oops - funny McCain photo

 

from Yahoo! News

Snowblower

Our new snowblower:

predicting the 2008 presidential election

So, thanks to various corners of the blogosphere, I've found a few places that predict the election, including a couple using prediction market approaches.

Here are the 2008 Presidential quotes from the Iowa Electronic Markets.

Here is FiveThirtyEight.com.

Here is Intrade Prediction Markets.

Yahoo has its  Election 08 Political Dashboard.

UPDATE:  here are two more (thanks  Ned)

Electoral-vote.com

Election Projection.com

Mt Osceola (almost) hike

Last weekend we went to the White Mountains to hike, and chose Mt Osceola.  First, we drove up Friday and stayed at the Glynn House Victorian Inn in Ashland New Hampshire.  We had a great time - our hosts were gracious and friendly,  the inn is very well maintained, the rooms are clean and filled with amenities, evening wine was a treat, and the morning's breakfast was well-prepared and tasty.

Hiking Mt Osceola - East Peak - was a bit of a chore because we took the long path that visited the Greeley Ponds before taking us up the mountain.  It was a great day, we had a great hike, and caught a few more snapshots.

fisher cat

So this fella came right up to the house Sunday morning - in fact jumped on the deck and peered in through the window.   Hadn't seen him since the winter....


You have to look close....

Calibri and OpenOffice.org

Microsoft's Calibri font (proprietary, introduced in Vista and/or Office 2007)  has bugged me because Open Office doesn't have a good default fall-back for it.  Result is that documents are frequently un-readable.  (Makes one wonder if this was intentional - like the old rumor about "Windows isn't done until Lotus doesn't run...")

I finally found and settled on a good solution, for me anyway, described here http://www.oooninja.com/2008/02/metrical-equivalent-fonts-and-font.html, in particular, this recipe for font replacement:

"At the OpenOffice.org level, you can specify font replacement rules. That means whenever OpenOffice.org encounters font X, it will use font Y instead.

1. Open any OpenOffice.org application.
2. Click Tools > Options.
3. In the tree menu under OpenOffice.org, choose Fonts.
4. Check the box Apply replacement table.
5. Type the name of the Microsoft font in Font.
6. In Replace with, type the name of the non-Microsoft font.
7. Click the green checkmark.
8. Repeat steps 5-7 as needed"

 I replaced Calibri with Comic Sans MS and it works fine for my purposes.  Thanks so much to OpenOffice.org Ninja - you rock!

UPDATE - if you're sharing docs on Microsoft platforms, one of the office versions may be missing a font.  See: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint-help/fonts-that-ship-with-different-versions-of-office-HA010282644.aspx for help from Microsoft.

Here is a recipe if you are on Ubuntu:  http://askubuntu.com/questions/34077/libreoffice-missing-certain-microsoft-fonts

Monandnock Hike

Every year, and this year also.  We did the White Cross trail for a change.  Here are two snaps on the way up, across to one of the lesser peaks, and the path forward.

efficient, but fun

Like we said, who says great mileage can't be fun?  The CR-Z looks good...

more on longevity risk

In the popular (?) press, see this article in the Boston Globe - Living to 95....

One assumes this will only get better (worse) as biology, health, and medical research leads to additional discoveries during the next years and decades. Besides putting pressure on individual financial planning, there will be complicated consequences for national policy.

For sure I imagine retirement age will be deferred, social security will start later and additional elder care programs will be necessary.

I guess the best point to make is that one expects this will generally be due to healthy life extension, which will let us earn more of our keep at ever later ages. Part time work anyone?

nature - from a recent morning walk