Monday, October 30, 2006

PPD 49


This was taken on a snowy morning. Actually, it was more like heavy slush falling from the sky, sticking to everything in sight. All the trees were bent over, some down to the ground.

Yes, I know this is almost the same text and picture as PPD 48, but I don't want to hear any complaining from you internet gremlins.

Edits: Cropped, red saturation increased
Taken: Thursday, October 26th

PPD 48


This was taken on a snowy morning. Actually, it was more like heavy slush falling from the sky, sticking to everything in sight. All the trees were bent over, some down to the ground. This was taken from inside a dome created by such a tree, a small dry spot in the midst of the falling snow. You can actually see the streaks of the snow on the other side of the little window.
Edits: Cropped
Taken: Thursday, October 26th

Thursday, October 19, 2006

PPD 47



Edit: Selective blur, histogram adjustment
Taken: Tuesday, October 17th

PPD 46



Edits: Histogram adjustment
Taken: Tuesday, October 17th

PPD 45



I'm not sure what to call this one. My first though was "I Left Minnesota For This?!" But I also kind of like "If April showers bring May flowers, then what does October snow get you?".

Edits: Greyscaled, histogram adjusted, green tinted
Taken: Tuesday, October 17th

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

North Korea as a counterpoint to Iraq

Part of the reason I stopped arguing with people about politics in general and Iraq in particular is that other people always state it so much better. Take it away Lex...

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Politics Reform

A friend of mine posted an interesting out-of-the-box idea for election reform. Well, he said election reform, I tend to think it would be more like reforming the entire political system. But reform, certainly. That sparked the following random late-night thought on my part...

First, a problem statement. I don't think any of this is controversial, but feel free to argue anyway...

Problems:

  1. Politics is too heavily influenced by political parties.
  2. Politics is too heavily influenced by "improper" forces like special interest groups, PACs, etc
  3. People in general place too much weight on the physical characteristics of leaders and not enough on the mental/leadership characteristics.
  4. The election campaign trail is incredibly distracting and not a particularly good way to judge leaders.
  5. Mudslinging and personal smear campaigns are incredibly effective at winning elections, but ultimately bad ways to choose leaders.
Goofy solution: Anonymize the candidates.

Each candidate would be assigned a genderless, cultureless pseudonym, preferably something non-biasing like "Candidate A", or "Gamma". Nobody would know the candidates' real names, aside from select members of the election commission. Any candidate who was unmasked would be immediately disqualified from the race, which would incent them to avoid making identifying comments. No candidate would be allowed to state a political party, nor to be supported by any political party or donation. If necessary, the pseudonyms could be reassigned, for instance after the "primaries."

All interaction with the candidates would be mediated through an anonymous interface - preferably plain text, but maybe on camera with the "mystery witness" style of silhouette plus voice scrambling anonymity. Questions could be put to them in the form of essay topics, debates, town hall meetings, whatever, just so long as they remain anonymous. All such interactions would have to involve all candidates and be initiated by a non-candidate -- nobody could call a press conference or create a media event. Photo ops would, of course, be strictly verboten.

Advertising by the candidates would not be allowed, although any third party could advertise on their behalf. Of course, nobody knows who the candidates are, but you could still pass out "Vote Candidate A!" buttons if you really wanted to.

Races would be similar to today, with multiple stages of "primaries" eventually winnowing the field down to a single candidate. The primaries would be very low intensity similar an essay homework assignment. Each stage would be progressively harder. Candidates would have to fund their own "campaigns" initially, which would mostly consist of finding the time to write enough essays to get through the "primaries." At each stage the remaining candidates would receive more and more support from the government, eventually having all their living expenses covered so that they could focus on the campaign. The cost of this would be negligible compared to current federally-subsidized campaign funding.

So, how would this address the problems stated above?

  1. Politics is too heavily influenced by political parties.
    Parties current role of advancing candidates would be obsolete. It's unclear that they would continue to exist at all, but even if they did it would have to be on the basis of supporting candidates who they think agree with their platforms. Ultimately this just devolves into a group of people who think the same way.
  2. Politics is too heavily influenced by "improper" forces like special interest groups, PACs, etc
    Nobody would be allowed to donate directly to a candidate, eliminating that entire class of quasi-bribery. Likewise, no pre-election deals could be cut, because you wouldn't know who to talk to. It would similarly be difficult to influence politicians via promises for their reelection campaign, since they would be similarly anonymous and the donors would not know who to advertise for.
  3. People in general place too much weight on the physical characteristics of leaders and not enough on the mental/leadership characteristics.
    You don't hear them, you don't see them, so you've got nothing to judge on but what they say and write. It's hard to think that the plain text in the paper is "too black", or that the shadow on the screen is "gay" or "hot".
  4. The election campaign trail is incredibly distracting and not a particularly good way to judge leaders.
    Some time commitment would still be required. However the lack of candidate-driven media interaction could greatly reduce this by eliminating most speeches. Likewise candidates would not have to negotiate with party members, hire campaign staff, appear in various cities, etc etc.
  5. Mudslinging and personal smear campaigns are incredibly effective at winning elections, but ultimately bad ways to choose leaders.
    It's hard to sling mud when you don't know the target or his/her/it's history.
Wow, that came out longer than I expected. I can't believe you actually read that. So, what do you think?

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

PPD 44 - The Sidewalk at the Edge of the Universe


Taken: Monday, October 9th


Edits: None 

Informal, unscientific survey of airfare search engines

Earlier today I was browsing my feeds and came across a mention of a new airfare search engine called Farecast. This is an intriguing application that tracks the lowest available price for a variety a possible trips across lots of airlines, then uses that information to predict where prices are headed over the next seven days. This is a pretty tempting concept, especially compared with the prospect of remembering all the arcane timing advice for getting cheap tickets (Wednesday nights, in the first week of the month, except during a neap tide or a when Sputnik is in Saggitarius, etc etc...). The site itself is really slick, very Web 2.0-ish with autocompletion, pretty graphing, nifty popup calendars, the whole nine yards (of code).


Every Thanksgiving I make the trek back to the ancestral homestead in Wisconsin, because we all know that Mom makes the best mashed potatoes (aw crap, I hope Wendy doesn't read that... :). Normally I don't book this early, but I curiosity got the better of me, so I thought I'd test it out with my usual itinerary which has proven the cheapest over the years - leave early on Thanksgiving day, come back midafternoon on Sunday. 


I ran that search on Farecast and the lowest fare came up as FIVE HUNDRED BUCKS?! Usually I can find something in the $200-300 range, so that's a high number. Not only that, but their history graph shows that it's going up.


That spooked me a bit, so I sauntered over to Sidestep, another meta-search engine that claims to search a number of airline websites plus some resellers like Orbitz. They've also got a pretty click website, though not quite as nice as Farecast. Their fares were better, at around $380 for a flight that would get me there in time for turkey, but still a bit harsh.


So then I went to my old standby, Travelocity. I've been using them for years, ever since an incredibly positive customer service experience*. Their site is a decidedly old-fashioned by today's terms, meaning it's probably 3-4 years old. But their price? $220, about 2/3 the cost of the next closest competitor, less than half of the hot new site. Even better, the flight is on Midwest Airlines (formerly Midwest Express), an airline based out of Milwaukee with nearly impeccable timeliness and pretty good inflight cookies. Suffice to say I like flying them a lot better than United or Delta.


Since I had already gone this far, I checked in with Orbitz ($294) and Midwest Airlines' own site ($500). Advantage, Travelocity. Incidentally, many of my current coworkers are from Galileo, the company behind Orbitz. Come on guys, $294? That's the best you can do? I guess that explains all those bugs in the Platform code... :)


 


These results amaze me. I never expected that much variation between the different sites, and I certainly never guessed that Travelocity would actually outprice Midwest on their own flights. I guess that annoying little gnome knows how to find good prices, even if he can't make a pretty website to save his stocking cap.


Since I'm on the topic, I'd also like to relate the positive customer service experience I alluded to earlier. A few years back I was booking a flight for a long weekend, I don't remember which one exactly. After much messing about I finally chose a flight, clicked through all the clickthroughs, saved the confirmation and walked away. 20 minutes later something was nagging at me, so I looked at the confirmation and realized I had booked the right days but the wrong month. It was a totally boneheaded mistake, with nobody to blame but myself. Nonetheless, I called up Travelocity customer service, hoping I could change the ticket without paying too much. To my everlasting surprise, the rep didn't bat an eye, he just worked some systems magic to make the whole thing just disappear. Not a ticket transfer, not a refund, nothing ever charged my credit card. Reservation, what reservation, nobody knows anything about any reservation. At that point I could've booked somewhere else or not at all. But you've got to reward good service, so I've booked every single flight through them for the last 3 years or so. Of course, it doesn't hurt that they have the best prices too.


 


PS, Farecast is a pretty good name, but am I the only one that thinks FareBetter.com or FareWell.com would be better? Well, except for the fact that Farewell.com is owned by a casket manufacturer.

Monday, October 02, 2006

PPD 43



Dog meets camera. Come on, you know you smiled at that dog. Admit it!

Edits: None
Taken: Saturday, September 16th

Funky Buddha



Kinda hurts your head, doesn't it? Even though I did all the editing on this one it still took me a minute to figure out what the "wrongness" was, at least for me. The sky shades the wrong direction. That and the shadows falling the wrong way. Lighting is always the hardest part to get right, not that I really tried.

If you flip it back over, it looks better to me, despite the fact that Buddha is on his head and still levitating.


The original subject is a scultpure by Robert Wick, called Balance I I think. It's part of a series at the Denver Botanic Gardens called Living Bronze. All of the sculptures are quite good, and the gardens themselves are surprisingly beautiful for this time of year. If you get a chance definitely go check it out sometime very soon.

The unedited photo (and sculpture):

PPD 42


Just a beautiful Saturday at the Denver Botanic Gardens. I've got it on good authority that those grapes are even tastier than they look.


Edits: Lots of fun with histograms
Taken: Saturday, September 30th