I am in the airport in Amsterdam on my way home to the US after a pretty decent nights sleep on the KLM from South Africa. This trip has been simply amazing, probably because I was taken around by locals, most of them who are U of C anthro students or graduate, all of them from South Africa.

I have already started to write a few entries but will finish them when I get back. In the meantime, since I started the trip with an entry about an adapter, here is some more information on them.

When I was researching the type of adapter needed for South Africa, much of the information on the web indicated that while South Africa took the M plug, one could get by with the British adapter as that is quite common here. I have to say that I never saw that type of plug at all… There seems to be one and only one type of plug so if you do come here, do purchase the South Africa-specific adapter.

I have made it to South Africa and the official part of the Law and Society conference has come, sadly, to an end. It has been an amazing experience for reasons that deserve a lot more attention than I have right now so I will wait to write some about it when I have more time.

But before I forget, Lars has been thoughtful enough to put the Debian History Roundtable Discussion on the Debian Wiki.

I organized this roundtable at Debconf4 and while there is a good chunk of information from the discussion, there is a lot missing and perhaps even wrong, so please make changes and additions.

I am in the Zurich airport en route to South Africa. I was thrilled that I had the right plug-adaptor to use because I have a long lay over. But when I wanted to pop it out to leave and explore the city, I found a very stuck adaptor. Very. 2 British guys assisted but to no avail. It may stay here forever so fellow Americans, you will always have a perma-adaptor in the Zurich airport. It is in the “Pearl: Bar” across from Bur Erry.. Just look and you will find.

While it may not be half-naked chicks and dinosaurs, the general point is so on the money. Thankfully a good portion of my research is on and about the Internet.

Apparently the link gets redirected so here here is the link to the blog entry with image

Last month I went to Mexico to attend Debconf6 and then I traveled with 4 geeks to Oaxaca. Here are a few photos from the trip, which was quite lovely, though I stalled writing anything about it here because I was thrown into a strom of sickness during my last week there and into my first week here.

I have been to Mexico a few times before though usually in passing or in Baja, which is somewhat nice but desolate. This was the first time I had any sustained exposure to Mexico and it was quite nice. Some of my favorite things about the country and my visit are perhaps a little odd but they are what took me in and here are some of them…

For example, during Debconf proper, I feel in love with the following reptile and very surprisingly, because, when it comes to animals, I usually like the soft and cuddly and not the scaly and spiny. But…. this lizard was…. special. Here is how I found him: We were eating at a restaurant after a visit to some ruins and there we found this little guy caged at the back of the restaurant. I was more than a little miffed that he was trapped (and by butting his head against the cage, he clearly was saying I WANT OUT) and so was about to pull a “PETA move” and just let him out. But I decided that was not such a good idea so instead I went over to the owners to ask why the little one was caged. In answer to my query, they promptly pulled him out and told me he first that he was a chameleon (which does not seem right to me) and was usually free to roam but when there are a lot of folks (as there were) they lock him up.

He plopped the little one on my arm and alas, what I pleasantly found out was that a lizard can act an awful lot like a dog. He LOVED to be pet and basically had a look of all-out-pleasure when you stroked his back. And at times, with a particularily good stroke, he would even subtly smile and flutter his hind leg a little just like a doggie.

Aside from a special dog-like reptile, there were many other things that I loved about Mexico. The food at the market was divine, divine, especially the corn smut a.k.a huitlacoche and all the salsas were better than you could imagine. It is tragic that every city does not have a local market with such divine food.

The architecture of Oaxaca was especially stuning as was the whole city center. It reminded me of viejo San Juan in Puerto Rico but the buildings were a little lower (apparently because of earthquakes) and the environment was dryer and more expansive. Our hostel was courtyard style (as were many houses there) and I think the courtyard should be revived as the defacto style for housing as this is probably one of the most enticing and smart architectural styles ever (at least in warm places). While a home is suppsed to provide shelter to enclose, the courtyard brings some of the outside inside and some of the inside outside.

While in Oaxaca we met some folks from espora, walked a lot in the city, met up with other Debian folks traveling about, and cleaned out Vagrant’s ear which was truly … well I won’t go into that. We also drove for a few hours up to the mountains for a few nice hikes. The town hoped we happy trip and I think we did.

Mexico city, by a number of measures, is one of the largest in the world and I unfortunately only got to see the Zocalo area as well as the subway. The center was quite impressive and especially nice before a thunderous storm One night at the Zocalo we happened upon a free concert, the lineup including the Tijuana Nortec Collective.

One of the most dynamite parts of Mexico City is its impressive and I mean impressive subway system. In a nutshell, the system is large, clean, efficient, cheap, and quiet (thanks to thick and black rubber tires). The trains come quickly, ferrying the millions of riders who pay 20 cents for a ride on a lovely bright orange train. Every time I rode it, without fail, a vendor entered the car, loaded with a backpack that doubled as a radio/stereo, who was selling pirated music. I appreciated the sample and bought one disc chock full of mp3s.

Like most urban trains, the riders are silent and I have always wondered why this is so. When I go to PR, I ride the busses much more and there, as in the states on the busses, there seems to be more open flow of chatter. Perhaps it is because trains are quite comfortable and they lull already tired riders into a state of quite contemplation. Who knows.

So these are some of the things that I liked about Mexico but perhaps the most exciting part about the country was the clear political heatwave passing through, just as it is with much of Latin America. In the zocalo of Mexico City there were various stands protesting the attacks in Atenco, as well as general protests against neoliberal policies. The city of Oaxca was also filled to the gills with protesting teachers, demanding a pay raise. Thousands of them were camped out all over the city center, which is apparently a year rite. Sadly, in the last week the police broke up the protest, violently…

Hannah Wallach is not only amazing because she introduced me to the trippiest game ever, Rez (and is an amazing player herself), but has worked diligently over the last few years to get more women involved in free software. Not only is she one of the ladies that help ignite Debian Women, she has helped spearhead an initiative to get more women in Gnome via Google Summer of Code. So a double thanks to Hannah and read on below for some more info on the initiative.

BOSTON, Mass – June 13, 2006 – The GNOME Foundation is offering USD$9000 to female students in order to promote the participation of women in GNOME-related development.

The money originates from GNOME’s participation in the Google “Summer of Code” program (code.google.com/soc/), for which GNOME developers will mentor 20 students working throughout the northern summer on GNOME-related projects. This year GNOME received 181 applications to Google’s program, yet none were from women. The GNOME Foundation has therefore chosen to reinvest Google’s contribution into a new program designed to increase the participation of women in GNOME. The program has no official relationship with Google.

“Free software prides itself on being open to anyone with a good idea, yet less than 2% of free software developers are female. We, as a community, need to be actively working to change this statistic, and programs like this one are a much needed step in the right direction.” said Hanna Wallach, a GNOME developer who is involved in several projects that encourage women to participate in free software development.

The Women’s Summer Outreach Program is currently accepting applications from female students. Accepted students will receive a stipend of USD$3000 over a two month period. A pool of project ideas is provided at www.gnome.org/projects/wsop/, though original proposals are also encouraged. Projects may either be related to GNOME directly, or indirectly via projects such as Gstreamer and Abiword. Each student will be assigned a mentor to provide guidance throughout the program.

As soon as summer hits, my muse takes an extended vacation and I only write sparingly and occasionally (and somewhat painfully without the muse).

But as soon as I read and heard from a number of places, notably Savage Minds that the American Anthropological Association is lobbying against open access, I decided to work against my disinclination to write to say a few words. Rex at Savage Minds, as well as others have already covered thoroughly and thoughtfully, the basic issues as well as why it is incredibly problematic for the AAA not to endorse what is an otherwise powerful and positive Federal initiative that would require final mauscripts based on federally funded research to be accessible to the public after 6 months. So I wont be redundant here and will keep this short, but I would like to say that in an era in which government roll-backs (and in nearly every quarter of life) are simply commonplace and causing a fair deal of social problems, any initiative in which there is a push to make scholarship, *based on federal funds*, public and accessible, seems imperative to support, not squash. Many anthropologists, as probably many scholars, I imagine,like to think that some of their work has some public import and as such, we should do everything possible to make the work as accessible as possible, which will also give access to the communities and people we work with. They mention the supposed threat open access will have to peer review. First I don’t think that arguement stands up and more important, if peer review is simply a self-referential exercise, in which it can’t happen in a context of openness and accessiblity, what good is peer review??

Given the recent AnthrSource Initiative, as well as the general open/populist/ liberal/downright radical political inclinations among anthropologists, and the fact that the discipline in the last 25 years has been somewhat obsessed with the question of ethics, I was quite shocked at this move. But apparently (and thankfully) there were very few people at the AAAs behind the decision, which is somewhat comforting. What I hope now ensues is the formation and expression of a very strong response among the members of the AAA asking for a response from our elected board and an eventual rethinking of this stance.

Marc Perlman who I had the pleasure of meeting at various conferences this year will be performing on June 18th in NYC at the Symphony Space as part of performance of Javanese Gamelan and Wayang Shadow Puppets. If you are NYC, you should try to go, as this is not to be missed. I, however, will sadly miss it, as I will be out of town, yet again.

Another Debconf has come and passed. This was my 3rd conference and surely to be one of the more memorable, partly because I showed up for the whole time (and am now traveling with 4 other DD’s in Mexico) and partly because of a few problems that plagued my visit. There is no doubt that I had a wonderful time but some of my attention was drawn away from enjoyment toward crisis management. For the first few days, it was due to computer problems (now sort of fixed) and then the last few days I had “Biella Hardware” problems in the form of one of the worst combo sore throats/ body aches that I have had in recent memory (now sort of fixed but not entirely).

Now that I am in Oxaca, I hope to spend a little time blogging about this year’s Debconf but before I wanted to pass along what I think has been one of the more amusing experiences thus far in Mexico. So yesterday a group of us (Jeroeun, Martin K, Micah, Vagrant) rented a car to head off to the Southern city of Oxaca. I have actually never rented a car in a foreign country, and I was a little concerned about everything from price to roads to cops. Amid my nervousness, the employee at Thrify was sort of reassuing and quite nice but he gave us some unfortunate news: he warned us that as we reached this one particular circular intersection in Mexico City we would be stopped by a cop (because we are tourists) and basically bribed. This was not surprising news to be but I was surprised at how upset this made me. (maybe because I have never had such an experience and thought I would mangle it when the time came to pass off the money or offset the bribe or whatever). Anyway, after we packed 5 bodies and copious luggage into our compact Nissan, we headed off somewhat prepared to face off the cop and decided it was best I drive as I was the Spanish speaker. We made our way through the congested streets and headed toward the intersection and as we got closer, I thought to myself “how are they going to spot us within all this traffic?” But you see, the thing about this intersection is as soon as you make the turn left, you hit a light and need to stop for a long time. And you see, this gives the cop ample time to switch on the “tourist radar” and spot the noticeable white bodies. Sure enough, within 30 seconds of stopping at the intersection, a Mexican cop walks over and there is where the fun began.

So he basically told me that I did not use my signal lights for turning when I made a left and that this infraction would cost me US $120. At this point I started to get a little freaked (I already dropped too much money on a rental car) but I remained calm and told him basically in Spanish “With all respect, officer, I think I used my light because I am in a foreign country and am very aware that I must follow all traffic rules.” After a little back and forth, I moved on to the “bribe stage.” While we were told that 100 pesos (10 US) was the typical bribe, we, being cheapskates, just offered 5 US. And then, magically, at that point, the officer said, “ok just go ahead and be careful not to repeat the offense next time.” I was shocked. I mean there was some money being offered right there and I was sure he was going to ask for a little more. But he backed off. Why?

I think it was a combination of factors. Ok so perhaps he was surprised that I knew what was going on. Perhaps he was uncomfortable that I knew Spanish. But I think he the tipping point was due to cultural factors. I think he found it odd that there was this little woman driving a car with 4 grown and pretty large men. Given the gender dynamics in the country, this was just beyond his cultural comfort zone and he realized that I was badassss, and he just backed off. Ok, so I don’t really know if that is what happened but I like the explanation and am glad I got off the hook

For many years a number of Debian Developers have suggested that I include my blog on Planet Debian. Over the last few years, a combination of inertia and resistance kept me away, but I think after my 3rd Debconf, my 2nd talk at Debconf, and writings on Debian, I decided it would be a nice idea. For those readers of Interprete, there will still be enteries there that won’t appear on Debian Planet as the only categories that are slated to appear are the posts related to Debian, technology and the anthropology of technology.