Holiday Lights Update – the public speaks

I know I’ve been hitting on this topic quite a bit lately, but with this going on in my back yard I can’t help but comment.  Bethany clued me in on this latest story on the latest developments and the current version of the Holiday Lights policy.  Apparently the policy has evolved to now include input from City Council members, as well as from public input.  In the new policy, the “white lights only” has now expanded to allow colored lights and Christmas tree displays on the outside of buildings.

Apparently the spokesperson from the task force objects to people outside of the task force offering input. 

From the Coloradoan:

“My primary concern is that the (hybrid) recommendation includes aspects that were neither in the original policy nor the task force recommendation,” task force spokesman Seth Anthony said. “I am concerned that some of the things were not thought all the way through and carefully (vetted) like the task force recommendations were.”

Awwww, is the ACLU guy upset that the public can’t be circumvented in the vocal minority’s attempt to promote their own agenda?

Anthony, who acknowledged the task force recommendations may not be directly in line with what a majority of the community favors, said the city’s hybrid policy risks being too restrictive, not inclusive, by its wording.

I do find myself agreeing with Anthony in one part: I think the modified indoor-building policies, which state that only secular decorations may be used is too limiting.  My hope is that at the meeting tonight they’ll defer back to the “manager’s discretion” indoor policy, while maintaining an expansive outdoor policy.  Should be an interesting meeting tonight.

More on the FC Holiday Lights Issue

Follow up on the Holiday Lights news – glad to see that common sense still is present here in Fort Collins:

From Slapstick Politics:

“Fort Collins is becoming more like the imbecilic borough of Boulder than many would like to admit, where social agendas substitute for common sense”–Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden

Looks like some Fort Collins City Council members are coming out of the woodwork and proclaiming they will vote this down when it goes to the Council for a vote. The best part is that Sheriff Alderden is staging a bit of a protest, inviting Fort Collins citizens to come decorate the Christmas Tree on the lawn of their office.

Here’s the money quote:

“There’s such a thing as religious tolerance, but you can be tolerant without excluding the majority, and that seems to be the road we’re heading down,” Alderden said. “We respect people of other faiths and religions. We respect other people’s right to have their opinions, but don’t ask Christians to hide their faith.”

Amen.

Feed Synch Troubles: More like Craigslist hating Newsgator…

Just wanted to follow-up to my original post on my troubles with Newsgator and Craiglist feeds.  Newsgator Support emailed me to let me know that they are aware of this issue, and have been working with Craigslist to get this resolved.  As it turns out, the issue lies with Craigslist blocking traffic from Newsgator’s synchronization servers, forbidding them access to their RSS feeds.  They claim Newsgator was requesting data too often.  Trying to comply, Newsgator Support turned back the threshold to once every 2 days.  With a site like Craigslist, once very two days is kissing goodbye to some potentially good deals.

What a mess!  I understand that Craigslist has their reasons, but I don’t understand why they would want to block and RSS aggregator service from being able to retrieve feeds.  If Craigslist isn’t getting data from Newsgator’s requests, they’re going to get it from my feed reader (and right now three times between my devices) . You would think more people using aggressor services like Google Reader, Bloglines and Newsgator would reduce the number of requests to Craigslist servers.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I just hope a resolution can be found soon.  The thing I enjoy about Newsgator is that it interacts with the FeedDemon clients installed on both my laptop and desktop, as well as has an attractive mobile interface that works with my Treo.

Trouble with Facebook Page editor selecting your brand?

This evening I was working on adding my band, Greenfoot, into Facebook.  In my struggles, I came across a great tip to share for anyone looking to incorporate their band (or artist) using the Facebook page editor.

When I tried to add Greenfoot as a page in Facebook, I found that my page was showing up as a business.  When I tried to edit the page information, I was being asked of our hours, products we offer – questions suitable for a business.  When I looked at the page, I saw it was showing up in the "Other Business" category.  After banging my head against the desk, I realized "it’s the browser, stupid".

Using Firefox, the page-type selection page appears as follows:

FacebookStruggles01

Despite clicking the Artist, Band, Or Public Figure selection, I was still being treated as an "Other Local Business". However, it wasn’t until I (reluctantly) fired up Internet Explorer when I realized that clicking on the radio button triggered a drop-down box that was supposed to be displayed.

FacebookStruggles02

This behavior was consistent with the "Brand or Product" selection as well.  Hopefully Facebook will fix this browser-compatibility issue, but in the meantime I hope this will will help someone looking to outreach on Facebook.

Classic commentary about last night’s Heroes

I just wanted to pass along a link to some great commentary about Monday’s (Nov 12) episode of Heroes from the Cracked.com blog.  Hilariously true as well, and definitely recommended reading (warning: some F-bombs are dropped).

“The most critical revelations this episode centered around what happened to Peter Petrelli, namely, how did he go from blowing up over New York to a shipping container in Ireland? The somewhat convoluted answer is that he saved his brother, was kidnapped and imprisoned by the Company, escaped with Adam Monroe, then got handcuffed by the Haitian inside the shipping container and had his memory erased. Perhaps most importantly though was his time spent with Veronica Mars, who will now forever be celebrated as the person that finally gave Peter a haircut.”

I agree with everything written in the blog, especially the part about the new characters.  There isn’t one new character on this season’s show that is all that compelling.  Adam may be the closest resemblance of being interesting.  I don’t get the Venezuelan twins, and the Veronica Mars character just annoys the hell out of me.  Now she’s tied with that Nikki character for Heroes I can’t stand.  The worst part is at the end of the episode NBC promotes “3 episodes left to save the world”.  It looks like they’re preparing for a season finale, punishing the viewers of the show for not being able to get their act together against the Writer’s Guild.  Hopefully this season doesn’t turn into a big roller coaster that made us slowly and steadily incline for 7 episodes, only to drop like 10 feet.