When it Rains, It Rumbles

I want to take a moment from my massive amount of Katrina posts to point out some strange goings on in the Salton Sea in SoCal. In addition to the massive cluster of earthquakes in the area over the past few days, there's been over 15 small rumblings, (2.8 on the Richter scale and below), since midnight last night.

It could be anything but those of you in So. Cal and Nevada and elsewhere near effected areas - heed the advice to make sure your usual Earthquake preparedness kits are up-to-speed and be safe.

Disaster Ridesharing and Semantic Housing

I've taken some time yesterday to further organize my thoughts from this post. We needed such an application on 9/11, we need one for Katrina and no doubt as the hurricane seasons get worse and worse and the potential for other natural disasters like blizzards and earthquakes, we need to create such an applications.

I passed some of these ideas onto MoveOn.org, perhaps they'll take the lead but they're a political organization. The US Goverment has already proven that they're to mired in politics and turf wars to execute a successful aid operation and they're always behind in technology. NGOs and other aid organizations don't really have the resources to create such a system so it's up to the technology community.

Not only is this an app that could be used in the US but with open mapping data initiatives springing up around the globe, and platforms like Google Earth to make use of them, this could be used for any number of worldwide natural disasters.

<Open BrainStream>

1) Trust Issues - It may be too late to implement this in a fast matter but between Katrina and 9/11 it may be wise for a massive organized effort to support such a thing - take the "friend of" concept of Orkut or LiveJournal which gives a level of trust to the friend-of-a-friend level. You see, how many people really want to open their home to a stranger with absolutely no context to who they are? Far fewer than if there was some sort of trust system in place.

I've been builging up my contact list on LinkedIn as I personally see it as one of the most successful applications for Social Networks to date. There's about 5 people I haven't directly interacted with online or in person who are on my contact list but all the rest I have some degree of trust with them. So take 78 contacts with their total 5,900+ contacts, and those contacts' contacts equals 367,400+ according to LinkedIn.

Combine that with Orkut's "levels" of trust: friend but 1) haven't met, 2) acquaintence, 3) friend 4) good friend, 5) best friend. I'd almost add a similar level for family: 1) Immediate family 2) Sibling's family 3) Parent's family etc. Honestly, I'd like to see a flexible filter-like system of LiveJournal where perhaps we have a large set of defaults, (like above), add a few more relationship types and allow people to create their own and set trust levels that are translated into "English" for them to verify.

2) Ridesharing - Both due to a friend's need to get a relative from TX to BOS and since many of the homes appearing on hurricanehousing.org are way further out than 100 miles, people either need to get to friends or family or even these hurricanehousing sites.

I see the ridesharing almost like bus/train connections. W can get X to point A and Y can take X to point B and Z can take X to their final destination at point C. Almost like a massive socialist communing network ala Zipcar.

Interesting....who needs gas and oil? Set up rideshares across the country! ;)

3) Google Maps/Earth mashups - Take all the basic location data for both rideshares and hurricanehousing and stick it in a google maps setup for people to see and have access to. This will be very helpful when trying to determine how to get from one Rideshare location to another. Perhaps hack the Google Directions to say ....."to get to Boston, take rideshare A555 from Baton Rouge to rideshare D453 in Kentucky. Take rideshare D453 to Pennsylvania rideshare T887. Take T887 to Boston's South Station.....or whatever.

<Close BrainStream>

We have the tools - I passed these ideas on to the rdfweb group instrumental in developing FOAF and the Google Maps ideas to a geowanking list.....we just need to reach more geek types. They're out there and we can do this.

Moving on from MIT

I have been with the MIT OpenCourseWare project for over 3 years. I joined as a temp worker in August 2002 to help bring the 50-course pilot online during which I spent a full 24 hours on launch day to make sure we were up on time.

I played an integral part in setting HTML and CSS authoring standards, processes for making PDFs and participating in some of the efforts to better use the massive amount of metadata we were collecting.

As I finish a very large accessibility retrofitting project, (due to be made live this month), I feel a sense of completion - since from day 1 of my involvement I had always advocated Web accessibility as part of the process rather than an afterthought.

Just as we had to create the initial Web site using tables for layout due to time, we weren't able to fully complete all my desired modifications such as bring our site to XHTML 1.1 instead of XHTML 1.0 Transitional, changing our external linking policy to no longer use the deprecated "target=_blank" attribute and fixing some of the markup errors and falacies caused by MSCMS 2002's implementation of the .NET framework.

However, I've learned an incredible amount working for MIT OCW and met a lot of great people. As I wait for the OpenCourseWare movement to grow and development of a consortium to come together, it's time to take these skills, my talents, passion and drive to another organization that can use what I've learned and know in addition to continue teaching me through my lifelong learning process.

Those of you who may be wonder why I've suddenly come out of the woodwork everywhere, now know why. I took pride in my ability to have my hands in all sorts of projects scattered around the Web and I sometimes regret losing touch with those innovative ideas while I had my head down at MIT.

I've posted my latest "CV" to LinkedIn - one of the few Social Networking applications in my mind that has truly succeeded. I encourage you to check out the service.

I'll let everyone know what I'm up to as I've already had all sorts of leads and interesting projects come my way. I hope they will continue to pour in.

Volunteering for the Red Cross

I can't take it anymore. Reading the personal accounts, seeing photos and, worse, watching it on tv, the situation in the Gulf Coast has gotten to me so much, I have decided to volunteer with the Red Cross. I was unemployed during 9/11 due to ZOT Group failing during the Internet "bubble burst", and did not do anything but gawk at the television. I see this as even more important since my younger brother (jdbryce) has gone down to Fort Dix to prepare for deployment to Iraq.

Now that I have decided to move on from MIT to bigger and better opportunities, I am taking this opportunity to volunteer for at least two weeks with the Red Cross - at, surprisingly, the suggestion of my wife, (kiekre). Hopefully those at the handful of jobs I've applied to and a few of my professional collegues I've set up meetings with will understand.

I'm nervous because, as I've made clear on here before, I am very overweight. I have athletic-induced asthma and don't need meds for it. I have to be attempting a sprint for it to crop up. I have cold-induced asthma but, well, I don't think I'll have to worry about that down south.

But I want to work and help so I hope they will accept my request. As many of you also know, my MBTI is an INFJ - strong on the intuitive feeler "NF" so I'm more nervous about being able to control my empathic tendancies. However part of preparing for my volunteering effort will include reading up on various ways to shut myself off from it when need-be for my own sanity.

I will keep everyone posted on my efforts and I could seriously use some advice on renting or borrowing a Blackberry or Sidekick or some other device to check email or at a minimum store and send myself emails on what's happening. My handwriting sucks and if I can send it off as soon as I write it, it won't get lost should the device get damaged, (or in the case of handwritten accounts, destroyed by water or lost in chaos).

APB: Interdictor & NOLA Folks need help

I just logged onto irc.freenode.net channel #interdictor and have been incredibly impressed by the organization. However they need people desperately to help monitor the scanners via online streams and transcribe them for Law Enforcement and other effected parties.

They are also having massive bandwidth issues and need help setting up mirror for the photos and webcam. They have rsync setup and it looks like they're doing things right. So if you've got massive bandwidth, connect with them to mirror.

Be sure to read the FAQ and fill out this application. But definitely check out IRC. fascinating.

Tired and Transcription

Thanks so much for all the well-wishes and support. I am far from a hero nor a victim and it feels refreshing to help out. I got but a taste of what I'd be doing should I go to the Red Cross Call Center in VA, (have't heard from RC Boston yet), by listening to 4 audio feeds of scanner channels at once and playing "Ops Manager".

Basically, the job is to log on to IRC, recruit transcribers and keep the scanner-transcription channels filled with 3 functional transcribers at all times. Been going for 5hrs straight now. But now my friend Chris (crschmidt) stepped in, without me knowing he had done this the night before, and I'm taking a break.

The other Ops Manager who worked beside me was from Denmark. He was up until 3AM! I feel like such a slouch beside him.

I really hope I'll hear from Boston Red Cross tomorrow. If not, I will take up the various offers from friends - a plane ticket to the destination of my choice, a car to borrow in DC, several places to sleep, and Sushi/Harp/Yoga etc.

I really haven't had time to read my flist, I feel guilty. I'd love to hear from those of you posting about Katrina and what you're thinking o doing......miss you all and have a safe night.