Monday Links: December 22nd, 2008

A few links for you this morning.  I put a little cinnamon and nutmeg in my coffee grinder with the coffee beans this morning, so I’m fired up and ready to go.  For those of you who are already on vacation…well, have pity on the rest of us.  Links!

  • Duke Energy is facing a Renewable Energy and Efficiency Portfolio standard in NC that mandates 12.5% renewable energy in utilities’ portfolios by 2021.  The law is finally pushing Duke to explore creative power generation:

The energy company is proposing to invest $50 million over a two-year period in as many as 425 solar energy arrays atop the rooftops of homes, schools, stores and factories — or on the ground at those properties — to establish a solar distributed generation program. [...]

Under the arrangement, the utility company would install, own, operate and maintain all equipment related to the solar array. The company, rather than the home- or property owner, would also use and own the electricity produced. The customer receives the rent paid for using the rooftop or land, and the compensation is based on the size of the installation.

  • Here’s a compelling new ad from WeCanSolveIt (Al Gore’s effort).  TreeHugger quotes Van Jones: “The main piece of technology in the green economy is a caulk gun.”

<a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=DWyyPiJNh8c">http://youtube.com/watch?v=DWyyPiJNh8c</a>

  • The Federal government is a huge publisher of information (or, at least, it SHOULD be), but any student of policy or engaged citizen knows what a hassle it can be to search for information on agency websites.  A group of cabinet-agency web directors (the Federal Web Managers Council) put together a white paper on online government that many expect the President-elect’s transition team to embrace; after all, during campaign season Obama’s team seemed to really get this stuff.  Included in the report [PDF here] is this crucial piece (emphasis mine):

One of the biggest problems we face in improving government websites is that many agencies still view their website as an IT project rather than as a core business function. Many government websites lack a dedicated budget. Only a minority of agencies have developed strong web policies and management controls. Some have hundreds of “legacy” websites with outdated or irrelevant content. With limited resources, many find it difficult to solicit regular customer input and take quick action to improve their sites. While there are many effective government websites, most web teams are struggling to manage the amount of online content the government produces every day. [...]

Agencies should be required to appoint an editor-in-chief for every website they maintain, as do the top commercial websites. This person should be given appropriate funding and authority to
develop and enforce web policies and publishing standards, including ensuring that prime real estate on government websites is dedicated to helping people find the information they need.

More from techPresident here; as they write:

Running this gargantuan online network means empowering a vast cadre of managers to do their work – it means giving them the power to make decisions about email and social media, for example. In theory, the Obama apparatus should be great at this. After all, the President-Elect’s operation maintained a keen top-down message throughout the campaign, even while allowing volunteer coordinators to do their thing without running every dash and and RSS feed past the campaign minders.

  • The Year in Pictures from the Boston Globe photographers is a great wya to spend 10 minutes [Hat Tip: Jarred].
  • I’m hoping to do some long-overdue music blogging over the holidays.  I re-discovered one of my favorite MP3 blogs this weekend while cleaning out my Firefox bookmarks.  I followed a number of MP3 blogs a few years ago…this one is apparently one of the few that’s still kicking.  Check out the author’s top-25 songs of 2008.  I particularly recommend the Anathallo song, which I’ve been listening to on repeat for about 2 weeks.  You can also connect with me and Jarred on our favorite music site–Lala.
If you enjoyed this post, you might also like:

- "Change.gov Goes Live", posted by Jarred on November 6, 2008

- "Transparent and Responsive Governance", posted by Taylor on July 28, 2008

- "It’s The Technology, Stupid!", posted by Jarred on January 27, 2009

- "Greetings from Texas", posted by Taylor on July 18, 2008

- "Tropophy Winner of the Week: Google.org", posted by Taylor on January 18, 2008

  • Ashish
    Slight revision...I should have said: "It looks like the movie will have some new characters and Hugh Jackman will get a chance to fillet various baddies, but it seems like we're gradually lowering our standards if all it takes for an action blockbuster to fill the seats is a familiar premise and a little kiss-kiss-bang-bang panache."

    Also, it occurs to me that the point about action movies keeping actors in crowd-pleasing but none too bold roles works more-or-less symetrically for screwball/romantic comedies and actresses. Take Anne Hathaway. She's shown flashes of brilliance, most notably in Brokeback Mountain and this year's Rachel Getting Married. But she's following up on her latest succcess with...Bride Wars.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdHJnPC_Uvo
  • Ashish
    Last spring, Ross Douthat wrote: "Let me clarify, then: My problem is not with the existence of superhero movies, but with their proliferation, which the success - both artistic and commercial - of Iron Man is likely to further dramatically. I love genre films as much as the next cultural populist, but it's possible to have too much of a given genre even when the movies in question are good. And having Iron Man and The Dark Knight and The Incredible Hulk (did we really need another one so soon?) as summer tentpoles, with quasi-superhero movies like Hancock and Hellboy 2 thrown in, feels to me like the equivalent of having three James Bond movies coming out at more or less the same time. Or, more aptly - since superhero films are more dissimilar from one another than than Bond movies are - it's like having a Narnia movie and a Lord of the Rings movie and, say, an Ursula K. Le Guin adaptation all being released in the same movie season, with countless more adaptations of lesser fantasy works in the pipeline for the next few years. Which is to say, it feels like too much of a good thing even if all the movies turn out to be good (which they won't), and I'd like to see some of the talent involved turn their attention to other genres for a while."

    http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/200...

    That X-Men trailer made me think much the same thing. It looks like the movie will have some new characters and Hugh Jackman will get a chance to fillet various baddies, but it seems like we're gradually lowering our standards if all it takes for an action blockbuster to fill the seats is familiar characters and a little kiss-kiss-bang-bang panache.

    2007 was a phenomenal year for movies. No Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood, The Lives of Others, The Assasination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days will all stand the test time as classics. But I think most people agree that 2008 was fairly lackluster. Now, would things have turned out differently if Edward Norton, Daniel Craig, etc. had tried on more ambitious, psychologically realistic roles? Maybe, maybe not. But I would much rather see a film that tries to stir my heart and fails than one that shoots for the title of Most Indecipherable Fight Scenes and succeeds.
  • Taylor
    Agree, and I'll reserve judgment until I see it. I'm also planning to watch Ironman this week (finally), which received almost universal praise. But I would push back a little when you say:

    "I would much rather see a film that tries to stir my heart and fails than one that shoots for the title of Most Indecipherable Fight Scenes and succeeds."

    I think part of why these movies succeed is that it's always going to be more entertaining to watch Quantum of Solace--piss-poor as it was--than a movie that "tries to stir your heart" but falls flat on its face. I would wholeheartedly agree that successful heart-stirring movies beat the hell out of even good superhero films, but the fact is that it's simply easier for studios and actors to make sub-par superhero movies profitably. I'm not defending this practice so much as understanding it: when a critically acclaimed, brilliant drama still plummets at the box office, we wind up with another Hulk movie.
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