Year: 2009

Posted on

RFP: Enhanced Code of Federal Regulations Needs Your Help

This RFP is a call for assistance from librarians and other civic-minded individuals. In 2008, Public.Resource.Org, with the assistance of a variety of parties including the Sunlight Foundation, GovTrack.US, Stanford University, and Google, purchased a bulk feed of the Code of Federal Regulations, a product sold by the Government Printing Office.[1] This RFP details the second stage of this program.

via RFP: Enhanced Code of Federal Regulations – Open Government | Google Groups.

What Carl and the folks at public.resource.org want to do is create version of the CFR that will pull all the various technical standards that are included by reference into the an online version of the CFR, actually including the standards in the body of the CFR. And they’re looking for help from the library community. If you can help Carl and p.r.o get these standards, let him know. Remember that by including the standards through reference, they become part of the CFR and should be available to the public.

Posted on

SCOTUS Wants to Bring Web Site In-House

In a burst of reinvention, though, the high court is asking Congressional appropriators for about $800,000 to take the site in-house (in chamber?) and give it a good overhaul. The Government Printing Office established the site in 2000, and has been running it ever since.

The court has increasingly been doing its own Web production, and in its request to Congress, it noted a rather astonishing mark of success: a “100 percent increase” in hits, to almost 19 million in January 2009, compared with January 2008.

via Supreme Court Plans a Web Overhaul – The Lede Blog – NYTimes.com.

Sounds like an excellent idea, so long as the money is well spent. May be worth the Court’s time to take a look at some of the other sites that are serving their opinions to get ideas and ask for help.

Posted on

Almost.at: Real Time Events, As Tweeted By The People Who Are Actually There

[O]ne of the conventions Twitter users have adopted to associate their tweets with a certain event — the hash tag — can be an incredibly inefficient way to spread what’s actually going on. This is because Twitter users have grown accustomed to tagging any tweet somehow related to an event with its corresponding hashtag, even when they aren’t actually attending. This helps spur conversation, but it becomes much harder to weed out the news from the noise, and occasionally leads to propagation of false information. Almost.at, a very slick web application built by freelance iPhone developer David Cann, may be the answer to this problem.

via Almost.at: Real Time Events, As Tweeted By The People Who Are Actually There.

As advertised, almost.at looks like a great way to track live events that are being covered on twitter.  Personally I’ve found twitter to be real handy for “attending” events.  By tracking hash tags and making use of @replies I’ve been able to follow along and even participate presentations at various events.  It even includes a feature allowing you to suggest events, which should be handy for little conferences like CALIcon.

Posted on

Weekly Flu Review from the CDC

During week 20 (May 17 – 23, 2009), influenza activity decreased in the United States, however there are still higher levels of influenza-like illness than is normal for this time of year.

CDC – Influenza (Flu) | Weekly Report: Influenza Summary Update Week 20, 2008-2009 Season

Fascinating.  Still a lot of flu around, including H1N1, more than normal for this time of year in fact. Looking at the graphs would seem to indicate that despite the appearance of H1N1 and a late season, last year (07–08) was worse.

Blogged with the Flock Browser
Posted on

Free Family Movies All Summer Long

Free & Cheap Kids’ Movies: AMC & Regal Summer Movie Schedules : Atlanta on the Cheap – Free summer movies at Town Center Stadium 16 in Kennesaw :

06/02/2009-06/04/2009 Kit Kittredge: American Girl (G)
Shrek The Third (PG)
06/09/2009-06/11/2009 The Tale Of Despereaux (G)
Alvin And The Chipmunks (PG)
06/16/2009-06/18/2009 Charlotte’s Web (G)
Surf’s Up (PG)
06/23/2009-06/25/2009 Horton Hears A Who (G)
Journey To The Center Of The Earth (PG)
06/30/2009-07/02/2009 Space Chimps (G)
Star Wars: Clone Wars (PG)
07/07/2009-07/09/2009 Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything: Veggie Tale Movie (G)
Spiderwick Chronicles (PG)
07/14/2009-07/16/2009 Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium (G)
Nim’s Island (PG)
07/21/2009-07/23/2009 Everyone’s Hero (G)
Madagascar 2: Escape To Africa (PG)
07/28/2009-07/30/2009 Mr. Bean’s Holiday (G)
Kung Fu Panda (PG)
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Posted on

Ubuntu-based PC/OS 10 Released

PC/OS Developer Roberto J. Dohnert has announced the release of PC/OS 10 Open64 Workstation. The desktop distribution designed for 64-bit systems is based on Ubuntu 9.04 and includes all of the latest security and bug patches up to the 25th of May. All of the PC/OS editions, including OpenDesktop, OpenWorkstation and WebStation, utilise the lightweight Xfce desktop environment and focus on providing ease of use out-of-the-box.

PC/OS 10 Open64 Workstation edition released – News – The H Open Source: News and Features

Blogged with the Flock Browser
Posted on

FDIC Leans on GA Banks to Straighten Up or Face Failure

Seven Georgia banks were issued the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s strongest regulatory rebuke last month, according to an announcement Friday by the banking industry insurer.The banks, concentrated primarily in metro Atlanta, entered into cease-and-desist orders with the FDIC, an agreement that stipulates how the bank must overhaul its business, or face failure.

FDIC ups cease-and-desist orders in Ga. – Atlanta Business Chronicle:

In case anyone was wondering if the economy has hit bottom yet. Personally, I’d go with no, we’re still falling. And hitting the bottom may be about right, it will be a big hit.

Blogged with the Flock Browser