pcplantdb

[Stephanie Gerson <sgerson@stanfordalumni.org>]

hello everyone,

Please (oh please) read and respond to the following:

1. Wonderful news that we are at Ibiblio now – Chad and JohnH, do we all 
need logins?

2. Lawrence suggested that we get in touch with the International Seed 
Saving Institute.  Which brings up the question all over again: are we 
ready to publicly announce ourselves?  Now that we have a URL, are 
decided on our platform, and are hosted on Ibiblio?  Or would we rather 
wait until we’ve spruced up the website, and have something to show?  
Even if it’s a list of PC-characteristics to include, and not a working 
demo?  I’m fine with waiting, but also think that feedback from a ‘press 
release’ would be valuable in a grant proposal.  What do you all think?

3. Chad wrote, “Also, I still have some energy to do some logo/graphic 
design stuff, but I need some ideas/feedback.”  Yes!  Everyone, please 
take a look at permaculture.info, and think about logo/graphic elements – 
I will do so tonight and tomorrow.

4. Potentially worthwhile projects:

a. a non-technical summary how information will be organized in database 
– Chad, since you understand it the best, would you be willing to do the 
first?  Or, write a simple draft of the first, and I can edit it?  

b. a list of PC-characteristics users will be able to search by – Chad, 
can you please send out the list you are working with so far?  And we can 
add to it, and post it on the website?

5. None of the ‘techies’ responded to this – would it be possible to
sort 
results by multiple characteristics (i.e. medicinal value, nitrogen-
fixation, and attraction of predatory insects)?  And display these 
results 3-dimensionally, so users could visually see how plants fare 
according to multiple characteristics?

6. An idea I had today while visiting a beautiful farm in Santa Cruz, 
California.  Not that this is necessarily something PIW could take on, at 
least not in the immediate future, but might be a possibility.  Crop 
rotation schemes can be very complicated.  Where to plant what when, so 
that you are alternating plant families in each bed throughout the 
season, but giving rotation preference to more disease-prone families, 
not placing overhead-watering plants next to drip plants, etc.  
Apprentices at the USCS program have to overlay farms maps from the 
previous 2 years over each other to determine what ought to go where.  So 
of course I got to thinking about hg.  And about the possibility of a 
program into which you could enter information – crops that must be 
grown, which families they pertain to, how many beds you have, etc. – and 
have it help you plan a crop rotation schedule.  I agree that this might 
not be the best program to write, considering that it replaces human 
thought/skill with automation, which will never account for all the 
variables anyway.  

However, we recently got a letter from the Whole Systems Foundation, 
replying to our proposal, saying that we need to demonstrate PIW’s 
applicability to larger-scale agriculture.  Assuming that large-scale 
Permaculture is even possible and desirable (I know we’ve discussed this, 
but let’s assume for now), the tool described above would certainly be 
applicable to large-scale farming.  What do you think?

Once again, please respond!  

And finally, I’ve pasted tasks below (remember those good ol’ days) – 
please check them and respond with updates.  Let me know what you’ve 
completed, what to change, what to add… 

Sweet dreams
*Stephanie

p.s. Chad, are you still stuck?

……………
LATEST TASKS
∑ Everyone – now
1. Make accounts on bugzilla/scarab – Johns, would you still like us to 
do this?
2. check out our website!  Add to your bios, give suggestions for logo/
graphics, make UI design suggestions, etc.  

∑ John S.
1. get whatever you need for evaluation set up (?)

∑ Chad 
1. keep coding…
2. write a rough non-technical summary of how information will be 
organized, submit to Stephanie
3. write a list of PC-characteristics that users will be able to search 
and sort by, submit to list for feedback

∑ Rich
1.  do whatever needs to be done in order to get the 
latest version of PFAF that is under the CC-BY-NC-SA 
2.  respond to Lindbergh letter

∑ Stephanie 
1. write up description user interface/experience, send to list
2. re-connect with Paula
3. grant-seeking activities…
4. research IE
5. fix mission and vision blurbs on website


+++++++++++++++
Stephanie Gerson
sgerson@stanfordalumni.org
(c) 415.871.5683


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