I spent some time earlier this evening phone banking for Obama and some Washington State races, at the new Beacon Hill HQ:

We now have a location on Beacon Hill to volunteer for Obama and Gregoire. It's between Horton and Hinds on Beacon Ave. S. It's a place you can volunteer for phone banking or pick up packets to canvass your neighbors.

There's an open house on Wednesday, September 24th between 5 and 9 pm. Stop by to phone bank, share food with your neighbors, and get to know other Obama supporters in your area.

For exact location and details contact:

Michele Frix

Washington State Democrats-Co­or­di­nat­ed Campaign

Field Organizer/11th Leg­isla­tive District

michele@wa-democrats.org

206.617.7281

It'll …continue.

After months of attacking Obama's “in­ex­pe­ri­ence”, McCain has picked an unknown first-term governor from a minor state with an un­der­whelm­ing resume.

What gross ir­re­spon­si­bil­i­ty! A seventy-two-year-old with a history of skin cancer, who feels the need to keep his medical records under a tight wrap, should have a running mate who's ready to take over at any time. When you compare her to Biden or Obama, Palin clearly isn't. I sincerely believe that I'm better informed about the world than she is, based on reports of her lack of interest in Iraq until recently, and that she didn't have a passport until 2007.

What she does bring to the ticket is hard-right, cre­ation­ist, evan­gel­i­cal …continue.

• The First Rule of Pro­gram­ming: It's Always Your Fault
• Daylight Savings Time and JavaScript

• The Moral Instinct ...

• Traskpro

• NTFS-3G on Mac: Mac NTFS-3G which uses MacFUSE.

shopping miniLists

• http://www.huff­in­g­ton­post.com/george-lakoff/what-counts-as-an-is­sue_b_84177.html
• http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/02/google_­so­cial_­graph_api.html
• http://www.aboutmyip.com/About­MyXApp/DeltaCopy.jsp
• http://www.god­hate­sire­land.com/
• http://norvig.com/hiring-president2.html

Time for another Odds & Ends.

Well-known evo­lu­tion­ary biologist PZ Myers (Pharyngula) was expelled from a viewing of a new cre­ation­ist doc­u­men­tary, Expelled, last night. Wait until you read the punchline. There is a God!

Lost, one MacBook Air: Steven Levy explains just how he (thinks he) lost his MacBook Air.

It was St. Patrick's Day on Monday. Peter sent me the Muppets' Danny Boy video. Andrew told me that the Irish bishops had moved St. Patrick's Day. Monday was a holiday in Ireland, as is today (Good Friday) and next Monday (Easter Monday), so many people took Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday off this week. Bastards!

Emma and I walked with the Wild Geese Players in …continue.

It's been too long since I last posted an Odds & Ends.

Henri is a very amusing short spoof of French ennui.

Back in January, Emma and I were being repeatedly shocked by static elec­tric­i­ty. We would in­ad­ver­tent­ly discharge by kissing or otherwise touching each other, or by touching laptops or faucets. Eventually, I realised that it was due to a com­bi­na­tion of the microfiber upholstery on our new couch and the dry, unhumid air. We solved it by a com­bi­na­tion of rubbing an anti-static dryer sheet (Bounce) on the couch and buying a humidifier. That led to a spate of jokes about the spark being gone.

It's started coming back again. I think …continue.

I sent this letter to the New York Times this morning:

I was struck by the jux­ta­po­si­tion of Anya Kamenetz's thoughtful column and Maureen Dowd's puerile nonsense on today's op-ed page.

Anya Kamenetz's makes a sensible proposal on empowering ready teenagers by lowering the age thresholds for voting, drinking, credit cards when they demon­strate maturity.

Maureen Dowd continues in her usual rut, going on again about Ch­eneyesque paranoia, Bill's legacy, Obambi, and tough dames.

Perhaps Ms. Dowd could take Ms. Kamenetz's maturity test.

We attended a Super Tuesday party last night. As a PCO, I know a fair bit about the local caucus process, but I was unable to give a …continue.

Use O'Reilly Maker to generate book covers. I've always wanted to write a book for cousin Tim, and now I have!

Via Pavel: Adolf Hitler - Vista Problems (YouTube).

The Pho­tog­ra­pher's Right: a handy one-page guide.

The general rule in the United States is that anyone may take pho­tographs of whatever they want when they are in a public place or places where they have permission to take pho­tographs. Absent a specific legal pro­hi­bi­tion such as a statute or ordinance, you are legally entitled to take pho­tographs. Examples of places that are tra­di­tion­al­ly considered public are streets, sidewalks, and public parks.

The tiny <code> font in Firefox has been bugging me for a long time. I finally …continue.

Mis­cel­la­neous links.

• Are you plagued by User Access Control prompts every time you run Notepad++ on Vista? See Notepad++ and the GUP for a fix.

• According to The Onion, Bill Clinton is running again.

  We saw him speak at a fundraiser for Jim McDermott a couple of years ago. It was impressive to see him stand up for an hour and riff on all manner of topics without notes. The current incumbent is truly a mental midget.

  Not that I especially enjoyed the Clinton years. I often felt left down.

• Larry Lessig is unhappy with the sleaze emanating from Hillary Clinton.

• Joel Spolsky's article on the Five Whys showcases a useful technique to find …continue.

Mis­cel­la­neous links.

• Do you see the subliminal arrow in the negative space of the FedEx logo at right? Neither did I until I read about it at Edward Tufte's joint. Now I can't stop seeing it.

• One more year to go until the next pres­i­den­tial in­au­gu­ra­tion on 2009/01/20. Who knows how much more damage Bush can pull off by then? Stick­er­Giant.com has com­mem­o­ra­tive swag.

• Im­peach­ment is in the air. Watch Rep. Wexler's speech before the U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Read about State Sen. Oemig's hearing in the Washington Leg­is­la­ture.

• Three days ago, I was sent email by Draft­Bloomberg.com, asking me to sign a petition to draft Mike Bloomberg as an in­de­pen­dent candidate for President. I …continue.

Mis­cel­la­neous links.

• I mentioned Schneier on security theater recently. Via Pavel, I see that Schneier notes that a five-year-old was detained at SeaTac because his name appeared on a no-fly list.

• Male fruit flies, when drunk, become much more likely to court other male fruit flies. Or, Oh God, I was so drunk ...

• Health insurance companies are making out like bandits in Washington state.

• Here's a damning RIAA interview, via Gabriel:

  When asked why the RIAA is going after an easy target--college students--the response made me cringe: "College students have reached a stage in life when their music habits are crys­tal­lized," Duckworth said. "And their ap­pre­ci­a­tion for in­tel­lec­tu­al property has not yet reached its …continue.