JodyC

Digital Biographer. Ok, ok, I can't count. - David Petherick via twhirl

Complete - Ed Shaz/NextInstinct

contrarian - Morton Fox

Outsider - Jack Carlson

AngerManagement - hey it works for delicious. - Stephan Miller

Maverick - K Welch

Xplorer - JodyC

"Kill him"???? - Lindsay Donaghe

I was already afraid for Obama. - Yolanda

What is Secret Service doing with that scumbag, is what I want to know. - JodyC

Yeah Lindsay. It's been documented. What is wrong with these people? There was a similar type of stupid at a Palin event the same day. - Mark VandenBerg

WTF is wrong with people? Sheesh. This is exactly why I have very little faith with the general public as a whole. - Michelle Martinez

The fundamental problem is that both Palin and McCain are endorsing this type of behavior. For diehard republicants, this activity may make them proud, but for any rational thinking people to still support these two candidates is beyond my comprehension. - JodyC

Or it could be Obama plants at the rallies... *adjusts tin foil hat* - Mark VandenBerg

What's wrong with these people? They're people blinded by partisanship, who have had their livelihoods stolen from them from the rich, but because most rich people look like them, they have to blame anyone who looks different. They're people who can't look in the mirror to find fault with their own problems to save their lives, and they're people schooled in the doctrine that the only successful discourse is to rob your opponent of his humanity which makes them easier to hate. In short, they're Republicans. - ☺ Cecily ☺

Congratulations - you work 5 miles from me now! - Steven Kaye

Well, once they get me a cube I'll be nearby. Meanwhile I'm working from Boulder Creek. - Jason Wehmhoener

Jason - what areas are you going to focus on? - Hutch Carpenter

I work for the Cisco User Experience Standards team. We publish UI guidelines for software development teams within the company, and also provide reusable components that implement those guidelines. Among other things I'm currently doing interaction design for dashboards, charts, network topology, etc. Our team is growing, so if you know IDs, visual designers, icon artists or frontend engineers that might be interested, I'm jasonw22 at gmail. - Jason Wehmhoener

Cool. Saw this tweet (http://twitter.com/amcafee/sta...) from Andrew McAfee: "Cisco says they've seen a tipping point in the past few months with E2.0." Looks like things are hopping there. - Hutch Carpenter

Welcome to Cisco Jason! - JodyC

Full steam ahead Hutch, I work every day promoting tools and concepts - JodyC

That's not cool. :( - AJ Batac ♘

where are you from? - Chris "Iceman" Hollander

teacher FAIL - JTF

Chris, I live in southeast Texas. - Trish R

the south terrifies me. :( this highlights one of the scariest components of the election that I've come to recognize: in many (not all, but many) cases, i've found that support for McCain is underwritten by racism. In some cases explicitly, in some cases subconsciously, in some cases societal... but racism is the true cultural divide in our country today, and this election is bringing it to the forefront. - Chris "Iceman" Hollander

HAHAHAHAHAHA.....I love your kid's Teacher....It might be upsetting to Obama supporters...but that was totally a ZIIING.....you HAVE to admit that was at least a LITTLE funny.... - Sean McGee

@Sean: I'm sorry... thats not a "zing". Tina Fey making "Pew, PEW!" gestures during a comedy routine, in order to make light of a current issue (gun control), for millions of viewers is a "zing". A teacher, in a learning environment, surrounded by impressionable children, openly supporting, and then joining in on clearly racist commentary is deplorable. - Chris "Iceman" Hollander

Oh, please, how in the world can you say that? Obama had one gaffe (we all know he's not lacking in knowledge) and you scream "racism" when someone makes an innocent joke about it, yet you think the day after day public humiliation of someone else is just a "zing"? Get a sense of proportion, people. - Glen Campbell

I don't think it's a teacher's place to give his or her political opinions to children in the classroom, regardless of which "side" they're on. It's touchy ground, but seems like the ideal situation would be to provide balanced (and age appropriate) information and let the children go to their parents (and/or other adults outside of school) for more. In a class like math or something, though, I don't see the need for *any* political discussions at all. The classroom should be as non-political as possible, in my opinion, with the exception of some governmental/history/civics classes where fair discussion is necessary with the teacher taking a neutral stance. - Rochelle

Children don't know about gaffes. The teacher's comment wasn't meant as witty political satire. The other kids weren't making fun of her son because he shares the same political views as Obama. This was racist. - Chris "Iceman" Hollander

Day after Day of public humiliation for *any* public figure, regrettably, is a staple of our society. There is an endless list of shows, including SNL, that depend on it. This thread isn't about that, though... - Chris "Iceman" Hollander

There's no such thing as an innocent "joke" about race. - Alex "Maverick" Scoble

I would contact the school board. There is no place for judgement or sarcasm in the classroom, thought that is a minor issue as compared with the racist overtones. - JodyC

This was a joke about RACE? WTF? "OMG, you made a joke about someone's intelligence, and they just so happen to be black, so you're a RACIST! OMG OMG OMG." You know, if the left used LOGIC more often, they'd win over more independents... - Sean McGee

I don't think it's a race issue. It always seems like if you make a joke like this you're deemed a racist. I personally think that teacher crossed the line for stating his political views and something has to be done. Politics should stay out of schools. - Molly, the Muse

So, based on the thread, I'm assuming everyone thinks all the people making fun of Sarah Palin hate women, right? - Alan Simpson

First off, if the kids were white and the kid being called Obama is black...that's racist. So that automatically makes the teacher's comments racist as well. The fact that the teachers are allowing the kids to call this kid Obama speaks to an institutional problem of racism in that school. Totally unacceptable. - Alex "Maverick" Scoble

So Alex....using that logic, Bill Ayers was a domestic terrorist, and Obama associated with him in his home, so that "automatically" makes Obama a domestic terrorist. Are you telling me that you're using the same logic as the wing-nuts out there? - Sean McGee

Just FYI, my son doesn't care that he's being called "Obama." I think he kinda likes it. I was just bothered by the teacher's comment, because I agree with Rochelle, I think teachers should avoid political commentary. However, the teacher DID explain why he said that, the mistake Obama made, but he did not provide examples of other candidates OR have a political discussion about ALL of the candidates. (Side note: This teacher is in the National Guard reserves.) - Trish R

The situation is different because it in a classroom. The teacher is a "person of influence" to a student. I assume the age of the child is around 7-9 years old based on the question. This is, of course, a very impressionable age range. The teacher may have intended to make a snarky comment without malice, but given the age of the audience and the teacher/student relationship this is not, in any way, acceptable. Got a name and a phone number, Trish? We'll take it from here... - Mark VandenBerg

Mark, this was a high school history class. My son is in the 9th grade. - Trish R

I would agree that it is not appropriate to make political statements in school. I would just like to know how many of you would be as angry if the teacher had said a student was smarter than Sarah Palin. - Alan Simpson

9th grade and they are being asked "how many states?" I learned that in 4th grade IN A DIFFERENT COUNTRY! Sorry for yelling... - Mark VandenBerg

+10 Alan....(Of course, some of them would say they'd be just as angry...but you know they wouldn't...they'd be laughing about it) - Sean McGee

The teacher is in a position of authority in the classroom and should stop racist or other inappropriate activity. The teacher absolutely should NOT be bringing his/her political leanings into the discussion (especially ignorant ones like this). @Sean would it be ok if there was an Asian kid in the class and the teacher said "You're lucky John McCain wasn't a better pilot or he would have bombed your family"? - Jason Carreira

Alan, as a diehard bleeding heart liberal, I would be just as upset about a teacher saying that about Sarah Palin or John McCain as I would about Barack Obama or Joe Biden. It would be inappropriate for the teacher to make those kinds of comments. - joshua m. neff

Maybe we should just have robots teach our children, because we don't have to worry about our robots having messy things like opinions, personal philosophies, religions, or perspectives. We can program our robots to teach our kids exactly what we want them to know and never deviate from that, so we never have to expose them to harmful things like opposing view points or, god forbid, other points of view. In fact, maybe we need to be subjugated by robots, so we all get along. - Brian Norwood

@Jason....Red Herring...The teacher didn't say anything equivalent to that....Obviously, though, the Teacher shouldn't have brought a biased view into the classroom...but the fact remains that it was still kind of funny, even though this Teacher's intelligence should also be brought into question. (The kids calling Trish's kid Obama, though, is NOT funny.) - Sean McGee

I seriously doubt that anyone would be offended if Trish's son were named George and the teacher replied, "Nope, he's SMARTER than the president." Shit, he might actually BE smarter than the president. Zing! - Christopher Harley

@Brian was that an opinion, or unjust mocking of a political figure to advance a particular political position? - Jason Carreira

personal politics in the public classroom is a no. when i was in school we followed elections, the teacher would bring in the tv so we could watch things on cspan, but not one of my teachers gave an inkling toward their leanings, despite the highly partisan views of my classmates. - Faboo Mama

Mark, that question only came up because the kids were calling my son "Obama" and commenting how much he looked like him (he really doesn't, he's just biracial). It wasn't part of the lesson. Christopher, my son's name is not Obama, it's Kyle. - Trish R

Not appropriate, no matter what your views are! - Amit Morson

This is a hilarious thread. Imagine if the kid spelled "potato" correctly and the teacher said, "Well done! You're smarter than Dan Quayle!" I'm assuming that we would all rightly conclude that that teacher hated white people and was subversively promoting a left wing political agenda in her classroom by undermining the Republican candidate for VP? Seriously, stop playing the race card every time someone sneezes. It belittles the real problems. - Ryan Kuder

@Trish - "Christopher, my son's name is not Obama, it's Kyle." Yeah, I gathered that. My point was that if the teacher made this aside about the current president, far fewer feathers would be ruffled. I think to many, the presence of several sacred cows rolled into one event make the big picture that much more difficult to scan. - Christopher Harley

Christopher, I agree that jokes are more acceptable when they follow the majority of public opinion. Either way, I think it's unacceptable in the classroom and inappropriate behavior for a teacher. - Trish R

@Ryan you're missing the part where her son is being called Obama because of his race. Race was in it from the beginning. - Jason Carreira

This actually reminds me of all the anti-Nixon jargon I'd parrot at the advanced age of 7. The schoolyard was a proving ground for everything we picked up at home. I'd imagine little has changed in 34 years. - Christopher Harley

@Jason....you're missing the part where the Teacher didn't call him Obama. Why do you have to be so inflammatory? RACE RACE RACE....Yes the kids were racist....now tell me, How does this make the Teacher racist as well? - Sean McGee

@Jason, Just to make sure I understand then...If a kid looks like Obama and the other kids call him Obama, they're all racist. And if the teacher knows it's the kid's nickname and references it in a classroom setting, she's racist too. It just seems to me that there are much less sinister motives that can be ascribed to this vignette without playing the race card so cavalierly. - Ryan Kuder

The teacher gave tacit, if not implicit, approval for the behavior. So, based on what Trish told me in the OP and her two subsequent posts, Yes, this is a racist act by a teacher. - Mark VandenBerg

@Mark - I can't resist. What does this mean? "Got a name and a phone number, Trish? We'll take it from here..." - Christopher Harley

I'm wondering with what intent the kids call your son "Obama"...is it meant as flattery or insult? In high school usually those are pet nicknames that are rarely meant in a truly negative manner (we all remember high school...a negative nickname is McFatty and the like). I think, as it seems your son perceives, it is a bit of a compliment as they are comparing him to a notable figure in society right now. Maybe your son has big ears and olive skin tone...so they call him Obama. Whatever. It's a physical resemblance, I wouldn't perceive it as negative in the least. For argument's sake, lets assume the kids are sneering and spitting when they call your son Obama. Is the teacher joining in the bashing, or is the teacher taking pressure off your son by building him up? If I'm a teacher observing kids being negative towards another kid based on some standard, I'd make an effort to distance the child from that standard so to ease the negativity. A smart teacher would know she couldn't change the minds of t - Heather

@alan,@ryan: were the students calling her son "palin"? would the students "tease" a young, white, brown haired girl with glasses by calling her "sarah palin"? Whether its funny or not doesn't matter: it was racist, because the initial teasing that the teacher supported was based on race. @Sean: the teacher's behavior encouraged the racial teasing, and added a political flavor. @heather: giving the kids a tremendous benefit of the doubt, and assuming that they meant to stereotype kyle as a "term of endearment", then the teachers actions are even worse- she has now negatively tainted their labeling. - Chris "Iceman" Hollander

@ryan: if a kid looks like Obama, and his classmates call him Obama, that’s not exactly racist. If a teacher uses a student’s nickname in class, there isn't anything intrinsically racist about that, either. However, to assume that any child of mixed racial background "looks like Obama"... that’s kinda racist. That the teacher asked a 9th grader how many states there are is inflammatory- he knew that the student knew the answer, and was only asking it to make an inappropriate political statement. He didn't "use the kid’s nickname" to refer to the student, he used the racist remarks of his students to support her own political opinions. - Chris "Iceman" Hollander

OMG I remember WordStar! WordPerfect totally kicked it's ass tho... then MS Word killed both despite the fact the WP was actually better than everything else out there - Susan Beebe

Meh on Wordstar. Wordperfect in the late '80's/'early 90's FTW! - Mavericks of Troy, NV!

You betcha. Wordstar was great. Once I moved over to PC and GUI, I used WP for many years. I guess everyone also remembers Function key keyboard templates? Never could use those things :) - JodyC

Yes! It was my first word processing software. - AJ Batac ♘

yes - Glen Campbell

I still remember some of the commands. Ctrl K D to save? - Mike Doeff

That was "Save and exit" I believe. Ctrl K S was save? - JodyC

Here ya go, a walk down memory lane for nerds: http://www.comsc.ucok.edu/~mcd... - JodyC

It was better than a typewriter, and a billion times more intimidating to non-computer literate people. - Pete Delucchi

F5 Directory Listing F7 Print! OMG I still remember those Function keys & the templates! - Susan Beebe

+1 Peter - and that's why it was so great! :) - WorldofHiglet

It was a very tightly-written piece of software. It did a lot with not a whole lot of code. Better yet, there were patches floating around to customize and enhance Wordstar. - Morton Fox

WorldofHiglet, it pissed my mom off to no end. She was all Luddite and stuck to her typewriter afraid of the crazy Wordstar. Now, of course, you can't keep her off the email. - Pete Delucchi

I think I almost used wordstar once...serious - Rahsheen™

emacs. - Michael J. Cohen (mjc)

I still have a unopened, boxed Wordstar for Windows if you want it. - Eric @ CS Techcast

The one and only advanced editor for my tiny CP/M - Z80 box in the early 80'ies. Inspired me to write my own editor - in assembly... crazy days! - Bo Stern

Haha, good point. :) - Jennifer Leggio

Awwww. My pooch always knew when momma needed a cuddle. He didn't even complain when I just wanted to cry and watch Forensic Files - Kaia is too young to die.

Aww! That is cute. My cat keeps putting her little paw out and patting my foot, then going back to sleep. She's done it about four times. So funny. She knows I'm having a frustrating night. :) - Jennifer Leggio

Pets FTW! - Christopher Welle

Definitely amazing how animals sense stuff, though. I mention the talking part because I've notice my kids, before they learn to start running their little mouths, know what I'm talking about without me saying stuff most times. They also sense agitation and stuff like that. - Rahsheen™

You had the remote in your hand for a while? Mylene usually has it in an iron lock when I get downstairs. - Hutch Carpenter

A wise choice - Mo "Killer Bee" Kargas

What's a remote control? - Glen Campbell

Mine's deliberately complicated so that I'm the only one who can work everything. Daddy raised no dummy here! - JodyC

Now we know who really runs the Scoble house! Milan.. you listening?! :) - Susan Beebe

Wait. She wanted to watch Heros or stop you from watching? - mcwflint

She wanted to watch Heroes. I watched too. - Robert Scoble

it's funny, more than 20 people liked this "news" that is definitely useless for everyone... I'm missing something from Social Media... sorry Robert, 1) who bother?!? 2) is there something strange with the fact a wife orders something to her husband?!?:-) - luca Filigheddu

luca: I think the Likes come from the fact that other geeks understand and have had the same experience in their households. Not everything is news on FriendFeed. In fact, most of what comes through my FriendFeed is actually "noise." Hit hide and move on. :-) - Robert Scoble

luca, part of social media is getting to know people in their everyday lives as well. A lot of people, myself included, know Robert and his family pretty well. And even people that don't know him well know him in an extended way through his online personality. But that's why hide is so cool if you don't like it hide it. If you do like it like it. We all have those choices. - Thomas Hawk

oh yea, creepin' me out man! run!!!!! that EYEBALL is doin' me in! - Susan Beebe

You're like an extra from Fellini Satyricon. - Akiva Moskovitz

lol sheeny buns. - Monique via fftogo

that white above the eye is brilliant - anna

LOL, Akiva. And Rah, you're freaking me out, man. - Pete Delucchi

:\ - Mona N.

I think the scrunchy eye thing is the opposite of the eyebrow raise thing I do. This may be the only existing picture of it...pretty freaky looking...LOL - Rahsheen™

Akiva, no math could measure the points you just received. - Amber aka SDA

No. - Kaia is too young to die.

I like your new name much better, Kaia :) - Rahsheen™

"E.T. phone home..." - imabonehead

Haha - Majento™

'I am dangerous, *Ice* Man' - Bren

HA HA HA HA HA HA - Parth Awasthi

...but it offended our sense of Mac-ness because of its dot commands and other anti-Mac things. So we switched to FullWrite Professional, which had a true Mac interface... - Ontario Emperor via fftogo

...but was slow as a dog, so we switched back to Word. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo

Wordstar in CP/M 4 LYFE - Akiva Moskovitz

Until 1991, I didn't use any Microsoft operating system on a regular basis. From 1979-1991 I used UNIX (on a DEC PDP-11/70), Oasis/THEOS, and the Mac OS. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo

Never used CP/M. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo

1980s? I was learning Excel and Word on the Mac in journalism class. DOS and Lotus in computer science. Probably explains why I chose journalism. - Robert Scoble

Heh. CP/M came with the Commodore 128. - Rodfather

80's Used Wordstar. - Christopher Welle

No modern applications in my college classes. My 1979-1980 physics lab included a quarter of Pascal programming. Never used Pascal professionally, though. My only paid programming was HyperTalk (for a HyperCard stack, a help/user manual). - Ontario Emperor via fftogo

Microsoft or Compaq. - JodyC

Shot in the dark. Lotus. - AJ Kohn

I'm going with Microsoft. - ChangeForge | Ken Stewart

Second guess: DuPont. There's a lot of plastic in them old-school computers. - Pete Delucchi

JodyC! - COMPAQ computer made a more rugged version and became the first large scale PC clone company. - Charlie Anzman

Xerox (the company M$ stole windows from) - Susan Beebe

Compaq - Michael Fidler

Oracle,or Microsoft - Michael Fidler

Cute Susan ! Michael and JodyC both got it (see above??) Compaq. Scary part is I remember it :) Nite you guys. Traveling tomorrow, maybe Wednesday .. (Maybe I'll take a picture of Wall St .... ) - Charlie Anzman

I used to have a Packard Bell, which I think got swallowed by Compaq...who then got swallowed by HP? - Rahsheen™

Oh gees Charlie, you're right! LOL at myself what a dumbass!! ha, ha!! Hey enjoy NYC!! lucky!! - Susan Beebe

and therein lies 'part' of what you're experiencing today .... There used to be one or two big deals a week. For the last decade and a half, Wall St has been outright counting on 'deals' to make money. While some were necessary to compete globally, many weren't. The outcome of each merger was a layoff or two, consolidation. and absolutely nothing contributed to the domestic economy. Anyone remember when Northrup bought Grumman and they promised never to leave Long Island? - Charlie Anzman

In the mid-80's my first PC (graduating from CP/M) was the IBM PS/2. I priced a 20mb HDD upgrade, the cost was $8k. As soon as the 80386 came out I bought the Compaq Deskpro, leaving IBM's proprietary hardware behind forever. Compaqs were tanks back then, and the best on the market. - JodyC

Last one - and then I really gotta get some zzz's. We talk about 'early adopters' today. (LG ... are you listening?) There's absolutely no doubt that my fascination with computers and sorta forcing both my daughter and my wife to learn early (my daughter was easy - they had cool games for 386's :) was part of their latter success in life. Food for thought. Nite!!! - Charlie Anzman

Nite Charlie! - Mo "Killer Bee" Kargas

My guess is Compaq. My second guess is Microsoft. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo

The interesting lesson - for speed reasons, IBM deployed an open architecture, while significant parts of Apple computers were proprietary. Which company is still in the personal computer business? - Ontario Emperor via fftogo

I'll go with Lotus, it wasn't Microsoft. They didn't get their big growth until the mid-late 80s. - Dave "Maverick" Winer

@Ontario Emperor - Actually they both are. - xero

What made Microsoft take off - Word and Excel? - Ontario Emperor via fftogo

Ontario, that and DOS and the mouse and the CP/M card for the Apple II, and the languages -- but it really exploded with Windows 3.x in the early 90s. - Dave "Maverick" Winer

Cool stuff Charlie. @Ontario: Windows made M$. The Office apps came later. - Susan Beebe

Agree with John, it's a commitment to the country and constitutents first and foremost. - Mo "Killer Bee" Kargas

He shouldn't quit or anything, but he should definitely retire ASAP - Rahsheen™

At this point, his credibility's been shot. He needs to be turned loose. Even the Repubs at that initial bailout meeting with the Pres and Obama stated as such. - Mavericks of Troy, NV!

Why should he retire Rah? - Jasmin Smith

VAMPIRE! KILL IT! KILL IT! - Outsanity

He should retired because he is old as dirt and he should spend the years he has left chillin out on the beach somewhere. I seriously think he's losing it. - Rahsheen™

I agree, retire. He has exhausted all integrity, shied away from then cozied up to the Republican base only for critical gain, and lets face it, he really is "4 more years of Bush". There's not much left for him. - JodyC

So tired of hearing the "4 more years of Bush" mantra. *rolling eyes* and I'm also tired of the ageism. Maybe I'm sensitive because my dad is 83, strong, has all his wits about him, and could probably take on half of you guys here on FF... - Jasmin Smith

As long as he loses the Presidential election, I don't much care whether he does or not. - Jeff P. Henderson

I'm not hating on McCain simply because he's old. It's because of his behavior. You're right, though. Maybe he has always been slightly off. I shouldn't just assume it's cuz he was at Adam and Eve's wedding reception. - Rahsheen™

Jasmin - the 4 years thing is much easier, and takes up much less space, than listing each and every detail why he should crawl under a rock after a disgracefully run campaign that clearly failed to get people to buy into a plan that differs little from what we've seen the past 8 years. - JodyC

You should retire that scary ass picture, that's for damn sure. - ::Kristen::

I think he and Obama should have both resigned from the Senate as soon as they decided to run for president. At the very least, they both should have resigned when they won their parties' nominations. - Joey Gibson

I don't know why I allow myself to get pulled into these useless political conversations... I'm going to go hang out in the Canadian Politics Room where I belong. Good luck America! and goodnight! - Jasmin Smith

Rahsheen, he just "crashed" the reception :-) - JodyC

No. Hillary didn't. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo

no why deny the AZ citizens the oppt to vote him out - Ruth Ferguson

Chris wtf! This image = Do Not Want!! - Mona N.

No, we need creepy grins in the senate. It's why I watch C-Span. - Metta (Kamath)

Make this go away, he nearly looks human in this shot, what's he a sexagenarian here? - Pete Delucchi

Look how glazed over his eyes are! CREEPY!! - Mona N.

This photo is going to give me nightmares. - ☺ Cecily ☺

Truth to tell, McCain is kinda young for a Senator... - Ontario Emperor via fftogo

I think the citizens of Arizona should decide that. - Christopher Welle

he should retire based on his loss of dignity and credibility over the last month in particular - Cee Bee

Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. - John McCrea

That picture is SCARY! - Lindsay Donaghe

I don't even dare to talk like this for fear of jinxing it. i'm so fucking paranoid and afraid at this point. - Anthony Citrano

I think he should retire from making scary photos. - Steven Perez

meh...LOL - Rahsheen™

haha - AJ Batac ♘

thanks for deciphering the LOL code! - Susan Beebe

heh. - Carlos Ayala

:)~ - Carlos Ayala

hahah - Justin Korn

hahaha - Kol Tregaskes