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Australia 2010 Election - Sex Party and More
Submitted by akreider on Sat, 08/21/2010 - 14:30.Autralian 2010 election - they have a very weird system of preferential voting for the Senate which is somewhat proportional. Downside is that parties can make deals allotting their extra votes to other parties - if voters don't set their own preferences. Here you can see the Australian National/Liberal (aka conservative) party narrowly beat the Fishing and Lifestyle party for the last seat in Queensland with the help of votes from the Sex Party.
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2010/guide/sqld-results.htm
How a Non-Neutral Net Could Benefit You
Submitted by akreider on Tue, 08/17/2010 - 14:29.We do not know what a non-Neutral Internet would look like. It might
actually benefit most activist or nonprofit organizations. Here is how that *might* happen...
Mailman MySQL Adaptor Implemented: Database Driven Open Source Email Lists
Submitted by akreider on Thu, 08/12/2010 - 12:08.With a lot of help from someone on the Mailman Developers email list I was able to get Mailman to work with a MySQL database!
This is awesome because Mailman is the leading free mailing list choice. I would have switched to sympa, but it would have meant resetting our server - as cPanel does not work with sympa (as it cannot use the postfix program to handle mail). Mailman seems to have slightly better features than Sympa, and I'm hoping that when Mailman 3 comes out (in 2-3 years??? It is in alpha now), that we can switch to that.
US Social Forum 2010 - Ideas for Next Time
Submitted by akreider on Sun, 06/27/2010 - 13:01.I went to the US Social Forum this past week in Detroit along with the Energy Justice Network.
It was nice to see so many people and to get a taste of the industrial (and labor) spirit that defines Detroit.
BP's Proposed "Clean" Energy: Hydrogen = Petroleum Coke
Submitted by akreider on Tue, 06/15/2010 - 17:06.BP, in the news for the big oil spill, is planning a billion dollar facility in California to use Petroleum Coke to make Hydrogen and store 90% of the carbon (will it leak?).
Hydrogen is not a power source - is a storage system. Somehow hydrogen has a great reputation, when it is generally created using dirty fossil fuels (or nuclear power).
Their proposal pretends that dirty fossil fuels can be clean, relies upon untested carbon storage technology, is government subsidized, and is more expensive than renewable alternatives (like wind).
Detroit Incinerator - Mapping Income - United States Social Forum 2010
Submitted by akreider on Sun, 06/13/2010 - 15:34.This is my first take on mapping income near the Detroit Incinerator.
They are going to have a big protest of the facility during the US Social Forum.
I'm using Census 2000 data and FactFinder. Per capita income is from
1999. I copied and pasted FactFinder images together for the 482xx
series of zip codes. You can see that the incinerator (marked as black
blob) is in the middle of an industrial area where the per capita income
is zero (because there are zero people).
1999. I copied and pasted FactFinder images together for the 482xx
series of zip codes. You can see that the incinerator (marked as black
blob) is in the middle of an industrial area where the per capita income
is zero (because there are zero people).
Census Data - Income and Race by Zip Code
Submitted by akreider on Sun, 06/13/2010 - 13:30.I wanted a database of race and income by zip code for the US for the Energy Justice Network Map to demonstrate how facilities are placed in areas where people of color and/or poor people live.
I got this from the Census Bureau. So the race data is from 2000 and household income is from 1999 (in 1999 dollars). Since these facilities were built anywhere from 0 to 70 years ago, it is probably fine to use old data.
You can download the data in SQL format
Includes:
-zip code
-total population
-population white
Displaying KML in Google Maps API - ZCTA (Zip Codes)
Submitted by akreider on Mon, 06/07/2010 - 15:26.I am working on displaying zip codes in Google Maps for the Energy Justice Network power plants map. I'm using ZCTA (zip code) shape files that come from the Census Bureau. You can convert them from shapefile to kml using Geocommons. Unfortunately I need to do this for all 50 states - so it will take a while.
Now the really CRAZY part was that I was unable to get my KML files to show up in Google Maps. They showed up fine in Google Earth.
Kensington Youth Soccer Club
Submitted by akreider on Thu, 06/03/2010 - 16:45.I did some work for a friend who is starting a youth Kensington Soccer Club - Kensington is a Philadelphia neighborhood. It's a very basic drupal website.
If you happen to live in the area, he could use coaches and other volunteers!
Mapping Landfills
Submitted by akreider on Wed, 05/26/2010 - 12:25.I recently got the landfills layer of data working on the Energy Justice Network Map. It features 2000 landfills from the EPA's Landfill Methane Outreach Program data set.
Go to the National Map - and turn on the layer (using the radio buttons) to see the landfills!
