These include David Filo (founder of Yahoo), Chuck Geschke (founder of Adobe Systems), John Morgridge (former CEO of Cisco), Jack Dorsey (chairman of Twitter), Sheryl Sandberg (COO, Facebook), Michael Moritz (Sequoia Capital) and many others.

While defeating Proposition 8 is important — I will be voting no — I’d love to see Silicon Valley get equally behind Proposition 1A (the one to create a California high-speed rail system) with a similar public promotion campaign; after all, the Merc endorsed it. Further, the Bay Area Council Economic Institute recently authored a study arguing that the rail system will create nearly 50,000 permanent jobs in the Bay Area alone and over 100,000 during the construction period.

Another tech-related ballot measure, Proposition 7, which would mandate government-owned utilities to generate 20 percent of their electricity from renewable energy by 2010, and then to 40 percent by 2020 and 50 percent by 2025, is being opposed by local newspapers and the Union of Concerned Scientists, and many renewable energy companies. The state Democratic and Republican parties are against it as well, as is the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Why?

Reports the Christian Science Monitor:

Prop. 7 is a dangerous anomaly, say several key observers, because it is well meaning, but incompetently written.

“This was put together by a firm with no experience in this industry with political consultants whose only focus was to write a title and summary that made it appealing to voters,” says V. John White, director of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies, a nonprofit research and advocacy group in Sacramento.

“This is a very complicated initiative on top of existing state law which is not meeting its goals because of flaws,” says Mr. White. “They should have asked for help and didn’t. They made several unintentional mistakes because of the way they drafted it.”

In short — my endorsements? Yes on Proposition 1A, no on 7 and 8.

[Hat tip: Farhad Manjoo]

In  flipping through the site, I saw a few ideas I like: “light manipulating LCD screen to give a clear image in all light environment,” or a LowJack PC. But some of the ideas are a bit out-there, like a laptop with a built-in scanner and photo printer. Neat, but honestly, how practical (not to mention expensive) would a computer like this actually be?

I guess my gut reaction is that with so many in the crowd contributing ideas, wouldn’t this quickly turn into the hardware version of too many cooks in the kitchen? I can foresee how this could easily turn into the Dr. Frankenstein computer, with weird features and appendages that cost $5,000 — something that no one wants, and no one would buy. In other words, this machine could be the exact opposite of any Apple computer.

To be sure, I checked in with my buddy David Cohn, a cheerleader for crowdsourcing, and the founder of Spot.us, an upcoming crowd-funded journalism site.

“There are some things you don’t want crowdsourced,” he admitted in an IM interview.

“Brain surgery, for example — if I’m going to have brain surgery done to me, I’d prefer a single doctor over a roomful of smart people any day of the week. Same with flying a plane: I’ll take the pilot. It’s hard to know what things require experts and what can benefit from crowdsourcing — because without a doubt the crowd does do some things better. Design can be one of them — but I think in the end you need somebody at the steering wheel. It’s hard to tell what the organization of this will be like from the press release. If they go with an InnoCentive model — all suggestions welcome, but only one solution is picked — then it’ll work.”

Indeed, that seems to be the approach this contest is taking. Intel and Asus say there will be prizes “announced at a later date.”

Still, I’m curious to see if any of these crowdsourced machines will actually get built and will sell in any respectable quantity.

[via John Battelle's Searchblog]

While it’s pretty clear how this is useful in a business-type situation, I don’t think I’ll be transitioning to using entirely Web-based apps anytime soon. Heck, even with Gmail around, I still prefer to download my e-mail the old-fashioned way, using a POP3 mail client (I roll with Thunderbird). And I’ll keep doing my writing in a similar fashion, pounding out my words on a no-frills text editor to just get my words out onto the page, and in Microsoft Word for serious formatting, line editing and spell checking.

The thing about using offline programs that don’t require a network connection to maintain is that they’re responsive and easy to use. I can be anywhere and draft an e-mail, just like I can be anywhere and put words to a screen. I don’t have to worry about whether other people on the network I’m using are hogging all the bandwidth by downloading BitTorrent files. Even in the age of Internet access from just about every corner of the country, not to mention the globe (I’m blogging this week from a rural village in Corsica), there are still places and moments when you have a slow connection at best, or none at all. Using Gmail on a slow connection is simply painful. Trying to edit a large document in a similar environment will be too.

Further, your computer (or heck, your iPhone) has much more power — because there’s only one person using it at a time (you) — than any cloud-based service ever will. The response time between my keyboard and my text editor will always be faster than the response time between my keyboard, Google Docs and its servers and then back to my eyeballs.

Plus, I want control of my data, e-mails and documents alike. I want to be responsible for them, and despite Google’s best intentions, don’t want my messages subject to subpoena. My e-mails stay on my computer, and I’m the only one who has access to it, and that’s just how I like it.

Its backers are a substantial group of academics (Harvard, Berkeley, USC), other nongovernmental organizations (Committee to Protect Journalists, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Human Rights Watch), only three tech companies (Yahoo, Google, Microsoft), a couple of financial companies (Calvert Group, Trillium Asset Management) and a few wild cards like Rebecca MacKinnon (a longtime China Internet watcher) and the U.N. Special Representative to the Secretary-General on Business and Human Rights, who only has observer status.

According to its Web site, this “multi-stakeholder group” spent two years coming up with a “collaborative approach to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy in the ICT sector.” Now, I don’t mean to piss on anyone’s parade, but I’ve spent the better part of an hour going through the organization’s documents, and I still don’t get how exactly this organization is supposed to help anyone in countries where these kinds of things matter — namely, China.

I mean, OK, it’s good to start somewhere and try to make something like this work, but this entire approach strikes me as a bit naive and ultimately, unattainable.

OK, first things first. There’s way to many uses of the word “should” in the list of principles.

Example: “The right to freedom of expression should not be restricted by governments, except in narrowly defined circumstances based on internationally recognized laws or standards.”

Or: ”The right to privacy should not be restricted by governments, except in narrowly defined circumstances based on internationally recognized laws and standards. These restrictions should be consistent with international human rights laws and standards, the rule of law and be necessary and proportionate for the relevant purpose.”

I’m sure all these dudes don’t need me to tell them that in the countries that we’re talking about (China, we’re looking at you), the right to privacy and freedom of expression is restricted. Frequently. It doesn’t matter whether it ought to be or not, the fact of the matter is that, well, it is.

We’ve seen time after time that companies are willing (reluctantly or not) to bend to the demands of Chinese authorities. In 2004, a Chinese journalist, Shi Tao, was imprisoned because Yahoo decided to turn over details about his online activity on Yahoo Mail. In 2005, Microsoft built in censorship of certain words and phrases into its Chinese version of MSN Spaces, a blogging service. Google created a censored version of its localized search engine, Google.cn. in 2006. More recently we’ve seen other companies (Skype, for instance) release censored versions of their products, only to find that it got a bit out of hand.

So why should we believe that these companies won’t continue their practices to best serve their corporate interests ahead of human rights and privacy interests now when they wouldn’t do it before? It’s pretty clear that these companies believe — either for human rights reasons or for business reasons (or both) — that being in China with restricted access is better than nothing, and if they have to invade people’s privacy or prevent them from doing certain things online, so be it.

Second, again, while this initiative is certainly well meaning, it seems like it’s far easier for these companies to pay lip service to promoting human rights than actually doing something. After all, the Web site itself states that each of the three participating companies has to contribute only $100,000 per year for the first two years to fund the initial work of this organization. That’s chump change. If this organization actually meant something, certainly they could commit a bit more than that, no?

Finally, there appears to be no penalty or enforcement mechanism to punish companies like Yahoo, Microsoft and Google if they violate these principles, once the lengthy investigation and evaluation process concludes.

As the site states:

After evaluating a summary of the independent assessors’ reports and the companies’ responses, the Board of the Organization will again publish its annual report assessing each participating company’s compliance with the Principles, describing its findings, matters learned, compliance challenges, impact on freedom of expression and privacy, and its path forward.

Pretty much all of these reports will likely read something like the Google defense: “Company X is committed to protecting the rights of its users, and while Country Y may be engaging in this oppressive practice, we believe that we are doing what we can to support human rights in that country by delivering our services.”

I’d gladly bet that we’re never going to see any of these companies stand up to China, face restricted market access or threaten to pull up its stakes entirely — largely because they have no leverage over China, even collectively. Which of these companies is actually going to boycott China? None of them. Google is already way behind Baidu in China. Microsoft’s products are freely pirated, despite its latest antipiracy efforts, which China isn’t happy about. And Yahoo — does it even matter anymore?

Can I vote early?

Right below the result telling you by when you were supposed to register will be a link to your local office telling you if and where you can vote early in your area.

Do I need a photo I.D.?

The short version is: It depends. Best to check on the site of the National Conference of State Legislatures beforehand. Some states (Florida, Hawaii) request a photo I.D.; some require one (Alabama, Texas, Washington), and others don’t (California, Oregon, New York).

Should I bring anything else?

You may want to print out a Voter Empowerment Card from the ACLU for your region or state, which will tell you what your rights are and whom to contact if you have problems.

Where is my polling place?

Google has the easiest interface for figuring out one’s polling place I’ve seen so far. Simply type in your address to find where your polling place is. Oddly, if you live at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. (that’s the White House), you’re supposed to go vote at George Washington University, a few blocks away.

If I have problems voting, what should I do?

Again, it depends. ProtectMyVote.org says that if “election officials can’t find your name when you go to vote, ask for a ‘provisional’ ballot. The poll worker must give you one under the law. Voting by provisional ballot is not as good as voting absentee or on a machine, however.”

The Election Protection Wiki (“Citizens tracking voter suppression and election integrity”) provides a helpful video with instructions for reporting incidents of voter suppression, including misinformation (e.g., telling voters in Broward County, Fla., that they could vote by phone) and improper application of elections law (e.g., improper I.D. checks in Georgia).

If I have problems with an electronic voting machine, what should I do?

Inform a poll worker: Alert him or her of the problem and request a paper ballot. Some states will even let you vote on a paper ballot if you request one to begin with. Also, be sure to alert people waiting in line which machine you had a problem with.

How do I document issues that I have while voting?

Video the Vote — which has been around since 2006 — has become one of the preeminent sites for documenting the process of voting.

That said, some of the videos thus far don’t show anything that meaningful — like this shaky, windy video of somebody dropping off an absentee ballot off in a mailbox.

There’s a related channel, Video Your Vote, on YouTube.

Wired is also taking complaints and plotting them on a map, here.

How can I monitor what problems others are having?

Sites:

BradBlog.com — News on electronic voting machine mishaps

Wired Threat Level — Great reporting by Kim Zetter who has covered e-voting for many years

Black Box Voting

Twitter: votereport and 866OURVOTE

Phone: 1-866-MYVOTE-1, or CNN’s 1-877-GO-CNN-08. Others include 1-866-OUR-VOTE and 1-888-VOTE-TIP (for fraud reports).