I am a programmer who has spent the last three years prototyping, studying, and thinking about what software we need.
There is a lot of software that is just now becoming possible to build and I have been extremely excited to be exploring just some of those possibilities. One thing that has challenged me has been trying to determine which projects are the most important, so that I could focus my effort on them. Additionally, running at the scale required (~350 million people in the US and ~8 billion people worldwide [though only about half currently have Internet access]) presents many challenges that do not have many well-known solutions. Much of my last year-and-a-half has been spent searching, finding, researching, and creating tools that might allow the software I have been envisioning to be created and distributed.
At the top of my list of must have software is a publicly-owned, -built, -supported, and -maintained database of everything our leaders have ever said or done that has been recorded. The database will be web-accessible, so that anyone can quickly and easily access and search the entire known-history of a politician. Using technologies that have just become available to the web, anyone will be able to contribute live audio and/or video streams to the database as well.
There is a lot to think about with this project and I look forward to having many discussions about it. Ask me anything!
~~Edit: my comment votes and replies have been rate limited since starting this AMA. My apologies if I don't get a timely response to you, it is only because I can't :/~~
Edit2: I've been able to make some more responses ~~(though I cannot vote on comments for ~23 more hours apparently)~~. If I'm not responding to you, there is a good chance it is because I am rate limited and waiting to be able to submit my response.
~~Edit3: I'm going to try to get some sleep. I'll be back when I'm up!~~
Edit4: I'm back and responding~~, but rate-limited again~~. I will get to your question soon!
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[–] jsprogrammer [S] ago
Duplicates should be logged and available. I want to organize all of the media into a timeline, so that you can just watch straight through. If there are multiple recordings, they should be time-synced and made available for anyone to watch.
I think that much of the database will need to be human-curated, at least for awhile. Having limited editing access (mods/admins) is probably the most practical way to start, but I would want to rapidly move to a system where anyone can contribute. Of course, that likely means solving spam issues.
[–] [deleted] ago
[–] jsprogrammer [S] ago
I think this is something that should be "invested" in by the public at large. I don't think it should be "owned" by anyone, in-as-much-as that is possible.
I have considered crowd-funding through sites like Kickstarter or Indie-go-go. I have also considered just putting up a first version and asking for donations. Currently though, all my work is being self-funded through my prior earnings and my wife's income. I have also been working on products (not completely related to this one) that I could sell commercially (though, I'd rather just give them away for free than have to build out the machinery to process payments and enable features for users).