I've come up with an algorithm that predicts whether a webpage is an activist/liberal event. It's designed for conferences, but works for other events too (convergences, assemblies, climate camps, etc).

It's based on tests done on 20,000 webpages. I ran logistic regression tests using 5000 keywords, of which 170 are included in the algorithm. In my test data set, I correctly identify 74% of the events (on a page level), and 99% of the non-events.

I've been collecting a list of activist websites, primarily english speaking from the US and Canada, for my conference finding bot.

Here is a customized google search that uses those sites:

http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=006452045356193133822:sp984foeerq

I'm working on my bot/spider to find activist events. It's going well!

I collected a data set of 10000 webpages by spidering groups and events that were listed on campusactivism.org/activismnetwork.org (using sphider from sphider.eu). This gave me around 1000 event pages (mostly because of the event webpages).

I'm using logistic regression and SPSS.

I also considered using Bayesian filtering.

Currently the model classifies 63% of the "activist events" correctly, and 98.6% of the non-events.

WiserEarth users are raising money to create an API and people are contributing in droves!

If they do a good job (eg. allow access to all the fields I need), I'll create an Activism Network + WiserEarth mashup that combines the data from both. This should be especially useful for people and group data, maybe events too.

If successful, this could be the first mashup of two activist social networks! Maybe this will kickstart interest in sharing even more data!

(Note: Activism Network has had an API for two years or so.)

Chip In has an interesting widget for fundraising that appears to be free for nonprofits (outside of the fees that paypal takes).

You can set a fundraising goal and get donations via paypal. It automatically updates the progress made towards the goal on your website.

I tried out a carbon calculator (www.carbonfootprint.com). I produce about 8 tons of CO2, whereas the typical American produces 20 tons.

(This website had me using around 10 tons: http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/calculator/ - There are all sorts of calculators, some don't take into account factors like how little flying I do, or my vegan diet.)

(I live in a rented house that could really use weather proofing. Also we need to do a better job on our electricity usage. And I fly home once a year.)

I could create a service that would offer free hosting to activist/liberal conference organizers.

I could prepopulate the structure and provide some empty pages that the organizer could fill in. Thus there might be sections like: home, schedule, registration, contact, getting there, housing, tabling, etc.

The organizer could just write up text descriptions for each page, upload a logo, and they wouldn't have to worry about getting a domain or website space, doing html and css. They might be able to choose from several themes/layouts.

Ten years after I worked on this campaign, the group I started is trying once again to include "sexual orientation" in the University of Notre Dame's non-discrimination clause.

They're off to an excellent start!

http://media.www.ndsmcobserver.com/media/storage/paper660/news/2008/04/30/News/Psa-To.Submit.Petition.To.Office.Of.The.President-3357806.shtml

Students from the Progressive Student Alliance (PSA) will deliver a petition to the Office of the President Wednesday to add sexual orientation to Notre Dame's Non-Discrimination, PSA member Mike McCann said.

So one of my goals is to have the best activist events calendar (starting with the US), and to make it a lot better.

I'm pretty sure I've already got the best calendar (you can see them: www.campusactivism.org/searchevent.php - hit submit without any criteria), though it could be much better.

I've started collecting a pretty good list of reoccuring annual conferences (70 of them), as a lot of conferences reoccur and thus they're easier to list (or encourage the organizers to list them - which is the goal).

When we bail out banks, we're protecting four groups of people
1) shareholders
2) bondholders (If banks have outstanding bonds)
3) people with loans
4) bank workers

We could be letting the stock and bonds fall in value to zero or near zero. However, instead we're bailing out the banks and any time we help prop up share or bond value almost all of that money is going to the upper-middle and upper class. It's probably redistributing wealth upwards as bad as any Republican tax cut you can imagine.