Tuesday, January 29, 2019

Hey Democrats! You're doing it all wrong!

As the Democratic Party starts spooling up for the 2020 presidential election, one thing is becoming frighteningly clear: they're doing it all wrong.

Come on, Democrats, 2020 should be an easy win for you. It should be like taking candy from a baby — a fat, overgrown, orange-haired baby. It's yours to lose. And from the look of things today, you're going to lose it.

Why? For four main reasons.

1. Too many unqualified candidates. 

This is not secret code for "women." Voters in America will vote for a woman, if it's the right woman. We're looking for someone with demonstrated qualities of wisdom, integrity, leadership, political savvy, and so on, and we don't care if they're male or female. Personally, I'd love to see a presidential election that boiled down to Madeleine Albright vs. Condoleeza Rice. Either way, the American people would be the winners. (... as opposed to Clinton vs. Trump in 2016, when, either way, the American people were the losers.)

No, the candidates who have presented themselves so far are like the hundreds of job applicants that employers see, who have some of the qualifications for the job, but not enough of the critical qualifications and are, therefore, unhireable. I couldn't in good conscience vote for any most of the Democrats who have stepped forward so far. Come on, Democrats. You can give me somebody better than this.

But not Clinton again. Please. That will definitely make me go third-party.

2. Whackadoodle ideas.

You need a more moderate, centrist appeal if you want to take the White House. All of your traditionally Democratic ideas may be good ideas, but they won't get you elected. Some of them, you've been singing about for decades, and they still haven't gotten you elected. Set them aside for now and start concentrating on ideas that appeal to all Americans, not just your base.

3. Why? Because Independents. 

Do the math, you idiots. You're pandering to your party's base and ignoring the independents, who make up one-third of the voters in this country. In 2016, Clinton got (almost) all of the Democrats, Trump got (almost) all of the Republicans, and they split the independent voters right down the middle. If you want to win decisively in 2020, you're going to need significantly more than half of the independent votes.

If you want the independents to vote for you, you'd better give them a really compelling reason to do so.

4. No unity or cohesion in the party.

I'm going to say something good about Hillary Clinton. I really don't want to do it. I don't have any more respect for Clinton than I do for Trump, and I don't want to ignore what Bernie Sanders achieved in 2016. But it's true that one of the things that made Clinton so successful in 2016 (she did win the popular vote, you know) was that the party was unified behind her.

The candidate pool in the Democratic Party is splintered and weak. There's not a strong front-runner today, someone with the power to unify the party. Maybe it's too early for that, but I don't even see anyone who looks promising. Yet.

If the Democrats want to win in 2020, they need to unite behind a strong candidate, or at least behind a strong platform. Right now, there's no unity, at least none that can be perceived from the outside.

Conclusion

Democrats, the 2020 election is yours to lose. You're being handed the presidency on a silver platter. You would have to screw up really, really badly in order to lose against Donald Trump. If he isn't thrown out before November 2020, then the American people will be so sick of him that they will be ready to vote him out — but you have to give us a worthwhile alternative. So far, we haven't seen anybody like that.

One final thought

If it comes down to Trump vs. one of the Democrats who have already declared, right now there's a fifty-fifty chance that I'll vote third party. The losing side will blame me for torpedoing their candidate's chances, but you know what? It will be your fault, not mine. Once again, as in 2016, you will have given me someone I couldn't vote for.

UPDATE, FEB 11, 2019:
It looks like moderate voices in the Democratic Party are starting to make themselves heard. This will solve some of the above problems. It's still the Democrat's election to lose.  

Friday, January 4, 2019

More tools for Linux, Windows, and Mac!

Once again, from the "where have you been all my life?" department, I bring you three useful programs for your computer. One is a document converter, one is an image converter, and one is a souped-up terminal emulator and a Linux shell.

The document converter: Pandoc


The first program is a free-and-open-source document conversion tool called Pandoc. It should have been called DocMagick. Pandoc will convert a document from nearly any format to nearly any other format. It's ridiculously simple to use.

Its only drawback, if you want to look at it that way, is that it's a command-line tool. You don't click on an icon, or right-click on a file icon. No, if you're on Windows you have to open a Command.com window or a PowerShell window. On Mac OS, you have to open a terminal window. Linux? You're already there.

To convert a file from HTML to PDF, for example, you type this command:

    pandoc thisfile.html -o thisfile.pdf

All done!

Pandoc also makes slide shows in PDF, PowerPoint, and several other formats.

Pandoc supports 27 input file formats, and 47 output file formats. It has been around for 12 years. Go to pandoc.org to read more about pandoc and to download it for your Linux, Windows, or Mac OS box.

The image converter: ImageMagick


The second program is an image conversion tool called ImageMagick. ImageMagick will convert an image from nearly any format to nearly any other format - over 200 different file formats. What's more, it will process, filter, and enhance your image while it's at it. And even more, it can be used to create image files on its own.

Like pandoc, ImageMagick is a command-line-only tool (No longer true! Keep reading). Many people will prefer a GUI-oriented tool like PhotoShop. (Aside: For those who can't afford PhotoShop, there are many alternatives. I recommend Paint.NET if you have Windows, or Krita for Linux, Mac OS, and Windows.) With a GUI-oriented tool, you open a graphics file, do your editing, and then select Export or Save As to save it in a different format.

STOP THE PRESSES! ImageMagick now has a GUI! Keep reading ...

ImageMagick is not as intuitive as the GUI-oriented products, but it's still pretty easy to use. To convert a file from JPG to PNG, for example, you type this command:

    convert thisfile.jpg thisfile.png

or, if you have a newer version of ImageMagick installed:

    magick thisfile.jpg thisfile.png

All done!

To use the GUI instead of the command line, instead of using the 'convert' or 'magick' command, type this simple command:

    display

ImageMagick has been around for a long time: 28 years, according to Wikipedia. It is free-and-open-source software. Go to imagemagick.org to read more about ImageMagick and to download it for your Linux, Windows, or Mac OS box.

The terminal emulator: MobaXterm


The third program is a variation on the good old Microsoft Windows terminal emulator. If you are old enough to remember 5 1/4-inch floppy disks, you will remember Procomm and its variants, which ruled the roost for many years. If you're old enough to remember Windows XP, you will remember HyperTerm, which came free with Windows for many years. When Procomm disappeared, and Microsoft stopped including HyperTerm in Windows, freeware like PuTTY and TeraTerm filled the void in the market.

I recently discovered a free (but not open-source) alternative for Windows that is better than any of today's alternatives. Created by the French software firm Mobatek, MobaXterm is a Windows-based terminal emulator that supports direct serial connection, SSH, and much, much more. With its built-in X11 server, you can remotely log into a Linux system, run a graphical program (like, for demonstration purposes, xclock) and see it running on your Windows display.

Having the X11 server in MobaXterm has eliminated the need to run a VNC server on my remote machines and a VNC client on my PC. Life is much simpler.

Bonus: MobaXterm gives you Linux!


But MobaXterm isn't just a terminal emulator. Incorporating both Cygwin and BusyBox into its programming,  MobaXterm adds a Linux command line to your Windows PC.

I know that Windows 10 offers the Windows Subsystem for Linux, a good way to run native Linux alongside Windows. But this is a great alternative, especially if your main OS will remain Windows and you only need Linux as an adjunct. I've been running Cygwin for years, so I'm very comfortable with MobaXterm.

Mobatek also offers a Professional version of MobaXterm, for a modest annual subscription. MobaXterm can run multiple sessions at once, each in its own tab, making it easy to switch between them. The free version will save up to 12 configurations; the Professional version will allow you to save a virtually unlimited number of configurations.

MobaXterm is 10 years old and, and it is being actively maintained and improved. Even if you're happy with the Windows terminal emulator you're using right now, I highly recommend that you go to the MobaXterm website, read about it, download it, and give it a try. You won't be sorry.