Ongoing BloggerCon thoughts

Here I am at BloggerCon, and I'm just going to put up a few thoughts as I go along today:

• Dinner last night was mostly great except that I couldn't hear anyone. The room's acoustics just sucked. OTOH, I was sitting between Doc Searls and Susan Kitchens, and that's always a good thing just by itself.
  
  
• Percentage of Macs, from what I can tell: approximately 50%, which is about par for most tech conferences I go to. If you're here and you're on a Mac, launch iChat and open the Rendezvous window, please?
  
  
• The seats at the Stanford Law School are all Aerons. Works for me!
  
  
• Anyone know what the IRC channel is? [Later note, answering my own question: it's at irc.freenode.net#bloggercon, #bloggercon1, #bloggercon2, and #bloggercon3.]
  
  
• Scoble gave me a Channel 9 guy. One more toy to add to the pile!
  
  
• If you took me up on my 2nd point, above, you might want to consider reading what I wrote last week about how to turn off iChat broadcasting your public IM contact info. Between OS X Con and this conference, I've added a lot of interesting folks to my buddy list.
  
  
• One of my favorite things in the world is introducing smart people I respect to other smart people I respect. Today, I introduced Dan Wood to Dan Lyke.
  
  
• I'm a huge fan of Doc Searls, but the "Making Money" session was pretty much a waste of time. I wanted nuts-and-bolts "here's how to make more money doing something you're already spending time and effort on". It ended up (imo) as a bunch of waffling between:
  • "Making money bad" (my mortgage company doesn't think so)
  • "You'll make more money in the future for off-blog activities because blogging will improve your googlejuice" (only for those things mentioned on your blog, and you don't really want to know what stupid things Google thinks we're canonical on)
  • "It's easy to make money off blogs once you have half-a-million visitors per day" (ummm, I think you're missing a step here)
  • "There's plenty of people who are employed as bloggers" (okay, now tell me where to find one of these jobs, please?)
  • "You're wasting your time trying to make money off your blog, you should be using it just to network with other smart people and then start a business together" (hey, I'm available—anyone want to start something cool together?).
  The concept behind this session was good, in theory. But it either should have been a debate between panelists discussing "Making Money with Blogs: Good or Evil?" or a how-to by someone who's done it.

Driving to BloggerCon

Duncan said:

Today, I got to indulge in several of the best forms of therapy around. First, I drove 350+ miles. Driving is for me is a form of Zen meditation—I get it from my Dad I'm sure. There's something about watching the scenery go by and occupying some significant percentage of your attention making sure that you are driving well to let the free association part of the brain do its work.

If you know anything at all about me and my father, you'd have to laugh about how well this description fits. And with that, I'm on my way to go drive a couple hundred miles to BloggerCon. See you there?

Sorry Everybody

Via just about everyone: Sorry Everybody.

Today we are five

Today we are five.

The posts from our first day can be found here.

Tom adds: And what a long, strange trip it's been. Thanks to all of our readers and commenters. Thanks to all of the new friends we have met because of the blog. And thank goodness (actually, the inventors of Blogger and Movable Type) for this outlet for all those things we want to say and share, but for which editors won't pay!

Nov. 3rd thoughts

Thirty years ago today, I tried to kill myself. I took what I was later told was 2-3 the number of Tuinals required. Obviously, I lived, but every November 3^rd I try to take stock of my life and think about its quality, and particularly so on the five and ten year anniversaries.

It's not a coincidence that Backup Brain's five year anniversary is tomorrrow, as I spent Nov. 3, 1999 setting up the original version of this site.

Today? Well, today's an odd day. I tend to be a black-and-white, disaster's-about-to-hit sort of person, and it's quite stunning to see that compared to much of the weblogs I read, I'm an optimist. I'm not used to this. Four years ago I was predicting that if Bush was awarded Florida, we'd have a theocracy, civil liberties would be restricted, minority rights limited, deficits as far as the eye could see, and we'd be going to war in Iraq. I'm going to have to change my mental self-image from pessimist to realist.

But there was a point to this post, and it's that for all the gloom-and-doom, and for all the world-is-coming-to-an-end, we have to, we must learn one lesson from this: Bush had a single, straightforward message. Kerry didn't. And that's why we lost. Go read this and this if you want more details on what I mean here.

So, we need a message. Here's my nomination: "Religious Fundamentalists are Evil." Four words. Not very hard to remember. If that's too long, here it is as three words: "Theocracy is Bad." As that second link above says, we allowed the Right to conflate the Saddamites and the Soddomites. That was stupid. In order to win in the future and have the world we want to live in, we need to conflate the Mullahs and the Ministers.

Before you send the hate mail, please note that I am not condeming all Christians, all Christianity, all Muslims, or all of Islam. I'm condeming those who put faith above science, who require that we put books about the biblical flood in a bookstore at the Grand Canyon, who block stem cell research because they think that a mythical man in the sky is against it, those who say we have to limit what we do today solely to improve our chances in their mythical after-life. They are the enemy. They are evil. We need to demonize them (and yes, that word was chosen purposefully) and make it clear how un-American they are. We need to make it clear that they have considerably more in common with their Islamic compatriots than they do with America's founding fathers.

In closing, here's a quote from Thomas Jefferson. The version on the Jefferson memorial is out of context, and ought to be put back in it for every one of us to remember (and there's many other good applicable quotes here):

I promised you a letter on Christianity, which I have not forgotten. On the contrary, it is because I have reflected on it, that I find much more time necessary for it than I can at present dispose of. I have a view of the subject which ought to displease neither the rational Christian nor Deists, and would reconcile many to a character they have too hastily rejected. I do not know that it would reconcile the genus irritabile vatum who are all in arms against me. Their hostility is on too interesting ground to be softened. The delusion into which the X. Y. Z. plot shewed it possible to push the people; the successful experiment made under the prevalence of that delusion on the clause of the constitution, which, while it secured the freedom of the press, covered also the freedom of religion, had given to the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity thro' the U. S.; and as every sect believes its own form the true one, every one perhaps hoped for his own, but especially the Episcopalians & Congregationalists. The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, & they believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: & enough too in their opinion...

Current mood

Current mood: depressed and bewildered. We feel that we no longer recognize our country. Clearly, America has left those of us who believe in rationality and cast its lot with the superstitious and gullible. Perhaps I'll change my mind upon further reflection, but I feel now that the gulf between us and the majority who voted on the other side may now yawn too large to ever be healed. Bush will arrogantly govern as though he won a huge mandate, further running roughshod over the half of our people who disagree with his know-nothing, radical reactionary agenda. I wonder at the shape my country will take after being raped by another four years of GOP greed and ignorance, and I greatly fear for this country that I love. We're going to bed. Tomorrow is another day, but it will probably not be one that we will welcome.

Immigrating to Canada as a Skilled Worker

Link for the day (and possibly the next four years): Immigrating to Canada as a Skilled Worker.

Voting today

It's a gorgeous fall day here in our little town. We have bright sunshine this morning, in the mid-sixties; we might get a little rain after midnight tonight. The air feels just a bit crisp, enough to let you know that we're getting on towards Thanksgiving, and the leaves have turned. Dori and I just got back from voting and a late breakfast. We vote at the nearby elementary school, and even here in reliably-liberal Sonoma County, the poll workers reported high turnout. As we were leaving, we passed the lunchroom, where the school band was playing an endearingly-terrible rendition of "The Saints Go Marching In." I peeked in, and the snare drum was being played by a kid in a wheelchair, with the help of his aide. It all feels so...American.

We voted, have you?

 

And now, to check out how this Technorati votes thing works: I support Kerry.

Court allows voter intimidation

6th Circuit Court of Appeals Allows Republican Thugs to Intimidate Voters in Ohio. A shameful day for democracy dawns. More GOP thuggery to come, no doubt. I hope that high turnout swamps all the skullduggery.

Our choices

Because we know that you're dying to see who/what we're voting for, here's how we'll be voting on Tuesday:

Office/Measure	Tom	Dori
President/VP	Kerry/Edwards	Kerry/Edwards
Senator	Boxer	Boxer
Representative	Thompson	Thompson
State Assembly	Berg	Berg
1A	Yes	Yes
59	Yes	Yes
60	Yes	Yes
60A	No	No
61	No	No
62	No	No
63	No	No
64	No	No
65	No	No
66	Yes	Yes
67	Yes	No
68	No	No
69	No	No
70	No	No
71	Yes	Yes
72	Yes	Yes
M	Yes	Yes
Q	Yes	Yes
City Council	Mike McGuire Mark Gleason Lisa Shaffner	Mike McGuire Mark Gleason Tod Brilliant
Hospital District	Herb Poleskey Ruth Olson Jack Air	Herb Poleskey Ruth Olson Jack Air

The oddest thing about these choices is that this is, by far, the first time we've agreed on this many picks. Tom's voting for one Republican; I'm in favor of throwing all the bums out this year.

One last thing, to all of you who are able:

VOTE!

Tom adds: That Republican I'm voting for? She's on the Healdsburg City Council, which is a volunteer position, and is a non-partisan race. I think that Lisa has done a good job in her current term, so I decided to give her a break in this, the Year of Detesting Elephants.

Dori replies (in a somewhat wild-eyed fashion): I don't care. All Republicans must go.

Tom lovingly wipes the flecks of spittle away from the corners of her mouth (and off the laptop), and leads her away to bed. Tomorrow is another day, he thinks.

Backup Brain

Some wrapping-up-type thoughts after OSXCon (which have been accumulating for several days now, and if I don't post them it's going to get ridiculous):

• Overall, I had a great time, and it was tons o' fun being able to see people that I don't get to see often enough. Macworld Expo is the biggie in the field, but it's a lousy conference for being able to spend quality time chatting with people. OSXCon is almost as good as Geek Cruises for that; while it doesn't last as long (and it is possible to leave the Westin), it has the upside that there's really only one place to get-together, the Mezzanine. I suspect that if the Westin got their act together and had a cocktail waitress making the rounds up there to ferry alcohol back-and-forth, they'd make some serious dollars.
  
  
• Remember how I posted a few days ago about how to block people from adding you to their iChat buddy list? Yeah, neither did anyone else. So far as I could tell, virtually nobody had themselves set up so they couldn't be moved from Rendezvous, so my buddy list is now considerably longer than it was. Andy tried to claim that I was an iChat geek based on the length of my buddy list; I told him that anyone who has his Tivo on his buddy list shouldn't be calling other people names.
  
  
• Delicious Library, coming soon from Delicious Monster, looks like it's going to be way cool. It's another one of those apps that will allow you to catalog all of your DVDs, books, and CDs—and it's gorgeous.
  
  
• I heard lots of geeks raving about TextMate, but I have to say that I don't get it myself. Why is this app so much cooler than BBEdit (to which I've been addicted for years). And if all you want is a simple text editor (i.e., all you're doing is creating to-do lists) check out TextWrangler. TextMate and TextWrangler are both $49, btw. If you think that TextMate is truly wonderful and a BBEdit killer, tell me why in the comments. Or, even if you just know how to change the syntax coloring, let me know that.
  
  
• Scoble blogs that his boss was at the conference. Yeah, I got a chance to meet him. Now I know who to complain to when Robert's pissed me off ;-). And yeah, you read the right: Scoble's boss was at a Mac conference. Heh.
  
  
• I think my Bluetooth talk went well. Steve Sloan said:

  ...a very cool presentation by Dori Smith on Bluetooth... She is a good speaker and really knew her material!

  Whew. I've gotten to the point where I doubt myself too much and I have no idea how I've done any more. It's nice to see a reaction like that from someone. BTW, if you're looking for more info on using a Bluetooth headset with iChat, here's the article I wrote last March.
  
  
• If you read other blogs written by women, you've been hearing a lot lately about how most tech conferences had a distinct lack of women attendees and women speakers. It should be noted that that kind of feedback did not occur during OSXCon, and there's good reason for that. And while I would have liked to have seen more women there (both speaking and attending), it was a big step forward from what I've usually seen.
  
  

I know there's more I wanted to write about, but if I wait until I've put everything down, this will never get posted. I'll just add to it later when I say "oops!"

Election results

Here are some sites we'll be checking for election results Tuesday night:

Active 8 PM EST:

DCCC Election Night Resultron

Active 8 PM PST:

California Official Results (Java applet)

California Official Results (HTML)

I'll add more as I find them.

Election night on IRC

Tom and I have sketched out how tomorrow night, we're both planning on sitting on the loveseat, watching the TV, and obsessively Web surfing the usual political sites. But what I wanted was some folks on IRC to be able to chat with. So far, I've found that David Weinberger and Liz Lawley have election night chats planned. Anyone else?

And of course, I'll have iChat running, so feel free to ping me on there if you need to commiserate/celebrate.

Kerry's Final Ad

Here is Kerry's final ad of the campaign. It's a good one, and worth checking out. Tomorrow, Americans will face a choice.

Bad GOP Dirty Tricks

So we all know that Republicans are going to try to rely on dirty tricks to sway this election in their favor. But is it too much to expect that they would be good at it? Here's a great example of Stupid Republican Tricks in early voting for Florida. It's a group of Republican staffers acting as if they are gay Kerry supporters. But they were betrayed by their fashion sense. Better yet, they were easily foiled; all that needed to be done was to point a few cameras at them. Joshuah Bearman: How They Do, Part III. This really shows the contempt the GOP has for all voters, black voters, or both.

Begin freakout period

I'm sitting here trying to get some work done, with little success. Instead, I find myself making the rounds of the political websites just one more time. After two years of this, it has all come to a head. Until Tuesday night, when Kerry is declared the winner, I'll probably remain a bundle of nerves.

And yes, I do think that Kerry will win, and I do not think that we'll see a rerun of Florida 2000. The Republicans are striving mightily to intimidate voters and suppress voter turnout, which tells me that they are afraid of it. They know that they are likely to lose this one, and that they can't win it fairly. Yet I see these reports of people waiting to vote in early voting states for five hours in the hot sun, and I don't think that the GOP will succeed.

Despite the polls showing a tight race, I believe that the Democrats will have a pretty good day on Tuesday. For what it's worth, here's my election prediction: Kerry wins a clear victory. The Senate ends up (barely) in the Democrats' hands. And the House stays with the GOP, but with a smaller margin. If turnout is really big, the House could go Democratic, too, sweeping out Republicans in close races. I don't believe that new voters who will vote for Kerry will vote GOP down-ticket.