Boston Programmers Join International Push for Open Government Data

March 15, 2013 in Geek, Science & Environment, Writing

Originally published in Open Media Boston by Tate Williams (Staff), Feb-26-13

BOSTON - Hidden within the endless bytes of government data is information on everything from how corporations are influencing the votes of politicians, down to when the next bus will arrive.

But even if governments make data available to the public in a clear and accessible way (which is often not the case), there is still a mountain of information to process that, for citizens and government staff alike, is often far too much to approach in a useful way.

That’s the problem that Open Data Day—an annual event of more than 100 affiliated hackathons around the world that took place over the weekend, including one in Boston—hopes to tackle.

For some older immigrants, 'the Internet is everything'

May 21, 2012 in Science & Environment, Writing

There’s a growing body of evidence that the Internet can be an empowering tool for marginalized populations, and a recent study tells some striking stories of how it’s been used by one uniquely isolated community.

In the early 1990s, when Gorbachev reopened the borders of the declining Soviet Union, many thousands of Russian Jews fled to Israel, where there were no restrictions against Jewish immigration.

Online daters lie on their profiles, but their hearts are in the right place

March 05, 2012 in Science & Environment, Writing

When singles sit down to create their profiles on Match.com or OkCupid, they have but a mouse and keyboard to answer a philosophically weighty question — Who am I? Not only that, but why would someone else love me? They have to capture who they really are in a way that is most attractive, but won't disappoint upon flesh-and-blood scrutiny.