BEST OVERALL icon package along with the user vote! Tell us which icon package you felt was the best one of them all!

Tonight I'll be on CNBC's "Bullseye" show.  It's on at 6pm EST (my segment will be on around 6:30).  I'll be driving into Detroit for the satellite hook up. 

With the political season ramping up, it's going to be pretty exciting to see how things turn out. Things are so close and could go either way. Perfect timing for the game. 

The Political Machine is a strategy game in which players take on the role of a campaign manager of a US presidential candidate.  Players must raise money, take out advertisements, win endorsements and appear on popular TV news shows to answer tough questions about today’s most pressing issues. 

 

What we really like about The Political Machine is that it will encourage more people to learn about American presidential politics. The candidates really are different and their positions on the issues are based on principle even if their opponents don't necessarily agree.

 

The game tries to reflect the real issues people are facing. The game's model isn't poll-driven but instead issue driven which has delivered a remarkably accurate model for the electorate.

 

Now, where did I put that suit...

Now's the time to add your voice in. The BEST overall Winamp skin will soon be decided by the judges and then a User's choice award for best Winamp skin will be coming up as well! Let us know what 5 Winamp skins you think are the tops in order!

The Political Machine's statistical model is not poll based. When we designed it, we concluded that since ultimately it's a video game, we should only concern ourselves with the macro-based statistics.  That meant not worrying about day to day fluctuations in polls. Instead, the goal was to use data (political party registrations, exit polling, census data, etc.) that was publicly available to get a clear understanding of the people who live in the states.

From there, we then look at the political issues of the day and determine, to best of our ability, how Democrats, Republicans, and Independents feel about a given issue. The Political Machine, hence, has an issue-driven model rather than a poll-driven model. Depending on what issues matter at the time of the snapshot, different candidates have different advantages. The model has an error factor of around +/- 3% and it cannot take into account with great precision the effect of advertisements, endorsements, speeches, TV interviews.  The Political Machine has all these things but our top priority was ensuring the game was fun and so the effect of those 3 things (ads, endorsements, interviews) has more to do on the "fun factor" than anything else.  But still, it does seem to display an interesting level of accuracy.

Of course, we're only in June and the issues still need to be tweaked between now and election day. Consider below:

June 2004 model (minus ad effects)

The census data in The Political Machine doesn't change. Instead, the evaluation of different issues change.  Move the economy slider down and Kerry does better. Bring up global tensions and Bush does better. Which issues will matter in November may be quite different than they are now.  But according to the model -- which again is not tweaked based on polling data beyond what the % of registered Democrats and Republicans are in a given state, it seems to roughly reflect the current polls -- Kerry has a 2% national lead over Bush according to the poll.  One should point out that third party candidates like Ralph Nader are not factored into here. But it is our view that Nader is not likely to have a significant impact anywhere other than perhaps Wisconsin.

If the election were held today, based on the issues as we evaluate them today, Kerry would win 305 to 233. The big state going against Bush right now that is on the edge is Ohio. Ohio could go either way and the economy has a lot to do with that along with a host of other factors that could slide one way or the other.  That said, typically our models favor the Democratic opponent.  Minus advertising, Republicans tend to be slightly behind. But in this election, the Republican candidate has a significant advantage in campaign funds (contrast that to Dole in 1996).

Here is one potential Bush victory path. Through effort in Wisconsin and Iowa and victory in Ohio, Bush manages to win by a mere 2 electoral votes.  However, that assumes Bush wins in West Virginia also.  In this scenario, the election is decided in Ohio and West Virgina with help from Wisconsin and Iowa.

Some polls shows Bush leads in Oregon and Michigan.  We don't claim our model is the end all be all predictor. It is, after all, a video game for consumers. But barring a strong third party candidate,  we don't see that happening.  Similarly, despite Mr. Ridge's position in the administration, Bush is not likely to win Pennsylvania.  Kerry should pick Gephardt as his running-mate as it gives Kerry his bet shot at picking up both Missouri and Iowa which, Bush needs to win at least one of them to win.  But candidates don't always pick who they should pick. Bush, for instance, picked Dick Cheney instead of Tom Ridge as his running mate which cost him Pennsylvania and led the way to the Florida debacle.

The states to keep an eye on are these:

1. Ohio

2. Wisconsin

3. West Virginia

4. Iowa

5. Missouri

6. Arizona

National polls are kind of interesting but not terribly useful because they tend to have a +/-2% to 3% level of error which, unless a candidate is able to have a definitely 2% lead, doesn't indicate who would actually win the election. What really matters is who is winning in these 6 states. Bush must win nearly all of these.

Election 2000 results.

The Political Machine's statistical model is not poll based. When we designed it, we concluded that since ultimately it's a video game, we should only concern ourselves with the macro-based statistics.  That meant not worrying about day to day fluctuations in polls. Instead, the goal was to use data (political party registrations, exit polling, census data, etc.) that was publicly available to get a clear understanding of the people who live in the states.

From there, we then look at the political issues of the day and determine, to best of our ability, how Democrats, Republicans, and Independents feel about a given issue. The Political Machine, hence, has an issue-driven model rather than a poll-driven model. Depending on what issues matter at the time of the snapshot, different candidates have different advantages. The model has an error factor of around +/- 3% and it cannot take into account with great precision the effect of advertisements, endorsements, speeches, TV interviews.  The Political Machine has all these things but our top priority was ensuring the game was fun and so the effect of those 3 things (ads, endorsements, interviews) has more to do on the "fun factor" than anything else.  But still, it does seem to display an interesting level of accuracy.

Of course, we're only in June and the issues still need to be tweaked between now and election day. Consider below:

June 2004 model (minus ad effects)

The census data in The Political Machine doesn't change. Instead, the evaluation of different issues change.  Move the economy slider down and Kerry does better. Bring up global tensions and Bush does better. Which issues will matter in November may be quite different than they are now.  But according to the model -- which again is not tweaked based on polling data beyond what the % of registered Democrats and Republicans are in a given state, it seems to roughly reflect the current polls -- Kerry has a 2% national lead over Bush according to the poll.  One should point out that third party candidates like Ralph Nader are not factored into here. But it is our view that Nader is not likely to have a significant impact anywhere other than perhaps Wisconsin.

If the election were held today, based on the issues as we evaluate them today, Kerry would win 305 to 233. The big state going against Bush right now that is on the edge is Ohio. Ohio could go either way and the economy has a lot to do with that along with a host of other factors that could slide one way or the other.  That said, typically our models favor the Democratic opponent.  Minus advertising, Republicans tend to be slightly behind. But in this election, the Republican candidate has a significant advantage in campaign funds (contrast that to Dole in 1996).

Here is one potential Bush victory path. Through effort in Wisconsin and Iowa and victory in Ohio, Bush manages to win by a mere 2 electoral votes.  However, that assumes Bush wins in West Virginia also.  In this scenario, the election is decided in Ohio and West Virgina with help from Wisconsin and Iowa.

Some polls shows Bush leads in Oregon and Michigan.  We don't claim our model is the end all be all predictor. It is, after all, a video game for consumers. But barring a strong third party candidate,  we don't see that happening.  Similarly, despite Mr. Ridge's position in the administration, Bush is not likely to win Pennsylvania.  Kerry should pick Gephardt as his running-mate as it gives Kerry his bet shot at picking up both Missouri and Iowa which, Bush needs to win at least one of them to win.  But candidates don't always pick who they should pick. Bush, for instance, picked Dick Cheney instead of Tom Ridge as his running mate which cost him Pennsylvania and led the way to the Florida debacle.

The states to keep an eye on are these:

1. Ohio

2. Wisconsin

3. West Virginia

4. Iowa

5. Missouri

6. Arizona

National polls are kind of interesting but not terribly useful because they tend to have a +/-2% to 3% level of error which, unless a candidate is able to have a definitely 2% lead, doesn't indicate who would actually win the election. What really matters is who is winning in these 6 states. Bush must win nearly all of these.

Election 2000 results.

The 4th week of the GUI Olympics has been completed. The GUI Olympics is an international user interface design contest featuring many of the best graphics designers from around the world competing in a series of user interface challenges.

This week saw the best OS user interface design (using Stardock's WindowBlinds) and best themed media player skin designed for Nullsoft's Winamp.

Visit here for the full results of this week.

 

The GUI Olympics is an inter-website user interface design contest to see who can come up with the best skins and icons for Windows. On the skins side in 2004, the tools are WindowBlinds (to skin the Windows GUI) and Winamp 5.  The icons are packaged with Stardock IconPackager.

 

Week 4 results:

EVENT: Best Pseudo-OS WindowBlinds visual style (skin that one could imagine coming with an alternative OS)

EVENT: Best Themed Winamp Skin (skin that sticks to a particular theme)

 

Week 3 results!

Event: WindowBlinds - Most creative visual style

Rank	Author	Skin
	MikeB314	Airlock
	essorant	Pixel 8
	^^Gabriel	G-Pod
	treetog	Antares
	danilloOC	Sektor

Event: IconPackager - Best themed (icons that fit a specific theme) icon package

Rank	Author	Skin
	treetog	Thunder Storm (Icons)
	volter15	Smile 3 ))
	farid nafar	HFN Sapphire

Event: WinAmp Pro - Most usable Winamp skin

Rank	Author	Skin
	Andrew Mackowski	EMP 2
	Anemovatis	AR7
	kriptoner	D-Reliction

Event: WindowBlinds - Best themed visual style (a visual style that fits a specific theme)

Rank	Author	Skin
	treetog	Thunder Storm WB
	- vf -	Alloy Bezel 4
	Scarebear	10pin
	EventHorizon	Mime

Event: IconPackager - Best Pseudo-OS icon package (an icon package that you could see coming with an operating system)

Rank	Author	Skin
	Miloszwl	d3A
	Leothar	Amdio
	Rokey	The Last Order

Event: WinAmp Pro - Best power user Winamp skin

Rank	Author	Skin
	Andrew Mackowski	EMP 2
	a-t-o-m-i-c	Impulse
	Muniom Designs	Resurgence

 

Coming up: The best OVERALL skins and icons!

Beta 4B of The Political Machine is now up with lots of bugs fixed, play balancing, and more interview questions.

PLEASE try this beta out and let us know how it's working for you! We are getting pretty close to going gold so we want to ensure that everything is working. We have done various things to the videos to see if we have improved video compatibility.

JoeUser.com is unique in the sense that it is, the first (and to my knowledge) only blog site that integrates all the blogs together into a single meta blog community. There are plenty of free blog sites out there. BlogSpot for example is vastly more popular than JoeUser.com is and in all likelyhood ever will be.

But JoeUser bloggers get a few key advantages:

Every site promotes every other active site/article/post.   The blogger on Blogspot or some other blog is not likely to have many people read what they write.  By contrast, a blogger on JoeUser.com is almost certain to get traffic as long as they write interesting (at least in terms of having an interesting title).

The home page of JoeUser.com represents a selection of blogs from all over the site. Right now these featured articles are chosen by me personally. Eventually, however, they will be chosen by the consensus of moderators and elite users through the "interesting/insightful" mechanism. That means that particularly well written blogs are more likely to be read.  Whereas, as many long time bloggers can tell you, many masterpieces languish. I know of many really great bloggers out there who write pages of outstanding content that are rarely read and rarely commented on. JoeUser.com takes care of that for the user. You write something really good and odds are it'll be read by thousands of people.

While JoeUser.com isn't anywhere near as popular as BlogSpot or other mega blog sites, because so many sites link to JoeUser itself that articles that show up on the side-bar for a time end up high in search engines. This isn't some fluke, this is how the search engines are supposed to operate.  Go onto say Google and type "last episode of friends" and see what happens. The articles people write her that do become popular end up popular on search engines.

But for all this coolness, it does create a bit of a moderation headache - where does the bloggers rights end and the site owners' begin? Where do the rights of the user end and the blogger's begin?

This is something we've had to struggle with. For example, if User A is abusive to User B on User C's blog, should the admins of the site intervene? This was a topic of much discussion and ultimately it was decided that yes, the admins SHOULD intervene but only because User C's article was on the forums and anything that is posted on the forum is subject to moderation. Therefore, if User C wants to have more control over what can and can't be commented in their blog, they simply need to not have their articles be posted to the forums (one of the posting options).

Bloggers get a set of important tools for control of their blogs:

1) They can control who can see their blogs through the audience feature.

2) They can control who can comment on their blog (no one, registered users, or everyone).

3) They can kill-file (black list) a given user who is making their blogging experience less pleasant.

As Admins, we are building up our tools so that we can take actions on different levels to maintain a certain level of civility on the site. Right now, our tools are still insufficient (I REALLY hate banning people for instance but I don't have many other tools at my disposal  yet).

But coming up we'll have the ability to Isolate users so that they can only post and respond on their own blogs and their articles won't be syndicated onto the right bar. That way, we don't have to "Ban" a long time blogger for being obnoxious.  We also will be implementing the Visitor feature which prevents the user from being able to comment on other people's blogs but can still write on their own and get what they write syndicated.

We are getting pretty close to "going gold" on JoeUser.com. (yes, we're still in BETA). At that point, the PR will begin and we'll hopefully see a great deal of new traffic come in. And then down the line we'll have premium features (storing images for showing pictures of family/friends, vastly greater site customization, easy archiving of your site to disk, etc. that'll have a nominal monthly fee ~$3 per month).

But that said, we expect to continue to struggle over what is and isn't aceptable behavior on the site. Once we have more admin tools, I expect things will become more flexible.

Happy blogging!