This week:

• review Piratebox projects
• review documentation
• group project work

Project Review

Documentation Review

Steve Lambert - Documenting Work

Offline-Pedia

Offline-Pedia is a project by undergraduate students at Yachay University in Ecuador to bring Wikipedia to rural communities. The students are using Raspberry Pi computers running Raspbian, re-purposed CRT televisions and wood for housing the computers. The Offline-Pedia contains both Wikipedia and full free books from Project Gutenberg, running the software Kiwix, an offline wikipedia, text and media browser.

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Resources

Wikimedia Foundation Rapid Grants - file an application between the 1st and 15th of the month, hear back by end of the month. They are particularly interested in grants for their broad themes of Monuments, Awareness, Africa, Art + Feminism, Earth. These grants are for $500 - 2000. There are other larger grants as well for organizations.

Keepalive

by Aram Bartholl

Keepalive from Aram Bartholl on Vimeo.

The boulder from the region Neuenkirchen, Niedersachsen contains a thermoelectric generator which converts heat directly into electricity. Visitors are invited to make a fire next to the boulder to power up the wifi router in the stone which then reveals a large collection of PDF survival guides. The piratebox.cc inspired router which is NOT connected to the Internet offers the users to download the guides and upload any content they like to the stone database. As long as the fire produces enough heat the router will stay switched on. The title Keepalive refers to a technical network condition where two network endpoints send each other ’empty’ keepalive messages to maintain the connection.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keepalive To visit the piece please arrange an appointment with Springhornhof.de.

writeup on HyperAllergic

Camera Restricta

by Phillip Schmitt

Camera Restricta from Philipp Schmitt on Vimeo.

Algorithms are already looking through the viewfinder alongside with you: they adjust settings, scan faces and take a photo when you smile. What if your grin wasn’t the only thing they cared about? Camera Restricta is a speculative design of a new kind of camera. It locates itself via GPS and searches online for photos that have been geotagged nearby. If the camera decides that too many photos have been taken at your location, it retracts the shutter and blocks the viewfinder. You can’t take any more pictures here.

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