Buying the boat

Published Date 8/3/13 10:21 PM

Buying the boat off Alan johnston was a good expirence, he was a big help with fixing the boat up to get past the BSS test. I ended up staying up on site for 4 days working on the boat.

Will be converting this to a Solar powered and mobile Open Media Hub over the next few months.

Work done:

Removed central seating partitions

Removed half of the seat belts

Presser washed the boat inside

Moved the fuel tank to the back of the boat to facilitate external fuelling (this is a BSS issue)

Fixed peg locks to hatches and doors and a padlock to back door.

plugged holes in roof from removed equipment.

Made 6x tyear fenders with rope fittings (Alan donated a selection of fenders as well)

Rope for morning up.

Todo:

Put in external fuelling 

Angle grind/remove top bouncey bulge

wood ceiling and floor panels

Prep and paint inside

Add LED lighting

External solar panels

battery box and battery’s for solar set-up

wiring and charge controllers

Boat solar power options

Published Date 8/3/13 9:32 PM

Should I get 2x50w panels – one of each side of the bout or 1 x 100w panel for the roof – am reluctant to put panels on the roof as its usable space – the curving sides of the boat would be better space to use? Link

For battery’s can just buy cheap leasher battery’s (good for ballast and have the space) 

Or try something better http://www.ev-power.eu/LiFePO4-w-PCM-6V-12V/LiFePO4-Battery-Pack-12V-17Ah-PCM.html

With the lead acid battery’s you can only use 1/3 of the power with out damaging the battery’s and they are only good for less than 500 cycles or so… but they would work and are cheap – cauld try something better latter.

The charge controlling is complex as the side facing panels will mean one is putting out more power than the other… agen – just cheap controller(s) or go for an expensive http://www.ebay.com/gds/Why-MPPT-PV-Solar-Charge-Controllers-Are-Important/10000000176770209/g.html

Some examples link

What cables to use, size, UV protection etc. Link

Trade union 2001 and undercover police party and protest

Published Date 7/2/13 8:50 PM

Brussels 2001: Voices Beyond the Mainstream

This is a compilation of 3–4 video reports I produced for Free Speech TV (#FSTV), a U.S. satellite station. Together, they capture a wide spectrum of protest and resistance in the wake of Genoa, a pivotal moment in the global justice movement. One report is still missing from the archive, I’ll post it as soon as I dig it out.

Context & focus. My aim then, as now, was to document both the traditional and the alternative of the classic A-to-B trade union marches, but more importantly, the fringes: the radical, creative, and joyful protests that challenged the spectacle from the edges. Where party met protest, and possibility met defiance.

Brussels, December 13, 2001. This day saw possibly the largest ever demonstration of trade union strength across Europe. Over 100,000 people marched through Brussels – the so-called capital of the “Europe of Profit” – under the slogan: “Europe: It’s Us!” This film series goes beyond the headline march to cover the wider actions and spirit of the day.

Produced by:
hamishcampbell.com
undercurrents.org
visionon.tv

Boat s 12v and running all your gadgets

Published Date 7/1/13 8:12 PM

Charging is easy with USB and 12v  something like this will work fine (its worth paying a little bit more than the cheapest as they can be a fire hazard) Agen its toss a coin for something like this to work with a apple device. (click on the images for amazon links)

Your boat needs a car power plug, most should come with one, if your boat doesn’t you can just crocodile clip on on you Battery.

It would be a bodge, but would work.

Filming Genoa 2001 G8 protest

Published Date 6/28/13 8:02 PM

Sandals and a straw hat for a riot, the face covering is for the tear gas and the was lots of it. Memoires, the mic cover was made of a piece of cutup packaging material and the mic was lent to some one latter and there dog eat it. Soon after the police van was set alight (you can see the man with the newspaper moving to light it and through it inside the petrol socked van) we left, about 20 minutes after that, the gunshot that killed is heard.

Video Faslane Peace Camp

Published Date 6/26/13 4:34 PM

 

The finished film contains no people. Instead, it focuses on long shots of organising lists and the camp’s infrastructure, rather than the issues or the characters behind the campaigns. This might seem strange at first, but it’s important to recognise that films don’t simply show the world as it is – they always have a purpose, a point of view. Here, that point of view is about recruitment: inviting new creative and capable people to come, use, and live within the space.

The absence of people leaves the space open – for others to step in and fill it with life and creativity. The song “Thank You” by Seize The Day works on two levels: it thanks those who built the camp, and also those yet to come – the audience of the film – who will help keep the space alive and purposeful.

The long shots of “rubbish rules” and “to-do lists” highlight that this is not just a place to party; it’s a place of work, creativity, and responsibility. The library and free shop help show that this is a sustainable alternative culture, not just a temporary protest. The language throughout is conversational and inviting: “pop in for a cup of tea – there’s lots to do.”

The shot of the Anarchy caravan followed by the green garden reflects a simple idea: both “fluffy” and “spiky” activists are welcome here.

The entire film is shot in bright sunshine, full of greenery and flowers, to give a sense of beauty and attraction. Obviously, if it were filmed in the middle of winter, pouring with rain, it would feel very different. The final shot of the nuclear base is only a small part of the film, because the focus is on protest camp culture rather than the specific issue being campaigned on. Anyone who argues otherwise is missing the point. Without a healthy camp, the campaign weakens. The film has a two-step purpose: to rejuvenate the camp, and through that, renew the campaign.

You don’t need a big camera to make a good film. This was shot entirely on a Samsung Note II mobile phone in 720p. I chose this lower resolution to make file uploads faster and more reliable – full HD files are often too large to handle easily when the film was made.

About the camp

Faslane Peace Camp has been here for 30 years, campaigning against nuclear weapons.

People live here in all weathers – a community of committed campaigners. The camp is a base for action, an ecological alternative, a home for some, and an education for many.

Call to check if there’s space to stay:
01436 820901 or 07511 793227

http://faslanepeacecamp.wordpress.com

Just down the road is a huge nuclear missile base – something we clearly need to do something about.

Video: http://hamishcampbell.com
Music: http://www.seizetheday.org

Hard or Soft is the question

Published Date 6/22/13 6:03 PM

The are two types of security in activism (DRAFT)

The is the outline of what am talking about here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_security

Hard security

“hard security for traditional mechanisms like authentication and access control, and soft security for social control mechanisms.”

Encryption and anonymity, hiding communication so that people can trust that there interaction is with the people they think it is with and nobody eales. in activist cercals this has a strong tendency to centralise activist infrastructure and activity around a small “shadowy” group. And history tells us this is the easiest place for state, and corporate spy’s to live in these encrypted/secret shadows. Examples dailymail and Guardian

Soft security

“Soft security attempts to discourage harm and mitigate any damage, while quality control attempts to improve a product and weed out non-conforming output. The social controls on the production of Wikipedia documents demonstrate both principles, using discussion pages, accessible edit histories, policies and guidelines, in contrast to traditional document control mechanisms such as workflow and authorization, to achieve both soft security and quality control.[2]

In commercial security, soft security is often achieved through training of staff to manage the environment (1) to make disruptions more noticeable, (2) to make disruptions less socially acceptable, and (3) to create a perceived vested interest in the public.[3]” 

Openness, activity streams, bring communication into the open to building trust. Using open tools so that you have a very direct and continues inside into what’s going on so you can actual see and trust the popule you are working because you can see them. This builds a secure working relationship and dynamic and effective community of action. Pleapole who have something to hide stand out and are easey to see.

The is a case for hard security in activism and we have tradition to facilitate this – phone, meetups, affinity groups etc. the problem am highlighting here is the online infrastructure that we use to implement so called hard security in activism are almost all based on clinet server infrastructure which in hand with the geek obsession with hard security makes the admin of these centralised services into a fatel weakness – if I was a modern police spy i would be an activist syes admin running the group website and e-mail list and it is very easy to take on these responsibility and stay int he shadows.

For hard security in activism the is a much better model of peer to peer model were the is no centre, it is horizontal web of trust. this is not popular amuncest geek activism for a number of resions probably the most important (unspoken) resign is one of control. An example of a workable open source tool that activist could use is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retroshare would be good if a group of activist tried to work with this.

The ideas behind soft security is that the open web is simply not an appropriate tool for “spiky” organising and that most of the client server “secure” tools are pseudonymous at best and blatantly open at worst, this would be fine if people understood this but they don’t and these tools are pushed on less techy people as the right this to do. This is both dangerous in a very practical sense and damaging as it makes activism much less dynamic and flexible. The tech tools activist use dampen there effectiveness and lead to a continuation of top-down working practices.

Activist hard security is currently both damaging to the movements from its dysfunctionally and from it pseudonymous. So if soft security is a much better model for MOST activist organising and is actually what the HUGE majority of activist are doing when they use facebook for organising – the question of facebook opens up a hole other connected can of worms.

Very good DRAFT wright up of these issues here http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/SoftSecurity

Activist media strategy is broken

Published Date 6/11/13 11:37 AM

This is the state of the #stopG8 twitter account as the main convergence center is raided by hundreds of police:

Using individual Facebook accounts – who sees the content they post is decided by the advertising driven algorithms of Facebook and everything they post is sent strait to the corporate and governmental agency’s they are fighting against. 

The website they have built is not only dysfunctional (it only allows corporate embeds of video all opensource or activists embeds are blocked – only google owned youtube works) it’s a control freaks love affair and a re-creation of the Soviet Union.

UPDATE: the video embed whent up in the end https://network23.org/stopg8/media/video