67010229
submission
reifman writes:
Upstart social networking startup Ello burst on the scene in September with promises of a utopian, post-Facebook platform that respected user's privacy. I was surprised to see so many public figures and media entities jump on board — mainly because of what Ello isn't. It isn't an open source, decentralized social networking technology. It's just another privately held, VC-funded silo. Remember Diaspora? In 2010, it raised $200,641 on Kickstarter to take on Facebook with "an open source personal web server to share all your stuff online." Two years later, they essentially gave up, leaving their code to the open source community to carry forward. In part one of "Revisiting Open Source Social Networking Alternatives," I revisit/review six open source social networking alternatives in search of a path forward beyond Facebook. Here's what I found...
66819953
submission
reifman writes:
Amazon's hiring so quickly in Seattle that it's on pace to employ 45,000 people or seven percent of the city. But, 75% of these hires are male. While Seattle women earned 86 cents per dollar earned by men in 2012, today, they make only 78 cents per dollar. In "Amageddon: Seattle's Increasingly Obvious Future", I review these and other surprising facts about Amazon's growing impact on the city: we're the fastest growing — now larger than Boston, we have the fastest rising rents, the fourth worst traffic, we're only twelfth in public transit, we're the fifth whitest and getting whiter, we're experiencing record levels of property crime and the amount of office space under construction has nearly doubled to 3.2 million square feet in the past year.
65888569
submission
reifman writes:
The Internet's been abuzz the past 48 hours about reports the FBI distributed malware via a fake Seattle Times news website. What the agency actually did is more of an example of smart, precise law enforcement tactics; the outrage online is more an indictment of Twitter's tendency towards uninformed, knee-jerk reaction. In this age of unwarranted, unconstitutional blanket data collection by the NSA, the FBI's tactics from 2007 seem refreshing for their precision.
64223987
submission
reifman writes:
A thousand unionized healthcare workers protested outside Microsoft's Seattle offices over its Nevada tax dodge on Friday. Microsoft shareholders have pocketed more than $5.34 billion in tax savings as Washington State social services and schools have taken huge cuts. In a hearing Wednesday, the Supreme Court suggested it may hold the Legislature in contempt and order it to repeal all tax breaks to restore proper funding to K-12 schools and universities.
64026013
submission
reifman writes:
I thought it might be a good time to revisit alternatives to now defunct Google Reader. Here, I walk through the installation of four newsreader apps: Selfoss, TinyRSS, GoRead and Fever. Of the four, two are free open source PHP-based readers (Selfoss and Tiny RSS), the third is an open source Python reader (GoRead) which runs easiest on Google App Engine and my favorite, Fever, whose PHP code costs $30 but can be easily self-hosted (no affiliation with the developer). All of them import OPML files — which is handy for migrating from another reader application. TinyRSS and GoRead offer an Android app client and there are third-party apps available for Fever.
63916815
submission
reifman writes:
So, you’ve been attacked by trolls? Here’s what to expect: Your phone will vibrate incessantly with Twitter mentions. You’ll receive angry, obscenity filled emails and anonymous comments on your blog. Bloggers will take you out of context (a columnist at The Guardian compared me to a mass murderer—seriously). And maybe, you’ll receive an inappropriate package at your home as I did. Taming Internet rage may seem impossible, but there are good reasons to respond to critics and constructive ways to do so.
63851353
submission
reifman writes:
Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is alleged to have 'attracted basketball talent to [his son's] wealthy school ... with ... a new basketball-focused nonprofit, cash for a coach, an unusual admissions process and weak enforcement of academic standards. One star player stayed at a $6 million mansion...' The report came after Ballmer purchased the NBA's Clippers and shortly before his withdrawal from Microsoft's Board of Directors. 'The school has an admirably diverse student body – nearly half (49 percent) are students of color – and has made outstanding efforts to connect with minorities and local students who are not from privileged backgrounds.' The school is also the alma mater and the meeting place of Microsoft's founder's Bill Gates & Paul Allen.
63805471
submission
reifman writes:
In June, the Washington State Supreme Court ordered the Legislature to appear on September 3rd to explain why it hasn't found the revenue to fully fund the education reforms required by its McCleary ruling, as much as $7.83 billion through 2019. One reason the state has such a huge shortfall is major tax breaks to corporations such as Boeing and Microsoft. In particular, Microsoft’s savings from lobbying and dodging the state royalty tax between 1997 and 2014 is $5.34 billion. Factoring in interest and the Department of Revenue’s typical 25 percent penalty on unpaid corporate taxes, that number jumps to $8.16 billion. In other words, the entire education shortfall which Microsoft's leaders regularly decry, would not likely exist if not for their tax practices, passing education dollars to its out of state and international shareholders.
62445129
submission
reifman writes:
While the new Gmail API is a great step forward and offers a variety of new features, it provides no support for other mail providers to adopt it as a standard. For now, IMAP lives on as the lowest common denominator for building your own email applications across providers. Turns out that you can still accomplish a lot with just IMAP (video) , such as whitelisting, quiet hours, one step unsubscribe, digests which summarize filing destinations and unanswered emails as well as reporting on who sends you the most email every day. SimplifyEmail is meant to be an email playground for programmers.
61742651
submission
reifman writes:
In case you missed it, the Supreme Court granted rights of religious freedom to for profit corporations yesterday in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. While the word corporation doesn't appear in the Constitution, SCOTUS has now granted corporations commerce and contracts clause protections, personhood, due process, protection from double jeopardy and unreasonable search and seizure and free speech rights. Almost all of these rights originate from the twisting of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection clause which was meant to provide rights for freed slaves.
61240739
submission
reifman writes:
Seattle contracted $47,500 to improve the Google search results for the city’s highest paid administrator, Jorge Corrasco. Corrasco, already paid $245,000 annually for leading Seattle City Light, is under consideration for a nutty $120,000 raise. While the city has cut the contract short, here’s a pdf of the cached Huffington Post article, and other related posts. Seattle also has two deputy mayors each paid $170,000.
61052373
submission
reifman writes:
Puget Sound Business Journal's suggests the goal of the public dog park planned for Amazon's giant dome is aimed at helping lonely Amazon employees get dates. Scott Wyatt, chairman of design firm NBBJ, says 'the project's design is aimed at making employees more innovative by exposing them to people other than their co-workers.' — building a giant public bubble to get them out of the private bubble created by their massive Lake Union headquarters.
60897925
submission
60880199
submission
reifman writes:
Last week, AT&T shut down my data service after I turned roaming on in Canada for one minute to check Google maps. I wasn't able to connect successfully but they reported my phone burned through 50 MB and that I owed more than $750. Google maps generally require 1.3 MB per cell. They adamantly refused to reactivate my U.S. data service unless I 'agreed' to purchase an international data roaming package to cover the usage. They eventually reversed the charges but it seems that the company's billing system had bundled my U.S. data usage prior to the border crossing with the one minute of international data roaming.
60839505
submission
reifman writes:
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos made himself a well-known figure in the world of politics with his $250 million purchase of the Washington Post last year. According to King County elections records, the Amazon CEO has voted in 4 of 27 elections since Amazon became profitable, or about 15 percent (Washington State votes by mail not by drone). At the same time, he has consistently contributed to political action committees and candidates in every election for more than a decade. Seattle’s other technology titan, Bill Gates, votes with robot-like consistency, skipping only one between the years 2000 and 2011.