hmc was so excited by our dive experience, we decided to go again.
unfortunately, the fine calypso dive we went out on saturday wasn’t sailing today from dunk, so we were forced with the only operation that was, that being the quickcat crew, which sails in a big motorized catamaran, and is a larger operation geared to a more sedate family type of experience. being in a much larger boat meant that you didn’t feel any waves or turbulence going out there, but we also didn’t go out that far. we went to sandy cay, which is nice and calm but not quite as far out onto the reef, and thus a little less populated, underwaterwise.
the other bad thing about this larger operation is that they were more overcautious about letting hmc dive after she was up front about her very very mild asthma, which hadn’t affected her at all on our saturday dive. alas, they wouldn’t let her go, and thus she had to snorkle. damn them. damn them to watery hell!
i did go on one dive, and through the miracle of the strongest prescription goggles they had on board, i was actually able to see down there! very exciting. i believe that there wasn’t as much to see compared to the reef on saturday, but i was able to see more of it, so it’s probably about a wash.
diving is very cool. but very expensive. maybe i’ll stick to snowboarding, just for my finances’ sake. if there were only more creatures flying around on the slopes…
we went out diving in the barrier reef today. first off, we signed up for a “try scuba diving” lesson in the pool, where they explained the basics, and then had us try on all the gear and the experience in the safety of the butterfly pool.
the first time you try it, sticking that thing in your mouth, dunking your head underwater, and then trying to breath, it’s just so incredibly wrong that you almost can’t do it. everything in your head is telling you, this is fundamentally wrong. you’re trying to breathe while underwater. you can’t do that, dummy. stick your head back up before you drown. eventually, i sort of got the hang of it, but i was honestly freaking out the first few minutes. your body is screaming this is wrong! everything is wrong!
it was a very windy and rocky trip out to the reef, which would have been dicey had we not taken seasickness pills with breakfast. the other people on the trip didn’t fare so well, however.
the first dive was pretty scary. you’re still trying to get your head around the fact that you’re underwater and trying to breathe. your mind is still screaming at you that this shouldn’t be working at all. but somehow we survived, mostly by having the dive instructors hold our hands and drag us around underneath the reef. i almost didn’t go on the second dive, since the first one felt so incredibly unnatural that i was ready to say, “ok, maybe i’m just an above water type of person. i’ll just stick to walking, snowboarding, other topside activities.” but since i was out there, i figured i’d give it one last shot. and actually it was pretty great. the second time we were able to enjoy it much more, swim around on our own, and see lots of great stuff. well, sort of. given that i’m mostly blind, being underwater without glasses on means that i see things, but not well at all. so while i might have seen reef sharks, manta rays, blue starfish, giant clams, and lots of fish, it’s just as likely that i saw shark, ray, starfish, clam, and fish-shaped objects. i mean, who knows for sure?
still, it’s very cool down there. it really doesn’t make sense at all, and the fishes swim up to you curiously, defending their territory, asking you, “what are you doing here?” and all you can do is to wave your hands around, and try to respond, “i don’t really know. just passing through, i guess.”
with the lack of anything better to do today, we went to the coconut dehusking class, just to prepare for the eventuality of survivor living.
coconut tidbits:
how to dehusk a coconut:
so obviously, the key to surviving while stranded on a desert island is to make sure that the island you’re stranded on has a large metal spike in the ground, and also to make sure you have your knife and phillips head screwdriver handy as well.
i took my coconut back to the room, and having discovered the miracle of minibar refrigeration, kept it around for two days. i ate one half, but hmc made me throw out the other half before i could finish it off.
dunk island is actually a rainforest island, which means if you tramp through the interior of the island, as we did sort of accidentally, following the inner circuit loop for four hours, that you get to see all sorts of rainforest terrain and trees and little creatures, like frogs, turtles, and lots of brush turkeys. and yes, turkeys can fly. although once they’re up on top of those trees, i’m not sure what comes next.
if you’re interested, here’s a quick simpleviewer gallery of pictures.
the resort we’re staying in is actually quite nice. the room is right on the beach, and from the window you get the full view of the sea with purtaboi island just a couple of km away. it’s not a huge resort, and it seems like there are even less people than capacity, probably since it’s still early summer down here. thus explains the intermittent rain, which actually isn’t bad. it’s warm and humid, and the rain usually only lasts for an hour or so in the morning.
i still can’t figure out why all the toilets in nz/aus have two flush buttons, one large one and one small one. are you supposed to push different buttons depending if you’ve done #1 or #2? this is the kind of stuff that really needs to go into guidebooks.
no matter what time zone you’re in, 3:30 is never a pleasant time to wake up. alas, it was mandatory, as our flight to sydney was scheduled for 6:30, and working backwards through all the requisite steps (international flight, shuttle to airport, packing, showering) it really doesn’t leave you with much options.
from sydney we flew on to cairns, up in the northeastern part of australia, which is the closest big city to the great barrer reef, the only notable aspect of the flight was that they screened for us anchorman: the legend of ron burgundy for the second time that day.
unexpectedly, it was raining up in cairns as well. what the hell? we finally get around to taking a honeymoon and the weather won’t cooperate? it’s summer, for chrissake!
the flight from cairns to dunk island was on a little local carrier, and so we all piled onto a tiny little single engine cessna 208B. unbeknownst to us before we got into cairns, this results in a 16kg weight limit per person for checked luggage. later i found this caution in very small print in the “about dunk island resort” brochure that they had sent, but who reads those things, anyway? while both of us managed to get our luggage on due to the fact that there were only five out of twelve passengers on the little flight, i couldn’t help but thinking about aaliyah and her baggage related demise. i wondered if she had thrown some sort of celebrity fit when they tried to tell her that her luggage might be too heavy, and if her last thought might have been, “why did i have to bring all of my grammys with me everywhere?”
off we flew into the pouring rain, and i don’t think i’ve ever been more mortified during a flight, as the strong winds and sheets of water buffeted us about. all i could think about was how you can’t strictly rely on instrumentation to fly, as there are those series of manouvres that if done in sequence and only referring to your instruments, will leave you flying upside down, without you realizing it.
obviously, we landed quite all right, but it certainly wasn’t a flight for the fearful or skittish.
we went sea kayaking today around waiheke island. our tour guide, let’s call him kayak jack, is planning to some day try to be the first person to kayak from australia to new zealand, which would take something on the order of six weeks. our little group of five didn’t quite make it that far; we just made our way a few km around the coast, but then turned back because the northeasterlies were acting up and causing increasing swells. still, it was a lot of fun, and even more so that we didn’t get swept out to sea. there was even a particularly entertaining bird called a shag that swam around our kayaks for a while, hamming it up for effect.
afterwards we all ended up going to one of the wineries on the island, this one named mudbrick winery after the building materials of the main house. nice little lunch with kayak jack and the other three japanese tourists, two of which were from the pacific northwest and were in new zealand as part of a company-wide sponsored trip, and the other being a single woman from okinawa, on holiday from her catering/cooking school business.
hmc ended up tasting the wines afterwards and being quite excited about them, but we opted not to get any, as we didn’t want to lug them around for the rest of our trip. we can always come back on the tail end if need be. not that i could really smell the difference between the white pepper flavored shiraz or the butterscotch chardonnay or the tobacco/leather merlot.
we fly out tomorrow to australia and the dunk island resort. horrifically early. plus another time change. travelling is fun!
p.s. what the hell is going on in the nba? i leave for a few days, and players are fighting with fans, and ron artest gets suspended for a whole year? wtf?!
ok the first thing. it’s daylight savings time down here. which makes sense if you think about it, but if you’re not thinking about it, you can’t figure out why your watch doesn’t quite match up.
and to get it out of the way, no noticeable coriolis effect. the toilets in the hotel seems to flush straight down, if anything. if it’s any consolation, all the public urinals seem to be a nice pleasing oval shape.
auckland is not dissimilar to seattle or vancouver or other costal/island group towns. sort of small town feel, and lots of ferries and nautical type activities. one one hand you pine for more of a city, to have more stuff going on like obvious nightlife and culture, and on the other hand, you’re incredibly glad to have all this untouched green land and wonderful nature, and you realize that for the most part, you have to give up one to get the other.
we went to kelly tarleton’s antarctic encounter and underwater world. which is half dedicated to those brave explorers who tried to make it to the south pole, but i think mostly an excuse to keep a large number of penguins around for our viewing pleasure. however, you do have to admit: penguin babies are pretty cute.
the underwater world part is the aquarium, which i suppose we are obligated to visit in every city. while it’s not large (exempting the large manta ray world which is still under construction, edc december 2004), it is cool in that you view it from underneath, travelling through the aquarium in little human habitrails as the fishes and manta rays and various sharks swim obliviously around you.
the anticipated shark vs. manta ray battle to the death did not happen.
ok, that’s it. i think i’m done.
i’m all packed. the suitcase is closed, and everything i’m planning on taking is stored away.
i spent a lot of the last few days quibbling with myself over what to bring and what not to bring. do i need a pair of shoes that look dressier than sneakers? (yes) should i bring a pair of teva-type water sandals? (no) should i bring my copy of gravity’s rainbow? and how about the corresponding companion? (tough, but, no and no) how many shirts? shorts? short pants? pantshorts? pairs of underwear?
thankfully, i’ve been referencing the packing book courtesy of cheryl at ten speed press, which preaches packing sensible and light. which is the antithesis of someone i know. pack as few things as possible. pack things that are comfortable and don’t bring things “just in case”. best of all, for given types of trips, the author makes recommendations about how many of what thing to bring. two slacks. four shirts, at least two long-sleeved. 2-8 pairs of underwear.
in any case, it’ll have to do. i’m flying down to lost angels tonight, and we fly out to new zealand tomorrow night. we’re taking the digital camera and i’ve got a barebones superslim laptop, but i don’t know if i’ll be able to update at all while i’m gone.
hopefully this won’t be entirely spam-infested when i return. if there was only a way to turn comments off on all posts at once?
the last weird thing of the day: the rolleiflex minidigi, which is a miniature digital camera version of the classic rollei twin lens reflex camera first developed in the 1920’s. but it’s only 2 megapixels, and you even have to use the little crank lever to advance the shot, as well as use the viewfinder from above. i can’t decide whether this is great or retarded.
sometimes you’re smart. and sometimes you’re really stupid.
evidence of the latter this morning: i was driving the miata down to work, where i’m going to sit it in the parking lot while we’re off on our honeymoon, since i can’t keep it in our garage due to the fact that we haven’t sold the land cruiser yet. all is well, except that i hear something that sounds like a ripping or a clicking, up by where my top was sliced and is now taped up with gaffer’s tape. i’m thinking maybe the tape is stretching or the strands are breaking, but then i realize: something’s just flapping.
i pull over at tanforan mall, and yes, it’s true. the tape is slowly coming off, slightly but not completely. it had stayed on fine yesterday when i drove down to daly city, but that was in the afternoon sunshine. this morning, freshly covered with dew, it couldn’t stick properly and was coming off.
the stupid thing is that it’s my own fault. when deciding to tape up the hole, i did consider duct tape instead of gaffer’s tape. and i decided against duct tape because i thought it would be too sticky. i was influenced by some bizarre anal cleanliness idea, to make sure that there wouldn’t be too much tape goo which would somehow mar my otherwise pristine ghetto convertible top with the multiple cuts and tears.
so stupid.
and so i tried to dry it off and press it down, to no avail. so i was left with driving the rest of the way down to sunnyvale with the tape flapping in the wind. the only thing is that when tape flaps at 80mph, it does so at an incredibly high frequency, so it’s not so much a flapping but a buzzing. or like someone’s giving you a raspberry. for forty five minutes. pbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpt. a continual loud reminder of your foolishness. you’re an idiooooooooooot.
it reminds me of that peanuts cartoon, where charlie brown says to sherman, “you think my dad doesn’t know anything about cars? just the other day we were driving and he heard a loud noise from the engine.” sherman says, “let me guess, he got out and fixed it, right?” and charlie brown says, “no, he just turned the radio up louder.”
:s/radio/ipod/g
i went to move my car yesterday and found that someone had sliced my top and broken into my car. oddly enough, they really didn’t take anything. some of the things they didn’t take:
the only thing that they did take, oddly enough was my cellphone headset. which only works on a nokia 8000 series phone. and had already been chewed up by my cat and is now held together with electrical tape.
enjoy, looter!
meanwhile, my convertible top is now patched together with gaffer’s tape. i’m now driving the ghetto miata.
in other news, condoleezza rice is going to be our secretary of state, replacing colin powell. after the last few weeks, you’d think that you couldn’t get more depressed, but the bush administration just continues to surprise you, doesn’t it?
also, the nba tells vince carter that he can’t listen to his ipod. i guess there won’t be an nba-ipod ad for xmas.
uh, oh. it’s monday already. and we’re flying to new zealand on, uh, friday?
shit.
with a luxurious four days to go, i think we’ve finally got our itinerary set. mostly. now the new zealand trip has turned into a new zealand/australia trip. and to think i didn’t want to follow through on our original plans of japan/hawaii because i didn’t want to go to more than one place. or that it was too complicated.
that’ll learn me.
so, the plans are to fly into auckland, spend a couple of days there, then fly to dunk island in queensland, australia over in the great barrier reef. stay in some fancy resort there. i think that will involve laying on the beach, drinks with umbrellas, and possibly being under water at some point. and then down to sydney for a few days, and then back to new zealand, starting in wellington, and taking the train back up to auckland, stopping at tongariro national park (to see volcanoes!) and waitomo (to see glowworms!) on the way.
all for a budget that is probably what xz and mac will spend in their first year of travelling.
that’s ok, because i just got a raise last week.
but that means i have to come back to collect.
next, the packing…
and on mcsweeny’s:
the riddler retires and various well-known superheroes consider the utility of minneapolis-st. paul as a base of operations.
also, to the rest of the world, we’re sorry about that. at least 49% of us, anyway. (thanks roo!)
i went to see i (heart) huckabees today, which was funny and odd, but ultimately unfocused. but maybe the point was to say that there is no point? that a simple tidy ending would have been untrue to the whole premise that there is no easy answer, and although everything is connected, everything is maybe also meaningless? i need to have hmc see this and explain it to me. there’s too much pseudo-philosophy in here: i’m too much of a pragmatist to understand this. at any rate, dustin hoffman and especially lily tomlin are pretty fantastic in this.
after the movie, i was going to sneak into the incredibles again, but then i left and snuck into the polar express instead. i went to see the 3d imax version, which if you have to see this movie, is the only way to do it, according to hmc. it’s not a cheap “just project the normal movie on the imax screen” like spiderman or matrix: reloaded, but they actually went back and rerendered the film for imax and 3d. in fact, apparently there’s something about the imax format or proportions that required the film to be basically redone shot for shot. i didn’t really understand why, and hmc explained it to me but i think my eyes glassed over at that point.
in any case, it’s pretty impressive, in parts. at least the 3d part of it. watch the ticket float in front of your eyes! watch the train come right at you! it’s almost like watching 3d movies on sctv’s monster chiller theatre. although, did they just u-turn a train? what?
however, it’s true: all those cg kids are pretty creepy. the boys aren’t too bad, but especially unfortunately, the character played by nona gaye looks particularly creepy. i think it all comes down to the uncanny valley theory i talked about in june, where basically we can see and appreciate anthromoporphism to a point, but once it passes that point, it’s too realistic and becomes creepy to us, until it actually becomes indistinguishable from reality, at which it’s ok again because we can’t visually tell. that’s why the pixar approach which is very realistic but cartoony is fun and cute, but the pex approach ends up giving you the willies.
that being said, everyone in the packed imax theatre seemed to enjoy it a lot, and people were very positive about it afterwards, judging by the comments of the parents and kids. and that bob z certainly knows how to tug at emotional heart strings, setting up standard pat touching holiday scenes and lessons, even when forced to use synthetic animated marionettes.
maybe i should go se team america anyway just to see if they’re more or less realistic. or creepy.
anyway, it’s not a bad double feature, as the existential search in huckabees directly leads into the search for faith in polar express, either giving it a more meaningful context or rendering it utterly childish.
or maybe they’re the same? it’s all the blanket, right?
reports from usa today (sorry) that some pharmacists refuse to fill prescriptions because of their “moral or religious beliefs”, and now some states are enacting laws to protect their decision to do so:
“I was shocked,” says Lacey, 33, who was not able to get her prescription until the next day and missed taking one of her pills. “Their job is not to regulate what people take or do. It’s just to fill the prescription that was ordered by my physician.”
Some pharmacists, however, disagree and refuse on moral grounds to fill prescriptions for contraceptives. And states from Rhode Island to Washington have proposed laws that would protect such decisions.
Mississippi enacted a sweeping statute that went into effect in July that allows health care providers, including pharmacists, to not participate in procedures that go against their conscience. South Dakota and Arkansas already had laws that protect a pharmacist’s right to refuse to dispense medicines. Ten other states considered similar bills this year.
…
In Wisconsin, a petition drive is underway to revive a proposed law that would protect pharmacists who refuse to prescribe drugs they believe could cause an abortion or be used for assisted suicide.
“It just recognizes that pharmacists should not be forced to choose between their consciences and their livelihoods,” says Matt Sande of Pro-Life Wisconsin. “They should not be compelled to become parties to abortion.”
meanwhile, speaking of mandate:
(click on picture for full hilarious version)
from the guardian, reports that farmers in india are using coca-cola as cheap pesticide alternatives:
Instead of paying hefty fees to international chemical companies for patented pesticides, they are reportedly spraying their cotton and chilli fields with Coca-Cola.
…
Gotu Laxmaiah, a farmer from Ramakrishnapuram in Andra Pradesh, said he was delighted with his new cola spray, which he applied this year to several hectares of cotton. “I observed that the pests began to die after the soft drink was sprayed on my cotton,” he told the Deccan Herald newspaper.
this morning i participated in this big webcast for work, where we talked about our new software release to customers from our top enterprise accounts. while it was mostly scripted, it was a live forum talking about the benefits of our new product to our most important customers.
man, am i glad that it’s over.
i had been nervous about this for days, even to the extent of staying up almost all night in order to practice my part. which really wasn’t necessary, as you want it to sound natural and not like you’re reading some sort of preset monologue, but while i was practicing i kept feeling like i was flubbing my lines and stupid repetitive phrases kept coming out of my mouth.
shmickmak!
alas, it all turned out fine. originally i thought it was going to be some crazy web video thing, but it turned out to only be audio and powerpoint slides. we ended up doing this in a conference room set up with computers, audio gear, and big microphones and headsets, so it was just like the old days being on some public affairs show on the radio. not that i had ever been on the non-booth side of that, but at least i can relate to being a talking head on the radio.
it’s all part of their evil plan to raise me up to this new position at work. which just seems like more visibility and more work for me. and really doubly more, since they’re still interviewing people to backfill for my old job. at least they did give me a not insubstantial raise recently.
i do notice that i’ve been talking a lot in double negatives recently.
i don’t think i know what that’s actually about.
i had dinner at my favorite resturant last night, emmy’s spaghetti shack.
i like it for several reasons:
1. the best spaghetti and meatballs in the world.
2. all the waitresses are beautiful and adorable.
3. it’s one of the few places i dont mind eating alone.
4. (see #2)
while i usually get the spaghetti & meatballs, yesterday i opted for the special, a braised lamb shank. because lord knows i love a good lamb. and that was a good lamb.
i sat in a booth because they weren’t busy at all, and just read while waiting for my food. and they scolded me for reading in the dark and brought me another candle for extra light. did i mention how i love the waitresses?
in the booth behind me, two guys were talking about some dating situation and this and that, and i was wishing that i had brought my ipod to drown them out. or a white noise generator. or maybe a industrial size fan.
but then i overheard them talking about the warriors, and how those huge contracts awarded to jrich and troy murphy were going to be an albatross like donyell marshell’s contract was a few years ago. which made me laugh out loud, because i had used those exact same words to someone at work earlier today.
albatross.
the guy at work was upset that the warriors were already 0-3, but he was really frustrated at the fact that the system was already falling apart, the new coach was changing his system because the players weren’t right for it, and that with huge deals to these mediocre players, this is the situation that they’re going to be in for years down the road. they’re not just sucking now, but they’re going to suck for the foreseeable future. he was outraged that this big mistake of signing the wrong personnel will screw us down the line.
“sort of how i feel about the election”, i said.
i saw the incredibles this weekend, early on sunday morning. our company was hosting a customer showing, where they could bring their kids and see the movie for free, so i volunteered to help out.
which did mean that i was down in the south bay for the seventh day in a row, but that’s just poor planning and a little bit of madness on my part.
in any case, it’s a really great movie. really fantastic. those pixar guys really know what they’re doing.
the interesting thing for me was to notice that they were able to catch and reproduce such intricate details as holly hunter’s slight facial tic in her mouth. these are the things that movies like hmc’s polar express are advocating the use of facial motion capture to ensure that realistic portrayals are preserved, and yet pixar manages to do this just with animation, and i imagine, lots of video reference.
then again, tools like mocap are sort of like computers, right? taking the power out of the hands of the select few artists, and bringing them to the (relative) masses. commoditization. to an extent, anyway.
is this a good thing? well, if more good movies get made, then sure. and at least if people can still see that the masters are making masterful work and appreciate it, then all the better.
the most amazing feat is that they’ve made a flat-out great movie, not just a movie that’s great-for-being-animated. sure, there are parts that are just jaw-dropping, like the big fight scene. but regardless, it’s still just a great movie in itself.
more reports of computer voter fraud over on commondreams.org, specifically with diebold machines (again) tabulating scanned paper ballots:
When I spoke with Jeff Fisher this morning (Saturday, November 06, 2004), the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida’s 16th District said he was waiting for the FBI to show up. Fisher has evidence, he says, not only that the Florida election was hacked, but of who hacked it and how. And not just this year, he said, but that these same people had previously hacked the Democratic primary race in 2002 so that Jeb Bush would not have to run against Janet Reno, who presented a real threat to Jeb, but instead against Bill McBride, who Jeb beat.
…
In Baker County, for example, with 12,887 registered voters, 69.3% of them Democrats and 24.3% of them Republicans, the vote was only 2,180 for Kerry and 7,738 for Bush, the opposite of what is seen everywhere else in the country where registered Democrats largely voted for Kerry.
In Dixie County, with 4,988 registered voters, 77.5% of them Democrats and a mere 15% registered as Republicans, only 1,959 people voted for Kerry, but 4,433 voted for Bush.
The pattern repeats over and over again - but only in the counties where optical scanners were used. Franklin County, 77.3% registered Democrats, went 58.5% for Bush. Holmes County, 72.7% registered Democrats, went 77.25% for Bush.
…
How could this happen?
On the CNBC TV show “Topic A With Tina Brown,” several months ago, Howard Dean had filled in for Tina Brown as guest host. His guest was Bev Harris, the Seattle grandmother who started www.blackboxvoting.org from her living room. Bev pointed out that regardless of how votes were tabulated (other than hand counts, only done in odd places like small towns in Vermont), the real “counting” is done by computers. Be they Diebold Opti-Scan machines, which read paper ballots filled in by pencil or ink in the voter’s hand, or the scanners that read punch cards, or the machines that simply record a touch of the screen, in all cases the final tally is sent to a “central tabulator” machine.
That central tabulator computer is a Windows-based PC.
…
“So,” Dean said, “anybody who can hack into a PC can hack into a central tabulator?”
Harris nodded affirmation, and pointed out how Diebold uses a program called GEMS, which fills the screen of the PC and effectively turns it into the central tabulator system. “This is the official program that the County Supervisor sees,” she said, pointing to a PC that was sitting between them loaded with Diebold’s software.
Bev then had Dean open the GEMS program to see the results of a test election. They went to the screen titled “Election Summary Report” and waited a moment while the PC “adds up all the votes from all the various precincts,” and then saw that in this faux election Howard Dean had 1000 votes, Lex Luthor had 500, and Tiger Woods had none. Dean was winning.
“Of course, you can’t tamper with this software,” Harris noted. Diebold wrote a pretty good program.
But, it’s running on a Windows PC.
So Harris had Dean close the Diebold GEMS software, go back to the normal Windows PC desktop, click on the “My Computer” icon, choose “Local Disk C:,” open the folder titled GEMS, and open the sub-folder “LocalDB” which, Harris noted, “stands for local database, that’s where they keep the votes.” Harris then had Dean double-click on a file in that folder titled “Central Tabulator Votes,” which caused the PC to open the vote count in a database program like Excel.
In the “Sum of the Candidates” row of numbers, she found that in one precinct Dean had received 800 votes and Lex Luthor had gotten 400.
“Let’s just flip those,” Harris said, as Dean cut and pasted the numbers from one cell into the other. “And,” she added magnanimously, “let’s give 100 votes to Tiger.”
They closed the database, went back into the official GEMS software “the legitimate way, you’re the county supervisor and you’re checking on the progress of your election.”
As the screen displayed the official voter tabulation, Harris said, “And you can see now that Howard Dean has only 500 votes, Lex Luthor has 900, and Tiger Woods has 100.” Dean, the winner, was now the loser.
Harris sat up a bit straighter, smiled, and said, “We just edited an election, and it took us 90 seconds.”
this was also more or less the topic of a this american life episode earlier this year, called “the annoying gap between theory… and practice.”
in the good old days, it was the illuminati, the gnomes of zurich, and the other secret societies pulling all the strings. nowadays, thanks to the powers of computers and that good old internet, anyone can do it!
now, how do i control who wins playboy playmate of the year?
nice op-ed in the ny times by Andrei Cherny about the (lack of) direction for the democratic party:
Democrats have a collection of policy positions that are sensible and right. John Kerry made this very clear. What we don’t have, and what we sorely need, is what President George H. W. Bush so famously derided as “the vision thing” - a worldview that makes a thematic argument about where America is headed and where we want to take it.
…
Throughout the campaign, voters told reporters and pollsters that they wanted a change, but didn’t “know what John Kerry stands for.” Our response was to churn out more speeches outlining the details of policies that Senator Kerry would then deliver in front of a backdrop that said something like “Rx to Stronger Health Care.” Of course, it turned out that Americans weren’t very interested in Mr. Kerry’s campaign promises - perhaps because they no longer believe politicians will follow through on their commitments. They wanted to know instead how he saw the world. And we never told them.
Misguided as they may be, the Republicans have a clear vision of America’s future. Confronted with their ambitious agenda we have not chosen to match it. Instead, we have adopted Nancy Reagan’s old antidrug motto, “Just Say No.” As in “Stop George Bush’s Assault on the Environment,” “Repeal George Bush’s Tax Cuts for the Wealthy” and “End George Bush’s Policy of Unilateralism.” These are good stands. But they are not enough. And the Republicans ended up defining John Kerry because we did not.
I don’t pretend to know exactly what the party should do now. But I do know that we better start answering some important questions. What is our economic vision in a globalized world? How do we respond to the desire of many Americans to have choices and decision-making power of their own? How can we speak to Americans’ moral and spiritual yearnings? How can our national security vision be broader than just a critique of the Republican’s foreign policy? If we sweep this debate under the rug, four years from now another set of people around another conference table will be struggling with the same issues we did. And America cannot afford the same result.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - A computer error with a voting machine cartridge gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in a Gahanna precinct. Franklin County’s unofficial results gave Bush 4,258 votes to Democratic challenger John Kerry’s 260 votes in Precinct 1-B. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct. Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, says Bush received 365 votes there. Damschroder says he received some calls yesterday from people who saw the error when reading the list of poll results on the election board’s Web site. Damschroder says after Precinct 1-B closed, a cartridge from one of three voting machines at the polling place generated a faulty number at a computerized reading station.
Nationwide, only scattered problems were reported in electronic voting, though roughly 40 million people cast digital ballots, voting equipment company executives had said.
sure, the new nike basketball campaign for lebron james’ new shoe is pretty slick. (enter the temple to see the video segments, and use the controller on the left to go up to see the other challenges.) it’s all sinophile, maybe to capitalize on the retro kill bill rip-off/homage theme, maybe it’s just yao and china taking over. either way, it’s not bad, like a kung-fu basketball version of the animatrix.
but i hate to say it, despite the fact that i’ve gone on the record that tmac is a pussy, i have to say that his new commercial is pretty amazing. (click on the t-mac tv link on the left. although it’s worth catching on tv, so you can watch it bigger than postage stamp-sized.)
maybe it is all about packaging and not content.
does that mean i’ve flip-flopped?
no, he’s still a pussy. a pussy with a good commercial, but a pussy nevertheless.
meanwhile, yuta tabuse became the first japanese player ever to play in an nba game!
that’s my new excuse for everything. i’ve learned that now you can do anything illegal, as long as you pretend you didn’t know the truth or if you repent later and ask christ for forgiveness, it’s ok!
what, me worry? it’s a mandate from god, sucker!
xeni makes the nixon comparison on boing boing:
“Get over it,” he said, “The way you feel now is exactly how I felt when Nixon won a second term — crushed. I just couldn’t believe America was that stupid. But remember what happened to Nixon that term.”
“Change comes from discontent,” he said. “And right now, there’s a lot of discontent.”
it’d take live video of him fucking a baby while burning a flag.
and then he’d still probably get off scott free. because he’d be doing it for “freedom”.
and plus, the mandate thing. from god.
yes, it’s finally here.
it’s the day that we’ve been all waiting for. it’s the day where all the questions are finally answered. it’s where we see where all the shenanigans of the past year lead up to.
it’s where we decide the fate of the word as we know it.
yes, it’s opening day of the nba season!
today, we find out how shaq does in miami, if kobe can carry the lakers alone, if the pistons can repeat, and whether tmac and yao can just get along?
aren’t you excited? i can’t stand it!
happy basketball new year!
sure, the election and the fate of the free world hangs in the balance tomorrow. but does it really matter? because:
GIANT squid are taking over the world, well at least the oceans, and they are getting bigger.
According to scientists, squid have overtaken humans in terms of total bio-mass.
That means they take up more space on the planet than us.
The reason has been put down to overfishing of other species and climate change.
A report in the Australian science journal, Australasian Science, said marine researchers are now in universal agreement that cephalopods have been given an advantage not available to any other sea creature.
And as a result they have been allowed to flourish.
Their growth rates also seem to be increasing as is their body size.
The findings may offer an answer to the mysterious appearance of a giant squid on the coast of Tasmania last week and hundreds of squid washed ashore on the coast of California this week, although El Nino is also being partly blamed.
Squid are now regarded as the “major player” in the world oceans by sheer volume alone.
…
Dr George Jackson from the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean studies in Tasmania said squid thrived during environmental disasters such as global warming.
The animal ate anything in that came their way, bred whenever possible and kept growing.
“This trend has been suggested to be due both to the removal of cephalopod predators such as toothed whales and tuna and an increase of cephalopods due to removal of finfish competitors,” said Dr Jackson.
“The fascinating thing about squid is that they’re short-lived.
“I haven’t found any tropical squid in Australia older than 200 days.
“Many of the species have exponential growth, particularly during the juvenile stage so if you increase the water temperature by even a degree it has a tremendous snowballing effect of rapidly increasing their growth rate and their ultimate body size.
“They get much bigger and they can mature earlier and it just accelerates everything.”
The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the UN supports the theory claiming squid landings have been increasing over the past 25 years at greater rates than fish.
ready? go!