Facebook virus forces me to “like” Mitt Romney

An unlike but no like? Something’s going on here!

Update 10 Oct 2012: Hello Mother Jones readers. Check here for my response to Erika Eichelberger’s story.

I checked Facebook this evening to find status updates from Mitt Romney’s campaign in my Facebook news feed. Thinking this was one of those stupid “promoted” updates that you see on Twitter, I gave it no mind. That is, until I found yet another update from the Romney campaign in my news feed. It was then that I surfed over to the Mitt Romney Facebook page and discovered to my shock that I was listed as “liking” that page.

Umm, no. Obama has raised my ire more than once, of course, but there is no way I’m voting for that clueless millionaire buffoon I call “Rmoney.” How Facebook came to think I would like the Romney page is quite the mystery.

A fellow geek suggested (I assume half-jokingly) that a Romney virus might be responsible for the status change. While I laughed at the suggestion, now I’m wondering if there might be truth to it. I have seen updates saying some friend of mine liked Mitt Romney, only to be surprised that person would do so knowing what I know of them. Not everyone wears their politics on their sleeve the way I do, but when you see multiple instances of this kid of thing you do begin to wonder if these choices aren’t being made without the knowledge of the account holders.
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The Cheapest Generation

Here’s another look at the dramatically changing demographics taking place in America. Raleigh leaders, take note.

In 2009, Ford brought its new supermini, the Fiesta, over from Europe in a brave attempt to attract the attention of young Americans. It passed out 100 of the cars to influential bloggers for a free six-month test-drive, with just one condition: document your experience online, whether you love the Fiesta or hate it.

Young bloggers loved the car. Young drivers? Not so much. After a brief burst of excitement, in which Ford sold more than 90,000 units over 18 months, Fiesta sales plummeted. As of April 2012, they were down 30 percent from 2011.

Don’t blame Ford. The company is trying to solve a puzzle that’s bewildering every automaker in America: How do you sell cars to Millennials (a?k?a Generation Y)? The fact is, today’s young people simply don’t drive like their predecessors did. In 2010, adults between the ages of 21 and 34 bought just 27 percent of all new vehicles sold in America, down from the peak of 38 percent in 1985. Miles driven are down, too. Even the proportion of teenagers with a license fell, by 28 percent, between 1998 and 2008.

via The Cheapest Generation – Derek Thompson and Jordan Weissmann – The Atlantic.

Update 1:38 PM: The authors cite the same thing I did back in March: that technology is making travel less necessary than it was before.

Smartphones compete against cars for young people’s big-ticket dollars, since the cost of a good phone and data plan can exceed $1,000 a year. But they also provide some of the same psychic benefits—opening new vistas and carrying us far from the physical space in which we reside.

“You no longer need to feel connected to your friends with a car when you have this technology that’s so ubiquitous, it transcends time and space,” Connelly said.

In other words, mobile technology has empowered more than just car-sharing. It has empowered friendships that can be maintained from a distance. The upshot could be a continuing shift from automobiles to mobile technology, and a big reduction in spending.

Bringing a rooftop garden to East Raleigh

I read this interesting tidbit in yesterday’s N&O about a company that builds rooftop gardens for grocery stores and thought my neighborhood would be perfect for this.

  • There are relatively few choices for good, healthy food in my area (a.k.a, a food desert).
  • An often-heard complaint about my local grocery store is the quality of its produce.
  • Said grocery store has lots of rooftop space and a large, southern-facing, sunlit, vacant outparcel nearby.
  • The Brooklyn-based owner of my local shopping center has rooftop gardens on the Brooklyn warehouses she owns.
  • This should be a slam dunk, shouldn’t it? We’ll see!

A New York company has developed a hyper local way to get fresh produce to grocery stores: grow it on the store’s own rooftop – or at least one very close by.

BrightFarms builds hydroponic greenhouses on top of buildings and then sells the lettuce, tomatoes and herbs to local supermarkets. So far, the company’s partners include A&P in Brooklyn, Whole Foods in New Jersey, and Homeland Stores in Oklahoma. Now BrightFarms wants to come to the Triangle.

P.S. The link in the N&O blog entry is broken. The contest URL is http://brightfarms.com/projects/north-carolina-envision-us-here-contest

via .biz – Company seeks roof garden sites | newsobserver.com blogs.

A lesson in democracy, CAC style

With my vacation out of the way (though not the blogging of the vacation, yet), I’m now realizing the things that I’ve been meaning to blog but haven’t gotten to yet. One is a very exciting opportunity in mid-November to provide a lesson in democracy to some visiting students from Charlotte.

A few weeks ago, Charlene Willard with the city’s Community Services department put me in touch with teacher Katy Field, Ninth Grade Class Dean of Providence Day School in Charlotte. Katy told me she was considering bringing her 9th grade class to Raleigh for a few days so that they could see how our democratic process works. Charlene told Katy about all the ways citizens can get involved through Raleigh’s unique Citizens Advisory Councils and Katy became determined to make CACs a big part of her program.
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Tropical Storm Isaac

Tropical Storm Isaac

I’ve been keeping an eye on Tropical Storm Isaac as it progresses across the Atlantic. Though it’s still a week out, there appears to be at least some chance that Isaac will reach North Carolina. Whether we have severe weather from this storm or not, we most likely will get a good soaking from Isaac next week.

Stay tuned (and for a look at the latest models, go here).

Little Raleigh Radio blows past Kickstarter goal!

Little Raleigh Radio exceeds fundraising goal


I was thrilled to check the Kickstarter page for Little Raleigh Radio this evening and see that we’ve blown past our goal of raising $10,000 to fund our studio! What an amazing milestone! LRR aims to bring a community radio station to downtown Raleigh and Kickstarter funding really does make it a community-owned station. It’s definitely community-built!

A Kickstarter project doesn’t get funded unless donations reach a certain level. Should LRR not reached its fundraising goal by the end of the month, we would have gotten no money at all.

The community’s support for LRR is inspiring and humbling at the same time. Our neighbors have entrusted us with their money and have bought into our vision. Now its up to us to provide the goods.

The money and the interest is there. This is really going to happen!

The case of the broken cooler door

A cooler mystery you’ll never find


I walked into the office break room morning to discover that the glass door on our drink machine was shattered. No one in the office seems to know what happened to it.

I speculated that the office cleaning crew might have accidentally busted it while cleaning the break room, but later as I thought about it I decided that didn’t make sense. The focus of the break was too high up the door to be from something like a vacuum. The break room’s floor is tile, too, so a vacuum wouldn’t be needed. The “point of impact” shows no penetration: the spot doesn’t show any inward or outward bend. The glass is shattered but the individual pieces are still held in place by the glass’s coating.
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