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Saturday, August 07, 2004 |
Aug 6, 2004: The Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Today Americans celebrate one of our most precious rights -- the right to vote -- and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 turns 39. By outlawing discriminatory tests like poll taxes and literacy tests, this act took one giant step towards full equality for all Americans. As President Lyndon Johnson said before Congress:
"The most basic right of all was the right to choose your own leaders. The history of this country in large measure is the history of expansion of that right to all of our people. Many of the issues of civil rights are very complex and most difficult. But about this there can and should be no argument: every American citizen must have an equal right to vote."
While we'd like to believe that all Americans can agree on the value and importance of the Voting Rights Act, unfortunately, it is not the case. One of its greatest critics happens to be Bush federal court appointee, William Pryor.
In 1997, Pryor testified before Congress that state and local changes to voting procedures that may effect minority voters should not have to be cleared through the Justice Department — as required by Section Five of the Voting Rights Act. During his testimony, Pryor called parts of the act, "an affront to federalism and an expensive burden that has far outlived its usefulness"
We're willing to bet that somewhere in Florida, there are a few people who disagree.
[Kicking Ass]
7:24:44 AM 
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Post: Information: The New Currency.
Like a tag team, this week it's Tom's turn to take off for the weekend and my turn to share this week's comic. There seems to be a lot of examples of law suits over experience recently. Mark Hurst talked about spending more on usability instead of marketing - these days, we're seeing money spent on lawsuits instead of user experience. Examples of such cases include Accessible Odeon and BugMeNot. Newspapers want our information, but we don't want to give it to them. Instead, hundreds or thousands of John Does are probably in the NYTimes database ...
We are in a bit of a stalemate with commercial websites. The websites have some quality content they're willing to share but they want to make money. We want that quality content and we're not inclined to pay for it. So instead, we've reached an unspoken barter system where information is what we sell them.
. . .
You can't do arithmetic with this formula but what you can immediately discern is how much you're giving away, or if you're a website, how much you're asking for. If information is inaccurate, it is worthless whilst information that is readily available will lower the perceived cost.
[OK/Cancel]
Comic: Getting Nothing for Something.
7:20:53 AM
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Globes painted from memory
 Following on to our maps drawn from memory post, Noah points to this collection of globes painted from memory. Link (Thanks, Noah!)
Paranoia game redesigned using open-source methodology
Paranoia, the classic role-playing game in which players battle a mad, totalitarian computer for their freedom ("a light-hearted game of terror, death, bureaucracy, mad scientists, mutants, dangerous weapons, insane robots, and technological satire that encourages players to lie, cheat, and backstab each other at every turn") has just re-launched with a new version that was collaboratively developed with players via a Wiki, borrowing "the tools and methods of open-source software development for a paper game."
To a large degree, the game was developed online, in public. Fans of the game contributed enthusiastically via blog, wiki, and online forum. They wrote text, debated rules, proofread, ran statistical analyses, and even wrote a computer simulator to test the game's paper-and-pencil rules.
"Online collaboration made this edition of Paranoia the best yet," said Allen Varney (www.allenvarney.com), the game's designer. "We borrowed the tools and methods of open-source software development for a paper game, and it worked brilliantly. I plan to create future games the same way, and other designers should consider it too."
Link
(thanks, Cory!)
7:08:43 AM
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Convergence Fallout Continues.
 "As home computers come to the fore as entertainment devices, powering home theaters, audio systems and the like, the Radio and Television Technicians Board is seeking to license computer technicians much the way it has licensed television and radio repair workers since the 1950s.
To that end, the board last week informed Broussard that he would have to send the board $55 and an affidavit from an employer, customer or computer school attesting that he was a computer consultant. In exchange, Broussard would receive his license.
Mark Lewis, president of the Louisiana Technology Council, a trade association based in New Orleans, said he finds the situation absurd.
“They’re taking a law passed when computers weren’t even around and applying it to computers,” Lewis said. “The whole thing is mind-boggling to me – how they could come up with something like this?”
[unmediated]
6:56:59 AM
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