“Assume that the internet has music in a mess. What can be done about it?”

“The SQL database behind iplocationtools.com is offered for free. You get a table with city precision (1.4M rows) and another with country precision including CIDR (80k rows).”

“I struggle constantly, as a member of this female minority in Ruby and technology in general, to negotiate a representation of my sexuality that gives me a comfortable working space, but without feeling like I’ve compromised some part of my identity.”

“Obama has set out to synthesize the New Democratic faith in the utility of markets with the Old Democratic emphasis on reducing inequality. In Obama’s state, government never supplants the market or stifles its inner workings–the old forms of statism that didn’t wash economically, and certainly not politically. But government does aggressively prod markets–by planting incentives, by stirring new competition–to achieve the results he prefers.”

‘Called “the Sundance of video games” for “socially-responsible game-makers” we’re promoting a new genre of video game – games to change the world – for the better.’

‘By Wednesday, one day before the self-imposed period of silence was over, there had to be a lot of pressure built up behind the scenes. Alex Payne, the man in charge of the Twitter API and a guy who is much less grumpy than you’d probably be if you had his job, started getting visibly frustrated. “The view from under this bus is really something,” he said on Twitter. “Nobody in the tech press has bothered to contact me for comment on the OAuth issue. Why bother with facts when speculation drives clicks?”‘

‘Instead of waiting for houses to become abandoned and then pulling them down, local leaders are talking about demolishing entire blocks and even whole neighborhoods. 

‘The population would be condensed into a few viable areas. So would stores and services. A city built to manufacture cars would be returned in large measure to the forest primeval.

‘“Decline in Flint is like gravity, a fact of life,” said Dan Kildee, the Genesee County treasurer and chief spokesman for the movement to shrink Flint. “We need to control it instead of letting it control us.”’

Interactive maps of the US grid

“I’m Robb, a second-year law student at Lewis & Clark Law School. I started OregonLaws.org because two of my classes are very statutes-oriented: Criminal Law and Wills & Trusts. I wanted online access that was easy to read, browse, and search, so that I could avoid schlepping the statutes to class. Well, I couldn’t find it, so I started building it myself.”

“When there is a “hot flash” emergency, the social media networks start to buzz – Twitter is the biggest and most open example of this. It’s also the place where a lot of misinformation starts to get amplified. It’s not just a place to air your own thoughts, but a place to get a bead on information as it is happening. You can get the information here faster than anywhere else, period. 

…

“There is another issue at hand here though; the fact that many individuals who have information are not on Twitter, Facebook, or any other big social network. So, while there is a great deal that can be done with the open channels available in the developed world, most of the world is not on those channels when it matters most.

“This is where tools like Ushahidi come in. It’s why it was developed, a way to get information from people who aren’t connected online and who might never be. A way for them to share information and receive alerts around emergency incidents.”

Good survey of ways to keep up with official information from the Centers for Disease Control

“In 2019, we live in superstructed realities, where physical life and digital life can merge together any way you choose. 

Everyone is a media channel, and every body is a data stream. Every physical thing can be programmed for interaction, and every living thing can join your social network. Everything is rehearsed and relived. Every place is both physical and virtual.

Life is a customized version of what you want to see, who you want to be, and what you want to know.

Your superstructing tool kit in 2019 includes:

· Geolocation tools
· Biometrics and accelerometers
· Handheld augmented reality
· Simulation engines
· Lifecasting platforms
· Social networks for every living thing
· Avatars everywhere
· Virtual worlds based on real worlds

In your superstructed reality, what will you make? What will you play? What will you learn?”

“The enormous dataset provides a global picture of “what the world is paying attention to”, the researchers say. They ran statistical analyses to identify the more important clusters on each map. Next they analysed the text tags added to photographs in those clusters, as well as key visual features from each image, to automatically find the world’s most interesting tourist sites.”

“At the Cato Institute in early April, Greenwald contended that a major problem with most American drug policy debate is that it’s based on “speculation and fear mongering,” rather than empirical evidence on the effects of more lenient drug policies. In Portugal, the effect was to neutralize what had become the country’s number one public health problem, he says.”

“This option won’t satisfy fierce advocates on either side of the gay marriage debate. But it would bring Illinois law into line with the feelings of the public, which doesn’t want to punish gays or their kids but also doesn’t want to pronounce on matters of faith.”

“Before the recorder’s office opened at 7:30 a.m., about a dozen people stood in a drizzling rain. They included at least three same-sex couples filling out papers on clipboards so they can apply for marriage licenses. Three women walked into the county administration building with T-shirts that read, “Engayged.” Two men with tuxedos walked into the recorder’s office shortly before 7:30 a.m.”