Global Mask Swadeshi

This idea is silly enough to make me come back to posting ... a blog entry ... in July 2020.

Ok, so the name says it: global mask swadeshi. By which we'd mean, what, that people all over the world should be able to make their own masks, right?

Oh, no, not just that. It's also about being able to make the cloth or filters needed to make the masks in the first place.

And being able to test that cloth, those filters, those masks, for filtration capacity and for fit (in the case of a particular mask on a particular face).

So, it's happening in a few days. A number of people will put their brains together to design a machine to make masks. My guess is at some point someone might be able to push it to get it certified somewhere, thereby increasing acceptability.

When I first looked at Ebola and came up with this crazy, silly, maybe even dangerous idea of the Excubator, I totally had to go and write the PandemicOSAT page, and, much later, the More_better_PPE (all of that is at appropedia.org).

In any case, this is happening. The textile mask is already designed. It accepts filters in a pocket. A machine might be designed, made, even work.

We'll see!

Should I go back to blogging?

In these past years, I've blogged a couple of times in medium. Used Twitter a lot. Eventually stopped writing notebooks. So I don't know. Och, well!

(((-.-)))

Yep.

Thinking and cothinking with outline editors: a very old project

[Here's something I last updated in 1999. Had a home at gulic.org - until amd77 finally dug it up and sent it to me through IRC, sorry, Telegram.

(Don't get it? You're not that old, then.)

Anyway, here is the text:]

This page is by Lucas Gonzalez [very old email, professionally related] -- last updated in November 1999.

• Thinking is using your intelligence and tools. Cothinking is using your intelligence, tools and communication. Natural thinking, deliberate thinking (with tools), meditation, storytelling and other things are not mutually exclusive. I like thinking to be positive, constructive, creative and enjoyable. Communication is important, and often you need to communicate with yourself.
• Some may like to use Edward de Bono’s thinking tools and frameworks: CoRT (which I have translated into Spanish), Six Hats and Lateral Thinking. In his site there are pages with the Northern Ireland Design Conference, and also a Creative Team. He may sound too comercial for your taste, but why not use commercial wheels and can-openers when available?
• I have a project to create a "free software" outliner, which I call sole: simple out-line editor. My references are MaxThink, Hybris, Think and Kibble. I’d like to be able to download news and comments from places like Slashdot, Squishdot and Technocrat – in outline format, so I can do some thinking (harvesting and creativity) at home. I keep the project in the gulic site.
• Together with Jeff and Josh, we are developing the Open Idea Project, which speaks for its own. It started with a vision by Reha Ayata to give "thinking aid" to Turkey after the earthquakes in 1999 - posted by Edward de Bono. The OIP can and should be replicated for places and goals.
• I like GNU/Linux: both the operative system and the gift culture. I tend to use the Debian distribution. I think GNU/Linux is a form of co-thinking - there can be others. Small contributions add up - or multiply wide.

---------------

SOLE : Simple Out-Line Editor

---

(c) Lucas González Santa Cruz [very old email address]. December 1999. You may distribute this document as long as you don't change its content. I you have ideas to improve it, please tell me about them. Thanks.

---

Motivation - What it is for

Outline editors (OLE) are a little like line editors. But lines, called nodes, are organized as a tree: there's a root node, which has children nodes, which in turn have grandchildren nodes, etc.
I can see at least for uses for an OLE, each one quite "powerful":

• A person on his/her own, can use an OLE to organize to-do lists; to revise a subject for an exam; to think about the structure of a piece of software; or to write the hierarchical manual of such a piece of software.
• That person can share his outline with someone else, and receive criticism and suggestions. Later, the author uses some or all the contributions, acknowledges them, and goes on working on his own.
• Another possibility is receiving a structured document, at least the manual of a piece of software, and translate it. If the document is organized in outline format, a follow-up of translations can be done (how many nodes left to complete the translation), highlight only the paragraphs that change from one version to the next (they are the only ones he should translate), etc.
• It's also possible to create an outline, from the start, in cooperation. (I tend to call this cothinking with outlines. It's only one of the ways of cothinking.) It's something similar to using a CVS to create a complex piece of software with many programmers' contributions. Imagine we are thinking about the traffic problems in our town: some would develop the "ideas to reduce the number of cars" branch; others would work on the "ideas to improve public transport" branch; and so on. Finally, we'd have a "collective idea tree", from which all would be able to take, prioritize, vote, develop it further, etc.

In the following pages I explore the possibility of developping a Simple Out-Line Editor (SOLE), as free software (GPL or similar license), starting with a personal use OLE and able to be developped further to allow the more ambitious functionalities.

---

Proposal - Plan

The important thing is to develop the program and make it work.

1. I think we should start by looking up the code of some free line-oriented text editor, written in some programming language that can be compiled in multiple arquitectures, or easy to translate into other programming languages.
2. First we should create the SOLE - Simple Out-Line Editor. It would have the minimal functionalities and a data structure as simple as possible. I've already started such a project. You can download the .ZIP file or the .TAR.GZ file. It doesn't do much yet. It's GPL'ed.
3. Later, we could develop the data structure and the functionalities, and maybe create some external programs (adapt the e-mail processors to share out-lines like we share the messages in a mailing list).
4. Gradually, we would get to the point of developping advanced versions, capable of helping human translators, or letting many "cothinkers" create communal idea trees.

Here follows a draft of the data structure and the minimal functionalities, to create the first version of SOLE. As soon as I'm in touch with some interested programmers, I'd like to discuss it to see if it's valid, do-able, and useful.

---

Data structure

From what I've seen and thought until now, I think the simplest way to represent an out-line AS A FILE is like Emacs does it in its mode-outline: there's a node in each line; depth levels are represented as "leading stars"; and descendants go after each parent in a nested way. It would be something like this:

          City traffic
          *Starting information
          **There are many private cars
          **There are more each day
          **Public transport is a disgrace
          *Possible aims
          **Reduce private cars
          ***Buy less new cars
          ****ideas
          ****developping
          ****the general idea
          ****of buying less cars
          ***Share private cars
          ****more developement ...
          ***Need cars less
          **Improve public transport

To represent an out-line IN MEMORY, I think it would be done like I suggest next. But I'm not a programmer and, really, I don't have a clue if it could be done in a better way. My idea would be something like this:
Each node would be represented by a data structure made of a few elements. The out-line would be an array of such structures. The elements would be like this:

• The text of the node. As I'd prefer to keep it simple at first, it would be a fixed length string of characters. For the time being, the length will be 75, which is less than the line length in my screen.
• An integer holding the position of this node's parent in the array. If it holds a zero, then this node is the root node.
• An integer holding this node's number of descendants. If it's zero, then it's a terminal node.
• A list of descendants. A fixed length array of integer numbers, each holding the position of a descendant in the array.

There might be need to keep a global memory pointing to the root node, though generally it would just be number one.

As I say, probably both the FILE representation and the MEMORY representation can be improved. But they are useful to start with if there are no better ideas. I know that other programs use XML or nested lists - but I think they would only add complexity at this stage.

In a second phase of the program's developement, the data structure should include, apart from the "content" of the nodes, some "meta-content".

The "meta-content" would include several elements:

• information about the date of creation or last edition of each node.
• author information.
• permission to read ("hidden nodes"), edit, create and sort nodes and subtrees.
• historical order of inclussion in the out-line (node 0.3.1.2 may have been included after 75 nodes had been created - it would be, historically, number 76).
• alternative sorting for "preferendums" (alt-sort:ACEDB, alt-sort:ECDAB, etc).
• links to files (text, image, sound) or URLs
• qualification of a given node as a "fence". This would allow for "segmented lists", which is something in between a list and an out-line.
• tag to know if a given node should be printed with numbers, in which format, etc.
• and other elements.

Also, within the "content" there might be underline, bold, etc.

---

User interface

User interface is, up to a point, very personal. Here I give my own "tastes" (or prejudices).
Regarding looks:
I'd rather have a text-only SOLE. This would allow it to work in a wider scope of operating systems, computer power, etc. More than that: I prefer it if there's nothing in between my ideas and me, and I don't want to have to put my hands away from the keyboard.
An outline can have two levels (root node and its sons) or many levels. I'd rather see only two levels at a time. That is: if I'm focusing on the third chapter of the document, I want to see the title of that chapter and the immediate lower nodes - I'm not interested in grandparents or in grandchildren. I believe that if each "pair of levels" (first and second, second and third, etc) is okay, then the outline as a whole will be okay (whatever okay may mean).
Furthermore, when nodes (e.g. the paragraphs of the chapter in focus) take more than one line, y may want to see the first line only, to be able to focus on the structure of the chapter as such. Or else I may want to see the whole paragraphs, and focus in their content. This would be activated via a switch.
So the screen would have:

• a title at the top (for example "third chapter"),
• then a list of nodes (maybe with a character or color that would tell that there are deeper levels) and,
• finally, some relevant information about the outline and the available options. This information would be something like this:
  • options ("save", "quit", etc.) and suboptions ("save before quitting (Y/N)?").
  • whether we are in "navigate" mode or in "edit" mode.
  • within "edit" mode, whether we are in "insert" mode or in "overwrite" mode.
  • whether we are in "show only first line of each paragraph" mode or in "show all text" mode.
  • the name of the outline as a disk file. For example: "sole.ol".
  • the absolute address of the current node. For example, the second son of root node's third son would be "0.3.2".

---

Functionalities

What follow are the minimal functionalities to have a ... minimally funcionally SOLE.
In brackets, I summarize some other functionalities that might turn the initial program into something even more versatile. At the end of this section, I suggest some other "expansions".
Navigate:
When we are not "editting" a node, we can move around the outline using the four arrow keys. Up to go to the immediate elder brother, and Down to go to the immediate younger brother. Left to go to the father, and Right to move to the deeper level. (When we are seeing levels 2 and 3 and we go deeper, we then see levels 3 and 4.)

(Other options: we might have "search", "jump" and "fence jumps" as alternative ways to move around the outline. Searches can be as complex as we like, with regexp, boolean searches, etc. Jumps can be done to the absolute address - eg "0.3.2" -, or relative to the current node - eg jump to the beginning of the third chapter -. We could also do fence jumps, within a segmented list.)

Process:
Edit node:
After navigating (or seaching or jumping), we may want to modify a node. So we press the apropriate key and we enter "edit mode", edit the node (like in any text editor), and finally come back to "navigation mode" pressing "escape". (These "modes" are similar to the modes in the *nix editor called vi.)
When we are editting a node, we may want to split it in half at the point where the cursor is, thus creating two nodes where there was only one. This way, "this sentence" would become "this" "sentence". The cursor would stay, in edit mode, at the beginning of the second node.

(In the future, another functionality would be to divide a node in sentences, lines or words.)

Join nodes:
The opposite of splitting a node would be to join to or more nodes, creating one. To do this we would have to "mark a sublist" first (see below) and then issue the "make them one" command.
Add node:
We can create a new node, and stay with the cursor at the first character of an initially empty text, and in edit mode. This new node can be created:

• before current node.
• after current node.
• as a son to current node.

(There are other options that can be implemented in more advanced versions of the program, such as "create an uncle": I am thinking about foods to put under the "breakfast" node, and I realise that "lunch" and "dinner" are also meals - brothers to "breakfast".)

Select:
The immediate descendants of a node form a list. A subset of a list is called a sublist (eg from node 0.3.2 until 0.3.7, not counting their descendants). We select a sublist marking the initial node and the final node of the wanted sublist.
When we select a sublist, we also select all the descendants of the nodes that make up the sublist.

(Other selections could be the "gathering": we navigate the outline marking the nodes we're interested in, and then we copy or move them to a suitable place in the outline. For instance, we may have many To-Do things in a really complex tree; but today we'll only be able to do the more urgent things in each branch. So we navigate our huge outline, marking the more urgent nodes, and we then "gather" them somewhere, possibly under the "today" title.)

Delete node:
The node or the selection is deleted. Usually all descendants are deleted too.
(One might want to delete only the descendants. In this case, we'd end up just with the titles of the chapters, but without their content.)
Copy node:
The copy may be done: after current node, before current node, or as current node's son. Unlike with "add node", we don't want to automatically enter "edit mode".
Move node:
Moving is like copying, but deleting the source.

("Move" may mean more things, and very interesting ones: we may sort a list or a sublist [alphabetically or in some other ways], shuffle/unsort it in a random way, prioritize it [with human criteria], basket-sort it [also with human criteria], flatten it [creating "fences" where there were "categories"], categorise it [using "fences" as "categories"], and maybe some other options. What we do with a sublist [usually] won't affect deeper descendents.)

Files:
Read file:
When we read a file from disk, we may use it to replace the outline that's currently in memory, or insert it as the older brother, as the younger brother, or as a son of the current node.

(If the file is a plain text file, without the structure of an outline file, we may try and "swallow" it and then reformat it "by hand" to convert it into an outline.)

Save file:
We may save to disk the whole of the outline currently in memory, or just a selection. We must give the name of the file we want to create.
If we have selected a group of nodes (a sublist), then we have to give some text to act as "root node", because there can only be one "root node" for each outline.
Print file:
To make things simple, I think maybe we should pseudo-print to a file in disk. This file can then be imported to a text processor, print it, etc.
There might be a few formats: with and without numbers (before each node, different for each level), indentation, page size, line size, etc..
If the destination file exists already, we may choose to replace it or add the new text to the old file.

(A feature similar to printing and saving is to write the outline in some of the other possible formats: XML, nested lists, or whatever. We could also export to HTML, Mind Maps, and other formats.)

System:
Shell: we may get out to the system shell for many purposes.
Quit: eventually, we'll have to do this, won't we? :-)

"Expanded" features:

These features wouldn't be implemented in the basic SOLE, but are very interesting.

• There could be two outlines in memory at once, one with a document in the original language, and the other with our translation, and each in its window. If we navigate one outline, we automatically navigate the other ("simultaneous scrolling"). Pressing a key, we could translate the word under the cursor, swap the current word with the next, etc. We would be able to "delete until the end of the sentence", and also activate a translation or translation-aid plug in. If a list of words pop up as possible translations of the current word, we might be able to sort that list so that in another ocasion it will choose the most likely translation.
• Outlines could be shared with a group of people. This would be "co-thinking with outlines". [There's also "co-thinking with wiki documents", "co-thinking with web-logs", and other ways of co-thinking.] This would call for adjusting the data structure, with "meta-content" to identify authors, permissions, dates, etc. We would also have to develop the software utilities to "merge" contributions, and to resend the changes (or the whole outline) to the co-thinkers. A lot of thinking should go into the different scenarios: with/without moderators, small respectful comitee, a thousand anonymous co-thinkers, the possibility of keeping ideas secret and then unveil them simultaneously, etc. Two big different scenarios also require some thinking: centrally kept outlines (changes happen in real time), or distributed outlines (changes may clash with each other).
• Weblog software like Slashdot and Squishdot may have some features added, to allow downloading "news + comments" in outline format. That way, there would be readers that would contribute their summaries - more or less biassed, so there would be more than one summary by different users. This would require changes in the S*dot side, and it would be useful even if SOLE had only the minimal functionalities. And it would give some notoriety to SOLE, and more "social usefulness" to S*dot.
• The code for SOLE might be included inside "free" text editors.
• Versions of SOLE might be created for PDAs, internet street kiosks in which ideas are input via voice recognition, and for other situations.
• Some"plug-ins" might be added with, for example, a random word generator to be used as stimuly for creativity (see Edward de Bono's work about Lateral Thinking).
• "Templates" might be created, so that standard headings would be created - and developped later. For example, I might want to include CoRT Thinking Tools (by Edward de Bono), such as PMI: positive points, minus points, and interesting points - and then I'd only have to fill them in. Another example would be the 5 W's: "what, when, who, where, why", used by journalists. It would be possible even to force the user to fill in each item in a predefined time; that way I would be forced to consider for one minute the bad points of my favourite idea.
• A version of SOLE would not have text, but graphic elements added in a tree-like way from a "root node" that would be a blank page.
• Minimal "hipertext"elements might be added in order to have cross references and the like.
• Another possible addition would be "macros", "links" (to files or to URLs), "help", and possibly other things.

---

Links

Hybris: http://hybris.netpedia.net (I have 2 pages there; you may be interested in having a look) Outline editor using (GTK, perl, C - in different generations) and nested lists. GPL.
Think: http://www.duke.edu/~pat4/think/ Outline editor under Gnome. GPL. It used to use a data structure like Emacs', is developping one based on XML [and will use Emacs' too, again].
Kibble: http://wish.student.harvard.edu/kibble Outline editor using GTK. GPL.
Edward de Bono: http://www.edwdebono.com Author of books and teaching programs about "thinking". In his website there's a Northern Ireland Design Conference, and a Creative Team that uses Motet as conference software. He suggests setting up Thinking Clubs.
Slashdot: http://slashdot.org News for Nerds - Stuff that Really Matters.
This page: http://www.gulic.org/copensar/sole.html
A previous version of this page, in Spanish: http://www.gulic.org/copensar/pepe.html

Cognitive Insufficiency

I know someone who bought a new phone because he didn't notice he could have replaced the old phone's battery.
Actually it's a bit more messy than that because the old phone had other issues which muddled the decision. And the battery was changed, and the replacement was also faulty.

But if you look at the chain of problems, it was a non-working phone because of a faulty battery because he didn't think well because his mind was in other subjects.

We all make expensive mistakes all the time.

And collectively, as a species, we may be approaching, not future shock, but future crash. Or maybe not.

How do you solve this? Meditation, help from conversation, better health in terms of sleep, food, exercise, etc? Flowcharts and thinking tools? Reduce inputs by living simply ("thinning")? Pass?

Today, I pass. But I'm seriously considering meditation and thinning. And a little conversation, but then we overload each other instead of attacking the noise at its source.

Thanks for listening.

Speech to subtitles and translations: a streamlined process

I've translated quite a bit, just because I started a long time ago. Old age!

Over several years, I translated two thousand pages of Edward de Bono's educational material into Spanish. It used to be in edwdebono.com/spanish but I have no idea where it is now, or if it even exists. I did learned about the thinking tools. :shrug:

I only work very openly now. I've always done stuff so I might learn (from the very first page), and recently because it is just easier to translate and link than to tell 200 hundred friends one by one. Lazy! :-)

So, I may be missing something, but at least I've done some fluwiki texts, some open source ecology videos and texts, an akvo set of documents on "water day" (*link*), Hans Rosling's "200 countries x 200 years in 4 minutes" (more than 40 languages), and videos by Vinay Gupta (too many to mention, but see a recent what and how) and EdgeRyders. Also, one short piece about the scaffolding of imagination. Have I learned!

I've also translated some of my own videos, fooling around with mindmapping while I speak, and then translating that. It's a cool way to convey ideas, but I have yet to use that to my fullest, and for example do my own "complex systems" talk. (Give me some time, later in the year ... oops!)

I'll add links to all of this later, and of course you can just look at what Amara.org, TED.com and others are doing - but just let me tell you about the process itself:

• Upload video to youtube. It does pay to have good sound, so use a good microphone close to the person speaking.
• Use Google2SRT.sf.net to download automatic transcription. (Folks, we need an open tool for speech-to-text. Any links?)
• Polish the transcription. You probably need to get rid of timestamps; I usually do, and there's some script in my hard-disk somewhere. For the actual text editting, if you work alone, use oTranscribe.com or Amara.org itself. If you work with other people, use Etherpad.org as in this animation.
• Cut the transcription to 42 characters per line, as suggested by Amara. (I guess that advice comes from practice and is shared by other subtitle platforms such as *fill in name, was it dotsub or something like it?*).
• Upload to amara and synchronise video and sound there.
• Now, in Amara, you (and people you don't know!) can translate into whatever number of languages. (Did I say Rosling's has more than 40 languages? Yes I did. See above.)

You need to check at every stage, but it's not like you can break much, so just have fun while you learn and cooperate. Ah, a tip from my experience: do only the easy half, and never do the second half. It's too expensive, and others can do it so much better than you, so just ask for help!

Ok so, while we're at it, can you lend a hand with our current project, which is a talk by Vinay Gupta on leveraging BitCoin and other blockchain tools to, well, "do poverty"? The etherpad instance is http://piratepad.net/vinaygupta-bitcoin-2. Thanks!

PS: I'd also love to do New World Order but they may be doing it already, and differently. :-?

#WHP1: exploring a thinking tool

#WHP1 is Want, Have, Possibilities, 1st step. It can be a mindmap or a set of lists or a conversation. It's a thinking tool because it helps you focus on one aspect at a time, yet build a fuller picture. It's a loop if you make it so; I do.

(It's an action tool too. Not that neurons are different for thinking and acting. It's just that some neurons are connected to muscles. But I disgress. Anyway.)

Say our current focus/center is "a better room". Wants is experience, function, purpose: a place to hide, work, talk, cook, give to ourselves, or whatever. Haves is square meters, windows, existing furniture; but also some money, friends to ask advice from, and any other resources we can muster. Possibilities include making, buying, giving away, repositioning, and maybe even swapping rooms. First step is you select what you can do in 2-5 minutes, one afternoon, or a week. Give the whole round 3-10 minutes, or a few days. Then you go back to Wants, and see how it's now enriched.

Try it on a few examples, maybe working together with other people, or first round alone and then ask and listen. You now own the tool. It can stay in your toolbox, unused. Yours.

I've used #OODA, John Boyd's Observe, Orient, Decide, Act loop, which is good for objective, complex, extra-personal situations. I used it together with SCIM (Vinay Gupta's Simple Critical Infrastructure Maps) for severe pandemic influenza, because SCIM is great for "orientation" around Needs and Provision. It's linked from http://ResilienceMaps.org and, frankly, may we never ever need it. (But I'm glad I did my homework.)

OODA is different from WHP1. I wonder if parallel teams, sharing output, would give us some interesting insights. But in my experience any tool is often better than no tool... Even if, or particularly when, you find the tool doesn't cover the thinking you feel is needed for that particular situation. As in "hey, #WHP1 doesn't let me look at this-and-that".

That's probably why I wrote the "I'm not my phone" song, over at http://imacan.bandcamp.com/album/evolution, and the Acceptable Fairies Observation elsewhere in this blog. Because we stay limited in our thinking, no matter what we do: small photographic cameras, huge-moving-smelly landscape. But you already knew.

Anyway, I hope this helps somewhat. :shrug: :-)

The Excubator Project (20141119)

Hazmat suits for Ebola are safe if used well, but apparently quite inconvenient: time-consuming, hot, not always available, etc.

So I thought of an inverse incubator: a box with gloves sticking out.

Some other elements emerged quickly: a window, a back-door, handles to move the box to the bedside, maybe an apron-pocket for supplies, and of course some protection for the feet, and quite possibly an air filter.

Friends suggested wheels, a spiral slide for supplies, a cylindric shape, or turning it into a wall screwed to the side of the bed.

So here's one of the first images of the thing, posted on twitter;

I asked for a refrigerator box, and found I could move it around and cut windows in it. Here's the very first video:

I felt slightly silly, but not enough to stop me, when I asked for barbie dolls to make a 1/6 scale prototype, and later when I placed the (8 minute) video on the internet:

Another refrigerator box, which I took to the local hackerspace, and there a friend grabbed the cutter and showed me what they mean by "fast prototyping". In less than two hours, we had this (1 minute) video:

 

(Yes: it looks like we've found a way to increase visibility and motion range. I thought it for the face. Sergio did it for the whole upper body. It seems to work!)

We still need to do proper sleeves and gloves, protect the bottom, add an air filter at the top. And we will. Shortly.

But I feel it's mature enough to take some heat from the internet:

• What's wrong and what can be improved?
• Who has the expertise we evidently lack?
• Should we just kill the project, as it's obviously worthless and even potentially harmful if people think it's safe and it isn't?

Even if this particular idea doesn't work, the problem is still the same:

WHO tells us "High-quality supportive care is thought to have contributed to the larger number of survivors. However, two limitations compromised the quality of bedside care: staff were too few in number; and the duration of time spent providing care at the bedside was too little, due to dehydration and over-heating of clinicians wearing personal protective equipment."

Could the excubator - or something better - help? What next?

FWIW, in parallel with the prototype, I've drafted two wikipages over at appropedia:

• http://www.appropedia.org/Ebola with some general ideas about the role of open source appropriate technology (OSAT), and suggestions for a process to make health-OSAT work around real needs and practical science; and
• http://www.appropedia.org/Excubator which gives the details of this particular project.

Questions about climate change

Yesternight I listened to a very basic talk by a climate expert, one who's been measuring and coordinating meetings and compiling the science and putting the information out there for all to see and for govts to act upon.
I asked "how many trees per person", and really sensed there was a reliance on government response. Our #OneHotPotato idea on twitter was dismissed as "nice" (it's intended to make people just smile).
Climate analogs should give us which trees. Huge distributed computer power, with global and local models, should give us the tree element of the equation. If it's 100 trees per person, I'd plan mine in a couple of months and move on to help others.
So, again: which trees and how many?

Some small changes

I've quit Twitter, at least for some time. A minor eyelid infection did the trick. After 10 days, I find my attention slowly fills up with things I'd half-forgotten.

It feels like lifting the needle of an old record player.

I'm digitising old tapes. Stuff I recorded using guitars when I was half my current age. Hours and hours of crappy sound, repetitions and some not-too-bad stuff. Some i-didn't-know-this-at-all stuff. Stuff I will soon be able to refer to with simple coordinates: t12m34s56 will be tape 12 and a specific moment within that (digitised) tape. After that's ready, I'll be able to access that memory, select some, build on it. And maybe I'll feel free to start new stuff too.

I may also do mindmaps on video. Mini-worldviews and mind-models and landscape-summaries. It's also about making content available. Nothing that will change the world, but I'll put it out there, and maybe become a child again. Maybe.

A cork in the Niagara falls. Such a fine feeling. Relaxed and, who knows, maybe a bit more ready for whatever comes next.

Will I think about emergency permaculture, learn stuff, build with my hands, create some music for the fun of it? Again, maybe.

Nothing big. Not soon, any way.

Understanding for change

This may be dangerous, but not going may be dangerous too, so here I go.

There's understanding systems, and there's changing them.

To understand a system, we'd need to know it's elements and the relationships between them; the levels, flows and delays; the units and numbers and how they relate to units and numbers we know; the feedback loops and the overall mode of behaviour, growth and failure; and maybe other things I don't know about.

To change a system (both to improve and protect it, and to guide it in the direction of becoming something else), we'd need to know its strengths and vulnerabilities; our strengths and vulnerabilities; our allies and counter-allies; and maybe other things I don't know about.

We could crowdsource the understanding part using some sort of wiki: ask the questions, look for the answers, link to the answers, make the pages known for others to double-or-triple check, tag the answers as (non-)checked, etc. If different models exist, then fork the page (maybe keeping most links).

Similarly, once sufficient understanding emerges, we might ant-ize the movement. Possible actions are wikified, each ant decides what's in our power to do, and we do it.

Imagine this for (renewable) energy.

Is this silly?

How I did this song

Song at the bottom. Just click on the white triangle. No need to read this!

I wrote the lyrics 2+ years ago, and did a very rough recording of the chords using a small guitar. I remember I placed the audio recorder too close to the guitar, so the sound was rather rough. Also, the chords came out as they did, so ... well, it sounded terrible.

But I got some encouragement from a friend, who said the song needed some work. He could have said it needed some amnesia, but he didn't. :shrug:

The intro-outro part is very, very old. Don't ask. Old. Very.

Anyway, some time later I recorded it as one track, then two and three. Reversed part of the instrumental-only part in the middle just to see how that sounded. Again, not good except for my all-forgiving ears.

I published an instrumental version on archive.org - so that makes it two tunes I have there so far. Added the lyrics to that post, but it was clear no-one could sing it without a sing-able melody somewhere.

Finally, here's the version where I stop. Not the finished version. Just the version where I stop.

Because I need to do other things. Like, do some personal nanowrimo stuff, writing not one song in 3 years but say 10-15 songs in a month?

It's recorded with Ardour 2. I used Hydrogen with the "tap, tap, tap" keyboard trick to know what the speed is (I'll re-dig it for you if interested; I need it for other songs anyway).

Using a very basic hard-soft-soft-soft rhythm, I added the rhythm chords with a guitarlele, effectively transposing the key by a fifth, which apparently didn't make it less singable by me. I realised later that I had done something strange to the chords when the final third or so begins. I would find it hard to reproduce it, but I think it enriches the song somehow.

It's all first takes, and it always comes out different anyway.

So. Then I added the melody, using the guitarlele again. Would I be able to re-play it like I did? Nope.

Then I (ugh) sung. Not very loud, as there were neighbours around.

Then I muted the hydrogen track, which had sort of served its purpose. I know people who have natural (and trained!) rhythm. Not my case.

Months later, yesterday really, I recorded the bass guitar. Could be trickier if I managed it, but no more patience. I'll see the proper brain-to-tape software yet! Maybe I should just do a song with all tracks hummed.

I had already added some echo stuff to the voice so that it doesn't sound so "me", and some panning. Not professional, but I think it helps you listen to each instrument separately or something.

So, here it is. See (and hear) below.

If you hate it, stop listening. Basically, it's all about protecting yourself. Life's too short to hear crap you can just turn off.

If you like it, good. Hey, even if you don't deeply dislike it, I call that a success!

If you can improve on it somehow, I can share the four tracks so that you may substitute, say, the voice. :-? Or add some proper something. I even have a video of how to play the basic chords, but I'm not publishing that anytime soon I think. (That video is where I took the picture from. Summer 2013.)

Anyway, here it is:

Asked about Collapse of Industrial Civilization ...

(I was in a hurry so excuse the conciseness.)

Bumpy slide, or cliff? Everywhere at once, or patchy? So far it's already (for a billion or two humans) bumpy and patchy, and conceivably a big one (severe influenza pandemic, severe sun storm, etc) could turn it into a sudden cliff, or of course cheap solar & permaculture could go big if several things click together.

It's all scenarios, with no certain probabilities (imho). It's our first time as a species, as far as I know. :-?

What to do? 7 years ago, at a flu conference, I heard a World Health Organisation official say he wasn't in the prediction department but in the preparedness department. I was glad to hear it. One less worry! :-)

Any bad enough scenario (BES) will be felt locally. In a BES, your food or your "property" (I hear that word a lot in some places, and I feel it wouldn't mean much in a BES) won't "save" you. If not "save", then what will "help"? (The following is numbered for reference, not for prioritisation.)

1) Skills, knowledge, friends, having something to give to others that they will value so they will keep you alive.

2) Having ways to speed up recovery for all (or at least as many as possible) in a certain area. Think "emergency permaculture": quick and dirty, using climate analogs and helpful databases + applications some are envisioning, maybe allowing for calorie crops in a few months (while you eat what's there), then something better later.

3) Scarcity governability. (I wrote tinyurl.com/fluscim specifically for a BES-flu-pandemic, but could be applied to SG more generally, fwiw.)

4) Luck.

Anything else?

I'm working towards 1 and 2.

3 is still maturing - maybe there's a lot missing and I'd appreciate comments.

2 and 3 could conceivably be combined.

"Explosive" (in a good way) seeds need slow work!

pcd

i'm doing a distance pdc for a number of weeks

so excuse if i'm pretty silent while i work

don't want to rush it - it's only the end of the world as we know it (as usual)

i'm keeping a shirt-pocket sized moleskine notebook

i may write about other things, or about the pdc - but most misteriously

i'm old, so we'll see what happens if i try to, you know, learn

c ya!

Ethics

I just had a look at permaculture ethics. The planet, people and surpluses are mentioned. It's easy to look them up in detail.

I don't know if it's the same for others, but it kind of rubs me the wrong way when people - not just permaculturists, but anyone - talk about ethics. It's a bit as if they wanted to impose theirs on me.

This speaks more of my sensitivity than of whatever it is that those others may really want to do. I guess. :-P (We people are varied.)

That said, I don't exactly dislike the notion of hacker ethics. Based, you know, on initiative, cooperation, sharing and play. (I'm people too.)

All of which leaves me ruminating ... two things (which end up being three, as usual):

(1) Could there be an intersection, or maybe an edge, among both ethics? An intersection would be acceptable for me personally. An edge, as between ecosystems (a beach is land and sea together), would mean more riches.

(2) In any case, what are ethics? I think each is an array of weights for our decision functions. We decide among options based on factors, and those factors are more or less important depending on our values.

"Values" are nothing special: just the elements and features a specific person considers desirable in a specific situation. (Desirability that's usually relative to other elements and features.)

So a "value set" or an "ethic", in my simplification, is the array of weights we apply to the array of factors in the subjective cognitive function that takes specific factors in and outputs a specific decision.

If you're deciding, say, on starting a business installing solar panels, you may give different weights to being lazy, to earning money, to your wish to leave the campsite better than you found it, or to whatever other factors you're considering.

Finally, in my ruminations, the very notion that a decision is "a function with weighted factors we use to choose between options" makes me wonder (3) whether there might be a meta-ethics which would give lots of value to thinking: the (sometimes cooperative) activity of including more factors, generating further alternatives, etc.

So there you go! :-)

Almost done

I've been working on the same subject for more than eight (8) years.

Learning from the many and from the best. Going out on a limb to suggest obvious innovations in approaches, and also hiding in partial annonimity to be able to ask dumb questions and pose inappropriately silly worries -- in it for the learning. Annoying friends, allies and even a taxi driver or two as I re-worded the threat and the possible actions, again and again and again. New angles became not-so-new, and I was lucky to keep (most of) my friends.

Now the work of offering my understanding back to whoever cares to look into it is almost finished. At around eighty (80) pages, it's a meagre ten pages per year, and yet not exactly E=m*c^2-concise either. Most of my (fingers and toes-countable, if I'm lucky) readers will stop after quickly reading the 6-page summary, the 2.5 index pages, or maybe looking at the pictures. I know that.

But at long last it's (almost) over, and different conversations may (or may not) emerge. Like a music band that creates a new album, I don't know if going on tour will bring further conversations or if it will be a flop, best brushed under the carpet, nice try and ain't you glad it's over.

My attention is now fully uncommitted, if that makes sense. It was a load of work, and whether others like it or not I'm (almost) free.

I've met exquisitely good people, as well as, you know, the others. We'll all be glad we can change the subject. :-)

Some temporary insights on free-software music

Not there yet, but approaching what I'd like to use.

KXstudio on top of ubuntustudio 12.10 very much does the trick for me. I can either use Ardour 2, recording acoustic tracks only, maybe with the metronome, and leaving drum integration for whenever; or I can use MusE, which gives me internal MIDI instruments (something I'd like to use a little, even though I'm basically a guitar player without a MIDI guitar), and maybe (if I can get SimpleDrums, the internal percussion thingie, to work) even rhythm.

I'll want to use just one piece of software. Used MusE today and upon reentry the connection with ZynAppSubFX (or whatever it's called) was lost. I want to sit down an play if I can.

That said, it looks like the layer of integration provided by KXstudio is a good model. I read somewhere that Debian will have a saner sound infrastructure soonish. We might yet get to the point in which you can download an .iso image, burn it into a DVD, install it into your hard drive, and just use one piece of software for the basic frequent activities.

We've come a long way since, say, 27 years ago, when I used our Apple IIe to write 394 lines of assembly code (that's as close as machine language as you can normally get) which accepted keypresses on the numbers and returned a list of "note, duration" pairs.

I just want the flow I get from playing alone, then playing against my own previous track(s), then maybe redoing the pieces with greater care so as to show what I hear inside, and finally maybe even playing with others if they want to.

Not much of a request, I think.

And it does look like we, free software zealots/fans/enthusiasts, are getting there.

Yay!

Guitar to piano, then choir

I use Linux. Browser, libreoffice-writer, freemind, pdf-reader, and generally not much else. I like to think my system is as free as I can make it, but of course I currently have to use proprietary gear: a computer (acer aspire 5742g), a usb sound card (edirol ua25ex), headphones and an electric guitar.

So I installed ubuntustudio 12.04, carefully looked at the ua25ex manual and adjusted the switches (also checked the headphones, badly tightened cable!), told the "sound configuration" that I didn't want to use the computer's sound system, fired up qjackctl and told it to use the ua25ex card, and then fired up rakarrack (fx on, reverb, tell qjackctl as in the picture), then zynaddsubfx (instrument piano, tell qjackctl as in the picture), then tell rakarrack (midi) ... even ardour 2.8x.

Mostly, I had to discipline myself to check every detail, not accepting that a connection was good until I disconnected it to see if there was no sound, and reconnected it again to hear it come back. I hadn't done this in the previous _years_, and was lost all that time. (Yes, you read that well. Years. I had managed some things, but never this full system.)

My conclusion is: it's possible (tho' the midi is experimental, slow and delayed), I need to make it automatic (drill, baby, drill), and all this could use some usability (not the last mile, but rather the last inch: explain every tag rather on the verbosity side).

More when I've processed the pictures, reproduced the process, uploaded some audio, etc. I'd really like to document this. We users need to document successes, and I know many others are doing that. I mean we need to document whole systems, explained for seven-year-olds. This might help developers, right?

The sound-to-midi feature of rakarrack is experimental. I hope it grows to become something really useful! (Excuse the enthusiasm: I'm 50 years old and I've been waiting for this since I was 15, when I kindly "stole" a family member's recorder so I would have two identical recorders - both battery operated, I remember well - and be able to record a second guitar while the one I had recorded first played out loud.)

Also, I want to document my thinking on how to do, erm, a little bit of song-writing. I'd like to write a song a day for a month, and publish at least one in three. This will take everything from tuning and making backups to designing to recording to publishing. I need to get ready for that, and document it, and feel at ease with the process before I jump in.

It'll be crap, but it will be my crap. And yours, cos over the years a few kind souls created open licenses, software, gear and what not.

More soon, I hope!

2012

A quick entry before being pulled into family gathering to watch 2012 melt into 2013.

2012 was the year of:

Yet more family surgery. All's well now, but was recovery slow & bumpy!

FluSCIM. Heavy, tough, almost toxic weight-lifting. Thanks to a few friends, it's well on its way to being "done and out", so that real business (brutal peer and non-peer review, if I'm lucky) may begin, possibly by the end of Jan 2013.

Edgeryders. Living On The Edge 1, not 2. There's some very good people, of all ages, in Europe and beyond. 2013 should see more of that. Not that I have huge hopes, but if not us (all, or at least many) then who?

3D printing and hackerspacing. Cool. Nice projects in the oven around here.

Music. I've seen beautiful growth, & admitted personal limits. I know where to focus. My own solitary craft. More soon.

I've been looking at the world til it hurts, and focused on not doing stuff.

Helped a bit with the hexayurt project, lended a happy hand to SCIM Greek translation, and taught mindmapping to a fair number.

Open Source Ecology has been good to watch, but what could I actually do?

2013 scares me. Which is why I've been resting. And why I won't be the one to say "let the show begin".

See ya all!

Maps to change the territory

We all know the map is not the territory, and yet we also know changing our minds helps us change the world ... Not all the world, mind you, but just the part within our sphere of actionability: from the edge of your finger-nails towards the center. Yeah, that's where your keys, notepad, screwdriver and phone are.

Maps ... Over the past few weeks I've been talking to people about mindmaps, which has forced me to learn a few things about them (maps and people). Specifically when someone who's tried teaching her kids told me she didn't know what to do when they started growing very large branches, with ideas connected to ideas in an outward spiral, with no end in sight ...

Mindmaps are about self-control and balance. It's (apparently) not the kind of thinking you do when meditating, in which (I've been told) you stick to the center (your breathing, your mantra, whatever) until (again apparently) you're concious of conciousness itself (or something of the sort). It's also not the kind of thinking you do when you explore further and further away, like this lady's kids did, going from content to content to where external stimuli (aka "distractions") will take you. With mindmaps you grow a few central branches, you grab them, and you sort-of fish from them: you stay in place and throw the line, grab the fish, pull the line, throw the line again.

Mindmaps are also about reusable templates - where each template is defined by its main branches. You want recipies? Use the ingredients-tools-procedure-presentation template - useful for any recipe. You want to describe a novel? Use the location-time-characters-plot-style template - useful for any novel. You want to look at people opinions? Use the each-person-their-opinions template (issue as the center, main branches one for each person, secondary branches for each person's real views) - useful for individuals and even countries.

Mindmaps can also help with creative thinking, maybe using two simple questions: what's this an example of? What's another example of this? (I've seen this refered to as "chunking up" and "chunking down".) The simplest example is the car: it's an example of transport, and other examples of transport are bikes and shoes and airplanes. So, sometimes, in a mindmap - or at least in a corner of a mindmap - you start with the leaves (specific ideas) and work your way up to the branches (general concepts), and down again to more leaves (more specific ideas).

So, what's my currently favourite template? My "reusable template for changing the world" (a bit)? Simple: area-wants-haves-cans-first steps.

1. Let's say we pick a small area of interest, like (this was talking with my friend) we want to improve education in our geographical area. We put that as the center of this specific map. (Have other areas of interests? Do other maps, later!) (Please note: not "(narrow) goals", but "areas of interest". Narrow goals are bad for you: you end up killing for money, etc.)
2. What would we want to see, our wants? Maybe we want to see more people learning general future-proof skills, or people teaching what they know to others, or people learning faster and with less effort whatever it is that they must learn to pass their compulsory tests. And we certainly want to enjoy the ride itself, too.
3. So what is it that we have? We know some teachers and some students, and other people who might have resources. We have some links to places students might use to get information from. We know how to use mindmaps, even with software. We may have some room (or, again, know someone who does have room).
4. Next is, what are some things we can do? Maybe we can grow a business (wild idea), or write a blog entry (nice and simple), or create a group of people who might be interested in exploring this kind of interest (I started with one person, and then a few more). We might start from our own learning needs, or from stuff we can teach, or from people's needs if we see a mismatch between what is needed and what people do know.
5. Finally, we look at first steps. All those possibilities - we really don't have time for all of that, do we? So what would we actually do, that's within our sphere of actionability? One or two things at most. Doable soon? We go for that, because - to be honest - all we wanted is to gain a slightly better understanding and then actually do something - and do another map at some other date in the future.

I'd like to do this big time. Maybe with 20 people and a 10 meter x 10 meter mindmap or, ok, maybe a smaller surface. For, you know, some area of interest: one of us invites, a number of us join in, there may be several maps/invitations. In ... 2013? So ... my first step was to write this blog entry. ;-) Then, maybe we can show how this is done in, say, some EdgeRyders' (or "Friends of EdgeRyders") meeting? Or should I start smaller and document that? I'll keep you informed!

Of course, none of this is doable unless enough people (one or more) want to. And if enough people want to, the specific tool may not matter much. But, if enough people want to, then the simpler the tool, the better. What do you think?