Category: Data Governance

  • The end of the ridiculous war on drugs

    As US states legalise marijuana, is this the end of the drugs war? Eugene Jarecki, guardian.co.uk The director of a landmark documentary which chronicles how the current penal approach has resulted in social disaster says the greatest legacy of the US elections may be shifting attitudes towards illegal narcotics Last week was a momentous wee……

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  • Nokero Sunray solar charger saved my life

    How The Nokero SunRay Pro Power Solar Charger Saved My Skin & My Sanity During Hurricane Sandy Jill Fehrenbacher, inhabitat.com When Hur­ri­cane Sandy hit last week, and the power in my lower Man­hat­tan apart­ment went out, my first thought, as I dug around for can­dles and LED lamps was “Well this will be a fun…

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  • Floating sheep: mapping racist tweets in election

    Mapping Racist Tweets in Response to President Obama’s Re-election Matthew Zook, floatingsheep.org Note: for ques­tions about the methodology/approach of this post, see the FAQ (added 16:20 EST 11/9/2012). Note: as of 11:00 EST 11/10/2012, we have dis­abled com­ment­ing on this post. Dur­ing the day after the 2012… http://flpbd.it/nZi5W Related articles Judge who sent racist email…

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  • Why we need better voting systems

    Shame on the Republicans Who Curtailed Early Voting James Fallows, theatlantic.com Hours-long election lines stretching many city blocks are a national embarrassment. And those responsible should be condemned across ideological lines. In 32 states and Wash­ing­ton, D.C., vot­ers are eli­gi­ble to cast their bal­lot early with … http://flpbd.it/6byNS Related articles From the Director of the…

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  • The decline of the Fox News brain trust

    ‘There is some holy hell to pay’ Steve Benen, msnbc.com Getty Images I’ve never fully under­stood how Karl Rove devel­oped a rep­u­ta­tion as a strate­gic genius. In 2000, it was Rove’s idea to keep George W. Bush in Cal­i­for­nia in the cam­paign’s wan­ing days, instead of stump­ing in key… http://flpbd.it/juBYP Related articles Karl Rove Responds…

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  • Charles Darwin gets 4000 write-in votes against Rep. Paul Broun in Georgia election

    upi.com Remem­ber Rep. Paul Broun, the Geor­gia Repub­li­can whose speech decry­ing evo­lu­tion and the Big Bang The­o­ry (the sci­ence, not the hit TV show) as lies “from the pit of hell”? At least a few Geor­gia vot­ers did: at least 4,000 of them wro… http://flpbd.it/43sDn Charles Darwin gets 4000 write-in votes against Rep. Paul Broun…

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  • Do natural disasters redistribute wealth?

    NYC Crime Rate Drops After Storm thedailybeast.com HURRICANE SANDY Hur­ri­cane Sandy may have dev­as­tat­ed areas of New York City, but there was one sil­ver lin­ing in the oth­er­wise mas­sive­ly destruc­tive storm cloud: the city’s over­all crime rate dropped 27 per­cent com­pared with the sam… http://flpbd.it/NBBoL Related articles A History of Disaster Capitalism (motherjones.com) How capitalism…

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  • The new green barons

    The New Pot Barons: Businessmen Bank on Marijuana By Tony Dokoupil, thedailybeast.com Pot use in the United States is rising sharply, and voters may make it fully legal in two states this fall. Smart businessmen are banking on that happening. Full dark in down­town Den­ver, and inside one of the twin­kling high-rises that make th……

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  • Power grid flaws exposed by Sandy hurricane

    Superstorm Shines A Light On Power Grid Vulnerabilities Scott Neuman, npr.org The storm that has spawned so many worst-ever superla­tives man­aged a few more when it comes to elec­tric­i­ty, with record-breaking power out­ages across 18 states stretch­ing from Michi­gan and Indi­ana to Maine and North Car­oli­na, accord­ing… http://flpbd.it/hDP1l Related articles Preparing The Grid For The…

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  • Avoiding mega hospital charges with retail clinics

    For Simple Care, Retail Clinics Are A Popular Choice Scott Hensley, npr.org If you’ve got the snif­fles or need a shot, do you go to the doc­tor or stop in at a clin­ic in a near­by drug­store? Lots of peo­ple are opt­ing for the clin­ics, which are spring­ing up inside gro­cery stores, big-box retail­ers and…

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  • How to wrangle control over your contacts

    Tech Trends: Tools for Managing Contacts John Brandon, inc.com TECH REPORT We tried out two basic CRM tools that help organize contacts—and stay in touch with them. I always thought cus­tomer rela­tion­ship man­age­ment soft­ware was strict­ly for sales­peo­ple. Recent­ly, I’ve been read­ing a lot abou… http://flpbd.it/fzw6u Related articles CRMs that have launched or been updated…

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  • Europe decides to get rid of acrylamide while we argue about soft drinks

    Cooking, fast and slow Blogus scientificus by Alex Reshanov, earthsky.org Euro­peans are so fash­ion for­ward. While peo­ple in the U.S. are still bick­er­ing over soft drink sizes and calo­rie label­ing for Big Macs, the Euro­pean Union is already tack­ling a chem­i­cal many of us have never heard of: acry­lamide. The… http://flpbd.it/k6HkE Related articles The Onion:…

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  • Visualizing who spends what on political campaigns

    A Visualization Of The Most Invisible, And Influential, Part Of Political Campaigns By Emily Elert, popsci.com An animation by Northeastern University’s LazerLab shows what’s being donated, and where. When I hear the phrase “polit­i­cal action,” I think of pub­lic demon­stra­tions. But the most influ­en­tial form of polit­i­cal action has noth­ing to do… http://flpbd.it/hwnao Related articles…

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  • UK puts entire government on the web, others to follow

    Government’s digital services portal Gov.uk comes out of beta By Ian Steadman, wired.co.uk Technology The gov­ern­ment’s cen­tralised por­tal for all its online ser­vices, Gov.uk, final­ly launched today after two years of devel­op­ment. It rep­re­sents the flag­ship of the gov­ern­ment’s “dig­i­tal by default” pol­i­cy, an idea fir… http://flpbd.it/VuGse Related articles Designs of the Year (digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk) GOV.UK…

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  • Linguistic analysis decodes true messages of Obama and Romney

    Gesture analysis reveals what Obama and Romney care about By Liat Clark, wired.co.uk Science An analy­sis of the body ges­tures of Barack Obama and Mitt Rom­ney dur­ing the pres­i­den­tial debates sug­gests that how can­di­dates speak could reveal what they real­ly care about and affect whether or not vot­ers believe what they… http://flpbd.it/HeO5x Related articles Mitt…

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  • Avado shows healthcare is ready to move past the server huggers

    Healthcare Finally Moving Past Wang-Like Legacy Systems Dave Chase, techcrunch.com Edi­tor’s note: Dave Chase is the CEO of Avado.com, a patient por­tal and rela­tion­ship man­age­ment com­pa­ny that was a TechCrunch Dis­rupt final­ist. Pre­vi­ous­ly he was a man­age­ment con­sul­tant for Accen­ture’s health­car… http://flpbd.it/O4Y4E Related articles Avado lands $1M to transform healthcare in the same way Mint…

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  • Felix Gonda visualizes balance of power

    Daily Infographic: Which Political Party Really Rules America? By Emily Elert, popsci.com An amazing visualization of America’s shifting political tides Yes, there’s an elec­tion com­ing up, but that’s not what makes today’s info­graph­ic worth high­light­ing. What makes Felix Gonda’s Bal­ance of Power graph­ic worth high­light­ing… http://flpbd.it/g5jyO Related articles Are you down with OPEBs? These benefits…

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  • Why you should not build expensive cities near salt water

    FYI: Why Does Salt Water Make Hurricane Damage So Much Worse? By Colin Lecher, popsci.com The white stuff can stick around and ruin, well, pretty much everything. That puts the officials trying to fix it on a ticking clock. Sandy crip­pled the NYC sub­way sys­tem this week, knock­ing out power, dam­ag­ing switch­es, and dump­ing… http://flpbd.it/udDia…

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  • Climate scientists face death threats

    The Battle Over Climate Science By Tom Clynes, popsci.com Climate scientists routinely face death threats, hate mail, nuisance lawsuits and political attacks. How much worse can it get? There’s no police tape across Michael Mann’s office door­way this morn­ing. “Always a good start,” he says, jug­gling… http://flpbd.it/ibrtZ Related articles Climate Scientist Describes Death Threats And…

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  • New York Magazine captures post Sandy NY

    New York Magazine Captures the Look of Post-Sandy New York Arik Hesseldahl, allthingsd.com To the list of New York insti­tu­tions that saw their oper­a­tions dis­rupt­ed by the Super­storm known as Sandy last week, add New York Mag­a­zine. With offices on Var­ick and Canal Streets, it is sit­u­at­ed right at the bor­der­line between t… http://flpbd.it/Den3G Related…

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  • New Jersey’s trial by fire of electronic voting

    Security Researchers Warn New Jersey’s Emergency Email Voting Could Be An Insecure, Illegal Nightmare Andy Greenberg, forbes.com New Jer­sey’s deci­sion to allow vot­ers strand­ed by super­storm Sandy to vote by email in Tues­day’s elec­tion may be an inno­v­a­tive exper­i­men­tal response to a badly-timed nat­ur­al dis­as­ter. But secu­ri­ty researchers are warn­ing that t… http://flpbd.it/7DWj0 Related articles…

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  • After Sandy, New Jersey Becomes an Unwilling Test Case for Internet Voting

    After Sandy, New Jersey Becomes an Unwilling Test Case for Internet Voting Arik Hesseldahl, allthingsd.com Hold­ing an elec­tion is com­pli­cat­ed. Hold­ing an elec­tion eight days after a his­tor­i­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant dis­as­ter? Prob­a­bly expo­nen­tial­ly so. This is the cir­cum­stance in which the state of New Jer­sey will find itself… http://flpbd.it/WCGB4 Related articles Christie to personally call out…

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  • Why telecommuting saves costs, time and your health

    The Perks of Working From Home Jennifer Shore, mashable.com If you’re part of the 86% who drive to work every day, you can devise ways to lower your gas costs, save time and improve your health — by telecom­mut­ing. The cur­rent work­force totals more than 128 mil­lion peo­ple, and while eight out of 10… http://flpbd.it/nTXRQ…

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  • Hurricane Sandy: another climate wake up call

    Sandy Raises Questions About Climate And The Future Fresh Air from WHYY, npr.org Sandy Raises Questions About Climate And The Future Fresh Air from WHYY If you ask cli­mate sci­en­tist Radley Hor­ton, it’s dif­fi­cult to say that Hur­ri­cane Sandy was direct­ly caused by cli­mate change, but he sees strong con­nec­tions betw… http://flpbd.it/L0BSs Related articles Connecting…

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  • See what the world will look like without power

    New York City in post-storm darkness: photos by Randy Scott Slavin Xeni Jardin, boingboing.net NYC UNPLUGGED, a series by pho­tog­ra­ph­er Randy Scott Slavin doc­u­ment­ing the dark­ness in New York City after Hur­ri­cane Sandy caused wide­spread power out­ages: New York City is always bright. Street lights, business marquees, ligh… http://flpbd.it/4inHF Related articles A Study of Shadows…

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  • 156 years of election data at your finger tips info graphic

    Infographic: 156 Years Of Election Data At Your Fingertips By Mark Wilson, fastcodesign.com An interactive chart visualizes party affiliations, congressional and presidential elections, and more, sorted state-by-state, year-by-year, since 1856. Prepare to lose an afternoon. Pol­i­tics are a game of strat­e­gy. And while we often think … http://flpbd.it/d0MWd

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  • Bloomberg Endorses Obama, Saying Hurricane Sandy Affected Decision

    Awareness of science, environment and climate change is increasingly moving voters towards Obama. Bloomberg Endorses Obama, Saying Hurricane Sandy Affected Decision – NYTimes.com. Related articles Bloomberg’s Obama endorsement is a vote for big government in time of crisis | Ana Marie Cox Bloomberg endorses Obama, citing Sandy and climate change Michael Bloomberg endorses Obama to lead…

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