Month: November 2005

  • Moose Camp

    <p>Kaliya Hamlin pointed me towards [l:http://2006.northernvoice.ca/wiki/moose-camp|Moose Camp] in an email earlier today. Kaliya and I have been scheming about DrupalGuild and the opensource cms world a bit. Looks like this might be a good opportunity to talk to a bunch of development shops about the DrupalGuild Concept and Guilds in general as a way to…

  • EchoDitto on eGovernment on the cheap

    <p>[l:http://feeds.feedburner.com/echoditto?m=253|EchoDitto Blog as a story this week about how a simple email list can be part of an egovernment solutioon]. In the example, a local councilperson asked people on a neighborhood email list about a traffic issue.</p> <p>Michael Silberman (the blogger) pointed out that such a simple technology can have great value (and he seeming…

  • ActivistCash.com goes after progressive organizations

    <p>I am a big fan of sunlight. I believe it makes the best disinfectant. And there is nothing wrong with sites like <a href="http://www.fundrace.org" target="_blank">fundrace</a> or guidestar or the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/" target="_blank">center for responsive politics</a> or <a href="http://theyrule.net" target="_blank">they rule</a> that all try to point out the influence and sources of money for politicians and…

  • "Debate" between Council Speaker Candidates

    <p>[l:http://www.citizensunion.org|Citizens Union] and a bunch of other goo-go groups hosted what was supposed to be a civic discussion or debate between the seven declared candidates for city council speaker. IN NYC the council is a body of 51 members who each represent about 150k voters (could be more, could be less based upon the immigrant/citizen…

  • Forget Ready Made, Make is where it is at

    <p>A few years ago I discovered the first issue of [lk:readymademag|Ready Made Magazine]. I think i might have been at an Urban OUtfitters in south beach finding shelter from an afternoon rain shower. It was awesome! filled with home improvement projects and DIY crafts with a high design aesthetic. I subscribed, and with each issue…

  • PocketMOD

    <p>[l:http://www.pocketmod.com|This is pretty cool. PocketMOD is a little build and fold your own pocket organizer]. I saw it on [l:http://www.makezine.com/blog|the Make Magazine blog] which is also pretty cool. I'll be posting about Make soon enough. The only problem with PocketMOD, is that you can't fill the data from say, iCAL or some other ics calendar…

  • Psychographic voter profiling

    Throughout the NYC mayoral campaign I kept on talking to people about how much Bloomberg was spending on “list developmentâ€? and how outrageous the amount seemed. It was $5 million in May! Well the NYT ran a story earlier this week exposing what the money was going to: [Voter] Lists like this usually include voters’…

  • The High Cost of publicly financed muni elections

    <p>[l:http://www.observer.com/thepoliticker/2005/11/campaign-finance-musings.html|The Politicker] has a good piece on [l:http://www.observer.com/thepoliticker/2005/11/campaign-finance-musings.html|The NYC Campaign Finance System] which provides generous matching funds for participating candidates. It consists of an emai from Molly Watkins at Glover Park Group (she was spokeswoman for the CFB).:<br /> <Cite>The real problem is at the Council level, where incumbents are taking huge payouts to face…

  • Open Document Format and Open Data Formats

    Big guns in the software industry are massing behind OpenDocument as government customers show more interest in open-source alternatives to Microsoft’s desktop software. Oh how those words (from a CNET/NYT article last week) danced across the screen to my delight! I have been waiting for, and wondering when(and even nudging in the case of the…

  • Category 7: The End of Good TV

    <p>CBS has a made for TV movie on right now called "Category 7: The End of The World" it is the worst kind of television– the worst kind of "entertainment" ever created. Not only is it alarmist, and opportunistic (coming 10 weeks after Katrina), it isn't even good TV. The writing is horrible, the acting…