As I previously blogged, the UN was facing a severe budget crisis in July because the General Assembly’s budget committee was holding up re-authorizing funding for the second quarter of 2006 until various management reforms were instituted. This despite significant progress at the UN on a range of upgrades to their management structure and processes,…
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My hometown of Pleasanton gets municipal wifi!
Just got a cool bit of news from my hometown of Pleasanton, California, a southeastern suburb of San Francisco. Insidebayarea.com is reporting that Pleasanton is setting up free public wifi nodes in the downtown area of the city. Initially the idea was explored to provide police officers internet access while patrolling downtown public areas. But…
“So what do you do?”: Finding my place in Second Life
I have been involved in a number of real and virtual communities, from my local Quaker church to the discussion board I administer for swing dance fanatics. After getting past the initial honeymoon phase of getting to know a community, figuring out how it is organized and who does what, you eventually come to the…
My crazy cat house
My girlfriend is off to Italy for a month (so jealous), so I have taken aboard her two cats Geisha (the toirtoise hair) and Vespa (the grey one). We were a bit worried about how they would react to (1) being in a new and much much larger apartment and (2) having to share it…
Black Eyed Peas and Snickers team up to fight corporate hip-hop?
Ok, this is way strange. The hip-hop/pop group the Black Eyed Peas have teamed up with the candy bar Snickers for a web-based action series in which they star as super-heroes who fight against the corporatization of hip-hop. Got all that? Called “Instant Def”, only the trailer and the first episode of the series are…
UN Launches online consultation on “System Coherence”
I just got a notice from the UN Non-governmental Liaison Service that the United Nations has launched an online consultation with civil society organizations as part of a larger effort to increase “system-wide coherence” of the UN’s activities in the areas of development, humanitarian assistance and the environment. The Secretary General earlier this year established…
“God Save the Internet” rock anthem!
Here’s some great monday morning music provided by the Save the Internet coalition, entitled “God Save the Internet.” The folk-rocky song, available as a free download, is performed by “The Broadband” (get it!), which is Kay Hanley, Jill Sobule, and Michelle Lewis with a “special guest appearance” by Michelle’s mom, Annette, who “possesses a freakishly…
SMS from starving Somali
Lots of UN techie news in the past days, I am just starting to catch up now. The UN World Food Programme issued a press release about a Somali refugee in Kenya who sent a text message to the London office of the WFP. The message was: My name is Mohammed Sokor, writing to you…
UNHCR launches online campaign for nine million refugee kids
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, in partnership with Nike and Microsoft, has launched a new website ninemillion.org as an appeal to help the estimated nine million refugee children around the world. The objectives of the campaign are to: raise awareness about refugee children and youth raise funds for education and sport programs for refugee…
SL residents protest new reg policies – film at 11
Not a great showing for Second Life on their 3rd anniversary today — what with Snapzilla being closed, “database problems” causing people to not be able to log-in or getting knocked off repeatedly, and in-world protestors complaining about the new registration policies. 3pointD.com pointed me to a cool video done by SL machinima filmmaker Pierce…