March 2009
47 posts
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services... →
Experimental: Twitter for comments →
I’m thinking of doing this. Thoughts? (Put them in the comments.)
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I have been listening to this on repeat. Via...
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These are the wonderful folk I follow on the Tumblr. Take them for a spin.
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Noah Stokes - Front End Developer and Other Crap →
I am so in the market for a guy like this!
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techPresident: Collaboration, Congress, and the... →
LAT: There's Twitter the company, and twitter the... →
There are many reasons to wish for an open Twitter medium based on open protocols, but I don’t understand how the fact that celebrities are taking the top spots on the most-followed list has anything to do with it. The beauty of Twitter is that you follow only who you want to. On the flip-side this means that you’re presumably followed by folks who are interested in what you’re...
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Slate: Hate Facebook's new look? You'll like it... →
The problem with the new Facebook isn’t the graphic design, it’s the change in perspective. In this article, Farhad Manjoo explains the Twitterization of Facebook:
In the past, Facebook used a complex algorithm to round up your friends’ recently added photos, notes, and status updates and compile them into a neat summary on your front page. … Now, instead of a summary of...
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Twitter / cwalken →
Holy crap! Christopher Walken is on Twitter!
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Me on public radio’s Kojo Nnamdi show with...
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B&C: Senators Want Spectrum Inventory, Reform →
Kerry and Snowe introduce bill requiring review of current uses of spectrum.
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Tomorrow I'll be on the Kojo Nnamdi Show at noon... →
On Monday I’ll be on the Kojo Nnamdi Show at noon on WAMU to discuss how transparency tools like StimulusWatch.org affect the future of reporting and local media. I’ll be on with Amy Mitchell of the Center for Excellence in Journalism, and Derek Willis, who teaches computer-assisted reporting at GW and a member of the NY Time’s web team.
Here are some of the things I’ve...
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“When someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, they are...”
– Clay Shirky
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WatchYesterday I testified at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform entitled “Preventing Stimulus Waste and Fraud: Who Are the Watchdogs?” It focused on accountability for stimulus spending. Here are some of the highlights of my remarks. UPDATE: Here is my written testimony.
WaPo: Could Crowdsourcing Help Control the... →
Nice piece in the Post’s Federal Eye by Ed O’Keefe about my work on crowdsourcing and how I crowdsourced the testimony I will be delivering tomorrow to the House Oversight Committee.
Thanks to all of you who contributed! Not only will it help make the point that crowdsourcing isn’t scary, the changes and additions to my draft were indeed helpful. I’ve now posted a final...
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Contribute to my congressional testimony!
I have been asked to testify at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Thursday, March 19, 2009. It is entitled “Preventing Stimulus Waste and Fraud: Who Are the Watchdogs?” [PDF] and it will focus on accountability for stimulus spending. I will talk about how third parties can build interesting tools to help citizens find and sort spending, jobs, and...
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Contribute to my congressional testimony!
I have been asked to testify at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Thursday, March 19, 2009. It is entitled “Preventing Stimulus Waste and Fraud: Who Are the Watchdogs?” [PDF] and it will focus on accountability for stimulus spending. I will talk about how third parties can build interesting tools to help citizens find and sort spending, jobs, and...
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24 ways: User Styling →
I am going to fix some sites today!
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40+ Inspirational Non-Profit Website Designs →
“Flash interfaces can often make mundane tasks exciting, and having Flash...”
– RNC’s RFP for a new website.
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Cities Are Selling Stimulus Funds to Each Other →
Truly markets in everything. This is awesome:
It all started when [Los Angeles] county’s Metropolitan Transportation Agency decided to hand out $44 million from the federal stimulus package in the form of $500,000 transportation grants to each of the county’s 88 cities. But some cities didn’t have any shovel-ready transportation projects. So with MTA’s blessing,...
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I’m on the Cato podcast today talking about...
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“[S]o far, an independent site, StimulusWatch.org, easily outclasses...”
– The New York Times
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Wired: Open Up Government Data Wiki →
Wired creates a wiki where we can write the architecture for a transparent government online. This is a very valuable resource to which we should all contribute.
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WikiSummaries: Free Book Summaries →
What it says. Chapter by chapter summaries of popular books. Get the gist of The Tipping Point in 2,000 words. However, it doesn’t look great and selection is not huge. What would it take for something like this to really take off?
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NYT: An Empty In-Box, or With Just a Few E-mail... →
This is how I’ve been handling my email for over a year and it’s the only way to go. In other news, today I’m going to turn off my office voicemail.
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Did Amazon Intentionally Cripple the Kindle iPhone... →
Lots of talk today about the Kindle iPhone app Amazon released today. One thing I haven’t seen addressed is the apparent lack of support for magazines and newspapers. I own a Kindle and downloaded the iPhone app. It synced in all the books I had purchased, but not the magazine and newspaper subscriptions. Other folks seeing this? If this is the way it is, that’s a shame because short...
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“The best thing about twittering politicians is that now they’re forced to...”
– PJ Doland
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NYT: No Destination Flying Has Its Appeal →
“When Simon Sinek, a motivational speaker with a looming book deadline, discovered that he works best on airplanes, he grabbed his laptop and hit the skies.”
This is familiar to me. I get so much done on travel days, and I love getting to the airport two or three hours before a flight so I can read uninterrupted in the waiting lounge. Again, constraints empower you. This guy, however,...
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Best (creepiest) contact form ever. →
Try submitting some dummy data. Also, click around the screen. (Via Adrian Holovaty.)
WaPo: Obama Team Finds It Hard to Adapt Its Web... →
How I Became a Programmer →
Excellent essay. If I hit the jackpot, I know what I would do is learn to code, which means I should get off my ass and do it already.
WSJ: U.S. Stimulus Funds Begin to Flow at... →
I was quoted in this WSJ article from Thursday: It is probably too early to expect agencies to have given out much money or report information on their spending, said Jerry Brito, a senior research fellow at George Mason University and co-founder of StimulusWatch.org, a citizen watchdog site. “What we should expect to know is how they’ll be reporting this and what they’ll be...
