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Atheist Seeks Same Access to Altar as Fake Liberaces, Elvises

December 16, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“In a city launched by shotgun weddings and quickie divorces, which offers the chance to be wed by faux Liberaces, King Tuts and Grim Reapers, there remains at least one nuptial taboo: you can’t be married by an atheist. Michael Jacobson, a 64-year-old retiree who calls himself a lifelong atheist, tried this year to get a license to perform weddings. Clark County rejected his application because he had no ties to a congregation, as state law requires. So Jacobson and attorneys from two national secular groups — the American Humanist Association and the Center for Inquiry — are trying to change things. If they can’t persuade the state Legislature to rework the law, they plan to sue.

Jacobson, who spends most afternoons reading online or dining at a nearby buffet, is an admittedly reluctant plaintiff. But he’s willing to fight on principle, recalling one time he couldn’t: In the 1960s, the Army demanded that his dogtags note his religion. He reluctantly chose Judaism, which reflected his ancestry if not his beliefs.

“One of the things I like to do is stand up and say I’m a non-believer, so you know you’re not alone,” he said recently. For years Mel Lipman, a friend of Jacobson’s and the American Humanist Association president, had presided over non-religious weddings in Las Vegas. But he belonged to the Humanist Society, a secular branch of the Humanist Association whose tax status as a religious group satisfied the clerk’s requirements.
When Lipman and his wife moved to Florida this spring, Jacobson decided to become the Las Vegas atheist celebrant. “But I’m not going to do it by saying I belong to a religious organization,” he said. “That’s a sham because atheists are not religious.”

(via The Chicago Tribune)

Video from CyborgCamp

December 11, 2008 / Klint Finley

I haven’t watched this yet – I was losing my voice and on the verge of a cold, so hopefully it’s listenable.

Here are my presentation notes.

The rest of the presentations from CyborgCamp are here.

Left Behind: the Singularity and the Developing World

December 8, 2008 / Klint Finley

Here’s the presentation I gave at CyborgCamp to kick off a discussion on the developing world, low tech cyborgs, and a “post-everything” world. I’ve integrated notes and external links/references into it.

Thanks to Mamaj and Cameron, Amber Case and the rest of the CyborgCamp organizers, and of course everyone who attended and participated in the session.

Left Behind: the Singlarity and the Developing Third World

Wikipedia:

The technological singularity is a theoretical future point of unprecedented technological progress, caused in part by the ability of machines to improve themselves using artificial intelligence

The ultimate step is the uploading of our consciousness to computers in space.

In other words, it’s “the rapture for nerds.”

singularity cartoon

(above: A cartoon from Pictures for Sad Children – I don’t share this detrimental view of nerds, but I agree with this bleak assessment of the singularity)

Compared to many parts of the world, in the west we’re already living in the singularity.

We can help people in the developing world with technology, and we can learn new things from the problems of the developing world.

usaid food bags

(above: Rendille Home – Made of USAID Food Bags)

“The Sudden stardom of the third world city” was an essay by Rana Dasgupta that asked the question

Is it going too far to suggest that our sudden interest in books and films about the Third-World city stems from the sense that they may provide effective preparation for our future survival in London, New York or Paris?

Are the problems of the developing world going to be our problems soon? If so, what solutions can we begin to apply here?

To begin, let’s consider a popular urban legend. There’s a persistent rumor that NASA spent millions of dollars creating a pen that works in zero gravity, but the Russians just used a pencil. The story’s not true, but it’s a good design fable.

Here’s an example of someone going the NASA route:

biodetection mine

Aresa Biodetection tried to create a species of plant that would change colors when planted over a mine. It was a great idea, and it was frequently cited by people at WorldChanging as an example of positive biotech. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.

mine sniffing rat

The pencil solution? Instead of trying to create a new species of plant, Bart Weetjens’s using an existing species of animal: rats. The rats are too light to set of mines, and they can be trained to find them.

Two more examples of simple solutions:

lifestraw

Life Straw

hippo roller

Hippo Roller

olpc

So, some things we can learn. Justin Boland asks why all laptops don’t have hand cranks. I saw in the backchannel that the reason this was taken out of the XO is that they were constantly breaking – but I maintain that an external handcrank would be a useful feature for any laptop (but I think it would be annoying to have that huge crank on the side all the time).

What can we learn from how people are using mobile phones in the developing world? In many countries, mobile phone use has leapfrogged use of landlines and PCs and Internet.

Here are some ways mobile phones are being used:

Digital Currency (cell phone minutes used as alternative currrency – PayPal was originally intended to be a payment system for mobile devices)

Job hunting by SMS – what to do for people without access to Craig’s List (Kazi 560 from Mobile for Good)

HIV information by SMS (Project Masiluleke)

Agricultural market prices

Election monitoring

Disaster response

wind powered cell phone tower

How can a cellular grid be powered without an electrical grid? Wind and solar powered cell phone towers. Why don’t we take our cell grid off the electrical grid?

portable wind turbine

Above: Engineers without Borders prototype $100 portable wind generator

ocean thermal energy conversion

A more grand scheme: an Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion project in Hawaii. John Craven claims his system creates electricity, free air conditioning, fresh water, and grows crops insanely fast. They are working to setup a facility in Saipan, but Craven asks what a facility like this could do for Haiti.

lifetrac open source tractor

Another interesting project: the LifeTrac (here’s a reasoned criticism of the project, with another interesting example of innovative design for the developing world)

So what can you do?

You can build a system like one of the following:

Kiva

Pledgie

Nabuur

Or donate time or money to those projects.

Or, volunteer for FreeGeek, who turn the global problem of e-waste into a solution for bridging the local digital divide by training anyone who is interested to build computers from recycled parts.

Find out more

WorldChanging
My Heart’s in Accra
Afrigadget
Bruce Sterling
Brainsturbator

U.S. Court Allows Abuse Case vs. Vatican

November 26, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“A federal appeals court has permitted a lawsuit over alleged sexual abuse to proceed against the Vatican, creating potential liability for the seat of the Roman Catholic faith for the activities of Catholic clergy in the U.S. Monday’s ruling, issued by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, marks the first time a court at so high a level has recognized that the Vatican could be liable for the negligence in sexual-abuse cases brought in the U.S.

The ruling is seen as a breakthrough by those allegedly abused by priests. Investigators and grand juries have found several instances where the church failed to report alleged abusers and covered up alleged misdeeds to protect them. Jeffrey S. Lena, the attorney for the Holy See, said he was not “presently inclined” to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the decision. It remains to be seen whether the Vatican, which is a sovereign state recognized by the U.S. government, will make further arguments that it is immune from U.S. civil proceeding.

Catholic dioceses in the U.S. have paid out at least $1.5 billion to alleged abuse victims, most of this since the scandal broke open nationwide in 2002. The appeals court found that the church government may be held liable for actions taken in the U.S. based on the Vatican’s policies or directives.”

(via Wall Street Journal via WSJ Law Blog)

Damien Echols Speaks

November 22, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“It has been 15 years since Damien Echols was sentenced to die for the murders of three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis. He claims he and the other two convicted of the heinous killings have what they need to prove they are innocent. Surrounded by guards in Arkansas’ only super-max prison, Damien Echols is shackled at the hands and feet. (Damien Echols, Death Row Inmate) “Every single morning for the past 15 years I’ve had to wake up in a prison cell knowing I should have never been there in the first place. They took from me the entire decade of my 20’s. I’m now in my 30’s. They are taking my 30’s. I’ve lost 15 Christmas’, 15 Thanksgivings… my son has had to grow up without his father.” Treated as one of the most dangerous criminals in the state, Echols is one of only about 40 inmates on Arkansas’ death row.

(Echols) “I can take exactly 4 steps from the back of the cell to the front of the cell. Everything is made out of concrete except for the door which is steel. .” Now 15 years after being locked up, as he spends day in and day out in solitary confinement, Echols believes he is the closest he has ever been to getting a new trial.

(Echols) “Ever since the minute I was arrested 15 years ago, I’ve tried to tell them that I did not do this and they just weren’t interested in listening. They said well that’s what everyone says. And that’s why for me the dna evidence is so important now because finally there is concrete forensic evidence that I can point to and say look I told you.”

(via KATV. Also: “Damien Echols Speaks”:Pt. 2)

Former Temple Followers Move On, 30 Years After Jonestown

November 16, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“Dark clouds tumbled overhead on that afternoon 30 years ago, in the last hours of the congressman’s mission deep in the jungle of Guyana. With a small entourage, Rep. Leo Ryan had come to investigate the remote agricultural settlement built by a California-based church. But while he was there, more than a dozen people had stepped forward: We want to return to the United States, they said fearfully.
Suddenly a powerful wind tore through the central pavilion, riffling pages of my notebook, and the skies dumped torrents. People scrambled for cover as I interviewed the founder of Peoples Temple.

“I feel sorry that we are being destroyed from within,” intoned the Rev. Jim Jones, stunned that members of his flock wanted to abandon the place he called the Promised Land. That freakish storm and the mood seemed ominous “‘ and not just to me. “I felt evil itself blow into Jonestown when that storm hit,” recalls Tim Carter, one of the few settlers to survive that day. Within hours, Carter would see his wife and son die of cyanide poisoning, two of the more than 900 people Jones led in a murder and suicide ritual of epic proportions.”

(via USA Today)

(MSNBC video from “Witness To Jonestown”)

Inspiration in Difficult Times

November 12, 2008 / TiamatsVision

The image

“Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.” – Eric Hoffer

“Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.” – Samuel Johnson

“A great many things have been pronounced untrue and absurd, and even impossible, by the highest authorities in the age in which they lived, which have afterwards, and, indeed, within a very short period, been found to be both possible and true” . – Catherine Crowe

We’re bombarded on a daily basis with waves of negativity. Mainstream media and people stuck in a negative groove are constantly reminding us how awful everything is. Politics, the economy, how bad the weather is, and the inevitable “Oh my, did you here about ___(insert horrible news here)?!” coming from everyday acquaintances to people we meet on the street, constantly remind us how imperfect the world is. There are some people I know who don’t own a TV or listen to any MSM because of this, and they are some of the happiest people I know. They’re also deeply involved in their work and are successful at what they do. At times (when free to do so), I’ve taken their cue and turned off all media (including my telephone) and go off to do what helps center me; write, read, play music, or head for the great outdoors.

I recently read about a twelve year old boy, Jordan Romero, who has climbed 5 of the 7 highest peaks in the world. His goal is to climb all of them by the time he reaches 16, and I can see him accomplishing this. So I decided to look into some more amazing people, and found a large list of disabled musicians; a couple of quadriplegic sculptors, Alistair Green and Garry Curry; and a writer named Karen Lynn-Chlup, who has cerebral palsy and learning disabilities, just to name a few. You’re not going to hear too much about these people because crisis, tragedy, and criticism are what get the major hits on blogs and news sites. Not the success stories.

Yes, the economic crisis is bad. People are losing their jobs, retirement funds and their houses, and at times it seems like everything sucks. But there are people out there who are achieving things no one thought possible. Twenty years ago who would’ve thought that an African American would be elected president? How about the men with no legs, Oscar Pistorius (who’s also blind and ran in the Olympics) and Mark Inglis, who made it to the summit of Mount Everest? Or the amputees who rock climb? If you’re feeling down, or are going through a hard time, know that you’re not alone, and that there are people out there surmounting obstacles and achieving goals that few thought they could. It’s during these difficult times that it’s most important to remember that sometimes the glass isn’t half empty, but half full.

Social Innovation Camp

November 1, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“Social Innovation Camp is an experiment in creating social innovations for the digital age. We think the web and related technologies hold huge potential to change some pretty fundamental stuff: how people hold those in positions of power accountable; who they rely on to provide the services they need to live healthy, happy lives; or how they make a difference to something that affects them.

But for any of this to happen, we have to work out what people really need and start building the technology that can help – which is what Social Innovation Camp is all about. Through unusual, creative events we bring together talented software developers and designers with social innovators to build effective web-based solutions to real social problems.

Our Call for Ideas for Social Innovation Camp 5th-7th December 2008 has opened! You have until 7th November 2008 to send us your idea. Social Innovation Camps start with an open Call for Ideas followed by an intense weekend of activity.”

(Social Innovation Camp’s Blog. SOI “Call For Ideas”)

Documentary- “Off The Grid: Life On The Mesa”

October 26, 2008 / TiamatsVision

The image

The current economic crisis has some people showing an an interest in survivalism, frugal lifestyles, etc. This fascinating documentary focuses on one particular group of people who live according to their own rules.

“Twenty-Five miles from town, a million miles from mainstream society, a loose-knit community of eco-pioneers, teenage runaways, war veterans and drop-outs, live on the fringe and off the grid, struggling to survive with little food, less water and no electricity, as they cling to their unique vision of the American dream…”

(“Off The Grid: Life On The Mesa” via Snag Films)

Hard Times Have Some Flirting with Survivalism

October 22, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“Atash Hagmahani is not waiting for the stock market to recover. The former high-tech professional turned urban survivalist has already moved his money into safer investments: Rice and beans, for starters. “I hoard food,” says Hagmahani, 44, estimating that he has enough to last his family a year or two. “I’m not ashamed to admit it.” “People keep asking when this (economic crisis) is going to clear up,” says Hagmahani, who agreed to be interviewed on the condition that he be identified only by this pseudonym, which he uses for his survivalist blog, or by his first name, Rob.

The answer, he predicts, is that the country is entering what he calls a “Greater Depression.” “Maybe they jolly well better get used to the change in lifestyle.” Hagmahani is not alone in concluding that desperate times call for serious preparations. With foreclosure rates running rampant, financial institutions teetering and falling, prices for many goods and services climbing, and jobs being slashed, many Americans are making preparations for worse times ahead. For some, that means cutting spending and saving more. For others, it means taking a step into survivalism, once regarded solely as the province of religious End-of-Timers, sci-fi fans and extremists. That often manifests itself as a desire to secure basic emergency resources “‘ what survival guru Jim Wesley Rawles describes as “beans, bullets and Band-Aids.”

(via MSNBC. h/t: LOLFed)

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