Slashdot Mirror

theodp writes "The press has been filled with wide-eyed articles about how Obama's tech team pulled out the stops in their race against the Republicans. But as exciting as some of the new techniques dreamed up may be, Tom Steinberg points out it's important to reflect on the difference between choosing to use tech skills to win a particular fight, versus trying to improve the workings of the democratic system, or helping people to self-organize and take some control of their own lives. 'I am still filled with an excitement about the prospects for non-partisan technologies that I can't muster for even the coolest uses of randomized control trial-driven political messaging,' writes Steinberg. 'The reason why all comes down to the fact that major partisan digital campaigns change the world, but they don't do it in the way that services like eBay, TripAdvisor and Match.com do. What all these sites have in common – helping people sell stuff they own, find a hotel, or a life partner – is that they represent a positive change in the lives of millions of people that is not directly opposed by a counter-shift.'"

larry bagina writes "It's no secret that rock stars have riders — provisions on their contractual appearances that require a bowl of brown-free M&Ms or specify the exact brand of bottled water, cocaine purity, etc. Well, Richard Stallman has his own quirky list of provisions." Some of the best stuff is at the end, including: "I do not eat breakfast. Please do not ask me any questions about what I will do [for] breakfast. Please just do not bring it up," and "One situation where I do not need help, let alone supervision, is in crossing streets. I grew up in the middle of the world's biggest city, full of cars, and I have crossed streets without assistance even in the chaotic traffic of Bangalore and Delhi. Please just leave me alone when I cross streets."

Jack writes "The British No2ID campaign, which opposes the creation of a National Identity Database to hold biometric data on all UK citizens, has created an online pledge as part of an effort to publicise their cause. The three-day old pledge has recently gained the attention of the blogging community, with bloggers bringing a thousand new signatories to the pledge today alone. Readers in the UK are invited to look at the No2ID FAQ on the plans for mandatory ID cards - some of it makes for scary reading." Update: 06/14 17:13 GMT by T : Side note: Tom Steinberg, director of MySociety.org (organizers of this petition) writes "The ID pledge is cool in that it is so big and successful, but it is a very small insight into what pledgebank.com can do." It's actually a much more general organizing tool.

Tom Steinberg writes "Former head of policy at the British Prime Minister's office, Geoff Mulgan, has co-authored a paper on uses of Open Source methods in arenas far beyond the normal Sourceforge universe. The paper is jointly written with Tom Steinberg, head of UK civic hacking fraternity mySociety and explores the use of open source methods to improve academic peer review, drafting of legislation and even media regulation."