“Breakin’ da law!” by Gardner

Prelude
Ok so technically I am not allowed to talk about anything that I do for CouchSurfing International ever. For the rest of time. By signing the NDA I entered a legal contract. If I break that contract I could be held financially liable for any damages caused. A good resource to find out more is the wikipedia article which covers breach of contract

This situation could be avoided if our source code was released under an open license and we didn’t have any secrets. An open license will also attract more developers to the project which may be unable to sign the NDA due to other contractual obligations or perhaps some zealous sense of righteousness.

I think that even the NDA may fall under trade secrets since there is no link to it on the site which would be that just by making this post I have already broken the law. So just by telling you that I signed a contract which stated:

“Gardner Bickford agrees not to disclose to any Prohibited Persons any Trade Secrets and Confidential Information, directly or indirectly, and whether for compensation or no compensation, without the express written consent of Company. Any such written consent shall be strictly construed in its scope and interpretation against disclosure of Trade Secrets and Confidential Information, shall be strictly construed in its scope to maximize the definition of Prohibited Persons, and shall be strictly construed in its scope to limit the amount of information which constitutes Trade Secrets and Confidential Information.” which is available at
http://couchsurfing.com/nda.html could be a breach of contract.

So I am now an outlaw. I will continue to break the law by letting you folks know what I have worked on while staying here at the NZ collective:

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Saturday was St. Patty’s day. Sunday was relatively painful and I don’t believe that my brain was functioning at full capacity. This would explain why I created the goal for myself to close all of the bugs assigned to me this week. Yesterday I closed one from January and another that I submitted myself. Today I am wondering if I should prioritize my action item list and fix the glaring issue of password security on CS. There’s currently no requirements for new user accounts being created which means that users can use weak passwords. What’s worse even still is that passwords are sent over the network in clear text which means that on a wireless network at a cafe or even here at the collective someone could snatch the passwords right out of the air.

Now that I think about it I think I’ll fix that today.

Gardner

Kicking Ass and Taking Names

Ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys! This collective may appear to be in New Zealand, but really it is worldwide. We are committed to inviting you to our meetings, not merely to learn about what we are doing, but to fully join our team of technicians and brainstormers and fundraisers and whatever else. Couchsurfing is a global movement — an up-and-coming superpower, really — and anyone with the skillz can throw down. We’ve got an IRC channel (freenode.net/#couchsurfing); the wiki; a new wiki template for feature requests; a public agenda (also on the wiki) etc.

I love watching this stuff (the wiki, etc) work, as people who are not admins get deeply involved in the movement, because the barrier to becoming really helpful–has become so low.

Anyone with something clear and well-defined to offer that wants help getting involved can call the collective, or email me through couchsurfing (joe_edelman).

I am so happy to be here with Leo, Steve, Elsa, and Kasper. What a rad bunch.

Don’t Hate the Wiki, Be the Wiki

Saturday night I didn’t go out into town. Nelson’s small but lively. Loads of good people. Friday night was exciting. Saturday
night’s probably even better. But instead Leo, Steve and I had amazing conversations about what CouchSurfing is, what it can be and how to get there. My knowledge of and experience with wikis and free software
projects comes to great use.

During the Montreal Collective people often felt a bit out of the loop. We decided to use the CouchSurfing Wiki for some brainstorm sessions as soon as we’ll have internet here. This way people outside the Collective will not only be able to follow what’s being concocted but also to finetune, reuse and remix. Anyone interested gets the possibility to read what’s going on and to Collectively cooperate with people at the Collective. This Collective should show that it’s possible and beneficial to work in a transparent, decentralized way.

On wikis it’s important to avoid phrases like “I think”, so that people are more tempted to click edit and change something. From Ego to Collective.

Noone will be forced to use the Wiki. But many people at the Collective in Nelson will be using the Wiki. We’ll show that there are amazing possibilities. There are over 130.000 CouchSurfers. Many of them highly creative, intelligent, flexible, open minded. We should give them opportunities to participate, to think about problems, to come up with solutions unthought of before. CS Groups are good for discussions, but not for associative, collective thinking, not for
synopses of discussions where 50 people have ideas. Wiki means “fast”, but it’s also cooperative.

The Wiki is about intercultural understanding. People from different background are working together on creating pages on almost anything related to CouchSurfing.

Some people are not at all happy with the CouchSurfing Wiki. I’ve been asking for direct feedback, but didn’t get any. So I have to put myself in an anti-wiki mindset. The only arguments I can think of are:

* CouchSurfers are not smart enough to read Wiki pages, let alone edit
them.
* The Wiki doesn’t look enough like CouchSurfing.
* Vandalism, or CouchSurfers editing pages with bad intentions.
(We actually had one case of vandalism, and remarkably, was from the same country as the person who is shouting out loudest, though only in private communication, and unfortunately not with me, that the Wiki is “external shit”.)

But these couldn’t seriously be the reasons for people to “hate the Wiki” [sic]. Which makes me wonder, what is hate? According to Steve it’s insecurity. He might be right. I’m still waiting for good arguments.

At least Steve and Leo don’t hate the Wiki.
P.S. Since 20 minutes we’re connected in the House!

Internet and hitchhiking in New Zealand

Internet connections are not very widespread or advanced. I haven’t found a cafe with a free wireless internet connection in either Auckland or Wellington. Broadband  is pretty expensive, so many people just have dial-up access at home.

Fortunately, hitchhiking is good. My hosts dropped me at a gas station on route 1 down to Wellington. It was raining all day yesterday, but I didn’t have to wait too long at the gas stations. Kiwis are friendly. My first ride was with Nick and his parents. Really interesting people. I will probably go visit them this summer. And I might even have some job opportunity, working with gifted and talented children!

Check the Hitchhiking Wiki for useful tips, especially if it’s your first time hitchhiking. Many people hitchhike for the first time, in New Zealand. In fact, in the plane from LA I met Scott, whom I introduced to CouchSurfing and hitchhiking. And, hitching from the airport to Auckland’s city center is really easy.