This is exactly the type of bullshit I'm talking about when I try to stress privacy to people I know and they think I'm a lunatic. Most people don't want to hear what "could" happen, only what has happened in the past.
And they get all Godwin on you when you tell them that IBM hoarded and then processed census data for the Third Reich in exactly the scenario of:
Hand over information to someone you trust (in that case the Govt. of your country who proclaim that they welcome Jews); someone who wants to use it against not you gains control of it via takeover (in that case a bunch of psychotics who will murder you because in 1933 your grandma ticked "Jewish" on the census form).
It isn't far fetched nonsense, it is tried and tested.
What will be really interesting is when they acquire a sample from someone based on a partial match by a family member to one case, then proceed with an unrelated case based on a partial match to that sample!
I was really hoping this project would be legislation voting and tracking for the people. I vaguely remember a project from 5 or so years ago that was called Open Gov based around legislation. Did OpenGov pivot? Maybe it was called something else.
Indeed, our non-profit project OpenGovernment.org, launched in Jan. 2011, is still available in open-source code for legislative tracking: https://goo.gl/ThcG00. This includes the GovKit Ruby gem, which aggregates open government data with social context to make legislative info more accessible. We're always looking to re-boot OpenGovernment.org (OG for short) to focus on contacting state-level elected officials and discussing issues in the news on the open web - more about our goals of open data at every level of gov't: http://opengovernment.org/pages/about.html. And yes, as Derek said, check out Councilmatic for city-level transparency and engagement.
You're probably referring to http://opengovernment.org/ by the Sunlight Foundation and Participatory Politics Foundation (PPF).
The work continues! My company DataMade is working with PPF to make local legislation more accessible, starting with Chicago, New York and Philly: http://councilmatic.org/
If you've ever worked for or with a government entity, you'd find that saving time or money isn't a priority. In fact, departments try to spend as much as their budget as possible for fear they won't get as much next year.
We hear that assumption a lot, but it hasn't been the case in our experience (working with Chicago, San Francisco, Oakland, Baltimore, etc.).
At the local level, budgets matter. Even if you're going to spend your entire budget, spending less on tools frees up more budget to spend on other things. Things like community events, more staff, creating programs to engage or serve under-represented groups, commissioning cross-departmental studies.
Saving time absolutely matters. The common belief is that local government employees are lazy or incompetent. Again, we've never found that to be true. Many of them came into public service to serve their communities — no one gets into local government for fame or fortune — but were beaten down by the bureaucracy.
They are motivated to do good and better back office tools help them achieve their goals.
I look at it a little more optimistically...sure departments try to spend every last penny of their budget so that they don't lose that funding. That's a given. What if departments could spend every last penny BETTER?
Maybe its true that saving money isn't a priority, but spending money on things that have the most impact, or that get the most value is a priority.
I work for OpenGov, so I hear this from our customers (who work in government) all the time.
We don't find this to be true at the local level. Our customers are cost-sensitive, and we find the time savings our product provides to be a major selling point.
We haven't done any work yet at the state or federal levels, so maybe we'll encounter this attitude there.
I didn't have cable tv in college back in 2005. We used rabbit ears. I went without cable tv for 8 or 9 years and subscribed a year or two ago. I look back and I'm glad at the money I saved. I was blown away when HD antenna was introduced. The antenna is really underrated nowadays. I'd love to see it make a comeback.
Student loan debt surpassed credit card and auto loan debt in the US last year. Many college grads graduate with large sums of debt and can't find relevant jobs. Since student loan debt isn't forgivable, it'll be interesting to see the effect of this over the next decade. I have a hunch that the next big market crash will be caused by student loan debt.
I agree that student loan debt seems like an asset bubble -- in that the price of an education greatly exceeds the valuation justified by the fundamentals.
But I can't think of a way that the bubble could actually pop. Or what it would look like if it did.
Unlike housing, you can't walk away from your education; student loans are designed to prevent debtors from ever escaping their obligations. They're also guaranteed by the federal government, which has seemingly infinite resources.
Educational institutions themselves are also either private, or are state-run, both of which would shield the impacts of a collapse from the average citizen. The average citizen isn't invested in education like they were in public tech companies or housing. It's also impossible to short Harvard or the UC system.
I actually think this is worse in some ways. Bubble pops are scary, but the bandaid comes off quickly. Instead I fear educational indebtedness will just be a silent vampire on our economy for decades to come.
> But I can't think of a way that the bubble could actually pop. Or what it would look like if it did.
It would look like a social movement. It would look like tens of millions of young people realizing that they have fallen under the yoke of life-long indentured servitude to the older generation, and either 1) getting organized enough to get the law changed or, 2) saying "fuck it, I've got nothing left to lose" and rioting in the streets.
The government will eventually realize that the defaulted loans, together with penalties and fees, can never be paid back - no different than the typical house flippers of 2008 who leveraged themselves to the hilt with multiple properties.
The banks and funds that own these defaulted loans will threaten to take down the whole system, including Main Street's pension and IRA savings, unless they're bailed out. The Fed's printing machine will come to the rescue.
Loans won't be 'forgiven' per se, but just like many defaulted mortgages, the debt will simply not be enforced for those that have the balls to simply stop paying, though life will be a PITA for a while as their credit takes a huge hit for the next decade.
Those that do continue to pay will feel like suckers. The rest of us will curse the lazy bums who got off without paying. Wall Street execs will be handsomely rewarded for having saved their firms from catastrophe, while politicians will preach of reform, only to pass watered-down laws to appear proactive.
Due to the money printing, the average American will see his quality of life decrease relative to the rest of the world; meanwhile, Wall Street will begin moving money into the next hot idea that can be leveraged with no risk to themselves.
> The government will eventually realize that the defaulted loans, together with penalties and fees, can never be paid back - no different than the typical house flippers of 2008 who leveraged themselves to the hilt with multiple properties.
Yes, but the question is if they'll care. Many people believe it morally important to enforce the unenforceable.
For federal student loans, there isn't a life of indentured servitude. There are income based repayment plans that with fairly low costs per month. A single guy working at starbucks making 30k per year would only pay about $100 per month even with a 200k loan (if he had a wife and kid, he'd pay nothing). Then after 20 years the rest is forgiven.
That system exemplifies what seems to be a growing issue these days–people with too little income get programs like that to help them squeeze by, people making lots of money pay them back without a problem, and the people in between kind of float along paying enough monthly that they put off buying a house or having kids or starting a business because they have 10+ years of loan payments. The long term outcome of this doesn't seen like a healthy society to me.
Most people don't really care about government shutdowns because it doesn't directly cost most people much money. And, even then you'll notice the government never stays shutdown.
If government shutdowns meant a huge chunk of the voting population (across both parties) was suddenly going to owe thousands of dollars in extra taxes, you can bet they'd never happen.
> It would look like tens of millions of young people realizing that they have fallen under the yoke of life-long indentured servitude to the older generation
Nobody forced them to take out loans.
There are lots of options which don't involve crushing debt.
When I was graduating high school student loan debt was something I was encouraged to take on, despite my on uneasiness about doing so. My teachers, my family, everyone whose opinion I was supposed to respect told me that student loan debt was normal and even valuable (to build credit).
So while no, I wasn't FORCED to take out loans, the most trustworthy people in my life taught me that loans were okay, and never presented me with another option. Luckily this paradigm is showing signs of a shift, but for a lot people it's still considered "normal".
No, but many people feel misled about the post-graduation prospects or are unhappy with their life options and feel trapped in a career they hate and can't take a break from or change due to debt.
On which part? That there aren't roving bandits forcing people to take on huge loans? Or that there are other options?
In terms of other options, there is (a) community college—very cheap, (b) state school—much cheaper usually, especially if you live at home, (c) attending a slightly less prestigious college when they offer a substantial merit scholarship.
Back around 2000, when I saw education costs rising (and was a big believer in market forces), I figured more educators would enter the market, and things would stabilize.
It's been 15 years, and I haven't seen any new colleges or universities formed.
The market did accommodate it. Lots of for-profit schools (Wyotech, Heald, etc.) popped up and made a killing largely by helping students fill out loan paperwork for the maximum allowable amount while providing a dubious credential without meeting the standards of reputable accreditation boards. The credits were not transferrable in most cases, and many of the schools have been shuttered for charges bordering on fraud. (A friend from HS owes more on loans for 18 months at Heald than I owed from a 4-year degree at a state school.)
Universities in countries with inflated fees and tuition loans are about to fall off a cliff. I'll be surprised if they're still around a generation from now.
The Ivy League will survive because of social and political momentum. But colleges outside the prestige circuit are going to have real problems getting students for high-cost low-return education.
Are they? Are significant amounts of people actually foregoing college to learn from them instead? And, more importantly, are they getting hired in good jobs in the field they're studying in?
A non-market force happened. The government started guaranteeing student loans. Although honestly, even without that, I don't think people are good enough in estimating the extra payoff of education they haven't received yet over their 30+ years long career in the future, to properly evaluate the market value of college education; instead, they were just believing the old mantra "college is worth it".
Since 1980, the number of colleges has gone from roughly 2000 to roughly 3000. That doesn't account for increases in class size.
The demand is still very strong. The millennial generation was told, go to college or you'll have to flip burgers your whole life.
One huge problem is college demand is fairly inelastic. Another is that colleges are mostly non-profit institutions who aren't out for institutional profits. Instead they compete for prestige. If they spend a bunch of money on useless shit, USNEWs will rank them higher.
Students and parents aren't urged to consider price. In fact they are encouraged to ignore price. Just get in first! then worry about "financial aid." Which is mostly just loans at this point.
Hopefully the bubble popping looks like University of Phoenix and its for-profit brethren going out of business. The looming student loan crisis has been reported for a while, but what's more recently been reported is just how large a percentage of it is these for-profit schools.
We hear scary numbers and naturally associate them with expensive private school educations from the ivy schools or similar institutions. But there's really no crisis there...people graduating from an ivy league school will almost certainly pay off their loans, large as they might be. The bulk of the defaults will come from people who've gotten largely-meaningless degrees from those for-profit schools. It's sad, but job screening skills are so bad in most industries that they basically just use the college admission screening process as a proxy. And the fact that basically anyone can get into the University of Phoenix means that there's almost no value placed on having graduated from there.
> But I can't think of a way that the bubble could actually pop. Or what it would look like if it did.
It would look a lot like the retrenchment of the private for-profit college industry when private lending outside of government guaranteed programs collapsed with the 2008-2009 financial collapse, only hitting all of higher education, and the real-estate markets buoyed by universities, and the communities and industries supporting higher-education generally.
And it could happen with the stroke of a pen -- the federal government just cancels direct and subsidized loan programs.
>They're also guaranteed by the federal government, which has seemingly infinite resources.
IMO That resource is GDP. If American's can't find meaningful work that has financial value not just domestically, but internationally, we'll see how much of that resource is left after a few decades. Or more accurately, we'll see a VERY tiny percentage of Americans with vast wealth and the majority struggling for subsistence because the government has essentially been deactivated due to lack of funds.
If America runs out of money, they will just print more. If their creditors call out their loans, America is very happy to pay them off: in US dollars.
Student loan debt isn't dischargeable in bankruptcy, but their are income based repayment plans.
You can pay back either 10% of your discretionary income, for 20 years and then the remaining balanced is forgiven (if a balance remains).
Discretionary income is defined as the difference between your income and 150% of the federal poverty level.
If you have 200k in student loans, but only make 30k a year because you can't find a job better than starbucks, you'll only pay about $100 a month. If you have a spouse and a kid, you'll pay nothing.
*note these number depend on when you borrowed. Older loans have to pay 15% for 25 years instead of 10% for 20 years.
> You can pay back either 10% of your discretionary income, for 20 years and then the remaining balanced is forgiven (if a balance remains).
For federal subsidized loans, forgiveness of loans means that it comes out of taxpayer money.
For people talking about student loans as a bubble and wondering when it will pop and what that will look like, this is the most likely mechanism for that to happen.
This is a really serious principal-agent problem, because schools have only indirect incentives (at best) to make sure that their graduates are employed at rates which allow them to pay back those loans in full. On the other hand, the federal government is essentially incapable of denying people these loans as long as they meet the financial criteria.
In that light, it's not hard to see how tuitions have spiked, and student debt along with it. Schools are essentially incentivized to take out massive loans against their students, which amounts to another source of public funding for universities.
I really need to look into this then, some months I make $0 and last year my total income was below the income tax threshold, yet I'm still paying some $50 minimum monthly on my staffords.
Not to discount the severity of the student loan problem, but the market is really not large enough to cause the next big crash. For some perspective, pre-crisis mortgage debt was almost two-thirds of GDP whereas student loans are still a much smaller portion. Mortgages on hugely inflated home prices also sucked up a huge portion of incomes in 2007. Add in the systemic infection of credit default swaps and junk mortgage-backed securities on Wall Street and you had the Crash. Hopefully we'll wisen up well before student loans get to that point.
Student debt has been thought to be the next crash, but I'm not sure how unless the laws change. It's not dischargable in bankruptcy so it's not like you can walk away.
It's the next crash through a different vector - if the loans aren't dischargable, a large portion of the the economic activity that young people normally generate as they grow along their career path is now siphoned off to repaying loans. That's a low value use of the money to the rest of the economy. Maybe it doesn't end in a dramatic crash but an economic stagnation for as long as inflation is low (inflation being a side channel way of devaluing those loans...).
We can already see this in the US economy. Millenials are largely putting off traditional milestones like marriage, car ownership, having children, saving for retirement (or saving at all) and home ownership for lack of capital.
These are pretty major drivers of consumption, but think about the second order effects: fewer home pools being built, fewer new auto parts needed, fewer childrens clothes being bought, fewer weddings to need DJs, etc. There's quite a bit of fallout there, and it's going to be hard to pin John and Son's pool construction company going tits up on student loan debt slowing the economy, even if it's the case.
Student loan debt won't create a crash, it has just been an enormous brake on the US economy for almost a decade now and we've grown so used to its effects that we don't really notice it anymore.
Imagine how many young people would start a company or take a risky-but-educational job except that they need the liquidity and stability to make a student loan payment every month? You could get living expenses close to zero by living with your parents for a while, but student loan payments require you to have some cash coming from somewhere each month.
>You could get living expenses close to zero by living with your parents for a while, but student loan payments require you to have some cash coming from somewhere each month.
Not with federal student loans. They have income based repayment plans. If you have no income, you don't pay. After 20 years the debt is forgiven.
Unfortunately the cap on maximum borrowing with federal student loans is quite low compared to the total cost of many colleges, so there's lots of private loans that come due six months after graduation and don't really care what your income level is -- they just want to be paid.
That's true. But of the total student loan debt of $1.2 trillion, and $1 trillion is federal student loan debt. Private loans are a comparatively small problem.
WOW, thank you for posting this. That is astounding and I had no idea it was that magnitude when I wrote my previous post. If anyone wants a source, the $1 trillion number is from the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau[1] and CFPB has even made available a detailed breakdown of the federal government's student loan portfolios[2]
For federal loans (private loans are hard to get these days) the law is actually very reasonable.
You pay 10% of your (Income - 150% of poverty level). That's less than 10% of your income. And nearly zero for a lot of people. You pay it for 20 years and they wipe out the debt.
One huge problem is that people don't sign up for this system or instead just default. It's shocking that so many college graduates are sticking their head in the sand. It's a simple process. I've done it twice.
Eventually, creditors might write it off, but the borrower would be liable if they ever return to the US.
Also, given how annoying it is for international banks to work with US expats, I can't imagine they would look past that kind of dent in credit history.
Every time I read about living off the grid, I think about Ted Carns. He's done incredible things in off-grid living. If you've never heard of him, check out this documentary:
Going with the native Canvas API is where I'm heading. I've used RaphaelJS in the past. This week I've tested out PaperJS and FabricJS. I'm trying to save some time and code manageability with a framework.
If you loved RaphaelJS you'll probably like Snap.svg [1] aswell. It's originally authored by Dmitry Baranovskiy (Raphael's author) and sponsored by Adobe.
If I had the spare cash for 2 cams, I'd set them up on my motorcycle for insurance purposes. I've heard too many stories about motorcyclists getting hit and being blamed for the accidents. Or even worse, hit and runs. In the age of cell phones, distracted driving is the norm. I almost get hit by someone almost weekly. I really need some cameras soon :(
Depending how long you ride for and how frequently, and if it's just for backup purposes, you could potentially use the Spy Gear Panosphere with a large MicroSD card.
I have two of them and while the native recording is very fish-eye, the software that comes with the unit functions fine in focusing on a specific point.
With a 32 GB card and full charge, I think I've gotten about 45 minutes of recording. Might not be good for daily use, but for recreational outings it might be usable with some customization (e.g. super glue a mount to it). I've got one mounted on a swivel clip from a clip-on guitar tuner that broke and it's been a neat tool.
You're correct that it's not a true HD unit. It doesn't do well in low light either. I think if mounted in the right place though, it could potentially get that info in one of the frames.
I like the Replay cameras, you can set them to overwrite old files, and to turn on and start recording on external power. So basically I just had to plug it in every time I went out on the bike, and then unplug it when I was done.
Unfortunately after about 2 years the plug on my XD1080 stopped working so I can't reliably charge it :/ I'll probably replace it with the Prime X when my budget allows.
I know a few people who use Mobius cameras or newer mini-cams on their helmets. They usually have some sort of snap-on or strap to hold them in place but also allow for removal if you get caught in the rain.
Lower profile than strapping a GoPro to your head and cheaper too.
That's a pretty generic canned response. While I'm interested in your "proprietary technologies," I'm more interested in how you plan on physically buying the tickets. Are there APIs for purchasing lotto tickets? Good luck.
