Gregory Heller Get in touch

Archive

2006

156 posts

  1. Zipcar and Car Sharing in the news

    Great clip from CBS on Zipcar and car sharing . I would love to create a site/tool that allows folks to set up their own car sharing co-ops. Aaron and I were talking about this during my trip to the Bay Area last week. Wouldn’t it be great if I could log on to a website that would help me to car share planning, including calculating rates/contributions, point me to the right insurance, etc… and allow car sharers to lobby government for things like tax insentives and better parking? ZipCar.com

  2. Revisionist History, Political Hacks and Reporting

    I just finished the Mark Warner profile piece in the NYT Magazine / Mark seems like a good guy. Would probably make a good president and will be a decent candidate, he might be able to capture the nomination. But do the dems really want Mark Warner? He would be perhaps the most centrist…

  3. God Awful Highways

    They call Seattle the Emerald City (or something like that i think..) And it is pretty nice, the lakes, the Cherry Blossoms, the mountains, the sound…. But the traffic! the horrible and inexplicable traffic jams on the awful highways! There are two major highways that run through the city, the 5 and 99. I have…

  4. Carbon Calculator

    I found this site which has a nifty carbon calculator that walks you through a bunch of questions and tells you hoe many pounds of CO2 you are responsible for while looking at Participate.net , a pretty cool drupal site by the guys over at Lullabot that aims to connect people with actions/activism through offline activities related to movies (like Syriana and others). Back to the carbon calculator, by my estimates I am responsible for over 6 tons of CO2 emissions each year because of my air travel.

  5. Drupal Convergence Dinner

    If you are interested in Drupal, CivicSpace, CiviCRM and in seattle for NTEN NTC or Penguin Day, or just in town, please join us for dinner at the Pike Pub And Brewery. Please RSVP on Upcoming

  6. Congressional Cars

    Just saw this on the Politicker . My favorite Congressman, Anthony Weiner is a good guy. Leasing one of hte cheapest cars on the Federal dime. See the complete list of congressional car leases .

  7. NYT: Alive and Well in Silicon Valley

    NYT ran this article about NY’s Silicon Valley . The salient points were something like this: tehse second wave companies are frugal, they are not taking VC, they are managing growth. The best line from the piece was this A lot could go wrong to derail the momentum of New York’s technology scene. Advertising spending could drop. A shortage of talented programmers could slow the speed of development… That last line is key.

  8. WorldChanging: Green Building Action Plan

    From World Changing: California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is a bit of an enigma. He has promoted state policies that have alienated both progressives and moderates (as demonstrated by the resounding election defeat for his various initiatives), but has done more to push a green agenda than pretty much any previous governor. The latest step in his plan, the Green Building Initiative, mandates that all public buildings be 20% more efficient by 2015, and suggests regulatory incentives to get private buildings to meet that same goal (PDF).

  9. Ad Council “Public Service” annoucement Discourages Activism

    This has got to be one of the strangest AdCouncil ads I have every seen. The plackard reads something like “Stop Pollution” and the bottom reads something like “Saving the World Isn’t easy, saving a life is. Give Blood.” The AdCouncil is an industry/corporate financed nonprofit group that creates and places “public service announcements”.

  10. Paying for Wifi?

    I recently traveled from Seattle to the Bay Area (SeaTac to OAK on Alaskan Air). I got the SeaTac early (because I could get a free ride) and figured that I would be able to find an internet hotspot there. Low and Behold, between a Starbucks and some other Coffee Company, I was told that I could connect to the internet. The service, provided by Cingular required what at first just appeared to be registration, or maybe activication if you had a Cingular account, but no! It required a payment! $10 for 24 hours at that particular location! I was in a bind and needed to get online, so I paid it, but it felt so dirty! Paying for WiFi! Shouldn’t that be a standard amenity in airports? How long are these companies going to be able to get people to pay? I would venture to guess that you could have an advertising supported WiFi service in airports that would pay for itself rather quickly.