Category Archives: Public Service, Civics, Government, Activism

Recent Space-X on NPR highlights how little we read

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A story is posted about a private company working to build the largest capacity lifter in service and what do a significant number of commentors fret about?

That the government is wasting its money on building it!

It is pretty clear that most of those who are commenting that way have not read (or worst – understood) the story, but the ‘private company’ part was highlighted in the summary.

Check it out – NPR.org (on Facebook): Plans For World’s Most Powerful Rocket Unveiled

Sad, huh?

But don’t you think there are multiple failures taking place exemplified here? And where do you feel they stem from?

How poor information design led to Waterfall

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I just took part in a great 3 day training session with Uncle Bob Martin on TDD and healthy software design. One of the tidbits Bob shared was the history behind the Waterfall methodology that some of us older folks strained against until agile and lean methodologies started to get well known. Waterfall originated in a paper by Winston W. Royce, in which he describes the process… as a straw man to tear down! Unfortunately, the poor information design of the paper (it puts the summary tearing down the methodology on later pages instead of right up front) led those who read the nice graphics on leading pages to come away thinking they found the solution to their software engineering process needs.

Watch Glenn Vanderburg’s “Real Software Engineering” talk on Vimeo about this.

Real Software Engineering – Glenn Vanderburg from Engine Yard on Vimeo.

NYTimes on lack of child care pushing some to choose Welfare

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The numbers of those on Welfare have been dropping steadily since the 90s. Those numbers look to be rising again as cuts in services that provide tools for those wanting to climb the ladder are being slashed. NYTimes: “Cuts to Child Care Subsidy Thwart More Job Seekers”:

Last month, she lost her job as a hair stylist after her improvised network of baby sitters frequently failed her, forcing her to miss shifts. She qualifies for a state-run subsidized child care program. But like many other states, Arizona has slashed that program over the last year, relegating Ms. Wallace’s daughter, Alaya, to a waiting list of nearly 11,000 eligible children.

Despite a substantial increase in federal support for subsidized child care, which has enabled some states to stave off cuts, others have trimmed support, and most have failed to keep pace with rising demand, according to poverty experts and federal officials.

That has left swelling numbers of low-income families struggling to reconcile the demands of work and parenting, just as they confront one of the toughest job markets in decades.

How a handful of operators averted a nuclear meltdown

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There will be songs, books, poems, and movies written about them in coming years, all deserved: Nature: “The meltdown that wasn’t”:

It will probably be years before anyone knows exactly what happened inside the three reactors at Fukushima Daiichi that seem to have partially melted down in the wake of the tsunami. But from press reports, public statements and interviews with experts, it is possible to work out the most likely scenario. And already it is clear that decisions made in the initial 24 hours by the handful of operators in the control room probably averted a much greater nuclear catastrophe than the one that now faces Japan.

America’s homeless generation

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60 Minutes recently ran a segment revealing the stories of children in America who are fighting to survive homelessness. It is a must watch. A painful watch.

60 Minutes: Homeless children: the hard times generation

Be sure to check out the followup on how the report was produced: The hidden America

Puppy Mills in PA coming back?

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In 2008 Governor Rendell signed into law regulation that closed down abusive puppy mills in PA.

Don’t look now, but the state legislature is moving to turn back the clock. I’m having a hard time finding updates to this story on the Web interestingly enough, so if you know about updates, where to find them, and how to fight this, feel free to share.

Shelley Powers recently posted about the situation in Missouri, which seems to have set the stage for PA.

Nancy Scola gives the good news and bad news about participatory democracy

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A good thought provoker I’d thought I’d pass along: Personal Democracy Forum: “Talk Notes: The Invention That Is American Democracy”:

I’d argue that much of what has passed for participatory democracy in these early stages of its reinvention has been obsessed with re-engineering a system — while largely ignoring the role of real-live flesh and blood people in that system. Tools like Twitter, and Facebook, and mobile, and the good old World Wide Web are potentially incredibly powerful. But they are the how of participatory democracy; they’re not the what. The hopeful side is that the what consists of exactly what I’ve talked about social media being very good at – sharing ideas and shaping our engagements with other people. Once we figure out how to apply the same new power we have over our personal lives to our political lives, that’s when I suspect we might see democracy’s real re-invention.

I think there is a challenge there to take up and that she succinctly outlines it for everyone.