A Photoshopped picture of Sarah Palin has been doing the rounds for the past few days; it shows her in a stars and stripes bikini toting a rifle - patriotism, hunting and cheesecake all combined in one image. Two minutes of Googling reveals that the rifle has been identified by gun nuts in Republican chatrooms as a Crossman pump pellet gun. Soft porn for rednecks. Expect to see it pinned to the wall in every gas station in Texas and tacked to the dashboard of every long-haul truck. But this cartoon-like depiction of her smothers what we need to understand about why Palin appeals to American voters and why American elections have been so deadlocked for the past decade, as if there were two Americas, doomed to lived on the same landmass under the same government, like hopelessly incompatible spouses.

Linda Grant on the two opposing sides of America | Comment is free | The Guardian

GDP of the top four national economies in the world (after the US), expressed as US regions by GSP. null

The Scale of the American Economy on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Just in case anyone is interested in learning a bit about what I do at work, here are some video journal articles I did for JOVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments). Its kind of a neat concept - JOVE has teamed up with Current Protocols in Cell Biology to film complex protocols. This is helpful for people in the scientific field who need to pick up a new technique for their research. With these movies, a person who is unfamiliar with a certain technique (for example, Xenopus egg extract) can watch these films while reading the protocols to learn how to do certain things.

Anyway, enjoy!

Crazy. Cool.

JoVE Browse:Global Search for: Marie Cross Maureen Powers

Welcome to the START Atlanta website where our goal is to connect the entrepreneurs and investors of Atlanta (and surrounding communities) with the collective wisdom of the “cloud.”

For some of the entrepreneurs, we hope to link you with your peers so you can learn from their mistakes and not FAIL at some of the really basic stuff that many others have already done. For the startups that are a bit further along, we would love for you to skool us if you have wisdom you’d like to share or give back to the community.

For the investors, our goal is to help connect you to hot startups, tell you why they matter and hopefully make long term connections in the local community that will be beneficial to all parties involved. While your financial contributions are always appreciated, we also value your time, your experience and your network. Above all else we are just looking to include more of you in this community and are looking for more involvement to help propel startups in the area.

If you’re interested in sponsoring START Atlanta, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Feedback is always appreciated as we move forward to foster, promote and grow the Atlanta Startup Community.

START Atlanta | Fostering the Atlanta Early-Stage Technology Community

Attention: Start-Ups and Entrepreneurs! Do you have a great idea or an existing application that is built on AWS?

With the 2008 AWS Start-Up Challenge, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is searching for the next hot start-up that is leveraging AWS to build its infrastructure and business. The grand prize is $100,000 in cash and AWS credits and a potential investment offer from Amazon.

Tell Us About It

To enter, complete the online application by October 3, 2008. The judges panel will review all applications and choose five finalists based on the following criteria: originality and creativity of the idea, likelihood of long-term success, how well it addresses a need in the marketplace, and implementation of AWS' infrastructure services and/or other paid services.

In October, the finalists will be announced and we will post a video of each finalist on aws.amazon.com where the community can vote for their favorite start-up.

The Final Countdown

For the Final Round, AWS will fly the finalists to Amazon Headquarters in Seattle to present their idea to the judges' panel. The finalists will also pitch their business ideas to VCs, meet with industry leaders and Amazon executives, and be featured at the AWS Start-Up event, where the grand prize winner will be announced.

Reap the Rewards

The grand prize includes $50,000 in cash, $50,000 in AWS service credits, a potential investment offer from Amazon, AWS Premium Support for two years, and mentoring sessions from an AWS executive. All finalists will be included in various promotional activities.

Plus, all contestants with qualified entries will receive $25 credit for Amazon Web Services.

AWS Contest - Amazon Web Services @ Amazon.com

You don't break-even till the four-and-a-half year mark, but here's a bigger problem--there's no guarantee that that customer is still going to be yours in four years' time.

Getting signed up as a SaaS customer is fast, but getting out is just as fast. Whereas traditional software is like cocaine--you're hooked. It's too difficult and expensive to switch providers once you've invested in one. If it were easier to jump ship, a lot of people would've hit the eject button on SAP a long time ago.

So is Lawson is looking to lock people in, this same way?

Yes. Yes, they are.

SaaS market will 'collapse' in two years | Tech News on ZDNet

flynn23 wrote:
Comparing her to Obama strictly on the level of experience and she wins.

Decius:

To be perfectly clear, I am talking about comparisons of their overall qualifications for the Presidency. My point is that focusing on "number of years in an executive role" as you do is an oversimplification. I didn't really want lay out what is clearly documented elsewhere as it provides ample opportunity for partisans to continue to stick their fingers in their ears, but here goes:

Palin's background is:
1987 - BS Journalism - University of Idaho
1988 to 1992 - Television Sports Reporter
1992 to 1996 - City Council, Wasilla, Alaska
1996 - 2002 - Mayor, Wasilla
2003 - 2004 - Appointed to Alaska Oil Ethics Board
2006 - Present Governor of Alaska, the 48th smallest state in terms of population, whose largest metropolitan area is less than a quarter of the population of Nashville, Tennessee.

Obama's background is:
1983 - BA Political Science - Columbia University
1985 - 1988 - Director of a community non-profit
1988 - 1991 - JD Harvard, President of the Harvard Law Review
1992 - 2004 - Part time Professor, Constitutional Law, University of Chicago
1992 - 2002 - Lawyer - Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland
1992 - Served on the board of a large number of public interest organizations
1997 - 2004 - State legislature, Illinois (America's 5th most populous state, containing its 3rd most populous city.)
2005 - Present - United States Senator

If you were hiring a business manager, perhaps you might prefer Palin. Obama is a lawyer and like most lawyers has not had large organizations reporting to him. Palin clearly does have more time in an executive role. But thats not what we're doing here. Furthermore, just about any executive at a medium to large sized company anywhere in America would beat out Palin for executive experience. They are not all qualified to be President of the United States. The question is, what qualifies a person to be President.

Chiefly, the President of the United States is responsible for making policy decisions, which is not merely a matter of operational experience in an executive role, but a matter of understanding the long term implications of those decisions and the complicated legal and political context in which they will play out. This requires a deep understanding of our country and of world affairs.

There is absolutely nothing about Palin's background that qualifies her to grapple with the depth of these matters. If she is capable of doing so, nothing about her background indicates it or would prepare her for it. You cannot simply skip from being Mayor of a tiny town in Alaska to being President. The idea that you could hold up this person next to someone who, among other things, has taught constitutional law at one of the top law schools in the country for 12 years, and say their qualification for the Presidency is comparable...

Frankly I can't find words to express this more clearly than to say that I think thats fucking idiotic. In fact its exactly the kind of fucking idiotic thinking that partisans have been foisting on this country repeatedly over the past few years in their cynical power struggles. It is frustrating to me that so many people that I know who are otherwise reasonable and intelligent are willing to buy into something which is so transparently stupid, particularly given the gravity of whats at stake here.

Sure, I'd be more comfortable if Obama had spent time in an executive roll, thats a perfectly valid criticism of his record. But you cannot reasonably hold up Palin and say that her qualifications are comparable to Obama. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

RE: The election is basically over.

ABOUT SARAH PALIN I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

...

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000
(at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about
670,000 residents.

Lots more about Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin - Note from Anne Kilkenny

Summary of DOM Events

QuickTime can emit DOM events when the plug-in is instantiated and ready to interact with JavaScript, at various points during a movie’s loading process, when playback has begun, paused, or ended, or in the event of an error. The following list shows the DOM events that can be listened for. Note that all QuickTime DOM events begin with the prefix “qt_” to prevent name space collisions.

*

JavaScript Scripting Guide for QuickTime: QuickTime DOM Events

Japan's new professional seducers
This woman leads a double life. Her boyfriend thinks she’s a secretary. In fact she is one of Japan’s new breed of professional seducers, hired by embittered spouses to entrap their straying partners. And she’ll stop at nothing to get the desired results.

Japan's new professional seducers - Times Online