Forward Thinking Friends,

If you've been paying attention to the presidential race in the past 48 hours or so, you've surely noticed a marked change in how John McCain is running his campaign. Instead of campaigning on the issues and policy, McCain and the Republicans are trying to make this election an up-or-down vote on Obama and portray him in the most negative light while doing so.

It started yesterday with a television ad by McCain that compares Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. To back the campaign up, the Republican talking point machine was on TV throughout the country repeating the campaign's shameful message. Today, the McCain campaign injected race into the discourse for no real reason other than to stir up racial fears of some voters.

So much for being a maverick -- this is page three of Karl Rove's playbook.

I don't think I need to convince any of you that Obama policies will be great for America, but to beat back this utter filth, the Obama campaign needs resources. I'm once again making a modest online contribution, and I hope you can, too. If everybody receiving this email donates $30 and gets five friends to do the same, it puts us nearly $30,000 closer to putting this deplorable Republican nonsense to rest.

Donate Here

I've set up a page to track how much we and our friends give with a goal of reaching $30,000. Please forward this fundraising link around to help make an Obama presidency a reality.

Thanks,
Ryan

http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/rhughes

Posted by at 5:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been thinking off and on about who would be the best VP for Obama to pick. At first, my money was on Ohio Governor Ted Strickland to seriously bring in Ohio's electoral math, but he wasn't interested. Then I very begrudgingly thought Virginia Senator Jim Webb might be the best pick, bringing in VA electoral math, military expertise, and a maverick reputation (despite his craziness). But then he too expressed zero interest.

And now lately, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine's name has been thrown around -- and he is very clearly the best candidate out there. He's consistently popular in Virginia, which unequivocally puts it in play, more than it already is. On top of that, Tim Kaine's approach to governance mirrors Obama's promise to break partisan bickering in DC. Tim Kaine is also just a good guy. When Tim Kaine was small-time, I didn't know a single person in UDems who didn't like him.

In other words, all upside and no downside. You might say he's not well known outside of Virginia, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing or even relevant to a VP candidate.

Anyway, here's the parade of other contenders that makes me gag a bit:

Evan Bayh, Governor of Indiana: Let's be honest. We aren't going to carry Indiana, no matter what the polls are saying right now. Despite his closeness to Hillary Clinton, selecting him is also not going to mollify the small contingent of her supporters that are still angry about the primary.

Joseph Biden, Senator from Delaware: Buffoon.

Wesley Clark, Retired General and Former NATO Commander: Wes Clark is actually my second choice if Kaine doesn't get the VP nod. He has a lot of upside with his military experience. But his stage presence is less than great, trust me.

Hillary Clinton, Senator from New York: Some say she'd bring money and her holdout supporters. However, Obama can raise money without her, as he raised $52 million last month alone. And furthermore, her supporters will come home by November, unless we're talking about the racist ones, of course. Even if she does bring something to the ticket that is of value, she also brings Bill Clinton back to wander the White House. And she's hugely divisive to the general electorate. We're not in the primary anymore, folks.

John Edwards, Former Senator from North Carolina: I'm sorry, I like the guy, but he's done after so many strikeouts. He doesn't really do much for the ticket at this point, either.

Chuck Hagel, Republican Senator from Nebraska: I'm not too cold on this one, but I don't think he'd ever accept the nomination. We'd lose a swing vote in the Senate if he were VP, anyway.

Sam Nunn, Former Senator from Georgia: Dude might put Georgia into more play than it is now, but he's kinda nutty. Nobody cares about his foreign policy experience from serving on a Senate Committee.

Edward G. Rendell, Governor of Pennsylvania: Crazy and a loose cannon.

Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico: Meh.

Kathleen Sebelius, Governor of Kansas: I actually like her, but talking heads say Hillary supporters would flip out about Obama picking another woman over Hillary. I don't exactly see why picking another woman over Hillary is different than picking a man over Hillary. How is a woman somehow worse? Maybe it's just nonsense punditry. Anyway, it would be kind of a shame, because Sebelius isn't a bad choice. But, Kansas is also not in play at all.

Posted by at 3:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

This past weekend the iPhone Dev Team released software that removes Apple's restrictions. Here are a few things I've got going on it that I wouldn't otherwise be allowed to have on my phone:

That's right, there's an NES emulator for iPhone. I also downloaded all 700 United States NES games and uploaded them to my phone. As you can see, you have to touch the screen for the controller, which is not the most responsive thing ever. Nonetheless, it's kind of cool to have every NES game ever made on my phone.

Little did I know, the iPhone has a full Unix system running on it. If you remove Apple's restrictions, you can get at your phone's full features. Here, I've logged in remotely to the server that hosts this website.

Lastly, I wanted to make some custom sounds for alarms. Apple of course wants you to pay $1 each for them. Hell. No. Here, you can see my new wake up alarm, courtesy of The Shins. See if you can also spot custom sounds on this list by Pink Floyd, Pink Martini, and I Heart Huckabees.

Oh, if you decide to use the iPhone Dev Team's software, you should change your iPhone's root password.

Posted by at 3:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So I finally got my iPhone 3G last night, and I somehow find it blogworthy. It isn't often that I will go out of my way to buy a product. But, I committed to buying one several months ago when the new phone came out, and there have been so many times I would find myself in a situation wishing I had access to an email, website, or map. This past week I was unable to find a doctor's office and later in the week a bike shop. It was a lot of wasted time when I could have found it quickly with an iPhone, if only it had come out. The frustration festered, and that's why I went out to get one yesterday.

I decided to go to the AT&T store before work. I figured all the crazy people would be camping out at the Apple store because they would feel the need to get their cherished toy direct from Apple. With the economy in the state it's in, how many people could be lined up outside an AT&T store before work to drop money on a new phone?

A lot, it turns out. About 80 to be exact. Seeing how long it would take, I drove straight past the AT&T store wand went to work. I thought that I could come back in the afternoon before people got out of work and have a relatively short wait. So that's what I did, only to find the words "IPHONE 3G SOLD OUT" plastered on the AT&T window. This struck me as odd because there were plenty of iPhones during the 2007 launch. Last year, people hoarded iPhones like Playstations at Christmas time, but found out the hard way that Apple could produce enough to meet demand. So, how could this store be sold out?

Undeterred, I went to the Culver City AT&T store. I pulled up and found no ominous papers posted to their windows, but they were in fact also sold out. Culver City! I figured my last and only shot was to go to the Apple Store in Santa Monica at 3rd Street Promenade. It was still before 5:00, so hopefully I could avoid some of the work rush.

In retrospect, I shouldn't have been surprised to find a line that was well over a block long. A couple of the people said that the wait was 2-3 hours. A nice Apple employee came out and assured us that there were plenty of iPhones to go around if we wanted to wait. I really didn't want to wait in the line, but I really didn't have anything better to do for the next few hours unless I wanted to go home and work on a website project. I also figured that if I came back tomorrow the line would be just as long, and if I went to AT&T in the morning, I'd risk not getting a phone because they'd sell out again. So I decided to wait.

At this point, I had to stop ask: why didn't AT&T stores have more phones? After all, Apple only has a small number of stores scattered throughout the US. The whole point of partnering with AT&T is that AT&T can reach far more customers than Apple can by itself through cell phone stores in towns all across the country. And they don't have enough phones to go around. Seems like really idiotic planning.

Anyway, there I stood in line. In between phone calls to burn my remaining Verizon minutes, I started pigeon holing people into groups:

• Vanity Enthusiasts
• Tech Enthusiasts
• Me

The vanity enthusiasts were typical Angelenos obsessed with having the newest gadget because they considered it a status symbol.

Some might raise an eyebrow to me taking me out of the tech enthusiast group, but trust me, I don't belong with those guys. Some were computer graphics programmers working in movie production, and they were alright. Others were the same adults that stand in Star Wars lines. "Can you imagine what Tetris will be like on the iPhone!?" they would ask. They debated back and forth about whether you would drag the pieces into place or if there would be an on-screen button to drop the pieces into place. Yes, really. What really blew me away about this group was an older guy who told an inquisitive passerby that he was so excited because he was changing history. Right then and there, standing in line to buy a product, he was changing history. If this guy didn't have a son standing next to him, you couldn't have convinced me that he had ever been sexually active. To dull the inane conversations going on around me, I played with a dog that a woman in line had. I should note that I made a point of not watching the clock. It would only have annoyed me more.

Once I finally made it to the front of the line, I got a better glimpse of the idiotic things that passersby were saying to people in line. Chatting up an exhausted Apple employee, a man came to the front of the line and said, "I'll just cut in here!" The Apple guy assured me he couldn't count the number of times he had heard someone say that. I didn't understand at first why there were no less than three huge men guarding the door at all times until I saw just how many people tried to negotiate their way into the store. Honestly, what chance did you think you had with hundreds of people standing behind you? One woman came by and said rather loudly, "I just don't understand what these people are waiting in line for!"

"Printer cables!" I yelled.

At the front of the line, I gave strong consideration to writing on a piece of paper:

I definitely would have sold my spot, and I bet somebody would have taken me up on it. I joked about it with a couple of the computer graphics guys, but they didn't share my enthusiasm. They frowned on the idea, as if I were suggesting that babies be legally sold.

I finally got into the store and had to wait even longer. Any level of excitement I had was gone by then. I just wanted my damn phone. Once someone finally came to set me up, he helped me dupe AT&T into letting me keep my DC phone number using the address of a friend. Sweet. And then I was out of there.

The phone is solid.

Posted by at 3:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)