Work Responses to Photos

(In response to this post)

Ironman Coworker: "Thanks, I'm not invincible!" I need to tell her invincibility is a good thing.

President or Whatever*: "I'm going to start calling you Master Chief." I'm ok with that.

*I don't remember his actual title because the company where I work is owned by another company. It is unclear whether we are technically a division or a fully own subsidiary (separate company). Moreover, our parent company is owned by two other companies.

It's complicated.

Watching Bethel

This was rendered yesterday and slightly different from the rest, it goes at a slower speed. As I write I am working on what I hope are the final steps towards filtering out all of the night and weekend shots. I know I am making some progress at any rate.

Previous time lapses can be found here, the first post on the subject here. Links provided mostly because this post is aimed at a certain high level person at Bethel whom I hope is able to find some use of this.

As long as I am at that, I have to thank Dr. KT for pressing me to show this to others at Bethel, I know that at least one high level person found it very helpful.

I don't think I ever told the story of how I started this project and it is kind of funny. Basically, a little over a year ago, I was sitting in a classroom. Slightly better than the dungeons of the HC (a nasty set of classrooms at BU), but no windows and right next to the building you can see above. I could feel the tremblings of the bulldozers.

I knew that last time BU had setup a major building project (the new dorms) they had set up a webcam. I even know someone that found the IP address of the webcam and found that s/he could pan/zoom it via their browser, but I digress.

Wanting a "window" to the outside I searched for the new Commons project on Bethel's website and indeed found the webcam. At first I just watched it in class (meaning, for the first day or something like that.) I quickly realized that it would make a pretty cool time lapse. Where "pretty cool" means that I would get a kick out of it. I like doing time lapses and have set up a couple on my own for, well, fun.

That really was the whole point and genesis of this project -- it was fun and I could do it. Usefulness was never really considered (hence the thanks to Dr. KT). By today I am just short of collecting 400 days worth of photos. I grab them both hourly in one set and by the minute in another set. The set shown has always been the former. The latter is the one I am working on to "perfect."

Guess we'll see how that goes in the coming days. It takes a little bit of time to render these (viz., putting all the relevant pictures into a video) especially on a computer that is at least 8 years old.

Work Photo

Outside of everyone's cubicle at work is their name with a picture of them underneath in front of a wall with the company logo behind. I didn't have a photo, so I decided to make one.

You'd be surprised how good this looks printed out glossy at Walgreens...

Ironically, the only person to walk by and recognize the picture was the head of the company (or division, or whatever exactly the place I work at officially is.)

Another employee wanted a picture too (her real one wasn't good enough I guess), so I indulged.

Just That Cool

So my brother, M, & myself are driving down to Knoxville, TN as I write. My brother and I wanted something that wasn't on the local radio or XM -- both of which were available to us.

Coming prepared I pulled out an FM transmitter, my laptop, power inverter, and cell phone. Together, we are streaming The Current (89.3 FM - Minnesota Public Radio) while driving on I-75 south through Kentucky mountains.

Yeah, we are just that cool.

The Things You Find

I've been spending a lot of time packing (at least when this was written) and moving recently out of The Shelter back to my parents' house. Because I plan to move agian by January I am putting in more effort than normal so I don't essentially move twice. This is my most organized move every. It really gets better every time.

I think I've found all the instrutments I own, it is kinda of amazing. Apparently I just can't get rid of something musical after I get it. I apparently own all the following (and "tested" half of them while moving :-)

1. Accoustic Guitar
   
2. Electric Guitar & Amp
   
3. Recorder (for real, since 5th grade, and I still know the fingerings!)
   
4. A juice harp (aka "Jew's Harp", despite not being connected with Judisiasm.)
   
5. A tenor saxophone dating back to approximately 1929.
   
6. An shortened electric keyword (e.g., it is like a regular electric piano but missing an octave on either end.)
7. Harmonica in the key of C
   

I think that is it. I was pretty pumped about finding my juice harp again, and taking out the sax for a bit. I can actually play all of them but the keyboard (well, I can play most chords in the key of G and play simple melodies, but not really play.) But I figure not playing keyboard is compensated by playing Tuba. Unforatently, I don't have one of those on hand :-( They are pretty awesome!

I love playing all of these, even the onese I suck at (most).

Writ November 1st, 2008

How much do you think this cost?

Can Your Computer Do This?

My Computer Says:

 20:15:01 up 18 days, 23:56,  8 users,  load average: 1.91, 1.58, 1.58

What this means: my computer has been up for 18 days, 23 hours and 56 minutes while working the entire time.

This is why Tux* rocks my world.

Tux* is the officially unofficial mascot of Linux.

Already Unhappy

Alright, so I am a little impatient. I want to know the results that are coming in now. In 2004 I watched the election uber-closely. I found the websites of various Secretaries of States which generally have a page that report the results as they come in (they don't report until polls close).

So I started looking. Yes, I started looking for these pages for Ohio, Florida and Minnesota at 6:45am. And I can't find any of them. None.

If anyone else knows where to find these pages I would be much obliged. In the meantime, I guess I have to rely on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC exit polls (they generally don't report things at the same time.

LinkedIn Usefulness & Jobs

Note bene: This is somewhat of a long post, but a fast read. If you want to skip most of it just read the Bottom Line at, uhm, the bottom. But, I think and hope this post may help people -- especially younger people -- understand LinkedIn.com.

Jen asked about LinkedIn.com, a social networking site for "professionals," whatever exactly that means. More specifically, Jen asked:

What do you think of LinkedIn? I got an invite to join some time ago and ignored it, but I've heard it mentioned much more since then. Not sure whether or not I want to join.

I really have no idea how helpful it actually is, it probably depends on who you are, but here are my thoughts on it.

First, one should know that more than 80% of jobs are found through personal connections; that is, despite your personal experience, most people get jobs through a friend or a friend of a friend etc. I got one of my best jobs this way and got two very nice interviews lined up the same way (and a straight up job offer overseas similarly.)

Unlike Facebook where anybody you've ever met is a "friend" LinkedIn focuses on creating adding "connections [friends, colleagues, managers, etc.]" that you actually know. Like Facebook, you can see your connections' connections. E.g., I can see the 37 connections of W.H., who is a connection of mine. I can't see the actual connections (the real people) past that but I can see that currently I have 34 connections, which branch out to over 700, which branch out to nearly 50,000.

It's not that far away from the hypothesis that everyone in the world is six steps away from everyone else. In this case, on LinkedIn, I know 34 people, who know over 700 people, who in turn (total) know over 49,000 people.

With LinkedIn you can recommend someone to someone else or vice versa. Say I know a middle school principal who is looking for a teacher. I also happen to know a teacher that I would personally endorse. I can use LinkedIn to recommend the teacher to the prinicipal (if they both are on LinkedIn).

Of course, in reality I would probably just pass along the name. The prinicipal may have reason to doubt me, or "trust, but verify," and look up the teach on LinkedIn (maybe I have a close relationship with the teacher). But with LinkedIn the prinicpal can look up the teacher and see who has "reccomended, [commentented on]" the teacher, and a brief resume if the teacher has set it up. I'll use my own examples here, instead of the possibly hyopthethical teacher.

Endorsements are essentially postive remarks from other people, usually people you have worked with. You request them from other people or simply endorse someone on your own. Here are a couple I have on my LinkedIn profile (these are slightly abbrevieated -- full names are shown on LinkedIn -- the details are verbatim.)

From T.E., May, 2007

Details of the Recommendation:

"Jon's knowledge of web design and implementation added great value to launching the site and the product. He brought things to the table we hadn't thought of."


Service Category: Graphic/Web Designer
Year first hired: 2006


Top Qualities: Personable, Expert, Creative

Another:

By M.S., May, 2007
Details of the Recommendation:

"Jon is a creative thinker who does not fear the unknown. He is able to enter into new situations with courage and honesty and develop his skill set to the best of his ability. Students, parents and coworkers love him! Dedication and perserverance are very strong traits!"

One More:

From J.S, May, 2007

Details of the Recommendation:

"Jonathan took on his role as a worship leader even though he had limited previous experience in that area. He exhibited a commitment to excellence by quickly improving his skills and knowledge, pulling together a team which included students and succeeded in providing meaningful times of worship. He has also accompanied students to conferences, where he has engaged in meaningful intereactions with them. His intellectual and spiritual depth enables him to tackle the hard questions young people often ask."

(You do have the option of accepting or rejecting recomendations, in the event someone it out to get you, even if they played nice at work.)

You can see my public profile at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/3/ab4/32. I still have to update it, but it is an abbrievated resume. To see my full profile you have to register.

LinkedIn has other features, such as joining groups (such as your alumini group), among other things. Some may make you appear more attractive on LinkedIn, but remember, your personal connections are the most important.

The Bottom Line:
I haven't used LinkedIn that much so I don't know how useful it really is, but it never hurts to join. It is probably one of those things worth doing no matter what. It's free, and can help.

It is nice to have an abbrievated resume always ready to go, as well as a portfolio of endorsements from people you have worked with. It is also cool to browse your contacts and theirs', as well as browse jobs with a resume/contacts already in place.

Finally, probably most importantly, people further into careers than I reccomend joining it. To be sure, I'll have my LinkedIn profile updated before I start looking for my next job (which will be quite soon.) I probably won't find it via LinkedIn, but if I do I'll be awfully glad I took the whole hour or so to get things setup properly.

Post on Posts

Just as an FYI, as some my posts appear at "odd" times given that I am at work or doing something else. When I write more than a single post at once I schedule them out. It's better to have a couple posts a week on different days than two on a single days, or whatever.

So if you think I have "too much time at work," or are trying to figure out how I managed to post while driving (ok, so I can, just rarely do) that is why.

FYI @ Jen

LinkedIn post coming up. Written, just need to check it. It is kinda late right now... (It even has screenshots!)

Just For Me?

"Motivational" posters are all around the office. However I am suspicious that this less motivational one may have been put up just for me...

What Jonathan Can Work On

So for the first time in a couple of years I logged into LinkedIn on the recommendation of my manager who has offered to endorse me on LI more than once. That's kinda cool.

I found an endorsement from someone else I had requested some time ago. The end of it:

"...As for something that Jonathan can work on? Well, that would be easy, I think he drank too much Mountain Dew! :)"

Schitz / I Talk Too Much Sometimes (But Not Usually)

I have way too many ideas these days. I have so many posts written in my head, but I never seem to find the time and energy together to write them. I have at least half a dozen programming projects that are half done in my head. I think two of them have something resembling actual code.

I also am trying to be clever with the new name. I'm not sure its all that clever. But what the heh, I try. (If you don't know what it means look it up.*)

I do have one nice work story that I can share. I used to work for Slumberland Furniture in their IT department. I was technically an intern, but for all practical purposes got shuffled through nearly every position there, usually for no more than a couple of months. But I did everything.

I learned a lot of things there, and I am quite thankful the experience. One thing that I didn't have to learn was how to load paper into printers. I got that part down, uhm, let me think, elementary school. (I did learn how to load paper into printers older than me, however.)

At my soon to be alma mater students are not allowed to load paper into the printers. It really is about the stupidest policy in the world. The only redeeming part about the policy is that if you call the help desk they get someone up there pretty quickly. (I know because I had to call if there wasn't paper available for me to illegally load.)

So a couple days ago (meaning sometime since I starting working at my current job) I went to print out a massive document, I needed to load paper in the printer before hand. Basic, run of the mill HP LaserJet. I asked a collegue if I could load the paper myself. I could. I was pleased.

As I was loading the paper I went on eloquently wax and wane about how stupid my soon to be former school's policy was and how I could load paper perfectly well thank-you-very-much.

Can anyone guess where this is going? Yeah.

I completely bungled it. I managed to drop the entire tray. Right in front of the person I was boasting about my oh-so-clever paper loading skills. And then I had to restack the paper, get the drawer back while this collegue was watching and I was turning red as a pepper.

I finally got it done and made it back to my cubicle as fast as possible. The only time in my life I've been thankful for a three and a half walled grey cell. (Seriously, at least real jail cells have a full wall with bars. And they are white. Oh, and often have cable. Oh, and they get fed for free.)

When I was finally done with my job (it took a long time, it wasn't one of the big do-it-all machines, just a "regular" (home office type) printer. It was a big job. So I was told I should have printed it to the big-made-for-large-documents printer.

That was -- easily -- the worst day on the job. Needless to say my level of hubris dropped a couple of levels after that (I did redeem myself to some degree later, but I can't blog about it.)

Worst part, I really, really, deserved it. Really really.

*It's Greek: +3 cool points for my blog...

"I made cupcakes..."

I made cupcakes, please help yourself, they are in the empty marketing cube

That is a nice email to be reading as soon as you get into work. Of course, I maybe be violating some confidentiality:

This email message and any attachments are for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain information that is proprietary to [The Company] and/or its subsidiaries or otherwise confidential or legally privileged. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender by reply, and delete all copies of this message and any attachments. If you are the intended recipient you may use the information contained in this message and any files attached to this message only as authorized by [The Company]. Files attached to this message may only be transmitted using secure systems and appropriate means of encryption, and must be secured using the same level of password and security protection with which the file was provided to you. Any unauthorized use, dissemination or disclosure of this message or its attachments is strictly prohibited.

Watching Bethel

It's been a bit. This one goes slower, kinda cool to watch. At some point (sadly, perhaps a month out) that will be much longer and thus smoother. It is really cool to be able to watch the trucks moving around (as opposed to a flash here and a flash there).

PR: wait... I: wait... L: wait... LD: wait... I: wait... wait... C: wait... SD: wait...

"This is a free country."

"No, this is a democracy and the majority of us don't like what is going on here." - Ice-T (sp?) on CSI:SVU

Responding to, uhm some sort of "bad guy."

I Am the Awesome

On Thursday I had to get to the airport so I could visit Knoxville. The airport is 30 minutes away, I had to be there by 5:25 am.

I left at 5:00.

I was there at 5:20.

I am the Awesome.

Voter Registration Online, Kinda

Both campaigns have made it incredibly easy to register online, but I will present the McCain link because that is what I have in front of me. Basically it's just like filling out the form on paper, except that the site populates all the fields in the appropriate form for your state, you download the PDF and... mail it. That last part is weird. But whatever. Maybe other states have straight-up online registration, just not MN.

https://secure.johnmccain.com/ActionCenter/registertovote/information.aspx

@Tubagirl: I didn't forget you! You and Katie were two, so Jen & J doubled my readers.

Am I A Bad Person For This?

CNN just ran an article announcing that Congress finally announced their resuce bill. From the article:

Lawmakers' goal is to shore up a deal before financial markets around the world open on Sunday evening.

By which they mean the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Naturally, the first thing I do is to look up the time in Japan, they are 14 hours ahead of CST (3:00pm here 5:00am there). Next I look up the hours for the TSE: trading starts at 9:00am.

Finally I have to smile, in kind of an evil way, at the thought of over 400 congress-persons running around (literally) trying to find the votes to get this to go through.

Guys, you have 3 hours and 39 minutes to find the votes, pass the bill, and get it signed.

Enjoy.

Up Too Late / The Bailout

First, I don't really know why I am up right now. I really need my sleep. Second, on a topic I wasn't going to blog about...

CNN has an article titled: Congressional Leaders Reach Tentative Deal On Bailout. By then end of this post it will have been updated in under 20 minutes and hence is scarce on details. But there is a single part of the three paragraphed article I want to quote and comment on:

The aim of the deal is to prevent credit from drying up and causing a meltdown of the U.S. economy.

• First, we are talking about the world economy. There is saying that when the U.S. sneezes (economically) the rest of the world catches cold. This is much bigger than the average joe understands.
• Second, when CNN says "meltdown" they mean it. The MSM (mainstream media) hasn't been completely truthful on the current crisis (and I will call it a crisis). The financial periodicals are comparing it to late 1929 -- the beginning of the Great Depression -- and for good reason.
• Third, damn near every American (or person on this planet for that matter) will be affected by this deal. You make think that New York is too far away to matter but odds are your mutual fund, 401k, or pension is tied up in this mess. Sorry, but it sucks for you.
• Fourth, CNN says "aim." The real point here is the people that understand the current situation (there are very few, a few dozen at most; some of us simply believe those people are right [and maybe understand why they are]) may or may not be fixed by a "Rescue Package." This is shooting from the hip, that is not secret, but there isn't a better plan. We are certainly damned if we don't pass this bill (and the global economy) and may be if we do. The only certainty is that not trying is sure to fail; the bill at least has a chance to help things.
• Fifth (I am almost done): don't blame your incumbents come election time, even though they will have almost certainly voted for a $700b bill that you don't like. Given the reasons above it is the most responsible thing to do even if their constituents do not like it.
• Finally: I won't say much more about this in future posts unless someone specifically asks me to in a comment. I am a finance/econ major, even if I lack a PhD. I can explain the broadest components of the crisis, the bill, and why it matters if anyone cares. (E.g., what drying up credit means [more than most people realize] and why this is so important [the aspects the MSM keeps missing.])
  

P.S. Rumor is that I have another reader. A 250% increase in a month isn't bad! (Ok, so that means 5 people...)

P.P.S.: For most of the people that read (meaning all five) who care very little about this type of post I have another coming up. I just have to actually type up half of it, the half that was written in pencil instead of typed. And I should have another Bethel University Commons Time Lapse Video up soon.

Ooops...

At least it's the first time, not again. I think I just annoyed (or at least really confused) a VP. It's a long story. Still, note to self: do not approach [VP] again unless it is with good news...

On a Musical Note

I just have to get this out: Bill Gaither is worse than Perry Como, by a lot. The songs in and of themselves are ok, but not the performance. Maybe he thought he was Frank Sinatra, because it sounds like he is trying to croon like him. And no one croons like Old Blue Eyes.

The Worst Time to Blog

Is when you are bored. Very. Bored.

The writing tends to lack any sense of spontaneity and often fails to attract any interest -- especially from the writer. Back in the day this was never a problem, or at least rarely. At least for me. There was always news. And I mean real news, you know, the stuff that is interesting.

Today the news is dominated by piddling topics such as presidential elections and a financial crisis or something on Wall Street. Wall Street is in New York and that is too far away for me to actually care about.

And the politics, the politics are quickly becoming incredibly boring. Seriously, when the best I can do is make fun of attack emails it is bad. When I was a youngster there was always a president, high ranking official, or congressperson having an affair, being charged with murder, starting the most absurd policy changes ever. Today the news centers around whether John McCain or Barack Obama is running a dirtier campaign, whether Palin is an angel or a demon, and what people think of either campaign. I don't care what other people think of the campaigns, I care about what I think.

In a completely separate event readers of my blog just went up by 50%; yup, I have one more reader.

If rather alarming events (and non-events) keep on happening at such an astounding rate I make have to take the unprecedented step of blogging on a regular basis and trying to make it interesting.

Firefox is the Safest Browser Because...

Recently the Firefox start page started advertising itself as the world's safest browser. For the record the merits of this are up for debate, no one has decisively claimed that title yet. (Also, the add-in's that have helped make FF so popular may increase or decrease security.)

Anyway, the best part of the whole thing is this:

Using [Firefox] is the safest way to surf the web because:

• We don’t try to tackle the problem alone. An international community of security experts is working around the clock to make your web browsing safer (thanks to our open source way of doing things). It’s like having your neighborhood watch led by a group of highly trained ninjas. [Emphasis Added]
  

[...]

Hmk, so that's what those Firefox developer's are up to...

@ Tubagirl: Not all of my posts that show up were written during work hours, but scheduled to show up during the morning. If I write several posts at once I generally schedule them out two or three days in a row.

The Things You Can't Blog About

I've always disliked the number of things I can't blog about because they usually are the most amusing. I can't blog about most things at work, except for the boring stuff, and even then I have to make sure I'm not disclosing any proprietary information.

I can't blog about half the stuff that happens at my house to protect the guilty (including myself at times).

I can blog about politics (and obviously do) but unless I make it particularly amusing neither of my two readers (seriously, both, that's it) care much. (Although over half my traffic comes from search engines almost all of them leave the page immediately).

Ditto about most geeky stuff.

Guess it will just be a boring blog unless I decide to start making up life stories. Actually, that could be fun...

"PC Load Letter"

It's either a great day or a horrible day at the office when half the morning conversation revovles around the movie Office Space. Stuff's going well so far so I'm going to take this as a good sign.

YOU Won't Get Anything From Me Either

I wanted a free Obama button (ironically, it might arrive after the election) and MoveOn.Org (MOO) started sending me emails, which I knew would happen.

I know that both of my readers are more interested in my personal life than my politics. But I still like writing about politics. I promise I'll put personal stuff in here soon as well. Soon.

Dear MoveOn member,

I'm not your monkey [member].

Did you watch Sarah Palin's speech last night?[Last night meaning at the RNC convention] [...]

No.

...The speech told us a lot about her.

That was the point.

It told us that she can distort the facts and deliver mean-spirited zingers with the best of them. It told us that if Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter ever need a stand-in, she'd be a great pick.

So, she's in politics. Like you! (And heh, Rush and Ann are entertaining, if vulgar in what they put out. That's kinda the point. Like you!)

It told us that she can be condescending and dismissive of the real work Barack Obama did helping real people on the South Side of Chicago...

If true this part is quite condemning.

...It told us that she can uphold the long Republican tradition of lying about Democratic tax cuts—even though Obama's plan would give Americans a bigger break than McCain's.

Read: Tax breaks aimed at the middle class, not the upper. Even though tax breaks virtually always benefit the upper class.* (See Obama's The Audacity of Hope to understand my point) 

But the speech—written by one of President Bush's speechwriters...

So what? Hope the speechwriterr is good at writing speeches. That is what they are supposed to do. Do you expect them to use Barack's speech writers?

...didn't tell us the truth about Sarah Palin's extremist positions...

Ah, she IS a conservative! NO WAY for a REPUBLICAN!

 ...And the more that people know her far-right views, the less they support her. (There's a partial list below.)

 Uhm, right. Aren't you just say she was mobilizing the Republican base?

One of the best ways to get the word out about Palin is to write a letter to the editor of your local paper.

Read: Write our talking points to your favorite paper (or all of them)!

Today's a great day to write because this is very relevant—it just happened last night. Plus, our online tool makes it easy and has great tips.

Read (great tips): Our talking points

 Please take a few minutes to write a quick letter to the editor now:

No.

http://pol.moveon.org/lte?campaign_id=95&id=13709-10483324-ww1oKlx&t=3

Palin's speech and the reaction to it also made clear why McCain picked her. It wasn't a decision about who's most qualified to serve a heart-beat away from the presidency—it was a political decision about pleasing the far-right base of the Republican party...

I said it first! It is about mobilizing [see noted right below] the base and getting votes. The kind of things you need to do to get elected!

Note: First to say it when this was written, not posted (others have gotten to it; it's not like it isn't obvious...)

Writing a letter to your local paper is a great way to make sure voters understand that...

...Is a great way to get our talking points across (a normal tactic of all sides).

...The opinion pages are the most widely-read pages of the newspaper...

Really? (For seriously!)  I would have guessed weather followed by sports.

...Write today, and your letter's a lot more likely to get published because it's so topical..

Topical? "Palin is bad because she is a conservative?" (Like many Republicans...)

...It'll help sway the editorial board too.

Sad but true.

Here are a bunch of points you might want to include in your letter:

Read: The talking points I was talking about earlier.

Palin recently said that the war in Iraq is "God's task."

 

Always dangerous when leaders thing they are the tool that God uses. (Although Biblically this is true, but complicated.) Of course, if she actually means it's God's task, not ours, that is hard to argue with (and I would not).

She's even admitted she hasn't thought about the war much—just last year she was quoted saying, "I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq." ^{1, 2}

I wonder -- seriously -- if that is a bad thing for a state governor.

Palin has actively sought the support of the fringe Alaska Independence Party.Six months ago, Palin told members of the group—who advocate for a vote on secession from the union—to "keep up the good work" and "wished the party luck on what she called its 'inspiring convention.'" ³

This is politics...

Palin wants to teach creationism in public schools...

 Bad. Bad Bad Bad.

 She hasn't made clear whether she thinks evolution is a fact.⁴

Some of us call this an open mind. Especially for a conservative conservative.

Palin doesn't believe that humans contribute to global warming. Speaking about climate change, she said, "I'm not one though who would attribute it to being manmade." ⁵

Her view is slightly (if only so) more nuanced than that.

Palin has close ties to Big Oil. Her inauguration was even sponsored by BP. ⁶

EVERY POLITICIAN HAS TIES TO OIL. IT POWERS THIS COUNTRY! You had better hope that they know big oil.

Palin is extremely anti-choice. She doesn't even support abortion in the case of rape or incest. ⁷

Not gonna support MO.o's example, but yes, it is pretty far right.

Palin opposes comprehensive sex-ed in public schools. She's said she will only support abstinence-only approaches. ⁸

As mayor, Palin tried to ban books from the library.

Which books?

 Palin asked the library how she might go about banning books because some had inappropriate language in them—shocking the librarian, Mary Ellen Baker. According to Time, "news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor." ⁹

She DID support the Bridge to Nowhere (before she opposed it). Palin claimed that she said "thanks, but no thanks" to the infamous Bridge to Nowhere. But in 2006, Palin supported the project repeatedly, saying that Alaska should take advantage of earmarks "while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist." ¹⁰

[Bridge] Yup, pretty much more or less. She most definately was playing politics to her advantage there.

The plain fact of the matter is that Sarah Palin did a bang-up job delivering a Karl Rove-style political attack speech last night...

And Rove has done quite well. In 2004 all that was needed was a candidate that we thought could still breath and think!

...That makes her a skilled politician but it doesn't make her views any more palatable for voters...

It does make her more palatable for voters or she wouldn't have said it. This is POLITICS!!!

...Americans don't really want another far-right, anti-science ideologue in the White House.

Some do, actually.

Please help get the word out about where Sarah Palin really stands on the issues.

I think we all actually know, as you pointed out so eloquently throughout most of this letter.

http://pol.moveon.org/lte?campaign_id=95&id=13709-10483324-ww1oKlx&t=4

Thanks for all you do.

Nothing for MO.o!

–Nita, Ilyse, Wes, Karin and the rest of the team

Hooray!

P.S. If you haven't seen it, check out the Daily Show clip on Palin. It's worth a watch

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=24753&id=13709-10483324-ww1oKlx&t=5

It's probably funy. That is what Comedy Central does. I haven't seen it yet though.

[MO.o] Sources

1. "Palin: Iraq war 'a task that is from God'," Associated Press, September 3, 2008

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=24701&id=13709-10483324-ww1oKlx&t=6





2. "Palin wasn't 'really focused much' on the Iraq war," ThinkProgress, August 30, 2008

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=24702&id=13709-10483324-ww1oKlx&t=7





3. "The Sarah Palin Digest," ThinkProgress, September 4, 2008

http://thinkprogress.org/palin-digest/





4. "McCain and Palin differ on issues," Associated Press, September 3, 2008

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=24703&id=13709-10483324-ww1oKlx&t=8



5. Ibid



6. The Sarah Palin Digest," ThinkProgress, September 4, 2008

http://thinkprogress.org/palin-digest/



7. Ibid

8. Ibid.



9. "Mayor Palin: A Rough Record," Time, September 2, 2008

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=24704&id=13709-10483324-ww1oKlx&t=9





10. The Sarah Palin Digest," ThinkProgress, September 4, 2008

http://thinkprogress.org/palin-digest/
I do like sources part. Even if I haven't checked most of them out.

Want to support our work?..

Obama's? Probably. MoveOn.org's? No.

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No. NO chipping in to MoveOn from madjon.


mj's notes:



*They have more money, so any tax break helps them. It skews the numbers a bit so that it looks like the breaks were "only" for the wealthy. BUT a 5% tax break will benefit the top 1% of income earners (in dollars) more than the rest of us. Simple math:


$100m * 105%[**] = $5m saved.
$30k * 105%[**] = $1,500 saved


Even though both sides get a 5% tax break.


**105% being a 5% tax break, completely made up by me.

Watching Bethel: Getting Close

It's getting more fun to watch the time lapse -- especially as I have posted one in over two months! It is getting really close to completion. I am still planning out perfecting my algorithm that picks out what pictures to use and what ones to throw away. I'll do it as soon as I have time. Work is sucking up a lot of that.

Anyway, enjoy. This was rendered fresh this morning!

Browser Crash... Go Boom

I've been playing with Google's new Chrome Browser, a browser that they call in Beta, but that is pushing it. Anyway, there was a bug loading a page so I found their bug reporting tool and found one of the best bug reporting options ever: "Browser crash... go boom".



The only other computer error message that comes close to beating this is the GIMP's out of memory message, "Out of memory. Bad things will happen soon!"

See? Geeks can be funny!

Breaks and Random Facts

Recently I've started getting some pretty severe pain in my lower right arm, a single tendon. I know because I can feel it. Almost no doubt from using my center mouse wheel too much. I use it navigating through records in MS Access, scrolling on webpages, etc.

So I did some research on computer ergonomics and found out that I am doing almost everything the wrong way. One of the best practices is to take 30 second "micro breaks" every ten minutes. There is no way I am ever going to hit every ten, but maybe I can do 20 or 30. So I go to take my first break, but start by navigating to http://time.gov because I know they have a clock with seconds there. And course, as I am "breaking" from typing everything I want to do is check out who is on IM, write blog posts, etc. Take me a far amount of discipline to sit in front of my computer doing nothing for 30 seconds.

While at time.gov I was reminded of an extremely random and amusing fact. Greenich/Zulu time is now called Coordinated Universal Time. Part of an international effort to get all the countries in the world (or all that have the capability) to be using the same time. The acronym for this is UTC, which obviously does not match Coordinatd Universal Time. Apparently this was a comprismise. The Powers That Be couldn't find an acronym that matched both French and English reprentations of their new name. So they went with one that didn't match anything.

Politics really can be funny.

A Thought on Attack Ads/Energy

P.S. (PRE-Script): There will be a few more political posts, especially as we get down to Novemeber, but I know my readers don't care a whole lot about my views on politics. This isn't a surprise, everyone has their views and very rarely are they nuanced enough to be worth reading. I'll try to get some more personal stuff up. Maybe "creative writing," if I can get around to it. At any rate...

I have no problem with attack ads. Not in theory at any rate. I don't want to know just why I should vote for a given candidate, I want to know why I should vote for him or her instead of the other candidate. Odds are they both have some pretty good ideas, and I want to see them fight over which ones are actually better.

Of course, the ads Al Franken has been running (at least on the radio) in Minnesota are pretty ridiculous. They go something like, "Norm Coleman is in bed with special interests because he [insert non-substantive routine political action here.]"

McCain's "Biggest Celebrity in the World" ad was no better -- but at least I got to see the entertaining backfire.

What would be really interesting is an attack ad that doesn't boil down to a 3 second soundbite, or is so easily dismissed. Everybody accuses everybody of being in bed with special interests, a term so vaguely defined I'm not sure what it means. Except that it is bad. Instead I would like to hear a 30 second ad that goes something like:

[Person]'s energy policy is going to drive [region and/or country] into further trouble by relying on more drilling. At best, digging into ANWAR and putting in more off-shore drilling rigs will increase the world's oil supply by about 1% -- after 10 years. Not nearly enough to affect gas or energy prices in a way you'll notice at home. Vote for [the other person] who doesn't support ineffective energy policies.

That's gotta be about 30 seconds. The next ad would explain why "alternative energy" (another vague term) is a better deal.

Bonus: Yes, my fake ad does support my own view on energy. Drilling anywhere around the U.S. isn't going to help us anytime soon and OPEC can respond by cutting production whenever it wants to. We even throw out the whole environment ruining thing because idea is almost as bad as E85 (sorry Iowa, Ohio) which may take as much energy to make as it produces -- or more.* McCain and Obama differ mostly in how much drilling we do and how much money we put into alternative energy.

*I'm sure I posted on this at some point in the past. Probably a long time ago. See Time's The Green Energy Scam for more details. But basically, E85 is the worst alternative energy idea anybody has put into practice yet. It's singular strength is that is in essence a subsidy for American farmers.

You Won't Get My Money From This Email

From my inbox:

[madjon]--

In the next 36 hours, the McCain campaign will be pouring millions of dollars -- if not tens of millions -- into negative attack ads against Barack Obama.

This is what political campaigns do.

Before John McCain accepts the Republican nomination on Thursday, his campaign has to spend every last dollar of primary funds they've raked in from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs.

Yours had to do the same thing.

Just yesterday, they aired a new negative ad in 14 swing states. His campaign manager even admitted that all McCain has to rely on is attacks, saying that for them, "This election is not about issues."

Full quote: "'This election is not about issues,' said Davis. 'This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.'"

 Read: This is about McCain vs. Obama, not what they platforms they stand on. And he is more right than wrong (read the article if you want, Davis isn't denying that people care about the issues, just not as much as personalities this time around. On the other hand, that's always been the case...)

He doesn't want Americans to notice that the Republican platform is the most extreme we've ever seen -- opposing stem cell research, denying a woman's right to choose no matter what the circumstance, and continuing to spend $10 billion a month in Iraq.

Generally both sides want at least the party base to know the platform...

With so much at stake, we can't allow another election to be determined by petty and divisive political tactics.

Including this damned email.

Make a donation of $5 or more to fight back against an unprecedented week of negativity from John McCain.

Not from this email.

The McCain campaign is trying to distract voters from the real issues -- so we're going to focus on what they're trying to hide.

They've come out against the life-saving possibilities of stem cell research.

For years now in fact.

They don't even mention protecting equal pay for equal work.

For years now in fact.

They support huge tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of Americans.

For years now in fact.

They've almost completely ignored the $10 billion we're spending every month in Iraq.

For years now in fact.

And they make zero exceptions for a woman's right to choose -- even in cases of rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother.

For years now in fact.

If that all sounds like more of the same, that's because it is.

For years now in fact.

John McCain is offering a third term of the disastrous Bush agenda...

Agreed.

...so it's no wonder his campaign would choose to focus on attacks instead of issues.

The next President is the issue of Presidential elections. Thus, an attack ad against Obama does constitute an ad concerning an issue.

Please make your donation of $5 or more today:

Again, not from this email.

https://donate.barackobama.com/fightback

I know we've asked a lot from supporters like you recently, and many of you contributed just last week.

I forgot.

But the stakes are high...

Yes, it's a Presidential election.

...and there are less than 9 weeks before Election Day. It's going to require unprecedented resources to defeat John McCain...

Like a breathing Democrat?

...and bring about the change America so desperately needs.

That's gonna be the hard part.

Thank you for all you do,

Including such a response to your emails?

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

Wildcards in Excel

Recently at work we had a situation where we had to remove just under 1,200 vendor part numbers from the names of our products. E.g., we had "Name of product (Vendor Part #123), 10 ounces." The vendor part numbers had gotten into our spreadsheet with said (internal) names accidently. (It's a long story. And it's not our fault.)

So I ended up writing a longer email about replacing these vendor part numbers with nothing (E.g., so pretend product name becomes "Name of product, 10 ounces.") and thought I might as well share it, editted only to make it generic. VP stands for Vendor Part, VP# for Vendor Part Number. (A serif font [a font with "feet"] is used to make some of the quotations, literally, clearer.)

I thought that this would work but decided to check first.

If you search for "(VP*)" and replace it with "" (nothing) all VP#'s should disappear. However, you'll have two problems, the first is that there will be a lot of double spaces, one from each side of the parentheses. So you'll have to do another find and replace, this time for "  " (two spaces) replacing it with " " (one space).

Also, in some cases ", " precedes the VP#, e.g., "Tumbler, (VP123) 10oz" which would yield "Tumbler,  10oz" when you were done. So you might want to search for ", (VP*)" replacing it with a single space, then searching for "(VP*)" replacing it with "", and then finally replacing all the double spaces with a single space. If you want to make sure there aren't double spaces run the same search a couple of times. When I've done this in the past I've left triple or quadruple spaces somewhere in whatever data I was working with. Each find and replace would take out one space, from 4 to 3, from 3 to 2, and finally from 2 to 1.

Obviously, all the searches don't actually have the quotes around them when you stick them into Excel. "*" is a wildcard that matches all characters. So if we are looking at the word "Wildcard", "Wild*" would match it, "*dca*" would match it and so on. "?" is a single wildcard that only matches a single character. Looking at "Wildcard" again, "?ildcard" would match, "Wil?card" would, "W???card" would, but "W?dcard" would not (missing either the "i" or the "l"). You can combine them: "?ildca*" would match. "*car?" would match any string that had "car" in it.

In Excel, prepending a tilde to the wildcards searches for the actual wildcard. So if a question mark is what you are looking for you need to prepend a tilde to it.

"*" and "?" are fairly standard wildcards, the preceding tilde to cancel them as wildcards isn't as much. Probably across MS Office, but I don't know beyond that.

Ok, that was a longer email than I meant to write...

Al, You're Done

Greenspan: Economy 'on the brink' of recession - CNBC TV- msnbc.com

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Thursday that the U.S. housing market is “nowhere near the bottom” and that the U.S. economy is “right on the brink” of slipping into a recession...

Calling the current crisis in the financial markets a "once-in-a-century phenomenon," Greenspan said the Treasury had no choice in its recent moves to backstop the two government-sponsored mortgage finance giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But he said the government will probably have to nationalize the two companies, calling them a "major accident waiting to happen."

I really cannot figure out what this guy is up to, he seems to have recently gone on a power trip and will not stop. It is extremely inappropriate for him to be constantly critiquing the U.S. fiscal policies at this point: Al, you already had 20 years as chair of the Fed, step down for real now.

I shouldn't say I can't figure it out, it is rather obvious. He is trying to set policy -- larger policies than he could have set while in office -- in "retirement." He is probably still trying to save his legacy, which has been tarnished by whatever, exactly, we are in (it is still difficult to call it a recession). The low interest rates enjoyed by Americans and the rest of the world in the early part of this millennium were largely set by Greenspan. They also are largely seen as creating the housing bubble which is still having major effects on the economy as banks fail, don't have extra capital, and people seeking capital (debt: mortgages, business loans, etc.) can't get it because of that.

Still, this is a bizarre show to be watching, even for Al.

Watching Bethel

I haven't posted a time lapse for awhile so I thought I would. This was rendered yesterday.

Digital Intimacy

BK is currently posting a book (really most of a journal) that bears out some pretty heavy stuff. At least so far. A question regarding the correct spelling of dialog versus dialogue sparked an interesting discussion of both the correct spelling and whether we are, "if we are not subconsciously abbreviating life, feelings, sharing, intimacy...."

I am republishing that bit here, because I think that it is an interesting question and has some interesting answers.

BK:

Aha, the game is afoot...or would that be a foot?

Good volley on the dialogue/dialog quandary. Here's a comment from a literature lover and someone who loves the art of words and the way they impact the art of our lives: we risk as a culture that has been largely trending towards dehuamization through technology. We want everything quicker, faster, shorter. We are more and more looking for shorter ways to do...everything. We are abbreviating words, thoughts and feelings -- lol, cul8r, etc. Makes me wonder if we are not subconsciously abbreviating life, feelings, sharing, intimacy....

tyhi :)

Me:

Man, I didn't understand half of that. I would suggest that while emotions, intimacy, etc. can be addressed in this digital age -- even with abbr's -- there still is nothing like face to face.

Couple of things that stand in the way of that statement however. First, the ReachTJ blog. That seemed to hit home pretty hard for 10,000-20,000 people. I haven't met most of them (obviously) but as I do I am almost always told they feel like they know me. And they do in a real, if not complete sense. A lot went down during that month, and a lot was beared (sp?). It was undoubtedly one of the most defining moments of my life, my family's life, and thousands of people watched in realtime. Which leads up to my second point...

Why are you publishing this if not to share some pretty deep and intimate stuff? These posts aren't "just" lessons about life/marriage etc. They are posts about BK's heart, his personal relationship with God. By the end there are going to be a lot of people that know you (again, in a real sense, if not complete), even if you don't know them. You and I have only met two or three times, but now I am "meeting" you twice a week, discussing (literally, when it comes to comments) some of the most important, intimate, secret, emotional, deep, dangerous, and exciting part of life.

In such a context, words and abbreviations matter only how well they communicate. And sometimes abbreviations work just as well (better occasionally, especially to express lighter emotions.)

-mj

(Guess I am chatty today!)

Certainly the digital age is allowing us to reach more people faster. And, ironically, the anonymity sometimes leads to deeper discussions than would otherwise be had.

Watching Bethel: A Little More In-Depth

When I started this project I found that there was a pretty was way to differentiate between night and day (pictures), which is important so there isn't five seconds of blackness between each day. Done correctly, it even adds a nice fade in and fade out between days.

The way I did this was by looking at the number of different colors in a given picture. If it was under 4,000 it was nighttime. For sure. Until December 14th. On that day the construction workers started leaving a light on that pushed the number of colors up close to 10,000. Day shots generally have 45,000-60,000 different colors (yes, in one picture). However, upping my "border" value between day and night to 10,000 pretty eliminated any fades, and still included the night shots with the light on.

Hence, a different method has to be chosen. I have two choices, so far as I can tell. First, determine the average lightness of a picture to decide if it ought to be included in the time lapse. Second, figure out when the construction hours are, only include those pictures and write my own script for fades. The former is much easier.

For a visual idea of what "lightness" looks like in a photo I have posted an Excel graph below. The scale on lightness of is out of 255 for technical reasons so I put a couple of percentages in to make it easier to read. Essentially, during the day the lightness is always between 55% and 63%. A lightness of zero is complete blackness, and a lightness of 100% would be pure white, so finding that the average lightness is somewhere in the middle isn't a big surprise.

The vertical axis is the lightness value of a picture (one grabbed every minute) and the horizontal axis is what minute of the say it is. A day has 1,400 minutes, so 7,200 is high noon. You can see how the day widens and narrows from the fall through the spring, although I should note that the values from October and May in the graph are not complete. Hence, I expect that the May curve would widen out a bit. Finally, the horizontal axis doesn't start at 0 or end at 1,400. They are just straight lines before and past those points respectively, so I cut them out.



P.S. I may move back to madjon.net soon. Maybe, designing a website isn't easy... But I'm also not a huge fan of Blogger anymore.

Why Do Economists Love Money?

Before I ever start of this post, I don't want to hear anyone saying, "you can't really measure [this or that]," or "you can't put a price on [whatever]." Measuring intangible things is always difficult -- an art as much as a science. No one is arguing this. This post is about explaining why we try. So don't try to pick apart my examples I know they aren't perfect. They all need a million caveats. If that is all you are after you'll miss the point. [Rant done.]

Economists are often accused of "only" caring about dollars, about money. And this is always meant in a pejoratively. I feel that this accusation needs a defense.

Guilty as charged. Kinda of...

Economists do care about dollars, in general at least, but it ought not be thought of as a bad thing. Technically, economists care about cost, not dollars. Cost includes everything; if you have a family there is a trade-off between seeing your family or working an extra hour, or paying a babysitter to go out to eat with your spouse (and whatever the date costs.) However, especially in the former case, it is difficult to measure "how much" an hour with your family is worth compared to an extra hour at work -- especially if you need the money to keep the lights on or something of the sort. But this still doesn't get to the heart of why we use dollars.

Consider the latter case, the cost of spending time with your spouse is roughly however much it costs for someone else to watch the kids, in this case, dollars work pretty well. Now try to compare the two cases, which "costs" more, spending an extra hour at work or spending extra time with your spouse? Obviously, it is difficult to compare, especially given that the standards often differ. So what's the point?

Policy still needs to be set -- that is the point. A tax rate, subsidies, and everything else economic need to be set (tax rates, subsidized farming/housing, etc.). There are three choices as to how one does one sets them; (1) whatever gets ones reelected/keep one's job/whatever, (2) ad hoc, taking a stab in the dark, maybe using intuitions or an Owigi board, or (3) using the best data one has available. Economics is about (3), that is, about providing the data for (3).

It is up to policy makers to make policy. Economists -- acting*** as economists -- serve to provide data, not to make policy; that is the job of elected officials. To date, there is no better benchmark aside from the dollar (or some other currency) to use as a constant data (e.g, a better, more consistent benchmark).

To sum it up, economists are scientists doing the best that they know how. There aren't "laws" in economics like there are in physics. Physicists have the advantage of being able to use consistent measurements such as meters or square centimeters or whatever. And these measurements are capable of staying the same across different situations. Economists lack such measurements.** They (we? I? You?) have the dollar. There is no metric system in economics.

To repeat myself, it is ok -- no, good -- that economists use the dollar (or whatever). As far we we know, there is no other way to measure the costs of something. Like the physical scientists economists exist to provide data, not policy. Only the information to make policy.

May I try to put it more clearly. The job of an economist is to analyze a situation or policy and predicate what will happen. It us up to policy-makers (the elected officials) to make the best sense of the analysis.

Mose succienty: Economists use the dollar (or some other money currency) to analyze various situations/policies. And economists as an economist *only* provide data. If am economists advocates some policy or another s/he no longer acts and economist,


*Remember the opening paragraph; an extra hour of work might be be keeping the electricity on, but that is not the point.

**Currencies don't stay stable, moreover the laws of gravity are nothing like the cost of babysitters.

***Economists suggesting and/or advocating some policy are no longer acting as economists.