JJB Blog

obamasresume.org — still relevant?

Published

on 6/11/2008

. 4 Comments

Back in March I announced a new project, obamasresume.org. The point of the project was to demonstrate that Obama’s experience was significant, relevant, and impressive. There were a lot of assertions that Clinton was far more experienced than Obama, and I wanted to help set the record straight a little.

The site didn’t get fleshed out nearly as much as I thought it would, both because I had anticipated having more time to contribute to the wiki, and because I thought I would get far more user contributions. (Strangely, more than half of the people who registered for an account made no changes to the wiki.)

Now that Obama is the Democratic nominee, the primary purpose of the site is no longer there. I don’t think many people comparing Obama to McCain will be worried about Obama’s level of experience, and if they are considering McCain in the first place, then Obama’s reformist resume will probably turn them off anyway. (oh wait, McCain used to stand for campaign finance reform… I guess that’s over with).

Anyway, I’m tempted to just take it down. I don’t have time to contribute to it, and no one else seems to either. It’s the first hit on Google for “Obama’s Resume”, which is a good and bad thing. Good because, in theory it is being found very quickly by exactly the people who would be looking for it, bad because there isn’t much useful info on there.

What do you, dear reader, think I should do with the site? Leave it? Hype it more? Take it down?

Anyone want to take it over?

How to convert a software installation into a Subversion checkout

Published

on 6/11/2008

. 0 Comments

Say you have some web software such as WordPress, MediaWiki, or Gallery installed, and you used a tarball and not Subversion. Now, you want to manage the installation using Subversion, but you don’t want to jump through hoops running diffs and moving files around.

Here’s how to do it (thanks to Asheesh for the recipe).

Check out the software somewhere.
(cd $PATH_TO_NON_SVN_DIR ; tar cf - . ) | (cd $PATH_TO_SVN_DIR ; tar xvf -)

This will “overlay” the non-svn-dir over the new checkout, leaving your existing installation untouched.

I am going to Chile

Published

on 5/11/2008

. 7 Comments

Hilarious spoof of coal industry website

Published

on 4/15/2008

http://www.americaspower.org/

. 0 Comments

The coal industry made this site:

and the NRDC made this elaborate parody:

http://www.americascoalpower.org/

Brilliant.

Radiant podcast interview

Published

on 4/15/2008

. 1 Comment

At my day job, Digital Pulp, we’ve been working with the Rails CMS framework Radiant. My colleague Josh French and I were recently interviewed by core Radiant developer Sean Cribbs for the first Radiant podcast. We talk about why and how we use Radiant, and how it compares to other CMS platforms.

You can listen to it here.

Committee for a Unified Independent Party appreciates Barack Obama

Published

on 4/7/2008

. 0 Comments

Quick note: I was pleased to find that the Committee for a Unified Independent Party is ~~endorsing~~ (see update below) Barack Obama, and running advertisements for him in North Carolina. I got a call from them asking me to support their campaign, and I obliged. How great that a “fringe” group such as this recognizes that Obama is a different kind of candidate.

I also noted on their website that they seem to be pretty critical of Nader, that he is not doing constructive things for the independent movement — I agree.

Update: John Opdycke from CUIP got in touch with me and clarified CUIPs relationship to the effort in North Carolina:

The Committee for a Unified Independent Party did not endorse Barack Obama, but rather is providing political and financial support to a longtime independent activist in North Carolina, Tyra Cohen, who has initiated an organizing effort entitled “North Carolina Independents for Obama.” Several of CUIP’s state affiliates have endorsed Obama; others have chosen not to make presidential endorsements but to focus on crucial political reform and base building efforts.

Introducing titleurl.com

Published

on 3/23/2008

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZxjdcAibnoo

. 2 Comments

Sick of urls like this?

Wouldn’t it be nicer of they were more like this?

http://youtube.com/2008/03/20/david-letterman-battlestar-galactica-top-10-list

Well, I’ve made a new tool to do just that. Introducing: titleurl.com.

http://youtube.titleurl.com/2008/03/20/david-letterman-battlestar-galactica-top-10-list

Enjoy.

Extremely pleasant experience canceling my Chase Amazon credit card

Published

on 3/17/2008

. 3 Comments

I just called to cancel my Chase/Amazon credit card. It was extremely easy — the automated system took my account number and zip code, and then I got to a human in a couple menu layers and just a few seconds of waiting. After telling the customer service representative that I wanted to cancel my account, he immediately canceled it and told me to have a nice day. No pressure to stay on, no offer of lower rates or other features. Not even a rambling legal soliloquy.

I do have another Chase credit card, which is my primary card, so maybe the system told the guy “this is a good customer anyway, don’t piss him off”.

At any rate, maybe things are changing? Maybe we can look forward to a brighter, nicer future, where companies respect customers and customers don’t fear calling customer service?