Aside

Hey guys, as promised, here are the results of Salon’s Machinist Test Election 2008 President: * Abigail Adams: 2 * George Washington: 0 * Thomas Jefferson: 8 * Martha Washington: 0 Don’t believe me? Feel free to audit the tally or a ballot, here. Thanks to all those who participated!

“[This map uses] a color scale that ranges from red for 70% Republican or more, to blue for 70% Democrat or more. This is sort of practical, since there aren’t many counties outside that range anyway, but to some extent it also obscures the true balance of red and blue. ” By: Mark Newman Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems University of Michigan [via Ethan Zuckerman]

AdRants has found a great way to get those WiFi freeloaders like me to start buying more coffee — advertise specials and guilt messages in the SSID of the network, like this café in the Netherlands. AdRants: By continuously changing the names of their store networks to such things as OrderAnotherCoffeeAlready, BuyCoffeeForCuteGirlOverThere?, HaveYouTriedCoffeeCake?, BuyAnotherCupYouCheapskate, TodaysSpecialExpresso1.60Euro and BuyaLargeLatterGetBrownieForFree, the chain is able to both promote items as well as guilt patrons into realizing free WiFi really isn’t totally free. Hilarity ensued…

Newsweek: This is part one of a seven-part in-depth look behind the scenes of the campaign, consisting of exclusive behind-the-scenes reporting from the McCain and Obama camps assembled by a special team of reporters who were granted year-long access on the condition that none of their findings appear until after Election Day. Barack Obama had a gift, and he knew it. He had a way of making very smart, very accomplished people feel virtuous just by wanting to help Barack…

LA Times: 4:39 PM PST, November 4, 2008 Gertrude Baines’ 114-year-old fingers wrapped lightly over the ballpoint pen as she bubbled in No. 18 on her ballot Tuesday. Her mouth curled up in a smile. A laugh escaped. The deed was done. A daughter of former slaves, Baines had just voted for a black man to be president of the United States. “What’s his name? I can’t say it,” she said shyly afterward. Those who helped her fill out the…

Props to Slate for calling it first. 200 + West Coast = Obama win. Still, I’m not going to bed (it’s almost 4 am here in France) until I hear the words “President-Elect Obama.”

Written: November 3 2008 As I type this, we’re on the slow train back to Lyon. We opted to take an earlier, but slower train, instead of braving the rain here in Marseille. It’s been raining on and off here for the last couple days, as was the same in Corsica. But overall, we had a great first vacation — after having only worked a couple of weeks! (God bless the French!) And we’re very much looking forward to getting…

Happy voting! We’ll be up late over here in France watching results online, streaming NPR and on French TV. Anyone want to call us, use the SkypeIn number. First polls close at 12 am Wednesday morning France time (that’s 6 pm Eastern) — but we may not have to stay up as late as we’d thought. Either way, I think it’s pretty clear who I voted for.

It’s the All Saint’s Day holiday week this week in French public schools — we get a week and a half off from teaching — and so Becky and I are on a working vacation in Corsica working on this pig and chestnut farm (last post on that page) in Lustina, Corsica (about one hour’s drive south of Bastia). So far we’ve met Jean-Mathieu, the 3rd generation Corsican charcutier (he speaks the language, too), his friendly Colombian buddy Felipe (who’s…