Archive for November, 2008
The First Presidential BlackBerry?
Monday, November 17th, 2008
From today’s Associated Press:
Obama May Have to Bury his Beloved BlackBerry
The president’s e-mail can be subpoenaed by Congress and courts and may be subject to public records laws, so if a president doesn’t want his e-mail public, he shouldn’t e-mail, experts said. And there may be security issues about carrying around trackable cell phones.
Obama transition officials haven’t made a decision on what the new president will or will not carry, but those who have been there say it’s unlikely he’ll carry his BlackBerry and he may be in for some withdrawal pains. President-elect Obama has often been seen avidly checking his e-mail on his handheld equipment. This past summer, news cameras recorded him checking his BlackBerry while watching his daughter’s soccer game, only to have Michelle Obama slap at his hands, prompting him to return the device to its holster.
“This is a decision President-elect Obama will have to face,” said former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan, who added that Obama’s legal advisers will probably recommend against an e-mailing president. “While he has pledged an open and transparent government, I doubt the president-elect is interested in subjecting his own personal communications to that standard,” McClellan wrote in an e-mail interview. He added, “He will have to think very hard about whether he wants to make his own words that subject to open records by having his own e-mail and his own BlackBerry.”
On the one hand, I hope he keeps it, because a) it will help him maintain that “everyman” image that he’s got nailed so well right now, and b) because, over time, it will redefine real-time personal communication as a necessity that the law will need to deal with rather than something that would otherwise be useful , but is foregone to avoid legal issues. After all, if a law is discouraging people from legal, productive behavior, then we should change the law, not the behavior, right?
On the other hand, the point of a blackberry is to remain in real-time contact with those who need to reach you the most. The President’s entourage serves that purpose for him, in that people who need to reach him can contact one of the people that travel with him constantly. In that sense, they’re like those people in the Verizon Wireless commercials, and they obfuscate the need for a blackberry entirely.
Separate, but somewhat related note – Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush also did not use e-mail:
A few days before Bush took office in 2001, he sent an e-mail to a few dozen close friends saying he would no longer use e-mail: “Since I do not want my private conversations looked at by those out to embarrass, the only course of action is not to correspond in cyberspace. This saddens me.”
Bush was unhappy about losing his e-mail and mostly used the phone to talk to friends, McClellan wrote, adding, “I am sure the president looks forward to being able to communicate with them via e-mail again come January 20, 2009.”
Note that back in 2000, Bush wasn’t worried about legal ramifications, but about the tabloid press. Also note that the BlackBerry was invented in 2002.
Categories: Political Rantings, Tech Talk | 9 Comments »
Absent Mindedness Goes Hi-Tech
Monday, November 17th, 2008In the past:
Categories: Random Acts of Blogging | 1 Comment »
The Onion Takes Aim at Obama Supporters
Sunday, November 16th, 2008This gave me a chuckle:
Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are
(hat tip: Kushol Gupta)
Categories: Political Rantings, Random Acts of Blogging | Comments Off on The Onion Takes Aim at Obama Supporters
How to give a child a superiority complex
Friday, November 14th, 2008Video shot at the Philadelphia Phillies World Series Parade:
(hat tip: Kevin Rakszawski)
Categories: Random Acts of Blogging | 1 Comment »
A Sense of Humor is Important
Tuesday, November 11th, 2008
Categories: Money Talk | Comments Off on A Sense of Humor is Important
Alphabet Movie Meme
Tuesday, November 11th, 2008Jason got me again. That’s what I get for not ducking…
The rules:
1. Pick one film to represent each letter of the alphabet.
2. The letter “A” and the word “The” do not count as the beginning of a film’s title, unless the film is simply titled A or The, and I don’t know of any films with those titles.
3. Return of the Jedi belongs under “R,” not “S” as in Star Wars Episode IV: Return of the Jedi. This rule applies to all films in the original Star Wars trilogy; all that followed start with “S.” Similarly, Raiders of the Lost Ark belongs under “R,” not “I” as in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Conversely, all films in the Lord of the Rings series belong under “L” and all films in the Chronicles of Narnia series belong under “C,” as that’s what those filmmakers called their films from the start. In other words, movies are stuck with the titles their owners gave them at the time of their theatrical release. Use your better judgement to apply the above rule to any series/films not mentioned.
4. Films that start with a number are filed under the first letter of their number’s word. 12 Monkeys would be filed under “T.”
5. Link back to Blog Cabins in your post so that I can eventually type “alphabet meme” into Google and come up #1, then make a post where I declare that I am the King of Google.
6. If you’re selected, you have to then select 5 more people.
Here’s Step #1-#4:
- Apollo 13
- Back to the Future
- Cars
- Dead Poets Society
- E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
- Finding Nemo
- Good Will Hunting
- Happy Feet (because picking a Harry Potter film is too easy…)
- Independence Day
- Juno (because I was watching it on cable late last night…)
- King Kong
- Lethal Weapon
- Men in Black
- National Treasure
- Ocean’s Eleven
- Pretty Woman
- Q: The Movie (only movie on the list I haven’t seen.
Categories: Movie Talk | 4 Comments »
Oops, I’m Late!
Monday, November 10th, 2008As the iPhone has proven to us, any application that makes use of an internal GPS or gyroscope is inherently cool. LifeHacker provides us with one called Oops, I’m Late that isn’t for the iPhone, but it’s cool anyway.
Oops, I’m Late checks the calendar on your phone for meetings and their locations. It then uses the GPS device in your phone to determine how far away from the location you are and your current speed, in order to determine an estimated time of arrival (ETA). It can then send an e-mail, twitter, SMS, or Facebook message to each scheduled attendee in the meeting saying, “I’m running late, I’ll be there in X minutes.”
That’s pretty good use of multiple datasets in one device to create something inherently useful. Bravo…
Categories: Tech Talk, The Future is Now | Comments Off on Oops, I’m Late!
Bar(ac)k the Vote!
Saturday, November 8th, 2008Yes, it’s my sixth post in a row that has to do with the election, but at least this one is relatively cute.
Categories: Political Rantings, The World Wide Weird | 1 Comment »
Proud? Yes, but…
Friday, November 7th, 2008
I knew that when Barack Obama was elected President of the United States, there would be a great deal of excitement in the country.Categories: Political Rantings | 5 Comments »
She just won’t go away…
Friday, November 7th, 2008The folks over at Powerline Blog point out an interesting irony in the Alaskan senate race.
At this moment, according to CNN.com, incumbent (and convict) Ted Stevens is leading his Democratic challenger, Mark Begich by 3,353 votes (results still being processed, whatever that means).
Categories: Political Rantings | 1 Comment »