Brett Coburn

I hate to say it, but we, like everyone else, are having financial difficulties. This economic downturn and the rise of the big box booksellers are killing us. We never intended to make a profit, that’s why we have always been a 501c3, now nationally recognized. Unfortunately due to fiscal irresponsibility in our local government there is no money in Jefferson County for grants, and since we have been around for less than three years, most state grants wont cover us. We are doing everything we can to raise money but we need your help. No one here gets paid or draws a salary, the store provides food for volunteers and occasionally gas money but that’s about it…

This site contains an overview of nearly every visual mapping tool out there, categorized by purpose and with examples included.  It is a great reference for anyone who needs to represent an idea without falling back on the same tired charts and graphics.

Wow. This is incredibly sad; I’ve met Leisa and she’s a great person. I can’t believe they arrested her for “cursing police” after they shot at her dogs.

Forget what I said before… it looks like Birmingham is having some of the same law enforcement problems that everyone else is. I hope that this doesn’t become a trend down here.

In the meantime, my best to Leisa, and I hope the dogs get well soon. Everyone eat at Cosmo’s if you haven’t been there!

Little cardboard robots helped along to their destination by people. Description from the site:

Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.

A visual map (downloadable PDF) of the creative process. Would probably make a nice poster.

This is shameful, but it is encouraging to see the police administration handle it properly. Even Langford came down on the right side on this one.

My feeling is that Birmingham may have a lot of problems, but the scars from the civil rights era have prevented the blatant abuses we are seeing in Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and other US cities. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I just haven’t heard of many issues like this one in the Birmingham area. Either the media isn’t reporting on it or the police are actually acting as professional LEOs — with a handful of exceptions, of course.

Anyway, kudos to the city for dealing with this case.

A nice Windows utility for automating local backups of IMAP mailboxes. I use it to keep local copies of my GMail mailboxes just in case the service goes down. I could just use a full-featured mail client, of course, but I like the GMail web interface too much to switch.

Look in the comments for a version that includes tabs for PowerShell and Cygwin. I can’t believe I haven’t had anything like this before — definitely a time saver. For those of us who miss the scriptability of Linux, AutoHotKey is a godsend as well.

This article is particularly interesting for a few reasons. First, it looks like the DHS is trying to curry favor with the new administration — instead of “anarchists,” now we’re supposed to be scared of right-wing militias. Next, the Obama administration has distanced themselves from the report (and good for them). I’m not sure what this means, but hopefully DHS will be undergoing some changes in the days to come. Finally, I never knew that “groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority” were considered terrorists, but then again I never knew that vegetarians were terrorists either.

This is awesome. Generate RSS feeds for any theater indexed by Google.

A new space for independent workers to come together and collaborate and create is opening in May on 2nd…

Coworking in Birmingham? I didn’t expect this anytime soon!

I have been wanting something like this for a long time. Tried it and it works really well (although some photos get scaled improperly).