New Leadership for OneWebDay

I'm excited to let everyone know I've taken on a new responsibility as Board Chair of OneWebDay.  OneWebDay is an annual, global event which is celebrated every September 22.  Much like Earth Day, which inspired it, OneWebDay provides an opportunity for communities to celebrate the power of Web for positive change, to take action to protect what is precious about it, and to educate the public and policymakers on how the Web works.
 
The major news I have to report is that OneWebDay has new institutional support, new leadership and a new theme for 2009.
 
We have been awarded our first major grant, which comes from the Ford Foundation. The Foundation strives to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement The Ford Foundation grant will enable OneWebDay to make a transition from being an all-volunteer organization to having a paid Executive Director position.
 
As such I'm delighted to announce that Nathaniel James has joined OneWebDay as its Executive Director.  Nathan comes to us from the staff of the Media and Democracy Coalition and brings a unique blend of skills and experiences as an organizer on communications policy. 
 
As Board Chair, I will provide strategic direction and lead the Board in developing a plan for long-term growth.  Nathan will manage day-to-day business of OneWebDay, build and support our network of volunteers, and develop our program plans for OneWebDay 2009.  We would like the thank the Media and Democracy Coalition for Nathan’s support leading up to the grant award, and we hope to build on our relationship.
 
Every year, OneWebDay focuses on a new theme.  This year’s theme is the promise of digital inclusion, and we will call attention to efforts that work to ensure that anyone who wants it has access to the Internet and the skills they need to engage in our new communications environment.
 
The fight for digital inclusion is now on the cutting edge in the long struggle for social and economic justice.  Access to a fast, affordable, and open Internet is essential for every child in school, every entrepreneur with a new idea, and anyone who wants full access to our government and the democratic process. 
 
Here are a couple of sobering facts:
 
The US has fallen to a rank of 17th for broadband penetration.  So on a good day we're competitive with Latvia in broadband.
 
As recently as 2007, only 29% of households earning less than $35,000 had adopted broadband at home.
 
Thomas Jefferson once said that he would prefer newspapers without government to government without newspapers, but his following comment, while less known, is just as important: “…every man (sic) should receive those papers, and be capable of reading them.” 
 
Jefferson understood not just the importance of news and information in a democratic society, but also the needs of the whole citizenry and every community to be able to access that information.  We have much work to do to achieve the Jeffersonian ideal.
 
One Web Day was founded by Susan Crawford in 2006, who now advises President Obama on science, technology, and innovation policy at the National Economic Council. We are proud to continue building her legacy and enacting her vision.
 
To learn more, follow OneWebDay on Twitter @OWD or send an email to njames (at) onewebday.org.

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H-1B visa idea

Rather than see H-1Bs as a divisive issue, why not apportion part of the application fee to contribute to training kids from under-resourced schools in science, technology, engineering and math fields (STEM) so they can grow into careers in these fields?
 
For instance, I am on the board of the Level Playing Field Institute that runs a Summer Math and Science Honors Academy, SMASH, where students attend a residential program at UC Berkeley all 3 summers of high school. They study math, science, tech, science writing and robotics.
 
www.LPFI.org

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Insights from "Crowdsourcing and the President: A Failed Marriage?"

Pres. Obama's Interactive Town Hall stumbled on marijuana legalization.
 
The point of an "idea jam" like the White House "Open for Questions" platform is to allow discovery of a fringe issue and create a conversation around it. White Housemight not have understood this.
 
Idea management is a three part process: listening, dissemination within the organization, telling the community what you've done.
 
Even if it's a fringe issue, if it comes up in a jam, it must be taken seriously.

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What is discriminatory?

Recently, I tweeted about the robotics course being offered this summer for students at our Summer Math and Science Honors (SMASH) Academy. One person commented "looks like a great course, but why only for 'students of color'? That sounds discriminatory."
 
The students we serve in our education program are all from low-income communities of color in the SF Bay Area. The gap between the education opportunities afforded them and what students higher up the socioeconomic ladder have access to is staggering.
 
What is incredibly unfair is that a large segment of the population has essentially no chance to develop their capabilities to be scientists, engineers, or technical professionals, as these careers will be the backbone of out economic recovery.

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Against Bailouts

A week or two ago, I tweeted that Wall St. and the auto industry shouldn't be bailed out. Someone asked whether that meant I was a fiscal conservative or compassionate conservative. At first I was surprised, but then it made sense. Based on that view alone, I'd be in the same company as conservatives.
 
What I really meant was different. The government needs to do more, not less. It needs to take over the big failed banks long enough to restructure them and put them back in private hands. Failed bank shareholders should be wiped out and debt holders should have to take a haircut.
 
Bank executives need to be held accountable, and the government should try to recover their ill-gotten personal gains if at all possible.
 
One of the big problems is that senior Obama aides like Larry Summers are too closely tied to the institutions they are supposed to be overseeing.
 
Political insiders will say all this is politically infeasible. I say the current arrangements are all infeasible.

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Microsoft to buy 3D Camera Maker 3DV Systems

VentureBeat is confirming the acquisition for $35 million.  Investors will get their bait back but not more.  

Microsoft will most likely integrate the technology into the Xbox in some fashion to enable gesture-controlled games.  I hope they will also release a version of the camera as a USB peripheral, in which case the earlier work we did to control a Second Life avatar with a 3D camera can be carried forward by someone.

None of the 3D cameras we worked with in prototype form have hit the market, so all in all, this acquisition while no doubt a disappointment for the founders, could be a step forward.




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Looking up a Hashtag

This morning, I started to see a lot of Tweets tagged #ToC. But I was puzzled what #ToC stands for.

 Usually, when I see an unfamiliar hashtag, a quick search using Twitter's built-in search or a scan of www.hashtags.org reveals often enough context to deduce what the tag stands for. Failing those methods, I Google the hashtag.

 So, for instance, when I went to look up #TCOT a few weeks ago, Google had the answer. It's T"op conservatives on Twitter".

 However, I struck out using these methods with #ToC.

 Finally, I sent an email to Cory Doctorow, whom I know and who was Tweeting extensively with this tag. He sent me a link to the Tools of Change conference (get it, ToC) and I was enlightened.

 It does point out that a directory of hashtags would be a valuable resource. Anyone listening?

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DirecTV HD DVR. Worst. Interface. Ever.

I could not for the life of me figure out how to reprogram my DirecTV HD DVR to stop recording a Manual series, which is like a recurring event on a calendar.
 
I didn't really want to record a Manual series, but a different problem forced me into it.
 
I'd prefer to simply tell it to record by the name of the show, e.g., "The Daily Show" as opposed to Recording Monday- Friday at 8:00 PM for 30 minutes from channel 249. However, "The Daily Show" is broadcast several times a day, some of which are for the current day, some of which are re-runs of previous shows. I only want one instance of each Daily Show, not several.
 
Nominally, there is an option in recording a series to select "first-run only", but this seems not to work at all for cable shows. Maybe it works for over the air channels. Maybe the proper metadata is encoded. I don't know. I don't care right now. All I know if the option didn't work. So to avoid having 5 or 7 copies a day cluttering things up, I decide just to record it manually.
 
Why did I want to delete the whole series of future recordings?
 
Look at the text on the next to bottom line. "This showing is set to record at 8:00p, Friday, 1/9." Well, ok. Now look at the top line: "To Be Announced 1/8 4:00p - 3:59p". Clearly some sort of bug. Don't want to figure out what this is about it. Just delete the whole thing.

But how do you actually delete a manual series (all future instances, not previously recorded instances)?
 
The menu item Manage Recordings/Manual only permits recording a single future event, not a series.
 
If you select the Menu item Manage Recordings / To Do List, then select an event, then the menu item Record..., it allows changing a scheduled instance of an event or deleting it, but not the whole series.
 
If you select the menu item My Playlist, then select an event from a folder of manually recorded events, you can again delete a single instance.
 
But if you select Manage Recordings/Prioritizer, pick the manual series off the list, then it offers a delete option. Whew!
 
The commands to manipulate the same object (a series of future recordings) are located in four completely different places in the menu tree: one place to select an instance for recording, one to edit the parameters or delete an instance, one to delete an instance, and one to delete the whole series. Wouldn't it have been more logical to group all of the functions relating to managing manual recordings in one place?

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I know I will have to take this down

So enjoy this vintage picture of the Rolling Stones.

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The House I Grew Up In

Awakening too early on Christmas Eve day, bumming around the interwebs, I located a picture of the house I grew up in (on Google Maps of course). It looks remarkably the same after half a century, from the glassed-in porch in front to the oddly shaped dormer in the back. That's my bedroom window on the second floor.
 
The house, in Freeport, N.Y. (Long Island) was built in 1953 and my parents bought it for $20,000. I lived there until I graduated from high school in 1967. My parents stayed on until the early 1990's which was about the last time I paid it a visit. It looks like the current owners have done a good job with keeping up the landscaping.
 
Using Street View, I took a virtual walk around the old neighborhood. The older houses which were built before World War II seem to be gone or so extensively remodeled it's hard to see the original forms, but the most noticeable change in the neighborhood is that the lovely maple trees that shaded both sides of the streets and formed a canopy over the cars passing by are all gone. They lived their century and had to be taken down.

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