What does my Ubuntu rig have to do with the future of elections? I’m not sure, but Popular Science feels that the picture I took of my desk (above) was good enough to illustrate their article: The Future of Elections: Startup “Americans Elect” Plans an Internet-Based Third-Party Convention in 2012.

American politicians have been promising to return power to the people for as long as Americans have been voting. But anyone who pays attention knows that the average citizen has very little voice in Washington. Now a new startup that uses an Internet-sourced, social-media-inspired, American Idol-esque approach could be the change we can really believe in.
The new company, Americans Elect, is about to submit 1.6 million signatures required to get on the 2012 California presidential ballot, the beginning salvo of a 50-state effort. The company plans to host an open nominating process to build a viable third party ticket in every state. Thomas Friedman at the New York Times explains their strategy, and how they could remake the future of voting.

Picture licensed Creative Commons Attribution 3.0.

Aaron Swartz is a friend and Cambridge-area polymath whose projects focus on access to knowledge, open government, and an informed civil society.  He has worked as a software architect, digital archivist, social analyst, Wikipedia analyst, and political organizer.  Last year he co-founded the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and the non-profit political advocacy group Demand Progress.

He is also currently charged with computer fraud by the US Attorney’s office, in what appears to be the latest example of “a sweeping expansion of federal criminal jurisdiction” based on the broad applicability of wire fraud and computer fraud statutes.  An overview: …

The rest of his post is at his blog and you can sign a petition for Aaron over at Demand Progress.

I have been completely swamped with work, and a little unhappy with the limitations of the MUwordpress here at Harvard.  I’m considering moving my blag back to isforinsects.com or to a l.o address, or something else entirely.

Anyway, just wanted to let you all know that I wont be updating for the next couple weeks.  FYI

And you know what?  I don’t miss hardly anything.

At the end of August I made the decision I was staying past the end of the summer.  My roommates‘ lease was ending and I needed a new place to live.  I found a place pretty quickly with a coworker.  But in the process of the move, I had noticed that I had accumulated quite a few posessions: papers, swag, electronics, junk; it was nothing that I needed.

I took stock and I pared down my posessions again.  I got rid of a few clothes that I didn’t wear, dumped any paper and swag I didn’t really need.  So when I moved to my new place, I came with two suitcases, the second picked up from traveling for OLPC (my backpack in the second suitcase).

Again about a week ago, I threw away a smallish pile of things that I didn’t need, and it felt really good.

I hear that back home my parents have gotten rid of much of my furnature, sold some of my books, and are looking to git rid of more.

Good.

Quoth Todd:

Mesh News is an entry on the Knight News Challenge, which has received a request for a full proposal. As of 12:30pm EST on 11-20, the 2000 entries have been narrowed down to around 350, and Mesh news is in 8th place in terms of overall number of views, and dropped from 3rd to 5th place in terms of “ratings”. If it does make it past the full proposal stage to the “final 50″, and then to the “final 20″, I think it could help a few kids out in various parts, provide a bit of employment, and help to get some additional publicity for OLPC.

I invite anyone who is supportive to go to http://www.tinyurl.com/meshnews, click on the sign in to comment link underneath the title, register, and then click on the rightmost orange star as you like.

The # of views / ratings don’t determine acceptance, and are quite subject to manipulation (including intentional down-rating), but sincere objective ratings don’t hurt, and a few extra clicks wouldn’t hurt either.

Go G1G1!!!

Please join me in wishing Todd the best of luck!

They mentioned the OLPC Blog,  G1G1, the new G1G1 FAQ, Amazon, SWIFT and Google, the manual and (the amazing) Anne Gentle‘s work on the manual.

Crazy stuff.  It’s pretty rare to see something so well researched on the web.

+1 Blogs.com

We need guest posts!  Please help! (email sj at laptop dot org with posts)

Actually this is the part where Harvard wont let me EMBED ANYTHING ON THIS BLOG.

1.) Floss Manuals mini-store:

.js was stripped out auto-magically, and could not import .css

2.) Berkman wont let me embed YouTube in my blog.

Ok, a little tacky maybe.  But seriously.  C’mon Harvard!

More images from the Internet Superhighway event.  StarCraft FTW!