Jan 18, 2012
Ex-Post Social Discount Rates
When performing ex post analysis for net social benefits, there is surprisingly little guidance on the matter of selecting a social discount rate. This is remarkable given the handwringing by the Office…
Blog
Archive page 62 of 73
Jan 10, 2012
Talk on the NFIP at the Graduate Research Symposium
I will be presenting on the National Flood Insurance Program at the William and Mary Graduate Research Symposium in March. The abstract of the talk is: The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP)…
Jan 5, 2012
Touchscreen HCI Disorder
It isn't listed in the DSM yet, but I think I have a condition I am calling Touchscreen HCI Disorder. The cause is using too many touchscreen devices. The symptom is assuming…
Jan 4, 2012
Recoding County-Level Data
This evening I finished recoding a list of grants from FEMA for Flood Mitigation Assistance. This dataset contains 2108 entries, and contains the following columns, among others: State County Subgrantee ---------- -----------…
Jul 21, 2011
A RESTful interface for MD5 hashes
Or not quite. I had a need to generate MD5 hashes inside a Google Spreadsheet, but Google does not include an MD5 function (and neither does OpenOffice.org). Google does, however, support a…
Mar 23, 2011
The MacOS X open(1) Command
MacOS X provides a commnad line tool to open applications and files. MacOS X applications are actually collections of files residing within one directory with a name ending in .app . I…
Mar 16, 2011
pbcopy and pbpaste
The Unix command line has historically interacted poorly with the numerous graphical interfaces that have been stacked upon it. One key area lacking support is the clipboard. MacOS X brings two utilities…
Feb 23, 2011
OPM DC Operating Status via Twitter
A few months ago, I created a Twitter to automatically announce the DC operating status maintained by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). This status announces whether or not the Federal government…
Jan 11, 2011
CALUG Talk on Systems Management with Git
Via Chuck Frain: If you find yourself in the Columbia, MD area looking for something to do from 6:30-9pm (January 12th) join the Columbia Area Linux Users Group for a great talk…
Dec 1, 2010
OpenPGP Bot on Twitter
openpgpblog: For reasons I cannot entirely justify, I created a new Twitter account, @OpenPGPBot, that automatically retweets anything posted involving PGP, GnuPGP, or OpenPGP. Please follow if it’s your thing.
Oct 27, 2010
Culture and Transportation
Tonight, Dave Bittner hosted "Conversation on Art and Culture in Downtown Columbia" for the Columbia Cultural Plan Advisory Committee. The event was a large-scale coordinated focus group to ask what cultural resources…