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Call to Hack, Civically

Submitted by chip on Fri, 31-Aug-2012 - 11:05 am
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Next, weekend (Sat., Sept. 8, all day), Code for America is sponsoring a Hack-a-Thon, their second this year.

As Alan Williams explains:

Civic hackathons are about making things happen. At civic hackathons, passionate people of all kinds come together to solve shared problems. You don’t need to be a coder, you just need to care. They help communities like Austin build strong ties between talented designers and developers and the countless organizations and individuals that work daily to make the city a better place. The diverse experiences, expertise, and ingenuity of residents can help shape what gets built at civic hackathons, and improve their resonance and relevance with citizens at large.

Free signup is here: http://codeacrossaustin.eventbrite.com/

I've got a project I'm going to propose, and I hope you'll consider coming to hack on it.

It's Time to Create a Civic Innovation Office at Austin City Hall

Submitted by chip on Tue, 11-Sep-2012 - 10:32 am
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6:30pm update: This afternoon, Austin City Council approved a budget that includes funds to create an innovationn office. http://austintexas.gov/news/city-council-adopts-fiscal-year-2012-2013-budget

If you're a Boston resident and a pothole springs up on your street, help could be just a phone click away. The Citizen's Connect phone app will file a report for you.

What could be easier than a phone click? How about no phone clicks?

The Street Bump app, recently unveiled in Boston, uses the accelerometer built into your smart phone -- a device that measures speed and directon changes -- to detect when you've encountered a pothole. When you run the app, It will record a street bump event and file a report for you.

My Election Endorsements

Submitted by chip on Fri, 26-Oct-2012 - 9:52 am
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Yes, it's a looong ballot. For what it's worth, I'll share my decisions and some of my reasoning.

What I'd like to do is start with the Austin Chronicle endorsements, because I pretty much agree with most of them, and I know that's a basis that a lot of my friends use.

The one race I'd urge you to look closely at is the ACC Trustee Place 7 race. The Chronicle endorses Barbara Mink, but I found Brig Mireles to be a credible candidate who has some attractive points. I don't follow ACC issues closely and I don't know either of the candidates, but I do think ACC is a very important resource to us. I don't feel informed enough to "endorse" here, but I do urge looking into this race more closely, and not following an endorsement knee-jerk.

LG Optimus G Sprint: Zero to Meh in Microseconds

Submitted by chip on Sat, 10-Nov-2012 - 11:27 am
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My old HTC Evo 4G phone died week before last. I had to buy a new phone. I was tired of bumping up against the memory and processor limits of this phone, and swore my next phone had to be a quad-core processor phone.

At the time, the most popular performance phone -- and the best performing Andoid phone available on Sprint -- was the Samsung Galaxy S3. The version on Sprint, however, was dual-core processor. While that may suit now, I suspect I'll be pretty unhappy with the performance at the end of the two year term, given the way the platform and app markets are moving. (Plus, while I like my wife's S2, I'm just not loving the S3. It feels big and clunky and flimsy.)

I was geeking along with everybody else with the new Google Nexus 4  phones just announced. There is a lot in these phones to be excited about, including the fact that they are being offered unlocked at a stunningly affordable price. And, yes, they are quad core processors.