Italics and Double Spaces

Liam was writing this:
"The story Cinderella [sic] was a great story."
We talked about the right punctuation for Cinderella. Callum and Dylan both quickly said that it deserved double quotation marks.

Callum said that if it's a short story, it's in quotes, but if it's a book or novel, it's italicized or underlined. Dylan concurred.

My first inclination was that it was italicized, probably because of the influence of Strunk & White's Manual of Style, which says:

American printed matter uses italics (the type fonts whose letters slant to the right) for the titles of literary and other artistic works (War and Peace, Verdi’s Requiem); for the names of journals and newspapers (The New York Times, Newsweek); for words, letters, and numbers cited as words, letters, and numbers (as here with the word italics); for foreign words and phrases (ars longa, vita brevis est), although when these loan words and phrases have been fully assimilated into English, we usually cease to italicize them, as with à la mode; for the names of ships (Queen Elizabeth II, or Q.E. II); and for a number of other technical purposes such as are usually specified in a publisher’s stylebook. In handwriting or typescript, underline what you wish to italicize. Italics are also used for emphasis and to indicate a heavier-than-normal stress on a word, particularly in Semiformal and Informal writing, although most editors discourage the practice. To achieve the effect of italics in the midst of a full sentence already in italics, put the word to be stressed in roman: We thought she’d never leave!

Now, in our other recent punctuation discussion, I was proved to be an old fuddy-duddy, as I nearly always put two spaces after each sentence. Yes two. One looks just too cramped for my taste. Extra whitespace is a good thing, especially when you aren't killing trees to show it. I'm pretty sure that this is most common in U.S. business English and the emails and documents I read everyday. The single space was proved to be OK and seemingly preferred nowadays. I still think it's only because HTML will turn two spaces into one and you need to add an '& nbsp ;' - called a Non-Breakable Space, but take out the spaces in this post since I put them in order for it to show up - to get the extra space to show up on a web page.

The Bank, the monster

My last post made me think I should post some sample of the apt prose in The Grapes of Wrath. I started reading The Grapes of Wrath during our California tour, not realizing that it was going to be such parallels to 2008. My other favorite is the whole of Chapter 5, some excepts:

"Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some of them were cold because they had long ago fond that one could not be an owner unless one were cold. And all of them were caught in something larger than themselves. Some of them hated the mathematics that drove them, and some were afraid, and some worshiped the mathematics because it provided a refuge from thought and from feeling. If a bank or finance company owned the land, the owner man said, The Bank — or the Company — needs — wants — insists — must have — as though the Bank or the Company were a monster, with thought and feeling, which had ensnared them. These last would take no responsibility for the banks or the companies because they were men and slaves, while the banks were machines and masters all at the same time.

"Some of the owner men were a little proud to be slaves to such cold and powerful masters. The owner men sat in the cars and explained. You know the land is poor. You've scrabbled at it long enough, God knows.

"The squatting tenant men nodded and wondered and drew figures in the dust, and yes, they knew, God knows. If the dust only wouldn't fly. If the top would only stay on the soil, it might not be so bad.

"The owner men went on leading to their point: You know the land's getting poorer. You know what cotton does to the land: robs it, sucks all the blood out of it.

"The squatters nodded - they knew, God knew. If they could only rotate the crop they might pump blood back into the land.

"Well, it's not too late. And the owner men explained the workings and the thinkings of the monster that was stronger than they were. A man can hold land if he can just eat and pay taxes; he can do that.

"Yes, he can do that until his crop fails one day and he has to borrow money from the bank.

"But - you see, a bank or a company can't do that, because those creatures don't breathe air, don't eat side-meat [term often used used in the book for pig meat]. They breathe profits; they eat the interest on money. If they don't get it, they die the way you die without air, without side-meat. It is a sad thing, but it is so. It is just so.

"The squatting men raised their eyes to understand. Can't we just hang on ? Maybe the next year will be a good year. God knows how much cotton next year. And with all the wars - God knows what price cotton will bring. Don't they make explosives out of cotton? And uniforms?
Get enough wars and cotton'll hit the ceiling. Next year, maybe. They looked up questioningly.

"We can't depend on it. The bank - the monster has to have profits all the time. It can't wait. It'll die. No, taxes go on. When the monster stops growing, it dies. It can't stay one size...

"We're sorry. It's not us. It's the monster. The bank isn't like a man.

"Yes, but the bank is only made of men.

"No, you're wrong there--quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it...

"No, the bank, the monster owns it. You'll have to go."

The Last Clear Definite Function of Man

"The last clear definite function of man - muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need -- this is man. To build a wall, to build a house, a dam, and in the wall and house and dam; to put something of Manself, and to Manself take back something of the wall, the house, the dam; to take hard muscles from the lifting, to take the clear lines and form the conceiving. For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. This you may say of man -- when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought, national, religious, economic, grow and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, mistakenly sometimes. Having stepped forward he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back."

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 14

Acceptence Speech

it was just an awesome speech, perfect.

But what was up with Obama after the speech? He didn't smile until a big one popped out about 5 minutes after he finished. He seemed either one of two things:
1. Really afraid something bad might happen. I think it's healthiest to never talk about this again. Can't believe I said that. Sounds like my mother. I must be maturing.
2. Just damn stoic about it really. I mean like Tao Te Ching "like water" perfect. Humble. Not too up. Non-attached. My goodness, if his ego can't get the best of him at that moment, then we're in the for a new kind of leadership.

"How this happened"

From: Barack Obama
To: Michael Bushe (hey, did anyone else get a copy?)
Subject: How this happened

Michael --

I'm about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first.

We just made history.

And I don't want you to forget how we did it.

You made history every single day during this campaign -- every day you knocked on doors, made a donation, or talked to your family, friends, and neighbors about why you believe it's time for change.

I want to thank all of you who gave your time, talent, and passion to this campaign.

We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next.

But I want to be very clear about one thing...

All of this happened because of you.

Thank you,

Barack
----------------------------------------------
"I'll be in touch soon about what comes next. "

How classy. Watch this guy. He's ready to lead. He's got this all planned out.

Beautiful

McCain's acceptance speech was beautiful. How gracious. How thoughtful. How sincere. He started to get that voice back towards the end, and seemed to go back to 2000 with his voice while doing something else he hasn't been able to do - reaching his thoughts to the future and what's most appropriate for it. He was perfect.

Prediction

"You don't need a weatherman [like Bill Ayers] to know which way the wind blows." -Bob Dylan

I didn't write it here, but the day that Sarah Palin was announced, I said to all my buddies at work: "It's over, we are looking at a Reagan-like landslide." I didn't even know how ridiculously stupid Sarah Palin was, I just knew that taking someone who I never heard of meant that it was unlikely that they would last under the national media scrutiny.

It was brilliant to announce a woman-as-V.P. the day after the Democratic Convention, stealing Obama's thunder. Otherwise we would have been talking about Obama's speech as "historic" (words of David Gergen) for days. We'll still talk about as historic, but we'll forget that we forgot all about it for 10+ weeks.

Anyway, back to my predictions:
As far as Electoral votes go, it will be hard for anyone to ever beat Reagan's 525-13 win over Mondale (Mondale only took his home state of Minnesota). In the popular vote Reagan took 58.8%, Mondale 40.6). If we talked about "mandates" back then, Reagan would have been dictator. That was also his re-election campaign, in the 1980 contest he took only 50.2%, a 10% point lead over Jimmy Carter with 6.6% going to John Anderson.

Obama certainly won't get 49 states in his corner, but it's not going to be nearly as close as most pundits think. The pollsters who say it's within 3 points or that Obama won't break 50% are going to have to justify their services next year. Like the bundled mortgages, there are just too much REALITY for computer models to take into account. Maybe it's my experience writing computer models that lead me to so suspect of anyone who takes polling data and extrapolates the answers into very different results based on hunches (why don't they publish the raw data too?).

Obama will draw north of 55%, I'm predicting 56.5%. McCain will be around 41.5%, with 2% going to Nadar+Barr+everyone else. Yeah, that's right, a 15% lead. Imagine what the reelection will look like. I'm calculating 407 electoral votes for Obama, 127 for McCain. Why so much higher than everyone else? I think the Black vote, the young vote and the newly registered will turn out, moving Indiana, Montana, and Georgia in Obama's column.

I've been watching the Senate races more closely. Without a filibuster-proof majority, Obama will be dealing with gridlock, no matter how far he reaches across the isle. On the Senate races I'm expecting that Obama's new voters and the excitement he's generated will translate into a lot of voters just pulling the (D) right on down the line. And since the pollsters are underestimating the effect, I think the Democrats will get it, or fall one short.

Surely switching to the Democrats will be these 7 states:
Alaska - gotta chuckle whenever a corrupt politician loses.
Colorado - Would you want someone as abrasive as Bob Schaffer leading your state?
New Hampshire - not that I'm much of a fan of either. I thought this would be closer since Sheehan is not very likeable.
New Mexico - basicallly has been conceeded to the cousin of of the Colorado democratic candidate.
North Carolina - love to see that fake Liddy Dole (Archer Daniel Midland champion) go down in her own meanspirited flames.
Oregon - easy win
Virginia - the Democrat is rich enough to pay for it himself?

The close ones are :
Kentucky: I don't see Senate Minority leader losing.
Mississippi: I was hopeful here, but Wicker seems to be pulling away too far from Musgrove for the Obama effect to, well, have an effect.
Georgia: This is going to be the surprise of the night. The Obama effect will put this one in the Democratic corner, though it would have to be big enough to avoid a runoff, which is unlikely.
Minnesota: I think in the end, Minnesota will elect Franken, but he may be just not Senatorial enough to win. I listened to his radio show for a long time, and he knows what's going on, but he's far too partisan for my tastes. He's so "ah-uh-um-ah" all the time that I think he probably smokes pot every day or every other day - he's just not serious enough to make a good Senate and I bet wouldn't last long even if he won.

So I think the Dems will pick up 8 seats, perhaps 9, falling short enough that when nothing gets done, it will be blamed on the Dems, and their run will lose all its steam.

As a comparison, here are the predictions from the "This Week" roundtable:

Mark Halperin, Time Magazine:
Electoral Vote -- 349 Obama
Senate -- 58 Democratic seats
House -- Democrats net 28 House seats

Matthew Dowd, former Republican strategist:
Electoral Vote -- 338 plus Obama
Senate -- 8 plus pick up for Democrats
House -- 17 plus pickup for Democrats

George Will, ABC News contributor:
Electoral Vote -- 378 Obama
Senate -- 8 pickups for the Democrats
House -- 21 pickups for the Democrats

Donna Brazile, former Democratic strategist:
Electoral Vote -- Obama 343
Senate - Democrats 59 plus runoff
House - Democrats pickup 29

Here are my predictions ...

George Stephanopoulos:
Electoral Vote -- 353 Obama
Senate -- 58, or 59 if there's a run-off in Georgia.
House -- 264 House Democrats (+28)

Obama most liberal? NOT!

This evening I had dinner with my conservative Yankee-fan friend. We both love a good argument and have lots to argue about. Kinda like how Scalia and Ginsberg are the best of friends.

He brought up the talking point about Obama being the most liberal Senator. "More liberal than Bernie Sanders?" I asked my buddy. Unlike most right wingers, he's smart enough to know Sanders is a socialist and smart enough to evade the question.

I thought the Republicans have been pulling this "fact" out of their research library (aka their behinds), but it's actually based on something like a truth - The National Journal rankings.

Others agree with me:

Carpet baggers:

“But before anyone takes the National Journal rankings at face value, it’s worth noting how very flawed the methodology is. Indeed, it was misleading in 2004, and it’s equally misleading now.
Taking a closer look at this year’s results, Obama and Joe Biden were both considered more liberal than Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders. This, alone, should make one wonder about the reliability of the rankings.”

Mother Jones:

“In years past, when Obama voted as many times as a normal senator, he was the 10th and 16th most liberal senator. That is likely a truer representation of his politics. Does anyone really think Obama and Joe Biden are more liberal than Russ Feingold or Bernie Sanders (a socialist)?”

Instead of relying on a little magazine, how about relying on how liberal groups rate the Senators?

Electoral Vote combined the rating of 8 liberal groups (ACLU, NAACP, League of Conservation Voters, Children's Defense Fund, etc.), to see what the liberals themselves had to say about it.

Obama comes out FOURTY SECOND out the 100 Senators!!! There are only 8 democratic senators who are more conservative than Obama (all the Republicans are, though some are almost as "liberal" as Obama). Obama has almost the same liberal score (80) as independent (and nearly Republican VP) Joe Lieberman. Joe Biden’s score is even less liberal than Obama's – 74.

What? Not emotional?

Juan Williams was not impressed and didn't think it was an emotional speech. Complete sell-out to Fox.

Is Fox sold out? The morning after Hillary Clinton's great speech I turned on XM CNN from 8:00-8:01, lots of clips and follow up commentary from the previous night about how there's no question there's unity. I flip over to Fox at 8:01 to see what they had to say.

From 8:01-8:17 (I missed about 30 seconds when I took too long to return during a commercial break), they mention "Clinton" exactly once, around 8:12, I think, in one sentence with one clip, the worst one. The one about the "Sisterhood of the Travelling Pantsuits ... thank you to my supporters", which is pretty much the exact opposite of her overall message - support of Obama. It took KARL ROVE (who came on with Giuliani) to say that she gave a great speech.

Class lacking at CNN

The Anderson 360 guy, who's only on because this is his time slot on weeknights on CNN (my DVR tells me), asked Paul Begala about the speech and he spewed out how great it was - it was inspiration, epic, etc., etc., and finally said it was one of the greatest speeches.

Anderson Cooper says, "Well, it looks like you drank the Kool Aid."

I'm like "What an idot"!!!

Until he says, "David Gergen, what did you think?"

David Gergan has been the White House chief of staff for Reagan, and was in Nixon's White House, I think Carter's and Clintons. I'm like, "Oh, he's gonna get it now."

"Well I guess Paul andI are drinking from the same cool aid bottle. ... As a political speech, it was a Masterpiece."

Taxi drivers in Time's Square were hanging out their windows looking at the Jumbotron.

The Greatest Speech Ever

One of my kids came upstairs just after ended with his girlfriend. I said, "Did you see the Greatest Speech Ever?"
"The Greatest Speech ever?"
"Well, The Greatest American Speech Ever, er, maybe second?"
"OK, second, but what about George Washington's farewell speech?"
"Oh, yes, and then there's the Gettysburg Address"
"And didn't Roosevelt have one?"
"Yes, the uh, there's nothing to fear but fear itself."

Can you think of any others?

My Technology Prediction for 2008

That's right, it's singular. I only have one prediction for 2008. I didn't publish it at the end of last year or the beginning of this year, because I just thought of it among the recent mergers:

Sun will buy SpringSource.

Maybe it will take until 2009, since Spring is still growing quickly and the more traction, the more $$$, but this makes too much sense not to happen.

Why would Sun buy SpringSource? The Spring team has been working hard for a long time, they could use a cash out at this point (I guess), so someone will pick them up. I thought BEA might buy SpringSource since it would allow them to change to a product+OS+services strategy from a purely closed-product one (with some OS contributions like XMLBeans). SpringSource is all about openness - anyone can plug their components into the container. Sun is showing the world that they are all about openness. What did Jonathan Schwartz say after the MySQL announcement?
--------------------------------------

What happens to your commitment to PostgreSQL?

It grows. The day before we announced the acquisition, and within an hour of signing the deal, I put a call into Josh Berkus, who leads our work with Postgres inside of Sun. I wanted to be as clear as I could: this transaction increases our investment in open source, and in open source databases. And increases our commitment to Postgres - and the database industry broadly. The same goes for our work with Apache Derby, and our JavaDB.

Josh says it exactly right on his blog - Sun wants to be the leading provider of datacenters. Not just MySQL datacenters. Exactly.

-------------------------------------------

They are churning into a services organization built around open source. I was consulting with a CTO some time ago and we discussed a feature of a product we were designing and I said, "Why don't we leave it out and you can make more money providing services?" His reply was, "I can make much more money on that same head if they are writing software." So maybe the margins aren't as high in services than product. Perhaps Open Source changed the parameters to that equation. Even if it hasn't, this is Sun's model, and it's better than dying by eating only off your own farm.

The other advantage for Sun is that it will show that they are not letting their leading server technology - Java EE compete for favor against Spring, which is seems to be losing, if for no other reason than it's not latest and greatest anymore, and developers love latest and greatest. Don't get me wrong, I'm a strong proponent of component containers and Spring (especially since now I don't have to have to use verbose, external XML). It's just that Spring wouldn't exist without Java EE. It would have taken a decade of dozens of teams to get it all working right - they are standing on top of the Java EE giants.

If Sun buys SpringSource, they will again be rulers of the server-side. Now if they could only get a container for the client side...