The Final Plea - Why I want to be VP

I've written a fair amount on what I would do as Vice President under Hillary and the Machine and some of my qualifications, but I'm not sure that I've adequately explained why I want the job.

Bringing the Weird to the HRC Ticket

There are news articles saying that Hillary and The Machine are looking for someone well versed in National Security.  They are saying that Bubba is pushing for Tom Kaine.  These are wrong.  She needs someone Weird.

This election cycle has been one of the weirdest in this writer's memory.  Certainly the weirdest since I became politically conscious enough to follow politics at all.  And Trump is maybe the weirdest part.  He bought himself a Hollywood walk of fame star, presumably for his 'work' on "The Apprentice".  His tweets are ... I'm not sure weird does them justice.  And there's the hair.

His VP pick, Governor Mike Pence of Indiana, is not weird.  He may be a lot of things, but for a candidate, he is a career politician with experience managing an executive office.  His the kind of person you would expect a major party candidate to pick for Vice President.  He is not weird.  Hillary is the Mike Pence of her ticket.  She also is not weird.  She needs someone who can close the weird gap.  Someone who can bring the weird and balance the ticket.

Closing the Weird Gap

What are my weirdness qualifications?  First off, I'm writing this series of posts asking to be Vice President.  I am a nobody in the political world (or in lots of other worlds... they have no idea who I am on Margathea or on Frogstar Planet B.)  Also, I make Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy references.  That's at least Megadodo Junior Editor achievement in weird.

My second piece of evidence is my Instagram profile.  It consists of nothing but pictures of blue post-it notes with nonsense quotes on them.  Instead of telling a story with pictures, I'm taking pictures of words.  Weird.

Finally, I'm not going to give you a third instance of being weird, thereby violating the 'Rule of Three' principle of writing.  Which is weird.

Hire me Hill-Bear.  I want to help you close the weird gap.

#schmoidforVP

What I Will Do As Vice President

I've watched enough episodes of "Veep" (0.5) to know that the job is mostly cocktail parties where people try to peddle influence.  I've watched enough episodes of "West Wing" (all of them) and "House of Cards" (all of them so far) to know that there is more to the job: glad handing foreign dignitaries when the real President doesn't have time, playing bad cop with Capital Hill and pushing secondary agenda items for the party.

Choose Me for VP

Mid-week WTF edition

The news is full of (shiz-to-my-nizzle) who the HRC will choose for Vice President.  Will it be a male brewer from Colorado or a female firebrand?  Will it by an Hispanic from HUD?

I suggest that none of these are the best choice.

Instead, pick me.  

Why?  Because as a middle-aged, divorced father of one I bring a lot to the table.

Pokemon Reality

The last two weeks have reminded me that I'm old and I blame Pokemon Go.  I'm a half-generation too old even to approach it as a nostalgia item.  Also, the MSD (Middle School Daughter, for those of you that had forgotten) is too tied up in UnderTale and listening to 8-bit soundtracks to care about Pikachu and friends.  No, my generation got Garbage Pail Kids and ain't no one making a phone game out of those.

(Source: Geekyrant.com)

So, I'm old because I don't want to go chasing around the southwestern american desert in the summer racking up data charges looking for virtual cockfighting contestants.  Instead, I want to look at the whole phenomenon as the first real use of Augmented Reality in a marketing campaign.

Qioto

Source

Today, I want to take a second to make a more personal post.  This will be less about the Internet of Things (however I choose to define it) and more about this blog and IoT information resources.  Fair warning.

Straight Outta Nowhere

A couple of months ago, I received direct message via twitter from some dude asking if I was interested in writing for his up and coming website.  After some back and forth, I decided that, yes, I have the time for this.  More importantly, as I learned more about what they were trying to do, I realized that I wanted to write for Qioto whether I had the time or not.  (Then I was employed, so time really was an issue.  Now I'm not traditionally employed and the actual writing is not much of an issue.)

Autonomous Morality

Ego Morality

Today's topic is how 'morality' will be programmed into autonomous vehicles.  There has been some recurring press on this issue over the last month and I've had some time to formulate my thoughts on this topic.  It is tough as, like most of first-world humanity, I think I'm moral but I've never faced the really tough life-and-death moral decisions that put that assertion to the test.  Most of my morality training has come from Star Trek, and that's not bad, but it is fairly basic and presumes that I'm sitting on the bridge of a star ship in orbit, debating the gray areas of the Prime Directive.  I hope I never have to even that.  Should it happen though, I'm pretty sure that if I have the time to think through the decision, I'll do the right thing.

But, that's the catch: 'if I have the time to think it through'.  The area where this is most likely to happen in my current life path is when I drive.  It is easily the most dangerous thing that I do on a daily/weekly/monthly basis (I ski and take some bigger risks there, but am only able to get in about twelve days a year).  Driving is a task that, when it goes south, will happen too quickly for my frontal lobe to override my learned motor skills and lizard brain reflexes.  Reflexes that have been fine tuned over hundreds of thousands of years to keep the individual alive.