Karns Quality Blog

Joanna Kirby of Smoke the Groove, acoustic, with Kristyn Beeman on percussion and harmonies.

Friday night above Mangia Qui on North St. in Harrisburg.

Arrive early for table seating.

They’ve been practicing, and it sounds great!

Fellow Pennsylvanians, get out and vote!

I did.

Live at Obama Rally!!

Originally uploaded by y0sh.

T minus two hours!

The music will start at 10PM and the party will actually go until 1AM.  A change of schedule due to the Obama rally right around the corner.

So it seems that Twitter has arrived in Harrisburg.  I was first turned onto this new serivce last summer.  Its part blog, part text message, part social network, part something entirely new.  After checking out its features, I was intrigued about the possibility of Twitter, but I didn’t know anyone else using it, so I moved on for the time being.  That all changed earlier this month when, out of no where, Twitter seemed to march into the burg.  Now, a core group of Harrisburg bloggers and tech industry types have jumped on and are running with it.

What was this impetus for this local surge in interest?  My research has traced it to Daniel Victor, a Patriot News reporter who actually seems to “get it” in terms of the impacts of social media on traditional journalism.  He started a all-out “one-month twitter twial” in an effort to see what would happen.  Well, so far, so good…

I gotta say, this is a communication tool that is really cool, and I cannot wait for it to expand outward from the small cirle of locals who are currently trying it out.  So, I encourage you to give it a go, as we see where this grand experiment takes up.

Today, Bruce Katz was in Harrisburg to meet with policy makers and community leaders to discuss An Economic Plan for the Commonwealth: Unleashing the Assets of Metropolitan Pennsylvania. I was privileged to hear a customized version of his Metro America presentation, with specific slides for Pennsylvania. Afterward I joined him in a casual reception and conversation. Rather than paraphrase his thesis hear, I think I’ll just have Bruce share it in his own words. Below are four youtube videos, totalling just over a half hour in length. Just start it.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

When considering these ideas, remember that “metro” is not a synonym of “urban”. In fact, many metro areas contain urban, suburban, and rural landscapes. A good example of this is Lancaster county, which lies entirely within one of the 100 metro areas that Bruce is discussing, farmland and all.

Real estate web site hotpads.com introduced an interesting feature to their real estate mapping software for visualizing foreclosure rates called the foreclosure heat map.  It combines the number listings of foreclosure properties with the total housing units by state, county, or zip code.  Drilling in on Harrisburg reveals a pleasant picture:

click for full size image

There’s Harrisburg, clearly below average.  That tip of red at the bottom of the image is the tip of a region of above average foreclosure rates in York County.

Outside the Hil-ARR-eee Event

Originally uploaded by y0sh.

Overflow crowd at the Forum on Harrisburg. Loudspeakers are set up for
those milling about outside. Jersey Mike is inside providing the play-
by-play.

It’s time for Middlesex Township Police to proudly step into the spotlight.  They busted the most treacherous of criminals, the bootlegger.  This guy had 1,520 bootleg DVD movies and 1,578 counterfeit CDs!!  Three cheers for this diligent detective work.

In other news, everybody else in the world, besides that poor sap and the Middlesex Township Police, just downloads their music via p2p networks.

Seriously, I feel bad for this guy for actually believing that there is still a market for this bootleg stuff, and I feel bad for the cops who are pretty delusional in thinking that they made a difference in anything.

When a government official tells a business to break the law, the business’s obligation is to the law. Therefore, we need to allow the courts to determine if the law was broken.

That’s me at the 56 second mark. Unfortunately, my sign is not very readable in the compressed YouTube video.

Here is the photo with a readable resolution:

If you feel strongly about this, I urge you to sign the petition.