My pal Dan’s film - Land of the Pines - will be showing at the IFCO Gala! IFCO does great work and it’s always fun to see new local films every year! Thurs Aug 3rd., 9p.m at Bytowne theatre, Nelson St. & Rideau.
IFCO Gala Poster
Friday/vendredi; Aug. 4 aout, 7 PM/hr au Bridgehead
Ordre du jour:
a) progress with ogwifi - paper work
b) isf notes
c) hotspot for my coop
d) what is the technological challenge here to encourage participation
of geeks?
e) what is the social/cultural challenge to encourage participation of
non-geeks?
f) how is our first hotspot progress going?
g) interest in having some of the isf ninjas come and give techno
geeks in ottawa some hands on workshops?
h) portal pages?
i) OCLUG Update
j) other?
109 Bank Street (at Albert)
Ottawa, ON K1P 5N5
Ph 1.613.230.8548
Fax 1.613.230.8445
Monday to Friday 6:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Saturday, Sunday 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
I first heard about freeing spectrum a year or so ago from Michael Lenczner who was representing ISF at the UNESCO World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Winnipeg. I had no clue about wireless initiatives, wireless community groups, let alone anything about spectrum issues nor EMF at the time. I did however trust that these and spectrum issues were important & significant, as he was quite passionate about these topics and managed to get a paragraph on spectrum as a public good in the Communiqué drafted by attendees for Tunis.
Today, after listening, reading, joining a bunch of lists, meeting great smart people involved in these initiatives, redirecting a portion of my studies, getting my feet wet with OGWifi and paying attention i now know a little bit more (shesh and only scratching the surface!).
This morning my inbox delivers a thread Why 5.725-5.850 GHz band is not allowed in European Countries? on the WSFII List. Nerd alert! Here I am reading this stuff & wondering if i should curse that michael guy or invest my 5 bucks in savings towards his endeavours? (i think i will curse him a bit in my limited but colourful Yiddish and maybe toss in a coupla coins!).
I still do not fully comprehend the science behind EMF, but i am beginning to understand a bit more why these initiatives are important socially, the significance of wireless communication infrastructures as a means to freedom of expression, and how important it is to have spectrum allocated freely in the public domain - else only government (friendly and not so!) and the big rich kids in media & telecom corporations get to use all the EMF space for their own purposes, and finally to critically think about the invisible built environment.
All that to say that i think the EFIS tool below is pretty cool, (although i am not entirely sure how to use it), very important, and us mere non geek mortals need to understand these things, while the geeks need to speak a little more English soz everyday folks understand that the bits, bytes and physical elements they engineer for our communication infrastructures (which we pay for one way or another) along with the invisible stuff like EMF are inextricably linked to the free flow of ideas, information and knowledge. Furthermore how they are designed, organized and owned matters! Particularly for vulnerable peoples in contested territories, the rural poor or your community for that matter. Obvious perhaps? Well ask your grandpa, your neighbour or the social planning council, most social scientists, or municipal councilor what they know about it! And trust me, it is a killer topic at a cocktail party!
Here are some frequency tools:
ERO Frequency Information System. The help file explains that EFIS
contains information about frequency spectrum utilisation across Europe
also
With EFIS you can search for and compare spectrum allocations and applications as well as related information such as CEPT activities, Radio Interface Specifications and national or international regulations. The European table (ECA) also contains the harmonised standards related to Article 3.2 of the R&TTE Directive.
The terms for allocations used in EFIS
- are defined in the ITU Radio Regulations
- provide a general division of the spectrum and
- are a part of the national regulations.
Then there is the Open Spectrum Foundation
In the summer of 2004, a project named Open Spectrum International began under the auspices of Czech Civic Association "Mista v Srdce." The aim was to promote awareness of "open spectrum" concepts outside North America, and to advocate the expansion of the radio bands available for license-exempt use. As we grew, it became clear that we needed an independent legal basis for our work. So in May 2005, we registered as a Dutch nonprofit foundation ("stichting") with offices in Amsterdam and Prague: Stichting Open Spectrum translates into English as the Open Spectrum Foundation.
Our survey of national regulations for license-exempt radio has enabled us to start identifying countries with restrictive policies which might possibly be changed with appropriate interventions. We expect to focus on the de-licensing of Wi-fi, as that is a proven technology with obvious benefits, and it can make even a wary regulator more comfortable with the idea of license-exempt radio. But we have many more ideas which we will implement as our budget permits - translating "open spectrum" texts into other languages, organising workshops and conferences, writing articles for popular publications, intervening in national regulatory consultations, etc.
This site is a gem full of passionate & intelligent knowledge on the topic - David Hughes, Wireless Wales
Finally, I love this statement from OpenSpectrumUK
Engaging public debate upon the strategic national resource of the radio spectrum, "The Invisible Wealth of Nations."
Who woulda guessed ay! From barefoot in Boracay eating papaya, living in a hut concerned about the Marcos regime, getting home from the Hotel California before sunrise, walking through typhoons and lost in rice terraces to 5.725-5.850 GHz lit on a Sunday morning! I need way more coffee to digest all of this, and well i think i will go and tend to my tangible hanging flower baskets with my daiglow blue dockers! Shesh what next? And Michael what was in the Kool-Aid you gave me? Rascal!
More links came to my desktop today via CAGList. I then followed up on Katyusha missiles and came across some additional maps made by the Israeli Government. Of course, there must be tons of missile reach maps and quite frankly i would never have thought of these as a theme! Also, the power of narrative in maps, and maps as seemingly objective persuasive tool comes out very loud and clear.
The following map is from DEBKAFile.
From the Information Regarding Israel’s Security (IRIS) Site.
From the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The Ministry also has list of Maps in an index titled Israel’s Story in Maps and the following is a list of the main headings:
I was preparing a list of resources for a friend who is in the process of developing a new course on Peace for High School Students, and dang, it’s pretty good. Mostly stuff i had kicking around the house, and stuff my television deprived children read (at least i am aware of my social engineering!). It is totally incomplete so if you have good ideas, material and such, send em along! The least we can do is share stuff!
a) Dear Canada Series - a diary series created from archival letters, books, notes & diaries of hyphenated Canadian children who came at the turn of the century. Acadians, Chinese Canadians, the Bristish WWII Children, etc. They include the day to day events of the lives of these children. They are all almost about girls, but both my boys loved them. An interesting exercise could be to send kids to the archives to recreate stories.
b) The Kite Runner - Novel - Khaled Hosseini.
c) Parvana’s Journey, Mud City & The Breadwinner - Deborah Ellis - short novels - I have given these out to many kids and they loved em. Ellis manages to get the reader immersed into the Afghan context in excellent story telling prose. Winner of the Governor Generals Literary Award.
d) Three Wishes - Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak - Deborah Ellis - - Excellent short stories & reflections written by kids. There are pictures of the kids, their context etc.
e) The Other Side of Truth - Beverley Naidoo - Novel - - Children displaced from Nigeria to London.
f) We Just Want to Live Here - Amal Rifa’i, Odelia Ainbinder and Sylke Tempel - - A Palestinian & Israeli Teenager meet at a student exchange program and maintain a relationship in letters after the Intifada broke out in 2000. A very honest account of bridging worlds that seem so far apart.
g) The Long Walk to Freedom - Autobiography of Nelson Mandela - What struck me, was the twist of fate of his father’s good deed buying Nelson a ticket to school - otherwise we may not have had the Nelson we know!
h) Affluenza: The All Consuming Epidemic - John De Graaf, David Waan, Thomas Naylor - Excellent reflexive content - you could pick any chapter and work with it - (found these bonus resouces - http://www.pbs.org/kcts/affluenza/ and http://www.affluenza.org/). My son did a tour of some Ottawa private schools with Peter Daglish and this is the message he brought to the kids. Quite frankly, this is what we suffer from most. If you can get this man to speak at your school you will totally amaze your students.
i) Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda - Romeo Dallaire - not pretty, mostly for grownups, my rascals read it though, but excellent and it is very important.
j) Movie - Hotel Rwanda - there is a very useful teachers guide to accompany the film - - the film was purposely made less gory to ensure wide viewership by teenagers. My kids saw it and had tons of excellent reflections afterwards.
k) The No-Nonsense Guide Series by the New Internationalist - Totally suitable for teens & Uni Students, quick and easy facts about many issues - great little reference books a little larger than a passport.
l) The World Guide: An Alternative Reference to the Countries of Our Planet - by the New Internationalist - - super great! It is a fact book on a country by country basis. Here is a section on Afghanistan.
m) The New Internationalist - The NI Magazine has tons of great info w/wonderful maps & graphics that can be used for modules - all ages - just nav & scroll down their site for good educational material.
n) Bonus find - Tools for Change
o) Looking Forward - Participatory Economics for the Twenty First Century - Michael Albert & Robin Hahnel - Fun cartoons, critical thinking, alta perspective kids and grownups - (egalitarian consumption, work without hierarchy etc.).
p) for the grownups - Transforming Ourselves Transforming the World - Brian K. Murphy
q) for the grownups - Fostering Sustainable Behavior - Doug McKenzie-Mohr & William Smith
r) The Gaia Peace Atlas: Survival Into The Third Millennium - Frank Barnaby - A classic reference, can be found in second hand bookshops.
s) Peace a Dream Unfolding - hard to find - content on tons of critical topics.
t) Design of Dissent - Some images in the book are harsh - but you can be selective - PBS here has tons of wonderful image content with captions to explain the symbolism!
u) Peter’s Projection - - you can do some excellent modules with different world projections. You can also introduce the upside down map - where New Zealand is at the top of the map. There is also a series of maps where other countries are front and centre as opposed to what we are used to - The US - Up and Centre!
v) The Generosity Game
w) Barbara Petchnik Children’s Map Collection
That is right! My womyn soccer team has won again. Yes, there are the Outgames in Montreal, new movies in Ottawa, and long weekends at the cottage, and yes the whole world has gone nuts, but really folks, the best excitment in town is Monday nights in deep lurkium Ottawa suburban soccer fields, places where on 3 digit buses occasionally go, the Untamed play and this was a 6-0 win. This time we had cheerleaders who were ah, feeding drinks to some of our players, and ah, to the other team to! All the details will soon be up here and pictures can be found here.
UPdate to this post: Prof. Ghali was Freed July 30, 2006. He was held for 3 weeks without charges by the Israeli Security Forces.
There is a backgrounder on the issue here:
The petition is here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/geograph/
Couple of articles here:
This is also not the prettiest map i have ever seen, however this Truth Laid Bear Crisis in the Middle East: Mapping the Conflict is loaded with information from the Grassroots - bloggers, coders, geeks, and hacktivists. It is loaded with content from numerous points of view, whereas most of the other maps found so far are from newswires, individuals or particular organizations. The mashup was collectively created by the following:
- Feedzilla.com for supplying news feeds!
- The bloggers assisting in the gathering and categorization of blogs and news for this section: AbbaGav, Alone in Public, Banter In Atlanter, Customerservant.com, Late At Night, Pierre Legrand’s Pink Flamingo Bar, Soccer Dad, sisu
- Mike Williams for his outstanding Google Maps API tutorial and fine pushpin icons. Mike’s preferred charity is his church’s Business For Life program, which which helps people in third world countries to help themselves by providing an individual with a grant to start up their own business. Drop by and make a donation!
- Dynamicdrive.com for the spiffy "link floatie" function which I’ve used for popping up info windows
- Andre Lewis for the the Gzoom control which provides the click-and-drag-a-rectangle-to-zoom function
- Tom Mangan for his TLabel extension for adding labels to the map
Merci a Yves Lavoie d’un de mes groupes favoris - CivicAccess.ca!
A colleague who has family in the region forwarded a link to the following Lebanon Under Fire interactive animated map produced by the AFP (Agence France-Press). It is loud and garish, but does provide up to date information. It is also the map that appears on a number of ISP news feeds such as Sympatico & Yahoo, which indicates that it is being widely viewed.
Two maps, a before and after the borders have been redrawn, accompany this great article on the arbitrary socially constructed notions of borders in the Middle East Region (Via - Adla Khalaf on CAGLIST)
International borders are never completely just. But the degree of injustice they inflict upon those whom frontiers force together or separate makes an enormous difference — often the difference between freedom and oppression, tolerance and atrocity, the rule of law and terrorism, or even peace and war.
The most arbitrary and distorted borders in the world are in Africa and the Middle East. Drawn by self-interested Europeans (who have had sufficient trouble defining their own frontiers), Africa’s borders continue to provoke the deaths of millions of local inhabitants. But the unjust borders in the Middle East — to borrow from Churchill — generate more trouble than can be consumed locally.
While the Middle East has far more problems than dysfunctional borders alone…
