Bumblin' Along

Zzzzzzzz

Sat, 24 May 2008 18:30:19 -0500

Bumblin’ Along will be hibernating for a while as I shift my blogging efforts over to Blurring Borders where the Wordpress platform provides more flexibility and I can write at length about other important topics like development, technology and world affairs. Check it out and let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Every comment on this blog post donates $10 to Burmese relief efforts

Sat, 17 May 2008 02:20:04 -0500

Every comment on this blog post donates $10 to Burmese relief efforts

Link Dump on Political Transparency

Fri, 16 May 2008 21:49:42 -0500

I had the opportunity to attend the Berkman@10 conference these past two days. I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts in the coming days, but I’ve blogged some of it at my blog, Copyrightings. However, one thing I wanted to highlight were a lot of people doing important work with government transparency. Here are some links, check them out:

The Sunlight Foundation is behind much of this work and leads in taking the Internet and applying it to political transparency. They have more links that I may have missed.
The Minnesota Post has applied this to their locale.
MetaVid has Congressional video that are searchable.
OpenCongress is open source so you can apply it to any political body, like Massachusetts.
OpenSecrets tracks money in politics.
MAPLight covers Congress and California politics.
FedSpending tracks where contracts and grants awarded by the government go and whether they are competitive.
Congresspedia is an editable encyclopedia on Congress.
PublicMarkup allows people to collaborate to develop transparency legislation.
Fortune 535 let’s people understand the wealth of politicians.
Superdelegate Transparency Project seeks to shed light on those who have so much power.

Poke around; enjoy.

A to Z Guide to Political Interference in Science

Fri, 16 May 2008 08:01:01 -0500

A to Z Guide to Political Interference in Science

Crows are scary-smart

Thu, 15 May 2008 22:49:03 -0500

Crows are scary-smart

Theory of ICTs in Human Rights

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:52:52 -0500

Theory of ICTs in Human Rights

$200 Oil

Wed, 07 May 2008 12:24:28 -0500

Where are the next generation planes which don’t need oil? Why aren’t the carriers placing a $50 million prize on the inventor that can solve that problem?

I especially like the middle two frames.

Sun, 04 May 2008 18:49:22 -0500

I especially like the middle two frames.

Inner-city crime - Back from the Brink - The Economist

Sat, 03 May 2008 09:35:18 -0500

Inner-city crime - Back from the Brink - The Economist: This article perfectly sums up why I love the Economist. Not only is the content spot-on and insightful, it is often dripping with wonderfully dry sarcasm. Case in point: “Outside a liquor store, a policeman pats down a suspect. The suspect’s trousers are halfway down his thighs. You might think this is an impractical fashion for someone who often needs to run from the police.”

Are the new viewers gone yet?

Fri, 02 May 2008 20:31:06 -0500

Forgot how amazing this was.

Things I Don't Like About My MacBook Pro

Thu, 01 May 2008 18:23:45 -0500

1. The button to unlatch the closed computer is too skinny

2. When closed, the pulsating light on the front is incredibly annoying, especially when I sleep three feet from the light

3. The entire machine gets much, much too hot

4. The battery’s life has suddenly decreased notably; getting 1.5 hours is a chore

5. If, by chance, static electricity build-up discharges when I touch the MBP, the keyboard and trackpad stop working and I need to find an external mouse to restart the computer

Unintended Consquences II

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:15:46 -0500

Eating dinner last night with a food policy lobbyist I learned that food banks have been the victim of increased information flow. In the past, grocery stores donated excess food to food banks which in turn donated to the homeless.

Now, with better models of consumption and purchasing behavior, supermarkets have less food they cannot sell. The result? Less food for charity.

Unintended Consquences

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:12:34 -0500

I used to often have some coins in my pocket which I would give to the homeless on the street. Now, as I pay with plastic, that event happens less. I wonder if this is a broader experience.

"Part of the issue with laptops being perceived as anti-social is that it is a black box - you could..."

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:05:21 -0500

“Part of the issue with laptops being perceived as anti-social is that it is a black box - you could be engaged in a task that takes 5 minutes or 5 hours, an uncertainty that creates tension. What is it that makes using a mobile phone or reading a newspaper acceptable, but using a laptop not?”

- Jan Chipchase - Future Perfect: English Caff Condiment Norms

In the past year, half of Yellowstone's bison population have died

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:22:28 -0500

In the past year, half of Yellowstone's bison population have died

Music [from YouTube] Which Will Get Me Through Finals

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:32:00 -0500

Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show

Redemption Song by Bob Marley

Love is My Religion by Ziggy Marley

Love Song by Sara Barielles

Obsession by The Orion Experience

(By the way, I’m very excited to be through finals for summer in lovely Chicago-land.)

"One year ago, the Inspector General’s Office — the independent audit arm of the DOJ..."

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 10:38:41 -0500

“One year ago, the Inspector General’s Office — the independent audit arm of the DOJ — issued a lengthy report (.pdf) detailing that the FBI, for the years 2003-2005, had used “National Security Letters” (NSLs) to gather information on thousands of Americans in violation of the law. Pursuant to the Patriot Act, “NSLs” permit the FBI and other federal agencies to obtain all sorts of invasive information from telecoms, Internet and email providers, even health care providers and the like without any judicial warrants or any other oversight of any kind.”

- Shocking new revelation: Unchecked government powers get abused - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

"From: Nicholas Kristof Subject: the power of art in september i traveled with bill gates to africa..."

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:23:14 -0500

“From: Nicholas Kristof Subject: the power of art in september i traveled with bill gates to africa to look at his work fighting aids there. while setting the trip up, it emerged that his initial interest in giving pots of money to fight disease had arisen after he and melinda read a two-part series of articles i did on third world disease in January 1997. until then, their plan had been to give money mainly to get countries wired and full of computers. bill and melinda recently reread those pieces, and said that it was the second piece in the series, about bad water and diarrhea killing millions of kids a year, that really got them thinking of public health. Great! I was really proud of this impact that my worldwide reporting and 3,500-word article had had. But then bill confessed that actually it wasn’t the article itself that had grabbed him so much — it was the graphic. It was just a two column, inside graphic, very simple, listing third world health problems and how many people they kill. but he remembered it after all those years and said that it was the single thing that got him redirected toward public health. No graphic in human history has saved so many lives in africa and asia. I’m sending you a copy of the story and graphic by interoffice mail. whoever did the graphic should take a bow. nick kristof”

- Neat story about the power of graphics from a NYT’s columnist.

A Tale of Two Mergers

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:39:40 -0500

In the media/Internet sector, the past year has seen two important mergers: News Corp. + Dow Jones and Microsoft + Yahoo. Though I am no expert in M&A, it has been interesting to watch the two play out.

When the Wall Street Journal was about to be purchased, the typical concerns over Murdoch’s editorial style were rampant. The WSJ is a stalwart of good, honest content without bias. News Corp. publishes the NY Post and other tabloid style papers. Are they compatible? Regardless, the offer was too sweet for a public company to turn down and Dow Jones was bought. It turns out not all of the WSJ is compatible and the Managing Editor is stepping down (or being forced out, perhaps).

Now, with Yahoo and Microsoft we have seen a media-laden dance as Yahoo desperately tries to avoid being purchased by a company which in many ways comes from a different era and different approach to business. They’ve gone so far as to run Google ads on their search results in an attempt to boost revenue before tomorrow’s release of Q4 data.

Although some, including Arrington, think the deal will and must happen, I wonder why Dow Jones did not make the same valiant effort to avoid their take-over.

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:02:35 -0500

Churchill’s quote rings even more true after speaking with a professor today with a specialty in ethnic conflict. After his lecture in my comparative political systems course today, I went up and asked him a question about identity and democracy that stemmed from a conversation I had with a taxi driver.

The driver was a Pashtun Afghani who had left his country in the early 1990s. As we spoke about culture and ethnicities, he told me that when he was growing up, the ethnic groups, which today drive the politics in Afghanistan, were non-existent in his life. He had no idea his wife was a different tribal group.

This was shocking to me. How could something so powerful today be nearly nonexistent 2 decades ago. And this change wasn’t technological, it was identity, something seemingly steeped in tradition and history.

However, I was reminded of a scene in Hotel Rwanda where a Rwandan tells the UN chief that, prior to British rule, Hutus and Tutsis were not labels used. This changed. As you know, these groups would be involved in a genocidal nightmare in 1994.

So, with these two puzzles, I asked the professor, what gives?

The answer relates to democracy and its tendency to shape identity. When people are voting for a popular government, they tend to focus on “getting what’s theirs.” When the government loses legitimacy (e.g. minority in power), ethnic groups tend to mobilize and strengthen the perceived differences.

This explains the change in governance in colonial Rwanda and the change away from the monarchy in Afghanistan.

Democracy is not a panacea and this realizaton really makes me wonder if it is worth spreading.