Disqus - Latest Comments for niccoa

Re: Alexander Joseph Gonzalez

niccoa — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 11:23:56 -0000

Prayer for Alexander Joseph González

Dear Lord, fire-eating custodian of my soul,
author of hermaphrodites, radishes,
and Arizona's rosy sandstone,
please protect this wet-cheeked baby
from disabling griefs. Help him sense when
to rise to his feet and make his desires known,
and when to hit the proverbial dirt. On nights
it pleases thee to keep him sleepless, summon
crickets, frogs and your chorus of nocturnal
birds so he won't conclude the earth's gone mute.
Make him astute as Egyptian labyrinths that keep
the deads' privacy inviolate. Give him his mother's
swimming ability. Make him so charismatic
that even pigeons flirt with him, in their nervous,
avian way. Grant him the clearmindedness
of a midwife who never winces when tickled.
Let him be adventurous as a menu of ox tongue hash,
lemon rind wine and pinecone Jell-O. Fill him with awe:
for the seasons, minarets' sawtoothed peaks,
the breathing of cathedrals, and all that lives --
for one radiant day or sixty pitiful years.
Bravely, he has ventured among us, disguised
as a new comer, shedding remarkably few tears.

(by Amy Gerstler. Originally titled "Prayer for Jackson")

Re: When the Nerds Go Marching In - Atlantic Mobile

niccoa — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 12:15:35 -0000

Since I was there, I feel compelled to point out that you've got some inaccuracies here about the Dean campaign: "Campaigns, however, even Howard Dean's famous 2004 Internet-enabled run at the Democratic nomination, did not hire a bunch of technologists. Though they hired a couple, like Clay Johnson, they bought technology from outside consultants." Our in-house digital team had more than 35 people on-site as staff, including Clay Johnson, working out of Burlington, Vermont. Any review of FEC reports will show that while we did have several consultants, we had a substantial technical team in-house.

Re: Movement-Buiding in the Age of Email - a conversation about the MoveOn Effect

niccoa — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 19:51:30 -0000

they may be using Meetup Everywhere -- but plenty of them are also using genuine Meetup.

Re: [OP-ED]: Change.org and the Dilemmas of Success

niccoa — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 08:33:20 -0000

I think Change.org should have invited their entire platform to vote on whether or not they should allow anti-union groups -- or even made a distinction between unions and teachers unions. It's a way of giving the decision to the community.

Re: Bernard Rapoport, 1917 - 2012 - The Texas Observer

niccoa — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 16:20:11 -0000

Memorial website for Bernard Rapoport: http://brapoport.com/

Re: Bernard Rapoport

niccoa — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 15:06:27 -0000

B was a great inspiration to me -- and a guide and a mentor. I will never forget the first time I met him -- and his constant encouragement along the way. What an incredible life!

Re: Scripting News: If I were...

niccoa — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 13:39:17 -0000

you're just making me wish i had take the time to circulate the event a little more widely! i always think of my students as the audience for these events and i kind of forget about the rest of the world... the metaphor "ivory tower" is not an accident...

Re: Scripting News: If I were...

niccoa — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 13:27:00 -0000

Dave - actually the Shorenstein event is open to the public, and it's been announced for several weeks and promoted via Shorenstein's website & email list: http://hvrd.me/oTtMkn The meals are invite-only -- but the speakers during the meals are open to the public, so you can come hear Clay Shirky you just can't have one of the box lunches. It is being streamed live, as well, although inexplicably using real player which is terrifying and almost useless.

Re: Xeni speaking at Harvard: Shorenstein Center 25th Anniversary, on Press, Politics and Public Policy

niccoa — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 09:57:55 -0000

w00t! can't wait to see you here...

Re: Scripting News: Who I am

niccoa — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 14:26:32 -0000

I forgot about XML RPC. That quote from Byte still stands! "Does distributed computing have to be any harder than this? I don't think so."

Re: Web Control

niccoa — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 16:21:46 -0000

I'd agree that a lot of this is out there already -- someone on Twitter pointed out that UUCP has done this for a long time.

But the point is that cheap, easy-to-use out-of-the-box consumer devices in the developing world don't have these technologies. By shutting down the internet and mobile phone service in the country, the Egyptian government muffled dissent and brought the temperature of the crisis way down.

I want to build an accessible communications device with broad consumer appeal that does not require a backbone or trunk that could be easily shut down by a cranky government (or cranky corporation). There simply isn't any device out there that does that. All the pieces are there, but there are still some significant issues to be worked out.

Also, just to clarify, I'm not looking for any venture or anything like that. A bootstrapped open source project works for me, just to get the space moving.

Re: Scripting News: Test post

niccoa — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:19:23 -0000

well, north carolina is nice and flat, and some beaches with good swimming, nice country roads. but it is hot. cape cod is pretty great although a bit hilly...

Re: Scripting News: How to bootstrap federated 140-character loose-copulation

niccoa — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:16:28 -0000

Incidentally, here's a photo of when I passed the book out at EchoDitto last week: http://bit.ly/dw3bzC

Re: http://edit.newsjunk.com/workspace

niccoa — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 14:09:05 -0000

question: how does the de-duping process work? is it URL based? or if we post the same URL but edit the title/description differently will it post both?

Re: http://edit.newsjunk.com/workspace

niccoa — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 09:54:53 -0000

i mean the river - the aggregator - is hung up...

Re: http://edit.newsjunk.com/workspace

niccoa — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 09:54:17 -0000

looks like RSS is hung up again - no update in about 30 minutes...

Re: http://edit.newsjunk.com/workspace

niccoa — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:10:06 -0000

Agreed.

Re: http://edit.newsjunk.com/workspace

niccoa — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 10:41:51 -0000

Got it on all fronts -

- short summaries
- no caps headlines
- no weird characters
- no three dots - only periods
- no by-lines.

that's been more or less the standard i've been using - except when i'm on my phone, i get lazy. so when i'm posting from my phone i'll be more careful to edit.

Re: http://edit.newsjunk.com/workspace

niccoa — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:21:03 -0000

thanks

Re: http://edit.newsjunk.com/workspace

niccoa — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:14:05 -0000

thanks

Re: http://edit.newsjunk.com/workspace

niccoa — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:05:19 -0000

what should i do if i think the river isn't updating? it hasn't updated for 45 minutes and i'm sure there is new news out there...

Re: http://edit.newsjunk.com/workspace

niccoa — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:26:34 -0000

i love the x.newsjunk.com redirect....! does that help us track click-through rates?

Re: http://edit.newsjunk.com/workspace

niccoa — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 15:58:45 -0000

dave - looks like it's still a problem on www.newsjunk although not on just newsjunk.com

Re: http://edit.newsjunk.com/workspace

niccoa — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:46:17 -0000

whoops - something just happened to the newsjunk public page & to the newsjunk rss feed...

Re: http://edit.newsjunk.com/workspace

niccoa — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:40:43 -0000

1 - i think i do want to associate the articles somehow, but I'm thinking back to the "tabs" we discussed earlier - a way to track developing stories separately.

2 - sweet on submissions.

3 - i should have some design work today or tomorrow for you.

4 - i saw the trippi invite, didn't see his response. July is great for me. Cooperstown would be fun. I've never been and I've always wanted to go. it's a pretty easy drive either from NYC or from Boston.