I’ve been waiting to post this until “both sides” were available.

I’m talking about the analyses from Garr Reynolds, who writes the Presentation Zen website.

In two recent posts he dissected both Barack Obama’s acceptance speech and John McCain’s.

I won’t reproduce his postings here. You need to go to his site and read both of them.

1) 02.Sep.2008, Obama delivers speech like a symphony

2) 09.Sep.2008, John McCain’s background visuals

So, yes … stop right here … right now … and check out these two posts from Garr Reynolds. They might help you next time you need to make a major presentation.

That said, what I will present here is something Garr pointed me to that truly surprised me. No, it wasn’t the pointing that surprised me, it was what he pointed to … Pat Buchanan heaping praise on Obama’s speech. I love Pat Buchanan. I frequently … probably usually … disagree with him, but I respect his opinion and try to watch him each week on The McLaughlin Group. As Garr wrote, “When Pat Buchanan can’t stop praising the speech of a Democrat, either pigs are flying, or it was indeed a remarkable speech.” For me, both because of my respect for Pat Buchanan and also because I support Barack Obama, this was a real treat.

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Disclosure: I am a Barack Obama fan.

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Lawrence Lessig is one of my favorite authors and commentators. This commentary struck me as one great example of how isolated snippets can be easily used to justify the wrong information.

Disclosure: I support Barack Obama. 

A number of years ago, I was involved in a company project to replace the office copier. We only had one, but we made copies like nobody’s business. Not just a copy here and there, but things like 20 stapled copies of a 50 page document. It wasn’t like a huge company, but it was more than an occasional copy.

I was involved in the evaluation project so I got to talk to the engineers who came out to install the trial copiers. Talking to those people told us more about the copiers than we ever wanted to know. And the frequency of their visits during the two week trial told us the rest.

This morning, I got an email from a colleague. Seems the water heater in her house had died. Water heaters do that.

our hot water heater went out last night… it’s upstairs in the attic, accessed through our daughter’s closet… we’ve had plumbers out since 7:45 this morning… they had to drag the old rusty one down the stairs across the house… dripping all the way… so while they are still finishing up, I’m cleaning up…

It is interesting to me. As the copier guy explained it, when they are designing a copier, they design it for maintenance. People don’t just buy a copier (at least not the large, multi-function, copies, folds, staples and makes-coffee-on-the-side kind) … they rent them, or they buy them with a maintenance contract. Whether they make money for the manufacturer is partly how much money they can make off the sale or lease. But it is largely how much it costs to keep them running.

Before they can make the copier and ship it to customers, the maintenance department takes a long look at the copier. They break it and fix it. They take it apart and put it back together. They insist on tiny changes that can mean the difference between a 30 minute and a 90 minute repair call. And they do all this because it matters long term.

But when they build a house or a car, they don’t seem to care. If your water heater is a pain to repair, that is your problem. The builder is gone. And if your car was built so that it takes 4 hours to replace a water pump, that is your problem. The manufacturer doesn’t seem to care either.

Putting a water header in an attic while a house is being built is one thing. Replacing a water header in an attic after the house is completed is another.

I wonder how houses and cars would be built, if maintenance mattered to them like it matters to the copier companies?

I do not fly nearly as much as I used to. But I fly enough to still dislike TSA.

I remember when “inspection” was relatively new. The year was 1974. I was going to college as a new Junior.

For that trip, I decided to carry my tuition as Eisenhower dollar coins. Long gone now, those coins were, big and hefty. My semester tuition, about $1,000 (which seems so cheap now) weighed about 45 pounds. As I was getting on the airplane, the inspector gingerly opened my briefcase, opened one of the three bank bags and asked me what it was. When I said “money”, the inspector gingerly closed the case and handed it back.

This was before the days of scanning and before removing shoes and on and on. And it didn’t really matter then.

Today it is much, much worse. And it still doesn’t really matter.

Bruce Schneier wrote a recent opinion in the LA Times. It lays out the issues very clearly. And, it explains exactly how to work around the sytem.

Anyone on the no-fly list can easily fly whenever he wants. Even worse, the whole concept of matching passenger names against a list of bad guys has negligible security value.

How to fly, even if you are on the no-fly list: Buy a ticket in some innocent person’s name. At home, before your flight, check in online and print out your boarding pass. Then, save that web page as a PDF and use Adobe Acrobat to change the name on the boarding pass to your own. Print it again. At the airport, use the fake boarding pass and your valid ID to get through security. At the gate, use the real boarding pass in the fake name to board your flight.

The problem is that it is unverified passenger names that get checked against the no-fly list. At security checkpoints, the TSA just matches IDs to whatever is printed on the boarding passes. The airline checks boarding passes against tickets when people board the plane. But because no one checks ticketed names against IDs, the security breaks down.

This vulnerability isn’t new. It isn’t even subtle. I first wrote about it in 2006. I asked Kip Hawley, who runs the TSA, about it in 2007. Today, any terrorist smart enough to Google “print your own boarding pass” can bypass the no-fly list.

So, why are we doing this? Are we just protecting ourselves from the people who don’t know any better?

Does all of this hassle make people feel better? Does it make you feel better?

It happened several days ago. But I just learned about it. Jerry Reed has died.

As a singer in the 1970s and early 1980s, Reed’s hits included:

• Amos Moses
• When You’re Hot, You’re Hot
• East Bound and Down
• She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft), and
• The Bird

Though I knew his songs, I met him as a person in Smokey and the Bandit with Burt Reynolds.

I’ll miss him.

ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gtCKwgisw0t7ftgEpx3zQa1gEjtQD92UROC00

www.nme.com/news/various-artists/39487

For your enjoyment
http://snipr.com/3nggw  [www_inews3_com]
(you have to click the little triangular “play” button to get this to play)

Did you know I am a presidential candidate?

Well, just because you see it on the news, doesn’t mean it is true.

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Sometimes when people are interviewed on camera, they assume that when the interview ends, it really ends. And sometimes when they assume that they say things they later regret.

On Wednesday, 03.Sep.2008, John McCain’s former campaign chief Mike Murphy and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan talked after an NBC interview. Their comments were caught on tape. Their comments seem to reflect their their real thoughts on McCain’s judgment in his selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate.

Noonan asked, “The most qualified? No.” Then, she called the selection of Palin “political [B.S.].”

Murphy called McCain’s selection “gimmicky and cynical”.

The video is above. The transcript (courtesy of MoveOn.org) is below.

TRANSCRIPT (from MoveOn.org):

Mike Murphy, former McCain advisor: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor work. Engler, Whitman, Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. And these guys, this is all like how you want to (inaudible) this race. You know, just run it up. And it’s not gonna work.

Peggy Noonan, former Reagan speechwriter: It’s over.

Murphy: Still, McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

NBC’s Chuck Todd: Don’t you think the Palin pick was insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too (inaudible)

Noonan: I saw Kay this morning.

Murphy: They’re all bummed out.

Todd: I mean, is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

Noonan: The most qualified? No. I think they went for this, excuse me, political [B.S.] about narratives and (inaudible) the picture.

Murphy: I totally agree.

Noonan: Every time the Republicans do that because that’s not where they live and it’s not what they’re good at and they blow it.

Murphy: You know what’s really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism and this is cynical.

Todd: And as you called it, gimmicky.

Disclosure: I am a Barack Obama fan.

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JibJab … the original. Always good. Always good to share. 

Disclosure: I support Barack Obama. 

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Every now and then I see something that makes me smile. The cool thing is that the web lets me share.

Disclosure: I support Barack Obama. 

Well, that’s what Computerworld said.

And, it is what PHP said too (www.php.net/archive/2008.php#id2008-08-07-1). I’d considered it dead since 03.Jan.2008 with the release of 4.4.8 (www.php.net/ChangeLog-4.php#4.4.9). But it managed a few more breaths.

Of course users should migrate to PHP5. But gee, it is hard to blame them for not doing it yet. After all, post-beta version 5.0.1 has only been out since 12.Aug.2004 (www.php.net/ChangeLog-5.php). You really can’t expect technology people to turn on a dime you know.

See article at www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1239055978