I've migrated this blog over to TypePad, and I won't be posting any new content here. (Though I haven't posted here in a while, anyway.)

The new site it http://coty.blogs.com. The feed is http://coty.blogs.com/cotys/index.rdf.

I feel a little embarrassed to not be hosting something on my own server and hacking away, but I really don't think I'm up for that right now—so TypePad it is.

comment []  trackback []  6:03:57 PM    

I was thinking just the other day about how to make my Purple States map scale state size by population so that a number of sparsely-populated, Republican-leaning states don't make the country look redder than it is. Scaling by electoral votes is a close approximation. I wonder whether I could get a version of this that I could run through my OmniGraffle manipulations.
comment []  trackback []  3:05:34 PM    

One thing I will add is in response to Josh Poulson's post AP Quoting Out of Context. I, too, am often frustrated by actions and comments that are distorted by taking them out of their context. (See the mischaracterization of Senator Kerry's voting record on weapons projects for one example.) However, I have read the full quote in Josh's post, and I don't see where it makes Vice President Cheney's quote any more appropriate.

P.S. Here's a link to the story on CNN.
comment []  trackback []  10:08:40 AM    

The following is an excerpt directly from President Bush's speech at the convention last night:

The story of America is the story of expanding liberty: an ever-widening circle, constantly growing to reach further and include more. Our nation's founding commitment is still our deepest commitment: In our world, and here at home, we will extend the frontiers of freedom.

It is certainly true that the story of America is one of expanding liberty, but I think it is profoundly ironic that the President would make that a theme in his speech when he and his party seem diametrically opposed to the trend—as least here in the U.S.

I would argue that expanding the definition of civil marriage to include same-sex unions stands is squarely in the tradition of expanding liberty. In contrast, the Republican party is making every effort to turn away from its own tradition of defending states rights to promote a constitutional amendment to prohibit such an expansion of liberty not only now but likely far into the future, i.e., until the proposed amendment could be repealed.

Same-sex marriage is certainly not the only example of this administration’s working to restrict or rollback the expansion of liberty. The Patriot Act and the handling of the prisoners in Guantanamo stand out, as well.

I’d love to get some counterexamples from any Bush supporters who might drop by.
comment []  trackback []  12:12:42 PM    

First off, both Gizmodo and Engadget have pictures and info. on the next-generation Treo 650. Pretty much what I think everyone has been expecting: faster processor, more memory, higher resolution (screen and camera), and Bluetooth. Also some details that I hadn't seen mentioned before such as a removable battery and new sync connector. (Much has been made of incompatibility with Treo 600 peripherals as a result of the new connector, but isn't it the same connector found on most other palmOne devices? If so, I think that will open up a world of new peripherals and better economics for peripheral manufacturers.)

PalmInfocenter.com reports that T-Mobile is finally carrying Treo 600s in stores.

If you have a Treo and a Windows laptop, you probably want PDANet. Dave Sifry was singing its praises a while back. PDANet deserves high praise. It just works and works beautifully. Should be even better when it works over Bluetooth to a new Treo 650. If you have a Mac laptop, then you might try this. I haven't, yet, but I'll report back when I do.

If you don't already have one, you should consider getting a combined USB sync/charging cable. I don't know why the cable the Treo ships with doesn't do the same.

comment []  trackback []  12:38:31 AM    

I've been thinking a lot about the whole Red State/Blue State thing recently after reading Jerry Colonna's Blue States; Red States post and Blue States, Red States, and Russia follow-up. It made me wonder what the map would look like if states were colored not red or blue but purple in proportion to their Bush/Gore votes. I'd be shocked if someone hasn't already done this, but I couldn't find it via a cursory Google search, so here is my version hacked together with AppleScript, OmniGraffle, and data from the FEC:

For reference, here is the same map in the "traditional" red and blue:

I'd love to get comments, but to me the purple map tells a very different story than the "traditional" map. America is still divided, but not state against state. I know Jerry's original post was written out of frustration that I can completely understand, and he says that in comments in the follow-up. However, I think the purple map shows that we really could never just split red states from blue states because no states really are all red or all blue.

comment []  trackback []  11:40:50 AM