Raise your hand if you know when your elected representatives in Congress are about vote on something you care about.Great. Now let's improve on that number. BillBirder will help you keep a watchful eye on the bills that matter most to you, and alert you via Twitter when it's time to pick up the phone and call. Continue reading →

See yours? No? Well, there's a whole downloadable doc here at the Mission Police Station site where you can scan through to see if your bike is in there. Ingleside Station officers were responsible for the recovery of this cache of stolen bicycles, over 100 in all, found in Oakland. We're awaiting further information from the investigator on this ring of rampant bicycle thieves and we're unclear if they've been arrested or if this was connected to the Craigslist bust back in February. But in the meantime, behold the sad lineup of mostly one-wheeled bike frames, which we guess largely belonged to San Francisco residents. Update: An officer in SFPD's media relations unit confirmed that there has been an arrest made in the case but ... Continue reading →

WASHINGTON – The co-owner of a major Pentagon propaganda contractor publicly admitted Thursday that he was behind a series of websites used to discredit two USA TODAY journalists who had reported on the contractor.The online "misinformation campaign," first reported last month, has raised questions about whether the Pentagon or its contractors had turned its propaganda operations against U.S. citizens. But Camille Chidiac, the minority owner of Leonie Industries and its former president, said he was responsible for the online activity and was operating independent of the company or the Pentagon."I take full responsibility for having some of the discussion forums opened and reproducing their previously published USA TODAY articles on them," he said a statement released by his attorney, Lin Wood, of Atlanta."I recognize and ... Continue reading →

In December 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that LEGO Friends was launched, a LEGO product line aimed to appeal to girls. The product line, which consisted of predominantly pastel-colored bricks and stereotypical themes, drew worldwide attention and controversy. Now, according to CNET, Adafruit Industries founder Limor “Ladyada” Fried (who has a Masters of Engineering from MIT) has worked with LEGO artist Bruce Lowell to create Ladyada’s Workshop, a LEGO version of Fried’s Adafruit workshop meant to inspire girls to pursue interests in engineering. The set has been submitted to LEGO Cuusoo, a site where LEGO set concepts can be voted on to become a real product. If Ladyada’s Workshop concept can get 10,000 votes, it will be made into a real LEGO set. “So now it’s ... Continue reading →

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Ever wonder what makes an infographic successful? Why do some infographics accumulate more than 1 million views and others, barely 100? We’ve talked about viral infographics before, from a creative process standpoint: the story, data and design of an infographic all play a role in whether it will appeal to the masses, as does the way it is promoted. But what does viral content have in common? There are more than 16,000 graphics and visualizations on Visual.ly, so comprehensive analysis would take some time. A good place to start is at the very top. Looking at the top 30 pieces of content on the site should yield some clues that will guide more analysis in the future. The primary statistic used is unique pageviews accumulated ... Continue reading →