If you're told you can't vote -- call 866-OUR-VOTE

The good guys are ready for the big fight. They've got a strike team standing by to fight GOP voter suppression attacks ...

Do you know what to do? (Scripting News)

... Call 866- OUR-VOTE or go to 866OURVOTE.org to get information on where to vote and the facts on your right to vote. A trained team of advisors is available to help you resolve your problem...

The Singularity University

It's easy to mock this group, not least because of the wealth and power of some of the attendees ...

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: This post will self-destruct in five minutes

... On Saturday, September 20, 2008, a carefully selected group of the tech world's best and brightest assembled in a windowless conference room at NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley - barely a mile from the Googleplex as the rocket flies - to discuss preparations for our impending post-human future. This was the founding meeting of Singularity University, an academic institution whose mission, as founder Dr. Peter Diamandis told the elite audience, would be 'to assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies (bio, nano, info, etc); and to apply, focus and guide these to the best benefit of humanity and its environment.'...

The group is keeping a low profile, for obvious reasons. Neither Vernor Vinge nor Bill Joy attended.

When it comes to the "rapture of the nerds" I hold the middle ground. I fear the era of transcendent non-biological minds, but I think it's beyond 2060. Unlike Nicholas Carr, I'll avoid the easy sarcasm. I'm glad they're thinking about the problem. Maybe they'll figure out how we could create an artificial mind that wouldn't be, for example, insane or murderous.

Winning for the wrong reasons

If Obama/Biden win, which I still cannot believe, we will ask whether America saved itself for the right reasons or the wrong reasons.

The right reason would be that the American people cleared the cobwebs away. That we became serious. That we all recognized the corruption, the lies, the cruelty, the stupidity (oh the stupidity), the brutality and the greed of the 1996-2008 GOP.

The right reason would be that we became ashamed of our panicked response to the attacks of 9/11, that we saw all the blood and gold we've spilled like water.

The right reason would be that we wanted a new start, and to find out what the GOP has really done.

Then there's the wrong reason.

The wrong reason is that we're still pithed, but we're semi-blindly doing the right thing as a reaction to the news of the past weeks and the disastrous Sarah Palin.

Paul Krugman seems to think we'll make the right choice for the right reasons. Brad DeLong thinks we're making the right choice for the wrong reasons ...

Grasping Reality with Both Hands: The Semi-Daily Journal Economist Brad DeLong:

.... I think voters would like to be serious, but don't know how. And the media doesn't provide them with a way to be serious--serving as trusted intermediaries to tell Americans about candidates' likely policies and their likely effects is the last thing from reporters' minds. Recall New York Times editor Jill Abramson's sorry excuse that the Times hadn't run stories about issues because the reporters competent to cover policy substance were all dragged off to write about the financial crisis.

Paul is optimistic about the future of the press corps. I am not. I think that the Republican slime machine and their friends the Heathers in the press corps will be back--that this year the normal rules of political-journalistic slime have been temporarily interrupted.

We do, I think, still live in Nixonland...

I'm with DeLong on this one. We have not come to terms with our mistakes. In fact, we could very easily elect Palin/McCain and continue the long descent.

I'm not proud. I gave up on that when Bush was re-elected. I'll accept doing the right thing for the wrong reasons -- but I'll go easy on celebrating America's recovery. That's years away at best, and it's no sure thing.

The thoughtful slime mold

So you think you understand thought?

the physics arXiv blog: Slime Mould intelligence points to a new model of AI

...Suddenly, you’ve got a new kind of AI on your hands and the origins of cellular intelligence don’t seem so obscure, after all...

No, you don't understand thought at all.

Now about the google-mind ...

Jay Cooke State Park - MN

We do well with road trips. Better than one might expect. Our latest 2 day road trip to Duluth Minnesota was another triumph, not the least because we couldn't get a room in Duluth.

Too many tourists.

Instead we ended up in Cloquet, a lumber town that reminds me of Williamsport, Pennsylvania -- where we did our residency. It's an interesting town in its own right, but our kids didn't allow us to explore the remarkable used book store we passed by (in the old town, up the hill, in a beautiful old building).

We got lucky on the drive from Cloquet to Duluth. We opted for the road less traveled, and that took us through Jay Cooke state park.

Wow. How did we miss this gem? Try following the river with Google Earth, and visit the photos you find. I want to try the suspension bridge over the Saint Louis River (lots of hydro power, so hardly pristine, but still fascinating). It's about 2-3 hours north of the Twin Cities, so easy to visit.

Looks like some superb cross country skiing there. If I'm very careful I might be able to turn my 6 yo daughter into a cross-country skier -- and then I'd have a case for a trip!

Frank Rich: white guys aren't all bad

I was reading in Politico that the last Democrat to win a majority of white non-Hispanic Americans was Lyndon Johnson.

Before the civil rights movement.

I'm melanin-deprived so that's one of my tribes. I can't even claim a Jewish-exemption (white non-Hispanic Jews do vote Democrat). Yeah, I'm sort of Korean by adoption, but I still get sun burn from incandescent lights.

No wonder, in my heart, I still believe Palin/McCain will win -- albeit at a hideous cost. It comes with my tribe.

Frank Rich, also a member of the inheritors of sin, tries to tell the world we're not all bad ...

Frank Rich - In Defense of White Americans - NYTimes.com

... Nor is America’s remaining racism all that it once was, or that the McCain camp has been hoping for it to be. There are even “racists for Obama,” as Politico labels the phenomenon: White Americans whose distrust of black people in general crumbles when they actually get to know specific black people, including a presidential candidate who extends a genuine helping hand in a time of national crisis.

The original “racist for Obama,” after all, was none other than Obama’s own white, Kansas-raised grandmother, the gravely ill Madelyn Dunham, whom he visited in Hawaii on Friday. In “Dreams From My Father,” Obama wrote of how shaken he was when he learned of her overwhelming fear of black men on the street. But he weighed that reality against his unshakeable love for her and hers for him, and he got past it...

In a similar vein, it's instructive to google on "voting for the ni**er", but I wouldn't mark that as an entirely positive sign of euro-enlightenment.

It will be a good thing for civilization when my tribe becomes just another American minority. Not too long now ...

When John McCain became George Wallace

It hasn't been a good week for John McCain.

Sarah Palin spent more on new outfits than most of his voters make in two years. Her make-up artist earns many times what they earn.

He needed some good news. News that would help him get, say, Pennsylvania.

So when the head of is Pennsylvania campaign called with a miraculous gift, a woman attacked by a big black man who carved the letter B on her face, McCain jumped at it.

Palin phoned the young victim. McCain phoned her. His campaign manager called journalists with all the racy details.

On that day John McCain became George Wallace, the tactical race baiter. He'd abandoned the last shreds of honor in a lunge for the brass ring.

It might have worked. It still might work.

Problem is, 2008 Pennsylvania is not 1960 Alabama. The police were not duped. The public was obviously more skeptical than McCain. Within a day or so the "victim" confessed. She'd faked the whole thing.

McCain's Pennsylvania control went into desperate damage control spin. Their spin is even less convincing than the original story ...

Talking Points Memo | Time for Answers

... As Greg Sargent reported yesterday, McCain Pennsylvania communications director Peter Feldman pushed reporters on a highly incendiary version of Todd's hoax -- providing reporters with quotes from the fictitious attacker and telling them the the "B" scratched on Todd's face stood for "Barack." As the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson aptly put it, Feldman's actions showed "not just a willingness to believe it but an eagerness to incite a ... racial backlash against the Obama campaign."

Our reporting did not find any direct evidence that the McCain campaign's national headquarters played a role pushing the story.

However, the national campaign has now come forward and lied about what happened in Pennsylvania. McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers has now told NBC that alleged quotes from the McCain campaign in early reports of the story were actually the product of "sloppy reporting" and that they were actually quotes from the Pittsburgh police.

This is simply not credible.

Initial reports specifically quote the McCain campaign. And at least two sources involved in the contemporaneous reporting have come forward and said on the record that the quotes came directly from the McCain campaign. To believe that two separate local news organizations made the identical mistake with the same quotes and are now both covering it up is simply not credible. But that is what Rogers is now claiming....

... Gov. Palin did call Todd after the purported attack, as did Sen. McCain. And news of these calls was provided to the press.

The involvement of the candidates and specifically the release of such information -- which was clearly intended to bump up interest in the story -- shows some level of involvement by the national campaign...

I think I know how Obama will handle this.

He'll be gracious and dignified. He'll express his sympathy to the young woman and her family. He'll extend his forgiveness.

There's no better way to twist the knife.

I've said for weeks that I expected McCain to win this, and for Palin to become President within six months.

Now I'm not so sure. Now I'm ready to say it could go either way.

If McCain wins though, he'll have destroyed the village he wanted to save.

Only Shakespeare could do justice to the tragedy of John McCain.

Wassup 2008 - wonderful campaign fodder

I'd never seen the original beer commercial.

Sadly, I've now seen it. I had to figure out where the vastly better 2008 version came from: YouTube - Wassup 2008.

Diamonds from coal.

Lessons from the faked Todd attack

The unhappy young woman who claimed a big black man carved a 'B' on her face has admitted she made everything up.

She'll face charges from the Pittsburgh police, who were neither deceived nor amused.

We learned a few things however.

Matt Drudge was very keen on the story, he believed it immediately and deeply. Matt Drudge is a racist idiot.

Michelle Malkin is less stupid that Matt Drudge. Who knew? She wasn't fooled.

McCain and Palin both personally called Todd. They are desperate ... and credulous.

A Fox news exec said proof the story was false would doom McCain's bid -- because it would show he was so desperate he'd resort to race baiting.

He was right about playing into race baiting. In a rational nation this would indeed doom Palin/McCain, but that's not our world.

My revised iPhone demands: please buy a Google gPhone

Six months ago I updated my "iPhone demands" of August 2007. It's a good time for an update.

I'm now a bloodied and battered iPhone power user, with a cobbled together PDA suite roughly comparable to the Palm @ 1994. Comparable in functionality, but vastly harder to assemble and implement.

So I feel "ok" about my iPhone, but I ain't jumping up and down with joy. Apple isn't solving my problems.

I understand, I'm a tiny demographic. Really, I'm more the gPhone type -- which is probably bad news for Google. If I'm their customer then they're probably in trouble.

I'm invested in the iPhone though. So, in the interests of the tiny number of consumers somewhat like me, what is there to grouch about?

A lot. Here's the short list:

1. Copy, Cut, Paste: This has been on the critical list for over a year. If Apple doesn't put this in with the next iPhone update I would recommend choosing a gPhone for this reason alone. It's not just the missing functionality, it's a sign of lunacy.
2. Business focus: Truncated itineraries. There are other indicators, but that one's a classic. The iPhone is not ready for serious business use. This one example would send any non-geek exec screaming back to their BlackBerry.
   
3. Search across app domains. Also missing for ever a year. Apple added search for contacts (grudgingly), but even there it's limited to name and business. Google, oddly, remembers search.
   
4. Tasks at least comparable to the 1994 PalmPilot tasks: Appigo is a terrific company, but they don't have a desktop solution (see sync cable access, below) and they're dependent on relatively feeble cloud solutions (feeble, but still better than MobileMe).
5. Synchronization with Outlook at least comparable to the modern Palm OS (in other words, flawed, but usable). See business, above.
   
6. FileMaker Remote: Yes, Apple doesn't own FileMaker -- but they might as well.
7. Synchronize notes. See Appigo, above.
8. Tethering:Let the iPhone bridge a computer to its net connection. I'll give Apple a break here, it's most likely AT&T is afraid iPhone tethering will bring down their fragile data network.
   
9. Calendar and Contacts API: MobileMe smells abandoned. The functionality is lousy, the documentation is worse. We need a cloud solution. The only real contender is Google Apps, but we can't do over-the-air sync without an app on the phone that can work with an application API.
10. A competitive app marketplace: The absence of OTA sync with Google Apps is a worrying sign that Apple is blocking important competitors.
    
11. Firewire charging: We know this isn't coming back, but it's a huge annoyance. Every automotive iPhone accessory I own is defunct. I've got a bunch of power adapters that are now of limited use. Big grudge here.
    
12. External keyboard support.
    
13. Third party access to the sync cable.
14. Site-selective synchronization - so can sync at both work and home, but not send home data to a work machine.

There's a lot that works of course. The iPhone's iTunes lock-in/integration is a real plus, and the third party apps are great. (Apple's own apps range from quite good to pleasant but mediocre.)

Still, there's an impressive list of things that are still missing.

If you're a geek like me, and you don't need the iPod functionality, I suggest waiting a few months for the next version of the gPhone.

If you're in my tribe and you've already made the iPhone commitment, then you have my condolences. We have a bittersweet beverage, and not that much clout with Apple. The best we can do is urge our friends and colleagues to buy a gPhone; gPhone sales are the one thing that might stir Apple to just a wee bit of interest in our tiny market.

The New York Times is running out of money ...

This should cheer Rupert Murdoch and the GOP:

New York Times (NYT) Running On Fumes

... The company has only $46 million of cash. It appears to be burning more than it is taking in--and plugging the hole with debt. Specifically, it is funding operations by rolling over short-term loans--the kind that banks worldwide are cancelling or making prohibitively expensive to save their own skins...

I wonder if Google wants a newspaper ...

I'm astounded. I thought they were doing much better than this. Heck, I used to pay for their online services until they made that free ..,

A moon of Saturn is only sort of real ...

This reminds me of the start of Pratchett's "Moving Pictures" ...

Quantum Hyperion | Cosmic Variance

... Zurek and Paz calculate ... that if Hyperion were isolated from the rest of the universe, it would evolve into a non-localized quantum state over a period of about 20 years. It’s an impressive example of quantum uncertainty on a macroscopic scale...

Hyperion is one of Saturn's moons.

Read the entire article to learn how Hyperion decoheres. Meaning stays real (albeit with locality).

The NYT's giant Obama endorsement - highlights

I don't recall the NYT going to quite this length when they endorsed Kerry or Gore. I get the feeling that when Palin/McCain wins their despair will rival mine ...

Editorial - Barack Obama - Editorial Board - Endorsement - NYTimes.com

October 24, 2008

Barack Obama for President

Hyperbole is the currency of presidential campaigns, but this year the nation’s future truly hangs in the balance...

... As tough as the times are, the selection of a new president is easy. After nearly two years of a grueling and ugly campaign, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has proved that he is the right choice to be the 44th president of the United States.

... Mr. Obama has met challenge after challenge, growing as a leader and putting real flesh on his early promises of hope and change. He has shown a cool head and sound judgment. We believe he has the will and the ability to forge the broad political consensus that is essential to finding solutions to this nation’s problems.

In the same time, Senator John McCain of Arizona has retreated farther and farther to the fringe of American politics, running a campaign on partisan division, class warfare and even hints of racism. His policies and worldview are mired in the past. His choice of a running mate so evidently unfit for the office was a final act of opportunism and bad judgment that eclipsed the accomplishments of 26 years in Congress.

Given the particularly ugly nature of Mr. McCain’s campaign, the urge to choose on the basis of raw emotion is strong. But there is a greater value in looking closely at the facts of life in America today and at the prescriptions the candidates offer. The differences are profound. ...

.... Mr. McCain talks about reform a lot, but his vision is pinched. His answer to any economic question is to eliminate pork-barrel spending — about $18 billion in a $3 trillion budget — cut taxes and wait for unfettered markets to solve the problem.

Mr. Obama is clear that the nation’s tax structure must be changed to make it fairer. That means the well-off Americans who have benefited disproportionately from Mr. Bush’s tax cuts will have to pay some more. Working Americans, who have seen their standard of living fall and their children’s options narrow, will benefit. Mr. Obama wants to raise the minimum wage and tie it to inflation, restore a climate in which workers are able to organize unions if they wish and expand educational opportunities.

Mr. McCain, who once opposed President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy as fiscally irresponsible, now wants to make them permanent. And while he talks about keeping taxes low for everyone, his proposed cuts would overwhelmingly benefit the top 1 percent of Americans while digging the country into a deeper fiscal hole.

... While Iraq’s leaders insist on a swift drawdown of American troops and a deadline for the end of the occupation, Mr. McCain is still taking about some ill-defined “victory.” As a result, he has offered no real plan for extracting American troops and limiting any further damage to Iraq and its neighbors.

Mr. Obama was an early and thoughtful opponent of the war in Iraq, and he has presented a military and diplomatic plan for withdrawing American forces. Mr. Obama also has correctly warned that until the Pentagon starts pulling troops out of Iraq, there will not be enough troops to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan...

... Mr. Obama would have a learning curve on foreign affairs, but he has already showed sounder judgment than his opponent on these critical issues. His choice of Senator Joseph Biden — who has deep foreign-policy expertise — as his running mate is another sign of that sound judgment. Mr. McCain’s long interest in foreign policy and the many dangers this country now faces make his choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska more irresponsible...

... Mr. Obama wants to reform the United Nations, while Mr. McCain wants to create a new entity, the League of Democracies — a move that would incite even fiercer anti-American furies around the world.

Unfortunately, Mr. McCain, like Mr. Bush, sees the world as divided into friends (like Georgia) and adversaries (like Russia). He proposed kicking Russia out of the Group of 8 industrialized nations even before the invasion of Georgia. We have no sympathy for Moscow’s bullying, but we also have no desire to replay the cold war. The United States must find a way to constrain the Russians’ worst impulses, while preserving the ability to work with them on arms control and other vital initiatives...

.. Under Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the justice system and the separation of powers have come under relentless attack. Mr. Bush chose to exploit the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, the moment in which he looked like the president of a unified nation, to try to place himself above the law.

Mr. Bush has arrogated the power to imprison men without charges and browbeat Congress into granting an unfettered authority to spy on Americans. He has created untold numbers of “black” programs, including secret prisons and outsourced torture. The president has issued hundreds, if not thousands, of secret orders. We fear it will take years of forensic research to discover how many basic rights have been violated.

Both candidates have renounced torture and are committed to closing the prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

But Mr. Obama has gone beyond that, promising to identify and correct Mr. Bush’s attacks on the democratic system. Mr. McCain has been silent on the subject.

... [McCain] helped the White House push through the appalling Military Commissions Act of 2006, which denied detainees the right to a hearing in a real court and put Washington in conflict with the Geneva Conventions, greatly increasing the risk to American troops.

The next president will have the chance to appoint one or more justices to a Supreme Court that is on the brink of being dominated by a radical right wing. Mr. Obama may appoint less liberal judges than some of his followers might like, but Mr. McCain is certain to pick rigid ideologues. He has said he would never appoint a judge who believes in women’s reproductive rights...

.. It will be an enormous challenge just to get the nation back to where it was before Mr. Bush, to begin to mend its image in the world and to restore its self-confidence and its self-respect. Doing all of that, and leading America forward, will require strength of will, character and intellect, sober judgment and a cool, steady hand.

Mr. Obama has those qualities in abundance. Watching him being tested in the campaign has long since erased the reservations that led us to endorse Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primaries. He has drawn in legions of new voters with powerful messages of hope and possibility and calls for shared sacrifice and social responsibility.

Mr. McCain, whom we chose as the best Republican nominee in the primaries, has spent the last coins of his reputation for principle and sound judgment to placate the limitless demands and narrow vision of the far-right wing. His righteous fury at being driven out of the 2000 primaries on a racist tide aimed at his adopted daughter has been replaced by a zealous embrace of those same win-at-all-costs tactics and tacticians.

He surrendered his standing as an independent thinker in his rush to embrace Mr. Bush’s misbegotten tax policies and to abandon his leadership position on climate change and immigration reform...

... Mr. Obama has withstood some of the toughest campaign attacks ever mounted against a candidate. He’s been called un-American and accused of hiding a secret Islamic faith. The Republicans have linked him to domestic terrorists and questioned his wife’s love of her country. Ms. Palin has also questioned millions of Americans’ patriotism, calling Republican-leaning states “pro-America.”

This politics of fear, division and character assassination helped Mr. Bush drive Mr. McCain from the 2000 Republican primaries and defeat Senator John Kerry in 2004. It has been the dominant theme of his failed presidency.

The nation’s problems are simply too grave to be reduced to slashing “robo-calls” and negative ads. This country needs sensible leadership, compassionate leadership, honest leadership and strong leadership. Barack Obama has shown that he has all of those qualities.

If/when Palin/McCain win, it will be because we don't deserve the opportunity Obama/Biden are offering us.

Arne Carlson endorses Obama

Excuse me. I'm struggling to beat back some tiny flickers of hope. This latest endorsement ...

Must repeat ..."President $150,000 Palin".

Phew. That was tough, but I'm back to feeling doomed.

This announcement really did surprise me ...

Talking Points Memo | Rumblings, Pt. 3

Former Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson (R) is endorsing Barack Obama.

Usually when you hear these sorts of stories it's someone who was governor for like one term in the 1970s or something, when party divisions were very different from today. Carlson, though, was Minnesota Governor for most of the 1990s. My recollection is that he basically got run out by the hard right faction of the GOP in the state. But he was a moderate, but a genuine Republican. He cited Bachmann's tirade as one thing that pushed him to endorse.

Carlson was despised by the Minnesota right. He never got a primary endorsement, but he won every time he ran. He'd still be governor but for term limits. Heck, I might even have voted for him once.

Carlson was one of the last of the old, responsible, sane, pre-Gingrich Republicans. He's remembered well in Minnesota.

His endorsement matters here.

We have another Minnesota Republican like Carlson -- Representative Jim Ramstad. I wouldn't vote for him, but he's definitely respectable. Nobody serious bothers to run against him, but he's quitting politics anyway.

I notice he doesn't seem to have done any campaigning for McCain/Palin, though technically he endorsed McCain in Congress. I wonder if he could turn.

If the GOP loses the presidency, and launches an internal reform, people like Carlson and Ramstad could help craft a respectable alternative.

Must beat back hope, must beat back hope ...

In Our Time - Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems

The first two programmes of the 2008 season were a bit dull, but Melvyn has picked up the pace nicely with a piece on Godel’s incompleteness theorem …

BBC - Radio 4 In Our Time - Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems
…Marcus du Sautoy, Professor of Mathematics at Wadham College, University of Oxford
John Barrow, Professor of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge and Gresham Professor of Geometry
Philip Welch, Professor of Mathematical Logic at the University of Bristol..

Terrific guests and Melvyn was in good form. He seemed genuinely interested, whereas in the prior two I thought he was pushing the topic along. He does very well with math and physics, perhaps because they aren’t his primary study.

I was a bit disappointed they never mentioned Hofstadter’s Godel, Escher, Bach, but it has been about 30 years (!) since that was a best-seller. Yes, I not only read the entire thing thoroughly, I also took copious notes (since lost). I was one of four people who actually read it.

Towards the end of the show one of the guests mentions that geometry was not complex enough to trigger the incompleteness clause that one can state true things that cannot be proven true. Number systems of course are incomplete in the Godelian sense, and he thought that was somehow (lost me here) related to the role of prime numbers arising from arithmetic systems. In the same context he mentioned that Turing’s proof of the Halting Problem was equivalent to the incompleteness theorem.[1]

Naturally I immediately leapt to wondering if someday someone will prove that the relationship between the primes and Godel’s theorem means the unpredictability of prime numbers is a likewise provable. That would be reassuring to users of encryption systems!

[1] Everyone’s heard of Wikipedia, so why doesn’t h2g2 get more credit? Their discussion of the Halting Problem is much more sophisticated than the Wikipedia article.