Gizmodo: dnc

Democrats and Republicans Get Special Edition Zunes For Their Conventions

Jason Chen — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:50:00 EDT

Microsoft's just slapped together a pair of special edition Zunes for both the Republican and the Democratic National Conventions and they look pretty damn great. The one for the DNC is awarded for the winner of the "Green Delegate Challenge", which is contest for delegations that "demonstrate the highest level of commitment to offsetting their carbon footprint from attending the Convention.". Theirs has a nice looking tree on the back. The RNC's, on the other hand, just has the blurb about environmental stuff as well as the picture of the RNC logo. Oh, and it's red, not green. [Thanks Crecente!]

The Technology Behind the Democratic National Convention

Mark Wilson — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 08:31:00 EDT

Denver's Pepsi Center and Invesco Field are just fine for their concerts and professional sporting events. But when the Democrats come into town for their National Convention this week, the two buildings are getting technologically gutted. In fact, Qwest, Microsoft, Cisco, Google, AT&T, Level3, Comcast, EchoStar, Hewlett-Packard, and Symantec all teamed up to give the old venues a new digital backbone. Here's the snazzy list of upgrades:

Improvements include:

• 3,344 miles of fiber optic
• 140 miles of copper and coaxial cable
• 2,600 additional data lines
• 3,400 voice grade circuits
• New "video equipment" in both venues capable of handling 130 simultaneous feeds
• AT&T and Verizon both "upgrading coverage" in area
• And network security from Qwest, Microsoft, Cisco and Symantec

In many cases, workers simply laid the new data lines beside the old ones. The Democratic National Convention's new data network will drive 50 billion bits per second, or pass around an entire HD movie in just moments. We'll have to wait and see if the Democrats get as technologically pwned on stage as they did by the Republicans in 2004 who used a massive rear display to look about a century ahead in gadgeteering. [CNET][image]

Democratic Convention Protestors Will Be Blasted With Ray Guns and Sticky Goo

Benny Goldman — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:17:05 EDT

If you're unhappy that Hillary Clinton lost the nomination to Barack Obama, you better think twice before showing your displeasure at next month's Democratic National Convention. According to CNN, the city of Denver is purchasing tons of high-tech weapons to use on unruly DNC protesters, which may include goo-guns that shoot an impossible-to-escape sticky film, sonic ray guns that produce a blood-curdling blast of noise, and a microwave device that can make you feel like your skin is burning. The ACLU is suing the city to see what weapons will end up in the final arsenal, but if you're going to the Denver, be prepared; this could make the 1968 DNC look like a picnic. [CNN]

Democrats Hate America: RIAA Flack Hired for DNC

Matt Buchanan — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 22:00:54 EDT

The Democrats decided to deal with the devil and hire the Director of Communications for the RIAA, Jenni Engebretsen, as their Deputy CEO of Public Affairs for the Democratic National Convention in Denver. For a party with two of its major candidates for the presidential nomination positioning themselves as populists, the move is a bit off, to say the least.

Cory at BoingBoing describes the range of malfeasance perpetrated by the RIAA in his post, as well as Ms. Engebretsen's day job pretty nicely:

It has been Engebretsen's job to sell these initiatives to the American public. She's failed to sell this to the American public. Not only does she take a paycheck for selling gangsters to the public — she's not very good at it!

Maybe she'll better at selling evil politicians than she is at selling evil record execs. If you feel particularly incensed, you can get a hold of the DNC here. – Matt Buchanan

DNC appoints RIAA shill to run Public Affairs for convention [BoingBoing]