eric.openflows

This past Saturday was the 7th NYC Drupal Camp, and apparently something I said started a little bit of a twit-storm.

As part of the introduction to the event, I was asked to give a quick introduction to Open Source/Free Software. I've given similar presentations at many of the past camps and other conferences, and it was a busy week so I did not really prepare as well as I should have so I improvised a bit more than I usually do.

I pulled out one of my earlier presentations and gave the fastest possible history of the GPL, Free Software and the relationship between the copyleft nature of the GPL sofware license and the community-centric development process of a tool like Drupal.

I'm wondering why there has not been any real discussion in the press or information distribution by activist organizations about New York State Ballot Proposition 2. The wording of the proposition seems very different from the actual change to the State Constitution that will be enacted if the proposition passes. Is this about allowing prisoners to volunteer at nonprofit organizations or is this about allowing prisons to force inmates to do unpaid labor?

The past week has been very difficult. After a long struggle to provide care for her at home, we admitted my mother to a psychiatric hospital. Sadly, it's the only care option we have that does not require winning the lottery.

Even with what we thought was good insurance and medicare, the sad reality is that the options we would prefer are all beyond what my parents, my brothers and I could afford. There is still a good chance that providing for her care long-term will bankrupt my parents despite their once reasonable retirement savings, pension and social security.

According to recent estimates, 2.4 to 4.5 million people in the United States have Alzheimer's disease. [1]

Alzheimer's is the seventh-leading cause of death in the US. [2]

Neither Medicare nor private insurance covers the type of long-term care that people with Alzheimer's need [3]

While there is no movement in private insurance to add care and services for Alzheimer's dementia patients, in 2001 political pressure forced an increase to the list of services that are available via medicare. [4]

While this still does not provide coverage for the things that most experts feel are the most effective, at least it's a start.

When care decisions can be made by doctors and government bureaucrats, there is the potential to apply pressure to force changes that benefit patients. With those decisions in the hands of accountants concerned with profit and shareholders, care continues to be limited. It seems that the only times for-profit health insurance expands what is covered it's because elected officials have passed laws to force them to do so.

I wish there were fewer accountants and more bureaucrats between my parents and their healthcare.

1: http://www.nia.nih.gov/Alzheimers/Publications/adfact.htm

2: http://www.alz.org/alzheimers_disease_facts_figures.asp

3: Chronic illness By Ilene Morof Lubkin, Pamala D. Larsen page 481

4: http://www.alzinfo.org/alzheimers-treatment-overview.asp

I picked up a small LCD monitor at this past month's Really Really Free Market.

It works great but did not have a stand. When I got it to the office, I spent a while working on different methods of propping it up, none of which really worked. I was resigning myself to the fact that I'd have to go out and buy something to mount it to the desk when I looked at the ancient manual typewriter I keep around and had an idea.

The monitor fits perfectly into the top of the typewriter box and the typewriter keeps it from falling down. The only down side is that I occasionally find myself reaching for the typewriter keys to reload the browser window on the second monitor (future project: make the typewriter work as a keyboard).

We were having dinner at Todd and Laura's recently and Todd and I were playing with one of Wyeth's toys -- a set of 3 wood blocks on a stick with letters. You turn the blocks to spell words.
In some combinations, more than one face of the toy has a word. In some of those, the combination of words is totally brilliant. I hope this was by design.

Check out dkg's blog post where he talks about how New York City's 2009 Summer Youth Employment Program requires Internet Explorer in order to apply online.

He points out that "Even downloading the pdf version of the application to print out from the site is impossible under non-IE browsers because the actual pdf link is wrapped in some IE-only javascript."

Everyone should read the post and if you live in NYC, please follow his suggestions for further action: call 311 and file an official complaint against the NYC Dept. of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) or even call the number on the application page (1-800-246-4646) and demand that City services be built on public and open standards and not locked to use of any one proprietary system.

I'm registered to vote in NYC, but not in any political party. If I wanted to, I could change my affiliation and run in the Democratic Party primary in September. But, as a voter, if I switch my affiliation today, I am prevented from voting in the primary until the next election.

I understand to an extent the reasoning -- prevent a mass re-registration in order to skew the results of the opposing party. However, I really think that this should be considered an illegal barrier to my participation in the democratic process.

Last night's Critical Mass bike ride could have gone without any problems. However, no matter how far we compromise, the NYPD insists on continuing to treat us as if we were dangerous terrorists. They continue to criminalize a legal gathering; they continue to try to harass us into giving up. Dear NYPD: Fuck You! We will not back down. Rights are rights only when you use them.

We all tried so hard last night to have a fun ride. We all tried so hard to give the cops no excuse to arrest, ticket, or otherwise interfere with our right to assemble and ride.

The ride stopped at every light. We blocked no traffic. We kept the ride to one or two lanes, making sure we could not be accused of blocking traffic or disorderly conduct of any kind.

Everything seemed to be going along fine. We had a crew of cops on fancy new scooters riding along side us the entire time. They seemed completely bored. Based on the money the NYPD must have spent on those new rides and the overtime for all those cops, you'd never know there's a financial crisis in this city.

The ride was moving uptown on 6th avenue. When we stopped at a red light at 41st street a couple dozen cops appeared out of no where, walked towards us and ordered a bunch of us to get off our bikes and give them our ID.

A friend complained on facebook today about an application called PicDoodle that she had installed.

It was supposed to give her a way of drawing fancy things on images and share that fun with her friends.

Instead, she got one of her images with a roughly scrawled heart on the corner and it automatically has been taking names from her friends list and "tagging" the image with their names.

Location

Radical Reference is an online reference service provided by volunteer library workers in a collaborative virtual setting using free/open source technology. Come learn more about how you can use this model to deliver services in your own communities (social, political, familial, spiritual, etc.). Presenters will share the five year history of the group and discuss how it collaborates, as well as give an accessible history of free/open source software.