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224 posts
Paul Krugman has a great piece in the NYT yesterday unfortunately it is behind a pay-wall . But Heck of a Jon, Bushie is a nice recap of all all the scandal and dissapointment and corruption flowing out of the Bush adminsitration and the Republican party. Krugman suggests that the President is impeachable and should be…
Anyone watching my del.icio.us bookmark feed recently has probably noticed a ton of links (well not a ton, more like 10) that I would file under finance or social responsibility . I have decided that in 2006 I am going to persue some socially responsible investment. I think I'll also open up an account at the…
Washington state has moved to a state wide voter database replacing the current 39 county databases. In part this is to comply with HAVA, but this article points mostly to the anti-fraud benefits like eliminating duplicate registrations, voting by dead people and felons. Perhaps the biggest benefit is that anyone doing voter outreach work in Washington State will now be able to make one call to the state to get voter data on all 3 million voters (rather than call the 39 counties). I am going to start reaching out an collecting the voter data formats from states heading in this direction so that we can make our voter data standard better and more universal.
Today I am going to begin (again) to work on the Drupal Guild proposal. I’d love folks to take a little time to look at what is on the wiki and let me know if you have anything to add at this point (just edit the wiki if you have access) or send me comments if you don’t. Drupal Guild Introduction We are in a housing crisis and there are not enough skilled laborers to meet demand.
A few weeks ago I participated in Unsilent Night with my little sound truck Well i just checked my google alerts and found that an AP story about the event ran and quoted me: Gregory Heller, an Internet developer, drove his tricked-out tiny police patrol vehicle (one of those little buggies ticket…
Just wondering what podcasts folks are listening to. Aaron? Rich? anyone?
You may remember this post on the Disutility of Gift Giving well, Gothamist has post today about gift giving in the big apple, and the Sanitation Department's suggestions for less wasteful gift giving . Here are their suggestions: – Give homemade gifts, such as cookies, handcrafts, or framed photos. – Give entertainment, such…
But some people take it a step further. A bunch of international bloggers have launched the Starbucks Challenge . They go into starbucks and ask for the Fair Trade blend. Tunrs out they weren't having universal luck finding it. Here is their exchange with SB HQ . Regardless of what Starbucks does about their coffee purchasing, or…
Today’s NYT carries an article that sites further evidence that the major music labels are getting creamed by indie music and net distribution and promotion methods. In a world of broadband connections, 60-gigabyte MP3 players and custom playlists, consumers have perhaps more power than ever to indulge their curiosities beyond the music that is presented through the industry’s established outlets, primarily radio stations and MTV. “It’s not as easy to shove something down people’s throats anymore and make them buy it. It’s not even that they are smarter; they just have everything at their fingertips. They can go find something that’s cool and different. They go tell people about it and it just starts spreading.”
This is by way of World Changing , Jamais Cascio quotes from an article in New Scientist Technology: The concept… is based on a central server that registers details sent by the phone when the photo is taken. These include the nearest cellphone mast, the strength of the call signal and the time the photo was taken. […] …in tests Davis and his team found that by combining [facial recognition software] with context information the system could correctly identify people 60 per cent of the time. The context information can also be combined with image-recognition software to identify places within photos.