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Sometime between October 11th and October 13th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Johnston speaks about Bristol Palin, Obama, baby: Sarah Palin's soon-to-be son-in-law and father of her teenage daughter's child is a high school dropout who didn't even bother to register to vote. Family values, abstinence-only sex ed, and political consciousness for the WIN!
• What the Troopergate Report Really Says: …the Branchflower report still makes for good reading, if only because it convincingly answers a question nobody had even thought to ask: Is the Palin administration shockingly amateurish? Yes, it is. Disturbingly so. The 263 pages of the report show a co-ordinated application of pressure on Monegan so transparent and ham-handed that it was almost certain to end in public embarrassment for the governor. The only surprise is that Troopergate is national news, not just a sorry piece of political gristle to be chewed on by Alaska politicos over steaks at Anchorage's Club Paris.
• The Man Behind the Whispers About Obama: An examination of legal documents and election filings, along with interviews with his acquaintances, revealed Mr. Martin, 62, to be a man with a history of scintillating if not always factual claims. He has left a trail of animosity — some of it provoked by anti-Jewish comments — among political leaders, lawyers and judges in three states over more than 30 years. He is a law school graduate, but his admission to the Illinois bar was blocked in the 1970s after a psychiatric finding of “moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character.” (via curt_m)
• Alien lizards set to invade ABC in ‘V’: …the new "V" will center on Erica Evans, a Homeland Security agent with an aimless son who’s got problems. When the aliens arrive, her son gloms on to them — causing tension within the family. As in the original "V," several storylines will unfold simultaneously. But even without the same storyline, the original "V’s" bones will remain: As in the ’80s version, the show will open with an enormous army of spaceships hovering over the world’s major cities. The visitors say they’ve come to help Earth, but their motives are nefarious (in the original, they wanted to steal the world’s water supply).
• Orbicule | Undercover: According to a recent FBI report, 97% of all stolen computers are never recovered. Many people we know have had their Macs stolen, often in 'safe' situations. That's why we developed Undercover: a unique theft-recovery application designed from the ground up for Mac OS X.

Sometime between 10:52 and 17:27, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Star Trek Trailer Coming in November: A source tells TrekMovie the theatrical trailer coming in November “is not a teaser, but a real trailer with footage from the film.” Edits are still being made, but it is expected to show the Enterprise exterior and the Enterprise bridge as well as dialog from movie. Which weekend in November the trailer will be released is still up in the air.
• Red Right Hand: THOUGHTS ON THE FIREFLY 7th SEASON PREMIERE: The end is nigh. The last season of Firefly started last night and if the season premiere is any indication, it comes a season too late.
• McCain Defends His Rabid Crowds: The McCain campaign is defending crowd members at its recent rallies who have called Obama a terrorist, accused him of treason and even screamed "kill him" when his association with former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers has been broached. (I was already bothered by McCain and Palin's habit of simply standing by and allowing the invectives to fly. The fact that their campaign is actually sending out press releases defending such outbursts, and trying to twist criticism of their silence into an attack on Obama, is truly, truly disturbing.)
• NY county sends ballots with Barack ‘Osama’: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's last name is spelled "Osama" on hundreds of absentee ballots mailed out this week to voters in Rensselaer County in upstate New York. The misspelling, which elections officials on both sides of the aisle insist was simply a typo, is causing embarrassment for the county.
• McCain campaign clears Palin in Troopergate ethics probe: "Trying to head off a potentially embarrassing state ethics report on Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, campaign officials released their own report Thursday that cleared her of wrongdoing." Well, that's nice of them. In that same vein, I'm about to release a report clearing myself of any wrongdoing as well. How convenient!

Sometime between October 8th and October 10th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Adeona: A Free, Open Source System for Helping Track and Recover Lost and Stolen Laptops: Adeona is the first Open Source system for tracking the location of your lost or stolen laptop that does not rely on a proprietary, central service. This means that you can install Adeona on your laptop and go — there's no need to rely on a single third party. What's more, Adeona addresses a critical privacy goal different from existing commercial offerings. It is privacy-preserving. This means that no one besides the owner (or an agent of the owner's choosing) can use Adeona to track a laptop. Unlike other systems, users of Adeona can rest assured that no one can abuse the system in order to track where they use their laptop. (via MeFi)
• Kiss Penguins Goodbye if the Planet Warms 2 Degrees Celsius: According to a report from WWF if global warming increases temperatures by 2 degrees Celsius more than half of Antarctica's colonies of Emperor penguins could be wiped out.
• Under the Needle: A vote for beer over politics: What followed over the next 16 years not only made Rainier Washington's most popular beer once again, but also became a template for an entire industry. The wild Rainiers; the Jacques Cousteau parody; the Rainier croaking frogs — poorly aped in later years by Budweiser; and maybe the all-time most popular: motorcycle on a lonely country road Dopplering "RAAAAINIEEEER BEEEEEEEEEEER" as it shifts and speeds into the distance with the namesake mountain in the background. (I've long held that that motorcycle commercial was the best I've ever seen. Years later, and I still remember it clearly.)
• Bathtub III: Stop motion tilt-shift video. Making the real world look like miniatures.
• Take On Me: The Literal Version: Now it finally makes sense.

Sometime between 06:39 and 13:58, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Nebraska law lets parents abandon teens: Frustrated parents are dumping their teenagers at Nebraska hospitals — even crossing state lines to do it — and the state Legislature has scheduled a special hearing to try to stem the tide. Nebraska's "safe haven" law, intended to allow parents to anonymously hand over an infant to a hospital without being prosecuted, isn't working out as planned. Of the 17 children relinquished since the law took effect in July, only four are younger than 10 — and…on Tuesday, a 14-year-old girl from Council Bluffs, Iowa, was abandoned…. (I'm going to hell, but I find this horrifying and amusing — due to the badly written law — at the same time.) (via macanima)
• NY Times Editorial – Politics of Attack: It is a sorry fact of American political life that campaigns get ugly, often in their final weeks. But Senator John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin have been running one of the most appalling campaigns we can remember. They have gone far beyond the usual fare of quotes taken out of context and distortions of an opponent’s record — into the dark territory of race-baiting and xenophobia. Senator Barack Obama has taken some cheap shots at Mr. McCain, but there is no comparison.
• Stitch yourself a thinner depth-of-field: The picture above should be completely impossible to take with a 35mm-sized camera. It has the frame-of-view of about a 45mm lens, but the depth-of-field of shooting that lens at an impossibly fast f/0.8 (ish). But I shot it on a plain ol' DSLR with a plain ol' lens. How? Read on.
• Erecting The Needle Pt. 1: The Space Needle started construction in April of 1961. As digging began, the 120-foot by 12-foot (depth 30 feet) hole slowly filled with 5850 tons of concrete and steel. Anchoring the massive Space Needle, there would be more weight underground than in the tower itself.
• Palin’s future, according to Garrison Keillor: It was dishonest, cynical men who put forward a clueless young woman for national office, hoping to juice up the ticket, hoping she could skate through two months of chaperoned campaigning, but the truth emerges: The lady is talking freely about matters she has never thought about. The American people have an ear for B.S. They can tell when someone's mouth is moving and the clutch is not engaged.
• How to use Photoshop’s Lens Blur tool for tilt-shift fakery (Part 1 of 2): We all know Photoshop is a powerful tool. In two tutorials, I'll take you through how to use Photoshop CS3's Lens Blur filter to do two things: today, we'll make images look like they were shot with a tilt-shift lens. Tomorrow, we'll create clipping masks for objects that aren't entirely in focus.
• Why McCain can’t stop saying “my friends.”: This is the discomfort of "my friends": Although it hopes to evoke amici's wave of the arm over the agora, on the stump it remains a phrase that demands fealty when, in fact, that relationship has not yet been granted to the candidate. It feels faintly bullying—an unpleasant echo of the singular menace of my friend.

Sometime between 09:19 and 17:24, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Anne Hathaway in ‘Wonderland’: Hollywood starlet Anne Hathaway is to star in Tim Burton's movie adaptation of Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland," entertainment industry press reported Tuesday.
• New in Labs: Stop sending mail you later regret: Sometimes I send messages I shouldn't send. Like the time I told that girl I had a crush on her over text message. Or the time I sent that late night email to my ex-girlfriend that we should get back together. Gmail can't always prevent you from sending messages you might later regret, but today we're launching a new Labs feature I wrote called Mail Goggles which may help. When you enable Mail Goggles, it will check that you're really sure you want to send that late night Friday email.
• John McCain’s racist remark very troubling: On his campaign bus [during his first Presidential run in 2000], Sen. John McCain told reporters, "I hated the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live." I'd not seen this before, but it's coming back into prominence apparently thanks to a YouTube video titled "John McCain's Racism and Why It Matters" that I've not watched yet, but is all the rage on Twitter right now.
• Washington breaks voter registration record: Washington has just set a new record for voter registrations, topping the 3.5 million figure set in the hotly competitive 2004 election year. The latest number, reported by the Elections Division of the Secretary of State’s Office on Tuesday, is 3,515,393. The tally will grow each day as crews process registration applications that were submitted by the major deadline last Saturday.
• Unleashed, Palin Makes a Pit Bull Look Tame …: Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000…. Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy." […] Palin, speaking to a sea of "Palin Power" and "Sarahcuda" T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. […] "Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience. (via Twitter)

Sometime between 09:07 and 18:54, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Weird Al: Forefather of the YouTube Spoof: To make matters more complicated, whereas Yankovic could once mine such inexhaustible icons as Jackson and Nirvana for laughs, he now has to contend with the likes of Jessica Simpson or Kevin Federline—celebrities who are more or less already self-parodies. Being a music satirist in 2008 is a bit like being a political cartoonist after the Harding administration: too many easy targets, too few sacred idols.
• The New Yorker: The Choice: At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness. It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader’s name is Barack Obama.
• Harmony® 510 Advanced Universal Remote: Your coffee table has five remotes. You have a special drawer where you keep them. Wouldn't it be easier to just have one remote? You can. Replace all your remotes with Harmony.
• It’s up to parents to see the writing on the walls: So far there have been 170 graffiti incidents in Kent this year. Wood figures graffiti costs the city more than $50,000 annually. That figure doesn't measure other costs, including the toll it takes on property values, community pride and the community's sense of public safety. "When there's graffiti the perception is there's crime and people feel less safe," Wood says. "We're trying to make people feel safe where they live and do business. There's no area where it's more prevalent. It happens on the East Hill, on the West Hill, downtown." (I wouldn't mind seeing some cleanup under this bridge — Prairie and I walk there pretty frequently, and it's covered in graffiti.)
• Make-Believe Maverick: A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty: This is the story of the real John McCain, the one who has been hiding in plain sight. It is the story of a man who has consistently put his own advancement above all else, a man willing to say and do anything to achieve his ultimate ambition: to become commander in chief, ascending to the one position that would finally enable him to outrank his four-star father and grandfather. (via Twitter)

Sometime between October 3rd and October 5th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Meet Your New Governor (Seven Reasons to Fear Dino Rossi): Rossi doesn't just oppose abortion rights. He opposes all reproductive rights—from students' right to learn the facts about pregnancy, STDs, and birth control, to women's right to buy contraceptives with a prescription. Rossi opposes requiring pharmacies to stock emergency contraception, which works by preventing fertilization, because some pharmacists assert, falsely, that it causes abortions. And in the late 1990s, as a state senator, Rossi voted against requiring prescription drug plans to cover regular oral contraceptives.
• Custom My Little Ponies: I'm quite fond of My Little Alien and My Little Edward Scissorhands, myself.
• It’s Official: GOP Ticket Now “Winky and Wrinkly”: Forget the tight stripper skirt, forget the metallic eyeshadow inappropriate for anyone over the age of 40, forget the cloying sitcom delivery, the lies, the cruel and calculated needling of Biden by calling his college professor wife a "school teacher" and saying "she'll get her reward in Heaven" (to a man whose first wife died in a car accident) — she's an idiot.
• Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart: Funny because it's true!
• The First Sound Bites: Whether for profit or prestige, the 1908 campaign was the first in which presidential candidates recorded their own voices for the mass market. “We now have Records by Mr. Bryan and Mr. Taft, so that no matter how the November election may result, we shall have Records by the next President,” an advertisement in the September 1908 Edison Phonograph Monthly exclaimed. “Now, for the first time, one can introduce the rival candidates for the Presidency in one’s own home, can listen to their political views, expressed in their real voices, and make comparisons.” (via Slashdot)

Sometime between October 1st and October 3rd, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Vice-Presidential Debate – Biden and Palin – Video and Transcript – Election Guide 2008: The NYT has a very nice interactive video and text transcript for the VP debate (and, from the looks of it, the existing and future Presidential debates, campaign speeches, and more). (via Waxy)
• Saturday is voter registration deadline: Would-be voters have until Saturday — 30 days before the November general elections — to register by mail, in person or online. Mail-in registrations must be postmarked by the Oct. 4 cutoff, according to the Washington Secretary of State's office.
• Roger Ebert: You didn’t ask me about the debate, but…: Yes, she wins high marks for emerging from the debate still standing and still smiling. Polls show that she performed better than a great majority of viewers thought she would. My concern here is not with the substance of which either candidate said; that would be political. My concern is with the performances. Watching the debate, I was reminded of a famous observation by Dr. Samuel Johnson, the great 18th century English critic, who went to witness with his own eyes a woman giving a sermon in a church. This was unheard of in his day. "A woman's preaching," he told his friend James Boswell, "is like a dog's standing on its hind legs. It is not done well, but one is surprised to find it done at all."
• Inability to sanitize live carp ends fishy foot treatments: Bui was personally delivered a letter Thursday informing her of the agency's decision, which was based on a state law that all implements used in pedicures had to be "sanitized, disinfected, or disposed of after each service to protect salon customers from the possibility of disease and infections." "You can clean files and other equipment, but there is just no way to sanitize live fish," said Christine Anthony, a spokeswoman for the agency.
• Chinese gymnasts to keep medals: China's gold-medal gymnasts were old enough to compete in the Beijing Olympics, the sport's governing body said Wednesday, though it still had questions about the team that competed at the 2000 Sydney Games.
• Fox News Snags Palin’s First Post-Debate Interview: [Referencing her earlier interviews,] Palin was annoyed that Couric saw that her job was to flush out for the American people more information about the character of a relatively unknown candidate for the vice presidency, and not to provide Palin with a nationally-televised forum for spouting McCain campaign talking points.
• Think about the Supreme Court when you vote for president: Pro-choice groups have been crying wolf for so long that it's hard to believe that the wolf is actually at the door. Or at least the border of South Dakota. There, a full-tilt abortion ban on the November ballot — with high-hurdle exceptions only for rape, incest and the life of a woman — is pointed directly at Roe and targeted to arrive at the Supreme Court in time to greet a new justice. If what happens in South Dakota doesn't stay in South Dakota, a woman's right will depend on whether she has enough gas to drive to the next, or the next, or the next state.
• A fashion designer I don’t know (Michael Kors) draws inspiration for his fall line from a show I’ve never watched (Mad Men), but I love this quote:: Aren’t we ready for that again? For some maturity? I have to tell you, I am sick and tired of hair down to there and crotch-high hemlines. It’s so obvious. For Fall I was really trying to bring back buttoned-up sexy—-think Grace Kelly. So cool, so poised. She never reveals a thing and you can’t take your eyes off of her. I mean, watch “Rear Window.” That’s smart sexy; it’s interesting sexy. And it’s grown-up sexy. You want a tip on looking hot? Wear reading glasses and a fitted dress. Simple. (via Kottke)
• Did inner-tube robber use Craigslist in heist?: Inflation has certainly been good to one crafty robber. Monroe police are searching for a man who robbed an armored-car guard Tuesday morning then fled with the money — down a nearby creek on an inner tube. Police say the robber also may have recruited a host of unwitting decoys through a Craigslist ad.
• Seattle Lands a Women’s Lingerie Football Team: An offshoot of the uber-popular Lingerie Bowl halftime show that's appeared during Super Bowls past, there's now a fledgling league of extraordinary women who will play tackle football against one another in their underwear. Tryouts for the Seattle team, the Mist, are this Friday at Greenlake, although official league play won't start for another year and games will be played indoors, ala arena football. It'll be really interesting to see how this goes over in Seattle. (via 2hrlunch)

Sometime between September 29th and September 30th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Capitol Hill club files suit to stay open: Neighbours nightclub, a longtime institution in Capitol Hill and Seattle's gay community has filed a lawsuit to keep the music going at the club. In a suit filed in King County Superior Court Sept. 23, the club's attorney said the owner of the building where Neighbours operates is trying to terminate its lease. On Aug. 12, Tim Giacometti, representing the building's owners, wrote the club that it was terminating the lease, alleging a number of violations. (Sigh — while I haven't been in Neighbours proper in a few years, the current incarnation of the old Vogue is at the Neighbours Underground on Saturdays, and it's looking really nice. It would suck if they were forced to try to find a new spot…again.)
• You CAN see Russia from here!: The island is called Little Diomede. It looks like a rock plopped into the Bering Strait. Only about 150 Alaskans live on the whole island. And just about two miles away; in full view of every single house on the island is the nation of Russia. Specifically, it is the Russian Island of Big Diomede which sits about 25 miles from the Russian Siberian mainland (which you can also see from the American island). We were curious if Sarah Palin has ever visited this island. According to the natives, the answer is no. The island’s mayor has heard of her though. No American mayor resides in a city closer to Russia then Andrew Milligrock, and he says being two miles from Russia doesn’t give him any foreign policy expertise.
• John McCain Owns VoteForTheMILF.com?: Apparently my earlier assumption was wrong, and that voteforthemilf.com really is controlled by McCain's campaign. Classy. Really classy.
• Nasty as they wanna be? Policing Flickr.com: Lest your inner libertarian objects to…interventions, [Heather] Champ is quick to correct the idea that the community would ultimately find its own balance. "The amount of time it would take for the community to self-regulate — I don't think it could sustain itself in the meantime," she says. "Anyway, I can't think of any successful online community where the nice, quiet, reasonable voices defeat the loud, angry ones on their own." (via Waxy)
• FactCheck.org: FactChecking Debate No. 1: McCain and Obama contradicted each other repeatedly during their first debate, and each volunteered some factual misstatements as well. Here’s how we sort them out.

Sometime between September 27th and September 29th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Christopher L. Bennett — Star Trek: Ex Machina Annotations: This document explains the many continuity references, allusions and in-jokes contained in Ex Machina (ExM), as well as the various scientific ideas addressed therein and the reasoning behind many of my conjectures and extrapolations…along with corrections or rationalizations for various errors and continuity glitches. I assume that the reader is familiar with the basic characters and background of the Trek universe. (Saving this for future reading, as I'm reading the novel now, and this document — unsurprisingly — contains a number of spoilers.)
• xkcd: Height: And in-joke heavy logarithmic map of the universe. I thought it was great when I saw it on its own, it's funnier knowing the source inspiration. (second link via Waxy)
• Carrington WordPress Theme: Carrington was built for the entire WordPress community, both developers and end-users alike. Some people will appreciate the unlimited potential the new theme organization offers. Others will love the way AJAX optionally loads the comments right on the homepage. In any case, we’re confident that this new framework is the best thing since the wheel and sliced bread.
• Roger Ebert on McCain’s behavior during Friday night’s debate: What was your problem? Do you hold this man in such contempt that you cannot bear to gaze upon him? Will you not even speak to him directly?
  Do you think he doesn't have the right to be running for President?
  Were you angry because after you said you wouldn't attend the debate, he said a President should be able to concern himself with two things at the same time? He was right. The proof is, you were there. Were you angry with him because he called your bluff?
• Website Grader – SEO Tool – Report For www.michaelhanscom.com: A website grade of 98.4/100 for www.michaelhanscom.com means that of the hundreds of thousands of websites that have previously been evaluated, our algorithm has calculated that this site scores higher than 98.4% of them in terms of its marketing effectiveness. The algorithm uses a proprietary blend of over 50 different variables, including search engine data, website structure, approximate traffic, site performance, and others. (The first time I ran this report I scored a 97. A few template tweaks here and there, and I've pushed it up to 98.4. I think that's good enough for now.)