Stream of Consciousness

Google is announcing Friend Connect tonight, a service advertised to “help website owners grow traffic by enabling any site on the web to easily provide social features for its visitors.” Friend Connect employs OpenID and oAuth which is a good start, but how it puts them together is lacking vision and, disturbingly, may raise significant privacy concerns.

Google is a member of the Data Portability Working Group which is working on open standards that tackle difficult issues such as privacy, control and data exposure. Unfortunately, while Google is thus aware of the issues, it has instead chosen to create yet another closed system where the social graph and all of the key connections people make is contained on Google’s servers. Friend Connect provides its services in an iframe that makes integration simple - and thus will speed deployment - but limits flexibility. While undeniably powerful given Google’s ability to datamine net connections, this is neither open nor user-centric.

In creating Friend Connect Google seems to by throwing its weight around in the social network sphere in much the same way Microsoft does regarding web interface standards. In the latter case, Microsoft - knowing it owns nearly 90% (and shrinking) of the browser market - has the power to disregard internationally accepted web standards with respect to how elements are displayed on the page, causing headaches for web developers building to the standards. Similarly, Google - knowing it owns a huge (and increasing) amount of link data - has the power to create seductive services that sites will use while disregarding community-developed best practices that support full user control over how, when and with whom data is shared.

I have to close with a disclaimer that all this is speculation upon what I’ve been able to discover so far with respect to Friend Connect which, as of this posting, has not yet been released and thus not reviewed. One can hope that they listen to the organizations of the Data Portability Working Group and the privacy concerns they are working to address.

I just read an excellent article from the New York Times that a colleague sent me (have I mentioned recently that I love working for CivicActions?) that has me once again thinking that I want to grow some vegetables. This simple act not only will provide me with excellent, organic food at (once installed) near zero cost, but will also help my mind, body, spirit and community ties, not to mention fixing the tiniest dent in the global warming train wreck. But I have a problem: besides being strongly acidic, my back yard is sloped and heavily shaded, and thus would require a good deal of work to support even a small bio (or french) intensive plot.

So my next step will be to poll my community to see if there is shared interest in creating a community garden. What a wonderful project for the high school, though I’d rather it near Foster Elementary - my son’s school - so I can easily walk to it This makes sense to me, as there are seven elementary schools in Mt Lebanon, so there should be (ultimately) at least five community garden plots.

I have many other home projects on my plate right now, too, but I’m pretty jazzed about this, and I look forward to following up with more specifics.

Mmmm… I can already taste the tomatoes and zucchini. (We’ll just have to make sure the deer don’t feel the same way!)

Update 2008-05-08: Since adding this entry, I’ve received some interesting and useful links that I’ll list here:

• The Edible Schoolyard, a non-profit program located on the campus of Martin Luther King Junior Middle School in Berkeley, California. I was also pointed to the section in Hope’s Edge about the same project.
• Jane Goodall operates a program called Roots to Shoots, which helps start community gardens.
• And in today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, this article was on the front page of the “Local News” section: Amid soaring food prices, urban farms are sprouting across the city

By Rob Papke, Mt. Lebanon Council PTA Environmental Chair

5. A “Green” School = Healthy Students. The American Lung Association has found that American school children miss more than 14 million school days a year because of asthma exacerbated by poor indoor air quality. It costs nearly three times more to provide health care for a child with asthma than a child without asthma. In 2006 dollars this amounts equals $1,650 per child-costs borne not by the schools but by the students but by the student’s family. A recent Carnegie Mellon review of five separate studies found an average reduction of 38.5% in asthma in buildings with improved air quality.*
4. Mt. Lebanon as a Visionary Leader. Even though Pittsburgh is
   ranked #4 in the country for the number of L.E.E.D. certified buildings located here, there are no L.E.E.D. certified schools in South-Western PA. Just as the Fine Arts Building and our astro-turf field set the standard many years ago, a L.E.E.D. certified building will give Mt. Lebanon something that no other school district has had the vision to build.
3. State Reimbursement Incentives. The state offers reimbursement incentives to help defray the extra costs associated with L.E.E.D. certification.
2. The extra costs are much lower than one would assume. According to the Green Building Alliance, green school construction costs less than 2 percent more than a conventional school, about $3 per square foot.

…And the #1 reason to construct an L.E.E.D. certified High School is? the drum roll please?

1. There would be substantial savings to the taxpayers. On an average, green schools use 33 percent less energy than conventional schools. Lower energy and water costs, improved teacher retention and lower health costs directly save green schools about $12 per square foot, four times the additional cost of going green.*

If any one of these reasons is important to you, please email our school board members. More than ever, we need to let our school board members know that L.E.E.D. Certification is an important component to the up coming High School construction project. Thank you.

* For further information on Green School Design, check out Gregory Kats’ article Green School Design: Cost-Effective, Healthy and Better for Education. More information on green building in general can be found at the Western Pennsylvania Green Building Alliance.

Chances are that if you live in the US, you might be voting February 5th. If you are undecided, or if you are leaning toward a candidate who is not Barack Obama, please read the following.

For those of you leaning toward Hillary Clinton: She is completely disqualified for so many reasons that I will have to give just the highlights here. I’ll start with a practical, tactical and strategic argument for my fellow Democrats and independents. All due respect to Senator Clinton, but please understand the extent to which a nominee who is so bitterly polarizing and divisive will put us at a disadvantage in the general election. There are two reasons for this. First, as Richard Bond, former chair of the RNC indicated in the NYTimes last week, nothing will unite a currently disjointed Republican party and inspire Republicans to take up arms like having Hillary Clinton as an opponent. Let’s not unite their party for them. Obama had four times as many Republicans caucusing for him in Iowa. Read Peter Wehner’s article Why Republicans Like Obama, Washington Post 2/3.

Second, remember how close Florida was in 2000 and Ohio in 2004? It will be that close again, especially if John McCain is the man to beat. We will need votes from Republicans and independents if we want a Democrat in the oval office. Barack has BY FAR the best shot to get their votes. In a November Gallup poll, with a strong lead nationally, Senator Clinton’s net favorability among independents was -9%. Senator Obama’s was +24%. Her net favorability among Republicans was -64% versus -24% for Obama. This should give you great pause. Their policies are so similar and they are both highly capable and intelligent. Vote wisely.

We need someone who will be able to unite this country and move us forward to a common purpose - Senator Clinton cannot do this. She is far too polarizing and will divide our country further.

She’s disqualified for me because she voted for the Iraq war (Obama is the only leading candidate who opposed it). She has been a hawk on Iran (see her yes vote on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard resolution). I will not compromise my commitment to peace by voting for a candidate who voted for war. Are you ready to compromise your commitment to peace?

She is so out of touch with what true change for the country would mean: she has taken more money from federal lobbyists than any other candidate (Obama has taken nothing from federal lobbyists). Also, just one quick case study: the Clintons’ backers tried to sue to disenfranchise casino and hotel workers in the NV caucus - it was luckily denied by a judge (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/us/politics/17cnd-campaign.html). How GROSS!!!

Also, check out this video. Fired Up and Ready to Go has been a Barack Obama slogan for some time - it was said spontaneously by an older woman in the audience at a campaign event and it caught on. How embarrassing for Senator Clinton. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rweVOO-fhug. This kind of thing illustrates a lack of genuine inspiration and authenticity. And that says something very important about her as a candidate.

Also, Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton? America was founded in part on the rejection of dynastic rule. So, what, all of Bill’s old cronies are going to have the same kind of access to Hillary? The same old favors and back scratching? No! IF WE WANT TRUE CHANGE, THE NAME CLINTON CANNOT BE IN THE EQUATION.

With Barack, we have a shot to show the world a new face of America and to re-engage with our neighbors in a respectful way behind a leader who is the embodiment of what the US should be in the 21st century: honest, humble, respectful, worldly, genuine, courageous, brilliant. This is our have-our-cake-and-eat-it-too moment! A super-progressive, decent, young statesman with a diverse background who can actually win!

I’m for Barack because with him, I don’t have to compromise any of my progressive values (he has a much more liberal voting record than Hillary - to check, see the National Journal’s rankings). For example, I won’t compromise my commitment to peace, so I can’t vote for somebody who voted for war. And he seems genuine and authentic to me - seems like a regular person. His vision of where this country needs to go meets up with mine very well: universal health care, heavy government-led effort to reverse climate change, serious re-engagement with our world institutions and neighbors, heavy efforts to shore up American education, insistence on peace and diplomacy and good science.

Congressman Abercrombie of Hawaii recently said that Barack is the first citizen of the world to run for president of the United States. That’s the kind of leader we need. Heaven for bid we might have someone in the White House with a father from Kenya and who lived in Indonesia as a child. Whose Dad split early and who grew up poor and worked his ass off to get through school. He just paid back his student loans. He still lives in a regular neighborhood in Chicago. He was a civil rights lawyer. Got his start as a community organizer on the south side of Chicago. He was a lecturer of constitutional law for 11 years. And on and on…

JFK’s daughter made Barack her first ever endorsement. Ted Kennedy endorsed him. MoveOn.org endorsed him.

Our moment is now.

No, it really is. If you are voting Barack and know someone who WOULD but are not planning on voting, BRING THEM WITH YOU TO VOTE!!!!! It’s going to be close.

For inspiration, watch this speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tydfsfSQiYc

written by lila sklar, from the soup list

Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am and director Jesse Dylan, Bob Dylan’s son created this “song” - essentially written by Barack Obama. The lyrics are adapted from his “Yes We Can” speech after the New Hampshire primary. “Yes We Can” was inspired by Cesar Chavez’s motto for a United Farm Workers hunger strike in 1972.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY

I remember back to when I was five - starting to become aware of the world around me - and John Fitzgerald Kennedy was president. My father had great respect for this man who was President of the United States. I did, too, and I cried a year later when he was assassinated.

My son - now six - has become aware of the world with a President he thinks of a stupid (a bad word), corrupt and mean. This saddens me greatly.

Barack Obama is the first presidential hopeful that truly inspires me. I say it that way, as Dennis Kucinich also inspires me, but the U.S. is just not ready for a vegan president. Yes, I thought Bill Clinton was a great statesman and capable leader, but I was not inspired. His wife, unfortunately, I fear is the ultimate politician, with every word coming out of her mouth calculated to land with maximum effect to whoever her current audience is. I don’t trust her a bit. Nor do I trust McCain, who though centrist, has only one strong position in his platform: war is good.

But Barack Obama speaks like a man who not only believes (Bush’s only quality) but also thinks and is aware of the world around him. He seems capable, and while he may make some mistakes (heck, even JFK made some pretty serious mistakes) he will strive to do the right thing by the people of the United States and the world. And where people on all sides of the aisle are saying they want change, he’s - in my opinion - the only viable candidate that represents a hope for change.

I want my son to grow up with a President we can all believe in. A President who will work to right the wrongs that have been committed in recent years, and a President who has a dream - a good dream - for where we can be in the future.

I hope we can.

It is troubling that the growing theocracy in this country and connections between church and state has increased in me a distrust of religion - and thus religious people - when the fact is that there are many good religious people and most religions are built upon good ideals such as peace, justice and harmony with each other and with nature. I was delighted to be reminded of this when a friend pointed me to an audiocast by Father John Rausch, Glenmary priest and missionary, coordinator for peace and justice for the diocese of Lexington, Kentucky and Director of the Catholic Committee of Appalachia. Please listen and perhaps look at some of the associated links:

• ProvokeRadio Archives or
  http://76.12.87.139/shows/Provoke_68_Appalachia_WEB.mp3 (direct link)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountaintop_removal_mining
• http://www.appalachian-center.org/

Peace,
=Fen

Mt Lebanon and the whole South Hills is about to lose (IMO) one of its most valuable assets - Great Harvest Bakery located directly across from the Lebanon shops. Tomorrow, Friday the 30th of November, 2007 will be the last day this fine bakery will offer its unique-to-this-area mix of whole-wheat and cracked-grain breads, muffins and other delectable delights. Nowhere else in this area (that I know of, anyway) can one escape the bland, unhealthy white-flour breads and muffins, and as of Saturday, well, I guess we’ll just have to bake our own. Even the Giant Eagle Market District only bakes with white flour.

I understand the reason for the closure: owner/baker/proprietor Jen - a wonderful and friendly woman - is just plain tired of waking up at 4am to get the ovens going for the morning rush. I know I couldn’t do that, so no hard feelings. But she and her cranberry-raisin, apple and chocolate-chocolate chip muffins will be sorely missed.

Just finished installing OpenID into the IIW MediaWiki - please see http://iiw.idcommons.net/

This was much harder than it should have been, as there are multiple OpenID plugins that claim to work with MediaWiki, and several of these claim to work with the latest OpenID-2.0.0-rc5 but finally the new version 0.7.0 of the standard MediaWiki OpenID extension fit the bill perfectly after dropping back to the v1.2.3 library. A million thanks to evanpro and, of course, JanRain.

All that tech stuff aside, I’m excited to have the opportunity to attend the first day of the Workshop (I have other commitments for the the other two days. which I am actually happy for as they are paying my fare across the country). In particular, I want to explore the use of barx to support alternate XRI/i-name roots so that federations of running proxy resolvers can be upgraded on the fly to include new local roots, simply by distributing a new plugin. The value of this to the many grass-roots organizations I work with at CivicActions can’t be over stated.

I look forward to seeing many of my colleagues next week as they gather to move the state of the art of user-centric digital identity forward another step.

It’s my second week here at our new house in Pittsburgh, PA on Roycroft Avenue, and much has changed. Perhaps the best part (for me) is that I’m no longer sleeping on the floor (as I did the first days here). No, the best part for me is that we’re now cooking and eating at home. No, the best part for me is how much my five-year-old son Steven loves it here.

Well, OK, there are a lot of “best parts for me.” Like the fact that this place is ours, and it’s coming together into a wonderfully livable place. What a house! We’re all so grateful to be here and excited to help make it everything it can be - and that we want it to be.

Watering the lawn first thing every morning is cool. Installing the microwave (hanging from the cupboards since we have so little counter space) and building Ikea furniture is great. Organizing the basement - urg - well, ok - there’s some things that are getting to be tiring about having just too much stuff.

I’ve got my wireless network running through the house so there are no unsightly wires from the downstairs to my office - and the laptop works on the back deck, too. The weather’s cooled down so I can actually do that occasionally now. (I still have to set up the dynamic DNS so that I can address my home machines by name.)

Perhaps this week we’ll re-build our bicycles which had their wheels, pedals and handlebars removed for packing. I can’t wait to start exploring the neighborhood via bike! (So far it seems most of my exploring has been confined to Home Depot and Ikea…)

Today we opened a local bank account and I installed two dimmer switches in the family room, tomorrow my cool desk chair arrives (yea!), Wednesday we apply for new licenses and car registration and (we hope) Gary the painter finishes the indoor trim, Thursday we put out the trash along with all our weeds and yard trimmings and Friday Bill comes to fix the piano leg.

I’ll tell you one thing: after each very full day, we sleep really well! We’ve created a list of about 50 more things we have to do soon - like treat the wood on the back deck before the winter and trim some dangerously long branches from our big Oak & Maple trees - so I think we’ll be sleeping well for some time in the future.

Hope you’re having as much fun as we are.

Update: a bit more on where we are from Elaine, July 24th

we are six miles south of downtown Pittsburgh but it feels like a world away — central Pittsburgh is ringed by countless townships and municipalities, little districts, as it were, that each have their own vibe and character. ours, Mt. Lebanon, is known as the “walking community” because there are sidewalks everywhere, it’s filled with old bricK houses and the schools are great. it’s also very green here — already in our back yard, we’ve seen deer, wild turkey, rabbits and squirrels! probably helps that we have five mature trees in the back yard, among them oak and maple. the yard slopes down from the house to the back yard and is flat at the bottom. Steven goes outside to play, front or back, and it’s a-okay, I don’t need to watch him — we live on a dead-end street with not much traffic (talk about a change from the corner of California and Gough! amazing.).

the neighbors have been great, in the first week they stopped by with pies (really) and potted plants and lists of contractors they use (a lifesaver — we found our lawn guy this way and he’s great). Steven is in his second week of summer camp (AM camp) and loves it, and it gives me some time to do, oh, a million little things. camp runs through next week. we joined the local pool and have swum there several afternoons (the pool is twice the size of Marinwood and half the price, water slide included). if we’re not swimming, I’m dragging Steven around to assorted stores in search of furniture, tho we have found time to visit the children’s museum and science center.

while the move feels oh so right so far, I really miss having friends close at hand. I’ve been too busy to feel too lonely but I look forward to meeting other moms and having gal pals to hang with. it’s an important thing. as to the house, our only complaint, and not a huge one at that, is that it’s not air-conditioned. luckily, it hasn’t been terribly hot so far (but it’s not August yet) so it hasn’t been too bad, and we even need a blanket at night as the temps are in the 50s or 60s. so we may hold off on A/C till next summer. and we may not have time to get a grill and outdoor table for the deck this summer as we’re not sure we’d have time to enjoy it. we’ll see. our interior painter, bless his heart, still has about two more days of work here and then the place will be completely done. can’t wait! a half-done paint job def doesn’t work for the Virgo in me. another fun thing: I seem so energized by the morning light and greenery that I’ve gotten up almost every day at 7 a.m. and gone running! I haven’t run this much in months. it feels great, and many mornings, Steven and Fen are still sleeping when I get back around 8 a.m. feels nice. oh, and I LOVE having my bedroom back after sharing a bedroom with Steven all these years — Steven also took to his bedroom and bunk beds from day one and never took issue with the new world order.

Day one at the Internet Identity Workshop, or IIW2007, began with Eugene Kim - Chairman-elect of Identity Commons (”2.0″, now with rounded corners), asking those attending their first IIW to stand up - over two-thirds of the 150 or so people in the room stood up. This is a great trend - the word is getting out!

I have been away from the technical side of the identity world for the last two years, but it seems not much has changed. Yes, there are now over 90 million people who have an OpenID, but few people are actually using the darn things. In the breakout session on three challenges in the identity space, I led a group of eight people as we came up with a list that was similar to what we were asking at the first IIW two years ago in Berkeley:

• Privacy vs. Attribute-based Authorization
• Trust Models and Reputation
• Interoperability

What was great was to see the progress in the field, that came from two unexpected directions:

• While in the past, experiencing the initial six presentations (OSIS, Liberty Alliance, CardSpace, Higgins, OpenID and the OpenID Foundation) would have been like being at six different conferences, as they were all working to separate themselves from the others, this time they were all converging to a single agreed space and were basically saying the same thing in different words and detail;
• There was a lot of running code! Examples include a Higgins framework for Second Life, Pibb (an OpenID-enabled IRC client), ws02’s identity solution, and even Simple Authentication for the Web (pdf) or “SAW”, which relies on the “I forgot my password” link to perform authentications.

Doc Searls ended the day noting that “all the identities in your wallet were given to you by someone else” and that our job is to co-create the user-centric digital identity needed to take back our power.

In the Open Space sessions tomorrow, I expect I’ll be leading or co-leading sessions on Why XRI? and Grassroots Reputation. I’m looking forward to it.