“Perhaps we should not read too much into the government’s reluctance – or, some have argued, inability – to ban tools like Twitter. The reasons for these may be much more banal: These tools are simply too useful as sources of intelligence about what is happening in the country. Not only do they help the Iran government to follow the events closely (as well as to understand the perception of the government’s actions) in every single locality with an Internet connection, they also help it to understand the connections between various activists and their supporters in the West. From the intelligence-gathering perspective, Twitter has been a gift from heaven.”

“Nine West Side High students will operate the in-school branch three days a week under the supervision of Capital One Bank management. The new in-school branch provides an opportunity for select students to work with Capital One Bank to develop practical financial knowledge and skills through a structured work environment and share what they have learned with their peers. The bank will offer tools to help students save for future financial responsibilities such as the cost of attending college, and banking services will also be available to school administrators and teachers.”

“Civic engagement does not have to be rocket science. In fact, it’s best if it’s not.”

“When they asked me to provide some training on Excel and Access, I agreed, but asked for the chance to make a case for teaching any database but Access to students. Specifically, I suggested that universities and training organizations like IRE teach SQLite, which has the advantages of being cross-platform and accessible via a Firefox add-on.”

“On an unusually hot afternoon this spring, the streets of Barcelona are filled with bicyclist commuters — university students zipping down wide avenues, business men in slim-cut suits, and the elderly, navigating a busy intersection on two shaky wheels. Many of these users have just picked up the sport thanks to the city’s Bicing program, which after only two years, has evolved from a novelty to a force of change, affecting the flow of traffic across the entire city.”

“Whatever “socialism” could have become, had it not been hijacked by revolutions in the east, what it is in the minds of 95% of America is not what Wikipedia is.”

Tim O’Reilly launches a pretty interesting discussion with a few questions about health care costs.

“Jay Rockefeller raised the idea that the impression that the Federal Communications Commission is “captured by industry” isn’t helped by the fact that “it is nearly impossible to find information on the FCC’s website…and much of the data filed with the commission is not even accessible online.” Meanwhile, said Rockefeller, FCC staffers are personally calling telecom industry stakeholders to let them know when important votes and other events are coming up.”

“While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics.”

A geek takes a gag from the XKCD comic and writes the python code to solve it.