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I Was Young and Foolish Then . . .

Posted February 20, 2007 By Dave Thomer

Once upon a time, as I was trying to figure out the whole being-a-grownup thing, I spent a fair amount of time reading about investing and the financial markets. I particularly enjoyed the message boards at the Motley Fool website, which were a very interesting mix. The Amazon forum in particular was a fascinating conversation between bears and bulls, but I eventually stoppped reading the forums and the site as they went to a subscription model – I wasn’t sure I was really cut out to be doing a lot of heavy duty investing, so there wasn’t enough value in the site for me to pay for it. (If you were to go there and read the archives, you’d see me expressing skepticism a lot of the time, but then sometimes getting caught up in the same euphoria that drove the tech stock bubble. It’s one of those humbling things I like to remind myself of from time to time.)

At any rate, I bring this story up because one of my all time favorite posters at the Fool was RJ Mason, who had a tremendous ability to blend analysis, clear writing, and humor. And as I was checking out my WordPress dashboard yesterday, I discovered a link from a site I didn’t recognize, which turns out to be RJ’s blog. These days RJ’s a roboticist, but he still has time to put the occasional witty cartoon and/or comment on his blog or his website. So go take a look.

Filed in Special Order Speeches
        

Fixing the Voting System, Take Two

Posted February 19, 2007 By Dave Thomer

Not News launched right before the 2000 election, and so it should not be too much of a surprise that we spent a lot of time in our forums in November and December talking about what do about the voting system. And at the time, I was a proponent of using electronic voting machines, ideally ones with photographs of candidates.

Well, the execution of that idea hasn’t exactly proven me prescient. There have been reports of buggy code, impossible-to-verify record trails, buggy code, and all sorts of other problems. So Rush Holt has reintroduced H.R. 811, an amendment to the Help America Vote Act that would mandate that every voting system produce a paper record.

I will say this: I still think electronic voting systems have potential. Every paper system of balloting has problems with spoiled ballots, and I’d like to see those reduced. Truth be told, I’m not sure I was ever really able to verify that the big machine with the levers was actually recording my vote, either. But in 2000, I imagined that a country that’s managed to make ATMs ubiquitous would be able to come up with better interfaces than we’ve gotten. I was wrong. So adding one more layer of verifiability through paper receipts is probably a good idea. But if we do put a whole new system into place, again, can we please put the time and money into making sure it works thsi time?

Filed in Public Policy
        

Campaign 2.0?

Posted February 18, 2007 By Dave Thomer

I am tapped out tonight, and can’t think of a whole lot to say. I did spend some time over at Hyper-Textual Ontology talking with Robn about the Edwards blogger snafu.

Then, as I was continuing to make my blog rounds, I noticed that Mark at Educational Technology and Life has a post on the Obama campaign website and its use of social-networking elements. I’m not completely upto date on the whole Web 2.0 idea, so you should probably just go check out Mark’s thoughts on the subject. I am going to need to ask him how he thinks Obama’s site compares to John Edwards’ OneCorps concept.

I’d say it’s interesting that I ran across both of these posts on the same day, since they both touch on the current presidential campaign and the posters’ previous periods of political disinterest, but that’s a linking device created mostly by the fact that I didn’t get around to checking blogs as much this week.

Filed in Special Order Speeches
        

Gonna Be a Long Two Years

Posted February 17, 2007 By Dave Thomer

The Senate held a rare Saturday session today to attempt to vote on the same to-the-point non-binding resolution opposing the escalation in Iraq that the House passed yesterday. They were four votes shy of the 60 they needed to invoke cloture and move to a final vote. Now, since we’re talking about something non-binding anyway, I don’t have a problem with saying that the 56 senators who voted for cloture supported the resolution, although there might be one or two that would try to wiggle and say they were just in favor of moving to a final vote.

The problem is, if you need 60 votes to pass anything, and you can’t get that many on a non-binding resolution, it doesn’t seem feasible to think that you can get 60 on any binding legislation that would change policy in Iraq. The closest thing I can think of right now is Jack Murtha’s plan to attach riders to appropriations bills setting certain requirements for troop readiness, equipment, training, and recovery time that would reduce the number of troops Bush can send into Iraq. Now, I think that’s a constitutionally valid option – Congress has the power to govern the construction of the armed forces, and basic standards of readiness fall into that area, in my opinion. And the beauty of attaching these restrictions to an appropriations bill is that if Republicans try to block, they’ll be the ones preventing the military from getting funding.

But I have to admit I’m not terribly confident that such a tactic will work. I think the media coverage, much of the public, and even some Democratics members of Congress will see putting those restrictions on funding to be an act of blocking the funding, especially since I’ll bet the ranch that Bush would veto such a bill and you’ll never find enough votes to override it. I sure hope I’m wrong about that, though.

Filed in Public Policy
        

Not Crossing That Bridge

Posted February 16, 2007 By Dave Thomer

I was reading a few newspapers today with reviews of the new Bridge to Terebithia movie. The reviews appear to be overwhelmingly positive, but there is no way you are getting me within ten feet of that movie even if you’re armed with a cattle prod and an offer of free cheesesteaks for life.

Spoiler Warning

I still remember reading the book, I believe in the summer between fourth and fifth grade; I’m not sure if any teacher had specifically recommended it, or I’d just heard about it, but I went through it at a pretty good clip. Kids create their own imaginary kingdom, what’s not to like? My summer camp took a day trip to Sesame Place, the theme park/water park in the Philadelphia suburbs, and I figured after I got home I’d finish the thing off. So I’m happily moving through the charming adventures and then all of a sudden

WHAM!

Everything goes horribly wrong. I remember continung to read, all of a sudden needing to get to the end, because there was no way the book was possibly going to actually turn out to be such a bummer, right? I was just stunned – the reading became a strangely joyless experience. I think it may well have been the first time I read a book where the good guys don’t get a happy ending; the closest thing to a downer I can remember is Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, and even there the kid gets a new dog at the end of it to make him feel better.

(Side note: speaking of Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Judy Blume is responsible for my other childhood book not-what-I-was-expecting story. When I was around 10, my mother picked up some Blume books at a garage sale, without checking which books she was buying. She knew my teachers had read Fourth Grade Nothing and Superfudge, so she figured Blume was a safe choice. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I ended up reading Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.)

I was in quite a funk the rest of that day. So while it’s a fine book and I hope the movie is quite successful, there ain’t no way I’m gonna go poke harder at that memory and bring that back up. Some lessons I don’t feel the need to learn a second time.

Filed in Culture and Media
        

Best Anchor in the Woooorld

Posted February 15, 2007 By Dave Thomer

Wow, this is neat news. Keith Olbermann has not only re-upped to keep doing his Countdown show at MSNBC, he’s going to be contributing essays to the NBC Nightly News and doing two prime time NBC specials a year.

I wonder if those essays for the network news will be along the lines of his Special Comments. I have to admit to a slight fear that the whole Special Comment thing has been watered down now that people are expecting it. This could very well be a silly concern on my part. But once they become something that you’re promoting for the next night’s show, there’s a certain sense of spontaneity that’s lost. Then again, Olbermann’s always said it takes him a while to get the words just right on those commentaries, and I gotta respect anyone who’s as passionate about words as he is.

The other thing that comes to my mind is that if this means we can look forward to more Chris Matthews/Olbermann tag teams on election coverage, I think someone’s head is going to a splode.

Filed in Culture and Media
        

The Digital Do It Yourself Age

Posted February 14, 2007 By Dave Thomer

Over at his own blog, Not News contributor Earl Green has a post breaking down one of his video editing do it yourself experiments. Earl’s been doing TV editing and postproduction work for years now, but he recently managed to acquire some solid equipment for himself. It’s been a lot of fun for me to watch him try and take his game to new levels. I’ve always absorbed behind the scenes books and documentaries like a sponge, but I’ve never taken it to that next step and actually tried to do it, even as a lark. But I do find it amazing the way that technology can make things like video production and broadcasting a potentially living-room-based process. Then again, it’s also let me broadcast my own scribblings to the world, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised, eh?

Filed in Culture and Media
        

Rooting for Snow

Posted February 13, 2007 By Dave Thomer

I’ve noticed more and more TV weather forecasters in the Philly area have been starting blogs on their station web sites, going behind the scenes on the various computer models and factors that influence their forecasts. I admit I have a hard time understanding some of the technical details, but it kind of surprises me that you sometimes see an unabashed rooting for large snowfalls. Now, I admit, I’m gonna be checking out school closings tomorrow morning with the rest of the city, but snow isn’t just a hassle, it’s a health risk. It doesn’t seem like something to get happily enthused about.

But maybe I’m just overreacting ’cause I don’t want to shovel.

Filed in Special Order Speeches
        

So Much for the Sidelines

Posted February 12, 2007 By Dave Thomer

In the intersts of disclosure, and in the interest of having something interesting to say tonight, I figured I’d mention that I just made a (very small) contribution to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. So I guess I’ve hopped off the fence.

I’m a little surprised about that, to be honest. As much as I respect and admire Obama, based in no small part upon reading his books, I always kinda figured that there were other people I’d like to get the Democratic nomination even more. I had told myself I was going to wait and see if any of those people joined the race, or if any of the other candidates were able to surprise me.

So what changed? Over the last week or so, I’ve just really liked the way Obama’s rolled out this campaign. I liked the way he dealt with the Joe Biden brouhaha. I liked the way he quickly responded to Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s comments. I like the way he’s stressed his background in community organizing. I’ve found myself responding to these developments with a “Yeah, way to go” attitude, which tells me that somethign abotu the way Obama’s working right now clicks with me. I figure I should put my money where my mouth is and encourage him to continue.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t reserve the right to change my mind. It’s a long campaign, after all. I still hope Wes Clark gets into the race – I think his diplomatic and national security experience would be well-suited to the country’s needs right now. I do have seriosu reservations about Clark’s ability as a candidate at this point, especially since he seems to be waiting so long to get his campaign going, and in large part that’s why I’m not as gung-ho on his bandwagon as I thought I would be.

And part of me does hope beyond hope that Al Gore throws his hat in, and that he can make a good run of it. If he does, I’ll reevalaute where I stand. But for now, I’m ready to get off the sidelines.

Filed in So Now What?
        

Random Notes

Posted February 11, 2007 By Dave Thomer
  • Tonight when we got home my daughter wanted pizza. (The homemade pizzas have been a big hit.) This time around the crust took a lot of work, and I wound up getting so wrapped up in the process that I forgot to get her to put on the sauce and cheese. When the pizza got out of the oven, she looked at it, and a few minutes began to wail: “I didn’t get to help with anything!” Which served as another reminder that kids want to be involved in things – they don’t want stuff handed to them. There’s a metaphor in there, I’m sure.
  • I think it’s safe to say Don Henley had a rooting interest in tonight’s Grammys.
  • I have a feeling some Salon copy editors are going to go through an unpleasant meeting in the not too distant future. And that the Obama campaign, and the way that we talk about it, are going to reinforce the point I made yesterday about the meanings behind words.
Filed in Special Order Speeches
        
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