tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64710282010-02-02T09:39:04.735-06:00A mainly tech blog that sometimes touches politics and education. I use a Mac so you will hear about that and I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota USA so you will hear about our upcoming municipal Wi-Fi mesh network. I believe that open source is the only way to build big software so that may come up too. Est. 2004.Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.comBlogger843125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-81746026027048374342010-02-02T09:09:00.004-06:002010-02-02T09:39:04.801-06:00<div class="posterous_autopost"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Perhaps what is needed is to let the dinosaurs become extinct and be replaced by swift birds and mammals.<br /></blockquote><br />I really like that quote by Prof. Vivek Wadhwa. By dinosaurs, he's referring to the large software consultancy firms that seem to have a stranglehold on government computing hardware and software and in sustaining those systems for big bucks. By "swift birds and mammals" he's talking about 21st century start-ups and entrepreneurs who build with open source and agile systems. (Prof. Washwa is an entrepreneur turned academic and a Visiting Scholar at UC-Berkeley, Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School and Director of Research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke University.)<br /><br />He has two articles over at TechCrunch that look at bringing Silicon Valley tech expertise to Sacramento (capital of California) and rebuilding the legacy computer systems. In particular, he points to the unemployment insurance system. California has budgeted $50 million to upgrade it. Wadhwa bets "the Valley's entrepreneurs could build this system from scratch in less than a year for less than $5 million." A couple of entrepreneurs have already agreed.<br /><br />Most states are probably in the same predicament as California with old COBOL (and earlier) systems that they continue to maintain but are not easily changed or expanded. Cities are in the same predicament. <i>What an incredible opportunity for software and developer entrepreneurs to begin discussions with government IT shops about rebuilding systems for the future.</i> We (who pay taxes) are looking at system rebuilds for a tenth of the cost of an upgrade of an ancient system!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/24/bringing-silicon-valley-to-sacramento-=%20why-entrepreneurs-need-to-help-rebuild-californias-it-systems/">Bringing Silicon Valley to Sacramento: Why Entrepreneurs Need to Help Rebuild California's IT Systems</a><br /><a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/26/calling-all-entrepreneurs-california-needs-you/">Calling All Entrepreneurs: California Needs You</a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com/">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://pfhyper.posterous.com/can-entrepreneurs-lower-our-taxes-by-rebuidin">Peter's posterous</a> </p> </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-8174602602704837434?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-88754571420504047962010-01-29T12:01:00.001-06:002010-01-29T12:01:06.777-06:00<div class='posterous_autopost'><ol><li><b>Good thing:</b> pasted picture and text from a web site in Gmail rich text editor and the picture appeared in Gmail and at the Posterous blog when I sent the email! (I think you have to enable the &quot;embed picture&quot; thingie in Gmail labs to do this.)</li> <li><b>Bad thing:</b> PST timestamp. If you&#39;re CST, all your posts are stamped 2 hours earlier. If you change one and then forget to change the next one, then they get out of order. Please, please fix this Posterous People!</li> <li><b>Bad thing:</b> Editing at Posterous and saving often results in Posterous telling you it can&#39;t find the page. Use the back button to go back to the edited post and try again. If it still doesn&#39;t work, copy the changes, go to the <i>Manage</i> area and try editing again and saving. It usually works the second time around. This is a really frustrating problem.</li> <li><b>Tip:</b> Send items in as private by sending to <i><a href="mailto:private@yoursite.posterous.com">private@yoursite.posterous.com</a></i>. Then you can edit and view before going public. I usually do this when I use the <i>Share on Posterous </i>bookmarklet. <br /> </li><li><b>Tip:</b> If you send to <i>posterous@</i><i><a href="http://yoursite.posterous.com">yoursite.posterous.com</a> </i>it doesn&#39;t auto-post anything. <br /></li><li><b>Confusing:</b> If you are a contributor on someone else&#39;s Posterous blog and you use the &quot;post&quot; address for email, it will auto-post to <b>your </b>Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, etc. accounts and not the ones that belong to the site where you contribute. So use the tip from #5.</li> </ol> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://pfhyper.posterous.com/some-notes-on-using-posterous">Peter's posterous</a> </p> </div> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-8875457142050404796?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-91395803783102586002010-01-21T17:06:00.002-06:002010-01-21T17:09:59.457-06:00<div class="posterous_autopost"><p><a href="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/temp-2010-01-21/quyhxhAHepwbeaJJCzneEEidHtHlCzxCglpltqCbqeGBjDgCtbprudEnEHCH/Noche_Y_Dia.jpg.scaled1000.jpg"><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/temp-2010-01-21/quyhxhAHepwbeaJJCzneEEidHtHlCzxCglpltqCbqeGBjDgCtbprudEnEHCH/Noche_Y_Dia.jpg.scaled500.jpg" width="500" height="375" /></a> </p> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com/">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://pfhyper.posterous.com/dia-and-noche-kitties-update-they-still-like">Peter's posterous</a> </p> </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-9139580378310258600?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-51976425240829723532010-01-14T14:33:00.001-06:002010-01-14T14:33:42.723-06:00<div class='posterous_autopost'><p><a href="http://www.clearwire.com/">Clearwire</a> has a proposal in to provide a WiMax wireless network for Brooklyn Park. This will be the first WiMax network that I know of in this area. No investment by the Brooklyn Park; customers would pay for the service. Ostensibly they want to provide connectivity to people on lower incomes but prices they are mentioning do not seem very "low income" to me. (Maybe there is a tier they are not mentioning.)</p> <p>US Internet president Joe Caldwell says that Clearwire's arrival "doesn't bother me a bit." That's interesting given that early on in the Minneapolis Wi-Fi deployment, US Internet was hopeful that other cities surrounding Minneapolis would want to contract with US Internet for wireless services. There was even talk of customers having the ability to use Wi-Fi across city borders if US Internet was the provider.</p> <p>I would tend to be worried if I was US Internet. I don't think anything is stopping a company like Clearwire from providing services in Minneapolis if they could hang the transmitters. They could target areas of high usage like downtown and not be under any contract to cover the City. That could be a potent threat to US Internet's business model. (This is all conjecture on my part, of course. There could be something legal prohibiting another wireless provider.)</p> <p>Read the story at <a href="http://www.tradingmarkets.com/news/stock-alert/clwrd_brooklyn-park-first-to-benefit-as-wimax-moves-in-the-city-is-first-in-line-for-the-new-service-and--692685.html">tradingmarkets.com</a></p> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://pfhyper.posterous.com/brooklyn-park-getting-wimax">Peter's posterous</a> </p> </div> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-5197642524082972353?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-91272684353984101162010-01-14T10:08:00.001-06:002010-01-14T10:08:46.441-06:00<div class='posterous_autopost'><div class="posterous_bookmarklet_entry"> <embed name="minnesota_news_features_2010_01_13_sewardmarketreopens_20100113_64_player" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://minnesota.publicradio.org/www_publicradio/tools/media_player/e_player.swf" flashvars="name=minnesota/news/features/2010/01/13/sewardmarketreopens_20100113_64&amp;prependName=underwriting/ads/mpr_sponsorship_msg_64&amp;clickReport=minnesota.publicradio.org/player/L25/1953076022/x90/MPRadio/media_player_mpr/1_1/774d764a2b6b7450514777414359416e?_RM_AGENT_=Mozilla%2F5.0+%28Windows%3B+U%3B+Windows+NT+5.1%3B+en-US%3Brv%3A1.8.1.12%29+Gecko%2F20080201+Firefox%2F2.0.0.12&amp;starttime=&amp;endtime=&amp;const=1263485036" height="24" wmode="transparent" quality="high" width="199" style="" /><div class="posterous_quote_citation">via <a href="http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/01/13/seward-market-reopens/">minnesota.publicradio.org</a></div> <p>Story at MPR on Maket's reopening one week after the homicides.</p></embed></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://sewardprofile.posterous.com/seward-market-opens-story-at-minnesota-public">Seward Profile</a> </p> </div> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-9127268435398410116?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-76494945073150113222010-01-08T19:16:00.003-06:002010-01-08T22:43:45.526-06:00Since July 12 this year, I've been using <a href="http://posterous.com/">Posterous</a> as the <a href="http://pfhyper.posterous.com/">front end for this blog</a>. I think every post since then started out as a Posterous submission. Posterous is an amazing blogging tool where you can do almost anything via email including auto-posting to <a href="http://twitter.com/pfhyper">Twitter</a>, Facebook, <a href="http://flickr.com/pfhyper">Flickr</a> (photos), <a href="http://www.youtube.com/pfhyper">YouTube</a> (video), <a href="http://www.scribd.com/pfhyper">Scribd</a> (documents), and also other blogs like this one, <a href="http://pfhyper.tumblr.com/">Tumblr</a>, or WordPress sites. Mileage varies and I've had to come here and do some additional formatting but for quick-and-easy, there is nothing else that equals it. (Sorry Tumblr, but I understand you don't process video as slickly as Posterous.)<br /><br />In terms of categorizing my blogs, this one is my "business/serious" blog and Posterous is my more personal space. Everything here (since July) is also at Posterous and some things (like <a href="http://pfhyper.posterous.com/kitty-chronicles-the-cleansing-video">cat pictures</a>) are at Posterous but not here (usually). Tumblr is also in the mix and gets many of the posts just because I like to keep a presence with the cool kids there.<br /><br />Things changed a bit recently. My neighborhood in Minneapolis (Seward) lost it's newspaper and news web site this year due to financial constraints. So I started a <a href="http://sewardprofile.posterous.com/">hyperlocal community news blog called Seward Profile for the Seward Neighborhood</a> using Posterous. I have a longer range master plan to create a system that any community can plug in and start blogging. To fund it all, I've put in a proposal at the Knight News Challenge (and I've been bumped to the second round).<br /><br />Now it gets a bit confusing. I added my personal pfhyper gmail address as a contributor to the Seward. It seems when I contribute via my personal gmail, it triggers all the autoposting attached to my pfhyper.posterous.com account including posting to this blog. I wasn't aware of that until today.<br /><br />It's generated some strange postings. I posted a photo piece last night but it needed editing at Posterous. The problem is the Posterous editing doesn't change the post here at the PF Hyper blog so some of the photos are missing captions or have the wrong captions. In another instance, I think I deleted a post and reposted it but it didn't get deleted at this blog so it appears twice. I'm taking care of the issues now and I've figured out how not to trigger all my auto-posting when I contribute to the Seward blog.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-7649494507315011322?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-29253194986119254112010-01-07T15:35:00.002-06:002010-01-08T22:47:58.422-06:00<span style="font-style: italic;">This is a reposting of my article at the <a href="http://sewardprofile.posterous.com">Seward Profile News blog</a>, a news site for the Seward Neighborhood in Minneapolis. </span><br /><br />This isn't a personal blog, of course, but today I'm going to take the liberty of writing my story from last night as it relates to the tragedy. Partly it's community "news" I think and partly it is helping me in processing the event.<p> Last night I headed to Seward Co-op about 7:45. Mary was having friends over and I planned to park on Seward Co-op's public Wi-Fi and have some deli hot bar dinner. I was all bundled up, Sorrel boots bike messenger bag strapped to my back, and a long scarf. </p><p> We follow the alleys to the Co-op. I live on 24th Ave. E just south of Franklin. The alley behind our house "T's" as you approach Franklin Avenue and you must go left or right travelling parallel to Franklin. I went right (west). A few steps and I was behind the Seward Market. I heard a loud "bang." It sounded like wood breaking but I thought it could be a gunshot. As I got to the street and looked toward Franklin, I saw someone exiting the Market. It didn't feel right and I avoided the person thinking if that was a gunshot this was the shooter. I circled Bethany Lutheran Church and went through the parking lot to Franklin and walked back to Market. Two men were approaching me. They had heard the shots too. They reached the market before I did, crossed 25th and told me there were bodies in the doorway and store. I called 911 immediately to report a shooting and we walked to the Market entry. 911 dispatch started to ask if there was a robbery and I said "No! There are bodies here. Three bodies. We need an ambulance. " Police and ambulance arrived shortly. (I'm not sure why I thought I only heard one shot.)</p><p> I really appreciate the kind words from so many of you checking to see if I'm OK and I will try to get back to you all personally. I am. Of course, I am still processing what happened and my nearness to the tragedy itself. I am so saddened by this event but still feel that I live in a safe urban area. This is a fluke and "not indicative of our community and will not detract from our vibrant, diverse and welcoming neighborhood" (from the open letter now circulating). </p><p> My heart goes out to the families of the victims. </p><p>Please join your neighors in a candlelight flashlight vigil at the Seward Market (2431 East Franklin) this evening at 7:45. Bethany Lutheran (right across the street) will open it's doors for warmth and Seward Co-op will provide hot drinks and snacks. </p><p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com/">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://sewardprofile.posterous.com/tragedy-in-seward-my-story">Seward Profile</a> </p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-2925319498611925411?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-17098791305245777112010-01-05T22:10:00.002-06:002010-01-05T22:28:32.290-06:00<a href="http://www.startribune.com/business/80666157.html">Minneapolis is officially unwired says the Star Tribune</a>:<p /><blockquote class="posterous_medium_quote">The $20 million Minneapolis wireless Internet network has been completed after 2 1/2 difficult years of technical and political delays. The city&#39;s next step: getting the police and fire departments using it this year.<br /></blockquote>The City&#39;s basic requirement was for coverage of 95% of it&#39;s 59.5 miles and performance meets the City&#39;s expectations, according to Minneapolis Chief Information Officer Lynn Willenbring. There are 16,500 private subscribers, according to Joe Caldwell, marketing vice president of US Internet, which owns and operates the network. The company hopes for 30,000 individual customers. <p />Getting City departments to use the wireless network is another story. So far Sprint cellular services trump US Internet Wi-Fi services with the City using less than half of the $1.25 million a year worth of services it&#39;s paying for. Luckily  unused money can roll over to future years of the 10-year contract. (What happens if there is still unused money after ten years?)<p /> <a href="http://www.muniwireless.com/2010/01/05/minneapolis-completes-municipal-wi-fi-network/">Esme Vos wrote about the network today at MuniWireless</a>, stressing the need to upgrade to 802.11n units sooner rather than later if it&#39;s not been done already. (I don&#39;t think it has.) <p /> US Internet has improved customer service in the last year and now sends out (and charges for) a technician on each install. General satisfaction of users on the system seems to be growing. I&#39;m seeing far fewer complaints via my Google Alerts than in previous years. <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://pfhyper.posterous.com/minneapolis-unwired-the-network-is-just-about">Peter's posterous</a> </p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-1709879130524577711?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-19602327147516909952010-01-02T14:25:00.001-06:002010-01-02T14:25:37.584-06:00<a href="http://www.sng.org/index.html">Seward</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seward,_Minneapolis">Neighborhood</a> on the east side of Minneapolis and bordering the Mississippi River, has had a community newspaper, the <i>Seward Profile</i> then <i>The Bridge</i> (and more recently the <a href="http://www.bridgelandnews.org/">Bridgeland online news site</a>), for a long, long time. (The Profile may have been the first community newspaper in Minneapolis. I&#39;m still trying to verify that.) In 2009, due to finances, the newspaper ceased publication and the online site stopped updating. Seward was left with no distributed news source.<p /> The <a href="http://www.sng.org/index.html">Seward Neighborhood Group</a> (SNG) sends out an <a href="http://sewardprofile.posterous.com/sng-newsletter-december-18-2009">email biweekly newsletter</a> which covers SNG meetings and a few community events. The Seward Neighbors Forum is another news source with a total subscription base of about 300 (Seward population is 7,000.) (I co-manage the Forum.) Even with these, there is a news hole.<p /> The SNG plans on publishing and delivering a quarterly news sheet of some kind in 2010. This will help but I think we still need to find a way to &quot;report&quot; more on what&#39;s going on in the neighborhood and even dig out the small events which could benefit from wider exposure. Of course, I think the Internet is probably the best way to do this so on December 18, I launched the <a href="http://sewardprofile.posterous.com/">Seward Profile News Blog</a>. <p /> It&#39;s my hope that we can use the news blog as a source for print stories in the quarterly news sheet. But beyond that, I think we are at a tipping point in providing current and relevant news online and keeping it very, very local (or hyperlocal which is a somewhat new term for this sort of thing). <p /> Of course to do this, you still need some kind of editing structure and you need some reporters or journalists out there sending in stories. My plan is to enlist folks in the community (anyone interested really) to provide the news. To start, I&#39;ll serve as editor, but long-term, I&#39;d like to see a community person take on that role and somehow find funding for a stipend (maybe $200 a month?). <p /> The qualifications of the &quot;citizen journalists&quot; I&#39;m looking for are very basic, especially on the technology side. First, you can write engagingly and you are interested in the neighborhood. As for &quot;professional journalism&quot; qualifications, you can learn them as necessary. The main ones are don&#39;t write fiction and source all your statements <i>or</i> clearly mark them as opinion. <p /> As for the technology side, a new (free) blogging tool is emerging called <a href="http://posterous.com">Posterous</a> and if you know how to email, you can post to the news blog. (If you don&#39;t know how to email, I&#39;ll teach you.) Posterous is an amazing new type of blog called a &quot;microblog&quot; which is set up to allow very quick posting. If you want to add photos, simply attach them and Posterous will display them with your piece. Same with video. This ease of publishing should see Posterous being used more and more for small group and community blogging. No other service currently offers the ease of use of Posterous. <p /> <a href="http://is.gd/5noCE">I have applied to the Knight News Challenge</a> for funding of this project. I want to create a kind of turnkey system for communities to use to establish an online news blog. I&#39;ll also be seeking other funding as soon as I find a fiscal agent. (Knight News Challenge doesn&#39;t limit proposals to only nonprofits so I could apply for that one as myself.)<p /> I once had a dream of becoming an editor and publisher for a small newspaper. The web and blogging has somewhat allowed me to fulfill that dream. This step takes me a bit closer. <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://pfhyper.posterous.com/resurrecting-online-news-in-seward-neighborho">Peter's posterous</a> </p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-1960232714751690995?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-63804487570767455712009-12-31T11:43:00.001-06:002009-12-31T11:43:43.934-06:00<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid #cccccc; margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><a href="http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail4273.html#">Sramana Mitra believes in the importance of entrepreneurship to the world economy. As a writer and entrepreneur, she assists others in learning how to build an organization. She joins Phil and Scott to discuss her strategies. In addition to presenting her thoughts on entrepreneurship, she also offers useful details about how to create jobs, how to find money to for company creation and some of the factors important for success.</a><br /></blockquote> <p><br /><div id="quicktime_embed-gCcAmyeaHe"> <embed href="http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/audio/download/ITC.TM-SramanaMitra-2009.10.19.mp3" scale="aspect" src="http://posterous.com/mp3player/mp3_shell.png" autoplay="false" type="video/quicktime" height="100" target="myself" controller="false" width="500"> </embed> </div> <div id="flash_embed-gCcAmyeaHe"> <embed src="/mp3player/posterousplayer.swf" height="100" flashvars="file=http%3A%2F%2Fitc.conversationsnetwork.org%2Faudio%2Fdownload%2FITC.TM-SramanaMitra-2009.10.19.mp3" width="500" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" /> </div> <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"> var agent=navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase(); var is_iphone = (agent.indexOf('mobile')!=-1) && ((agent.indexOf('iphone')!=-1) || (agent.indexOf('ipod')!=-1)); if (is_iphone) { $('quicktime_embed-gCcAmyeaHe').show(); $('flash_embed-gCcAmyeaHe').hide(); } else { $('flash_embed-gCcAmyeaHe').show(); $('quicktime_embed-gCcAmyeaHe').hide(); } </script></p> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://pfhyper.posterous.com/phil-windley-discusses-entrepreneurship-with">Peter's posterous</a> </p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-6380448757076745571?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-68115164189688669312009-12-31T10:35:00.001-06:002009-12-31T10:35:07.393-06:00<div class="posterous_bookmarklet_entry"> <blockquote> <div class="posterous_quote_citation">When financial titan Goldman Sachs joined some of its Wall Street rivals in late 2005 in secretly packaging a new breed of offshore securities, it gave prospective investors little hint that many of the deals were so risky that they could end up losing hundreds of millions of dollars on them.</div> </blockquote> <p>Goldman did very well as our economy collapsed including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs#TARP_and_Berkshire_Hathaway_Investment_in_Goldman">a $10 billion preferred stock investment from the <span class="mw-redirect">U.S. Treasury</span> in October 2008, as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)</a>.</p> <blockquote> <div class="posterous_quote_citation">Goldman's activities in the Caymans helped it unload some of its subprime-related risks on others and also amass tens of billions of dollars in protection against a U.S. housing crash that ultimately occurred. These deals have accounted for a sizeable share of the firm's $103 billion in revenues and more than $25 billion in profits since Jan. 1, 2007. At the end of 2009, Goldman had set aside more than $16 billion in cash and stock bonuses for its employees.</div> </blockquote> <p>Not only were investors losing, we (US taxpayers) lost to as Goldman covered its bets:</p> <blockquote> <div class="posterous_quote_citation">Many of Goldman's winning bets with other large U.S. banks raised the price tags of 2008's government bailouts of Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and others by sums that no one has yet determined because the contracts are private, according to people familiar with some of the transactions.</div> </blockquote> <p><a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/81465.html">Read the full story at mcclatchydc.com</a>. Then go watch <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181984/"><em>Boiler Room</em></a>.</p> <p><em>Thanks <a href="http://twitter.com/dangillmor">@dangillmor</a> for the link.</em></p> <p><object height="417" width="500"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/UoTx9RpL5W4&hl=en&fs=1" /></param><param name="wmode" value="window" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/UoTx9RpL5W4&hl=en&fs=1" allowfullscreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" wmode="window" height="417" width="500"></embed></object></p> </div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://pfhyper.posterous.com/mcclatchy-investors-could-only-lose-in-goldma">Peter's posterous</a> </p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-6811516418968866931?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-36935188614062524822009-12-30T12:01:00.001-06:002009-12-30T12:01:49.386-06:00<p><strong>Why Coworking? </strong>I am a "veteran" of the <a href="http://cremacoworking.ning.com/">Crema Cafe Coworking site</a>. I have enjoyed spending time at Crema with an extremely diverse group of coworkers ranging from a <a href="http://www.marybergs.com/Home.html">"paper" artist</a> to a <a href="http://monkeyislandinc.com/">social entrepreneur</a>. Crema gets me out of the house (blessing to the wife). So does working in coffee shops but at Crema, we are making a conscious effort to meet our coworkers either at our "staff" meetings or just sitting and chatting. (You also don't have to ask someone to watch your laptop when you use the restroom.) I can bounce ideas off folks and get feedback. I think we will see collaborative projects blossoming out of these spaces as the inmates cheer each other on. Since we are not formally tied to each other by a corporate/business umbrella, we are far more open to new ideas. There is no risk to losing our jobs by endorsing visionary ideas.</p> <p><strong>Coworking blossoms.</strong> Here in the Twin Cities we went from no coworking spaces to three in the course of a few months. Are we blessed or cursed? How do you choose between <a href="http://cremacoworking.ning.com/">Crema Cafe Coworking</a>, <a href="http://cocomsp.com">CoCo</a>, and <a href="http://the3rdplace.ning.com/">3rd Place</a>? <p /> <strong>Cost. </strong>Cost is an issue for me. Although the <strong>CoCo</strong> space in downtown St. Paul is beautiful and arguably the most professional of the bunch, it's also <a href="http://cocomsp.com/plans-pricing/">the priciest at $35/day</a> ($150 if you buy five day passes together). They do offer a free one-time-only guest pass and I will definitely try that out. (If you're thinking of trying out the free pass, consider the first week when <a href="http://cocomsp.com/2009/12/get-your-breakfast-on-during-opening-week-at-coco/">CoCo will serve breakfast treats</a>!) CoCo has other pricing models including a Cofounder lifetime membership if you sign up as a fulltime coworker ($250/month) before the Jan. 4 opening day. CoCo also has a parttime coworker status for $180/month which offers 10 days of 8-5 access. <a href="http://cocomsp.com/plans-pricing/">Check the site for details.</a><p /> <a href="http://the3rdplace.ning.com/page/4659848:Page:23"><strong>3rd Place</strong> pricing</a> is doable on my budget starting with a one-day per week pass for $55 ($44 if you register before Jan. 1). Fulltime 24x7 access is available for $215/month ($172 before Jan. 1!). I just went to their open house and it's a nice, homey space. There are big tables with plenty of room. You will&nbsp; likely find me working there on Tuesdays in January.<p /><strong><a href="http://cremacoworking.ning.com/">Crema Coworking</a></strong> charges $40/month for access from 8 to 4 each Tuesday. For another $5/week, you get a truly awesome lunch. (<a href="http://www.cremacafeminneapolis.com/">Crema Cafe</a> is known for it's good food along with Sonny's ice cream. Sometimes we get ice cream.) The space is akin to a coffee shop. Tables are small and some of the chairs and benches are not built for long-term sitting. There is lots of sunlight and an outdoor patio. Wi-Fi access is very adequate. (I may continue coworking at Crema in addition to 3rd Place.)</p> <p>After looking at these options, I would say we are blessed with coworking spaces in Minneapolis with a variety of amenities, environments, and prices. I think there is room for them all and hope that the new kids&mdash;Coco and 3rd Place&mdash;can survive their startup months. I predict that as we move into the new decade, other casual coworking sites will spring up at local (read walkable) sites in neighborhoods. Crema is somewhat filling that bill now. It really depends on the kind of community that coworkers want and the focus which might be geographic, tech, startup, etc.</p> <p><strong>State of Crema.</strong> Crema is offline until at least February. <a href="http://twitter.com/amysbryant">Amy Bryant</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/zacksteven">Zack Steven</a> were "managing" the space. Zack is now a cofounder at the 3rd Place site and I think Amy is also moving on. So if Crema is to continue, someone (someones) needs to be the point person.</p> <p><strong>Mapping the Options</strong></p> <p><iframe scrolling="no" marginheight="0" class="google-map" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=109542915351220839388.00047bf501a6d466d1f28&ll=44.938071,-93.190842&spn=0.114466,0.292854&output=embed" frameborder="0" height="400" width="500"></iframe><br /> <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=109542915351220839388.00047bf501a6d466d1f28&ll=44.938071,-93.190842&spn=0.114466,0.292854&source=embed">View Larger Map</a></p> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://pfhyper.posterous.com/coworking-55">Peter's posterous</a> </p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-3693518861406252482?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-60662922688318624462009-12-27T16:58:00.001-06:002009-12-27T16:58:10.465-06:00A few pictures from 24th Avenue East. <br /><p /><br /> <p><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/sewardprofile/fse9wdirmLsVLat62kXJrOp4BjGhcUhNdgOnE5SSBlHG9pz1yIqwxWbkFh25/north_on_24th_ave.jpg.scaled.1000.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/sewardprofile/8k8H6bQlPhhokUYKvBdybJTsFgtQftbmiiKbDwn4a0xPHQUI7HQs3BhhdaAH/north_on_24th_ave.jpg.scaled.500.jpg" width="500" height="375"/></a> <a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/sewardprofile/Sn0GSL6oO9nxwOK10rpTuP5a34D2RPzYX4ZT6nStfKNxt1kjy34XM0otfuys/south_on_24th_ave.jpg.scaled.1000.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/sewardprofile/3FhfPS2Y4VvxLardRe4qY2p2Yszt1A2gjx0WmS6hT7DWeh6rD6PRZ4zt7y8w/south_on_24th_ave.jpg.scaled.500.jpg" width="500" height="375"/></a> <a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/sewardprofile/a5VFyi4lCC4nGO60xrO4cVbmsSmuM1mKhBSfOEcbNB0zu703vO9ZtIBmkn3v/sunrise.jpg.scaled.1000.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/sewardprofile/1AYLLBXWAzCyHeR7dnToNrZ1ka4BXkRr0Mo3xa1EswPGRVxPNV873VqvKS5x/sunrise.jpg.scaled.500.jpg" width="500" height="375"/></a> <div><a href='http://sewardprofile.posterous.com/snowmagedon-2009-photos-from-24th-ave-e-0'>See and download the full gallery on posterous</a></div></p> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://sewardprofile.posterous.com/snowmagedon-2009-photos-from-24th-ave-e-0">Seward Profile</a> </p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-6066292268831862446?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-90943474205758347212009-12-22T19:59:00.003-06:002009-12-27T13:39:33.272-06:00<a href="http://www.ntia.doc.gov/press/2009/BBMapping_15states_091222.html">The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced today</a> that it has awarded 15 grants to fund broadband mapping and planning activities. Minnesota is on the list with Connected Nation as the designated entity to receive a total of $1.7 million. Connected Nation is an organization sponsored by telephone and cable companies. It represents their interests in deciding what data to collect and how information should be displayed. So much for transparency.<br /><br />Several other states are also aligned with Connected Nation or a Connected subsidiary. This doesn't bode well for finding out exactly who is not being served in terms of high-speed internet access.<br /><br />For more information on Connected Nation's conflicts of interest and problematic mapping, <a href="http://www.publicknowledge.org/search/node/connected+nation">check the Public Knowledge site</a>. <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com/">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://pfhyper.posterous.com/connected-nation-is-minnesotas-designated-bro">Peter's posterous</a> </p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-9094347420575834721?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-57808430638436159652009-12-21T15:38:00.001-06:002009-12-21T15:38:09.599-06:00<img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/pfhyper/cRBR5BWvuxFmIVkU2J9MrfHfvvVZrxOa6DVJDYq2lhRo52jvW0LgH9zIyj7D/Bike_Lane_Minneapolis.jpg" width="480" height="640"/> <p>I think this was on 1st Avenue. As snow cleanup is a major issue for winter bikers, I would think the City would expend more effort in at least cleaning bike lanes. </p><p /><div>Also saw a car parked on the bike lane.<br /></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://pfhyper.posterous.com/downtown-minneapolis-bike-lane-in-need-of-plo">Peter's posterous</a> </p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-5780843063843615965?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-75594241231800313432009-12-21T09:43:00.001-06:002009-12-21T09:43:59.300-06:00Local businesses can list their business for free at BuyLocalMN.com. <p /> <a href="http://www.buylocalmn.com/">http://www.buylocalmn.com/</a> <p /> Please make sure to put "Seward" or preferably "Seward Neighborhood" <br />in the description so you appear in this list: <p /> <a href="http://www.buylocalmn.com/search/node/seward">http://www.buylocalmn.com/search/node/seward</a> <p /> (I may tighten the search to "Seward Neighborhood" as right now it <br />lists a baby food company that's stocked at the Co-op but not in the <br />neighborhood.) <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://sewardprofile.posterous.com/list-your-business-for-free-at-the-buylocalmn">Seward Profile</a> </p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-7559424123180031343?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-69992924319003616272009-12-18T15:58:00.001-06:002009-12-18T15:58:36.393-06:00<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><div>The University of Minnesota&#39;s Broadband stimulus proposal was approved and received $2,862,333 in federal funds yesterday. The University and its nonprofit partners will develop and improve 11 computer labs throughout underserved neighborhoods in the Twin Cities. The U press release states that the proposal was selected &quot;from among 2,200 proposals received by the Department of Commerce.&quot; The reality is that all the eighteen projects funded were selected previously by their state. (Minnesota has not confirmed this yet so I&#39;m assuming that the state did recommend the project. Minnesota has not yet publicly stated any recommended projects.) </div> </div><p /><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www1.umn.edu/news/news-releases/2009/UR_CONTENT_165027.html ">More details in the U of MN press release</a>. </span></div> <div><div><div><p /><div><span style="line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://broadbandbreakfast.com/2009/12/state-preferred-broadband-stimulus-projects-sweep-day-1/">Discussion and list of other projects at BroadbandBreakfast</a>.</span></div> <p /></div></div></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://pfhyper.posterous.com/broadband-stimulus-money-awarded-to-u-of-mn-p">Peter's posterous</a> </p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-6999292431900361627?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-37435528760279583992009-12-01T12:47:00.001-06:002009-12-01T12:47:21.005-06:00<div><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/pfhyper/EkIShs1MxJWrgkTFUOPy3VgEjvBGvXfLGUAUK2AMo8Hr7KlQszS55Eh4Sqlu/tweet.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/pfhyper/qUBG2FQ6707r9QQY1EzLsIGooPSCBkKtEeTYg9VC1M1evt05qHBIj8qagnSm/tweet.jpg.scaled.500.jpg" width="500" height="189"/></a> </div> <p>As many of you already know, I've fallen in love with the <a href="http://posterous.com">Posterous</a> tool as the easiest way to publish to the web&mdash;especially for the non-tech, potentially digitally-divided communities. If you can email, you can post to Posterous.&nbsp;</p> <p /> <div>So I get a little defensive when I see something like this on Twitter:</div> <p /> <div><span style="font-style: italic;">Didya know: You grant Posterous the irrevocable, fully transferable rights to use, reproduce, distribute, modify...&nbsp;</span></div> <p /> <div>I responded:&nbsp;</div> <div><span style="font-style: italic;">IOW, Posterous requires a basic Creative Commons Attribution license. You still retain ownership and copyright of your stuff.</span></div> <p /> <div>And this is true. These terms of service (TOS) are very similar to the <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons#Types_of_Creative_Commons_licenses ">Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike</a></em> license (without the attribution). But with Creative Commons select the licensing. You don't have a choice when you use Posterous. They require certain rights detailed here:</div> <p /> <div><a href="http://posterous.com/tos">Posterous TOS</a></div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: #cccccc; border-left-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex;">You shall retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions; however, by submitting material to Posterous you grant Posterous the irrevocable, fully transferable rights to use, reproduce, distribute, modify, transmit, prepare derivative works of, display and produce the material in connection with Posterous and Posterous's business, but solely in accordance with these Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.</blockquote> <p /> <div>But Posterous's terms are no more onerous than the other web tools we're all using (including Twitter, where this conversation began). (Do I hear "boilerplate"?) In fact, Google has blanket terms (below) for all their stuff as well as specific terms for their various tools like Blogger. (I would hope the Gmail TOS isn't granting Google the right to share content from my email!)<br /></div> <p /> <div>I'm not worried about this personally and just assume this allows for some marketing on the part of the tool vendor for which they can use content I've placed on their site. I trust that they won't do something stupid or offensive with my content and I hope that they will let folks know where the content came from.&nbsp;</div> <p /> <div>I pulled up some TOS statements around repurposing your content with links back to the TOS pages. Remember, you still own it and you have the copyright. All of these sites also state that clearly. (I didn't look at the Facebook TOS but I assume it has similar language.)</div> <p /> <p><a href="http://twitter.com/tos">Twitter</a></p> <div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: #cccccc; border-left-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex;">You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed).</blockquote> <p /> <a href="http://www.tumblr.com/terms_of_service">Tumblr</a></div> <div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: #cccccc; border-left-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex;">Subscriber shall own all Subscriber Content that Subscriber contributes to the Site, but hereby grants and agrees to grant Tumblr a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, transferable right and license (with the right to sublicense), to use, copy, cache, publish, display, distribute, modify, create derivative works and store such Subscriber Content and to allow others to do so (&ldquo;Content License&rdquo;) in order to provide the Services.</blockquote> <p /> <div><a href="http://www.blogger.com/terms.g">Google's Blogger</a></div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: #cccccc; border-left-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex;">By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Google services which are intended to be available to the members of the public, you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, publish and distribute such Content on Google services for the purpose of displaying and distributing Google services.&nbsp;</blockquote> <p /> <div><a href="http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS">Google</a>&nbsp;</div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: #cccccc; border-left-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex;">By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.&nbsp;</blockquote> <br /></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://pfhyper.posterous.com/the-irrevocable-rights-we-relinquish-when-we">Peter's posterous</a> </p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-3743552876027958399?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-89365680443206455632009-11-21T09:41:00.002-06:002009-11-21T09:53:25.704-06:00<a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/pfhyper/lC9sWnq2iQooE8PJYixlhO6zYWDNggMuRDAD4Qtr9uKj5Q4j3U9As574L3RU/robin-blogasota.jpg.scaled.1000.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/pfhyper/vAiQQNkCGZeQ2b4pToLABZ07lxkMJtb3LMIxDHJUnFlen3FcakhIhfYa6sbc/robin-blogasota.jpg.scaled.500.jpg" width="500" height="616"/></a> <p>We are discussing the nuts and bolts of blogging with Robin Marty. Some high-powered bloggers in attendance. Shaping up to be a great discussion! We are currently talking about how to make money with your blog. </p> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://pfhyper.posterous.com/netroots-mn-the-blogasota-session-with-robinm">Peter's posterous</a> </p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-8936568044320645563?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-9617512164132271902009-11-13T10:31:00.001-06:002009-11-13T10:31:42.193-06:00<div class="posterous_bookmarklet_entry"><embed src="http://minnesota.publicradio.org/www_publicradio/tools/media_player/e_player.swf" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="24" flashvars="name=minnesota/news/features/2009/11/12/uofmtransfers_20091112_64&amp;prependName=underwriting/ads/mpr_sponsorship_msg_64&amp;clickReport=minnesota.publicradio.org/player/L25/1548798312/x90/MPRadio/media_player_mpr/1_1/774d764a2b6b72396843514141745472?_RM_AGENT_=Mozilla%2F5.0+%28Windows%3B+U%3B+Windows+NT+5.1%3B+en-US%3Brv%3A1.8.1.12%29+Gecko%2F20080201+Firefox%2F2.0.0.12&amp;starttime=&amp;endtime=&amp;const=1258128420" width="199"></embed> <div class="posterous_quote_citation">via <a href="http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/11/12/university-transfers/">minnesota.publicradio.org</a></div> <p>Interesting article by Tim Post (<a href="http://twitter.com/posttim">@posttim</a>) looking at the increasing population of mostly community college transfer students. The cost of tuition is a prime reason for starting at a two-year college.</p> <p>The article leaves me with several unanswered questions. Community college officials state their students do as well or better than students who do all four years at the U of MN but offer no evidence.</p> <p>The U of MN has survey evidence that transfer students are less satisfied with their experience than students who start as freshmen. A national survey (National Survey on Student Engagement) finds that transfer students take part in fewer campus activities.</p> <p>We need student ages to understand this better. What's the median and average age of the transfer students? If they are older -- say past 25 -- it would make sense that they might feel a bit out of it and this would make them less satisfied. I would also guess that many of these students are holding down jobs and going to school part-time which does not help in integrating them in campus life.</p> <p>But really, I shouldn't have to guess. The U of MN should do the research and share it. This would make a great longitudinal study (and probably should have been started a few years ago).</p> </div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://pfhyper.posterous.com/mpr-on-u-of-m-and-the-increasing-transfer-pop">Peter's posterous</a> </p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-961751216413227190?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-53015540021481275882009-11-03T10:51:00.001-06:002009-11-03T10:51:28.477-06:00<div>Here&#39;s what the amendment reads:</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex;"> <i>Should the City of Minneapolis adopt a change in its charter to the composition of the Board of Estimate and Taxation so that the Board&#39;s membership consists of the members of the City Council, with the actions of the Board subject to the powers and duties of the Mayor?</i></blockquote> <p /><div>Here&#39;s what Green Council Member Cam Gordon says:</div><p /><div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex;"> <i>As we begin the constructive discussion next year about how to improve the ways that the City Council works with the Park Board, we should do so with the BET in place and ready to be reformed and more fully utilized to help make our City government more responsive, accountable, transparent and fiscally prudent.</i></blockquote> <p /><div>That pretty much sums up my own take on the amendment and BET. </div><p /><div>I certainly agree with much of <a href="http://bit.ly/41n405">what Aaron Landry says</a> about the BET including: </div> <p /><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex;"> <i>I strongly favor having our elected City Council be held responsible and accountable for these things, like almost every other major city in the country.</i></blockquote><p /><div>But I think we need to have more discussion on how to reform the process and not just jump off the current horse. While I don&#39;t think voting &quot;yes&quot; will spell the end of the independent Park Board, I do think BET is one of the very few places (maybe the only place) that the Park Board and City Council sit down together and talk. </div> <p /><div></div></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://pfhyper.posterous.com/why-i-voted-no-on-minneapolis-charter-amendme">Peter's posterous</a> </p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-5301554002148127588?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-67381408671039604792009-11-01T13:03:00.001-06:002009-11-01T13:03:07.870-06:00I use a <a href="http://fluidapp.com/">Fluid</a> app to engage with Google Wave. The TC Wave has links to how to do this but the TC Wave is becoming harder and harder to navigate and find things. So here&#39;s the blog post with links to how to integrate Fluid and Wave and Growl.<p /><div><a href="http://fluidapp.com/">Download Fluid</a> then drop by <a href="http://devthought.com/blog/desktop/2009/10/integrate-google-wave-into-your-os-x-system-with-fluid/">Guillermo Rauch&#39;s devthought blog for how to create the app</a> (plus a link to a very nice Wave icon to use for your Fluid app). Then if you&#39;re interested in Growl notifications when new messages arrive at your waves, <a href="http://growl.info/">install Growl</a> and then <a href="http://userscripts.org/scripts/review/59012">add this script</a> to your Fluid app. (<a href="http://devthought.com/blog/desktop/2009/10/integrate-google-wave-into-your-os-x-system-with-fluid/">Guillermo&#39;s page</a> describes how to install a script in a Fluid app.) Growl notifications only work when your Fluid Wave app is open. </div> <p /><div>I&#39;m happy with the Fluid Wave app performance and I&#39;ve had no serious problems. It can be slow but no slower than Firefox (3.0.15). I have heard Chrome is snappier but I don&#39;t think Google has released an official Mac OS X Chrome yet.</div> <p /><div>Please add any useful links about Fluid, Growl, Wave etc.<br /></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://pfhyper.posterous.com/fluid-for-wave-instructions-on-building-an-ap">Peter's posterous</a> </p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-6738140867103960479?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-9260855262125701232009-10-28T19:37:00.001-05:002009-10-28T19:37:49.033-05:00<div class="posterous_bookmarklet_entry"><embed src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:252516" wmode="window" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="418" flashvars="autoPlay=false" width="500"></embed> <div class="posterous_quote_citation">via <a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-october-26-2009/from-here-to-neutrality">thedailyshow.com</a></div> <p /> <div class="posterous_quote_citation">Jon Stewart nails why we need Net Neutrality and pokes fun at Pony Express McCain. <br /></div> <p>&nbsp;</p> </div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://pfhyper.posterous.com/video-from-here-to-neutrality-the-daily-show">Peter's posterous</a> </p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-926085526212570123?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-51914928132502521732009-10-25T14:58:00.001-05:002009-10-25T14:58:06.554-05:00<div>Here is what happened when I emailed out my last Posterous kitty post with an attached .m4v video.</div><p />It took <i>forever</i> for Posterous to process the video. It took so long—from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.—that I started thinking it just didn&#39;t support m4v format. But Posterous handles the situation well and doesn&#39;t send out status or blog updates until the processing is done. For anyone that found the video (and &quot;still processing&quot; message) at my Posterous account, it did allow viewing.<p /><div><b>Results from my Connected Services<br /></b><div><p /><div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9CmOll5vr4"><b>YouTube</b></a> and <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pfhyper/4043663122/"><b>Flickr</b></a>: Posterous processed the video and sent it along, adding it to my accounts. </div> <p /><div><a href="http://pfhyper.tumblr.com/post/222954562/kitty-chronicles-the-cleansing-video"><b>Tumblr</b></a> and my <a href="http://www.pfhyper.com/weblog/2009/10/kitty-chronicles-cleansing-video.html"><b>PF Hyper Blog</b></a>: No embedded player. Provides link to download or to view on Posterous. Includes text of my Posterous blog post. I went back to both Tumblr and my blog and added the Youtube embed code.</div> <p /><div><b>Facebook</b>: Status update with the embedded video. Includes start of the Posterous blog post and a link back to Posterous to finish reading the post. </div><p /><div>When I checked the video in Flickr, I found that a group of tags had been added: <i>cleaning, stretching, cats, cat, licking, cleansing, </i>and<i> lick.</i> I hadn&#39;t tagged anything myself and some of the tags were not from my blog post. Checking my Flickr <i>Recent Activity</i>,<i> </i>I found the footprints of that infamous cat and pizza lover, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/s4xton/">s4xton</a>. Thanks Aaron. </div> <div></div></div></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://pfhyper.posterous.com/followup-to-the-kitty-video-posting-what-happ">Peter's posterous</a> </p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-5191492813250252173?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6471028.post-18951483772388597442009-10-25T13:55:00.000-05:002009-10-25T13:55:14.660-05:00<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/P9CmOll5vr4&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/P9CmOll5vr4&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /> <p>Two reasons for this post. </p><div><ol><li>General cuteness in sharing our new kitties' life with you.</li><li>Testing video uploads to Posterous. I haven't done this before.</li></ol><div>The video should get bundled up and sent to YouTube with an embedded player in Posterous. (Wonder if the video will also go to Flickr.)</div> <p></p><div>The video was taken with my Canon SD850. I saved as a desktop video for the web out of Quicktime to get it smaller. Quality did not seem to suffer very much. It's still hit-or-miss with this video stuff for me. </div></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com/">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://pfhyper.posterous.com/kitty-chronicles-the-cleansing-video">Peter's posterous</a> </p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6471028-1895148377238859744?l=www.pfhyper.com%2Fweblog%2Fblogger.html' alt='' /></div>Peter Fleckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16291099009923490994noreply@blogger.com0