Springofcode was set-up to move towards solving the problem of geek culture – that geeks build tools for them selves – and that these tools are unusable by the majority of normal people – thus leading all geek focused social change software to sterility and failer and to the seeping failer of the open internet it self.

We had been failing to develop the core tools for visionontv by both normal and alternative means and were falling back into the normal geek development roots which inevitability would fail and waist our limited investment funds. Springofcode was actively setup to try and stop this happening:

* a open space for geek social change projects

* a place to shape and experiment in ways of guiding such projects out of this limited geek mental/social/usability ghetto.

* a open way to “sieve” the flow of projects into a small supported “core” of outreaching tech projects and a peer to peer periphery of unworkable geek on geek and arty wannabe tech projects.

* a way to find the core tech crew for our OMN project and actually start to build it, the only way to find if you can work with people is to do it, and springofcode was a place to bring this “serendipity” into play.

The springofcode website was built in such a way that it used open process tools, wikis and activity flows. It was built on a clear rejection of the fashionable/corporate and transitory tools of the moment. This was important as it was the first “sieve” against fahernisters and art emptiness that would inevitably be dominant in our open outreach approach. That this majoraty would wont to use tools that were current and on the edge, tools that would flower and then vanish when the next must use tool came along/company bought up and commercialised into dysfunction.

The Open process would dissuade the conspiracy nutters and the paranoid encryption and activist client server control freaks from being at the core and it would push the function of letting “serendipity” flow – you could easily see who was constructively working and who was just talking or just criticising at a glance on each visit to the site.

The project started well with open meetings and active projects. But quickly fell into dysfunction due to a lack of focus in the core crew which directly lead to the dominant mainstream of geek culture spreading and smothering the hard to define core value in the project. This was done not out of malice but out of a lack of wider appreciation of the problems and issues the project was set-up to attempt to address.

The open process was abandoned and the activity tracking undermined by influx of the very fashionable tools that we were trying to reject. The arty fashionable of the periphery was pushed to the empty core as it proved to be both slow and difficult to build open core projects, the tools we had to use were part of the very problem we were trying to solve. The experiments, which understandably were difficult, that were core, were pushed aside to be replaced by the normal failer of geek culture/priority and a narrowing centralisation/closing of open process.

Agen, a stop should have been called to it, it should have been refocused and pushed back into the needed direction, but this agen proved to be impossible. the Limited Energy/focus and funding continued to be pushed into this now pointless fading copycat project. The was an attempt to re-boot springofcode by merging it into the opening up of the liferay user group creation, which actually worked well upto a point were we had actually had something going in the right direction – but we didn’t have a strong anufe core crew to sustain pushing this to keep it from falling back into the normal geek mold.

Neither the geeks or the normal people/open tool users wont to cross the divide we keep trying to bridge in springofcode and our wider projects so we learned agen that with out a strong, resourced, resilient core crew this bridge cannot be kept in place long anufe for a new cross over path to settle in place and become a norm.

Lots of good things came out of springofcode, the most important was probably the partnership with the London java community who were on a parallel path to what we were trying and failing to achieve. And then the UK Liferay user group battle and victory was a good example of how easy it was to push the virticalists aside to open up open process, but sadly not how to sustain and nurture this open process when needed.

To try and save the very real value built in this I outlined a Eastern European tech meetup/hackthon project to take the victory's from the springofcode and refocus them. This involved visiting a number of prominent Eastern university's and lead to the agreement from two vice chancellors for space and resources to kick this off. The project was to use the carrot of mentership of the proment members of the London java community and liferay user group to mentor the best aspiring East Europe programmers to build the tools for the openweb. A win/win form all directions – traditional corporate company’s would get access to talented programmers – poor, young, educated and success hungry East European programmers would get direct access to good job prospects in the UK and in this process we would actually get open internet tools built.

But understandably the was no energy left in the fading core crew we had, to make this outline project real. Spring is coming round agen (: am now looking at rebooting the core springofcode project off the activisttech am doing at fracking protest camps this summer. As we keep learning, with out a strong common crew with shared core understandings, a clear and active commitment to open process and a hard and aggressive attack on incroching vertilists we are unlikely to be able to build/play a part in building the bridges that the open internet needs.

A small and determined cry for HELP!

looking at electrics, draft list for perment install.
 

1x 7M of 16mm welding cable down centre of boat

3x 6mm cable riser each 2m front, middle, back of boat (fused)

1x 6mm short riser cable at table 1/2m (fused)

4x 3 way cigarette litter splinters (6amp) with USB on each riser (fused)

5x LED strip lights connected to risers with switches. 2 long, 3 short (fused)

Battery box venting to front of boat with 2x225amh 12v battery’s under floor/bed.

2x MPPT solar chargers (one for each side of the boat) feeding battery bank

Start with 2x100w solar panels, can fit 4-5 each side of the boat. These will do summer day-in charging and topping up of alternator bulk charging.

1 high power alternator in water pump position to bulk charge main battery bank

Options

* Can fit a 300-400w windmill on back of the boat

* Could fit a 100w heat pelter exchange charger feeding raddeaters on back of stove.

* Can fit another 5x100w panels on back of boat later, these would feed a lithium potassium battery pack under the kitchen.

* can add at least another 2x225amh 12v lead acid battery’s on centre line

With this much power I could move the boat with an electric engine eather an outboard or adding one to the existing drive shaft?

Firstly its a hard problem to secede at.

Lets look at my experience.

* Understood a problem

* Found a opening to push through a solution to this problem

* Created a technical project to solve this problem

* Started to create a social way of implementing this technical project

Realised this couldn’t be done with out both funding and a core crew.

Found a nucleolus of a core crew and started fund-raising

With out funding we wasn’t able to expand the core crew and the fund raising took a very long time as the funders still had not realised that the was a problem, then they did start to understand that the might be a problem, then had no understanding the technical solution. Because of this the funding was delayed by 3 years and thus the nucleus crew splintered.

The funding finally was agreed and the nucleolus crew was refreshed, but another year went past before the funding was transferred and the project could be set in motion, this damaged the new nucleus crew and blocked the expansion to a full functional crew over this time. So the funding was in place but the was a dysfunctional nucleus crew and no full crew in view, we were actually exorcised before we started.

At this stage, the problem had changed that we were trying to solve, the opening to push it through was closing too fast for the technical solution we had fund raised for to have any hope of working. We needed to both re-think the problem and the technical solution, but we could not do this in a functional way because the project had started (with a broken nucleus rather than a full team) and taken on a momentum and life of its own.

A year working really hard running the project was wasted because we did not actually have the team to secede and we had no way to bring them on-board as the project was over this time visible incoherent and obversely would not fit the limited closing opening that we were failing to fill. After a year I was adamant that the whole project should STOP!!! before all the work/funding was waisted. Sadly and distressingly the was no real affinity core left at that stage and the project had a life of its own and become lose of any core direction. We were drifting into NGO periphery of training and outreach not balanced by functioning core tech building, the failer of the core tech project left this potentuly useful work nothing for the training outreach work to settle on.

When the main funding run out the project accelerated into falling to pieces.

The outcome wasn’t all bad:

* We trained lots of video makers who went onto work in NGO's

* We created a LOT of media and covered most of the core activism over the 4 years.

* We supported many key social change issues over the time.

* We learned how to fail at building tech projects.

* I learned how to secede at building tech teams (power at Balcome fracking protest camp)

* The is still a seed budget left over put aside for tech development to re-boot a new team/project.

* We have a new project ready to go.

To sum up can we re-boot this? leaning from our failer? Gather a core crew built on the experience of this failed project, the is still a crying need and an opening gap to push a technical/social solution into. We have part of the technology to build the project to fill the gap and some seed money to put it into motion. Looking around for a core crew.

The project like most sits on a abstraction based on generalisations. It is about building your dreams in the digital commons, its one of the few spaces we actually have.

Broadly you can look at the social condition that we exist in from 3 broad points of view.

1) Radicalism (human beings can be better, kinder more rational, more feher and …) LINK

2) Liberalism (we need a balance to exist, good and bad, boundary’s to be human) LINK

3) Conservatism ( we need hiraceys and control to be human, with out domination we will destroy each other) LINK

Our project stands between our existing society (2) and a better more open society (1) it stands against (3) repression and control. The is a STONG liberal (2) understanding pushing at the core of the project. In this, people working on the project will fight hard battles between (1) and (2) with hopeful can make common course against (3) BUT unless we can expand the majority of core people to think outside the limitations of (2) the project will be constantly distracted at best and ripped apart at wherest by this battle amuncest friends.

The project is on the side of (1) and building with in (2). Unless it can build to a certain size it will be irrelevant to (3). It is our job to build it to that size, and the main block on this is not (3) as our project is irrelevant to that it is actually the majority of our friends (2).

We need to get activists to actually use alternative net infrastructure.

FAQ

Q. This geek software is too complex to use.

A. So was Facebook when it started, almost nobody understood what twitter was for for ages – all new experiences are hard. It's actually ONLY a question of motivation then familiarisation through repetition.

Q. Activist internet sites are ugly – if they just looked nicer people might actually use them.

A. After bad UI is put to one side (and this can be an issue) there is a direct correlation between full user functionality and bad looking sites – you can make sites look nicer by dis-empowering the user or by shaping and controlling their interactions – but freedom always looks messy, just look at Facebook - it's one of the more messy sites out there. It overcomes this issue by good UI and familiarity – people get used to “functionality - ugliness” after they use the software every day.

Q. My activist site has no way for the “user” to be part of the site beyond limited commenting.

A. Yes activist sites are generally in the stone age of hierarchical control freakery, Use sites that are web02 not web01. There actually are some projects out there. Complain to admins if there is no peer -to- peer production on an activist site, then actually use the peer production tools they set up such as wikis and forums.

Q. Why not just use Facebook groups/ fashionable web2 site. Everyone is on there anyway.

A. This way leads to the death of the open internet/society LINK

Q. Can i trust activist sites with my privacy.

A. On corporate sites that most activists use, such as Facebook, you can only hide from your friends not from your enemies. This is generally true for the open web in general and is something we need to understand. If you have a secret take the activist to the garden and whisper it in their ear, do not rely on any fig leafs of corporate privacy settings or promise of activist client server encryption LINK

Q. How will everyone on lots of little “activist” sites get the same "I'm connected to all my friends" experience as Facebook?

A. Just like with Facebook a majority of them will have to join the sites if they don’t (and there are many reasons that they won't) then this is much less likely to be possible to escape the total control of corporate/state sponsored social organising. An open syndicated web infrastructure – the original web – can be built to replace Facebook, This is what the original web was, and it  worked, so it should be perfectly possible to do the same again. The problem is a social one: can we get people to use it?

Q. Why are you just talking about tools for “activists”? Are you just trying to reach people who organise things on websites? Then it makes sense.

A. To make tools that work we have to work with a small homogenized group to build the tools out. I think that until we have usable open data, peer production tools we don’t have any chance of reaching out to the mainstream world – there is a whole path of piles of mainstream mossy rubble of Facebook/twitter open tools already. There is little reason to leave another in this path. 

If you use a Mac, buy a Mac, if you use a PC buy a PC, if you are undecided buy a PC as Macs are for the slave mentality – its a locked down, but functional, world in Mac land. For PC laptops I recommend thinkpads duel booting into Ubuntu. The use the Ubuntu side with liber office, Firefox, chrome etc. to do all your normal work, including all work on the web. Then only boot into the windows side for video editing and legacy programs, don’t surf the web on the windows side.

For phones, buy a relatively modern android smart phone, the are lots of them. The currently isn’t a good choice for data networks at the moment, Giffgaff used to be very good as you got unlimited data and could tether your phone, they have implemented tethering detection which makes them less useful. I still use giffgaff as its still a good deal as it runs on the reliable 02 network, up for suggestions for alternatives.

I recommend buying a Refurbished Thinkpad laptop to activists.

T series - are good soled general use laptops

X series are small and very low power for protest camps and solar power setups

Used ThinkPads are cheap because after businesses are done with them, which is 3-4 years after they’ve been released, they flood the market. 

Why ThinkPad?

• They’re really cheap when you buy a used one
• Splash-proof keyboard
• Keyboards feel excellent while typing
• Great Durability
• Utilitarian design
• Spare parts are easy and cheap to obtain
• Easy to repair, upgrade and maintain
• TrackPoint (that red thing on the middle of the keyboard), great for those who type a lot

Find out more here http://www.ktgee.net/post/49423737148/thinkpad-guide

Need at least 4 big battery’s http://www.alpha-batteries.co.uk/boat-batteries/225-ah-xplorer-leisure-battery/ could have more depending on space under the floor. Then cabling to put them all in series and charging for solar arrays and wind turbine, would need a selection of charge controllers and heavy-duty cabling – then lighter cabling around the boat for LED lighting

The battery’s will need to be put into a battery box with external ventilation.

In tech the successful part of the corporate internet is building peer-to-peer(ish) web projects. This is after the wholesale failure of the top-down hierarchical internet that went bankrupt in the dotcom boom. facebook and twitter, 4square and instagram, youtube etc are all built on horizontal(ish) peer production. Activism is still in the sterile and narrow dotcom boom of vertical knowledge production and distribution. The perfect tool widely used for this is the wordpress blogging platform. It's a tool for a single voice, for the top to speak to the foot solderers. Beyond its commenting system the is no peer production in a wordpress setup.

The hierarchical corporations are doing peer to peer production, the horizontal activists are doing top-down hierarchical. If the wholesale failure of activism wasn’t important I would laugh at them. Here is an advert from frackoff:

"This spring, Frack Off are sponsoring Wordpress training for a dozen new local anti-fracking groups across the country and are looking for Wordpress trainers who will work for train fare, money for a pasty or two and of course the good feeling of doing something worthwhile for a really good cause. Frack Off need at least three or four tech activists who know their way round Wordpress to deliver the training in various parts of the country.

At the risk of overselling the project, this will be a great opportunity for someone to do a spot of travelling and meet some of the local campaigners and grassroots activists who are giving hell to the frackers and working to get this destructive practice stopped before it gets started in the UK."

This represents a failure in every way imaginable, a failure of ideology, a failure of strategic thinking, a failure of leadership. And a failure of social change. Tech activism is currently not going anywhere.

There is nothing inherently wrong with wordpress. It's a fine tool for nice looking top-down single voice web portals. Where the wrongness lies is in the activist media use of it as the "tool" to build an internet site for activist campaigning. It is the wrong tool for this.

Activist peer to peer tools would be wikis http://en.wikipedia.org

Sites that have activity feeds such as http://visionon.tv

Aggregating sites http://globalviews.visionon.tv

Ps. I use the (ish) for corporate peer to peer production as it is ONLY the face of P2P. Underneath it is a solid controlling hierarchy just like it always was.

The "Sticky 6" were acquitted of all charges related to them superglueing themselves to the doors of Bell Pottinger, a PR company working for the likes of Cuadrilla, who explore potential fracking sites in the UK, and a host of other unsavoury clients.

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/damage-limitation/

http://www.nodashforgas.org.uk/

http://grassroots.visionon.tv

6 courageous women were acquitted of aggravated trespass and criminal damage, with "no case to answer". They were arrested during the Reclaim the Power protest in August 2013 against exploratory oil drilling in Balcombe, West Sussex. "Allegedly" they had superglued themselves to the entrance of corporate PR firm Bell Pottinger, whose clients include the Cuadrilla fracking company and members of the family of Bashar al-Assad.