Nothing's been decided yet. The Republicans always close strongly with their famed and well-established 72-hour GOTV operations. Voters may side with Obama by a large margin, but it's still up to Obama's supporters to get them out and turn potential voters into actual votes. Today's GOTV matters. Don't let up. And STFIL.

That said, to lend some context to what Obama has accomplished over the last two years of campaigning: according to the reputable polling outfit... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 7:06 AM on November 4, 2008

I have the original 5d and it is an amazing camera; ISO 3200 is very usable. ISO 25600 in the new version? No telling what you DaShiv could do with that.

Already salivating, and have been waiting for a long time for Canon's low-light answer to Nikon's latest offerings. The handful of high ISO samples out there out there have been looking better than Canon's 1D3 and at least on par with Nikon's D3/D700. I may finally be able to leave the Speedlites at... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 5:50 PM on September 23, 2008

bonaldi: It's a pity that the video is going to insulate Canon from the effects of what is really a shitty upgrade to the 5d. The original 5d was an awesome camera, huge pixels, incredible image quality. All it really needed was decent autofocus and a slightly tougher body. Almost perfect.

So what did they do? kept the shitty autofocus, shrank the pixel size and increased the megapixels to an unweildly size that virtually nobody wanted. Nice going, chuckleheads.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 1:39 PM on September 24, 2008

[I]t is clear to me that Metafilter is so partisan that it can't really view election issues clearly or with any distance. This was a really smart move for McCain, as long as she doesn't have something in her past that will come back to bite him. This next week and the Republican convention might be tough for Democrats.

Palin was named on Veep lists (and future Pres. lists) a year or two ago, but not recently at all. From a purely pragmatic and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 9:06 AM on August 29, 2008

Despite the risks, one major McCain reason for picking Palin is becoming increasingly obvious: highest probability of self-inflicted Democratic wounds through various overenthusiastic and overreaching attacks. She's a ready-made target for the loose cannons. Hey there Democrats: a Palin pick is supposed designed purely to help McCain, and it's almost impossible for it to hurt Obama. In other words, it shores up his base but has virtually no effect on... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 10:25 AM on August 29, 2008

>> You know, I think there's also a very good case to be made that this may motivate Hillary Clinton to work even harder to elect Barack Obama.

> What the fuck is Hillary Clinton supposed to do at this point, exactly? I'm tired of the HILLARY MUST WORK HARDER TO ELECT OBAMA idiocy, online and off.

I think you're looking at it bass ackwards: suddenly, the ante's been raised for Sen. Clinton. It's... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 2:54 PM on August 29, 2008

onlyconnect: Re: gov'r of Alaska. First of all, Alaska is an incredibly homogeneous state -- overwhelmingly white, mostly male, one-party Republican rule -- and that pushes poll numbers toward the extremes. Thus, her approval ratings have to be taken with a grain of salt; governors like Schweitzer, Napolitano, and Sebelius who maintain very high approval ratings while governing as a minority-party governor are the ones whose high approval ratings are truly remarkable. Also,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 6:42 PM on August 29, 2008

Just as I predicted upthread: Hillary Clinton will be dropping the hammer on Palin:Advisers to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Sunday that Senator John McCain’s selection of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate would lead to a greater role for Mrs. Clinton as she campaigned this fall on behalf of her former rival, Senator Barack Obama.

Mrs. Clinton’s friends said she was galled that Ms. Palin might try to capitalize on a movement that Mrs. Clinton, of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 5:27 PM on September 1, 2008

The problem with Obama going really, really negative is the unspoken but widespread discomfort when Blacks speak truth to power in America. Martin Luther King, for instance, has been "whitewashed" to the extent to where all people are taught is his "I have a dream" speech, but King's many speeches and rallies on behalf of social justice issues like workers' rights have been completely flushed down the mainstream memory hole. Had Obama issued any substantive challenges or... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 6:35 AM on August 29, 2008

delmoi: I think you're right in that I'm possibly overreaching into plate-of-beans territory here, and your example of Dean is particularly salient. But consider this thought experiment: if it were Obama rather than McCain who had the nasty temper problem, the election narrative would be different. Very different. For starters, we'd be discussing Sen. Clinton's acceptance speech last night.

Hot-headed anger in McCain is interpreted by the MSM as a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 8:25 AM on August 29, 2008

The roll call was great, well-executed political theater. The disputed Florida and Michigan delegations were given crucial opportunities to cast their full votes, New Mexico honored the Illinois delegation by yielding the floor to them that allowed them to symbolically yield to New York in turn, and Sen. Clinton made the motion herself to nominate Obama by acclamation as expected. I'm certain that for more than a few supporters of Sen. Clinton, the way the ending was choreographed made the whole... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 6:06 PM on August 27, 2008

Voting for Re-Meetup #2 here as well, since I'm currently 15 time zones too far away to attend Meetup #1.
posted to MetaTalk by DaShiv at 6:26 AM on July 24, 2008

Obama's Iraq positioning is a non-story. Those who haven't seen the huge discrepancy between the free ride McCain enjoyed for his "100-years, wait make that just until 2013 and all casualty-free" Iraq fantasy versus the trashing Obama received for advocating for the same 16-month withdraw plan he had in the primaries (albeit with different emphases for the general election) haven't been playing close enough attention. The substantiative shift in positioning on Iraq has been solely... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 6:58 PM on July 9, 2008

You're right, Blazecock, I sounded more glib than I meant to when I said that FISA's finally over. It's not that FISA is an unimportant fight, but rather that it's a doomed fight: months and months of fighting and pushing from progressive quarters only proved decisively that actual support for the Good Fight just wasn't there on Capitol Hill. It's been obvious for quite some time now as progressive sites like Kos focused less and less and whose votes... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 10:25 PM on July 9, 2008

OH HAI I'M IN UR MEETUP STEALIN UR C4M3R4Z!!!

So I was just sitting there talking to a few people at one end of the group, quietly mentioning to someone next to me that I was feeling a bit out of sorts that night. Then my fingers get itchy and I find a camera in my hands and suddenly it's all "that's DaShiv!" and "women love DaShiv!" like the whole world has gone mad. Mad, I tell you.

Thanks numinous for bringing up that whole... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by DaShiv at 2:21 AM on June 30, 2008

What Ebert means by making the "high art" distinction is interesting. Wikipedia redirects me to high culture, which it defines as "the set of cultural products — mainly in the arts — held in highest esteem by a culture, and the culture of ruling social groups." The article goes on to list philosophy, literature, music, visual arts (especially painting), and "traditional forms of the Performing arts, now including some Cinema." Our elite art... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 7:50 AM on June 24, 2008

When Chuck Norris was a boy, DaShiv taught him the roundhouse kick.

Thanks everyone. It's a bit surreal to me that my perverse interest in the arcana of the nomination process would find an audience at all, but that's yet another odd wrinkle in this year's topsy-turvy battle. I really wish more commentators would have dug more deeply into the rich history of primary lore: for instance, it was Harold Ickes himself who successfully lobbied for the much-ballyhooed delegate... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by DaShiv at 5:30 PM on June 8, 2008

creasyboy: "From my viewpoint these fixed demographic voting blocs he's talking about were established very late and were a surprise to everyone. I'm a college-educated white and I voted for Obama, but the fact that I was apparently pre-determined to do so only became clear to me very very late in the game; for a long time I simply assumed that the black candidate was unelectable and I didn't even really bother to look into his policies. And how exactly is it pre-determined... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 8:05 AM on May 30, 2008

wemayfreeze: "It's about time Obama stops dipping into the fray. Wouldn't it be great if his campaign released an official statement saying, "I'm sure she didn't mean anything by it"? When he tries to capitalize on her gaffes he admits that she still has a chance."

Are you kidding? Responding to a statement by calling it "unfortunate and has no place in this campaign" is the weakest, most boilerplate message that an... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by DaShiv at 3:33 AM on May 24, 2008

She was "date-stamping" June with respect to the historical length of the nominating process. Perhaps you missed the part where I quoted her when I cited the two sentences immediately preceding her RFK reference: "People have short memories. Primary contests used to last a lot longer." Clinton knows full well that: a) this year's primary season started earlier than any other, resulting in a January-to-June schedule and thus the longest primary calendar... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by DaShiv at 7:02 AM on May 24, 2008

citron: "I just read the Frank Rich thread and it's like a different planet in which.. an underlying assumption seems to be that the American electorate is as smitten with Obama as MeFi, or will soon be? Not quite. His prospects of winning vs McCain are not good at all."

Different planet? "Obama is an unelectable, slick-talking empty suit" is just the other side of "Clinton is an unprincipled, dishonest self-aggrandizer"... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by DaShiv at 6:11 AM on May 17, 2008

flarbuse: "Well, it seems to be unfolding now, but there seem to be a large amount of people who are essentially saying that the nominee should be chosen by who received the majority of the delegates, not whether someone was able to reach the magic number."

In practice, the nominee is chosen based on winning either a majority or plurality of pledged (i.e. elected) delegates. Since the start of the modern system of nominating contests, every... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by DaShiv at 8:00 AM on May 18, 2008

delmoi: If she had been running the campaign she's been running lately after super Tuesday, she'd probably be the winner now

No. The math: Super Tuesday decided the race. The video fails to give the proper context that the race has been over for just over three months now, and everything since then (i.e. the last 2:30 of the video) has been nothing more than a media circus.

To start with, the nomination... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 7:20 AM on May 7, 2008

Who needs the MSM to tell us which issues America is supposed to care about? John Edwards discusses his most important issues on tonight's Colbert Report.

Clinton and Obama also appeared on the same program (an impressive scheduling feat by Colbert's staff), and the entire episode was chock full of WIN. My favorite moment was the devastating clip of a younger, more idealistic George Stephanapoulos talking about how we need to move past pettiness to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 12:38 AM on April 18, 2008

"If I had a choice, I would want to include these distrustful folks in finding solutions. I would prefer it if they understood. I would prefer it if they could see the long sequence of events that is going to address their fears and create the medium they will inevitably love and participate in, whether they expect to or not."

"What's sad is that their ideological, ignorant, hostile, one-dimensional attitudes oversimplify one of the most beautiful problems... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 5:01 PM on March 30, 2008

Barack Obama-sistible!

Seriously: WTF white people?!
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 9:11 PM on March 21, 2008

As commentators at The Field noted:Another suprising defender of Obama this morning on MSNBC — Gov. Mike Huckabee:

He was impressed by the speech and how Obama is handling the race issue. He brought up Jerry Falwell, and said that Falwell said plenty of things that his parishoners would likely not agree with, and that we shouldn’t hold someone accountable for every statment of their pastor. Lastly, he said that he grew up in the segregated south, and that a guy like... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 8:15 AM on March 19, 2008

onlyconnect: Alot has been said here about MetaMan and all he has done to turn you all off of Clinton. I am a Democrat who voted for Obama in the primaries, and alot of the anti-Clinton rhetoric in this thread is having some of the same effect of turning me a bit off Obama or at least the Obama phenomenon. (obamenon?) The disrespect and insults to Clinton in this thread are really putting me off.

I don't think you can simply equate the two. I think... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 2:18 PM on March 20, 2008

onlyconnect: I would like to see the person with the largest amount of popular votes carry the day.

So would I, because it would make the outcome unambiguous. But the Clinton campaign, being behind as they are right now, has been deliberately injecting loads of ambiguity into the equation to elbow themselves into having more room to fight.

Obama's lead in popular vote aside (and it looks well-neigh insurmountable at this... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 7:57 PM on March 20, 2008

I forgot to mention this earlier, but those who haven't seen Reverend Wright's remarks in their original context should take a look for themselves. His "America's chickens have come home to roost" line fell squarely in the middle of an indictment against American terrorism and a call to respond to the 9/11 attacks with spirituality instead of violence, while his "God damn America" line was the climax of a lengthy repudiation of America's history of racism and marginalization... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 4:37 AM on March 21, 2008

onlyconnect: The fact that they may not be able to work something out here really sucks. It seems to me like both candidates are basing their positions on the bottom line here, and I'm disappointed in both of them.

Let's not forget that with all the uproar over Michigan and Florida, the Democratic party is absolutely certain to be making some significant changes to the scheduling of their nomination contests when the next cycle rolls around. However,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 1:45 PM on March 21, 2008

Obama Offers a Progressive Vision of Patriotism: He began to build a progressive narrative that Democrats, and the progressive movement more broadly, have had difficulty developing. He offered a progressive vision of patriotism, integrating a more traditional view -- referring to his grandfather's service under General Patton, and the military service of Reverend Wright -- with the notion that love of country is not blind love, that forming a more perfect union -- the essence of progressivism --... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 4:00 PM on March 21, 2008

Sir BoBoMonkey: To bring this to the issue of the current candidates and previous recent presidents, I'm thinking that with Obama's oratory skills he would make for a good figure head, potentially capable of being a good/great leader, depending on how the economy and war goes, but I guess the question that is being memed into our heads at the moment is, can he be a good/great president? [...] The president is only one person and it is the choices they make on who's in their... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 2:20 AM on February 16, 2008

A great portrait is just capturing what someone really looks like.

But people don't always look like themselves: they're very practiced at not doing so. The hard part is learning to see it when they do. Then, all you have to do is be standing in the right place, and click.
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 6:47 PM on February 7, 2008

Where Morgan says:

It was the women’s movement that quipped, “We are becoming the men we wanted to marry.” She heard us, and she has.

She agrees with me that her generation of leaders had to adopt the political attitudes and strategies of the men around them to succeed. They became not only the men they wanted to marry, but the men they wanted to elect. And to some degree, Hillary is punished, tby becoming a target for... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 3:50 PM on February 6, 2008

First of all, these guys are genuinely funny at many moments, and it's hard to fault funny.

That said, many of these issues (blocked entrances, clipping through floors, etc) boil down to one factor: shoddy map design. For example, the demoman's stickies at 1:05 in the first video is only a "problem" in the sense that the scripted, gimmicky play-by-rails nature of that particular CP map forces everyone on one team to exit out in that particular space to follow... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 11:53 PM on December 22, 2007

If your interest in birding is anything more than a passing phase, then the setup I strongly recommend is this: a Canon 40D (or 20D/30D depending on availability and budget) and a Canon 400mm f/5.6. The camera body is a strong workhorse with good-enough autofocus for birding (as long as you have enough light), but the real magic is in the lens: there's no such thing as "long enough or close enough" when it comes to birding, and there's no competition at all in any... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by DaShiv at 3:00 PM on December 22, 2007

Thanks, stavros! I'm waiting on UPS to deliver my copy of the Orange Box, and in all likelihood I still won't have time to be playing hardly at all for the next week or so (aside from dropping by to say howdy on Saturday). Phooey.

I'm thinking that after the holidays are over, it'd be great to have a n00b day to welcome those who may have received the game as a gift. I'll be up to speed on the game by then and would be happy to offer guidance to newcomers over the... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by DaShiv at 10:13 PM on November 29, 2007

prostyle: Yeppers, here's an old CE roster page, which lists my join date as March 16, 1998. Interestingly enough, OSKI was based in my alma mater at the same time I was in CE, and I knew some of the guys in that notorious all-LPB clan. ("If you play QuakeWorld Team Fortress, there was a time when you feared Oski, Fifth Element, and Clan Erinyes.") The famous Quake DMer Thresh was a local, and CalBear and a number of noted early Starcraft players were also there at the school at that... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by DaShiv at 10:31 AM on November 30, 2007

I've had lots of fun playing with you folks, but this week toward the end there was some talk of maybe changing the server's map rotation. My own two cents are that I completely loathe control point style maps. Back when I was playing in QWTF tourneys, all tourneys were run on CTF-style maps ('2fort4', '2fort5', 'well6', 'sewer1', 'rock2', '2tech4', etc) because they provided the best gameplay, and because objective-style maps (such as 'hunted') always had problems with... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by DaShiv at 2:29 AM on December 9, 2007

While mulling over the fundamental differences between CTF vs CP play, I ran across this old gem again from QWTF: the Team Fortress Done Extreme video. Of course there's a lot of pretty rocket/grenade work here, but the real highlights for me include:

05:41 - elevator conc jump
06:15 - wall rocket jump, then double rocket jump up elevator to escape with flag
06:46 - through-the-grate flag pass, mid-air scout flag catch
07:15 -... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by DaShiv at 7:23 PM on December 10, 2007

Here's a simple illustration. Let's say you're playing a CP map and your team has somehow allowed the enemy to build up 5 sentries around a CP you have to take. Your options, assuming the engineers are competent enough to shoot everything, kill spies while they sap then repair each others' guns, and have built their guns such in a way so that any approach forces you to take fire from at least 2 of them at once? You'd have to take the guns down one by one, probably with at least a couple of ubers,... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by DaShiv at 5:11 PM on December 11, 2007

Daily Show: Is America Ready for a FLILF?
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 2:25 PM on December 5, 2007

If you bump up an entire series of artists correctly, then the artists can activate Star Power to double their bumps and climb the rankings -- but will also cause them all to be screwed over by the record companies in the end.
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 2:58 AM on November 30, 2007

However, to confirm his entry he must pay a fee...

Scam.

The "submit your photo first, then we tell you that you've won something (the hook) but you have to pay to redeem the prize" structure is a scam. Legit photo contests are up-front, explicitly detailing fees, schedules/deadlines, reputable judging panel with clear judging criteria, publication information of winners, and so on prior to submission. This should... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by DaShiv at 8:19 PM on November 29, 2007

Romney's stances on social issues circa 1994. (referenced in the article)
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 7:15 PM on November 29, 2007

LOLXIANS and feminist outrage? Pass the popcorn: this thread will become a Metafilter parody.
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 5:14 PM on November 28, 2007

Also, properly speaking, it would be a MoFi vs MeCha battle royal, keeping things within the proper fighting class. Or maybe MoFi and Mecha will team up against Mefi. Terrifying thought.

The really, really terrifying thought would be to consider which side of that three-party battle royale I would come down on. Were I forced to take sides, that is. Possibly, I mean. Theoretically, purely hypothetically, in a strange alternate universe where I'd be in... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by DaShiv at 4:59 PM on November 27, 2007

Kasparov on Bill Maher. Kasparov on Colbert Report.
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 1:09 PM on November 24, 2007

I disagree with the principle of trying to change the site's tone by moderator fiat and minority advocacy, rather than by organic equilibrium from the community itself. To me, the appeal (and entertainment value) of discussions in the blue and gray stems from its emphasis on direct combativeness and wit, rather than validation and consensus (that's the green). IMO the best way to counter the Boyzone would have been rebuttals in-thread, like Jessamyn's trenchant quip "I am pretty all the... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by DaShiv at 3:04 AM on November 24, 2007