Are political primaries the will of the people?

With the current heated race between Obama and Clinton, the inner workings of the primaries are becoming more public and being talked about in the paper and on the news. Prior to this year, I personally had no idea how the primaries worked. So, if you vote in the primary, your candidate may or may not be your party's candidate, even if he or she receives a majority of the popular vote. First off, the delegates (which is OK as it is supposed to be representative of the people) aren't required to vote for the people that they represented. Second, there are "super delegates" that can vote for whoever they want. These super delegates are random people (some important, some ordinary). Third, "the party" can make deals and put up whoever it wants ("the party" being the important people in the party). Fourth, "the party" can make up its own rules on who can vote. For instance, the Michigan and Florida Democratic primaries don't count because they were held before "the party" wanted them held.

So, does your vote count? Got me. Yesterday when we were coming out of Target, someone registering voters said, "are you registered to vote?". My flippant response was "unfortunately". Why did I say that? I find it hard to believe in our political system when in this day and time, we can't have a true democracy. How hard is it to get the total number of votes and elect someone? We could get this mess over with very quickly by letting each candidate lay out his or her plans and views, have a few rounds of questions submitted via the Internet, and then have people vote. We could do the entire election for a few million bucks and take the tens of millions spend on campaigning and help to finance the public debt or even attempting to balance the budget.

SqueezeCenter and Apple TV Take 2

I decided to take the plunge today and install the Apple TV Take 2 update on my Apple TV and attempt to get the SqueezeBox software (now called SqueezeCenter) running on it. I previously had this running on Apple TV version 1.1, but I want the ability to rent movies, so I had to update my Apple TV and decided to install the new SqueezeCenter at the same time. Unfortunately this has been quite complicated. I almost have things working.

1. Following the instructions in this thread, I created a PatchStick to install SSH on my updated Apple TV. Prior to updating the Apple TV, I copied all the necessary SSH files off my Apple TV
2. Pick up the latest SqueezeCenter (7.0) and the XM Radio Plugin
3. Create a folder on the Desktop called SlimServer
4. In that folder create 2 files. The first is called StartupParameters.plist and it contains:

   {
     Description     = "SlimServer";
     Provides        = ("SlimServer");
     Requires        = ("Disks");
       Uses		= ("mDNSResponder", "Resolver", "DirectoryServices", "NFS", "Network Time");
       OrderPreference	= "Last";
       Messages =
       {
   	start = "Starting SlimServer";
   	stop = "Stopping SlimServer";
       };
   }
   

   The second is called SlimServer and it contains:

   #!/bin/sh
   . /etc/rc.common

5. Feb 16, 2008

   Humor in the fine print

   I was surfing around and came upon Credit Karma via a link from SlickDeals. While I have no interest in the service, I was reading their FAQ and got a good laugh. In the FAQ titled "Is this safe?", they have as the last line:

   Our office is protected by a 30lb beagle.

   Funny. I wonder how many people actually read that.

6. Feb 14, 2008

   Simple Google to Mac syncing

   I've been longing to easily sync my calendar with Google so that my wife and I can keep our calendars in order. I just started using BusySync from BusyMac. Previously I was using another product, but lately it just seemed to take hours to sync and it bogged down my system. I've known the BusyMac folks for years and they used to write Palm software. So far, it works extremely well. Make a change on either side and within 5 minutes, the other side gets the update. It is fast and efficient. Nice job!