Democracy Now, an independent media group, has posted a long interview with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. It's so interesting watching this interview, and the second one below, to see how thoughtful and careful Assange is when answering questions.

I've donated $65 to the OpenPCR project on Kickstarter. The idea is to build a cheap and open source PCR machine to enable hobbyists to perform PCR in a garage without spending thousands of dollars on expensive equipment.

The way Kickstarter works is interesting. They're aiming to raise $6000 before the July 23 deadline. If they get enough pledges before then, then all those who pledged will have their credit cards charged. If they don't get enough pledges, then no money is taken from the pledgers.

You can donate below, or just keep an eye on how close they're getting to the goal.

Over the past week, I've been working on the website for Thorn Run Partners, a new boutique lobbying firm in Washington, DC.

I did most of the backend Drupal work to get the site up and running. My friend Caroline did the design work, heavily modifying a theme from Top Notch Themes, who do a really nice job making Drupal themes.

I'm very pleased with the way things turned out, and happy that it doesn't really "look" like a Drupal site.

I'm posting about this here, for a few reasons:

This interesting look at the history for Drupal and lefty politics was published in December, but is starting to get more attention now that the Obama administration is using Drupal for their Recovery.gov site. It brought back lots of good memories, and it's exciting to see the new administration embracing the legacy of lefty tech work over the past decade or so.

Nancy Scola has also written a bit about Drupal and Recovery.gov, and it's interesting to see just how far things have come since I helped build sites with DeanSpace back in 2003.

Of course, Draft Obama was built on Drupal and the CiviCRM tools that grew out of DeanSpace. And my new top secret project is built on the same, with some pieces thrown in from Sunlight Labs and others working on opening government up from a technical point of view.

I wonder how much off-the-shelf Drupal they're using, and how much will be custom developed modules. If they are developing modules or hiring Drupal contractors to develop them, I wonder if they will be released publicly. My hope is that for modules (and Drupal core changes) that could have broad use, they'll contribute them back to community. In fact, since it's undoubtedly tax dollars being spent on the site, perhaps all their development should be released to the public domain.

This is an exciting time for someone interested in the intersection of technology and governance, and I think that we have an administration that's not only willing to consider these ideas, but will help drive the technology by leaps and bounds.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson

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