Author Archives: Karl

Maptivism getting easier, happening more

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Combine mapping, with participation, and a subject matter that needs attention, and you can create some powerful, useful tools. Google Maps APIs and various mashup techniques made it easy for technologists to build services that pulled together these concepts, but now hosted services like Ushahidi’s CrowdMap and SeeClickFix are opening up the possibilities to more.

NYTimes: “Phone Apps Aim to Fight Harassment”

Hollaback!

Observer: “Want to Help Dig Out Some Police Cars? Site Crowdsources Snow Cleanup in NYC”

Snowmageddon Clean-Up: New York

StreetCorner.com.au: “Police and public turn to social media & maps in the Queensland flood crisis”

EveryMap and ABC Qld Flood Crisis Map

Mercury News: “O’Brien: What Haiti tells us about the promise and limitations of digital media”

GigaOm: “How Social Networks and Mobile Tech Helped in Haiti”

Ushahidi-Haiti

CNN: “Ushahidi: How to ‘crowdmap’ a disaster”

O’Reilly Radar: Alex Howard: “The role of the Internet as a platform for collective action grows”

Related:

Ushahidi and CrowdMap

SeeClickFix (which just got some nice investment)

CrisisMappers

Crisis Commons

MobileActive.org

Hollaback!

GovFresh

We Media

Code for America

Queen and Heroism

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slacktivist: “The terror of knowing what this world is about”:

Nothing new here — nothing novel or innovative or unusual. But worth repeating, I think. In any case, it was something I needed to repeat after firing up the computer this morning to find that the artists and the saints had conspired against me, teaming up to remind me what this world is about.

Love dares you. Mm ba ba de.

Related:

Greater Good: Philip Zimbardo: “What Makes a Hero?”

Both good reads.

So what language/skill will you be learning this year?

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Rafe is going to be investing in learning JavaScript and Node.js. After some server-side JavaScript work last year with Alfresco WebScripts, I’m inclined to to continue to dig in further myself.

First up is finishing “Eloquent JavaScript”.

Related, recent reads:

Steve Yegge: “The Universal Design Pattern “

Sam Ruby: “Planetary Exploration”

JavaScript, JavaScript: “Exploring JavaScript for-in loops”

w2lessons.com: “Why You Need to Learn JavaScript”

Ever see the “Mother of all Demos”?

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In 1968 Douglas C. Engelbart, along with a team of 17 researchers at Stanford, in a 90 minute taped demonstration, showed us what was then the future – which is now the present (and soon to be the past?) – hypertext, gui based interaction, online collaboration including email, and more.

Stanford has a terrific page on the demo, including video clips of it broken down by time and topic, and a single clip of the whole thing. If you’ve never seen this before, take the time, scroll to the bottom of this, and watch beginning to end. It’s not called “The Mother of all Demos” for nothing.

I’ve watched this a few times over the years and I keep coming back to it and being blown away. How far have we gone? How far have we not? There has been much added to the mix these past ten years, but it was a long way from there to here.

Related:

PhillyCHI

Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2011

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Emma came home from school with a pamphlet and homework assignment on Dr. King the other day and it gave me the opportunity to speak a little about someone I consider a hero and what he challenged us to do.

Wish I was well enough to take part in Martin Luther King Jr. volunteer efforts tomorrow, but at least I can root them on. Kick ass tomorrow folks and have fun.

Via dangerousmeta.com came the following clip of Robert Kennedy announcing the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

YouTube: “Robert Kennedy Announcing the Assasination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Indiana 1968”:

The Twelve Doctors of Christmas

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Tor.com ran a great series of essays on each of the Doctors titled “The Twelve Doctors of Christmas” that has some good reads.

My favorite essays out of the bunch:

“The Third Doctor”

“Born to be an Alien”

“Shifting into Fifth”

The Walking Wounded”

3, 4, 5, and 9. Pretty much coincide with my favorite Doctors as well. No offense all of you out there.

“Born to be an Alien” quotes an essay that was passed along a while back that is still a good read, “How Doctor Who Made Me A Liberal”. Sometimes I feel like I should write a version of this essay wrapping in Star Blazers, Star Trek, early Star Wars, and the Muppets because they, along with Doctor Who, left some similar imprints on me growing up.

The stories we are told as kids stay with us in some interesting, and powerful, ways.

As the series summarizes:

Until next time, remember: Bananas are good, Daleks are bad, try reversing the polarity, and intellect and romance should always triumph over brute force and cycnicism.

Two talks from TED to watch *today*

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TEDXToronto: “Neil Pasricha: The 3 A’s of awesome”:

TEDXHouston: “Brene Brown: The power of vulnerability”:

Related:

“1000 Awesome Things”

Presentation Zen: “We don’t seek your perfection, only your authenticity”

This post brought to you by Dave Rogers whose latest post over the shooting in Tucson is a must read.

David Shenk: “Our abilities are not set in genetic stone.”

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BBC: David Shenk: “Is there a genius in all of us?”:

It would be folly to suggest that anyone can literally do or become anything. But the new science tells us that it’s equally foolish to think that mediocrity is built into most of us, or that any of us can know our true limits before we’ve applied enormous resources and invested vast amounts of time.

Our abilities are not set in genetic stone. They are soft and sculptable, far into adulthood. With humility, with hope, and with extraordinary determination, greatness is something to which any kid – of any age – can aspire.