Personal Post 8 (reflection) ((Not Fade Away))

This semester has been filled with ups and downs. I have learned a lot about Crisis Informatics, most importantly probably is what it means. Also important is how it affects the day to day life. While at times I felt I was in a philosophy class trying to figure out life's great mysteries with no certain answers I am glad I took this class. I was afforded a look few have had into this crazy mixed up world of Crisis and communications. We have had guest speakers that are like rock stars in the community and it was mind boggling to have them re-work their schedules and take time out of their days to come and want to talk to us. The same people that talk to governments and multimillion and billion dollar corporations wanted to talk to 20 college kids.

I was thinking about this class and I was going to make this post about all I have learned this semester but screw that you know that. This is a photo from the last scene of my favorite tv show Angel, it was a spin off of Buffy and the last episode was called Not Fade Away, the last line is the show as the characters are about to face their impending doom is epic. Angel says when asked what the plan is: "Well personally I kind of want to slay the dragon. Let's go to work." That's it if nothing else this class has helped me be able to pick out and recognize problems and more importantly think critically about them in terms of trying to solver them. It has also taught me to work within the scope of an organization and make a solution that works for them. It might not be the best solution but it is what is best for them. If we can get more organizations to do that that would be great especially if we can get them to incorporate social media.

Also to me the Not Fade Away is a motivator. It is in a couple of songs a few quotes it's absolutely brilliant and it's how I live my life. "Burn Out, Not Fade Away." I go 110 miles an hour all the time. I do everything I can everyday for the people I care about. I do everything to the best of my abilities and that is the best I can do. I work hard to not be a burden to my mom and sister that is important to me. I am always there for my friends which leads to a lot of late nights. If I saw me posting this late I would assume I was drunk but my roommate had a lot on his mind and I tried to help him talk it out for a few hours. I am trying to make sure my blog post are as good as they can be and as different as they can be. I also tried my best in your class. I will do my best in the real world too to help out and fix things. I want to be able to be remembered for doing something great which probably wont happen but most of all I just don't want to be forgotten. I want to have an impact on someone's life and I will if I keep giving it my all all the time.

"I walk with heavy footsteps because I plan on leaving an imprint on this Earth." Go ahead and google that, you wont find it that's an original by me. I know I may not have always done the best work or had the best temperament but I tried my hardest in your class. I tried to understand and at times I feel like I did. I got a lot out of it like I said. Most of all is always thinking critically and looking at a problem from every angle. I will use the skills I acquired in your class everyday hopefully to make complex situations easier and also hopefully I will retain some of the knowledge. Thank you again for this semester and good luck with your research.

We Are the Champions

Personal Post 7 the generation divide

I feel like an overlaying topic that we have not given much thought to over the course of the semester is the generation divide when it comes to technology. If you are my age 22 or a few years older I would say up to maybe 30 you grew up with technology of all kinds are are more likely to embrace it. Unfortunately if you are older than that you are more technology averse and do not catch up as quickly to the ever changing trends. This is a huge problem in any technology that requires communication to thrive.

I understand that we are working on crisis informatics and ever increasingly over the semester we have been working on making social networking reliable and it's ever increasing role in crisis relief. The important thing to remember in my mind is the generation divide. The people that run the UN and most of the big NGO's are older people who have a hierarchy and standards to adhere to and technology turns it all on it's head. Technology doesn't care it wants to be new and trendy and do whatever it wants to do and find a market. These companies already have a market and no matter how good the technology is it will not fit that market. Also the fact that older people are running these corporations makes them even more technologically averse. This leads to them being less able to and less willing to see the benefit of the new technologies and the ability to fit them into their day to day activities.

I know it's a leap of sorts but  I can compare it to my mother and father, both in their mid to late forties. My mother had a facebook and was all about her zoo on their but realized it was taking over her life so she de-activated her account. She was not able to cope with the urge to be on it constantly. She did not find herself comfortable in the immersion of technology like my generation and the younger ones do. I do not mind being on a computer for 14 hours a day, I don't do it every day and know it isn't healthy but occasionally I will because I like being plugged in. About a month ago I had to teach my dad about a little thing called Wikipedia. He was amazed, it was how I think the first cavemen felt about fire. I was laughing in my head but shaking it at the same time because someone like me doesn't understand how you can not know about what my generation considers one of it's greatest resources. You don't know someone google it or look it up on wiki. We turned google into a verb.

It's always important to remember the differences between generations because they can hinder or help progress all the same. Every generation has a different quirk or solution to problems. We are part of the tech generation and I love it but we have to wait for the non-tech's to be done with their time before we can try our crazy bass-ackwards solutions and possibly drive the world to the ground or to places it has never been before.

I leave you with White and Nerdy

Personal Post 6 (Signed Anonymous)

Anonymous is a name nearly everyone who even looks a little on their computer or at the news has heard of by now and it either makes people cheer or cringe. I sort of have a bipolar relationship with the group and they make my head hurt kind of like our class. There are some good things they do I feel but for every good thing they do they have about 3 dumb things. They are a perfect example of the emerging technologies of social media in use and hactivism at times. They are a political group and highly centralized and de-centralized at the same time. They are Legion and they can be huge assholes at times. There is no middle ground for them they are a go big or go home type of group and unfortunately for them they always seem to cross a line.

I cannot even being to wrap my head around the number of messed up reasons for half of their operations. For every maybe three or four redeeming ideas they have only maybe one is executed in a way that doesn’t make them seem like little kids throwing a temper tantrum. They didn’t like the Church of Scientology; fine by me they protested. After that they attacked an Epilepsy Foundation forum posting videos embedded into their messages that would induce seizures. Are you kidding me, how low in moral fiber in human decency can you be to do something like that? They target the No Cussing club while other members try and to help political hotbed Iran in the midst of political upheaval. This is a bipolar and fractured group.

There is also the well known debacle in Australia as well as the Arab Spring activities. More recently they are supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement as well as well as an operation called DarkNet. DarkNet is when they hacked and shut down 40 child pornography websites and posted information of over 150,000 users, all the more impressive because most users were using a Tor system to get to the websites.

I really do not know how to feel about Anonymous. I want to like them and support them I really do. I mean come on who doesn’t want to do as they wish especially when they have the ability to help affect change be it in a hostile manner or not. Sadly for every DarkNet there are five Epilepsy Foundation type stories. Some of them at least have some ideas and some of the right ones in my opinion they just have to find a better way of enacting change. We get it the world is a messed up place and you want to point out everything that is wrong with it. You can’t just show that hey we don’t like this and take it away you have to make people see the reason, we all have free will and yours as Anonymous is no more important than the technologically inept.

Pick a side, pick a stance, pick a leader, pick a hierarchy for your organization and a coherent agenda because this mix and match schizophrenic shit has to go. You want people to take you seriously but we can’t because we can’t understand what you stand for. You stand for everything and nothing at the same time. You stand for upheaval and anarchy and there is already enough of that in the world. Please for the love of all that is holy stand for something halfway decent and see it through for once, and I mean all the way through not just to the point of humiliation I mean to the bitter end. You have the ability to do some of the most impressive stuff I have ever seen. You pick a day; say what you are going to do and do it, which takes some moxie. Unfortunately you just keep doing dumb things. You remind me of one of my friends whom most of the time I wonder why I am friends with them and then they have a DarkNet moment where they do something really cool and I realize I am friends with them because they have the potential to be a great human being. Stop being that friend Anonymous, I want so much for you to be more than you are. You have the ability to try and shape and influence the direction of many things if you would just organize and pick a stance. Stop doing what you wish and start doing what you should do. With great power comes great responsibility no great whimsicality.

It is really frustrating to see a group that has such talent and ability with the internet to waste it in such stupid ways. I wish as I have already mentioned that they would stop being so bi-polar and figure out the right way to do things. Hopefully some day they will. 

Here is their legion website and here is their blog

Personal Post 5... Christopher Soghoian is one of my new Heros

In an article of Wired volume 19.12 I found an article about a man not unlike Robin Hood, fabled feared by the rich with secrets to their wealth about how they misuse and mistreat the poor and unknowing in the technological world. To take advantage for business gains is seen as a capitol offense to Mister Christopher Soghoian the defender of the know nothings. The hero to those who don't even know they are being attacked or being made vulnerable who should be praising this man as a hero and don't even know his name. I was in this category until recently, until this article. He has enacted so much change in so little time. He has a litany of academic credits to his name as well as prestigious fellowships so I am pretty sure he is a prodigy of some sort.

That is the face of an American Hero a man who should go down in lore. He uses social media to bend policy and practices to his and our whim. He find flaws in systems and spreads the word virally  through his blog and other means. He find the holes gives them to the companies poses solutions and then tell them he will go public if they don't fix them. At the same time he leaks the stories to the media to expedite the process and his findings usually enact change.

He has helped/ enacted change on a number of companies and organizations including: The TSA, Firefox and the government in general.  He was trying to board a flight in 2006 when he was stopped by the TSA for having hummus which apparently was not allowed. He retorted with a snarky remark and was held for question and further investigation. Instead of getting mad he got even. In 10 relatively easy steps he showed how to bypass TSA security. This was shown on the news and eventually the FBI came to arrest him. He told them to come back with a warrant which they did. But between that time he wrote on his blog; "FBI are at the door. Off to chat;" what a bad ass line. I mean he is like a super hero, he wasn't sweating bullets he was clam as could be and he showed flaws in a system. Not only did he get arrested and released but eventually offered a job from the Department of Homeland Security. His contract was not renewed because he made them very mad. He also helped the public on Firefox by creating a program called TACO which allowed users to opt-out of targeted ads. There he is looking to protect peoples right to privacy. He also eventually found out and co-wrote a paper that showed governments are able to spy on "secure websites." They use a Packet Forensics tool to go around encrypted software. That should be very scary to you and you might not have know it had it not been for Christopher.

This man really looks out for the general public and what he believes is the greater good. Also he is trying to improve security and privacy on the internet. He is like a sheriff in the old wild west, standing up for what is morally right as well as trying to uphold the law but the morality comes first. For this I thank him for all he does and because of him hopefully there will be good changes made in policy.

I would like to leave you with a link to his blog

Personal Post 4 (Bitcoin)

I want to talk about an article I read in Wired magazine in this post. It was about something I had never heard of before this. A service and form of currency called Bitcoin. It suffered and still suffers from some of the problems we have been having a lot with trying to integrate social media and new technologies into the existing risk management techniques. Bitcoin itself is a completely digital currency. The big problem with digital currency up to this point was how do you prevent double spending and "one man" supposedly solved that problem with his algorithm and Bitcoin was born.

This currency had no real value when it first started out. It was an idealist movement to try and get away from the establishment of government and to try and make a money that was not reliant on a government of any sort. There was regulated growth of Bitcoins the currency and all seemed to be going swimmingly. There was a devoted passionate core group of people who used the service but they started making waves. They wanted wikileaks to begin accepting donations in Bitcoin. Their founder said not to do this that it was a bad idea because it would make the organization grow too fast and taint it. Unfortunately the damage was done. Through hype of many sorts, articles in Forbes and glowing endorsements online the price or a Bitcoin the virtual currency soared to over $27 in real money at one point. Actual placed began accepting Bitcoin transactions for things and people started to try and safeguard their investment.

The code was flawless, the users on the other hand very much flawed. Users started to try and back up their virtual wallets which essentially doubled or tripled the amount of Bitcoin's they had. Also their were third party services "wallets" like banks for Bitcoin but one by one they seemed to go down or loose peoples real investments in this potentially real currency. The bottom fell out and is still falling out on Bitcoin but the point I wanted to make with this is that I understand where the organizations we have had come in to speak us are coming from. I see their fear of new technologies proven and unproven.


Things can always be used for nefarious purposes and things may not always live up to the hype. Bitcoin is a perfect example of both of these. The organizations do not know if these new and trendy technologies will be there tomorrow and there is a sense of fear in trying to find uses for something that never really seems to have a definite shape and keeps evolving and growing. They need a sense of stability cause what they do helps save lives. I think this is a prime example of their skepticism. While it may not apply fully I can think of no better reason for them to double take when it comes to technology and reading this article has made me see that as much as they want to they can't unless it is practical, secure and serves a purpose which can take years to determine. You can't take a leap of faith when lives are at stake which means I and everyone else needs to be patient.

If you would like to learn more about Bitcoin here is a very reliable source, their wiki.

Last Last Last No Really cue the music at the award speech LAST mandatory post

Well it's been a long strange journey my friends. We have weathered a lot this semester and here I thought we were done after last week but no like an award ceremony I have to overstay my welcome as the band grows louder. But these last thank yous are too important to impart before saying adieu. We were given the topic of saying how we are well suited to address the rising integration problems of technologies in crisis response. This may sound like a mouthful but really it's using skills we have acquired throughout our long and strange academic journey to do what we know is necessary. I think we are very much prepared to handle whatever is thrown at us kind of like MacGyver.

We in IST and SRA have been inter-disciplinarly trained in a plethora of fields which allows us to deftly handle any and all situations thrown our way especially when it comes to communication. I can not speak for the IST half or the rest of the Penn State students but I know we are all very well diversified. I in particular have a very unique background that my major has afforded me. I have taken: communication classes, law, SRA (which is a mix of terrorism, technology, thought processes, business, and current issues), some IST classes, as well as Pysch classes and I have some knowledge of Business and Science from the few classes I have taken in those fields. If that background doesn't make me MacGyver like and well able to handle any situation I don't know what does.

So why am I and why are we more capable than most than most at handling communication issues that arise, I believe it is our background. The one thing the speakers and all of the readings had in problem was that communication was a diverse problem with many facets and parts and we are nothing but prepared for many different things based on our education. If someone came to me with a list of reasons they didn't want to share or integrate information I can already tell you at least three things that will be on their list: cost (business), contracts (law), and the benefits (psych/SRA). Also possibly how the integration would go, what would be required on their part and so on and so forth. Guess what? That's part of my major in the Social Factors and Risk Option trying to get everything in order for something like that, trying to take two different types of fields or companies that don't normally connect and making a connection. I would draw out a table of the cost benefit analysis, do a risk assessment and then draw up an implementation plan. Then I would be able to use the psych background and psych classes from my major and use what I have learned there to try and persuade said companies. There is no one better qualified than me and my classmates to do with these rising issues because we take classes on them and stare them in the face. We work on real life solutions to real life problems instead of theory like a lot of other school.

This may have been a bit of a rant towards the end but because of our diverse background and our unique ability to look at a problem from many perspectives we will be the ones who solve this problem or I say to you it is unsolvable. Thanks again for a fun semester guys, sorry I wasn't able to work in more pop culture references in this one but to make up for that I leave you with A Rocky Montage. I will argue with you later weather or not it is the best one but have fun and good luck the rest of the semester.

I May Have Been Wrong (personal Post 3)

They say it takes a big man to admit when he is wrong. I say when it happens as frequently as it does to me it's not that hard anymore. I wrote a post during the semester talking about the lack of things you could communicate with 140 characters, of what I felt was useful information. It turns out 140 characters is enough to communicate a lot both harmful and good. There is a saying from Uncle Ben in Spider-Man lore "With great power comes great responsibility," and I believe people try and seek out information in both positive and negative ways and they can do so with great efficiency through tweets. This was very apparent with the PSU earthquake and also the riot from just after Joe Pa got fired.

The first incident the earthquake was impressive because it spread like wildfire. Not just through Penn State but through the whole east coast.

This shows just how powerful and how quickly twitter allows people to communicate and "activate" if you will. Back in the day you used to have to try and call people or wait for something to be on the news now people can be their own news and try and get every fact feeling or thought under the sun into public light for better or for worse. The Penn State cell network went down because of the amount of traffic and only half the people on campus felt it and it wasn't even that big here. It truly is impressive the need for people to connected and to try and communicate all the time now.

Unfortunately we were in the national spotlight on the night Joe Paterno got fired. With all of the media here they caught us at our worst and I thought for sure I would find a trend of PSU students trying to organize on twitter unfortunately I was unable to find that. Also more unfortunately I was able to find a link to people tweeting during the riot, both from and not from the campus and it doesn't shed us in a very pretty light. The link is here to the Bleacher Report. The students moved like a well oiled machine I suppose because of previous riots. Which is unfortunate.

Twitter for better or for worse is a place for people to speak first and think later. The word vomit runs ram-pit. People use their brains less and less to try and become part of the hive mind that twitter runs. I am not saying twitter isn't useful I am just saying there are only so many ways to express yourself in 140 characters or less and it relies less on deep thought and more on just being as quick as possible. I hope that twitter proves me wrong and becomes one of the most innovative technologies of the 21st century. Though I am sure most would already consider it so thus far.

Closing Time (Last mandatory post)

Well here we are guys you don't have to go home but you gotta get the hell up out of here. I mean it's a bitter sweet symphony. One last call for alcohol so finish you whiskey or beer. Na Na Na Na Hey Hey Hey.... O wait the final project is still looming over our heads like the eye of Sauron over all of Middle Earth. But that is a struggle for another day. But speaking of Sauron we did have a guest speaker in our last "class" Dr. Anthony Robinson who wants to use his technology in SensePlace2 to do a number of things include try using data from tweets to try and predict trends and what might happen. His discussion was very lively and very quick paced to keep us all on our toes which I enjoyed.

Dr. Robinson's technology takes geo-location of the people tweeting and also what they are tweeting about to find hot spots and trends in what people are talking about. This is just one of its' basic features. The technology like the one ring can be all knowing of where the other rings or in this case events are happening and how if everything goes according to plan. The tweet gathering and organizing technology  will find an incident and eventually be able to gather a sequence of events on an incident based on what people have tweeted which I find a very interesting and good use of twitter. That is as long as all of the data can be verified and proven accurate which I feel could be a problem but still this could be a very handy tool none the less. I really hope things pan out for him and this potentially very useful piece of technology and you can tell he really cares about it and is doing what he wants to do.

The thing that concerns me is the geo-spatial technology itself. I don't know about the rest of you guys but I am all for cool new gadgets and things. I love them, geek out over them openly but at the same time they worry me. It scares me at how invasive they can be. With smart phones and facebook and foursquare and even computers at times they know where you are and you can't always shut it off. Apps can do this too. Like the one ring they call out to whomever wants the data for whatever reasons. At times I feel like Frodo being chased by the Ring Wraiths wanting only to hide but they never stop coming wanting more and more of my personal information. It's like we are all living in plain sight there is no privacy anymore. I suppose this is why I am hesitant to try new types of technology, specifically social media because even though I need to know about it I can't help but get this stabbing feeling in the pit of my stomach of how they will use my information against me. The more I learn the more I would like nothing more than to drop off the grid completely if only to feel some sense of privacy anymore.

I would like to thank you all for being great classmates and for making a three hour class fun. Also even though required I hope you have enjoyed reading my posts, though not the most professional and at times seemingly tongue in cheek I have had fun writing them and I hope you have had fun reading them. As our fellowship is drawing to an end hopefully we can keep in touch and good luck to all of you in your final projects. I really hope we can make some sort of difference no matter how small to feel like we are solving the conundrum we have come to know as crisis informatics. I feel like we have all learned a lot this semester and hopefully we can put it to good use.

In closing I would like to leave you with closing time

140 items or Less (mircoblogging post)

First of all on Monday that was the first time I had been to the Extreme Events Lab and I thought it was pretty cool. While the 3d map technology is not as impressive as it may have been a few years ago it was still really neat to see 3d put into action in a proactive way. I must say when he started moving us around the plane I did start getting kinda dizzy. Also I found it interesting that they use the five screens and while they are doing their work they listen to music and the music lets them know what is going on with their research. It lets them know if there is a correlation between things they are trying to put together and also it lets them know if big events are going on such as the riot/gathering downtown this evening which is making twitter and facebook feeds everywhere.

Now back to the topic at hand micro-blogging. A topic I find myself deeply divided on. It will not go away it's here for the long haul but it is just one of those things I cannot get on board with for some reason. I am not a twitterer, I don't like tweets, and I am not sure I ever will be.

I can see the positives of twitter and tweeting for disaster response purposes. I mean I get it, there are not a whole lot of wasted words when your message can only be 140 characters or less. It can't really be misconstrued, it has to be short and to the point. Like for example: Holy Shit Earthquake in (insert place here), or OMG Tooootallly A Riot Downtown Right now get down heuur. You know exactly what the focal point of a tweet is, you can tell a trend very easily by identifying key words. Again given that there are 140 characters it should be too hard to find a single word that all the tweets have in common. It is good for just a general overview of what is going on and where. It may be able to help you get into some slightly more specific things like help needed here or food needed here but not too much more than that because there just isn't the room. If you have any doubts that something is going and and widespread though definitely check twitter and you will find out really quickly what is or isn't important or going on in the world right now.

On the other hand if you want to get deeper into the topic and into more specifics tweeting can only help you so far. I mean if we can get to the root of every problem in 140 characters or less we should start burning dictionaries by the truck load. It just wont happen life is complicated. I think that is just the wordiness in me that will not allow me to like twitter. You have all be subject to my blog and therefor know I love my compound sentences and slow build up to "deep and meaningful thoughts." To me twitter is just like a mental quickie never allowing the deep connection and leaving you feeling wholly unsatisfied with the situation. If we want to know where problems are or what the general feeling on those problems is go to twitter. If you want to know specifics of where to send help and what is really going on i.e. how bad the damage is, how much aid is needed and things of that nature twitter isn't going to help. Maybe I am letting my twitter bias cloud my judgement on this matter and I am sorry if I am but I just don't see how anything profound can come from  140 characters or less. Hopefully twitterers will prove me wrong.


I leave you with some random quotes that hopefully you will enjoy by Bill Cosby

Down Came the Rain (week 10 post Japan)

Our impromptu class time led there to be fewer of us than usual but the class was interesting as always. We were taking a look at the small amount of information available on the Japan earthquake and tsunami. We talked about a bass-ackwards study on tweets right after the tsunami and earthquake in the impact zone and around it. We watched a gentleman with a charming Scottish accent talk about earthquakes in a BBC special. Last but not least we learned as much about hurricanes as our fathers in twenty minutes as they could learn spending a week in front of the weather channel during hurricane season. We also learned the proper way to do research and why the method on tweets was bass-ackwards. I think the only thing about as surreal as seeing my classmates in the daytime was what we were discussing, the video of the tsunami is was breathtakingly scary, like something out of a movie because things like that don't happen in real life. We watched video of the ground ripping apart, buildings falling, and the ocean falling on land, land that hasn't been close to an ocean in thousands of years.

One of the big things I think we talked about this week was that the paper on tweets was the first research paper published after the incident and it is important if only for that reason. While in class we discussed how the way of going about the research was done poorly, the conclusions drawn were wrong and even the specified type of study was incorrect with the results displayed. This blew my mind that this was an okay thing because it was still the first paper with scholarly merit done after the incident. So it will get cited hundreds of thousands of times and get plenty of recognition and all this person had to do was half ass something. It's a wonder to be in academia isn't it. I didn't know it was like being a weatherman; as long as your are one of the first few people there it doesn't matter if you get it right or wrong it's just important that you got there quick and said something.

That was something that really frustrated me. What is the point of your research if it isn't useful. I guess it's a jumping off point for someone else but man to get money to do a half assed study is crazy to me. Other than that this was a very informative class on the human element into breading fear and confusion into an area. The radiation "problem" caused by the earthquake was front and center with people feeding into the fear and paranoia and the news just covering it for weeks and months. It was interesting to see what happens when people don't keep their heads. This is what can happen when people don't understand a certain thing. Radiation is a scary and dirty word and it's a word you should just run from without asking what it is. The government was slow to respond as well which did not help anything. People can assume the worst and this is what happens when they do that. We need to work on getting people to try and stay calm and proactive after a disaster. That is something else I learned while in class. The more proactive you can make people feel the less fear and panic there will be. Give people something they can fight and try and wrap their head around. They don't understand radiation or tsunami's but they do understand debris and people in need and the want to help them.

It was a very interesting class all in all. Here is some pieced together footage of the tsunami .

Hi! Billy Mays here with Ushahidi (post for Dr. Patrick Meier)

Am I the only one who is left with a sour taster in their mouth after our guest speaker month? I mean some of them made some good points they really did. They all talked about their own system or organization and what they think is the best way of going about things and what their organization does well. So we got four different answers as to the right way to do things. Also it felt like I was watching a great big infomercial at times based on most of the speakers inability or unwillingness to talk about what is wrong with the system, only talking about what they do right 90 percent of the time. This was only solidified by Dr. Patrick Meier's talk which if Billy Mays were still alive he should have hired him. It was an hour long presentation about how great Ushahidi and Crisis Mappers were and how much good they were doing. If I wanted to listen to or find out how great all of the speakers organizations were I would have looked at their websites... which I believe we were all assigned to do.

Maybe I am being too critical but I reserve the right to be. I mean if we listened to half of what Dr. Tapia said over the semester thus far and even skimmed the reading she has given us then 75 percent of the talks we have been given would have been old news. I don't care about when crisis mapping has worked and how much positive review you have gotten from the UN because they still can't really use it yet. So if you want to blow smoke up my ass about how everything is working at least take me out for a drink so I will be in a more agreeable mood. This is why we are all here because things don't work as efficiently as they can and we are trying to wrap our heads around the convoluted system that is Humanitarian Aid and where all the flaws and holes are so we can fix them. My major is Security and Risk Analysis.... I wouldn't have a major if everything was all A OK on the communication front or if things didn't go wrong and there wasn't a clear need for improvement. It is going to be my job to know the dirty secrets of the system, the chinks in the armor and it will also be my job to make those seem invisible to the untrained eye and make them work more efficently. So please for the love of all that is holy don't come into this class and give me a bunch of happy stories. I don't need to feel good about how things are. I know there are problems everywhere in every system, I am in this major to make a difference to help enact change. I beg you please don't waste my time and try and make everything seem like an episode of Barney out there when I know it's more like Dexter where there are people out there waiting for their opportunity to screw things up.

Dr. Tapia asked a question to Dr. Meier about what happens if Ushahidi is used for nefarious purposes and he for all intents and purposes deflected the question... this is the kind of question that must be asked that anyone in our major would ask and he deflected it. If the Humanitarian system and the organizations involved in it really want a change you have to let us know how screwed up it is. You have to let us know exactly what is failing where and how. But alas I know it's working fine because peoples lives are being saved. You know what that is bull you can always save more lives you are never running at optimum efficiency and there is always room for improvement. We want to make that happen but they just don't want to let us in as much as they need to. I sit with my head in my hands most classes, I know all of you have seen me at one point or another because of how frustrated I am by the lack of answers to the problems and the lack of acknowledgement of the problems themselves. Yes they are starting to acknowledge the problems but it's a day late and a dollar short in my book. So we are going to give it our best shot throw and idea in Mr. Happ's funnel of ideas and hope it doesn't get flushed out the other side. I guess that's really the philosphy of these problems is throw some shit at a wall and see what sticks. Just don't make it stick too well because then they would really have to enact change and they don't want that. They just want it to look like they are changing.

Just keep listening to all of the speakers and all of the articles we read, the problems aren't as big as they seem, and all the upstart tech companies have all the answers the UN and other organizations just wont listen. No one wants to find a common ground and compromise and no one can even decide where to start that process. I know this is nothing more than a rant but this class makes my head spin and makes me want to just run into a wall. Maybe I am a pessimist, maybe I am a realist, maybe I am a cynic, to me they are all the same damn thing. I just know that it may not be broke but it sure needs fixing.

For making it this far I leave you with a pallet cleanser and how I feel right about now (I am Ren by the way) Happy Happy Joy Joy

NetHope the Greasers to the Humanitarian Socs... (assigned post Mr. Happ)

First of all I would like to thank Mr. Happ for giving me probably the favorite talk of our series thus far. He was a little bit of all over the place and very in depth and I really enjoyed it. Now onto the title, he quoted Robert Frost in his presentation in my defense. I had to bring it back to the Outsiders it seems perfect. A bunch of tech companies and workers on the outside looking in at the Humanitarian world just trying to be accepted and get some solid footing. It truly looks like a great underdog story, these companies only getting roughly two percent of the budget and trying to make a difference in what could possibly be considered the most important part of the future of Humanitarianism and crisis informatics even if the established way doesn't see it as such. The thing that stuck with me most through the talk was the collaboration section and more specifically why NetHope is so successful.

This is what really made my Outsiders reference stick in my head. These are a bunch of highly educated people who believe in what they are working on and believe they can make a difference but they are also together because of a common background and because there are not enough resources to go around on their own without each others help. They are trying to maximize productivity for the least amount of money. The Greasers in the Outsiders were a bunch of kids with no one to rely on but themselves and though they didn't know where they were going they knew they needed to stick together and have each others backs if they wanted to survive and thrive as best they could.

This is what I feel like NetHope is doing right now. They are just going, they know the importance of what they are doing and working on and know it will be beneficial even if the higher ups at organizations don't understand it right now or know what to do the with the solutions and technologies they are working on. It all comes down to the five points Mr. Happy talked about: trust, hunger, common need, value, time. The common need is the easy part at this point with everyone on board with NetHope understanding the importance of ICT. The value and the time I feel both contribute to the trust. The trust is what makes them such an efficient and close nit group which is crucial because they have loyalty to each other and their work together over the individual companies. This also leads to the hunger. The budget is nearly non-existent and if one person or project fails it could have a domino effect so everyone must be chomping at the bit and working as hard as they can every second of every day to prove their worth. The worth of their projects and the necessity to fund them better must be a constant motivation.

Honestly, mostly I just wanted a chance to gush a little bit about some people who clearly have their heads on straight. Their are a bunch of companies working together not just for money or money at all but simply for the sake of innovation and to help those in need. They will usher in the future of the Humanitarian system whether the system is ready or not. They may be the Outsiders of the Humanitarian world right now; misunderstood and under-appreciated. On a world scale though it is people like the UN who are falling behind the times because we all know of technologies importance and how ingrained it is on society as a whole at this point so let's "poke them in their eyes," to quote Mr. Happ and make them re-think their system.

I get really excited when collaboration happens for collaboration sake and talking about NetHope made me look forward to the possibilities of what is to come when the rest of the Humanitarian world is ready to join us in the technological age. "Nature's first green is gold," and I think this Robert Frost quote can perfectly describe the direction in which I hope informatics is going, the route of collaboration better be the future. If it isn't I would hate to see what happens. Maybe a tech cold war or an even greater discrepancy between the haves and have nots. Also relief aid would become obsolete because they would be so slow in response times and their data would not be as reliable. Tech and collaboration are the ways of the future.

Not my usual edgy change everything, everything is poo post I know but I gotta keep you on your toes.

I leave you with some more words of wisdom by Robert Frost

My Humanitarian Aid is Evolving

I want to start by thanking Andrew Alspach for coming to talk to us and more importantly being frank and open with us. He allowed us an insight that I feel few have had that aren't active members of the Humanitarian community. Now onto the heavy stuff... he was pretty frank with some of the shortcomings of the aid process and they are all things that are evolving and must evolve if Humanitarian aid does not want to fall farther behind. There are many independent communities popping up as we have read about all semester to try and help with the relief and aid process by collecting information. Too much information according to Mr. Alspach for the UN and other agencies to handle. This will not end they and we must find a way to adapt and make this work. People are using technology to have access to more information that ever in their everyday lives. I read an article today that a shopping market in Mass. set up an app on smart phones that allows people to pay for groceries as they shop so they don't have to use cashiers.... it took the UN two years to agree to have a twitter. They must catch up before they are rendered obsolete. Yes I know they will never be obsolete but they will never be as driving a force as they once were if they do not evolve and find a way to make technology adapt.

Anyone who has played Pokemon knows that Eevee can turn into just about any type of Pokemon ever and therefore is one of the most versatile. Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Relief is at the point that it needs to adapt and evolve and be the jack of all trades that it used to be but it needs to do it within the confines of the technological realm. The cluster model for Emergency Management is really good in theory but in actuality it is a slow process. Particularly when it comes to the person part of the funnel and trying to convince your partners to share. There are money concerns and secret concerns that must be hurdled. At times it feels like your partners may only be sharing the tip of the iceberg and only the least relevant of the information and who knows they might be. That is not what I am here to talk about tonight as I have already handled this topic in a few of my other posts. Tonight is about the IM Continuum and the parts of this continuum that Mr. Alspach said and I believe need the most work. Which in his eyes was the Collection of info and Analysis of it I believe the whole process needs work which will include the Processing and Dissemination of the info.

Two years to decide on a twitter I would say the process needs a lot more open-mindedness when it comes to technology. It does not, will not, cannot always work but neither does standing pat. What made me the most happy about out talk was that Mr. Alspach seemed to know this and was open to change provided it was done in the right way. While collecting information a lot of the info is out-dated unless it is a first world country they are kind of flying by the seat of their pants. Also it is hard to collect info on an area in crisis and to gauge how widespread the trouble is. The processing is hard and so is the analysis portion because of the sheer amount of information but to compact that problem they are running on out-dated clunky models and systems. This needs to be stream lined, simplified while still doing the same amount of work. Which I guess will be our job if we choose to undertake that task for out final project. We need these emerging technologies to sort out the information into manageable chunks and so that the responders are not responding to twelve of the same e-mail or map. Then once the info is analyzed it needs to quickly be disseminated so it can be placed into the right hands.

This can be facilitated by everyone using the same types of file or eveyone being able to use a file converter so everyone can see the files much more quickly. Also by allowing and working with the new upstarts in the tech relief world and providing them with guidelines for how to best verify and integrate their information into an already established system will make their information more useful and more likely to be given a hard look instead of being used on the periphery of the problems. I know I don't have a lot of the answers and I am sort of re-hashing what we already know. This is basically me thinking aloud. How do we get the Humanitarian community to be tech savvy and how do we get them to willingly disseminate and share info? Only when we answer those can we evolve and be as great as we know we can be.

Today I will try and be a little deeper to get us thinking on how to fix these problems I leave you with some wise words by Confucius

Your R.A.K. (Random Act of Kindness) gives me Hope, Post Week 6

We were honored to have Mr. Gisli Olafsson as a guest speaker in our class this week and he touched on a lot of the points we have been making in class but also made clear one distinction that I don't believe we have.... We are the first Technology Generation so to speak. We are the original, the guinea pigs, we live in and most of the time fully embrace our immersion into technology. The generations before us do not understand that immersion they see it as bordering on obsession and an unhealthy one at that. They don't see the need for technology when whatever system they have in place works just fine as is. This is the distinction Mr. Olafsson made that resonated with me... There will be no change unless we can make an older generation embrace technology or until they are gone and we hopefully don't loose our need to be immersed in technology.

It's kind of like the matrix to me where our generation has one of two options. We continue down this road of ever expanding technology and allow ourselves to have a dependence or we can continue to try and evolve but also separate ourselves from technology. It will still be beneficial but we wont feel controlled by it.

Right now I see what the older generation is talking about. While technology is increasing and doing some amazing things: advancements in medical technology, the way we learn in school, and how connected we are with everything going on in the world. There is also the bad: people spending more time on the internet than with their families, a certain lack of social skills in our generation as though we are loosing our ability to connect as human beings, and more importantly a lack of security on systems that we rely too heavily on, leading to identity theft or worse.

For better or worse we must push forward with technology and try and use it in the best ways we can because there will always be those out there that use it for nefarious reasons or worse reasons they believe aren't misguided like Anonymous. We see what they are capable of and this is the future if we don't improve protection of information and our communication within the technological system with departments and individuals. We can all be connected if we just want to do the work and most of the time Hackers are willing to do that and we are not so disadvantage us. We need to as I have already said beef up our security and make computers more like a global communicator where everyone has access to certain key systems like a Linux of sorts.  I am a firm believer that the only way we get through life is together and that includes whoever we are while we are on a computer or using other technology. Wouldn't you love to be able to help someone in a crisis situation and not just get good karma from that but also know those are people who would do whatever they could to help you are someone else in the future.  

It all comes down to the seven points Gisli was talking about, we need an unprecedented level of interoperability as we head into this new generation, not try and safeguard information to make more money. We have done a number on this world already and there are so many more people in the world than there have ever been it's time to start trying to take steps to form a global community even if it is only in Humanitarian response. Technology wheather we like it or not is going to propel us to that new goal and we have to remember to keep in our mind the pros and cons and figure out the best way to devlope and implement them. I don't want to end up like the Matrix but I also don't want to live in a world where I am not plugged in.

Our project sharing our information not for profit of what we find while trying to re-purpose or develop a new piece of technology has the potential to help countless thousands of people. I don't need money for that I don't need to safeguard that information if it has the potential to keep people safe. I think that is the new attitude we need. The global community and it can all start with staring at someones R.A.K. (again Random Act of Kindness you perverts) and being moved enough to do the same. I think that is how all change begins by being moved enough to help someone else and wanting to change the status quot. Our generations greatest weapon is technology and its development but we must make sure it is used properly.

We all get by with a little help from our friends

How do you value a life? (week 5 post)

This week as always was a very interesting class and give me what feels like way too much food for thought. One thing that particularly troubled me was that it seemed like a naive idea that the government agencies would work together. Also how some countries refuse to have humanitarian aid allowed in. This just flabbergast and astounds me. So many people loose their lives due to disasters and many loose their lives after the disasters themselves have occurred because response teams do not get to them in time. Help is not there soon enough which makes the death tools of disasters rise higher and higher. Now with all the technology we have that can streamline this process I feel like we are being told that it will never happen because it's more profitable to keep everything between agencies and organizations separate. That it would hurt business or the way things are run if the information were shared.

Are you effing kidding me. How are you going to sit there and talk to me about profit margins and that the information has more value at a later date not being shared when human beings are losing their lives when we have the technology and ability to save them. When a disaster happens and so many people are hurt as we have seen recently volunteer and NPO response has been high and commendable. People came together to work on mapping and on the sms project and translating. People also donated they tried to do a lot. Then I was given the Yates case study and I was really happy because I though that the government was getting in on it as well as some bigger business but alas that was a resounding no. They apparently only did it this once and don't want to do it again because no one wants to take responsibility or give away too much of their precious information.

 
When did we start living in a world where helping our fellow man isn't first. How long have I been blind to this. I mean I knew in the day to day business aspect of it, it was all about the bottom line and no one really gave a shit about me unless they could charge me more or get more money out of me and that was okay because that's how we live now. But even in times of disaster you are still going to be guarded you will literally let people die rather that collaborate to the fullest extent because it might affect your bottom line, it makes me want to throw up. What kind of world do we live in where the haves declare the have nots as bastard children and allow them to fend for themselves.

I really do not understand how America and Europe do not feel a responsibility for these lesser developed countries.If you don't collaborate out of the goodness of your heart at least collaborate out of a sense of responsibility for the plight these countries are in. Some of the poorest countries are often the hardest hit when it comes to  natural disasters and it also just so happens that most of these countries were at one time or another colonies to Britain the US or the other super powers of the ages. What did the super powers do; no too much just pillage these lands for raw resources and help keep them in the technological dark ages and not give them a fair wage for their work, only to see the finished products to these countries. So I can't imagine why they aren't up to snuff with the first world countries. Also if a leader will not allow his or her people help they should be removed from office. Their are basic unalienable human rights and one of them is the right to help. The only way we make it through life whether we like it or not is with each other so we better get our shit together quick. I leave you with Buffalo Springfield's For What It's Worth, and apparently it isn't much. Buffalo Springfield. Sorry if this post was off topic but man it really makes me mad when everyone is out for number 1 all the time especially the big organizations, businesses and countries.