Blogs

Over the last few years the Washington State government has been decreasing the funding to services and the safety net for the state's most vulnerable populations. The rural poor, like my mother, are getting the worst of it. In the midst of cuts that directly hit the pockets of people who rely on Social Security, Food Stamps and Medicare, the quality of the food provided through the commodities program and other nutrition programs has deteriorated. In Whitman county, local growers and grocery store chains have stepped in to try to correct these wrongs, but they can't do it alone.

Sometimes people ask me how it is, with my history and the things I've been through, I seem to be so "sane". This is funny, because there are plenty of people who think that I'm anything other than "sane" and my closest friends often say things like, "The thing about you is that your insanity is what makes you so sane." Yeah. That about sums it up.

But, really, I guess I'm pretty lucky in that despite the fact that I have some crazy struggles in my life, I do seem to make it through OK and I'm generally pretty healthy both mentally and physically. There are two secrets to this.

Sometime in the next few hours my 509 area code phone number will stop working. You can still reach me at my 425 area code phone number.

If you do not have my 425 area code phone number and think that you should have it, email me. My gmail username is lishevita.

I just got back home from a nice walk in downtown Berkeley. While I was out, I popped into a little shop called A Priori on Vine street between Shattuck and Walnut. While I was in there, I had a really nice chat with Amy, the manager. The conversation left me both a little bit sad and a lot a bit excited, though.

Most of what I write on this blog is about technology or education, but what a lot of people don't know is that my formal education is not in Computer Science at all. My area of study at UC Berkeley was "Migration Studies" in the Interdisciplinary Studies Field major. And who's migration was I studying? Sefardi Jews in the Americas.

There are a great many applications coming out these days that are a type of reference book replacement and are designed so that you have to be connected to the Internet in order to use them. If you want access to information, you had better be connected to the magical cloud. I have a big problem with that, and no one I've worked with in recent years seems to understand why. Apparently, the digital elite think that everyone has constant access to the Internet, and therefore, there is no need to produce applications that have everything needed packaged in local storage.

To do a hard reset, turn off your NookColor. Then, hold down the Home Nook button and then press the power button at the same time until your machine powers back up and gives you a choice to reset your nook. Power button will cancel it and the Nook home button at the bottom will continue with the reset. Confirm it and it will take a couple minutes and your machine will be back to square one.

edited from: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=9568755&postcount=4

That reset will clean out all your data, but it will not fix a messed up operating system.

FastCompany asks how you would spend $100million to really save education. I have an answer, but it is unlikely to happen unless I become rich someday and can put this idea into practice. I'd start out with a pilot program that put education back where it belongs, in the center of family life. I'd do that while helping poor families to rise up out of poverty, educate themselves, and build their communities.

Google has launched a worldwide science fair for kids between the ages of 13 and 18. You can enter from anywhere in the world, as long as you have an internet connection and your parent or guardian's permission. I can tell you all about it, but Google's already produced a video, so I don't have to.