Unterbahn

For grassroots mapping enthusiasts in the Bay Area, I’ll be speaking at Where 2.0 in San Jose on April 1, presenting the Grassroots Mapping Lima project and talking about our plans for future work. Afterwards, we’ll try to do a demonstration flight at the Where Faire.

Where 2.0 charges admission, but WhereCamp is a free and open ‘unconference’ and I’m hoping to do a workshop there where people can build their own rigs, do test flights, and generally do a bit more hands-on work. More on WhereCamp soon — we’re still finding out if we can fly at Google’s Mountain View campus… they’re the hosts.

I have a few Instiki instances out there: wiki.grassrootsmapping.org and wiki.cartagen.org – and the Grassroots Mapping wiki now has two ‘webs’. Initially when I added a second web, the front page at wiki.grassrootsmapping.org began showing a list of webs instead of the HomePage of the main web… if you’re an Instiki user you’ll know what I’m talking about. You can see the page I saw here: wiki.grassrootsmapping.org/web_list

Instiki allows you to define a DEFAULT_WEB in your /config/environment.rb, but it won’t redirect the web root to that web’s HomePage, which would seem to be the point. Darn. So I forked and patched Instiki on Github, adding the following code to replace line 26 of /app/controllers/wiki_controller.rb:

      if defined? DEFAULT_WEB
        @web_name = DEFAULT_WEB
        redirect_home
      else
        redirect_to :action => 'web_list'
      end

Now if I go to wiki.grassrootsmapping.org, I see the HomePage of my default web. Hooray!

Update: OK, my bad. This is unnecessary:

As distler pointed out on Github, defining DEFAULT_WEB should work out of the box. Why didn’t it work for me, I wondered?

Well, I put the line:

DEFAULT_WEB = 'wiki'

in environment.rb, but I put it OUTSIDE the Rails::Initializer.run do |config| block. Putting that line inside that code block solved my problem.

I’m leaving this all up for future generations to learn from my mistakes. (Most likely me in a year or so.)

Nadya Peek at the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT is leading up an effort to get a FabLab build in Haiti, so that as reconstruction progresses, Haitians have an opportunity to circumvent the traditional manufacturing and supply chain paradigm — and to create a broad range of goods for themselves.

A Fab Lab are high-tech and relatively expensive ‘universal factory in a box’ – including a ShopBot CNC, laser cutter, and so forth, with which you can make all kinds of electronics, furniture, replacement parts, and even more machines. They exist in a variety of places around the world and part of having a Fab Lab is being connected with a global network of makers and tinkerers at other Fab Labs.

I initially balked at the idea of spending $250k (yowza!) on something like this, but I think that enabling and empowering Haitians to challenge the global manufacturing powers-that-be is a fundamentally important part of helping Haiti become self-sufficient. Once the ‘theatre of disaster’ shifts to somewhere else, and the spotlights move to other disasters, a Fab Lab will support their years-long reconstruction effort.

But first they need $250k, so please consider donating!

Go-go Google! It’s official you can CAMP (yes with a tent) at #wherecamp this year. Pack your gear boys & girls camping at Google!! #gis (twitter.com/wherecamp)

That’ll be much more convenient, sweet.

Finally got around to publishing the Cartagen developer API.

Cartagen API Docs

Pat Coyle and I are starting work on an illustrated guide to grassroots mapping with balloons. Visit the wiki page to see our initial notes and sketches.

http://github.com/jywarren/cartagen

Finally.

Another day, another new grassroots map! After working with residents of Cantagallo at the beginning of February to produce the first map of their community with Daniel Miracle of Escuelab, we met with members of another of the 3 groups of Shipibo living in the same zone in the center of Lima. Upon seeing the maps we’d made, they were excited to make one also.

Sara Gomez of CEDRO, who introduced us to Sr. Ricardo, the president of one of the multiple political groups in Cantagallo, pointed out that if we make a map, we should do the best to serve all parties who live in Cantagallo – meaning that, among other things, we should create a single map of the entire settlement, collaborating with as many groups as we can, and distribute it as widely as possible. The situation was complex – the political groups don’t break down along clear geographic lines, but they are engaged in geographic dispute, and are submitting separate bids for state recognition. I’m still struggling with how to aid these groups in their bid for land title without getting pulled into a local political conflict — if that’s even possible. We cannot say, for example, that this mapmaking is a neutral act – but we can try to create tools which support equal access to geodata, and which are hard to use in exclusionary ways.

It remains to be seen how this plays out, but at the very least, we were able to work with a Señor Ricardo – president of one of the other Shipibo groups – to make a more complete map. Politics aside, once you get outside and start flying balloons, everyone becomes an excited kid, at least for a while.

My hope is that these maps will support all parties’ claims to title in their negotiations with the Municipality more than they create or further aggravate disputes between the various groups in Cantagallo. I’ll be staying in close contact with my friends there to see what happens.