So I’m sitting here in Austin watching CNN and thinking exactly the same thing about Anderson Cooper.  Great minds.  I love what he said about not another hologram.

That’s hilarious!  They must think you’re watching at home and thinking, “Oooh! Magic!”.

I like how the faux hologram mover said that Baltimore was a “genuine urban environment.” Not that it isn’t. But that stretch the Amtrak does through Baltimore is ...let’s just say that most Americans seldom see that level of poverty.

He he…Solidad just said “...And it is a large but.”  He he.

In other news, I think David Gergen needs to dig up the corpse of old Ronnie Reagan and get a room and not come out until he no longer feels the need wank off to Reagan.

But that stretch the Amtrak does through Baltimore is

Train tracks always go through the worst part of town, regardless of the city, because you don’t want to have to sleep in apartment next to a railroad track if you can help it!

And let me just say its finally really nice to have both a President and Vice President who are from northern urban centers. I don’t think that has happened in a long time.

I’ve been on a bazillion trains, dude. Baltimore is not San Antonio.

But it’s Pandagon, so there’s always a “topper” around.

“because you don’t want to have to sleep in apartment next to a railroad track if you can help it!”

Plus, the land is cheaper and no one listens when the residents complain.

By the way, Anderson Cooper is going to probably die with a look on his face that says, “I can’t believe I have to spend my time with such idiots.”

I think Cooper’s appearances on The Daily Show are his way of staving off this outcome.

On election night we watched the BBC (the kind you get in America) and they were full of pretend manipulation of holograms.  They would “touch” states and that state would zoom forward and then “touch” counties.  Sometimes they’d miss wildly and yet the right state or county would always come up.  We laughed a lot.

Then a couple weeks later the James Bond movie came out and they had very similar effects when they were discussing stuff in the super secret war room or whatever.  It must be a new fad.

I mean, it’s obvious the “holograms” are a greenscreen effect, but is it really that hard to build a front-end using a large touchscreen?

Denise: Yes. Multi-touch-sensitive screens are pretty much the Next Big Thing in interfaces at the moment, with both Apple (iPod Touch and iPhone) and Microsoft (“Surface”) pushing them pretty heavily. The fact that CNN is faking it is a pretty sad phoenomenon… I actually thought Microsoft had scored a bit of a coup in selling CNN an early “Surface” based system.

Personally, I love the idea. It works great on the iPhone, the Surface concepts for actual usability are pretty impressive, and I really want the functionality of a Wacom Cintiq without spending enough to buy a second computer just for a graphics tablet.

So that’s what that look is! And here I always thought it was Blue Steel.