excessive buddy lists

Is there a glut in the "social networking" category, or am I imagining things? At last count, the Major Players in this segment are: Myspace; Facebook; BeBo; Virb; Multiply; Hi5; Friendster; Orkut; MyBlogLog.

Live Green in .. Plano??

Given the various demonstrations of solar and wind power at today's Live Green in Plano Expo, the last thing I expected to see was a portable generator, but .. there it was. Inside, the air conditioning was keeping everyone from sweating (the humidity was 90%+) yet the exterior doors were wide open .. I didn't know it was possible to cool the outside of a building.

I only stayed about an hour - being around that many Right Wingers was starting to give me hives. The only place in the MetroPlex that's further Right than Plano is The Park Cities - which surround the ultra-right Southern Methodist University.

Anyway, I did find some entertaining stuff at the Expo:

Aggie (Texas A&M) Horticulture - advised me on a "grass problem" that I have;
Computer Take Back - recycling old PCs (we talked about RoHS a bit);
Collin County Master Gardeners;
Dallas Organic Garden Club;
Eco Dallas - biodegradable forks, spoons, plates;
Foil Barrier Insulation;
Nature Maids (only green products);
Texas Campaign for the Environment.

I spotted a couple guys (part of the Event Staff?) riding on Segways, but couldn't get close enough to take a picture. They were whipping around the outdoor part of the Expo (hybrid cars, wind+solar demonstrations, faux grass) at a high rate of speed.

National Day of Reason

Today, I donated blood and voted (early voting is underway for the 12 May election). Both were for a good cause: the National Day of Reason.

I also accomplished one other notable task: I finally located a pint of Americone Dream (after looking for the past several weeks). Sadly, it is now but a fond memory. Thanks, Ben. Thanks, Jerry. Thanks, Stephen.

Imus v Limbaugh

One gets fired, while another gets a commendation from The Bush Regime. Wanna guess which?

Rush Limbaugh Plays "Barack the Magic Negro"

runoff politics

Another fun thing to do here in Texas is to play the Runoff Politics Game when voting in an election. The goal of the game is to select a weak opponent for the person you really want to win the (final) election. Texas doesn't require us to designate a party affiliation, so this makes it much easier to cross party lines and effectively gerrymander an election without rigging district boundaries.

Here's how to play (the rules are simple enough that even products of the Texas Education System can participate):

1- Consider the final race, not the current one.

2- Choose the candidate least likely to win against your desired winner of the general election (it helps if this is a partisan race, but is not required.

3- Make sure that General Election Loser is well funded enough (or well organized enough) to place 2nd, so that he'll make the cut for the runoff but stand almost no chance against the desired winner.

This is how the Republics win most races here. In the first election they cross party lines and vote for a weak challenger to their desired election winner. The only trick is to not overdo it, since you still want your candidate in "the finals".

An example is the 2007 race for Dallas Mayor (mostly a figurehead position, since the mayor here has the same vote -- 1 of 15 -- as any City Council member). There are ten candidates. The chance of any of them getting 50% of the vote in the upcoming (May 12) election is zero .. simply because none of them have broken away from the pack (an apropos metaphor, given Saturday's Kentucky Derby). Mathematically, it's possible they could each receive 10% of the vote, but odds are that the Dallas Southern Sector (mostly black) will support the only serious black candidate (who happens to be under an FBI Cloud Of Suspicion, but that's another rat hole). I fully expect those precincts to have high turnout because the (underlying?) City Council seats there have attracted many candidates and voter interest is high. The rest of the city will split their vote among the top 3 White Christian Republicans and one of them will run in the June 16th runoff election.

So, that's how I'll cast my vote: for the candidate who will provide the weaker opponent for the winner of the upcoming May 12 vote. Golly, this is such good sport. Speaking of good sports .. the Dallas Stars lost in the first round of the hockey playoffs, and the Dallas Mavericks are now poised to do likewise in the basketball playoffs. Like anyone really cares.

Texas Voter Suppression Act of 2007

Yet another example of the moral turpitude that defines Texas Politics: Todd Smith: "I Did it Because I'm Republican"

Note to William-Bob: This is not the famous Plano Bowler. This is the Fort Worth attorney, graduate of the right-wing Southern Methodist University (future home of the Bush Liberry).

Some background: Texas already has the 6th worst voter participation in the country (citation). For many years, the Republics have gerrymandered districts (think: Tom DeLay) to maintain control. Now that such bad behavior has become common knowledge, the Republics have resorted to scare tactics to create what's affectionately being called "The Voter Suppression Act of 2007" which will prevent additional (low income, minority) voters from casting their vote, due to the higher entrance barrier erected against a Don Quixote-type adversary (the "illegal Mexicans who are trying to vote" - of which there are none).

For those of you voyeurs (!) who'd like to actually read the bill (something that our elected representatives are NOT required to do), here is the text of Texas House Bill 218 (2007). Once it's signed by Governor PrettyHair, it'll take effect in September 2007. I fully expect Texas to rocket to 50th (read: dead last) place soon thereafter. The good news: Texas is still #1 in executions.

all cancers must be cured, right?

The venerable grid.org is pulling the plug at noon tomorrow! I noticed a blinking exclamation mark in the icon and it pointed here: All Good Things Come To An End… (no clue how long that notice will remain online).

Since my collective PCs have provided many years (7 years, 278 days) of compute power, I'll have to think where (or if) to redirect their energies (Literally. Running the CPUs at 100% requires more electricity than normal workloads).

Click the label: grid.org (below) if you'd like to see my musings on the topic over the past few years.

They're recommending these alternate projects:

1. World Community Grid
2. Distributed.net
3. Compute Against Cancer
4. Folding@Home
5. fightAIDS@Home
6. LHC@home
7. Distributed Folding
8. SETI@home

They're also recommending these sites to learn more about these and other projects:

1. EnterTheGrid ("The world's largest directory on Grid computing")
2. Grid Cafe (CERN)
3. Open Grid Forum
4. The Israeli Association of Grid Technologies

One of the things that kept me going for so many years was the team of which I was a member: Team Shield. It looks like I'll finish in 5th place: