serendipityoucity

Senior lagubriousness and the miasmic diaspora who play industrial mariachi metal!

My pal su is the manager!  She goes where the money is!

Just got a letter in the mail that i was awarded an India Studies Fellowship from the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute to support my research in Nagaland.

The Fellowship is still contingent on GOI approval which Shastri will work on, fund availability in the 2008-2009 fiscal year and secured affiliation with an Indian Institution.  All is not final til well it is final.  Resources will cover travel in India and will support a stipend for research assistants and data gathering activities.

The Topic is the Study of the Creation of a Naga Indigenous Community Cybercartographic Atlas using Web 2.0 Technologies in India’s North East utilizing Grounded Theory Informed Participatory Action Research Methods.

Well! I need to get my teleological drinking (expression from mtl3p) out of the way between now and January so that I may be in fine form for the new year! 

Yesterday I went for a delightful walk with Mike A. in the snow, we managed to get to the river, raging with a fast current at near peak levels.  The snow deep and powdery the Island Park bridge like a dragon.  Fortunately for me he went first most of the way which made getting through easier, he has much longer legs though!  He was a real trooper.  We found the most magnificient tree, which i climbed! Hmm! It was a lovely time.

Today, my ride to Judo was cancelled due to the weather.  So Ersin and I decided to jog in the snow instead.  Magnificient!  I made it home totally drenched in sweat and completely refreshed. The route behind parliament is just fantastic and we had the space entirely to ourselves, our thoughts and the conversation.  We discovered excellent echos by the locks near the Canal and the Chateau Laurier.

I need to get out more and leave my desk.  Everytime i serendipitously just go out wonderful things happen.  I meet people, i think clearly, i see stuff, i discover new places, and well i just am.  So I am leaving the webworld for a while to go out and roam the city a bit more, investigate my own thoughts a bit more, dive in.

My conversations are getting stunted a bit, and I am far to connected to media streams and not enough to the people around me.  Mostly cuz they are not around during the day, so i peruse the news comfortably from my cozy office.  But it is time for some discomfort and to explore. I also need to get ready for some real school work which i think i will really get into again after a 3 month hiatus.  I also thoroughly enjoyed the last two posts (1) (2) I just read for the year and I think that is just a fine way to start, at the beginning of the end!

See you all in the New Rat Year, Maybe!

Their laughter is infectious!

 

You gotta luv this!

Merci Al!

Mike Gifford from OpenConcept pointed myself and a few other’s to this resource during a list discussion about the adoption of open source in NGOs.  As a non coder who fully appreciates the freedom of expression and community aspects of Open Source and as a person who has worked in small struggling NGOs I found this resource helpful. 

I undestand the trepidation of small NGOs and their day to day struggle to stay afloat and how difficult it is to make choices about software, and I also groan at the sometimes evangelical, macho, bordering on fundamentalist and mostly incomprehensible rhetoric stemming from some adherents of open source technologies. Not all, but wholly schmokes it is loaded with landmines on those lists! 

I even argued with Richard Stallman once in bar in Dharamsala before I actually knew who he was! And well it was not pretty, I was pummeled on the OpenSource part, but gained some ground on the fact that his argument was based on the notion that all are created equal in the digital world.  I did not gain ground with him but did with those who were present.  I also should have known to recognize the tell tale signs of silence in a very noisy bar before I started arguing with him!  Tubleweeds and the soundtrack for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly comes to mind when reflecting back on the scene!  I even gulped back some Godfather beer after that (and I hate beer!)!

The Family Guide I believe is a really nice mediator between the extreme views and by persusing the TOC, it looks like it is a really good reference for novice folks like myself.

This is hard work this Xmas season!

A friend in LA, after looking at pictures of snowy Ottawa, asked what I was up to for the Holidays! Well! I am now taking my vitamins and getting prepared!

Ici c’est la fête!

Il y avait un party de Hanoukka chez moi, avec des latkas et du scnitzel fait a la maison et des beignes et du rum Kocher comme de raison tout fait par une copine catholique du Trinidad marie avec mon copain juif! Il y avait 8 enfants qui sautaient partout! On a ensuite jouer au foot dans la neige vers 23hr!

Suivit d’un party a Montréal avec les collègues, et un party avec mon père et sa femme - nous allons toujours au resto car lui part pour la Floride le lendemain. C’est du steak et du vin. Ensuite il nous donne chacun (15 pers - frère, sœur, demi frère etc.) une grosse boite de gibier, du poisson et des saucisses faite a la maison comme cadeau! Mes garçon adore sa!

Suivit par l’anniversaire de mon fils Masa qui a maintenant 13 ans! 7 garçons de 13 ans chez moi qui jouaient dans la neige jusqu’a 1hr am! Les voisins bon, on ignore les voisins!

Un party de judo et ensuite avec mes copines artistes le lendemain.

Finalement la famille, samedi chez mon frère ou ma sœur et ma mère y sera, nous sommes 20 pour un souper traditionnelle, et moi et ma sœur on s’habille dans les pyjamas les plus laides que l’on puisse trouver et on regarde des films toute la nuit chez elles en buvant du brandy.

Ceci est suivi d’un party Lauriault, c’est des cuisiniers superbes, nous sommes ±40 et c’est la fêtes, du saumons du lac st-jean, et toutes sortes de plat avec légume provenant des jardins des tantes et oncles et plein de gibier etc.

Ensuite j’ai de la visite de Toronto et de Winnipeg qui vienne rester chez moi la semaine. Tous ceci finis le jour de l’an ou je passe la soirée avec des amis qui on 4 petites filles, on boit un peu de vin et on prend un marche à minuit dehors. Cette année ils auront leurs familles du Trinidad ici, donc ce sera épicé!

Sa fini avec une diète, de compte de banques vide et plein d’exercice pour le nouvel an! Un peu de repos aussi! 

It is snowing.  It is dreamy out there!  I am procrastinating looking at a report on scientific data.  I am disenchanted about university.  Not good since i am doing a PhD.  I just feel shortchanged.  I love my lab, i love my colleagues and i have the smartest and most engaged advisor ever.  it is not them. 

it is the environment.  It is not teaching me to learn, to think, to reflect, to kick around ideas, to imagine.  I am taught to, i have to listen to, and i am to be polite and not debate.  I am to ask polite questions in a non confrontational way, i am to sit, i am to be in a neon lit room on plastic chairs, i am to eat really bad food, and i am to follow the method, i have to be an expert, i have to know!  But i don’t know and do not believe anyone who claims to know.  I belive in figuring it out, and getting close to understanding something, but that thing is only a small part of the whole picture. I hope i do not get expelled, but then again maybe i will get a spanking!  Whoops! Digressing once again! No misbehaving allowed!

Gerardo has been coordinating University of the Streets and at http://univcafe.org/ it is

being organized in cafés and other public spaces in and around Montreal. The Café initiative creates gathering places for community members to pursue lifelong learning and engagement in the form of collective discussions. These are crossroads of practical experience and intellectual currents on critical themes framed by inspired guests and skilled moderators. 

As me imitating my kids imitating Borat - I like.  I have been going to lots of open source gatherings in Cafés & bars, but i do not code so it is difficult to be engaged in the dialogue.  It is also technology centric, which is one part of my life but certainly not the whole.  It is also not dialogue on the socio-technical aspects of technology, or technology as art and craft, infrastructure as a factor in society, nor citizen engagement, freeing data, etc. It is pieces of that but not how they fit into the whole.  I like these, i like the smart people that gather, but i need more.

This morning i found Science Cafés in Wired. 

Tired of inane bar debates? You’re drinkin’ in the wrong place. Inspired by Britain’s Café Scientifique movement, a slew of US watering holes now host science nights, gatherings where brainiacs from universities and labs give talks and booze it up with the locals. Check one out for, say, an up-close explanation of string theory — and maybe a game of pool with a Nobel Prize winner. 

 

Now were talkin’! 

These cafés seem to have hit a sweet spot in adult science education, offering access to cutting-edge discoveries and the scientists who make them, minus the notes and tests required in school (plus wine, coffee or beer flowing freely from the bar).

Then there is Café Scientifique in the UK!

is a place where, for the price of a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, anyone can come to explore the latest ideas in science and technology. Meetings take place in cafes, bars, restaurants and even theatres, but always outside a traditional academic context.

Cafe Scientifique is a forum for debating science issues, not a shop window for science. We are committed to promoting public engagement with science and to making science accountable.

When i looked at their global map i found Science pour tous, in Québec of course where all the cool stuff happens! Then oh lala! There are some in Ottawa too! And also a bunch of other cities as part of caféscientificque.ca!

Imagine attending these:

The topics are as diverse as science itself. An upcoming café in Portland, Oregon, will advise how to survive a pandemic, while a past event in St. Louis explored the secret life of lichens, and another in Pittsburgh explained patterns in computational biology.

I have a neighbour who wants to start a salon.  I am going to go and knock on his door, as that would be an awesome start.  Right around the corner too! Very nice! 

I would love to discuss the secret life of infrastructure, nanotechnology and society, deconstruct the climate part of climate change, know more about air quality, the magic of snow crystals, wireless spectrum and how information moves in fibre optic cables, how the brain moves electronic prosthetics, meme theory and genetics, fractals, molecular biology and what the hell is string theory anyway!  I also want to know about the history of science, socio-technology, and how circuits and computer chips work. And so on! 

I want to be engaged in society, technology and science and i want to be a part of that dialogue. I want to learn, and be an informed citizen, i do not want technology and science to lead me i want to be a part of where it goes.  So much counts on this and i/we just follow along! Then oops! Climate change! Oops computer waste? Ooops Nuclear fallout? Oops monsanto in the fields! and so on!  And this might be the way to get some public dialogue going!

There is a great article in the Globe and Mail today about the Papa of Geomatics, Roger Tomlinson!  Yup! GIS is Made in Canada!  Canada created the first geomatics system in 1962s when he and Lee Pratt developed the Canada Land Inventory and developed the Canada Geographic Information System. No small task considering the size of the country!

The Canada Land Inventory is a comprehensive multi-disciplinary land inventory of rural Canada, covering over 2.5 million square kilometers of land and water . Land capability for agriculture, forestry, wildlife, recreation, wildlife ( ungulates and waterfowl) was mapped. Over 1000 mapsheets at the 1:250,000 scale are available on this site for on-line map making and download of desktop publishing, or GIS formats (1).

The Government of Canada developed the Canada Land Inventory (CLI) under the auspices of the Department of Regional and Economic Expansion (1963-1971) and the Department of the Environment (renamed Environment Canada), (1971- 1994). The program was officially discontinued in 1994. The process to transfer the data and intellectual property to the National Archives of Canada started in 1995. Since 1995 several Canadian federal departments have been instrumental in extracting the data from the old tapes to modern formats and media, including: National Archives of Canada, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Statistics Canada, and Natural Resources Canada.

Wikipedia has a great historical section on the development of GIS as well.  I prefer the term geomatics rather than GIS.  Geomatics includes open source mapping, geodesy, remote sensing, radar, mashups and such while in my mind GIS does not.

The article groans about the lack of geomatics expertise in Canada and I agree.  However, until which time:

• that geomatics software gets cheaper, 
• high schools take GIS seriously and provide teachers with real training,
  
• school boards stop geographically abusing our children with memorization, photocopied paper maps, and killing the love of geography in the process
  
• that open source mapping technologies get easier and have more analytical capabilities,
  
• that Internet mapping is not just for geeks
• that mapping becomes part of all disciplines - sociology, anthropology, psychology, political science, etc.
  
• and data become freely - as in no cost - accessible,
  
• and that telling stories in maps becomes easier
  

then perhaps we will have created a culture of map/cartographic enthusiasts.  Until then we rely on popular culture, the odd flash map in newspapers and scientific analysis.  Google maps kick started a culture of map playing, but it remains a toy, the cartography is not great, the data proprietary. Imagine the day when decisions are made with real information in its best form, text, video, and of course cartography!  Then we will make sense of place and place will make sense!

Mary Walsh is my kinda gal!

All across the country, we are only a bunch of people, and the truth of our realness is what we have. And we all have the same stuff — some people have a more expensive coat, but nobody has a more expensive bum."