I'd just finished working on a family photo, trying unsharp mask, when I ran across this set of tips and comments regarding resizing and sharpening photos. by way of Doc Searls, Bryan Bell, Cameron Moll.
Please, sweat the small stuff ~ Authentic Boredom
The New York Times > Technology > For a Start-Up, Visions of Profit in Podcasting
This is a good start, and bold in today's climate.
NEW YORK, Feb. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- The New York City Council unanimously adopted a resolution to provide low- or no-cost high-speed Internet access to affordable housing residents.
Res. No. 669, introduced by Council Member Gale A. Brewer, the Chair of the New York City Council's Committee on Technology in Government, calls upon City agencies to use their funding and regulatory power to support and encourage the provision of affordable high-speed Internet service and computer purchases for the benefit of residents of affordable housing.
"This resolution will help us bridge the digital divide -- lack of access to the economic, educational and financial tools that the Internet provides," said Council Member Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan). "By encouraging new affordable housing developments to be built with high-speed Internet access, we can accelerate the entry of low-income people into the economic mainstream. At a cost as low as $175 a unit, this is an investment New York can't afford not to make."
This resolution represents a major accomplishment for One Economy Corporation, a national nonprofit that utilizes technology to help low-income people improve their lives. One Economy's Bring IT Home campaign, a public policy initiative to bring high-speed Internet access into all new and rehabilitated affordable housing, has affected policy change in 29 states and two cities since its launch in February 2004. According to Mark Levine, One Economy vice president, northeast region, New York has set the bar for other cities to consider similar action for the benefit of their communities.
"We congratulate the New York City Council on its leadership and vision in unanimously passing Res. No. 669," said Levine, who helped draft the resolution. "One of the most debilitating aspects of poverty is isolation ... whether based on geography, education level or discrimination. We believe that technology and the Internet have the potential to help low-income people leap over each of these barriers. New York can set an example for other municipalities in helping our nation's low-income families to tap the transformative potential of technology."
Res. No. 669 states that:
* All future publicly financed or subsidized housing properties for residents earning less than 80 percent of the median area income should provide a high-speed Internet connection in the living area of every unit to residents for free or at a cost of less than $10 per month; * The development of programs that benefit of low-income residents' utilization of technology, such as the affordable purchase of computers, should be encouraged; and * All relevant City agencies should use their funding and regulatory power to support and encourage the provision of affordable high-speed Internet service and computer purchases for the benefit of residents of affordable housing.
One Economy helps affordable housing developers across the nation design and implement high-speed Internet access solutions for residents. By installing shared data networks akin to those in commercial offices, developers can significantly lower the per-user cost. This solution provides broadband Internet access to each family at an ongoing cost of one-third or even one-fourth the market rate. In some cases, the price is so low that housers elect to absorb the cost completely.
About the New York City Council's Committee on Technology in Government
The primary goals of the Committee on Technology in Government are (1) to close the digital divide by expanding access to broadband in underserved communities of New York City, (2) to increase the strategic use of technology in government, thereby, increasing efficiency in government and enhancing the quality of public services, and (3) to promote the openness and transparency of government by making sure that public information is accessible to every New York City resident. Through its ability to hold oversight hearings over City agencies and introduce and hear legislation, the Committee on Technology in Government works to achieve its goals in partnership with the private, public and nonprofit sectors. More information about the Committee and the Chair of the Committee, Council Member Gale Brewer, can be found at the following link: http://nyccouncil.info/issues/committee.cfm?committee_id=106&;ltsbdkey=5121.
About One Economy Corporation
One Economy Corporation is a national nonprofit that utilizes technology to help low-income people improve their standard of living. One Economy's strategy is to bring technology into the home, provide online multilingual content through The Beehive (http://www.thebeehive.org/) -- used by as many as half a million people each month -- and facilitate computer literacy. One Economy's national Bring IT Home campaign promotes state-level public policy change to make high-speed Internet connectivity a standard practice. More information about Bring IT Home and One Economy may be found at http://www.one-economy.com/.
Contact: Angie Dobrowski 503.295.4493 x2 angie@sd-pr.com
Susan Sheehan 503.449.1666 susan@sd-pr.com
As I started planning the trip to Chiapas with Nicco today, I was startled to see a familiar view - the Palace at Palenque - on a favorite website - Worldchanging. It illustrated a post about the collapse of societies, and how to avoid it. Now I have to finally get Jared Diamond's book "Collapse". Maybe I'll read it in Palenque. (Note: the photo at left is mine, taken from the same spot as the one in Worldchanging)
WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Collapsing Upwards
Officials in Mexico and Guatemala are confident they will finish the gaps in the Ruta Maya, bringing more traffic, tourists and settlers into the Petén and quickening the destruction of the forest. Thanks to Chip Morris and Marco Lazcano-Barrero for the link.
PrensaLibre.com - Terminarán ruta de México a Petén
UPDATE: Here are Ron Canter's comments on the road:
Saw the item in Prensa Libre on new Ruta Maya link. The one road specifically mentioned will go along the Rio San Pedro Martir. The logical route is via the south shore from La Palma, Mexico to Yalpina, Guat. (on the road to La Florida). In the narrow gap between the river and the Sierra la Pita, the route follows the old San Diego Trail between Tenosique and Flores. Once the road is built, I'm sure the river will quickly be abandoned as a Mx-Guat. link, both legit and for smuggling. A road will impact the Sierra la Pita range, which has largely escaped deforestation so far. Even more serious would be an 80 km Calakmul-Carmelita north-south link via El Mirador.
I don't know why, I still want one of these. Just a little one. via Backup Brain
Airstream: The 21st Century Trailer
To settle the debate about whether Thompson was referring to the music business, radio, or television:
'Where Thieves and Pimps Run Free' (p. 2)
It pointed me to Hunter S. Thompson's book called Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s, published by Summit Books in 1988. There, on page 43, I hit paydirt. Thompson had written:
The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.
I saw the logging cooperatives of Carmelita, Peten in action 2 years ago. This story in Prensa Libre describes the market for mahogany (caoba), Spanish cedar (cedro) and other species in places including Buckingham Palace.
PrensaLibre.com - Madera para la realeza
Or is it three? The Mexican state that was a center of Olmec culture, the Mexican restaurant in Iowa, and the sauce whose maker is suing the restaurant over their name.
Pottery Presented as Evidence Of Olmec Culture's Influence (washingtonpost.com)
Tabasco in hot fight with Mexican restaurant over name
When I got off the Usumacinta River in 2003, I happened to pick up "Gringos" by Charles Portis, a picaresque novel of American expatriates in Mexico, ending with a chase down the Usumacinta. I was floored. Someone had been through this crazy scene before, and had managed to make comic art from it. No need to even imagine writing that novel. It's been done, hilariously.
Nicco, read this book first.
Here's a 2003 profile of Charles Portis:
Like Cormac McCarthy, But Funny
Jon Lebkowsky has a brilliant post on the conflict between profit, economic development and the digital divide.
WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Municipal Wireless, Innovation, and Politics
"My question, though, is that if a significant percentage of the population lacks access to information services that could provide a significant foundation for other forms of innovation, who is going to bridge the gap, and how? If the delivery of information services is strictly the business of private companies, incumbent providers, that provide service only where a clear market opportunity exists, and only to a market that will pay top dollar for service, how will services be delivered to underserved populations. (As Clay Shirky once said to David Isenberg, "I distrust people who call for less regulation unlessthey also call for less scarcity.")
And if services are provided by subscription only, and different providers offer services in different areas, to what extent will that constrain economic development and innovation, compared to free and open wireless access in public places?"
Here's more feedback on the controversy over Philadelphia and municipal broadband. This comment suggests broadband vouchers to help the underserved get internet service while paying the providers.
TalkBack: municipal broadband ill-conceived | reader response on| CNET News.com
I'm about a month behind the curve on this, but MT has released a plugin that supports the Google-initiated 'nofollow' tag in order to fight comment spam. And it works on the version of MT (2.661) that I am still using.
Six Apart - Movable Type 'nofollow' plugin
From the maker of WordPress blogging software, bbPress forum software. Don't care? I do. Or might, when I get over my CivicSpace fixation. Like WordPress, bbPress is based on PHP and MySQL (which I'm finally starting to get) and is free.
I think I've posted about this before, but I'm coming back to it with a particular project in mind.
Science Commons | Creative Commons
WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Open Source Science
From EchoDitto, a report on the state of the internet and its use in commerce, community and information.
The Empowerment Age (PDF)
Ron Canter found these Maya navigation related reports on the FAMSI website.
The latest from Hermann Bellinghausen on the bridge being constructed in the Montes Azules Bisosphere Reserve. The road will reach all the way to the San Quintin military base and Lake Miramar.
Devastación y despojo, signos del puente sobre el río Azul, en Montes Azules
Here's a start on a reading list for Nicco, in preparation for Palenque, Yaxchilan, and other Maya sites.
Sacred Monkey River: A Canoe Trip with the Gods by Chris Shaw
The Rough Guide to the Maya World
Gringos: A Novel by Charles Portis
Breaking the Maya Code by Michael Coe
A Forest of Kings : The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya by David Freidel and Linda Schele
Gotta come back and check this out. Podcast with Lucas Gonze interview. via Andrew Grumet
Staccato: a Creative Commons music show » Episode 9
Now it's getting interesting. A rebuttal to Zephyr's recent essay that insists on the value of online volunteerism, on the individual's terms. via Doc Searls
Counterpoint: The Citizen and His Browser, Volunteering Alone | Personal Democracy Forum
Aldon has put together a brief history of the development of DeanSpace, now CivicSpace.
What is DeanSpace? | Orient Lodge
This is the part of the podcasting process that was such a pain last fall when I last dabbled in it. Better tools had to come out and here's one of them.
Fascinating essays by one of the key people in MoveOn and the Dean campaign.
A Letter to the Next DNC Chair
Part 1 Build a permanent field program
Part 2 What to do with your email list
Mike Bruno, our original Chiapas buddy, passed along this press release about SERVIR, a regional monitoring system that NASA has set up in Panama. Full press release is printed below (click MORE)
NASA DEVELOPS CENTRAL AMERICAN MONITORING SYSTEM
A state-of-the-art environmental monitoring facility in Panama is the first to
employ NASA Earth science research and space-based observations to provide
Central American decision makers with early warning about a variety of
ecological and climatic changes.
Here are some NYC government links I'm using. I'll add others later.
Councilwoman Gale Brewer's Technology committee:
www.NYCCOUNCIL.info - NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL
Translating addresses into council and other districts:
GeoQuery - Address Translator - Geographic Information by Address - NYC Department of City Planning
Thanks to Xeni at Boing Boing for this link.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Digital guru floats sub-$100 PC
There's hope for the non-programmers (like me) trying to be webmasters of CivicSpace and Drupal sites. Neil Drumm is working on easier page layout tools:
CivicSpace Labs - Designing pages with Drupal
Sheldon Rampton has already built some modules that help in this area:
CivicSpace Labs - Sheldon's Modules
My adventures with CivicSpace led to a meetup this week and over to the Democracy For NYC website and the New York State sites. They've put out a call for help, and I'll see this week what I can do.
Meanwhile, a brief look back at the Dean campaign and the netroots movement.
Daily Kos :: Two Years Ago Today
From my archives:
The Daily Glyph: Hack4Dean hits Wired
The Daily Glyph: Dean Bio Shelved
Today:
CNN.com - Dean virtually locks up DNC chairmanship - Feb 5, 2005
The battle continues against lawlessness and destruction of the forest in Laguna del Tigre Reserve, Petén, Guatemala. Fifty agents with AK-47s and M-16s have been sent in.
The reserve is the largest in Central America and one of the last habitats of many species, including the scarlet macaw.
PrensaLibre.com - Envían agentes especiales a Laguna del Tigre, Petén
With many states considering legislation to make municipal wireless projects illegal (protecting the incumbent telecoms' interests), and a recent report on wireless sponsored by industry flacks, an assault is underway on free or substantially discounted wireless Internet access. The solution may be private and community-supported initiatives.
Daily Wireless - High Noon for City Clouds
I've fallen victim to the weblogger's dementia - ego searches to see your site's standing. Checking out MSN Search, I find that our site has #1 and #2 spots in a search for "Usumacinta". On Google the site is #3. That's what obsession will do for you.
Daily Kos :: Modern activist hubs
(from Atrios) One great idea which is floating around out there is the need to create permanent spaces for lefty types to congregate - both for general merriment and constructive activities. An example of this is The Tank, which is a nice space in NYC where us lefty bloggers were given a home during the RNC. Cosmopolity is losing the space, sadly, though hopefully they'll find a replacement. And, they're pushing to make the concept national -- to create similar spaces around the country.
Mitch Ratcliffe's note about Ross Mayfield's post on the evolution of skateboarding resonated with me this morning. Not that I was ever a skateboarder. But we are definitely riding the chaos this week.
RatcliffeBlog - Mitch's Open Notebook: Order is for the birds, chaos is where we ride
With a little leadership, a core group born out of passion within an architecture that seems natural. Rejecting established culture to develop their own and spreading it in their own words, images and actions. Constant iteration in practice and adaptation by shaping architecture.
A researcher from UNAM has told Tabasco Hoy that 20% of the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve - the heart of the Lacandon Jungle - has been lost to deforestation since the reserve was established.
Tabasco Hoy || Pierde Montes Azules 20% de superficie