

$10 million for Project 10^100 winners - charlief
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/10-million-for-project-10100-winners.html

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jonbischke
$2 million for Khan Academy is one of the best investments for improving
education ever made.

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orblivion
I'm surprised this never occurred to me. K-12 education is mostly the same
stuff every year, and it's not that sophisticated. You'd pretty much only have
to compile it once. I'm surprised nobody in the free software or creative
commons movements thought of it.

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jfager
There's a huge interest in education material in the free software and
creative commons movements. The idea of putting free education material on the
web isn't new at all, and there's tons of material available out there (and
has been for quite a while).

Khan Academy stands out because it's just really, really, really (really)
good.

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Elite
For a while I thought Google would be sweeping this under the rug.

Great call on Khan Academy.

But the $1M spent on schweeb could have done more good elsewhere. Nobody wants
to go pedaling upside down on a suspended monorail. The bicycle has solved
this problem pretty elegantly.

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lincolnq
Oh really? I do. I ride a bike 3 miles to work every day through Cambridge MA.
This Shweeb idea would solve the weather problem, as well as the unshakable
"oh god I'm going to die" feeling (since cycling with cars around is pretty
damn dangerous), and probably be faster to boot.

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Empact
Yeah, here (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhxVtUFZVzk>) they claim 2x the
efficiency of bicycling, thanks to aerodynamics. There are some serious
logistical challenges - e.g. to address the problem of slow people & free
riders you might have to detect and incentivize/reward contributing (human)
power to the system.

But the low-weight, self-powered approach means it's probably the lowest-cost
system to mount above the current din of street life, which could end up being
a big benefit.

I'd file it under strange/interesting, rather than crazy/ridiculous

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hugh3
I think the worst problem is breakdowns. Given a bunch of complicated
mechanical devices zooming around the place all day long being pedaled by
people with no incentive to be careful, how often is one going to get jammed?
I'd say pretty often. And then your entire line is filled with angry commuters
dangling in plastic tubes above the ground while you have to go get a crane to
fix it.

Still, a small-scale deployment might work. I can imagine it on a university
campus. I can't imagine any city installing it, simply because there are too
many voters who would say "damned if I'm going to get into a little plastic
tube and pedal while everybody looks at my legs".

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yrb
I don't think breakdowns would be much of an issue, for one they aren't
complicated mechanical devices in the slightest, they seem to be even more
minimal than a bicycle.

The difference between waiting a couple of hours for a crane one day every few
months, seems like a good tradeoff against sitting in gridlock everyday or the
risk of being run down by a car imho.

But yes I agree that humans are not rational and would not do it for petty
reasons. Can easily solve the 'look at my legs' problem with opaque tubes :P

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Keyframe
That shweeb thing must be one of the most stupid things I've seen. On the
other hand, giving Khan Academy money alone is worth every penny given to him
for the great work he has done.

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hugh3
I hadn't heard of shweeb, but after a look at the website, it _does_ indeed
sound like a remarkably unworkable idea. Still, maybe there's some kind of
possible idea for human-powered public transportation that doesn't look like a
haven for system-destroying minor breakdowns and upskirt photographers.

There's also a lesson in there somewhere about how if you have an idea which
seems silly, you should avoid _also_ giving it a silly name.

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allenp
I think you hit the nail on the head - it really just sounds unworkable. Just
getting civic approval seems unsurmountable, the system seems frail
(breakdowns, capacity, misuse) and all it is going to take is one person to
have a serious medical issue with no chance of early responders being able to
address the issue for this to get shutdown.

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sachinag
I'm so thrilled that they gave Carl Malamud/Law.gov $1 million. His tireless
devotion to shining sunlight on government has dramatically changed the way we
interact with our government (i.e. SEC EDGAR, which started off as a
skunkworks project he turned over to the SEC under threat).

If you'd like to donate, go to <http://public.resource.gov> and scroll down to
the PayPal Donate button. I just gave $100.

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Empact
FYI, that's: <http://public.resource.org/>

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abp
_Make government more transparent_

They could have sponsored wikileaks.

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InfinityX0
Props to Google for doing this. When we look at scale, though, it's like me
giving $1 to a bum in San Francisco. I don't deserve props for that.

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charlief
Google's net income in 2009 was 6,500M 10M/6500M = 0.15% So if you make $100K
a year, this is more like giving $150.00

If you gave $150.00 to a homeless person, you deserve props. If you gave
$150.00 to Khan Academy, you also deserve props.

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kiba
_If you gave $150.00 to a homeless person, you deserve props. If you gave
$150.00 to Khan Academy, you also deserve props._

A homeless person might not teach himself to fish using 150 dollars, but Khan
Academy will teach lot of people how to fish with 150 dollars.

