K-Squared Ramblings

Tori, 2012 and Doublespeak

• Cool: Tori Amos’ classic Little Earthquakes is today’s MP3 deal of the day at Amazon. #
• 2012 Hoax says, “How to survive 2012: Do not piss off Chuck Norris.” Sounds like a good idea! #
• WTF? Louisiana (ex) Justice of the Peace who opposes interracial marriage STILL claims he isn’t racist? #
• And Maine bigots insist they aren’t anti-gay, they’re just “protecting” marriage…from people who want get married. #

Microsoft Stores, Sherpa, and Political BS

• Huh. Still not sure what the point of a Microsoft retail store is going to be, but they’re opening in Mission Viejo. #
• Why do some people feel the need to make $#!7 up to enhance political messages? Don’t they know it undermines their position when exposed? #

Sherpa for Android

• Trying out Sherpa. It thinks I’m still in San Diego. And local search turns up several places that have been closed for years. #
• Sherpa also has lots of miscategorized stuff. It’s a Grind as groceries instead of coffee? #
• Wow…Sherpa lists the “Irvine Meadows Amphitheater.” Where are they getting their data? #

Persepolis, Robo-Ferrets & Drinking for Science

• Just watched Persepolis a few weeks ago. Very good. With the current mess in Iran, @netflix is recommending it #
• Gotta love this story title: Robotic Ferret Used to Fight Smugglers. #
• Drinking…FOR SCIENCE! #

Thoughts on #AmazonFail (or is that #SorryAmazon?)

At this point, the only (useful) official word from Amazon as to why thousands of books with LGBT themes disappeared from search results over the weekend is the “embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error” statement sent to Seattle Post-Intelligencer and other sources, also mentioning a number of other categories impacted. This article also has the unconfirmed word from former Amazon employee Mike Daisey that it was a matter of user error where someone mixed up some tags while working on the site, and the change just propagated globally.

Now, some thoughts:

1. If this was intentional, on anyone’s part, it was both wrong (as discrimination) and stupid (as bad PR and as throwing away potential sales). If it was unintentional, it was still stupid.

2. Amazon really dropped the ball on PR. They should have responded much sooner (yes, it was a holiday weekend), and with something more detailed than “It was a glitch.” Something like, “We’re sorry, it was an unintentional error and we’re trying to fix it” would have gone a long way toward preventing the outrage from spiraling out of control. And we still don’t have anything more detailed than “ham-fisted cataloging error,” or (as has been pointed out) an apology to the authors and communities affected.

2a. And seriously, you’re an internet pioneer: use the Internet. You have email, you have official Twitter accounts, you have a space to put messages on your home page. Use them.

3. Twitter demonstrates that the internet is now fast enough and ubiquitous enough that people can develop a mob mentality without actually being in close proximity to one another. This includes not just people whipping each other into a frenzy, but people taking more permanent actions (deleting accounts) based on incomplete information.

4. No matter how many times something has been debunked (i.e. the “hacker” who claimed to have hacked the site), someone will see it who hasn’t seen the response and repost it as true. (You’d think I would have learned this from comics discussion forums by now.)

5. Canned responses from customer service are not authoritative statements of company policy. Half the time they’re not even answering the question you asked.

6. There are really two issues: (A) Adults-only books are being hidden from search results. (B) Books were being misclassified as adults-only.

7. Combining #5 and #6, when a CSR monkey answers A, that’s not an official statement of policy on B.

8. Removing adults-only books from sales rankings is a dumb way to hide them from search results. Add a flag and let the user choose whether or not to include them like Google, Flickr, etc.

Vote Earth?

Tomorrow night (March 28) is “Earth Hour” — a campaign to raise awareness of global warming by turning off your lights for one hour, from 8:30-9:00 PM local time.

It’s an interesting idea, but a weird one. For one thing, global warming seems an odd fit. Yeah, there’s a connection, but it seems more directly tied to pollution and simple conservation of finite resources. For another, it really reminds me of those campaigns to protest gasoline prices by not buying gas on a particular day, without changing your driving habits.

Then there’s the fact that it’s presented as a “global election between Earth and global warming.” Not only is this silly, it’s also the kind of black-and-white with-us-or-against us thinking that just polarizes people — and indeed there are a bunch of jackasses running around shouting about how they’re going to turn on every single light in their house during that hour just to piss off the “treehuggers.” (Apparently these people have money to burn even in this economy, and enjoy breathing smog.)

And of course, there’s the question of what to do with that hour.

Does it count if you leave the house? Chances are you’d be turning the lights off anyway.

How about non-electric lighting? A candlelit dinner, perhaps? You’re still consuming resources to produce light. A flashlight would have the same problem: you’re using power that was put into a battery.

So that cuts out things like reading, or playing cards, or board games.

TVs and computer monitors produce light. Music players use electricity. A stove uses either electricity or gas. If you turn off the lights and turn on the TV, that’s not really much of a savings, is it?

So really, you have one hour at home in the dark, at an hour earlier than you’re likely to sleep, and you can’t use anything with light or electricity. That really cuts back on available activities. You’re pretty much down to conversation. Maybe stargazing. A few other things that don’t require light.

Actually, I guess it would be an interesting experiment/reminder of what night is like without artificial lighting — sort of a voluntary power outage without candles and flashlights.

The more lasting impact will be to simply not waste energy. Turn off lights when you’re not using them. Turn off your computer when you’re not using it (or at least put it to sleep). Unplug appliances that have standby modes when you’re out of town. Don’t run your heater or air conditioner when you’re not home, unless you’ve got it on a timer to get the place ready for when you arrive.

You’ll save money on your electric bill. The power company will use less fuel. They’ll pump out less pollution, and reserves will last longer. Everyone wins.

(Found while surfing Blogexplosion.)

CentOS List Hijack

• Pissed off because some a-hole w/ a centos.org addr posted multiple copies of a racist antisemitic diatribe to the CentOS announcement list #
• CentOS sent an apology to lists. Said spammers forged the sender’s address to get past moderation. Look back, name doesn’t match address. #

Inauguration Speech

No sound here, so I’m reading a transcript of Obama’s speech. Based on its length, I’m guessing he’s still giving it. #

Geekery: WiFi and Presidential HTML

Hmm. I’ve used internet cafes while travelling, but have no idea wher to find one w/in 20mi of home. WiFi hotspots, OTOH, are everywhere. #

Political geekery; saw a bumper sticker reading </bush>. Only prob: tag should be <president name="bush">. Did I mention geekery? #

East/West, TV & Sudafed

• The East/West terminology always bugged me too: http://xkcd.com/503/ But then, living in California, I figure we’re also Pacific Rim. #
• What makes people think it’s OK to post insults/threats just because your old blog post isn’t what they wanted to find on Google? #
• You know, it would be nice if ABC would SAY things like “In 3 weeks” when they’re going to preempt Pushing Daisies 2 weeks in a row. #
• I like having (nearly) full movement in my arm again. #
• End of an era: Our last box of real Sudafed has expired. #

Cross-posted at LiveJournal.

Making Every Vote Count

A few years back, some sort of registration snafu* left my name off the rolls at my polling place and I had to cast a provisional ballot. I remember being extremely unhappy that night when everyone declared the winner and I knew for a fact that my vote had not been counted. Sure, it would be eventually, but it felt like my vote didn’t matter.

Yesterday, I read that as many as 3 million mail-in and provisional ballots might remain to be counted in California. This morning, that estimate’s been refined revised to 1.6 million [edit: the official count is coming in at at least 2.3 million; see below]. There are a number of races, including Proposition 11, that are too close to call with that many votes still in play. It’s at least 3 times the current margin of victory for Prop 8 or margin of defeat for Prop 4. If those voters lean heavily one way or the other, it could flip the results once the final score is tallied. (It’s not likely, but it’s certainly possible.)

One thing that hasn’t been clear from the various articles I’ve read is which ballots are left, and when are they counted. Fortunately, the CA Secretary of State has a page that explains exactly that.

• Mail-in ballots that arrive before election day are verified against the voter rolls ahead of time, then counted along with the in-person votes once the polls close.
• Mail-in ballots that arrive on election day, or are dropped off at a polling place, are set aside until the rest are done, and are verified and counted along with provisional ballots.

This is all handled at the county level, which is why the state office doesn’t have solid numbers yet (there’s a PDF report they’ll be updating as data comes in, but all the numbers are still blank [Edit: as of Thursday evening, numbers for about 2/3 of counties are in, and they total about 2.3 million]), and they have 28 days to finish the task. I’m sure that’s a holdover from the days when it would really take that long to count everything. I imagine it won’t take nearly that long to sign off on the results.

So the lesson is this: If you want your vote counted in the first wave of votes that everyone sees, you must either:

• Send in your mail-in ballot early enough that it arrives before election day.
• Vote in person.

*I never did find out what caused it, but my best guess is that after I moved, my registration got lost in the mail and I was left on the rolls at my old precinct.

Election Fallout (and Conan)

• Going to bed. Very glad to see Obama elected. Disappointed that Prop 8 looks like it might pass. #
• Wait… 3 MILLION mail-in & provisional ballots remain to be counted in CA? Why on earth are they calling ANY race yet? #
• Surprised to find no jokes online using the pun “Anvil of Cron,” just typos. There’s always S*P’s Google Crom. #
• More on the 2.6-3 MILLION mail-in & provisional ballots still to be counted in California. #

Thoughts on a Post-Election Morning

First, I’m very happy that Barack Obama won the Presidential election. This was the first time since 1996 that I’ve actually liked a candidate for the office. While I did vote for Al Gore and John Kerry, their main qualifications in my mind were that they weren’t George W. Bush, whose policies and leadership style bothered me as soon as he stepped into the ring in the 2000 primaries. It was very nice to have someone I could vote for this year, and not just someone to vote against — and even nicer to see him win.

Second, John McCain gave an astonishingly gracious concession speech. Where was this guy during the campaign? Or during the last two years? This was more like the McCain I voted for in the 2000 primary.

Believe it or not, I think it’s a good thing that the Democrats didn’t pick up that filibuster-proof 60th Senate seat. One of the worst problems with the current administration is the way that a single party just rammed their policies through over all opposition during the time that both houses of Congress and the Presidency were controlled by the same party — and it cost them in the 2006 mid-term elections and in this election. With luck, Obama’s victory speech [edit: linked to the wrong article*.] will set the tone for a somewhat more cooperative government. At the very least, it was a nice change from the sort of “We won, now f— off” attitude that I remember from Bush, Cheney, and Republican supporters in 2004. (Personally I think 53% to 46% in the popular vote is still relatively close, but 4 years ago we were told that 51% to 49% was a “mandate” to do whatever the hell they wanted with the office.)

I’m disappointed to see that California voted to ban same-sex marriage. Gee, too bad about the 18,000 marriages you just invalidated in the name of “protecting” marriage. On the plus side, the margin for Proposition 8 was a lot smaller (52% to 48%) than the last time (Proposition 22 in 2001, which won 61% to 38%) the state voted on the issue, and younger voters polled as overwhelmingly rejecting it. This implies that CA society is, over time, coming to the conclusion that maybe it isn’t such a threat after all.

Also worth noting: Prop 4, the parental-notification requirement for abortion, is trailing 52% to 48%, the same spread as Prop 8. Since I’m sure proponents will try again in a few years, these numbers should forestall any grousing about how the people have already made their will clear when someone floats the idea of amending the state constitution to remove a discriminatory clause a few years from now.

*When I first posted this, I accidentally linked to the article on the transition team instead of the speech transcript. The URLs were very similar: 11/04/obama.transcript vs. 11/05/obama.transition.

Election Day

• It’s like raaaaaain/on Election Day. #
• Voted! Shorter line than expected. #
• This morning’s voting experience. #
• #votereport #good Only 30 minute wait, no problems with machine around 7am in Orange County, CA. No idea what it’s like now, though. #
• Voting freebies: Might hit Ben & Jerry’s, but don’t see much point in a plain coffee at Starbucks. Maybe if they offered a mocha. #
• Ah, this would explain the 4-hour delay on my “I Voted!” tweet. #
• Wow… 38% of registered voters in Los Angeles County had cast ballots by noon. #
• Deep pink clouds at sunset. Camera turns them orange. #

Election Ramp-Up (and Changeling)

• Saw “Changeling” last night. It was good. #
• WTF? Saw an ad saying “Support marriage rights” that’s in favor of Prop 8, which ELIMINATES marriage rights! Someone’s got things backwards. #
• Incredible drop in blog traffic after Halloween, as all the searches for “joker costume” and “harley quinn costume” dried up overnight. #
• Last-minute review of ballot propositions. Are we there yet? #
• Naming proposed laws after people whose cases (a) inspired or (b) are used to promote them has jumped the shark, #

Cross-posted at LiveJournal.

Same-Sex Marriage

Gay and lesbian couples in California have been getting married for months now. In Massachusetts, for several years. In that time, thousands of straight couples have continued to get married, and neither state has been mass-annulling straight marriages. So “traditional marriage” clearly isn’t endangered by same-sex marriage, and banning the latter isn’t going to “restore” the former.

If California’s Proposition 8 does not pass, no marriages will be ended. If it does pass, all those same-sex marriages will be wiped out. If you’re really serious about “protecting marriage,” the clear choice is to vote against the proposition.

Some other things to consider:

This is not about “activist judges.” A bunch of judges didn’t say, “Hey, let’s make it legal for same-sex couples to get married!” They heard a case, looked at the law, and determined that the only thing preventing gay marriage was a law that conflicted with a higher law: the state constitution. That’s what judges are supposed to do. At least Prop. 8 is going through proper channels by amending the constitution instead of just trying to pass another unconstitutional law. Of course, I think it’s a bad idea to inject discrimination into the state constitution.

(While we’re at it, the whole concept of “activist judges” is a smokescreen. It basically means “judges who strike down laws that I would rather stayed in place.” I imagine that most people railing against this decision would be perfectly happy if a group of judges overturned Roe vs. Wade.)

As for children: Let’s not forget that there are plenty of straight couples who can’t have children either, whether for age or medical reasons. Should they not be allowed to marry? How about straight couples who choose not to have children? Should they not be allowed to marry?

And teaching marriage in schools? Shouldn’t a child know something about marriage by the time they start school? Neither of us remembers being “taught” about marriage when we were children, it was something learned through observing and asking parents. And we both went to public school. In different districts. Katie spoke to a fifth-grade teacher recently who remarked that the only time she even talked about marriage in class was when students asked about it, and then district policy prevented her from answering most of their questions. I can only assume that the objection is that children might find out that same-sex marriage exists.

Oh, and that “classroom trip” mentioned in the latest pro-8 ad? It was their teacher’s wedding, it was a creative arts charter school, it was organized by the students’ parents (note the headline that they surprised the teacher), and it was optional. The school approved the trip because, whatever happened, it was a notable event from a civil rights perspective.

To anyone who thinks that civil unions or domestic partnerships should be enough: would you be satisfied with the state saying you could only have something that’s almost, but not quite a marriage?