8 ms·

When the Nerds Go Marching In

176 points by boh 14y ago

mattdeboard 14y ago
Look at those beards! Obama was destined to win, flown to victory on the billowing gray beards of ... something. Justice? The internet?
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  Beards got Obama re-elected, that's all I need to know.
  - jeffbarr 14y ago
    Indeed: http://media.amazonwebservices.com/blog/bearded_geeks_for_obama_1.png http://media.amazonwebservices.com/blog/bearded_geeks_for_ob...
activepeanut 14y ago
The team had elite and, for tech, senior talent from Twitter, Google, Facebook, Craigslist, Quora, and some of Chicago's own software companies such as Orbitz and Threadless 21st century SWAT team.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  More like 21st century P.R./Campaign team; the equivalent of the urban canvassers that put up posters and such. "21st century SWAT team" is a title I pray some secret division in the NSA is currently earning.
- olgeni 14y ago
  "Also, a lawyer from Apple quietly checked that all the rectangles in the room were just as rectangular as they could be allowed, but not more."
vampirechicken 14y ago
So am I the only person seeing a Democrats (Big Goverment services) way of doing things vs a Republicans (multiple layers of crony capitalists contractors) in the comparison of the efficacy of Narwhal Vs Orca? I can't be the only one?
- mikebike 14y ago
  Orca wasn't built by contractors, it was written in-house by Romney staffers and volunteers. See: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/which-consultants-built-romneys-project-orca-none-of-them/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/which-...
  - woodhull 14y ago
    Orca and systems like it are also not particularly relevant to electoral outcomes, compared to all of the other things that campaigns use/build.
    - gyardley 14y ago
      No kidding - ORCA should've been miles down the priority queue. That tens of thousands of election-day volunteers were wasted on it when they could've been doing more essential things is infuriating. The Romney campaign didn't build the right thing wrong - instead, they built the completely wrong thing, which is doubly damning.
- roc 14y ago
  Didn't the latest Ars article suggest Orca wasn't a contractor concoction after all? [1] I think all we really see, is that the Obama campaign had experience and no primary campaign distractions. The Obama campaign had a v1 in 2008 and were merely updating it for 2012. Yes, they had to figure in mobile and the enhanced scale of the problem, but they were starting from a significantly better place than the GOP, who were caught completely flat-footed on technology in 2008. The Obama campaign also had a (comparatively) leisurely opportunity to implement and refine their system while the Republican primary battles raged on and any one potential GOP candidate was denied the money/focus to start the development of a national campaign tool. [1] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/which-consultants-built-romneys-project-orca-none-of-them/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/which-...
fmitchell0 14y ago
Two key quotes: It was like someone had written a Murphy's Law algorithm and deployed it at scale. and ...with technical people, it's one thing to look at their resumes and another to see how they are viewed among their peers Test.Test.Test.Test. Don't be a dick, no matter how smart you are or how much you know. Playing nice is more important.
- charleshaanel 14y ago
  Brilliant - A.B.T. (always be testing)
lifeguard 14y ago
Now THAT sounds like a successfully managed web project!
0003 14y ago
And losing, they felt more and more deeply as the campaign went on, would mean horrible things for the country. They started to worry about the next Supreme Court Justices while they coded. Is it too naive to think that Reed and his team are able to influence the Administration's policies? Their ability to raise Billions of dollars and increase voter participation must trump 'regular' moneyed interests.
- herge 14y ago
  Because they would gladly go work for republicans if Obama did not listen to their opinions?
  - unavoidable 14y ago
    But this glosses over the undertones of the article - that is, the Obama campaign was able to attract these people precisely because the Democrats were more forward-thinking, more progressive, younger, and more open-minded. Are the Republicans capable of building this thing? Sure - but probably not with a lot of the same talent that has traditionally shared the same progressive views that the Democrats support.
    - gyardley 14y ago
      There is plenty of top-grade politically-conservative technical talent in America. Yes, Silicon Valley leans left in some ways, and politically conservative developers are outnumbered. The Democrats could probably pull together enough people for fifty top-quality campaign teams, while the Republicans could probably only manage five. That said, the Democrats put together one top-quality campaign team while the Republicans put together zero - and those are the numbers that matter.
      - EricDeb 14y ago
        There's a large percentage of Silicon Valley that is at least fiscally conservative - if the Republicans would just soften up on social issues I imagine many of them would jump ship.
niels_olson 14y ago
Blue State Digital BSD I got it...
aantix 14y ago
What was the app written in?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- harper 14y ago
  we used python, ruby and php. a bit of java and what not sprinkled around for fun.
  - dylanz 14y ago
    first off... a big hats off to you, fine sir. thank you very much. i'd love to know more about the stack, it sounds interesting. if you ever get a chance to talk about the project in technical detail, that would be awesome. i'm sure there was a lot to it and a lot of fun stories. let me know if you ever get around to it!
bo1024 14y ago
Hopefully this team can use their brownie points with the Obama administration to encourage some more tech-friendly policies (immigration, patents, etc). Also, we should be clear, that Orca was not going to change the outcome or make even a dent.
dbecker 14y ago
Did anyone else get bored of the author picking out details to show that these guys met the nerd stereotype?
- tokipin 14y ago
  i think the point was to emphasize the contrast these people made against the typical political campaign culture
zby 14y ago
Is there anything beside the 'nerds are cool now' message? Which I really appreciate - but you know - it's kind of long.
- unavoidable 14y ago
  That is not the point of the article. The article is an in-depth exposition of the Obama campaign's tech team, along with how they faced difficulties, how they transformed their own culture to mesh with the traditional political world (and vice versa), as well as the products they ended up building.
  - zby 14y ago
    OK - let me reformulate my question: why should I read it? Is there any new insight, any ideas that transcend the then and there? I understand that an in-depth exposition would be interested to the guys that are interested specifically in the Obama campaign, or perhaps people that are friends with the guys described there - but what is there for the bigger geek audience?
confluence 14y ago
> Jim Messina signed off on hiring Reed, he told him, "Welcome to the team. Don't fuck it up." Jim Messina is a complete boss and I highly recommend that fellow hners read into him to get a good understanding about how things operate in DC. My favourite Jim line is the one he uses when he meets new political people. As he shakes their hands, the first thing out of his mouth is: > How are you fucking me? Silicon valley entrepreneurs should take note.
kleiba 14y ago
I'm sure it's just me. But the more news articles read that write about "nerds" the more I can't help but feel increasingly offended. There's often times an undertone of ridicule in the writing that I cannot overhear any more. Please tell me I'm overreacting and should just relax a little more, because I sometimes feel that mainstream newspaper articles are borderline bullying. To a point where I've actually started thinking about forming a lobbying group to fight for more respect in the portrayal of technically inclined people like us. Just a thought experiment: next time you come across an article that talks about "nerds" try replacing every instance of that word with "gays". Not that the result would make much sense but I think the gay community, despite their ongoing struggle, has at least managed to make it almost impossible to receive a similar kind of media report that consists of nothing but stereotypes. If you do the above experiment, I'm sure you'll the offensive subtext in some articles, the self-content righteousness in making fun of those people who created everything modern society cannot be without: facebook, twitter, the internet, apps, you name it. Maybe it's because technical people seem harmless that they think they can get away with their bullying. But I think it's about time to stand up against it and make our voices heard. P.S.: I'm not saying that this particular article is worse than the rest. As a matter of fact, it's quite okay, compared to some others I've read. So maybe this comment is misplaced in this thread in which case I apologize.
- hooande 14y ago
  I think this article is using the term "nerd" in high regard. "smart" as opposed to "glasses and giant backpack". The article paints these people as colorful characters and rock stars. If anything, I thought it was a little too fawning. The Social Network. Nate Silver. TED. Nerds are actually doing pretty well in the popular culture right now. I don't mind seeing the word "nerd" in the title of an article. It's usually not a bad thing, and at least I know they're talking about me.
  - chime 14y ago
    If replacing the word 'nerd' with women, black, or gay in each sentence isn't acceptable, then 'nerd' isn't acceptable.
espeed 14y ago
Was monitoring election fraud part of this project? In 2004, Bush had ties to Diebold's CEO Walden W. O'Dell, and there was evidence of voting fraud in Ohio -- the exit polls weren't matching the results (http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/2004votefraud_ohio.html http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/2004votefraud_ohio...). Later it was confirmed that Diebold voting machines could be hacked remotely (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3045086 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3045086). A programmer even admitted to being directed to create a software "prototype" that could rig the machines (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEzY2tnwExs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEzY2tnwExs). This time around one of Romney's companies had ties to the company that owns the Hart Intercivic voting machines used in Ohio and Colorado, and there were reports of potential fraud from installing uncertified software patches on the machines (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-levine/mia-in-voting-machine-war_b_2054411.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-levine/mia-in-voting-machi...). Eric Schmidt is on the Obama technology team, and Google Ideas creates software for monitoring election fraud (http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/03/the-20-most-innovative-people-in-democracy-2012/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/03/the-20-most-innovative-peop...). I'd be curious to know how the campaign monitored election fraud and what type of countermeasures were put in place. Karl Rove's election-night meltdown shows he was clearly shocked Romney didn't win Ohio (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSiVhJq4tos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSiVhJq4tos).
scott_meade 14y ago
"He'd told me earlier in the day that he'd never experienced stress until the Obama campaign, and I believe him." So many people get stressed out about the dumbest things that don't matter. Especially in IT, people like to tell war stories about their stressful job and all the hours they put in and how they don't sleep because there is too many fires to put out. Yuk. Harper Reed has it right. Do what you enjoy, have fun. Go nerds!

176 points by boh 14y ago

Look at those beards! Obama was destined to win, flown to victory on the billowing gray beards of ... something. Justice? The internet?

sliverstorm 14y ago
Beards got Obama re-elected, that's all I need to know.
- jeffbarr 14y ago
  Indeed: http://media.amazonwebservices.com/blog/bearded_geeks_for_obama_1.png http://media.amazonwebservices.com/blog/bearded_geeks_for_ob...

activepeanut 14y ago

The team had elite and, for tech, senior talent from Twitter, Google, Facebook, Craigslist, Quora, and some of Chicago's own software companies such as Orbitz and Threadless 21st century SWAT team.

sliverstorm 14y ago
More like 21st century P.R./Campaign team; the equivalent of the urban canvassers that put up posters and such. "21st century SWAT team" is a title I pray some secret division in the NSA is currently earning.
olgeni 14y ago
"Also, a lawyer from Apple quietly checked that all the rectangles in the room were just as rectangular as they could be allowed, but not more."

vampirechicken 14y ago

So am I the only person seeing a Democrats (Big Goverment services) way of doing things vs a Republicans (multiple layers of crony capitalists contractors) in the comparison of the efficacy of Narwhal Vs Orca? I can't be the only one?

mikebike 14y ago
Orca wasn't built by contractors, it was written in-house by Romney staffers and volunteers. See: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/which-consultants-built-romneys-project-orca-none-of-them/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/which-...
- woodhull 14y ago
  Orca and systems like it are also not particularly relevant to electoral outcomes, compared to all of the other things that campaigns use/build.
  - gyardley 14y ago
    No kidding - ORCA should've been miles down the priority queue. That tens of thousands of election-day volunteers were wasted on it when they could've been doing more essential things is infuriating. The Romney campaign didn't build the right thing wrong - instead, they built the completely wrong thing, which is doubly damning.
roc 14y ago
Didn't the latest Ars article suggest Orca wasn't a contractor concoction after all? [1] I think all we really see, is that the Obama campaign had experience and no primary campaign distractions. The Obama campaign had a v1 in 2008 and were merely updating it for 2012. Yes, they had to figure in mobile and the enhanced scale of the problem, but they were starting from a significantly better place than the GOP, who were caught completely flat-footed on technology in 2008. The Obama campaign also had a (comparatively) leisurely opportunity to implement and refine their system while the Republican primary battles raged on and any one potential GOP candidate was denied the money/focus to start the development of a national campaign tool. [1] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/which-consultants-built-romneys-project-orca-none-of-them/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/which-...

fmitchell0 14y ago

Two key quotes: It was like someone had written a Murphy's Law algorithm and deployed it at scale. and ...with technical people, it's one thing to look at their resumes and another to see how they are viewed among their peers Test.Test.Test.Test. Don't be a dick, no matter how smart you are or how much you know. Playing nice is more important.

charleshaanel 14y ago
Brilliant - A.B.T. (always be testing)

lifeguard 14y ago

Now THAT sounds like a successfully managed web project!

0003 14y ago

And losing, they felt more and more deeply as the campaign went on, would mean horrible things for the country. They started to worry about the next Supreme Court Justices while they coded. Is it too naive to think that Reed and his team are able to influence the Administration's policies? Their ability to raise Billions of dollars and increase voter participation must trump 'regular' moneyed interests.

herge 14y ago
Because they would gladly go work for republicans if Obama did not listen to their opinions?
- unavoidable 14y ago
  But this glosses over the undertones of the article - that is, the Obama campaign was able to attract these people precisely because the Democrats were more forward-thinking, more progressive, younger, and more open-minded. Are the Republicans capable of building this thing? Sure - but probably not with a lot of the same talent that has traditionally shared the same progressive views that the Democrats support.
  - gyardley 14y ago
    There is plenty of top-grade politically-conservative technical talent in America. Yes, Silicon Valley leans left in some ways, and politically conservative developers are outnumbered. The Democrats could probably pull together enough people for fifty top-quality campaign teams, while the Republicans could probably only manage five. That said, the Democrats put together one top-quality campaign team while the Republicans put together zero - and those are the numbers that matter.
    - EricDeb 14y ago
      There's a large percentage of Silicon Valley that is at least fiscally conservative - if the Republicans would just soften up on social issues I imagine many of them would jump ship.

niels_olson 14y ago

Blue State Digital BSD I got it...

aantix 14y ago

What was the app written in?

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
harper 14y ago
we used python, ruby and php. a bit of java and what not sprinkled around for fun.
- dylanz 14y ago
  first off... a big hats off to you, fine sir. thank you very much. i'd love to know more about the stack, it sounds interesting. if you ever get a chance to talk about the project in technical detail, that would be awesome. i'm sure there was a lot to it and a lot of fun stories. let me know if you ever get around to it!

bo1024 14y ago

Hopefully this team can use their brownie points with the Obama administration to encourage some more tech-friendly policies (immigration, patents, etc). Also, we should be clear, that Orca was not going to change the outcome or make even a dent.

dbecker 14y ago

Did anyone else get bored of the author picking out details to show that these guys met the nerd stereotype?

tokipin 14y ago
i think the point was to emphasize the contrast these people made against the typical political campaign culture

zby 14y ago

Is there anything beside the 'nerds are cool now' message? Which I really appreciate - but you know - it's kind of long.

unavoidable 14y ago
That is not the point of the article. The article is an in-depth exposition of the Obama campaign's tech team, along with how they faced difficulties, how they transformed their own culture to mesh with the traditional political world (and vice versa), as well as the products they ended up building.
- zby 14y ago
  OK - let me reformulate my question: why should I read it? Is there any new insight, any ideas that transcend the then and there? I understand that an in-depth exposition would be interested to the guys that are interested specifically in the Obama campaign, or perhaps people that are friends with the guys described there - but what is there for the bigger geek audience?

confluence 14y ago

> Jim Messina signed off on hiring Reed, he told him, "Welcome to the team. Don't fuck it up." Jim Messina is a complete boss and I highly recommend that fellow hners read into him to get a good understanding about how things operate in DC. My favourite Jim line is the one he uses when he meets new political people. As he shakes their hands, the first thing out of his mouth is: > How are you fucking me? Silicon valley entrepreneurs should take note.

kleiba 14y ago

I'm sure it's just me. But the more news articles read that write about "nerds" the more I can't help but feel increasingly offended. There's often times an undertone of ridicule in the writing that I cannot overhear any more. Please tell me I'm overreacting and should just relax a little more, because I sometimes feel that mainstream newspaper articles are borderline bullying. To a point where I've actually started thinking about forming a lobbying group to fight for more respect in the portrayal of technically inclined people like us. Just a thought experiment: next time you come across an article that talks about "nerds" try replacing every instance of that word with "gays". Not that the result would make much sense but I think the gay community, despite their ongoing struggle, has at least managed to make it almost impossible to receive a similar kind of media report that consists of nothing but stereotypes. If you do the above experiment, I'm sure you'll the offensive subtext in some articles, the self-content righteousness in making fun of those people who created everything modern society cannot be without: facebook, twitter, the internet, apps, you name it. Maybe it's because technical people seem harmless that they think they can get away with their bullying. But I think it's about time to stand up against it and make our voices heard. P.S.: I'm not saying that this particular article is worse than the rest. As a matter of fact, it's quite okay, compared to some others I've read. So maybe this comment is misplaced in this thread in which case I apologize.

hooande 14y ago
I think this article is using the term "nerd" in high regard. "smart" as opposed to "glasses and giant backpack". The article paints these people as colorful characters and rock stars. If anything, I thought it was a little too fawning. The Social Network. Nate Silver. TED. Nerds are actually doing pretty well in the popular culture right now. I don't mind seeing the word "nerd" in the title of an article. It's usually not a bad thing, and at least I know they're talking about me.
- chime 14y ago
  If replacing the word 'nerd' with women, black, or gay in each sentence isn't acceptable, then 'nerd' isn't acceptable.

espeed 14y ago

Was monitoring election fraud part of this project? In 2004, Bush had ties to Diebold's CEO Walden W. O'Dell, and there was evidence of voting fraud in Ohio -- the exit polls weren't matching the results (http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/2004votefraud_ohio.html http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/2004votefraud_ohio...). Later it was confirmed that Diebold voting machines could be hacked remotely (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3045086 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3045086). A programmer even admitted to being directed to create a software "prototype" that could rig the machines (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEzY2tnwExs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEzY2tnwExs). This time around one of Romney's companies had ties to the company that owns the Hart Intercivic voting machines used in Ohio and Colorado, and there were reports of potential fraud from installing uncertified software patches on the machines (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-levine/mia-in-voting-machine-war_b_2054411.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-levine/mia-in-voting-machi...). Eric Schmidt is on the Obama technology team, and Google Ideas creates software for monitoring election fraud (http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/03/the-20-most-innovative-people-in-democracy-2012/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/03/the-20-most-innovative-peop...). I'd be curious to know how the campaign monitored election fraud and what type of countermeasures were put in place. Karl Rove's election-night meltdown shows he was clearly shocked Romney didn't win Ohio (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSiVhJq4tos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSiVhJq4tos).

scott_meade 14y ago

"He'd told me earlier in the day that he'd never experienced stress until the Obama campaign, and I believe him." So many people get stressed out about the dumbest things that don't matter. Especially in IT, people like to tell war stories about their stressful job and all the hours they put in and how they don't sleep because there is too many fires to put out. Yuk. Harper Reed has it right. Do what you enjoy, have fun. Go nerds!