Google Wave: First Impressions

I finally got an invitation to join Google Wave, "what email would look like if it was invented now."

In my first hour looking at it, I am very impressed. Google Wave will allow people to have conversations akin to emails, without the worrying about truncated text, missing attachments, etc. It is still very rough, but the core idea is definitely on the mark.

The one drawback is that out of my 250 contacts, only 3-4 have Wave accounts at this time. Hopefully it will be rolled out to many more soon.

Obesity causes 100k cancer cases in US

Wow! If being fat wasn't already bad enough, check this out. Obesity causes over 100,000 cases of cancer in the US each year. Nearly 20% of breast cancer cases, and a lot of other nasty diseases are due to people eating too much.

Lay off the food.

The tide will turn, eventually

It looks as though equality will lose in Maine, even though it is currently too close to call. What I'm talking about, is that gay marriage will be again illegal per voters. I'm one for a democracy, but I agree with many that there are some decisions that are too important to be left up to voters. Examples include our entire bill of rights (like the 1st and 2nd amendments) and decisions like gay marriage. Why should 50% of the people to tell 10% of the people how to live, when the 10% do not affect the 50%? Conservatives may decry "activist judges" but these are the same types of actions that are applauded whenever they favor gun rights, which has not always been in such high regard as it is now.

Regardless of what happens in Maine, I think we could be within 10-15 years of nationwide recognition of these marriages. And if you believe Jacob Weisberg, we'll be able to celebrate it by smoking a legal joint.

This is not a referendum

No matter what people tell you, the current handful of elections is not a "referendum" on President Obama. Take, for example, the Virginia elections. Turnout is down considerably from 2008, especially among young people. Very few national offices are at steak (1 congress seat?) and there was not a focus on getting out the vote.

Keep in mind that the President has been in office for less than 10 months, not enough time to do much of anything, although he has done more in this short time than GWB did in his last term. We need to keep in mind that the next presidential race is still 3 years away and not go around over analyzing this election.

At the Polls in 2009

I voted this way today:

Governor: Creigh Deeds (D)

Lt Governor: [blank]

Attorney General: Ken Cucinnelli (R)

House of Delegates: Tim Hugo (R)

I voted for Deeds because I've supported since before the primary. I like the guy, but he ran a horrible campaign and is going to get blown out by Bob McDonnell today.

The other two that I voted for represented me for the last 4.5 years locally. They have always responded to my concerns, and I'm happy to help re-elect Tim Hugo and to move Ken C. up the ladder.

россия.ru on its way

Very soon, you may be able to point your web browser to a non-latin alphabet based domain. ICANN, the regulatory body for domains, has approved non latin domains. This will open up a whole new world of domain squatting, as well as provide billions of users the ability to access websites in their language. It will be interesting to see how this shapes up.