Traditionally, presidential elections in the United States have been binary contests: a choice between two major political parties. The names of the parties have changed over the years, but there have always been two major political parties.
The two-party system definitely has its strengths. Other nations, attempting to duplicate the 242-year success of the American political system, have failed because their political power has been divided among many political parties, leading to fragile alliances and coalitions that eventually fail, so their governments lurch from constitutional crisis to crisis, becoming easy victims of corruption and totalitarianism.
However, the two-party system has failed the American people at times. In 1992, candidates George Bush and Bill Clinton were not adequately addressing the concerns of the people, and so H. Ross Perot stepped in as an independent candidate. In June of 1992, he was leading in the polls. He finished the race with almost 19 percent of the popular vote and no electoral votes. In my opinion, part of why he lost the race is because his message became too strident. He started sounding whiny and alarmist.
In part, he had to sound this way to make himself heard, and that's one of the biggest obstacles that third-party candidates face: the two major parties get the lion's share of the attention.
The Third-Party Tautology
Why don't people vote for a third-party candidate? Because third-party candidates never win.
And why don't third-party candidates win? Because nobody will vote for them.
A third-party candidate will have to break this tautology in order to win. He or she will have to convince the voters that he or she has a real chance of winning, so that they will take a chance and vote for him or her.
What does a third-party candidate have to do to win?
In order to have a chance at winning an election, a third-party candidate needs to do all of these things:
1. Start early.
2. Raise a lot of money. Money fuels campaigns, and converts into votes. Unfortunate, but true.
3. Appeal to a wide range of voters, not a narrow "base".
3. Offer a well-rounded platform, one that avoids extremes or whininess, but addresses and corrects the deficiencies in the Democratic and Republican platforms.
4. Don't focus on a single issue or philosophical point. The USA is a complex nation, with complex needs and complex priorities. A candidate needs to address that complexity head-on.
Friday, December 28, 2018
Election 2020: Advice for Republicans
Here at the end of 2018, and the beginning of 2019, the whole nation is waiting to see whether Donald Trump serves his full four years in office, or whether he leaves office in disgrace, one way or another. Personally, I'm hoping for the latter.
If he leaves early, Mike Pence will be the new president, and he will serve until the 2020 election.
Donald Trump has left such a foul taste in the mouths of the American voters, that it is unlikely the Republican Party will win the presidency in 2020. By their actions, the leaders of the Republican Party have shown that they are easily bought off, bullied, fooled, and manipulated by people like Trump. To put it crudely, Americans are tired of this shit.
And they are going to make sure it doesn't happen again. Right now, a Republican candidate for president stands to lose the 2020 election simply because he's a Republican.
If the Republicans intend to win the 2020 presidential election, they need to give the American people a candidate who is electable.Here's my shopping list for the 2020 presidential candidate:
1. First, I don't care if the candidate is male or female, black or white or Hispanic or Asian. Race and gender do not qualify (or disqualify) someone for the office. But making a campaign issue of their race or gender will cost them a lot of points, in my book. So will any reference to their opponents' race or gender.
2. Second, they need to be knowledgeable. They need to know enough about the areas that matter, to be an effective chief executive. They need to be competent in talking and making decisions about:
3. Related to that, they need to be well-informed and open-minded. Presidents can't possibly know everything, and so they need to get good information from others. I need to know where they will go to get advice. If I suspect that they're going to rely on yes-men, self-serving cronies, party hacks, and Fox News, then they have lost my vote.
4. Speaking of which: they need to completely ignore Fox News, and whatever its left-leaning equivalent may be. For a U.S. President, Fox News should be totally irrelevant. Domestic and foreign policy should not be dictated by a television station, newspaper or website.
5. They need to have integrity. They need to someone of sound character and good moral judgment.
Integrity, character, and morals are timeless, universal concepts. They are independent of religion.
In fact, I don't care what religion they profess. I don't want to know about it. There are, or should be, no religious criteria in a presidential election. To me, religion should be no more a factor than race or gender.
6. They need to be savvy, not naïve, in the ways of the world. Past presidents (Carter, both Bushes, and Trump) have been easily manipulated by foreign leaders and domestic actors because of their naïveté. Other presidents (Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Reagan at the beginning) were so savvy that they had the world by the balls.
7. They need to have class. Class must not be equated with coolness, popularity, beauty, social or economic status, and so on. Class is difficult to define, but easy to recognize. Mr. and Mrs. Obama had class. Trump has absolutely zero class. Hillary Clinton has never had class, and doesn't seem to care.
8. They need to practice true statesmanship and true leadership. The last true statesman and leader we had was ... hmm ... Ronald Reagan, back when his mind was still intact. No, that's not true. Obama was both a statesman and a leader. That's still being debated, but I think that in 20 years, that will be the universal consensus.
9. They need to put the entire country's interests above their own interests, above their party's interests, above their friends' and cronies' interests, and especially above the interests of the rich and powerful and self-serving.
10. They need to have vision. They need to take a long-term view on everything they do: not to next year, not to the midterm elections, not to getting re-elected or to setting things up for their party after their eight years are expired. The United States will be around long after they have left office, and their vision needs to be one that will leave the nation better off for their having served.
11. They need to remember that they are public servants, not rulers.
If the Republicans don't put up someone who meets all of these criteria, then I won't vote for him or her.
If he leaves early, Mike Pence will be the new president, and he will serve until the 2020 election.
Donald Trump has left such a foul taste in the mouths of the American voters, that it is unlikely the Republican Party will win the presidency in 2020. By their actions, the leaders of the Republican Party have shown that they are easily bought off, bullied, fooled, and manipulated by people like Trump. To put it crudely, Americans are tired of this shit.
And they are going to make sure it doesn't happen again. Right now, a Republican candidate for president stands to lose the 2020 election simply because he's a Republican.
If the Republicans intend to win the 2020 presidential election, they need to give the American people a candidate who is electable.Here's my shopping list for the 2020 presidential candidate:
1. First, I don't care if the candidate is male or female, black or white or Hispanic or Asian. Race and gender do not qualify (or disqualify) someone for the office. But making a campaign issue of their race or gender will cost them a lot of points, in my book. So will any reference to their opponents' race or gender.
2. Second, they need to be knowledgeable. They need to know enough about the areas that matter, to be an effective chief executive. They need to be competent in talking and making decisions about:
- Domestic policy
- Foreign policy
- Waging wars and making peace
- Economic policy
- Science
- Environmental issues
- Contemporary urgent medical issues
- The law
- The Constitution
- The life of the average, working-class American
3. Related to that, they need to be well-informed and open-minded. Presidents can't possibly know everything, and so they need to get good information from others. I need to know where they will go to get advice. If I suspect that they're going to rely on yes-men, self-serving cronies, party hacks, and Fox News, then they have lost my vote.
4. Speaking of which: they need to completely ignore Fox News, and whatever its left-leaning equivalent may be. For a U.S. President, Fox News should be totally irrelevant. Domestic and foreign policy should not be dictated by a television station, newspaper or website.
5. They need to have integrity. They need to someone of sound character and good moral judgment.
Integrity, character, and morals are timeless, universal concepts. They are independent of religion.
In fact, I don't care what religion they profess. I don't want to know about it. There are, or should be, no religious criteria in a presidential election. To me, religion should be no more a factor than race or gender.
6. They need to be savvy, not naïve, in the ways of the world. Past presidents (Carter, both Bushes, and Trump) have been easily manipulated by foreign leaders and domestic actors because of their naïveté. Other presidents (Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Reagan at the beginning) were so savvy that they had the world by the balls.
7. They need to have class. Class must not be equated with coolness, popularity, beauty, social or economic status, and so on. Class is difficult to define, but easy to recognize. Mr. and Mrs. Obama had class. Trump has absolutely zero class. Hillary Clinton has never had class, and doesn't seem to care.
8. They need to practice true statesmanship and true leadership. The last true statesman and leader we had was ... hmm ... Ronald Reagan, back when his mind was still intact. No, that's not true. Obama was both a statesman and a leader. That's still being debated, but I think that in 20 years, that will be the universal consensus.
9. They need to put the entire country's interests above their own interests, above their party's interests, above their friends' and cronies' interests, and especially above the interests of the rich and powerful and self-serving.
10. They need to have vision. They need to take a long-term view on everything they do: not to next year, not to the midterm elections, not to getting re-elected or to setting things up for their party after their eight years are expired. The United States will be around long after they have left office, and their vision needs to be one that will leave the nation better off for their having served.
11. They need to remember that they are public servants, not rulers.
If the Republicans don't put up someone who meets all of these criteria, then I won't vote for him or her.
Election 2020: Advice for Democrats
The 2020 presidential election is just around the corner. Here is some advice for Democrats.
The Democratic Party lost the 2016 presidential election because they nominated a candidate who was unelectable. They didn't lose because of the vagaries of the electoral college. They didn't lose because of third-party voters. They didn't lose because their candidate was a woman. And they definitely, most certainly, didn't lose because the Republicans put up a better candidate.
They lost because Hillary Rodham Clinton was unlikeable. Objectionable. To her credit, she was transparent — she was transparently greedy, power-hungry, even Machiavellian. She was elitist. She didn't hide the fact that she didn't care about the Little People. She only cared about people with money, power, and status, and she never tried to hide that fact.
And, to put it bluntly, she was a jerk. She treated everyone else like the dirt on her shoes. Maybe some people like to be treated like that, but most Americans do not.
(Don't bother telling me that the Republican candidate was the same, or maybe even worse. We already know that.)
If the Democratic Party wants to win in 2020, they had better put up somebody who is electable. Here's my shopping list for the 2020 presidential candidate:
1. First, I don't care if the candidate is male or female, black or white or Hispanic or Asian. Race and gender do not qualify (or disqualify) someone for the office. But making a campaign issue of their race or gender will cost them a lot of points, in my book. No more of this "Vote for me because I'm a woman" crap, or the after-the-fact lament, "They didn't vote for me because I'm a woman." (By the way, Clinton said both of those things.)
2. Second, they need to be knowledgeable. They need to know enough about the areas that matter, to be an effective chief executive. They need to be competent in talking and making decisions about:
3. Related to that, they need to be well-informed and open-minded. Presidents can't possibly know everything, and so they need to get good information from others. I need to know where they will go to get advice. If I suspect that they're going to rely on yes-men, self-serving cronies, party hacks, and Fox News, then they have lost my vote.
4. Speaking of which: they need to completely ignore Fox News, and whatever its left-leaning equivalent may be. For a U.S. President, Fox News should be totally irrelevant. Domestic and foreign policy should not be dictated by a television station, newspaper or website.
5. They need to have integrity. They need to someone of sound character and good moral judgment.
Integrity, character, and morals are timeless, universal concepts. They are independent of religion.
In fact, I don't care what religion they profess. I don't want to know about it. There are, or should be, no religious criteria in a presidential election. To me, religion should be no more a factor than race or gender.
6. They need to be savvy, not naïve, in the ways of the world. Past presidents (Carter, both Bushes, and Trump) have been easily manipulated by foreign leaders and domestic actors because of their naïveté. Other presidents (Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Reagan at the beginning) were so savvy that they had the world by the balls.
7. They need to have class. Class must not be equated with coolness, popularity, beauty, social or economic status, and so on. Class is difficult to define, but easy to recognize. Mr. and Mrs. Obama had class. Trump has absolutely zero class. Hillary Clinton has never had class, and doesn't seem to care.
8. They need to practice true statesmanship and true leadership. The last true statesman and leader we had was ... hmm ... Ronald Reagan, back when his mind was still intact. No, that's not true. Obama was both a statesman and a leader. That's still being debated, but I think that in 20 years, that will be the universal consensus.
9. They need to put the entire country's interests above their own interests, above their party's interests, above their friends' and cronies' interests, and especially above the interests of the rich and powerful and self-serving.
10. They need to have vision. They need to take a long-term view on everything they do: not to next year, not to the midterm elections, not to getting re-elected or to setting things up for their party after their eight years are expired. The United States will be around long after they have left office, and their vision needs to be one that will leave the nation better off for their having served.
11. They need to remember that they are public servants, not rulers.
If the Democrats don't put up someone who meets all of these criteria, then I won't vote for him or her.
The Democratic Party lost the 2016 presidential election because they nominated a candidate who was unelectable. They didn't lose because of the vagaries of the electoral college. They didn't lose because of third-party voters. They didn't lose because their candidate was a woman. And they definitely, most certainly, didn't lose because the Republicans put up a better candidate.
They lost because Hillary Rodham Clinton was unlikeable. Objectionable. To her credit, she was transparent — she was transparently greedy, power-hungry, even Machiavellian. She was elitist. She didn't hide the fact that she didn't care about the Little People. She only cared about people with money, power, and status, and she never tried to hide that fact.
And, to put it bluntly, she was a jerk. She treated everyone else like the dirt on her shoes. Maybe some people like to be treated like that, but most Americans do not.
(Don't bother telling me that the Republican candidate was the same, or maybe even worse. We already know that.)
If the Democratic Party wants to win in 2020, they had better put up somebody who is electable. Here's my shopping list for the 2020 presidential candidate:
1. First, I don't care if the candidate is male or female, black or white or Hispanic or Asian. Race and gender do not qualify (or disqualify) someone for the office. But making a campaign issue of their race or gender will cost them a lot of points, in my book. No more of this "Vote for me because I'm a woman" crap, or the after-the-fact lament, "They didn't vote for me because I'm a woman." (By the way, Clinton said both of those things.)
2. Second, they need to be knowledgeable. They need to know enough about the areas that matter, to be an effective chief executive. They need to be competent in talking and making decisions about:
- Domestic policy
- Foreign policy
- Waging wars and making peace
- Economic policy
- Science
- Environmental issues
- Contemporary urgent medical issues
- The law
- The Constitution
- The life of the average, working-class American
3. Related to that, they need to be well-informed and open-minded. Presidents can't possibly know everything, and so they need to get good information from others. I need to know where they will go to get advice. If I suspect that they're going to rely on yes-men, self-serving cronies, party hacks, and Fox News, then they have lost my vote.
4. Speaking of which: they need to completely ignore Fox News, and whatever its left-leaning equivalent may be. For a U.S. President, Fox News should be totally irrelevant. Domestic and foreign policy should not be dictated by a television station, newspaper or website.
5. They need to have integrity. They need to someone of sound character and good moral judgment.
Integrity, character, and morals are timeless, universal concepts. They are independent of religion.
In fact, I don't care what religion they profess. I don't want to know about it. There are, or should be, no religious criteria in a presidential election. To me, religion should be no more a factor than race or gender.
6. They need to be savvy, not naïve, in the ways of the world. Past presidents (Carter, both Bushes, and Trump) have been easily manipulated by foreign leaders and domestic actors because of their naïveté. Other presidents (Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Reagan at the beginning) were so savvy that they had the world by the balls.
7. They need to have class. Class must not be equated with coolness, popularity, beauty, social or economic status, and so on. Class is difficult to define, but easy to recognize. Mr. and Mrs. Obama had class. Trump has absolutely zero class. Hillary Clinton has never had class, and doesn't seem to care.
8. They need to practice true statesmanship and true leadership. The last true statesman and leader we had was ... hmm ... Ronald Reagan, back when his mind was still intact. No, that's not true. Obama was both a statesman and a leader. That's still being debated, but I think that in 20 years, that will be the universal consensus.
9. They need to put the entire country's interests above their own interests, above their party's interests, above their friends' and cronies' interests, and especially above the interests of the rich and powerful and self-serving.
10. They need to have vision. They need to take a long-term view on everything they do: not to next year, not to the midterm elections, not to getting re-elected or to setting things up for their party after their eight years are expired. The United States will be around long after they have left office, and their vision needs to be one that will leave the nation better off for their having served.
11. They need to remember that they are public servants, not rulers.
If the Democrats don't put up someone who meets all of these criteria, then I won't vote for him or her.
Friday, October 26, 2018
Perception Matters Most
In today's world, perception matters more than anything else. Your most benign intentions, and your most innocent actions, will be misinterpreted and used against you. It's sad, but it's true.
Perception is not reality, but perception matters most.
Think twice about approaching a woman who doesn't know you. Then think about it a third time. Then don't do it.
Why? Even if you only want to introduce yourself or make light conversation, such innocuous advances may be perceived as a threat. It's better just to leave her alone.
Especially leave her alone if she has earphones on and is doing her best to ignore the world around her. That's a giant Do Not Disturb sign, gentlemen. Respect it.
(NOTE: The section above was written for men. The rules are different for women. I don't know why, and I don't care why. Perception is what matters most.)
Don't take notes on your phone. Don't do research relevant to the meeting on your phone, unless you first announce that that's what you're doing - and then make it brief. Take notes using a pen and a paper notepad.
Why? In today's world, people perceive you with your head down, working on your phone, as "playing with your phone". It doesn't matter what you're really doing. The perception is what counts.
On the other hand, if you take notes with a pen and a paper notepad, people perceive you as paying attention and taking things seriously. Just accept the fact that you'll just have to transcribe the notes later.
It's good to be prepared, and it's good to be confident. But watch what you say. In fact, it's good practice to say as little as possible. Demonstrate that you're qualified for the job, but don't get carried away.
Why? The interviewers may perceive your your display of preparation and confidence as arrogance. Don't overdo it, and never, never, show all of your cards.
Perception is not reality, but perception matters most.
When in a public place, a bus, an airplane, et cetera:
Think twice about approaching a woman who doesn't know you. Then think about it a third time. Then don't do it.
Why? Even if you only want to introduce yourself or make light conversation, such innocuous advances may be perceived as a threat. It's better just to leave her alone.
Especially leave her alone if she has earphones on and is doing her best to ignore the world around her. That's a giant Do Not Disturb sign, gentlemen. Respect it.
(NOTE: The section above was written for men. The rules are different for women. I don't know why, and I don't care why. Perception is what matters most.)
When in an important meeting:
Don't take notes on your phone. Don't do research relevant to the meeting on your phone, unless you first announce that that's what you're doing - and then make it brief. Take notes using a pen and a paper notepad.
Why? In today's world, people perceive you with your head down, working on your phone, as "playing with your phone". It doesn't matter what you're really doing. The perception is what counts.
On the other hand, if you take notes with a pen and a paper notepad, people perceive you as paying attention and taking things seriously. Just accept the fact that you'll just have to transcribe the notes later.
When in a job interview:
It's good to be prepared, and it's good to be confident. But watch what you say. In fact, it's good practice to say as little as possible. Demonstrate that you're qualified for the job, but don't get carried away.
Why? The interviewers may perceive your your display of preparation and confidence as arrogance. Don't overdo it, and never, never, show all of your cards.
Thursday, September 13, 2018
I like Swiss things
I like Swiss things. They're high quality, very impressive, and not always expensive.
- Swiss chocolate (especially Toblerone, but not just Toblerone)
- Swiss yogurt
- Swiss cheese (not just Ementaler and Gruyère - much more)
- Swiss watches
- Swiss Army knives (both Wenger and Victorinox)
- Swiss airplanes (Pilatus)
- The Swiss postal service
- Swiss railroads and trains
- The Swiss armed forces and military infrastructure
- Swiss mountains, Swiss lakes, Swiss cities, Swiss people
- Swiss computers
WHAT?! SWISS COMPUTERS?!
Where I work, we were looking for a single-board computer for a new project. Single-board computers, or SBCs, have gained popularity, thanks to names like Arduino, BeagleBone, and of course the great Raspberry Pi. But those are all hobby computers. We needed something with real horsepower.
We evaluated about a dozen different SBCs. Most of them were from Hong Kong or Shenzhen, China. Even though they had impressive specifications, we had serious concerns about their quality, reliability, engineering design, and workmanship. In addition, our SBC may have ended up in some government or military projects, and we had serious national-security concerns about designing something made in China into U.S. military equipment.
One of the last SBCs we evaluated, technically a system-on-module (SOM) and not an SBC, was from Toradex. When you go to the Toradex website, you see that they're based in Seattle. But when you dig a little deeper, you find that although Toradex USA is based in Seattle, the parent company is based in Switzerland. And you discover that their computers are designed and built in Switzerland.
Yep. All of our worries about quality, reliability, engineering, workmanship, and sourcing, just evaporated. The End.
- Swiss chocolate (especially Toblerone, but not just Toblerone)
- Swiss yogurt
- Swiss cheese (not just Ementaler and Gruyère - much more)
- Swiss watches
- Swiss Army knives (both Wenger and Victorinox)
- Swiss airplanes (Pilatus)
- The Swiss postal service
- Swiss railroads and trains
- The Swiss armed forces and military infrastructure
- Swiss mountains, Swiss lakes, Swiss cities, Swiss people
- Swiss computers
WHAT?! SWISS COMPUTERS?!
Where I work, we were looking for a single-board computer for a new project. Single-board computers, or SBCs, have gained popularity, thanks to names like Arduino, BeagleBone, and of course the great Raspberry Pi. But those are all hobby computers. We needed something with real horsepower.
We evaluated about a dozen different SBCs. Most of them were from Hong Kong or Shenzhen, China. Even though they had impressive specifications, we had serious concerns about their quality, reliability, engineering design, and workmanship. In addition, our SBC may have ended up in some government or military projects, and we had serious national-security concerns about designing something made in China into U.S. military equipment.
One of the last SBCs we evaluated, technically a system-on-module (SOM) and not an SBC, was from Toradex. When you go to the Toradex website, you see that they're based in Seattle. But when you dig a little deeper, you find that although Toradex USA is based in Seattle, the parent company is based in Switzerland. And you discover that their computers are designed and built in Switzerland.
Yep. All of our worries about quality, reliability, engineering, workmanship, and sourcing, just evaporated. The End.
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
An incident at the airport
I saw something at the airport yesterday that continues to bother me, even though it shouldn't.
Actually, I saw a snapshot of the incident.
No, I saw a snapshot of the aftermath of the incident.
I wish I could fill in the rest of it. It would put my mind at ease.
I was on my way home from a business trip. It was about 8 p.m. local time, and I was dressed in a suit and tie.
I got off the airplane and was making my way up the concourse towards the train. On the far end of the food court, I noticed a policeman standing there, looking large and menacing and in control, his gaze focused intently on someone in front of him
As I got closer, I saw that the "someone" was sitting on a bench less than 3 feet away from the officer.
As I walked past them, I couldn't keep from staring. The "someone" was a man in his 30s or 40s, slight of build, with well-groomed, dark hair. He was wearing a suit and tie, just like me, so I concluded that he was also traveling on business. He was also on the concourse, which meant that he had a ticket to fly somewhere — although he could have been returning from somewhere, like me.
I hazarded a closer look. He was sitting crookedly and rather uncomfortably on a bench, and his hands were behind him, so I concluded that he was wearing handcuffs. He was looking at the floor some distance away, and he looked like he was trying really hard not to cry, as if he were very unhappy to be there.
I had places to be, so I kept walking. I tried not to slow down. A few paces beyond that sad tableau, I passed a second policeman, holding the arrestee's ID and saying into his radio "... and the birthdate is oh five, oh six, ..."
It really was none of my business, but it's hard not to watch a train wreck. Part of my brain kept chewing on what I had seen. In no particular order, these are the thoughts that passed through my brain:
He's going to miss his flight. He's going to spend the night in jail. Somebody's going to have to fly out here, from somewhere else, to bail him out.
What did he do? It must have been pretty bad, and/or it must have unfolded over time, because policemen don't magically appear in a food court on an airport concourse. Maybe one of the food court employees called the police while it was happening.
Had the guy been drunk? Abusive? Irrational? Is that why they called the police on him? He was wearing a suit, so he wasn't just some rowdy tourist. He was a businessman, traveling on business.
Or was he disruptive on an airplane, and the flight crew called ahead, so he was arrested when he disembarked? I doubt this, because I would expect that arrest to happen near the boarding gate, not in the food court.
Oh, that sad look on his face. It breaks my heart. Whatever happened, his business trip sure didn't end the way he expected it to.
I wonder what will happen when he gets home? And I wonder what other pieces of his life will fall apart, as a result of this incident?
Actually, I saw a snapshot of the incident.
No, I saw a snapshot of the aftermath of the incident.
I wish I could fill in the rest of it. It would put my mind at ease.
I was on my way home from a business trip. It was about 8 p.m. local time, and I was dressed in a suit and tie.
I got off the airplane and was making my way up the concourse towards the train. On the far end of the food court, I noticed a policeman standing there, looking large and menacing and in control, his gaze focused intently on someone in front of him
As I got closer, I saw that the "someone" was sitting on a bench less than 3 feet away from the officer.
As I walked past them, I couldn't keep from staring. The "someone" was a man in his 30s or 40s, slight of build, with well-groomed, dark hair. He was wearing a suit and tie, just like me, so I concluded that he was also traveling on business. He was also on the concourse, which meant that he had a ticket to fly somewhere — although he could have been returning from somewhere, like me.
I hazarded a closer look. He was sitting crookedly and rather uncomfortably on a bench, and his hands were behind him, so I concluded that he was wearing handcuffs. He was looking at the floor some distance away, and he looked like he was trying really hard not to cry, as if he were very unhappy to be there.
I had places to be, so I kept walking. I tried not to slow down. A few paces beyond that sad tableau, I passed a second policeman, holding the arrestee's ID and saying into his radio "... and the birthdate is oh five, oh six, ..."
It really was none of my business, but it's hard not to watch a train wreck. Part of my brain kept chewing on what I had seen. In no particular order, these are the thoughts that passed through my brain:
He's going to miss his flight. He's going to spend the night in jail. Somebody's going to have to fly out here, from somewhere else, to bail him out.
What did he do? It must have been pretty bad, and/or it must have unfolded over time, because policemen don't magically appear in a food court on an airport concourse. Maybe one of the food court employees called the police while it was happening.
Had the guy been drunk? Abusive? Irrational? Is that why they called the police on him? He was wearing a suit, so he wasn't just some rowdy tourist. He was a businessman, traveling on business.
Or was he disruptive on an airplane, and the flight crew called ahead, so he was arrested when he disembarked? I doubt this, because I would expect that arrest to happen near the boarding gate, not in the food court.
Oh, that sad look on his face. It breaks my heart. Whatever happened, his business trip sure didn't end the way he expected it to.
I wonder what will happen when he gets home? And I wonder what other pieces of his life will fall apart, as a result of this incident?
Thursday, February 22, 2018
How to: Installing Kodi / LibreELEC on a Raspberry Pi with a 5-inch LCD display
I bought an Elecrow 5-inch LCD display on Amazon.com in December 2016, on one of their Lightning Deals, to install on a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B.
I finally got around to installing it on the Raspberry Pi. It works great. In fact, it works so well that I also installed it on a brand-new Raspberry Pi Zero W. (You want pictures? I'll add pictures. But the words are really important right now.) On both the Pi 2 B and the Pi Zero W, I was running the Raspbian OS. I'm sure it works just fine with Noobs, but I like Raspbian better.
I'll bet it works on a Raspberry Pi 3 as well.
But what I really wanted to do with it was run a home theatre system, specifically XBMC. XBMC is a wildly successful home theatre operating system. Actually, what used to be called XBMC is now called Kodi, and it's still wildly successful.
The Elecrow display and the Pi liked each other right from the start. I connected them, turned them on, and they played nicely together. Getting the software to run flawlessly on the combination took a bit more work.
Here are the steps to follow to get either Raspbian or the home theatre system working flawlessly with Raspberry Pi 2 Model B and an Elecrow display. These steps are also applicable to other Elecrow displays and other Raspberry Pi computers.
Under "Product Description" on the Amazon page, you will find these instructions:
I finally got around to installing it on the Raspberry Pi. It works great. In fact, it works so well that I also installed it on a brand-new Raspberry Pi Zero W. (You want pictures? I'll add pictures. But the words are really important right now.) On both the Pi 2 B and the Pi Zero W, I was running the Raspbian OS. I'm sure it works just fine with Noobs, but I like Raspbian better.
I'll bet it works on a Raspberry Pi 3 as well.
But what I really wanted to do with it was run a home theatre system, specifically XBMC. XBMC is a wildly successful home theatre operating system. Actually, what used to be called XBMC is now called Kodi, and it's still wildly successful.
The Elecrow display and the Pi liked each other right from the start. I connected them, turned them on, and they played nicely together. Getting the software to run flawlessly on the combination took a bit more work.
Here are the steps to follow to get either Raspbian or the home theatre system working flawlessly with Raspberry Pi 2 Model B and an Elecrow display. These steps are also applicable to other Elecrow displays and other Raspberry Pi computers.
Installation on Raspbian OS
Under "Product Description" on the Amazon page, you will find these instructions:
- Download the Raspbian Stretch with Desktop image from the official Raspberry Pi downloads page. Don't bother with the Lite version. You want the real thing.
- If you use Etcher to write the image to your micro SD card, you won't even need to unzip the image. Etcher handles ZIP files, IMG files, TAR files, all of 'em. Etcher is the slickest program I've seen for SD cards and USB drives. It works on Mac, Linux or Windows PCs. You can get it from https://etcher.io/. (UPDATE: It's now https://www.balena.io/etcher/ .)
- Insert the micro SD card into your Pi.
- Plug the display into the Pi and power it up. Which "it" do I mean? Well, if you're using the Pi 2 or Pi 3, connecting power to either the display or the Pi will power up both of them. If you're using the Pi Zero, you'll need to connect power to the display first, and then to the Pi Zero.
- You will see the boot splash on the display, and the Pi will power up and run, but you will see that it only uses a 640 x 480 section of the display. Now you're going to teach it to use the full 800 x 480.
- Open a terminal window. Make sure git is installed on your Pi. If it isn't, use the command
sudo apt-get install git
to install it. - Then use the command
git clone https://github.com/Elecrow-keen/Elecrow-LCD5.git
to download the driver. - To install the driver, use these two commands:
cd Elecrow-LCD5
sudo ./Elecrow-LCD5 - You may need to reboot to make the change effective. I don't remember. I hope you don't. To reboot safely, use this command:
sudo shutdown -r now
(The "-r" means "just reboot, don't power off". The "now" means "don't wait; do it now".) - To (optionally) calibrate the touchscreen, execute these two commands:
sudo apt-get install xinput-calibrator
xinput-calibrator - Using the stylus supplied with the display, poke the four crosshairs as they appear on the screen.
Installation on Kodi / LibreELEC
First came XBMC. It was so wildly successful that it turned into Kodi. It was so wildly successful that it turned into OpenELEC. (Actually, OpenELEC is a tiny Linux OS made specifically to run Kodi, but let's not quibble over details, okay?) Then, because of "creative differences", a lot of developers abandoned OpenELEC and that's where LibreELEC came from. LibreELEC is a fork of OpenELEC.
OpenELEC was last updated in April 2017, and support for it is deteriorating. LibreElec was updated a few weeks ago. LibreELEC is alive and lovingly cared for. But it's still XBMC, Kodi, and OpenELEC deep in its bones.
- Follow the excellent instructions on LIbreELEC's own wiki to download and install the LibreELEC USB-SD Creator on your system: Mac, Linux, Windows, we don't care.
- Again, following the excellent instructions on that page, run the Creator program to download the appropriate version of LibreELEC onto your micro SD card.
- Insert the micro SD card into your Pi.
- Plug the display into the Pi and power it up. If you're using the Pi 2 or Pi 3, connecting power to either the display or the Pi will power up both of them. If you're using the Pi Zero, you'll need to connect power to the display first, and then to the Pi Zero.
- You will see the boot splash on the display, and the Pi will power up and run, but it only uses a 640 x 480 section of the display. Now things get tricky.
- At the top of the left-side menu are three icons: an on-off icon, a gear icon, and a search icon. Click the gear icon to bring up the Settings menu.
- Click the LibreELEC icon. It's probably in the lower left corner.
- In the LibreELEC menu, select Services. On the right-hand side, select Enable SSH. Make sure it's enabled.
- Still in the LibreELEC menu, select Connections. Write down the Address of your device. It will be something like "192.168.0.77".
- Leave the Pi alone for a while. Go to another computer and open an SSH connection to the Pi.
- If you're on Windows, use Putty.
Hostname: 192.68.0.77 (or whatever it says in the Connections menu)
Port: 22
Connection type: SSH - When you click Open, Putty will give you a scary message. Select Yes.
login as: root
root@192.168.0.77's password: libreelec - If you're on Linux, use a regular terminal window.
ssh root@192.168.0.77 - If Linux gives you a scary message, follow the instructions. If it asks you a question, type "yes".
root@192.168.0.77's password: libreelec - Sorry, Mac users. You're on your own. But I'll bet it's a lot like the Linux instructions.
- Once you're in the SSH session:The files inside libreelec are read-only. Write protected. A simple "chmod +w" isn't going to do it for you. Again, follow the excellent instructions on this page of LibreELEC's wiki to unlock the config.txt file for editing.
- It occurs to me that that page may one day disappear. So here's what it says. Type this command to unlock the partition on the SD card:
mount -o remount,rw /flash - Then type one of these two commands to edit the file, depending on which editor you want to use. If you don't know what vi is, then choose nano.
vi /flash/config.txt
or
nano /flash/config.txt - Look for the line that says "hdmi_ignore_cec_init=1".
- Copy and paste these lines into the config.txt file, just below that "hdmi_ignore..." line:
#increase HDMI signal strength
config_hdmi_boost=4
#remove black borders
disable_overscan=1
#set specific CVT mode
hdmi_cvt 800 480 60 6 0 0 0
#set CVT as default
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=87
dtoverlay=ads7846,cs=1,penirq=25,penirq_pull=2,speed=50000,keep_vref_on=0,swapxy=0,pmax=255,xohms=150,xmin=200,xmax=3900,ymin=200,ymax=3900
dtoverlay=w1-gpio-pullup,gpiopin=4,extpullup=1 - SPECIAL NOTE: That "dtoverlay" line is all one long, long line! Don't break it up like Blogspot did!
- Save the file and exit the editor.
- Lock the partition:
mount -o remount,ro /flash - Reboot the system:
reboot - You should see the boot splash screen centered in the display, and when LibreELEC comes up, you should see it fill the entire display.
Thanks to:
- Elecrow, for putting the instructions right on the product page at Amazon.com.
- Amazon.com, of course.
- @Auvy and the other commenters on the product page at Amazon.com, who added their technical advice. I had to choose one, and @Auvy's worked.
- LibreELEC for the excellent instructions on their wiki, and for their SD Creator program.
- Etcher.io, for their SD creator program.
- RaspberryPi.org, of course.
Wednesday, February 7, 2018
Seven cool things about the SpaceX Falcon Heavy's maiden voyage
If you've been living under a rock or on a desert island, then you missed SpaceX's test launch of their heavy lift vehicle, dubbed Falcon Heavy, on Tuesday, February 6, 2018.
This is the most powerful rocket since the mighty Saturn V, which last flew in May 1973. It's part of Elon Musk's vision for SpaceX, to make commercial space flight profitable and to make interplanetary travel a reality.
Tuesday's flight was a test flight, really, the first time that the Falcon Heavy had flown. Traditionally, space agencies put in a dummy payload, literally a huge block of cement, to simulate an actual payload and give the rocket something to push around. SpaceX decided to do something less "boring" (Musk's word), and more fun and whimsical. (Elon Musk himself said, in the post-launch press conference, "Silly and fun things are important.") So they mounted Musk's own red Tesla Roadster in the payload bay, and put a dummy wearing SpaceX's own design spacesuit in the driver's seat. They mounted three cameras on the car, and the cameras were live from the moment the rocket took off.
Here are seven cool things about the launch.
1. All 27 Merlin 1D rocket engines in the boosters fired perfectly. Not a single one of them malfunctioned at the launch.
2. The two strap-on boosters returned to earth and landed squarely on their targets, almost at the same moment. It was beautifully choreographed. The main booster wasn't so lucky: two of its engines failed on landing, and it crashed into the unmanned drone landing ship at 300 miles per hour. That was the only thing that went wrong with the flight, out of the thousands of things that went right.
3. Some friends of mine were camping in northern Arizona / southern Utah on Tuesday evening, and around 9:30 p.m. they saw this in the sky:
SpaceX planned to do a second burn of the second-stage engine six hours into the flight, to send the rocket into its planned orbit. This is called, rather obviously, a "trans-Mars injection burn". A second burn is normal, it's called an "orbital insertion burn", but you don't normally wait six hours to do it. This was to test the variant of the Merlin 1D rocket engine which will be used on translunar and interplanetary flights. SpaceX engineers were worried that it might literally freeze up in the cold of space and not fire when it was time. What my friends saw was that second burn, working perfectly.
4. Actually, it worked more than perfectly: it worked spectacularly. SpaceX used all the remaining fuel in this second burn, and all calculations show that they will overshoot their target. They were looking to send the rocket into a heliocentric orbit reaching out as far as Mars' orbital path. They sent it into a heliocentric orbit, all right, but it's going to go deep into the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
5. The battery in a Tesla Roadster is supposed to be good for 280, 360, or 400 miles. This one lasted for tens of thousands of miles.
6. The touch-panel display on the Roadster's dashboard says "DON'T PANIC!", a nod to Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Maybe it has an onboard version?
7. The cameras on the Tesla ran for as long as the Tesla's battery held out. Musk estimated that the battery held enough charge for 12 hours. I was still watching the live feed about 19 hours later. The cameras eventually faded out, as we knew they would, but before they did, the rocket sent back this last picture.
Photo credits:
My good friend Allison Jackson took the pictures of the orbital insertion burn with her phone. Photos used here with permission.
All other pictures are either photos from SpaceX (or Tesla, in the case of the Roadster) or are screen grabs from SpaceX's live streams of the launch and of Starman's voyage before the batteries died. Used here without permission. I'll delete them if SpaceX or Tesla ask me to.
Want to see some exciting videos of the event?
CGI animation of the launch
The actual launch, the real thing (a shorter version here)
Starman and the space Tesla, sailing through space (also here)
Elon Musk giving a post-launch press conference. Note the euphoria in his face and in his voice.
 |
| A picture-perfect liftoff from historic Launch Complex 39A |
This is the most powerful rocket since the mighty Saturn V, which last flew in May 1973. It's part of Elon Musk's vision for SpaceX, to make commercial space flight profitable and to make interplanetary travel a reality.
Tuesday's flight was a test flight, really, the first time that the Falcon Heavy had flown. Traditionally, space agencies put in a dummy payload, literally a huge block of cement, to simulate an actual payload and give the rocket something to push around. SpaceX decided to do something less "boring" (Musk's word), and more fun and whimsical. (Elon Musk himself said, in the post-launch press conference, "Silly and fun things are important.") So they mounted Musk's own red Tesla Roadster in the payload bay, and put a dummy wearing SpaceX's own design spacesuit in the driver's seat. They mounted three cameras on the car, and the cameras were live from the moment the rocket took off.
Here are seven cool things about the launch.
 |
| The 27 Merlin 1D engines. |
 |
| Perfect execution. |
2. The two strap-on boosters returned to earth and landed squarely on their targets, almost at the same moment. It was beautifully choreographed. The main booster wasn't so lucky: two of its engines failed on landing, and it crashed into the unmanned drone landing ship at 300 miles per hour. That was the only thing that went wrong with the flight, out of the thousands of things that went right.
 |
| Perfectly synchronized landings. |
3. Some friends of mine were camping in northern Arizona / southern Utah on Tuesday evening, and around 9:30 p.m. they saw this in the sky:
 |
| Trans-Mars injection burn, seen from Earth |
 |
| End of trans-Mars injection burn |
SpaceX planned to do a second burn of the second-stage engine six hours into the flight, to send the rocket into its planned orbit. This is called, rather obviously, a "trans-Mars injection burn". A second burn is normal, it's called an "orbital insertion burn", but you don't normally wait six hours to do it. This was to test the variant of the Merlin 1D rocket engine which will be used on translunar and interplanetary flights. SpaceX engineers were worried that it might literally freeze up in the cold of space and not fire when it was time. What my friends saw was that second burn, working perfectly.
4. Actually, it worked more than perfectly: it worked spectacularly. SpaceX used all the remaining fuel in this second burn, and all calculations show that they will overshoot their target. They were looking to send the rocket into a heliocentric orbit reaching out as far as Mars' orbital path. They sent it into a heliocentric orbit, all right, but it's going to go deep into the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
 |
| The space Tesla's (or Starman's) trajectory. (Click to enlarge) |
5. The battery in a Tesla Roadster is supposed to be good for 280, 360, or 400 miles. This one lasted for tens of thousands of miles.
 |
| Have battery, will travel. |
6. The touch-panel display on the Roadster's dashboard says "DON'T PANIC!", a nod to Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Maybe it has an onboard version?
 |
| The dashboard display. Don't panic! |
7. The cameras on the Tesla ran for as long as the Tesla's battery held out. Musk estimated that the battery held enough charge for 12 hours. I was still watching the live feed about 19 hours later. The cameras eventually faded out, as we knew they would, but before they did, the rocket sent back this last picture.
 |
| Second star to the right, and straight on 'til morning. Elon says, "Crazy things can come true," and here's proof. Safe travels, Starman. |
Photo credits:
My good friend Allison Jackson took the pictures of the orbital insertion burn with her phone. Photos used here with permission.
All other pictures are either photos from SpaceX (or Tesla, in the case of the Roadster) or are screen grabs from SpaceX's live streams of the launch and of Starman's voyage before the batteries died. Used here without permission. I'll delete them if SpaceX or Tesla ask me to.
Want to see some exciting videos of the event?
CGI animation of the launch
The actual launch, the real thing (a shorter version here)
Starman and the space Tesla, sailing through space (also here)
Elon Musk giving a post-launch press conference. Note the euphoria in his face and in his voice.
Sunday, January 28, 2018
We are All Children of Immigrants
NOTE: The only people this doesn't apply to are full-blooded descendants of Native Americans / First Nations / indigenous peoples of the Americas. All the rest of you, listen up.
Jennifer Mendelsohn got tired of hearing Americans speaking out against immigration. So she took the names of some of the loudest opponents, did some genealogical research, and handed them a copy of their family tree — with immigrants at the roots.
My favorite part of this article about Mendelsohn's #resistancegenealogy research was when she told Tomi Lahren, who said Dreamers were not "law-abiding Americans", that her great-great-grandfather had been indicted by a grand jury for forging his naturalization papers.
Every one of us is a child of immigrants - many of them were "illegal", or refugees, or unwanted. Many of them took the low-paying jobs just so they could have a shot at the American Dream, and they were resented for it. But they stuck to it, and today we get to claim our natural-born citizenship because of them.
Actually, I'm an immigrant, too. Brought here as a child when I was 7 years old. Wanna make something of it?
Jennifer Mendelsohn got tired of hearing Americans speaking out against immigration. So she took the names of some of the loudest opponents, did some genealogical research, and handed them a copy of their family tree — with immigrants at the roots.
My favorite part of this article about Mendelsohn's #resistancegenealogy research was when she told Tomi Lahren, who said Dreamers were not "law-abiding Americans", that her great-great-grandfather had been indicted by a grand jury for forging his naturalization papers.
Every one of us is a child of immigrants - many of them were "illegal", or refugees, or unwanted. Many of them took the low-paying jobs just so they could have a shot at the American Dream, and they were resented for it. But they stuck to it, and today we get to claim our natural-born citizenship because of them.
Actually, I'm an immigrant, too. Brought here as a child when I was 7 years old. Wanna make something of it?
The Wall is a Dumb Idea
Come on, somebody say it out loud: The Wall is, simply put, a dumb idea.
Physical barriers have been tried in the past, and people either go through them, under them, over them, or around them. Witness Hadrian's Wall, the Great Wall of China, the Berlin Wall, the fortified border between West and East Germany, the Iron Curtain, and the Maginot Line.
The only counterexample I can think of might be the fortified border between North and South Korea. but even then, small numbers of people just go around the wall, traveling first to China and then to South Korea.
Walls eventually crumble, or become irrelevant - or they're preserved as tourist attractions. Trump's Wall will be symbolic, but not much else, because would-be immigrants will find ways to bypass it. . The attraction (and the desire) to live and work in the United States, legally or illegally, is simply too strong.
Physical barriers have been tried in the past, and people either go through them, under them, over them, or around them. Witness Hadrian's Wall, the Great Wall of China, the Berlin Wall, the fortified border between West and East Germany, the Iron Curtain, and the Maginot Line.
The only counterexample I can think of might be the fortified border between North and South Korea. but even then, small numbers of people just go around the wall, traveling first to China and then to South Korea.
Walls eventually crumble, or become irrelevant - or they're preserved as tourist attractions. Trump's Wall will be symbolic, but not much else, because would-be immigrants will find ways to bypass it. . The attraction (and the desire) to live and work in the United States, legally or illegally, is simply too strong.
What is needed is not a $25 billion physical wall, but an immigration policy that is sound, enforceable, and humane. Both the Democrats and the Republicans in Congress can do better than they're currently doing. And the President is as dumb as his Wall.
p.s. Why not use the $25 to do something useful? Like give it as a grant to the states, specifying that it be used to increase K-12 teacher pay and to hire more teachers?
p.s. Why not use the $25 to do something useful? Like give it as a grant to the states, specifying that it be used to increase K-12 teacher pay and to hire more teachers?
Saturday, January 13, 2018
Book Review: Boardroom Bullrider: 5 Lessons Learned about Business in 8 Seconds
Much of his approach to business was learned in the arena – the rodeo arena, to be specific. Ever since he got on the back of his first bull at 16, he was hooked. He loved bullriding, and it also gave him great satisfaction.
You don’t get a lot of time to think when you’re on the back of the bull. If you’re good, you get 8 seconds, and then the buzzer sounds, you win, and you look for a graceful way to dismount. But bulls don’t like to be ridden, so you’d better know what you’re doing if you intend to win. In his bullriding career, Merritt identified five key lessons to help him stay on the bull – the same five key lessons that he uses as a corporate fix-it man to save floundering companies.
You don’t have to hire his company, Matrix Management Systems, LLC, to benefit from his wisdom. Merritt also does webinars and workshops. Now he offers those five lessons to you in his new book, Boardroom Bullrider: 5 Lessons Learned about Business in 8 Seconds. Skillfully mixing rodeo stories with stories about the business world, Merritt presents his five lessons and, in his straightforward manner, at the end of each lesson he pushes you to “get on the bull,” to do something that will make you make the lesson part of you.
I won’t tell you what his five lessons are. That’s what the book is for. Read it yourself. I measured it against some of the classics in business literature, and Boardroom Bullrider holds its own.
The one thing the classics have over Bullrider is page count. Merritt manages to make his points in 158 pages, not counting an absorbing introduction. Merritt is a great storyteller, but he doesn’t waste words. That’s his style. It’s part of the 80/20 principle that he focuses on so passionately. Still, you will find yourself wishing that he had spent more time on certain points, turning one sentence into a paragraph or one paragraph into several.
His advice is not just for moneymaking companies. It’s also for nonprofit organizations, government agencies – and you as an individual. Bryan’s advice can help you succeed in life.
Boardroom Bullrider is available from many booksellers, including Amazon.com, or directly from Bullrider Press.
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