BDCWire Staff

Noah Guiney Correspondent

Noah Guiney is a freelance journalist living in Dorchester who specializes in Boston city politics, as well as arts coverage, and serves on the Boston Globe's editorial board. In a previous life, he used to rock out in a Cambridge-based soul and Motown band called The Nostalgics.

Stories by Noah Guiney

Politics
Martha Coakley
The Answers to Your Very Basic Democratic Convention FAQs
Politics
Noah Guiney

Unless you are a) running for governor or b) working for someone who is running for governor, chances are you haven’t been paying attention to the governor’s race. Don’t worry about it too much — the candidates haven’t really been paying that much attention to you either. Instead, the Democrats have devoted the last few months to courting the 4,000 – odd hardcore party members who attended the party convention last weekend in Worcester. (The Republicans held their convention last March in Boston). And their vote on Sunday radically changed the course of the race, knocking out two democratic campaigns entirely and propelling Attorney General Martha Coakley, State Treasurer Steve Grossman, and former Medicaid head Donald Berwick into the primary. More

Technology
Federal Communications Commission Proposes New Open Internet Rules
The FCC Wants to Take Away The Open Internet. 3 Reasons Why That’s a Bad Idea
Technology
Noah Guiney

We’re used to the idea that all websites are equally accessible. You’d probably be surprised if all of a sudden it was easier to access Buzzfeed’s content than it was to load up Gawker, regardless of which browser you used, or whether you used your phone, tablet, or laptop. But, if new regulations proposed by the Federal Communications Commission last week go through, that might be how the Internet of the future operates. More

BDCWire
Rudick_Kendall629_biz
5 ways to determine if your startup has been hacked by Russian spies
BDCWire
Noah Guiney

Innovators beware! It seems like Kendall square is on the frontlines of a new Cold War. The FBI’s Boston office has issued a warning to area startups that Russian spies might be posing as investors in order to steal technology for the Russian army. To hammer their point home, Lucia Ziobro, an assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston office, wrote an op-ed in the Boston Business Journal detailing some of the links between Russian investors involved in Cambridge and Silicon Valley and scary-sounding Russian military units, such as the “strategic missile troops.”

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Boston
kreiter_Tridership3_met
Government Center Station is closing for 2 years. Here’s what you need to know.
Boston
Noah Guiney

Travelers beware! Tomorrow, March 22, Government Center Station will be closed for two years for some much needed renovations. This will suck, but not as much as you think. Besides, the station is in dire need of an upgrade, and the T stop’s $90 million facelift will make all of our lives easier, once it’s completed. Here is a list of everything you need to know about the project.

Blue and Green lines will pass through the station, but will not stop.

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Commentary
lastbrain
Boston gets late night T service and food trucks, but they’ll only last if you use them
Commentary
Noah Guiney

It’s a good day to be a party animal in the Hub. This week, state and local officials not only announced that the T’s eagerly anticipated weekend expansion would begin on March 28, but also that the hours of operation for food trucks would expand in three parts of the city. While late-night hoagies are going to be bad news for my wallet, both announcements are great news for the city.

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Technology
bitcoinsouthstation
Why should you care about bitcoin? You may not have a choice
Technology
Noah Guiney

All it took was a machine in a train station. Two months ago, bitcoin was the preserve of tech junkies and rabid libertarians, something most people didn’t think about, let alone understand. But now that an ATM dedicated to the virtual currency has opened in South Station, bitcoin is all anybody talks about. People who couldn’t tell a gigabite from a CPU are now talking about virtual currencies. Even my mom is asking if she should get some. If bitcoin was a band, it would be HAIM. More

BDCWire
James-Brown-81765
A Valentine’s Day soul music playlist for any uncomfortable scenario
BDCWire
Noah Guiney

Love is tough, and trying to deal with it during a holiday as weird and commercial as Valentine’s Day is even harder. Luckily, help is available. Soul musicians spend most of their time singing about love and loss, and as a result there is a soul song that applies to virtually any situation that you could possibly find yourself in on Feb. 14. Here’s a few of the possible Valentine’s Day scenarios with some great soul B-sides for you to use as a guide to navigating love’s treacherous waters.

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Politics
youthpot
Whether Massachusetts legalizes pot will depend on the youth vote
Politics
Noah Guiney

It’s been a while since politicians talked seriously about the priorities of young people. It’s unfair: campaigns rely on us to sign petitions, like pages on Facebook, and knock on doors in New Hampshire, but none of that translates into us being considered a viable political constituency. The reason is we don’t vote. And because we don’t vote, we don’t get to sit at the big boy’s table.

But what happens if an issue comes along that has the possibility of capturing young people’s attention, and in the process, turns us into a powerful voting bloc? Friday, the state awarded the first 20 licenses to open medical marijuana dispensaries, the next big step in Massachusetts’ flirtation with full-on legalization. And now, the pro-weed lobbying groups are preparing for their push to get a ballot question on the issue by 2016. The next two years will be interesting, as America’s quintessential nanny-state will have to look itself in the mirror and decide if it will abide legal, recreational marijuana use. Whether or not that happens will depend largely on the youth vote. More

BDCWire
sotu2014
4 ways we’d benefit if State of the Union promises came true
BDCWire
Noah Guiney

It took over an hour, but President Barack Obama delivered his sixth State of the Union address last night. As would be expected, the President spoke with remarkable eloquence about programs and policies that he will have a very hard time convincing this divided Congress to enact. As he laid out his legislative agenda for the coming year, I couldn’t help but think what my life would look like, as a millennial living in Boston, if the president could wave a magic wand tomorrow and bring into being every policy he mentioned in the State of the Union. A lot of the things he talked about (like the wind down in Afghanistan and negotiations with Iran) won’t affect me personally, but some others could make the lives of young people in the Hub much better.
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