This site is my "aggregator" homepage for various work: professional, personal and political.

Crying Wolf: things we have to deal with or we screw the next generation

Posted Thu, 08/12/2010 - 13:41 by Stephen

There's often a low-quality debate about who's saying the sky is falling, who's crying wolf. So I'll just come out and put my predictions on the line, much of this long-running and coming out of the Paradigm Discussion Circle in the early 90's... two of my "future" predictions I think we're beginning to see now, we've got one foot over slow-fall cliffs in each case. These are the issues I'd cry wolf about the loudest:

Climate Change *A

The ADL at Ground Zero

Posted Wed, 08/04/2010 - 14:24 by Stephen

Background: The Anti-Defamation League has come out against a group of Muslims building a community center near Ground Zero: ADL Position.

Notes

Condom Offsets

Posted Wed, 07/14/2010 - 23:39 by Stephen

The Optimum Population Trust has joined the Carbon Offset world with PopOffsets, carbon offsetting at it's most offensive best. The cross-continental flight to one international conference might equal the entire lifetime CO2 impact of a poor Kenyan whose parents otherwise wouldn't have had access to a condom. So you go ahead and fly anyway, and a baby isn't born, and it all comes out equal, offset and neutral.

A Left Turn Towards Capitalism: Caps on Damages

Posted Tue, 06/01/2010 - 20:51 by Stephen

Thanks to a cap on damages set by Congress, BP is only liable for $75 million in damages. A different Act (Price Anderson, amended) caps nuclear accidents at $11 billion.

Even a right-wing-Capitalist response to these laws should be to throw them out.

Greenest Font

Posted Thu, 04/08/2010 - 14:51 by Stephen

Which font is the greenest? There are a surprising number of theories for such a small topic. I'll collect my notes here, please add your comments... or ideally home experiments!

The contenders:

  1. Century Gothic or Times New Roman
  2. EcoFont
  3. Any font that looks good at a small size

The issues

Global Warming Primer: Basic Physics Works, Even When Industry and Consumers Wish It Didn't

Posted Tue, 02/16/2010 - 18:19 by Stephen

For decades, scientists have understood to at least a good ballpark estimate how much CO2 warms the atmosphere of Venus. It's only when global warming gasses are overtop industry and politicians that it gets complicated. This page attempts to frame the various aspects of scientific consensus and debate around global warming / climate change. Dealing with the headline of the day is much easier if you understand the basics and can place the headline into this context.

A brief history of global warming, based on type of science:

Physics

Should small nonprofits use competitive RFPs?

Posted Sat, 10/31/2009 - 17:18 by Stephen

Who is spending the time to answer a small nonprofit with a $5 or $10k RFP?

I'd love to hear comments from both developers and nonprofits who've worked together -- how have you started the relationship of working together, and how would you like to see it done?

My experiences:

What was Gov. Mark Sanford Thinking When Attacking Clinton's Values?

Posted Sun, 06/28/2009 - 02:34 by Stephen

The question sounds sarcastic, but I'm not sure it is. I think there might be a gap in the perceptions of people who see themselves as fundamentally honest but fallible, while seeing their political opponents as foul. From the outside it looks like a pretty filthy streak of hypocrisy, but I'm not sure that all the politicians are conscious of it. Do you think he was being openly hypocritical when attacking Clinton? If we could figure out what was going through Sanford's head, is this one of the hints towards conservative in-group thinking?

Syndicate content