simplicitea

I'm not convinced yet that a non-profit is capable of doing what Facebook does. I'd love to read about it if you have any lit on the topic.

Why not? If we're being realistic and ideal simultaneously, one recognizes the immense social impact and shift driven by Facebook, as a social media platform as well as a lexus of modern web programming, at the same time as one recognizes that the user is the product to be sold and could imagine the potential negatives of that paradigm. So why not?

Actually, to follow up -- you mention simplifying the process to be easier on the user. Are myriad of questions one must laboriously answer to enroll in EBT programs a matter of... legislation? taxes? I would imagine that the questions have to do with honing in on a complex placement within the law which determines benefit levels. How do you go about simplifying a process which requires a large number of distinct data points by law or by census design?

already looked it up. do you ever find that a human response lends insight or relevant, current links that an encyclopedia lacks? I sure do.

Thank you for the Code for America recommendation, checking them out now

Do you have any recommendations for exploring what you call hyper-local work? I currently cook food for a living but even that, with it's immediate (feedback lol) to the local community, is a service that comes as a premium to people who don't need help. Where do you look for projects that fit your worldview as a programmer? Are there any groups of people based in Seattle that you'd recommend getting in touch with?

OP here, actually floored by the rapidity and variety of responses. Thanks HN.

I'll take this opportunity to float an idea that's been kicking around in my head for a long time.

The premise is to:

1) (this is almost certainly the easy part) build out a platform that is like a two-way khan academy - teacher and student, with at least the teacher having a tablet and a stylus that function well, sharing a digital blackboard, with a video chat optional -- where a student of something in a relatively privileged situation teaches a student of the same thing in a relatively less privileged situation -- where the sessions are stored and rewindable, both video and blackboard input.

2) the hard part; selling it as something to invest in and driving it to a point of having an endowment behind it, like Harvard's endowment, that allows the service to pay for moderation of student-teachers something like $12.00 USD an hour to teach, while subsidizing well-chosen students to have to pay something like $2 an hour to learn

it's been an idea for a passion project for a while

what's digital permaculture?