[SpaceProgram] Request: accountability frameworks for makerspace governance?

Wed May 18 18:02:17 CEST 2016

Lol you just don't get it troll
On May 18, 2016 1:03 AM, "Michael Turner" <michael.eugene.turner at gmail.com>
wrote:

> "Mike no one wanted to work with you because of emails like you just
> sent."
>
> I thought there should be more openness and oversight, and so nobody
> wanted to work with me? Interesting. I hadn't realized that openness and
> oversight were such unpopular things when spending taxpayers money. Unless,
> of course, you're a taxpayer. Are you?
>
> "Since I wrote the grant, and got the Corp formed, and followed through
> until the project start, I think it's ok moraly."
>
> I always assumed an education in philosophy would acquaint a person with
> the difference between morals and ethics. You learn something every day, I
> guess.
>
>
>
> Regards,
> Michael Turner
> Executive Director
> Project Persephone
> K-1 bldg 3F
> 7-2-6 Nishishinjuku
> Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 160-0023
> Tel: +81 (3) 6890-1140
> Fax: +81 (3) 6890-1158
> Mobile: +81 (90) 5203-8682
> turner at projectpersephone.org
> http://www.projectpersephone.org/
>
> "Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward
> together in the same direction." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
>
> On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 1:48 AM, cole santos <cksantos85 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Mike no one wanted to work with you because of emails like you just sent.
>> We are amateurs hacking it. Ps haesh was my project and it was somewhat a
>> sweetheart deal. I had to choose between a project or a job. Since I wrote
>> the grant, and got the Corp formed, and followed through until the project
>> start, I think it's ok moraly. The other projects were all random
>> submissions. The principal aka jerry got overwhelmed and didn't even really
>> want the job. I kinda forced it on him as I had a full time job. Reality is
>> not nearly as sensational as u wish.
>> On May 16, 2016 9:07 PM, "Michael Turner" <
>> michael.eugene.turner at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> First things first:
>>>
>>> I'm interested in setting up a framework in which every iota of effort
>>> on funded projects can be tracked, and every penny of spending can be
>>> recorded. I'm interested in this because I'll need donors at some point,
>>> and donors typically require high transparency -- and results. I'd like to
>>> hear from makerspace leaders who've been successful at setting up such
>>> frameworks.
>>>
>>> Now, about the "drama":
>>>
>>> On Tue, May 17, 2016 at 2:51 AM, gmc <gmc at hackerspaces.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Yay, drama. It's what hackers are best at! Bye bye mailing list.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Clearly, some disillusionment and malaise has set in.
>>>
>>> Hackerspaces.org? No blog update since just about two years ago.
>>>
>>> Interesting critique there, though:
>>>
>>>
>>> https://flux.hackerspaces.org/2014/01/19/diversity-and-the-hacker-scene/
>>>
>>> Drama will never go away permanently. Sometimes the only way to quell
>>> drama is with rules.
>>>
>>> If you're going to have rules, you can try counting on ideas like
>>> legitimizing all decisions through the rule of relying on consensus (it
>>> always breaks down). Or on rules set by some "benevolent oligarchy" (the
>>> "oligarchs" often get tired of arbitration and moderation, and go missing.)
>>> There are a variety of other dodges of the basic responsibility of
>>> collective governance, which is tedious and stressful compared to making
>>> things.
>>>
>>> In the case of SpaceGAMBIT, the dodge took the form of locating all
>>> authority over spending that $500,000 in a tiny handful of people who
>>> operated in a pretty opaque fashion. In at least one case, the opacity was
>>> defended by a SpaceGAMBIT principal in terms of DARPA's tight regulations
>>> about the release of information. When I asked for chapter and verse of
>>> those regulations, there was no answer. Wait: you're saying you got money
>>> from a government agency that doesn't tell taxpayers the basis on which it
>>> allows awarded organizations to release information about how taxpayer
>>> money is being spent? Interesting.
>>>
>>> Given the nature of the political differences over taking money from
>>> DARPA, I can see a reason for not identifying winning teams when the awards
>>> went out. It might have been defensible as a way to protect the awarded
>>> teams from harassment by those who were most loudly opposed to that money,
>>> and to what any hackerspace group taking that money symbolized to them.
>>>
>>> The problem was: opacity could enable sweetheart deals. Waste. Lax
>>> controls.
>>>
>>> And what do we have at the end?
>>>
>>> Examples:
>>>
>>> $20,000 for an open source satellite mission design project that
>>> apparently never checked anything into a repo.
>>>
>>> The HAESH project, which, by some odd coincidence, was based in Hawaii.
>>> (And apparently on Maui.)That was statistically unlikely, especially when
>>> you consider that the main SpaceGAMBIT executive exulted at one point about
>>> how great it was to work internationally, not just in America, and not just
>>> in his tiny home region of -- you guessed it -- Hawaii. Maui, in fact.
>>>
>>> How about the thousands of dollars for the open source Make-a-Space Kit?
>>> It had a laudable goal.
>>>
>>> "The goal of this project is to complete the content--finalize the
>>> entire kit-- and then create a turn-key online template which a new or
>>> existing space can use to instantiate the online project management, assign
>>> specific tasks to board members, track accountability, and effectively
>>> communicate about the status of the activities as the space is launched and
>>> formed."
>>>
>>> Where is it? Dead links on the SpaceGAMBIT site. Try to get something
>>> back from the Wayback Machine? Unsuccessful.
>>>
>>> How about that Asteroid Badge?
>>>
>>>   https://github.com/CuriosityHacked/Learning/wiki/SpaceAsteroids
>>>
>>> There's something in there that looks like a rough draft of Make-a-Space
>>> Kit, but certainly nothing that looks "finalized."
>>>
>>> Thousands of dollars spent on those two projects. And this is all there
>>> is to show for it?
>>>
>>> It's what happens when there's no openness or accountability, and when
>>> money can be spent without significant oversight by a small group of people.
>>>
>>> So, to repeat my request:
>>>
>>> I'm interested in setting up a framework in which every iota of effort
>>> on funded projects can be tracked, and every penny of spending can be
>>> recorded. I'm interested in this because I'll need donors at some point,
>>> and donors typically require high transparency -- and results. I'd like to
>>> hear from makerspace leaders who've been successful at setting up such
>>> frameworks.
>>>
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Michael Turner
>>> Executive Director
>>> Project Persephone
>>> K-1 bldg 3F
>>> 7-2-6 Nishishinjuku
>>> Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 160-0023
>>> Tel: +81 (3) 6890-1140
>>> Fax: +81 (3) 6890-1158
>>> Mobile: +81 (90) 5203-8682
>>> turner at projectpersephone.org
>>> http://www.projectpersephone.org/
>>>
>>> "Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward
>>> together in the same direction." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 16 May 2016 18:26:04 CEST, Michael Turner <
>>>> michael.eugene.turner at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, May 17, 2016 at 12:55 AM, cole santos <cksantos85 at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Actually we took the DarPA money and the project was a great success.
>>>>>> Www.spacegambit.Com
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> A great success for some people, I suppose.  In a certain sense.
>>>>>
>>>>> I pick a project at random.
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.spacegambit.org/satstatsim/
>>>>>
>>>>> Funding: $20,000
>>>>>
>>>>> SpaceGAMBIT claim: only open source projects will be funded.
>>>>>
>>>>> Reality: well, ta! ke a look.
>>>>>
>>>>>   http://satstatsim.blogspot.jp/
>>>>>
>>>>> Excuse: "schedules slip". OK, but you can't check in any code,
>>>>> anywhere?
>>>>>
>>>>>   https://code.google.com/archive/p/satstatsim/source
>>>>>
>>>>> At least, that's the only repo I could find.
>>>>>
>>>>> There's nothing in it.
>>>>>
>>>>> It was largely because of my concerns about openness, clear
>>>>> communication, democratic process, and leadership accountability that I
>>>>> decided to have nothing further to do with SpaceGAMBIT. This was after
>>>>> feeling enthusiastic about it and even defending it against what I thought
>>>>> was unfair criticism.
>>>>>
>>>>> Really, I'd prefer to have been wrong in my suspicions.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>> Michael Turner
>>>>> Executive Director
>>>>> Project Persephone
>>>>> K-1 bldg 3F
>>>>> 7-2-6 Nishishinjuku
>>>>> Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 160-0023
>>>>> Tel: +81 (3) 6890-1140
>>>>> Fax: +81 (3) 6890-1158
>>>>> Mobile: +81 (90) 5203-8682
>>>>> turner at projectpersephone.org
>>>>> http://www.projectpersephone.org/
>>>>>
>>>>> "Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward
>>>>> together in the same direction." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Monday, May 16, 2016, Michael P Weber II <michaelweberii at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Mon, May 16, 2016 at 3:05 AM, Michael Turner
>>>>>>> <michael.eugene.turner at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> > Whether intentional or not, the choice of watercress could be very
>>>>>>> > space-relevant.
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > (1) Biosphere II saw the direct participation of the late Roy
>>>>>>> Walford, MD, a
>>>>>>> > pioneer self-experimenter in CRON (calorie restriction with optimal
>>>>>>> > nutrition) as a strategy for life extension. This research
>>>>>>> interested the
>>>>>>> > Biosphere II organizers because, in feeding long-duration space
>>>>>>> mission
>>>>>>> > participants, fewer calories eaten means, to a good first
>>>>>>> approximation,
>>>>>>> > less mass for the ecological life support system, leading to lower
>>>>>>> mission
>>>>>>> > cost, etc.
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > (2) Research into how CRON appears to increase lifespans (in part
>>>>>>> by
>>>>>>> > reducing cancer risk -- a big issue in space travel because of
>>>>>>> space
>>>>>>> > radiation) reveals that it's more about protein restriction than
>>>>>>> about
>>>>>>> > calorie restriction per se.
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > (3) Further research has suggested that it's specifically
>>>>>>> reduction of
>>>>>>> > methionine intake that is the main driver of life extension in
>>>>>>> CRON (hence,
>>>>>>> > presumably, lower cancer risk);
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > (4) High-glycine diets sop up excess methionine. (To be sure:
>>>>>>> methionine is
>>>>>>> > an essential amino acid; glycine is not. But it seems that with
>>>>>>> methionine,
>>>>>>> > you can get too much of a good thing.)
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > (5) Watercress is very high in glycine, quite low in methionine.
>>>>>>> Watercress
>>>>>>> > might be ideal for offsetting the cancer risks from space
>>>>>>> radiation in
>>>>>>> > long-duration space missions.
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > I think a good next step in such work would be to try to optimize
>>>>>>> watercress
>>>>>>> > production in an aeroponic rather than a hydroponic style.
>>>>>>> Hydroponics is
>>>>>>> > great, highly productive, but ... water is heavy. Aeroponics can
>>>>>>> give you
>>>>>>> > much of the benefit of hydroponics but with a fraction of the
>>>>>>> equipment
>>>>>>> > mass. Aeroponics should be more adaptable to low-g and microgravity
>>>>>>> > environments since it's not gravity-dependent -- it's basically
>>>>>>> just the
>>>>>>> > deposition of nutrient-enriched mist droplets on plant roots.
>>>>>>> Aeroponics may
>>>>>>> > have gotten its start from NASA funding.
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > Regards,
>>>>>>> > Michael Turner
>>>>>>> > Executive Director
>>>>>>> > Project Persephone
>>>>>>> > K-1 bldg 3F
>>>>>>> > 7-2-6 Nishishinjuku
>>>>>>> > Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 160-0023
>>>>>>> > Tel: +81 (3) 6890-1140
>>>>>>> > Fax: +81 (3) 6890-1158
>>>>>>> > Mobile: +81 (90) 5203-8682
>>>>>>> > turner at projectpersephone.org
>>>>>>> > http://www.projectpersephone.org/
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > "Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking
>>>>>>> outward
>>>>>>> > together in the same direction." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > On Mon, May 16, 2016 at 4:35 PM, Michael Turner
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Michael,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Are you going to take over the list then?
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> SpaceProgram mailing list
>>>>>>> SpaceProgram at lists.hackerspaces.org
>>>>>>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/spaceprogram
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> SpaceProgram mailing list
>>>>>> SpaceProgram at lists.hackerspaces.org
>>>>>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/spaceprogram
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
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>>>
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>>
>
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