Austin

Thursday is my day to feel a little virtuous. It's recycling day in my neighborhood.

In Austin, you pay your monthly waste services fee based on the size of your trash bin. A 30 gallon bin is $4.75/month. A 60 gallon bin is $7.50/month. We use the smaller bin. Not only does it save us $33/year, but it encourages us to produce less waste.

One of the ways we reduce our garbage is by diverting waste from the trash bin to recycling. We usually get it down enough so that the smaller bin is fine. On the months we go over, we have to buy a $2 sticker for the additional trash bags, but there hasn't been one of those in a long time.

Earlier this year, I bought a blue recycling wastebasket from the office supply store for $6. I can't say that's what keeps us within our 30 gallon limit, but it does help.

Time Warner Austin and The NFL Network are battling like two burly tackles over televised football. Time Warner has pulled the NFL Network from their cable lineup. The NFL and football fans are furious, and the Texas legislature has been dragged into the melee. The NFL wants back on the air, of course, but if they get their way it will be bad news for everybody—including football fans.

The American cable market is structured as a basic subscription service, and the subscriber adds the premium content they want with extra-cost packages. The NFL Network is premium content, but the NFL wants to push it into the basic service package. That way they can collect fees for every single cable subscriber in the system—not just those who want an extra football channel.

A current Business Week article notes the growing pressure to open the iPhone.

William Hurley loves his iPhone. But he'd love it even more if he could write software for it.

He's not alone. Hundreds of programmers showed up at an iPhone event organized by Hurley, an executive at software maker BMC (BMC), even though Apple hasn't released the source code they need to exploit the device. That was in July, and the criticism of Apple's refusal to open the iPhone hasn't died down.

Austinites better know William Hurley as whurley, an organizing force behind events such as the local Bar Camp.

Me, I'm waiting for a truly open platform before I give up my Palm-based phone. I've been keeping an eye on the Neo 1973 phone, currently released in an interim developer version.

Read the entire Business Week article here: Will Apple Open the iPhone?

I'm surprised the local news outlets haven't picked this up: local conspiracy theorist and media star Alex Jones was busted in New York City for...well...being Alex Jones. Apparently Alex led a group of people who crashed the taping of Geraldo Rivera's TV show.

Says Geraldo At Large host Geraldo Rivera to the crowd, chanting "9/11 was an inside job" at the beginning of the show: "Get a life." ...

Mark Geragos [article does not identify who this person is] contends with a man with a loudspeaker, who was later arrested and identified as 33-year-old Alex Jones, prominent figure in the 9/11 Truth Movement. Jones was later charged with operating a bullhorn without a permit.

You can read the original article (and weep over the poor editing, if you are so inclined) here: Fox News' Rivera ridicules 9/11 Truth activists, man arrested on camera

On July 16 I'm going to do a presentation to the local 501 Tech Club on the Drupal content management system. The 501 Tech Club is a networking group for people who are involved in technology at non-profit organizations—sometimes called 501(c) organizations.

I'm thinking about doing a demo where I begin with a scratch install and build a complete custom online community site in about half an hour. I figure that either is going to be very impressive or completely overwhelming. Maybe both.

The meeting is open to the public, so if you are interested in finding out why there is so much buzz around Drupal right now, come on by.

Meeting details are here: Drupal and Pizza at Austin Free-Net offices

Joe Bob Briggs came to town last weekend and screened Mom and Dad, an infamous exploitation "sex hygiene" film. Its infamy accrued from its sensational marketing campaigns, not its cinematic content. The film is an extraordinarily poor production, with the payoff being some (disturbing still today) film-within-a-film "educational" pieces that show a human birth delivery, a cesarean section, and ravaged victims of venereal disease.

I put "educational" in those air-finger quotes because the inset films really aren't educational. They are shock footage wrapped in a veneer of educational presentation, to protect from prosecution. The information presented careened between hysterical and wrong, such as the discussion on how a fertilized egg divides into 2, 4, 8, and then 12 (should be 16) cells. Joe Bob Briggs said that after seeing these films, he wasn't sure he ever wanted to have sex again.

I'm finding it interesting that the power of that movie seems to persist even today. Articles about the well-attended-but-not-crowded screening are popping up around the blogosphere. There is a cool reproduction of one of the vintage newspaper ads for Mom and Dad posted over at Reel Distraction. There is a summary of the evening posted to My Movie Journal is Better than Your Movie Journal. I thought the comment about the first half of the evening being like a "jazz lecture" was dead on, and kind of why I liked it. Even the Austin Chronicle weighed in, albeit over a question about the Texas film production fund asked in the earlier part of the evening.

I just read that the Austin Humane Society lost their AC system two days ago and things are really heating up in there. I feel badly for the pets (and the workers) at that facility.

We adoped our little buddy Rufus from the Humane Society shelter. It was a good experience, other than feeling sad that there were so many pets needing a home, and we couldn't adopt 20 kitties. We're glad that they were nice to Rufus until we could come along to find him.

The Humane Society needs a new AC system and commercial HVAC systems are awfully expensive. There have been problems with the system at the city's public access television facility and I've been learning what's involved in fixing that. So I can totally believe that the Humane Society will need to raise as much as $300,000 to solve this.

I can't adopt 20 kitties, but I can afford a small donation. It sounds like right now that's the most critical need. It's easy to donate online.

I'm posting this blog entry from the Denny's at Burnet and Anderson—simply because I can. Isn't free wifi great?

I haven't been here in a long time. I was surprised to find they recently added free wifi service.

That's timely, because we needed a late night wifi option in the neighborhood. Many months back, the Jim's at Burnet and Research used to have wi-fi. Then, at some point, there was a signal but no connectivity to the net. Then it just went away.

I'm probably going to eat at Jim's less and Denny's more because of this.

Business owners take note. I just spent $8 on a chef salad. An AT&T business class DSL line can be had for under $50/month. It doesn't take very many chef salad sales to pay for this amenity.

I've never served on a jury before. Monday I go downtown to see if I get selected to serve. I've already done the online impaneling. Monday, I report to court for selection.

I wanted to research the Texax jury process, particularly whether my contract agency would be required to pay me for my jury time. (They don't and they won't.)

Here are some of the more interesting links I found about reporting for jury duty in Austin:

• Jury Duty in Austin Texas - An article on what to expect from the Austin jury process. It's an older article, but still seems relevant.
• I-Jury Simplies the Impaneling Process - Discusses the experience with the online impaneling process, as well as some frustrations with the selection process. Jon Wisser, the judge in this article, officiated at my wedding last year.
• American Jurror - A web site produced by the Texas Young Lawyers Association with information on jury duty.

Last week, Lincoln Properties, the owner of the Northcross Mall and the developer who plans to put a record setting mega-box store in the middle of our neighborhood, announced a stand-down. They said that they would freeze further action so they could talk to the neighbors to resolve the problems.

Last Thursday evening the issue came before City Council. The neighbors packed the room, wall to wall, Lincoln Properties, however, was a no-show. Not much talking happened there, I guess.

Monday evening, the Crestview Neighborhood Association called a meeting, so the Northcross developers could meet with the neighbors. Once again, Lincoln Properties took a pass.

Tonight, the North Shoal Creek Neighborhood Association—my neighborhood association—held a general meeting with the Northcross developers scheduled to attend. And again, Lincoln Properties was nowhere to be found.

Is Lincoln Properties ever going to talk with anybody, or are they just trying to run out the clock? The empty chairs are not a sign of good faith.