Blog
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April 30, 2009
Handy Federal Election donation limits chart (thanks McKenna Long & Aldridge)
A friend of ours over at McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP in DC gave us this great donor limits chart (in a business card size). It is a pretty handy tool so here it is for all you campaigners out there:
DonorsRecipientsSpecial LimitsCandidate CommitteePAC (1)State, District, Local Party Committee (2)National Party Committee (3Individual$2,400* per election (4)$5,000 per year$10,000 per year combined limit$30,400 per year*Biennial limit of $115,500* ($45,600 to all candidates and $69,900 to all PACs and parties (5)State, District and Local Party Committee$5,000 per election combined limit$5,000 per election combined limitUnlimited transfers to other party committeesNational Party Committee$5,000 per election$5,000 per yearUnlimited transfers to other party committees$42,600* to Senate candidate per campaign (6)PAC Multi-Candidate (7)$5,000 per election$5,000 per year$5,000 per year combined limit$15,000 per yearPAC Not Multi-Candidate$2,400* per election (8)$5,000 per year$10,000 per year combined limit$30,400* per year*These limits are indexed for inflation in odd-numbered years.
(1) These limits apply both to separte segregated funds (SSFs) and political action committees (PACs). Affiliated committees share the same set of limits on contributions made and received.
(2) A state party committee shares its limits with local and district party committees in that state unless a local or district committee's independence can be demonstrated. These limits apply to multicandidate committees only.
(3) A party's national committee, Senate campaign committee and House campaign committee are each considered natinal party committees, and each have separate limits, except with respect to Senate candidates - see Special Limits column.
(4) Each of the following is considered a separate election with a separate limit primary election, caucus or convention with the authority to nominate, runoff election and special election.
(5)No more than $45,600 of this amount may be contributed to state and local parties and PACs.
6) This limit is shared by the national committee and the Senate campaign committee.
(7) A multicandidate committee is a political committee that has been registered for at least 6 months, has received contributions from more than 50 contributors and - with the exception of a state party committee - has made contributions to at least five federal candidates.
(8) A federal candidate's authorized committee(s) may contribute no more than $12,000 per election to another federal candidate's authorized committee(s). 2USC§432(e)(3)(B) and 11CFR 102.12(c)(2).
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April 28, 2009
Boston Globe burys White House related errors!
Which is the true news story here?
Today's Wall Street Journal front page states:
"A 'Classified Photo Op Turns Into A Soaring Blunder for the White House
Mission to Get Beauty Shots of Presidential Jet At Statue of Liberty Panics 9/11-Wary New York."
This headline is followed by a nice color picture of a Air Force One 747 and a fighter jet flying at low altitude. The article then goes on to talk about the Air Force admitting that the flight was a secret mission of which city officials had been made aware.What about the Boston Globe?
The Boston Globe has a very different take on this story. On the Globe front page, there is a small lead that says,
"A flyover by two jets sent frightened workers pouring out of buildings..."
The AP article is printed on page A7 and doesn't mention the fact that one of the planes is an Air Force One 747 until the 8th paragraph, 300th word. Talk about burying the lead.
The fact that it was a Presidential Air Force One buzzing Manhattan and scaring folks is THE STORY! Why hide it?
This is not a huge story so why protect the White House in such a heavy handed manner? What else are you hiding?And the Globe (owned by the NY Times) wonders why its subscribers are defecting to Internet based news sources.
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March 26, 2009
Presidental fundraising: 2008 verses 1976
While doing a little market research today, we pluged the past 9 election cycle fundraising numbers into a graph. Besides the dip in the 1980 election, we've got a serious growth industry here.
Note that the Y access is in millions so the total amount raised in the 2008 cycle was $1.63 billion. That buys a lot of yard signs.
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March 26, 2009
Calling all Australian PHP developers, we need bodies to manage our CodeIgniter/AJAX mashup CMS
Calling all Australian PHP developers, we need bodies to manage our CodeIgniter/AJAX mashup CMS which we call Tegel: http://tinyurl.com/cg6x4g.
Candidates must be able to work on-site at our offices in Rozelle, less then 7 minutes for the center of Sydney.
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March 17, 2009
Twitter for complete and utter beginners
A client of ours who is not very "new media" savvy wants to jump into the Twitter pool without looking like a total rube. They asked if we could jot down a few notes to help them get started.
If you are halfway familiar with Twitter, you can stop reading now. If you are new to the Twitter world, the following notes may help you get started. Note that these thoughts were pulled together from a bunch of folks in the office so if there is any plagiarism here, please be flattered ;)
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1. Twitter Basics
Twitter is a free mass text-messaging service that allows you to send out 140-character messages to a group of followers. It is used by friends, family and co-workers to stay connected. Twitter utilizes real time updates (referred to as Tweets), which are posted on your web-based Twitter profile and sent to your Followers’ (other Twitter users) mobile phones.
Twitter is like a casual digital diary and is used for publishing fun facts, useful tools, thoughts, questions, etc. The 140-character space limit emphasizes a large number of short posts. Twitter posts traditionally consist of:
- Status Updates: “Off to the store for some milk”
- Musings: “The construction on 95 in Stoneham is driving me insane!”
- Interesting Links: “Peggy Noonan’s comments today on the economy hit the nail on the head: http://online.wsj.com/peggy-noonan.html”
- Questions: “Is anyone else having problems with their GE fridge freezing up?”
- And much more.
It is not necessary to make each Twitter post substantial. Twitter followers are most interested in what you are interested in or what you are doing now. Twitter should be treated as a fun, slightly self-indulgent broadcasting toy that can lead to a deeper connection with your audience.
Note that Twitter is not just a way to broadcast messages, you can also reply, “@replies” in Twitter-speak, to your followers. Replies are not necessary but are considered good form in the Twitter world.
2. Glossary- Tweet – a short (I40-character) message.
- weeters/Tweeple - People who use Twitter.
- Twoosh - A perfect 140-character tweet.
- Followers - Tweeters who are following your tweets. Followers will see any updates you make on their homepage of Twitter.
- Following - Tweeters you are following. You will see any updates (tweets) on your homepage from anyone you are following
- TweetUp - An ‘in person’ meeting between Twitter users.
3. Getting Started
All you need to use Twitter is a computer with an Internet connection or a mobile phone. Go to http://twitter.com and sign up. Take a look at who is using Twitter by using the Find People tab. Some successful tweeters include:
- eNilsson - http://twitter.com/enilsson (we couldn't not include this one)
- CNN Breaking News – http://twitter.com/cnnbrk
- Stephen Fry – http://twitter.com/stephenfry
- Barack Obama – http://twitter.com/BarackObama
- Anderson Cooper – http://twitter.com/andersoncooper
Once you are comfortable with the experience, you can take advantage of all Twitter features.
4. Things you should do- Post tweets that add more value than the attention it consumes. Instead of posting “just had a great burger”, post something like “great burger specials today at Joe’s Burger Palace in Cambridge”.
- Be aware of how often you tweet. Post enough to keep followers interested (at least once a day), but not so much that you flood their feeds with 50 new tweets a day.
- Use Twitter to provide updates when a new blog post or press release is posted on your website. This can be done automatically provided the content is already in an RSS feed.
- Use services like tinyurl.com and is.gd to shorten links. Tweet real estate is important because of the 140-character limit. Tweeters use these services (often built into desktop and mobile Twitter applications) to shorten links like https://www.freestrongamerica.com/contribute to http://is.gd/kHdP.
5. Things you shouldn’t do- Do not post just news updates. News updates are important, but including personal content in your tweets allows for that human feel that makes social networking and media work.
- Don’t post and read at the same time. What happens is that you are all set to make a post, but you see updates from people you follow so you stop to read those. After a while, you have forgotten what you intended to post, as well as your to do list. Schedule time to twitter.
- Do not use an @reply to send a message to someone that you would like to be private. This will show up on the public timeline.
6. Mobile Tweeting- Text Messaging/SMS: You can send updates to Twitter by linking your mobile phone number to your Twitter account and then sending a text message to 40404. You can also elect to receive Twitter updates of other users by allowing Twitter to send their updates to you in a text message. Important: Twitter is limited to 140 characters while most mobile carriers set the text message limit at 160 characters. If you go over 140 characters then your message will be curtailed.
- Smart phones: Popular devices like Blackberry’s and iPhones have applications that can be downloaded to improve the user’s experience with Twitter. For the iPhone, try TwitterFon at http://twitterfon.net or Twitterrific at http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific. Each device and application has its pros and cons, but the general principals of Twitter remain the same.
7. Twitter applications for Blackberry users- TwitterBerry – The most widely used Twitter application for Blackberry phones, TwitterBerry has its legions of loyal followers. With all applications, TwitterBerry can only pull from the Twitter api less than 70 times an hour. A complete FAQ can be found here: http://www.orangatame.com/products/twitterberry/faq.php. The supported devices and system requirements can be found here: http://www.orangatame.com/products/twitterberry/.
- Twibble – The second most popular Blackberry application for Twitter. Twibble will function on any JavaScript enabled mobile device. Pros for Twibble include keyboard shortcuts and minimal amounts of data transferred. A huge draw for most Twibble users is that Twibble can be configured to be ‘geographically aware’ on some devices – this includes updating your latitude and longitude coordinates with each Tweet. For obvious security reasons we would not recommend enabling this feature. More information here: http://www.twibble.de/twibble-mobile/.
- TinyTwitter – TinyTwitter succeeds in that it will work for any phone that is JavaScript enabled. All of the basic functions are the same, including a number of settings to customize the user interface and data displayed. More information can be found here: http://www.tinytwitter.com/about.html.
8. Actions/Features- @replies - By using “@username” at the beginning of your tweet, you can direct that tweet at a specific user. It is intended to support back and forth communications. This type of messaging is publicly visible.
- ReTweet - To re-send a previous tweet or to resend someone else's tweet so it reaches a larger audience. Proceeded with “RT @username” with the username being the original author.
- Direct Messages - You can send a direct message to another user by using the message link on their profile page, the reply icon from your own direct message, or using the command “d <insert username> <insert text>” message. Only you and the person you are direct messaging will see the contents of the tweets. You can only send a DM to someone who is one of hour followers.
- Favorites - You can store any of your favorite tweets by clicking the star icon by the message.
- Tags, hash tags, and #’s – You enter a tweet that reads: #golf Augusta National GC opening soon. The #golf is a tag. Users will often include a tag somewhere in their messages if they are relevant to a popular topic. The tags can be searched at http://search.twitter.com/. The search result for #golf is http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23golf. All tweets with the #golf tag will be listed.
9. Recommendations- Acquire your name, fore example: twitter.com/DavidBeckham: As in domain names, a Twitter account name is important. The more personal you can keep it, the better. Example: WarrenBuffett is a better username than BerkshireHathaway.
- Use mobile tweeting, but use an application and not the text message service. If someone were to gain access to your account then that individual would be able to access your phone number. Also, an application can allow you to browse tweets easily – the SMS/text message option would require you to subscribe to a user and would also open yourself up to a plethora of text messages.
- Consider using a service like TweetLater.com to track relevant keywords and hash tags, automatically post pre-written tweets at scheduled intervals, and automate a host of other actions.
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February 26, 2009
Australian Department of Immigration is all kinds of awesome
It appears that usability standards have not reached Down Under.
While filling out a 457 Long-Stay Visa application, we were faced with the following pulldown:
"If you wish to lodge only one nomination application then leave the counter set at "0". Entering "1" will generate two nominations, this nomination and an additional nomination. Entering "9" will generate ten nominations, this nomination and an additional nine nominations."
The best part was that one of the pull down options had two seperate zeros to choose from. Don't choose the first one becaust that zero doesn't work.
Calling all usability experts, there are jobs to be had with the Australian Government! -
February 26, 2009
The wrath of Internet Explorer
Lifehacker.com header - from top to bottom - in IE 6, IE 7, and Firefox 3. If you're involved in the world of web design and developing then you know all about the horrendous family of browsers from Microsoft. The nomenclature is quite appropriate - each labeled as Internet Explorer and then followed with a number that dictates what ring of hell each hails from.
The awfulness of Internet Explorer (6 and 7 being the presently used versions) doesn't really have all that much to do with the user experience. IE 7 is actually a tolerable browser when you're stuck running Window Updates and downloading spyware tools on your computer illiterate friend's computer. The real evil shows itself when you write up code for a website and you have to insert some annoying workaround to get some simple element to render correctly.
Case in point: When we want to use images with transparency in IE 6. Or building a Flash application that will run on a https server and the problems that causes with IE.
In Internet Explorer's defense, other browsers do miss the mark in the same respect. But at least other browsers are grouped somewhere around the bull's eye. Internet Explorer is the drunk at the local bar that's, at times, lucky if it's hitting the wall that supports the dart board.
Like an idiot I held out hope that IE 8 would make all of this a bit easier. Nope. Recent news from ZDNet is quite sad. IE 8 has a growing list of high traffic sites that apparently are not compatible with how it wants to render them. The best one on the list: microsoft.com.
And all these browser issues is another reason why we love Flex.
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January 26, 2009
My.BarackObama.com used to spread malware
It appears that our misgivings regarding the Obama campaign and our our online privacy protection posted in our October posting had some merit.
According to the "Websense Security Labs Threat Seeker" (that is quite a product name), bogus my.barackobama.com user accounts are being used to spread malicious code. Here is the full posting: http://securitylabs.websense.com/content/Blogs/3284.aspx. The scary part is that these reports of malware on my.barackobama.com began last spring and have yet to be resolved.
Don't get us wrong, we believe in the use of technology to bring people and ideas together. Unfortunately, when every you bring large groups of people to one place, there will be opportunities for bad guys to be bad. As in meat-space, we all need to do our level best to make public areas (social networks) safe for everyone.
In the end, we are responsible for ourselves and for what we download or share online. Embrace change but "hey, let's be careful out there... " -
January 16, 2009
eNilsson contributes to job growth in Washington, Boston and Sydney
eNilsson is hiring! Our business is doubling this year and we need your help.
Boston (Westford) - We are looking for a Project Manager who is comfortable getting their hands a little dirty by working on our PHP based platforms.
We'd also like to get our hands on a Front End Developer who has strong design skills.
Sydney (Rozelle) - We need an up and coming star to help build on our existing Flex products and to take ownership of new projects. Strong design skills are a must. Skills and enthusiasm in microarchitectures (Cairngorm), custom AS3 components, states and transitions, AMFPHP and user interface design would be very desirable.Washington DC - Are you connected? We need a Business Development Director to help us capitalize on our DC area sales momentum. Can you help us develop clients and new strategic partnerships within the hallowed halls and corridors of Washington? If so, we need to talk.
Learn more about these positions and how to apply at: www.enilsson.com/careers.
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January 08, 2009
Help, my AWS instance has fallen and it can't get up...
Our first day back after the festive break was an eventful one! So as we eased back into working life our AWS instance, a nicely optimised Fedora AMI that was serving both our suite of Tegel hosted sites and as the core testing area for our new Struktor application platform, suddenly went silent!!
While I thanked my lucky stars this didnt happen while I was stuffing my face over christmas dinner, or glued to the TV watching the Boxing Day Test I was none the less perplexed and a little lost.
The symptoms were strange, the instance appeared to be running when we checked the ec2-describe-instances call but no matter what we did, either via HTTP, SSH or SFTP we couldnt raise it at all. So we checked further, and it appeared that all our S3 data and the Elastic Storage Block (EBS) data appeared to be intact (thanks jeebers for that!), but the EC2 instance was toast.
So we raised the topic on the AWS EC2 forums and got a fairly quick response which was nice;
Hi James,
We are investigating a misbehaving network device that seems to be affecting connectivity to a small number of instances. We are working to fix or replace that device. You can relaunch your instance or wait and we should be able to restore connectivity.
Regards,
JoeJHmm, that is strange, well at least it wasnt something we did. As you can imagine we were mentally running through all the things we may have done to bork the server, so it was nice to hear we were in the clear.
So after some more checking we decided the best course of action was indeed to rebuild the server onto a new instance, however this posed a few issues;
- The running AMI could not be stopped, it hung in terminating mode indefinately
- It proved difficult to unmount the storage block from the running AMI, unless we used the force option
- We had neglected to institute Elastic IPs so the IP attached to this AMI was lost to us, meaning all our domains needed to be repointed to the new server.
Once we realised what was involved, the disaster recovery proved relatively straightforward if however inconvenient.
- Instantiate a new instance of the AMI from the saved snapshot
- Mount the detached EBS onto the new server, and test the instance
- Grab yourself an Elastic IP if you dont have one already and assign the new instance to it (this article proved most useful)
- Make sure all your domains have the new IP address listed
- Test
The beauty of the Elastic IP as we discovered is that if this were to happen again, we can simply assign that IP to a new instance and we can skip step 4, which can be a huge timesaver if you have a lot of domains with different registrars.
A learning experience to be sure, but now we know the recovery should be pretty quick and painless!
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January 06, 2009
eNilsson pursues the non-violent overthrow of bad user interface design
About a year and a half ago, Bill Higgins wrote a very interesting article about user interface design. In short, he says that products/programs should be developed to look like the platform in which they run on. So, says Bill, “a Windows application should look and feel like a Windows application, a Mac application should look and feel like a Mac application, and a web application should look and feel like a web application.” For Bill, if you don’t heed this warning then you will confuse your users because the application won’t feel natural.
Bill, this is me disagreeing with you:
Your average user has come a long way and is not made so easily uncomfortable by differing UIs anymore. Exhibit A: iTunes for Windows. Launched back in 2003, iTunes for the Windows platform maintains the same exact look, feel, and functionality as native OSX programs. In fact, it has become Apple’s flagship program (with the help of the iPod) and has been exciting young people with the Apple UI since its launch.
And it doesn’t stop there. Exhibits B, C, and D: Fluid, Adobe Air, and Mozilla Prism. Fluid uses Site Specific Browsers (SSBs) to make web applications look like desktop applications. And Adobe Air is a cross-platform runtime environment for web applications, allowing developers (and sometimes the user) to bring a consistent UI to web applications regardless of the operating system. Mozilla Prism is yet another program bridging the divide between the Internet and the desktop in that it "focuses on how web apps can integrate into the desktop experience... also working to increase the capabilities of those apps by adding functionality to the Web itself, such as providing support for offline data storage and access to 3D graphics hardware." Plus Prism has the benefit of being built on our beloved Firefox - yes, that means support for HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and <canvas> on ANY operating system.
And then there’s ElephantTrakker. eNilsson built ElephantTrakker in Flex to look and feel like a desktop application regardless of the environment. It has the rich feature set of a desktop application, and speed to match from its cloud data service, so the look and feel is a great complement. But is it confusing or uncomfortable? Quite the opposite. When it was first deployed to volunteer fundraisers for the Romney campaign it was embraced by all levels of computer users whom soon couldn't live without the program. Perhaps eNilsson has taken advantage of working in an area where few standards have been established, so users have little to no expectations regarding UI.
Whatever the explanation might be, it seems that the UI divide that Bill speaks of is shrinking despite his warnings. As more programs migrate to the cloud (announced today is that iWork is even moving to the cloud with iWork.com - in beta at the moment) and other programs focus on syncing data and functionality across multiple platforms (see the success of Evernote), users seem not only open to changing the way they interact with their information, they are relishing it.
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December 23, 2008
Online software a bright spot in a down economy
The Wall Street Journal reported today that "online software, which businesses access over the Internet... is expected to gain attention since it can save money and help productivity."
We've been preaching this for years! Even Larry Ellison (Oracle's CEO) who didn't think one could make money selling Software As A Service (SaaS) is now pushing Oracle into the SaaS pool.
The 900 lb. gorillas have now decided that our market looks attractive. Microsoft too, is trying to swim in our pool by recently launching online services.
Luckily the market is big enough for everyone. Now that the gorillas are on our own turf (or swim-club, to continue the analogy) we have the opportunity to make the the gorillas cower before the creative might of eNilsson International llc.
Have you ever seen a gorilla swim? It is not pretty. -
December 14, 2008
Boston office hammered by December 11th ice storm.
As of this morning (Sunday 12/14), we still do not have power in our Boston office. Thursday night's ice storm knocked out power for over 1.25 million people.Luckily today the temperature should break 42° F / 6° C which will keep folks' pipes from freezing and it is only suppose to get down to 35° F / 2° C tonight which will make for a comparatively warm evening.
The Sydney office has just checked in. They are reporting that it is sunny and 78° F / 24° C and Raf is just back from a early morning surfing session. Somehow I think that there will be a flurry of transfer requests tomorrow.
It is Monday the 15th in Sydney so apparently the ice storm has not affected the time change.
2008 New England Ice Storm
Wallpaper
1024x640 1280x800 1440x900Boston Globe:
As cleanup continues, 162K still waiting for power -
December 05, 2008
Is it time to start talking about the 2012 presidential election yet?
Poll watchers, start your engines!
Huckabee and Palin top early 2012 list
CNN - Barack Obama is still more than six weeks from White House, and the next Iowa caucuses are more than three years away — so naturally, it’s time to start talking 2012, as a new national poll suggests that Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee top the list of potential 2012 Republican presidential hopefuls...
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/12/05/huckabee-and-palin-top-early-2012-list/
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December 05, 2008
Free Beer experiment fails
Back on November 14th we posted a blog entry to test the theory that the words "free beer" would drive web traffic to the eNilsson blog.
Our theory was based on the popularity of our "US Tax System - Explained With Beer" posting from 11/4. At the time, we were shocked by the number of visitors coming to eNilsson.com just for this posting. We figured that the word "beer" was the driving force here. What better way to test our theory then to add the magic word "free" to "beer" in a blog post?
RESULTSAfter 21 days, here is what we found. The Free Beer blog posting was:
1. 16th most popular content page based on page views
2. 13th most popular landing page, only one page behind "US Tax System - Explained With Beer"
CONCLUSIONPeople like blog postings on beer. No supprises here but the beer postings are far less popular than most of the more eNilsson centric pages. This is good as our website is not a pub.
All is well with the world.
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December 01, 2008
Having fun while respecting your customers
I found the following label on the back of a door mat and it really got me thinking about how companies treat their customers. First the label:
Important things you should know about your new doormat
Warning: Do not use mat as a projectile. Sudden acceleration to dangerous speeds may cause injury. When using mat, follow directions: Put your right foot in, put your right foot out, put your right foot in and shake it all about. This mat is not designed to sustain gross weight exceeding 12,000 lbs. If mat begins to smoke, immediately seek shelter and cover head. Caution: If coffee spills on mat, assume that it is very hot. This mat is not intended to be used as a placemat. Small food particles trapped in fibers may attract rodents and other vermin. Do not glue mat to porous surfaces, such as pregnant women, pets and heavy machinery. When not in use, mat should be kept out of reach of children diagnosed with CFED (Compulsive Fiber Eating Disorder). Do not taunt mat. Failure to comply relieves the makers of this doormat, Simply Precious Home Decor, and its parent company, High Cotton, Inc, of any and all liability.
My guess is that our lovely US product liability laws have forced High Cotton, Inc. to put a warning statement on their doormat which is a ludicrous requirement. Instead of caving in to "the Man" High Cotton, Inc. made the best of the situation by having some fun with their label. If my assumptions are wrong and High Cotton, Inc. created the label just for laughs, nice job!Will I buy another High Cotton, Inc. doormat based on the warm fuzzies brought on by reading the warning label... probably not. I will, however point out the label to friends, neighbors, associates and the occasional enemy whenever the opportunity rises.
The upside of this witty warning label is that High Cotton, Inc., besides having a good time, is treating their customers with respect and affection.
1. We as a company respect your intelligence and are not going to give you a stupid, "do not ingest this doormat" warning label.
2. We care about you, our customer enough to give you what amounts to a "free prize" inside every doormat package.
This is good business. A company can never go wrong respecting its customers and offering a free prize inside every product.
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November 21, 2008
eNilsson is still hiring and is even adding to the list
That's right. In addition to our previously posted openings, eNilsson is now looking for a LAMP Developer for the Boston branch. Come wow us.
Yet again, you can learn more at: http://www.enilsson.com/careers
And if you think you are a strong candidate, contact us at jobs@enilsson.com.
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November 18, 2008
eNilsson is hiring developers. Help us fix the economy!
Calling all developers, unlike everyone else, we are hiring.
We need a shiny new LAMP developer for Sydney and 2 front end developers (one for Boston and one for Sydney).
Learn more at: http://www.enilsson.com/careers
If you think you are a strong candidate, contact us at jobs@enilsson.com.
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November 14, 2008
Free Beer!
Quick interesting Friday afternoon factoid: For those of you who are looking to build site traffic, the secret is to blog about beer.
It was just brought to my attention that the "US Tax System - Explained With Beer" blog posting that went up last week is the 4th most popular landing page on enilsson.com during the past 30 days. I am not sure what all these people are looking for. We did not use the magic words, "Free Beer."
I guess that next to sex, beer is the next best sales tool. Lets see how this blog item performs: free beer, free beer, free beer, free beer, free beer, free beer, free beer, free beer!I will pull the stats on this posting in a week or two and let you know how "Free Beer" did as a traffic draw.
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November 07, 2008
Thank you Michael Crichton
The passing of Michael Crichton this week brings to mind his great work of bringing scientific thought to the masses. His belief that the "work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus" strikes me as something our media infested world forgets.
"Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right..."
I guess Crichton really speaks to the contrarian in me.
"Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?"
Keep this thought in mind next time you read a hysterical article about global warming. Yes our climate is changing, but how is it changing and why?
As you answer these questions to your self, ask your self, are you sure, and why are you so sure.
Thank you Michael for bringing out the scientist in all of us.
[These quotes are taken from a lecture delivered by the late Michael Crichton at the California Institute of Technology on January 17, 2003]
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