John McCain and the art of losing well

So Barack Obama ended up winning around twice as many electoral college votes as John McCain (365 vs. 173). The actual votes cast show a closer race than that (52.8% 45.9%) but it was still very clearly Obama's election. The worse the economic crisis became, the more Obama looked like the man who would be better able to steer a course through it (please God!)

If it's any consolation to McCain, there top job looks like the most poisoned chalice around. As The Onion ironically reported under the headline Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job - In his new high-stress, low-reward position, Obama will be charged with such tasks as completely overhauling the nation's broken-down economy, repairing the crumbling infrastructure, and generally having to please more than 300 million Americans and cater to their every whim on a daily basis. As part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind. The job comes with such intense scrutiny and so certain a guarantee of failure that only one other person even bothered applying for it.

Even dealing with the current crises (plural) will put years on Obama fast. Just imagine if it were McCain with a 72-year-old body already damaged by torture and bouts of illness.

All in all, John McCain probably got the best result for him, for the United States and the world. His loss was clear but not crushing and certainly not humiliating. And whatever he goes on to do, he will be remembered for one of the most gracious, courageous and magnanimous concession speeches on record.

John McCain will win

At the time of writing everything is set for Barack Obama to achieve an historic victory in the US Presidential elections on November 4th 2008. The polls are showing him with a six-point lead at a time when the panicky economic situation seemed to cry out for his reassuring coolness and detachment. McCain is an experienced, older man, but economics are not his strong suit. And his party was on watch when the credit party ended and the economy turned hyperbearish.

There are signs of a rift in the McCain camp. His VP selection Sarah Palin and her fervent supporters are eager to attack Obama with whatever weapons come to hand (some of them literally), while McCain himself is standing up to defend Obama and asking highly partisan crowds to tone down the attacks.

But there are at least three factors set to upset the predicted Obama victory. One is that although there are waverers among both affliliated Republicans and affiliated Democrats, there are more Democrat waverers leaning towards McCain than there are Republican waverers leaning towards Obama. Another is that McCain's support is stronger among older voters while Obama's support is stronger among younger voters; older folk are more reliable at turning out to vote than youngsters. And the third is the so-called Bradley factor - up until the last moment, liberal and moderate white voters go with their conscience, but in the privacy of the booth, they go with their gut and vote for the white guy.

Teaching Creationism and Darwinian Evolution

Once again, thanks to Sarah Palin, there's been a lot of debate about whether schools should teach Creationism / Intelligent Design alongside Darwinian Evolution.

I'm all for teaching both alongside each other, but not in the science lesson - nor in religion. Evolution is a scientific theory based on tangible evidence, with some scope for testing the hypotheses, and belongs in science teaching. Creationism / Intelligent Design are based on scriptures and belong in religion.

Both are dependent on belief systems, and what kids (and adults) need to learn is the ability to examine belief systems and ask smart questions about them. So maybe they should come together in PSHE of philosophy.

FWIW when until the age of 7-8, my youngest never asked the typical kiddie question "why?" - he asked the far tougher "how do you know?"

Does the future need us?

A few years back, Bill Joy wrote a disturbing and interesting piece for Wired Magazine, called "Does the future need us?". And more recently the Luminous Landscape forum had a worried thread about humanity being reduced to just another machine.

As far as I'm concerned, if mankind comes up with a machine that's kinder, more compassionate, more empathic and more loving than humans, great. What's not to like?

As for taking photographs, composing music, playing chess, playing tennis, speaking foreign languages or any of the other things in which I take an interest, I know with 99.999999999% certainty that at age 53, I will never do any of them well enough to rank in the top 1000 in my country, let alone in the world. There are more than 6.8 BILLION humans out there, and the number is growing and my chances of getting near the top of any field of activity are shrinking.

So for me, whether the entities that do those activities better than me are humans or machines makes not a lot of difference. What matters for me is the experience of doing those things, and interacting with others as I do them.

As for the products of machines compared with the products of humans, similar considerations apply. What counts for me is whether a photograph, or a piece of music or a piece of writing connects with me. If a machine has produced it, then that's amazing.

The strange attraction of Early Music

I've become very partial to what's known as "Early Music", which means stuff written up to around 1760 - Bach and before. I guess it helps that my piano teacher Sophie Yates is a specialist in that era and her husband - a former rock musician - is a lute player.

Some of that early music sounds strangely modern - not in an MTV, Indie way - and some of it evokes Elizabethan drama, Spanish grandees and the like.

Anyway, at last Friday's piano lesson I was just relishing getting my ten thumbs round a particularly pleasing couple of bars and I wondered out loud what it was about music from 350 years ago that was getting to me. And Sophie said it's just music from another place, except that it's also from another place in time. Which seemed to hit the nail on the head for me.

Push media revisited, thanks to the NYT

Back in the days of slow dial-up connections I was a huge fan of Pointcast, a downloadable newspaper reader. I chose my desired selection from a range of news media and every day the programme would download the content to the reader. That way I could read the stuff on my computer without having to be online.

Then Pointcast hit all kinds of problems and disappeared. But with always-on broadband, newspapers and magazines are never more than a click away anyway, so it didn't matter so much.

So what's the point of a media reader now? The New York Times has a very handy product called The New York Times Reader that I'm trying out at the moment. It delivers all the content of the paper every day, and the cache holds seven days worth of NYT. The quality of writing and coverage of the New York Times is probably better than British papers such as The Times, The Telegraph and The Guardian - after all, the NYT is one of the world's great newspapers.

When the trial ends in 10 days or so, the critical issue for me will be the price point. The NYT Reader is a nice-to-have, not an essential. Anything less than $50 a year I'll sign up without a second thought. Anything approaching $100 will be too much.

Apple - close and getting closer

For almost 20 years I've been having my ears bent by Mac fanatics intent on converting me to the true faith. But I hated having to use a Mac (OS 9.0) when I was with Y&R in the late 90s and reverted to Windows as soon as I could.

Then the iPod came out and I relented and bought a G4 TiBook with MS Office loaded. I ended up sticking with Windows for work and using the TiBook to manage my music and digital photos - pretty kit but flimsy, with poor wireless range.

Then I had a chance to work on the iMac, digital editing with James Mairs using Final Cut Pro. So I splashed out on an Intel iMac and even an Intel MacBook Pro. But again, I ended up sticking with Windows for work and using the Macs for music and photos.

All along, I never felt comfortable enough switching to Mac for work. But having just had (another) Windows data wipe-out, this time with Vista, I've decided my next spend will be a switch to Mac. What's changed?

1) The guys at the local Apple dealer, Farpoint Developments in Bath know their products inside out and they're helpful. With any luck, that will mean much less of my time time wasted on IT DIY. Two days less a year will make it worthwhile.

2) Mac's OS-X is a lot more stable than Windows, it boots and runs faster and it doesn't leave a mess of DLLs all over the system.

3) The new iPhone finally looks like a smartphone that's usable for work and relevant to my needs - which don't include taking photos and movies

4) The new Me.com service looks like it could tie everything together in exactly the way I need. The only doubt at the moment is whether it will allow me to use my various domains as e-mail send addresses.

The Game is always there

Always. Whether you recognise it or not. So you may as well call it:
1. 1.What’s the game here?
2. How is it played?
3. What are the rules? What's allowed and what's not allowed?
4. How does the scoring work?
5. What's the ultimate objective?
6. Do I want to play this game - or is there another game I could invent?

Happy with what I've got

Guys love gadgets and I'm no exception. In my case, I got the photography bug almost 30 years ago and have been poring over equipment magazines and reviews and outlets ever since. It was bad enough in the days of silver halide film. Now, with digital, the scope for gadgetry is vast.

Part of gadget mania is wondering whether your gadgets are up to scratch, and whether there are gadgets out there that could do the job better. Of course, there always are. And they usually cost a lot more.

So I'm surprised and happy to realise that until further notice, the one camera and three lenses I have are absolutely all the hardware I need to get decent pictures. What I need now, apart from using the software better, is to work on the wetware - my vision and skills as a photographer. Thank you Nat.

A totem bird

Last month I was giving some training in the Netherlands and staying with friends near Amsterdam. As happens so often there, the weather was changeable but late on the Saturday afternoon there was enough sun for me to grab my camera and 100-400 mm lens and head off looking for Great Crested Grebes - one of my favourites.

They're shy little birds although in Holland they can be found all over the place, along with the ducks and the coots and the herons. The difference is that when people approach, the ducks swim towards them expecting food, the coots swim away, the herons take flight with many a "grawk" and the grebes dive under the water and reappear 10-15 metres away.

Late March must be breeding season for those grebes because they were all getting together and jostling and in their finest feathers. Just right for being photographed.