Author: Tim's Bookmarks

As someone who lost his last grandparent in January, I have to say this is among the most personally moving articles this election cycle. Mrs. Dunham, our thoughts and prayers and blessings with you and your grandson.

Time to reign in the border patrol. Unreasonable search and seizure 100 miles from the border is a moronic extension of the Border Patrol’s powers.

Nice summary of McCain’s uphill battle in the last ten days of the campaign.

Amazing photoessay of Barack Obama starting in 2006. Some really nice intimate moments during the campaign.

Why did Social Security privatization fail? And why is it so hard to tell the story straight?

First voice of dissent about the first Android phone points out what should be obvious: it’s got serious design issues.

Oboy. This is not good–a potentially wormable hole in Windows file sharing might as well just say “get ready for the next Blaster.”

An automated iPhoto to Flickr sync engine sounds good but doesn’t solve my problem–sharing some photos while setting privacy settings on others.

JP makes BoingBoing–a post about the new Make TV preview reel that’s out that gives a shout out to John Park as host.

There’s a certain amount of organized idiocy at work in the ballot question to eliminate the state income tax. I hope enough people see it for the idiocy that it is.

What’s striking in this review of the different phases of McCain’s campaign messaging and the decisions that led to each shift is how tactical it all is. And yes, I know all elections are tactical. But the best candidates–and for that matter the best products–have a core underneath them that is consistent from positioning to positioning, and message to message. Reading the story reinforces for me the feeling of a campaign that’s twisting in the wind.

Hysterical profile of the undecided voter.

Sounds like a killer concert, and the promotional video is a lot of fun to watch.

Two useful hints: check out GeekTool, and make sure it sleeps with SleepWatcher.

Jonathan Hoefler schools the scientists who created the “world’s smallest letters” in the fine art of italic typeforms and points out that, on that hex-based grid, an italic rendering of Si would be even smaller.

A new add-on option to an existing product has to be conceived of as a full product, not just a feature–complete with packaging and customer set-up experience.

Cross domain Javascript loading via CSS. Interesting new vector. Should probably be closed off by the browser vendors ASAP.

Highly practical method for constructing forward compatible stylesheets in a way that’s highly maintainable. I’m sure pros know these tricks already, but I’m itching to go in and separate my typography and colors into separate stylesheets.

Our prayers with the Senator and his grandmother.

Radiohead made more on “In Rainbows” in the months prior to its physical release than it made on its previous release “Hail to the Thief” in total.

Dissecting the McCain/Joe the Plumber anecdote; there are some real economic issues behind the dumbed down theatre.

Estaminet makes a visit to a spot from local legend. I’ll have to remember to post the audio sometime.

Colin Powell makes the case for Obama.

Palin’s selection process detailed. Interesting to read the role of the conservative media in this.

Was Palin connected with the John Birch Society? Interesting, but at Where’s long? Right instead of left: McCain chose before shaking hands with the moderator at the end of the transfer the wrong direction. point, somewhat gratuitous investigation.

This is the sort of thing Barack and Joe have been emailing about–it’s a little early for celebratory Onion-style pieces about the Dems’ lead in the polls. (Of course, after chiding the base, I bet Barack and Joe are laughing their asses off–this is really funny.)

Joe the Plumber has no plumbing license, has never served as an apprentice, and owes back taxes–which helps to explain his choice of topics.

Here’s the real context for Obama’s “spread the wealth around” comment to Joe the Plumber–he was arguing against a flat tax.

Joe the Plumber: confusing Obama with another friendly black man. And admitting his hypothetical is wrong–he wouldn’t be in Obama’s target tax bracket anyway.

Not really what the caption says, but funny nonetheless.

You absolutely have to have this t-shirt. I don’t care if you’re an Obama supporter, a McCain supporter, or a vegan. It’s hysterical.

Adding to the count of things to excoriate the Bush presidency over, two more signing statements instructing the executive branch to ignore parts of laws that were passed.

Too bad Wired didn’t get deeper into the science behind Symphony Hall’s acoustics. I’d love to read a really physics driven discussion of how the hall works.

All about DisplayPort, the new display technology on Apple’s laptops.

Programmer as Journalist is a pretty good meme. I’d argue that Dave Winer’s Newsjunk falls into this category.

Campbell Brown states the obvious: Yes, it’s a smear, and yes, it shouldn’t matter if he were an Arab or a Muslim.

Christopher Buckley: did he jump out of the National Review, or was he pushed? Whatever. Sounds like the conservative press is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic again.

The independents are speaking up, and they’re saying, “McCain hasn’t addressed the real issues. He’s only touched on them very narrowly. This is a time when we need to address issues much more clearly than they ever have been in the past.”

You know, the ground organization Obama has going on could really change things. It could change the whole country.

I think we’re in orange, moving to red.

It’s more than a little problematic for any government official to put a spin like this on an ethical situation; it’s a little worse when that official is running for heartbeat-from-the-Presidency.

For those moments when you can’t find anything else to do with your iPhone. City on the Edge of Forever probably doesn’t look as good on the small small screen, but who cares. And yes, this is another signal that the future of TV is the Internet, cause it’s fully ad supported.

Background on Biden’s selection as VP, including some suggestions that he’s picked more for his ability to govern than his skills on the trail. Probably accurate.

Turning over more rocks and finding more nasty critters. Maybe sunlight will dry them up, who knows?

How is the press supposed to deal with open, asymmetrical culture warfare and maintain objectivity? They can’t, if “objective” means “equal time to both views then meet in the middle.”

Hitchens’ take on America in the wake of the economic collapse: we are now a banana republic.

Very cool exploration tool of China’s Forbidden City.

Now I know what’s missing from my library–an original Sputnik.

Goodnight, Opus. Argh.

Timeline of questionable McCain ads.

Interesting address about journalism from the first recipient of the I.F. Stone award.

Much better than the beer game as an interactive simulation of system dynamics.

It embarasses me to enumerate which of these I’ve been guilty of. “All of them” covers it pretty well.

Nice political judo moment.

Fact checks on the debate. The Times has to say both parties exaggerated, but I don’t think Obama’s exaggerations are much to write home about.

Review of the debate highlights a key exchange on foreign policy between McCain and Obama, in which Obama sounds like the mature grownup.

I thought this was odd last night, hearing McCain float Warren Buffett (an Obama supporter) and Meg Whitman as treasury secretaries. The fact that eBay is doing a 10% headcount reduction makes it even odder.

Good to hear that the Secret Service is going to investigate those comments from the Palin rally, after they were embarassed by doing so by the Post.