Slashdot Mirror
Open Source Tech Used To Monitor Afghan Election
chrb writes "BBC News is reporting on how the Alive in Afghanistan project is helping to oversee the Afghan elections using open-source technologies. The site was set up by Brian Conley, who is also responsible for 'Alive in Baghdad', 'Alive in Mexico', and who was arrested for filming protests in China last year. The Afghan site uses FrontlineSMS and Ushahidi to process and visualize SMS texts from Afghani citizens, allowing reports from all over the country to be rapidly collated and re-distributed globally."
Bin Laden will never be captured or killed. He's one hellava resourceful SOB. That, and he has prophet-like status among his twisted followers that will die for him.
He makes a fine Emmanuel Goldstein.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
The election is a farce, as is the Afghan government, which relies on the support of a federation of armed tribal gangs. Another fake election just like the South Vietnamese ones, held mostly to make our moron governments look good. The BBC in particular is pushing this line of bullshit, for which its members deserve to be abandoned in Afghanistan for the amusement of the locals.
Osama and his friends are long gone to Pakistan, it seems, and so the "coalition of the idiots" is now stuck in a country where every single attempt at military imposition of a government has failed, and where the largest ethnic group is more or less excluded from power (apart from Karzai, who is a puppet). The Afghans should be left to their own uncivilized devices, but that would be to admit failure (which is inevitable).
The story is that stabilizing Afghanistan is supposed to stop the terrorists from attacking us. What a pity they've all fucked off to a completely different country then. But since that's the only excuse our glorious leaders have got, we'll just have to keep hearing the same old crap, and it will go on and on until the coalition is forced to withdraw and the terrorists will have achieved their aim of doing to the West what they did to the Soviets.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
Bin Laden will never be captured or killed. He's one hellava resourceful SOB. That, and he has prophet-like status among his twisted followers that will die for him.
He makes a fine Emmanuel Goldstein.
My first thought upon reading that was a pleasant "Wow. That's pretty insightful." Then I was revolted upon reviewing it and coming to the same conclusion once again. Well done (and screw you for bringing me down ;-) )
Unfortunately a politician will win. They always do...
How hilarious would it be if Afghanistan ended up with a more verifiable vote than the U.S. because they used open source technology to track the election?
It doesn't matter as long as people think a) two candidates are enough, and b) they can let the ruling elite choose those candidates.
I counted 6 presidential candidates last election and 4 different "major" parties. Also, I remember about 7-10 candidates for two of those major parties being DEMOCRATICALLY elected as the party's candidate by members of those parties. What election were you watching?
It's unfortunate that this entire thread appears to be about the politics of this situation and none about the tech. Ushahidi is the work of Erik Hersman and the folks at Afrigadget. I've been fortunate enough to hang out with Erik some and he's a really cool guy with some amazing ideas around tech and the developing world (specifically Africa in his case but they are applicable in many other settings.) If you are on twitter he's worth following - @whiteafrican
And FrontlineSMS has been getting great press lately as people have been getting more and more creative in its use. It is producing great results in first world countries as well as the developing world. What I find exciting though is that in the FrontlineSMS forums one meets developers that are helpful and even if they can't solve a persons problem, the code is all open and others are welcome to add the functionality they need. This is huge for the NGOs that they are able to get tools they need at little or no cost while at the same time not getting stuck with vendor lock in that limits their options. And it's a great tool.
Every so often we have an ask slashdot about how tech types can give back. FrontlineSMS and Ushahidi are two great examples of projects that are out their doing it in a big way and provide a great opportunity for geeks to get on board. If you are really hung up on worrying about Afghanistan, go to the sites of both and see all the other places they are being used in meaningful ways to make people's lives better.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?