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2009

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Amazon’s kindle on iPhone – Genius

The other day, Amazon released a free application on the iPhone (and iPod Touch.) On the surface, just another ebook application.

The application is free. When you run it the first thing you do is to register it to Amazon's web site (using your normal Amazon username and password - you already have one, right?) As far as the Amazon site goes, your iPhone is a Kindle. It shows up on your list of Kindles. And you can buy books for it. So now you can visit the Kindle Store on Amazon and buy books (and free book samples)

Now on my iPhone, magically, those books appear on my book list, and I can read them. There's a huge collection of books and particularly nice, free initial chapters for a ton of books.

Here's the genius part: I get a free app, experience the Amazon Kindle Store, get a bunch of free books and read them on my iPhone. The iPhone is a crappy ebook reader. The screen is too small: Solution:I guess I need a Kindle. Genius.

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A (fairly) understandable explanation of the math behind the market meltdown

This article is somewhat mathematical but I am sure it still hugely simplifies the logic that led us astray. If you are a pop-math-head like me you will find it interesting:

"For five years, Li's formula, known as a Gaussian copula function, looked like an unambiguously positive breakthrough, a piece of financial technology that allowed hugely complex risks to be modeled with more ease and accuracy than ever before. With his brilliant spark of mathematical legerdemain, Li made it possible for traders to sell vast quantities of new securities, expanding financial markets to unimaginable levels." (from Recipe for Disaster: The Formula that Killed Wall Street)

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DC Lingo – from my notebook

More stuff that I learned at Transparency camp.

Every city has their own way of talking. In New York, I guess you talk about wall street and finance and so on. In L.A. you talk about movies and moviestars. In D.C. you talk about all things politics. (In Boston you talk about the Red Sox 🙂

The President's limousine, is known as "The Beast "

You've heard the expression: "It's easier to apologize than to ask permission." In DC it's "Proceed until apprehended."

You mark yourself as an out-of-towner if you don't know what CQ stands for.

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Check out this post The Stimulus Gets Its Own Logo:

"From now on, all projects associated with the simulus will be adorned with the following logo. Whatcha think? Whatever you think about Obama, you can't argue that his team has some good graphic design skills.

Of course, this isn't the first stimulus plan to have a logo. FDR had his own for the National Recovery Administration. Obama's is far less fascist."

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What I learned at Transparency Camp

There are people in our government who are strongly pushing for more openness and who are very focused on delivering better, more modern, service to citizens. They operate under some severe constraints , in some cases from rules and regulations that seem to have become obsolete. Yet you can see where these rules came from and also see the difficulty in just deciding not to follow them.

This paper, "Barriers and Solutions to Implementing Social Media in Government" is lauded by many at Transparency Camp is a very important contribution. Here's the kind of thing it covers:

"As the new Administration looks to leverage these new tools to create a more effective and transparent government, it’s an opportune time for us to share what we’ve learned and propose solutions for how to best use these new tools across government. These recommendations are based on our first-hand experience using social media within our own agencies and from hundreds of conversations with web managers across the country." (from "Barriers and Potential Solutions")

Another piece which has been mentioned and greatly admired is the "Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government" issued by the White House in January 2009. It's short, and worth reading in its entirety. But here's the opening paragraph:

"My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government." (from Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government)

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Enjoyable article about BO in the Washington Post

"Each morning when he arrives at the Oval Office, President Obama asks his staff to deliver him a package containing 10 letters. It is a mere sampling of the 40,000 or so that Americans send to the White House every day -- a barrage of advice from students and teachers, small-business owners and the unemployed." (from Washington Post)

The President has quite a life and quite a schedule. I couldn't decide on the title of this post. Enjoyable article? Cool article? Interesting article? It's worth reading, it made me feel good about what's going on.

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Transparency Camp

Everything's a camp today, Foo Camp, Bar Camp and now Transparency Camp. I am attending this gathering in Washington D.C. to get closer to what's going on in the open government movement. This is a pretty succinct summary of what it's about:

"Convening a trans-partisan tribe of open government advocates from all walks — government representatives, technologists, developers, ngos, wonks & activists — to share knowledge on how to use new technologies to make our government transparent and meaningfully accessible to the public." (from Transparency Camp)

What a new world! The degree of penetration of web 2.0, social media and technology into the machinations of the government is an eye-opener. There is also a lot of well informed passion around digging in around the edges of how things work, from legislation, to lobbying, to governing.

My question is, what is the impact of this, so far? While that's not exactly clear to me (today) I feel that there will be an inevitable impact over time. These are early days, but this is very important work.

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Content Management Systems just don’t work.

I am often asked what technology someone should use to create their web presence. I know Ruby on Rails well, but I often also recommend checking out Drupal. I know much less about Drupal but I know its reputation and I know its track record. So I've felt comfortable with my view. But, check this post Content Management Systems just don't work. from Sunlight Labs blog:

"I don't think I've ever been happy with a content management system. I've tried dozens, from the ever so simple blog engines like TextPattern and WordPress, to the more complex Drupal, MovableType, and ExpressionEngine, to the full-scale content management systems like Typo3, Bricolage, I feel like I've worked on and with as many content management systems as I possibly can in my career. And I can't help but feel as though I've never been satisfied with any of them." (from:Content Management Systems just don't work.)

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Twitter Week on Portals and KM

Bill Ives has been running "twitter week" this week on his blog Portals and KM. Here something from his concluding post: Concluding Twitter Week: Predictions on How Twitter Will Change Blogs in 2009. It has some very interesting items about the influence of twitter on blog design:

"To conclude Twitter week on Portals and KM, I want to share 10 Ways Twitter Will Change Blog Design in 2009 by Rachel Cunliffe on Mashable. I am reorganizing her content to reflect its availability and then providing my thoughts in most cases." (from Portals and KM)