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Black Star (Mos Def & Talib Kweli) - “Definition”
How the hell is this already 9 years old? Couldn’t sound fresher.
Man. This really gets my goat.
I have always had an interest in accessibility of technology by people who are differently abled, but i usually concentrated on seniors and children. It never occurred to me the challenges that a deaf person would have interacting with mobile phones and all that (I mean - i was aware that such challenges existed, i just never interacted directly with someone who had experience). About 6-8 months ago i met this guy Brendan at a conference. He had a sidekick, was deaf and was talking the shit out of some peeps on the sidekick. He showed me how he used an IPrelay to talk to peeps on phones. It was neat, impressive and probably an unexpected side effect of having such a message centric device.
We talked a bunch about how the sidekick + iprelay is awesome. And eventually we talked about the upcoming iphone release. He was super excited - because apple has been so friendly to the Deaf Community, and the promises of a messaging centric Apple handheld telecommunications device was quite alluring. The deaf community was abuzz with talk about the upcoming phone and whether or not it would break the reign of the sidekick as being the best device for deaf folks.
There was quite a bit of hype, talk, and various posts on deafmac.org about the iphone. This is where i started to pay attention. It was obvious that the deaf community was dealing with a different beast. Apple had closed the iphone - pretty much making it lamer than it had to be. They didn’t ship with a lot of the functionality that could have made it a dream machine for the deaf community. But people like Brenden kept at it - not giving up and dealing with the nuances of having an always on the web device.
One of the things i discovered while talking about all this nonesense is that the carriers usually offer a plan that is data/messaging centric with very little concentration on a voice for their deaf consumers. This seemed awesome. But AT&T didn’t offer such a plan for the iphone. And now they are officially saying that they don’t plan on ever offering one. You can read more about this over at TUAW.
It seemed that their reasoning was that “it wasn’t fair to the non deaf community.” How annoying. The Deaf users of the iPhone have to pay for a number of unused voice minutes that they probably won’t use just to get the messaging platform they need. AT&T seems to think that the people who are using this data only plan are not the Deaf community members, but randoms who just want to use it as a internet device.
Well, shouldn’t this tell AT&T something? I mean - instead of alienating a group of people who just want to use the iphone as it was meant to be used: a communicator - shouldn’t AT&T realize (like tmobile did with the sidekick) that the iphone is more than a phone and that people WANT to use it however they want?
It just kills me when i hear stuff like this. AT&T is at the top of the market. But i hope that moves like this reverberate through their consumers and drop them a bit. Especially with Verizon opening it’s network and Google’s Andriod - maybe consumers (and consumers with different needs) will be able to get a device which suits them and doesn’t cost them more than it should.
insane
iphone
verizon
google
deaf
General
accessibility
at&t
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Families, and not the creative class, good for the growth of urban centers
Despite local spin characterizing the work of 3CDC as a great move to revitalize Cincinnati by appealing to the “creative class,” studies show that families are what attract real economic growth. In a new column at The Wall Street Journal entitled ”The Rise of Family-Friendly Cities,” Joel Kotkin outlines the failure of the creative class to inspire real growth—placing Cincinnati at the top of the list for cities that have failed to pursue appropriate development strategies.
From the piece:
For much of the past decade, business recruiters, cities and urban developers have focused on the “young and restless,” the “creative class,” and the so-called “yuspie"--the young urban single professional. Cities, they’ve said, should capture this so-called “dream demographic” if they wish to inhabit the top tiers of the economic food chain and enjoy the fastest and most sustained growth.
This focus--epitomized by Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s risible “Cool Cities” initiative--is less successful than advertised. Cincinnati, Baltimore, Cleveland, Newark, Detroit and Memphis have danced to the tune of the hip and the cool, yet largely remain wallflowers in terms of economic and demographic growth. Instead, an analysis of migration data by my colleagues at the Praxis Strategy Group shows that the strongest job growth has consistently taken place in those regions--such as Houston, Dallas, Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham--with the largest net in-migration of young, educated families ranging from their mid-20s to mid-40s.
Urban centers that have been traditional favorites for young singles, such as Chicago, Boston, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, have experienced below-average job and population growth since 2000. San Francisco and Chicago lost population during that period; even immigrant-rich New York City and Los Angeles County have shown barely negligible population growth in the last two years, largely due to a major out-migration of middle class families.
Married people with children tend to be both successful and motivated, precisely the people who make economies go. They are twice as likely to be in the top 20% of income earners, according to the Census, and their incomes have been rising considerably faster than the national average.
Indeed, if you talk with recruiters and developers in the nation’s fastest growing regions, you find that the critical ability to lure skilled workers, long term, lies not with bright lights and nightclubs, but with ample economic opportunities, affordable housing and family friendly communities not too distant from work. “People who come here tend to be people who have long commutes elsewhere, and who have young children,” notes Pat Riley, president of Alan Tate company, a large residential brokerage in Charlotte, N.C. “They want to be somewhere where they don’t miss their kids growing up because there’s no time.”
There is a basic truth about the geography of young, educated people. They may first migrate to cities like New York, Los Angeles, Boston or San Francisco. But they tend to flee when they enter their child-rearing years. Family-friendly metropolitan regions have seen the biggest net gains of professionals, largely because they not only attract workers, but they also retain them through their 30s and 40s.
For all the talk we hear about having even more condos in OTR, with a $5 million dollar gift to 3CDC from a City with a budget crisis, the fact remains that Cincinnati is earning a national reputation as a failure.
Looks like the creative class is not all they think they are cracked up to be.
(Hat-tip to Michael Earl Patton)
Cincinnati, Cincinnati Blog, Life, Political Blog, Poli
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Families, and not the creative class, good for the growth of urban centers
Despite local spin characterizing the work of 3CDC as a great move to revitalize Cincinnati by appealing to the “creative class,” studies show that families are what attract real economic growth. In a new column at The Wall Street Journal entitled ”The Rise of Family-Friendly Cities,” Joel Kotkin outlines the failure of the creative class to inspire real growth—placing Cincinnati at the top of the list for cities that have failed to pursue appropriate development strategies.
From the piece:
For much of the past decade, business recruiters, cities and urban developers have focused on the “young and restless,” the “creative class,” and the so-called “yuspie"--the young urban single professional. Cities, they’ve said, should capture this so-called “dream demographic” if they wish to inhabit the top tiers of the economic food chain and enjoy the fastest and most sustained growth.
This focus--epitomized by Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s risible “Cool Cities” initiative--is less successful than advertised. Cincinnati, Baltimore, Cleveland, Newark, Detroit and Memphis have danced to the tune of the hip and the cool, yet largely remain wallflowers in terms of economic and demographic growth. Instead, an analysis of migration data by my colleagues at the Praxis Strategy Group shows that the strongest job growth has consistently taken place in those regions--such as Houston, Dallas, Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham--with the largest net in-migration of young, educated families ranging from their mid-20s to mid-40s.
Urban centers that have been traditional favorites for young singles, such as Chicago, Boston, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, have experienced below-average job and population growth since 2000. San Francisco and Chicago lost population during that period; even immigrant-rich New York City and Los Angeles County have shown barely negligible population growth in the last two years, largely due to a major out-migration of middle class families.
Married people with children tend to be both successful and motivated, precisely the people who make economies go. They are twice as likely to be in the top 20% of income earners, according to the Census, and their incomes have been rising considerably faster than the national average.
Indeed, if you talk with recruiters and developers in the nation’s fastest growing regions, you find that the critical ability to lure skilled workers, long term, lies not with bright lights and nightclubs, but with ample economic opportunities, affordable housing and family friendly communities not too distant from work. “People who come here tend to be people who have long commutes elsewhere, and who have young children,” notes Pat Riley, president of Alan Tate company, a large residential brokerage in Charlotte, N.C. “They want to be somewhere where they don’t miss their kids growing up because there’s no time.”
There is a basic truth about the geography of young, educated people. They may first migrate to cities like New York, Los Angeles, Boston or San Francisco. But they tend to flee when they enter their child-rearing years. Family-friendly metropolitan regions have seen the biggest net gains of professionals, largely because they not only attract workers, but they also retain them through their 30s and 40s.
For all the talk we hear about having even more condos in OTR, with a $5 million dollar gift to 3CDC from a City with a budget crisis, the fact remains that Cincinnati is earning a national reputation as a failure.
Looks like the creative class is not all they think they are cracked up to be.
(Hat-tip to Michael Earl Patton)
Cincinnati, Cincinnati Blog, Life, Political Blog, Poli
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It's time to finally wake up from your week long turkey coma. This weekend, the Christmas season kicks off in Northside and OTR with two shop local events.
First up, Northside's Holiday Art Sale this Saturday, December 1 from 11am-5pm. Photographs, pottery, holiday cards, jewelry, paintings and other artsy stuff from over a dozen local artisits will be on sale. The event will be held at Off the Avenue Studios - 1546 Knowlton St (which is behind the National City Bank in NSide).
Also Saturday is OTR's Christkindlmarkt on Main St - a take on the German holiday street markets. Check out not only some great independant shops along Main, but holiday entertainers on the street, and Architreks tour (2pm at Kaldis), bar/restaurant specials and... wait for it... the official launch of Christian Moerlein's Christkindl Ale at several Main St. bars. Noon - 8:30pm.
So get off your duff and get some truly unique gifts this weekend.
And Nassar wasn't shy about his intent:As soon as Nassar gave the man the money, he ran out the door and east on Ninth Street. When the robber took off, Nassar said he reached behind the counter, grabbed the .22-caliber handgun he keeps there and ran to the front door, opened it and started shooting, getting off five shots.
"How I missed him I don't know," Nassar said. "If I (would have) crossed the street, I would have killed him." Police heard the shots and responded. They weren't too thrilled about Nassar shooting his gun on a downtown street in an area across the street from a school.
Nassar said he gave the robber $400 – and then grabbed his gun and followed him out the door. That’s when Nassar said he fired his .22-caliber handgun at the fleeing robber. “I meant to kill the dude,” Nassar said minutes after the Nov. 12 robbery.
