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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[–] [deleted] ago
[–] jsprogrammer [S] ago
This course has already been run through. After speaking with them twice about it, I told them I would bang on the ceiling a bit when they were being loud so that they would better know what activities cause the noise. I was told this was a "good idea" by them.
I did this (bang on the ceiling) approximately 5 times over the course of two weeks (almost all of them two weeks after they said it was a "good idea"), but then received a knock on my door by their visiting in-laws (wife's sister and husband) who were irate that I would bang on the ceiling. They accused me of banging 7+ times that morning, told me that their sister/in-law was up there with enormous anxiety about whether any sound they made would result in me banging on their floor. I was told that if I was in New York, where they live (we are in California), that if I tried to "call anybody" about the problem that I would just be laughed at. I told them that they should stay in my apartment for the rest of the day to hear what I have to hear everyday. They declined. I had a ~45 minute conversation where they would deny what was going on ("no one is up their running"), wouldn't listen to what I had to say (at one point I asked, "what did I just say?" after they told me they were listening to me...they then repeated, verbatim, that last thing they had said, and couldn't remember the very last thing I said to them), but eventually, admitted, "yeah, they just have a kid up there running around all day, remember that when you have kids" after the conversation finally became a bit more friendly as they realized they had made a lot of unfounded assumptions (having never been in the apartment or having met me before). They were very adamant about my "stopping the banging", so I agreed to stop. They said we needed some "compromise", but I told them the only solutions are we either move out, or they stop making noise, either by moving out, or just, you know, not running and jumping on the floor of their apartment. I was told, "they take their daughter outside three times a day, just for you!", in the same way I have heard people talk about taking their dogs out for a walk and to relieve themselves. Sorry, for the rant, but this is the situation (though, I have not explained every detail here...).
[–] [deleted] 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago