Paul Ivanov’s Journal (past)

This is an old archival copy - I no longer keep my journal here at nomeans.net

You can find my journal at it’s new place - pirsquared.org

I want to thank Curt Siffert for granting me permission to use his song “All Aboard (v2)” which you can download (for free) here. This is the first video¹ I’ve ever made, but I’ve wanted to make films for as long as I’ve been writing² (even before Sally said “Hey guys, I’m going to make movies!” and then did), so I’m glad I’ve finally started.

I put this together for a video contest here at I-house. You can see all of the videos for the contest here, the winner was Life At I-House, A Glimpse by KirstyandEliana.

1. yes, okay, it’s more of a slideshow with an intro, but my brother Mike told me that Ken Burns would be proud [↩]
2. creatively, which would be 1999 - warning: link contains some extremely cheesy content, including an early version of what evolved into this journal [↩]

I’m about to give this Lightning Talk at SHDH20.

Here’s David Weinberger talking about Everything is Miscellaneous (the book I reviewed here and many others did here). The hour-long talk stands on its own and covers much of the book, though I don’t recommend watching it if you’re planning to read the book.

I went to Linux World Expo today and played with one of these upcoming One-Laptop-Per-Child project’s XO-1 laptops at the Creative Commons booth.

Photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid (cc)

While OLPC is a noble effort, I think it still feels like another example of trying to solve a problem with technology where technology is not the bottleneck. For example, I was bummed that they took away the hand-crank power-supply a while back because I think this severely limits who’ll be able to eventually use these. The UI and networking stuff is pretty novel, but my overall impression is that it’s too gadgety. I felt pretty lost in all just the buttons on the keyboard, but then again I only used it for 20 minutes and this wasn’t made for me. With that said, I’m not holding my breath, but it could be a great thing if this takes off. I say “could” because technology by itself just isn’t enough¹. This is a point I keep coming back to again and again.

1. A point the OLPC project acknowledges in their vision. [↩]

From my paper journal:

23:37 May 10th, 2007 Thursday

So what good is all of this if we don’t engage one another - on a very real level? “Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes,” man - so let’s get off the condescending trips and the polarizing anti-discourse. Let’s use our full range - zero, one, two, five, seven, eight, ten, etc and not just on or off - there’s an infinitude of wonder in between and out in every dimension.

I resolve to hesitantly dip my toes in, from time to time, instead of being all in or all out. Talk to a beat stranger - but not every beat stranger. Give up some left over food to the guys on Bancroft and Telegraph (the Shattuck hobos are too hip for me - but I hope they aren’t for someone else — I know they aren’t). I can just eavesdrop on the world from time to time - I can’t always be wide-eyed gulping from the fire hydrant of information flowing at 100 terabits per second eyes glazed over passed out exhausted gasping for a sense of self disoriented head-spun hours or days later. Just a drinking fountain or a tap and a few cups or liters a day would be fine. No need to parch yourself and dry up like a raisin all the time. It’s ok to wrinkle and shrivel - and you don’t need to burst, either - just be uncomfortably sincere.

I think I’m going to try that.

Related brief thought:

17:36 June 22nd, 2007 Friday

Bumper Sticker Activists (Telegraph in Berkeley)
The last thing we need is more Bumper Sticker Activism. Wearing a clever T-shirt does not constitute civic participation.