StPetePolls

I know others have already mentioned trying LibreOffice, but you really should give it a shot, it's free and Open-Source. I've been maintaining a couple of 600+ page technical manuals in it for over a decade now, it really is a viable replacement for MS Word. Here's the link,
www.libreoffice.org

LibreOffice for the win!
I haven't use MS Office in over a decade, LibreOffice is really that good:
www.libreoffice.org

In the mid-1980s, Clorox and 7-Eleven provided the primary funding for the Daylight Saving Time Coalition behind the 1987 extension to US DST. Both senators from Idaho, Larry Craig and Mike Crapo, voted for it based on the premise that fast-food restaurants sell more French fries (made from Idaho potatoes) during DST.

The other would be something that we actually did when we looked at economic benefits. I remember the fast food industry, Hardees, looked at the first week of May versus the last week of April, Standard Time versus Daylight Saving Time, and they were blown away when they saw the difference. They saw an increase in sales of $880 per store per week on the last week of Standard versus first week of Daylight Saving Time, and as a result, McDonalds and a lot of those organizations became extremely active in our effort to pick up April. I was able to get both Idaho senators to vote for Daylight Saving Time on the basis of selling more French fries because they supply potatoes. So it is kind of humorous and you can laugh at it, but it shows that I was able to get two votes from Idaho based on French fries and connected it to Daylight Saving Time. And if you can see the economic patterns as being highly complex and all these unintended consequences, I suggest that the energy issue may be every bit as complex, that you will push it down here, and it will pop up over here for another reason.

You can blame Clorox, 7-Eleven and French fries for the DST extension apparently...

AI software mistakes high school student's bag of chips for a weapon Taki Allen was sitting outside Kenwood High School with friends, eating a bag of chips after football practice on Monday. Around 20 minutes later, cops showed up with guns, walking toward Allen. "They...

AI snake oil that could get kids killed
www.wbaltv.com/article/stud...

Measuring the Impact of Early-2025 AI on Experienced Open-Source Developer Productivity We conduct a randomized controlled trial to understand how early-2025 AI tools affect the productivity of experienced open-source developers working on their own repositories. Surprisingly, we find th...

"Surprisingly, we find that when developers use AI tools, they take 19% longer than without—AI makes them slower."
metr.org/blog/2025-07...

Somebody is polling for the 2026 #StPete Mayor's race today:

Daylight saving haters rejoice: scientists confirm it’s bad for health US Congress is debating permanent daylight saving – but new research shows keeping clocks on standard time is least stressful on the body

"Researchers at Stanford University found that keeping our clocks on standard time year round, instead of just in the autumn and winter (as in most US states as well as the UK), would reduce the prevalence of obesity and strokes."
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

YouTube video by deadliner Making Believe

One of my favorite Social Distortion covers is of that song,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwHz...

Today is Tuesday, August 5th 2025. I got a robo-call from an "AI Agent" this morning. I asked it what day of the week it was, and it very confidently told me it was Friday. I can only imagine what history "facts" get hallucinated by "AI" when it comes to historical analysis.

Hypothetical candidates for Mayor of St Petersburg, FL, USA in the 2026 Mayoral Primary Election

This is the first poll I've gotten for next year's Mayor of St Petersburg, FL. Interesting slate of candidates they've chosen here. (Additional questions about Brandi Gabbard were asked after this): #StPete

Poll shows Joe Gruters as overwhelming GOP favorite over Blaise Ingoglia for Chief Financial Officer St. Pete Polls ran a head-to-head with Blaise Ingoglia, who many expect DeSantis to appoint to the post.

Poll shows Joe Gruters as overwhelming GOP favorite over Blaise Ingoglia for Chief Financial Officer of Florida in 2026
Gruters: 60%
Ingoglia: 10%
floridapolitics.com/archives/747...

Poll: Byron Donalds emerges as early favorite for Governor over Casey DeSantis And his lead only gets bigger if Jay Collins runs as Gov. DeSantis' natural successor instead.

Poll: Byron Donalds emerges as early favorite for Governor of Florida in 2026 over Casey DeSantis
Donalds: 35%
DeSantis: 27%
floridapolitics.com/archives/746...

Randy Fine vs. Josh Weil: Democrats hopeful, GOP frets in special election Democrats have won the fundraising race and polls show a tighter than expected race for a Congressional district has been solidly for the GOP.

“A win in this district for the Democrat would be as big a deal as when Doug Jones won the Senate seat in Alabama"

www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/03/28/r...

And that response rate by party has absolutely no effect on our poll results, the district is still effectively about 2:1 Rs to Ds. And even with that party mix, this poll shows it's still a much closer race than the district historical stats suggest it should be.

One thing we don't put in our polling reports is the response rate to our survey phone calls and texts, but that number does provide at least some indication of voter engagement on an issue or race. In this poll, the registered Ds responded at twice the rate of the Rs that we attempted to contact.

Permanent time observation in the United States - Wikipedia

I'm enjoying our last day on Standard Time this Winter. Be prepared for more car crashes, heart attacks and strokes starting tomorrow as we lose an hour going into Daylight Savings Time(DST). It's long past time to cancel the twice-a-year clock change,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permane...

‘They are literally stealing from us’: Miami drivers fed up with school bus camera program A joint investigation by The Tributary and the Miami Herald found that many motorists who did nothing wrong are receiving violation notices under a hastily approved bus-safety program in Miami-Dade.

As always with traffic "safety" cameras in Florida, it's always about the money:
jaxtrib.org/2025/02/28/t...

A good time to remind people about @libreoffice.bsky.social which is Free and Open-Source office software that does almost everything MS Office does:
www.libreoffice.org

DeSantis proposals would be "kiss of death" for citizen-led ballot measures, experts say Floridians would effectively lose access to a policy-making avenue they've used to increase the state minimum wage, legalize medical marijuana and more.

www.axios.com/local/tampa-...

I want to share my experience today with Google support, trying to get Gemini (their AI/plagiarism machine) turned off in my Google workspace account. That account is where I personally do all my work communication—I am an editor, and most of my work contracts explicitly ban any use of Generative AI

Reminder to anyone working with Florida Voter data, remember to request the voter files from the state for 2025 this week!
dos.fl.gov/elections/da...

A reminder of how it went at the top of the ballot in Pinellas County in 2020, Biden won by 0.2% of the vote, and that was with DEMs having a 0.7% party registration advantage in the county at the time.

Effectively, the election is about 3/4 done at this point in Pinellas County. The 2020 turnout was 79.31% and we're at 57.55% right now. I would estimate that maybe only about 120,000 voters will vote tomorrow in person in the county.

With Early voting all done, here are the current pre-election-day turnout %s for #Pinellas: The DEMs turnout % is slightly better with only a 4.7% lesser share of overall voter turnout so far compared to the 5.6% voter registration advantage that the GOP has in the county,

I made a starter pack of @washingtonpost.com journalists on this app to make it easier for you to read / curse at us all go.bsky.app/D7WHbei