Searching for the Moon

This blog has been moved

2007-08-09T06:47:00.000-05:00

I have moved Searching For the Moon to wordpress.com. I did so because when I moved blogspot.com was no longer very useful, since then it has been improved but I am happy with my new blog location.

Furniture shopping in San Francisco

2006-07-25T19:25:00.000-05:00

I have moved into my new apartment (wish it were a condo, I'd buy it in a heartbeat if it were for sale, though I doubt I could really afford it) and for the past few weeks I have been exploring the furniture stores of San Francisco (on my own) and trying to figure out what will work in my new place.

This is a story about the good and the very bad (and not to mention the tons of cheap, cheesy and/or cheaply made yet overpriced).

If you don't know me (that's my photo up on the side of this blog). I'm male, in my early 30's, and today I am dressed in a nice blue dress shirt and grey slacks, carrying a Crumpler computer bag (which if you don't know is a very good but not all that cheap bag) and today I was listening to my ipod shuffle. My haircut's recent, though today I am a bit scruffy (didn't shave this morning). But I mention all of this because today I had a serious study in contrasts - and one of the most puzzling, rudest and most basically annoying retail experiences perhaps in my entire life.

I have always been told that one of the keys to retail is to not make assumptions about your customers - and especially here in the Bay Area I would think that stores, even relatively high end stores, really would need to heed that advice - I am probably very similar in apprearance to hundreds of software/tech industry millionaires (though I'm certainly not a millionaire yet), and while I'm not a millionaire, I do have money earmarked for furniture - and it is much more than an IKEA/student budget - I have about 1700 sq. ft.+ of apartment to furnish, I like to entertain, and I want to create for one of the first times in my life a space that is true to myself and my tastes - and one that I can share and enjoy with friends.

In short I am a very real customer, with the money to buy, and I have been shopping for a number of weeks.

So today, when I walked into the store "In Your Element" (not going to give them the benefit of a link - go search for their website if you like - but read on before you think about shopping there).

They have a window display of very nice looking modern furniture, and a sidewalk display stand pointing people to how to find them - nothing on any of that sign or on their doorway indicating that they are "for the trade only". I walked in and as I am wont to do started looking at the pieces that caught my eye, feeling the fabrics, and looking at the prices. They were high, but not unreasonablely so, and the quality looked to be very nice, almost everything was from Italy, and there were a couple of pieces in particular that caught my eye. One was even relatively speaking affordable - it was one of a series of very simple, yet elegent, small tables that they had, some bar height but some not bar height, and most under $500.

Possibly ideal for my kitchen, where I want something simple and elegent, but with a touch of style and some practical elements. Nothing fancy about the materials, though they were elegently used (and most definitely not the cheap country pine furniture or shoddy particle board/mdf stuff I've seen in too many places and on craigslist).

So I wanted to seriously inquire, however as I was walking through the store one of the employees after briefly greeting me, quickly started avoiding me and running around the store picking up the pricetags and cards that described all of the furniture in the place - in an attempt I can only guess to get me to leave and to prevent me from learning their prices or what the pieces were.

It was truly incrediably bizzare.

And by far the rudest experience I have ever had in a retail environment (ruder even than the, also Italian, man who kicked me out of his 'private' club for also looking at the prices and menu while thinking about getting gelato, makes me wonder if there is something non-Italian about looking at prices?). That at least was direct - if also incrediably rude. This however was quietly rude and grating.

I attempted to engage him - I asked for the dimensions of the table options - and he did in fact give me the dimensions - which were, unfortunately, exactly what I am looking for, (32" x 32" - not clear if it was counter height or not - would prefer not). But when I tried to ask him about the price - he gave up, stonewalled, and was about as rude as he could possibly be.

To test that it wasn't something I had eaten at lunch or some "be rude to me vibe" I was giving off, I walked up the street to my destination, a great furniture store called Khyber Pass Outlet (I'll try to find a link for them - they are hard to find - one related resource I found while looking for them, however is a great Guide to buying Rugs which I will probably refer back to in the future).

This was my third time looking in Khyber Pass Outlet. It is a crowded but easy to explore furniture store, specializing in imported furniture, much of it direct from China, and quite a lot of it very very nice, great woods, well made, with lots of attention to details. And lots of options to look at.

I will probably return there to order a mirror for my hallway (large, leather wrapped standing mirror - nearly 40" by 69" - not cheap (and it looks it) but not crazy expensive either - and it will be a really stunning addition to my entryway where I plan on placing it.

I may also return there for a really great, pale Elm table they have from China. Made in China by Americans who have incorporated a combination of modern design with traditional craftmanship and quality - resulting in a really stunning set of pieces. If I go that route I'll end up with a 72" x 38" pale blonde Elm table with four square legs and a really elegant yet simple design. Very wide, solid planks and a really functional and beautiful table, one I would treasure for years (my other option I'm considering is also very stunning but in a different way). It is just a bit too big for one thought I have had, which is to buy TWO tables and use them as desks (getting two 5' x 3' or close tables) against the walls of my living room, moving them out into the center only for entertaining.

If I went with the Elm table that plan is out - and I would very tempted to buy a matching, stunning sideboard (will be measuring tonight if it would fit) which would make for a really amazing piece in my room and a great place to serve large meals (and lots of storage for linens, silverware and place settings as well as serving platters etc).

And I would consider looking at their selection of rugs, though I don't know if they have quite the right mix of quality, colot, design, and price for me (not sure I want to spend $3000+ on a rug, even if it is handmade and pretty amazing that's a lot to spend on something that can get stained).

Anyway it was quite a study in contrasts. I was able to talk with the salesclerk at Khyber Pass, discuss the options I am looking at, take measurements, get prices (even get offered a discount off one of the prices on the mirror which I may take her up on) and she didn't blink when I mentioned that I would be going to another store, The Wooden Duck, later this week for their bi-annual sale in Berkeley. From them I plan on buying at least two benches, and very likely a table (which would also work as a desk - though it may be so stunning that I don't want to use it as a desk) and I'm going to look at a number of their other pieces. I'm also considering buying a table and four chairs used from someone on Craigslist, going to look at a similar table while I'm in Berkeley.

In fact she had the confidence to suggest I buy the pieces there that I know I want, and see how they look in my space - as well as offered to let me take a rug home to see if it would work in my space (with an impression of my credit card as collateral). All very reasonable and very confident - and given how frequently their inventory turns (and they have three stores in LA in addition to the stores here, and seem to buy furniture very frequently, new shipment arriving tomorrow in fact, that makes me more confident in coming back to them in the future to get pieces that I would like.

More on the rest of my shopping - mostly bad experiences - after this evening' s networking.

On the watching, or not, of fireworks

2006-07-05T01:27:00.000-05:00

I went and saw, alone, Superman Returns this evening. Then I ate halfway decent Chinese food at one of the few places still open in Berkeley, and came home where I sit and type this entry, procrastinating the packing and other items that loom in front of me. Having returned from Seattle this past weekend I had over 4000 emails to download yesterday, today I have to start working my way through the real ones (about 1000 or so, many of which I have already dealt with).

And there are many people from Gnomedex I have to follow up with, more on Gnomedex at piecing IT together where I will also blog about my next projects. The MeshWalk on Sunday was a great success and I will also be blogging about that on MeshForum.

But more about the lack of fireworks. Or to be fair, not much more.

It is strange but for a while now, July 4th has been a special holiday for me, a time of friendships, a secular holiday, one that any American can celebrate and enjoy. For a while, it was also an aniversary for me, but not this year.

So this year there were no fireworks.

Tomorrow I start moving, packing, preparing, negotiating my second move this year and prepare to move into the fourth place I've called home in less than a year. A bit scary, but also exciting. My new place is pretty darn cool - much more about that in future posts - and I look forward to living there for a long time to come. But this week will be hard as I pack and move, while working on the many projects and ideas that sprouted while at Gnomedex.

A little bit about my new place - it is in Noe Valley in San Francisco, in a more residential area than I have lived in anytime in the past decade, so that will be an adjustment, but it is still quite near the Muni and some great cafes and restaurants. The place is technically a 1 bedroom, but has a lot of special features.

A bedroom which will fit a king bed with much room to spare, has a walk-in close, and french doors to the living room
A kitchen, partially updated, with space for a small eat in table and chairs, plus a gas stove, an older fridge and just a portable dishwasher, but overall a very functional room
A large living room with a bay window, French Doors and some other great spaces
A great sun room off the living room, a perfect space for a desk and reading chair, a space I'll use frequently

But it is the second closet, in the living room, that decided the apartment for me. In that closet is the best feature, a large spiral staircase that leads down to the "bonus" room. The bonus room has two windows (opaqued), hardwood floors, and a steel beam running the down the middle of the room. The space is about 25 x 30 (possibly larger, I'll measure it tomorrow) and is, in short, incrediable. A secret den, a workshop, an amazing media center, a recording studio, the potential uses are countless.

For the moment my plan is to use it as my library, to keep an air mattress there as a guest bed, and to set up my newly won xbox 360 there once I get a projector and screen. I'll then get some desks to place by the windows, couches and/or theater seats for the media spaces, and a large table to use as a work surface or game space, plus some benches and other seats.

In short, it will be my lair, the space where I, and I hope many others, work to build and create, play and laugh.

And I'll set up the upstairs to be a fully functional apartment, plenty of room in all of the rooms for everything I need, I'll probably set it up so you almost wouldn't guess about the extra space that lurks below the apartment...

So that's my fun for the week.

And if you are in San Francisco (or passing through) you have a place to stay if you need it, and this weekend if you are around, I'll probably hold a housewarming - contact me for the evite.

Bloggercon - emotions and blogging

2006-06-23T18:40:00.000-05:00

I am sitting at Bloggercon where I am listening to a discussion about emotional blogging and what to put/not put in your blogs.

I tend to write and live in a very open manner - I assume that having been online for so long that pretty much my entire life (warts, glasses, bad habits and all) will show up online and in fairly simple searches. (search flickr for me - you'll see what I mean)

I'm in the midst of looking for a new place to live - moved to the bay area in January and signed a 6 month lease in Berkeley - now I'm looking for a place in San Francisco (possibly with roommates - so not unlikely that you might be reading this very post). My personal relationships are also changing - which puts me in a bit of an awkward position about how/what/if to write about it.

More on that later (if you know me personally, ask I'll explain)

The (RED) Independant

2006-05-16T15:25:00.000-05:00

Go and read The (RED) Independent today.

Independent Online Edition

It is an example to learn from and admire.

A great website and use of online media by an offline brand.

And a powerful statement and impactful gesture by a leading media brand in the UK towards helping with the Aids crisis in Africa. As a reader in the US, it is also a pointed indictment of the debates here in the US about how media might stay relevant. The tone and quality of the writing is much better than I encounter here in the US (good enough in fact that if I were living in the UK I would serious plan on subscribing and reading The Independent on a regular basis).

But as much as that is the case, I am also admiring of the high quality of the ADS on the Independent's website. They are clear, concise, and very well integrated into the site and relevant. I dove into a section of the Independent about education and post-graduate degrees, curious what they were publishing and what their take was. On the upper right, Bloomberg LP had a highly relevant ad, well writen (with a minimum of words) noting that they were hiring.

In contrast in my limited use of US newspapers online, the ads and even the overall experience is much more limiting and the relvance of the ads much lower, as well as the quality of the content much less.

I did not, at least in thie special edition, see any content from The Independent that was not directly from their own writers (or guest editorials). In most cases at the end of the article as published there was more information - about the author at the very least, but in one case a link to the full transcript of the interview which was published (see http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article484987.ece)

So go, read the issue, and do what you can to support Project (REF) (and in the process also encourage more voices of the media to be of as high a quality)

joan miro - Google Image Search

2006-04-20T03:48:00.000-05:00

joan miro - Google Image Search

Check out the Google logo today.

Perhaps my favorite painter - I'm not sure why but Miro is.

I remember an Art Chicago where I spent a lot of time in a booth at Navy Pier looking a very large Miro that was hanging in a gallery from Canada's booth.

For a "mere" $1.5M I could have had a very large, truly incrediable painting by Joan Miro.

And looking at it I realize a small bit of why I really like his work - the colors, the intensity, the patterns and sense of thought, yet fluidity and variablity, the simplicity - but a simplicity that belies a lot of thought and a clear, strong style. You see a work by him and you know that it was by him.

(the logo today is very well done btw)

Art, even unobtainable art is worth attention.

And, very seriously, when I have the money I do hope to have a work by Miro (though unless I am very lucky unlikely a large work like the one I viewed years ago in Chicago).

When my move costs are covered, my condo in Chicago is sold, a new (cheap) car is purchased etc - and when income starts coming in more regularly and significently I plan on starting to more seriously purchase art. My current collection is very eclectic and hard to display - a few pieces by my sister, a few other random pieces, and a collection of Plages magazines (a French art magazine, quarterly, each issue being a limited edition of all original works - so each issue is in fact unique though related to the other issues in that the artists who contribute each make as many versions of their work as there are issues of that quarter's magazine.) And each quarter's issue is on a specific theme.

A very cool but strange work - and my collection has lapsed, so I may have to renew and purchase some back issues the next chance I get.

So for the moment I will just support art via doing things like inviting a number of artists to exhibit and present network related works at MeshForum 2006 May 7-9 in San Francisco

Bill Gates lands role in 'Doctor Who' | News.blog | CNET News.com

2006-04-03T23:55:00.000-05:00

Bill Gates lands role in 'Doctor Who' | News.blog | CNET News.com

And yet another reason I will have to get my hands on some episodes of the new Dr. Who one of these days...

With the exception of the current new series, I have seen EVERY single episode of Dr. Who which survives, and even most of the ones that only fragments of which survive. In high school my friend Dwight Sora and I had a collection of Dr. Who items whch included tapes of nearly every episode, most of the then published books, and many many more items. I still have my half of the collection in boxes at my parent's house in Illinois.

I was not a serious fan of Star Wars or Star Trek, I was always more of a fan of Dr. Who. For me, the series had much more complexity and possibilities than either of the more "American" SF series and special effects aside, I always found the ongoing universe of Dr. Who vastly more compelling and engaging. As well, as a fan, I loved how interactive and long standing the series was, with more recent shows (including the latest which I have yet to be seen) clearly being the work of long time fans such as myself.

SF Web Innovators Feb 2nd at Adaptive Path in SF

2006-01-25T21:07:00.000-06:00

I am co-hosting the SF Web Innovators Network event on Feb 2nd at the offices of Adaptive Path in San Francisco. We are very pleased that the law firm of Fish and Richardson and Adaptive Path have agreed to co-sponsor this event.

SFWIN events are open to any interested in new and emerging web applications, we bring together a great mix of investors, entrepreneurs and service providers (and some users). For the Feb 2nd event, RSVP at the SF Web Innovators wiki. The cost is a $20 donation at the door which will help cover the costs of future events.

Hope to see you there - and by the way it is now official, I am a resident of the Bay Area having rented a house in Berkeley and flown here this afternoon.

Chicago ex-pats Bears Party on Sunday Jan 15th

2006-01-09T01:29:00.000-06:00

On Sunday Jan 15th, though I will be in my new home of Berkeley CA, I will gather with friends and fellow ex-pats to the West Coast from Chicago to watch a little Bear's Football.

Sure, I'm a geek but I'm also a somewhat secret sports fan... and I'm most certainly a fan of the Chicago Bears. I remember vividly watching the Bears win it all in 1985, watching all of the games at homes of childhood friends as my family didn't yet have a tv (side note about that, my parents still only watch the one tv they got nearly 20 years ago - which was a used tv at that!)

So, on Sunday, I am organizing a gathering in the San Francisco Bay Area to watch the Bears beat the Carolina Panthers. If my new Berkeley home has both a TV and cable signal I may host this gathering there... though since I likely won't yet have such minor details as seating... most likely this gathering will be at a bar (or perhaps cafe or restaurant) somewhere in San Francisco, less likely somewhere in Berkeley.

Even if you are not a Chicago ex-pat you are certainly welcome to join us, just keep the "da's" to a minimum... I'll post the venue when it is set, if you are interested or have a suggestion for a venue please leave a comment or send me an email.

Some hints on the Stripping of Wallpaper

2006-01-07T00:01:00.000-06:00

I wrote this as a response to a FreeCycle offer I made for some leftover wallpaper stripping supplies, I post it here in the hope that it will help someone else as well.

Well we mostly followed the instructions but a few things we found:

- the spray bottle while good in theory didn't work as well in practice as we might have liked - better for many areas was a paintbrush (we used the DEF gel, diluting it for a second coat)

- scoring with the paper tiger definitely helped - as did getting off the first outer layer(s) to the extent that they would peel off dry

- a large brush and washcloth, used in conjunction with each other worked extremely well to get off the final layer of glue, though it helped having someone rince off each frequently

- for the stripping a good scrapper helped considerably (we ended up with three different styles, the best/most effective being ones with razer blades though you have to be careful not to damage the walls) but we also found that an old metal spatula worked very well for the well soaked layers of paper, often better than the stiffer blades.

- we also used latex gloves but still found that the frequent soaking in water left our hands fairly raw after the stipping of paper

Hope this helps,

Shannon

On peeling paper

2006-01-04T02:15:00.000-06:00

As the year starts I find myself engaged in the first real big home improvement project of my 9+ years of home ownership, the same month as I am on the brink (I hope) of selling my first place.

While this morning, when I met with my realtor, my condo was fairly clean and well organized, now as I type this, I am surrounded by piles and dust from a hard day's work.

Tomorrow we finish what we started today, then we spackle, sand, and put down primer, perhaps also paint. It will be a long and busy afternoon tomorrow, but at the end my condo will look better than it has ever today.

So back to today - after my morning meeting with my realtor, I then spent the rest of the morning going through three of my last "random" boxes of personal files, business files, and other random objects. As I finished with the last of these boxes (a blue milkcrate which held a rather random mix of papers from 6 years ago mixed with projects from a few months back) the handyman/cleaning man whom I had hired arrived.

Vincent (of the appropriately named "Vincent's Obsessive Cleaning") is a very good friend and former roommate of the husband of a good friend of my girlfriend (whose wedding we attended a while back and with whom we spent New Year's Eve). Today, however, rather than cleaning (other than some light dusting), we decided to spend the afternoon stripping the wallpaper which was (great phrase - was...) on the walls of my kitchen.

I should describe this - it is hard to believe. It was an off-yellow striped wallpaper with small flower details, then topped by a horrible floral border. All laid so badly that (at least on some walls) the seams were peeling and clearly visible.

This had hung on the walls when I purchased the condo, I had always planned on redoing the whole kitchen, however my finances for the past few years as well as time availability prevented ever doing that (plus I really want a gas burner and in the high rise I live in that is not possible). So I have lived with some of the ugliest wallpaper possible for the past 9+ years.

But no more. It is all down, including the underlayers of two other wall papers (which were more like cardboard with a white checker pattern!). Sure, it took us 7 hours, three people, $50 in supplies and a lot of sweat but we go it all down. Tomorrow we get the remaining bits of paper and all the massive amounts of glue.

This evening, after we finished with the stipping for now, Julia and I went to Home Depot, where we bought more there than I have ever before - two gallons of paint matched to the current cabinets, primer, brushes, dropcloths, spackle, sandpaper, a new fire extinguisher, a new smoke alarm, and new hardware for all of my cabinets (which need it - the old hardware looks to be from the late 70's/early 80's).

Tomorrow we strip glue and paper, spackle, prime and hopefully paint!

Then, when this is all done, when I have paid Vincent, photographed my clean new home, given away various random items to remove them (office supplies, misc. kitchen items, etc) and can relax, it will be time for me to leave Chicago and head back to Berkeley where I start a similar process in reverse.

There I move into a nearly empty and unfurnished rental - we'll be ordering a bed and mattress shortly so I can sleep - and then I'll start finding furnishings one piece and room at a time.

It is a challenge and at times stressful, but also it is exciting and invigorating, somehow perfectly suited to the beginning of a new year. In a few short days I will be in my first new home in almost a decade, and my first home outside of Chicago for over two decades. I'll still follow the Bears in the post-season (contact me if you want an invite to the Chicago expat's party on either the 14th or 15th in the Bay Area) and in my heart I will always hold Chicago close, but I am thrilled at all that awaits us in Berkeley and the Bay Area.

My family has many ties to California, it is the state my mother grew up, my grandparents have always lived there (grandmother in Southern CA and grandfather in Northern CA), where my aunt lives and where my parents met. But there is a vast difference between the occasional visit, mostly to relatives or very close family friends, and living there, spending every day there for weeks, months, hopefully years.

It will be a change, gone will be the dramatic shifts of seasons from the bitter, freezing cold of Chicago winters to the oppressive humid heat of August in Chicago, but with my favorite seasons inbetween where Chicago does get great weather. In its place will be real hills and elevation changes, an ocean instead of a lake, and incrediable diversity and beauty all around me. Sure there are many cars and cookie cutter developments in the suburbs but San Francisco and some of the older communities around it (Berkeley for example but also Oakland) have a rich and old history and tradition of their own as well as amazing restaurants, farmer's markets, artists and activities.

On a professional front there is still no substitution from the easy access and interconnectivity of Silicon Valley. In just over a month there at the end of 2005 I accomplished far more professionally than I had in the past 5 years in Chicago (with the possible exception of pulling off MeshForum). In my short time in CA I greatly deepened and strengthed my relationships with lots of people, I met many new friends, and had a number of exciting opportunities for the future. As these continue into the new year, look here and at my professional blog, piecing IT together for all the details.

Happy New Year and may your year be full of new opportunities, great friendships and opportunities for quiet reflection and engagement.

Happy New Year 2006

2006-01-01T03:34:00.000-06:00

A quick post - thanks to all the wonderful friends I've made in 2005 - it has been an exciting ride and hopefully 2006 will be the year where it all comes together in many different and wonderful ways.

In 2005 my dream of a few years ago happened - MeshForum 2005 was a great success and brought together an amazing group of people. What was just a glimmer of an idea a few years ago happened and now in 2006 come the hard part of doing it again, only better and bigger.

2006 will be a year of major changes for me - starting later this month I will be moving from my long time home of Chicago to Berkeley CA. I leave behind friends, family and a city I love, but I join family, friends and a wonderful new state and city. In CA I will continue to run and organize MeshForum. I will also pursue a number of business opportunities through JigZaw and will continue to work with great non-profits such as Hope Street Group.

My consulting in 2006 will take me, I hope, in a new direction. Besides continueing to assist companies large and small with understanding their products, business opportunities and technical resources (both internal applications, purchased products and possible partners/products in the marketplace) I will also be pursuing another long held interest, Flow Economics.

Flow Economics (my name for a field of Economics I am exploring) is the study of Economics as a Network. That is, the implications of looking at economic activity as occurring on, creating and destroying a network. Where nodes are entities and links represent transactions.

In 2006 I will explore this concept through articles, blog posts, possibly a book, and definitely consulting work with enterprises (and possibly other types of organizations such as foundations, universities, government agencies etc.). In my work with organizations, we will start by looking at the implications of a network perspective, then we will analyze the actual flows of value throughout the network of the enterprise - from external sources to internal resources to external entities. This analysis will be very importantly looking at these flows over time - looking at both the structures which evolve as well as where value is created, stored, and used.

It will be an exciting year - I hope you are enjoying it with loved ones and that the new year brings great opportunities for all - personally and professionally.

On the Holidays

2005-12-25T01:45:00.000-06:00

I was raised Roman Catholic, so as a child we celebrated Christmas, yet every year in my stockings there was also a small bag of Hanukkah geld. A small reminder from my mom of our family's Jewish roots as well.

Now, as an adult, my family still celebrates Christmas, but as an atheist I find myself somewhat at loose ends this time of year. I enjoy, though it is stressful as well, the process of finding gifts for others - finding that perfect item for someone whom I love. And certainly I do not complain when others give me gifts - always a good feeling.

When asked, by a survey or the like, I will self-identify as Jewish, though more out of ethnicity than religion, but at the same time I go through life with a desidely Irish name - Shannon Clark - so in some manner I'm a "stealth" member of the tribe. Many people find it somewhat surprising that I'm Jewish, but I certainly qualify (mother, grandmother, great-grandmother who are all Jewish).

As a child, however, I attended a Roman Catholic elementary school (yes, with nuns as teachers) and nearly everyone (outside of some family members) whom I knew were Roman Catholic. I distinctly remember as a child assuming that the whole world was Roman Catholic (and yes, I know my own mother and other relatives should have been a rather obvious counterexample but that was the reality I lived in for a time).

This perception of the world, perhaps, was strengthen by the lack of a TV in my family until I was in junior high (around the summer after 7th grade). In 7th grade I attended a public junior high and certainly many of my classmates there were not Catholic, though the subject rarely came up. I had skipped a grade (never finished 2nd grade when we moved from NY to Chicago I started 3rd grade instead of complete 2nd grade) so I was younger than most of my classmates. Around 8th grade or freshman year of high school most Catholics get confirmed. Confirmation, one of the seven sacraments, is the public announcement that you will be a member of the Roman Catholic faith, that you will raise your future children as Catholics and that you will live your life as a member of the Church.

I chose not to be confirmed, at first by simply avoiding the subject, but later on in high school very deliberately. I had long held serious doubts about God, in the 3rd grade I had failed a test in Religion class when I had turned in an empty page for an assignment requiring us to "draw a picture of God" - I knew that they wanted a picture of an old man with a long white beard or something like that - but all I could imagine at the time was that God, if existing, was everything and nothing - and certainly not an old man in a white beard no matter how much that was expected of me.

I studied philosophy, fairly seriously, in high school, taking a full year course in Philosophy my sophomore year and then doing additional independent study in philosophy with one of my teachers. I found in Existentialism (though not in the later Marxist phase of Sartre) a philosophy of the world that agreed with my own views - and which gave priority to the importance and responsibility of choice.

I made the active choice not to be confirmed because had I been confirmed I would have been publicly making the choice then and into the future of living my life as a Catholic. I valued that public declaration and did not want to make such a declaration if I did not intend on honoring it. I had too much respect to disrespect the ceremony if I would be making a statement I did not believe in - and the starting point of "I believe in God" was one I would not publicly state.

My philosophy of the world is complex. I very firmly believe in the priority of individual choice and action. This is often hard and challenging, it does not allow me an amorphous "other" in the form of God (or society, chemicals, other individuals or groups) onto whom to shift blame and responsibility for my life. It is not a forgiving philosophy or an easy one, it is why I have never once in my life been drunk, it is why I avoid taking drugs that impact mental capacity (and why I do have a serious philosophical debate with myself over my consumption of caffeine).

As the party choosing to take those substances I do not then shift responsibility to the substance for any action which I might take while "under the influence" so, preemptively I choose not to imbibe. I will, occasionally, have a glass of wine or a bottle of cider, but not much more.

I'm certainly not perfect, and in fact I often avoid making a choice and thus via inaction effectively make a choice but somehow a less explicit one. This is not a good behavior on my part - and one I have to watch and continue to learn to avoid.

But to bring this back to the holidays. I find myself increasingly taking care that I focus on "the holidays" and not on Christmas (or Hanukkah) whether in a card which I send or in my speech.

This evening, I am home alone, my girlfriend is visiting her family flying back tomorrow to have Christmas dinner at my parents. I went out for an early dinner, then sat in a Starbucks for a little while before going and seeing Fun with Dick and Jane - which was fun but didn't live up to the promise of the premise. As I walked the mostly empty streets of Chicago I found myself as always during these religious yet general public holidays feeling a bit removed from the rest of society.

I find myself much more comfortable with purely secular holidays - Fourth of July for example - and less comfortable with these religiously based holidays. I feel that I am on the outside, and I wonder how the millions of others who live in the US but who are, like myself, not Christians (or in many cases not even having been raised in a Christian background) feel this time of year. My Jewish friends joke about going out for Chinese or a movie and there are many a Jewish singles event this time of the year (I went to one years ago when I was single) but I wonder how my Buddhist, Muslim, Pagan or Hindu friends feel.

The US society is still very much dominated by Protestant Christianity. I wonder, how many people, like my youthful self, just assume that the whole world, that "everyone", is believing the same as they do, is celebrating in the same ways and the same events that they celebrate. I suspect that the numbers of people who hold this view of the world is quite large, though I hold out some hope that growing connectivity driven by the Internet but also 100's of channels of TV and a global entertainment marketplace may be helping to increase the intuitive awareness that there are other ways of viewing the world.

But it is equally possible that you can still (perhaps even more easily now than ever before) isolate yourself and view only those things that reinforce your own views of the world and "reality". Customized news, TiVo, radio and other mediums all supporting just one view can render it increasingly easy to never encounter others of different faiths and beliefs (or lack of belief).

I wonder very seriously about the growing number of people who are being home schooled, who never get the complex opportunity of a public school to encounter others of different backgrounds and religions. Though that assumes, of course, that at a public school there will be diversity, this is not always true of many (perhaps most) communities in the US. I was fortunate to attend a high school which was exceptionally diverse - racially, religiously, economically. Students there were in public housing while others were given Rolls Royces when they turned 16. Every year 20 or more exchange students (and teachers) would attend the high school. At graduation we were given a speech which talked about how different the rest of the world and likely our college experience would be - how less diverse most places were.

We were lucky.

In 2006 I will be moving from Chicago to Berkeley. I leave the city where I have lived for the past 23+ years for another which I grew up hearing about (my parents met at U. C. Berkeley). It is a diverse community in many ways, but not in all ways. The tech community, of which I will be a part in the Bay Area, is not as diverse as it could (and I would argue should) be. Many events and companies are extremely male-dominated, not always very racially diverse, and in many cases (as is not uncommon with smaller firms) very uniform in their makeup. There is also passive (and at times active) discrimination against people by age - with the bias being towards younger developers. In places like Berkeley there is also an extreme lack of political diversity.

In any of these cases, like my younger self in the Catholic elementary school, it is all too easy to assume that "everyone" is like those with whom we spend our days, with whom we work and play, with whom we live and interact with. Even when presented by evidence to the contrary - a homeless man, an occasional colleague who didn't vote for Kerry, a developer still working with Java (or C or Fortran or Lisp or even using IE) - we can still act and have the impression that everyone is mostly like us.

So my holiday wish is that everyone - whether religious or not, atheist, Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, IE user, Firefox promoter, Republican or Democrat or not a US citizen - will make a point to remember that we - humans - are diverse and different and celebrate, remember, and embrace that diversity. Make a point in this upcoming new year, and throughout this holiday season to engage with the other - to seek ways to continually remind yourself that there are many faiths, many viewpoints, many experiences of life.

I wish you a happy holidays and a great new year. If you are reading this, please feel free to engage with me - whether via a comment here, email, or in person. I welcome your interactions and I look forward to the challenges (and choices) ahead of us all in 2006.

Evil Genius Chronicles - Apprenticeship

2005-12-16T10:13:00.000-06:00

I left the following, long comment, at Evil Genius Chronicles - Apprenticeship

To offer a somewhat different perspective, I think what people respond to in the various reality tv shows (and now also webshows etc) is not that someone 'has' a job or gets one - but the specific, usually unusual and relatively rare job which the winners get. i.e. six figures (plus lots of recognition) 'running' a line of business for a billionaire; running a music studio, being on air talent for a major (cable) network etc.
There is also a great related branch of 'reality' tv shows which illustrate at least to a degree an interesting side of many jobs - from extremes like 'dirty jobs' to more practical examples on HGTV and others about real estate, design, or building. Even shows like 'monster garage' etc while clearly entertainment, are also showing creativity as well as working in teams.
Now don't get me wrong, I was raised without a TV for much of my life and go without one frequently (the past month and half for example) but I'm also not as pessimistic as the previous commentator - tv shows, including some (but clearly not all) of the 'reality' shows have in many respects been getting LESS mindless not more. They compete against entertainments in many mediums - but the long story arcs of the best shows and the problem solving / creativity of the best of the short shows is markedly different than earlier eras of TV.
Stephen Johnson discusses this to some degree in his book 'everything bad is good for you' the phenomenon of the growing complexity of thought required by the best of modern media.
(news noteably usually not being in this category - there the thought required has mostly gone down not up - though it was never very high to start)

ThinkGeek :: Polarity - Magnetic Boardgame

2005-12-09T01:47:00.000-06:00

If you are reading this and are wondering what types of things I might like for the holidays... ThinkGeek :: Polarity - Magnetic Boardgame

Okay, let met get this straight - hovering pieces, controlled chaos in game play? Count me in...

On a serious note, I love to see new games like this - strategy and gameplay in new dimensions, sounds really fun and mind-bending, probably quickly to play, but also rewarding of repeated play with the ability to get better, while still having some room for randomness and variation.

Windows Live Safety Center

2005-11-01T17:41:00.000-06:00

Windows Live Safety Center

I left a comment here about my experienaces.

Windows Live Safety Center: Free online scanner for PC health and safety

2005-11-01T15:33:00.000-06:00

Windows Live Safety Center: Free online scanner for PC health and safety

A useful service which is part of Microsoft's launch of a variety of services under the live.com site. I'm testing this out on my primary laptop and will see what (hopefully nothing) it finds.

I'll also test this with less updated/secured systems, my windows 98 machine for example and see how/if it handles that.

White Sox Win!

2005-10-26T23:39:00.000-05:00

What more is there to say - 88 years - many generations and as a Chicagoan I'm thrilled and excited and very happy - I didn't think it would ever happen and now it has in very convincing fashion.

If next year the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago White Sox were to play it would be the 100th aniversary of the last time those two teams met in the World Series - the 1906 World Series. Something to hope for (imagine how impossible those tickets would be to come by... )

My record of not making it to any Chicago team's games when they have a winning record remains intact - I missed all the Bulls games in the 1990's, the Bears in the 1985 and now the White Sox in 2005!

Flavors of Fall

2005-10-26T20:01:00.000-05:00

While the weather here in Chicago while gloomy and wet is mostly fall like, unlike my friend Ethan in the Bershires, we are also rapidly approaching the end of farmer's markets here in Chicago. So this past weekend and week we have been cooking fall flavors as a celebration of the season before Chicago as it is want to do switches to the long winter.

Over the weekend I went a bit wild at the Green City Market, a local organic farmer's market. I then spent all day Saturday cooking and invited friends over to taste.

Starting with a bag of apple seconds (bird bites etc) which I purchased for $2.00, Julia peeled and cored them, we then slowly cooked them on the stove in an inch of water with three cinnamon sticks.

As this reduced I started the first of many dishes which required our oven (wishing yet again that we had double ovens - a feature we'll look for in any new abode). First in was some pinwheel beets, so named because when prepared correctly they retain a pinwheel pattern on their insides when cut in rounds. They also have the great feature of not bleeding and of being somewhat sweeter than many other beets, in short a perfect beet for salads.

To prepare these I cut off the green portions just above the bulb (but left the tails) and washed them. I then put them in a Pyrex baking pan with a half-inch of water and covered the whole pan with aluminum foil. I preheated the over to 350 degrees and put them in for about 30-40 minutes (until a knife stuck in them went in easily without resistance). When I took them out I then washed them in cold water (alterntating between two glass bowls until the water was cool) and peeled the skins. I then set these aside and moved on to the next dish.

Next I cut in half two acorn squash. I cut these across the middle and scooped out the seeds. I then placed them on a lightly oiled baking pan and placed brown sugar, then a scoop of butter (about a teaspoon) and then a bit more brown sugar as well as salt, pepper and a sprinkling of maple sugar candy crumbs. I lightly oiled the edges of the squash with extra virgin olive oil. These I cooked at 400 degrees for about 40 minutes.

When I took the squash out I placed them in individual bowls and covered each with aluminum foil to retain the heat.

The next dish was a pork steak. This was an organic pork steak I had purchased at the farmer's market from the farmer who raised the pig. It was frozen so I had let it defrost all day while my other dishes were cooking. I spiced the pork steak with salt and pepper (french sea salt and very good black peppercorns freshly ground) and a maple spice rub I purchased that morning from the Spice House. I broiled this for about 10 minutes on a side.

While the pork cooked I prepared the beet salad.

This was a bed of fresh baby organic lettuce, drizzled with organic extra virgin olive oil (from Trader Joes) and 7 year aged balasmic and sea salt and black pepper. I then added the beets in slices (with a few smaller beets cubed for variety). Then I julianned a golden russet apple (This is possibly the best apple I have ever gotten from a local farmer's market and amongst the best I've ever had - not pretty to look at but unbelievably tasty and very firm - ideal for salads). I added these very small strips of apple which soaked up the balsamic. Then I topped the salad with a great stilton which I had purchased that morning from a wheel the cheese stop up the street from me had opened for me to taste - just the right flavor and texture for this salad.

With dinner I drank fresh apple cider to complete the perfect sampling of fall flavors.

Julia and I ate together, then two friends of ours stopped by, for each friend I prepared a salad and a sampling of the other dishes - homemade apple sauce, pork steak, baked acorn squash and beet & apple salad. They each enjoyed their tastes.

That was Saturday. On Sunday while we were out shopping for other items we stopped at Whole Foods and purchased some pork chops and some pasta. I prepared the pork chops with the same maple rub - extremely good. I also purchased some other beets and made the same salad but with different beets (still good but not quite as good as the pinwheel beets which were sweeter and softer in texture).

The pasta we purchased was pumpkin filled pasta, I prepared that for dinner last night with a light alfreddo sauce which I prepared while the pasta cooked (butter, milk, cheese, small amount of garlic powder.

We've also been making other dishes this week - an angel food cake (from mix) which we have been eating as dessert along with some of the apple sauce (and vanilla ice cream). For lunch the other day I sliced some hard boiled eggs with a julianned golden russet apple to this I added some of the 7 year old balsamic and some sea salt and ground pepper - very very tasty and fast.

In short this week has been a celebration of fall colors and flavors - pumkin, squash, apples, beets, pork. Later this week I plan on making homemade butternut squash soup and continue our celebration of the fall.

What dishes have you been making this fall?

?My heart?s in Accra ? Travel Writing

2005-10-02T11:58:00.000-05:00

?My heart?s in Accra ? Travel Writing

My friend Ethan Zuckerman has seperated out from his regular blog his writings about his travels. All are very well written and engaging, worth a look when you have a few minutes.

Movies I want to see

2005-10-01T13:29:00.000-05:00

At the moment there are more movies released which I want to see than I have time to go to the movies, here is the list of currently released movies which I want to see (and why), it is surprisingly long, probably the longest such as list has been in the past 5, perhaps 10 years.

Mirrormask - Neil Gaiman's new film. Here in Chicago only showing for one week. So this is likely the first film I'm going to go see, probably this weekend or next week.

Serenity - Josh Whedon's new film based on the Firefly TV series. While I haven't yet caught up on the Firefly series, given his track record with other series and the previews, this is near the top of my list of films to see.

Proof - While I have heard some mixed reviews, the ones I trust have all been very positive about this film, given my own interest in math as well as my many friends who are mathematicians I want to see this film.

Lord of War - I'm rarely disappointed in Nicholas Cage's films and in this one he plays an anti-hero arms dealer.

Oliver Twist - Roman Polanski's newest film of the Dicken's classic. I'm looking forward to seeing this.

Everything is Illuminated - while I haven't yet read the book, this story is one I feel I have to see.

A History of Violence - sounds like the type of story I would find fun.

The Aristocrats - for the overview of the history of comedy in America for nearly the last century.

Capote - not yet out in Chicago but when it is out I want to see this.

And still in theaters and I haven't see yet:

Fantastic Four - seems like it would be better on the big screen.

I'll add more links and details later, but this a quite a long list for me other than one or two films above I would regret not seeing all of these films while they are playing in theaters. And besides these there are many other films I wouldn't mind seeing as well as lots of great films coming to Chicago in upcoming weeks for the Chicago International Film Festival and other fests.

Returning to the blogosphere

2005-09-30T05:20:00.000-05:00

I have been absent for the most part from the blogosphere for a while now, writing quietly on my lalptop and digesting what I have been doing this summer. Now that we have entered into the fall I will be trying to get back into the blogging habit - across all three of my blogs. Here at Searching For the Moon I will blog mostly personal items - generally sites I find that are interesting but perhaps as well thoughts about restaurants, movies, plays, or other events I attend or see. I hope to also post some of the photos from my recent trip out west as well as detail some of the many things we did while traveling.

On my professional blog, piecing IT together I will be posting about my research, consulting work and business related articles, websites and events. My focus for the Fall will be Flow Economics, which is my term for the new form of economic analysis I offer my professional clients - looking at the relationships of an enterprise in terms of a network and then analyzing the flows within that network. This offers a new perspective on business whether small or large.

At MeshForum we will be blogging about Networks, our past speakers, and the process of organizing MeshForum 2006 (May 7-8 Chicago). We have a number of annoucements we will be making in the next few weeks, including some big names as speakers and an upcoming MeshForum dinner on Oct 5th here in Chicago.

Travels throughout the West Coast

2005-09-15T17:46:00.000-05:00

I am back in Chicago having been out on the West Coast for two weeks during which time I was in Santa Barbara, Berkeley and San Francisco, Myers Flat, Coos Bay, Portland, and Seattle. With many other stops along the way.

While I will be posting more about this trip, including photos to Flickr and specific comments in my various blogs, this is just a quick heads up here in case anyone was wondering where I have been - we returned home on Saturday but it has taken me until today to get caught up and I still have a few thousand emails to get through, a large inqueue of feeds to read, and many other items to take care of and complete - "vacations" are hard work, at least when you return.

Hilary Rosen on Larry Lessig's blog

2005-08-18T12:24:00.000-05:00

After the comment storm I participated in a few days ago, Hilary Rosen has posted her responses to the comments on Larry Lessig's blog.

I added the following additional comments:

"There is a critical difference between the "Internet" and other spaces governed by US laws.

For one - the "Internet" is truly global (I think the last country without connectivity has now been connected) and while it is true that US legal decisions have a way of being written into treaties and/or copied around the world - as we have recently seen in the case of the EU rejecting Software Patents this is by no means universally true.

So when the US, as in many recent laws like the DCMA, tries to legislate for the Internet as a whole it may in a very real sense be fighting a losing battle, with the biggest losers possibly being US citizens (and our corporations) who will be prevented from the full potential of digital technology.

In the case of online gambling, for example, this is a complex subject - but it is also very clearly one where companies (and their millions of customers) in other countries are seeing a great deal of innovation and revenues.

In the case of innovation in less politically charged realms - from patents to music - I personally find it striking that some of the most innovative music I have heard recently have been mashups, mostly from Europeans (though they are likely difficult to license in Europe as well as the US).

On a more legally clear example, I listen to a large number of podcasts - however here in the US they are restricted heavily by limitations (specifically the lack of legal universal licenses ala radio licenses) to allow podcasters to mix and play any song they would like to. However other countries have adopted radio-like universal licenses and the result is one of my favorite podcasts and a mix of music better by leaps and bounds than any radio station I have ever heard (on or offline) - Karin's Themed podcasts. These are about 1 hour blocks of music bound by a common theme - often a very international selection of music, but even when she selects only English language songs her groupings and selections cause me to hear old songs in new ways.

She pays the licensing fees in the Netherlands to be in legal compliance - so the artists she plays do get compensation from her playing of the music, in much the same way they do when a radio station plays them - and as a fan I gain the great benefit of hearing old music in new, creative ways.

I think for many forms of non-duplicative creative use (i.e. not selling a CD that is an exact copy of the artist's CD) a form of universal license such as the radio license - though probably tiered and/or with a per-unit percentage of price capped fee - could make much more sense than the current "clear every right with every possible rightsholder". Especially since the number of "orphaned" copyrights is huge and growing (even works created just years ago can be difficult if not impossible to track down the copyright holder of. A simple example, I wrote to many USENET newsgroups in the early 90's - my writing gained am immediate copyright - however if you were now to want to print, in full, the content of a specific USENET newsgroup you would have to find each poster and get permission. I am no longer at the email address I posted under, which was a university account, a quick google search of the Internet does turn me up as the first "Shannon Clark" and indeed I list on my profiles that I attended the university where the posts came from - so it is probable that I am the same Shannon Clark - but how can you be certain? There are literally dozens of other Shannon Clark's in the US. And I did this fairly simply, I posted under my own name - what about someone like "three blind mice" - how would you go about including his comments, in full, in another creative work?)

The point is that the requirement "get permission first" is increasingly untenable.

Here in the US we do not currently separate out commerical and moral rights - in the EU they have taken the approach that these rights are separate (which creates the complication that in the EU creative commons licenses or attempts to put new content into the public domain may still be bound by "moral rights" which apparently the authors may not be able to waive completely).

I think we should make it easy for the "public domain" to grow again - both by cleaning up orphaned copyrights (Lessig's suggestion of a minimal registration fee would clear things up pretty quickly and separate out "commercially viable" copyrights from the millions of orphaned ones - and have the further advantage of making it clearer which works were/were not in the public domain) and by making the process of offering up works to the public domain easier (and perhaps making some areas, such as comments especially anonymous ones, USENET etc areas where the public domain is assumed - that is by posting publically unless you attach restrictions you waive future need to contact you for permission to quote, remix, etc)

Moral rights - i.e. the right not to have your words used in ways you do not agree with are a much trickier issue. I think, however, it might be possible to expand the concept of "misrepresentation" (and/or libel) to cover this without much difficulty. (i.e. you can use what I right without first clearing it with me - but you can't use it in a way that makes it appear that your changes/remixes are my original work - i.e. use my works to claim that "Shannon Clark wants there to be no public domain at all" via the means of selective editing and insertation of new words into my text.

You could, however, use my words in a quotation (even an extended one that might go beyond "fair use") as part of your pamphlet or book arguing against my position. If my writings had a way of being placed in the public domain OR if you had a way of obtaining a "radio like" license then I (in the US at least) couldn't object to your usage and use that objection to prevent (or make commercially onorous) the publication of the book.

It is not always going to be a clear line - and multimedia examples will be complicated (does the music playing a documentary imply that the musicians condone the actions appearing on screen to their music? what if it isn't a documentary but a commercial? what if it isn't a 'commercial' but is a 'reality tv show'?) but I think there are alternatives which offer great benefit than the current stasis and uncertainty.

Shannon"

Feedster Top 500 blogs

2005-08-16T13:57:00.000-05:00

Feedster (sf) :: RSS Search Engine

I'm clearly not listed... but worth a look lots of great feeds and blogs I was not previously aware of and very good to see friend's sites highly ranked.