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Occupy Apps

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Last week at an IT meeting I was asked to be a magnet (why not “magnate?”) for the Occupy Apps group. While the linked site isn’t mine, it does give some sense of what we’re about. In a nutshell, we’re building mobile and web apps to meet the various needs of the occupants. Aside from the already mentioned Sneakermesh, we have a few other exciting projects in the pipeline.

At the moment, for instance, I’m working on a service to accept audio contributions from occupants and make them available to content reviewers. Note that the project will change URLs when I come up with or am provided a more clever name, so don’t expect that URL to last. Do expect an announcement when it changes, though.

Currently it accepts audio in a number of common formats (thus far I’ve thrown WAV and 3GP at it without issue) and transcodes them into MP3 files. While the core concept isn’t that exciting, some of the deeper technologies are.

I’ve been thrilled at the team’s acceptance of my use of non-conventional languages and tools. We’re currently using Scala and Lift for this particular app, and are considering scaling some of the core concepts out to heavier deployment scenarios. We have over a rack of fairly impressive servers with which to play, and are probably fairly well-stocked for an occupation. :)

There’s no reason that the transcoding code can’t be broken out into a separate library and service. Using Akka would allow its use in everything from simple deployments within the same JVM, to standalone servers specifically set aside for transcoding media, or even load-balanced services for distributing transcoding workloads. And given our current heavy dependence on inaccessible Flash-based technologies, I’m very eager to move us to open standards. A server-side and scalable transcoding solution would be the perfect tool for that.

Anyway, I’m excited. I get to play with lots of powerful metal. I’m working with a group interested in building the best apps, not just in using the most common or easiest tools for the job. And there’s no shortage of ideas to build out.

And, yeah, I’m putting all this Occupy Austin stuff on my resume. If an employer doesn’t like that, well, that’s why I’m striving for self-employment, so they don’t get to dictate my politics or values. There’s even more in the pipeline, but I’m saving that for another day.

First Steps With Occupy Austin

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I’m not sure which was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Perhaps it was losing a job when I felt that giving me the support I needed would have been the better choice. Maybe it was being passed over for jobs that I thought were sure things. Or maybe it is the increasingly popular idea that jobs are obsolete.

Maybe it’s that my bank insists on charging me for the use of my own money from an account that doesn’t have a whole lot to begin with (while they’ve gone back on that, it’s hard to trust that they won’t try again later.) Maybe it is the ridiculous institution of charging overdraft fees instead of simply blocking a transaction entirely which, while overdraft fees without consent were prohibited by law in 2009, simply inspires these institutions to seek out new ways of gouging their consumers for the use of what belongs to them.

Maybe it is health care. A dislocated shoulder costs $3923 to fix, and given that I dislocate mine regularly and in stupid ways (such as, for instance, getting off of buses and closing doors) I don’t like losing a significant amount of money to go back to a life without significant pain and restriction.

Maybe it is that, on October 30, 38 people in Austin got arrested. According to consistent first-hand accounts, many of them were not read their rights, were told that they watched too much TV when they asked about them. Maybe it’s that many were singled out and mistreated by police. Women were stripped to their bras and underwear and were baited by male officers to insight accusations of disorderly conduct. Maybe it’s that this happened while people with significant amounts of money and influence walk free for doing a whole lot worse than exercising their first amendment rights.

Regardless of which among the above was the straw, on the Sunday before last I did something I never have before. I wrote an email to Art Acevedo, Austin’s police chief. Taking a different tack than many, I thanked him for what he did. It was because of what happened on October 30 that I woke up. I saw that this could happen in my city, a city I believed to be safe from this kind of abuse. I saw that this did affect me, because while I have no intentions of playing the financial game any more than I absolutely must, money gives those who have it powers and immunities which those of us without it lack. I closed by stating that this move by APD did not intimidate me. In fact, it has encouraged me to take up the cause and join with the occupants.

Wonder of wonders, I got a response within a few hours. It looked mostly form letterish, explaining that the occupants had been having public sex, urinating in the plaza, leaving the bathrooms a mess and doing other things that supposedly justified the police action. Leaving aside my questions as to why the arrests were against the group as a whole rather than the individuals whose actions Art seemed fairly certain of, and of whether or not these actions by individuals justified mistreating the group, that I got a response within a few hours showed me that we all have it within us to spark change. Perhaps mine was one of many emails received that day. But if we hadn’t sent them, then Art wouldn’t have had to sit down and draft a response.

But there was one paragraph in the email that stood out, one that made me feel like my email had truly been read and that, even if most of my response was form, part of it had either been written personally, or had been targeted to a small enough group that he felt compelled to add it:

“In closing, I am happy to see that you intend to start participating in OA since I know that OA truly wants to recapture the participation of a cross section of our society like we experienced on day one. Your participation will be a good outcome. Regardless of the public statements that may be expressed by OA, I know the truth to be that the environment we are creating in terms health and safety, is one that many OA participants have been longing for. Their hope is that a better environment will recapture the participants and spirit of Day One of OA.”

So, partially with Mr. Acevedo’s encouragement, I’m joining the occupation and helping where I can. I’ve joined the IT team. Thus far I’ve submitted a patch to the Sneakermesh Android app that improves accessibility. I’ve been watching the livestream in search of ways to help, and am working on an app that provides an unsecure, unreliable but cooperative means of communication between occupants at remote and fixed locations (so, for instance, someone can text or call a phone number and speak messages that get relayed to public computers at basecamp, then basecamp occupants can either type responses back which get texted or spoken or they can perform some needed task.) More on that when I have a release to share, which I hope will be in a few days.

Am I still looking for work? Yes, though I’m also putting myself in a more financially tenable position so I can start my own businesses. I don’t want my livelihood to depend on someone’s good will any longer, or on one other person’s willingness to keep me employed. Am I still keeping my money in a financial institution? Of course, but recently I joined a credit union and will be moving my money ASAP. They have their share of accessibility issues, but I called and spoke with those in a position to implement solutions–something I doubt I could have gotten from Bank of America.

But I do plan on finding ways to help with the occupation in person. This weekend I’m taking chair massage training and will need people on whom to practice. Who better than a bunch of tired occupants? I can wash a mean plate, cook a decent meal and do a number of other things that might help. And I can code, too. I’m nervous on my own in large groups, which is why I’m not there already, but I’m working on connecting up with people beforehand to mitigate that some.

For years I’ve avoided news and current events because they depress me. I have a low tolerance for human stupidity, and it bothers me to see people doing the same things again and again while expecting different results. Are these occupations more of the same? Perhaps, but they seem to be capturing people’s imaginations in a way that I personally have never experienced. Even if this comes to nothing, when people ask where I was during a movement that stood for many of the values I do, I don’t want to sheepishly explain that I was just sitting around watching the stream in my bathrobe. I want to be there, and even if I don’t have the balls to get arrested, I’d like to give my sleep and efforts to support those who do.

Bad and Good News

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Because the good news won’t make much sense without the bad, the bad comes first.

I was laid off last week. I wish the National Braille Press luck with their currently unnamed Braille notetaker/phone/PDA project.

The good news is that I’m now contracting for Serotek, and am assured that there’s no shortage of work. I am of course under NDA so can’t talk about anything upcoming, but one might reasonably conclude from this that there will be many new Android developments following my initial efforts at creating iBlink for Android.

Since NBP is no longer funding Spiel development directly or indirectly, I’ll be adding a donate button to its site in the coming days. I’m still OK financially, but if you’ve used or are interested in my various other projects, then now might be a great opportunity to express that with a donation. :)

Meanwhile, I welcome my new Serotek overlords…I mean, look forward to working more with them in the future. I haven’t been this excited about my work in a long while, and we’re definitely breaking some new and exciting ground both for me personally and in our industry at large.

Upcoming Appearance

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Just a quick note that I’ll be one of the guests on Thursday’s upcoming Serotalk tech chat, as of yet unannounced, themed “the outdoors.” I’ve been asked to talk about my cycling adventures, though I may also ramble about Hermes as well. Whether I’m live or pre-recorded remains to be seen, and depends onother plans I have that evening.

As a brief update, I’m back from LA, and Flash Sonar definitely works. I have over a dozen hours of raw audio, and as soon as I have the mental energy, I’ll be sitting down to work that into a couple hours of entertaining/informative podcasts.

Full Circle

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It seems that I’ve come full circle. My blog, originally in WordPress, migrated to Habari, Ikiwiki and now back to WordPress. I left Austin for over a year and a half, and have been back for nearly a year. Now I’m back to posting to my LiveJournal after abandoning it for nearly two years, albeit indirectly via this blog.

There are good reasons for all of these things. At some point I should probably blog about the release of Touchtype, though I suspect that everyone who would find such things useful already knows about it.

What has me excited these days, though, is this article about a man in California named Daniel Kish. His non-profit, World Access for the Blind, trains blind people in a technique called flash sonar.

I’ve wished that I could relearn how to ride a bike for some time now–relearn because I did cycle when I was younger and thought I’d live forever. The Blind Driver Challenge is certainly an awesome effort, but there are plenty of bureaucratic and accessibility barriers to be overcome before blind people will ever be behind the wheel–assuming, of course, that the technology proves viable and safe in actual road conditions. I’m rather surprised that they didn’t try tackling a simpler goal first, such as bike riding.

Not only are there fewer perceptual barriers between cyclists and the road, but licenses aren’t necessary. Neither are accessible gas pumps, or any of the other many little things that would need to change before this can possibly transition from cool demo to practicality. I’ve been pondering a technological solution to the cycling problem that uses an array of ultrasonic sensors connected to haptic feedback equipment, translating nearby obstacles and upcoming turns in a way that is hopefully both intuitive and safe. It never occurred to me that there was a non-technological solution.

According to the article, blind cyclists are able to mountain bike solo through rugged terrain. If cycling in such conditions is possible, I reasoned, then surely city streets shouldn’t pose much challenge. I was partly right.

I’ve been corresponding with Daniel Kish for the last week or so, and he states that residential streets aren’t a problem. Heavy traffic is, not because of the obstacles, but because the volume of traffic noise interferes with the echo characteristics of flash sonar.

Learning to cycle will be my next big adventure, or perhaps my first big adventure when viewed in a certain light. Even if I can’t cycle down heavily-traveled streets, anyone who knows where I live also knows that I have lots of residential streets in most directions. The busier streets can easily be crossed on foot, and I can certainly learn ways to travel parallel to them when necessary. When that isn’t possible, biking for 30 blocks and walking for 5 beats the hell out of walking the full 35, and certainly frees me from the constraints of public transit.

I’m also still planning on pursuing the technological solution. My biggest weakness in that area is that I have no concept of traveling in streets as a vehicle rather than as a pedestrian. Do most streets have bike lanes, and if so, how wide are they? How are cyclists like pedestrians, and how do they differ? How much time/space do cyclists need in order to react to obstacles, make turns, etc.? Learning these metrics for myself will help with the technological augmentations.

Unless something vastly changes in the next few days, my plans are to fly to California for three days of flash sonar training–two to grasp the basic technique, and a third specifically targeted at using it to cycle. I plan to document both my experiences learning the technique, as well as the adventures I have after when learning to cycle.

I’d also like to produce a podcast–have in fact wanted to for years–but only if I felt that I had something worthwhile to say. Tentatively titled Raising the Bar, the show will challenge people’s perceptions of blindness, my own included. Consider it my frustrated but diplomatic response to thirty years of being condescendingly congratulated for crossing streets, told to be careful, and avoided by those who fear my disability second only to death, or more than a major condition that causes death. It won’t be regular, but I hope to keep it interesting.

I don’t write Spiel, Hermes and Touchtype for others. I write them for myself, because I want my life to be an interesting one, full of adventure. When those adventures happen, I want the best tools to support me, and no one is better positioned to provide the best solutions for me than am I. I’m grateful to have finally found what seems to be a sound next adventure.