June 2013

There were 30 posts published in June 2013 (this is page 1 of 3).

Hot then stormy weekend

It was a swelteringly hot weekend that ended with nightly storms but we managed to have some fun, anyway.

I spent Saturday morning installing a trailer hitch on the minivan. While it could conceivably tow our boat, I got it to hold a hitch-mount bike rack. Installing it meant a few hours contorted under the rear of the van on the hard garage floor while wearing thick work coveralls. Early on in the work, it rained about 20 minutes. When the sun returned, it returned with a vengeance. Soon it was 85 degrees F with 85% humidity. Meanwhile, I was hand-tightening each stubborn bolt into rusted bolt-holes of the van’s frame. The good news is that by lunchtime it was ready for the new rack, which I love.
Continue reading →

Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays, Not $16.89

Here’s another rebuttal for David Lowery, who recently asserted that Pandora was ripping him off. It turns out his record company is ripping him off, which should be old news to him by now.

Lowery told kids to get off his lawn about this time last year, blaming Creative Commons.

David Lowery’s “My Song Got Played On Pandora 1 Million Times and All I Got Was $16.89” article has been picked up over and over and over, including by very respectable folks, often without comment.

This has left many readers with two impressions:

Pandora only paid $16.89 for 1 million plays.1

Pandora pays much lower royalty rates than Sirius XM and especially terrestrial AM/FM radio.

Music royalties are complex, but both of these are patently untrue.

via the understatement: Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays, Not $16.89.

What It’s Like to Get a National-Security Letter : The New Yorker

Nice first-person account of what it’s like to get a “national security letter” from the FBI.

I spoke with Brewster Kahle, the founder of the nonprofit Internet Archive, perhaps the greatest of our digital libraries, and of the Wayback Machine, which allows you to browse an archive of the Web that reaches back to 1996. He is one of very few people in the United States who can talk about receiving a national-security letter. These letters are one of the ways government agencies, in particular the F.B.I., can demand data from organizations in matters related to national security. They do not require prior approval from a judge, only the assertion that the information demanded is relevant to a national-security investigation. Recipients of a national-security letter typically are not allowed to disclose it.

via What It’s Like to Get a National-Security Letter : The New Yorker.

Ancient DNA mapped from 700,000-year-old horse

Fascinating.

Gene experts said Wednesday they’ve been able to unravel the genetic blueprint of a prehistoric horse that lived in Canada some 700,000 years ago, the oldest DNA mapping effort ever attempted.

A dramatic extension of the limits of ancient DNA recovery, the advance re-creates a gene map, or genome, which is roughly 10 times older than the previous record-holder. The feat suggests that ancient DNA may be recoverable from frozen remains almost a million years old, raising the possibility of someday recovering even more ancient gene maps of humanity’s primitive ancestors.

via Ancient DNA mapped from 700,000-year-old horse.

Coyotes!

Looks like you can add another urban critter to the list of critters seen in my East Raleigh neighborhood: coyotes! A neighbor reported an encounter with one this morning in the Woodcrest neighborhood:

This morning at about 6:30 AM I saw a coyote walking across Dennis down towards Banks Street. I also saw a couple of foxes around Lions Park late Wednesday night.

Keep an eye on your pets when you let them out. There seems to be several predators living in or around the neighborhood.

Last week, a friend told me of an encounter he had last month on the Middle Crabtree Creek greenway. I described it to my friend John Connors who works at the Nature Research Center:
Continue reading →

A person in your neighborhood

Speaking of neighborhood boundaries, last month I had a spirited discussion on Facebook regarding the neighborhood email list and who should be allowed to subscribe. I’m one of two moderators of the list, where basically I help people subscribe and unsubscribe. Generally I sign up anyone who politely asks, though I do try to weed out spammers and the like.

Unlike other nearby neighborhood lists, I don’t try to enforce a residency requirement. This was put to the test when I got a friendly request to subscribe from one of the postal carriers who works our neighborhood. He doesn’t really live here, so do I sign him up?
Continue reading →

Nextdoor and neighbors

My friend Reid Serozi wrote a blog post in support of Nextdoor.

Almost one year ago, I started questioning the value of using Google Groups and started to wonder if there was a better way to communicate with my neighbors. I discovered Nextdoor in early 2012 and immediately recognized the value and how it could address the pains I found with using Google Group for a neighborhood/community communication tool.

He makes some good points, but doesn’t address the issue of how poorly Nextdoor deals with neighborhood boundaries. Reid ran into this issue himself this week, as this post to the Oakwood mailing list shows:

I am trying to reach the Historic Oakwood Nextdoor lead.

It appears we have a boundary issue, since the Mordecai CAC overlaps your neighborhood boundary near East Franklin.

Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. All these boundaries. Virtual gated communities is what it is. Even with Nextdoor’s announcement that they’re reenabling their Nearby Neighborhoods feature doesn’t give me a warm fuzzy feeling.

Maybe I’m a geezer (okay, maybe the question should be how much of a geezer I am), but I’m all about open, open, open. Let everyone participate, don’t put up barriers (i.e., membership). Let people own their own data.

Then again, I didn’t see the value of Facebook but now I visit it constantly. You kids get off my lawn!

via Nextdoor Explosion | Reid Serozi – Civic Geek.

Are You Smart Enough to Be a Citizen? Take Our Quiz – Eric Liu – The Atlantic

The Atlantic’s Eric Liu totally stole my idea.

By the way, I scored a 73. Those dadgum Supreme Court justices need to get out more.

To become a citizen of the United States, naturalizing immigrants must take a test. Many native-born Americans would fail this test. Indeed, most of us have never really thought about what it means to be a citizen. One radical idea from the immigration debate is the repeal of birthright citizenship—guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment—to prevent so-called anchor babies. Odious and constitutionally dubious as this proposal may be, it does prompt a thought experiment: What if citizenship were not, in fact, guaranteed by birth? What if everyone had to earn it upon turning 18, and renew it every 10 years, by taking an exam? What might that exam look like?

via Are You Smart Enough to Be a Citizen? Take Our Quiz – Eric Liu – The Atlantic.

Did U.S. Gov’t Lie about TWA Flight 800 Crash? Ex-Investigators Seek Probe as New Evidence Emerges | Democracy Now!

There is a petition active with the NTSB to reopen the investigation into the crash of TWA 800. The plane exploded in July 1996, shortly after leaving New York.

The official explanation blamed a short circuit in the center wing fuel tank, though that’s never happened to a 747 before. Many witnesses reported seeing a streak of light rise in the vicinity of the plane.

I stopped believing the official explanation early on when I read a CNN story reporting that the nose-wheel doors were blown inward, suggesting an external explosion had taken place. The NTSB said the investigation would have to see how that evidence fit the official theory:

But Shelly Hazle, an NTSB spokeswoman, downplayed the significance, emphasizing that investigators will have to see how this newly discovered evidence fits into their theory of how the plane blew up.

The NTSB was cherry-picking evidence to support its theory. I knew then that the investigation was a sham. What downed the plane? I have no idea, but I do firmly believe the federal government knows more than it’s telling.

Seventeen years ago, TWA Flight 800 crashed off Long Island, killing all 230 people aboard. The official government investigation blamed mechanical failure, but now a group of former investigators are petitioning the National Transportation Safety Board to reopen the probe, saying the original report was falsified. Was the plane accidentally shot down by the U.S. Navy conducting a nearby exercise, or was it a terrorist attack?

via Did U.S. Gov’t Lie about TWA Flight 800 Crash? Ex-Investigators Seek Probe as New Evidence Emerges | Democracy Now!.

Why Are Dead People Liking Stuff On Facebook? – ReadWrite

Here’s a follow-up to the Mitt Romney Facebook hacking story. Apparently, the bogus “likes” continue long after the election was over.

Last month, while wasting a few moments on Facebook, my pal Brendan O’Malley was surprised to see that his old friend Alex Gomez had “liked” Discover. This was surprising not only because Alex hated mega-corporations but even more so because Alex had passed away six months earlier.The Facebook “like” is dated Nov. 1, which is strange since Alex “passed [away] around March 26 or March 27,” O’Malley told me. Worse, O’Malley says the like was “quite offensive” since his friend “hated corporate bullshit.”

Oh, in related news, Facebook’s security chief just went to work for the NSA.

via Why Are Dead People Liking Stuff On Facebook? – ReadWrite.