Grad schools loom large and mystifying in the distance. The guardians of the path stand before me: a test of worth and a test of trial. The GRE and my submissions must be completed while, at the same time, I must not falter in my current explorations in my general classes. I have an honors thesis to write: an exploration of self in a technical world. So too, I have my Poetry Seminar, which is quite possibly the most electrifying and terrifying class I have ever taken. All of this in addition to my obligations to outside projects that I am all but absolute in my dedication to.

What do you do when you have found what you want? How do you make sure you never lose it? I am working on projects I love, volunteering with organizations whose missions I support wholeheartedly, and finding myself on the track I always wanted to travel. I’m also terrified that something or someone will come along and tear it all away from me. That in one fell swoop all of this will disappear and I will find myself back in a cubicle working as a nameless drone for some tiresome corporation.

I know these concerns are primarily baseless but they remain. I am a refugee still looking for a place and I hope that, by the time this year is over, I will have found one.

To that end, I can’t fault Posterous at all. It does a great job and I do highly recommend it. It is fully customizable and easily managed. It’s flexible and easy to use but powerful enough for many power users. Unfortunately, for me, it was another step in a chain of dissimilar products. While Posterous and WordPress do work together, a lot of what I do with WordPress cannot be easily duplicated via autopost in posterous. WordPress categories were never right with the posterous auto-post and I generally found myself re-editing WordPress after they finished. It ended up being more work not less.

This means that I will be disabling my Posterous in about a month. All posts are mirrored to my primary site here and I have found a WordPress post-by-email plugin that may actually work a bit better for me. We will have to see how that goes!

I will keep you all posted.

Explore , challenge, create, do whatever you can to make something. Take the
space back or, at the very least, make your small section of it interesting.

As for the rest, maybe people will find something that grabs their fancy.
This isn’t about saving the world. I know I stopped wanting to do that years
ago. Now, I am interested in helping those I can. As for the world, well,
I’m just hoping it holds up until we actually learn a bit more.

Posted via email from Snippets of Text and Hubris

As the article notes a rolling stone gathers no moss to which I would add
that it is also a horrible basis for a foundation. The author does mourn the
loss but even acknowledges that his view is in the minority.
Content…substance…those things really don’t seem to matter anymore.

I’m not really sure where to go with this. In fact, I’m not sure where it
puts any of us. I feel sometimes that we have been given an incredible tool.
We have an architecture that should inspire us to create and build and write
and instead we scribble across it like diseased apes who are still trapped
in their own little caves. I read posts and comments by people talking about
this technology and that technology will change things and yet all I see is
a hell of a lot of rehashing of things that already were. Wow, you can make
a gadget that allows me to read formatted text, that is exactly what I need
but only if I can play videos games on it that, for all intents and
purposes, are identical to the ones I played 20 years ago. This supposed to
impress me? Or I am just supposed to say, “OOOOo…shiny…” and buy more
crap?

Now I am told the era of the PC is coming to an end. People don’t need
computers anymore. The truth is, most of them never did, and that is a
tragedy. Most of them only needed a modified television and a smartphone
provides them with just that. They can log on to Facebook and read the feed,
wander around and gaze at the pretty colors while being sold every product
imaginable and then settle in for some good old media delivered, just as
always was, straight from those who know exactly what you need to see. After
all why does a Gamma or a Delta need more than that? We should all smile and
be happy. Take another soma and forget all about this.

I think I may be needing another hit myself. Links:
Facebook Profile Pages Becoming Irrelevant [ReadWriteWeb]:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_profile_pages_becoming_irrelev
ant.php

Posted via email from Snippets of Text and Hubris

I was going over my last twenty-four hours and I realized that I am incredibly happy with how things have turned out. Let me walk you through why.

I spent last night going over a side project involving game design, tabletop role play, and storytelling with a few friends. We worked out a couple kinks, ran through a small playtest, and generally had a lot of fun designing a subsystem for our style of play. I didn’t get back ‘til after midnight.

I then went over site inspirations and styles for a project in early development that I am working on as a volunteer. I catalogued the sites, identified the base software where I could and updated the documentation with what I found. Then I actually went to bed.

I was back up by 8:15am. I read my email, had breakfast and generally got ready for the day. My morning well spent, I left and worked for several hours on portal creation and design for the University sponsored humanitarian project that employs me. When I finished there, I barely had time to grab lunch before driving to Cedar Rapids to work as a Tech volunteer for a training, support, and assistance program that is based in the downtown area there.

Tonight, I may swim and then I will work on a couple of poems I have been kicking about. After that, I will read and go to sleep and start a similar day tomorrow. In two weeks, I set off to complete my degree and already I am pulling things together for grad school.

Was losing the job worth it, then? Yeah…and then some. All of above, I couldn’t have done before. It’s true, money isn’t as plentiful as it used to be but today what I did actually mattered. These new portals will help educate people. The systems I fixed will help the staff provide support where it is most needed. All the work I am doing now has value in so many other ways and there is a part of me that feels so much better because of it.  The corporate job I had help set the groundwork for when I am now. It was a series of lessons in and of itself. It was time for it to end then and I think it closed out at just the right point in time.

Of course, we’ll have to see if I feel the same way in a few months when the money gets real tight but that is still a ways off so we’ll see where it leads.

Enjoy life, folks. It is an adventure and there’s something to explore.

Posted via email from Snippets of Text and Hubris

This is my last comment on this for now.

Really.. (I hope)

I just finished reading Ryan Singel’s commentary on the Google-Verizon deal. Apparently, Google is an evil sell-out now. This is amusing because this has to make the assumption that Google was not an evil sell-out before which is, of course, ludicrous. Google is a large corporation and it has sold out numerous times in a variety of ways. So let’s start with this little tidbit of cold hard truth: there are no good guys and bad guys when it comes to corporations. Every one of them wants as much of your money as they can get. They just have different ways of getting it.

Now I know that those poor companies like Netflix and Hulu may be in trouble. Wait a minute here, isn’t 30% of Hulu owned by NBC Universal, a company in which Comcast will soon have a 51% stake? Isn’t Hulu already charging a monthly fee and still showing ads to its users? Yep, I mourn for Hulu. Now, Netflix, I use. I like the service, I like the content and so far that pleases me. I pay for it and I don’t watch ads (well except for those films which are ads but that’s not the point here). It’s a win-win. Let’s be honest here, though. I am not going to cry if Netflix goes away. I think that’s what really got to me in Singel’s article. You want me to feel bad because other companies are being screwed. Why? That’s how it works. You know who I worry about? I worry about the user who wants to share data with other users. I worry about shared traffic being forced to a slow crawl. I don’t care if I can’t watch Toy Story 3D streaming to my TV screen. Talk about missing the boat here.

I care about educational access for users in other countries where telecoms have no plans to implement anything near decent bandwidth because the investment supposedly isn’t worth it. I care about equal access and not being forced to go to Youtube or some telecom site to share data. I care about accessing and protecting my own systems and cloud-based platforms that protect the user not make them fodder for the next marketing scheme. I also believe in owning the hardware and software that I buy. One area where I do agree with Singel is on cell phones and the idiocy of telecom crippling. Of course, that problem only exists because we buy it. I want to see an end to telecom sponsored phones. It’ an idea bred from that 70’s bullshit where you essentially rented your phone from Ma Bell. There is a solution, though. Start paying full price or stop buying (I know, scary concept isn’t it?).

I know it’s not popular to say but this framework is a positive step. As I said yesterday, it’s positive not because it’s a good idea but because it is something we can look at and think about in real terms. It also reminds us that corporations aren’t on the side of the people. They never are.  I like Google’s products. I use a lot of them and I respect the incredible talent they have working for them. I don’t want them making government policy, though. As for Verizon, AT&T, and pretty every other telecom out there, I want them kept as far away as possible from being able to influence government policy. Is Google a sellout? Sure, but not because of this. They’re doing the best they can to protect their business. That is all you can expect from them. Stop making the corporation your hero and start focusing on pushing real policy. Yeah, it’s an uphill battle we may (and probably will) lose because they have bought a lot of the people we elected.

That just means we have to fight even harder. So donate, get active, join the EFF or another organization that is focused on this topic. Contact your representative, and start looking at technological projects that exist to help and promote connectivity and open access. Support them with time, skill, and money if you can. That’s how these fights are won. You can’t look up and say, “Google will save us.” They can’t and they won’t. That duty is up to the people. It’s up to us.

Links:

Singel’s article [Wired.com – Epicenter]:  http://bit.ly/ad9aUq

EFF’s balanced and productive review of the Framework [eff.org]: http://bit.ly/biR9a8

EFF: http://www.eff.org/

Posted via email from Snippets of Text and Hubris

This is a bad thing?

I read the commentary and then I read the framework. It’s a draft and it definitely has problems. It’s what we call a starting point. Verizon and Google are asking for oversight here and that is a good thing. This is the first substantive step I have seen on this front except for a massive amount of posturing.

Wouldn’t it be nice if this led to some actual movement from Congress and the FCC beyond their usual paralytic sate of indecision and fear of angering their precious funding sources?

Posted via email from Snippets of Text and Hubris

I loved that song as a kid. I really did.

In Mainstream Advertising Media

In 2010, Target started running advertisements featuring the title track “Free to Be You and Me.” Rather than narratively espousing the original meanings and values of the song (its nods to the 60s/70s feminist/new age/non-consumerist era), the ads depicted school children ‘free’ to make important post modern consumerist decisions in life–namely which clothing and colors to wear to school–as the tune played on in the background.

Links:
Wikipedia: Free to Be You and Me

This week I started work on a University project that seems right on target with something I would want to do. The organization seems pretty solid. I wish I had a bit more direction in what it was they wanted from me but I will hash that out as my time there progresses. I’ve only been there three days and I already feel like I should have produced something. Instead, all I have is scattered notes and a lot more questions than answers. Odds are, that isn’t unusual. That doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

The most frustrating part of the whole procedure is the fact that it looks like I will be repeating a lot of work that was already done before. I find snippets and pieces of attempted code everywhere. Most are from people who are now long gone and who never completed what they started. Now, I won’t be working on this project forever. I know that. I’m also not going to up and leave something half done. I will provide documentation and hand-off. I will make sure what I do is commented and ready for whoever takes my place.
I will finish what I start. I don’t want to leave a trail of unfinished ideas behind me. I’ve done that too much in my life. Dreaming is great. Doing is better. To follow through on what you set out to do – to actually finish it – that is the real goal, though. I need to remember that.

I think we all do.

Ah, who am I kidding? It’s exactly the type of job I was looking for. It fits my school schedule, gives back to the world at large and uses skills that I love to use. If the money was better it would be my dream job. As it is, it is the best fit for what I need right now and that is rather nice. Honestly, I am looking forward to going in on Monday. It should be an interesting experience all around.

So, work is handled. School is pretty much settled for fall and I think Courtney and I have figured out our budget for the year. It still surprises me. I know I worked like hell to make it this way but everything is starting to fall into place. Oh, I am sure there will be surprises ahead but there is a real feeling that what we’re doing is right in all sense of the word. I like that.

My writing is the only thing that really suffered over this time period. i just haven’t had the time I wanted to sit and write and when I did, I was too tied up thinking about what had to be done. It wasn’t the best situation for a creative enterprise. It’s also something that I am going to need to figure out how to work through in the future. After all, things happen, that doesn’t mean I can stop writing.

I was able to get another poem out last night. It was a departure from my usual fare and I find that I am still questioning my voice and my genre. Amazon’s little deal with Wylie was horrifying, especially to someone who wants to believe and write in the new media and digital space. Those of us who came here first did so with a sort of egalitarian ideal. This was open space and territory was ripe for the picking. We forgot that the ideals of enclosure were never really done away with and all that was needed was for a company, like Amazon, to set itself up as the sole proprietor. In one move the works of several incredible authors has been locked away behind the walls of a plastic toy. Even then, we have been shown that, at any time, those authors can be plucked away on a whim. It’s a frightening concept to say the least and almost enough to push me solely into print.

It’s sad because we have here, in this interconnectivity, a chance to recreate the storytellers’ circle. We can share stories and poems. We can relate in ways that we couldn’t before and that is exciting. Narrative and poetry can flow, merge and can be shaped by the tellers and the circle. That should be astounding and every author in the world should be grinning at the thought of such a possibility. Instead, the best example of this is an advertising commercial for Old Spice. Really? I mean really? Doesn’t that embarrass anyone, because it sure as hell embarrasses me. Yes, there is no doubt, those guys are geniuses. What that means is that our best talents in modern storytelling work in advertising. It’s not even enclosure at that point. It’s just the marketing of another product.

There has to be a voice for storytelling. People want to tell stories. They want to hear stories. I know that much. I still run a small Improvisational Storytelling Group every other Saturday. In a lot of ways, it’s no different from the tabletop RPG’s I used to run. The difference is that the players all are storytellers. We set the scene and we let it run. It becomes a shared experience. In the best example of this there is no guide, there is only the story. I watch people come away from this experience wanting more. There is a reason for this. Stories and poems feed something deep within the human psyche and no locked gates can keep that desire at bay.

Ah well, as I said, I was questioning my voice and genre but a resolution was found. The truth is, I couldn’t stop now even if I wanted to. This is a part of me that I hid for a very long time. It’s out now and I don’t think I know how to put it back.

And if I did, I never would…