http://www.jepstone.net/blog Rants and Raves from South Kingstown, RI and sometimes Arlington, VA Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:37:34 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Sad news from Andrew Gilmartin, who in his most recent posting to South Kingstown, RI Now, writes: Yesterday night the Town of South Kingstown Council voted against the “Automatic Open Records” petition funding the “Automatic Open Records” Committee outlined in my letter to the Town Council on March 30, 2009. The ... http://www.jepstone.net/blog/2009/04/28/town-of-south-kingstown-votes-against-transparency-and-citizen-participation/ I really appreciate the work that Andrew Gilmartin's been doing with his attempts to bring my home town's government into the 21st century. His goal is to increase public participation in the Town of South Kingstown, and to this end, he's petitioning the town to adopt modern technology for publishing ... http://www.jepstone.net/blog/2009/04/19/south-kingstown-ri-now-advocating-for-local-open-government/ I'll be posting from Washington, DC over the next few days using whatever means I have available. In addition to this blog, check me out on flickr and Twitter. http://www.jepstone.net/blog/2009/01/18/inauguration-posts/ Well, not yet, but the money's coming in less than 60 days. As David Pogue has reported, Microsoft really wants you to use its search engine: Until the end of the year, you’ll get points every time you use Microsoft’s Live.com service. Pile up enough of them, and you can buy ... http://www.jepstone.net/blog/2008/10/09/microsoft-paid-me-144-to-search/ I attended The Last HOPE recently and worked the MAKE table there. It was tremendous fun; we had all sorts of kits and books and magazines and t-shirts for sale, and a lot of interesting folks came by with interesting questions and ideas. Video | Flickr photos http://www.jepstone.net/blog/2008/07/27/the-make-magazine-table-at-the-last-hope/ This is going to be good! BatchBlue is returning to give us a progress report on how much cooler they've become since they last presented at a geek dinner! Details and RSVP. See you all there! http://www.jepstone.net/blog/2008/06/17/providence-geek-dinner-tomorrow-june-18/ CC-licensed Lolrus image from Pete Mandik's photostream on flickr Life here in southern RI is not quite as boring as I let on. A few weeks (or was it months?) ago, a story broke about a woman who was discovered in a sorority on campus, and in the process of being ... http://www.jepstone.net/blog/2008/05/30/youve-got-internet-meme-in-my-rl/ When you plug a USB device into the EEE PC, it makes it look like it has a Windows drive letter by mounting it on something like /media/D: This is fine for a lot of stuff, but I have a USB drive I want to put a VirtualBox virtual machine ... http://www.jepstone.net/blog/2008/05/19/overriding-eee-pcs-drive-letter-assignment-for-usb-devices/ Inspired by SocialBomb, a few of us AS220 geeks have started working on a similar project: Arduinos that pair off and get happier the closer they are together. The first iteration of this is the Arduino Buddies, but eventually, we'll have this on a PCB and will include some ad-hoc ... http://www.jepstone.net/blog/2008/05/12/tom-sgouros-demos-my-arduino-buddies-at-maker-faire/ Read all about it and RSVP right here. http://www.jepstone.net/blog/2008/04/23/providence-geek-dinner-tonight/