This page is about making the hexayurts information rich at several levels.
The basic strategy is to use a variety of media and formats to make information about the hexayurts and about survival and recovery available to affected people.
I. Print useful text on the panels.
II. When possible and desirable, print the panels with embedded RFID tags.
III. Arrangement of hexayurts into patterns readable from a distance or from an aeriel view.
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Issues arising from this strategy:
I. 1. In what langauge or dialect to you print the panel text?
2. Should there be standing "books" waiting in warehouses, ready for shipment? If so, what is the most useful text to put on the most generic panel?
3. First aid. Hygiene.
II. Expense is a major issue for RFIDs. Security is even more important. RFIDs are hackable, and they can be used as a platform for spreading viruses or malware to other systems and databases (citation needed).
Could pirates exploit this by using the info on the RFIDs for ill purposes? Yes.
III. Think Semacode (link) or Kaywa's QR Code (link). Not human-eye readable, but from a distance ketai cams can discern massive amounts of information by the configuration of black and white pixels. What could physical camp configs tell relief workers?
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First Draft of informatics white paper:
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INFO-ARCHITECTURE
{the writing on the wall = first-aid & hygiene} {the writing on the wall = curricula & primers}
{the writing on the wall: wins hearts & minds}
How {and what} do you write on the walls?
(1) To Begin:
Hexayurts (HY) will be information-objects.
HY will be spimes, trackable in space and time, modifiable in code and on the ground, hackable, moddable, fabbable, recyclable. It can't help telling you what and where it is.
HY could become kirkyans: spimes that alter their physical configuration as needed, on the fly, to solve specific problems on the ground. [HY detect + heat loss; virtual HY changes the color of its panels; this adjustment ripples through the physical HY, and they all change the color of their panels to reflect less light; HY detect - heat loss. Kirkyans are physical/informational, 4-D ‘smart’ spimes.]
The structure is an object -- and a number of objects. A set of pages/walls and pages/roof-panels is many and one. Each panel is a spime. Each HY is a spime and a collection of spimes.
HY are a platform like <html>. HY are pliable and hackable and easy to learn.
HY are durable – built of durable material, durable processes, and durable information.
HY are fabbable – you can you e-mail the schematic and have a buddy print these out in plastic on her 3-d printer in Mexico City or Djibouti or Shanksville.
HY are redundant & INFORMATION-RICH on multiple levels.
(2) Panels and Print
The panels are pages.
The pages teach hygiene, first aid, or diesel engine repair. The pages inform, warn, or teach in appropriate language. The pages exist in virtual libraries stored Project Gutenberg style on the web. Some users may wish to create wikis for the purpose.
The pages teach you how to use the HY.
Roof says: S.O.S. or "Group 16-A" or whatever you need it to say.
The panels are printed with human eye readable text. The panels are printed with QR code. The panels are printed with barcodes. The panels are chipped with RFID tags.
Text must be read from very near. With radio signal, RFIDs can be read from mid-range. With QR Code, HY camps can be read from miles above the surface of the Earth.
3. RFIDs and the Net
Every page/wall has a history. THESE ARE RECYCLED, so you need to know if they've been used for a camp infected with bird flu. That's why they must be spimes... trackable. They tell you what they've been up to and where they've been up to it at.
The structure itself tells you in print and by configuration of camps what it is and who uses it.
RFIDs and QR are efficient ways to move info into, organize it on, and pull it from the net to the ground. Groups of HYs are set up in configurations to be camera/machine readable from the air as Quick Response Code. QR codes link to pages on the Net, wikis, message boards, lists of USEFUL THINGS TO KNOW like -- 'what happened to this community', demographic information, fatality rates from the disaster, how family members can find each other, when and from where more help is coming, how to re-use water, how to prepare food, how to use medical supplies, etc. This is a cheap way to info-enrich a camp.
QR code (2-d barcodes) can be printed on panels, or printed on stickers and stuck to panels when the information changes. The HY camps themselves can be READ as QR.
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Machine-readable, camera-ready, the configurations of HY appear to aerial eyes as code. [Taleban operatives in HY 3, 42, and 98] [HY 11 speaks Hindi and Farsi. HY 9 speaks English.] [Indications of Malaria in 19, 2, and 10.]
4. Where this leaves us is:
INFO-ENRICHMENT greatly increases the camp’s chances of survival.
The HY structure, then, IS on the net, IS exactly half-physical and half-informational. The information helps to save lives just as much as the physical roof does. The information works to quell epidemics before they start.
HY is/are many/one.
HY is informational/physical.
HY is static/dynamic.
This enables physical shelters to get smart. This enables stricken communities to survive and heal. This enables mobile teams to strike harder, faster, and more precisely.
This is for triage. This is for warfare. This is for teaching.