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Inspired by this post by johndii ...

Seriously, does anyone still use stamps?

[_] Stamps? Say what?
[_] Only for the odd christmas card to grandparents who think we're living in the stone age;
[_] I still pay my bills by mailing cheques, because I like to do things the "old-fashioned" way;
[_] I use stamps because otherwise my neighbour, who works for the USPS, will go postal on me!
[_] I use stamps because my neighbour, who works for the USPS, gets me "samples" cheap!
[_] I don't use stamps. but I buy them to support postal workers, same as I give money to Greenpeace to support other animals threatend with extinction;
[_] I use stamps because I tried paying my bills on the Internet but my bank won't let me; I put the money in the tray on my computer and clicked on "pay bill" but the lying theiving bastards say they never got the money;
[_] In Soviet Russia stamp licks YOU!
[_] Netcraft confirms it. stamps are dead.
[_] CowboyNeal does all the licking around here!

In other "stamp news", I hear that they tried making a stamp featuring George Bush, but it was a total failure:

• 1. people refused to believe it was worth anything;
• 2. they couldn't find a picture of George that, when shrunk down to postage-stamp size, didn't look like a chimpanzee;
• 3. he's so slimey that they couldn't get the glue to stick properly;
• 4. when you'd send a package by registered mail, you'd get a big card saying "mission accomplished", but the other side got squat;
• 5. people consistently spit on the wrong side
• 6. when informed that only dead people were supposed to be on stamps, Dick Cheney offered to invite George on a hunting trip. Hillary supporters suggested they could take Obama with them, to "help Obama look more presidential"
• 7. turns out that when the primary market for Goerge Bush stamps says they got "tired out writing 3 letters a day" they meant "A", "B", and "C".

... because ...

• 1. "they sure ain't in it for the love", and ...
• 2. they "stay in the game too long and just end up looking miserable"

It's over. Clinton has lost what was a "gimme". The only people who consider an "Obama-Clinton" pairing a dream ticket are those who want to see Hillary *somewhere* in the White House. Dream ticket? If you're going to suggest "Obama-Clinton", why not go all the way and push "Obama-Hitler" and be done with it. At this point, this is just one persons' naked lust for power, and let's how much damage they have to do to get it.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-clinton-obama-voteboth-web-05110may12,0,6194985.story

New group with Clinton ties pushes a dream ticket
By Margaret Talev | McClatchy Newspapers
4:21 PM CDT, May 11, 2008

WASHINGTON A group called VoteBoth has been leading the charge for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to team up on the Democratic ticket.

But the people behind it come from just one of those camps Clinton's and one of their goals may be keeping Clinton's White House prospects alive.

On Friday, when word went out that Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., didn't see Clinton as Obama's pick for a running mate, VoteBoth released a statement offering respect for Kennedy. But it added, "We think that the millions of Democrats who have voted for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have something to say, too. Why stop at having a nominee who has the support of 51 percent of Democrats when we could have a 'Dream Team' ticket that has won 100 percent?"

VoteBoth first filed with the Federal Election Commission on April 8, two weeks before the Pennsylvania primary that Clinton won and that was considered a crucial window for her comeback. The group's original mission promoted the idea of Clinton as the nominee with Obama as her running mate.

Jeremiah Wright's latest divisive remarks and Obama's renouncement of his former pastor, VoteBoth amended its mission. It now would support a joint ticket in either order, so long as Clinton's name was on the ballot.

Last week, as Obama's strong showing made him all but certain to clinch the nomination, VoteBoth leaders began putting themselves in the spotlight, sending regular press releases, posting blogs and appearing in interviews.

"VoteBoth does not aim to pick who leads the ticket," group founder Adam Parkhomenko wrote on The Huffington Post on Tuesday as voters went to the polls in the North Carolina and Indiana primaries. He wrote of friends who "believe in Barack as strongly as I believe in Hillary" and wanting to be inclusive "as a matter of fairness, practicality, experience and hope."

On Friday, Parkhomenko said through a spokesman that his decision to change the mission came after talking to an Obama supporter. He also said he gave neither the Clinton nor Obama campaigns a heads-up about his group.

Parkhomenko until recently worked as an assistant to Patti Solis Doyle, who was Clinton's campaign manager until February. Parkhomenko in 2003 founded the Draft Hillary for President Committee.

VoteBoth's spokesman is Sam Arora. He's a law school student who in recent years worked for Clinton and for former Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe, Clinton's presidential campaign chairman.

VoteBoth's Facebook page lists three others as administrators, all with Clinton connections.

(EDITORS: BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)

One is a Democratic technology consultant, who was quoted in a New York Times story about the Iowa Democratic Party's 2006 Jefferson-Jackson dinner, where he was passing out "Hillary for President" stickers. Another appears online in a photo with Hillary Clinton and others at a summer leadership program from 2006.

A third is a history professor and campaign contributor whom Clinton named earlier this year in a press release of prominent Virginians to endorse her.

(EDITORS: END OPTIONAL TRIM)

In an interview Friday, Arora said VoteBoth is not coordinated with Clinton's campaign, and is "just a bunch of us volunteering our time because we think this is a good idea." Despite the lopsided Clinton connections, he said it isn't just about supporting Clinton but about bringing together the rivals' historic turnout and fund-raising machines and constituencies.

(EDITORS: BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)

"There's been a lot of talk about a unity ticket and we think that's where the conversation should be," said Arora, choosing a word conversation that Clinton used to frame her campaign appearances. "If we've been able to help the discussion forward, that's what we're focused on."

"IfBarack Obama is the nominee and he takes Senator Clinton as his vice president, you've got a ticket that's already won 100 percent of the Democratic vote, that's turned out a record number of Democratic voters and that has shattered fundraising records. A unity ticket is the way Democrats win in November."

(EDITORS: END OPTIONAL TRIM)

Obama's campaign declined comment on VoteBoth. The Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

(c) 2008, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Visit the McClatchy Washington Bureau on the World Wide Web at www.mcclatchydc.com.

AP-NY-05-11-08 1631EDT

Okay, I'm one of those heathen atheists - rumour has it that I have 666 tattooed on my skull (hey, i'm the one who STARTED that particular rumour :-), etc. You could even say I'm an "evangelical atheist" - I liike to spread the "good news" that you don't need "redemption" from "sin" and all that.

... so I offered that I would be on my good behaviour when attending the christening of two of my friends' son.

Now, I seem to remember attending one christening in the past, and the distinguishing feature was "B-O-R-I-N-G-!-!-!" So, today, I brought my video camera along, along with my tripod, media pc, etc (my "movie studio in a pull-along").

Now, I've only used the camera a couple of times, mostly "just fooling around" stuff during Christmas (and even then, I passed it to others, who ended up recording more than I did). So, since I've never recorded a "real event" before, I figured it would be fun.

I figured right. There were 4 kids baptized, and while most of the people got a chance to be bored when it wasn't "their" kid who was being "processed", I had fun.

A quick review of the raw footage uploaded to the lappy surprised me - it's pretty good. I didn't want to go for the "stick a camcorder on a tripod and record everyone from one static POV" thing, so I got to practice my "pan-n-zoom" techniques. It was a bit awkward at first (new tripod - gotta "break it in a bit" to get it to work completely smoothly), but while everyone else had to sit for over an hour, I got to grab a scene, move to another POV, grab another, move again, etc.

I even got a few emotional shots that I think nobody was aware of ...

My one regret was not having more than one camera set up. If I can find 2 more of that camcorder's make and model on sale, I'm in the market for sure. I figure that with judicious use of the remotes (along with decent-sized lcds acting as monitors so I can see what each camera sees in real time), I can overcome some of the limitations of a one-camera/one operator setup.

Like I said, it sure beats being in the audience, and it ties into what I've been bugging people to do at work - MAKE A FRIGGING RECORD OF WHAT YOU'RE DOING WHEN YOU MAKE A PRESENTATION ALREADY! Beats having to go over the same stuff for each new hire, for sure.

15 mod points? We were discussing user moderation and tagging systems at work, and I'm in favour of "less is better", as it encourages people to "spend them wisely."

Certainly in the case of slashdot, 15 mod points, without raising the karma cap accordingly, will allow people to be mod-bombed out of exstence quicker. Expect an increase in sock puppets, since they will now be worth 3x as much.

And let's face it - it's only human nature to devalue that which we have more of. We value items that are scarce. From rare comic books to rare coins to rare paintings, the thing that helps give them value is their scarecity (so if you wnat to make money, buy a bunch of paintings and then shoot the painter). If there were an unlimited supply of original Mona Lisas, you wouldn't be able to GIVE them away today.

We've gone from 5 mod points to 10 to 15. Expect to see more "mods on crack" comments in the future.

Instead of tripling the # of mod points, it would have been better to just add a short text field so you can explain your mod. This would also help both mods and metamods who may not catch an obscure reference, don't "get" the joke, etc.

Rendering a custom version of each page with moderation options takes more resources on the server. Adding a column to the database for "mod_explanation", and an edit box, for 5 mod points, is less resource-intensive than rendering pages for 15 mod points, all other things being equal. The only offset I can see is that people are more likely to use more than 1 mod point per story, so maybe the total number of page renderings won't increase by all that much.

Of course, while we're at it, anyone unfairly sitting in the karma cellar need a leg up?

After a couple of weeks, I've only got one beef with this laptop. While there's room for a second hard drive, try to find a hard drive caddy for it. I bought a second 320gig hd on the weekend, but I can't find a hard drive caddy locally!!! Agggghhhh!

It interfaces well with my dv camcorder, and the bundled software does a good job of batch capturing the video.

The scary thing is, it actually runs Vista just fine. The next version of openSuse is still almost 2 months away, so I guess I have 2 months in which to order a hard drive caddy off the net (or install 10.3 sooner).

I'll be testing it for editing movies and maybe some flash over the next little while, but from what I saw with importing a 30 meg video clip in flash, it's more than capable.