Austin

A new mailing list has been setup for coordination and communication among the IT volunteers in Austin. If you are interested in participating, please consider joining the list.

You can subscribe, or get more information about the list, at: http://soaustin.net/mailman/listinfo/katrina-it-volunteers

If you are interested in being an IT volunteer, see the information at: http://www.austinfree.net/katrinavolunteer.htm

Boing Boing has posted a report by Jasmina Tesanovic on her experience in the Austin Convention Center.

This center for refugees is well-organized, compared to my ex Yugoslav experience. It has air conditioning, abundant cooked food, extremely clean bathrooms and well-behaved people. Nobody is crying, nobody looks depressed yet, nobody is even fighting...

Information center desk, youth center desk, school information desk, jobs information desk, family elder members desk, computer desk, deaf assistance desk, farmer

There is an urgent need for Cold Fusion/Fusebox programmers to help develop automation tools to support the Austin shelter for Katrina evacuees. If you know anybody who can help, please email me at chip [at] unicom [dot] com and I will connect you with the appropriate city personnel.

Please do not distribute this notice after Friday, September 9.

In the article A LUG pitches In, Austin-based tech journalist Joe Barr describes his experience—and that of other Austin Linux Group members—assisting with the IT needs at the Convention Center.

I don't think that I will ever forget the expression on the young man's face when -- after a volunteer found a match on his grandmother's name at another Red Cross site -- they were talking on the phone a minute later. It was a picture of pure joy and relief. And it wasn't the only one. I saw it happen a dozen times the second day. And that's what motivates me and hundreds of other volunteers to be a part of that.

He also discusses some of the difficulties and frustrations that volunteers are facing.

A new portal has been setup for Austin-area people who want to help with the Katrina aftermath. It's called austinhelpingneworleans.org.

Additional shout out to Ray in Austin, who is covering the tragedy with such heart.

Austin resident Jette also writes about her experience watching as her family members become refugees in the crisis.

This liveblogging coming from the newly opened Genuine Joe Coffeehouse, 2001 W. Anderson Lane. Finally, an evening coffeehouse choice comes to north-central Austin. They are open until 10:00pm.

I would describe the environs as relaxed and comfortable, but not grungy or ramshackle.

I stumbled into the tail end of poetry night. The poets are breaking up and heading home. They will be back next Monday.

I ordered a decaf americiano and chocolate chip cookie. The coffee was good. The cookie was killer. Three bucks and change. They look to have one of the better bakery cases in town.

Free wireless is available. No annoying login required. I'm sitting on the couch across from the register, and getting about 70% signal quality. There is even a little power strip on the floor beside me, should I need to plug in. For a while i was seeing contention with another device (they left their wireless set to the default channel 6), but that seems to be gone now.

There is lots of varied and comfortable seating, from counter to table to couches. This would be a great place to meet with friends. Seating is spread across a couple of rooms, and a front porch overlooking Anderson Lane.

While I can laptop just fine, other work may be a problem. The difficulty is that the room has diminished lighting, and there isn't good work lighting for reading and writing. There are a number of small lamps scattered about, but they aren't that great for reading. Green Muse, for instance, solves this problem by putting a worklight at each table.

So if you are looking for some quiet reading time in the evening, the lighting may pose a problem. Otherwise, it seems like a nice place to work or meet people or otherwise hang out. It's shooting to the top of my list.

I was at the local H-E-B yesterday to pick up some coffee for the office. While reading the side panel of the store brand Columbian coffee beans, I was surprised to find it had an ingredient list—one that listed more ingredients than just coffee beans. The ever ominous "artificial and natural flavors" was listed too.

This had me puzzled. What are they adding to the coffee beans? Monosodium glutamate? Beef tallow? Crack cocaine?

Until the puzzle is solved, a switch of brands is called for. I ended up with a bag of Newman's Own coffee (Newman's Dark Blend), and have been pleasantly surprised. It's a great coffee for the price. It isn't that much more expensive than the store brand, tastes a lot better, and doesn't contain inexplicable ingredients.

This November, Texans have an opportunity to enshrine bigotry in our state constitution. The No Nonsense in November PAC has just launched their web site to oppose the marriage constitutional amendment. Austinite Glen Maxey is leading the charge.

I give them an A+ on effort, but, unfortunately, I'll have to give the web site a B- on execution. First, not everybody is web surfing at 1600x1200 resolution. Many folks, particularly older folks with less than 20/20 eyesight, are browsing at 800x600. Your site ought to look reasonable at those resolutions.

And speaking of scrolling, is there anybody out there that thinks the iframe-type scrolling effect for the body text is good? I think it's further proof that just because you can do some cool effect, doesn't mean you should.

News reports yesterday indicate that Birch Telecom is performing massive layoffs. Birch will terminate a third of their workforce. The company will close their Texas sales offices in Austin and San Antonio.

Here is an odd juxtaposition of events: on the very same day, the Texas Senate passed the telecommunications deregulation bill.

The troubles at Birch are indicative of the failing state of competition in the telecommunications sector. So, the question is, how does this legislation, ballyhooed as a solution to drive telecom competition, help competitive providers such as Birch?

Answer: it doesn't do a blasted thing for them.

See, when the legislature talks about "competition", they do it in that Humpty Dumpty way where a word doesn't mean what we think it does. When you and I talk about competition, we mean things like bringing more competitors into the market.

The "competition" provided for in this legislation means giving the incumbent providers access to new markets. It doesn't mean structuring those markets so that new competitors can join. In other words, the goal of this bill is to allow Bell to leverage its monopoly in traditional telecom to gain entry in the video market.

The unfortunate events at Birch show that telecom markets are becoming less competitive, and the legislation being pushed through in Texas is only going to accelerate that process.

I recently wrote about how Rep. King tried to attach his bad telecom bills as amendments to SB 408, the otherwise innocuous PUC sunset bill, thus creating a dangerous telecom frankenbill. The problem is that when you start monkeying with a bill in this way you risk that it can be killed with a parliamentary maneuver called a "point of order." That's exactly what happened today.

Soon after the changes were passed out of committee, Rep. King started backpedaling. Presumably not because he was swayed by good policy arguments, but because of this risk. The muni network ban was removed. The local cable franchise killer remained, albeit changed to try to make it more germane to the bill topic, and thus reduce the risk of a point of order.

Turns out that was not sufficient. A point of order was raised, claiming that the bill did not match the analysis. The chair sustained the point of order so now the bill is dead.

Points of order often are driven more by politics than technicalities. There was widespread displeasure at what Rep. King did. Sen. Shapiro, the original bill sponsor, was reportedly livid over the changes. These circumstances created ripe conditions for the chair to sustain the point of order, thus killing the bill.

(Note: The muni network ban lives on in HB 789.)

May 19 update: This article points out that the bill is not technically dead, but rather goes back to committee to be fixed. This late in the session, that's nearly as good as dead.

May 19 second update: Aw crap. The bill is alive. I'm hearing that King stripped two of three provisions he added, leaving in the provision that kills local video franchises, and rushed it back to the House to be scheduled for a vote.