Mega super nodes (Skype outtage)

Skype knows their users don't care about the technology, they just want it to work (from from foxnews.com):

"Under normal circumstances, there are a large number of supernodes available," network features which act like phone directories for Skype, Haas said. "Unfortunately, today, many of them were taken offline by a problem affecting some versions of Skype."

Engineers created new "mega-supernodes" that solved the problem, Haas said.

And if those fail, we may have to resort to mega-super-duper-nodes.

An election ballot proposal to make voting mandatory

I have an idea. This article on truthout.org argues that if voting were mandatory in the U.S., it would eliminate the extremism in our political system, changing the pool of voters from highly emotional and polarized groups, into the entire country, producing a vote better reflecting the true majority opinions.

First, I love this idea, but there's no way it would pass, because everybody running the show likes the polarization - it's good for business and for politicians. Fox News would call it socialism or something and it would never get off the ground. It's similar to making election day a national holiday - it's obviously a good idea if the goal is to maximize the number of voters, so the reason it's never brought up is because the people in power don't want to maximize the number of voters.

But then I remembered how gay marriage became such a big issue. No one but gay people even thought about it until Bush's team had an item added to the 2004 election ballot, asking the country's opinion on amending the constitution to ban gay marriage.

It was a brilliant political move - Republicans came out in tremendous numbers just to vote yes on the ban, and while they were there, also voted for Bush. Kerry's supporters, unfazed by such a bogus issue, stayed at home and assumed someone else would vote Bush out of office for them. I still don't know how that happened, honestly.

The point, though, is that adding items like that to the ballot - something that directly impacts peoples' lives (as opposed to electing politicians, which most people feel doesn't do anything except elect politicans) - mobilizes people to vote. So what if we just added an item to the election ballot proposing to make voting mandatory? It would have the same effect as making it mandatory - everyone would leave the house to vote on it. It would be the first thing we've voted on in a general election that has a direct impact on our actual lives - a proposal to force us to leave the house once every couple years to vote.

Or it would backfire and only the Fox News fans would leave the house to veto it.

It would be so interesting to see an honest and comprehensive election in this country. Just to filter out the noise from the media and see what the majority of the country really thinks. From what I've read, I suspect the vote would steer far more left than it usually does.

Let's get our priorities straight, Mr. Bohner

John Bohner said in an interview with the Pittsburgh-Tribune:

"Ensuring there's enough money to pay for the war will require reforming the country's entitlement system".

That's a pretty shocking declaration. He followed it by proposing raising the retirement age to 70.

Using the same math, one could instead say:

Ensuring there's enough money to take care of our seniors requires reforming the country's stance on the war.

If paying for the war is more important than taking care of our seniors, what are fighting it for in the first place?

A statement like that could be the death of him in November. Seniors love to vote. Let's see if he next proposes eliminating Medicare.

It's not Obama's language

Some fool is saying that Obama's speech was written to too high a grade level for his target audience. I say bullshit. Anyone who watched that speech, from a Nobel Prize winner to a sea turtle, understood that BP is paying for the spill. We all understood that because that's the only thing he said. The end. No one understood the rest of the speech because it contained no content. It seemed too professorial because it was a word balloon.

If Obama had declared that we will invest 100 billion in wind turbines, or tax gasoline consumption starting in 2012, or introduce a new energy bill next year, or pretty much any specific action, you can bet your Hummer everyone in America would have understood what he meant, no matter how he worded it or how many words he used per paragraph.

When everyone talks about wanting a president they can have a beer with, I don't think they mean someone uneducated. They mean they want a president that has their best interest at heart, tells the truth, and makes his intentions clear. Those are the people we like to have beers with, be they truck drivers or physicists.

Why Americans Don't Care About Soccer

Americans don't like soccer because we like points, and soccer has no points. The rules allow for the scoring of points, but it rarely occurs, and when it does, it's a fleeting moment created seemingly by chance. The game instead consists of a continuous back-and-forth of the soccer ball over a vast field, punctuated occasionally by fouls, players pretending to be fouled, or the ball going out of bounds. When a goal does occur, if you're reaching into the popcorn bowl at that moment, you have nearly no warning and you miss it.

As Americans, we simply can't concentrate that long. We need satisfaction. We need something we can hold onto. We need points. Even in an American football game, which to me is boring as dirt because it stops and starts every three seconds, the ball gains or loses yardage, which feels like points. Also, that it starts and stops every three seconds means that we only need to concentrate for a few seconds at a time. Baseball is the same - the action only occurs for a few seconds at a time, and players advance around the bases, which gets you measurably closer to winning a point. This is the opposite of a soccer game, which is one continuous blur of running and kicking, signifying nothing.

Mr. Jake Goes To Washington

I'll be speaking at a lymphedema awareness/research benefit on May 2nd in D.C! I've never done such a thing, and my brain keeps telling me that I'm not inspiring enough to do this, but my brain says a lot of nonsense to keep me in my comfort zone, and frankly I've somehow never failed to move and inspire a crowd, and I'll be great.

There is also going to be a 13-year-old boy there with primary lymphedema, and I'm told he's going through a tough time. I was miserable at 13 with primary lymphedema. Most people are miserable at 13 anyway. When your whole body and face are hidden under a lot of swelling all the time, it takes junior high to an entirely new level of miserable. I am making damn sure that kid knows he's going to have a great lie, and that he's going to be one sexy mofo. Which means I have to have a great life - which I do - and I have to be a sexy mofo - which I am. When I actually be a sexy mofo.

I want the press there. I want the media there. I want this to be the first step in an ongoing lymphedema awareness campaign. If you know anyone in the media send them my way - I want to talk to them.

What happened to the documentary?

A production company contacted me earlier this year, saying they'd like to commit their resources to the project - lights, cameras, sound, editing equipment, and a team of interns to work on it. Great! Then the company lost their money and had to fire their interns, and no more production company.

Truth be told, I let the project fizzle out, for the same stupid reason I'm sitting on my hands about contacting the press - because I feel like I'm not inspiring enough to produce a documentary that will deliver the emotional impact I want it to have. I want people to walk out of that theater feeling connected to everyone else in it regardless of their circumstances. I want them laughing, crying, seeing things about their own lives. So my brain says "Jake, you're a computer programmer who oversleeps every morning and practically has a heart attack talking to a girl. How are you going to inspire anyone?" My brain, like I said, says a lot of things, and it does it to make sure I stay safe and survive. Thank you brain, I got it, now let's give a speech and make a documentary.

And film the benefit for the documentary! What a great idea - someone suggested that recently and I can't believe I saw them as separate things. So I need to get someone there with cameras to film it.

Google Timeline

History buffs, you will love this Google Labs project. Type a year into the Date field like 1968 or 1492, or a search term like "Susan Boyle", and view everything about it on a week by week, day by day or month by month basis - all the relevant articles and images from lots of online publications and wikipedia. Great for researching anything, or just browsing through time.

Google News Timeline

Butterfly: my latest article

Wrote an article for IBM Developerworks on a small PHP framework I designed called Butterfly, because it facilitates the transformation of XML via chains of XSLT stylesheets, and was inspired by the Apache Cocoon project.

IBM even designed a little butterfly graphic for it.

The big coup this time was that I finally, finally, got them to link directly to my website, because it's about a framework I wrote, so I created a page for the framework on my web site and linked to it from the article. Hello Google.

Ron Paul on the Federal Reserve

Another clear explanation by Ron Paul of how our monetary system currently works, in contrast to how it is intended to work as described in the Constitution, including why the dollar is collapsing.

Lymphedema in the Bible

An astounding tidbit from the conversation with my friend Suzie: Jesus cured a man with lymphedema:

1 One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. 2 There in front of him was a man suffering from dropsy. 3 Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” 4 But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him away. 5 Then he asked them, “If one of you has a son or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull him out?” 6 And they had nothing to say.

Luke 14:1-6 (courtesy of bible.org)

Dropsy is an older term for lymphedema:

Dropsy: An old term for the swelling of soft tissues due to the accumulation of excess water.

from medterms.com

The ultimate moral of the story is that it's okay to perform manual lymph drainage on the Sabbath.