This is part 1 of a projected four-part series, of which the only other part I’ve completed is the first half of part 2. A while back I read the essays in the online symposium on John Tomasi’s book Free Market Fairness at the Bleeding Heart Libertarians group blog. I’ve previously noted why I think the book and its topic are important. But what exactly is “free market fairness”? It is Tomasi’s particular take on a broader concept he calls “market democracy”: ...

Everyone who uses the Internet knows about “.com”: google.com, disney.com, even frankhecker.com. It’s one of the well-known suffixes for Internet domain names, along with “.org” (columbiaassociation.org) and “.gov” (howardcountymd.gov); the technical term for these suffixes is “top-level domains” or TLDs. You may have also seen domain names like bit.ly and t.co, for example as used in URL shortening schemes. Here the “.ly” and “.co” are actually two letter codes for Libya and Columbia (the country, not the city). (These are known as “country code top-level domains” or ccTLDs, and are more typically used for web sites outside the US, like www.gov.uk for the UK government.) But did you know that in future there may be top-level domains like “.hilton” or “.bmw” associated with individual companies, or more generic domains like “.blog” or “.book”? ...

I don’t usually comment on Maryland politics beyond Howard County, but this Washington Post story on Martin O’Malley’s approval rating reinforces an opinion I’ve held for a while: O’Malley seems to be frittering away his second term trying to make himself into a national figure, as opposed to actually doing the hard work of preparing Maryland for success in the 21st century. Maybe this is an unfair characterization; maybe (as with the college tuition and school funding issues mentioned in the article) he’s just had a problem “communicating his accomplishments.” ...

I think this is a record for me: Three posts in one day, and all about libraries to boot, to mark the occasion of the “Evening in the Stacks” fundraising event at the Miller Branch of the Howard County Library System. After finishing my last post I happened to be thinking of the role that libraries play in the life of their communities and how libraries are portrayed in TV and films: as just another setting for sitcom wisecracking and rom-com “meeting cute,” or perhaps as a place to go to discover mysterious dark secrets leading to overblown action sequences—what I’ll call the “Indiana Jones” or Da Vinci Code perspective. ...

I couldn’t stop thinking about the possibilities that might be opened by a new Central Branch of the Howard County Library System, so I’m taking the unprecedented step of posting twice in one day. In my last post I proposed building a new Central Branch facility that included at least a dedicated co-working space and business resource center, and possibly having it also host the Innovation Catalyst program run by the Howard County Economic Development Authority in the same building, just as the Miller Branch currently hosts the Howard County Historical Society. ...

Unfortunately I won’t be able to attend the Evening in the Stacks fundraiser at the Miller Branch of the Howard County Library System. However that won’t stop me from doing a library-themed blog post to mark the occasion: Recently the Howard County Times published an article highlighting the HiTech program at the Savage Branch. To quote from the library’s web site, HiTech is a “new digital media lab for teens centering on science, technology, engineering and math.” It’s part and parcel of the library’s expanding role as an educational resource for Howard County residents. ...

Over at Columbia Compass Bill Santos has written a great post that brought into focus some of my thoughts around the proposed Inner Arbor project for Symphony Woods. I really like what I’ve heard and seen of the project and I hope it comes to fruition. But. . . I live in Ellicott City, not in Columbia, and when Ian Kennedy asked people to sign a petition in support of the project I was at first hesitant to do so. After all, I’m not a Columbia property owner, I don’t vote for the Columbia Association board of directors, and whatever money CA chooses to spend in support of the Inner Arbor project is not going to come out of my pocket. Should I just stay out of the controversy and leave Columbia-related matters to the “real Columbians”? ...

For the most part I’ve stayed out of the debate over the “Inner Arbor” plan proposed for consideration by the Columbia Association Board of Directors. For the record, I think the idea of having an everyday “there there” in Symphony Woods (i.e., not just Merriweather Post Pavilion) is a good idea; I especially like the idea of building a new Central Branch library as part of an overall Symphony Woods cultural complex. Bottom line: I like the proposal, have signed the petition to support it, and encourage others to do so as well. ...

I’m back to posting weekend recommendations, but this time it’s for listening instead of reading. One nice benefit of Spotify and similar services is that you can go back and listen to all those albums you never got around to buying, or sample new music you don‘t yet want to buy—or, if you’re truly a child of the Internet, you may never buy at all but simply listen via audio streams or YouTube.1 ...

In part 4 of this series I discussed the general problem of estimating growth rates for periods less than a year, and using Howard County’s population in the 21st century as an example calculated estimated monthly, week, daily, and even hourly growth rates for the county based on the Census population figures for 2000 and 2010. The problem with those calculations is that it’s hard to get a sense for the relative magnitude of the growth rates. For example, how much different is a growth rate of 0.12256% per month from a growth rate of 1.4807% per year? It would be nice to express the growth rates according to a common time period, just as (for example) we use “miles per hour” to refer to the speed of our cars even when we’re just driving 2 minutes to the grocery. ...