[smc-discuss] Pirate Cycling in Trivandrum

[Praveen A]

We reached here on Wednesday 24th night 10pm after cycling 4 days. On 21st
we (me and Sooraj) covered Thrissur to Ernakulam, on 22nd Sooraj, Manu and
Vishnu Aluva (Madhusoothanan Nair) covered Ernakulam to Allepey and on 23rd
Sooraj and Vishnu covered Allepey to Kollam (they visited schools on the
way in Harippad and other places). On 24th we had an interaction with
school students came from many schools. 24th night was a hacknight at hotel
Ya Ali in Kazhakkoottam. It was arranged by ICFOSS. Anish and team ported
Freedom Toaster to Raspberry Pi and burned a CD with it. On 25th morning we
presented it to ICFOSS director Satish Babu. We visited Kerala University
Karyavattam campus and had good disussions at Bioinfomatics and Malayalam
departments. Haknight continued at SPACE. Yesterday we covered LBS
engineering college of women and discussed Free Culture and pirate ideas.
The response was very good and there were very good questions like if we
don't have patents won't technologies like Atom bomb be misused. That time
we couldn't think about the fact that you have to publish a patent and atom
bomb is a state secret. We suggested if Japan had an atom bomb US would
have thought twice before bombing. When I said we don't know everything,
there was a comment that "they know it already" :)

Then we had another good session at Government College for women. This time
we were interacting with students from Malayalam department and focus was
on language and culture. Sooraj had to accept defeat when he said he don't
like Adoor movies as he was criticizing people who didn't like Santhosh
Pandit. We started our session asking them why are they studying Malayalam?
Initially one said they will get a teachers job, but others said they love
the language and some realized the important language play in our culture.
We added Knowledge and Energy as two basic necessities of life and how we
are made dependant. Creating dependency and erasing history are two ways of
controlling a people. So we emphasiced on selef reliance in knowledge and
energy. Solar and biogas were taken as examples. I focused on Eben Moglen's
line of argument about how printing technology revolutionized sharing of
knowledge and how digital tehnology offers a similar potential, but
deliberately chained from achieving its potential of providing everyone all
the knowledge they want. I also emphasised how copyright was born in the
printing press era and how it is an impediment to progress in the digital
world.

Another favorite example of mine was of Akshaya Pathra in Mahabharata and
how digital technology is an infinite source of knowledge. I posed a
hypothetical situation of a machine like Akshaya Pathra which costs 1 crore
to make. To recover the cost and make profit 100 rupees per meal is
charged. What would they do if someone hungry turns up without money? Most
people said they would feed the hungry. I told them how copyright denies
people without money knowledge, entertainment and information. I also
introduced crowd funding where people raise the money initially and share
the product they make. We compared it with how local clubs organize events
printing vouchers.

In the evening we visited Shantigiri Ashram and had good disussion with
Viswabhoda swamy and Gurudharmananda swamy. It was interesting. Especially
since Viswabodhaswamy is already a wikipedia contributor, reported bug in
openoffice, knows most people in the community and migrated the ashram to
gnu/linux.

Today I was at Technopark for Free Software Young professionals meet in the
morning and we interacted with many journalists at SPACE office in
Vellayambalam, where we are staying right now. Tomorrow I will be taking a
session on contributing to Free Software again at technopark. We are
planning to visit deaf school at Vellayani on Monday. If anyone has some
contats there connect us. Tuesday morning we are planning to leave for
Kollam district via MC Road. This time we will be spending 2 days in a
district. If you are interested in organizing events on our way contact me
09561745712 or Sooraj 9995551549.
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