Searching for Tao, 7573 Kilometres from Home

March 06, 2008 18:11 +0000 | Activism Programming 0

I know that I've been falling behind on the blogging lately. In fact, I think this is the longest dry spell I've ever had here. I'm going to chalk it up to adapting to the dramatic changes in my social, professional, and activist life resulting from my move out West. In an effort to deal with all of it though, I've made a conscious decision to prioritise the latter two to the detriment of the first. There's a considerable learning curve at work both technically and in terms of leadership, and my role with the VPSN is getting more exciting, so a strategy like this only seems appropriate.

The rest of this post is pretty technical, so if you don't read geek, you might just wanna skip it.

Donat currently has me working on a really cool project, for which I'm writing the most interesting part. We have multiple sites with the need to share user information between them, so for example, if you log into site A, change your profile to include a new favourite book, people looking at sites B, C, and D should be able to see that new book on your profile page there. Eventually it'll also track user relationships, group assignments etc., and it's all managed through my nifty API layer.

The layer uses a framework I wrote from scratch, but based loosely on the one used on this site, which in turn looks a little like Fusebox. The magic of the whole thing is that not only is everything built according to a strict MVC model, but because of this model, the View layer is able to output data in any format you like. Currently the framework supports standard XHTML, XML, JSON, TEXT, XMLRPC and SOAP, but it's infinitely extensible with limited overhead. On top of that, everything is managed through mod_rewrite so that the URLs are stupid-easy to reference:

  site.com/xml/user/add
  site.com/soap/user/get/someUserName
  site.com/json/user/getFriends/someUserName

I've been talking to the brass here at Donat about making the code available on my site to help other geeks shave time off research for something like this since it's a pretty common task in large-scale projects and there's no reason people should have to reinvent the wheel (like I had to), and they've been receptive. We'll see how it goes.

The VPSN has me working on a really exciting mapping project that plugs into GoogleMaps. It's based on a similar (but slightly improved) framework to the above, but I've dropped the XMLRPC and SOAP stuff in favour of a simpler REST-based setup. So what's this site going to do? Imagine pulling up an interactive map of Vancouver and being able to see any or all of the following:

All the bike lockers
Bike lanes
- Rated by difficulty
CCTV cameras
- Their range and model
Community gardens
Public parks
Green roofs

The list is long and growing and we'll be doing it all with a volunteer army and a few GPS units. A lot of the above data is already collected and I'm writing a CSV importer that'll geocode the addresses and map the data to a coordinate class. The data will then be pulled dynamically through an AJAX interface, redrawing the map for each element you request. This also means that if other people want to use or contribute to our data, it'll be available through simple REST URL. It's really exciting and it's been consuming pretty much every night these past few weeks.

The code for the VPSN will be GPL, but frankly, it's nothing novel. It was the SOAP & XMLRPC integration that made things nifty, so I do hope the brass at Donat come out in favour of me sharing that code.

Alright, that's it. I've got too much work to do and I've already burnt a considerable amount on this post.

January 25, 2008 23:47 +0000 | Activism Public Space The Toronto Public Space Committee Vancouver Public Space Network 2

I remember saying to myself that I wasn't going to get too heavily involved in public space issues when I returned home. I wanted to expand my involvement into other community stuff, most notably homelessness given that Vancouver requires some serious work in this area. Things may still go that way, but I'm afraid the Vancouver Public Space Network has me rather excited about the prospect of working with them.

Much like the TPSC, the VPSN fights against the corporatisation of public space, and CCTV, as well as promotes pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, and green space. They have a guerrilla gardening faction, but the also grow food and their event coordinator sorta doubles as Vancouver's version of New Mind Space. Lara will dig this: they're going to hold a Pirate Party on the Seabus!

I went to their annual planning meeting last night (TPSC folk might want to read that sentence again and take note of the phrase annual planning meeting... it's a hell of a concept ;-). Andrew Pask, the coordinator of this now 3yearold group, was amazing, navigating the group through a multi-phased process in which we first identified what we liked and didn't like about public space in Vancouver, then to how we might theoretically fix it, and finally onto a "dot-ocracy", a system that allows each member of the group to vote 6 times for as many or as few of the suggestions made as they like. It sounds complicated, but so is public space and I really feel that we charted a good course for the year.

A lot of the ideas that came out of the mix last night were excellent, but the one I'm most excited about is a move to actively create public spaces within the city either by way of a public non-profit Public Space Trust or by making deals with local land owners (as the gardeners have in the past). There was also mention of advocating the position that binners (people who sift through garbage for containers which they then return for deposit) should be supported in our community as they're providing a public service at little or no additional cost, and an ambitious online (and maybe offline?) mapping project that tracks everything from public transit (based on an open API from Translink) to good places to eat, to free wifi, dog parks, pedestrian malls etc. etc.

I went out for drinks with a few of them after the meeting and was surprised at the number of Torontonian expats we had in the group. Of the seven of us in the bar, there were 4 Toronto folk there if you include myself. Two others were born and raised here, and the last guy was from Iran. Obviously, this isn't a scale subset of the group, but the circumstances were funny nonetheless.

Thanks to the book Stephen gave me, I'm beginning to understand just how Sustainability has to be managed. You can't run it from the top-down, and it can't be haphazard either. Local groups have to build urban gardens, build pedestrian infrastructure and even Green power on their own because our leaders are either too afraid or too stupid to know how to do it themselves. I honestly think that this group has the right idea.

September 02, 2007 00:20 +0000 | Activism 2

I've been following a bit of a depressing line of thinking lately, and I'm hoping that someone out there can offer a ray of light or two.

Activists, by definition, are warriors of a sort. We fight against things like CCTV, expressways and poor environmental degredation and we fight for things like gay marriage, bike lanes and transparency in government. For the most part, we benefit from a the fact that fights for things are rarely lost, but at the same time, we rarely win a war against something.

The gay rights issue for example is already won. As much as the opponents might try to fight it, sooner or later, every gay guy and girl will be able to shag and marry whomever they want world-wide. This is not a fight that can lose, it can only take longer to win.

On the other hand, look at the construction of a Wal-Mart or (in my case) CCTV. These are things that move at a glacial pace and are, as such nearly unstoppable. Whether you want it or not, whether is the Right Thing or not, it's going to happen because the forces on the "yes" side are bigger, stronger and richer than anything we can summon.

How do you fight that? Should anyone bother? How are these two things different and how might someone turn the forces that fight for something into a weapon to fight agaisnt something else?

May 31, 2007 13:31 +0000 | Activism Cycling 0

I went to my first Critical Mass Bike Ride last Friday and was so appalled by what I saw, I bailed early.

As an experience, it was rather exciting. Roughly 200 cyclists gathered at the corner of Spadina and Bloor, and once everyone is ready, we set out down Bloor heading East. However, I realised early on that this thing wasn't organised at all. The mob was being guided by whomever happened to be at the front and more often than not, people in the front didn't know this. The result was a slow moving blob rolling through the city.

Now in most cases, I wouldn't consider this a big problem. If we can have Sunday Drivers, I don't see a problem with Meandering Friday Cyclists. However, the mob also made a point of expressly not obeying street signals. And when we reached Yonge & College, a large group of them decided that it'd be appropriate to just stop right in the intersection, blocking a long line of traffic including a street car. It was at this point that some stupid woman next to me started shouting gleefully: "Block that streetcar! Block that streetcar!". I took my bike off the road, waited for the spectacle to finish (complete with one asshat stopping to play a trumpet in the middle of the road) and then headed home.

It's important to note here that I'm a fan of street parties. Hell, New Mind Space's "Flight of Fancy" was one of my favourite events last year. But cycling is very different. Cyclists in this country work very hard to be respected on the road. We're constantly claiming that we should have the same respect as other vehicles and in exchange for that respect, we agree to follow the same rules other vehicles do. Actions like this will only serve to give non-cyclists ammunition against us and that's something we don't need.

Blocking a few cars maybe, but a whole street car with 100 people on it? That's assholish.

May 23, 2007 03:54 +0000 | Activism Public Space The Toronto Public Space Committee 1

The TPSC's Art Attack! exploded tonight with a mass-deployment of art posters targetting a single ad installation: Astral Outdoor's "Info Pillars".

Essentially 7' tall, illuminated ads scattered around the city masqurading as information kiosks, these ad pillars are going to swell in numbers thanks to City Hall's new deal with Astral for the purchase of street furniture in the city. Given that the decision on this contract will be made tomorrow, it seemed only fitting that Art Attack's target this year would be Astral's iconic waste of space and energy... and it was fun.

I put a few of my shots up on Flickr (none of them are really good enough to include in my own collection, but they give you an idea) and I'm hoping there will be others. If you live in Toronto, look for the ad pillars and see if our art remains.

May 10, 2007 14:36 +0000 | Activism CCTV Public Space Published The Toronto Public Space Committee 0

Chris Oullette, one of the members of our CCTV group int he TPSC wrote a letter to the editor as an op-ed piece and it got published. It's some really great writing and it hits on all the important points. Very nice work Chris.

April 30, 2007 21:59 +0000 | Activism Public Space Street Furniture The Toronto Public Space Committee Urban Design 1

I attended Toronto's Executive Committee meeting today to depute on the new Street Furniture Harmonisation Program. Unlike the the last time deputed at City Hall however, my deputation was much clearer. Sadly though, despite the stronger opposition this time, we lost everything.

This whole Strong Mayor system is quite interesting really. Basically, you have a group of councillors who's sole function is to vote as the Mayor wishes -- regardless of what their constituents want or what they personally feel. This was most evident in Councillor Moscoe's statement that he was going to vote for this project, but he'd be "holding his nose" in doing so. I was appalled really at the lack of interest in Democracy.

We had city staff, who despite the high praise hefted upon them by Miller, really did a shit job on this project. They used financial and quantifying numbers not from their own research, but from numbers supplied by the ad companies bidding on the contract. In one case, they even re-wrote the system of measurement, claiming that even though the amount of ad-space (and eye-level ads) was increasing, the "units" of advertising were smaller.

So lets be clear here. Six square feet of ads on a garbage can on the ground, vs roughly twenty-four square feet of illuminated, eye-level ads are comparable in the eyes of city staff. ...I don't know what to say here.

It was right about at this point where David Meslin referred to this whole process as legalising bribery... and he was right. Astral Outdoor is paying Toronto a lot of money to violate our bylaws.

From our position, we deputed on a variety of different subjects. From the lack of allowed public input, to style comparisons with other cities, to the environmental concerns surrounding energy for illuminated ads, to the fact that Astral Media has a well-documented history of non-compliance with city bylaws. Only one of us mentioned the overabundance of ad-space in this contract, but that was the only thing Miller's council focused on at the end... that is, he focused on it and promptly dismissed it.

I don't know what it is that causes me to think that this sort of thing would work. Clearly, when this project came about two years ago, there was no need for consultation or debate. In a sharply divided council favouring the Mayor, Miller gets what Miller wants. Logic be damned.

April 11, 2007 17:41 +0000 | Activism Street Furniture The Toronto Public Space Committee 8

Street furniture isn't exactly the kind of thing that you might consider a "hot topic", but it is, nonetheless quite exciting in Toronto these days. With City Hall ready to sign the rights to furniture building & maintenance over to a single ad firm for 20 years and only 3 companies on the bidding list worth roughly $150 million, little things like lawsuits against activist groups are a really big deal.

For starters, Clear Channel, one of the 3 bidders has threatened to sue The Toronto Public Space Committee of which I'm a member, for economic loss last month. The media has finally picked up on this and has gotten a number of high-ranking councillors to condemn the move, claiming that Clear Channel should be disqualified from receiving the street furniture contract.

Then there's the conflict of interest claim by illegalsigns.ca, alledging that the director of this coordinated street furniture program was also working for Astral Outdoor, another one of the bidders as a side contract. John Barber from the Globe also covered this today with his usual flair.

And now Astral is threatening to sue illegalsigns.ca for slander. Who said that street furniture was boring?

April 08, 2007 03:22 +0000 | Activism Environment 0

I found this today and thought that I would share:

Coca-Cola Booted from the University of Guelph

For Immediate Release
April 5, 2007

Students at the University of Guelph in Canada have voted to remove Coca-Cola products from campus because of the company's unethical practices in India and Colombia.

A referendum calling for replacing Coca-Cola products with "an alternate beverage supplier" received 65% of the votes last week. Coca-Cola's 10-year contract with the University of Guelph is set to expire in August 2007, and it seems very unlikely that it will be renewed given the student mandate.

"Students have voiced their opinions loudly and clearly. We want ethical choices on this campus," said Becky Wallace of the Central Student Association at the University of Guelph. "We are breaking our brand loyalty to Coca-Cola and standing up for human rights and the environment in India and Colombia," she said.

The Coca-Cola company's operations in India have led to severe water shortages for thousands of people living in the vicinity of its bottling plants, and government studies have confirmed illegal dumping of toxic waste around its plants. One of Coca-Cola's largest bottling plants in India has been shut down since March 2004 because of community opposition.

Students in the US, UK and Canada have played a key role in applying pressure on the Coca-Cola company to end its abuses in India, and over 20 colleges and universities have taken actions against the Coca-Cola company as a result of the campaign.

"This is yet another victory for communities in India who are challenging the Coca-Cola company for creating water shortages and pollution across India," said Amit Srivastava of the India Resource Center, an international campaigning organization that worked with students at the University of Guelph to support the campaign.

The University of Guelph joins the increasing ranks of colleges and universities around the world that have ceased doing business with the Coca-Cola company as a result of the International Campaign to Hold Coca-Cola Accountable.

Most recently, students at the University of Manchester in England voted to remove Coca-Cola products from campus as a result of the campaign.

In response to the growing international campaign against the Coca-Cola company, the company has initiated a so called "independent" investigation into its operations in India by an Indian group, the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). TERI is funded by the Coca-Cola company itself, and the group has named Coca-Cola as one of the most responsible companies in India in 2001.

"We are tired of whitewash attempts by the Coca-Cola company, such as hiring a group it funds in India to investigate its operations. What we need are genuine initiatives to seriously address the very grave issues in India that are destroying lives and livelihoods of thousands of people," said Amit Srivastava.

For more information, visit www.IndiaResource.org

Contacts:

Becky Wallace, Central Student Association
T: +1 519 824 4120 ext 56742
E: csaacad at uoguelph dot ca

Amit Srivastava, India Resource Center
T: +1 415 336 7584
E: info at IndiaResource dot org