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Yearly Archives: 2016

GDP Catches Up

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GDP is 1%. That’s terrible. Our country is dying at 1% GDP.

Donald Trump, Third Debate

One of the great things about debating political points today is that anyone who actually knows what’s going on has no idea where to start. Trump was referring to the real (inflation adjusted) growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which was lagging at the start of the year. But with a new number for the third quarter of 2016 showing a net 3.2% growth you have to wonder – What is this guy talking about?

The short version is that it bounces around all over the place. The long answer takes a lot of graphs. Welcome to Barataria, land of the long answer. Prepare for some hand waving.

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Unity

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The election of 2016 is almost upon us, but already it has had its effect upon America. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Gulf to the Great Lakes, this nation has been forever changed by the process that has unfolded over the last few years as never before. Yes, this great land now stands perfectly united in one solid belief:

We will all be glad when this crap is all over.

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The Nightmare Before Christmas

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It’s the spooky season, but it’s also the fun season. Before Winter wraps its embrace around us there is Halloween, the last chance to have some fun. It’s a challenge to the eerie creep of darkness we’re still adjusting to, still resisting at least one last time.

No movie captures the season for me quite like “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” the epic Tim Burton classic of stop-motion animation from the old school. Released in 1993, it was immediately recognized as a great classic movie for the holidays – Halloween, for the fun of it, and Christmas for the cynically twisted reaction to what it has become.

What makes this movie, however, isn’t just the great story and animation. The score by Danny Elfman is pure genius – and belongs in the repertoire of classical greats.

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How an Election is Actually Won

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With two weeks to go, the election is pretty much in the can. The number of “undecideds” is dwindling. People are ready to vote for the “lesser of two evils,” Clinton, and be done with it. There isn’t much left to do in the final weeks of the campaign because it’s already a lock.

While they may seem to be true, the statements above are about as wrong as they can be. The number of “undecideds” is indeed pretty low, but even with a big Clinton lead they number more than the current average polling margin. Clinton’s supporters are considerably more positive on their candidate than Trump’s, however, and that is indeed a good predictor of the final result.

Most importantly the last two weeks are when the real work comes if you are doing it right. It’s worth discussing if for no other reason than the popular media never talks about how an election is actually won.

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Under Attack – From Who? And Why?

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Thursday, 20 October, seemed like an ordinary day for many people. Waking up, getting the kids off to school, and driving to work all went like any other day. But once anyone tried to use the internet for anything, something seemed a bit off. Twitter was pretty much down all morning and a lot of email simply stopped flowing. Placing orders at companies was simply not working. Everything was at least … slow.

This was the day the largest yet Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack took place. The target appears to be Dyn, the company that provides instructions for routing traffic around the ‘net to keep it moving. But the exact target and who was doing the targeting remains a mystery. The attack actually continues, allbeit contained for now.

In order to understand today’s news and get a sense of what tomorrow’s news might be this attack is worth examining in what little detail we can muster. This is all far from over.

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