Online Go Server OGS Status Page Enhancer

I’ve been playing the game go at Dragon Go Server and Online Go Server, both “turn-based” go servers, which means it’s like playing by mail.  You don’t have to devote an hour to sitting down and playing a whole game, like you do in person, or on a real-time server.  You might only play one move per game every day, or every couple of days.  Because of this, most people are playing more than one game at a time.  Each server has a status page where all of the games are listed where it’s your turn.

For DGS, tps12 wrote a greasemonkey script that enhances the status page by automatically refreshing it and also by putting the number of games where it’s your turn in the title of the page, so it shows up in a tab even when you’re looking at a different page.  It’s an awesome script!

I thought it would be cool to have something similar for OGS, so I wrote the: Online Go Server OGS Status Page Enhancer.  Let me know if you us it, or if you improve it, or if you have an idea for improving it (no promises I’ll be able to do it!).

Green Roofs

I met with Kevin from Xero Flor America, LLC tonight.  The name is a bit confusing because their website is xeroflora.com.  Anyway, they’re the leading contenders for suppying our green roof.  A green roof means growing stuff up there.  Not flowers or anything, but sedum.  Sedum is a succulent that’s ideal because it can hold a lot of water, but is also very drought resistant.  The whole point of having a green roof is to reduce stormwater runoff.  Well, that’s one of the points.  Here in Chicago when we have heavy rains, the water treatment plants can’t handle all of the volume in our combined storm water and sewage system so we release raw sewage into the river.  That’s bad, obviously.  So here at the HUB (my co-op) this year we’re going ot install a green roof, which should vastly reduce the amount of runoff we have.  We’re also depaving part of our concrete courtyard to plant a rain garden, which is native grasses that grow really deep roots so then can absorb a lot of water.  Water for the rain garden will come from our disconnected downspouts as well as our rainbarrels.  Wow, we’re doing a lot!  We’ll see how it goes.  Anyway, let me know if you have experiences with Xero Flor.  Thanks!

Academy Award for Best Networking

I received (credit for this post title to Lars) this email today (only emails removed, and link formatting changed slightly):

From: Janet Feldman
Date: Fri Feb 16 2007 10:58 AM
Re: O/net Conference: Networking Some Participants (Minciu Sodas, ActALIVE, et al)

Hello Dear All,

This is a networking mail for the Omidyar conference taking place in Gulu, Uganda, from Feb 19-21. I am networking people who contacted me abt it (from postings), and/or who are affiliated with Minciu Sodas, ActALIVE, and O/net. Have a fantastic conference, all!!

I’m delighted to read that Mark Grimes (O/net) will be linking up with Fred Kayiwa (Minciu Sodas). And to report that at least one member of ActALIVE will attend the conference, and represent us there. This is Dennis Kimambo (an O/net member too, who is also affiliated with the Peace Tiles Project).  Others may include Paul Mwirigi and Ron Odhiambo. Lars Hasselblad Torres (Peace Tiles Project), Joy Tang (oneVillage Foundation), and myself will be there in spirit!

Mark, hello and happiest 2007!   I’m hoping that you might give Fred, or post to some among us, the business-template program you mentioned when we last spoke. 

It would be very helpful to a number of us working within Minciu Sodas, and founder/director, Andrius Kulikauskas, including the Kenyan I was originally thinking about when we discuused this–Sam Kongere of Udogo Youth Development in Mbita–who is working on a project proposal including a crafts business and ICTs-equipped learning center, and could benefit greatly from this guidance. 

Others among us in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, and elsewhere could also benefit, as could the oneVillage Foundation, based in the USA and working in Africa (Joy Tang and Jeff Buderer). OVF is an ActALIVE member, and runs an MS forum called Back To The Root.

For everyone, Mark is a social entrepreneur who has created and worked with a number of humanitarian nonprofits, and is developing , an organization-idea-vision for “doing good”, which involves individuals and groups working together to make the world a better place (can’t get better than that!). has “in house” business models and outside partners, affiliates, and alliances, all working together on this vision. He is also a board member of the Peace Tiles Project.

As to other intros:

1) Christina Jordan is director of Life in Africa Foundation, located in Gulu, Uganda, and the primary organizer/host of the conference.   Immense thanks for everything, Christina!!!

2) Dennis Kimambo of Nakuru, Kenya, is a co-founder of REPACTED, a youth theater troupe which focuses on HIV/AIDS and development issues, and will be representing ActALIVE, a global coalition whose members use the arts to address HIV/AIDS and the MDGs.  I (Janet Feldman) am its founder/director, and I also run the international branch of a Kenyan HIV/AIDS and development nonprofit, KAIPPG.  I am moderator of Holistic Helping at MS, a forum which works towards integrative solutions to issues related to development (HIV/AIDS, poverty, food insecurity, lack of ICTs access).

3) Fred Kayiwa is a Ugandan student who will be representing Minciu Sodas and our various working groups. He is at Holistic Helping and Learning From Each Other

4) David Mutua is the Nairobi-based director of CAWD-Kenya, a branch of CAWD (Charity for African Welfare and Development), located in the UK. Pam McLean is the director, and is moderator of Learning From Each Other, at MS. 

5) Eric Wanjamah (hello Eric!!) is a social worker who is especially interested in helping people in special circumstances, such as those affected by poverty, HIV/AIDS, and war. He has spent time helping in Darfur, Sudan, as has another Kenyan, Moses Kariuki, who will be at the conference, but whose email address I do not have (hope people will meet him!).  Moses works with the Nasir Community Development Agency, an organisation formed by Sudanese who have fled Sudan, as well as friends from Kenya who share the dream.

6) Olivia Mugabirwe is an assistant lecturer at Makerere University (Education Faculty), who also works in youth-related projects, to enhance their participation in community development activities. She is a founder of PeerLink Initiative Uganda (PELI-U), which promotes youth involvement in HIV/AIDS prevention, care, support, and mitigation, as well as sustainable livelihood and environment management activities. PeerLink uses ICTs extensively in its work, and seeks to link “wired” youth (often in urban areas) with “non-wired” youth (mainly in rural areas). A unique aspect of its program is combining a focus on ICTs literacy and access, with HIV/AIDS education and prevention. 

7) Monica Nankoma works with Outside the Dream Foundation , a US-headquartered nonprofit providing education and more for youth affected by HIV/AIDS, poverty, and war in Uganda. She is based in Uganda, and has also worked there with Life in Africa Foundation. 

8) Issa Isihaka is a Tanzanian youth who is working with various organizations such as GYCA, ISCA (International Student Conference on HIV/AIDS), and ARYI. He is involved with issues related to HIV/AIDS, development, environment, ICTs, and education, and has recently attended the World Social Forum in Nairobi.

9) Ted Ernst is with the Humanist Movement, which has a number of projects in African countries.  Recently he and I discovered a common working link to a refugee camp outside Accra, Ghana, called Budaburam. 

10) Paul Mwirigi is an ActALIVE member who is with AIESEC Uganda. AIESEC is the world’s largest student organization, which has a number of programs including an international exchange program. AIESEC Africa is focused in particular on addressing HIV/AIDS through youth leadership and volunteerism. 

11) Ron Odhiambo works with the Sant Egidio Community in Kenya. In addition, he is an artist and playwright, who has created and been performing a play on the Peace Tiles (how to make them and what their purpose is) and has helped to facilitate the making of 3000+ tiles in Kenya. I am also ccing Lars Hasselblad Torres, Peace Tiles Project creator. Both are ActALIVE members. 

12) Ken Chelimo  is an ICTs expert who is working to set up the Kenya Telecentre Network, a branch activity of Telecentre.org and UgaBYTES, a Uganda-based regional telecenter network. Ken has recently set up an information-management system for Regional AIDS Training Network, a regional network based in Nairobi.  Ken is working with a group of nonprofits (including KAIPPG) in Kenya called GRASSUP NOW, who use ICTs to address issues related to sustainable development (sponsored by The Commonwealth of Learning).

13) Mike Wanyama is a Kenyan health advocate, and member of Global Youth Partners Kenya (affiliated with UNFPA). 

14) Abdou Karekooma is a Tanzanian post-grad student who is a long-time peace activist. 

With blessings and “O-ffections” (artistic and otherwise) always, Janet  (Feldman)

Neighbors Project

Via west north is the Neighbors Project here in Chicago. An excerpt from their Neighbor’s Manifesto:

I call on the urban generation to fearlessly pursue our passions and principles in order to inspire and engage the rest of the country to come out of isolation and rejoin the local and national conversations. This manifesto is the embodiment of my hope in a cultural evolution towards an urban future.

I’ve been expressing for a while now that I think the future of humanity is in the cities.  I have some close friends that espouse a kind of “back to the land” philosophy that seems to take them to rural, or semi-rural places.  While I do see that we need to have a more intimate connection with the natural world (hence my involvement with the Chicago Conservation Corps), that natural world, including food production, is also right here in the city.  It’s close-by and doesn’t require burning fossil fuels to get to it.

Chicago city-wide wireless Digital Inclusion

From Michael Maranda Chicago Community Benefits Campaign – Sept.’06

Context:    The City of Chicago is set to release an RFP for
city-wide wireless Internet.  Community groups are mobilizing to
make sure that the Digital Inclusion provisions of the RFP are
more than lip-service, and that appropriate community partnerships
are formed for the long term.    Community Technology is the path
to Economic Opportunity and Civic Empowerment.   Our time is now.
Please spread the word on the following appeal.  We can use
in-kind donations as well as cash.  We’d also welcome anyone ready
to roll-up their sleeves to build this effort.    We want to have
meetings in every community of Chicago.

Better Use of a Parking Spot

Via the carfree email list and then by web search:

Citywide parking space art event
The only requirements are that you:
1. Use a parking space with a meter
2. Don’t engage in any activity that would be illegal in and of itself

You will “rent” the space(s) by paying the requisite amount for the time. This payment should authorize and entitle you to use the space in any way you choose. Why should cars be privileged? Why should so much space be devoted exclusively to automobiles?

The purpose of these citywide action/performances is to interfere with the monolithic and unimaginative uses of urban space.

– Jenny Roberts

Open Space and Open Source toward The World We Want

There’s some good stuff percolating over at The World We Want. Check out: Building Communities Worth Having

The World We Want

Last year, I answered some questions about the World We Want with My Vision of a Better World The conversation has continued and I recommend that you read Open Letter to H. Peter Karoff part of which says:

A little money goes a very long way when people are hungry for democracy. Just open a crack, give them an excuse, and don’t make it too fancy, or formal or stilted.

A todo list for our community

Interesting beginning of a list here from FootprintsintheWind.com

• Ecological clean-up and sustainability implementation.
• Climate change mitigation.
• Urban restoration.
• Improving literacy levels globally.
• Feeding, clothing, sheltering, education, and inspiring billions of humans.
• Ensuring decent care for the growing percentage (sic) of elderly in our societies.
• Providing learning and creative opportunities for all.

Doug goes on with his own list. I’m thinking of doing the same. Am more likely to do it if I publish this starter, rather than leave it in my drafts folder forever.

library, not just books anymore – tools too!

This is such a great idea.  A tool lending library.