my babies
Tuesday, October 26th, 2004
Jodi, Jameson, and Paris.
Archive for October, 2004
your vote counts
Saturday, October 23rd, 2004“Of Course Your Vote Counts” by Stephen Colbert
Taken from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart presents: America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction, and actually I dictated from the Audiobook. This is a hilarious book, the audiobook is done really well, too.
real linux hacking
Monday, October 11th, 2004I’ll admit, I’ve been a little obsessive recently. I’ve been working almost non-stop on getting my mini-ITX form factor EPIA M10000 Nehemia up and running Linux and my favorite open-source project, MythTV. I am almost there. Holy moly. I’ve recompiled an epia-patched 2.6.8 kernel, re-compiled XFree86 4.4 with unichrome via driver support, and it is amazing. The vanilla (default) XFree86 that used a generic VESA driver scared me, when I loaded up the ivtv drivers for my Hauppauge PVR 350, it was extremely choppy, but the new XFree86 with unichrome and video-4-linux extensions, are unbelievably smooth for such a small machine! MythTV 0.16 is a go, unbelievable! Full write-up coming soon!
philly, dogg!
Saturday, October 9th, 2004I just got back from Philly last night–my company shipped me off Tuesday night. Since I only had two nights, I made the best of it. This meant some bar and restaurant hopping. First stop, Morimoto for some sushi and a sake-inspired martini. This place was so trendy it hurt. Good sushi too (from the little bit I had and saw). Next up, Buddakan to worship the giant buddha and enjoy a tuna-wasabi-pizza (and another martini). Not too shabby. I hopped a few more bars, ending up at Paradigm where they have a bathroom that is totally glass, and when you go in and lock the door, it frosts the glass (by applying a tiny electric charge). Very hott! A few martinis later and it was time to stumble back to my hotel.
Philly was cool, I just wish I had more time to explore. Maybe I’ll head back there soon. Next week is Nashville for one more go-around, then San Francisco for some good ole-fashioned consulting work.
one more time guys
Monday, October 4th, 2004If I hear one more time from someone (I almost wrote: republican/conservative/nut-job) that John Kerry is a flip-flopper, I am going to flip out and change my mind about how I deal with that comment. That’s right, I’m going to change my mind–flip-flop if you will. Before, I thought it was pretty funny. Haha, funny, I get it, he changes his mind, you can’t trust him, eh, eh, eh?
Hmmmm. I wish John Kerry (and others) would just come out and say: “You know what, I, like 70% of America was for the war after that day, September 10th (or 11th or whatever day that was), but now I’ve seen a few things, learned the truth (or even the lack there-of) and now, like most Americans, am against it.”
There. I’m done. OK, now honestly, don’t send me the link to the video where John Kerry is debating himself, haha, I get it, he flip-flops! Don’t send me any more stuff on that shit. What I will take links for is something not related to this war on Iraq. I’m done.
How about, some links to the “other debate” - the one between David Cobb and Michael Badnarik? Or what about 12 questions with David Cobb of the Green Party (on slashdot). My favorite line:
We need a viable political alternative [to the two-party system] because we need to manufacture democracy here at home before we can export it.
Do yourself a favor, find out about the other issues (not this war in Iraq–however silly/important/far-fetched/vital you think it is to your vote). Here’s some that you might find of interest: election reform, the fair tax, national single payer health insurance, educational reform, peace, racial/social/economic equality, off-shoring/out-sourcing, patent/copyright laws, gun-rights, … hmmm….
And here’s the value of that vote. In the most recent presidential election around 105,360,260 people cast ballots. That means each persons vote counted:
.000000949 %
I defy you to find a mathmetician who will tell you that number is less than or equal to 0.
Ok, so we can agree that your vote counts. It counts:
.000000949 %
Swish that around in your mouth for a while. How does it taste? Taste like freedom? Because to me it tastes like jack-off-squat.
This brings up a related, better question than “does your vote count,” namely, does your vote make a difference? To answer that perhaps a more visual comparison would be more illustriative.
Imagine your vote as a deer tick, and the election as the continent of Asia. Do you notice the relative size of these two things? See how the deer tick appears in comparison with the largest continent on earth? This gives you a rough idea of the difference your vote makes vis-a-vis the entire electorate.
But there is good news. Due to the rampant and growing cynicism of people who feel their vote doesn’t make a difference, voter turnout is steadily decreasing. Where this cyciscm comes from escapes me, but what it means that with each electoral cycle the value of one vote increases.
Now, it’s difficult to imagine the day when the candidates running don’t vote so that’s two votes right there. But it’s not difficult to imagine a day when only one other person bothers to vote. And oh, what a valuable vote that would be….
You’re welcome.