Category Archives: Media

Media about relevant issues.

CarolinaNorth, environment, Government, Media, Ruminations

Next Exit: UNC

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The construction of a special I-40 interchange for Carolina North has been a persistent rumor.

Over the last 5 years, I heard UNC officially deny any such plan more than a dozen times. The last time for me, I believe, was when UNC’s liason to the Horace Williams Citizen’s Committee (HWCC) said she hadn’t heard anything about it.

According to Emily Coakley and Rob Shapard in today’s HeraldSun “Local officials say they’ve heard UNC might pursue a new interchange on Interstate 40 to serve the planned Carolina North research campus.”

Why worry if it’s just a rumor?

Well, I, as I’m sure other local longtime residents, remember a few trial UNC balloons that eventually became reality. Sometimes, it seems, the more outrageous, the more likely.

Creating an I-40 interchange and subsequent transit corridor near burgeoning neighborhoods and sensitive ecological preserves seems fairly outrageous. With the recent wildcard resolution by UNC’s Board of Trustees, a group that appears to be “chafing at the bit” for substantive action on Carolina, it’s not too difficult to imagine that there’s more substance to this I-40 rumor than in years past. That, of course, and it’s almost Summer – when the public is generally distracted – a time when UNC traditionally unleashes problematic proposals.

The now defunct HWCC has been following the transit-related discussions on Carolina North and, in their January memo, sketched out further particpation. I’m sure we would have been privy to UNC’s thoughts on a I-40 interchange.

Now, we’ll have to rely on the press and our local elected officials for adequate forewarning.

Media, Ruminations, Technology

SxSW 2006 – ae represents!

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The ratings for the 2006 South By Southwest Interactive panels are out.

Local ‘blogger ae, of arsepoetica fame, led the blogHer sponsored panel Increasing Women’s Visibility on the Web: Whose Butt Should We Be Kicking?

Score? 5.0 of 5.0!

Local ‘blogger ruby, of OrangePolitics and LotusMedia fame, kicked some butt with a highly respectable 4.32.

Ruby got kudos for her performance, besting fellow presenters DailyKos’ Markos Moulitsas and RedState’s Mike Krempasky.

Media, Ruminations, Technology

Practical Technology Activism

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AudioActivism’s Brian Russell has taken the best practical step to advancing work on the “digital divide” I’ve seen in awhile.

What has one of our great local technology activists done?

Created Chapel Hill Wireless, a site whose goals are:

…to help you find good wireless access points (aka WiFi) in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, North Carolina.

…to promote the creation of more public wireless hotspots in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. (Carrboro seems to have a head start. :) )

By the way, Jason Baker, another 2005 Council candidate and technology advocate, took a practical step in community outreach by creating OrangePedia.org several months ago.

OrangePedia, a wiki collecting and collating information on Orange County, is still growing and the idea is catching on.

Media, Ruminations

SxSW Day 1.2 – Craigslist Newmark’s Austin Upgrade

Craigslist’s Craig Newmark’s conversation with Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales is highly informative, entertaining, insightful (Newspapers are community services, for instance).

[UPDATE: Newmark’s remarks.]

Ruby S. had an opportunity to ask Newmark about a comment from today’s NPR discussion of the Knight/Ridder-McClatchey media merger. A guest claimed Newmark’s Craig’s List was responsible. Newmark laughed and said it had more to do with the Penny Trader and Monster.com than his service. He continued speaking about the decline of traditional journalism in big media – and the rise of citizen journalists in the blogoverse. Ruby pointed out that local UNC journalism Prof. Phil Meyer thought blogs reach was restricted to the national level instead of understanding that local reporting is enhanced by local blogs.

Funny comment considering how Ruby’s local ‘blog OrangePolitics frequently “reports” stories not covered by our local news, fills in the gaps in stories, corrects factual errors in stories and even occassionally scoops the local press.

I’m upgrading my SxSWi Day 1.1.1 to Day 1.2 because of dog lover Newmark’s wit and verve.

Campaign, Media

Life, the universe, everything…

Wikipedia is an open source encyclopedia that represents a “public works” project of the first-order. Jimmy Wales, the founder of the effort, realized there’s a lot of smarts in the world community – all he needed to do was to tap into that creativity and talent and then step out of the way. In a sense, he created an ecosystem where freely contributed collaborative works could live and flourish.

Smart guy.

In the computer world, we say “there’s intelligence in the network”. In open source software development, we say “the more eyes on the code, the better”. In other words, “many hands make light (and smart) work” and the more folk that review an issue, the better chance for finding the underlying problem and really fixing it.

I’d like our Town to start building an institutional memory using technology like Wikipedia. We need to publish as much detail as possible, lower the costs of accessing this detail (make it easy to search, manipulate, aggregate) and trust the “more eyes” of our incredible community to find issues and suggest innovative solutions.

There’s the windup, here’s the pitch (via ibiblio’s Paul Jones [another “smart guy”]).

ibiblio.org Speakers Series
Who: Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales
When: 3:30 Wednesday October 5
Where: Freedom Forum Conference Room
305 Carroll Hall UNC-CH
What: A talk about the world’s most popular encyclopedia and news source,
Wikipedia and Wikinews by the man who invented and sustains them.

More here.