The Frustrated Bunny

Technology. Science. Politics. Geek. Etc.

Politics

My presidential predictions, the day after: I was close…

To start, I want to say that on the big question, I was right. Obama won. Granted, that wasn’t much of a prediction on my part (all hail Nate Silver and his glorious statistical models), but it was right nonetheless. On the question of Obama winning both New Hampshire and Virginia with Romney taking North Carolina, I was also right there, but not exactly in the way I stated. I expected Virginia to be called MUCH earlier. I had no idea it was going to be that close. On that same note, I expected Ohio to be called much later...

Politics

My 2012 presidential election predictions

Okay, so between looking at a map of when polls close, looking at Nate Silver’s model, and playing with electoral votes, I am ready to make predictions. I’ve provided links so that you may play along at home. If you take an electoral map and fill in all the states that are strongly leaning toward either candidate (>90% likelihood of winning, with the exception of Ohio…more on that in a second), you wind up at Obama with 253 EV and Romney with 191. So to start out, my map has 7 states “in play”: New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio,...

Random / Technology

Some brief observations and opinions on the direction of Windows

I originally posted this as a comment on Facebook to a post by someone who tried out Windows 8 and didn’t like it. Unsurprisingly, I have opinions on this. I have also added some additional context in italics throughout the post. The problem with Windows recently has been twofold: 1) computers have become ubiquitous, and therefore, the lowest common denominator of users has gotten lower and lower. 2) When the “average” user today is a lot dumber than the “average” user 10 or 15 years ago, and MS creates focus groups for features and UI, you wind up with a...

Personal

Discovering Fort Worth on foot: An introduction

Andrew and I have begun taking walks around our neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhoods in downtown Fort Worth. Mostly, this has been for exercise, since we’ve noticed we’re not nearly as active as we were when we were in school. We’ve been doing this for several weeks now, and it’s proven to be a very interesting and educational experience. We’re discovering new places and learning how roads and neighborhoods connect in ways that would never be possible in a car, or even on a bicycle. Our approach to walking around downtown is actually pretty organic–we start at home, pick a...

Politics / Random

FAQ: “WHY IS GAS SO $#@!ING EXPENSIVE??!!”

This question has turned up on my social networks a number of times in the last few weeks as gas prices have risen quite a bit over the past month or so. The short answer: it’s not. Ok, ok…that’s not what you wanted to hear. $3.89 a gallon is a lot when you’re used to gas in the low-to-mid $2 range. It’s about that much per liter in places that don’t give insane subsidies to oil companies, but let’s just tackle the question of why gas is so relatively expensive right now. Keep in mind the explanation below should be taken...