> We will consider any project or team that uses free software or its
> philosophy to address a goal important to society. To qualify, a
> project must use free software, produce free documentation, or use the
> idea of free software as defined in the Free Software Definition
> <http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html>>. Work done
> commercially is eligible, but we will give this award to the project
> or team who best utilizes resources for society's greater benefit.
BTW, I nominated Wikimedia... I think it's changing the face of
humanity very rapidly and generally in a way which I hope leads
to the lessening of human suffering.
While I see it's the effect that Wikimedia is having on the information *a
certain subset* of the population now has *easier* access to (if the have
access to wikipedia or reddit or some other internet-based 'social media
filter' at all... they already have access to blogs, google, there
congressman, whatever)--removing the sieves and filters applied to the
information a subset has access to is only _societally_ effectual within the
context of the resulting _actions_ of the subset of the population that has
the wherewithal and acumen to process the information effectually--within
the subset of the population that accesses to it--within the subset of the
population that even has the _oppurtunity_ to access to it.
(btw cory, there is some drive for ideas @ sinceslicedbread.com started by
some political party or another in which a $100,000 grant will be given to
an idea that will "strengthen our economy and improve the day-to-day lives
of working men and women and their families". I was going to submit a post
about creating a system to freely educate disenfranchised educators/students
about the FSF and how to run a tard-safe gui linux on cheap/old computers
but haven't really had the energy. You sound like you've got some passion ;)
http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/about/overview
)
anyways... I would be more inclined to nominate (if such a thing existed) a
free implementation of a really good eye-movement-based user interface.
http://homepage.mac.com/nick_a/barfield.pdf
The current state the "eyetracking interface" options for someone with ALS,
neck-down paralyses, or some other impairment of the extremities is
something along the lines of pay a huge amount of money for an eyetracking
system then use something like this crap (an on-screen recreation of a
keyboard)
http://www.zygo-usa.com/handsoff.html
oops, have to run... gtg
ps
also found a pdf at the ACM about an experiment where they got semi-reliable
eyetracking out of a webcam & uv light (eyetracking works by creating a
3-dimentional vector by examining the displacement of the reflection of a
certain frequency of semi-UV light off of a point on the back of your eye
(the fulva?) and the reflection of light off the front of your eye (the
lens) and "following" the vector to a point on the screen. I use the term
"works" relative to a new technology that *in a perfect state* provides only
a 1-degree level of accuracy due to the size of the fulva and *in practice*
involves a shitload of wild variables and underfunded practitioners...)
take care
Nick
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