The Daily Render

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future

Uncertified Election Results from Precinct #137 in Washington, DC
|| 11/5/2008 || 5:48 pm || Comments Off on Uncertified Election Results from Precinct #137 in Washington, DC || ||

Above is the unofficial results from yesterday’s election. Since I didn’t vote for Barack Obama, I decided to not celebrate last night. It wasn’t my victory. All I can say is that I voted for the other black presidential candidate, the one the media decided to ignore. I’ll probably revisit my feelings toward the 2008 election in a future entry. I’d also like to make another round of maps of where DC residents voted for DC Statehood Green Party candidates. One positive aspect of the election is that the party was able to maintain ballot access for the 2010 elections.

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Jason Linkins 2008 Election Recap is up on the Huffington Post
|| 11/4/2008 || 7:11 pm || Comments Off on Jason Linkins 2008 Election Recap is up on the Huffington Post || ||

Last Friday I went to the Huffington Post DC office and filmed the above video clips that were published today on the Huffington Post. After we filmed the clips below we went outside and had some fun interviewing people.

This what Jason wrote:

It’s been a year and a half of election coverage. So many sights that we’ll never be able to unsee. So many attack ads that still haunt our dreams. So many memories that need purging. But maybe you’re just joining us today or something, and you have no idea what all the hubbub is about! For those of you who find yourself completely clueless, I’ve endeavored to recap the entire election season for you, in two videos, using notes I scribbled on one hundred index cards, and commentary pulled from my ass on the fly.

In Part One, we move from me not remembering Bill Richardson’s name (in the moment, I swear, I thought his first name was Dennis), to the pundit’s early predictions, to John McCain’s primary victory, to the Math vs. Momentum deadlock that embroiled the Democratic race.

jason linkin’s recap of the election from elizabeth glover on Vimeo.

Continuing:

And, in Part Two, we roll from Obama’s primary victory to forsaken town halls, attack ads, conventions, veeps and debates, culminating in the emergence of the Great Destroyer, the Devourer Of Worlds, Satan’s Mongrel…a man that I like to call Joe The Plumber. NONE SHALL ESCAPE HIS CLUELESS, UNEMPLOYED WRATH OR HIS RECORD DEAL.

As you’ll see, reliving the entire past year gets pretty tiring near the end, but it still feels good to get all of this angst out of my system. I think you’ll enjoy it, too, for that reason!

Jason Linkin’s recap on campaign part 2.

As an added bonus, Liz Glover took this photograph of me setting up the camera for the shoot :-)

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Video of my vote at Precinct #137 in Washington, DC
|| || 3:01 pm || Comments Off on Video of my vote at Precinct #137 in Washington, DC || ||

Voting at Precinct #137 in Washington, DC from Nikolas Schiller on Vimeo.

I’ll be back later and add details to this entry. Fast forward to about 4:30 to watch me vote!

Spam from presidential candidate John McCain: Make History Tomorrow
|| 11/3/2008 || 10:05 pm || 1 Comment Rendered || ||

Screen grab of Spam from John McCain - Make History Tomorrow

This entire election season I have not received any unsolicited e-mails from any presidential candidates or local candidates, until tonight. The image above is a screen grab of the e-mail that I received in my mailbox earlier tonight. Talk about last ditch effort. Below is a screen grab of the WHOIS search of the e-mail’s source:

While this can be spoofed by a mildly intelligent person, I have a feeling that this spam is legitimately from the campaign office of John McCain. It was sent to e-mail address listed on the right side of this blog, which is not an e-mail address I use for communication. This means that the e-mail address was harvested from a spider that was then sold to John McCain’s campaign. Nice job illegally contacting me, but I’m still going to make history tomorrow.

By clicking the “vote” link in the e-mail above the recipient is brought to this landing page:

To the unsuspecting visitor the forms that they are being asked to fill out look as though they would help them find their polling place. However, this might just be a covert means to gain voter registration information for future races. This type of clandestine data mining would definitely be considered “the double maverick.”

UPDATE: +5 Minutes
I decided to fill out the information with a fake name, supply the address of a vacant house on my block, and click the button. The resulting map did not load correctly on both Safari or Firefox. Well done!

UPDATE: 11:15pm
Others who are reporting that received spam:
â€¢ DailyKos user SoonerG: McCain Campaign Just Spammed Me
â€¢ McCain Camp Resorts to SPAM in the 11th Hour
â€¢ I just got a spam e-mail from McCain…

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New videos are up on the Huffington Post – Foreign Correspondents Edition
|| || 4:39 pm || Comments Off on New videos are up on the Huffington Post – Foreign Correspondents Edition || ||

As I noted before, Jason Linkins, Liz Glover, and I recorded some man-on-the-street interviews on Friday. I had suggested going to the White House to interview tourists and it turns out that we found quite a few foreigners to interview when we arrived. Of the five or so interviews that I recorded, I had the most fun recording with the dual interview (above) between Liz Glover & Polish television correspondent Paulina Drapala. I am told that Paulina’s interview aired last night on Polish television. If I’m able to get a copy of that version, I’ll post it here :-)

Marginally related: After the Washington Post article was published last year, I found that a Polish website started linking to my website. To this day, I still get about a visitor a month through that link.

Polish text from the website:

PoniÅ¼ej prezentujemy linki do rÃ³Å¼norodnych map. Znajdziecie tu mapy polskie i z caÅ‚ego Å›wiata. WiÄ™kszoÅ›Ä‡ map jest w jÄ™zyku angielskim, ale sÄ… rÃ³wnieÅ¼ mapy w jÄ™zyku polskim.
…
Nikolas Schiller – strona artysty, ktÃ³ry ze zdjÄ™Ä‡ satelitarnych tworzy dzieÅ‚a – strona w jÄ™zyku angielskim

Translated text:

Here we present links to a variety of maps. Here you will find maps of Poland and all over the world. Most are maps are in English, but some are in Polish.
…
Nikolas Schiller – an artist who creates the work of satellite photos – page in English

[note: I rarely use satellite imagery due to copyright restrictions. Most of the imagery on this website is derived from aerial photographs that were placed into the public domain.]

Bird’s Eye View of Little Diomede, Alaska
|| 11/2/2008 || 4:38 pm || Comments Off on Bird’s Eye View of Little Diomede, Alaska || ||

The other day I found this photograph above on a friend’s Facebook page. The photograph was taken from an airplane while the friend was traveling Alaska on behalf of their job in the American government. Around the time current Republican vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, made a gaff about being able to see Russia from Alaska, I remembered how there was only one spot in America where this was the case and it just so happened that my friend had recently been there.

Known as the Diomede Islands in America or the Gvozdev Islands in Russia, the two islands are only split by about 4 kilometers. What I’ve always thought was interesting is that the houses on Little Diomede (above) face tomorrow. Due to the placement of the International Date Line, the Russian side is one of the first territories to start the day. This means folks on Big Diomede can also see yesterday.

NASA satellite image of the Diomede Islands

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The Washington Minarat – A poorly designed public service advertisement currently on Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority buses
|| 11/1/2008 || 5:06 pm || Comments Off on The Washington Minarat – A poorly designed public service advertisement currently on Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority buses || ||

Jason Linkins admonishing the poorly designed advertisement

Friday afternoon I went with Liz Glover to the Huffington Post’s DC office to shoot a video with Jason Linkins. When we were done filming indoors, we went outside and shot some humorous man-on-the-street interviews around the White House. On the way back to the office, I spotted the advertisement above on the side of the WMATA bus and decided take a few photos.

Now I had read about a similar public awareness campaign related to rat abatement that compared DC to an unnamed metropolis, but this graphic takes the hilarity to a new level.

Photograph of the left side of the graphic

1) All praise the holy rat sun! After all, 2008 is the Year of the Rat! The rat is associated with aggression, wealth, charm, and order, yet also associated with death, war, the occult, pestilence, and atrocities. The rat’s sun will set January 25th, 2009, but I suspect they’ll stick around for the Ox.

2) Behold the Washington Minarat! Shaped similar to a campanile, there is a curious minaret to the left of the mighty sun rat. When did the Washington Monument transform itself into a part of a mosque? Did the graphic designer purposely exclude the Washington Monument? If the designer was trying to imitate the campanile at the Basilica Of The National Shrine Of The Immaculate Conception they did a very very poor job. Maybe they were mocking the war in Iraq? The first minaret was constructed in 665 in Basra, Iraq during the reign of the Umayyad caliph Muawiyah I.

3) Height restrictions are the answer! The reality is that the skyline of Wahsington, DC is mostly uniform without any building being taller the width of the street, plus twenty feet. This means that the varied skyline in the advertisement above does not represent Washington, DC, but most likely another unnamed metropolis.

Not photographed bonus advertisement on the back of the bus was a parody of the Got Milk? campaign, which asked the viewer “Got Syphilis?”

Later in the evening I went to a friend’s house who happened to have a fake rat. I decided to take a photo of the pointy kitty sitting on my leg. Some day I’d love to take that fake rat and add a small remote control car to the underside of it in order to create a rat than can “run” around.

Hey look theres a pointy kitty on my leg

Anyways, expect the interviews we filmed to be on-line shortly and in the meantime watch out for the rats.

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Nikolas Schiller is a second-class American citizen living in America's last colony, Washington, DC. This blog is my on-line repository of what I have created or found on-line since May of 2004. If you have any questions or comments, please contact: