Blog Posts

February 2009

• 2009-02-14

  Saving the newspapers. A modest proposal.

  You know I am a fan of the Newspapers. I’ve written about it several times, wondering out loud whether our collective desire to get everything for cheaper and cheaper, eventually for free, would eventually kill them. This topic has been discussed a lot in the press and blogs as well. What if we apply the principles of viral marketing to supporting newspapers?

  How would that work?

  What if a paid subscriber of newspaper N is offered the following: For each of your friends who you ge...

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  #business
• 2009-02-11

  How Corrupt is Our Language in Economic Discourse?

  Check out this post How Corrupt is Our Language in Economic Discourse?: "And as Deirdre McCloskey has put it, when your intellectual range is from M-N you think you are being open minded when you look at M and you look at N, but you certainly don’t see A or Z. " (from: from The Austrian Economists)

  So now that I made a point about my skepticism about whatever politicians say about the economy (see "Who Can I believe about the economy") here’s some more.One pal told me, nicely, that my appreciation for Paul Krugman was misguided, that Krugman’s a socialist (whatever that means) and that Krugman’s way off base and extremely partisan. Whoops. Now I am even more confused.

  #politics
• 2009-02-10

  Poem: Tortoise by Tim Mason

  Tortoise by Tim Mason I set my pace deliberately keeping precious what matters under the hard shell I show the world.

  Truth is survival counts each step I take assures that.

  I’m not much on ambition, but how long you folks been around?

  I put that question to Aesop when he was a betting lad – gave my bookie good odds against his rabbit I left him with a moral and a question “can you hang?”

  Takes time to comprehend but patience comes with my pace so let me rephrase that how do you follow your dreams?

  Me, I keep what’s precious under the hard shell I show the world.

• 2009-02-09

  Micro volunteering

  A very interesting article about volunteering, and applying the wikipedia philosophy to volunteering. Here he sets the scene: “People have a problem with volunteerism: Now this statement is provocative. It’s not said in polite company. We like to think that we’re too busy to volunteer, but it’s not true. We don’t volunteer because we don’t want to. Why? Either because we don’t care enough about giving back to our communities or today’s volunteer opportunities aren’t suited to our lifestyles. Being an optimist, I’m opting for the latter. And so, a corollary is required:

  Volunte...

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• 2009-02-08

  Who can I believe about the economy?

  The problems in our economy right now are real, I believe. Tons of people have lost jobs, and my investment accounts also prove it. I guess there’s no debate about that. But the question is, what to do about it. My observations:

  Politicians on both sides are equally passionate yet totally contradict each other about what they claim to be ‘facts’.

  The most glaring one is, for me, “are tax breaks stimulative or is government spending stimulative?

  I mean this is a case where apparently intelligent adults are calling the sky red and the grass blue.

  It’s not like they say, “well experts have trouble understanding this but I really believe that the sky is red and the grass is blue”. It’s more ...

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  #politics #business
• 2009-02-07

  The Secret in Building 26

  Dave writes an enthousiastic review of this book: The Secret in Building 26: “I just finished reading The Secret in Building 26: The Untold Story of How America Broke the Final U-boat Enigma Code. What a fascinating read! I’ve written before about the UK’s contribution to code breaking during WWII (‘Neglect’ of Bletchley condemned and Bletchley Park Update), but this is the first time I learned about some of the details of the US contribution. I always thought the majority, if not all, of the work was handled by the British, but this book details how it was much more of a partnership between the British and Americans. Most of this stuff is only recently declassified, and most is still classified. However, the information available is a great introduction to the dawn of the electronic computer.” (from: from Big Dave’s Blog)

  …

  #books
• 2009-02-06

  Send Club Passim some click love

  Hey, how about doing me a favor? It will only take you a minute or less. It won’t cost a penny. Help the famous and wonderful Club Passim win a grant from, who else, Virgin America.

  Spread the karma, it will come back to you!

  JUST CLICK HERE CLICK HERE JUST CLICK HERE

  #music #boston
• 2009-02-05

  [GEEKY] Foxmarks now supports Mac … one fewer reason to stay with Firefox

  I read in Personal Technology (Wall Street Journal) today that Foxmarks, the handy, free utility that synchronizes my Firefox bookmarks between several computers, now works with Safari as well. Great. I tested it, and it does work just fine. This blog post is being written with another handy firefox plugin called Scribefire, which lets me post to my blog directly from a page in the browser. It works really nicely and I use it frequently. I recommend it. Unfortunately they don’t support Safari yet. So I am staying with Firefox, for now.

  By the way, why am I even considering deser...

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  #technology #apple
• 2009-02-05

  Government Data, Apis, and the tipping point

  I’ve been discovering the mass of information that is created by the government and is very slowly making its way online. I will be posting my discoveries from time to time. The process of making public information available online seems to go something like this:

  Law requires that information be collected and disseminated

  People submit forms etc recording such information

  Others then scan or otherwise process this information and puts it into a database “silo”

  The database is put online onto a “silo” web site

  Other NGOs or agencies then somehow get that data (often by scraping the web sites) and make it API accessible

  It seems like there may be one or more years between each of these ...

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  #technology #politics
• 2009-02-04

  The 7 deadly sins and 10 lessons of a failed startup

  Check this post The 7 deadly sins and 10 lessons of a failed startup from Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing: “Building a startup is the most difficult, and most rewarding, thing anyone can do. Sometimes you can even make some money at the end of it all. There are so many things that can go wrong it is a miracle when a startup actually makes it. It is important to celebrate our successes, learn from our failures, and value them equally. Failure is important…because success is a terrible teacher.”

  Originally posted on Jul 24, 2008. Reprinted courtesy of ReRuns plug-in.

  #business
• 2009-02-02

  [GEEKY] Built my first gem (Ruby Gem that is)

  I’ve gotten interested in what is going on in the public sector, in particular in the world of non profits. I’ve learned a lot, met many people and been trying to define a project that would at the same time do something to better the world as be an interesting and fulfilling product challenge (notice, missing from that list is “make a lot of money”) I want to start posting some of the cool things I am figuring out but so far I haven’t because I can’t really figure out how to organize it.

  One area that I have immersed myself into is the many diverse groups who are doing work promoting government openness and transparency by, among many other things, creating the technical bridges to allow i...

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  #programming #ruby
• 2009-02-01

  Subscribe to Pandora!

  I’ve known about Pandora for ages, and the last month or so have been using it again, a lot. It’s quite amazing: constant, free, music. Based on your interests. How does it work? Well just go to Pandora, set up a free account, and indicate, for example, an artist or style you like. It begins playing songs, one after another which people who’ve liked what you like have also liked. You hear a song or artist you don’t know, indicate with a thumb up or down how you like it. That’s it.

  I have discovered artists I didn’t know, rediscovered some that I knew, or music that I loved and had not heard before. All for free.

  One might ask, in a fa...

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  #music #technology

January 2009

• 2009-01-30

  What Life Asks of Us

  A column in the NYTimes that offers a very different perspective from what we might think of as the goal of a liberal education: “Individuals should learn to think for themselves. They should be skeptical of pre-existing arrangements. They should break free from the way they were raised, examine life from the outside and discover their own values.” (from What Life Asks of Us)

  Sounds very common sense. I found myself nodding in agreement, feeling that this matched more or less how I saw things. But then he introduces a different view espoused in a book that came out last summer called ...

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  #education
• 2009-01-29

  Going, going, gone…

  You’ve heard me bemoan the death of magazines, newspapers, and other valuable things (radio? small software products) that we are killing by demanding and expecting them to become cheaper and cheaper, and eventually free. And after that, “gone”. Here’s an interesting idea: make newspapers into non-profits, supported by endowments and fund raising, sort of like Public Radio and Television.

  “Although the problems that the newspaper industry faces are well known, no one has offered a satisfactory solution. But there is an option that might not only save newspapers but also make them stronger: Turn them into nonprofit, endowed ...

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  #business
• 2009-01-28

  [GEEKY] Where are the east coast Rails / Ruby conferences?

  “So yet another way you can help Ruby and Rails Activism is by attending (supporting) a conference. Below you’ll find conferences coming up in the next 6 months. If you think I’ve missed one, or if the information is incorrect, please post a comment.” (from Riding Rails)

  If you look at the list of conferences and meetings, all looking interesting, there’s nothing anywhere near Boston. Hey, whatup?

  #ruby
• 2009-01-25

  Science and Religion

  Now there’s a big topic, eh? A magazine that I don’t normally read has a good, in depth, thoughtful article about the debate between Religion and Science (see what I just did?). It comes in the guise of a book review (oddly the author has, himself, recently come out with a competing book, which does undermine his objectivity a little bit.) Still, it’s an excellent overview. (Funnily enough, the factoid that stayed with me the longest from this article is that Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the exact same day. Talk about trivia!)

  “It is a depressing fact that while 74 percent of Americans beli...

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  #science
• 2009-01-24

  More than Charisma

  From Bob Herbert, in today’s New York Times: “… [we’ve witnessed] the almost desperate hunger in this country for mature leadership, for someone who is not recless and clownish, shortsighted and self-absorbed.” (from The New York Times)

  Someone asked said to me the other day, ‘you’re really political aren’t you?’ I don’t consider myself very political at all, never have been. One a scale of 1 to 10, I’d rate myself a 3. So in a way I have surprised myself in the last 12 months.

  I have to say that when I read it, the thought expressed in the quote above really resonated.

  #politics
• 2009-01-22

  Not surprised that he gets to keep it

  There’s been some back and forth silliness about whether Barack Obama can keep his Blackberry. All the pundits said “no way” but I thought, geez, the guy is President (did you hear?) all he has to do is say: ‘make it so’: “On Monday, a government agency that the Obama administration — but that is probably the National Security Agency — added to a standard blackberry a super-encryption package…. and Obama WILL be able to use it … still for routine and personal messages.” (from Marc Ambinder inAtlantic)

  But, he won’t be allowed to use IM 🙂

  #politics
• 2009-01-20

  HOPE

  

  Chris and I, this morning, looking forward to a great day. We’ve waited and worked for this. And now the day has come.

  I saw the inauguration communally on a big screen at the Regent Theater in Arlington with hundreds of other cheering folks. It was a fun and exciting event. People even stood up for the actual oath of office.

  Quite something!

  #personal #politics #boston
• 2009-01-17

  Tweeting from more than one account?

  You might be interested in what BlogBridge is doing about twittering from more than one account: “Sometimes I tweet on my own behalf (’the weather in Curacao is hot’) and sometimes I tweet on BlogBridge’s behalf (’can I help solve your problem?’) This poses a bit of a logistical challenge for me.” (from BlogBridge blog)

  Please weigh in!