How to keep your political career

Some free, but useful advice on how to stay in politics.

12 things to avoid:

  1. Don’t take pictures of yourself naked.
  2. Don’t take pictures of your reproductive organs while wearing something tight/revealing.
  3. Don’t engage in sexually explicit conversations over the Internet or by text message.
  4. Don’t do anything remotely sexual with an underage person.
  5. Don’t have an affair in a foreign country and lie about it.
  6. Don’t have a relationship with a call girl.
  7. Don’t pay for a prostitute with a check.
  8. Don’t have an affair with someone who works for you.
  9. Don’t have an affair with someone who is married to someone who works for you.
  10. Don’t solicit strangers for sex in airport bathrooms.
  11. Don’t have illegitimate children and deny responsibility.
  12. Don’t make advances on the children of your donors.

If you do decide to ignore my advice and go ahead with any of these activities, then please pay attention to the following tips.

6 things that will make it worse:

  1. Campaign based on your squeaky clean image.
  2. Championing family values.
  3. Public and loud criticism of other people’s indiscretions.
  4. Anti-homosexual rhetoric, especially if you’re closeted.
  5. Covering up with hush money.
  6. Firing or threatening people who are involved.

And finally, when you are caught (and you will be), come clean as quickly and openly as possible. Learn how to shed a tear in public, but try not bawl. Look and sound sincere. Keep a low profile. Work hard. And then maybe, if your constituents feel like they have a connection with you, they’ll let you keep your job.

Posted on August 2nd, 2011 § 0 comments

Facebook vs. Twitter vs. Google+

There are plenty of things that are different among the services, but the fundamental difference is relationships and how they affect what people see.

Facebook: Friends are bi-directional relationships in which both sides have to agree to the relationship. In general, the things you post are viewable by all your friends, and show up in the News Feed if Facebook chooses to show it.

Twitter: Following is a unidirectional relationship in which only the follower needs to agree to the relationship (mostly). In general, the things you post are viewable by everyone, and show up on the Home page of your followers.

Google+: Circles are a unidirectional relationship in which the circle owner defines the relationship. The things you post publicly are viewable by everyone on the Internet, but show up on the Home page of people who put you in a circle. The things you post to one or more circles are viewable only by people in those circles, but again only show up on the Home page of people who put you in a circle. To further complicate things, you can add people to circles who are not Google+ users and opt to share things via email with them. Unlike Google+ users, they don’t have to opt in to get your posts.

So while Google+ superficially seems like a social network site akin to Facebook (it has profiles, friends, photos, sharing links/photos/whatever into the stream), the relationship model is much closer to Twitter’s. The question is whether real people will adopt Google+ with its targeted broadcasting model and full set of features over Twitter with its simple broadcasting model and lack of “clutter.”

All that said, it’s a little misguided to compare Google+ directly with Facebook or Twitter. A ubiquitous Google bar with notifications on Google, YouTube, Blogger, Gmail, Maps, News, Android, Chrome, etc. should go a long way toward increasing unique visitors and time spent across all Google properties.

Posted on July 8th, 2011 § 3 comments

Six Quick Tips for Mega Jump

Mega Jump is an awesome free game for iPhone and Android that I’ve been playing a lot lately. You’re basically a little critter that jumps and grabs coins. Each coin you grab boosts you vertically a little farther, and you try to keep jumping from coin to coin to keep going. Along the way you can get power-ups that will help you get coins, go higher, or protect you from harm.

Here are a few tips to get you started:

  • Don’t “tilt” the game. You’ll figure out what this means.
  • For every 100 coins you collect, you’ll get 10 MP which you can spend on stuff in the store.
  • Characters don’t have any special powers, so don’t buy them expecting any.
  • Power-up upgrades change the power-ups you find in the game, they’re not weapons you can activate from your inventory.
  • Upgrade the magnet power-ups first. They’ll help you get coins faster, which means you’ll be able to upgrade the other power-ups faster.
  • Enter my mega code 6vgk7 to get 500 MP right from the start. Full disclosure: I’ll get 500 MP, too.

What are you waiting for? Download it now from the iPhone App Store and Android Market.

Posted on June 17th, 2011 § 0 comments

The Bigger Bubble

Recently I’ve been mulling over housing prices and I think it’s entirely possible that we’re in for further decreases in home prices. I could be wrong, but let me throw this out there and see what people say.

In the current political climate, with all the emphasis on having less government intervention, lower government spending, and lower deficits, we could see big reductions in, or the elimination of:

  • The secondary mortgage market as defined by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
  • The mortgage interest tax deduction

If this happens, there will be big drops in housing prices. I don’t see a free market coming up with the 30-year fixed-rate no-prepayment-penalty loan. Instead we’ll see shorter terms, higher rates, or much greater fees, which will in turn reduce the number of potential buyers. Especially when borrowers can no longer pretend that the interest rate deduction somehow makes the monthly payment “not much more than rent.”

So what do you think? Will Congress actually man up and kill Fannie, Freddie, and the interest deduction in the name of free markets and responsible governance, or will they continue to pander to the home-owning public and bolster the status quo?

Posted on June 15th, 2011 § 0 comments

Google and Apple are growing the pie

From February 2010 to March 2011, the Blackberry went from 42.1% market share to 27.1% market share. But when you look at the chart, it’s clear that this is mostly due to new smart phone users opting to go for Android and iPhone. Those devices grew by 28m users combined while the overall smart phone market grew by 27.1m users. Still, the fact that RIM can’t get any new Blackberry users is a clear sign that they’re in trouble.

comScore press releases

Update 7/5/2011:

Here’s a Google Chart with some updated numbers.

Click through to view the full-size version.

Posted on May 7th, 2011 § 0 comments

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