Michelle’s Blog

We all saw the horrible Katrina aftermath. We saw the disconnect people felt after the tsunami. It appears as if Mother Nature has struck again, this time in Burma. A cyclone has left at least 25,000 people dead and millions in a chaotic state of having no means to connect or communicate with others.

So people in Burma don’t have Twitter or Brightkite to connect. A lot of the time, they don’t even have internet because the totalitarian military government shuts it off to prevent people from discussing the killing of pacifists. What some of them have phones. There are many Burmese refugees here in Austin. These people have no idea if their families back home are alive or dead. If you’d like to help them reconnect with their families, just follow these instructions. It will only take five minutes:
1.) Go to www.speedypin.com.
2.) Choose USA–>Myanmar (not what Burmese people like it called, but that’s all a lot of people know)
3.) Buy a “Gemini” calling card. It is best to give these out in $10 increments so they can get spread around equally. Just fill out your own information, as you will just receive the pin in an email.
4.) I would not opt for auto-recharge, as there is no telling where this would go.
5.) You will be receiving an email eventually. Just forward this email to borntohelp(at)earthlink.net. This is Elaine Allan’s email. She helps Burmese refugees here in town and will be more than happy to give the PIN numbers to them.

If you have any problems with this process, please let me know via email at michelle(at)michellesblog.net

There is no need to sit back and idly watch the news if there is something you can do to help. Take a few minutes out of your day to make a difference, and pass this along to someone else who looks bummed. Hit the tiny Digg button at the bottom. After all, helping others physiologically makes you happier.

I am not an “open source evangelist”. My knowledge of code does not extend beyond basic HTML. I have had offers to teach me, but I am a marketer and my career advances when I learn more about marketing, not about code.

I also dabble in volunteering. Generally, I’ve been too career driven to volunteer, but recent circumstances in my life have made me reevaluate my priorities. I’ve been helping Elaine Allen, who works tirelessly to improve the living situations of many refugees here in town. When I tell her about cool new happenings in the tech world, she tells me about people living here in Austin who often run out of money for food. These people are refugees from Burma, Rwanda, Sudan, and Burundi, who came here with nothing but social security numbers and the need to escape a horrible situation. I met a refugee here in Austin who was down to three diapers for her baby and heard stories of another man who worked so tirelessly, he is 55 years old with long hair because he is too busy working as a janitor to actually stop to get a haircut. That is what $7 an hour gets you in Austin.

What does this have to do with Linux? Austin has lost thousands of jobs in the shift to a knowledge based economy. If a person does not have basic internet skills, they will fall further and further behind in the digital divide. I can help these refugees by simply giving them the computers people aren’t using. Why is Linux Ubuntu perfect for this?

What do I not like about using Linux for this project?
I generally like hanging out with people and being outdoors. This means I don’t want to be sitting and installing Flash or Gnash on every machine I get. According to the Linux Journal, I’d also have to install Java, MP3 support, DVD support, video streaming plugins, and true type fonts. People use this stuff, but setting them up on every machine I get fills my heart with dread. I just want to give computers to people who should be using them.

Why Ubuntu is Cool as Hell
Nowadays, software is more expensive than the machine you put it on. With Linux, there are no viruses, free upgrades, open office and gimp already part of the package. I can offer all the basics to people who need them without worrying that I’m going to get hauled off to jail or fined simply for trying to help people who have been through the worst humanity has to offer. This project would simply be too labor intensive and expensive if my only option was Windows.

Mark Shuttlesworth doesn’t have to support Canonical or Ubuntu–he just does. The idea of consciously contributing something so useful to the community at large is truly inspirational.

To learn how you can help these refugees, please visit borntohelp.org. To learn more about Ubuntu, a free operating system built by the developer community, visit Canonical’s website. To donate a computer, please contact me at michelle(at)michellesblog.net or ping me in the Twittosphere at http://www.twitter.com/michelle_greer.

You had the action figures. You watched the cartoons. You even had (or even still have?) superhero underoos. When you were four, being a superhero was the obvious career path for you. You never understood why adults like your parents somehow chose NOT to be superheroes.

Sigh. After a not-too-successful stint as the invisible man and a failed attempt to fly off the roof, you’ve conceded that your image will never be powerful enough to grace the underwear of little boys everywhere.

Not to worry. Here are a few projects you can tackle that do not require you to have superhuman physical strength or x-ray vision:

1.) Trish Forant started a campaign that allows civilians to stay in contact with a member of the armed services at emailourmilitary.com. Currently, if you sign up to start emailing a service member, you have to print a form and mail it to Trish. She is interested in having an online form put on this site. This would require some form of payment processor and SSL as there is a $2 registration fee. If you would like to help with this, please contact Trish here.

If you are technologically inept and/or lazy like me, you can still help by signing up keep in touch with a service member by filling out a form on Trish’s website. There are a host of other great projects on this site to help support our troops.

2.) I am helping collect computers and other items for Burmese refugees currently living in town. These people have suffered greatly at the expense of a ruthless and unjust military regime. They did not get a choice in where they lived and came to the United States with nothing. Here is a list of what they need:
* jobs that offer a decent wage
* English tutors, especially for the ones who can’t get out
* computers (kids know how to use them, but can’t use the school ones before or after school because they ride the bus)
* calculators for the older kids
* telephones & phone cards (MOST DO NOT HAVE PHONES)
* shoes — tennis shoes & sturdy work shoes
* diapers
* ricecookers
* non-perishable foods
* Wal-Mart, H-E-B, etc. gift cards

Since you cannot break out a can of whoopass and single handedly fly over to Burma to defeat the military regime, you can email Elaine at borntohelp(at)earthlink.net if you’d like to offer any assistance to these new Austinites.

You will indeed be defeating evil by helping out in these projects. I wouldn’t count on your image being immortalized as a tiny figurine wrapped in plastic and 100 twist ties though.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Which Superhero are You? If you can’t decide, feel free to take this super old Superhero quiz to find out.

*Which one of these is not true?

The Boom Boom Room is:
a.) The burlesque-style back room at GeekAustin’s newest venue, Union Park.
b.) The place where I hugged a person in a giant Elmo costume and ran into the Big Bad Wolf.
c.) Full of pictures of scantily clad women.
d.) Always crowded, but accessible via a secret entrance that only cool people know to access.

Union Park is a bit of a departure from the subdued and somewhat cramped venue of JBlack’s. With a pool table and video games, an upstairs patio with a view, and the dance-friendly and somewhat naughty Boom Boom Room, Union Park is a great venue for a group as diverse as GeekAustin.

Can you handle unleashing your geek on the Boom Boom Room? If so, RSVP for Get Agile GeekAustin/Agile Austin on Upcoming.

*Actually, they are all true.

Tonight I went to Jay B. Sauceda’s benefit for osteosarcoma research. I’ve already touched on the story of how I ran into Jay B. by reading Cesar Torres’s Tweet about his awesome avatar picture. What I have not told you is how I ran into Willie Tichenor.

Willie was Jay B.’s friend from the Iron Spikes student organization at the University of Texas. Even though he was new in the organization that fall semester, Willie was a nice guy, always trying to foster a sense of fun and community among the others. Willie was bald and battling osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer, when Jay B. met him. He never seemed to talk about it. He just wanted to have a good time with his new friends.

During the spring, Willie lost his fight against osteosarcoma. The Iron Spikes had no idea he was so sick. Willie probably wanted it that way. After all, he had a much better time just being one of the guys. When the group went to the funeral in Highland Park, they saw an overwhelming crowd of people there to offer their condolences. After talking with others, they realized what an amazing person Willie was. The experience of knowing him helped bring the group together, and many of Willie’s friends were there at the benefit tonight.

So I’ve never met Willie Tichenor. I am sad that his life was taken from him at such a young and exciting age. I do know that his joyful spirit inspired a group of people to connect with each other to raise money and awareness for his cause. I also know that we can have more and more events like this one to foster the sense of community and stewardship he would have wanted.

To make a donation for osteosarcoma research, please contact Jay B.

In memory of Willie Tichenor, a person I have never met.
http://flickr.com/photos/michellesblog/sets/72157604583744765

People who say that alternate sources of fuel are 10-15 years away crack me up. As someone who worked at BMW for two years who was planning on running an online dealership, I knew what the auto industry had in the pipeline. BMW touted its hydrogen hybrid when I worked there back in 2004 and VW presented the cleanest burning diesel vehicle ever at the L.A. Auto Show last month. You could literally run this diesel engine on peanut oil with no modifications to the engine whatsoever if you had to. The diesel engine has been this way since its inception, and biodiesel technology is becoming more efficient every year. Americans pay over $100 per gallon because 1.) we don’t realize the optional technologies already being used by other countries and 2.) even though increased gas prices act like a horrible oppressive tax on everything we consume, we fail to look for reasonable alternatives.

According to a BusinessWeek article, Honda is releasing their Honda FCX Clarity to beta testers in Los Angeles as early as 2009. The Clarity is a slick-looking hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle already being tested by major auto magazines. The cost? A lease will run drivers $600 a month.

I just can’t get excited for the prospects of this vehicle just yet. America’s favorite sport, like it or not, is Nascar. We get larger cars than we could possible could because they’re large, and faster cars than we need because they are fast. Cars are ingrained in the American culture. Would people spend more on a car with 136 horsepower than they would on a fully loaded BMW 328, an ultra low emissions vehicle? Wouldn’t that money be better spent just getting a home closer to work?

What would I do if I were a Honda executive? Pick an assortment of technology leaders, non-profits, journalists, scientists, and plain regular folks, and just give them the cars to try out. Ask for their feedback on how to make it faster, cheaper, and more practical. And then tell us all about it. Show the car from all aspects, good and bad, to the people who will hopefully buy it one day. Make it ours. A $600 lease means it will just go to the Leonardo DiCaprios or Ed Begley Jrs. of the world, and they are going to like anything that’s green. That includes cars that aren’t affordable or marketable. In the long run, that’s just stupid. Being green shouldn’t be seen as a holier-than-thou status symbol or a pie-in-the-sky ideal. Being green means we can finally remove the elephant from the room, which is Exxon’s 40 billion dollar per year profits at the expense of the American people.

Inspired by Ed Schipul’s honest post on the economy. Although the economy is bleak, acknowledging our options is the first step.

Cool Related Links:
The Audi A8 diesel drove from London to Edinburgh and back on one tank of gas.
The X Prize Foundation is giving $10 million to the fastest production-ready car getting over 100 MPG.

I’ve been on guard as of late. Since watching my sister undergo both brutal treatment for leukemia and a stem cell transplant, I look for any opportunity to lay my vengeance on cancer. Cancer sucks.

No one should have to deal with that disease.

Fortunately, some other people also think cancer sucks, so it looks like I’m not alone here. I ran into Jay B. Sauceda’s site watching my Twitter stream. Jay B. Sauceda is a photographer here in town with his own studio. I scrolled to the bottom of his site and he is having a happy hour for osteosarcoma research on April 16th from 5-10 PM. Osteosarcoma is the most common malignant form of bone cancer, accounting for 35% of bone malignancies. Any proceeds from prints purchased at Jay’s event will go straight to osteosarcoma research.

So basically, you can drink beer or wine, hang out at a photography studio, buy cool prints for your house, office, or friends, and help make osteosarcoma history. This seems like a real win/win here.

The event will take place at Jay’s studio at 301 #i Chicon in east Austin from 5-10 PM on April 16th. Please leave your katana sword at home ;).

I love to travel. That’s why I was very happy to find HappyHotelier running through Guy Kawasaki’s Twitterstream. His real name is Guido van den Elshout and he runs a small hotel in the Hague, Netherlands. The Netherlands seems like a great place to visit and I thought both the look and the language of his blog HappyHotelier were both very nice, so I added him.

By following his Twitter stream, I discovered a network of Twitter users called the T-List. This was started by both Guido and a blogger Elliot Ng right here in Austin. Small world! The T-List is composed of a group of travel bloggers and others interested in travel who can share posts and ideas about all the interesting places they visit. The bloggers involved span anywhere from Austin, to Egypt, France, Thailand, and Australia. By direct messaging the T-list, users can share ideas from all over the world.

The T-List has just started. If you are interested, follow it here.

(CC) Please feel free to share or redistribute this list under Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial Share Alike license 3.0 (CC by-nc-sa 3.0) with a link back to this original post.

I saw this Tweet from Tara Hunt earlier and was disturbed by it:

Uh oh. GreenDevCamp in trouble again. Needed: sponsors and wifi. Meraki contacted, but sponsors out there? http://moourl.com/i51tq about 11 hours ago from twitterrific

Tara Hunt, a.k.a. Miss Rogue, is one of the few Twitterati I actually follow. It’s not that I don’t like the Twitterati–it’s that if I follow them all, Twitter moves too fast for me to make sense of it. But I like Tara’s blog HorsePigCow and am interested in what she has to say.

I helped Whurley and Gio some with BarCamp Austin III. It was a fun experience for me. Why? Because unlike every job I’ve ever had, I didn’t have to ask permission to make something happen. I just did it. Ping pong table? Done. My brother the cameraman? Done. Burmese refugees and social media? Done. For someone who has always struggled trying to overcome egos just to make positive contributions to projects at work, it was incredibly liberating. When I invited people who knew nothing about BarCamp, they assumed it was my event. I didn’t try to sell it that way, they just assumed it was because I chose to bring something to the table.

So back to Tara’s tweet. GreenDevCamp is a BarCamp that will mobilize people to use and create green technology. I am not a software developer, but I understand that green technology allows the human race to remain healthy as we grow into the 21st century. If we used the fossil fuel intensive technologies of 100 years ago, there is no way we would be living the quality of life we enjoy today. Who knows, perhaps we wouldn’t be around. Even if we take the most conservative stance by denying global warming, pollution is still linked to increased cancer, asthma, birth defects, and countless other diseases. We cannot ignore it if we want to pass on a better world to our children.

Technology can help us sustain growth. It always has. GreenDevCamp is an opportunity to support that. You don’t have to ask permission to contribute either financially or to GreenDevCamp itself. Rather than waiting for our politicians to finally put global warming and our other environmental problems on their schedules, perhaps it is time for us to step up and take matters into our own hands.

Making a small piece of GreenDevCamp your own can be as simple as making a contribution.

Someone: “Calacanis is like a fungus. He grows on you.” 04:00 PM March 29, 2008 from web

@tangofoxtrot: “we’re creating the 10 commandments on the web. 2 column tablet. Only displays in Moseszilla” 09:23 PM March 22, 2008 from web

@guykawasaki: “Sperm in your hair isn’t terrorism?” 06:07 PM March 17, 2008 from web

The Twittosphere is listening to you…

Don’t keep those funny Tweets/comments to yourself. Expose your friends’/foe’s funny and embarrassing comments to wasoverheard. Here’s how it works:
1.) Start following wasoverheard on Twitter.
2.) Wasoverheard will automatically follow you back.
3.) Listen in for stupid/crazy/witty stuff your friends say.
3.) When you hear something cool, direct message wasoverheard with @(person who said comment) and what they said, and the comment will be posted for all of wasoverheard’s followers to see. This will be posted anonymously, so you shouldn’t have any problems getting away with it.
4.) Laugh at your friend’s pain. Or don’t. That’s really up to you.
5.) Wasoverheard is a community project. The benefit of following it is a constant stream of funny one-liners flowing through your Twitterstream.

I have no idea who started wasoverheard, but I would like to thank the guys at b5media for pointing it out to me. Too funny!