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George LeVines

Contributor
Follow @rhymeswthgeorge george.levines@gmail.com
George is a regular contributor to BetaBoston. Find him pestering public officials and scouring documents at the public records news service MuckRock. He also dabbles in photography and webdesign over here. Time your meals correctly and you might find him working a certain science-themed bar and grill in Central Square. He lives by Gift of the Wind at the northmost crossing of Red and Purple.

Articles By George LeVines

Libraries
Coming soon to your local library: 3-D printers and soldering irons
By George LeVines Follow

The HATCH makerspace, which officially opened in January, is overseen by the library and provides free access to 3-D printers, sewing machines, soldering equipment, basic hand tools, Arduino electronics systems and computer programming software. It’s part of a bigger evolution among libraries looking to shed the dusty books-only stereotype in favor of programming that keeps them relevant in the so-called “innovation economy.”More →

Edward Snowden
What you missed from the Poitras, Greenwald, and Snowden post-Oscar Reddit AMA
By George LeVines Follow

Following an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, “Citizenfour” director Laura Poitras joined her colleague Glenn Greenwald and source Edward Snowden for a Reddit AMA on Monday. However the session came with the disclaimer: Ask Us Almost Anything.

After the Snowden documents were released, Poitras and Greenwald, along with their colleague and fellow journalist Jeremy Scahill, co-founded the online news outlet The Intercept. The Intercept is funded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and has largely focused on sifting through the troves of information Snowden provided and other instances of government overreach. “Citizenfour” chronicles the meeting between Snowden and the journalists to whom he provided the government documents; the film debuted on HBO yesterday. The following are some highlights from the AMA.More →

Surveillance
Backed by Berkman Center, Canarywatch will monitor data requests from feds
By George LeVines Follow

On Monday, Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society announced that it was taking part in a collaborative effort to gather information about secret federal legal notices that demand corporate and user data from web service providers.

The Berkman Center worked alongside two digital rights groups, the Calyx Institute and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as New York University’s Technology Law and Policy Clinic, to create CanaryWatch.org, a site designed to collect and monitor all of the Internet’s warrant canaries.

What, you might be wondering, is a warrant canary?More →

museums
Do selfies and smartphones belong in museums? Many curators say yes.
By George LeVines Follow

Today is #MuseumSelfie day, an annual happening started by a group of clever museum professionals last year. And though it’s not like they needed an excuse to hold up their phones and pose, Bostonians are already doing their part to contribute — even Museum of Fine Arts director Malcolm Rogers has chimed in.

But the presence of tech within such hallowed halls belies a broader question that museums across the country are grappling with. For these keepers of history, what’s the best way to integrate cutting edge tech onto their exhibit floors?More →