Conches

Social Impact Data Collection

Some Principles    

• The Observer Effect    
• Technology is not IT (in the Jack Kerouac sense of the word)    
• Data Collection close to the ground    
• Open Data    
• Decentralized    
• Full Spectrum

Three Reasons Why Diane Fienstein is a Republican

Most recently, she made a public statement backing legal immunity for telco firms in wiretap cases.  For an excellent explication why this is just another case of Diane selling out watch the video from Countdown with Chris Dodd of Mark Klein, former AT&T technician who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the committee where Ms. Feinstein represents the swing vote in a 10-9 Democratic majority. 

clipped from www.mydd.com

No Telecom Immunity

by Todd Beeton, Thu Nov 08, 2007 at 09:56:48 AM EST

If you saw Countdown last night, you saw Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician who is testifying today in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee that

AT&T had technology which helped the Bush administration spy on emails.

And not just e-mails abroad or from suspected terrorists... everything. On a practical level, granting these firms immunity will halt the lawsuits that are currently filed to demand to know exactly what these telecoms have done and whose communications and information has been compromised. That's unacceptable.

Matt at the Chris Dodd campaign interviewed Klein yesterday, check out what he has to say for yourself.

Comidifying Social Networks

Google just created a lot of buzz around their new OpenSocial API. 

clipped from code.google.com

Many sites, one API

Common APIs mean you have less to learn to build for multiple websites. OpenSocial is currently being developed by Google in conjunction with members of the web community. The ultimate goal is for any social website to be able to implement the APIs and host 3rd party social applications. There are many websites implementing OpenSocial, including Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING.

From a corporate perspective, facilitating social networking is a way to get customers to gleefully organize ourselves in nice marketing targets.  They are F*&%ing doing it again.  Social network silos.  The only context in which the windsurfers will ever meet the Cabbage Patch Doll Collectors is if they both happen to want to buy the same product or service.