links for 2009-08-22

Posted on August 22, 2009 by Joe

(from @Bombacharger) @JoeGermuska Yeah! Non-stop Callier jams in the dentist chair courtesy of receptionist’s iPod. (in reply to this tweet)
San Francisco Police Department Text-A-Tip to Begin August 20 (via @adrielhampton) http://icio.us/z3uoki
Sfgov.org | San Francisco Police Department Text-A-Tip to Begin August 20

“The San Francisco Police Department will implement Text-a-Tip beginning Thursday, August 20. Text-a-Tip is a Web-based program allowing citizens to report criminal activity or to supply crime-related information through texting from their cell phones. Studies indicate that teenagers and young adults text more often than they talk on their cell phones, and this program is aimed at getting this demographic more involved in reporting crime.”

(tags: sms police sanfrancisco via:twitter=adrielhampton)

(sources: Twitter user @adrielhampton (Adriel Hampton))
@cmcavoy flattery might get you somewhere. (in reply to this tweet)
(from @cmcavoy) @JoeGermuska your last.fm feed is filling up my to-buy-or-download queue. You’ve got an awesome ear. (in reply to this tweet)
(from @aliciaeler) @JoeGermuska haha, so they don’t even realize how gay they are? just like that Zac Efron video that looks like it’s made for PFLAG? (in reply to this tweet)
@aliciaeler I’ll loan you a book and you can decide for yourself… (in reply to this tweet)
(from @aliciaeler) @JoeGermuska So Perry Bible Fellowship loves the gays? (in reply to this tweet)
@aliciaeler Oh, I didn’t know Planet Unicorn before your tweet — that was a Perry Bible Fellowship strip http://www.pbfcomics.com/ (in reply to this tweet)
(from @aliciaeler) @JoeGermuska I love it. How long has Planet Unicorn been around? Can’t believe I didn’t see it before. (in reply to this tweet)
@Bombacharger Your dentist does Terry Callier’s teeth? Awesome. (in reply to this tweet)
@aliciaeler Have you seen http://bit.ly/rXkhO
? (in reply to this tweet)
Transparency Chic – WSJ.com

“That’s right: In 2009, judicial records in the U.S. are essentially unsearchable. Digital records—with confidential personal information (theoretically) redacted by attorneys—must be downloaded in unwieldy, badly labeled chunks. This is incomprehensible to anyone under 30. But it’s a sad fact of life for those who pay lawyers hundreds of dollars an hour to dig up what would could be Googled in any other field.”

(tags: transparency opengovernment pacer law via:twitter=ellnmllr)

(sources: Twitter user @ellnmllr (Ellen Miller))
Astroturfing in Action: http://bit.ly/iBsCR (via @thomascastillo) #usbill #hr2454
ReadWriteWeb: How Tim O’Reilly Aims to Change Government

“O’Reilly is talking to people, but he’s helping people talk to eachother as well. He’s introducing officials like Vivek Kundra, the new CIO of the Federal government, and Federal CTO Aneesh Chopra to ground-breaking hackers like geek rennaisance man Chris Messina and YCombinator founder Paul Graham. He’s bringing together geospatial visionaries and the government officials that provide them the GPS data they work with.”

(tags: tim_oreilly opengovernment collaboration)
Calling all High School Social Studies teachers: “Empower students to engage 21st Century government” http://bit.ly/PSW9g
@placevision Hey, where does a person find your podcast? (in reply to this tweet)
Betsey McCaughey’s twists bill reading on Daily Show http://bit.ly/NY0hl RI requires ‘plain english’ insurance policies http://bit.ly/bvdnH

links for 2009-08-21

Posted on August 21, 2009 by Joe

The AACM Great Black Music Ensemble is an impressive sight (not to mention the sounds!) @ Pritzker Pavilion jazz series
@paulsmith No doubt you already know about http://filibusted.us/ , the apps for america winner that helps keep an eye on such things… (in reply to this tweet)
(from @ifoundthistape) @JoeGermuska I didn’t say it was a pleasant book
(from @drinksdearborn) @JoeGermuska Schedule of additional #SaveDoD events should be posted by tomorrow, with additions to come as they break! (in reply to this tweet)
Op-Ed Contributor – Plain English Is the Best Policy – NYTimes.com

“It is hard to believe that very many of the 200 million Americans who have private health insurance understand their own coverage. Anyone who has spent time trying to read a health insurance policy would be justified in assuming that it was written by lawyers and technocrats for other lawyers and technocrats — not for the average person. Our analysis of policies in Rhode Island found that most are written at a college to graduate-school reading level. Given that the average Rhode Islander reads at an eighth-grade level, we have decided to require, beginning next year, that all policies in our state be written at that level.”

(tags: rhode_island insurance healthcare language writing via:twitter=wayword)

(sources: Twitter user @wayword (A Way with Words))
@ifoundthistape http://www.helptequila.com/ (in reply to this tweet)
(from @urbanophile) Why I Hate Hootsuite and Its Ilk – http://bit.ly/xkHfO @ourmaninchicago @AnnaTarkov @Suntimes @Chicago_Reader @JoeGermuska
(from @StephanieIzard) ‘if it ain’t in a casing it ain’t worth tasting’ cool food truck in providence… Love it! http://twitpic.com/em2g1
(from @petersagal) Congrats to @Rick_Bayless for his Top Chef Masters win; in olden days, winning chef would take heart of opponent, sauté it with epazote. (in reply to this tweet)
(from @ourmaninchicago) @JoeGermuska @urbanophile But why should that be a user-enabled setting? It should just be. (in reply to this tweet)
(from @urbanophile) @Chicago_Reader @Suntimes @ourmaninchicago @JoeGermuska Add su.pr, ff.im, and digg to the list. Plus tr.im since it’s so flaky.
.@urbanophile Did you know that you can set a preference in ow.ly so that it bypasses the “social bar” and goes straight to the real URL? (in reply to this tweet)
@drinksdearborn do you have a url for a schedule of your events? (in reply to this tweet)
GovTrack: Tweeting About Congress

“Twitter is a great platform for mobilizing around bills in Congress, and it gives us an opportunity to see what people are saying around the web. We’re tracking the conversations around legislation.”

(tags: twitter government participation congress)
The Footnotes of Mad Men.

A blog providing context for various pieces of cultural ephemera seen on Mad Men.

(tags: culture television madmen blog history via:twitter=JPeep)

(sources: Twitter user @JPeep (Jennifer Peepas))
Soft Serve and Jingles Jangle Moms – NYTimes.com

“Rachael Reiley of Cambridge, Mass., called the ice cream truck “the music truck,” convincing her 3-year-old son that it was playing “The Entertainer” simply to entertain. But he soon got wise when he saw the other children walking away from the truck, their faces smeared with chocolate and vanilla, their hands filled with ice cream cones.”

(tags: icecream via:twitter=gapersblock)

(sources: Twitter user @gapersblock (Gapers Block))

links for 2009-08-20

Posted on August 20, 2009 by Joe

@MannyFlores You think Chicago could have something like datasf.org ? (in reply to this tweet)
Obama changing course on DOMA? (ChicagoPride.com)

‘Obama issued a statement: “Today, the Department of Justice has filed a response to a legal challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act, as it traditionally does when acts of Congress are challenged. This brief makes clear, however, that my Administration believes that the Act is discriminatory and should be repealed by Congress. I have long held that DOMA prevents LGBT couples from being granted equal rights and benefits. While we work with Congress to repeal DOMA, my Administration will continue to examine and implement measures that will help extend rights and benefits to LGBT couples under existing law.”‘

(tags: marriage lgbt civilrights via:twitter=mmorowitz)

(sources: Twitter user @mmorowitz (Michael Morowitz))
@h3athrow re urban farming, have you seen Novella Carpenter’s “DIY Farm City Tour”? http://bit.ly/n0cOU It reminded me of you… (in reply to this tweet)
bk farmyards – decentralized urban farming network in Brooklyn

“BK Farmyard reconnects farmers and consumers as co-producers of the foodscape. The strategy transforms private yards into farms and inserts neighborhood dinner party structures for the celebration of food. Residents pay for organic yard-farming and produce delivered to their doors; others without yards pay for produce cultivated in these farmyards.”

(tags: urban_agriculture food farming)
Coming to a Town Near You? « Ghost Town Farm

“My dear publisher paid for me to go to Seattle, Portland, New York, and Los Angeles. But I want to see what’s doing in Chicago, Boston, Detroit, St. Paul, etc, etc, etc–I want to see urban farms all over America! But how will I pay for that?

“That’s where you come in. If you’d like me to come to your town, please send me an email at novella.carpenter at gmail, or just comment belo with ideas. Let me know if you’d like me to teach a class about chickens, rabbits, or just give a reading from my book. Include the names of bookstores or spaces where workshops could happen in your town. I’m targeting October as the perfect month for the DIY tour.”

(tags: urban_agriculture diy couchsurfing via:twitter=gapersblock)

(sources: Twitter user @gapersblock (Gapers Block))
Open Cities looks like a cool conference http://bit.ly/2BRVGn Washington DC, 10/6-7 (via @nickgrossman)
City of San Francisco promises to “open its data” with DataSF.org – Boing Boing

“The new web site will provide a clearinghouse of structured, raw and machine-readable government data to the public in an easily downloadable format. For example, there will be updated crime incident data from the police department and restaurant inspection data from the Department of Public Health. The initial phase of the web site includes more than 100 datasets, from a range of city departments, including Police, Public Works, and the Municipal Transportation Agency.”

(tags: opengovernment transparency opendata via:twitter=dmbfan825)

(sources: Twitter user @dmbfan825 (Mike Van Der Harst))
@ColonelTribune @dmbfan825 a political ques. more than tech. SF city gov backs that project. Help OpenGovChi advocate: http://bit.ly/wfFei (in reply to this tweet)
(from @jroo) nothing says “everything’s gonna be alright” like the sight of one ice cream truck jump starting another ice cream truck
(from @ColonelTribune) @dmbfan825 Not sure. @brianboyer, @JoeGermuska, what’s the likelihood of a data hub like this being built for Chicago? http://bit.ly/QTigk (in reply to this tweet)
Capture My Chicago http://bit.ly/kkK9V looks cool (h/t @coloneltribune) Just saw a photo from @gleam on there! http://bit.ly/2SxG7C
(from @dschleifer) The Hoosier Mama lady at @GreenCityMarket could see my indecision, handed me both pies. http://yfrog.com/0u30mvj #pie
Disneyland 1956, 16mm Kodachrome film stock – Fry Cook on Venus

“He found some priceless footage that his grandparents recorded at Disneyland in only its second year of the parks operation, on the retired 16mm Kodachrome film stock.”

(tags: disney video history home_movies via:twitter=coloneltribune)

(sources: Twitter user @coloneltribune (ColonelTribune))

links for 2009-08-19

Posted on August 19, 2009 by Joe

(from @aliciaeler) @JoeGermuska I will definitely come visit! (in reply to this tweet)
RT @MattH: Each [Detroit City Council] member has an annual budget of about $656,000 apiece. (me: Chicago get $74K/ea http://bit.ly/1TO6gA)
(from @MattH) @joegermuska We need you in Detroit!
(from @MattH) @joegermuska Each [Detroit City Council] council member has an annual budget of about $656,000 apiece.
(from @wordnik) great words, great songs & all wordniks! RT @MikeDoughtyYeah: I mostly write three kinds of songs: gangadanks, chooglers, and plucky-arpies.
(from @vielmetti) learning new words to describe public meetings: “duck and dash” (when the public body exits out a back door)

WNUR Conference of the Birds, 2009-08-18

Posted on August 18, 2009 by Joe

“Conference of the Birds” is my weekly radio program on WNUR-FM. It airs on Tuesdays from 5-7:30 am Chicago time (UTC-6). And, of course, when technology cooperates, you can just come here for the archives.

A reasonably solid if mostly unsurprising show this week… I enjoyed contrasting the two versions of “Wish You Sunshine,” the first of which is solo piano (by Dyani, better known as a bassist). It was also fun to line up two 1930 hit compositions as rendered more abstractly by reed/piano duets, specifically “Embraceable You” and “Body and Soul.”

complete program (133 MB, 2 hrs 25 min)

Artist: “Track” – Album (Label)
Orchestre G.O. Malebo: “Likambo Ya Supa” – African Serenades Vol. 29 (Matsuli Music)
Dave Holland Trio: “African Lullaby” – Triplicate (ECM)
Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Strings: “Wade” – Renegades (Delmark)
Johnny Dyani: “Wish You Sunshine” – Born Under the Heat (Dragon)
Johnny Dyani Quartet: “Wish You Sunshine” – Song for Biko (Steeplechase)
Johnny Hodges: “Never No Lament (Don’t Get Around Much Anymore)” – Passion Flower: 1940-1946 (RCA/Bluebird)
Chick Webb with Ella Fitzgerald: “‘Tain’t What You Do” – Princess of the Savoy: 1936-1939 (MCA)
Håkon Kornstad and Håvard Wiik: “Embraceable You” – The Bad and the Beautiful (Moserobie)
Misha Mengelberg & Ab Baars: “Body and Soul” – Two Days in Chicago (Hatology)
Max Roach Quintet: “Blues Waltz” – Jazz in 3/4 Time (Mercury)
Sonny Rollins: “East Broadway Rundown (excerpt)” – East Broadway Rundown (Impulse)
The Vandermark Five: “Aperture (for Walker Evans)” – A Discontinuous Line (Atavistic)
Chico Freeman: “Blues on the Bottom” – The Pied Piper (Blackhawk)
Chucho Valdés: “Rhapsody in Blue” – Briyumba Palo Congo (Blue Note)
Fruko y sus Tesos: “A La Memoria Del Muerto” – Colombia! The Golden Age of Discos Fuentes, The Powerhouse of Colombian Music, 1960-1976 (Soundway)
Arsenio Rodríguez: “Adivinalo” – Baila Con Cuba (I Am Time, v. 3) (Blue Jackel)
Kenny Burrell: “Downstairs (alt. take)” – Guitar Forms (Verve)
Grup Bamba Puang: “Los Quin Tallu-tallu” – Music of Indonesia 20: Indonesian Guitars (Smithsonian Folkways)
Mandingo Griot Society: “Sounds from the Bush” – Mandingo Griot Society (Flying Fish)
Joseph Jarman/Don Moye/Don Pullen: “J.F.M. — 3 Way Blues” – The Magic Triangle (Black Saint)
Indigo Trio: “Beloved’s Reflection” – Anaya (Rogueart)
Griot Galaxy: “Dragons” – Opus Krampus (Sound Aspects)

links for 2009-08-18

Posted on August 18, 2009 by Joe

(from @tenzochris) Late night bike ride raid for baked goods. This will go well.
Rob Seward’s BLOG » Font Averaging

“In an effort to get at the essence of font-design, I averaged all the fonts on my computer and got this…”

(tags: typography via:twitter=azaaza)

(sources: Twitter user @azaaza (Aza Raskin))
@aliciaeler we’re great down in news apps. drop by some time and see for yourself! (in reply to this tweet)
(from @elmcdonnell) RT @JoeGermuska Measuring the Happiness of Large-Scale Written Expression: Songs, Blogs, and Presidents http://bit.ly/SCojj
“we’d ideally also have [a] transparent, non-reactive, population-level hedonometer” http://bit.ly/SCojj who wouldn’t like a hedonometer?
Measuring the Happiness of Large-Scale Written Expression: Songs, Blogs, and Presidents http://bit.ly/SCojj
http://yfrog.com/7hhz8j rainbow between sets at Pritzker Pavilion. @nomomusic rocked; Otto about to start.
(from @aliciaeler) hey @JoeGermuska, how are you guys down in news apps?
(from @Chicago_Reader) RT @JoeGermuska: Please vote for our local #opengov panel at SXSW: http://bit.ly/info/tixri
Please vote for our local #opengov panel at SXSW: http://bit.ly/info/tixri

links for 2009-08-17

Posted on August 17, 2009 by Joe

@harrisj Which one of these are you again? http://bit.ly/VFdd9 (in reply to this tweet)
Rick Perlstein — Birthers, Health Care Hecklers and the Rise of Right-Wing Rage – washingtonpost.com

“So the birthers, the anti-tax tea-partiers, the town hall hecklers — these are “either” the genuine grass roots or evil conspirators staging scenes for YouTube? The quiver on the lips of the man pushing the wheelchair, the crazed risk of carrying a pistol around a president — too heartfelt to be an act. The lockstep strangeness of the mad lies on the protesters’ signs — too uniform to be spontaneous. They are both. If you don’t understand that any moment of genuine political change always produces both, you can’t understand America, where the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests.”

(tags: politics media history via:twitter=paulsmith)

(sources: Twitter user @paulsmith (Paul Smith))
Books of The Times – Living Off the Urban Land – Novella Carpenter’s ‘Farm City’ – Review – NYTimes.com

‘She won’t kill the slugs that have wrecked her garden, as some people propose, by drowning them in Budweiser, because “this seemed suspiciously close to buying the slugs a beer, which was more generous than I felt.”’

(tags: oakland food urban_agriculture booktagged book:isbn=9781594202216)

(references: Farm city : the education of an urban farmer by Novella Carpenter.)
How Jazz Warmed Cold-War Hearts – The Picture Show Blog : NPR

“Let’s send Dizzy.”

(tags: jazz music history politics photography)
citability / FrontPage

Our goals are:
* Making all Government generated public documentation available on the web to citizens…
* Making all public government documentation citable by an average citizen on the web including websites.
* Needs to be readable by people and machines.
* Allowing citizens to cite public government docs on a paragraph level…
* Allowing citizens to cite public govt docs without their links breaking over time.
* Making Government Accountable for all public documentation as it evolves and changes.

(tags: government transparency citability)
Matador Change: Guerrilla Gardening, Chicago Style

“Originally popularized in British gardener Richard Reynolds’ manifesto On Guerrilla Gardening, the guerrilla gardening movement is taking root in Chicago. Informal groups with names like Trowels on the Prowl and SOIL are taking horticulture to the streets, covertly planting flower and vegetable gardens in public lots and neglected planters around the city and its suburbs. Bit by bit, these Green Age graffiti artists aim to reinvent Chicagoland’s landscape, while making us take another look at how we use urban space.”

(tags: chicago evanston gardening activism urban)
(from @chicagonews_) links for 2009-08-16: (from @jazzinstitute) @JoeGermuska Thanks Joe, glad you enjoyed it! (in reply to this twee.. http://bit.ly/3Az1Ho

links for 2009-08-16

Posted on August 16, 2009 by Joe

(from @jazzinstitute) @JoeGermuska Thanks Joe, glad you enjoyed it! (in reply to this tweet)
There’s more to summer than music in the parks… Like music movies in the park. Calle 54 in Humboldt Park. Thanks, @jazzinstitute !
(from @DanielZarick) I just ousted @JoeGermuska as the mayor of Pritzker Pavilion on @foursquare! http://bit.ly/2m0g0q

links for 2009-08-15

Posted on August 15, 2009 by Joe

Visions of converting Cleveland’s abandoned homes into “orchards and vineyards” http://bit.ly/1dFnZQ (via @ThomasCastillo)
(from @elizabethriley) RT @JoeGermuska: “If only the ailing Glenn Beck 16 mo. ago had received health care he raves about today.” http://bit.ly/JuNuV (Daily Show)
(from @elizabethriley) @JoeGermuska Ha! That was awesome. Why doesn’t anyone else besides the Daily Show take the time to dig up contradictory info? (in reply to this tweet)
@elizabethriley “If only the ailing Glenn Beck 16 mo. ago had received health care he raves about today.” http://bit.ly/JuNuV (Daily Show) (in reply to this tweet)
Digg the Blog » Blog Archive » Much Ado About IE6

“This goes directly to why most folks use IE6: they don’t have a choice. Three out of four IE6 users on Digg said they can’t upgrade due to some technical or workplace reason.… Giving them a message saying, “Hey! Upgrade!” in this case is not only pointless; it’s sadistic.”

(tags: browser digg via:twitter=ryanmark)

(sources: Twitter user @ryanmark (Ryan Mark))

links for 2009-08-14

Posted on August 14, 2009 by Joe

Bush Cheney Alumni Association. Seriously. http://43alumni.com/ (via The Daily Show)
Phillip Toledano – Days with My Father

Beautiful, sad, touching photo essay about a father and son in the father’s last years.

(tags: photography life via:twitter=anselm)

(sources: Twitter user @anselm (anselm hook))
@justinmassa It’s not about logic. (in reply to this tweet)
Joho the Blog » Lego hops off the Cluetrain onto the tracks in front of it, wondering what that increasingly loud sound could be

“How customer unfriendly can you get? You sell us something that enables us to create what we want, and now you say you get to control what we create? You won’t let us take photos or videos of what we create? Does Crayola get to tell us we can’t post photos of the inappropriate messages I write with their crayons, because it might hurt their image among their target audience of 3-9 year olds and cretinous participants in political debates?”

(tags: marketing cluetrain lego via:twitter=dweinberger)

(sources: Twitter user @dweinberger (David Weinberger))
(from @bduckles) @JoeGermuska Thanks Joe! It was fun to see you this weekend! (in reply to this tweet)
@bduckles congratulations! (in reply to this tweet)
(from @cmcavoy) this has been an awesome week. also, I’m totally hopped up on coffee. I see colors that don’t exist.
(from @MattH) The new DPS website is excellent. Read the news feed. http://www.detroit.k12.mi.us/news/ Is your org this candid? @joegermuska
(from @bbum) RIP: Les Paul (1915-2009).I had the honor of chatting Hacking/Making w/Paul for about 5 hours one night. Truly an inspiration & nice person
(from @cmcavoy) @JoeGermuska the fact that LP was performing weekly up to the end…mind blowing. I always hoped to make it to one of those shows. (in reply to this tweet)
(from @cmcavoy) @JoeGermuska what a bummer, Les Paul sure did have an amazing career. As for Ali, Interstellar Space opened up lots of jazz to me. (in reply to this tweet)
(from @Mlsif) Fascinating to see #welovethenhs trending. Cross-national debate on national health care via twitter. And the Brits seem to be winning.
I’m surprised by how many people don’t know Les Paul’s name! No point in asking how many know Rashied Ali… RIP both, thanks for the ♫
(from @qburns) Oh my, R.I.P – Les Paul. Respect. Many don’t realize his essential part in the history of multi-track recording – http://bit.ly/4CpsYr
@anselm Honestly, isn’t that what we get from a federal system? I don’t claim to know the answer to HC but maybe we should use our 50 labs? (in reply to this tweet)
RT @DustyGroove:We’re preparing for our big weekend Sidewalk Sale. Check out http://tinyurl.com/lefxxb and many more.
(from @h3athrow) Thank you, Fishbone, for making a delayed subway train my own private dance party. Skank and go nuts underground.

Through the Wire

"Hey, I'm just happy to be here…"

Monthly Archives: August 2009