If you enter the Central Square T station, heading outbound, through the stairs closest to the river (the stairs that are also closest to my apartment), you find yourself in a small ante-chamber with two of the new gates. Sadly, there are no ticket machines there so if you don't have a ticket you have to go back up the stairs and take the main entrance. But that's not the worst part. No, not at all. Because those two gates, also happen to be handicapped gates. Even though there's no elevator, or even escalator to allow handicapped people to get down to them. And while I'm sure they did that because the ADA probably required them to do so, I also suspect the handicapped gates cost more than the regular ones, so it's yet another pointless waste of my tax dollars.
But it gets worse! It occurred to me as I was exiting the T station through those self-same handicapped gates the other day that, were a handicapped person to see them, they would most likely assume that it was a handicapped exit. They'd then wheel themselves through that gate only to discover that they were trapped at the bottom of a set of stairs with no way to get out of the little ante-chamber unless they want to spend another $1.25 to re-enter the station and go out a different entrance. Apparently the MBTA has decided to solve our handicapped 'problem' by capturing the wheelchair-bound in the mass transit equivalent of lobster traps. I can only speculate as to whether they plan to tag and release said handicapped people, or whether they'll just let them starve to death in the T station.
I'd also like to point out that the MBTA web site's 'trip planning' feature is crap. The other day I wanted to get from Central Square to Kenmore Square. Not knowing the bus system, my first inclination was to just take the red line to Park and transfer to the green line, but I thought I'd see if there was an easier way. And there is! The solution is to catch the 1 bus and take it down to Commonwealth, and walk up to Kenmore. Of course, the MBTA web site didn't say that. It told me to take the 1C bus (a limited-stop express bus) to Commonwealth. Great, it's faster, right? Wrong. The 1C bus doesn't stop at Commonwealth. The MBTA web site doesn't even know the bus routes! Fortunately, the 1C does stop at Newbury so I didn't have to go too far out of my way, but what if it didn't? And what if I was trying to make a meeting rather than getting dinner with a friend? Really, the MBTA is just doing a bang-up job.
And with that out of the way, I'd like to bemoan the state of Mexican pop music:
Last night, Jessi and I were walking back to Central Square from Davis Square. As we were going through Inman Square, we passed Ryles, a jazz club on Hampshire. Jessi and I are both huge jazz fans, and, to some extent, jazz musicians. We've walked passed it a dozen times, and every time I always say we should go in there. Last night, as we walked by, we noticed that the stage was set up for a big band. About 30 paces past the last window in I stopped and realized, 'wait, did that drum say "BASIE"?!?'. A few minutes of 'there's no way', 'how cool would that be?' and such and I had to run back to the door to check the calendar.
Sure enough, on the board, at 6:30 and then at 8:00: The Count Basie Orchestra. It was 7:00. Just enough time to walk home, change, and walk back. So we bought two tickets and did exactly that.
It was an unbudgeted, spur of the moment, $50 expense. But boy was it worth it. They were amazing. Every single musician in the band, upright bass, piano, guitar, two tenor saxes, two alto saxes, a bari sax, three trombones, a bass trombone, and four trumpets, was fantastic. They played some great pieces, including one from the 30s, one from the 70s, and some more modern ones. Five of the band members were actually hired by Count Basie before he died (in 1984), and baritone sax player John Williams has been with the band for 50 years.
All in all, it was an indescribably great evening, and a fantastic reminder the Boston has an amazing jazz scene. Plus a good reminder that it's been several months since I was last at Wally's, something that absolutely must be fixed.
Just got back from the aforementionedCelebration of political bloggers. It was very cool, much cooler than I expected actually. I wasn't really sure what to expect, though I was hoping there would be some big names there. I got more than I expected and met: Steve Garfield, David Kravitz, David Weinberger, Shai Sachs, and others. Sadly, I'm horribly bad at names and have forgotten a few good ones. Also sadly, and more on this in a bit, I had no business cards on me to give to the several people who asked me for them. One thing they should definitely do, which I suppose they still could and if they don't I might offer to start doing it for the future meetings which I attend (and I intend to start attending their regular Thursday meetings with some regularity), is, after the meeting, send an email to everyone who attended listing the names and blogs of everyone who was there. I think that for those people who don't have cards and those that have poor memories for names it would really increase the value of the meetings. The meetings normally take place on Thursdays at the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School: link. I recommend it for anyone who's into blogging. Jessi also really enjoyed it, expect a good post from her about it in the near future.
I'm really excited about having met Steve Garfield. He's a big name, and doing some very cool stuff. Plus, there's an immediate business connection: he shot this video on his cell phone. I don't know what it is, but something about that piqued my curiosity as Editor in Chief of cellphonetechnews.com. If I can just put my finger on what it is, maybe I'll write a story about it...
Now back to Kinko's and my lack of business cards. In preparation for this event specifically I wanted to make sure I had some business cards to hand out. I knew it would be a stretch, but I called Kinko's this morning and asked them if it would be possible for me to have some cards printed up by 5pm if I brought them right in (it's a 10 minute walk from my apartment). They said sure, just come by with a PDF, no problem. So I did. They said they'd have it ready by 5, and I figured I was good to go. Three o'clock rolls around and I figure that they, as they often do, might have finished the job early. So I gave them a call. The guy who answered the phone says to me 'oh, well I left you a message'... no, actually you didn't ... 'you need to re-create the PDF because the way it is now we can't do it'. Um, great. And you couldn't tell me this when I brought it in and we looked at the PDF together and you told me it wouldn't be a problem? I wasn't planning on using Kinko's for my business cards anyway, they're just convenient and fast, but now I'll definitely be getting them printed up elsewhere. My dad actually recommended a place a while ago that he used for his cards, but I can't remember the name of it and for some reason Spotlight has been completely useless lately. Oh well, he'll probably see this and remind me of it. (Hi dad!) The plus side is that I've recently come up with what I think is a much better design for the business cards anyway, so now I won't have to print any up with the old design.
The event is 'to honor all those who have been blogging the vote', because apparently we 'should be celebrated for [our] role in making public the discussion about who should be the next Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts'.
I'll be there, and I'm bringing Jessi with me, Matt of Hub Politicswill be there, and hopefully many others. I'm really looking forward to the chance to meet some of my fellow Boston bloggers, especially with such an interesting topic as Mass Guber '06 to talk about. Plus there's free food and drinks.
Hope to see you there. More details available here.
Sadly I missed the debate last night because Jessi and I were meeting with a realtor. From the accounts I've read so far, it sounds like it was a great debate, and I really wish I'd seen it. Here's one good account of it, another is here, and I'm hoping we'll get one later from Jesse Legg. If only this was the sort of thing they'd show re-runs of the next day...
I did, however, get an interesting and germane piece of mail yesterday. It came from the Mihos gubernatorial campaign, and is an invitation to the campaign's Election Night 2006 Celebration at the Radisson Hotel. I definitely plan to go. It should be a great opportunity to meet Christy, and, hopefully, congratulate my next governor. At the very least, I imagine there will be free food and probably champagne.
As promised, my analysis of Massachusetts Ballot Question 2.
Question 2 is an interesting one. Basically, the proposal is that a single candidate should be able to run under multiple different parties, and that said candidate should appear on the ballot multiple times, once for each party they're running under. At first glance I really didn't know what to think about this. Clearly it's main effect will be on the party system, and it will definitely affect voters and candidates who don't fit into the two mainstream parties. The question is how.
As an avid supporter of 3rd party politics I definitely see some potential for good in the idea of 'fusion voting'. The Mass Ballot Freedom Campaign (who are the ones behind this Question) have a pretty good educational video (right) about it. The video actually really helped me clarify my thinking on the issue. I had not been aware that a system such as the one proposed is already successfully in effect in some states (including New York) or that it's been done before at various points in American history.
Unfortunately, I've been very hard pressed to find anyone speaking out against Question 2. The only argument against it that I've heard has been that it will confuse voters. A lot of people are responding to this with outrage, 'how dare they insult the intelligence of the voters like that!', but, to be honest, I think it's a somewhat valid point. We've seen in the recent past just what effect confusing ballots can have on an election, and it's not good. In this case, however, I don't think the confusion factor will be that big of a deal. Worst case scenario, a voter sees one name on the ballot several times, gets confused, and just votes for the party they want rather than the person they want. In general, I don't approve of party-line voting, but it certainly does serve the purpose of removing the need for people to actually think about politics.
As for the effect this will have on 3rd parties, I can see two possibilities. One, it could, as advertised, increase support for 3rd parties and help raise them into greater relevance. This seems to be what's happened with this system in New York and in other places historically. On the other hand, there's more to voting than the parties, and I think the individual candidates are far more important. In any given election, I don't care what party a candidate is running under, I'll vote for whichever candidate I think has the best policies, be they Republican, Democrat, Green, Libertarian, or Bull-Moose. I do think that this method of voting, by virtue of increasing awareness and support for 3rd parties, may actually hurt those 3rd parties. There is little doubt in my mind that a Democratic candidate that got the majority of their votes as a Democrat and then some others as a Green, though they will certainly spend some time and attention on Green issues, will still focus mainly on Democratic issues. It may end up being the case that policies such as this will result in fewer 3rd party candidates and therefore no real change in the system. Historical data, however, would suggest that this isn't too likely. And as this will provide more choice to the voters I think it's a good thing.
Following the poll I posted last monday (8-2 in favor), I've now put some Google ads on my blog. Undoubtedly you noticed the banner at the top of the page. There's also one at the very bottom, and a 'skyscraper' of ads in the side bar under all the useful stuff. Hopefully it's a good balance of enough ads to maybe make some money but not enough to annoy people too much. We'll see, and, as always, input is more than welcome. It looks like Google is struggling to find ads relevant to my blog. Not all that surprising really, although it's been getting better over the course of the day. We'll see what it settles on.
Also today, I had my interview with Seth Cummings. It went well and I think I got a lot of good material to write an article. I still have to go over my notes, but expect to see a piece on Seth/Amp'd/BU on cellphonetechnews.com by the end of the week.
This morning Jessi sent me a link to an article about a new BU class on making 'mobisodes'. A mobisode, if you don't know (which I didn't), is a movie shot with cell phones. A very cool application of cell phone technology, and definitely in line with the current trend of 'user-generated content'.
Seeing as I'm now the Editor in chief of a cellphone technology news site, I figured I should probably do something with this information. Fortunately, in addition to being engaged to someone with a master's degree in Public Relations, I spent a pretty good amount of time working for a PR firm. Sure I was doing their IT, but I definitely learned a lot about the way media and PR works. So I had a pretty good idea of what to do next.
If you read the BU Today article I linked to you may have noticed that the idea for the class came partly from Seth Cummings, co-founder and VP of amp'd mobile, one of those new, upstart mobile phone companies like Boost Mobile and Metro PCS. On Tuesday afternoon I'll be interviewing him for a piece which will (obviously) then be published on cellphontechnews.com.
So if anyone has any questions for him, especially about the class or cellphone multimedia applications in general, please let me know and I'll do my best to get them into the interview.
If you're not already, you should really be reading the Tesla Motors blog. It's a fantastic example of what corporate blogs can be. In the latest post, CEO Martin Eberhard talks about the technology used in the motors that will drive their cars. In doing so, he gives an excellent history lesson on Nikola Tesla (in my opinion, one of the most interesting people in the history of technology). Apparently the motors they use are extremely similar to the electric motor Tesla designed and patented in 1888, that's how good he was.
And, to top it all off, he actually uses the word 'dohicky' in a technical explanation. (The dohicky in question being the commutator used to flip the polarity of the magnetic field in a DC motor causing it to actually spin rather than just align in a single position.) I really can't wait to test drive a Tesla Roadster. With luck, my next car will be one of their future models.
In other technology news related news, I now have another job title to call my own. I am now, in addition to being Founder and President of Derivative Technologies Consulting, the new Editor in Chief of Cellphone Tech News, an appropriately named site focusing on cell phone technology news. A position which will undoubtedly afford me plenty of opportunity to use the word 'dohicky' myself, I'm sure. Over the next few weeks I'll be working on transitioning the existing site to a more robust and feature-full (I really don't like that word, 'featurous' would be much better) back-end and working on increasing the volume of content. While I'll do my best to write as much of that content as I can (and, as you're all aware, I'm perfectly capable of being quite verbose, quite often), ideally I'll be able to find some regularly contributing writers to take on some of the load. So, if you happen to be interested in writing about cell phone technology, or even just have some ideas on what we could write about or direction we might want to look in, please feel free to email me (josh@joshourisman.com).
Title aside, Jesse's written an excellent post about the upcoming Gubernatorial debate an Faneuil Hall this Thursday. His breakdown of the candidates and what they need to accomplish in this debate is spot-on. And he, as a fellow Mihos supporter, hits it right on the nose when talking about the Mihos campaign:
Christy Mihos; I was so excited for him. I handed out bumper stickers and buttons. His commercials were spot on, clean and critical but not attack ads. My support continues but, as I blogged about last week, I’m mildly concerned for the campaign. He had a lot of momentum after the initial debate. I’m going to watch closely Thursday to make sure he isn’t giving up. Maybe he’s low on funds. Maybe he plans another blitz Friday morning. I hope for the latter. Just keep it clean and come out fighting.
I couldn't agree more. Mihos has an amazing energy and charisma that speaks to people, even people who wouldn't otherwise consider an independent candidate. On paper he is a fantastic candidate, his campaign has been well run, and his ads have been amazing. But in the last few weeks Christy Mihos has just sort of dropped off the radar. I haven't heard or seen anything about it. I hope it's just the calm before the storm and that the campaign will be gearing up following Thursday's debate to finish out the race with a bang. Mihos may still be polling in single digits, but if he can put on a good show at the remaining debates and campaign hard to get his name, face, and message out there, I still think he stands a chance. He will, at least, have my vote on November 7.
In other Mihos news, Peter Howe of the Boston Globe, has written an excellent article on Mihos. It touches on all the key points of Mihos' platform, but, most importantly, it talks about his stance on business, and particularly small businesses. I had previously written directly to the Mihos campaign about exactly this issue. Although I never got a reply directly on that question (I did get a persona reply, however), I consider this article to probably be better than just an email to me would have been. When asked what he would do for small businesses in Massachusetts (such as his own) he responds, 'The only thing a governor can do is take away the stress and burden that fall on my customers each and every day. Take away their fees, their fines, their taxes [and] just make it so that people that are coming in to see me are happy and can afford to live here'.
While on some level it would be nice to hear that he'd give aid specifically to small businesses or do something that would directly benefit me, in truth, this is, I think, the right position for him to take. It's not government's place to decide which businesses live and die, it's the place of the consumer. All government can and should do is stay out of the way as much as possible. Christy Mihos, as a small business owner, gets that, and I, as a small business owner, am glad that there's a candidate out there who does.
And, in other Mihos news, yet another blogger has come out as a Mihos supporter. Says Roger, of Mass Maddness:
Massachusetts needs a real-change candidate, a description that doesn't apply to either the Democrat or Republican candidate. But it does describe Christy Mihos -- too bad the voters, the media, and Beacon Hill write him off. But why is Mihos the right man for the job? Because he's open, he cares, and he (at least tries) to bridge any left-right babble.
On the Massachusetts state ballot there are three questions called, appropriately enough, Question 1, Question 2, and Question 3. Although in actuality, they are called Initiative Petition A, F, and H, respectively.
Question 3 is about childcare. I don't really know anything about the issue, and the phrasing of the ballot question itself is somewhat confusing, so I'm just going to ignore that one.
Question 1, however, is very interesting. The issue is whether or not to allow wine to be sold at food stores. 'The proposed law defines a “food store†as a retail vendor, such as a grocery store, supermarket, shop, club, outlet, or warehouse-type seller, that sells food to consumers to be eaten elsewhere (which must include meat, poultry, dairy products, eggs, fresh fruit and produce, and other specified items), and that may sell other items usually found in grocery stores.' Any city or town can issue up to 5 licenses to food stores to sell wine for every 5,000 citizens of that city/town.
If you want to really get into it, I think that the proposal is bad in that it perpetuates an inherently flawed, unfair, and anti-competitive system. I think that anyone should be able to sell any beverage that they want, be it wine, beer, schapps, single malt whisky, or everclear, so long as they take sufficient steps to verify the age of the customer. (Technically I also support abolishing the minimum drinking age, but that's a whole nother issue and rather beyond the scope of this post.) That's how it works in California, and, to the best of my knowledge, alcoholism is not running rampant through the Golden State any more than it is here in the Bay State. However, as abstaining to vote on Question 1 will also leave aforementioned flawed, unfair, and anti-competitive system in place, I'll just stick with a yes or no on Question 1.
In that case, my vote is a resounding yes for Question 1. Under the current system wine is only sold in liquor stores, wine shops/galleries, and some speciality food stores (the Trader Joe's near us sells both wine and beer). However the store where we buy our grociers (Shaw's) can't, while the numerous liquor stores around Central Square can and do. The only arguments against Question 1 seem to be coming from the liquor stores themselves. Of course they don't want anyone else selling wine, if they have to compete their profit margins will most likely go down. Sadly, for them, that's the nature of a free market: competition leads to market efficiency and the consumer gets what they want for the best price. There is no good reason for the liquor stores to have a monopoly on wine (or beer or liquor for that matter), except, possibly, in the minds of the liquor store owners.
A yes on Question 1 means a restoration (partial though it may be) of the rights of the citizens of Massachusetts as consumers.
(Question 2 is also interesting, but I'll leave that for another post.)
So I think i've reached the point where I need to ask myself this question. When I first started this blog I made the decision not to put ads on it. The reason I made that decision was that, with no one reading it yet, I would not get anything out of it, and there's always the people that will be turned off by the presence of ads, making it harder to gain readership. However, since I've started writing this blog, my readership has been growing fairly steadily. Taken over the entire life of this blog, I have an average of 11 subscribers. Over the past month it's at 16, and over the past week it's at 18. While my all-time high of 22 subscribers is certainly not going to pay the bills, it's definitely at the level where I'll start to see a couple bucks. Maybe even enough to offset my hosting costs.
Of course, if it were to lose me my readers, I don't think it would be worth it. So, I'm putting it to you, my readers, the question of whether or not I should start putting ads on my blog. If you don't care, I'd consider that a 'yes' vote. If you do, and would really not like to see ads, I'd really appreciate a comment letting me know why. It's a question that's not only applicable to me, but to pretty much every blogger out there, especially the smaller ones.
And I think it's only fair to say that without a strong vote against ads, I'm leaning towards adding them.
Last night I had to get down to Chestnut Hill. It was the first time in 8 years that I've needed to get somewhere accessible only by car and not had a car. Fortunately, right before I drove down to DC I signed up for a Zipcar account. If you've read Jessi's blog at all you'll know that she's a huge Zipcar fan. I've always thought the concept was cool, but never had any first-hand experience with it. After actually using the service, I think I'm well on my way to joining her in her fandom. Making the service even better, I'm saving a lot of money on it by getting a business account.
Last night I had reserved a Toyota RAV-4 EV. As I've mentioned before, I'm a fan of electric cars, and Zipcar maintains a small fleet of them. I want to encourage them to expand their EV fleet, so I plan on reserving the EVs whenever feasible. Sadly, this time, when I got to the garage, I couldn't get into Ralph (the RAV-4). My Zipcard, which you put up against a sensor on the windshield to unlock the car, simply wasn't opening the doors. After a little experimentation we realized that the culprit was the one biggest drawback to Zipcar: the previous driver hadn't properly plugged the car in, so the battery was completely dead. Fortunately, a quick call to Zipcar (the number's right on the card), and they had switched my reservation over to another car in the same garage (they actually have four in that particular garage). That one was a gas powered Scion xB, had 3/4 of a tank, and worked just fine. Amusingly enough, due to recent events, the car I ended up driving was named 'Barbados'. How's that for coincidence?
Quite a lot has happened so far this week, it may turn out to be too much for a single post. We shall see.
The week started out, on Monday, with a road trip. Jessi and I drove down to Washington DC for a couple of reasons. The first, which we had been planning for a while, was to sell my car. This was accomplished easily enough, and the title transferred to Ourisman Chevrolet in Marlow Heights.
The second, which came up more recently, was to attend, on Wednesday afternoon, the swearing in ceremony for the 'Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of United States of America to Barbados, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, the Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines'. The ceremony was conducted by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and was attended by sundry important people in the DC set. The ambassadors from the seven Caribbean nations were there, as well as the ambassadors from Jordan and Morocco. At least one senator and one former senator were there. I also had a chance to meet and talk to Sam Donaldson—and it was actually from him that I learned about the plane crash that killed New York Yankee Cory Lidle. In addition, since the person being sworn in as the ambassador was my grandmother, the vast majority of the Ourisman family was there; from my 11 month old cousin Caroline, to my 97 year old great-great-aunt Molly.
After the ceremony was a cocktail party at the Chevy Chase club in Chevy Chase Maryland. There I had the opportunity to talk with Chris Matthews, host of Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC, and his wife, Kathleen. Chris, I discovered, was very well familiar with national politics, including local Berkeley politics (which my dad chatted with him about) and the Massachusetts Gubernatorial race, which, in his opinion, has already been won. I tried to get his opinion on the Mihos campaign, but he, understandably, didn't seem to want to talk about politics that much. He did, however, tell us about the next episode of Hardball which was shot on Friday. Apparently he interviews Robin Williams. I can't wait to see it. There were other people there whom I recognized but couldn't place. Undoubtedly they were other public figures from various walks of life. All in all, quite the networking opportunity. Hopefully some future opportunities, business or otherwise, will come of it.
The rest of the time in DC was spent visiting with my family. I haven't had a chance to see them much since we moved to California in '92, but hopefully now that I'm back on the East Coast I'll be seeing them more often.
It's nearly 6 am on Sunday, October 8th. For whatever reason, I can't sleep. Instead, I've spend the past 3 or so hours writing AJAX code. If you're not a programmer, there's a good chance this is the last sentence of this post that you'll want to read. Don't say I didn't warn you.
I'm working on a project that pairs an AJAX front-end with a PHP back-end. To make things even more complicated, the content for the site is stored both in a MySQL database and in XML files. The plus side is that the complexity of the project has pretty much forced me into improving my coding style, my college advisor would be proud. It's also making it much more interesting and requiring me to learn a lot just to get it done.
In the time since I gave up on trying to get to sleep I've managed to solve a major problem that was preventing me from making any more progress. The way the site works, there is an XML document that defines the structure of the data that will be displayed. This XML file is read in and converted into a PHP object (actually it's one PHP object with an array of other objects, each of which has it's own array of objects...). Once the structure is known, obviously we need to drop the data into it. The first step to doing this is an asynchronous HTTP request to a PHP script that then has to have access to one of the child objects of the main object (as well as all of its respective children). This is the part that was throwing me off as I can't just throw the PHP object into the arguments of a javascript function. Eventually I just passed the name of the XML file along to the script and recreated the entire set of objects. I'll probably try and find a more efficient way of doing that eventually... (Actually, it's just now occurred to me that I can probably
serialize()
the relevant objects, pass them that way, and then just
unserialize()
them in the PHP script. I'll have to play around with that.)
Once the object set has been re-created in the PHP script, it is then able to pull the needed data from a MySQL database and send it back. Unfortunately, the data that gets sent back needs to go into three different places, so the response has to be in XML. This is where I'm currently stuck. I can format the response as valid XML with no problem, however once I do that and
echo
it back, the javascript doesn't actually seem to recognize that it's XML. I can only get at the data through the
responseText
variable, and not the
responseXML
one. This would be fine, except that I apparently can't use
getElementByTagName()
on
responseText
which makes it difficult to get at the data in any useful way. So I need to figure out how to get javascript to actually interpret the response as XML. This is where I'm stuck right now, and again, until I figure this out, I can't make any more progress. The really annoying part is that this latest problem is the last hard part. Once I figure this out, the rest of the project will be a breeze, and should only take another couple of hours (at least to get it demo-able, there are a few other complex features I need to add before it's actually ready, but they don't affect the functionality so much as the interface). Hopefully I'll be able to figure this out (or some helpful soul will be able to give me a hint) and get the project finished by the end of next week.
For now, I think I'm going to give sleeping another go.
Emily Rooney over at The Greater Boston Blog posted today an article entitled Let's Be Honest. In it she advocates excluding Christy Mihos and Grace Ross from the remaining gubernatorial debates. Apparently she thinks that just because they qualified to be on the ballot, that doesn't mean we get to hear what they think about the issues. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's exactly what it means for them to qualify to be on the ballot.
In justification for this position, she cites the latest polls in which Mihos has 7% of the vote and Ross 1%, claiming that this 'means both candidates are out of the running'. I beg to differ. Admittedly, 8% of the vote won't win anyone anything, but it represents approximately half a million Massachusetts voters who think that Mihos and Ross have something worthwhile to say. Are we to completely ignore those 500,000+ people? Who knows what will happen in the next 30-some days. For all we know, something that Mihos or Ross says in one of the next debates, debates Rooney doesn't want them to attend, will be the thing that opens the floodgates and wins them the election. All candidates have the right to be heard, and the voters of Massachusetts have the right to hear them.
She does have one good point when she asks 'But are they qualified to be governor and do the voters of Massachusetts think they are?'. It's an excellent question and one that should, nay must be addressed. Fortunately we already have some very excellent mechanisms in place for addressing exactly those questions. They're called debates and elections.
I recently watched the movie Who Killed The Electric Car?. While obviously anything said in such a movie has to be taken with a grain of salt, I think the general message was probably on target: there is currently demand for electric cars, at least among urban populations, and it is possible to build an affordable electric car that performs adequately, the problem is that the current auto manufacturers and dealers already have a line-up of vehicles that fit the range of car driving needs out there, and introducing more will just result in them having their own products compete against each other. In other words, they're entrenched in current politics and technology. I agree with the existing auto companies that it simply isn't a good idea for them to be building electric cars at this time. However there is also, definitely, a market for electric cars, and if there's one thing that a free market is good at, it's providing what the consumers want. The solution to this modern economic conflict—that the consumers want something that the existing companies simply can't sell—is simple: start a new company that sells what people want.
That was pretty much the thought I had after watching the movie, that someone should start a company that builds and sells only electric cars. There's demand for it, the technology to do it exists, and it's been pretty well shown to be economical. Technologies more recently developed for hybrids, such as regenerative breaking, are also very applicable to improving electric cars, making them even better than they would have been before. While I think it will certainly happen that the existing manufacturers will bring electric cars to the market again (and do it right this time), for their own very valid reasons, they just can't do it now. The hybrid car, is definitely a step in the right direction. Once one company has their entire line switched over to hybrids (a goal, I was told by the president of Toyota a few years back, that Toyota plans to meet by 2007... we'll see about that), especially if at least some of those hybrids are plug-in hybrids, they'll be well positioned to make the next transition to fully electric cars. But, that probably won't happen until 2009 or 2010 at the earliest.
Enter Tesla Motors, a company planning to do exactly that. Started in 2003 in San Carlos, California, they're planning to start selling their first production vehicle, the Tesla Roadster, in early 2007 (in select cities only). In fact, they've already sold out of their first 100. Starting with an $90k electric sports car, they're going after the high end market first, which will allow them to sell cars even before they've become large enough to leverage economies of scale and sell cars affordable to the Average Joe, and will then work their way down the line over the next few years until they have a lineup of electric cars to suit just about everyone's needs. The plan is to have an ~$40k, four-door family sedan some time in 2008, and an even more affordable third model some time after that—probably, you know, 2009 or 2010. I would not be surprised to see, if Tesla does well enough to stick to their plans, the major car manufacturers releasing their own electric cars (again) to compete with the Tesla models. Which is a good thing, competition will only lead to more affordable cars made with better technology.
As usual, I expect the market will solve our dependency on oil faster and more effectively than regulation from the government ever will (don't get me started on hydrogen fuel cell cars...).
Sadly, I actually missed a big chunk of the debate because I was called away by work. On the plus side, I'm getting enough work that it actually pulled me away from the debate. I did, however, see enough to address the four points that I wanted addressed.
First: Healey's performance I though Healey did a much better job than in the last debate in terms of simply presenting herself well. She had obviously been coached much more extensively this time and was much more on top of her game. The biggest effect of this, I think, was that she actually acknowledged that there were more than two candidates in the race. Unfortunately she forgot that fact again in her closing remarks. Overall I thought her performance was still pretty disappointing. She represents the status quo that people don't want, and she knows it, so she does little other than point out why (she think) her opponents' (really, just Patrick's) positions are even worse than hers. She also keeps harping on and on about how horrible it would be to have Democrats in control of both the governor's office and the legislature. I agree with her, that it's, in general, not a very good idea, but it's also not really a position you can run on. If the race were closely contested and she and Patrick were neck and neck, then it might become a valid point to campaign on, but when she's trailing by as much as she is in the polls she really needs to point out her positives not Patrick's negatives.
Second: Patrick's performace I still don't think that Patrick lived up to his reputation in this regard, but he, like Healey, gave a much better performance than in the last debate. I was, as usual, somewhat disappointed on his actual policy, but I still think that he would, politics aside, make an excellent governor. I also really liked the way that he addressed the Cape Wind question, and I think that his rationale for not supporting the income tax rollback is a good one: yes it would be great to cut that .3% on everyone's income tax, and yes the people voted for it, but before we can do it we need to cut spending by that much. I also approve of his statement that it's more important to cut property taxes first.
Third: Ross' performance Sadly, Ross did not pick up any hints in terms of wardrobe or makeup. She wore the same blue ...thing that she wore last time and looked more like she should be a shopkeeper on Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley than a gubernatorial candidate. She did, however, display an amazing improvement in terms of speaking. Her statements were much clearer and more organized, she spent less time trying to identify herself as part of the 'lower 60%' (although she did mention it at least once), and she consistently gave intelligent, coherent, and well thought out responses. Listening to her speak, and watching her demeanor, she actually gave me the impression that she could do a good job as governor. I'm still not going to vote for her for a number of reasons, but I was very impressed with her performance tonight.
Fourth: Mihos' performance Mihos, I think, may have actually done a little worse in this debate than in the previous one. He didn't seem quite as on top of things and fantastically coherent as in the last debate, and he had lost some of the general charm that he displayed before. I think part of that may have been the lighting... He did still do a good job though, and he, and Ross, surprisingly, both drew a lot of applause and laughter from the audience (For which they were sternly admonished by the moderator. The audience, that is. Amusingly enough, Healey got by far the least reaction from the crowd, if any at all.) He did, I think, focus less on attacking Healey (at least in the parts that I saw), and instead focused more on the Republican party in general. That aside, I think he did an excellent job of answering the questions posed, though if he brought up the small business issues I had hoped he would, he did it while I was working.
Moving on from the actual debate, another local blogger and Mihos supporter Jesse Legg had a very insightful post earlier today. He talked about how the candidates are not doing a very good job of leveraging the internet. As Howard Dean showed two years ago, the internet can be a very effective tool in campaigning. He suggested using YouTube as a medium for debate, with each candidate offering their answers to the questions in separate videos. I think this is an excellent idea, and would do a lot, not only for the candidates, but for the state political blogging. How much improved would a blog be if you could embed YouTube videos of the candidates speaking on an issue in the paragraph in which you talked about their position on that issue? Short of recording, digitizing, and editing the debates yourself, this really isn't a possibility right now.
Amusingly enough, this is actually one of the issues I brought up in my letter to Christy Mihos. His last ad has an amazing presence on the web. It's become a viral video and has brought national awareness to Mihos and his campaign. As Jessi can tell you, virals can be a very effective marketing mechanism, and anything that works for marketing can be adapted to campaigning. I also really think that candidates should maintain their own blogs, or at least offer something to bloggers. In 2004, Gary Nolan, one of the candidates for the Libertarian nomination (and the man I wanted to vote for) maintained a blog and provided web banners for his supporters to put on their websites. I would love to be able to put a Christy Mihos banner on my blog, but one simply isn't available. None of the other candidates are offering anything like it either. In addition to simply spreading awareness, it obviously will also act as a distinguisher; never a bad thing. I anxiously await a reply from the Mihos campaign to my email, and hope they'll be able to provide a good perspective on this (and maybe even start taking advantage of it).
I'm currently sitting in front of the tv watching PBS waiting for the second gubernatorial debate of the '06 Massachusetts gubernatorial race. No, I'm not going to get tired of saying gubernatorial. I'm considering 'liveblogging' it, but we'll see. At any rate, going into it, I'm interested to see a couple things: 1) if Healey is able to give more than the lackluster performance of the first ebate, 2) if Patrick can, this time, live up to his reputation as an excellent speaker, 3) if Ross has maybe picked up a few hints since the last debate and can present herself as more of a serious candidate, 4) if Mihos will spend a little less time criticizing Healey and more time voicing his own opinions in a more objective context. Also, a couple days ago I sent an email to the Mihos campaign asking them about Mihos' position on small businesses and sole proprietorships and if he had any thoughts or plans on what he could do for those businesses. I'm sure it's a long shot, but it would be great if he brought it up during the debate.
Everyone should go watch it. It's fantastic animation, and it needs to be popular or Uth TV won't keep buying episodes from Alan. And if you like it, you can digg it here.
And, once you've watched it, you can view the uncensored version here.
Last night, Jessi and I went to Grill 23 for dinner. For those that don't know, Grill 23 is a steak house in Back Bay that's been around for over 20 years, since 1983. The same company, American Food Management, also runs two other premier Boston eateries: Excelsior and Harvest, neither of which, sadly, have I tried yet. I've only been there twice, but Grill 23 is, by far, my favorite restaurant in the Continental US (there's an amazing Japanese/Korean place in Honolulu that might challenge it, sadly I can never remember the name).
Jessi had the same thing we both had last time we went, the 14 oz. dry-aged New York steak. It was fantastic, although not exactly cooked to my liking. I'll let her talk about her steak if she wants.
I, on the other hand, tried something different this time and ordered 'The Berkeley' off the weekly menu. It consisted of a 16 oz. Dry-Aged Ribeye steak, Château Potatoes, and Utica Greens with Cheese & Bacon. One of my favorite things about this restaurant is that, when you order your steak rare, your waiter asks you if you'd like it 'red and cool'. You're damned right I would, and that's exactly how it came, a perfect rare the color of a nice red wine in the middle. I don't know what they do to their steaks, perhaps they marinate them in butter, but I've never had anything as good: tender, juicy, and amazingly flavorful. They beat the pants of my favorite West Coast restaurant, Tulio, in Seattle—where they also make a fantastic Dry-Aged Ribeye, and a grilled veal chop that is to die for—which is really saying something. Executive chef Jay Murray really knows what he's doing.
They have a fantastic wine list as well, with over 1000 selections to choose from. I won't say too much about the wine, that's Jessi's area, but I've been tremendously pleased with the bottles we've gotten both times.
Beyond the food and wine, the service pushes Grill 23 way over the top. With it's classy dark wood and brass decor, the amazingly friendly, professional, and courteous staff simply complete a perfect package. Our waiter, Bill, has actually served us twice now, and I think next time we go, and there will be a next time, we may have to specifically request him. The service really makes you feel like you're getting your money's worth, and make no mistake you'll be spending a fair amount when you go here. I've had no problem, both times Bill has served us, tipping far more than the full price of dinner at most restaurants we go to. I really don't know what I can say about the exemplary service at Grill 23 to really convey how amazing it is. I can say, however, that if you are away from the table for a minute or two, don't be surprised to find, when you come back, that your napkin has been folded and draped over the arm of your chair for you. Now that's service (courtesy, last night, of Hercules).
According to the article 'small businesses are undercounted in Massachusetts and that is hurting them'. Apparently the state of Massachusetts, when compiling statewide employment data does not count sole-proprietorships, of which, in 2004, there were over 424,000—17% of all jobs in Massachusetts.
What does this actually mean for sole proprietors such as myself? Well, it means that the state does not offer any economic incentives for the development of my business. There are no tax cuts, subsidies, or any other sort of aid that I can take advantage of as a sole proprietor. To be honest, I would generally consider this a good thing. Why should the government give me preferential treatment over your ordinary private citizen? Government subsidies are, in my opinion, a stagnating force serving largely to preserve inefficiencies in our economy and, in general, doing more harm than good. Tax cuts, which I approve of in general, would be better, I think, if applied to individuals rather than businesses. Politically, I just don't think there's any good reason to give me or other sole proprietors (or any business, for that matter) preferential treatment of any kind.
That, of course, is a purely ideological position. In truth, you probably wouldn't hear me complain too much about policies that resulted in me paying fewer taxes or getting free money in the name of 'economic stimulation'; as long as the current state of things is unfair, it may as well be unfair in my favor. And, again from an ideological standpoint and ignoring the fact that I fit into this category, I think that, if you are going to be favoring any businesses anyway, sole-proprietorships and other small businesses are where you want the aid to go as it will have a more direct effect on the individuals that make up the company.
Also, there is a lot to be said for encouraging the growth of small businesses. Small businesses are, in my opinion, an important part of any economy. In the event of massive economic upheaval (of which there are many sorts that could occur, I don't think there's much need to enumerate them), small business are much more agile and able to adapt to those changes. While a large business will be more likely to weather the storm and survive due to their own economic inertia, a small business will actually be able to change the way they work to suit the new situation thus providing a far more dynamic, resilient, and efficient economy. Some would argue that small businesses are also more risky, as, if they fail to adapt as advertised, they'll generally be forced to just go out of businesses as they lack the reserves to keep them going in a rough spot. That, I'd say, doesn't really indicate any sort of inferiority, however, as large businesses will usually go through rounds of layoffs while weathering a storm resulting, probably, in an equivalent number of lost jobs.
Given Massachusetts' current predicament of declining population as businesses and individuals flee the high cost of living and business, enacting policies to attract new business would go a long way to invigorating the economy and reverse the flow of the 'Mass Exodus'. And there can be little doubt that it would be best for the Massachusetts economy if business expansion in the state were the result of new Massachusetts-based companies springing up and keeping their earning here in Massachusetts rather than large, national companies opening offices and then dispersing their profits throughout the country. In other words, Massachusetts should be working to specifically encourage the starting of small and home businesses and sole proprietorships throughout the state. It's good for the citizens of Massachusetts, it's good for the people who want to do business here, it's good for the Massachusetts economy, and it's good for the state.
This issue is, of course, quite relevant given the ongoing gubernatorial race (which I'd really like to see other people start calling Mass Guber '06 too). Sadly, although all of the candidates mention the need to attract new people and businesses to the state, none of them say a thing, that I've been able to find, about small businesses specifically—although Patrick's proposed increase of the minimum wage would hurt small businesses, and Healey's proposed reduction in unemployment insurance costs would help them. This is another one of the reasons that I support Christy Mihos. As the owner of a local, Massachusetts-based business himself, I trust him to keep local businesses in mind when shaping economic policy, and not sell out the interests of small businesses in favor of large national and multi-national corporations.
Quite a lot has happened so far this week, it may turn out to be too much for a single post. We shall see.