Monthly Archives: July 2005

Konkel Deconstructs the City Budget

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Very useful reading:

So, lets take a look at the $44 million police department budget. (Hey – I’ve already burned this bridge, I might as well just go with it.) At this point your eyes have probably glazed over, but don’t worry, it’s all of three pages long with lots of white space. Clicking on the link is an illuminating experience. You will find that for 2005 we have two programs in the police department. Field Operations which are $39,373,690 and Support Operations which are $4,718,020. There is a one paragraph description of these services. Additionally, in this case there are 6 “budget highlights” to further inform you about changes from last year’s budget. Then, on page 3 there is the break down into the 9 budget line items. Are you hungry for more information? Permanent Salary Detail will show you each of the positions in the department along with Workers Comp, Premium Pay and Vacation/Comp time accrued. This accounts for $26 million of the budget. You can also look at Minor Objects to find out that purchased services is $1.4 million, supplies are $750,000, there is $2.6 million in inter-departmental charges and $6,000 for debt/other financing. On the bottom you can see that they charge $1.1 million to grants and other departments. Finally, you can see that they are spending $18,000 in Capital Objects. If you were following along only a little, you now realize that the detail doesn’t add up to $44 million. Where’d the rest of the money go? The “details” only add up to about $31 million.

The growing tax squeeze facing Madison residents (taxes growing at a faster rate than incomes) makes budget transparency a necessity. The current local spending increases, given sluggish economic growth are simply not sustainable. I applaud the folks at dane101 for getting this rolling.

William Gibson: Who Owns the Words?

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William Gibson:

We seldom legislate new technologies into being. They emerge, and we plunge with them into whatever vortices of change they generate. We legislate after the fact, in a perpetual game of catch-up, as best we can, while our new technologies redefine us – as surely and perhaps as terribly as we’ve been redefined by broadcast television.

“Who owns the words?” asked a disembodied but very persistent voice throughout much of Burroughs’ work. Who does own them now? Who owns the music and the rest of our culture? We do. All of us.

Though not all of us know it – yet.

Russia’s Black Market Data Trade

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Bruce Schneier:

Interesting story on the market for data in Moscow:

This Gorbushka vendor offers a hard drive with cash transfer records from Russia’s central bank for $1,500 (Canadian).

At the Gorbushka kiosk, sales are so brisk that the vendor excuses himself to help other customers while the foreigner considers his options: $43 for a mobile phone company’s list of subscribers? Or $100 for a database of vehicles registered in the Moscow region?

The vehicle database proves irresistible. It appears to contain names, birthdays, passport numbers, addresses, telephone numbers, descriptions of vehicles, and vehicle identification (VIN) numbers for every driver in Moscow.

The recent passage of the National ID Act, supported by our good Senators Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl means that it won’t be long before all of our data is available in this manner.

FTTH brings Democrats and Republicans Together – Locally

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David Isenberg: FTTH brings Democrats and Republicans together:

“In the U.S. Congress, both parties are enemies of Internet-based progress. The Republicans support the telcos and cablecos while the Democrats side with the Kontent Krabs.

In Lafayette, Louisiana, though, it is a different story, both parties support Lafayette’s Fiber to the Home municipal networking effort!

A joint, bipartisan letter to Lafayette’s voters, authored by the city’s Republican *and* Democratic leaders, says

UK Identity Cards

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The Economist:

If the government’s plans stay on track, Britons will, within three years, begin to receive cards containing personal details, together with a digital photograph, fingerprints and an iris scan. A nation that has not possessed identity cards since 1952 will, in a step, acquire the world’s most complex system.

Wisconsin Low in Job Quality

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Joel Dresang:

Wisconsin’s overall job quality ranked 39th out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia in 2003, based on the research released Thursday. The study used government data to define job quality by the average wages paid per industry and occupation.
Compared with the national mix of industries, Wisconsin had smaller shares of workers in fields such as information; finance and insurance; and professional, scientific and technical services, all of which pay higher-than-average wages nationwide, said Tom Rex, associate director of the research center at Arizona State’s W.P. Carey School of Business.

The Dark Age of Innovation?

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Robert Adler:

We are fast approaching a new dark age. That, at least, is the conclusion of Jonathan Huebner, a physicist working at the Pentagon’s Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California. He says the rate of technological innovation reached a peak a century ago and has been declining ever since. And like the lookout on the Titanic who spotted the fateful iceberg, Huebner sees the end of innovation looming dead ahead. His study will be published in Technological Forecasting and Social Change