this endorsement with apologies to my friends who live in red states and love them.  Hell, I love Austin, but only because it's not part of the "real" Texas, and I've long ago learned to abandon all hope when it comes to my vote personally influencing a national race.  However, quite a few things Adam says ring true for me.

Every election in my adult lifetime has played out the same way: Republicans argue that Red America is better than Blue America, and Democrats cry that, no, we're not so different! Republican political ads spew insults — or at least epithets thatRepublicans think are insults — while Democrats hold out their hands and coo that"There is no them — there is only us." I am so sick of this. There's a reason the guy who said that moved to New York after his presidency instead of back to Arkansas: New York is better than Arkansas. Massachusetts is better than Texas. Chicago is better than Wasilla, Alaska. Saying so might mean losing votes in Arkansas and Texas and Alaska, but those states are lost causes (in more ways than one); Republicans certainly show no compunction about slamming San Francisco and Boston and Vermont, and they're the ones winning elections.

...
Democrats can avoid saying that the red states are inferior to the blue ones as much as they like. But the red staters will continue to hear it. They'll hear it because the voices inside their heads are saying it. And those voices are correct. This makes them angry, and they lash out. Ten years ago, I was floored when a direly unfunny SNL alum named Adam Sandler suddenly scored a massive hit with a movie called The Waterboy, in which he played a mouth-breathing loser who becomes a star linebacker, fueled by uncontrollable rage at the thought of people making fun of him. At the time I couldn't understand why anyone would watch that, but now I get it. It spoke to people. After all, it's what vast numbers of American voters do at the ballot box.

...
What kind of people do places like Wasilla grow? Well, for one thing, it's hard to get off to a good start in life when your drunken stepfather is tasing you, bro. Child abuse happens everywhere, but some cultures foster it more than others. When parents exert total hegemony over the household without any kind of societal check, it opens up the potential for a real horror show — as the Palin family has demonstrated. Barack Obama tried to provide that societal check in Illinois with a program to teach schoolchildren how to avoid sexual abuse — and a McCain/Palin ad this week actually slams him for it. But given that an Anchorage judge ruled in 2005 that Sarah Palin herself was guilty of child abuse, I suppose it's not so surprising that she and her ilk are so afraid of daylight: it makes it that much harder for "our small towns" to keep their ugly little secrets.

Much more... please read.

Google makes yet another bid to run your life

So Google is now competing with Explorer and Firefox with their newest application, Chrome.  And I said, "Sure, just go ahead and take control of more of my online information and habits."  I mean, besides being my search engine, they already own this blog, my email, and a lot of my documents; keep track of my feed reading habits and my addresses, and maintain some of the code I've written; as well as being providing a desktop search application and a fun geographical visualization toy.  Did I leave anything out?

I can't say I'm not worried about them either turning evil or just disappearing someday.  But damn it, I can't help myself... I really LIKE having all the stuff I need online where I can access it from home, work, and any other computer in the world.  I suppose if Google does become an evil power, this is probably what it will look like.  It wouldn't be the first time that "The Onion" printed something that turned out to predict reality.

In the meantime... yes, I'm typing this from Google Chrome.  I am weak.  It doesn't even support any plugins, and yet for the moment I'm willing to use it even without themes, mouse gestures, ad blockers, or even getting my bookmarks updated automatically by del.icio.us.

A few points in Chrome's favor so far:

1. It starts up VERY FAST compared to the other browsers... although this might have something to do with the lack of plugins.
2. It has a very compact interface, and does a lot of creative things to keep the screen space clean, like sticking the "search page" bar in one place.
3. As you're typing an address, it automatically searches for likely completions and shows you the name of the page where you'd wind up.  (To be fair, Firefox 3 also appears to do something like this.)
4. Searches and URLs are entered in the same box.  Usually it makes the correct choice, but you can pick from a menu to clarify what you want.
5. When you open a tab, it shows you your favorite web destinations, along with thumbnail images of what they look like right now.
6. You can drag tabs outside the window to create a new window, or drag a tab from one window to another.

All pretty cool.  Firefox (my primary browser) might imitate some of the new hotness, but for now I'm keeping Chrome Beta as my default browser, and I'll look forward to seeing what they release in the next few patches.

More on Sarah Palin

I got a bewildering comment from a Republican, on the last post about Sarah Palin. First thing he said was: "Well layed out. Even more Hillary supporters will go for McCain now."

The reason it's bewildering is because, while he's entitled to his opinion, it has no apparent bearing to what I actually said in the post. So the question is, was Sarah Palin a good pick to woo former Clintonites?

Probably not...

Among Democratic women — including those who may be disappointed that New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton did not win the Democratic nomination — 9% say Palin makes them more likely to support McCain, 15% less likely.

Republicans pray for rain... and get it

Mmmm... I love the smell of irony in the morning.



Two weeks ago, some smug, smirking representative of Focus on the Family smarmily asked in a YouTube video, "Would it be wrong to ask people to pray for rain? Not just rain, abundant rain, torrential rain" -- in order to ruin Barack Obama's speech at Mile High Stadium last Friday. Just to give the world a demonstration about how mad God is about gay marriage, you see.

Careful what you wish for.

It ALMOST makes me wish I believed in their God. :P

Stupid 9/11 truthers again...

I regularly download The Rachel Maddow Show on my iPod. For the last few months, the hostess has been a regular panelist on "Race for the White House" on MSNBC, and so the first 40 minutes of Rachel's Show show are a simulcast of the audio portion of "Race."

Anyway, I tried to listen to the episode from yesterday, which was broadcast live from the convention, but I found myself was unable to hear the discussion. Some guy with a bullhorn had parked himself next to their table and was screaming "9/11 was an inside job! 9/11 was an inside job!" repeatedly throughout the entire show.

Holy geez, you people are assholes. Even if I didn't believe self-described "truthers" were complete nutjobs, what do they even think they're accomplishing by making public annoyances of themselves? Do they actually think there are some people in America who aren't already familiar with their claims? Or do they think the skeptics will be convinced if only they could hear some mindless phrase chanted over and over again at a higher volume?

I mean, seriously, it's not much more effective than hearing an infinite loop of Spongebob Squarepants laughing that stupid laugh of his for 30 minutes.

Barack Obama's convention speech

Last night I went with a friend to join the Great Hills Democrats at Baby Acapulco's watching Barack Obama's speech. There was a fajita buffet, and four TVs facing outward from the center of the room.

The speech was absolutely sublime, that's all I can say. I already know Obama is a good speaker, but I was very impressed even with my high expectations. He hit most of the right notes, didn't pull any punches on McCain, and had a lot of well received jokes. Watching Obama work the crowd, I was very much reminded of seeing Bill Clinton live at UCSD at my graduation. I continue to be impressed by his qualities as a speaker, and desperately wish to again have a president who can string coherent thoughts together.

Because Bush sucks so much at public speaking, Republicans make the mistake of dismissing this ability as "He's good at reading a teleprompter." Nonsense. Certainly being a good speaker doesn't automatically make one a good leader; the skill of demagoguery can be used for either good or evil. But as someone who enjoys public speaking, I am adamant that the ability to read is a necessary but not sufficient skill. You have to really grasp what you're saying in order to emphasize the right stuff at the right time. Anyone who thinks otherwise is making a claim similar to believing that you can be a great comedian by going out and reciting someone else's jokes.

Like comedy, it's all about timing, and timing is one thing Obama has in spades. For instance, there's the way he worked the applause. When he first came on, the crowd kept cheering for several minutes. Obama acted sort of exasperated, pretending to speak and then looking like he couldn't get them to shut up. But he was clearly in complete control, it was all showmanship. When he really wanted to talk, they shut up. And I loves me some good theater.

The crowd of about 30 people watching the speech with me was mostly older; in fact at one point I wondered if my friend and I were the only attendees under forty. But they were full of energy, cheering, laughing, and shouting regularly.

After the speech, we somehow wound up getting in a discussion with with three marginally drunk, marginally right wing, off-duty Austin cops. The topics ranged from the situation of the homeless in Austin to property taxes to the war (even Republican cops are against it now, it seems). I don't feel like any of them will switch up their vote to Obama, but I may have perhaps depressed one or two of them enough to keep them home on election day. >:D That's a useful accomplishment, although in Texas it probably doesn't amount to much. Although drunk, they were all friendly, thought we made some good points, and said they enjoyed the discussion. And I got out without getting punched -- so hey, an evening well spent.

Since you asked: my take on Sarah Palin

Hank the Tank says:

Waiting with baited breath for your take on John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin for VP. I've already put mine up on my blog.

You know, the guy has actually won back my vote. Hey Russell, you've got quite the brainpower, come on over to the Good Side of the Force (pardon the Star Wars jingo).
Cost you less to fill up your tank as well.

So fine, here's what I think...

Eh. She's not terrible. I never heard of her but that doesn't necessarily matter. Picking a woman was a good move. It may pick up a little of the disaffected Hillary vote, but probably not as much as you think, since Hillary has been so effective in throwing her support behind Obama. Her speech and Bill's at the convention were both pretty impressive.

On the other hand, this choice signals that he's pretty much abandoning the line of attack that Obama is weak because he's "inexperienced." In Palin, you have a one term governor of one of the smallest states (population-wise). Daily Kos is humorously referring to her as "Sarah Quayle Palin." Plus, she's a creationist, and you know how much I love THAT. ;)

Nevertheless, I think countering McCain's "old white guy" persona with a young woman is a good call, and it kind of takes some of the "historic moment" exclusivity out of Barack Obama's hands, by providing Republicans a chance to vote for the first woman veep. And considering some of the much worse choices I HOPED he might make, this seems to be dodging a bullet. I was picturing Giuliani (one of the most universally hated political figures of our time) or perhaps Lieberman (Hey, let's alienate both Democrats AND Republicans!!). So all in all, this was probably one of the least bad choices he could have made.

But I will say this: I am dying to see the VP debate between Biden and Palin. That's going to be way fun.

Joe Lieberman, then and now

Then:

"I want Democrats to be back in the majority in Washington and elect a Democratic president in 2008. This man [Ned Lamont] and his supporters will frustrate and defeat our hopes of doing that."
07/06/06, Connecticut Primary Debate

Now:

Lieberman will deliver a speech when Republicans gather in St. Paul, Minn., to nominate McCain for president, a party official told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The official requested anonymity because a formal announcement had yet to be made.

Whew! As a Democrat, I thank my lucky stars that we dodged the bullet of getting Ned Lamont elected to the senate, and frustrating our hopes of electing a Democratic president. Good thing we have Joe-mentum working for us.

Deaths are sad

How's that for a headline?

Within the last few months, a couple of people whom I cared about died. One was the edgy comedian George Carlin. The other was my grandmother, Miriam Hoffman Wain, whom I knew for most of my life as "Greemie." While the two deaths seem unrelated, in a funny coincidence, I own one George Carlin book (Braindroppings) and I got it by liberating it from my grandmother's bookshelf. I don't know if she ever read it; she certainly didn't seem like a likely Carlin fan, but she saw me reading it and said I should take it.

A week after Carlin died, fellow comedian Jerry Seinfeld wrote a tribute in the New York Times, claiming that "George downright invented modern American stand-up comedy in many ways. Every comedian does a little George." Seinfeld told a story that I found very funny and even a little bit meaningful.

THE honest truth is, for a comedian, even death is just a premise to make jokes about. I know this because I was on the phone with George Carlin nine days ago and we were making some death jokes. We were talking about Tim Russert and Bo Diddley and George said: “I feel safe for a while. There will probably be a break before they come after the next one. I always like to fly on an airline right after they’ve had a crash. It improves your odds.”

See, that's funny. Carlin himself would have greatly appreciate the irony. An atheist like me, George Carlin almost certainly didn't BELIEVE the superstitious nonsense that he was saying to Jerry Seinfeld on the subject of death. And sure enough, right after he said it... he died. Much comedy is built out of irony, and this is exactly the sort of dark humor that I love.

If I had to analyze this as a joke, I would say that part of the reason it's funny is because, in reality, nobody knows when they'll die. Making a prediction about how "safe" you are based on unrelated events is just ridiculous, and almost nobody really has a chance to prepare for it.

Almost nobody. Greemie knew.

She had been sick for many years, undergoing chemotherapy. She was also much older than George Carlin, and it was obvious near the end that she was a little tired of being alive. I would call her occasionally, to cheer her up and update her on my life, and after only a few minutes it would be obvious she was trying to politely get off the phone.

I didn't take that as a slight against me. She had trouble hearing, and forgot things, and it seemed like she was embarrassed about people hearing her like that. Greemie took care of her own mother, Bess Hoffman, until she died at the age of 103. She'd had personal experience with how frustrating it can be to communicate with someone in her own condition.

She was my last living grandparent, and I'm afraid I wouldn't be truthful if I said that she was my favorite. I always felt that she was very cranky and hard to get along with, even when I was young. On the other hand, she was a financial wizardess, and often unbelievably generous when she was alive. Apart from occasional gifts, toward the end of her life she started flying the entire extended family to California, at her own expense, every year, so we could all be together for a catered Thanksgiving dinner. She was still a bit standoffish and uncomfortable even when we were all there for her, but it was obvious how happy it made her to see everyone else enjoying each other's company.

The last time I was there, I had a feeling that it would probably be the last time we could make it. So I said how much I loved her, and she accepted my hug but told me to stop being silly, or so concerned.

Her memorial service, which I attended two weeks ago, was almost like having one last Thanksgiving bash. Keryn and I stayed at her house, along with two cousins, and we were treated to dinners by our aunt Nancy (now manager of the estate), and there was one heck of a party after the service at her favorite temple. (For certain definitions of "heck of a party." If you like lots of family with catered items like smoked salmon, it was very enjoyable.)

At the service, my aunt Robbie told a very funny story and I learned something new. I'm a lifelong atheist, but I've always assumed that my grandmother was a devout Jew. I never really asked her much about her religious beliefs, and had no idea if she thought about an afterlife.

Robbie's story went something like this: Robbie asked where Greemie thought she would go when she died. Greemie said: "The Hills of Eternity." This sounds like an unusual but reasonable answer for a religious person -- until you learn that "Hills of Eternity" is actually the name of a local cemetery. So Robbie pressed further: "Yes, but I mean after that." Greemie thought a bit more, and said: "An urn." Finally, exasperated, Robbie said: "No no, I mean what do you believe in after you die?" And Greemie said "Oh, this is a serious question... Tinkerbell!"

That's her answer. It doesn't mean anything; but it was good for a laugh among all the gathered family. I guess that means that Greemie didn't know if she believed in an afterlife, but she sure believed in family, and she believed in making others happy. So that's pretty good to know.

As it happens, she had family all around her when she died. My mother tells me that she and her two sisters were at the hospital for the final few days, and that they had been singing her their favorite songs from childhood as she was lying there dying. I don't think that I would describe anything as a good way to die; but if I had to rank the possibilities, that would probably be pretty high up on the list.

One last thing I can say is that she was a huge technology buff, just like me. I neither understood nor appreciated this fully while she was alive. She was one of those people who would always forward every urban legend and "business opportunity" that she received by email, along with added information about how this seems really valuable and/or insightful. To be honest, it drove me crazy, and I even corrected some of the things she said from time to time.

But when you think about it, it's pretty unusual for someone her age to have caught on to computers and taken advantage of them so effectively. I introduced her to computer-based card games, and at the end of her life I found that her computer was stuffed with little games of her own. Not the kind of games I would play, obviously, but lots of goofy simple solitaire-type games that she downloaded from the internet or paid for.

I also remember arguing with her about CD-ROM drives when they came out -- she thought there was no important program that wouldn't fit on a floppy disk. And also, when Windows 3.1 was popular she asked me why her computer was running slowly even though she kept adding memory. So I looked, and told her it was because she had about eleventy billion windows open at the same time, and she should close some. She said she WANTED all those windows open at once, and wouldn't listen to me when I said she should just run one or two programs open at a time.

Actually, she was ahead of her time. I'm looking at my task bar right now... I have well over 30 windows open myself, including 4 folders, 8 documents, several emails, and a few dozen web sites. She just wanted to do stuff that computers weren't ready to do yet. She also, as I said, was a financial wizardess, and most of her money came from carefully managing her stock portfolio and rental properties. Online. She got it about the internet revolution. And she may not have understood spam, but she forwarded those junk emails because it was one small way to keep in touch with her family, without having to expose her vulnerability on the phone all the time.

So, that's the end of a life. I don't believe that there's anything left of Greemie except for an urn, and the memories of her that are held by me and others. But I don't know everything. Maybe she's off somewhere, enjoying herself now... at Tinkerbell. Wherever the heck that might be. And if she's not, then I'll still clap my hands a couple of times for her, and enjoy the good memories she left me with.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog afterthoughts (spoilers!)

So yeah... typical Joss Whedon conclusion. I can't really decide whether Joss is a bigger bastard than George R. R. Martin in the area of gratuitously killing off his main characters, but I was definitely annoyed by the ending on first viewing. I had high hopes for the character of Penny. I was BSing with coworkers on Friday about our expectations for Act 3, and we came up with some of the following ideas:

• Penny is instrumental in defeating Captain Hammer.
• Penny turns into a supervillainess in the end. Complete with white leather.
• It turns out Penny was really "Bad Horse" all along.
• Dr. Horrible inadvertently rescues Captain Hammer from something.
• Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer fall in love and wind up together. (Okay, this is over the top. But Neil Patrick Harris IS gay.)

As it is, I mostly agree with this post, which states that Joss failed to live up to his usual standards of offering strong feminist role models. Penny was in the end a pretty low-dimension character, existing only to serve as a foil for Captain Hammer and Dr. Horrible to fight over in the typical triangle arrangement. It's extremely disappointing to me that, after strongly telegraphing her disillusionment with Captain Hammer throughout act 3, Penny's last words were "Captain Hammer will save us."

My comment on the actual ending: the death of Penny was the catalyst that Billy needed to stop being a villain wannabe and become an actual villain. Meanwhile, the "real" Billy -- my friend Shelley refers to him as the superego component -- gets pushed down and lost forever. Is it poignant and heart-wrenching? Sure. But I don't think I was in the mood for poignant. I was watching a comedy. I wanted a comedy ending.

Having said that... the music and comedy components were both excellent, right up through the end. Joss continued his fine tradition from the Buffy Musical, of delivering up hilarious and catchy tunes over and over again. I'm still planning to buy the DVD, and possibly the soundtrack too. If for no other reason, I think the project was a good idea, and I'd like to encourage the strategy that Joss is trying.

Quick recap of my favorite moments:

• The cowboy chorus. I can't repeat enough how awesome the cowboy chorus was.
• Nathan Fillion's first entrance. Hell, every scene with Nathan mugging, smirking, and chewing up the scenery. Again, Nathan is the real villain and a damn good one.
• "And sometimes there's a third, even deeper level, which is exactly the same as the top level."
• "Wow, what a crazy random happenstance!"
• "...The hammer is my penis."
  
• The last song of Act 2, starting with Neil's demented smile. Also: "I'll hand her the keys to a shiny new Australia." Also also: Giant Neil.
• Groupies! "This is his hair!"
• "I hate the homeless. ...ness problem that plagues our city."
  
• "Everyone's a hero in their own way. You, and you, and... mostly me! and you."
• I must report that Ben just loved seeing Captain Hammer crying and sniveling.

Finally, a few words about the many geeks who populate this project. Felicia Day, who played Penny, graduated with honors from UT (Hook 'em!) with a degree in mathematics, loves World of Warcraft, and stars in a videocast about video games. What's not to like? The actress sounds a hundred times more interesting than the character.

Maurissa Tancharoen plays one of the groupies, is married to Joss Whedon's half brother, and the two of them were apparently deeply involved with the writing and production.

Thoughts on the business model: This is going to be a raging success, probably, but I'm not sure it will prove that the business model is as game-changing as everyone hopes it would be. I mean, yeah, you can make money from releasing a movie and merchandise on the internet... IF your name is Joss Whedon, you have your own money and a huge cult following, and well-known actors who love you enough to temporarily work for free. For everyone else, maybe not so much.

Dr. Horrible, act 2

I've seen act 2 now. Loved it. Can't wait for act 3.

Yesterday I attempted to show episode 1 to several people, and the result is decidedly mixed reactions. I thought it was fantastic, and so did many other fellow Whedon fans; but I heard a lot of negative reactions too. These range from "I don't get it" to "Does this get better soon?" to "Huh, it's weird. Maybe I'll watch it later."

This is obviously not to everyone's taste, which leaves me trying to sort out the question of whose taste it is for. Mine, obviously; I thought it was brilliant. Then I remembered: I love melodrama. That's what this show is, of course. It's a mid-budget, named-actor, melodrama.

My family and I used to go to a melodrama performance every year in Colorado, where there was a dedicated troupe there that kept putting on new productions. They pulled out all the stops. There were heroes with cleft chins, villains with handlebar mustaches, a piano player to set the mood... and then in some performances, you were allowed to throw popcorn, as well as being encouraged to cheer and boo at the appropriate times.

That's why I love this bizarre little movie, because it's a melodrama in reverse. The hero is the villain, the villain is the hero. And while Neil Patrick Harris is, of course, hilarious, Nathan Fillion has totally stolen the show. Because while ostensibly he plays "the good guy," anyone can see that he's a total bastard. In his smirky poses, you can almost see him twirling his mustache. The villain is the best part of ANY show, and Nathan is just damn good in this role.

Addendum: My alert coworker Newell points out that Dr. Horrible wears white, while Captain Hammer wears black. Classic melodramatic color coding.

My fondest hope for the finale is that the sweet, innocent girl will appear in very last scene dressed as a villainess. Perhaps in white leather.

Supervillain musical by Joss Whedon

Please watch this QUICKLY, before it is removed and lost forever:


It's a brief, one-time, episodic show starring a few actors that you'll probably recognize. And I laughed my ASS off.

The bad news is that it will be taken down on July 20, after which time you will have to pay for it. I have faith in my fellow netizens that someone will reverse engineer the video delivery and stick it up on YouTube, but just in case, you might want to check it out right away. It's going to be pretty cheap, only $4 or so for the entire set.

(I decided NOT to encourage piracy after all... since this is partly an experiment to see whether such an endeavor can make real money.)

A reply from Chuck Colson

In case you haven't been following, I received a book from Chuck Colson (of Christian apologetics and Watergate fame) a couple of months ago. I posted a critique of the book on the AE blog. He has just now written a response, which I acknowledged.

One-Eyed Doll, and an encounter with the law

Austin being billed as the live music capitol of the world, I really should get out and see more actual live music. Last night, Ginny and I went with our friends Azzurra and Jerry to see a band in concert called One-Eyed Doll. Ginny's been a fan of this group for a while now, I have heard them by proxy and liked what I saw.

I don't drink much, so I made myself designated driver by default... however, I started out the evening with a rum and coke, followed by a Heineken, then cut myself off completely (three hours before we would leave).

One-Eyed Doll gave a great performance. There were only two people in the band, a lead singer/guitarist named Kimberly, and a drummer named "Number Three." Kimberly dresses up like a very weird doll, with frilly and stripy clothes, pigtails, some wacky face paint, and enormous boots. Number Three wore a suit and black tie and a porkpie hat. Kimberly likes to leap off stage and crawl around on the floor a lot. She also interrupted the music several times for "story time," which was hilarious.

The music is kind of punk/thrash combined with some very satirical themes in the lyrics. For instance, "Suicidal Serenade" goes:

Happy, happy, happy, happy,
happy, happy, happy, happy,
happy, happy, happy America!
WE THE PEOPLE
FALLING IN MASSES TO OUR GRAVES
DRINK THE POISON
SUICIDAL SERENADE

-- the first part being sung in this cute, innocent little girl voice, while the second part is shouted and played with heavy guitar crunch.

Ginny is working on ingratiating herself with this band, and we spent a while chatting up the two members before they started. They are fun people. We crowded up front to the stage while the preceding band was playing, about 30 minutes before OED started. We got a great view of everything, including her frequent audience dives.

Ginny and Azzurra also got to go up on stage with four other girls and a guy during one song. Kimberly gave them all silly hats (Ginny had a bicycle helmet) and they all moshed around on stage.

By far my favorite part of the concert was when we got to play the finale ourselves. See, as the last song was wrapping up, Kimberly passed her guitar around the audience, where it wound up in Ginny's hands. Ginny did some random picking... which you would think sounded bad, but the amp was crunching the sound anyway, and the drummer had the beat going, so it sounded like passable music. Then I hit a high note to make it sound like an actual song ending. It was pretty cool.

Anyway, after the show the other three in my group all had another drink, and I politely abstained. It was voted that we go get some food, and I got behind the wheel... immediately proceeding to make some incredibly dumb mistakes. Jerry was giving me directions to an unfamiliar location, and I forgot to turn on my headlights for several minutes. Then I got on a street that I assumed was one-way, and in the dark, crossed over the yellow line for a few seconds before correcting my mistake. And, of course, I was being quietly followed by a cop the whole time.

So to make a long story short, I got pulled over for drunk driving. Two cops spent fifty minutes (as timed by Azzurra) trying desperately to prove that I was drunk (rather than merely an idiot) before deciding to let me go. During that time, I was incredibly, ridiculously polite. I mean, I was heroic. I think "Grace Under Pressure" by Rush should be my new official album.

Anyway, they interrogated me to try and catch an inconsistency. They waved lights in my eyes. For a very long time. They made me stand on one foot, and walk a line in a parking lot. They REALLY wanted me to be drunk, but seriously... I wasn't.

So that was my first sobriety test ever. Meanwhile, Ginny was talking to a third cop the whole time. (There were two cars on us!) She said "Look at this guy, you can see he's not drunk! He hardly even drinks at all! And he's a huge nerd!" Well, something to that effect... I have to fill in parts of the conversation with my imagination.

It was nerve wracking and embarrassing, but I came through it unscathed, and we got our food, then ate while hanging out with our friends for another hour or two. Ultimately we got home a little after 5 AM. So if I sound tired today on The Non-Prophets, you know I have a good excuse.

Data Mining news

It's been seven months since I barely pulled off my Master's Report and graduated. Over two years since I took my favorite class, which was Data Mining.

I have every intention of following up on the advice of my reader from the UT Journalism department, Dr. Iris Chyi (thanks again!) and finding some peer-reviewed journals to publish the study in. I'm told that it will take a lot of extra work first, which I haven't been sufficiently motivated to do. What I need to do is apparently read some journals that deal with the appropriate subject matter (i.e., focus on digital media for example) and get a feel for what kind of work they've accepted in the past. Then trim the paper to a manageable length (from 60 pages to, say, 25) and submit something that, in my judgment, they'd be likely to approve with no major changes.

I'm writing all this down so I have a reminder to actually get off my ass and do so, because otherwise I'm afraid I'll forget about it.

Determined to leverage this experience and make people remember who I am at work, on Tuesday I did an hour long presentation for most of the engineering staff (a room full of maybe 30 people) on what data mining can do for my company. I know I am an ultra-nerd, but I love doing presentations. False modesty aside, years of practicing topic presentation on TV and podcast have made me pretty good at it.

I put a Power Point presentation together and now I've uploaded it to Google Docs, so you can check it out by going here. You can't really get the point without hearing me talk, but it will give you a general idea of what I covered. The official topic title I picked was, "Data Mining: How math helps us compare apples to oranges, and shows that ice cream causes shark attacks." (If you care, I can explain that in the comments.)

Anyway, couldn't have asked for a much better result. I managed to hit all the major points I wanted regarding a complex topic in under 90 minutes with time to spare for questions. They laughed at all my jokes in the right places, appeared to follow the point of what I was saying, nodded sometimes, participated where I intended them to, and discussed it after it was over. All four of the company software architects had an animated discussion about what use they could make of it, after everyone else had left. And even today, two days later, I'm still getting IM's and people stopping by to let me know that they enjoyed and appreciated it.

People, please DO NOT FEED THE EGO!!!

My spoilery review of "Wanted"

As usual, I'm finding myself posting more and more on that other blog rather than on this one. Here's what I had to say about the movie "Wanted." I hope Ginny will read it, since it puts together some of the stuff we talked about after seeing it.

John McCain's energy solution: free labor!

McCain Proposes a $300 Million Prize for a Next-Generation Car Battery

“I further propose we inspire the ingenuity and resolve of the American people,” Mr. McCain said, “by offering a $300 million prize for the development of a battery package that has the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars.”

He said the winner should deliver power at 30 percent of current costs. “That’s one dollar, one dollar, for every man, woman and child in the U.S. — a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency,” he said.

If a corporation were to dedicate genuine effort to build this miracle battery, it would assign a director to the project, who would allocate a certain number of man-hours to the problem. The people who worked on the project would all have access to one another's research, and they would all get paid regardless of whether they arrived at a solution. Big companies, like governments are common pools for a lot of money, which is why they can afford to invest large sums up front to achieve a desired solutions.

Imagine a company instead saying "Okay, all of you employees start coming up with crazy ideas to design your own battery. Whoever pulls it off gets a gigantic bonus. Everyone else gets paid nothing." That's essentially what John McCain's proposal is. He's not fronting ANY of the money to generate this research. He's not proposing to absorb any of the risk, since if no engine gets built, no prize gets awarded. All he's offering to do is buy a finished product which does not yet exist.

I have to conclude that John McCain is not in the slightest bit serious about actually funding a solution to the problem. R&D is risky, therefore the cost of doing it is far higher than developing an actual product using known techniques. In any case, anyone who was capable of creating the miracle battery using only the funds available to an unfinanced individual would be able to make so much money from it that being bought out for $300 million in the end would most likely be insulting.

If McCain thinks the free market is so darn awesome, why hasn't the magic battery been produced already? This is a man who has no ideas.

Card is writing sequels to what? Argh. Argh. Argh.

A friend of mine (Buffy) just invited me to join Goodreads.com. It's a good recommendation for me, because I am a sucker for these social information-organizing web 2.0 sites.

So I'm adding stuff to my bookshelf, and in the process, I'm going back through my blog searching for books that I've discussed. I came across a mention of Ender's Game, and -- when will I ever learn -- went browsing through recent news about Orson Scott Card.

It looks like Hack Neocon Fundie Blogger Card is once again going around the space-time continuum desecrating the works of Talented Sci-Fi Author Card. This time he's writing a fanfic sequel to one of my other favorite TSFA Card novels, Pastwatch.

The original Pastwatch is a very enjoyable yarn about some Africa-based time travelers who are reluctantly driven to fix the past by interfering with the "Columbus discovers America" event. The story of Noah's flood is touched upon, but treated appropriately as the origin of a myth -- it appears to be a local flood and the Biblical details are greatly exaggerated.

Now Card tells an interviewer:

What we have planned for further books in the Pastwatch series (yep, series) are books that take place sort of in the midst of the Columbus book. There's the Noah book, which tells Kemal's story as frame but Noah's story and the flood as the main tale, and then there's the Garden of Eden story - yep, the hoariest cliche in science fiction, but I have no fear, the artsy types couldn't possibly despise me more, and I think there's a reason why it is the most-written cliche story in the field. People are hungry for a rational treatment of that story in science fictional terms. So ... I mean to give it a try. We'll see if anyone but me likes it.

I suppose it's remotely possible that HNFB Card will treat TSFA Card's source material with the respect and appreciation it deserves, and not turn stories about Noah's flood and the Garden of freakin' Eden into some obsessive religious rant. However, I have my doubts, given that he can't even get through one question about it in an interview without making some lame, smarmy swipe about mean liberal critics.

Sudoku solver, new and improved

If anyone enjoyed the Sudoku program I made earlier, I should let you know that it's been updated.

In the latest version you can click on the game board and type numbers directly into the screen, instead of messing around with the text box. You can still copy the contents on the text box and save them for later retrieval.

Also, the box now displays periods instead of spaces for empty squares. This way, the correct amount of white space doesn't disappear when you type it in an HTML comment. For instance, in a previous comment, Tatarize was trying to get me to try this puzzle:

1.......5
....3....
..2.4....
.........
.34...7..
...2.6..1
2....5...
.7.....3.
.....1...

Go ahead and paste that in... it's long, but still quick at maximum speed.