Tag: Technology

  • Trash Talk: Waste Not Methane, Want Not Energy – Additional SWAB Conversations

    To try to get the conversation caught up to date (and put the notes in a format Google, Yahoo, etc. will index), I’m republishing the further conversations the Orange County Solid Waste Advisory Board (SWAB) has had on land fill gas utilization. Current membership (as of January 2007) and contact list for the SWAB includes: […]

  • Trash Talk: Waste Not Methane, Want Not Energy, A Few Examples

    I quoted in my post Trash Talk: 1 Megawatt of Waste Not Methane, Want Not Energy… a February, 2006 GeoTimes report titled Recovering Landfill Gas for Energy. Two of the authors, Amarjit Riat and Wayne Blake-Hedges work just North of us at Virginia’s Fairfax County I-95 landfill complex [MAP & INFO]: Riat, a professional engineer, […]

  • Municipal Networking: St. Cloud Soars Above Chapel Hill

    As longtime readers and local voters know, I’m a strong advocate for bringing community-owned information infrastructure to Chapel Hill. Simply, to create a truly free new Town Commons benefiting our citizenry. I’ve been working the issue now for over three years – banging the drum of strategic economic stimulus, social improvement – bridging the “digital […]

  • Easthom Update on Chapel Hill WiFi

    In case you don’t subscribe to Council member Laurin Easthom’s ‘blog The Easthom Page, she has an update on some possible forward motion on implementing a municipal network. Updated staff report on wireless with council discussion is tentative but hopeful for April 23. Such a report will be pretty inclusive and give us the staff’s […]

  • Chapel Hill’s Public Forum on Information Technology

    If you would like to see our Town use technology to more effectively address social issues, improve operational efficiencies and drive the cost of doing government business down, then make a date to attend the rescheduled Public Forum on Information Technology 7-9pm Mar. 21st, 2007. The event will be held in the Conference Room of […]

  • The page cannot be displayed…Chapel Hill’s Website Woes

    I use the our Town’s two websites, Townhall.TownOfChapelHill.org and TownOfChapelHill.org, quite extensively to keep up with our local governance. More and more I’ve run into: The page cannot be displayed Explanation: There is a problem with the page you are trying to reach and it cannot be displayed. Try the following: Refresh page: Search for […]

  • Community Networking: Profiting from Poor Leadership Clearwire Gains a Toe-hold

    Profiting from Council’s continued inability to craft effective technology policy, Clearwire, a wireless Internet service provider utilizing proprietary spectrum, has gained a toe-hold in our community. These days, it’s hard to imagine getting through high school without the Internet. However, there are at least 100 students at East Chapel Hill High School whose families cannot […]

  • The Other Citizen

    Looks like one of our community’s cooler cats is out of the bag. The Daily Tar Heel reports today on pioneering on-line journalist, State political analyst, former editor of the Indy Kirk Ross’ ( Exile On Jones Street) latest venture: The Carrboro Citizen. Why create a new media outlet for Carrboro? “It’s got 17,000 people, […]

  • Proprietary Public Policy: Chapel Hill Streaming Video Goes Live?

    In reviewing this evening’s notes on increasing the Town’s election contribution limits ($200 to $250) and lowering the standards of disclosure ($25 instead of $20), I noticed that Internet video is now available. The Town’s proprietary Windows Media-based solution from Granicus was opposed by a number of members of the since dissolved Town Technology Advisory […]

  • Carrboro’s New Media Experiment

    There’s been a small discussion over on SqueezeThePulp about the declining efficacy of local media outlets in covering our community. I suggested that new media outlets will soon move into this long fallow territory – intensively covering local events – to the possible detriment of traditional news outlets. It appears that Carrboro is the center […]

  • GoogleEarth Experiment: RAM Development Flybys

    This is still very raw, but I thought I’d put out this demo to stir some thought within the community. Visualization tools like GoogleEarth (GE) can help remove some of the difficulty in assessing the visual impact of new development. Our town’s planning department has the raw data needed to create a GoogleEarth representation of […]

  • Municipal Networking: Nary a Citizen Advocate to be Found

    An update on the muni-networking task force prepared by UNC’s Shannon Howle Schelin, PhD, one of our stronger advocates for 21st century infrastructure. On November 13, 2006, an exploratory meeting was held at the Town of Chapel Hill to discuss the Town’s interest in pursuing a wireless strategy. The goal of the meeting was to […]

  • Herald-Sun Editor Robert Ashley gets an earful from CitizenWill…

    Went to an interesting Downtown Partnership sponsored Safety Forum this morning, the notes of which I’ll post later… While there I had the pleasure of meeting the Herald-Sun’s Robert Ashley. Poor guy. He probably wouldn’t have sat next to me if he’d known I was going to give him an earful about the Herald-Sun’s on-line […]

  • 53rd and Falling: Our Free Press

    I’ve been thinking quite a bit about citizen journalism of late. Exemplary reports by BlueNC’s own SouthernDem, Greensboro’s release of the “secret” RMA report detailing the reasons for their police chief’s discharge, commentary from real journalists at the recent ConvergeSouth unconference, the Sunlight Foundation’s key assistance in outing congressional nepotism and revealing federal earmarks have […]

  • Here comes the Judge: Superior Court District 15B Oct. 16th Bar Forum

    There were 20+ folks tonight – with a couple from the media – maybe 4 or 5 organizers – some town staff and the balance being interested citizens. I was already convinced that District 15B voters have a heck of slate of candidates before them – tonight I was more impressed than ever. Very simply […]