Media, Money & Elections: 2014 Philly Political Media Ad Watch

Posted on October 15, 2014 by Roger Macdonald Philadelphia-region Political Media Ad Watch is a pilot project that allows citizens and journalists to go online to search every political message in the Philly television market, compare all the ads from a single sponsor (sample: Tom Wolf for Governor) —positive and negative—and trace back who is paying for those ads. She’s Dishonest!He’s in Bed with an Accused Mobster!This is…

Branding the Decentralized Web

The Decentralized Web is a concept. It’s a set of technologies. It’s a network of builders and designers and dreamers. What started with small gatherings in San Francisco, London, Los Angeles, Toronto and Berlin is growing into a global movement. So how do we visually convey the identity of this idea we call the “DWeb”?…

Unlocking Marooned Assets Through Digitization

Being able to lend an array of materials is fundamental to what public libraries do and Controlled Digital Lending–the digital equivalent of traditional library lending– is another tool for libraries to fulfill that mission, according to John Chrastka, executive director of EveryLibrary, a national organization dedicated to building voter support for libraries. “There are numerous marooned assets…

Other People’s Money

Melvyn Urofsky suggested in a New York Times op-ed yesterday that Obama and his new administration can learn a few things from Louis Brandeis’s 1914 book, Other People’s Money, and How the Bankers Use It. Brandeis wrote the book after revelations of a Congressional investigation into the predatory practices of J. P. Morgan and other big bankers. The…

Two Thin Strands of Glass

Two thin strands of glass. When combined, these two strands of glass are so thin they still wouldn’t fill a drinking straw. That’s known in tech circles as a “fiber pair,” and these two thin strands of glass carry all the information of the world’s leading archive in and out of our data centers. When…