My dad passed this along to me: ZIPskinny, where you can see census data on any zip code in the U.S. You can also compare data for several zip codes, so if you’ve lived in several zip codes, you can compare those places to see which had better economics, diversity, etc. Good luck staying on the site for less than twenty minutes!
I served as a co-editor and a contributor to SoD 06 (School of Design). The book features student essays from a Design Issues course at RIT in the fall of 2006. The book is available at Lulu. Proceeds from the book go to help fund future RIT class publishing.
My essay was about the dangers and failures of electronic voting machines:
Instead of a front seat, hands-on approach to the situation, the federal government is merely providing states the funds to acquire electronic voting equipment. Through the Help America Vote Act of 2002, passed by Congress after the punch card nightmare in the 2000 presidential election, the federal government is forcing states to buy the equipment to replace older voting technologies, such as punch cards and lever machines (U.S. Election Assistance Commission). Indeed, the federal government is forcing states to buy into a faulty, untrustworthy product, a product with the capability of severely crippling our democracy.
Given these high stakes, actions to solve the numerous security and verification problems of electronic voting machines must be a top priority for the federal government and every citizen. Several academic and state-commissioned reports have cited the gaping lapses in adequate technological development of electronic voting machines. Until those lapses are resolved and the federal government provides guidelines and standards for the use and manufacture of electronic voting machines, the machines should not be approved for use in conducting elections. The current machines administering the elections cannot be trusted to provide accurate election results, and if the machines cannot be trusted, then neither can the elections.
…as it tries to take over the world, or, at least, make it a better place.
In Google’s words, its recently unveiled “Android” is the “first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices.” But it is a signal of much more. Google is as much an ideology as a firm and can resemble a nation-state in its pursuit of power rather than a mere corporation chasing quarterly numbers. Google and its allies are now trying to make the principles of openness the commanding ideology of the Internet the conquering principle of the wireless world, and the Android announcement is just the first step.
The problem, as the article points out, is the choke hold the established companies already have on the market and the technology, in this case the wireless networks. They, of course, will do everything in their power to fight-off any competition, and certainly any company that would change the status quo. Normally, they’d have a high chance of success, say, against some small, start-up company. But this time they’re going against The Google. Let’s hope fairness and openness prevail, because in the world of wireless, we could sure use some.
Apparently, according to a new study:
A flood of new video and other Web content could overwhelm the Internet by 2010 unless backbone providers invest up to US$137 billion in new capacity, more than double what service providers plan to invest, according to the study, by Nemertes Research Group, an independent analysis firm. In North America alone, backbone investments of $42 billion to $55 billion will be needed in the next three to five years to keep up with demand, Nemertes said.
This is definitely one worth watching.
Here are some useful tips to help organize and make your CSS files more usable to you and anyone else who works on them after you. I don’t agree with #3 and #4 is likely for large websites, but the rest of the list is very useful. Like this one:
6) Place color scheme in one place for refrence.
Before you start your CSS file, comment your common colors and add it to the top of your style sheet. This will save you ton of time and will insure that your site has one color scheme.
If you’re a fan of logos or logo design, or even a fan of design before-and-after, you should check out the blog Brand New. The blog features company and organization logos that have been recently redesigned. In addition to a before-the-redesign logo and the after-the-redesign logo, the blog gives excellent commentary on the old, the new, and the process. Check it out!
The Chicago Olympic bid logo:
Some cool things around the world people found using Google Earth. And the site give the coordinates, so you can check them out too!
From Jay Leno’s Headlines:
Cool info-graphic on the doctor-to-patient ratio around the world.
Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign is solely about two words:
I honestly fail to understand why his supporters don’t see him as the enormous joke he is.
Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
Since NBC decided to pull its TV shows from the iTunes store, they’ve since launched a beta version of their own media center.
Christopher Breen at playlistmag.com sums up NBC’s Hulu as compared to iTunes.
The [NBC, Fox, and FX] shows will be available from the Hulu site as well as from partner sites that include AOL, MSN, and MySpace. Sample videos are higher-than-YouTube quality and free. What’s not to like? Not a thing, unless you’ve actually experienced television and the Internet during this millennium.
