Group items tagged

All Things Open interview with Kaitlin Devine, 18F "Keep an eye on govcode.org-it pulls GitHub issues from lots of government repos, and it's a great place to get started if you want to contribute. Also follow @newgovrepos if you want to see new government repos as they appear on GitHub. Don't forget that repos aren't just for code-you can file issues and give feedback on government services even if you don't code."

"The impact of technological change on culture, learning, and morality has long been the subject of intense debate, and every technological revolution brings out a fresh crop of both pessimists and pollyannas. Indeed, a familiar cycle has repeat itself throughout history whenever new modes of production (from mechanized agriculture to assembly-line production), means of transportation (water, rail, road, or air), energy production processes (steam, electric, nuclear), medical breakthroughs (vaccination, surgery, cloning), or communications techniques (telegraph, telephone, radio, television) have appeared on the scene. The cycle goes something like this. A new technology appears. Those who fear the sweeping changes brought about by this technology see a sky that is about to fall. These "techno-pessimists" predict the death of the old order (which, ironically, is often a previous generation's hotly-debated technology that others wanted slowed or stopped). Embracing this new technology, they fear, will result in the overthrow of traditions, beliefs, values, institutions, business models, and much else they hold sacred. The pollyannas, by contrast, look out at the unfolding landscape and see mostly rainbows in the air. Theirs is a rose-colored world in which the technological revolution du jour is seen as improving the general lot of mankind and bringing about a better order. If something has to give, then the old ways be damned! For such "techno-optimists," progress means some norms and institutions must adapt-perhaps even disappear-for society to continue its march forward. Our current Information Revolution is no different. It too has its share of techno-pessimists and techno-optimists. Indeed, before most of us had even heard of the Internet, people were already fighting about it-or at least debating what the rise of the Information Age meant for our culture, society, and economy."

does Kurtopia need someone to mow the lawn?

no, but we do need someone to take our throm-dib-u-lator apart though

"You don't have to look very far to get head-bangingly upset about the current state of medical and scientific research. Pfizer (maybe) hid evidence that Zoloft use by pregnant women caused heart defects in babies. GlaxoSmithKlein paid $3 billion in fines for a) generating a fake journal article"

"You don't have to look very far to get head-bangingly upset about the current state of medical and scientific research. Pfizer (maybe) hid evidence that Zoloft use by pregnant women caused heart defects in babies. GlaxoSmithKlein paid $3 billion in fines for a) generating a fake journal article"

"Talking to developers and reading about open source I often get the feeling that the general notion is that open source is just about code and commits. Put another way, "If you don't make commits for a project you are not contributing to it." Or so they say. That notion is far from the truth in my eyes. Let me tell you why."

"Talking to developers and reading about open source I often get the feeling that the general notion is that open source is just about code and commits. Put another way, "If you don't make commits for a project you are not contributing to it." Or so they say. That notion is far from the truth in my eyes. Let me tell you why."

"From Google to The White House, everyone is on GitHub. If you don't know what GitHub is, keep reading, because I'm also going to talk about why it's one of my favorite websites and share some of its most popular features."

"From Google to The White House, everyone is on GitHub. If you don't know what GitHub is, keep reading, because I'm also going to talk about why it's one of my favorite websites and share some of its most popular features."

"From Google to The White House, everyone is on GitHub. If you don't know what GitHub is, keep reading, because I'm also going to talk about why it's one of my favorite websites and share some of its most popular features."

"From Google to The White House, everyone is on GitHub. If you don't know what GitHub is, keep reading, because I'm also going to talk about why it's one of my favorite websites and share some of its most popular features."

"Whether it's video from the Internet Archive, music from Creative Commons, or audiobooks from Librivox, you can play it right away. You don't have to wait for it to finish downloading. WebTorrent - network of peers WebTorrent Desktop connects to both BitTorrent and WebTorrent peers. It can talk to peers running Transmission or uTorrent, and it can also talk to web pages like instant.io."

"Whether it's video from the Internet Archive, music from Creative Commons, or audiobooks from Librivox, you can play it right away. You don't have to wait for it to finish downloading. WebTorrent - network of peers WebTorrent Desktop connects to both BitTorrent and WebTorrent peers. It can talk to peers running Transmission or uTorrent, and it can also talk to web pages like instant.io."

"by Richard Stallman There are organizations that proclaim support for free software or the GNU Project, and teach classes in use of nonfree software. It's possible that they do some other things that really support free software, but those classes certainly don't. On the contrary, they work directly against the free software movement by promoting the use of the nonfree software. That increases the magnitude of the practical problem it is our mission to correct."

" 80 down vote favorite 43 To work around bug #1005495 (changing LCD brightness via hotkeys impossible), I'd like to have one command line query for increasing and one for reducing the brightness of my LCD. I could then map a hotkey to each one of this queries. The problem is: I don't know how to increase and reduce the LCD brightness on the command line. Do you?"

"If you've spent much time in open source projects, you have probably seen the term "copyleft" used. While the term is quite commonly used, many people don't understand it. "

[Linux.ie is your site - if you want to submit something please don't hold back, just read a quick run through of advice first and use the contribute page second. ...]

"...schools don't think the demand from parents and students is there. ..."

"By Mike Saunders Software The do's and don'ts of handling projects"

"The last chapter of The Open Organization talks about how a leader in an open community has to be a catalyst, "an agent that provokes or speeds significant change in action." When I read this definition, say it out loud, and reflect on my connotations of this word, I sense a degree of urgency. I don't think of a catalyst as necessary calculated, so I would like to explore the idea of a "calm catalyst.""

"As smart devices advance, they deliver more detailed, actionable data, but it's doubtful whether they will actually make any significant difference in our lives."

"Most people probably have an idea about what a hacker looks like. The image of someone sitting alone at a computer, with their face obscured by a hoodie, staring intently at lines of code in which their particular brand of crime or mischief is rooted, has become widely associated with hackers. You can confirm this by simply doing an image search for "hackers" and seeing what you come up with"

"New research suggests that streaming is boosting vinyl sales - but a lot of records being bought aren't actually getting played. "

"New research suggests that streaming is boosting vinyl sales - but a lot of records being bought aren't actually getting played. "

Human evolution presents a puzzle. Nothing seems to explain the sudden takeoff of the last 45,000 years-the conversion of just another rare predatory ape into a planet dominator with rapidly progressing technologies. Once "progress" started to produce new tools, different ways of life and burgeoning populations, it accelerated all over the world, culminating in agriculture, cities, literacy and all the rest. Yet all the ingredients of human success-tool making, big brains, culture, fire, even language-seem to have been in place half a million years before and nothing happened. Tools were made to the same monotonous design for hundreds of thousands of years and the ecological impact of people was minimal. Then suddenly-bang!-culture exploded, starting in Africa. Why then, why there?