Testimony before the Committee on the Budget and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, U.S. House of Representatives

Congressional Budget Office - Testimony on Current and Future Investment in Infrastructure

Today's businesses have a growing need to reliably store and analyze increasing volumes of data. On April 30th LogiXML and Vertica jointly explored this trend and discussed how our companies are responding to it. We concluded with a brief demo which illustrated a more tangible example of the benefits of Vertica's innovative columnar database and LogiXML's Web-based BI solutions.

"A New Era in Business Intelligence"

Psychology of Intelligence Analysis

Psychology of Intelligence Analysis — Central Intelligence Agency

1010data offers a revolutionary, high–performance, user–friendly, web–based service for analyzing and managing data. Our unique technology allows us to build and manage databases in a fraction of the usual time and at a fraction of the usual cost and allows customers to do analysis and research quickly and effectively.

1010data

The buzz these days is that American politics may be entering a “postpartisan” era, as a new generation finds the old ideological quarrels among baby boomers to be increasingly irrelevant. In reality, matters are not so simple. Far from being postpartisan, today’s young adults are significantly more likely to identify as Democrats than were their predecessors. Along with colleagues at the Brookings and Hoover institutions, we recently completed a comprehensive study of the nation’s polarization. Our research concludes not only that the ideological differences between the political parties are growing but also that they have become embedded in American society itself.

Vote Like Thy Neighbor

Sir Francis Chichester, Robin Knox-Johnston, Dame Ellen McArthur and other great names from the history of sailing could be joined this year by Pinta the robot.

The unmanned boat is undergoing final preparations before setting sail in the hope of becoming the first robot to cross an ocean using the power of wind. By sailing non-stop and unassisted for an estimated three months it will prove the potential for robotic craft to undertake vital research in roles in dangerous and far-off waters.

Pinta has been designed by scientists at Aberystwyth University and will join seven other robotic craft in October in a race across the Atlantic. The race is intended to test the endurance and reliability of robots away from battery chargers and the predictable environment of a laboratory.

Pinta the robot sailing boat takes on Atlantic challenge

Millions of people around the world today spend portions of their lives in online virtual worlds. Second Life is one of the largest of these virtual worlds. The residents of Second Life create communities, buy property and build homes, go to concerts, meet in bars, attend weddings and religious services, buy and sell virtual goods and services, find friendship, fall in love--the possibilities are endless, and all encountered through a computer screen. Coming of Age in Second Life is the first book of anthropology to examine this thriving alternate universe.

Tom Boellstorff conducted more than two years of fieldwork in Second Life, living among and observing its residents in exactly the same way anthropologists traditionally have done to learn about cultures and social groups in the so-called real world. He conducted his research as the avatar "Tom Bukowski," and applied the rigorous methods of anthropology to study many facets of this new frontier of human life, including issues of gender, race, sex, money, conflict and antisocial behavior, the construction of place and time, and the interplay of self and group.

Coming of Age in Second Life shows how virtual worlds can change ideas about identity and society. Bringing anthropology into territory never before studied, this book demonstrates that in some ways humans have always been virtual, and that virtual worlds in all their rich complexity build upon a human capacity for culture that is as old as humanity itself.

Coming of Age in Second Life

In 17 of the nation’s 50 largest cities, less than half of the students who entered high school in 2003 ended up graduating. In Detroit, which has the lowest graduation rate of the top 50 cities, not even one in four students finished high school.

(Summary from the Chronicle)

Report Shows Stunning Failures in High-School Graduation Rates

Shiira is a web browser based on Web Kit and written in Cocoa. The goal of the Shiira Project is to create a browser that is better and more useful than Safari. All source code used in this software is publicly available.

Shiira Project

All the gas tax talk has stirred up a storm. Whatever you think about the candidates' proposals, however, their debate has illuminated an urgent reality: If the U.S. government continues with its current transportation policies, it will undermine the social and economic security of our workforce and accelerate global climate change. We must chart a new course, rebuilding America's overburdened and, in many cases, obsolete transportation infrastructure while addressing these two 21st-century imperatives.

A Transportation Crossroads