What would the engineer say, after you had explained your problem, and enumerated all of the dissatisfactions in your life? He would probably tell you that life is a very hard and complicated thing; that no interface can change that; that anyone who believes otherwise is a sucker; and that if you don't like having choices made for you, you should start making your own.

- In the Beginning was the Command Line

Voters Information Guide for the 2004 US Election

This guide is a starting point for people wanting information on voting in the upcoming national election on Tuesday, November 2, 2004. Voter information varies from state to state, so please use the sites and phone numbers listed to find out about the particular procedures in your state.

I read In the Beginning was the Command Line by Neal Stephenson last night via the prodding of nick. (available via download).

Talk about your sweet geekie unix goodness:

When Gates and Allen invented the idea of selling software, they ran into criticism from both hackers and sober-sided businesspeople. Hackers understood that software was just information, and objected to the idea of selling it. These objections were partly moral. The hackers were coming out of the scientific and academic world where it is imperative to make the results of one's work freely available to the public. They were also partly practical; how can you sell something that can be easily copied? Businesspeople, who are polar opposites of hackers in so many ways, had objections of their own. Accustomed to selling toasters and insurance policies, they naturally had a difficult time understanding how a long collection of ones and zeroes could constitute a salable product.

Obviously Microsoft prevailed over these objections, and so did Apple. But the objections still exist. The most hackerish of all the hackers, the Ur-hacker as it were, was and is Richard Stallman, who became so annoyed with the evil practice of selling software that, in 1984 (the same year that the Macintosh went on sale) he went off and founded something called the Free Software Foundation, which commenced work on something called GNU. Gnu is an acronym for Gnu's Not Unix, but this is a joke in more ways than one, because GNU most certainly IS Unix,. Because of trademark concerns ("Unix" is trademarked by AT&T) they simply could not claim that it was Unix, and so, just to be extra safe, they claimed that it wasn't

Florida will not play fair - The Gaurdian

President Jimmy Carter discusses fair elections in Florida. The Carter Center has experience monitoring elections throughout the world, and President Carter's assessment of the process in Florida is disconcerting at best.

The disturbing fact is that a repetition of the problems of 2000 now seems likely, even as many other nations are conducting elections that are internationally certified to be transparent, honest and fair.

...

some basic international requirements for a fair election are missing in Florida.

...

It is unconscionable to perpetuate fraudulent or biased electoral practices in any nation. It is especially objectionable among us Americans, who have prided ourselves on setting a global example for pure democracy.

Managing mail servers has given me an interesting perspective to the spam consumption of mail servers/relays on the internet. A majority of the email traffic running through my current mail server/relay is spam. Spam stinks, I think on this we can all agree. However, I have noticed an interesting phenomenon regarding the quanitty of spam people recieve.

And now, a little dramatic reenactment by the bitterpill.org players.

mail administrator: I shut down a mail alias for a user today. The server denied 1,700 email for that alias today. He gets over a thousand spam messages a day just for that one mail alias. Incredible.

another user: just 1,700 hundred. I get over 2,000 a day.

and...scene

I realized that as much as people hate spam, the quantity of spam you receive indicates some sort of mail prowess on your part, a kind of email/spam popularity that can be touted whenever someone mentions their spam reception quantities.

spd/epd = P - spams per day over emails per day = your email prowess.

What does "some guy with a website think."

Well, Bob, I don't think the evidence is real. And I should know - I have a website.

the story that didn't run - MSNBC

The CBS 60 minutes story accused of using forged documents had apparently bumped a story regarding the forged Niger documents that helped the Administration lead the US into war with Iraq.

In its rush to air its now discredited story about President George W. Bush's National Guard service, CBS bumped another sensitive piece slated for the same "60 Minutes" broadcast: a half-hour segment about how the U.S. government was snookered by forged documents purporting to show Iraqi efforts to purchase uranium from Niger.

Update: apparently this latest post is a amateurish forgery, and is currently being reviewed by the editor.

Update update: Apparently it was the update to this post that was forged, and not the post itself. The update is currently being scrutinized by experts here at bitterpill.org.

A quote from an article with David Neeleman, CEO of JetBlue - via kottke.org

I love American history, and I've studied it. I understand we had a big need for unions in this country. You basically had unscrupulous people who were building companies on the backs of their people without giving them health care and without giving them other benefits. They made them take on hazardous jobs and work long hours.

- bold added for emphasis

It's nice to know that all the unscrupulous people who were building companies in America have been rooted out, and that nasty history of exploiting workers has been abolished for ever, or should I say had been abolished for ever

A new server for bitterpill.org, and the last of the sites to move over is the survey site. So why not a little survey to break in our new home.

Cheney: Kerry win risks of zombie terrorist attack.

Cheney told Republican supporters at a town hall meeting in Des Moines that they needed to make "the right choice" in the November 2 election.

"If we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll all get eaten by zombie terrorists -- its not juts that John Kerry is week on terror, its that he is week on zombies too, and his liberal pro zombie platform will encourage zombie terrorist to rise from the grave, steal biochemical weapons to use against god fearing, living, Americans, and then they will try and eat us." Cheney said.

"And then we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mindset, if you will, that zombies aren't real, and if they are, they aren't terrorists. I think that would be a terrible mistake for us."

Who Cares What Andrew Sullivan Thinks?

Look, there are moderates and open minded Republicans whose opinions we can respect and whose opposition to the Bush administration is more than welcome, but Andrew Sullivan is not one of those people. Andrew Sullivan is one of those people who, as Charles Pierce has suggested, should simply be shunned by all decent people.

I, in fact, am not a small government conservative, and I can't help but agree.

the president made it clear that discriminating against gay people, keeping them from full civic dignity and equality, is now a core value for him and his party. The opposite is a core value for me. Some things you can trade away. Some things you can compromise on. Some things you can give any politician a pass on. But there are other values - of basic human dignity and equality - that cannot be sacrificed without losing your integrity itself. That's why, despite my deep admiration for some of what this president has done to defeat terror, and my affection for him as a human being, I cannot support his candidacy. Not only would I be abandoning the small government conservatism I hold dear, and the hope of freedom at home as well as abroad, I would be betraying the people I love. And that I won't do.

- Andrew Sullivan

The History of Labor Day

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883.

In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday, as originally proposed, and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to follow the example of New York and celebrate a "workingmen's holiday" on that date. The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations, and in 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country.

The Origins of Labor Day - pbs.org

the day for which the toilers in past centuries looked forward, when their rights and their wrongs would be discussed...that the workers of our day may not only lay down their tools of labor for a holiday, but upon which they may touch shoulders in marching phalanx and feel the stronger for it.

- Samuel Gompers - 1898, the head of the American Federation of Labor

...

The movement for a national Labor Day had been growing for some time. In September 1892, union workers in New York City took an unpaid day off and marched around Union Square in support of the holiday. But now, protests against President Cleveland's harsh methods made the appeasement of the nation's workers a top political priority.

I'm Goerge W. Bush, and I approve this message

Sell them their dreams. Sell them what they longed for and hoped for and almost despaired of having. Sell them hats by splashing sunlight across them. Sell them dreams--dreams of country clubs and proms and visions of what might happen if only. After all, people don't buy things to have things. They buy things to work for them. They buy hope--hope of what your merchandise will do for them. Sell them this hope and you won't have to worry about selling them goods.

- Helen Landon Cass

Goerge W Bush, because he says so.

A sneak preview of tonights George W. Bush campaign film, subtitled Bin Laden is a really good hider, from the wonderful Jon Stewart and the best news program anywhere.

-via peter - This would be funnier, if it weren't so true.