Mifos’s beloved director George Conard will be giving a talk on Mifos at the 2008 O’Reilly Open Source Conference in Portland, Oregon.
The phrase double bottom line refers to having a bottom line besides just profit.
April 27, 2008
April 5, 2008
Fostering a Volunteer Community
Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia) knows a thing or two about fostering a geeky volunteer community. A desire to do well at my current post of “Mr. Open Source” on the Mifos project has led me to try and learn some lessons from people like Jimmy. Here are two crucial points gleaned from an interview with him on FLOSS Weekly:
- small group dialogs are best, too many people on one problem ends in voting/groupthink
- build a system that supports bees and and handles wasps (my verbage)
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April 2, 2008
Eben Moglen on Technology and Freedom
I’ve been enjoying strolling through the FLOSS Weekly archives; a collection of one-on-one interviews with key players in FLOSS. Here’s a quote that really speaks to why FLOSS is something to pay attention to:
“Free as in Freedom” is a really important concept. That is, technology really as to be free in some important ways if people are to have political freedom.
- Eben Moglen, speaking on the GPL version 3 during FLOSS Weekly interview.
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July 11, 2007
Brevard BioDiesel Blog
This is a plug for the Brevard BioDiesel Blog.
I was thinking about updating my broken Google Maps biodiesel stations mashup, but balked since someone over at Brevard created a much more complete map! It includes stations all over the United States using data from biodiesel.org.
A cursory perusal of their blog yielded interesting posts on Honda plans for selling new diesels (instead of hybrids) and problems/FUD regarding palm oil.
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January 27, 2007
Man Bites Dog
A coworker asked me for some help with a vexing computer problem. “Would you try this digital camera on your computer?” she asked in desperation. It looked like a cheap digital camera–a Nikon CoolPix or something–one that would probably require a special driver, black magic, and lots of cursing. “Sure”, I was game. I plugged it into a Windows XP laptop expecting the familiar “new USB device detected” wizard, but it didn’t pop up. Nothing did. Meh!?
Out of pure sport, I decided to try the camera on a Fedora Core 6 laptop. I noticed the hard drive activity light flickering, then in a second or two a window popped up to let me know that a camera had been plugged in and would I like to download some photos?
Well yes, in fact, I would!
What, no recompiling the kernel? No surfing message board flamewars for secret modprobe arguments? No trolling mailing lists until I find the right Hungarian genius kid that can lead me to camera nirvana? What is the world coming to?
That, and utterly useless but completely irresistible desktop effects!
December 15, 2006
Left Behind Games Says: Convert or Die!
Yep, that “convert or die” game is real, and folks want it off the shelves. Just between you and me, my money’s on the entire thing being a publicity stunt ala Snakes on a Plane or Borat or …uh, lots of other things.
I’m glad I could do my little part in this viral marketing campaign.
July 16, 2006
Electric Fury
Last night was Who Killed the Electric Car? night. Based on the facts presented in the movie it seems pretty clear who really killed the electric car. I’ll give you a hint, it wasn’t–as Dave Barthmuss claims–the consumers.
But who cares? You don’t have to wait to get an electric commuter vehicle, you can pick one out right now!
September 30, 2005
The Rich Get Richer
Old news, but still interesting and new to me. Companies get huge tax breaks by giving options to employees. So huge, in some cases, they pay no income tax.Quoted:
When an employee exercises an option to buy stock, the difference between the strike price (what the employee pays) and the market price (which is almost always higher) becomes taxable income for the employee and a tax deduction for the employer.
Why should the company get to write off the difference? Presumably because they shared the profit with the employee.
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September 15, 2005
He didn’t really use cats. But he could have!
http://today.reuters.co.u…ERMANY-CATS.XML
As much as the media wants it to be true, Christian Koch doesn’t make biodiesel with dead cats. Not that it matters–as someone on Slashdot wrote–we’ve been using dead animals to run cars for years.
Quoted:
A spokesman for Bild told Reuters the story was meant to show that cat remains could “in theory” be used to make fuel with Koch’s patented method.
This topic is also elsewhere in the blogsphere.
Slashdot has also covered this story, with some pretty hilarious comments resulting, like: “How about fuel from dog farts? I know a Labrador Retriever who could probably fuel a moped with his daily output.”
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July 3, 2005
Defense Tech: Wonder Weapons, $20 a Pop
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001651.html
‘Not only are these items for real, but a helpful Internet retailer — “Information Unlimited,” out of Amherst, New Hampshire — has been thoughtful enough to sell them all under one electronic roof. Huzzah!’ (Quote from http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001651.html)
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