The underlying model and algorithms for The Political Machine are pretty good. Ultimately, the model is a mishmash of polling data from dozens of sources combined with demographic data. What, I think makes The Political Machine special is that it makes heavy use of demographic data rather than just looking at polls. What that means, fundamentally, is that at the end of the day, conservatives tend to vote for Republicans and liberals tend to vote for Democrats and once you understand that, it's really a matter of turn out on both sides. There really aren't nearly as many "independents" as are sometimes claimed. Independents tend to be conservative or liberal in their views and as such, they tend, on a macro-scale, to vote one way or the other consistently enough to model with some degree of accuracy.

And that's bad new for Bush. Because barring a miracle, Bush has already lost. Not by much but the issue is electorally.  We've run the simulation countless times in house and we come up with different results:

 

First of all, there really aren't that many toss-up states.  The media has states like Michigan and Wisconsin and Washington State and Oregon as toss-ups. The only possible way they're toss-ups is if Ralph Nader is able to get a significant share of the vote. But even there, people who think Nader is going to get 6% of the vote aren't realizing the infrastructure involved in getting onto the ballots in all the states and maintaining some semblance of momentum.

So who should be Kerry's Vice Presidential pick? If he's smart, he'll pick Richard Gephardt. By bringing him in, he gets Missouri and probably Iowa (our model doesn't yet handle the VP pick effect very well). So write this prediction down so that if we're right we can be oowed and awed appropriately:

Without Gephardt VP choice:

Kerry 279 / Bush 259

With Gephardt VP choice:

Kerry 290 / Bush 248

Now, you say to yourself, how can you be so sure? We're not. We're confident we'll be close but there are a few real toss-ups in which the events between now and election day will matter. Here are the real toss-up states:

1. Ohio
2. Missouri
3. Iowa
4. West Virginia

Bush has to win all of these to win. Barely.

States that COULD become toss-up states based on events:

1. New Mexico
2. Arkansas
3. Wisconsin

Bill Richardson as a VP pick could shore up NM if something causes it to be a toss-up, but that's unlikely. General Clark could bring Arkansas into play.

Some pollsters have said that some blue states have become "purple".  I'd like to know which ones they think are purple now. I can't think of any blue states that have softened since 2000. Wisconsin? Possibly. But only if Nader becomes a major factor there again. We do think Florida will be much more solid for Bush this time, for what it's worth.

But go ahead and look at the map above, which states do you think Bush will win that we're wrong about?

We'll keep making predictions, after all, what good are computer models for? And you can then check the accuracy after the election to see how well we did.

With the GUI Olympics well on its way, if you want to make YOUR desktop be able to use these cool skins and themes, WindowBlinds 4.3 is now available!

WindowBlinds is a program that lets you change the look and feel of the entire Windows GUI. If you're running Windows XP, it has some significant advantages over the including skinning features such as the ability to skin non-theme aware apps. It can skin a lot more controls (log off, toolbar icons, progress animations, command prompts, etc.) and has a host of extensibility features that can improve productivity.

You can download WindowBlinds at http://www.windowblinds.net

Here is a blog that highlights some of the features of WindowBlinds, many of which you may not have heard of before. WindowBlinds 4.3 Microsoft Certified for Windows XP, 2000, ME, and 98!

Here's a great article I found that really talks about just how absurd the situation is where people go from one day feeling great anguish about the abuse of POWs to the next day wanting to "turn the whole place into a parking lot" due to changes in events.

The fact is, there are villains in any military or any organization. But there are also real monsters out there. Some people villify the United States. But what they don't seem to recognize is that there are real monsters that lurk out there ready to do things that most people can't even begin to imagine.

In some discussions I've seen people say "Well yea, but that was the past..."  Some of the most monstrous atrocities in human history are within our lifetimes. The 21st century doesn't mark the end of history. It's just a continuation of it where monsters continue to try to get ahold of deadlier and deadlier means to reach their bloody ends.

That those fighting the monsters have villains lurking in their ranks doesn't change what they are fighting. What we need, however, is for people to get some perspective. Some context. That we can't have an emotion-drive policy.  We can no more just free all the Iraqi prisoners and abandon Iraq unilaterally than we can simply get mad and start "nuking" our enemies (real or imagined).

Check out the article for a much more intelligent analysis than I can do.

The first week of the GUI Olympics is now over. And the winners have been announced. Check out the link to see who won what! Congratulations to all the winners!

The 2004 GUI Olympics

Results: WEEK 1

EVENT: Most Minimalistic Visual Style

This is for the visual style that is best suited for those users who want to minimize screen space while having their system look nicer than using Windows classic. And the winners are:

1st place: Author: Erik Holmer Team: SkinPlant Skin: Kewk - HoE

2nd place: Author: b0se Team: deviantART Skin: Opulence

3rd place: Author: Treetog Team: Pixtudio Skin: Mini OS

EVENT: Best Power User Skin

This is for the visual style that is designed to increase the user's productivity while making their system more aesthetically pleasing. The winners are:

1st place: Author: Treetog Team: Pixtudio Skin: Antares

2nd place: Author: MikeB Team: SkinPlant Skin: Quasar

3rd place: Author: Gabriel Team: SkinPlant Skin: FM

Why would you want to use a program to skin Windows? It turns out that WindowBlinds can do a lot more than just make Windows look pretty. It gives you much finer control over the actual GUI and how it works than most people realize.

Check out this article to see some of the highlights of WindowBlinds.

Some interesting stuff over at VodkaPundit.

The British invented the concentration camp, as a way of dealing with enemy women and children during the Boer Wars. Germany invented the industrial death factory. France invented the modern subjugation of Arab lands by Western powers. Are these the reasons why Europeans are screaming so loudly today about "mere" (by their own inventive standards) psychological abuse?

The first court-martial for abuse of Iraqi prisoners will begin in less than two weeks. The Nuremburg Trials took less than two years to convene. Already, some are calling for the removal (if not impeachment) of President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Why, almost 50 years after far worse atrocities in Algeria, has France still not put Charles de Gaulle on trial?

In fact, France let de Gaulle create and lead the Fifth Republic. Given the situation in Algeria, why?

 

Read the whole thing.

WindowBlinds 4.3 got released today.  So what is WindowBlinds? Why would you want to use it?

WindowBlinds is a program that lets you change the look and feel of your Windows GUI. What does that mean?

WindowBlinds can change (for starters):

• Title bars
• Borders
• Title bar buttons
• Title bar button positions
• Add extra title bar buttons (roll-up, always on top, MP3 controls, clocks, whatever)
• Border sizes
• Push buttons
• Radio buttons
• Check boxes
• The Start bar
• The Start menu
• Scrollbars
• Toolbar icons
• Progress bars
• Progress Animations
• Task panel (explorer tasks)
• And much more!

If you're running Windows 98, ME, or 2000, it's the only program that can do this.  If you're running Windows XP, XP comes with its own "skinning technology" that is essentially a derivative of WindowBlinds called UXTheme.  Microsoft includes 3 skins with it (which we call visual styles). Blue, Olive, and Green.  Microsoft has released a few additional visual styles since Windows XP's release:

1. Air Combat
2. Age of Mythology
3. XBox

All three of these use WindowBlinds.  Some people have added more visual styles by cracking their digital signing protection in uxtheme.dll. Some programs do this on disk and others in memory. But with WindowBlinds 4.3, and SkinStudio, you can import .msstyles files into WindowBlinds without having to hack any of your system files.

So what are some of the specific niceties of WindowBlinds?

Here's a few quick reasons to use WindowBlinds:

It really can skin pretty much every part of Windows.

 

This is a big deal to me: You can set what double clicking or right-clicking on the title bar will do. This is a huge time saver.

You can change the color of your skins on the fly.

WindowBlinds, unlike Windows XP on its own, can skin "non-theme aware" programs. Most programs aren't theme aware so you end up having a system that looks partially like XP and partially like Windows 95. The ONLY way to make Windows XP consistently look like Windows XP is with WindowBlinds.

WindowBlinds can change progress animations. The progress animations in Windows are the same as they've been for the past 10 years.

Toolbar icons can be changed in WindowBlinds.

 

These are just some of the reasons to get WindowBlinds. And what's really nice is that with WindowBlinds 4.3, it's actually faster than the built in visual styles because of hardware acceleration.

You can try it for yourself at www.windowblinds.net

 

WindowBlinds 4.3 is now available. WindowBlinds is the world's most popular desktop enhancement program. It lets you completely change the look and feel of the Windows GUI.  That includes the title bars, push buttons, radio buttons, Start bar, task panel, scrollbars, and virtually every other element of the Windows GUI. It can also replace toolbar icons and the progress animations.

It runs on Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows ME, or Windows 98.  If you have an ATI Radeon or nVidia Geforce card, WindowBlinds can make use of the extra video RAM on your card (normally used in games) to vastly speed up video drawing of the Windows GUI resulting in greater performance. 

WindowBlinds 4.3 adds support for HyperConvert natively (enables it to import .msstyles files converted via SkinStudio). Now supports limited users, smarter detection of non-theme aware programs, uses less memory, per-pixel alpha blending support in title bar controls, transition morphing, and much more.

WindowBlinds is available stand alone on its website (www.windowblinds.net) as well as part of Stardock's Object Desktop (www.objectdesktop.com) which is a suite of desktop enhancement programs that recently won PC Magazine's Editor's Choice Award for best Windows utility.

WindowBlinds is Microsoft certified and has been licensed to add more visual styles for Windows XP by Microsoft, Nintendo, ATI, nVidia, and countless other companies.

A free download is available at www.windowblinds.net

 

The most creative Winamp skin is now up. Which of the Winamp skins do you believe to be the most creative?