sitting on a open source panel from brian gorbett on Vimeo.

There is a rumor that more video will be posted soon.

More coming soon.

A wall fell down near work. Speedy and I took the proper corrective measures.

I highly recommend it, it was a blast. I ended up shoveling snow for our house, and all of our neighbors. It took me 2 hours, but at least a dozen grateful people and 1000 calories later, I was done. Now I just wish I could get my car out of our garage.

You’re welcome 900 block of Paulina! =)

Early Voting Sites & Hours
Chicago voters may use any of these sites for Early Voting, which will be offered January 14 – 31, 2008, for the February 5, 2008 Primary Election. Remember:

1. Bring a government photo ID.
2. You don’t need an excuse or reason to vote early.
3. Use any Early Voting site, no matter where you live.
4. All sites open Mon.-Sat. 9 to 5, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
5. All Early Voting sites in Chicago are fully accessible.

Early Voting Hours:

Monday – Saturday, All Locations, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
All sites open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!

Sundays: Only at Election Board Headquarters, 9 a.m. to noon

Need more info? See below or call 312-269-7900 / TTY 312-269-0027

1st Ward Goldblatts Building 1615 W Chicago Ave
2nd Ward Mabel Manning Library 6 S. Hoyne Ave.
3rd Ward Chicago Bee Library 3647 S. State St.
4th Ward M L King Community Ctr 4314 S. Cottage Grove Ave.
5th Ward Jackson Park Field House 6401 S. Stony Island Ave.
6th Ward Whitney Young Library 7901 S M. L. King Jr., Dr.
7th Ward Jeffery Manor Library 2401 E. 100th St.
8th Ward Olive Harvey College 10001 S. Woodlawn Ave.
9th Ward Palmer Park 201 E 111th St.
10th Ward Vodak/East Side Library 3710 E. 106th St.
11th Ward McKinley Park 2210 W. Pershing Rd.
12th Ward Back of the Yards Library 4650 S. Damen Ave.
13th Ward West Lawn Park 4233 W. 65 St.
14th Ward Archer Heights Library 5055 S. Archer
15th Ward West Englewood Library 1745 W. 63rd St.
16th Ward Sherman Park Library 5440 S. Racine Ave.
17th Ward Thurgood Marshall Library 7506 S. Racine Ave.
18th Ward Wrightwood-Ashburn Library 8530 S. Kedzie Ave.
19th Ward 22nd Police District 1900 W. Monterey Ave.
20th Ward Coleman Library 731 E. 63rd St.
21st Ward Woodson Regional Library 9525 S. Halsted Ave.
22nd Ward Piotrowski Park 4247 W. 31st St.
23rd Ward Clearing Library 6423 W. 63rd Pl.
24th Ward Douglass Library 3353 W. 13th St.
25th Ward Chinatown Library 2353 S. Wentworth Ave.
26th Ward Humboldt Park Library 1605 N. Troy St.
27th Ward Union Park 1501 W. Randolph St.
28th Ward West Side Learning Ctr 4624 W. Madison St.
29th Ward Amundsen Park 6200 W. Bloomingdale Ave.
30th Ward Portage Cragin Library 5108 W. Belmont Ave.
31th Ward Blackhawk Park 2318 N. Lavergne Ave.
32nd Ward Pulaski Park 1419 W. Blackhawk St.
33rd Ward Independence Library 3548 W. Irving Park Rd.
34th Ward West Pullman Library 830 W. 119th St.
35th Ward Logan Square Library 3030 W. Fullerton Ave.
36th Ward Hiawatha Park 8029 W. Forest Preserve Dr.
37th Ward West Chicago Library 4856 W. Chicago Ave.
38th Ward Wright College – Science Bldg 4300 N. Narragansett Ave.
39th Ward N. Park Village Admn Bldg 5801 N. Pulaski Rd.
40th Ward Budlong Woods Library 5630 N. Lincoln Ave.
41st Ward Roden Library 6083 N. Northwest Highway
42nd Ward Access Living 115 W. Chicago Ave., Floor 2
43rd Ward Lincoln Park Library 1150 W. Fullerton Ave.
44th Ward Merlo Library 644 W. Belmont Ave.
45th Ward Edgebrook Library 5331 W. Devon Ave.
46th Ward Truman College 1145 W. Wilson Ave.
47th Ward Welles Park 2333 W. Sunnyside Ave.
48th Ward Edgewater Library 1210 W. Elmdale Ave.
49th Ward Pottawattomie Park 7340 N. Rogers Ave.
50th Ward Warren Park 6601 N. Western Ave

* The Chicago Election Board site at 69 W. Washington St. is the only Early Voting site with Sunday hours, from 9 a.m. to noon.

Unlike voting absentee, you DO NOT need an excuse or reason to utilize Early Voting. Those who vote early cannot vote again on Election Day. A list of all early voters will be provided to the judges of election prior to the opening of the polls on Election Day.

REMEMBER: If you are registered to vote, you may use ANY site during Early Voting. Voters who wait until Election Day may cast ballots only at their assigned polling places.

Each early-voting site is equipped with touch-screen stations. The touch-screen stations are loaded with every type of ballot.

Pollwatchers are allowed to monitor early voting.

Early voting ballots will not be tabulated until the close of the polls on Election Day.

Field Museum Provost Neil Shubin will appear on the Colbert Report tonight to discuss his new book, Your Inner Fish, which will be released the following day. The Colbert Report runs at 10:30 p.m. (Central Time) on Comedy Central.

Your Inner Fish uses new fossil finds, genetic discoveries and animal anatomy to trace the origins of humans and the evolution of different body parts, such as limbs, teeth, head, ears and eyes. Neil explains how everything that is apparently unique about humans is built from parts that are shared with other creatures.

I’m a big fan of our scientists, and you should be to! Go out and buy Neil’s new book!

I threw together slides, collaborated with Harped via Google docs to work on them, and then just went over and talked. We never practiced or wrote anything to talk about. It was a ton of fun. We started it off with a SMS vote for the topic we would talk about.. but we put up Jason Rexilius’ cell phone number. We checked with him later, and for the record it looks like Mustache wins. I’m sure voting is still open though.

Watch the presentation here. They were taking video, so I’ll post it when I find it. Check out Harper’s post too.

While we were connected up to the community, a number of students joined in. They said they were from Thailand, Ban Samkha specifically. We quickly realized that we were currently talking to students in the pilot program! I got to tell them all about my job with the Field Museum, and how we have sent researchers to Thailand to study. I even got to speak to a teacher in the program, who has been using the laptops for 9 months. They told me that the students learn very quickly, but that the parents are also extremely excited. The students even knew where Chicago was… from maps on the internet.

From the 45 minute conversation, I gained a number of new pen pals and a whole slew of new perspectives. It is amazing to see the impact that these machines have.

It made me wonder, are we any better off today?

I am a regular reader of the District 299 Chicago Public Schools’ Blog, and I came across an article stating that nearly 10% of Illinois schools could be classified as drop out factories. It turns out that Wells High School, my neighborhood public high school, has a drop out rate of almost 50%.

While seemingly we have massive gaps in education today, just as in Kozol’s 1992 look at the schools. While we live in a world where 50% of our students, at any institution, FAIL to even graduate… we cannot consider ourselves successful as a society. By any measure, education is failing. Kozol comes back a number of times to recount the expenses in wealthy school districts versus poor districts. I don’t have the research behind me to show if this is still true or not, but it is probably safe to presume.

So while the public schools still struggle and the environment has shown little change, the context of what is available, for very cheap or free, has grown immensely. I ask this question, what resources can now be replaced? How much do we spend, per student, on books and libraries in school? Public school libraries are a waste of time and money, they are inadequate and outdated. Replace them with cheap computers and internet access. Provide free English tutoring (I guess I will plug TinyLanguage here). Give students Wikipedia.

Maybe instead of trying to find resources that aren’t there, and seeking help that just is not coming, we need to reorder how we think of the resources we already have. We may have to let go of some things that we hold as sacred.