radar

United States Park Police bearing riot gear and on horse back raided Occupy DC this morning and throughout the day, removing tents that were deemed to be in violation of a no camping rule at McPherson Square. Park Police spokesperson Sgt. David Schlosser said the raid did not constitute an eviction and that protesters would be allowed to continue activities at the park as long as they complied with the no camping rule.

Six protesters had been arrested as of about four o’clock this afternoon — two for crossing a police barricade and four for violating police orders — but the majority were “very cooperative” as police moved through the park, Schlosser said. Two more were arrested later, according to various reports. Park Police moved methodically through the park, closing sections at a time while the rest remained open, using riot shields and sticks to move protesters as Park Service employees in hazardous materials suits cleared and removed tents.

At different times, small groups of protesters collided with police, who pushed protesters back with riot shields. One police officer was struck by a brick in the face and taken to the hospital. At one point, multiple protesters were struck by riot sticks as they clashed with police moving through the park. Watch:

One protester said Police had offered a compromise, telling Occupy DC that if they removed the giant tarp covering the statue at the center of the park — known as the tent of dreams — police would not confiscate tents. Schlosser would not confirm or deny that such a deal had been proposed, saying only that notices had been provided to protesters telling them that noncompliant tents were subject to removal.

According to the notice, tents must be free of sleeping materials and remain open on one side at all times to stay in compliance with Park Police regulations.

Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White (R)

Yesterday, a jury found Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White (R) guilty on six felony counts of voter fraud, theft, and perjury. The conviction cost White his job, though he plans to ask the judge to reduce the charges to misdemeanors and hopes to perhaps regain the position.

In a statement, Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) announced White’s deputy will take over on an interim basis:

I have chosen not to make a permanent appointment today out of respect for the judge’s authority to lessen the verdict to a misdemeanor and reinstate the elected office holder… If the felony convictions are not altered, I anticipate making a permanent appointment quickly.

But a second court case could ultimately give the job to Democrat Vop Osili, who lost to White in November 2010. A judge’s December 2011 ruling — currently on hold, pending appeal — held that due to the voter fraud charges, White’s election was invalid. Should that ruling survive the appeals process, Osili would assume the office.

Ironically, White’s now-removed 2010 campaign website listed election integrity as among his top concerns, and promised he would “protect and defend Indiana’s Voter ID law to ensure our elections are fair and protect the most basic and precious right and responsibility of our democracy-voting.”

Update

In 2005, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels signed “the strictest voter ID requirements in the nation,” and Republicans said at the time that it was “needed to guard against voter fraud.”

A lot of different people has started experimenting with Phonegap and Drupal. You have Jeff Linwood and his Drupal plugin for Phonegap for iOS, and I just discovered Drupalgap as I was planning this post the last weeks, which does more or less (actually it does more, but not all) some of the same things I will try to do in this post.

If you want to get up and running real quick, Drupalgap seems great. If you want to learn the code behind it, and extend it yourself (this was my motivation), keep reading.

One thing you can say about the Los Angeles Times, they are consistent in their miscoverage of global warming.

On January 27, they committed “journalistic malpractice,” as climatologist Michael Mann tweeted, for omitting any mention of global warming whatsoever in their article seeking to explain why the U.S. “seems to have largely escaped winter.”

On Groundhog day, coincidentally enough, they did it again.  Hmm.  Maybe this is like the movie and they are just going to keep making the same mistakes over and over and over again…..

As the L.A. Times “explains” in the article:

“It’s mild,” said Pastelok, a meteorologist from AccuWeather, in one of the bigger understatements of the season.

“The departures have been way above normal this season, maybe in a top five or top 10 category,” he said when asked to rank how unusual the winter from the Plains eastward had been in terms of temperatures and lack of snow.

The situation has stymied forecasters, who study previous years’ patterns to predict the future. This year has been unique because even when there have been cold snaps, they have been extremely brief and followed by long, mild stretches.

If only scientists had predicted years ago that spewing billions and billions of tons of heat trapping greenhouse gases into the air would cause more frequent extreme heat waves — ones that covered a bigger area and lasted far longer than before.

And no, confusionists and their enablers, those scientists didn’t say that global warming would be responsible for 100% of all heat waves.  But we are now pushing so far beyond the historical norm that we are seeing  unprecedented uber-extreme heat waves (see Hansen et al: “Extreme Heat Waves … in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 Were ‘Caused’ by Global Warming”).

The good news is that while the L.A. Times remains clueless, NBC news got the story just right — global warming piles the heat on top of whatever natural variability, like La Niña, we see.  Here’s their excellent story on the heat wave so unusual, people were “calling it JUNuary”:

Again, one can always tell the difference between good  journalism and not so good journalism by whether they quote real climate scientists who have actually studied the issue in question.

In this case, they went to the source, Dr. Gerald Meehl of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).  You can read about his work here:  “Record high temperatures far outpace record lows across U.S.”  NCAR explained their findings in a news release:

Spurred by a warming climate, daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows over the last decade across the continental United States, new research shows. The ratio of record highs to lows is likely to increase dramatically in coming decades if emissions of greenhouse gases continue to climb.

“Climate change is making itself felt in terms of day-to-day weather in the United States,” says Gerald Meehl, the lead author and a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). “The ways these records are being broken show how our climate is already shifting.”

Of course, it’s not warm winters that cause the big problem, it’s the blistering summers.

Here’s a Stanford release for Climatic Change study (PDF here) I wrote about in June:

The tropics and much of the Northern Hemisphere are likely to experience an irreversible rise in summer temperatures within the next 20 to 60 years if atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations continue to increase, according to a new climate study by Stanford University scientists….

“According to our projections, large areas of the globe are likely to warm up so quickly that, by the middle of this century, even the coolest summers will be hotter than the hottest summers of the past 50 years,” said the study’s lead author, Noah Diffenbaugh, The study, based on observations and models, finds that most major countries, including the United States, are “likely to face unprecedented climate stresses even with the relatively moderate warming expected over the next half-century.”

I interviewed Diffenbaugh for my book, Hell and High Water, and in 2008 wrote about his earlier work in a post titled, “When can we expect very high surface temperatures?”

Bottom line: By century’s end, extreme temperatures of up to 122°F would threaten most of the central, southern, and western U.S. Even worse, Houston and Washington, DC could experience temperatures exceeding 98°F for some 60 days a year.

The peak temperature analysis comes from a Geophysical Research Letters paper that focused on the annual-maximum “once-in-a-century” temperature. The key scientific point is that “the extremes rise faster than the means in a warming climate.”

The results, depicted above (in °C), are quite remarkable, especially when you consider that this is just the A1B scenario. In 2100, A1B hits about 700 ppm with average global temperatures “only” about 3°C (5 F) warmer than today.

In fact, on our current emissions path, a 3C temperature rise will happen much sooner (see Hadley Center: “Catastrophic” 5-7°C  warming by 2100 on current emissions path and M.I.T. doubles its 2095 warming projection to 10°F — with 866 ppm and Arctic warming of 20°F).   And remember, the worst-case scenario is that this happens by mid-century [see Royal Society special issue details ‘hellish vision’ of 7°F (4°C) world — which we may face in the 2060s!]

On our current emissions path, these record temperatures could be seen closer to 2060 than 2100:

… values in excess of 50°C [122°F] in Australia, India, the Middle East, North Africa, the Sahel and equatorial and subtropical South America.

As you can see from the map, extreme temperature peaks are only slightly lower over large parts of this country. The study notes:

Such temperatures, if lasting for some days, are life threatening and receive relatively little attention in the climate change debate.

On our current emissions path, we may well exceed the A2 scenario and hit A1FI, 1000 ppm (see here).  In a terrific March 2010 presentation, Climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe has a figure of what the A1FI would mean:

Mother Nature is just warming up.

The time to act is yesterday.

Related Post:

• Science stunner — On our current emissions path, CO2 levels in 2100 will hit levels last seen when the Earth was 29°F (16°C) hotter:  Paleoclimate data suggests CO2 “may have at least twice the effect on global temperatures than currently projected by computer models”

The Drupal Association is, for the first time in history, opening up two spaces on the Board for "At Large" members. Voting is open now only for a few days until Feb 7. I decided to nominate myself after hearing further about the elections during the Drupal CxO event in Amsterdam last weekend, so instead of writing up all the interesting stuff that's been going on recently at the CxO event and Drupal ScienceCamp the week before where I gave my first session and videod many others, I find myself caught up in election fever and spending the weekend answering questions which were posed during two conference calls we had on Thursday - one at 1am and one at 5pm. It was great being part of these discussions with a group of passionate people from around the world, an inspiring moment in my life I shall remember for a long time!

I'm reposting my answers here as the wiki page is a bit messy, plus I want to reach out to my own community at large as they may not even know elections are on, it seems shouting about this sort of stuff in the Drupal community is not the norm, a shame as we have so much wonderful stuff to shout about!

The Drupal Association, for those who don't know, is "an educational non-profit organization that tasks itself with fostering and supporting the Drupal software project, the community and its growth". It has no control over the software itself, and states its 2012 goals as:

• Improve the collaboration tools on drupal.org and make it rock for developers
• Organize "Drupal in a day" global trainings to solve talent issue
• Drupal as a career choice through University Programs
• Directory of all trainings to solve talent issue
• Regional events targeted at developers organized by DA staff
• Make d.o awesome for site builders (vs. developers) - module reviews, docs, etc.

I am already involved in a number of these efforts and through the events I've been to I see there are many people who want to help out and contribute but simply do not have a mechanism or the knowledge to do so. Rather than go into a big speech now, here's the answers I gave - if you like my ideas please vote before Feb 7! My core process is "fostering connections" - a skill I believe is perfect for the DA.

Steve Purkiss (stevepurkiss), United Kingdom

Hi, I'm Steve Purkiss and I'm here representing the "normal guy". I've been running the Drupal group in the UK's digital media hub of Brighton for the three years that I've lived here but it was only in 2010 when I went to my first DrupalCon in Copenhagen that I *got* Drupal - it's all about the community and not just software. Since then I've been helping people understand what Drupal is, including organising a 'Drupal Discovery Day' during Brighton's Digital Festival last year where we trained over 30 people in the morning and had over 40 attendees at our conference in the afternoon. I've now been to three DrupalCons, two Drupal CxO days, devdays, and did my first session at a DrupalCamp a couple of weeks back in Cambridge entitled 'From Flip Charts to Features and beyond' building on the work I've been doing with organisations including Brighton & Hove City Council in order to help them quickly and easily understand how to build projects in an agile way using Drupal and its plethora of modules. I also video many of the sessions and upload them to archive.org - I believe we should do much more videoing of events!

My first experience of the Drupal Association was in DrupalCon Copenhagen when I asked if they'd ever heard of a 'Virtual Enterprise Network' and explained it was a structure for enabling organisations including businesses, universities, and government instititions, to work together in order to deliver larger projects - similar to how the film industry works when coming together to produce a film. I asked if there was anyone in the Association who I could talk to about it because I believe strongly we have built a wonderful modular piece of software however we are yet to build a modular business model on top. The answer I received was a point-blank "No, they're all incredibly busy working for very large corporations." This is why I decided to nominated myself and hence why I feel I stand for the "normal guy" wanting to bring back some balance to the board.

Harley (hyperglide) Regarding emerging markets in asia. Do any of the candidates have an idea on how to handle outreach to those markets to solve the talent shortage?

A: Steve Purkiss (stevepurkiss) The Association is in an ideal position to help pool and funnel resources to those on the ground in order to help them grow their communities wherever they are in the world. Being a focal point for the community, the Association can help the community to speak from one voice and spread knowledge sharing, education and community values wherever it is needed, and not only to those who can afford it.

(tsvenson) Q to each candidate: What do you see as the biggest obstacles for new Drupal users, especially non coders with small or no budgets, often leading to them quickly going elsewhere? And what will you do to change that?

A: Steve Purkiss (stevepurkiss) In Brighton I was going to run a week of Drupal training at £149 per day but was told I couldn't call it "affordable" training as it made other offerings sound expensive. If we only focus on the commercial side of things we have a big problem - and vice versa. I would rather see a focus on creating more sustainable forms of business than focusing on just one sector. To not view Wordpress as a threat here is IMHO a mistake.

I entered professional programming through a government-funded course and I am keen to ensure those opportunities are ongoing for people so I am talking to local colleges, universities and business networks about training students, graduates, unemployed, and career changers in Drupal. I am finding it hard by myself and my local network, if in the Association I would reach out to those around the world who can help on a more focused, local basis and assist in the construction of more support networks IRL.

(webchick) For those who want to promote international diversity, explain how a position on the DA helps you do that more effectively.

A: Steve Purkiss (stevepurkiss) Finding out what resources are needed and how they need to be tailored for particular cultures. At the recent Drupal CxO days in Amsterdam the hosts Microsoft explained a little into the process of how they do this and have offered us some time to help us - I would ensure we follow up on this very generous offer. As was mentioned, we are great technicians but not so great marketers - so why not take some tips from the best and help spread the Drupal community wider?

(Crell) Currently Drupal's face in the world is a mix of face-less Drupal.org and Acquia. Acquia is the face of Drupal, rightly or wrongly, in many eyes, moreso with the new Office of the CTO. Drupal of course is far far more than Acquia. What if anything do you feel the DA can or should do to counter-balance that, or is that even an appropriate role for the DA?

A: Steve Purkiss (stevepurkiss) The two At Large positions are a step in the right direction as we don't necessarily know who's out there in our community now as opposed to years ago when it was relatively small and why most members are from the more established companies. By bringing in outside perspectives with complementary knowledge and networks we enrich the community and move towards a more balanced, sustainable solution for democratised governance.

(tsvenson) Q to all: We just had a live usability test that showed we have still very much to do. How do you propose we can put more efforts into making Drupal, including contib projects, more user friendly and intuitive?

A: Steve Purkiss (stevepurkiss) There are some things as a community we do not do well at the moment, one of those is eat our own dogfood. I hear of many other tools people use running their Drupal business but we should work together to invest time, and funds, in fostering existing efforts such as the open app initiative. We should also develop new methods of people being able to contribute easier to the community - one such concept I've had is http://dropfund.org (hey, I bought the domain name so it's all built and ready, right?!) where people could post their project ideas much like a kickstarter for Drupal. Everything from marketing material through to module development sponsorship could be posted and funded easier than trawling through drupal.org and gdo just stumbling across stuff and trying to figure out what's going on and how to help.

(Slurpee) How many candidates have been to Drupal events outside of their own continent? And can you speak more than 1 language fluently?

A: Steve Purkiss (stevepurkiss) Since DrupalCon Copenhagen I have been to DrupalCon Chicago and London, Developer Days Brussels, CxO Days Brussels and last weekend's CxO event in Amsterdam, and the weekend before that I gave my first session at Drupal ScienceCamp Cambridge. I'm better with software languages than spoken, having spent from age 9 to now 39 learning how to talk in various software languages, from BASIC, through Pascal, ADA, Java, PHP, and now Drupal.

(Crell) Several of you listed things yo want to do or accomplish. The DA, however, has shifted from a staff board to a policy board, so board members are not directly doing anything, but managing, strategizing, coordinating, etc. Those of you who want to "do", isn't the board the wrong place for what you're describing?

A: Steve Purkiss (stevepurkiss) I want to work towards a more level playing field for everyone in the community - at the moment it seems as if the more well-funded operations build their own tools, workflow, and methods of dealing with inefficiencies in tools we have such as drupal.org whereas I believe it's the role of the DA to encourage contribution of these tools back to the community, and pool as many of these resources as possible so they are of benefit to all and not just competitive advantage for a few. Managing, strategizing, and coordinating are the ways in which I will achieve this!

(rfay) In 30 seconds or less, what are the roles of the DA and what are not the roles?

A: Steve Purkiss (stevepurkiss) The DA plays an important role supporting the development and growth of the Drupal community and should take a more active role in enabling those who want to contribute to be able to do so. It is not the DA's role to be involved in the decision-making process when it comes to the software itself, however it should be there to support ongoing efforts by being able to connect funders and those wanting funding, whether for hardware or software development. In terms of funding development then I believe the community and not the DA should be the decision-makers as to what gets funded - the DA should just help with the organisation of these initiatives.

(Crell) Q: Several candidates said they want to better represent or be a voice for "small shops" and independents. In what way does the DA currently not adequately serve small shops, and what would a better service for small players mean in practice? Be as specific as possible.

A: Steve Purkiss (stevepurkiss) It is more that relationships are currently built and maintained around a relatively few number of shops - ones who are either ingrained in the community, or who have the funds to "buy" their way into the community. Mostly I believe this is due to the fact we are not utilising our own software to the best effect to help connect, also because we are still thinking in terms of old-IT top-down big consultancy approach in some ways - perhaps because the biggest businesses involved currently still work that way.

We have built wonderful modular software and we are currently seeming to try and mash that into an old, out-of-date business model. Many large IT failures will still happen if the business models don't change - it's just they'll fail with Open Source Software resulting in harming its reputation. There are other ways, one of which is Virtual Enterprise Networks ('VEN')* where one body represents its members in a commercial environment, enabling sharing of costs such as marketing, and enabling larger projects to be delivered than could be done by any one member organisation alone.

Many smaller shops and independents are technically very capable but not so good at marketing - will a skills shortage and the fact that specific expertise is not geographically specific we should embrace new ways of working together on larger projects than just giving them to to the larger companies. As I discovered at the recent Drupal CxO event in Amsterdam *every* Drupal company there had issues with being too small - whether they were 2, 20, or 50 people. With a VEN a structure would be there for easier collaboration between these companies and individuals.

I believe the DA is in an ideal position to help to work towards the creation of a Drupal VEN, and spearhead not only a modular piece of software but a complementary business model to boot. I see some worrying similarities between what is happening in the Drupal world and what happened in the dotcom days when the company I was working at received $7m investment and immediately went out and hired lots of ex-IBM people. We have a small window of opportunity here to do something different and innovative - we should take full advantage of before balance is lost and we end up repeating old business mistakes simply because we are only listening to those who have too much interest in a particular model, or who simple do not know any other way is possible. A VEN is just one potential structure which should be investigated further in order to see which would be most complementary to the Drupal community in order to utilise the network more efficiently.

* http://www.bioteams.com/2005/07/11/virtual_enterprise_networks.html

(tsvenson) When do you think the first Asian DrupalCon should be held? Also, should that mean 3 cons/year or should they alternate with 2/year?

A: Steve Purkiss (stevepurkiss) I would need to investigate the current situation and any research done so far before suggesting any answer to this. At the moment, I feel if the community is big enough to support it then sure, if not then we should see how we can build or connect the community more so that it is in a position to put on a Con.

(jredding) In 30 seconds or less, what would you say is the most important skillset, expertise, or experience that a board member should bring to the Association.

A: Steve Purkiss (stevepurkiss) Experience, passion, ideas, ears, mouth when needed, sympathy, empathy, commitment, independence, and a willingness to question and challenge the status quo.

(carsonblack) What are some (or one) way that DA can help the small user groups throughout the world better serve their local markets?

A: Steve Purkiss (stevepurkiss) At the recent Drupal CxO event in Amsterdam I spoke to a number of companies who want to join forces in order to help create more marketing materials for Drupal. We should help these companies to contribute as the result will be more material available for everyone to use, including local user groups. We should also make it easier to start and maintain local groups by providing more up-to-date resources of information gathered from existing groups, and continue to provide funding where possible. I won one of the first Community Cultivation Grants with which I created a short video "What is Drupal?" (http://bad-ass.org.uk/what-is-drupal) which helped a little but we need more ongoing support too so we can develop the great work people are doing out there "in the field". Guilds are great, however we should ensure these do not go the way of the guilds of old, which ended up being cartels. There was a similar issue in the Open Source Consortium of which I was a founding member but left soon after as I felt it would go this way. It was set up by Mark Taylor from Sirius IT who has spoken at Drupal CxO events, he confirmed to me it did end up being a cartel so he too left. Not saying Drupal Guilds will, we just have to be aware they potentially could.

(Crell) The DA is officially banned from "directing the development of Drupal". What does that mean to you? Are there ways the DA could "support" development without "directing" development? What would you want to do in that regard? Again, be specific as possible.

A: Steve Purkiss (stevepurkiss) To me this means the DA should be supporting the development of Drupal whatever that development is. For example, if the community decided to rewrite the entire of Drupal using .NET technologies, although it would be a completely ridiculous concept, the DA should support the community's decision. The DA is ideally positioned to be a connector of resources to support the development of Drupal, by working with the community to ascertain what resources are needed the DA can help ensure access to those resources are provided, whether in terms of hardware, funding, or whatever is necessary for the community to continue to grow and flourish.

(tsvenson) Should the DA take a more proactive role about the d.o infrastructure and its improvement needs. Especially in regards to for example content management tools for doumentation and giving better cred/visibility to all those that puts in amazing work that is not project/code related? If so how and what is needed?

A: Steve Purkiss (stevepurkiss) Yes, I believe it is the responsiblity of the DA to support the infrastructure used by the community. I think there is a lot that can be done here in terms of working more closely with companies using Drupal to help them contribute more back to the community in order to help sustain and grow. At the moment it seems as if there's a high barrier in terms of both expertise and time to be able to change much, with a little more communication and connection of existing efforts I believe we can provide much better tools for the community to use, which will in turn show off more of what Drupal can do to the wider world and hopefully make it a little easier to understand for all.

My first job was selling computers to small businesses, and whilst I have also worked with many large corporations, it is the small business person I have most affinity with. As we move into an age of more interdependance as many are laid off from work I believe we need to bring back some balance on the board and provide more assistance to those who have the passion and expertise but not necessarily the cash and connect them with those who have the cash but not necessarily the expertise (or indeed passion!). We need to foster the growth of more tools using our own software to help collaboration and start to build a world based on the ways we work together now, not 10, 20 or 30 years ago. By coming onto the board from this side, I bring fresh new ideas and energy, and a network which provides further reach than the board currently possesses in order to help the Association achieve and exceed the initiatives set out for 2012. I am already involved in many of the areas such as talking to universities and organising free training events, I could do this more effectively and to a greater degree if I were to be on the DA board, thus having easier access to more resources and connections.

ENDS

Feel free to ask me any questions you may have here, on my nomination profile, or on twitter, I'd be happy to answer!

One last thing - don't forget to vote by Feb7! Voting is open to all who have a Drupal account longer than about three weeks old and who have logged at least once in the previous year -  that's around 270,000 people of which at time of writing only 280 have voted.

Make sure your voice is heard and vote today!

Donald Trump endorsed Mitt Romney on Thursday in a high-profile ceremony in Las Vegas. And while they’ve had their differences in the past, in many ways, the two have a lot in common. In honor of the occasion, we produced this video documenting the values that Romney and Trump share:

Amid brutal violence in Syria, Russia and China vetoed a resolution before the 15-member body to support an Arab League plan to end the crisis. Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave dueling speeches in Munich, Germany. “As a tyrant in Damascus brutalizes his own people, the U.S. and Europe stand shoulder to shoulder…alongside the Arab League, in demanding an end to the bloodshed and a democratic future for Syria,” Clinton said. President Obama also threw his support behind the resolution and, going even farther, ended his statement by saying: “The suffering citizens of Syria must know: we are with you, and the Assad regime must come to an end.” But Russia and China blocked the resolution. U.N. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, who tweeted that she was “disgusted” by the veto, said on the Council floor: “This intransigence is even more shameful when you consider that at least one of these members” — Russia — “is still delivering weapons to Syria.”

One of the most important and complex aspects of a DrupalCon is the schedule. An enormous amount of work goes into getting it right – from the huge number of session submissions, which have to be reviewed and selected by the track chairs and their teams, to the people whose job it is to carefully consider and decide time slots for all of them.

Once all of this work has taken place, the schedule then needs to be presented, in print, on meter boards, posters and in the delegate guide, as well as on the website and mobile app.

With around 70-80 sessions over three days and eight tracks, with three possible skill levels and multiple presenters, all split up into different time slots, and sometimes sub-time slots, presenting this lot is not a simple task. I had some great people working with me on the London schedule and I think we did a pretty good job.

For Denver, the plan was to take the schedule a bit further, making it responsive so that the layout adjusts to the size of the screen you are viewing it on. This is particularly useful for mobile phones and tablets, on which the user experience would be very poor if the design wasn't responsive. Initially the Denver team were looking at a table format for the schedule, similar to the Chicago approach: http://chicago2011.drupal.org/schedule. This layout is really good, but tables don't do well with responsive design. Tables have no way of rearranging themselves – if the width of the table shrinks, the cells just squash horizontally until they are stopped by the longest word in each. This looks pretty horrible and usually breaks a website's layout on smaller screens.

DrupalCamp Austin did use a semi-table layout, and importantly, it doesn't actually use table markup, meaning it can collapse. This worked well because the number of sessions in a given time slot was limited. Denver's maximum is seven sessions in a single time slot, which even in a 960 set up, would be really squashing them in on a single row and force them to collapse almost immediately on the slightest resize.

So a different method was needed. Initially taking the approach of a mobile web app, I put together an example schedule using Denver's branding to help demonstrate how it could collapse on smaller screens. The main difference in this layout is that instead of side by side, the sessions are stacked, divided by the time slots. The track icons were produced for Drupalcon Chicago and it felt really right to pick them up again for Denver.

The Denver team then adapted the prototype to fit the website and extended the icon set to cover the new tracks. While implementing, they made some subtle improvements to my prototype, like the track title on hover: http://denver2012.drupal.org/program/schedule

There are definitely more improvements to be made. The hit area isn't very large on the sessions (only the title), so it's not always easy to press with your finger; wrapping everything in an a tag would resolve this. The rooms aren't displayed yet, which would be pretty useful to help you find your way around and some of the sessions don't fall into specific time slots, so we are working on adding these soon. Also the filters are yet to be implemented on the Denver site, but it is worth looking at the prototype on a mobile device to see how I envisaged them working.

This is of course, just one example of a schedule for one event format, but if you are reading this from inside or outside the 'Drupalsphere', I hope you found some of the ideas useful.

@graemeblackwood

Tens of thousands of Russian protesters defied sub-zero temperatures in Moscow to keep alive the blossoming protest movement against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s bid to reassert himself as president and allegedly fraudulent elections. The third such large-scale protest in Moscow — following a December 10 outing and a massive December 24 rally (amid other smaller actions) — made light of temperatures of minus 17 degrees Centigrade (minus 1 Fahrenheit) after the authorities waged a bizarre propaganda campaign to discourage people from going out in the cold. Organizers, though, waged a sometimes light-hearted counter-campaign, and claimed 120,000 people came out to demonstrate (police put the number at 35,000). Their signs read “Down with the cold, down with Putin,” “They froze our democracy” and “We are frozen in solidarity.” Here’s an AP picture of bundled-up protesters run by the New York Times:

By Andrew Freedman, in a Climate Central repost

Although recent rains have put a dent in the Texas drought, a day of reckoning looms for the state’s long-grain rice growers, who pump millions into the economy in Southeast Texas each year and account for about 5 percent of America’s rice production. Come March 1, if there is less than 850,000 acre-feet of water in reservoirs along the Lower Colorado River, water managers will be forced to take the unprecedented step of withholding water from agricultural users, which will mean severe cuts to Texas rice production this year.

According to Bob Rose, chief meteorologist with the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA), it’s unlikely that enough rain will fall between now and March 1 to reach the 850,000 acre-feet threshold that was established by a recent agreement between the authority and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. An acre-foot is the amount of water required to cover one acre of land to a depth of one foot, and it amounts to about 326,000 gallons.

As of January 30, the highland lakes that serve as the area’s reservoirs held about 758,000 acre-feet.

“This is going to be a huge, huge deal,” Rose said during a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society in New Orleans. “What’s going to happen is that there will be no water for rice irrigation in the Lower Colorado River Basin this year.”

Driving the Lower Colorado River Authority’s decision-making is the need to ensure there is enough water to meet the demand from Austin, the rapidly growing state capital that is completely reliant on water from the Lower Colorado River, as well as other municipalities and users, such as electric utilities that need water to run power plants.

The agricultural water restrictions would hit three Southeast Texas counties the hardest: Colorado, Matagordo, and Wharton. According to a 2011 analysis by the Texas AgriLife Extension Service, the combined direct and indirect economic benefits of rice production and processing in these three counties alone amounts to $675 million, including the support of nearly 9,000 jobs.

“This will be a huge blow to the region’s economy,” Rose told Climate Central. “We have never had a year where we have curtailed their [rice growers’] water or cut them off” completely, he said.

The 2011-12 drought ranks as the state’s most intense one-year drought since records began in 1895. The drought has had major impacts on agriculture in the Lone Star State, particularly for cattle ranchers, causing at least $5.2 billion in agricultural losses during 2011. This includes $1.8 billion in cotton losses, $750 million in lost hay production, and $243 million in wheat losses.

Texas is the largest cattle ranching state in the country, and the dry weather, combined with record summer heat and shortage of affordable feed this year caused many ranchers to cull their herds early or move their cattle to ranches in other states. The Texas cattle herd dropped by 11 percent during 2011, which translates to more than a million head of cattle.

Scientists say the drought is a likely result of a La Nina event in the Pacific Ocean, which tends to depress rainfall totals in Texas, particularly during the winter. However, global warming has likely exacerbated the drought and led to more heat extremes last summer, according to Texas state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon.

Brent Batchelor, who works for Texas AgriLife Extension Service in Matagorda County, said rice growers there are “hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.”

“They’re very apprehensive because we’re a long ways from getting any water,” he said. He added that even if the reservoirs do rise above 850,000 acre-feet, rice growers would still receive less water than normal through a system of Lower Colorado River Authority-managed canals.

Although it boosted morale, an unusually heavy January rainstorm was not enough to significantly raise reservoir levels, which remain about 100,000 acre-feet shy of the threshold, according to Rose. “We still have about five weeks till March 1, so it’s possible we could see another storm like this. But the overall pattern still looks drier than normal. I’m not very optimistic at this point,” he said.

The Weather Service’s Murphy said the long-range weather outlook calls for a drier than average February, although he noted that dry weather was forecast for December and January, and both months turned out to be wetter than average.

– By Andrew Freedman, in a Climate Central repost

Related Posts:

• Catastrophic $5.3 Billion Texas Drought Hits Global Cotton, Beef, Peanut Butter and Even Pumpkin Market
• With No End in Sight for Texas Drought, ABC News Explains: “Every Farmer in the World Will Be Affected by Climate Change.

• Water. Coal. Fracking. Texas. Sanity. One of These Words Does Not Belong
• In Drought-Stricken Texas, Drillers Use Billions Of Gallons Of Water For Fracking:  The Texas Water Development Board estimates the total amount of water used for fracking statewide in 2010 was 13.5 billion gallons. That’s likely to more than double by 2020
• As Texas Withers, Gas Industry Guzzles:  … in the Upper Trinity Groundwater Conservation District (UTGCD) west of Fort Worth, the share of groundwater used by frackers was 40 percent in the first half of 2011, up from 25 percent in 2010.

“Obviously, that’s a pretty heavy draw on an aquifer when we’re in the midst of a drought,” says Bob Patterson, UTGCD’s general manager. In his water district, 40 to 50 wells have run dry and many municipalities have declared stage two or stage three drought conditions, which involve severe restrictions on residential outdoor water use. But natural gas drillers can still pump as much water from the district as they want….

Critics of fracking claim the industry actually uses far more water than it lets on. Because water used in the fracking process becomes contaminated with hydrocarbons and other toxins, frackers typically sequester it deep underground, removing that wastewater permanently from the hydrologic cycle. Unlike the water used for irrigation or daily living, it doesn’t reenter rivers, aquifers, or the atmosphere. “Fracking water is typically not recycled,” says Paul Hudak, a hydrologist with the University of North Texas. “It’s not really economical.”

Arizona’s unremitting campaign against its Hispanic communities has certainly reached an extreme, with the state GOP initiating a spate of radical anti-immigrant laws, banning Mexican-American and other ethnic studies, and ensuring that Spanish-speakers will never hold elected office. But one lawmaker is intent on turning the party’s xenophobic paranoia into a full-blown caricature.

Reacting to a Democratic colleagues apparently incendiary request to celebrate a Latino American day, State Rep. Cecil Ash (R) declared that he’d support the idea as long as there’s a holiday for white people too. “I’m supportive of this proposition. I just want them to assure me that when we do become in the minority you’ll have a day for us,” he said. Ash was “trying to lighten things up,” but when CBS 5 asked if he was serious about a Caucasian holiday, he offered an unequivocal “yes”:

ASH: Yes, I think it was appropriate. It was appropriate for the mood that was in the House and I think that if and when the Caucasian population becomes a minority, they may want to celebrate the accomplishments and the contributions of the Caucasian population the same way.

You can watch the report here. As CBS 5 notes, some Arizonans were supportive of the idea. “Good idea,” said one woman. “Like they have Cinco de Mayo for Mexicans. We need something for whites.”

A cybernickel for your thoughts — yes, I want thoughts that are 5 times as valuable as usual!

To inspire you, this classic Toles cartoon:

People like their Planet Drupal in different style. According to a rather non-scientific survey, two thirds prefer to get the Planet feed with full posts and two thirds reads the feed in some kind of reader.

I belong to the third that prefer the stream of posts to be trimmed to a maximum length -- it makes easier for me to scan for new posts when their lengths doesn't vary between one paragraph and five screen lengths. There has been some discussion about introducing customizable teaser length on Planet Drupal, but has proved difficult to actually get it going. While waiting for this, I whipped up a Yahoo! pipe that takes the RSS feed and trims the posts to a length that you can set yourself. If you're interested, feel free to use http://pipes.yahoo.com/itangalo/drupalplanettrimmed?_render=rss in the reader of your choice. Add "&length=500" to trim the post length to the number of characters you like -- default is 1000. (The trimming is "dumb", so no respect is taken to tags. Sorry.)

I hope this can be useful for someone more than me.

(Note: I know the webmasters on drupal.org is working hard and doing a great job. This forked feed is in no way an attempt to say that the webmasters aren't doing a good job, nor a way to try to draw people away from drupal.org. It is just a way to share something that I find useful with others.)

Interested in more smart Drupal feeds? Check out the "full modules" Twitter account or RSS feed and the "sandbox modules" Twitter account/RSS.

The most basic function of a content management system is the ability to create a page. However, this fundamental activity of website building is often an unexpected hassle for new Drupal users. Yeah, I'm talking about the lack of a built-in rich text editor.

I know there are some strong feelings in the Drupal community about this, but let me try to persuade you that whatever the philosophical or technical reasons for not including a default editor, they're hurting adoption of Drupal and needlessly creating a usability issue for those who are evaluating the platform. 

Most of the reasons I have heard for not including a default editor involve respecting user choice. This is a fine sentiment, but let me illustrate the problems it can create when someone is evaluating Drupal.

First, a little context. I've been building websites since 2000. Although I'm a competent coder and have slogged my way through a custom module or two, I've never really enjoyed that aspect of building a site and come more from a design and marketing perspective. I have an MBA, not a degree in computer science, and that's the lens I look through when thinking about websites.

A few years ago, an organization I work for had a site that had grown increasingly difficult to manage so we decided to take a look at content management systems. We were working in a .NET environment and had both DotNetNuke and Umbraco on the list, but we also wanted to consider the "Big 3" PHP platforms - WordPress, Joomla and Drupal.

It fell to me to evaluate these platforms, write up a recommendation and do a brief demo of the top two choices. I started with Joomla because my boss had heard great things about it. I installed it and added a few pages, tweaked some configuration options - you know, took it out for a test drive. I repeated this process one by one until I came to the last platform, Drupal. 

The install seemed to go smoothly...so far, so good. I went to create a page and...hold on a second. I think something went wrong in the install. Where is the text editor? Maybe I need to turn something on?

Ten minutes of clicking through the admin pages.

OK, time for Google.

Oh, I see! You need a module called WYSIWYG. Strange that they don't include that. All of the others did. Well, no big deal. Modules don't seem too hard to install.

WYSIWYG is installed! Now let's create that page!

Uh...no editor. What the hell? Back to Google. 

Looks like I need to add the actual editor. Wow, there are a lot of choices. Also a lot of debate on which one is best. Guess I'll just go with TinyMCE. People seem to like it.

Whew! That was a bit of work but finally I've got an editor in there - let's make a page!

Wait...why can't I add an image? Where is the upload? Oh. I have to install another module.

Check that, two modules - IMCE and IMCE Wysiwyg Bridge.

Are you *!?#ing kidding me? All of this to make a basic page!? 

Before you tell me how stupid it was of me to not do A or B, consider that my experience is not that uncommon. You see, the Drupal community is dominated by developers, really good developers who embrace complexity and who love nothing more than to muck about with code and get their hands dirty. Installing and configuring a few modules is nothing. Actually it's kind of fun, right?

Unfortunately, there are a large number of people involved in building websites who don't feel this way.

There is a common complaint about the quality of Drupal themes and they are often contrasted unfavorably with WordPress themes. Have you ever considered the possibility that Drupal usability may be playing a role? How can this be, you ask?

Web designers are very influential in the CMS decision making process in many firms and certainly among consultants. They generally just want things to work. If a content management system is a hassle for them, they will naturally tend not to recommend it. Instead, they will choose a CMS that will allow them to spend more time working on the parts of their job they love - designing themes, for example.

The marketing department also likes to have a lot of input into the website. After all, in the large majority of cases, the website is a marketing platform. How do you think they feel about a CMS that seems hard to use right out of the gate?

When Drupal 7 was nearing release, I read about all of the usability improvements that were on the way. Finally, I thought, Drupal will get a text editor by default!

Obviously, that didn't happen and it remains a blemish on what are some really great improvements to usability. In fact, had an editor been included by default, I honestly think that Drupal 7 would compare very well to WordPress 3 with regard to usability. 

Now, some folks might mention using an installation profile that includes an editor. That's not really a solution when you think about it. People who are new to Drupal are going to download the default install or perhaps from Acquia (also, very surprisingly, no editor). Installation profiles are generally for people who are already familiar with Drupal and are looking for a time saver. 

An analogy I think is appropriate is with product packaging. Think about Apple and how they package their products and how that affects the buyer's experience with the product. The first 20-30 minutes a person spends with a CMS is very similar. The product speaks to the user. Some may marvel at the flexibilty and power of Drupal. Many others may try to create a simple page and wander off in frustration thinking, "Drupal is too hard."

It doesn't have to be that way.

Obviously, I didn't give up on Drupal during that evaluation process and have since become an ardent supporter. But I've always wondered why - virtually alone among all the CMS platforms - Drupal continues to omit a default text editor.

I would like to appeal to the Drupal community for two things.

First, please support the inclusion of a default text editor in future versions. CK Editor, YUI, TinyMCE - it doesn't really matter. Just pick something. It can always be switched out later. Including an editor by default will go a long way toward making a good first impression with new users.

Second, let me say how much I respect Drupal developers and the amazing CMS they have built. I only ask that you leave a little room at the table for some of the other important stakeholders that may not always feel heard within the community. I'm talking about the designers, the marketers, information architects, copywriters and even executive decision makers who work together to build great websites. There are more of us out here than you may think. And we would like a default editor, please. It will make the job of selling Drupal to new users much easier.

And that's a good thing for everyone, don't you think?