Good, busy day today

[usernamenumber]

Today I...

...Went to Crisis Camp Boston
Earlier this week a call went out for tech people to come volunteer half a day to work on software projects to help people in crisis areas like Haiti. It was... a mixed bag. First, the turnout was amazing! About 100 people, and a lot of familiar faces. It's cool to know that so many folks in my circles also came out to take part. At first I was involved in a ruby project for aggregating and mining data from Twitter, but I don't know Ruby and was spending more time being walked through the basics by natbudin than actually being useful. Eventually, though, I got wind of a Python/Django project, which is right up my alley. Part of the reason I wanted to do this was to see if I could hold my own with "real" developers. As it turned out, I was the most technical person on my team, so there wasn't much basis for comparison, but I was able to get in there, identify needs, plan solutions, start on implementation, and write a nice summary of where things were left off and where they needed to go from here at the end, so that was good and validating. The project its self, eh... it was basically a Haiti-specific implementation of a webapp called "OurStories", which allows people to upload stories as text or, via a flash component, audio or video recorded using just the browser software. The stories are then categorized and mapped to the geographic region they came from and are searchable, among other ways, via a google map. Kinda cool. And yet, it also felt kind of wrong inasmuch as, if I had just had my entire world rent asunder, and was scrounging through the rubble trying to piece my life back together, how would I react if some first-worlder came up and effectively said, "here, use this website to record a stirring monologue about how much scrounging throughthe rubble trying to piece your life back together sucks, and then share it with the world so we can feel all cathartic with you" (and that's setting aside the fact that there isn't, you know, power, in most of the country). The main proponent of the project made the point that this project has a longer-term aim than most of the more immediate aid projects. The idea is to create a means by which the Haitian people can continue to have their stories recorded and shared after the world's spotlight has moved on to a fresher trajedy. I get that, and it could be a really useful historical archive for the future, I just... eh, like I said, mixed feelings. All that said, the experience was definitely a big net-positive. After ccamp, I took the T downtown and...

...Had a dinner and Chinatown adventures with how_low_am_i
which was loads of fun. Ate at My Thai Vegan Cafe, which was tasty but my least favorite kind of veg restaurant: the kind where they serve generic pan-asian dishes, replacing the meat with faux-meat. Strangely, a hot pot of fake squid, fake shrimp and fake beef really isn't much more appealing than the real thing to me. :\ That said, their pad thai is taaaaasty, and their thai iced tea was a bit odd but good. The highlight ofthe meal, though, was the strawberry iced boba... thing that how_low_am_i ordered, which tasted like cool, fresh, real strawberries in liquid form. Mmmmmm...

After dinner, we explored China Town, and a kitschy gift shop in particular, where my eye was immediately caught by a poster for Goth Yarn Mummy Pirate Dolls. At least, that's what I decided the poster said, not speaking the language. I mean, what would you call them???. We found a rack of them in the store and each fell in love with one. I call mine Adorable Topless Raver Cindy Lauper Voodoo Priestess Mummy:



Also got come schweet steel chophairsticks and a live bamboo stalk because my room needs to have more green, living things in it. It currently lives in a Denny's mug. Go Team Cultural-Juxtaposition! After shopping, she went off to see Title of Show (she has since backed me up on its wonderfulness, for those still on the fence about joining me when I go), and headed back to Belmont and...


...Had some mellowsocial at home
Returned home and had some nice, chill conversation with contradictacat, mirrored_echo and one of the former's college friends, who regaled us with tales of Catholic retreats and human dissections during physical therapist training, during which I happily finished my tofu from dinner before tearing myself away from people and heading to the basement where I...

...Exercised!
I got a "trainer stand" that basically turns my bike into an exercise bike. I feel like kind of a tool riding it, but it beats riding outside during the winter and, man, I was only on for 15 mins, albeit sprinting much of the time, but my body is already thanking me. It is a *good* kind of exhausted after a thing like that, and I look forward to making a habit of it. Yay podcasts. The only problem with the thing is that it is loud and all of the housemates ended up coming down into the basement to see what was asploding.

Wow. I've typed a lot. Now I...

...Will now wind down and go to bed early in prep for a big day tomorrow. Go me.

Plans for tomorrow: Matinee of In The Heights, followed by a probable re-attempt at attending truthspeaker's comedia dell'arte performance, hopefully combined with hanging out with archangelwells. Busy weekend, but all good stuff!

Comments

[sandrylene.livejournal.com]

Those dolls are both weirdly cute, and crazytastic. Love that "animal," "farm" and "piggy" are all separate categories. I particularly like the devil ones, for some odd reason. What on earth is "love prisoner," though? O_o

Hadn't heard about Crisis Camp Boston before. Cool idea, and good on you for participating. I hope something positive comes out of that long-term project, even if the immediate use of it seems a bit unlikely.

[hermitgeecko.livejournal.com]

Wow! I'm really impressed by you helping with Crisis Camp Boston. Go you!

[karendy.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for your very honest comment, re: the Haiti digital archive. I know the folks masterminding it, and my immediate reaction to it was "that's such a great idea!," but I think that might have been largely because I'm so enmeshed in the public and digital history worlds that it's sometimes hard to see how a project like that actually functions in the real world. Just seeing this through your eyes has made me think more carefully - sometimes there's this impulse among historians to begin collecting memories now because if we wait they'll be lost! But you've made me remember that there's also a thin line between being on the ball with the archiving and being disrespectful to people still experiencing the tragedy.

If you want to get an idea of how the Haiti project is being envisioned, take a look at the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank.

[usernamenumber.livejournal.com]

I think these are actually two different, but similar, projects. If you'd like to see, the one I was working on just went live at haitianstories.org. Whether or not it actually gets populated with stories remains to be seen.

I'm not sure if it's really valid, but the hurricane archive doesn't really bother me so much. I think it's a combination of it being long enough past the crisis point that academic interest doesn't seem insensitive, and the fact that it's at least the same nation on both ends of the microscope. And hey, maybe haitianstories.org will prove a valuable resource that the Haitians who use it will appreciate. I figured at least such projects don't do harm.

Also, hi! :) My housemates were watching Hot Fuzz the other night and I thought of y'all. We should still hang out sometime. I fell in love with a veggie place in Pawtuckett the last time I worked in Providence and would not need much excuse to visit there again!

[karendy.livejournal.com]

I think that you're right that the six month gap between Katrina and the opening of the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank does make it a little more palatable. I'm not exactly sure why they decided to do the Hatian Stories site right now, but I can make an educated guess. The historical establishment (and the international community in general) has traditionally ignored Haiti to an extreme degree. In the last ten years or so though, historians have rediscovered the history of Haiti in a big way. The colonial and revolutionary history of Haiti is basically at the center of the study of the Atlantic World, which is the main trend in the study of Early Modern history right now. Also, historians, being majority liberal, have really latched on to Haiti as a social cause. I think historians see this event as their chance to put Haiti back on the map in the eyes of the mainstream international community, but they are also really worried that once the crisis ends, the world will go back to ignoring Haiti. So, they want to get this site up and running now before interest starts to wane again. As you say, how successful this project is remains to be seen.

I would absolutely LOVE to hang out! As ever though, I am hideously busy (in a mostly good way). Sam and I have been talking over a Boston trip at some point in the near future though, so I will definitely let you know when/if that happens. As for Pawtucket - I will probably be spending a lot more time in RI over the next two years, and I will definitely let you know when I take my next trip down there.