MetaFilter posts tagged with public

"You don’t like it? Find another place to live."

zarq — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 08:53:46 -0800

"Them and Them." "Rockland County, New York's East Ramapo school district is a taxpayer-funded system fighting financial insolvency. It is also bitterly divided between the mostly black and Hispanic children and families who use the schools and the Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox Jewish majority who run the Board of Education and send their children to private, religious schools." Also see: A District Divided. Multi-page link to the NY Mag article. Journal-News: East Ramapo school district proposes dozens of staff layoffs, sports cuts in 2013-14 budget NYT (from last July): Rockland County Parents Ask State to Oust 5 Orthodox Jews on School Board The "East Ramapo Underground" radio show mentioned in the article is also on YouTube. Preserve Ramapo site has additional information on the area and links to region-related news articles.

"'Spitzer! You’re Governor Spitzer!'"

zarq — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 12:53:18 -0800

Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin’s Post-Scandal Playbook (Spoiler: The disgraced Congressman is likely running for Mayor of New York City. SLNYT, Via)

“He’s just like a noble lion that does not bite.”

zarq — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 11:02:21 -0800

The last King of Rwanda, Kigeli V Ndahindurwa, lives on public assistance in low-income housing, at a dead end between US Route 66 and State Route 655 in Oakton, Virginia. 'He ruled Rwanda for just nine months in the 1960's before fleeing a revolt and has spent the last half century in exile, powerless to stop the violence that ripped through his country. He is 76 years old now, his tottering seven-foot-two-inch frame stooped by age and the vagaries of fate.'

Incommensurable values

kliuless — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 20:42:30 -0800

Economists and the theory of politics - "why unions were often well worth any deadweight cost" abstract:

The standard approach to policymaking and advice in economics implicitly or explicitly ignores politics and political economy, and maintains that if possible, any market failure should be rapidly removed. This essay explains why this conclusion may be incorrect; because it ignores politics, this approach is oblivious to the impact of the removal of market failures on future political equilibria and economic efficiency, which can be deleterious. We outline a simple framework for the study of the impact of current economic policies on future political equilibria — and indirectly on future economic outcomes. We then illustrate the mechanisms through which such impacts might operate using a series of examples. The main message is that sound economic policy should be based on a careful analysis of political economy and should factor in its influence on future political equilibria.

viz. What kind of mass movement with truly powerful institutional support can take the place of unions? - "I agree with just about everything they say about the value of unions, but I also feel forced to acknowledge that it doesn't matter. As a truly powerful mass movement, unions are dead and they aren't coming back. This has left a gaping hole in American politics: Corporations and the rich continue to have enormous institutional power, while the working and middle classes have almost no one to speak for them. I figure that filling this hole is the most important problem the left has to address over the next decade or so. Unfortunately, I don't know how." cf. The Tyranny of Political Economy - "In reality, our contemporary frameworks for political economy are replete with unstated assumptions about the system of ideas underlying the operation of political systems. Make those assumptions explicit, and the decisive role of vested interests evaporates. Policy design, political leadership, and human agency come back to life... Expand the range of feasible strategies (which is what good policy design and leadership do), and you radically change behavior and outcomes." also btw...

Markets in almost nothing - "One of the first things I noticed when I started studying economics was that goods that can't be bought and sold are basically ignored."
Wealth and Motivations for Saving - "teach the public more about how wealth builds over time"
The Supply and Demand for Safe Assets - "Where do safe assets come from? Empirical evidence suggests that the private sector creates more near riskless assets when the supply of government debt is low and reduces privately-created near riskless assets when the supply of government debt is high."
The safe asset shortage - "Safe debts – or what is often called information insensitive assets, as they do not suffer from the types of financial frictions that are characteristic to other financial assets – play a major role in facilitating transactions for institutional investors. And, as we have learned in the recent years, they also play a major role in triggering financial crises when they lose their safety status and turn into information sensitive assets."
GDP, welfare and the rise of data-driven activities - "The worry today is not that investment in technology might not be as productive as we thought (the so-called computer paradox), but the fact that the economic value of the fast growing consumption and production of online data may not be adequately captured in official statistics."
Uncle Sam, venture capitalist - "AMERICA, like much of the world, is facing a crisis of innovation. Its roots rest in several significant challenges: an awareness that rapid technological progress and growth will be crucial in weathering demographic headwinds and the threat of climate change among them. But there is very little consensus in Washington on just what the government ought to be doing to help."
What Google Reader tells us about banking and nationalisation - "Which is why the government taking charge of a service like RSS for the benefit of the public good — or for that matter providing the country with universal internet or high quality media — should not necessarily be treated with suspicion or mistrust. In the civilized world there is a perfectly reasonable way to ensure arm's length detachment and to protect such institutions from the political meddling of government."
If You Can't Fix It, You Don't Own It - "Who owns our stuff? The answer used to be obvious. Now, with electronics integrated into just about everything we buy, the answer has changed. We live in a digital age, and even the physical goods we buy are complex. Copyright is impacting more people than ever before because the line between hardware and software, physical and digital has blurred. The issue goes beyond cellphone unlocking, because once we buy an object — any object — we should own it. We should be able to lift the hood, unlock it, modify it, repair it... without asking for permission from the manufacturer. But we really don't own our stuff anymore (at least not fully); the manufacturers do. Because modifying modern objects requires access to information: code, service manuals, error codes, and diagnostic tools."

like think about sovereign debt -- that is safe assets -- more as a national equity: [1,2,3,4,5]

The US national debt is in truth - like all national debts - a complete and surreal fiction: it is a national equity, the greater part of which is interest-bearing either as claims over public or private revenues. At least two-thirds of the quasi tax credits created by banks came into existence as mortgage loans, and are therefore backed by claims over the productive value of the US land and buildings which they fund. Much of the rest consists of claims over the value of US assets which fund the productive capacity of US corporations. The remainder - which provides the credit necessary to finance the circulation of goods and services in the US - is based upon the magnificent productive capacity of the US people. Only by liquidating US Incorporated could this National Equity ever be redeemed... There is no shortage of dollars because every dollar's worth of productive capacity - public or private; productive people or productive assets - in the US is the capacity to issue a dollar credit, which reflects the increase in the US national wealth which underpins the US national equity. President Barack Obama and his government should get busy creating national equity by instructing the Fed to create and issue the necessary finance for the creation of a new generation of US infrastructure; the transition to a low carbon future which the US can, and should, be leading; and in increasing the capacity of the US people to do so.

(or how the government budget constraint is different than a household's or corporation's -- namely that they can tax and can't be liquidated, unless extraordinarily mismanaged or conquered, I guess...)

De Moivre’s equation

SollosQ — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 06:34:22 -0800

The Most Dangerous Equation If you have never taken the time to read any statistics, then take the time to read this short chapter excerpt. In order to understand the world a bit more accurately and be able to interpret data for public policy, understanding De Moivre’s equation and sample variability is very significant.

It’s adorably charming, but only because you’re British actor Hugh Grant

davidjmcgee — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 19:59:36 -0800

Focus on one person in the middle of the crowd throughout your speech. Afterward, trail him home. Knock on his door. Offer an introduction like, "Hi. I’m from the speech. Earlier." He’ll reply with something along the lines of, "I know. Um…what are you doing here?" "I thought"—you’ll stammer, searching for the right words—"I just thought we could hang out, maybe, and be friends." "I have friends," he’ll probably say. "And I’m with my family now." Blurt out, too quickly, "I’m not trying to replace your family!" He’ll close the door in your face, gently, more out of pity than fear. Don’t use him as a crowd-focusing person for the next speech, because it would be weird.

Tips for Public Speaking, from Teddy Wayne in the New York Times.

Why We Abandoned the Public Realm, and Why We Need It Again

the man of twists and turns — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 03:16:42 -0800

The Rise and Fall and Rise of Great Public Spaces

Loebolus

Marauding Ennui — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 08:13:54 -0800

All the 245 pdf-format, public domain Loebs conveniently arranged in one place, ready to be downloaded for your classics reading pleasure. (via time's flow stemmed)

Librarians are doing it for themselves

Wordshore — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 06:17:16 -0800

What really concerns librarians; what do they discuss when they self-organise and decide for themselves? After the inaugural UK event, the second UK Librarycamp, with around 200 attendees, was recently held; reflections by Frank Norman, Carolin Schneider [1] [2], Sarah Wolfenden, Amy Faye Finnegan, Shambrarian Knights, Michelle, Jennifer Yellin, Jenni Hughes, Bookshelf Guardian, Amy Cross-Menzies and Simon Barron, and by one of the organisers. Unlike traditional library conferences, where proposals have to fit in with a theme, are submitted months in advance, and scrutinised by a panel, librarycamp follows the camp / unconference / bar format. Attendees can propose anything, right up to and including the day of the event. Sessions are strongly attendee-involved. The event is free to attend (funded by donations, crowdsourcing and sponsorship) and on a weekend, making it a personal, rather than an employer-sanctioned, event. Similar events have been held in the USA and Australia. UK librarycamp has led to several regional and local librarycamps, such as Library Camp South West and Leeds (another review) (video). Pictures of the 2012 UK librarycamp, and of the 2011 one.

HE'S A SOCIALIST!

univac — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 13:40:16 -0800

A society where the lucky few reap prodigious financial rewards is one where many will fall short of their dreams through no fault of their own. We must insure all people against disability, against sickness, against hunger, and against homelessness. I realize that these things cost money. I believe that the costs of building and maintaining a great country should be shared by all of us, beginning with the people who benefit the most from our society. I believe that people like me (and people who are far wealthier) should pay more in taxes.

So-called "job creator" acknowledges that he lives in a society and owes a debt to it, as a response to (seemingly in agreement with) a satirical Job Creator Manifesto published in the Washington Post. Both pieces address the right-wing trope that exalts the rich as benevolent "job creators," and casts the specter of the mention of inequality as red communist class warfare.

Their Beeb

infini — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 11:47:41 -0800

In the two years building up to the government’s NHS reform bill, the BBC appears to have categorically failed to uphold its remit of impartiality, parroting government spin as uncontested fact, whilst reporting only a narrow, shallow view of opposition to the bill. In addition, key news appears to have been censored. The following in-depth investigation provides a shocking testimony of the extent to which the BBC abandoned the NHS.

A New Kinda Satellite State

Chipmazing — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 18:41:46 -0800

The satellite man is typically young, with an entrepreneur’s zeal and a sense of adventure, often from the mercantile district of South Tehran, trained by colleagues in the black-market niche of satellite TV installation...

Privately Owned Public Spaces

larrybob — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 18:31:04 -0800

When is a private space a public space? When it's a Privately Owned Public Space (POPS). In accordance with the planning codes of some cities, owners or builders of buildings are mandated to provide members of the general public access to spaces which include rooftop gardens, courtyards, and plazas. But how can you find these hidden gems? Here are some treasure maps: New York City's Privately Owned Public Space guide. There is also a collaborative project which rated NYC's POPs. Probably the best-known POPS in New York City is Zuccotti Park. Each week, OccupyPOPS visits different POPS in NYC. whOWNSpace, anyway? Pittsburgh is another city where the Occupy movement has occupied a POPS. The Guardian's list of privatised public spaces in Britain invites additional submissions. Space Hijackers is a British group which speaks out about the use of space and free speech rights. San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) points out some Secrets of San Francisco: Where to find our city's POPOS (privately owned public open spaces). The Planning Commission of the City and County of San Francisco has recently mandated an improvement in signage for POPOS, which are often obscurely indicated (an example is the rooftop of the Westfield Mall, which is accessible from only one elevator of a bank of four which is found through an door distinct from the entrance of the mall itself.) In 2006/07 a project called Commonspace by Rebar Art & Design Studio examined what uses of POPOS would be tolerated; their activities included practicing Balinese monkey chant; police refused to comply with security guards' attempts to eject them. Using public spaces freely: Ownership and management of public spaces is a research paper which discusses the history of New York's POPS and San Francisco's POPOS policies, which began in the 60s, and were subsequently modified, as well as examining the use of public space in Atlanta. Japan is another place that has had POPS since the 1960s. Los Angeles is lacking in green spaces, whether private or public. However here's a list of 10 public spaces along the CicLAvia Route. Seattle has also had Privately Owned Public Open Spaces policies since 1966 and the Seattle City Council offers a maps of POPOs in Seattle. Is Discovery Green in Houston a public or private park? However, Anil Dash notes that only 16% of POPS can be considered successful at what they purport to be. And the privatization of public space carries free speech ramifications.

The spin doctor is in

jamincan — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 18:08:30 -0800

Spin Cycles is a radio series by CBC producer Ira Basen about how those in power can manipulate facts in order to make their case for the rest of us. The series explores the world of politics, big business (previously), advertising and public relations to find the real message behind all that spin. Episode 1: A century of spin Episode 2: The spindustrial revolution Episode 3: Calling Dr. Spin Episode 4: The spin doctor is in Episode 5: Spinning War Episode 6: Spinning into the 21st century The response by some members of the PR industry was surprisingly positive, although Basen still received some criticism. Was Basen's narrative simply just more spin (pdf)? Basen's response (pdf).

the dawn of a Star Trek generation

kliuless — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 05:43:20 -0800

In Praise of Leisure - "Imagine a world in which most people worked only 15 hours a week. They would be paid as much as, or even more than, they now are, because the fruits of their labor would be distributed more evenly across society. Leisure would occupy far more of their waking hours than work. It was exactly this prospect that John Maynard Keynes conjured up in a little essay published in 1930 called 'Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren.' Its thesis was simple. As technological progress made possible an increase in the output of goods per hour worked, people would have to work less and less to satisfy their needs, until in the end they would have to work hardly at all... He thought this condition might be reached in about 100 years — that is, by 2030." (via)

Making money cannot be the permanent business of humanity, for the simple reason that there is nothing to do with money except spend it. And we cannot just go on spending. There will come a point when we will be satiated or disgusted or both. Or will we? ... Keynes thought that the motivational basis of capitalism was "an intense appeal to the money-making and money-loving instincts of individuals." He thought that with the coming of plenty, this motivational drive would lose its social approbation; that is, that capitalism would abolish itself when its work was done. But so accustomed have we become to regarding scarcity as the norm that few of us think about what motives and principles of conduct would, or should, prevail in a world of plenty... Why, despite the surprising accuracy of his growth forecasts, are most of us, almost 100 years on, still working about as hard as we were when he wrote his futuristic essay? The answer is that a free-market economy both gives employers the power to dictate hours and terms of work and inflames our innate tendency toward competitive, status-driven consumption. Keynes was well aware of the evils of capitalism but assumed that they would wither away once their work of wealth creation was done. He did not foresee that they might become permanently entrenched, obscuring the very ideal they were initially intended to serve... The irony, however, is that now that we have at last achieved abundance, the habits bred into us by capitalism have left us incapable of enjoying it properly... If scarcity is always with us, then efficiency, the optimal use of scarce resources, and economics, the science that teaches us efficiency, will always be necessary... scarcity, as most people understand it, has diminished greatly in most societies over the last 200 years. People in rich and even medium-rich countries no longer starve to death. All this implies that the social importance of efficiency has declined, and with it the utility of economics... the problem is that a competitive, monetized economy puts us under continual pressure to want more and more. The 'scarcity' discerned by economists is increasingly an artifact of this pressure. Considered in relation to our vital needs, our state is one not of scarcity but rather of extreme abundance.

How Much Is Enough? What Is It For? "It was the shift to a market-based philosophy of growth that inflamed the insatiability of wants -- by abandoning any interest in the social outcome of growth. The market was bound by the rule of law, but there was no longer any moral, political or cultural restraint on the individual pursuit of wealth. Keynes's notion of satiety had no place. Such a system cannot work according to plan. It is both economically and morally inefficient. The Anglo-American system of the past 30 years, dominated by the financial-services industry, has been retained for the benefit of a predatory plutocracy that creams off the riches in the name of freedom and globalization. So, what intellectual, moral and political resources still exist in Western societies to reverse the onslaught of insatiability and redirect our purposes toward the good life?" Saving State Parks: The End Of Public Funding? "[A]cting one by one by one, they set into motion this dynamic... where suddenly we're not acting collaboratively or collectively as a public. We're acting individually as philanthropists to benefit the thing we're most passionate about. And suddenly we don't have a civic sphere anymore. We don't have political participation. We don't have an 'us.' We have a bunch of 'I's.' "

sovereignty and taxation

kliuless — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 14:46:51 -0800

David Graeber: Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit (via)

Mandel had argued that humanity stood at the verge of a "third technological revolution," as profound as the Agricultural or Industrial Revolution, in which computers, robots, new energy sources, and new information technologies would replace industrial labor – the "end of work" as it soon came to be called – reducing us all to designers and computer technicians coming up with crazy visions that cybernetic factories would produce. End of work arguments were popular in the late seventies and early eighties as social thinkers pondered what would happen to the traditional working-class-led popular struggle once the working class no longer existed. (The answer: it would turn into identity politics.)

Daron Acemoglu: The world our grandchildren will inherit - "The last century has been the age of political rights. Never in our history have so many people taken part in choosing their leaders and having a say in how their societies are governed. To be sure, this unparalleled expansion of civil and political rights remains incomplete. Yet it is profoundly significant, not only due to its transformative impact on the lives of billions, but also because so many other phenomena in recent history are connected to it. The rights revolution is intertwined with diverse trends such as the development of technology; sustained yet uneven economic growth; a general decline in war within recent decades; and a population explosion placing new pressures on our resources and environment." Anatole Kaletsky: A New Capitalism

Seabright engages in some fascinating speculations on anthropology and biology. He posits a form of "group selection" – natural selection operating within entire societies rather than individuals... His conclusion – which is quite pessimistic – is that over millions of years humans have evolved to operate quite successfully in limited and well-defined groups. But we're now moving into a world where the social group that is relevant to the future success, maybe even survival, of humanity is no longer a tribe, a city or a nation. It is the world as a whole. Once humanity is operating on a global level, people have to cooperate on a far broader scale, and the mechanisms for cooperation which have evolved over thousands of years may break down. He gives the financial crisis and the inability of nation states to control it as one example of this breakdown. Others are climate change, nuclear proliferation, energy depletion and environmental destruction. These are all global challenges for which cooperative social mechanisms have not had time to evolve... If you go back to the roots of the monetarist revolution in the 1970s, you find that all its conclusions depend on the assumption that profit-motivated individuals operating in free and competitive markets will make the best possible decisions about the allocation of resources. Frydman and Goldberg explain that this claim of optimal decisions by the markets is simply untrue, unless we also assume that perfect knowledge of reality is possible, at least in theory – and not just about the present, but about the forces shaping the future. If such perfect knowledge does not exist, even in theory, then the claims about self-stabilising markets at root of most economic policy since the early 1980s are false. And if perfect knowledge did exist, then ironically Communist central planning would work as well as a market system. All you would need is a computer large enough to take into account all this knowledge, and it would be able to plan the economy. The reason you need markets is precisely because it's impossible to know what the future will hold. Therefore, markets are a system of experimentation – and they will only work properly if non-market decisions, made by regulators and ultimately by politicians, set some bounds within which market prices can be allowed to freely fluctuate.* This is a very important and profound insight which will ultimately undermine not just the structure of academic economics, but also the way in which people think about the relationship between markets and government.

Capitalism's risk manager: The philanthropic complex - "We envision a society that values more of what matters – not just more... a new emphasis on non-material values like financial security, fairness, community, health, time,** nature, and fun." The Progressive Consumption Tax - "By pulling a simple tax lever, we could reduce the costs of growing income disparities, while at the same time freeing up several trillion dollars of additional resources each year – more than enough to pay down the federal debt and rebuild our crumbling infrastructure – all without requiring painful sacrifices from anyone." Beyond scarcity: The parable of water - "Yet if water abundance is great enough people will look around and see there is no scarcity. They will see they are better off than they have ever been. Eventually, they will understand all the scarcity is artificial. They will also realise they have no need for receptacles, because receptacles have no value. You can live directly off the source. As those with receptacles adjust to the realisation that they have no advantage over those with no receptacles, there is a crisis in the old system. Ultimately, however, more people are provided with access to a constant supply of water than ever before, and on equal terms. The crisis is only for those who used to have an advantage in the system." The end of artificial scarcity - "Without something like a war — or an extra-terrestrial pursuit*** — the system can only be rebalanced by a boom in credit supply and/or artificial scarcity enforced by manufacturers themselves." Debunking goldbugs - "Unlike the gold system, which asks you to put your faith in an inanimate shiny object, a paper 'fiat' system asks you to put faith in relationships, in your neighbours, your community. It asks you to believe that society will honour its debts because it doesn't make sense for it not to – largely because it is just as dependent on you honouring your debts to it, as you are on it honouring its debts to you. It's a system based on quid pro quo relationships. A symbiosis based on trust." Gold's Anti-Social Behaviour Order - "So while gold may be a workable underlier for a redemption option, this doesn't change the fact that at the heart of the system it is faith and faith alone which holds everything together. Whether that faith is reflected in a sovereign's ability to manage the economy on behalf of the group, in the sovereign's guarantee to honour a gold option, or faith in the gold god himself... faith is the constant. Not gold. What's more, while gold encourages anti-social behaviour and hoarding in individuals, a fiat-based system encourages the very opposite: sharing, distribution, collaboration and cooperation." Space opera, beyond finance edition

That includes the notion that in the future there will likely be more currencies not less. "Perhaps even billions of currencies," he says, sketching out a world where every individual and every human network boasts its own unit of exchange. He believes that city-states will become more relevant than nations. And that communities and networks will take control over their own units of account. Virtual currencies such as BitCoin or Facebook credits or others not yet invented, meanwhile, could well start to rival established state-issued money both in private exchange and international trade. And community-led Peer2Peer networks will run alongside more established currency systems. If you thought exchange rates might pose a problem here, Park says technology will provide us with something akin to a "universal translator" for establishing relative values. Real-time and cost efficient. The concept of pricing, meanwhile, will likely to be turned on its head entirely. That's because in the future Park believes prices will become a function of who you are just as much as broader supply and demand fundamentals. One reason why reputation tracking will once again become critical to business, investment and even daily exchange of goods. Just like when a gentleman's word used to be his bond.

previously :P --- *gzip the universe: "I feel we look at matter and information and we see the dichotomy because it's semiotcratic to do so. Just as we look at particles and see fermions (things that can't be in the same place at the same time) and bosons (things that can be so). Perhaps it's just an artefact of our measuring equipment. It's all string vibrations, further down. And rooms and corridors. Buildings and streets (tell that to those in Catalhoyuk!). And objects and textures, of course, animate/inanimate, background/attended. Mesh/tree, mesh-becoming/tree-becoming, branching/canalising, push/pull. But we've talked about that, or we will. We've created an arboreal world, we've also been created. We can't assign causality, only proximity. Does it makes sense to talk about any thing if everything is every thing?" or look at the world in terms of affordances, viz. Hans Rosling: Religions and babies **Paul Ford: 10 Timeframes - 'we're asking people to spend their heartbeats on things we make'

The time you spend is not your own. You are, as a class of human beings, responsible for more pure raw time, broken into more units, than almost anyone else. You spent two years learning, focusing, exploring, but that was your time; now you are about to spend whole decades, whole centuries, of cumulative moments, of other people’s time. People using your systems, playing with your toys, fiddling with your abstractions. And I want you to ask yourself when you make things, when you prototype interactions, am I thinking about my own clock, or the user’s? Am I going to help someone make order in his or her life, or am I going to send that person to a commune in Vermont? There is an immense opportunity—maybe it’s even a business opportunity—to look at our temporal world and think about calendars and clocks and human behavior, to think about each interaction as a specific unit, to take careful note of how we parcel out moments. Whether a mouse moving across a screen or the progress of a Facebook post through a thousand different servers, the way we value time seems to have altered, as if the earth tilted on its axis, as if the seasons are different and new. So that is my question for all of you: What is the new calendar? What are the new seasons? The new weeks and months and decades? As a class of individuals, we make the schedule. What can we do to help others understand it? If we are going to ask people, in the form of our products, in the form of the things we make, to spend their heartbeats—if we are going to ask them to spend their heartbeats on us, on our ideas, how can we be sure, far more sure than we are now, that they spend those heartbeats wisely?

***cf. John Hodgman: Design, explained & Reggie Watts disorients you in the most entertaining way

The Library of Utopia

davidjmcgee — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 10:42:14 -0800

"Despite the challenges it faces, the Digital Public Library of America has an enthusiastic corps of volunteers and some generous contributors. It seems likely that by this time next year, it will have reached its first milestone and begun operating a metadata exchange of some sort. But what happens after that? Will the library be able to extend the scope of its collection beyond the early years of the last century? Will it be able to offer services that spark the interest of the public? If the DPLA is nothing more than plumbing, the project will have failed to live up to its grand name and its even grander promise."

This American Truth

FatRabbit — Tue, 22 May 2012 09:29:19 -0800

The line between a good story and a true story gets a closer examination at This American Life Since retracting the episode Mr Daisey and the Apple Factory, This American Life has been looking more closely at the exact details of other stories they have aired. Specifically those written by David Sedaris. (MeFites thought of this perviously) Mike Daisey and others think it's too much. But what is the place of fact in a good story?

The National Map (US)

Miko — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:01:12 -0800

"The U.S. Geological Survey has just released more than 161,000 digitally scanned historical maps spanning in excess of 130 years and covering the lower 48 states. This Historical Topographic Map Collection provides a comprehensive repository of the landscape of our Nation..."

Teach to the test, or not

roomthreeseventeen — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 11:53:35 -0800

A Didactic Tale to Illustrate Just How Much the (new NYC) Teacher Rating System Pisses Me Off.

National Public Rodeo

Chrischris — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:23:55 -0800

National Public Rodeo Vanity Fair's David Margolick on the recent history and (somewhat) uncertain future of National Public Radio.

Williamsburg Acrobatics

The Discredited Ape — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 11:49:06 -0800

Seanna Sharpe's crazy acrobatics show 285 feet up the Williamsburg Bridge. (Not) for those afraid of heights or lycra. More Seanna here.

"Leer aber sexy?" The Detroit-Berlin Connection

HLD — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 06:05:18 -0800

WDET- Detroit Public Radio: "Detroit and Berlin are iconic cities; symbols of cultural and economic domination, as well as of collapse, and (potential) rebirth. Detroit and Berlin have ideological similarities that go far beyond industrial power. As beacons of culture, Detroit and Berlin have both been on the cutting edge of arts activities. Berlin is a crossroads of European film, art, music and food; Detroit is a center of African-American culture, with global credibility in jazz, techno, and emerging cultural expressions." Audio Preview.

Martina Guzmán's series for WDET public radio, The Detroit - Berlin Connection looks at the futures of these two great cities and looks at the measures being used to reinvent industrial cities for the 21st century. "Because of their unique pasts, Detroit and Berlin are faced with scores of abandoned properties, which most cities can't even contemplate. As these two iconic cities move forward, they make decisions about what to do with abandoned buildings, churches, airports, parks, plots of land and houses. They can be torn down, they can fall into disarray, they can be preserved or they can be repurposed. Sometimes the government decides what to do with these buildings and sometimes its’ the people. Either way, as decisions are made about what to do with each of these properties, new landscapes and new identities for these cities are shaped." What can the Detroit Berlin connection teach us? Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institute and Wayne State University Urban Planning Professor Robin Boyle join Martina Guzman and Craig Fahle to discuss The Detroit Berlin Connection. Schöneweide is a struggling neighborhood in Berlin that lost more than 20 thousand industrial jobs once East and West Germany reunified in 1989. Though only several hundred jobs remain today, residents interviewed in this video call Schöneweide home and refuse to abandon it despite the challenges of living there. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe applied the principles of the courtyard, and the importance of outdoor space and landscape to the Lemke house in Berlin and to Lafayette Park in Detroit. The courtyard principle is considered a turning point in Mies van der Rohe's career. Land Use - The Detroit Berlin Connection In this segment of our series, The Detroit - Berlin Connection, WDET's Martina Guzmán examines how Detroit, the city with the highest unemployment of any major metropolis in America, and Berlin, one of the poorest capitol cities in Europe, turn to creativity when it comes to abandoned buildings and vacant land. The Creative Class - The Detroit Berlin Connection Both Detroit and Berlin were cradles of industry, hubs of creative culture and suffered from a loss of an educated population... brain drain. In part two of our series, The Detroit - Berlin Connection, we look at how artists can revitalize neighborhoods, improve the economy and jumpstart the city’s image. DJ RolandoThe massive contributions of Detroit DJs helped establish Berlin as a global hub of techno music. Beginning in 1991, two months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Detroit and Berlin built a transatlantic bond that continues to this day. "Leer aber sexy" In the piece, Guzman talks about how Berlin's mayor coined the phrase "Poor but Sexy" to describe their hip, capitol city. Berliners embraced the expression and used it on everything from t-shirts, to tourism campaigns.

How Radiolab is made

garlic — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 11:42:52 -0800

Ira Glass talks about how RadioLab is made, and why it's so different from everything else.

Exxon State Park?

anya32 — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 12:17:41 -0800

Goodbye public spaces? A recent St. Petersburg Times op-ed reports that Governer Rick Scott, through the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has drawn up a plan to turn over portions of more than 50 state parks to private corporations to build camping and RV sites. The initiative would affect some of Florida’s most famous state parks. In one instance, the plan would lead to the construction of 45 campsites on 17.5 acres of Honeymoon Island, to accommodate both recreational vehicles and tents. According to the St. Petersburg Times, the pronouncement has been launched “mostly outside the public’s view." Is this better than shutting down parks?