I got interested in civic coding because of the essays by Tim O'Reilly. When I was running the Code Michigan hackathon for a couple of years with the State Of Michigan I tried getting him as a speaker with no luck.
I'd like to be able to search if any of my content made the list. Also search the entire stack for stuff not likely to rise high enough for its own category but definitely in there, like less popular languages to see what people are saying. I check HN every couple of hours all day long but its amazing the stuff that you can miss.
Local here. Downtown Lansing, just off Michigan Avenue has the R.E. Olds Transportation museum. My late father was involved with the museum as a volunteer. Lots of rare Oldsmobile's including one of the first cars he produced known as the "curved dash" from 1901. Note Olds invented the modern assembly line, not Henry Ford. Though to be fair Ford and his chief engineer C. Harold Wills perfected the car assembly line we know of today.
Right next door is the Impression 5 science museum. While it is aimed at children I've always found it fascinating and it is hands on. Unlike most science museums with which I am familiar they keep building new exhibits.
If you are into history the Michigan History Museum is just South of the Capital. They have an original copy of our state constitution on display. They also got a copy of every computer the state has purchased. Last time I was there they had a room full of old computers. So if you've never seen a Next cube, an Osborne portable, first Compaq portable or an Apple Lisa they are all on display in working order.
Lastly if you enjoy art visit the Broad Art Museum on the North end of the Michigan State University campus. The building is striking looking and was featured in one of the Batman movies. It is one of the few buildings in America designed by the late Pulitzer prize winning British architect Zaha Hadid.
Over a hundred years before the database was invented this guy created it manually from ships logs and the data within proved magical. But years later he chose the wrong side in the civil war and isn't as well known as he probably should be.
We have an excellent library in East Lansing. My sister and I went there every week with our late Mother when we were kids. I was in there recently at an AI meeting and I noticed that it was changing into a bit of a community hub as well.
Wouldn't have ever thought of it as a meeting place for user groups but they are starting to actively encourage it. I saw it as a very positive development. During COVID they advertised that anyone could use their parking lot for the free Wi-Fi. They must have had the coverage cause the rather large parking lot was packed. They must have tuned it because I sure can't get coverage in most of the parking lots of the fast food franchises where most of their customers these days only use drive-thru.
I did not know this back story. The script was so good it called into question for me was why it was ever rejected for the stage. Movies has been repurposed for Broadway.
So I did a little searching and found in the nineties it was in the planning stages. The play ran on London's West End for only six short weeks and the Broadway producers abandoned the idea. Maybe the couple did not realize they were not writing a play but a movie script instead?
For years the holy grail has been for corn to produce its own nitrogen. This could be a small step in the right direction. Interested to see what happens when some of the great American agricultural schools further this experiment.
Putting aside the cultural imperialism (this happened in Ireland, which is in Europe, which is also where two of the greatest agricultural schools in the world, if not also the two greatest for this, are based), it also happened over a decade ago, so I guess everyone has tried furthering it by now.
I read the article and know the discovery was made in Ireland. This is how science is supposed to work. Is it 'cultural imperialism' if American universities build on the work of these Irish girls? Science would move a lot slower if a countries scientists all had to operate in national silos.
I am a journalism grad and 25 years ago the local press would investigate all candidates and this would have been discovered long before the primary. Now it is left to the independent journalists who lack the resources but are punching way above their weight. She isn't likely to win as this is a solid Democratic district. Because she stood little chance of winning even the state party didn't investigate her background either.
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