Resources

Geek Catalog Update for 8/9

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People And Profile

And the Geek Catalog project continues – and I keep finding more fascinating resources and initiatives.  I’ve written some scripts to help me out, and yes, eventually this is going to get anchored or just put into a database.

What amazes me is that I just keep finding stuff.  Things I heard of, things I didn’t hear of.  We geeks have a lot of ways to change the world.

So what’s added this week?

Computing

  • Charity
    • Little Geeks – A Canadian charity that refurbishes donated computers, and gets them to children in need.
  • Female Geeks
    • The Ada Initiative – An organization that supports women in technology, with a heavy emphasis on codes of conduct, training, and an embrace of open source.

Fans-Harry Potter

  • Charity
    • The Harry Potter Alliance – A chapter-based alliance of HP fans engaged in charitable works, with a heavy emphasis on social justice and leveraging fandom for the greater good.

General

  • Community
    • Hackerspaces.org – A site dedicated to hackerspaces, from the latest news, to tools to make one, to lists of one you can join. Great to find people of a like mind so you can work together.
  • Education
    • MIT Open Courseware – Classes available online for free – from MIT. Sadly the major way to get involved is to donate, but it’s a good cause.

Space

STEM

  • Wildlife
    • Project Noah – A software platform that brings citizen scientist together in various projects to record and preserve biodiversity and understand nature.

Writing

  • Literacy
    • Kids Need To Read – A charity promoting a culture of reading, providing books to various institutions, especially those that support disadvantaged children.

 

There you go – get active!

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Geek Catalog Update: 7/26/2014

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Astronaut

So here’s my latest additions to the geek catalog (which is sorted by your geekery or your community focus).  Go on, get involved!

We’ve got a heaping helping of Citizen Science, resources for female geekery, and more!

General

  • Female Geeks
    • Geek Feminism Blog – A blog on women’s issues in geekdom, as well as other human/civil issues in that sphere. Also has excellent news roundups.
  • Health
    • Operation Hammond – A network of medical professionals and trained people that provide medical services for conventions and staff training.

Pinball

STEM

  • Citizen Science
    • Citizen Science Alliance – A collaborative effort of scientists, software developers, and educators to promote and organize citizen science and citizen science projects, as well as science awareness. Their projects are tracked in Zooniverse.com.
    • Scientific America’s Citizen Science Page – Scientific American’s resource for citizen scientists, listing projects and updates. A good way to find something to fit your interests.
    • SciStarter – A site to find, join, and contribute to scientific endeavors. Contains a large database of citizen science projects for you to check out.
    • Zooniverse – The Citizen Science Alliance’s website for hosting citizen science projects. A good place to go and find specific projects to get involved in.
  • Environment
    • Nerds For Nature – And all-volunteer organization that brings together communities, scientists, and technologists to understand and preserve nature, including hands-on projects. Located in California.
  • Female Geeks
    • Mothercoders – An organization focused on helping mothers get tech-savvy and up-to-date for this economy.

Video Games

  • History
    • Atari Party – A Californian organization that hosts events with hands-on use of classic Atari game consoles. Always looking for volunteers – and you can always found your own!

Writing

  • General
    • NaNoWriMo – Everyone knows National Novel Writing Month, but they’re an organization that relies on organizers, donations, and more – and that’s your chance to get involved!

Form Geek Voltron: Might As Well Be The Head

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voltron_screenshotThere’s a valuable lesson in the various incarnations of Voltron. No I’m not talking that giant robots are cool (obvious), that Pidge is creepy when you have him get older (surprising), or that movie adaptions are chaotic and unpredictable (depressingly true). I’m talking about the basic core idea of Being Stronger By Coming Together.

That’s a lesson we usually brush off. Giant robots made from smaller robots, power of love, friendship is magic, fighting spirit of the team, what have you are all common ideas in anime, movies, etc. The idea of Being Stronger By Coming Together is so common we don’t even think about it, and thus don’t learn the lessons. It’s probably not helped by a culture with the delusion that we somehow magically succeed without the help of (even if unappreciated) others.

But it’s a damned valuable lesson. Plus illustrating it through the idea of cool robots coming together to make an even more kickass one is a real inspiring illustration that harmonizes with our half mechanical, half magical geek hearts.

We’re stronger when we come together. Specifically I’d like to focus on the Applied Geek aspect of that – in our careers and our lives.

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