Street Angel 21
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 02/10/2013 - 20:53I sit and try to write, but start sneezing. I've got a list of things to write about, but I'm aching from some sort of virus exacerbated by too much shoveling after the great storm. I've tried to rest as much as possible, but I have a restless mind and have been thinking about a lot of different things. One is the 1928 silent movie, Street Angel.
The other day someone tweeted about a massive open online course, The Language of Hollywood: Storytelling, Sound, and Color. I signed up, watched the first two lectures and then started watching the first movie.
When I have more time, I'll weave this into a broader story about creative problem solving, tying in McLuhan and Papert. At another time, I'll reflect more on what we can learn about storytelling today by looking at early films. At another time, I won't be struggling to stay awake and write.
So, let me reflect, for a few moments on Street Angel itself. We start off with a daughter committing a crime to get medicine for her dying mother. Today, we have a safety net, but it isn't in the best shape, and I can imagine a young Latina born in Connecticut in a similar circumstance trying to get medication for her ailing undocumented mother.
Angelica, in Street Angel, becomes a fugitive, and their is no forgiveness for those who have broken the law. Again, we see parallels to modern day America. Some people broke the law a couple decades ago, coming to this country illegally. But too many people cannot forgive them, cannot give them a path to citizenship because they broke a law twenty years ago. Right now, there is legislation being considered that would ban citizens of Connecticut who have been convicted of drug related crimes from ever getting public assistance. No chance, ever, for forgiveness. Yet these are probably the people that need it most, and perhaps where we could have the biggest impact, lifting a person out of a life of crime and a circle of poverty.
A twenty-first century Street Angel, Street Angel 21, wouldn't be a silent black and white movie. It might be a mashup of graffiti, pictures, video, and social media, trying to address problems that have been around for a century.
The SMART Citizens Town Hall
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 02/09/2013 - 12:00On Thursday, there was another Citizens' Town Hall in Woodbridge. It was a chance for people to get together and discuss what was going on in Hartford. This month, none of the State Legislators could make it, so it was a discussion amongst citizens.
A few had been to a town hall a few weeks before in a neighboring town. That town hall had two State Legislators attend but the people who went to it complained about the lack of specificity by the State Legislators and their unwillingness to commit to anything. Perhaps some of this is because of the hyper-partisan nature of politics today and how divisive some issues are.
As part of the CT Health Foundation's, Health Leadership Fellows Program, I've been thinking a lot about things like the intent of one's action, the actual impact of the actions, and SMART goals. SMART is an abbreviation for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. All of these seem like things State Legislators should be looking towards, even though some of them tend to avoid specificity.
A good example is the discussion about gun control. One of the State Reps danced around the issue saying that it isn't clear what's going to happen yet. However, I've been following the news. I know that a bunch of bills have been introduced recently.
I've been tracking a bunch of bills in Pearltrees. One bill is S.B. No. 604, AN ACT CONCERNING THE SECURE SAFEKEEPING OF FIREARMS.
The purpose of the bill is "To require a firearm's owner to safely secure the firearm in a locked box or container if the owner knows or should that another person residing in the home presents as a danger to self or others."
There are plenty of issues with this bill. Does it lead to further discrimination against mentally ill people? What about veterans with post traumatic stress disorder? On the other hand, shouldn't all firearm owners safely secure firearms? Some would say that they need to keep their guns easily accessible in case of home invasion, so there is an argument against requiring all people to keep their guns constantly secured.
In an article in the New Canaan News, The Nancy Lanza law: Bill focuses on safekeeping of guns, State Rep. Klarides asks, "It's just how to define what the mental health issue is. Where do we draw the line?"
It seems as there are some simple lines that could be drawn. They might not be perfect, but we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. For example, instead of referring to mentally ill people, it might be good to refer to people who have an increased likelihood of misusing guns, including anyone who has been convicted of a drug or alcohol related crime or has been prescribed a psychiatric medicine in the past year.
Legislation, as well as discussions about legislation need to be smarter. They need to be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. Discussing ways to make S.B No. 604 implementable is a good example of ways the legislative process can be smarter.
Storm Streaming and Raspberry Video Stuff
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 02/08/2013 - 20:07Today, I was thinking about best ways to live stream the storm and I was interested in experimenting more with the Raspberry Pi. So I did a little digging and came up with a couple interesting projects.
First, was setting up the Raspberry Pi to stream video that could be shared. This was fairly straight forward. Previously, I had hooked up my Logicam QuickCam Pro 9000 to the Raspberry Pi and it worked pretty well. Now came the task of finding the best way to stream it.
I found this blog post, Using a Raspberry pi to live stream video to Bambuser. So, I set up an account on Bambuser. As a brief diversion, I install bambuser on my Android cellphone and found that it streams nicely that way. I streamed parts of my drive home during the beginning of the storm and it seemed to work well, although I haven't looked at the video it produced.
I simply stuck the cellphone up on the dashboard and tried to keep it from sliding around too much. I may look for options to mount the cellphone to stream car rides in the future.
Getting the Raspberry Pi to stream to Bambuser was incredibly easy. Install a program, set up the parameters and start streaming. It is using rtmp: and I'm wondering if there are other things that I could stream with this. YouTube Live? Google Hangout? Other stuff? That is a project I'll explore a little bit later.
It got me back to another project. I have an old Pinnacle PCTV HD Ultimate Stick (880e) that I'd love to get working with Raspberry Pi. So far, I don't know of anyone who has succeeded with this. By doing a little digging it looks like I need to enable the em28xx device. One blog post that goes into details about this is from Bufocam.
I tried doing this, but it requires perl as part of the procedure and for some reason, I'm having problems installing Perl, so I'll save that for a different day.
The Coming Storm
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 02/07/2013 - 22:16It has been a long day, starting off with a discussion with friends over breakfast about using social media for social good, continuing through discussions over dinner about what is being considered by the state legislature. As a backdrop to all of this is the coming storm.
We covered many interesting topics at the breakfast, focusing on certain fundamentals of social media like message and audience. There was probably enough material at that discussion for several good blog posts. We also covered many interesting topics at the dinner, focusing on certain bills that the legislature was considering as well as how people could respond. Like the breakfast, there was enough material for several good blog posts.
Yet with all that, the storm remains in the background.. All ready school for tomorrow has been canceled, as have been several meetings. The lines in stores and at gas stations are long. The storm is a big news story and there is an excited restlessness as people await the storm as well as the accompanying snow day.
Will the storm live up to its hype? Will it be this storm of historic proportions? How well will we handle it? Will there be extended power outages? I remember the excitement of storms when I was a kid, of having the day off to play outside. Now, I think of those struggling to get by. There was the recent count of the homeless. How will they face the storm? I think of the work I'll need to get done, the cold that I feel like I'm fighting off, with the aches, pains, and fatigue. I think of my sister, who was in a car crash during hurricane Sandy and my mother, who died in that crash.
As I try to gather thoughts for the blog post, I search for webpages talking about coming storms. They talk about survival guides and extreme weather. Some talk about the effect climate change has had on weather patterns. Others talk about the importance of gold, silver and real assets in facing storms. Then, there coming storms within religious traditions, up to and including apocalyptical storms.
My friends who are interested in meteorology talk about different computer models to predict the weather. We didn't have these models when I was young. We didn't have social media to share our thoughts and experiences.
Yet I've written enough about the storm. It is time to rest so that when the time comes, I'll have the energy to persevere.
What's Happening in Hartford?
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 02/06/2013 - 21:05Today, Gov. Malloy announced his proposed Fiscal Year 2014/2015 Biennial Budget. There are plenty of news stories about Gov. Malloy and the budget. But what are legislators saying about all of this?
Well, I set up a Facebook list, CT State Legislators which anyone can subscribe to. You can read through the different posts to find a wide array of reactions. Two State Reps have videos on YouTube that you can find from the Facebook list, State Rep. Bryan Hurlburt and State Rep. Sean Williams. It is very interesting to watch both of these videos and contrast them.
It is also great to see various State Representatives praising the work of State Comptroller Kevin Lembo, with the site that his office has produced, Open Connecticut. Hopefully many people will look at this as they think about our state's budget.
I also set up a set of links using Pearltrees for 2013 Bills before the General Assembly. The inner most circle is for various committees whose bills have been added to the set of links. The second circle is a link to the bills themselves, and the outer circle is links to articles and commentary on the bills. So far, ten committees have had bills added, with nineteen bills and twelve articles added. I've added many of these links, but a thing that is great about Pearltrees is that it can be done as a team effort, so some of the links have been added by others. If there are bills of particular interest to you, please add them. Let me know if you need help getting started.
Finally, for those in the Woodbridge area, there will be another Citizen's Town Hall where people can come and discuss with one another the bills being considered and and what they think about these bills.
