I've sent my Oregon ballot in.

Got it, sent it back already. The sooner you send it back, the faster those political mailings stop, except of course, if a campaign decides to not pay for the ballot return lists.

Here are some of my decisions:

• President: Hillz and Billz. History actually teaches us that revolutions are messy. Mao infamously supported the idea of periodic revolutions, but all you need to do is look at modern China to understand how messed up they'd been for decades. The sort of revolution Bernie speaks of, is a cultural one, and that does not start within politics! Cultural revolutions start from the ground and up, working into the political class supporting the popular will. Plus, Unicorns aren't real.
• Senator: Ron the Terminator Wyden. The guy is the perfect mix of liberal and libertarian, plus, he's gotten a lot done for Oregon, by way of the passage of various laws helping out various Oregon groups. He effectively put the clamps on James Clapper when he got Clapper to offer up a lie that was later revealed with the Snowden files.
• Multnomah County Dist. 1: Brian not a singer Wilson. I had settled on three names: Eric Zimmerman, Brian Wilson and Sharon Meieran. Doing some research turned up some recent difficulties in Zimmerman's life and while I wouldn't normally hold that against a person, it concerns me that he might have to spend more time dealing with personal issues over the county's. I was about to vote for Meieran, but then I pulled up her endorsements and I found Novick and Fritz on it, which was a nonstarter for me. By elimination, Wilson got my vote. That doesn't mean he's the least qualified, but that he had the least red flags of the three.
• Portland Mayor: Jules not Verne Bailey. This is a no-brainer for one simple reason: Bailey is an Economist. You see, an Economist thinks about greatest efficiency to achieve policy, and you'll notice that he's pushing for a lot of smart policies to address affordability except rent control and anti-gentrification laws. Ted Wheeler on the other hand, has pushed for anti-gentrification laws that would actually cost Portlanders more, over time, in rent rates, and kill development of affordable housing. Rent control is a dead end, literally. Rent control serves as a disincentive to make seismic upgrades, and is just a taste of things to come if Portland embraces rent control.
• Portland Commissioner #1: Ann the hair do Sanderson. There was no way I was going to vote for Amanda Fritz after she tried to force the homeless camp R2D2 into a lot under the Broadway Bridge ramp. She attempted to unilaterally force this move against the neighborhood board's stance, and hardly gave a damn about the conditions these homeless folks would be living in. Sanderson fought against the Novick-Hales plan to unilaterally impose a street fee, and that was huge.
  Portland Commissioner #2: Stuart not so little Emmons. Architect, need I say more? Architects are part of a group of thinkers who problem-solve all day long. I trust that his solutions are well-considered. Plus, his advocacy to keep Memorial Coliseum is a value I share.
• 26-174, 5 year Oregon Historical Society levy: Yes. It's a very tiny cost to document and maintain Oregon's history and culture. I can't imagine why people wouldn't want to spend money to preserve that.
• 26-173, 4 year Fuel Tax for Street Repairs, Safety: Yes. We can't have nice things if we're not going to pay for them. Now, while it's true that they could cut elsewhere to fund these programs, I actually support higher gasoline prices to increase efficient transportation use. It's only 4 years, anyway.

5 Thoughts for April 26, 2016

1. Deflategate: It's back, and this time it'll stick. A 3-person appeals panel (by 2-1 vote) overturned Tom Brady's case, in effect reinstating Roger Goodell's 4-game suspension. Brady's options are to ask for a rehearing by the same 3-member panel that overturned a lower judge's ruling, or a rehearing en banc (the full appeals court), or for a writ of certiorari with SCOTUS, but none of the options seem likely to occur. It shouldn't have been overturned in the first place, since the players themselves granted the commish wide leeway, for better or worse, in doling out punitive measures. The only means of arguing that the commish's punishment was overly harsh, is to identify bias. But whereas it's easy to find Patriots hatred among the other NFL team owners, it's hard to find bias in a commish who had a tight relationship with Patriots owner Bob Kraft, prior to the Deflategate kerfuffle.
2. The Bernie Bros: I'll point out two of them. H.A. Goodman and Seth Abramson. They contribute to Salon and Huffington Post, and both write nonsensical things on the race, manufacturing an alternate reality where Sanders is somehow winning. Their condescension is spectacular while their arguments tend to require no less than 1500 words -- basically, *yawns* all around.
3. Bernie Sanders Demographics: It's called White Males. Of the 30-something primaries and caucuses already completed, there were just 13 with exit polls that analyzed gender-race. Having spent an inordinate amount of time looking over the data, it was striking to discover that in 12 out of these 13 states, Bernie Sanders won the White-Male demographic. Aside from that, his only demographic win was in Illinois where he won the White-Female demographic. Hillary won the rest, and her demographics resemble that of the Democratic Party.
4. The Acela Primaries: Drumpf swept all five states (CT, PA, MD, DE, RI) and is now projected to take enough delegates to be within 210 of the nomination. All he needs to do is win California and New Jersey. Meanwhile, Hillary took CT, PA, MD, DE. The votes are still being counted so not all of the delegates have been appropriated, yet, but this might be the nail in the coffin for Bernie. Bernie just passed a critical juncture where he can no longer win out and claim the nomination w/o a single super delegate. The flip side of that, is that were all 712 super delegates to pledge support to Hillary right now, she would have the necessary number of delegates to win the nomination. Assuming the remaining super delegates all support Hillary, Bernie would have to win the remaining contests with 84%. Assuming all 712 super delegates split along the popular vote, Bernie would have to win out with 64%. Every time he comes up short of those percentages, they increase.
5. Google Fiber Portland: Psst. There's a live page for the Portland Metro area. If you input your address, it'll tell you if your neighborhood is currently being considered. After inputting your address, one of two messages will appear; (1) "Be among the first to know when we have more to share"; (2) "Google Fiber isn’t available for this address". I've tested some addresses, and there's a noticeable trend (which I won't disclose). GTK when you're shopping for homes / places to live, don't you think?

The Way, Way Too Early Electoral College Map

I'm about to wade deeply into the waters of self-indulgence and possibly self-delusion. There are very limited polls at the state level, matching up Hillary Clinton and Donald Drumpf, and it's premature to call Donald the presumptive nominee, but...

Nonetheless, here's my way, way too early electoral college map:

Clinton, with 340 electoral college votes, easily surpasses the 270 needed to win the election (as indicated in blue). This is my middle of the road view, BTW.

I think it's possible that a Clinton-Drumpf matchup could produce some crazy results, where several red states will flip blue (shaded in tan).

The swing states of Florida, Colorado, and Nevada have huge Latino populations and appear heavily motivated to vote against Drumpf, which is why I have them in Clinton's corner.

Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are sometimes swing states, but because Clinton leans moderate, I think she easily picks up these states. Plus, she actually does have a strong advantage with women voters, particularly when matched up against Drumpf.

It is utterly ridiculous to make this early prediction since the candidates haven't been formally decided, and 6 months ahead of the election is completely detached from anything proper and real. But here it is, and won't your mind be blown away if it is even remotely accurate?

RIP Prince

Prince is dead.

My top-10 favorite Prince tunes:

1. Kiss
2. Raspberry Beret
3. Controversy
4. Erotic City
5. When Doves Cry
6. 1999
7. Delirious
8. Let's Go Crazy
9. 7
10. Let's Pretend We're Married

Other than the top two, it was not easy building a top-10 list because it meant leaving out some great songs. Purple Rain, for instance, is a classic but it wasn't in my top-10. I love Alphabet St, Baby I'm A Star and Sign O' The Times, too, and they're in my essential 33 Prince songs playlist, but not in my top-10.

Point is, Prince made a lot of great music (and some really awesome videos!)

It's a shame that Prince tightly controlled his digital music, such that the only means of streaming his music online is via Tidal. Otherwise, I would have built a publicly-accessible playlist.

Long live Prince.

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ADD: Favorite song and video, Kiss.

Creepy Ted Cruz.

Times like this, it's difficult to describe one's feelings about Ted. In emoji terms, it's:
😂 + 😜 + 😲 + 😖 + 😒 + 😠

5 Thoughts on the Democratic Primary Race

1. Prediction Status: I said over a month ago that Hillary would wrap it up mathematically before the end of April. She won't. The gap did not expand as much as I thought it would, prior to NY, so instead of a 500 pledged delegate gap before the end of April, it's looking more like a 375~400 delegate gap. Nonetheless, it's a foregone conclusion: Hillary will win. Feeling the Bern increasingly means seeing the improbable as possible, or as Lloyd Christmas would say, "So you're telling me there's a chance? YEAH!"
2. Popular Vote: As of right now, Hillary leads the popular vote by a 2.67M gap. As a percentage of all votes cast so far, she's ahead of Bernie, 57.3% to 42.7%. Despite winning the previous 7 states (excluding tonight's NY race), he hasn't really made up much ground. Those were small states with much smaller numbers of ballots cast. Put it this way: Hillary received as many votes in NY's race as were cast in total in the last 7 states (Wyoming, Wisconsin, Alaska, Washington, Hawaii, Utah, and Idaho) for both Hillary and Bernie.
3. Demographics, Part I: There aren't exit polls for all states, but what we do know about Bernie Sanders' wins is that he does better in states where white people make up 90%+ of the participants, and typically only with the very youngest of voters (this also happens to be true at the county level in states where he loses). Here's the problem with that strategy: The Democratic Party is a coalition of various groups, and whites are just one faction in the Party while the youth vote is highly unreliable and small. A look at NY's exit polls illustrates this problem. Even though Sanders won with White males and the 18-29 age group, he lost the primary by a wide margin (~17 percentage points), White males and 18-29 represented just 25% and 17% (respectively) of voters in the NY Democratic primary.
4. Demographics, Part II: Sanders previously said that they were crushed in the South but would do better in the North, and that's now obviously untrue. He lost in Massachusetts, Ohio, Illinois and now New York. His supporters and his campaign have said that he does well in blue states, but those states (MA, OH, IL, NY) are blue states, with MA and NY diehard blue. Essentially, his campaign is surviving on disaffected, young White males, and that won't carry him all the way to the nomination. Besides, if your campaign heavily relies on disaffected, young White males, do you realize how that makes everyone else feel about your campaign?
5. Two-Way Street: I read and hear Bernie supporters saying that they won't support Hillary if she wins the nomination. Well, that sentiment is a two-way street. In the NY exit polling, more people (19% to 14%) said that they wouldn't vote for Bernie if he were the nominee, compared to Hillary. If this isn't merely sour grapes, these particular Bernie supporters are not just infantile, but also illogical. Demanding that Hillary's supporters (voters and super delegates) throw in the towel and get behind Bernie, in spite of her huge lead in delegates and the popular vote, is antithetical to Democracy. One more unicorn in Bernlandia.

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ADD: Counting superdelegates, Clinton merely needs to win 27.5% of the remaining pledge and super delegates, in order to clinch the nomination. That's how easy it is for her, now that she crushed it in NY.

On April 26 there will be 5 states holding primaries with 384 total delegates up for grabs. She leads in all these states and it would not be surprising if she sweeps. There is one particular scenario where she could definitely reach the nomination before the end of April. By winning 72.4% of the pledge delegates on April 26, and with the collective 175 remaining uncommitted super delegates joining ranks, she would reach 2,383 delegates.

Again, it's a foregone conclusion that she'll get the nomination, but it would be a spectacular statement if she grabbed it before the end of April.

Shattering the weather records.

Is Portland the New Phoenix? I know Tax Day is hell, but this heat is ridiculous.

5 Recent Photos

Springtime -- especially with the warm temps and sunny days -- begs to pull out the phone and take some photos. Here are five from the last two weeks.

The Fields park adjacent to the dog park enclosure

Dogwood flowering

Double-flowering cherry blossom

Hoshino cherry blossom

Sunrise in the Pearl District

Creative thinking, problem solving and creative work

I wandered into this Lifehacker post regarding breaking through creative blocks and clicked through to the video, which then spurred me to consider a long form response. After all, creativity is my passion. Here are my thoughts on the matter:

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At the risk of devolving into semantics, I believe that creative-thinking and problem-solving aren’t precisely the same, even though they’re very similar and both require higher cognitive levels.

Problem-solving

When you take to a whiteboard during problem-solving, aka brainstorming, the first ideas to come out are rarely the best as they are less creative-thinking and more logical processing based on the known parameters. That is why you brainstorm, and why you should keep at it when you think you’ve reached all potential solutions. That is what is really being explained in the video of that Lifehacker post.

But let’s say that your problem involves numerous parameters. Then, just like some questions on a cognitive test, your solution doesn’t require much creativity, but more logical processing.

Creative-thinking

So take the opposite situation of the blank page. Here, you’ve got few or zero parameters and lots (unlimited) solutions. Heaping amounts of creative thinking comes into play here as your first stab requires you to establish your own parameters.

Often, breaking through parameters is considered a sign of creative thinking, but what it really is, is a sign that you’re able to create your own parameters rather than stay within someone else’s / predefined parameters. Coloring outside the line implicates a personal parameter that the lines are irrelevant to your personal solution.

Therefore, creative-thinking is the ability to define your own parameters.

Creative work

It is not enough to apply creative thinking, in order to produce creative work. Once you've established your personal parameters, you must then apply logical processing to the lines you draw, write, etc. For instance, consider how someone like Frank Gehry has clearly defined personal parameters and whose process of design is iterative. What he's doing is evaluating (applying logical processing) the design moves against his personal parameters.

The better you are at both defining your personal parameters and applying logical processing to adhere to your personal parameters, the more successful one is, at developing creative work.

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None of what I just wrote came about instantly, by the way. First, I took the predefined parameters -- the story -- and applied some simple tests of my experience. I then substituted my own parameters and tested them. It's not perfect, and I know the shortcomings, but now it's in the back of my head and I'll keep adding / subtracting from it.

Ultimately, the synthesis of what I wrote was a 2-hour exercise. Fortunately, I have the luxury to sit around for 2 hours for such considerations.

5 Thoughts for April 4, 2016

It's been a while since I blogged one of these. Reason: other stuff to do. :D

1. Serendipity: I was (spring) cleaning out stuff when I happened to find a 58mm UV filter. The timing couldn't be better as the 55-300mm lens I got last week uses a 58mm filter but I couldn't find any in my camera bag. Now that's serendipity.
2. Spring Cleaning: It's an annual thing, but moreso this year it's become an important ritual after helping out my bff to support this elderly woman to clear out her things so that she could move down to SF to live near her son-in-law, following the death of her husband last year. While helping pack and move things downstairs and into the U-Haul van, it was obvious that she and her late husband had collected a ton of stuff, and she didn't have the emotional fortitude to let go these old objects and their attached memories. Not me. Most of my memories are stored in pictures, not objects per say. Besides, I do not want to be living in the past.
3. Massive Scandal: An overseas law firm -- Mossack Fonseca -- had its client documents leaked, roughly 2.6TB worth of data. This firm specialized in setting up shell companies to funnel money around. The people who use shell companies, typically do so to avoid paying taxes and to hide their ill-gotten money. Are you a drug lord? Then you're using shell companies. Are you paying bribes and don't want that money traced? Then you're using shell companies. Trust me, this is going to be yuuge, and will likely take down many 1-percenters all around the world, including many current and retired politicians and famous folks.
4. Slightly smaller than large: This is a choice quote from Drumpf, highlighting his hand size insecurities: "You know, my hands are normal. Slightly large, actually. In fact, I buy a slightly smaller than large glove, okay?" Only Drumpf's hands could simultaneously be (a) normal; (b) slightly large; (c) slightly smaller than large. What makes it over the top, is that it illustrates Drumpf's penchant for contradicting himself multiple times in a single thought. For the record, I wear large gloves.
5. Google Wallet: Wallet is pretty much dead. Last week they announced that the GW debit card would stop working, June 30, 2016. Back before they created Android Pay, Google Wallet was amazing: You could pay at the store with your phone or GW debit card, deposit money on a regular basis into your Wallet, pay for things online with your Wallet account, track loyalty cards, and transfer money to other people who also had a Wallet. Now that they've peeled off just about every function of Wallet, it's days appear to be numbered. They say that they'll be adding some new features to it, but really, corporate has killed Wallet and the fluff marketing the program manager(s) is pushing out is the last gasp before Wallet is completely dead. No one had anything that came close to Wallet, not even Apple, but the problem was that they never bothered to advertise and tell everyone about its features. So now we're left with a lame Wallet and a not-entirely-sound Android Pay. Death by a thousand cuts, all self-inflicted.

Powerpuff yourself.

You know the Powerpuff girls, don't you? Powerpuff yourself.

Do it, people.

Playing with my 55-300mm lens.

I got a refurbished Nikon 55-300mm DX VR lens directly from Nikon (model 2197B) for under $200, and finally had a chance to test it out. Yes, it's a little fuzzy at 300mm, but for under $200 this lens is going to let me shoot things I couldn't do properly before: the moon and wildlife.

I was outside taking sunrise photos with my wide angle lens, too, but that's covered in my other blog.