This blog will never take off until I can start posting every 90 minutes, or so.

Obviously, the Bill of Rights demand that there be NO LAW abridging freedom of speech means, well, you know, SOME laws.

Paul Little is sentenced to nearly four years in prison for taking the Bill of Rights at its word.

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If you’re in the market for a webhost I can recommend Dreamhost, my webhost (though, frankly, they are not without the occasional painful glitch), and if you’re considering signing up for a Netflix account, get there through the banner on the Screening Tampa page.

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Thanks for your attention. We now return to our regularly scheduled posting.

Over at Boingboing Douglas Rushkoff presents a brilliant idea for focusing community money on community projects.

“So Halko’s idea is to sell VIP cards. For every dollar a customer spends on a card, they receive the equivalent of $1.20 worth of credit at either restaurant. If I buy a thousand dollar card, I get twelve hundred dollars worth of food: a 20% rate of return on the investment of dollars. Halko gets the cash infusion he needs to build the new restaurant - and since he’s paying for it in 20% tab adjustments, it just comes out of profits. He gets the money a lot cheaper than if he were borrowing it from the bank, paying back in cash over time. Meanwhile, customers get more food for less money.”

Hmmm, I imagine a neighborhood association using this model to start up a local meeting place/pub/taqueria.

My local Publix was robbed recently. Just the other day the police arrested a fellow in connection with the robbery. They arrested a young man who worked at Publix. That’s right, it looks like it was an inside job.

Note to any budding thieves - staff are the first suspects! Don’t rob from your place of employment. You should have learned that before you got out of elementary school.

Learn a lesson from this thief in Monroe, Washington. He duped a dozen Craigslist readers into acting as cover for his getaway. He got the money AND he got away. That’s the power of a quality education system.

But apparently, the robber had planned ahead. In case anyone was hot on his trail, he had at least a dozen unsuspecting decoys waiting nearby, which he recruited on Craigslist.

“I came across the ad that was for a prevailing wage job for $28.50 an hour,” said Mike, who saw a Craigslist ad last week looking for workers for a road maintenance project in Monroe.

He said he inquired and was e-mailed back with instructions to meet near the Bank of America in Monroe at 11 a.m. Tuesday. He also was told to wear certain work clothing.

“Yellow vest, safety goggles, a respirator mask… and, if possible, a blue shirt,” he said.

Mike showed up along with about a dozen other men dressed like him, but there was no contractor and no road work to be done. He thought they had been stood up until he heard about the bank robbery and the suspect who wore the same attire.

While I follow politics closely, I don’t really want to turn this into a political blog. Unfortunately, that’s all that seems to be on the internet these days. [Clarification: Whoops, by politics I meant presidential politics. There are all sorts of political issues of interest to R/CT, both national and local, just not the personality contests at the top of the ticket.]

I think I’ve finally got into my rhythm at school, and the increased number of posts on this omni-blog bear that out. There are fresh posts in Greening Tampa, Screening Tampa, and Eating Tampa.

Over at Eating Tampa the voting is closed for the 2008 Reader’s Poll. Thanks to everyone who voted! I’ll be compiling the votes this weekend, and I hope on Sunday to have at least the winner’s list posted. Individual reviews will be rolled out over the course of October.

There’s a lot of great stuff going on in film this weekend (and this month). Check out Screening Tampa. There’s not much there, but it can get you started on how to catch a lot of great movies over the next few days.

Coming soon - mini-reviews of the movies I watched in September, and short reviews of the books I’ve finished the last couple of weeks.

I admit I have a less stressful job than most, but it is nonetheless keeping me busy. Busy with dull, dull, tedious, mind-achingly dull repetitive tasks. Fortunately, that project is nearing its end.

If you’re looking for some way to pass the time, check out Wonder How To, a portal for thousands of How-To videos. It collects videos from all over the internet and plops them into this nicely searchable database. Here, for example, are some videos on how to breakdance, and here are some on how to hack stuff. Learn ‘em both and you can be known as the breakdancing hacker.

OK, I’m off to drink some mojitos and watch the debates!

Holy Crap, I think I want one of these.

How does the Fitbit Tracker work and what does it track?
The Fitbit Tracker contains a motion sensor like the ones found in the Nintendo Wii. The Tracker senses your motion in three dimensions and converts this into useful information about your daily activities. The Tracker measures the intensity and duration of your physical activities, calories burned, steps taken, distance traveled, how long it took you to fall asleep, the number of times you woke up throughout the night and how long you were actually asleep vs just lying in bed. You can wear the Tracker loosely in your pocket or clipped to your clothing, even bras.

Reed Hundt, the FCC chairman during the Clinton administration, argued that the United States government should take the responsibility of ensuring a national wi-fi system. Just as the government ensures clean and accessible water (and private companies sell water) the government should ensure internet access (and private companies can still sell internet access).

Hundt spoke again in 2006 on this topic (this time about a fiber version, rather than something carried on the radio spectrum) -

“His point was that the Internet is a public good, that fast, ubiquitous access to it is an economic essential, and it would be incredibly cheap to deliver that when compared to the current Administration’s priorities.

“Hundt estimated a subsidy of “only” $20-25 billion would deliver a universal fiber-to-the-home connection to every American home, something he called essential to meeting the competitive threat of China. (Hundt will publish a book called “In China’s Shadow” this fall.)”

The current adminstration, and the current head of the FCC Michael Powell, have expressed no interest in creating a nation where everyone has equal access to the internet. But, the dream is not dead. Internet for Everyone is a national campaign making the case for, well, internet for everyone.

Access Every home, business and civic institution in America must have access to a high-speed, world-class communications infrastructure.

Choice Every consumer must enjoy real competition in lawful online content as well as among high-speed Internet providers to achieve lower prices and higher speeds.

Openness Every Internet user should have the right to freedom of speech and commerce online in an open market without gatekeepers or discrimination.

Innovation The Internet should continue to create good jobs, foster entrepreneurship, spread new ideas and serve as a leading engine of economic growth.

You should be able to get open internet into your home just as you should be able to get clean water into your home.