Category: News-Politics

For a fun time . . .

in the Albuquerque area, come see Start Up, a new display at The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. It’s about Albuquerque and the history of the personal computer. Lots of interactive fun for kids. They can create and mail movies, they can program a car to pick up a pizza and take them to a party, and there are other fun things to play with. There’s also plenty of stuff for the geek to enjoy with great displays. See a few photos on Flickr.

The best thing was the flash, bang multimedia display called “Rise of the Machines” with its dueling computers, light show, music, whiz-bang effects and amongst all that a good history of the computer. If you’re anywhere near Albuquerque, don’t miss it.

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Molly Ivins

Molly Ivins died last night in Austin of breast cancer. The liberal columnist who told it like it is with a sense of humor will be missed. In 2004, I wrote here in a post about SXSW:

The keynote for today featured Zack Exley and Eli Pariser of moveon.org. The duo was introduced by Texas political columnist Molly Ivins, who received a huge outburst of applause and general loud approval when she came in. Ivins commented that Move On has “almost single-handedly put people back into
politics.”

The thing I remember now about that day is not the two guys from moveon, but Molly with her bristle-short chemotherapy hairdo and the flood of love that the audience gave her. The SXSW audience is not local, it’s international, and so was the appreciation for Molly and what she stood for. She was a powerful force for change and a great writer.

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Social Networking Sites used by More than Half US Teenagers Online

A survey by the Pew Internet and American LIfe Project described in Usability News – Social Networking Sites used by More than Half US Teenagers Online shows that 55% of all online American youths ages 12-17 use online social networking sites.

The survey also finds that older teens, particularly girls, are more likely to use these sites. For girls, social networking sites are primarily places to reinforce pre-existing friendships; for boys, the networks also provide opportunities for flirting and making new friends.

More key findings are available in the original article.

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Hillary’s In

Hillary Clinton announced that she formed a “committee to explore running for president” yesterday. She is using the Internet in interesting ways to promote her campaign. The first is by asking voters to submit entries for the first post in her shiny new blog. Like the Time Magazine person of the year, Hillary promises that this campaign will be about YOU. The only missing item in her Internet approach is a YouTube video of her announcement, with a way for voters to quickly import her videos to their own site, a la YouTube. Barak one-upped her on YouTube already. It’s going to be an interesting Web 2.0 election.

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