sudo-discuss

sudo-discuss@sudoroom.org

2 participants
7538 discussions

by Jake

Last night someone came to the omni and rang the doorbell. Someone inside Omni answered the door for this person, let them in, and then asked them questions like "which group are you with" and "who do you know here" and I guess the interaction didn't go ideally well. At this point I became aware of the interaction and went over, introduced myself to both people, and was reminded by the new person that we had met before at old sudoroom. I said that the problem was solved and asked each person if they needed anything else before going about their business, and they didn't. The person who opened the door apologized to the person who had been let in, and they went their seperate ways. The person who was let in may have felt that they were being questioned partially because of their race and that of the person who opened the door. They may have been right. Only a scientific study could tell us whether people are more likely to question someone of a different race in situations of power and responsibility like letting someone "in". Rather than continue such experiments, formally or informally, i suggest we accelerate toward a flat system for situations where a person rings the doorbell and the person who answers doesn't know them already. We can be very specific about the instructions and attach them to a laminated card tied near the door, so that the person being questioned knows that their treatment is 100% standard regardless of their race or appearance. The card should say something like this: If you answer the door and you don't know the person, ask them their name or nickname and which group's list they are on. You can check by typing their name / nickname into the computer near the front door, and it will tell you if they are on a list or not. (it may provide a picture or description depending on that persons' preference) If they are not on a groups' list, ask them if they are looking for someone who is present at the Omni right now. If they say yes, offer to help them find that person. (If you don't have time for this, don't answer the door) If they are not on a groups' list, and you can't find (with their help) the person whom they are looking for, you need to decide whether to host them as your guest or not. If a group you represent values community involvement, treat this as an opportunity to introduce a new person to your group by hosting them in the space while you're there. Offer them a tour of your groups' space, and tell them about the weekly meetings and how to get more involved, and how to become a member with door access (and getting their name on the list). Don't turn people away unnecessarily. If it seems appropriate, ask if they have a specific task they are trying to accomplish, such as retreiving or dropping off an item. If they want to take something, you will have to use your judgement as to whether it's OK to do so without consulting someone specific about it. Perhaps they can help you contact someone you trust over the telephone, or perhaps you believe them because their story sounds good. Just do what you think is best, and keep the person's feelings in mind when proposing an alternative, such as trying again another time. Keep in mind that when opening the door to someone without a key of their own, you are in a position of power over them. With this power comes great responsibility, and you are representing your group and the Omni collective in general to whoever is at the door. Your actions have the power to do great damage to years of community outreach, or to welcome wonderful new people who will bring more great people along with them. And remember that whatever responsibility you feel about protecting our spaces from theft of some replaceable piece of equipment is not nearly as important as your responsibility to treat each person with great respect and care as you represent your community at the Omni. Thank you, the door

12 years, 1 month

Gittip spinoff seeks advice on democratic governance & bylaws for web applications

by Rabbit

Hey all! Recently there was a controversy at Gittip which resulted in a project to fork or rebuilding it with better governance structures and more focus on the needs and safety of marginalized users. They are figuring out how to run a web application in a cooperative democratic way that focuses on the needs of the users, as opposed to a TaskRabbit like model where a central corporation controls or extracts value from their users and makes unilateral decisions. They're working on bylaws and legal structures for this, and would appreciate advice or connections to people with advice. Talk to them in IRC at #atunit, particularly @adrienneleigh, or send me resources to pass along. This is an exciting frontier for the cooperative movement. What if TaskRabbit was owned by the rabbits? Websites have very concentrated power structures compared to the number of users; what are effective ways to get input from so many people who might not all be very invested in the project? What other models can we draw from -- credit unions? What lessons can be learned from Wikipedia? Etc. This especially matters for this particular use case, recurring donations, because some people will be making their living off of proceeds from the site and it's important that their voice is heard. Sudoroom may be one of the largest users of this site when it launches, like we are now with Gittip. -Rabbit

12 years, 1 month

Re: [sudo-discuss] Tech Boom Spurs Changes in West Oakland | KQED News Fix

by yar

On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 11:39 AM, Sonja Trauss <sonja.trauss(a)gmail.com> wrote: > whoever runs this list is free to ban me. I am not going to leave because you're too insecure in your position to be nuanced or thoughtful. I could ban you right now, but if I do, I want it to be VERY clear that it's not targeting a person or even a person's politics, but an ongoing pattern of racist behavior. I would much rather you REALIZE ON YOUR OWN that this is not the community for you. On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 11:46 AM, Sonja Trauss <sonja.trauss(a)gmail.com> wrote: > that is what the whole gentrification convo is about! white > people writing about how bad gentrification is for black people! This is a white supremist perspective that, among other things, erases the many people of color who write about gentrification. > whatever you guys - i'm at work. the list can ban me, you can talk shit as > much as you want, if you have nothing better to do all day. trolling 101

12 years, 1 month

robot arm

by Jake

so, sudoroom has a robot arm now. It took a lot of people and creativity to get it in! I have started sorting out the control box and I am removing the "spare" box that housed motor controllers for the assembly line, which are seperate from the robot itself. The robot's last job was building parts for bridges! The robot and its control box (and the 48 foot long cables that connect them!) are dirty! If you want a good start with this thing, consider grabbing a towel and some soapy water and cleaning it off. Nobody likes a dirty dog that marks you when you play with it. At present, the robot arm itself is in the CENTER of sudoroom. I know this is not necessarily a good place for it once it's working, but since the pile of doors is still where it is (because we still don't have a shop-vac to clean out the place where the doors are going?) and I didn't want to put it by the wall (because then the cords wouldn't reach) and I have to return the pallet jack today (the only way to move it) it will have to stay there until we decide on wednesday where to put it. And then we will need to borrow a pallet jack from somewhere... I propose that we keep it in the middle of the room until we get it to work at all, because until then (and i don't know how long it will be) it is totally immobile and thus not dangerous. But we will have to talk about it at the meeting, of course. But my personal opinion is that we should keep it in the middle where it is, after tuning its control systems to make it impossible for it to move rapidly enough to hurt anyone. But I realize some people will object to that suggestion and I respect that. If you are interested in doing things with the robot arm, such as learning how it works and how to operate it, let's talk about it. Also, we can start thinking about what to use it for! I think we should find a material (such as wax) that we can allow it to extrude like a 3d printer (but with a large bead) so that we can practice making big things. Also the people who sold us the robot can turn wax into bronze... -jake

12 years, 1 month

Re: [sudo-discuss] Tech Boom Spurs Changes in West Oakland | KQED News Fix

by yar

On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 8:12 AM, Sonja Trauss <sonja.trauss(a)gmail.com> wrote: >>>> Also, no mention of the black retirees and heirs thrilled about their new wealth. On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 11:27 AM, Praveen Sinha <dmhomee(a)gmail.com> wrote: >>> Please take your racist behavior and messages to some other space. It's not welcome at sudoroom. On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 11:29 AM, Sonja Trauss <sonja.trauss(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> be more specific - do you think there are zero black homeowners in west oakland? >> that is a fact you can look up. On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 11:33 AM, Praveen Sinha <dmhomee(a)gmail.com> wrote: > I'm not getting into it Sonja. Please leave and unsubscribe. Please feel free to reply and back me up if you feel similarly. Agreed. Thank you Praveen for saying something. I think it's disgusting to hear a white person use other peoples' experience of racism as a rhetorical pawn in her petty off-topic arguments about housing policy. I do not want that to be the tone we set for Sudoroom.

12 years, 1 month

Tech Boom Spurs Changes in West Oakland | KQED News Fix

by Romy＠snowyla.com

http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2014/07/15/tech-boom-west-oakland Tech Boom Spurs Changes in West Oakland A new condo complex several blocks from the West Oakland BART station. (Sam Harnett/KQED) Once, you may have gone to West Oakland to hear James Brown or Aretha Franklin play the clubs on Seventh Street. The street was the center of a neighborhood rich in African-American history. NBA legend Bill Russell lived in West Oakland, and the Black Panthers had an office on Peralta Street. But the clubs closed decades ago and Bill Russell is long gone. In their wake, a new wave of residents are sweeping into the neighborhood — many of them white, and many of them coming from San Francisco because of the tech boom. According to the 2010 census, Oakland has more white inhabitants than black residents for the first time since the 1970s. Neighborhoods have been changing for decades, but the expanding tech industry is speeding up the process. Meanwhile, sky-high rents are pushing people out of San Francisco, with many ending up in West Oakland, the first BART stop on the east side of the bay. Over the last few decades, West Oakland has seen an increase of abandoned factories and shuttered businesses. Danita Robinson, a member of the Center Street Baptist Church on Tenth Street, says for a long time nobody would invest in West Oakland. But she says there is now more development in the neighborhood. The now-defunct Esther’s Orbit Room on Seventh Street in West Oakland. The unassuming club played host to many greats of jazz, blues and R&B, including Etta James, Al Green, B.B. King and Tina Turner. (Photo: RadioNicole/Flickr) For instance, developers recently built a high-end condo complex in West Oakland called Zephyr Gate. It’s a couple of blocks long and within walking distance from the West Oakland BART stop. “That was so abandoned for such a long time,” Robinson says. “Now it is all nice over there and Mr. Google and Mr. Doctor are living there.” Referring to to an old nickname for one section of the neighborhood, she asks, “What could we have put back there outside of these condos that would have been beneficial to the West Oakland area, especially what we call the lower bottoms down here?” Kenna Stormwell-Gougis lives in a Victorian across from the Center Street Baptist Church. She bought the house a decade ago. “I was the only white person on this block 10 years ago,” she says, “and now, I would say the block is 40 percent white.” She says lots of new people are riding by on bikes and popping in and out of old Victorian houses. Danita Robinson doesn’t think of the newcomers as West Oaklanders. “I call them San Franciscans,” she says. “Why else would you be moving to this area and not another area of Oakland? Because it’s three blocks from the BART station.” Dawn Phillips is the program co-director at Causa Justa::Just Cause. His organization published a report that shows some market-rate rents in West Oakland to be higher than in Rockridge and the Oakland Hills — two of the most affluent areas in the city. “When we looked at that data it blew us away,” Phillips says. “We did not know that.” Rent is rising throughout Oakland. The real estate company Trulia says rents increased 10.8 percent in May from the year before. That is the third highest rent hike in the country behind San Diego and San Francisco. The median price for a two-bedroom is now $2,450 a month. “This is a regional pressure that is being created,” Phillips says. “It is rippling out from San Francisco.” Soon he says, it will hit neighborhoods farther out in the Bay Area. In gathering data for their report, Causa Justa::Just Cause found an increase in the eviction and displacement of Africans-Americans from Oakland. Phillips says the current demographic change is just the final stage after decades of disinvestment in the area: “We understand gentrification to be pretty long-term, long-evolving historic process that is actually very systematic in nature.” 10th and Wood, a new sandwich shop near the Zephyr Gate condo complex. (Photo: Sam Harnett/KQED) Ron Lindsey can tell you first-hand how the long-term process played out in West Oakland, where he grew up. His father and uncle worked at the Navy shipyard. He saw that get shut down and the factory jobs shipped overseas. Then the businesses on Seventh Street started closing. He can still point out where they all were — a clothing store, a shoe shine parlor, barber shops, candy shops and night clubs. “All of these were black businesses,” Lindsey says. After companies outsourced the neighborhood’s factory jobs, the tax base eroded and social services were cut. Unemployment and violence spiked. Lindsey watched as highways and train lines carved up the neighborhood. The elevated BART rails got built right over Seventh Street. Now where there was once music, there is the screech of trains, drowning out everything below. People left. Eventually, so did Lindsey. Phillips says gentrification is this whole progression, from job loss to neighborhood decay to redevelopment. Danita Robinson says even though things are changing, there is no way for her to move up. “I don’t want to be low-rent,” Robinson says. “I don’t want to be low-income. I would like to move up. I can’t afford that condo. It looks nice. I want to be in that condo. But you killed all my jobs, so how am I gonna get in that condo?” Robinson cleans houses for a living, and her husband works two jobs. The couple is expecting a baby, so she hopes they can find better employment soon. Note: The caption for the top photo in this post has been updated. The original caption identified the condo displayed as part of Zephyr Gate, which KQED has not been able to confirm. Explore: Oakland, Priced Out, West Oakland Category: Housing Sent from my iPhone

12 years, 1 month

http://wiki.omni-oakland.org/w/Sudo_Room, needs correction; showing old address.

by Somebody

Hello! FYI: The OO wiki sudoroom page: http://wiki.omni-oakland.org/w/Sudo_Room needs correction; wrong address. Thanks! -- “Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.” ~Tibetan Quote

12 years, 1 month

Could use a sudo-er to hack me a hack

by Eddie Che

Hi there! Does someone who knows 3D-printing want to do a little project? I'm looking to add a few more blades to this, so that it spins quickly and becomes a super efficient wind turbine! For anyone who remembers last year when I was there, this Would be the perfect complement to the home-made alternator I made then. This picture should diagram it well, let me know if you can help put together something, sweet. -- Ed Che.

12 years, 1 month

moving gig help

by Steve Wilt

hi, if there is anyone who hasn't had enough of moving already, my friend isaac (whom you may have met during the move) was looking for one or two folks to help with a moving gig we're doing on august 26 or 27 or (less likely) august 28, lasting for several hours, paying $20 an hour. please contact me at nsw [preposition] sonic [punctuation] net. thanks. steve

12 years, 1 month

Re: [sudo-discuss] sudoroom.com

by yar

Apologies all, On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 3:34 AM, Available Domain <augustus.olevera(a)mindfulbiz.com> wrote: > sudoroom.com is coming available very soon. You can now take advantage of > securing this domain name for your business. This will not only help with > your notoriety, it will help you to further grow your business. I purposely let this spam through just to openly demonstrate the intentional predatory behavior of these domain squatters. But now I regret giving them a signal boost at all. Fuck these assholes. Please, nobody pay them anything ever.

12 years, 1 month

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sudo-discuss