October 5, 2008

Palin says what?

Apparently Sarah Palin is disappointed with the McCain campaign’s decision to pull out of Michigan. I don’t support McCain or Palin, and I believe she is a vastly underqualified halfwit, but even I have to agree with her on this. I want Obama to win, but the decision by McCain’s party sends a message to the whole of America that if a political gain can’t be had, you’re worthless.

It’s Political Suicide (caps intended). Perhaps all those years in prison did something we can’t understand but you never NEVER give up an electoral component because you think you can’t win a majority.

It may end up being a horrible comment on the American electoral system, but at the moment it does actually seem to be a very poorly played transparent and amateur move. So poorly played that even Palin is willing to show up her own party over it.

And that’s pretty goshdarn bad.

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October 3, 2008
Flight pattern maps

Wow.

With the geographic map of worldwide flights, drawing a correlation between daylight hours and the flight density is interesting. The dawn seems to just crap out a splatter of yellow planes in the US. In Europe, they just seem to come out of hiding.

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October 2, 2008

4 more years of Nucular?!

We cannot have another 4 years of Nucular. Folksy or not.

Oh dear GOOOOORDDDDD.

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“ Just when the debate looked like it might turn into a debate, Sarah Palin did exactly as predicted and avoided the accusations and questions and debate. She even said (paraphrasing) “rather than answering the questions, I want to talk about my [insert white noise here]”.

Nixta

In-between choking and catching his breath during the presidential debate, just after Joe Biden actually talked for once, and Sarah Palin did as predicted here:

“She has an amazing ability to turn a 45-second answer into a folksy story… she’s never been forced to know the issues.”

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“

I say I say I say, 300 billion and 2 million and hear these numbers, I know them but they’ll bore you. Numbers can be exciting, but not nowwwww! Wheeee!

The square root of a Babillion is Barak Obama.

Senator Joe Biden

US Vice-Presidential debate, October 2nd, 2008

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“

Blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda.

Gosh darn.

Governor Sarah “Michael” Palin

US Vice-Presidential debate, October 2nd, 2008

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I feel like I'm watching Peep Show

Watching the vice-presidential nominees debates, I have a strange swirling in my stomach like when I watch Peep Show, or The Office. Or when you watch that movie at home with your parents as a teenager and a sex scene comes on.

Oh my. Oh me.

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See what my good friend (and Lindsay’s BF) Aaron did along with Rob Libetti for a certain Nish Gaveer.

Really good stuff all round.

Original post by Lindsay…

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October 1, 2008
I’m constantly surprising people with this retrospectively obvious bit of onomatopoeia. Mr. Mackey in South Park, well, he says what he is. Mmmmkay = Mackey.

I’m constantly surprising people with this retrospectively obvious bit of onomatopoeia.

Mr. Mackey in South Park, well, he says what he is. Mmmmkay = Mackey.

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As promised, here’s the video. Jump ahead to 6:40 (although the whole thing is pretty pretty good).
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“ My rabbi doesn’t even have the balls to take 2 days for Rosh Hashanah. For fuck’s Sake! And I really hope when you get back you buckle down coz before you turn around it’ll be Boxing Day and then Kwanzaa and we’ll NEVER get anything done!

John Stewart on the The Daily Show today, on Congress taking time off for Rosh Hashanah.

It’s too soon for Comedy Central to have posted a video, but search for “Daily Show Rosh Hashanah Utah Florida New York” tomorrow and I’m sure it’ll be there.

Boy, was he furious.

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September 30, 2008

Both The Sherman Foundation and Kottke have done a few pieces on data visualisation and presentation.

This one at the recently particularly prolific TSF, covering ReConstitution 2008, shows some very powerful and potentially powerfully misleading technologies at play.

Putting all the wizardry and funny voices aside, they’re able to present real-time statistical analysis of the debates using metrics that by many standards are indicative of very relevant/important candidate traits.

Repetition is a staple of political messages (or any message, but I was first introduced to it by Sir Humphrey in Yes (Prime?) Minister). Their software shows very clearly what the key words for each candidate’s speech are and what they’re hammering home.

Probably more misleading (though in retrospect perhaps not) is the visualisation of the length of the words each candidate used. It’s a really clever visual tool, but I don’t know that in the general case that would be a good measure of a person over the space of 30 minutes of fairly scripted talk time.

Which raises a question: If you measure an idiot by a host of tools over 8 years, do you lose the ability to gauge the effectiveness of those tools?

Regardless, I’m intrigued by these ReConstitution guys. I’m keen to see what they come up with for the current debates.

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Really really good idea. Really smart advertising. Even better would be a single coloured thing that changed colour so you could read it under the heat generated from stretching the elastic. Probably too fine grain for current technology though. aaronindenver: applearts: Interior design room: Poul Nielsen personal trainer: Business card

Really really good idea. Really smart advertising. Even better would be a single coloured thing that changed colour so you could read it under the heat generated from stretching the elastic. Probably too fine grain for current technology though.

aaronindenver:

applearts:

Interior design room: Poul Nielsen personal trainer: Business card
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WOTD: Japas

Japanese Tapas
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