technology

Beyond attending rallies and marches protesting the various wars and occupations that the US has been involved in or supported very heavily over our lifetimes (big *auuugh*), there's been a lot of ways technology has been used to give power to our voices, and organize that power in large numbers. Many groups have forms you can fill out with a pre-formatted, customizable letter that will be forwarded to your state or federal legislators, which they'll determine based on your street address. Other web sites have created on-line petitions, making it easier to collect lists of folks supporting a cause without having to go door-to-door. But this? Oh man, this steps it up to a whole other level:

It began with a drive for 20,000 signatures at Rethink Afghanistan’s website, but folks who added their signatures were also given instructions for participating in the Facebook (Facebook) protest.

Hundreds of people have posted the following message or something very close to it to the White House page:

“President Obama, I am one of more than 20,000 signers of this petition from Rethink Afghanistan: ‘In your State of the Union address on January 27, 2010, I want you to provide a concrete exit strategy for our troops in Afghanistan that begins no later than July 2011 and which completes a withdrawal of combat troops no later than July 1, 2012.’ Petition: http://bit.ly/7romlW“

Since a protest like this asks folks to post the comment on the White House's Facebook page, your organization doesn't even need it's own Facebook page to make something like this part of your campaigns!! But what really makes this genius is it makes voicing your dissent more public than a phone call or an e-mail. With those traditional forms of communicating with our legislators, it's one voice being heard by one person. But when you post a message on your legislator's Facebook page, anyone else who looks at the their page--more than likely other folks in your same constituency--could potentially see your comments. Taken more locally, if you (or your organization if you're organizing a campaign) posts messages on your State Rep or City Alderman's Facebook or Twitter pages, other constituents could potentially see your message and say to themselves "yea, that is messed up! wtf?!!"

Is this much more power than we as constituents in a governed body have ever really had before?

I never understood why people use TinyURL until I tried it. Say you want to e-mail a link to a buddy, and it's really, really long. Like http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=area+51&ie=UTF8&ll=37.243632,-115.811434&spn=0.002046,0.003782&t=k&z=18&iwloc=addr&om=1. You can go to TinyURL.com, copy and paste the long URL into the textbox, and it'll generate a URL that looks like this: http://tinyurl.com/266z5t. A lot shorter, and it points to the same place. Sweet!

A new website has popped up recently that does very much the same thing, but is a little easier to use, URLtea.com. If you go the site and create a shortened URL out of the URL above, it'll create a similarly short url: http://urltea.com/p4i. But with URLtea, you can add a question mark, followed by any text you want to the URL, to let users know a little better what the link is for. So if I wanted, I could send my buddy a link that looks like this: http://urltea.com/p4i?area-51, and it'll still come up. If you try to do this with TinyURL you'll get a 404 error for some reason. Also, they've created a fancy little bookmarklet that you can add to the bookmarks tab of your browser. Using that, if you're looking at a page you want to create a shortened URL for, you don't have to actually open up URLtea.com in a separate window or tab, and copy and paste your URL into the form. While you're looking at the page, just click on the bookmark in your bookmarks tab, and it'll be the same as submitting the URLtea form with your URL. It'll come back with a page with your shortened URL already on it.

But the thing I like most about URLtea, is you don't have to highlight the short URL and copy it to your clipboard. After you create the shortened url, it assumes you're going to be pasting the URL in some other application, and it copies the url to your clipboard for you! That's sweeeeeeet!

It all started with a friend Ramona, who created a Myspace page for Kriti. She spent a little time on it, and the next thing we know she's got 500 friends. Hello! For myspace junkie's out there, you might be like 'uh, yea, nikhil, where have you been?' but for a South Asian litereary conference that's only planning its second conference, that's a big deal! So after she had such success with her page, we created a page for Voices of Resistance, a South Asian political arts show happening the same weekend as Kriti. Then I'm like, 'damn, I should make a Myspace page for maahaul,' and another friend was like 'I should create a Myspace page for ThirdI' and Rasaka Theatre's already got a page. So damn, before you know it, South Asian arts in Chicago is all over Myspace!!! :P

• Kriti's Myspace page
• maahaul's Myspace page
• Voices of Resitance's Myspace page
• ThirdI's Myspace page
• Rasaka Theatre's Myspace page

A friend of mine just got a VoIP phone, and my parents were looking into getting one for themselves a few months ago. The cost benefits of VoIP phones are pretty sweet. Because your phone call is basically taking the same path a request to view a web page would take, you can call anywhere in the world for really, really cheap. But security and privacy are still an issue with the new technology.

Although we'd like to assume most companies implement some form of security in how they transfer your phone calls over the internet, there's no standard for security on VoIP as of yet. So it's better to call your VoIP provider to get a sense of how conscious they are about security. Sadly, some of them might not know how you answer your questions, in which case it's better to not use your phone at all for calls where you'll be sharing private information.

"For now, however, users of VoIP products and services that do not fall under the Telecommunications Act will be required to make their own enquiries as to the privacy standards and practices of their VoIP service providers if they wish to be assured of the protection of their personal information and the confidentiality of their communications."
from iLaw based in Australia

"The good news is that VoIP threats are still a largely theoretical issue. So far, few enterprise VoIP networks have experienced anything close to a serious hacker attack. But complacency shouldn't lull enterprise VoIP adopters into a false sense of security."
from voipnews

Some conversations to avoid on your voip phone:

• Any conversation with your banks, credit cards, or lenders
• Any automated system that asks you to enter a pin
• Phone calls you might make on behalf of your work from home

In the past, I've mentioned to a few people the phenomenon of the sun showing a quick green spot as it's setting, due to waves of light bending in the earth's atmosphere. NASA's got an animated gif of a video someone in Italy took of the phenomenon, check it out.

I was in CT this weekend, and I'm still here working from a Starbucks right now cause they have wireless. How sweet is that? Using the laptop my work provided me, I'm able to connect to my Linux box at my office from just about anywhere and still work a full 8 hour day of coding, developing, and testing Java and database code, like I do every other day of the 40+ hour week (since I have a job that requires such, but that should be no surprise). Crazy!!!

This... is awesome. I saw a buddy at work walking around with this mug, and it's awesome. Emacs is a text editor I use when working on code on Linux, and there are a ton of features it has to make work easier, and this mug is a dandy little reference to some of this features. I know, I'm a dork, but this mug is awesome.

I heard a few tracks off Ghostface Killah's new album today, and it sounds HOT. I do still buy cds, so I might just pick that one up.

Dotorganize just released a report they did after interviewing 400 social change groups on how they're currently using technology, what challenges they face, but more importantly, what they could be doing better. One part of the report I found especially exciting:

"Organizers do not request any sort of universal 'killer app' or mention one runaway toolset. And no two organizations express exactly the same need. We are witnessing a sector that is far too nimble and specialized for a 'one-size fits all' solution, or for a 'one-stop shop.' Social change organizers needs are too varied to render any single tool suite a viable sector-wide solution. As one organizer put it, 'We have no way of combining all of our needs into one package. [We need] customizable integration — at an affordable price!'"

How many organizations out there have their 'prospective funders database' in Microsoft Excel? Or have tried to implement an open-source solution that was either way more than you guys needed, or not enough, and either way, virtually impossible to customize? To me, it seems that both scenarios result in a lack of current development in technology for the non-profit sectors happening without the above stated in mind.

One thing that I've noticed about a lot of open-source technology is that they do try to be everything for everyone, the "next Microsoft Word." from the end-users' perspective, if you try to implement one solution with the intention of tweaking it for your own needs, it's a massive pain to do... so inevitably, we all end up building brand new, custom applications that have 75% already been done before. After more recently working with Hibernate at work and even TextPattern on my own sites, it's been refreshing to see "all-encompassing" software that actually does do most of what I want it to. But in the case of Hibernate, it's a more general framework to accomplish one part of a much bigger project at work. TextPattern is a piece of software that targets a more specific need (content management), and is built flexible enough to handle pretty much anything I'd need to do on a simple website. But it's not very ready to be coupled with other technologies that would manager other more complex types of content (e-commerce, workflow management). Developing with open hooks into critical pieces of the system is more of the next level this report is talking about.

I went to volunteer with SAPAC last night for voter registration up in the Devon neighborhood. Me and the main coordinator of the project went to an elementary school that was having a parent teacher conference to ask parents if they were registered to vote, and register them on the spot if they were up for it. It was pretty fun, it's hard to get people past the initial idea that's I'm about to impose a sales pitch on them, although much less-so than it would have been like if I rang the doorbell to their house. But once I got past that initial discomfort, it was interesting to see how people responded. Some people didn't speak English, and one woman's daughter told me outright that she was undocumented. Many others were still waiting on citizenship, and of those who were able to register, some who new they needed to were ready to just go ahead and sign up, and others seemed still confused on what the point of it all was. One South Asian or Middle Eastern woman asked me "why should I vote, what difference does it really make?" I told her if she didn't vote, then she definitely wouldn't make a difference. After thinking about it for a second, she did sign up. But there was definitely a good mix of attitudes towards the whole political process...

Ever since I redesigned my site, my pics section has been down. Rather than putting the pictures up using the same system I was using before—where I had to manually resize, name, and upload images—I wanted to take advantage of some open source software out there to make that section easier to work with. I went with photostack, whose major feature among many that sold me was that I could zip pictures up into one file, and upload them through a web interface as a new album. It'll create the thumbnails and everything required for the SWEEEEEET interface from there, which also uses Lightbox JS, which is freakin awesome. I love technology. Now I just have to get a camera that works so I can start taking pictures again. It's on.

Tomorrow night? I'm going to a FARM! Lol, hell yea. Every fall, my friend Kelly invites a handful of her friends to the farm where she grew up, in Walnut, IL (yes, there is a city in Illinois named after a type of nut). I missed Kelly's farm party last year, but I was totally there in '03 and '04. Should be some fun times.

I was watching the US Open last weekend at my girl's place in Connecticut with my parents. (Did you get that? At my girlfriend's house in Cconnecticut with my parents?) and they implemented a new technology to allow players to challenge line-judge calls on whether a ball was in or out. Here's how the USTA summed up the technology in a 'new enhancements' press release sent out a week or two before the US Open:

"*'Instant Replay' Electronic Line Calling*: The most highly anticipated innovation at this year’s US Open—instant replay technology with player challenges—will be available in Arthur Ashe Stadium and Louis Armstrong Stadium. This breakthrough for the sport has been developed to improve officiating while increasing the interest and excitement for in-stadium fans and television viewers."

An article about the technology on C|net credits a British company hawkeye, but I wasn't able to get a huge amount of detail on how the technology was implemented. It seems that Hawkeye had their own cameras set up in places throughout the stadium, and based on what the cameras see they can estimate up to a 2-3mm accuracy where the ball probably hit the ground. When talking about minute details in estimating an accuracy of 2mm, what sort of assumptions are they making when calculating where the ball hit? While watching a match, when they use the instant-replay technology, it's a computer generated graphic of where the ball hit, not an actual photo of the ball hitting the ground. The mark of the ball is an oblong circle, proly to accommodate for the ball stretching when travelling at a high speed, but is the stretched circle a standard mark? Or do they use different amounts of stretching a regular circle based on how fast the ball was actually going? I wonder how many cameras they actually have set up in the stadium, and where they are, and what exactly they're looking at. That would be a sweet tour to take!

I tripped over this utility that shows you what your web pages look like to someone whose colorblind. This site didn’t look all too different, but since the maahaul is all mostly green, it looked waaay different. Crazy. I don’t think it looked entirely bad, but very different colors than what it’s intended scheme is.

So junior high school kids are starting to learn how to use Flash now. Which is sweet. When I was in Junior High, in our "advanced computer classes" we were using some fancy super-Powerpoint thing, and I was trying to make a Double Dragon-style video game using it. Needless to say, that project never got off the ground... But it's cool to see junior high school kids getting access to technology they could do some pretty cool things with. Check out this site for Fulton Science Academy students and the Flash projects they've created. What’s disturbing are the themes that pop up consistently in their projects: shit blowing up and violence. I checked out the animations made by the kid who got the most stars on the page. In the most recent three that he made, check here, here, and here, the world blows up at the end of each animation... Huuuuuuuuhh... Here’s one where two guys go out to get guns, then hop into a flying semi. Here’s a game where you get to do a drive by shooting. Hhhuuuuuuhh... Here’s one of a dude getting his head blown off. here’s another one by the same kid who blew up the world, where someone talking on a cell phone gets tied up to some apparatus, and you have to push a lever to blow up his/her head. You get my point, lots and lots of violence. It should be no surprise, considering the world kids are exposed to these days by the media. But damn, those are some happy, light-hearted takes on some messed up things. Here’s what an FTC study had to say about the issue back in '99:

Movies. Of the 44 movies rated R for violence the Commission selected for its study, the Commission found that 35, or 80 percent, were targeted to children under 17. Marketing plans for 28 of those 44, or 64 percent, contained express statements that the film’s target audience included children under 17. For example, one plan for a violent R-rated film stated, “Our goal was to find the elusive teen target audience and make sure everyone between the ages of 12-18 was exposed to the film.” Though the marketing plans for the remaining seven R-rated films did not expressly identify an under-17 target audience, they led the Commission to conclude that children under 17 were targeted nonetheless. That is, the plans were either extremely similar to the plans of the films that did identify an under-17 target audience, or they detailed actions synonymous with targeting that age group, such as promoting the film in high schools or in publications with majority under-17 audiences.

Music. Of the 55 music recordings with explicit content labels the Commission selected for its study, marketing plans for 15, or 27 percent, expressly identified teenagers as part of their target audience. One such plan, for instance, stated that its “Target audience” was “Alternative/urban, rock, pop, hardcore – 12-34.” The marketing documents for the remaining 40 explicit-content labeled recordings examined did not expressly state the age of the target audience, but they detailed the same methods of marketing as the plans that specifically identified teens as part of their target audience, including placing advertising in media that would reach a majority or substantial percentage of children under 17.

Games. Of the 118 electronic games with a Mature rating for violence the Commission selected for its study, 83, or 70 percent, targeted children under 17. The marketing plans for 60 of these, or 51 percent, expressly included children under 17 in their target audience. For example, one plan for a game rated Mature for its violent content described its “target audience” as “Males 12-17 – Primary Males 18-34 – Secondary.” Another plan referred to the target market as “Males 17-34 due to M rating (the true target is males 12-34).” Documents for the remaining 23 games showed plans to advertise in magazines or on television shows with a majority or substantial under-17 audience. Most of the plans that targeted an under-17 audience set age 12 as the younger end of the spectrum, but a few plans for violent Mature-rated games targeted children as young as six.

And here are a few more articles about youth and violence in media and in video games.