RandomWrites - Thought Overflow... (Page 2)

Vizzini...

Just finished "Its kind of a Funny Story", great book, looked up the author and found he committed suicide in 2013, 9 years after he wrote the book about depression and real friends and creativity and his 5 days in a psych ward.

And tried to find his writings, like blogs, and found this - another fan, her words made a lot of sense to me:

"If there is one thing I have learned from Vizzini, it’s that struggles are not written in pencil. You can’t erase the past, and if you try to cross it out, it only looks worse. If you try to rip out the pages of your story that you don’t like, the book won’t make any sense."

https://twloha.com/blog/thank-you-ned-vizzini/

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Political/Community Projects I'm Doing or would Like to Do

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/

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The lighter side of activism...

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.

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Omit Needless Motions : thoughts on the Alexander technique

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/

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took me long enough: the key..

..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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25 commandments I've never followed

Maybe one, maybe a handful of them, but I don't think I've ever followed all of them. Even posting this here seems to break the key idea that readers are the most important part of writing, because if it were posted somewhere else maybe it would have more chance of finding readers. But I'm stubborn and like to post on my own blog. 25 Commandments for Journalists

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area51

I've been using StackOverflow for years as a programmer, and never before scrolled to the bottom to see the whole community of sites. Not only is there stackoverflow for plumbers and scifi/fantasy buffs, but http://area51.stackexchange.com/ lets you join or start a community of experts for a new stackoverflow site.

Its interesting that its not just platform software anyone can use, but that the community/reputation/expert factor is an intrinsic part of the thing. Its not just the software, apparently.

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My Friend Radio

'listen to what joe is listening to/last listened to'

ah - this does exist, I didn't know if it did; on last.fm you can listen to any other user's library radio. Too bad most of my friends don't use last.fm.

Actually, it doesn't work that well - it seems to try to load the entire library before it starts playing any one song.

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The Terrible Trivium and other matters

I admit it - I enjoy children's books. My excuse is reading them to my kids. When they all grow up I'll have to rent kids so I can read to them. Compare picture books for kids to power point presentations designed for executives: both assume a short attention span and try to get the point across powerfully and with images as an aid. The picture books tend to be more honestly informative, but otherwise not so different.

Where else would I have time to delve into the life of Leonardo da Vinci, dolphin behaviour, or the invention of steamboats and submarines? And who else would point out the dangers of the Terrible Trivium if not for Norton Juster, author of the Phantom Tollbooth in which the protagonist faces this most terrible of fiends, "demon of petty tasks and worthless jobs, ogre of wasted effort, and monster of habit." As the Terrible Trivium says, "If you only do the easy and useless jobs, you'll never have to worry about the important ones which are so difficult. You just won't have the time. For there's always something to do to keep you from what you really should be doing..." Indeed.

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Creative Commons Case studies

Ah - I've been looking for this: ways people are sharing documents to make structures outside corporations. Creative Commons is building up some case studies of how CC licenses spread good ideas through the world.

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Case_Studies

Global Voices Online is a good one, I think: http://globalvoicesonline.org

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