Saturday, October 29, 2005

Breaking and Fixing LEED. It's inevitable: combine a complex rule system and the potential for economic benefit, and you have a ripe opportunity for "gaming:" seeking the optimal combination of minimum effort and maximum result. Gaming a system isn't cheating, per se; you're following all the rules to the letter, even if you're not following the spirit of the rules. It has a similar result, however: the devaluation of legitimate effort, and confusion over the utility of the rules. With greater attention focused on green buildings of late, it should come as no surprise that the LEED guidelines, with lists correlating green methods and points toward silver, gold and platinum status, may have been gamed by builders. Grist has published a couple of very interesting articles about the phenomenon and -- more importantly -- what can be done about it. Fixing a gamed system isn't insoluble, but like so many other bad situations, the first step is admitting you have a problem. [WorldChanging: Another World Is Here] 3:12:57 PM    comment []

Looking for a teaching assistant and some client projects for next semester. We're teaching 6.171, Software Engineering for Internet Applications, next semester at MIT (February through May 2006).  We need to find a teaching assistant from among the MIT grad student population.  We're also looking for client projects.  Clients can be from for-profit or non-profit organizations.  The only requirement is that they need an Internet application built where there is significant user-to-user interaction. http://philip.greenspun.com/teaching/6171/2006-spring/ta is the teaching assistant ad.  http://philip.greenspun.com/teaching/6171/client-questionnaire is the starting point for potential clients. [Philip Greenspun Weblog] 3:12:31 PM    comment []

What comes next for Karl Rove?. He hasn't been indicted, but he's not necessarily out of danger yet. [Salon.com] 3:12:00 PM    comment []

DMCA Review. The Copyright Office of the U.S. Library of Congress is conducting its required regular review of the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Comments can be submitted over the Internet, and are due December 1st. Good information on the DMCA can be found here, here, and here. [Schneier on Security] 3:11:25 PM    comment []

NYT Editorial: Editorial: A Demagogue in Iran. Tough diplomacy must continue to curb Iran's nuclear aspirations, but there must be no illusions about the ideologue presiding in Iran. 9:29:42 AM    comment []

'We Are Iran': A book on blogs in Iran.  The worst thing about Iranian blogs is that they're written in Persian and as far as I know, only a small percentage of readers of this blog can read Persian. But now a book is coming out in Canada and the States that is dedicated to blogs in Iran. It's called "We Are Iran" and it's written by Nasrin Alavi, a UK-based Iranian woman who has been closely following the Persian blogging scene. The book basically consists of hundreds of translated blog posts by Iranians on different subject matters which is then completed by informative background information about each topic that makes up different chapters of the book. In other words, you get blog quotes plus some useful contextualization. The book is already available in Germany and the UK, and will be available in the US and Canada in two weeks. [Editor: Myself (English)] 9:28:42 AM    comment []

The News Media: Novel Strategy Pits Journalists Against Source. I. Lewis Libby Jr.'s trial will largely turn on whether jurors are more inclined to believe him or members of the media. By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE and ADAM LIPTAK. [NYT > Washington] 9:27:33 AM    comment []

Don't forget to turn your clocks back this morning. Windows machines do this on their own. It seems my Mac does not. [Scripting News] Ix-nay, Ave-day. Tomorrow morning. And I think both my Mac and my Win machine do it automagically. If one turned tody, you might want to check that the date is correctly set. 9:24:22 AM    comment []