Looks like it should be fun to watch.

Saw this post Musings: How to determine your “Star Wars” name

For your new first name:

1. Take the first 3 letters of your 1st name and add
2. the first 2 letters of your last name

For your new last name:

3. Then take the first 2 letters of your Mom’s maiden name and add
4. the first 3 letters of the city you were born

How to determine your Star Wars honorific name and title:

1. take the last three letters of your last name and reverse them.
2. add the name of the first car you drove/owned
3. insert the word “of”
4. tack on the name of the last medication you took.

What’s your Star Wars name? Leave a comment.

May the force be with you,

Alene Cloxn
tti fiat of atenolol

This says it all

In the debate tonight, I thought Obama did everything he needed to do.  He finally sounded like a clear cut Democrat.  He sounded center left.  He came across calm, smart and likable, even when he  gave us a line of BS about reducing health care costs by $2,500 per family through “efficiencies”.  He’s either totally niave on this or a charlatan.  Neither of which makes me feel confident about him.

I think McCain is done, despite being right on lots of things.  I think he’s right on energy-nukes are the way to go just look at France, right on health care- our current system is hugely expensive due to state mandates and a grossly unfair tax on health care insurance for those who don’t work for big companies, and right on the war-we need to finish this right or we will have sacrificed so much in vain.

Both are clueless about the economy.  They have no idea of how big the problem is or where it lies.  The mortgage bubble is something people can understand and but it is only the match that started the firestorm.  The real problem is in the credit default swap market and it’s impact on the commercial credit market. 

The hard core right is really agitated that McCain didn’t hit Obama hard about his ties to the Reverend and the Terrorist.  I don’t think this would have helped.

I think McCain’s only hope is to do what Obama is doing.  Obama keeps tieing McCain to Bush and it’s working.  McCain’s only hope is to connect Obama to the Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid show.  Paint the picture for what the US will be like with the trio of Obama, Nancy and Harry running things without anyone to balance them.  It seems to me that that is a picture that McCain could make out to  be quite frightening.

The Republicans pillaged the country while they had absolute power.  I’m sure the Democrats with absolute power will do the same, but probably in an even bigger way.

I hope I’m wrong.

Gary V at the Web 2 expo in NY.

John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin has changed things. Love her, hate her – you have to admit things are not what they were.  The pundits have all been debating what she does for the ticket, including speculation that she was selected to pick up the Hillary vote (Are the pundits insane? ).  The first and most obvious benefit for McCain’s campaign is the activation of the Republican base.  She seems to be doing for the hard right what Obama does for the hard left.  They get the base really excited.

But while I’m sure McCain likes this, I think he picked her for a different reason.  I think he was bored by the experience positioning his campaign was running on.  The I’ve got more experience than the other guy appeal was boring to him and to the rest of us.  He was unhappy and more the his usual grumpy.

American’s like to like the guy they elect president, and they like people who like them.  I think this was a powerful part of Reagon’s wins, Clinton’s wins, and even the most recent Bush wins.  The people thought that the person they picked actually liked them more than their opponent.  This has been a powerful part of Obama’s appeal.  An unhappy, grumpy McCain is not someone you want to vote for.

Sarah Palin does not have the experience I would expect in a presidential candidate (or vp candidate), and I don’t think Obama has the experience I would expect for a presidential candidate either.  But experience isn’t everything, and may be over-rated.  We live in a complex world where no one is an expert in every thing.  Good leaders have good advisers and know how to make good decisions.  I think American’s are naturally optimistic and understand that the ability to lead matters more than experience within reason.

I think John McCain knows this.  So McCain threw the experience argument out the window.   And grabbed on to something that gets him excited – reform.  You could see the excitement in him at the end of his speach.  The “stand up and fight” theme was the sign of a happier, energized and much more electable McCain.

Sarah Palin is his lucky charm.  As George Will, put it – John McCain has got his mojo back.  I’m glad he did, the argument of what type of change we want in Washington is much more interesting than the experience meme.

Just got this email from Amazon.  Yippie.  I hope it works well.

We are pleased to announce the release of a significant new Amazon EC2 feature, Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS), which provides persistent storage for your Amazon EC2 instances. With Amazon EBS, storage volumes can be programmatically created, attached to Amazon EC2 instances, and if even more durability is desired, can be backed with a snapshot to the Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3).

Prior to Amazon EBS, block storage within an Amazon EC2 instance was tied to the instance itself so that when the instance was terminated, the data within the instance was lost. Now with Amazon EBS, users can chose to allocate storage volumes that persist reliably and independently from Amazon EC2 instances. Amazon EBS volumes can be created in any size between 1 GB and 1 TB, and multiple volumes can be attached to a single instance. Additionally, for even more durable backups and an easy way to create new volumes, Amazon EBS provides the ability to create point-in-time, consistent snapshots of volumes that are then stored to Amazon S3.

Amazon EBS is well suited for databases, as well as many other applications that require running a file system or access to raw block-level storage. As Amazon EC2 instances are started and stopped, the information saved in your database or application is preserved in much the same way it is with traditional physical servers. Amazon EBS can be accessed through the latest Amazon EC2 APIs, and is now available in public beta.

For more information on Amazon EBS and detail on how to start using this feature, please see the resources listed below:

• Amazon EC2 Detail Page and Pricing
• Amazon EC2 Developers Guide

Release Notes