Boo asked me to post this, its an awesome video talking about how the last West Wing election is very similar to the Obama McCain match up and why that is. Very interesting on how they basically predicted the type of candidates we would see. Or maybe that those are the only types of candidates we see and its a cycle.
Boo:
As a HUGE fan of the West Wing (at least when Aaron Sorkin was writing it) I find this utterly amazing…
Joel and I were having a conversation earlier today about what it would be like to race against a fast football player in the 40-yard dash. More precisely, we wanted to know how far behind we would be once they crossed the finish line.
I found some useful information on average 40 times and splits (10 yards, 20 yards) here.
If I can run as fast as the average offensive lineman, then I’ll hit 10 yards in 1.8s, 20 in 3.05s; and 40 in 5.3s. That’s 2.25 seconds to run the last 20 yds. Since I’m probably running about the same speed over that 20 yard interval, that’s 8.8 yds/sec. I’ll only get to run that fast for 1.25 seconds though, because that’s when the other guy will finish (4.3s). 1.25 seconds x 8.8 yds/sec = 11.1 yds. That puts me at 31.1 yds, or 8.9 yds behind (almost 27 feet behind in a 120 foot race).
A 4.9 40, an average time for a QB, would put me 6 yds behind.
A 4.55 40, an fine RB time, would put me 3 yds behind.
Slate has a pretty interesting article that uses the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to analyze the personalities of the three remaining viable candidates (sorry Mike, you get no love…). The article says a lot about each candidate, but not a lot you probably didn’t already know. What makes it interesting is that most of what it says is not based on observations of the candidates. It comes from directly from stock descriptions of each candidates personality type.
In general, I’m no big fan of psychology as a discipline. A lot of it feels like pseudo-science to me, and I’m hesitant to put much stock in its assertions. Nevertheless I’m sort of fascinated by Myers-Briggs tests; once you’ve ascertained someone’s type, the descriptions of their type are often uncanny in their accuracy. The author points out, for instance, that some of what Bush’s type indicates could have forewarned us about some of his problems.
So here are my questions:
here are a couple links:
and here are my answers:
The flu might be bad for my body, but it sure has given me lots of time to research the upcoming NFL combine and draft (which isn’t obviously a good thing). This article will probably only be interesting to the truest of true Razorback fans, or those interested in mocking pathetic sports fans.
My interest in following Razorbacks into the NFL hasn’t panned out too well… yet. Matt Jones’ injury problems plagued him long enough for his coach to not count on him anymore. Ahmad Carroll was awesome 95% of the time, but absolutely horrible the other 5%, which is fine if you play for a good team, but not fine if you play for a crappy team with angry fans looking to blame someone not named Brett Favre (oh, and then there’s the gun charges). Cedric Cobbs was playing great for the Broncos, but then suffered an injury after fumbling an important punt. I think he’s out of the NFL now. Shawn Andrews is multi-time pro-bowler, but I can rarely catch his games and the media doesn’t care about offensive linemen. Ken Hamlin is a pro-bowler and has a reputation as a hard hitting safety, but he also missed a season and lost some of his bang after he had his skull busted open in a bar fight. Chris Houston is starting for Atlanta, although he’s got a long way to go before he’s a stud.
While occasionaly I question my fanhood, Darren and Felix have recently revived my hopes that all of my internet searches over the years, and time and money spent watching games, will have a great pay off.
The best dunk I’ve ever seen - any one of Dwight Howard’s (6′11″ and 270 lbs) four dunks from last night. NBA.com has a great video that you can watch as a streaming video and download as a quicktime file for even better viewing. If you’re not sure you want to invest the time in the video, check out this picture of Howard. While no one else stood a chance against him, I would have liked Jamario Moon to be in the final instead of Gerald Green.
One of my first experiences as a voter still sticks in my mind as a reminder that we accept, and even encourage, people to vote on issues of which they are ignorant (uninformed/uneducated/unaware). After finishing a long afternoon of research, I ventured to the Fayetteville pub-rary to vote. Soon after sitting down with my ballott and #2 pencil I realized that these were not the issues I had just spent hours analyzing. As I read each proposal summary an idea grew to a size I could not ignore - what if this had been the right week, i.e. I was aware of the issues, and some ignorant Joe Schmo, with his almost-guesswork approach, canceled out my votes? I took my empty ballott to the head hancho and told him about my silly mistake. He says to me, “Well, since you are here you should vote anyways.” He followed up this absurd suggestion with some illegal ones (since we were at a voting site), but I’ll steer away from this currently irrelevant tangent.
From that day to this one my support and conviction for the following belief have only grown: we should discourage, and perhaps even forbid, any one from voting if they do not know what is on the stake they are willing to ignite.
My first simple proposal is that the ballott should include two questions about each issue. If the voter answers the two questions correctly, their vote for that particular issue counts. Otherwise, their vote is dismissed. While far from ideal, in order to avoid potential controversies, the questions could even be directly related to the proposal paragraph above it. The consequences of this small change would be great - voters will be encouraged to do their research, those that don’t know or care about an issue will be less likely to vote, and it will filter out the voters who misunderstand the proposal.
My second simple proposal is that we require voters to have a voter’s license. Similar to the procedure to become a legal driver, citizens would need to study for and pass a test that ensures minimum capacity and skills. I might even suggest that we require a high school diploma or an equivalent academic success.
These two proposals would only be small steps toward the long-term goal - the our decision-makers, on the local level to the international, are relatively well-informed.
According to this release from Microsoft:
- Almost half of the teenagers surveyed (49 percent) said they are not familiar with the rules and guidelines for downloading images, literature, music, movies and software from the Internet. Only one in 10 (11 percent) said they understood the rules “very well.â€
- Among teenagers who said they were familiar with the laws, more than eight in 10 (82 percent) said illegal downloaders should be punished. In contrast, slightly more than half (57 percent) of those unfamiliar with the laws said violators should be punished.
So, now pretend you believe the following two things:
1. The kids that don’t think violators should be punished are being honest about how well they know the laws.
2. These kids that supposedly don’t know what’s legal and illegal to download want to learn the laws, but have been unable to find the information in an age-appropriate presentation.
Hey! now it makes sense to make a web-two-point-oh-esque site explaining that downloading all that freely-available, highly-desirable, otherwise-very-expensive content is against the law.
I wonder how much they spent on this website, and now that they have it, how they expect teens to find it or be motivated to read it?
via Download Squad
To report the victories of Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain in the Virginia-Maryland-DC primaries, CNN chose to use on its front page the most unflattering photographs of the two men available to the network. Mr. McCain (right) was pictured to accentuate the deep and many folds of his disgustingly saggy neck skin. Mr. Obama (left) was pictured with a sickly yellow haze blemishing his skin. Both men were unavailable for comment.
I opened my iTunes Top 25 Most Played list for (I think) the first time since I bought this new MacBook (last November). I was shocked to find that all 25 of the tracks were by the same band: Beirut. I tried to export the list easily, to either plain text or XML (for your benefit), but neither sufficed. I reproduce my Top 5 Most Played below:
1. Forks and Knives (La Fete) — 71 plays
2. St. Apollonia
3. The Penalty
4. Guyamas Sonora
5. Prenzlauerberg — 47 plays
BTW, my 25th song had 30 plays. Shocking, I guess, that all 25 would be by the same band. Shocking, that is, to those who’ve never heard them, or those who don’t stay up very late tippling and programming. I wonder if others have ever seen their entire Top 25 Most Played lists dominated by a single band.
I just got back my local Democratic caucus. And in many ways, it felt like I was in a third-world country. Read the rest of this entry »
This picture is from GoogleMaps. It’s my dad. Parking his white Honda. Near his house in Chicago. Somehow, someway, as he was paying the street meter, GoogleMaps captured his image. It’s incredibly creepy. While performing a banal task of daily life, near his home, my father’s picture was captured and uploaded to a public website, without his knowledge or consent. What’s creepier yet, is that at a separate address, GoogleMap also captured my father’s picture as he was unlocking his front door (for privacy reasons, I won’t post that link here). Gentlemen, it’s time to break out the fake mustaches (in case you’re wondering, my dad’s is real).
