City Council President: “Why are we are still having a problem with the Internet?”and other Links

City of Philadelphia Coming Into High-Speed Internet Age At Last, Official Promises [KYW] — City Council President Anna Verna questioned interim CTO Tommy Jones about slow City Hall internet speed. As VisitPhilly & Mayor Nutter Want YOU to be Mayor [Geekadelphia] — GPTMC on FourSquare

Bluecadet Interactive is again up for Webby Awards; Vote to support them [Bluecadet blog]

Facebook faceoff: Artist embarks on ‘social networking stress test’ [Newsworks]

Hacking Education: A Contest for Developers and Data Crunchers [DonorsChoose.org] — “We’ve opened up that data, and invite you to make discoveries and build apps that improve education in America. Help to shape your school system’s budget by revealing what teachers really need. Build the first mobile app for hyper-local education philanthropy. We’ve got a list of suggestions to help get you thinking.”

5th graders suspended for Facebook pics in school [NBC 10] — H/T NewsWorks

View more videos at: http://nbcphiladelphia.com.

Philly Data Camp: City Council legislation email blast, Philly API and other civic projects

Peter Fecteau, one of seven Code for America Philly fellows and an organizer of Philly Data Camp, explained how volunteers offer various ideas and then collaborate throughout the day to develop and design several new applications. Photo by Sarah Schu

If the seven Code for America Philadelphia fellows have their way, residents here will be soon follow City Council legislation in the form of a customizable e-mail, fitted with a subscription-based game with achievements and hopes for higher levels of participation at the core of its design.

That is just one of the projects that came from this past Friday’s Philly Data Camp, a one-day hackathon co-hosted by the seven CFA fellows and GIS shop Azavea. The event was something of a send off for the CFA pack, who are now back in San Francisco to begin planning and developing a project for the City of Philadelphia as part of their year of service.

Some 25 volunteers showed up to Azavea’s Callowhill offices to devote their Friday to the development of applications based around civic and geospatial data sets that can help Philadelphia citizens. And be created in a day’s time.

“We’ve got people from all walks,” said Pete Fecteau, 27, one of Code for America’s Philadelphia fellows and organizer of the event. “Developers, designers, researchers and people who don’t even know why they’re here. But they want to be here.”

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Hive76: “If we knew what we were doing, we wouldn’t be hackers, We’d be engineers”

Hive76, a community hacking space, is located at 915 Spring Garden Street. Photo by Sarah Schu

The following is a report done in partnership with Temple University’s Philadelphia Neighborhoods Program, the capstone class for the Temple Journalism Department.

The walls of the Hive76 headquarters are lined with part bins containing all types of electronic doodads from circuit boards to transistors in a kind of organized chaos that bespeaks the organization’s DIY cyberpunk attitude.

Off in one corner of the workshop, Hive76 Quartermaster Brendan Schrader toys with a series of gutted drum machines and mixers plugged into a suitcase that has been converted into a four-speaker boombox.

“A lot of us don’t know what we’re doing,” Schrader says, while generating an organic-sounding beat on the post-apocalyptic dance machine. “If we knew what we were doing, we wouldn’t be hackers. We’d be engineers.”

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Comcast Roundup: Stephen Burke will lead NBC, Comcast.net hackers sentenced and more

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscription for our Comcast news updates.

DEFINITE READS

• Burke to lead NBC Universal after Comcast deal [paidContent] — 52-year-old Comcast COO Stephen Burke will be made NBC Universal CEO after the acquisition is approved. Burke recently made the most expensive rowhome purchase in Philadelphia history.
• Stepping Down, NBC Chief Relishes His Long Tenure [New York Times] — Embattled NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker announces leaving his post, acknowledging the decision is not entirely his own, but part of a desire by Comcast leadership to have “their own team in place” with the close of the Comcast-NBC acquisition.
• Comcast Spends Big in Pressing for Merger [New York Times] — The piece questions whether the tens of millions of dollars that Comcast is spending on lobbying for regulatory approval of its taking a majority stake in NBC is an expensive form of machine politics or something more democratic.

Below, more details on the NBC executive shuffle, Comcast.net hackers sentenced and more.

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