January 2016

There were 61 posts published in January 2016 (this is page 6 of 7).

Highlights of 2015: Dix Park, part II

Dix Park proponents at Council of State meeting. L-R, Mayor Nancy McFarlane, City Manager Ruffin Hall, Councilor Kay Crowder, Dix Visionaries member Jay Spain, Councilor Russ Stephenson

Dix Park proponents at May 2015 Council of State meeting. L-R, Raleigh Mayor Nancy McFarlane, City Manager Ruffin Hall, City Councilor Kay Crowder, Friends of Dix Park member Jay Spain, City Councilor Russ Stephenson


2015 was the year that the City of Raleigh finally got the prize it had long sought from the state: the deed to the Dorothea Dix property. In February, the city and state worked out a deal for Raleigh to purchase the property for $53 million dollars. This is far more than the original lease terms (under the first deal that was subsequently torn up by a spiteful General Assembly) and also far more than most state property that gets transferred to local entities. Apparently, Republican leaders in the Gereral Assembly have no problem with burdening people with taxes as long as the urban folk who have to pay.

Anyway, this time the deal got negotiated and signed behind the scenes. The group on whose board I sit, Friends of Dorothea Dix Park (FDDP), was largely kept in the dark about negotiations (though I knew talks were underway). It’s all the same now that the park has been secured, though. I did get to attend the following Council of State meeting on May 5th where the rest of state leaders signed off on the deal. This is my photo of city and Dix Visionaries leaders after the historic event.
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Highlights of 2015: RPD Ridealong

Another highlight was my second ridealong with the Raleigh Police Department, this time with Internet superstar Officer Boyd. I had so much to share about that that waited until I had the time to do it justice with a blog post. Turns out that it took seven months for me to get time, but I finally did it yesterday!

Highlights of 2015: Google Fiber

fiber_house
Also around February, Raleigh got the official word from Google that Google Fiber was coming to the Triangle.

This announcement was really exciting to me after doing what I could over the years to promote broadband competition in North Carolina. For years I maintained the “Bring Google Fiber to Raleigh” Facebook page, posting updates when I got them. I met with city and state officials to keep up with their broadband plans (NC NGN). I took time off of work to attend the Google Fiber announcement and schmoozed with Google Fiber executives at an invitation-only community meet-and-greet.

I was hoping to become a part of the Google Fiber team here but it was not to be. It would’ve been one hell of a gig, so to speak: promoting something I am passionate about and putting to use all the people and political skills I’ve honed over the years. Google had their own ideas of what they wanted, though, and I was super bummed to miss out on the opportunity. It’s probably for the better, in hindsight. I can honestly say that Google hit a home run with the hire of Tia MacLauren as its Raleigh Community Manager, and I am getting crankier in my old age and thus more apt to say what I’m thinking!

Google Fiber trucks haven’t begun rolling in earnest around Raleigh yet but they soon will. No matter what, though, broadband competition has finally come to North Carolina’s cities, and this in itself is a beautiful thing.

A Constitution to pick and choose

A conservative friend recently posted the following meme image to his Facebook page. It read:

Thank you Florida, Kentucky, and Missouri, which are the first States that will require drug testing when applying for welfare. Some people are crying and calling this unconstitutional. How is this unconstitutional???? It’s OK to drug test people who work for their money, but not for those who don’t? … Re-port this if you’d like to see this done in all 50 states. If you can afford to buy drugs and extra illegal things then you can afford your own groceries.

My friend frequently posts other memes supporting the Second Amendment and other rights made possible by our Constitution. I thought it a bit disingenuous to claim to support the Constitution when it protected something important to him but not when it protected something important to someone else.

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Confederate graves, Gov. Aycock marker vandalized at Oakwood Cemetery | News & Observer

Remember when I wrote about how the Confederate Memorial doesn’t belong on the State Capitol grounds? I suggested the memorial be moved to the Oakwood Cemetery, where it and the ideals behind it could be retired forever.

The only place racism belongs is in the cemetery. Racism deserves to be buried.

Sadly,  some misguilded individual doesn’t know the difference between a monument to racism celebrated with a position on public grounds and a monument on private grounds marking the graves of people who lived in those times.

This person has vandalized someone’s final resting place. This is shameful and disrespectful and off-limits. Let the racists rest in peace along with the misguided ideals by which they lived. Let everyone see that the legacy of racism ends in the cold damp earth of a cemetery.

Speak about out our contiuning to celebratie these legacies on public grounds while advocating that the proper place for these legacies is six feet under.

 

Vandals spray-painted anti-racist graffiti on nine monuments inside Raleigh’s Historic Oakwood Cemetery, mostly damaging the graves of high-ranking officers in the Confederate Army but also defacing the stone of North Carolina Gov. Charles Aycock, whose racial views in the early 1900s have found increasing criticism.

The attack caused roughly $20,000 in damage on Wednesday night and is thought to be the first of its kind on private property, said Robin Simonton, executive director at Oakwood. Cemetery officials reported the crime to Raleigh police during the weekend, hoping to spare further destruction during the holidays.

Source: Confederate graves, Gov. Aycock marker vandalized at Oakwood Cemetery | News & Observer

N&O loves broken links

Wow, I’m surprised this is still an issue. I’ve complained for years how the N&O loves to break links to its older stories whenever it updates its website. Surprisingly, the company still hasn’t learned.

I found links to the Officer Boyd column N&O Columnist Josh Shaffer wrote last February. The original link, no doubt sent around the world to thousands, now goes nowhere.

Nowhere as in 404. It’s dead, Jim.

Yet, the story still lives online at its new address.

What drives me nuts as a system administrator is that it isn’t too difficult to write a script that points the old links to the new links. Doing so preserves the links that millions have passed around. Not doing so means the N&O forfeits potentially millions of advertising page views that could be helping to keep the lights on over there.

I did some work a few years back on the website of USA Today. Did you know that links to USA Today content that’s several years old still lead viewers to the correct stories? It’s not rocket science, and any website worth its salt will work to keep their site from suffering link rot.

I first mentioned this five years ago. (actually six years ago). Some things never change, I guess.

Highlights of 2015 – Snowball fight video goes viral


The early months of 2015 were filled with plenty of cold and wet days, with an occasional few snowfalls. Tuesday, February 24th was one of those snow days. Our neighborhood beat officer, the Internet-famous Raleigh Police officer J.D. Boyd, posted in the neighborhood Facebook Page (East CAC), challenging the neighborhood to a snowball fight at nearby Lions Park. Kelly took the kids over to the park to defend the neighborhood honor while I stayed home and worked. Sure wish I had gone, too, because everyone had a great time!

Taunting the neighborhood

Taunting the neighborhood


News and Observer photojournalist Travis Long learned of the snowball fight. He and N&O colleague Jill Knight brought cameras along for the fun. The resulting photos and Jill Knight’s delightful video soon attracted attention from over a million amused citizens from around the world. It was a fun story that lightened up a bleak, cold, seemingly-unending winter.

Hallie and Travis and our neighbor Hannah Frelke were three kids sharing screen time with Officers Boyd and Martucci (who were sledding down the hill on our sleds). The video kept popping up months later. It was fun seeing how far and wide it went.

The video made Officer Boyd a bona fide Internet star and Hallie and Travis enjoyed some fame amongst their friends. In its N&O’s recent end-of-year recap, the paper featured the video again, probably not even knowing that the girl in their screenshot was the same girl also featured in their second most popular story of the year, Hallie’s climate change story. That, my friends, is the topic of its own Highlights post.

From Gateway theme to Dellow

I got tired of the Gateway WordPress Theme because it teased me with features only available in the pro version. I don’t mind starting out with the basic, free version of the software if I know going in what I get for free and what I need the premium version for. I also wanted to add Infinite Scroll to make my blog perform the way all other social media sites now perform. I don’t know if even the premium version of the Gateway Theme does this.

With a little more poking around the Internets, I found the Dellow Theme. Dellow offers a cool Parallax effect with the header image. For the unaware, the Parallax effect scrolls an image or frame at a fraction of the rest of the page, offering a cool depth-of-field effect. Dellow also offers Infinite Scroll so that webpage visitors never reach the end of my blog.

Now, I’ve read that search engines sometimes have trouble finding content on an infinite scroll page. This remains to be seen. If it cuts into my search traffic then I may have to rethink my strategy. All told, I am impressed with what the free version of Dellow offers, so much that I immediately paid for the Dellow Plus version to show the author thanks.

Please help me kick the tires and let me know what you think of it. Thanks!

The Rise and Fall of AIM, the Breakthrough AOL Never Wanted

This is a fascinating interview with the founders of AOL Instant Messenger, a trailblazing messaging tool that had its spectacular rise and fall under the largely-clueless leadership of AOL.

When we think about the spectacular collapses of once untouchable Internet properties, companies like MySpace and Pets.com come to mind. The rise and fall of AOL Instant Messenger rivals them all. Once the dominant force in digital messaging and a source of innovations other companies spun off into billions of dollars of businesses, AIM is now mostly dormant. Mashable sat down with three of the early engineers of the program to learn about its origins, why AOL never quite embraced the concept of a free messaging service, getting hacked by Microsoft and the features that never quite made it to users.

Source: The Rise and Fall of AIM, the Breakthrough AOL Never Wanted

My ridealong with the Raleigh Police Department

Ready to roll with Officer Boyd

Ready to roll with Officer Boyd

In July of 2015, I decided it was time again to take another ridealong with the Raleigh Police Department (RPD). I last did a ridealong in 2007 and learned so much about my community that I never would have learned otherwise. It seemed like a refresher was in order, so I contacted my beat officer, Officer J.D. Boyd, and we set up a Friday night to make it happen.

There were a few key differences for this ridealong compared to the last time. First, I got door-to-door service from RPD whereas last time I had to start and end at the Southeast District station. I also was afforded the use of a bulletproof vest which was not offered last time. Finally, I am a greenway volunteer with RPD and so I am not your typical citizen. I’m sort of part of the department. This means I got to do more during this ridealong than my last ridealong, but more on that in a minute.

The ridealong experience started with some prep on my part. Knowing that I would likely be up most of the night, I took a two-hour nap after work. This got me rested and alert for the ridealong. Without the nap I would’ve been toast!

Officer Boyd rolled up to my home about 9 PM and handed me my bulletproof vest to put on. I took a cue from my last ridealong and dressed nicely with a blue button-down shirt and slacks. If I was going to be meeting the public and potentially be in their homes I wanted to look professional. The vest wasn’t all that bulky but I was aware how it might get heavy if I had to wear it all the time. Once suited up, I returned outside.

Getting the lowdown on the gear

Getting the lowdown on the gear

Boyd then gave me a quick rundown of safety stuff. He handed me a waiver to sign and then described where I could find his weapons and safety equipment, should I have to help him out. This was sobering! With a pic or two taken in front of his car, I waved goodbye to the family and we departed for our first call. It was a little disturbing how happy my son was to see his dad get whisked away in a police car!
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