Slashdot Mirror
What the Candidates are Running
An anonymous reader writes "
Linux Journal has an article about what the presidential candidates are running their web sites on. It also has some reference to the Republican vs. Democrat uptimes.
"
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
The Army reading list
There was an interesting piece on NPR the other day about Howard Dean and how he's actually a technophone - doesn't like computers much. Ironic because his online fund raising is stellar. They said the most tech-savvy candidate is Lieberman, who can't do without his BlackBerry. Apparently Al Gore introduced Lieb to all the gadgets that let him keep in touch with people.
While waiting for the article to crawl out from under the Slashdotting, here's an aside I thought was interesting: a recent article talking about Howard Dean's succesful use of the Internet for fundraising noted that perhaps the first candidate to use that method successfully was -- that Judge Roy Whatever in Alabama with the 10 Commandments statue in his courtroom.
Not someone I would have picked as a high-tech visionary, although he obviously is pretty shrewd about media manipulation.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
One interesting thing is the Libertarian Party is the only semi-mainstream media or political entity I've seen that signs (at least some) of its press releases with PGP.
Greens: apache on linux
Libertarians: apache on freebsd
Communists: apache on linux
Socialists: apache on linux
Lest you want to draw unwarranted conclusions:
Halliburton: apache on linux
Tobacco.org: apache on freebsd
Whitehouse.gov: apache on linux
Oddly...
ATF: netscape on solaris
US Army: webstar on OSX
whitehouse.com: IIS on linux (so netcraft claims!!)
fun fun fun...
Linux Journal: Apache on Linux
Uptime: Down faster than a drunken cheerleader on prom night
George W Bush: IIS on Windows 2000
Uptime: Still going!
HTH HAND!
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
Well, my impression is that a lot of techies and scientists like to apply logic & rationality to solving problems for the greater good, so they might be naturally inclined toward a political party which is supposedly "populist", or for the people. (Whether or not the Democratic leadership is honestly working for the general populace would probably be a good argument that their public relations people should pay close attention to.)
Also, as professionals whose standard of living is directly related to how hard they work, they probably feel a little closer to the "working-class" folks than someone who either inherited a lot of money or who got a lot of money through luck in business or some similar situation.
Of course, professionals like techies & scientists don't make the best followers - they're _trained_ to question things, debate, analyze things, etc. You can't really tell people like that what to do, and expect them to do it - you have to _persuade_ them that your viewpoint is the correct one, and that takes time & effort.
Flamebait on: By contrast, a lot of high-profile "conservatives" like to apply faith and demagoguery(sp?) to making themselves and people like themselves richer and more powerful. I doubt this is representative of members of the Republican Party as a whole, since I know a lot of self-professed Republicans who seem to be decent people, but for some reason they seem to be led around by the nose by those same conservative "leaders". Maybe that's why there's such an emphasis on "faith" - it makes it a lot easier for those conservative leaders when their followers have been conditioned to turn off their brains & blindly follow orders.