Archive for the Communities Category

Lawrence Lessig has posted a brilliant video explaining some very crucial differences between Barack and Hillary. Please watch this before you go to the polls.

Kathleen and I were talking about making dinner tonight and she says, “Oooh, wouldn’t a beer be great tonight?”

Oh, man, yes it would. Especially a bottle of 1554 from the local New Belgium Brewing Company. Boy, that would be tasty. “Why don’t I run down to the grocery store and pick us up a 6-pack?”

Oops, wait a minute. We live in Colorado, one of the last holdouts of the so-called “blue laws” which were created to prevent anyone from doing anything construed as enjoyment on God’s holy day. Laughing counts, so cut it out. And I just now realized the irony that the only states that have blue laws are red states.

This is almost enough reason for us to move back to Seattle. Don’t worry, parents, we’re staying. For now.

But, I swear, if the laws for selling beer, wine, and liquor on Sundays (and in grocery stores at all) are not repealed this coming election year, I’m slapping somebody. How else are we going to get Trader Joe’s to open a store here?

I’ve read that the objections to repealing the laws don’t come from irate fundamentalists but actually from outspoken liquor store owners who have an effective lobby in the local government. And it’s understandable, too. If the laws were repealed they might have to compete like real businesses do and that would be a shame. I mean, I wouldn’t want you guys to have to rely on ingenuity or anything. Heaven forbid you have to alter your business model. (Technically, I guess it does.)

This is starting to sound like a rant against the RIAA.

This interview with the World Vision president helps solidify in my mind why it’s such a fantastic organization to use when supporting efforts against world health crises. I love their person-to-person style, such as individual kid sponsorships. You can even buy a goat to give away!

And, by the way, have you signed the ONE Campaign declaration yet? It’s a simple way to get involved in the fight against poverty and AIDS, and it definitely makes an impact (through the huge number of organizations and people backing it). During this past year, many congressional decisions regarding funding were affected by ONE’s lobbying. I’ve really enjoyed receiving emails from them and actually found myself emailing congressional reps via their simple set-up emails. In a time when it’s easy to wonder whether our voices will ever be heard by our government, ONE has helped me see the possibility.

If you’re a business owner and you’ve been looking for web hosting, online storage, and web-based communication and office productivity software, now’s the time to swing down to TextDrive and choose either the Mixed Grill or 3-Martini Lunch plan. These one-time payment, lifetime-guaranteed plans are going bye-bye on January 15, 2007.

$499 and $1,399, respectively, which may sound like a large chunk of change, but when you look at the features and consider that you’re getting everything for the rest of the life of the company, it makes great business sense.

Head over to TextDrive* now and find the link to Specials and select either The Mixed Grill or Three Martini plan.

* The first link to TextDrive is a referral link that will give me some hosting credit if you continue to sign up, should you feel so inclined. :)

With the recent news that Pluto is out of the exclusive Club Planet, Kathleen and I decided to come up with ten ways to help you avoid becoming the Pluto in your group.

10. Beware the outskirts. In your group are you trying to be the fringe member, always wanting to do things your own way? Is your orbit a little farther out than the rest? You may be in danger.

9. Be big. At least, be bigger than someone else in your group. And it’s okay to start small, but don’t become complacent. Pluto’s seeming contentment with remaining the smallest of the planets ultimately led to its downfall.

8. Choose your allies carefully. Yes, Pluto had three moons pulling for it, but were they the right moons? Also notice that the number of moons makes no difference. It’s always about quality. Earth, for example, seems to be doing just fine with one. Of course, Earth chose to align itself with not just any moon, but The Moon.

7. Don’t give us the cold shoulder. Pluto shot itself in the foot twice when it chose to go that far out there. Not only was it on the fringe, it strayed a little too far from the Sun and bang! it iced over completely. You gotta crack that shell and come sit by the fire if you want some lovage, my friend. Pluto’s mean temperature is 37° Kelvin. That’s ice, ice, baby. Word to your mother.

6. Pick a good name. Pluto, the god of the underworld. It doesn’t get much more depressing than that. Unless of course you also have a moon named Charon.
“Hey, let’s all go out for drinks!”
“Great! Okay, who’s calling the god of the underworld?”
“Not it!”
“Not it!”
“Is he going to bring Charon, the ferryman of the dead, with him this time?”
“Ooh, I didn’t think about that.”
“Let’s just go and then we’ll send him a link to the photoset on Flickr.”
“Agreed!”

5. Dress up a little sometimes. Apparently, bracelets are still de rigeur for a night out on the town with the planets; just ask Saturn. Jupiter has a spinning, red tattoo. Mars is all red and has a big tattoo of a face. Pluto could learn a big lesson here.

4. Atmosphere is important. Look at the Earth. It’s where all the party people are. Why? Atmosphere. If you don’t have a unique ambiance, why bother?

3. 37 pieces of flair. You know you need 15 minimum, but if it’s the only thing you’ve got going for you, go for broke. The Sun’s definitely got flair [sic]. Pluto refused to buy into this superficial social booster and was severed from the group.

2. Avoid Disney entanglements. We’re just speculating here, but knowing how tight the leash is on company trademarks, we think someone at Disney probably infiltrated the IAU. If that’s the case, Pluto never had a chance.

1. Embrace lifelong learning. Take a dance lesson. Learn a new language, or master your first one. Learn how to cook, how to take photos, how to paint, how to ride a horse, how to play a sport, how to choose wines, or how to build a web application using Ruby on Rails. See 43 Things for more ideas. Get rid of your cable TV ($1,000 a year) and travel to a foreign country (or at least to the beach). Sell your TV on Craigslist and crack open a book (tip: books are free at the library). The point is, people enjoy meeting and talking to interesting people. People who are passionate about their subject are interesting, even exciting, even if the subject isn’t exciting to anyone else. As far as we know, Pluto only cared about Pluto. Not a smart move.

We hope this has been helpful to you. We certainly learned a lot from Pluto’s demise and think it’s worth further exploration. The planet with ears to hear, let him hear.

Google Earth was released for Windows XP at the end of June last year. Playing around with the software, I created a few of the beginning stages of the 2005 Tour de France. The effort was quickly picked up by the Google Earth BBS community who completed the routes and improved upon my initial attempts.

This year, with plenty of time to spare, the stages for the 2006 Tour de France have been completed and it appears to be the work of Satan. Ha!

One noticeable difference between last year and this year is the addition of Google Earth for the Mac. That means—and I’m spitballing here—there’s potential for a lot more coverage of the virtual event due to the influence that Mac-using designer-developer-bloggers have on the blogosphere. I think this is a good thing. Money follows the news.

Here are some ways you can get involved in the Google Earth coverage of the 2006 event and help create a richer experience for everyone:

1. Upload and geotag your event photos to Flickr (you can view geotagged photos in Google Earth by grabbing the kmz file from the GeoTagging Flickr group)
2. Also, be sure to tag your photos with “tdf2006″
3. Extend the Flickr photo proximity scripts by focusing on Tour de France photos (i.e., photos tagged “tdf2006″)
4. What about pulling down geotagged videos from YouTube, Vimeo, and Google Video?
5. Create a networked link that gets the current position of the pack, the teams, and the major riders
6. Find a way to recreate the race using the above data so that historical replays can be preserved
7. Are you involved with the Tour de France or one of the teams? Provide Google Earth data feeds from the race (race positions, times, current location, speed, etc.)
8. And finally, spread the word! Do you want to see the technology get better (or cheaper)? Talk about it. Money follows the news.

Update: I just found a super simple method for geotagging photos in Flickr and it appears to work worldwide.

If you’re already working on stuff like this for this year’s TdF, please provide a link in the comments. And be sure to share your work with the Sports and Hobbies forum of the Google Earth BBS. Cheers!