Report for Wikimedia Austria

Back in 2008 I inscribed in a Master Program about Sciences and Sustainable Development in the University of Cadiz (Spain). I got introduced in Wikipedia editing just by searching items and finding them in the English edition, and not in the Spanish edition. So I started translating.

2011 was a year of political activism in many locations of the world. Tunisia and Egypt started what was named Arab Spring, and social unrest spread to many other countries including Greece, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Chile, or USA.

I was involved in the international coordination of the global action day of 15 October 2011. Mainly it was carried on through facebook. Several facebook groups put together the coordination efforts of people from different locations. Calendars were lined-up and graphic design was built-up, in parallel with the local processes of gathering assemblies and promoting and organizing that day event in every place.

Three major networks popped up. One based on Spain, under the name of "¡Democracia Real Ya!" ("Real Democracy Now!"). Other one USA-based, under the tag of "Occupy". And a third one I believe based on UK and Spain, named "Take the Square" or "Toma la Plaza".

The diversity of informatic tools and the heterogeneity in locations, languages, and world-views was not hindering in an early moment the self-organization of a global unified event. The only precedent I know of are the demonstrations carried out previously of the Azores Summit that triggered the Second Gulf War back in 2003.

The experience of Wikimedia projects on overcoming the difficulties of multilinguality and on providing a frame for heterogeneous communities made me think on using Mediawiki to empower further the participative social processes. This is already happening to some extension. Anyway, there's a tough challenge on establishing new wiki tools, specially to achieve the community development that make it functional.

The Wikimedia conference provided a good insight to these concerns. One of the speakers was pointing that the average number of contributors after analyzing 8000 wiki based projects is one! I also meet the Canadian person who nourish the Occupy wiki, and had the opportunity of talking face to face with him about the potentiality of the use of Mediawiki on social issues.

Debate in facebook

to describe stuff in terms of "system" is for me not much useful. I prefer to use the term "domination". We are being dominated. The system is a concept very fuzzy (even more than "domination"). The system is defined by its borders. We do not have a way to explicitly define borders in what is usualy called "system". The (small) group that dominate us we can define clearly. Hence for me the "to-throw-down-the-system-or-to-fix-it" dilemma is a false debate. We are bounded in the bigger system, the Gaia ecosystem, or the solar system, and under that point of view we are inside without alternative (except science fiction...). Our point is restablish functionality and to overcome ancient misbehaviours. I do think it was in the ancient Greece, with its faked democracy that excluded the slaves from the decision making process.

Nein zum Sozial-, Infrastruktur- und Bildungsabbau! Nein zum EU-Diktat! Ja zur Echten Demokratie! Jetzt!

(en:) text from Linz (Austria)

Nein zum Sozial-, Infrastruktur- und Bildungsabbau! Nein zum EU-Diktat!
Ja zur Echten Demokratie! Jetzt!


„Es reicht!“, mit diesem Slogan wurde 2008 die rot-schwarze Regierungskoalition aufgekündigt. Leider haben diese Worte seither nichts von ihrer Aktualität verloren, darum gehen wir auf die Straße! Denn es reicht wahrhaftig!


Rio Reiser sang vor beinahe 30 Jahren „Ich bin nicht frei / ich kann nur wählen / welche Mörder mir befehlen / welche Diebe mich bestehlen“. Insbesondere der letzte Textabschnitt ist in diesen Tagen in Österreich und der EU aktueller denn je: Für die Gewinne von Banken und Rüstungskonzernen werden Haftungen auf Kosten der ArbeitnehmerInnen von EU und IWF beschlossen. Durch das "europäische Semester" verlieren die Parlamente die Budgethoheit und somit die Menschen jegliche demokratische Kontrolle. Durch das neue EU-Kritrium Wettbewerbsfähigkeit werden die Löhne weiter reduziert. Seit 1995 verlor das untere Einkommensviertel unserer Republik bereits ein Lohnviertel brutto. Völlig EU-konform beschloss das Parlament Fekters Vier-Jahres-Plan mit Bildungs-, Infrastruktur- und Sozialabbau von 16,2 Milliarden Euro. Zusätzliche Einschnitte bei der Sozialversicherung drohen durch die EU-Kommission.

Diese unsoziale und undemokratische EU-Politik ist strukturiell bedingt. Obwohl mehr als 2/3 der ÖsterreicherInnen die Neutralität befürworten ratifizierte das Parlament verfassungswidrig ohne Volksabstimmung die EU-Verfassung inklusive EU-Schlachtgruppen, Beistandspflicht auch im globalem Angriffskriegsfall und permanenter Aufrüstungsverpflichtung. Obwohl mehr als 320 Gemeinden, alle Landtage und beim Volksbegehren fast 100000 UnterzeichnerInnen eine Volksabstimmung über die EURATOM-Mitgliedschaft fordern halten die Regierungsabgeordneten an der jährlich mehr als 100 Millionen-Euro-Atom-Förderung fest. Unsere Daseinsvorsorge wird kaputtgespart. Es reicht wahrhaftig. Sie nicht, sie nicht, sie repräsentieren uns nicht!

- Wir fordern eine echte Demokratie, die diese Bezeichnung verdient, in der die Macht tatsächlich vom Volke ausgeht. Deshalb solidarisieren wir uns mit den Hunderttausenden der Echten Demokratie-Bewegung in Spanien und Griechenland, die gegen den Euro-Pakt demonstrierten und campen.
- Wir fordern Transparenz, denn Entscheidungen können nur dann getroffen und beurteilt werden wenn alle nötigen Informationen allen zugänglich sind.
- Wir fordern Selbstbestimmung in Gemeinden, Stadtteilen, Betrieben und Bildungseinrichtungen, denn in einer wahren Demokratie werden Entscheidungen von denen getroffen die davon betroffen sind.
- Wir fordern ein lebenswertes Leben für jeden, denn zu ungleich verteilter Wohlstand macht niemanden glücklich. Für unsere Daseinsvorsorge könnten jährlich ca. 14 Milliarden Euro durch eine Wertschöpfungsabgabe von fünf bis sechs Prozent lukriert werden.


Es reicht - für alle! Darum engagieren wir uns für die Linzer Aktionstage vom 13.-15.10. für echte Demokratie. Wenn auch ihr denkt „Es reicht!“ dann reiht euch ein. (und marschiert mit uns.)Empört euch! Engagiert euch! KeineR rechnet mit euch!

Linzer Aktionstage für echte Demokratie:

Donnerstag, 13.10., von 15-17 Uhr: Beschallung der Landstraße, Treffpunkt: Taubenmarkt (bring deine Stereo-Anlage mit!) und optische Signale, von 17-20 Uhr: Auftaktkundgebung am Taubenmarkt plus Überraschungsband
Freitag, 11-18 Uhr: Beschallung der Landstraße
Samstag, 13-1700 Uhr: Kundgebung am Taubenmarkt mit Diskussionen, Reden, Überraschungsband, Aktionen und Plenum"

Three sound systems for a crisis

Catholicism of Mary Help of Christians Parish Church and Marihuana pro-legalization demonstration sized each other up yesterday in Vienna. The quintessential commerce street in the old roman town (Vienna was Vindobona) has in its middle part a little square with a church and a sculpture of musician with violin.
Three sound-systems were brought yesterday by the pro-legalization demonstration, carried by trailer trucks two of them and one in a big van. I don't know how many watts did they have but they drove it hard. Music was also good. They crossed Vienna with such a piece of party.
Scouting the police deployment upstream the head of the demo I came up to the little square with in front of the parish church. A local family band was playing fundamentalist christian music. The minor child-girl carried a huge portrait in black and white with the child-girl's face of some distant martyrdom. All of them smiled and sang while one of the two priest with long skirted cassock played trumpet!

The music surprised me. They were really good. The lyrics was something like "Lord's Fire, fall over us!". The third surprise was asking myself about their sound system. I could not see any sound board, but just two pretty little speakers, around 50x50x50 cms, in a single couple at the top of a thin tall tripod. With that and with wireless microphones they succeeded in filling of clean sound the whole little square.

My own emotional mess was oscillating between the rip of foreseeing how the stoner trucks would run over that bubble of paleofamiliarity, and my wish of giving them the next 15th Oct demo flyers. The true is that they didn't allow themselves. They sang and smiled without pause in the convince manner of those that will get martyred.

I saw one day before the third sound system I want to talk about. In Vienna there's a place that was once snapshotted by cinematography. Orson Welles filmed in "The third man" the early post-war amusement park. "Prater" remains there and on it was celebrated the "Racism-Free-Zone". Green and communist militancy and the solidarity groups deployed a tinny set-up, specially compared with the size of the esplanade. A crossroad of trains and cars, and of course of pedestrians. The voicing of the event had a huge sound board backwards of a little dais used as stage. In it there were "debates" and miscellaneous austrian musics. The official migrant presence were two late somali teenagers integrated in the austrian society. The sound system had two from middle size to small (depending on comparing with what) speakers of around 100x60x50 cms. And even that it was insufficient. The sound was not filling the space, since it was mainly open. And the debate could only be followed if you were at the same core.

My conclusions to the in two weeks demonstration:

Either to be in the same core, to have a church behind, or to manage to get the trucks.

five thousand commercial airplanes and nuclear heads

I read at different times that the melting Iberia and British Airways have together 408 airplanes, and that Russia and USA will decrease their nuclear arsenal to 1500 heads each.

It comes to my mind then that there are around 5000 nuclear heads in the world, and around 5000 commercial airplanes. Both pregnant of the destruction of our survival.

I have no cell phone anymore, but I do carry a laptop with me. In their batteries there use to be a little logo with a crossed trash bin. So it means do not to throw it to the trash. I fear for the pollution of the aquifers. I fear for the future cancer. Presently we have our part. For example, my mother, who died ten years ago already. Gynecological cancer grew up in her interior oppressing her intestine and she died because she could not shit.

Cold war had us with stolen future. Knowing that could not be tomorrow, we held the breath and tried to enyoy... we became yuppies, and so we still. We boarded in airplanes, and we exchanged a suburb for another. We logged in the wifi and shifted form the disco loneliness and miscommunication to the ones of the chat.

Airplanes forward and backwards. Flying far and briefly. Landing to a scientific congress, showing a powerpoint, making as if you attend some questions. Smiling faked and eating canapés. Applying knives. Few science is around.

Last december I was in the Pacific Ocean in a oceanographic ship and in a human operated submersible. Those who helped us to descend, the divers, when I asked them about the risk of sharks they told me that there were not. You could not see sharks anymore.

We fragment land and sky. Asphalt spits and trails of destruction of tropospheric ozone by commercial airplanes. We are runaway symbionts of a biosphere going in fever, and we face a crossroad between becoming harmful finally and with it potentially self desctructive, or recycling our shits, couple our cycles and fit to the hosting fluxes.

It is good to fly, I dream with it, silently. I dream with flying in silence and with crossing the sea without any engine noise. It is good to be able to. I want that many machines shut up, they already don't let us listen what's important, the breeze whisper and the surf sound. What's all for? I want beauty the cities, but letting watch from them the night stars. That lights bright full in stage of bars. Let's remove the spotlights form what's banal. Let banks go dry and let beauty spread. Let make all it possible. Let's save Europe, now that the Iceland volcano send us the sign.

My first Alvin dive #4575

December 17th 2009

by Salvador Espada




The first thing I was surprised about is that there are no seats in Alvin. I always had pictured it as those big bridges of spaceships as Star Trek's Enterprise. Instead you sit (mostly lie) on the floor, on some pillows. The pilot has a small box and he is sitting on top of it in a kind of yoga position. He is very busy and focused during all the way down and during the time on the bottom.



But let’s go back to the beginning. In the early morning when I woke up my main concern was to go to the toilet (I went three times) to try not to have to go in the sub. It is very important to choose the right clothes. No belt, no ring, no watch. Nothing can scratch the window glass from inside by accidental touch.

Once entering the sub I got afraid again that I touched some switches with my foot when descending the ladder. The immersion was such an intense chain of actions done by the pilot that I didn't dare to say a thing.

During the time going down I tried to get familiar with the digital photo camera, and I discovered that I hardly can make pictures well in focus or not moved. That will become worse down at the bottom.

I’m there one of the two observers. As Bruce said in the preparatory meeting, we are part of the sensors of Alvin.

The water column is dark and we have no lights during the descent. Finally we reach the bottom. I’m focused in finding the best position to be able to both write notes on the dive record and to watch through the window and occasionally to make photographs.

I see my first target, an orange, brilliant eyed shrimp, which I make shots with my camera repeatedly with not very good results. For whatever reasons the photos are moved or out of focus, or both!

I have also the control of an external video camera for recording. So I play with the controls until I’m familiar with. There is one to move it up to down and from left to right, and another one to zoom. It’s easy to loose the position and not to know where you are pointing at, so the best is to move it down and left until I find the basket.



I have to say that I had much fun with it. I looked for crabs, and even I managed to record a fish zooming in and out over it while moving.

So here I am down in the bottom of the ocean and we three down here have tasks to do. We pick up and deploy stuff. And before it we have to find them, that stuff and the right places.

We don't see much. Only three little windows and around us walls of rock with strange shapes and patterns. Mark, our pilot, drives us to the desired place, an old spot of hydrothermalism known as Sketchy. Once we are there Monika is a little disappointed. Hydrothermalism there has ceased after 2006's eruption and everything is dead. Those sponges and baby traps we wanted to deploy there will need to be placed at other places.

Next stop is another vent known as P-Vent. During the transit from one vent to the other we have to pay much attention through the windows, and look for "markers" that are floating lids of buckets labelled with numbers or letters, placed sometimes for other people, and luckily also ours.

That made me feel really like in a video game.



We saw ours and started the tasks. Alvin arms are strong, but they only have four fingers. Monika wanted a rock with tubeworms, but the box in where it had to be placed was a little smaller than those rocks Mark managed to catch. He tried and tried to break them and finally he could catch one who fitted in the box.

The other two things to do was measuring temperature and to deploy the new sponges and baby traps.

We were five hours doing so. Monika and me we ate our sandwiches and the chocolate bar during that time. Mark didn't eat until everything was successfully done and we were moving up to the surface.

During the ascent I remembered that there must be a certain depth near the surface where the temperature suddenly rises up fast. So Monika and me we watched and recorded the temperature every 50 m in the last 400 m, to catch the "thermocline". Finally I could check that is existing and is not only something you hear at class from teachers or written in books. That day, in the small spot of the Pacific Ocean where I dove, at 38 m deep there was the thermocline.

Budget cuts are not necessary for the spanish science because...

... we still don't know wether the final destiny of the universe is to return to a big crunch or to dissolve in the infinity.
... this depends on the total amount of matter and energy of the universe. Which is unknown because we have not found the most of it.
... our current explanations of large scale processes do not fit with those of small scale processes.
... it is unknown how matter, energy and information converge to something we call LIFE in this rolling stone.
... we do not know if this life is only happening here.
... depending on how we deal with it of even against it, we do not know what will be with this life here.
... the concept of species lacks a clear definition when applied to archea (known before as archeobacteria) and bacteria. They are the two most abundant of the six kingdoms that classify life on earth.
... a little part of the species is described of the remaining four other kingdoms (animals, plants, fungi and protists).
... it is just incipient the description of the interactions between species. Life systems characteristic phenomena as cooperation and networking patterns are newly understood, despite the dominant vision of competence and predation.
... within living beings one particularly misunderstood is that one that has two legs.
... is not well understood how the systems of maintenance of life of this planet are being disturbed by him.
... in Malaga it is not known the number and the land structure of the small rivers and brooks. They are being constructed, put in tubes, covered with asphalt, and their river basins are being deforested because the suburbanization process.
... the beaches in the city of Malaga are destabilized.
... the fishing ground of the bay of Malaga is collapsed.
... the economics are confused with the chrematistics.
... the appropriate technology can make life easier.
... science follows art.
... there can be interactions between the young people and all those little creatures that are trapped between the walls of the offices in the universities. And sometimes sparkle.