Fun times and cool stuff at Unrig the System - it was lovely spending days in the company of organizers and activists, and tech innovators working on fixing things.
Wrote it up on Medium here:
The Jazz Fix: a riff-off of solutions to political corruption and gridlock
...In the intro, Hamilton wrote
"It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force."
And, he expected Americans, common man in the street, to read it! Its ok to communicate complex ideas to each other, really it is...
...Wrote the piece here Here's my take on conservative economic theory: SuperFreakonomics SuperFreakonomics the book is consistently entertaining, sometimes fascinating, genuinely thought-provoking, excessively glib, fundamentally flawed, and viscerally disturbing. Let me explain....
...So I was talking over ideas with my friend John, and he asked me to make a list of all the ones I've been thinking of, or trying to start, recently. And it was a long list! Here it is, and should anyone reading this be crazy enough to want to join forces feel free to give me a ring -----------------------------------------------------
local/remote/general/political --------------------------------------
- helping HEPAC in Nogales see http://friendsofhepac.org. Just set up the shop at https://www.etsy.com/shop/HEPACooperativa need to promote it. Recruit volunteers (maybe on volunteermatch.org) to help manage their websites. sponsor kid at tech school there to mentor others in coder dojo. invite people in Tucson to visit/go on a water drop for No More Deaths (same organizer)
- helping Amani daycare volunteering with my kids there with refugee kids. follow up with dept of health and human services who are giving them a hard time. organize other volunteers to build a community garden there. remember to bring more folders for the kids.
- work on implementing the concept of helping communities in the course of campaigns and not only after winning elections. https://www.dailykos.com/
...So I signed a petition today at dailyKos, asking congress to prevent Trump from having the authority to start a nuclear war. And I thought, well, petitions aren't very effective and I don't know if this will do any good. But at least, if there is a nuclear war and we are all gonna die, at least I know I signed a petition....
hm.
I did get a bunch of people at the peace fair today to agree to make phone calls against that SB1142 bill. Now back to aligning voter files to enable our communities product. Would it have made any difference if I just went hiking? But then there was Anna Maria with the families of those killed by the border patrol. I think I'm glad I went. Fighting back is a funny thing.
...Just finished reading Eliyahu Goldratt's The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement. I liked it fairly well, found it actually pretty inspiring about 2/3 of the way through, but he lost me at the end when he seemed to imply that his Theory of Constraints could solve every problem known to business, education or human endeavor. Its the be-all-end-all syndrome that is so prevalent with consultants and trainers, because the success of consultancy is dependent on being The One with the answers.
The thing is, its ok to have a fairly good and somewhat original idea, that is sometimes helpful. That's better than average and its a good thing. Nothing in this book is earth-shaking, but it does show some effective sounding approaches for optimizing messy, dependent chains of operations. It has enough concrete details that it convinces me that the author knows at least something about manufacturing. And the idea of searching for bottlenecks, constraints and maximum leverage is a good one to keep in mind. Its an easy read and worth an afternoon, just skip over the puffery stuff at the end.
...I am not the snapchat type. I prefer books, code, and UIs that let me drive, think about what I'm doing, and build things over time. But with two of my kids off to college and Snapchat their preferred method of communication, I'm snapchatting.
What strikes me about the app, is the emotional bang for the buck it provides. Low overhead - down in the tenth-of-a-second range - as well as nothing to organize later, nothing to store, and no definite expectation of response makes the 'cost' of using the app in terms of time, effort and responsibility almost zero. The gratification of getting a snap unexpectedly (usually they seem not to be part of an ongoing conversation) or of seeing that one of your friends or family has viewed or saved your snap is fairly high, especially when its a photo of a distant family member.
Spontaneity is another plus. Silliness is encouraged both by the app itself (filters, face swaps, etc) and by the sense of impermanence. One might hesitate to post a dog-whiskered, clown-nosed version of oneself to a online photo album, but the sense that this is like a voice conversation that will disappear, encourages fun
...I love this quote - this is one of my core values and love hearing Hilary say it. She may be personally ambitious - so shoot her - but I believe that she works hard and cares about stuff, including women and kids. She meets with a lot of people in scary situations personally, and I bet that really does affect her.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/6/21/1541020/-Trump-s-total-policy-vacuousness-gives-Hillary-space-to-connect-with-average-Americans
...A friend introduced me yesterday to the Alexander technique, which after reading about on various websites, I still know very little about. Here is why I consider that a failing in principle.
I am not merely a demanding, impatient, spoiled American, though I am those things too. But the technique, or the description of it I was able to gather in my very brief reading, seems to me to contain powerful principles that reach beyond use of one's body.
The Alexander technique, in my limited understanding, involves not only release of tension but minimalist motion and effort, a conscious avoiding of unnecessary muscle action.
This principle of minimalist, focused effort is both general and powerful: Omit Needless Words. Treat every problem as if its solution were extremely simple (Extreme programming). Write.
So here is a challenge to you folks who do understand the Alexander technique, who are teachers and who have dedicated years to its understanding: Can you write a page or two of imperatives that distill your deep wisdom to the fewest possible words?
In the meantime, I'll keep reading:
http://www.alexandertechnique.com/ http://alexandertechnique.com/resources/joshuaselfstudy/
.....to a good life is having a framework in which you can spend the bits of time doing good things, things in line with your long term deep goals. That's it. And that's the software I really want to write, the thing that ties together the long-term threads and deeper goals with the daily feed and workflow. But in the meantime use the tools there are, which maybe could already be used that way...
kinda obvious but most things that make sense are obvious, no?
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