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Friday, April 29 2005

Take Action: Weather Info, Election Protection

From the EFF Action Center:

"The National Weather Service (NWS), a taxpayer-funded agency, monitors thousands of weather stations around America in order to predict hurricanes, sunshine, and every meteorological event in between. In addition to the raw data that it assembles, NWS has recently started offering more user-friendly info to the public via the Internet. So why has Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) introduced a bill that would restrict the kind of information that NWS can freely share?
"The National Weather Services Duties Act (S.786) would ban NWS from 'competing' with private entities by making it unlawful for the agency to publish user-friendly weather data and barring NWS experts from speaking one-on-one to news agencies. Why? Because Senator Santorum believes that companies like AccuWeather would make more money if they didn't have to compete with 'free.' That's right - he believes you should pay twice for your weather information in order to line the pockets of the private weather industry, which *already* benefits from repackaging the data that tax-funded agencies like NWS give away. That's not only unfair, it's a bad precedent for our national information resources. Help stop S.786 by sending a letter to your Senators today!"

"EIRS PROJECT SEEKS VOLUNTEER HELP
"In 2004, the Verified Voting Foundation and other members of the 2004 Election Protection Coalition developed and ran the Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS). EIRS was used to record information on over 40,000 election incidents and allow voter protection activists to respond to many of them in real time. Since November, members of citizen action groups, lawyers, and academics have been using EIRS to support analysis, litigation, and legislation to ensure that every vote counts.

"The EIRS project is currently seeking volunteers with these skills:

- PHP and MySQL programming -- to improve the system;
- Data cleaning and recoding -- make the data more useful;
- Statistical analysis -- summarize information from data;
- Research and publication -- e-voting problems & solutions;
- Data mining -- in-depth analysis of e-voting incidents;
- Linux systems administration -- to support all of EIRS;
- TWiki -- support EIRS project and knowledge management;
- General computer skills -- data entry, list maintenance...

"If you can contribute any of these skills in the next few months, please send email with a brief resume of your experience and available time (hours per week over specified period) to volunteer@verifiedvoting.org

"'EIRS can again play an important role in the November 2005 elections,' says EIRS Project Manager John McCarthy. 'We want to have an improved version of the system ready to help support election protection efforts this fall.'

"For more information on EIRS, see
http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/eirs
"To access the database of voting incident reports, see
http://www.voteprotect.org/ (click on 'Research/Maps')"

Thursday, April 28 2005

Abu Ghraib: Still No Accountability

Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch reminds us that it was a year ago that we began seeing photos of torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib; and only the low-level military folks who committed the acts, not the people who authorized them, have faced consequences:

"Regrettably, however, the United States is not doing the right thing. Rather, it is... loudly proclaiming its respect for human rights while covering up and shifting blame downwards to low-ranking officials and 'rogue actors.'... Just last week, the Army cleared Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the former senior U.S. commander in Iraq, of any wrongdoing. Yet just before the worst abuses at Abu Ghraib, Gen. Sanchez authorized interrogators to 'exploit Arab fear of dogs.' They did, and we know what happened...
"Secretary Rumsfeld approved interrogation techniques which violated the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture, such as the use of guard dogs to frighten prisoners and painful 'stress' positions...
"Under George Tenet’s direction - and reportedly with his specific authorization - the CIA has 'rendered' detainees to countries such as Syria and Egypt where they were tortured, making Tenet potentially liable as an accomplice to torture."

Sunday, April 24 2005

Vivid memories of famous/shocking events

Apparently, though people believe their memories of "shocking" events (think the September 11th, 2001 attacks, space shuttle disasters, etc.) are more vivid and accurate than memories of typical/boring days, that's typically not the case:

"The number of details remembered about September 11 and the everyday event were statistically indistinguishable. Most memories were consistent, and over time, the number of consistent details participants were able to recall did decline, but there was no difference in the decline for ordinary memories and for memories of September 11... Participants were more likely to believe their memories of September 11 were accurate than their ordinary memories, and they reported those memories as being equally vivid, even months after the event. Meanwhile, they reported the ordinary memories becoming less and less vivid and reliable, even though objectively they could remember no more details about September 11."

Friday, April 22 2005

San Francisco Karaoke Mafia

So I'm now an official member of the San Francisco Karaoke Mafia. Kinda geeky concept (myspace.com clubs, that is), but some very cool people in the club. Mostly folks who go to karaoke at Amnesia on Tuesday nights.
Pictured: Glenny Kravitz, group leader and Amnesia KJ.

Thursday, April 14 2005

TV Turnoff Week

The Adbusters folks are promoting TV Turnoff Week again - April 25 to May 1, they want you (and you, and you) not to watch any television:

"Sure, it’s a statement against dead-end couch culture. But it's also about cleaning up the mental environment. Like our oceans and air, our shared mindscape is littered with pollutants -- distorted news, manipulative ads, violence and top-down culture."

Monday, April 11 2005

Regret

I really like this video. And this one.
Via here found via here.
(99 New Order songs in iTunes. Heard of Basement Jaxx before, never heard them before.)

Friday, April 8 2005

To Do in San Francisco This Weekend...

Friday night: Get Yer Freak On presents Enamour at Club Mighty ($12).
Saturday: Writers With Drinks ($5) at The Makeout Room and Triple Power ($5) at Sublounge.
Sunday: go see Sin City in the theaters or Garbage at the Warfield.

Wednesday, April 6 2005

And in privacy news...

Florida sheriff uses driving records to locate a citizen whose Letter to the Editor in the local newspaper criticized the sheriff as too fat to arrest anyone without using a stun gun:

"Members of Beary's staff confirmed Tuesday that they used Florida driving records to obtain Gawronski's address, but say doing so was within the sheriff's official duties.
"Using that database to obtain personal information, except for clear law-enforcement purposes, has been a state and federal crime since 2000 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994."

"In a statement released Monday, U.C. Berkeley officials said the computer was stolen March 11 from the Graduate Division offices. A campus employee spotted the thief leaving with the laptop, who entered a restricted area of the offices while it was momentarily unoccupied, and contacted police."

"'You will receive the reports that we have on you,' McGuffey said. He did not provide a timetable and did not say whether the consumers would have to pay to review the data."

Friday, April 1 2005

California Special Election - $70 million?

The folks at Contest the Vote say that the special election Governor Schwarzenegger is pushing this year - trying to get residents to vote on redistricting, changes in public pension funds, and more - will cost the state up to $70 million. (SF Chronicle says $60 million, for up to 61 ballot measures that are "approved for circulation.") Have an objection? Sign the petition. More info on various California initiative measures here.

The Trouble With Rorschach

In the April 2005 issue of Scientific American Mind, researchers discount the efficacy of "projective" instruments like the Rorschach inkblot test and Draw-a-Person Test in diagnosing mental problems in patients:

"The only positive result found repeatedly is that, as a group, people who draw human figures poorly have somewhat elevated rates of psychological disorders. On the other hand, studies show that clinicians are likely to attribute mental illness to many normal individuals who simply lack artistic ability."

About this site

This is the personal web site for Edward (Ed) Piou. Consisting mainly of a blog (operational since 1999) and various photos.

Some online projects I'm working on

Politics

Charity, Non-profits...

A while ago, I decided to put my money where my mind is on a (roughly) monthly basis and give to:

Photos

Public events documented through pictures...