I’m probably the 10,000th person to say this, but as I was driving in today, I realized that the mobile web is at an inflection point where developers are going to stop building for the lowest common denominator and start pushing for the best. Feels similar to the way the web was just a few years ago when developers started getting fed up with IE6 and started emphasizing graceful degradation from Firefox/Safari instead of simply designing for IE6 + some.

The effects of this are subtle but profound. Already, we’re seeing pressure on companies like RIM to update their browsers to “catch up” w/ where the iPhoneOS, Palm OS, and Android OS are taking the web. This is setting a new baseline for developers and will shift internal development priorities. Already, for example, we’re seeing more & more AJAX & JavaScript features on mobile web sites. We’re seeing a lot more CSS3 transitions & effects in products like ESPN’s mobile NFL GameCast. We’re also seeing more HTML5 features coming out as well.

There’s going to be a big leap in the quality of mobile web applications and experiences over the next few years. Just think about what you expect from your desktop browsers today vs. what you expected in 2004. So much good stuff coming.

You should watch this or listen to the video above. It’s of President Obama speaking to and then taking questions from the House GOP Caucus. While there are the talking point moments, overall this was one of the more fascinating interactions I’ve seen in American politics. It’s also the first time that Obama has, personally, directly engaged himself in changing the tone of politics in an activist manner, if you will, rather than simply leading by example. You can get a sense of what I’m talking about, if you don’t have time to listen to the whole thing, by listening to the last 12 minutes or so (from around 73:00). Some really decent, substantive conversation between Obama and the GOP House Caucus.

More like this, please.

I hope Obama follows through on having regular meetings with both leadership teams (w/ part televised?), and perhaps can make Q&A like this a regular part of the conversation. I would love our own version of prime minister’s questions.

As some of you know, I finally bought a DSLR camera this past year. I ended up taking advantage of a Christmas deal at Amazon and picked up a Canon T1i kit w/ an extra lens (a 55-200mm zoom) at a nice bundle price. So far, I love the camera. It’s been fun learning how to actually take photographs again.

One of the random extras I bought when I got the camera was the Canon EOS Rebel T1i/500D Guide by David Busch. I’m basically going through the book cover-to-cover, it’s been that interesting and helpful. While he covers the basics like explaining the various features of the camera, I’ve found that his explanations of a lot of basic photography technique has been a good refresher for me. While I didn’t necessarily need the reminder of what an f-stop is or whatever, getting everything in context with sample photographs helped me gain some insights and make connections I don’t think I understood before.

The book does dive into some depth and provides a lot of good background about the body itself. For example, the T1i has a cropped sensor (otherwise known as APS-C sensor), something I only understood at the very basic level (i.e. the sensor is “smaller” than a full 35mm frame). The guide explains the differences, but then takes the next step and explains the design choice by Canon (and other manufacturers), along with how it might impact your lens choices, your photography, etc. It’s good stuff.

There’s also a good chapter that explains Canon’s lens naming system, along with explanations of why different features are better or worse than others. So now, when I see a lens named “EF 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6L IS USM,” I know it’s one of their full-frame professional (luxury) zoom lenses that’s image stabilized and has an ultrasonic motor to drive the autofocus. The book also explains what each of those things mean, why you might or might not want/need each feature, etc.

Overall, I really recommend this book if you have a T1i. Lots of good little tips and hints in the guide that you’ll be happy to read even if you’ve got some experience with the camera already.

The photos are a few weeks old, but I really wanted to build a fire tonight. This will have to do.

I’ve been more flip about this on Twitter, but I do want to take a moment to highlight this passage from Josh Marshall that I think highlights something important about the national mood:

What the Democrats — and a lot of this is on the White House — have done is get so deep into the inside game of legislative maneuvering, this and that ‘gang’ of senators and a lot of other nonsense that they’ve let themselves out of sync with the public mood and the people’s needs.

I have a few small things to add to this: I’ve found a lot of the angst about this bill from both left and right inexplicable in the basic sense. I get the general outline of the concerns. From the right, folks think this is a massive entitlement that may or may not get at the issues they feel are important (e.g. malpractice reform, more concrete cost controls, etc.). From the left, folks are clamoring that they voted for Change and Obama has failed them.

These things may or may not be true, but I’d argue that these complaints are a symptom of what Josh Marshall highlights above.

Obama is and was always a cautious centrist. I don’t have time now to link to all the pieces matching up his actions this first year with his campaign promises, but if you have doubts ask and I’ll find the pieces. He ran a nuanced tack about gay rights and DADT. He ran a nuanced tack about Guantanamo. He laid out his version of health care reform, maintaining private insurance and doing the least to disrupt the system. Both bills, quite frankly, follow the basic layout of his campaign proposals (exchanges, pooling risk, taxing the top bracket to pay for it).

The issue I have is that there’s a disconnect from the communicative candidate, who used his presence and skill to get in front of people to convince them to trust him, and the quiet President who only seems to come out with a “major” speech when something is going wrong.

I’m not suggesting he’s hiding, no.

He’s simply not leading. What I voted for was a competent executive who, as I wrote then, seemed to be running a very good campaign with a very good ground effort and delegation. Someone who could stand up and communicate with people. Well, it’s been a while since he’s been out doing that, and he’s turned over the message and the communication to folks like Reid and Pelosi who, for their other strengths, are horrible communicators.

So, this is where we find ourselves today.

I’ve tried over the last few weeks to talk to more people I disagree with, especially on this issue. I’ve been able to have productive conversations, generally. I certainly understand and respect those folks who think government shouldn’t help people at all (the no entitlements crowd), but that’s not me. I am pretty sure that it’s also not most of this country.

In the end, I don’t think people would be so upset about the bills if they actually understood what’s in it. Or if someone would point out how getting the exchanges in place would make it easier to start businesses. Or that this bill, like the stimulus is about getting America back on stronger economic footing, not disconnected from the effort to create jobs but part of it.

Not everyone would love the bill, I’m sure, but I’m sure more people would be willing to trust the President about this. I wish the he would stand up and try to make that case so we could find out.

We just watched Food, Inc. again tonight (again for me, first time for Heidi). I saw it in the theater the first time, and the nice thing this time was that I could look up the names and numbers on my laptop while watching.

I found the interviews with Troy Roush interesting for their candor about Monsanto. He is identified as the Vice President, American Corn Growers Association. I became curious because the name sounded like an industry lobbying org, but his comments really were quite critical in some significant ways. Turns out that the National Corn Growers Association is the big corn backed organization, and American Corn Growers is a smaller group dissatisfied with the state of corn policy in the U.S.. Roush is a 1st VP in the Indiana chapter.

Anyway, all of that is background for why I ended up on Monsanto’s page dedicated to criticizing Troy Roush, which states, with no apparent irony, the following to close out the page:

It is interesting to point out, that while Mr. Roush is a harsh and frequent critic of Monsanto and GM crops, he remains a customer of Monsanto having purchased a considerable amount of corn and soybean seed from us during 2008.

Roush’s main topic in Food, Inc. was to point out Monsanto’s hard ball tactics forcing farmers to remain Monsanto customers even if they’ve ever just had GMO corn pollen blow onto their farms. He was accused by Monsanto of violating their patents, and subsequently settled after spending hundreds of thousands to defend himself. So, if he’s still growing corn, of course he’s a Monsanto customer. More background here and here.

This deserves a longer post than this, because ultimately I’m going to have some hands on experience comparing Ableton Live Intro vs. Propellerhead Record+Reason, but I actually like how this came out enough that I want to share it.

The short version of the background here is that I’ve been a long time Reason owner, and I have Record as well. I’m pretty poor with both, and I’ve finally set aside a little bit of time to figure out how to use everything. I’ve decided to start by just figuring out mashups and remixes (creating original songs seems way too hard right now) while trying to learn the guitar. For Christmas, I got a copy of the book Audio Mashup Construction Kit by DJ Earworm. It’s a good book, and I’m really learning quite a bit just from the music theory chapter. The only issue is that the book uses Sony ACID as the tool it describes in detail. ACID is a Windows-only product, so I’m SOL. So, that’s how I ended up messing with Live & Record this weekend.

Here’s a clip (about 30 seconds or so) of the mashup tutorial from the first chapter, built by me using Record.

Nothing complicated, obviously. Just a beatmatched, slightly sliced mix of Dizzee Rascal’s Stand Up Tall (Instrumental) with the a cappella track of Tag Team’s Whoomp There It Is. This probably took about 2-3 hours or so to learn what to do, how to do it, and then tweak until the beats lined up.

Like I said, this deserves a longer post, because I’ve learned a few things worth sharing for novices like me. For example, mixing/matching tempos is very different in the two products. So far, Live seems a bit more natural to me, but I was able to get better results out of Record (probably because I’m more familiar with Propellerhead’s products. More eventually, once I’ve done something a bit more original.

Synesthesia came up in sort of a wacky conversation on Twitter. I linked to a clip from Heroes showing their take on Synesthesia. This clip, however, is a neat little 8 minute doc on Synesthesia.

I want to recommend this piece by Stephen M. Walt on his ForeignPolicy.com blog. This paragraph in particular, along with the points about the American Civil War, are worth contemplating as we consider both Iraq as well as the issues of race in the South.

Military occupation generates resistance because it is humiliating, disruptive, arbitrary and sometimes terrifying to its objects, even when the occupying power is acting from more-or-less benevolent motives. If you’ve ever been caught in a speed trap by a rude or abusive policeman (I have), or selected out for special attention crossing a border (ditto), you have a mild sense of what this is like. You are at the mercy of the person in charge, who is inevitably well-armed and can do pretty much whatever he (or she) wants. Any sign of protest will only make things go badly — and in some situations will get you arrested, beaten, or worse — so you choke down your anger and just put up with it. Now imagine that this is occurring after you’ve waited for hours at some internal checkpoint, that none of the occupiers speak your language, and that it is like this every single day. And occasionally the occupying power kills innocent people by mistake, engages in other forms of indiscriminate force, and does so with scant regard for local customs and sensibilities.

Some good stuff in there.

We’ve been chatting on Twitter about the Newsweek Palin cover. Consensus is that it was a really stupid cover choice by Newsweek. The defenses I’ve read online for Newsweek have been pretty week. The best one, so far has come from Lindsay Beyerstein:

There’s nothing scandalous about Palin showing some skin, or wearing Spandex. But this cover image is deliberately styled to make the then-governor of Alaska look like a Vargas pinup girl. Unlike the other images in the series, this one references her status as a governor. As she poses like a swimsuit model, she’s clutching one icon of political power–the Blackberry–and leaning on another. The theme isn’t Sarah Palin, athlete. The theme is Sarah Palin, Sexy Governor. (As in: one of those dime store Halloween costumes: sexy cop, sexy ladybug, sexy sanitation worker…)

Predictably, Palin complained that Newsweek’s use of the image was sexist. Yes, the image was plucked from its original context. The whole point was that the picture was appalling it its original context. Newsweek is holding this picture up to the world and asking: Who does this?

My only problem with this explanation is that neither of the stories that made up the cover package actually addressed this point. The choice of the photograph for the cover would’ve made sense if Beyerstein’s piece was the cover story. But it wasn’t, leaving the new picture plucked out of its original context and really kind of dropped into no real context. It’s just there to catch the eye which, I guess, is what covers are meant to do.

Granted, the other pics inside apparently didn’t help Newsweek’s case any.

I’d rather see more people pay attention to what she’s actually saying about policy. Read stuff like that and it’s scary that she could’ve been VP. (make sure you read the first comment to understand how idiotic her statement was)

Amazon’s MP3 Store’s Best of 2009 list is a really neat, diverse mix of albums from 2009. Pleasantly surprised. I bought a bunch of albums last night from the list. Among them was the latest Midival Punditz album, Hello, Hello. I checked YouTube for this track, which was on the 2009 Best Song list and found this really need live performance with the Punditz & Karsh Kale. I also have Karsh Kale’s Broken English album. Some great tracks on there.

There are also several other videos on YouTube from their set at the Paleo festival, where this video was shot. You’ll see them in the related videos section if you click through to YouTube.

I know, two songs from the same album back-to-back, but I like the album. It’s different than most of the stuff I listen to, for sure. It is, however, really good. This is a cheesy song (Lerche describes it as show tune-y in the video), but it’s fun and light. I like it.

Note: I wrote this in May. I had a larger post in mind, but ran out of time. I think I wanted to expand on some places where I was particularly blunt. Anyway, this seems worth posting as is. Hope it’s worth reading.

A recent post over at Julie’s place about the budget situation in Hartford got me thinking again about problems with how we discuss politics.

My observation was that a number of people were debating policies in abstract terms. For example, one commenter suggested Hartford consider offering tax incentives for businesses to relocate into Hartford or use TIFs to boost development. The incentives idea was criticized because the taxes would eventually go up on the businesses once the incentives expire.

On the surface, this pair of points could make sense, but it really is missing too much detail to be even remotely useful. It’s akin to having a debate about tools. “Hammers are bad” is a pretty absurd thing to say, yet we do this with policy ideas all the time. We discuss the tool, in abstract, without considering specific policies that fill in important details. TIFs, tax incentives, marginal tax rates, etc. are all policy tools. They’re not policies themselves, so we should recognize that in our conversations with each other.

For example, in the case of a tax incentive for a business to relocate, a lot depends on how big the tax incentive is, how long it lasts, and what kind of businesses get the tax break. For example, if a business is easy to move, then the tax incentive is riskier, and less likely to achieve the desired outcome. On the other hand, if a tax incentive is structured to help offset relocation costs, perhaps it makes more sense for the business to move.

This also connects to a larger trap that we often fall into, one reinforced by the political parties and their attempts to sloganize their policy preferences. Folks across the political spectrum have preferences among policy tools but believe the tools are actually policy. For example, Republicans look to tax policy as their only tool for fixing many (most? all?) problems. Yet this is only one policy tool in a vast array of tools available. Maslow’s Maxim applies to policy issues, too. Not every problem is a nail, and we have more than just the hammer to help. Democrats would be wise to remember that as well.

We should all be asking candidates and fellow bloggers or commenters to be at least a little more precise about policies their advocating so we can all save time.

I love the strings in this song. It reminds me of a lot of Bollywood songs when I was a kid.

I first heard Sondre Lerche on the Dan in Real Life soundtrack. It was a great soundtrack. This is off his new album, also titled Heartbeat Radio. Haven’t listened to the whole album yet.

I’ve been reading the defenses of Roman Polanski and continue to be unswayed by any of them. All the defenses come back to the same three or four points:

1. Prosecutorial or judicial misconduct of some kind
2. 50 years was an unfair sentence
3. it was so long ago, why now?
4. The victim wants the charges dropped

I’ve read the arguments for each of these and remain completely unconvinced. I keep coming back to the same basic point: he broke the law, was convicted, then decided he was better than everyone else (and our appeals process) and ran. I know it’s not a particularly new idea, and maybe he was hoping to be Marc Rich, but that’s basically it.

The rest of this stuff is BS, pure and simple. The two pieces I’ve found that basically sum up my feelings on this case are this piece at Salon by Kate Harding and this piece at Cogitamus by litbrit.

It really just comes down to this for me: He broke the law, plead guilty, and then didn’t like what the judge might do so he ran, committing another crime. It doesn’t matter how nice he is, or how flawed he believes the judges behavior was, we have a system to deal with these things. It’s imperfect, we all recognize that, but it’s the system we have. Polanski may have had a point about the judge going back on his deal, but he could’ve appealed (though, if you ask me, 45 days time served is a bullshit sentence for raping a 13-year-old girl, barely counting as a slap on the wrist). As a famous director, he could’ve fought this.

I’m also really upset that the victim’s wishes keep getting brought up as some sort of validation of Polanski’s plight. The only reason she agreed to this crappy plea deal was to avoid living through the pain of testifying again. In her 2003 editorial, she again makes the point that it’s the pain of going through it again that is motivating her to advocate for his freedom:

… honestly, the publicity surrounding it was so traumatic that what he did to me seemed to pale in comparison. … I have to imagine he would rather not be a fugitive and be able to travel freely. Personally, I would like to see that happen.

…

I know there is a price to pay for running. But who wouldn’t think about running when facing a 50-year sentence from a judge who was clearly more interested in his own reputation than a fair judgment or even the well-being of the victim?

If he could resolve his problems, I’d be happy. I hope that would mean I’d never have to talk about this again. Sometimes I feel like we both got a life sentence.

I’m sympathetic to her plea, and feel like I can rationally understand why she would feel that way. The thing is, it’s not her call. It’s also not the judge’s fault that she has to go through this again. Ultimately, this is all Polanski’s fault. He committed the original crime that put her in this position. He ran instead of accepting whatever justice the judge was going to offer. In running, he prolonged the publicity, increased the sensational nature of the case, and ensured that the story would never die. Her desire to have this go away is understandable, but ultimately it’s not motivated by anything that mitigates what Polanski did. There’s no justice in that, and justice is what our system is supposed to be about.

The Salon piece I linked above says it well, so I’ll just end with this:

I happen to believe we should honor her desire not to be the subject of a media circus, which is why I haven’t named her here, even though she chose to make her identity public long ago. But as for dropping the charges, Fecke said it quite well: “I understand the victim’s feelings on this. And I sympathize, I do. But for good or ill, the justice system doesn’t work on behalf of victims; it works on behalf of justice.”

It works on behalf of the people, in fact — the people whose laws in every state make it clear that both child rape and fleeing prosecution are serious crimes. The point is not to keep 76-year-old Polanski off the streets or help his victim feel safe. The point is that drugging and raping a child, then leaving the country before you can be sentenced for it, is behavior our society should not — and at least in theory, does not — tolerate, no matter how famous, wealthy or well-connected you are, no matter how old you were when you finally got caught, no matter what your victim says about it now, no matter how mature she looked at 13, no matter how pushy her mother was, and no matter how many really swell movies you’ve made.

That’s my read, and that’s why he should face a judge and do the time. If that makes me Puritanical, then get me a hat with a buckle, because it’s the right thing to do in this case.

PS. I’m really shocked at some of the names that have come out defending him – supposed signatories to the Free Polanski petitions include Wes Anderson and Natalie Portman. Plus there was that weird “rape-rape” comment from Whoopi Goldberg. I wish I could talk to one of these people and ask, “What are you thinking?”

I just had an exchange on Facebook that I feel like expanding on here. I’m going to anonymize the people, but suffice to say the person is a person I respect but with whom I rarely agree politically:

This person linked to a Politico article about Sen. Ensign receiving a handwritten note confirming that not having health insurance could lead to fines of up to $25K and/or up to 1 year in prison. They then made this comment:

Don’t want to buy the proposed mandatory health insurance? The penalty for non-compliance in the bill now is up to a YEAR in jail and $25,000 fine. And it’s in writing from the committee staff.

I read this and thought, there’s no way that’s the first penalty for not having health insurance. And, it isn’t. Here’s my comment back to him on FB:

I think you’re engaging in hyperbole for effect, but here’s some perspective on this that may make this seem more reasonable than you’re implying.

First, the requirement is that everyone will have health insurance, not that we buy a particular plan. Not sure if you meant to imply there was a particular plan, but wanted to clarify that. You and I, for example, will not see any change. The law includes a means test to make sure those who cannot afford insurance will never face the original fine. Certainly, we can debate the means test levels/limits, and I would welcome that.

Which is another point of clarification: the penalty you cited is for failing to pay the fine for not having insurance. The fine for not having insurance is UP TO $1900 (in a judge’s discretion, I assume). The 1 year + UP TO $25K is for failing to pay that fine.

Second, because this is a requirement to have insurance, not a requirement to purchase any particular plan, it’s very similar to how auto insurance works in many states. In CT, for example, failure to carry the proper car insurance can result in fines up to $1000. Failure to pay the fine is a Class A Misdemeanor with additional penalties + up to 1 year in jail.

Even failing to pay a parking/traffic ticket in CT is a Class A Misdemeanor.

Both of those are state penalties for very similar style regulation.

Again, not saying that this is perfect or ideal, but it’s not so bizarre or extreme. Certainly, the requirement for people to have auto insurance hasn’t lead to what [a commenter] above is implying. I’m not aware of a government run auto insurance program in CT, for example.

It occured to me after writing this that the car insurance analogy is actually the one that makes a ton of sense both in highlighting the banal nature of the proposed reform plans but also the risks that such plans might entail. After all, we have had mandatory insurance requirements in CT for at least 20 years (as have many states). Food for thought.

Citations for the penalties above, in case the lawyers want to correct anything I wrote (please do!):

Insurance violations

• Sec. 14-12c: Verification of security coverages. Surrender or confiscation of plates, when. Penalties for failure to insure or maintain insurance and for presentation of false or fraudulent identification card.
• Sec. 41-164r: Failure to pay or plead [looks to be general penalty for not paying a court ordered fine or fee]

Traffic ticket violations

• Sec. 53a-173: Failure to appear in the second degree: Class A misdemeanor [ my read of my research this AM: if you don't pay your ticket, it gets sent to court, which turns into this]
• State of CT Table on Fines & Penalties

A while ago, I was looking at (and tweeted about) some dude’s travel gear list and noticed a nice pair of binoculars in the pack, a pair of Pentax Papilio 8.5×21 binoculars. I saved it to my Amazon Wish List and this year Heidi bought them for me for my birthday. We’ve taken them on a short hike near our house and I’ve been messing with them here and there. I want to point out a couple of nice things about the set that might make them useful for some of you.

The cool thing about these binoculars is that they can focus at things about 2 feet away. While this may seem sort of silly for the traditional use for binoculars, the cool thing is that you can actually focus on things like bugs, butterflies, and flowers. They almost work like a magnifying glass but from a distance. If, like me, you’re curious about the little critters but are mildly afraid of getting too close, this is a great thing. I suspect kids would have a great time with these out in the woods just looking at all the little things in the woods.

The Papilios are decent at range. They’re not particularly powerful. At 8.5x you’ll find some cameras with more powerful zoom. Binoculars are nice, though, because you can look at things with a larger field of view and in better viewing conditions than a little screen on the back of a camera. I could see using them for casual bird watching or checking out animals from a distance. We’re not serious birders, but our primary use will be on hikes and longer rides.

I was also pleased by how light they were. On our walk, I hardly noticed I was carrying them. If you want a pair of binoculars, this is a good pair to take a look at. I really like them so far.

I only watched about 20 minutes of the documentary The Last Truck on HBO today, but already I want to recommend the film. It’s short, interesting, and timely. Using interviews with workers, the doc covers the closing of GM’s Moraine Assembly Plant in Ohio in December of 2008.

I don’t have time to write anything particularly insightful about the movie, but I did want to share one thought.

The film interviewed a few of the auto workers about the $70/hour wage meme that was going around the time of the auto bailout. The crux of that little white lie was that the $70 ‘hourly cost’ included not only wages + benefits for current workers, which are on par or below Toyota, by the way, but also all the costs GM owes to retirees. As the doc mentions, GM has 2-4 retirees per active worker, more than anyone. The biggest driver of the costs of retiree benefits, and, thus draining the competitiveness of GM? Health care. And why did retiree benefits become a big part of GM current P&L? Arguably because retiree benefits didn’t show up on earnings reports.

The problems facing our country are interrelated. So, saving American manufacturing could be about healthcare & FASB/SEC regulations as much as it is about unions. Or healthcare could be about restoring our competitive chops in manufacturing. Or the bonus structures & incentives for executives could impact manufacturing competitiveness. You get the idea.

All I can think about as I watch the news is that as a society we’re just not set up to discuss these issues in any context aside from one at a time. I wish I knew how to fix that, because I think it would lead to better policy outcomes.

NBC just announced that Jenna Hagar (née Bush) is joining NBC’s Today Show as a correspondent. I really don’t know what to say, but this post by Glenn Greenwald captures the state of our elite press pretty well. I’m going to excerpt a few chunks below, but you should read the whole thing for the full effect:

They should convene a panel for the next Meet the Press with Jenna Bush Hager, Luke Russert, Liz Cheney, Megan McCain and Jonah Goldberg, and they should have Chris Wallace moderate it. They can all bash affirmative action and talk about how vitally important it is that the U.S. remain a Great Meritocracy because it’s really unfair for anything other than merit to determine position and employment.

…

Bill Kristol, Tucker Carlson and John Podhoretz can provide moving commentary on how America is so special because all that matters is merit, not who you know or where you come from.

…

Just to underscore a very important, related point: all of the above-listed people are examples of America’s Great Meritocracy, having achieved what they have solely on the basis of their talent, skill and hard work — The American Way. By contrast, Sonia Sotomayor — who grew up in a Puerto Rican family in Bronx housing projects; whose father had a third-grade education, did not speak English and died when she was 9; whose mother worked as a telephone operator and a nurse; and who then became valedictorian of her high school, summa cum laude at Princeton, a graduate of Yale Law School, and ultimately a Supreme Court Justice — is someone who had a whole litany of unfair advantages handed to her and is the poster child for un-American, merit-less advancement.

This afflicts both parties (Kennedys, Gore, Casey, Bayh, Ford, etc.), but for what it’s worth, more of the Democrats seem aware of the privilege granted them by accident of birth. This is obvious in their policy preferences as well as the practical effects of their governance measured by the laws they’ve passed. Sen. Kennedy provides a timely and telling example, as this comment by Bill Russell shows so well. I posted that along with this excellent reader comment at Balloon Juice to my twitter feed. Both are worth a quick listen/read.

Regardless, Jenna Hager may turn out to be a great correspondent. This isn’t really about her, but just how many of our mainstream pundits and reporters are the products of famous parents. As far as I know this wasn’t true of Walter Kronkite or even Dan Rather (though was true of Peter Jennings, sort of).

You may recognize this from just about every iPhone app commercial. (actual song starts about 20 seconds into the video)

The rest of the album, Unfamiliar Faces, is pretty good. Check it out.

Part 1: Tarantino isn’t Tarantino anymore

The foundation for my reaction to this movie comes down to Tarantino himself. His most recent movies were nearly all homages to genres of film. Each film was as much about the art of film as they were about the plot and story. Basically, everything from Kill Bill on is, in one form or another, a film study piece. I liked these movies, appreciating them for what they were. The plots were inane, the twists predictable or underwhelming, but they were what they were: homages to their genres. All of his schticks, from the over-the-top graphic violence to his music choices to his exaggerated characters were fun because they worked toward the greater goal of the film. Sure, he was making movies for film buffs, but they were fun and the non-film buff like me got exposed to something novel and new.

If you look at his recent work as a series, each subsequent film, though, had less plot & worse writing while adding more film buff catnip. Basterds simply continues the descent. It had no greater goal or homage as far as I could tell. It was all the schtick with nothing of substance holding it up. The schtick never did anything for me on its own. In fact, the more I think about it, I never really liked it. In Kill Bill: Vol 1, for example, the Crazy88s fight scene after Gogo dies didn’t add much to the film for me. It was long, disjointed, and pointless. It’s bad film making excused by the genre argument. (I just watched it again… same reaction).

So, with Basterds, I got the schtick, got that it was ‘vintage Tarantino’ but, honestly, I just didn’t like it. We got the long, drawn out dialog, the slow mo shots, the shots with long pauses, the unnecessary close-ups on desserts and incidental elements of the scene, all of it with just a few jokes & Brad Pitt holding it up. I was bored. The vintage has gone sour.

The jokes were funny, though.

Part 2: Historical revisionism, done poorly

What follows contains a major, huge, important spoiler that will ruin the only anticipation created by the film. Do not continue reading if you haven’t seen it and want to. Seriously.

(As an aside, I’m sure this is going to be the more controversial part of my review. I suspect I’m reading more into the film than intended by Tarantino, but this was my honest reaction to the film. Honestly, when the film lost me (right about when Mike Myers showed up), I just got bored and couldn’t just sit back and have fun with the film. I started thinking too much about the ‘why’ of this film. Heidi and the friends we were with both offered different suggestions for Tarantino’s intent with Basterds. No reason offered thus far has swayed me. If you think I’m not getting it, I’m happy to hear suggestions. It could make this section moot.)
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This month’s mix is mellower than most. Lots of the Kooks and two commercial songs: Doorway was used in the Palm Pre Facebook ad (Palm’s last/only non-f’d up Pre commercial) and Daylight is used in the Bacardi Rum ad (where the guy goes from room to room further back in time). Both songs are really good. Sway is another favorite, as is Shine On. Enjoy!

Via @keithlam & @scottconnor, found this great essay by Paul Graham, Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule. The essay describes my challenges with being a manager vs. a maker almost to a T. I was particularly struck by these paragraphs:

For someone on the maker’s schedule, having a meeting is like throwing an exception. It doesn’t merely cause you to switch from one task to another; it changes the mode in which you work.

I find one meeting can sometimes affect a whole day. A meeting commonly blows at least half a day, by breaking up a morning or afternoon. But in addition there’s sometimes a cascading effect. If I know the afternoon is going to be broken up, I’m slightly less likely to start something ambitious in the morning. I know this may sound oversensitive, but if you’re a maker, think of your own case. Don’t your spirits rise at the thought of having an entire day free to work, with no appointments at all? Well, that means your spirits are correspondingly depressed when you don’t. And ambitious projects are by definition close to the limits of your capacity. A small decrease in morale is enough to kill them off.

This is further complicated by the challenges of trying to be great at your job. I’ve found I can only be either a good manager or a good coder. Every single time I’ve tried to do both (outside of a very small team of similar aptitude/motivation), I perform below my own standards at one of them. Either I cut corners in my code or I ignore my team too long. In the worst case, I do a bit of both. So, at my day job, I make the choice of being a manager.

This is also basically why I work into the night when I am coding. Working after emails die down and Heidi goes to bed offers that unbroken expanse of time to be creative and just get stuff done. This is again in conflict with the manager’s schedule so jobs that require a morning start time (early being, say, 9AM) make it hard to stay up late.

There’s something to be said for the discipline of getting up early and getting to bed early, but building neat things isn’t necessarily a question of that kind of discipline. In fact, Graham gets to this point right at the end:

When we were working on our own startup, back in the 90s, I evolved another trick for partitioning the day. I used to program from dinner till about 3 am every day, because at night no one could interrupt me. Then I’d sleep till about 11 am, and come in and work until dinner on what I called “business stuff.” I never thought of it in these terms, but in effect I had two workdays each day, one on the manager’s schedule and one on the maker’s.

While at Fanzter, I did the dinner to 3AM stint pretty much every day. It was my most productive time. It also led to tension as we had morning people in the company and the schedules never quite lined up. I made it work, by coming in earlier (10/10:30 or so until dinner-ish). His pattern of dividing the day is also pretty much how I ended up doing it, and if I had thought about it more, I would’ve even formalized it. As it was, I always felt as if I was doing something wrong. That’s why it was so satisfying to read this. It’s like someone sat down and decided to explain how I work.

I’m going to make Heidi read this, and I’m going to paste this to my wall if I ever do a startup again.

PS. Graham’s Hackers and Painters is still one of my favorite books. It’s a collection of his essays and many are about the same subject as the one above: what makes coders and artists similar and what makes them tick. Some of it is over-the-top almost hubris/presumption, but in general he has some excellent observations. Great read if you liked what you read above. Many of the essays are available on his web site. Hackers and Painters (the essay) is one of my favorites.

While watching the Orbitz commercial above, I noticed the little HRC logo on the shirt of one of the golfers. I was watching on my SlingPlayer in a small window, so I wasn’t sure if I just imagined it. A little bit of Googling later and we find out that Orbitz reached out to HRC to feature the logo in the ad. From the press release:

Orbitz contacted HRC asking to license a piece of merchandise with an HRC logo for this national commercial which began airing on June 15 and will be seen nationally on 20 cable stations.

Orbitz has a strong history of reaching out to the LGBT community and in fact, scores a perfect 100% on our Corporate Equality Index. The ad fits into HRC’s strategy to try and broaden our reach to a larger segment of the population, both LGBT and straight, and continues to help disseminate our organization’s brand.

Though, I have to say, the rainbow towel on the golf bag… a bit much.

This ad will make me consider Orbitz the next time I have to travel, and I’m a Travelocity VIP member, so that’s saying something.

I was going through the tracks I got in one of the sampler albums that Amazon gives away for free and found this fascinating track that just stopped me in my tracks. The track is Mr. Gowrie from Charles Spearin’s Happiness Project. The album is a exploration of the music of speech, of cadence and tone. You can watch the video below where Spearin explains a bit of what he was doing.

This is a neat project. You can stream the tracks from the Happiness Project website where there’s an even longer and more interesting video explaining Spearin’s motivation for doing this. Gowrie is my favorite track on the album, though I’m re-streaming other tracks.

Love finding stuff like this.

I listened to a really interesting episode of KCRW’s On the Point while driving home today. The episode was about the stimulus, asking the question “With Unemployment at 9.5 Percent, Is the Stimulus Working?” It’s worth listening just to get a rundown on the state of the stimulus and what parameters might go into measuring its effectiveness over the long haul.

While I found the overall discussion interesting, I’m surprised at the current spate of “the stimulus isn’t working, we need another/shouldn’t have passed it” stories coming out. It’s gotten to the point that President Obama essentially responded in an editorial that appeared in the Post. Which, btw, produced the most amusing “about the author” note at the bottom of the editorial:

Thanks, WaPo. I might not have remembered that.

My thoughts are simply this: it’s too early to tell whether we need more action or whether the stimulus was a bad idea at least based on any new information since the stimulus passed.

In the episode of To the Point, Maya MacGuineas, of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, essentially lays out this argument and, in the same section, she or someone else suggests that what we’re really getting here is a rehash of the same debate that happened in Jan/Feb. Those that wanted a bigger stimulus are saying we need another stimulus, and those that opposed the stimulus are claiming that the stimulus didn’t work. That sounds about right, especially considering that the debate in the public sphere has the same folks on both sides of the original debate.

Another weird aspect to this debate is the constant calls of “no one got this right” or, as Atrios likes to state it, “No one could’ve predicted” when excusing why every economic forecast made by those in power (either government or leading banks/investment firms) was wrong. There have been several places that have gotten this right, including several blogs and major economists like Nouriel Roubini. It’s really hard to understand why they don’t get more airtime, and why discussions of their approach to policy doesn’t get more discussion. When they get on TV, they’re treated like Oracles rather than economists who have approaches we should understand.

My last point, and this is more general frustration when discussing the economy beyond just the stimulus, is that we don’t talk about the structural imbalances that drove the downturn in the first place. There’s very little serious discussion about how the real estate market got so hot, or why so many people were turning to home equity lines of credit in order to spend. There are cultural issues, certainly, but also failures of fundamental regulation.

We’ve also now gone through a 30 year period in which we’ve undergone a massive shift of wealth to the wealthiest Americans. Median wages have been stagnant for many Americans over the last 10 years, while the richest Americans have seen massive growth in their median wages. This is not consistent with historical norms, especially compared to the strongest periods of American growth.

I know it’s unrealistic to expect that discussion to make it into the mainstream conversation, but IMHO it’s the real issue.

Late again, so this mix is just a quick rundown of mostly new additions and infatuations. The Virgins album is clearly my favorite purchase this month. I’ve had a couple of different songs that I play every day either to or from work. You could do worse than giving it a try.

Here’s the full list:

Here’s the analogy that keeps coming up in my head as I try to summarize my thoughts.

Politics is like chess, especially at the presidential level. It takes skill to plan out the next 18-24 months in the future, especially as other potential candidates & their allies are all jostling and repositioning to make themselves look better. Good “players” recognize not only where they need to get to, but the steps required to get there. The next move is as important as the strategy for three moves down the road.

Bad players, on the other hand, tend to focus on the grand strategy and lose sight of the next few moves. That’s how you can four-move checkmate an opponent at the start of a game. They’re too busy thinking about a complicated opening or their middle game while you’re actually checkmating them.

Perhaps this is an esoteric analogy, but Palin’s move seems like that novice chess mistake. No matter what the actual reason, she’s missed the whole “quitter” angle. It’s a big mistake. The ads for the Republican primary practically write themselves. I can’t imagine Romney is going to back down from that fight or that some deal can be struck that puts her at the top of the ticket unopposed. There are too many competing voices and egos, as there always are, in Presidential politics.

No matter what is really going on here, her ambitions are toast. She’s hurt her own chances as a candidate. She’s diminished her ability to help other candidates in close races (key part of the endorsement quid pro quo at this level). I can’t see anything that gets better because of this, and I’ve tried hard to look at this from her perspective.

I keep imagining the following scenario playing out at Team Palin HQ:

1. Palin believes she has a legitimate shot at 2012, she knows she’s popular now, and therefore can create/cement a movement around her right now. Two more years in Alaska won’t get her any more visibility but will likely diminish it.
2. Some opportunity has presented itself to allow her to focus on that movement: a book deal, tv/radio gig, etc. This is the “higher calling” she feels is a must do, because it enables point 1 which means she can “save America.”
3. If she does this while being governor, she’ll be criticized for ignoring the work of being governor.
4. Ergo, she resigned to preempt that criticism so she can be free to pursue this opportunity.

That’s the most Palin friendly explanation I can see at this point. Just to get there, I’m conceding her claims of patriotism driving this (it wouldn’t be the first time she’s confused ambition and patriotism), and conceding that there’s no scandal. Even in this frame, nothing else makes sense.

So I keep coming back to that analogy: she’s going to get four-moved. She just hasn’t realized it yet.

I want to use this space to completely rip this movie which, quite honestly, may be the worst action movie ever made. Instead, I will simply summarize my reaction this way:

When you go see Transformers, bring your iPhone, Blackberry, or laptop. Surf the web, answer emails, do whatever until you hear a gunshot or explosion or ominous music. Start watching until someone starts talking without an explosion happening at the same time, at which point you can return to your other activity.

Or, better yet, just wait until it comes out on Netflix. Seriously. Save your money.