Month: March 2010

Quizzo For the Cause: Shelter 2.0

 
Every once in a while I use quizzo as a way to raise money for certain causes that I am a big fan of. This is one of those causes. It is called Shelter 2.0, and it’s original purpose was to give a roof over the head of the homeless. However, with recent tragedy in Haiti, it’s purpose has been somewhat moderated. I watched on the news Saturday night as they explained that with the rainy season coming to Haiti, the tent cities that have been created in immediate wake of the tragedy are going to be all but worthless. That is where Shelter 2.0 comes in (Fan it on facebook). Robert Bridges, a carpenter and a good friend of mine from high school, is one the men behind the idea. The goal of this week’s Quizzo for the Cause is not just to raise money (everyone playing this week will be asked to donate at least $1 to the cause) but to raise awareness of this project. The more money he can raise, the more of these units Robert can have shipped to Haiti. He is doing the handiwork free of charge, and the units can be shipped free of charge, but he needs money for materials. He has whittled down costs until now, so each shelter costs a mere $500 to build. I interviewed him to learn more about the project, and how we can help.

JGT: What inspired Shelter 2.0?

ROB: I was initially inspired by the amount of homeless people there are in the world as well as the growing tent cities around our country. According to a 2005 U.N. report there are 100 million homeless people in the world. To me this is a staggering number and if you live in terrible semipermanent places such as abandoned buildings, vehicles, hastily put together shelters or tents you weren’t even counted in this report.

About two years ago my friend Bill Young got me involved with a project that the MIT school of architecture was working on after Katrina and New Orleans, headed by Larry Sass. They were building a house that went together like a puzzle and could be put up quickly by volunteers with no tools. We cut one house that was on display at the MOMA in NYC and then did a couple of smaller buildings. The idea behind the first house to me was inspiring, it made me think of building in a way I had never thought of it before. Bill and I wanted that idea of helping others and making building more accessible to live on in our current Shelter 2.O project.

JGT: How does it differ from most current emergency shelters?

ROB: Shelter 2.0 is different from most emergency shelters in that it is completely open source. The files are available for download to anyone under a creative common license from our website. What this means is that anyone who wants to use it not for profit can have it for free. They can even make changes and improvements as long as they share their changes with us so that we can share them with the rest of the world. It’s not just it’s construction that sets it apart from typical emergency housing which are temporary only, where shelter 2.0 has the potential to be easily enlarged and made permanent but the ideology is different. The shelters are cut out by computerized routers which are all over the world. In the united states alone there are 6,000 of the brand that I have. We can send files for cutting shelters anywhere in the world they are needed or go into a disaster area with trailers loaded with machines and begin cutting. This whole thing is about teaching other people to do this so that they can then teach someone else and in ten years you can’t even recognize shelter 2.0’s design anymore, because instead of being owned by one person, it’s owned by the world and improved upon in real situations by the people who need it. It’s the people whose lives are turned upside down by tsunamis and earthquakes and economic hardship who know what they need, not some american sipping a latte in his cushy central air home. 

JGT: What do you need to get Shelter 2.0 out to the people who desperately need it in Haiti?

ROB: To be honest, the things we need now are money and raised awareness. We have volunteers willing to put the shelters together, and have people who will ship them to Haiti for free. 100% of the money we raise is going towards materials. The more of these we can ship, the more people in Haiti will have a roof over their heads and a floor to protect them from the upcoming rain. 
JGT: What are your hopes for Shelter 2.0?

ROB: My hopes for shelter 2.0 is that it helps people all over the world by not only giving them shelter but by helping us think outside the box about how we design, build and reach out to one another.

Killers in Captivity: It’s Wrong

shamuI am not surprised that so many people are killed by captive animals, but that so few are. As someone who used to work in an interactive dolphin show, I saw more close calls than I care to remember. With the explosion in popularity of interactive dolphin programs, there are thousands of people interacting daily with 500-600 pound animals, animals that can be quite aggressive and are extremely sexual. It is a recipe for disaster, and it is nothing short of a miracle in my eyes that no tourists have been killed in these interactions. It is not that most bottlenose dolphins used in these interactions are attackers, but it’s just like if you had a 600 pound dog: It could be extremely sweet, but if some moron starts petting its face, things are going to end poorly. Thus it is in these interactions where people who are drunk, don’t know better, or can’t follow directions repeatedly. They will make sudden moves or touch the animals around the face, and it is a testament to the sweetness of the animals that most of the time, when someone gets in the water and acts like an idiot, the dolphins just swim away and snort for a few minutes.

I have mixed feelings about dolphins in captivity, but I have no such internal debates about killer whales in captivity. It is wrong. As is evidenced by the recent death at Sea World, these animals are extremely dangerous, not because of their aggressiveness (killer whales almost never attack people in the wild) but because of their size and power. These are not predators of humans, and deaths associated with them are almost always by drowning. (In fact, I had a boss who was once dragged to the bottom of the tank by a killer whale, and was only saved when another trainer jumped in the water and began punching the whale in the eye.) The point is that while trainers can survive an attack by a 500 pound dolphin, when an 11,000 pound animal gets the idea in its head to drag a person to the bottom of the tank, disaster is all but inevitable.

The real problem I have with keeping these animals in captivity is not the danger, however. I have friends who train killer whales, and they know that they are doing something dangerous. And like a NASCAR driver, that thrill of doing something dangerous is part of why they do it. The real problem is that these animals do not belong in captivity. They are migratory animals by nature (though little is known about their migratory patterns) and to have them live in a tank in which they can barely turn around is nothing short of cruel. They are social animals, and often in captivity they spend long periods of time alone, and in fact there are some killer whales in captivity that live their entire lives alone. And it is no secret that these highly evolved animals experience depression when isolated. (I have in fact seen dolphins diagnosed as such, and regularly given Prozac.)

But is the answer to release them into the wild? Probably not. As was seen with Keiko, an animal that becomes dependent on humans for food cannot all of a sudden hunt as soon as they are released into the wild. The answer to the problem would be to maintain the ones currently in captivity, and make a law that all remaining killer whales in captivity are to be sterilized. Thus the show could go on, until the final whale passes away, which will be decades from now. By that time, I think that people will already be over these silly killer whale shows, the same way people eventually stopped laughing at the elephants in the circus and instead began to feel sorry for them. 

With millions of dollars flowing in annually on these shows, don’t expect anyone in the industry to take the first step in doing what is right. Expect them to ride this gravy train for all it’s worth. And expect these highly evolved animals to do the same routine so many times in a row that it makes them crazy. And finally, expect there to be more deadly consequences in the future.

I Heart the 90s Week at Quizzo!

90sThat’s right folks, following the success of I Heart the 80s Week in January, we’re busting out a decade later, with an I Heart the 90s Week. Expect questions about O.J., Monica, Jordan, and Right Said Fred. All 90s questions, all the time, with a few surprises to keep you honest. Should be a fun one. And you all lived through it, so no whining and no excuses! And if you don’t know the 90s, don’t sweat it: I went to the Dollar Store yesterday and stocked up on last place prizes.

UPDATE: Uh, whoops. Due to various substances I ingested in the 1990s, I seem to have lost my short term memory. We did do a 90s Round in January, not an 80s round. Oh well, what the hell, let’s do it again. And this time, it’s all the 90s. 1790s, 1890s, 1990s, etc. We’ll do an 80s round next month, after I finish the “80s Project” I am working on. Btw, I am still looking for props for the 80s project if you have any.

The Power Rankings

powerranks

  1.  L. Ron Hubbard’s Diabetics. 8 straight wins at the Ugly American. Can a team that tied for 6th at last year’s Bowl make a real run at the title this year?
  2. Steak Em Up. Continue to dominate at the Bards. Will the fact that they will have Garbo at this year’s Quizzo Bowl mean a 2nd win for the Steaks (aka the Kingdom). God, we hope not.
  3. Lambda Lambda Lambda. If Pat Riley hadn’t patented the word Three-peat, the two time defending champs would be in line at the patent office right now. 4 straight wins at O’Neals, but they did lose to the Diabetics on Thursday.
  4. The Jams. Fighting tougher competition on a weekly basis than the 3 top teams, a very rare out of the money finish this week for the Jams.
  5. Yak Rodeo. This is a team that has decided to flex their brains in the weeks leading up to Quizzo Bowl, and it paid off with a win at the Black Sheep this week.
  6. Duane’s World. A tempestuous few months for this crew. A win last week, out of the money this week the story of their year. Can they achieve some consistency before the Big Dance?
  7. The Ear. Keep finishing 2nd to Lambda. Jury is out on whether or not they will rep the home ‘hood at Quizzo Bowl.
  8. Deja Vous. An impressive win at the Vous. Unfortunately last year’s best dressed team will not be back this year due to a wedding.
  9. Axis of Evil Knieval. Take Steak Em Up to the wire on Thursday with only a 3 person team. Can they improve on last year’s 14th place finish? 
  10. CatDog. Attending their first Quizzo Bowl this year, Duane’s World’s biggest nemesis aims to shock the world. 

Also receiving votes: Narcotyzing Dysfunktion, Quiz on Your Face, Inglorious Barristers, The Champs, Hurtin Bombs, Satan’s Minions, What Would You Do if I Punched You in the Face?, Ivan the Trivial, Ricky Hollywood