rmason

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I got interested in civic coding because of the essays by Tim O'Reilly. When I was running the Code Michigan hackathon for a couple of years with the State Of Michigan I tried getting him as a speaker with no luck.

I'd like to be able to search if any of my content made the list. Also search the entire stack for stuff not likely to rise high enough for its own category but definitely in there, like less popular languages to see what people are saying. I check HN every couple of hours all day long but its amazing the stuff that you can miss.

Local here. Downtown Lansing, just off Michigan Avenue has the R.E. Olds Transportation museum. My late father was involved with the museum as a volunteer. Lots of rare Oldsmobile's including one of the first cars he produced known as the "curved dash" from 1901. Note Olds invented the modern assembly line, not Henry Ford. Though to be fair Ford and his chief engineer C. Harold Wills perfected the car assembly line we know of today.

https://www.reoldsmuseum.org/

Right next door is the Impression 5 science museum. While it is aimed at children I've always found it fascinating and it is hands on. Unlike most science museums with which I am familiar they keep building new exhibits.

https://impression5.org/home

If you are into history the Michigan History Museum is just South of the Capital. They have an original copy of our state constitution on display. They also got a copy of every computer the state has purchased. Last time I was there they had a room full of old computers. So if you've never seen a Next cube, an Osborne portable, first Compaq portable or an Apple Lisa they are all on display in working order.

https://www.michigan.gov/mhc/museums/mhm

Lastly if you enjoy art visit the Broad Art Museum on the North end of the Michigan State University campus. The building is striking looking and was featured in one of the Batman movies. It is one of the few buildings in America designed by the late Pulitzer prize winning British architect Zaha Hadid.

https://broadmuseum.msu.edu/

Course all that pales to Detroit where you could literally spend ten days if you wanted to visit every museum.

Over a hundred years before the database was invented this guy created it manually from ships logs and the data within proved magical. But years later he chose the wrong side in the civil war and isn't as well known as he probably should be.

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We have an excellent library in East Lansing. My sister and I went there every week with our late Mother when we were kids. I was in there recently at an AI meeting and I noticed that it was changing into a bit of a community hub as well.

Wouldn't have ever thought of it as a meeting place for user groups but they are starting to actively encourage it. I saw it as a very positive development. During COVID they advertised that anyone could use their parking lot for the free Wi-Fi. They must have had the coverage cause the rather large parking lot was packed. They must have tuned it because I sure can't get coverage in most of the parking lots of the fast food franchises where most of their customers these days only use drive-thru.

I did not know this back story. The script was so good it called into question for me was why it was ever rejected for the stage. Movies has been repurposed for Broadway.

So I did a little searching and found in the nineties it was in the planning stages. The play ran on London's West End for only six short weeks and the Broadway producers abandoned the idea. Maybe the couple did not realize they were not writing a play but a movie script instead?

I read the article and know the discovery was made in Ireland. This is how science is supposed to work. Is it 'cultural imperialism' if American universities build on the work of these Irish girls? Science would move a lot slower if a countries scientists all had to operate in national silos.

For years the holy grail has been for corn to produce its own nitrogen. This could be a small step in the right direction. Interested to see what happens when some of the great American agricultural schools further this experiment.

Exactly, but he was in the New York media market and didn't get investigated if I remember correctly until he was already in office.

I am a journalism grad and 25 years ago the local press would investigate all candidates and this would have been discovered long before the primary. Now it is left to the independent journalists who lack the resources but are punching way above their weight. She isn't likely to win as this is a solid Democratic district. Because she stood little chance of winning even the state party didn't investigate her background either.

This makes about as much sense to me as banning all personal computers in the eighties from schools. You are putting these kids at a decided disadvantage.

What if someone created a culturally oriented AI for black people? Well a team of black Detroit women did just that. I think its an interesting idea but I am not the target audience.

This is the same guy who said users would never need machines with more than 640K of RAM. Decades later he denied every saying it. But I am old enough to remember when he said it. He never claimed to have been misquoted at the time!

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I am quite interested in civic coding and ran a hackathon with the state for several years in Michigan.

I have not found anything similar and this type of software I seek out. It is hard to get the word out. You can find startup software for listing in directories, that and SEO involve time but not money.

But if someone finds you and their state isn't included they are likely to just move on. If they find use for it you can also build a strong word of mouth. Some states have API's for this data, but a few years ago the majority did not.

Some you actually need to file a FOIA request for it. Then you need to repeat the request yearly to get updated data. They don't make it easy for you.

I agree you cannot tie the success or failure to any single decision. I was just sharing a personal anecdote about the company.

I do know that Spirit Airlines was a lot scrappier and lean minded when they were based in Detroit. Course that is kind of a Midwest thing. Spirit grew a lot faster after moving to Florida but ultimately getting there involved taking financial risks that ultimately doomed them.

Fun fact: Spirit Airlines original software was written in ColdFusion and two members of their staff attended meetings of my ColdFusion users group. Then headquarters of the airline moved to Florida, they got a new CIO and they rewrote everything in a new language.

If this had all fifty states it would be extremely valuable. I know it would be a lot of effort to get the data but it would be really worthwhile. One of the problems is Michigan for example isn't updating their data in Socrata and hasn't for years. The city of Detroit however does an excellent job.

Met the creator at the big Claude meeting last evening in downtown Detroit. He is a software developer for a vending machine company.

I neither drink coffee nor have an iPhone but thought this might be of interest to the HN community. Apparently he is doing quite well with it and is a real coffee afficionado like my late father.

I spent some time in Poland three years ago and have not stopped talking about it ever since. It stood out from the other Eastern European countries that I visited on that trip.

Had a lunch in Warsaw with a German friend who had relocated there. He said it was more Conservative than Germany and there was more freedom of expression.

Over forty years of Communist rule and they were never able to pull them away from their commitment to the Catholic church. Also lots of excellent museums and large parks.

I was not aware consumer headsets had gotten powerful enough to read brain activity. Seems more countries should have laws against companies being able to trade this data without any restrictions on it.

That thought never occurred to me. But I have to believe that e-waste components presumably outdated technology wouldn't be powerful enough to control cruise missiles but I could be wrong.

I am perplexed that we are unable to track down and prosecute who is selling American technology to Putin. Seeing our allies on this list is also disturbing. Some arms merchants are getting rich.

As a lifelong Michigan resident am I to assume that Michigan does not have reciprocity?

Heard a radio show last evening where they interviewed the author of the bill. All they talked about was X.ai and Elon Musk. Definitely left the impression that is the only company they targeted. It was clear that both of them did not like Elon Musk so perhaps that is who they chose to highlight?

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