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Wanna be starting something? Tech advise for the entrepreneur.

So you're smart. You've got an idea and you want to change the world (or at least your world my making some cashish). These days, it takes more than an idea to make it happen - especially when you are competing with the Kardashians and the Republican presidential candidates (and their inverted sense of elegance and poise) for air-time.

If you are wanna be starting something but aren't sure where to start, you might find the following helpful.

Resolve

I have a friend who, last time I checked in, logs over 93 hours a week playing the SIMS. This SIMS is a video game in which you have a virtual 'avatar' that you have to feed and make sure they go to work and socialise in a perfect harmonious rhythm determined by an algorithm designed by the toy maker. 93 hours a week. That is twice as much as most of us work.

Creation Myths

We write our own stories. We make shit up, and then we listen to ourselves say it out loud. We create ourselves over and over again this way. We decorate our houses like hermit crabs, we wear certain clothes, and we use them like props in the play about that time we spent here, once.

That we believe these plays are true makes them confusing, and that we believe they are important makes them holy.

Talking Story

I have been doing some thinking about what it means to have a culture that is self aware and how that would distill down to the level of individual values and relationships between people.  I've been specifically thinking about verbal or physical communication between individuals.  
 

Chasing the Dragon: or how I'm curing my Lyme Disease

We are all habitat.  Microscopic condos for animals old as dirt.  We breath and eat at their mercy.I first found out I had Lyme Disease in 2003, about 3 years after I initially became infected.  In order to find it, I had to reassemble my own history.  I haven't trusted my memory since.

Holy Wars

The wars we wage against ourselves are probably the only wars that are truly holy - truly blessed. Maybe because they are the only ones in which winning is even possible. It feels like I am probably in the middle of one such war, or maybe just a particularly nasty battle. I trust that I am destined to win eventually. I feel blessed on days when I understand that there is no other outcome possible. It can be hard keeping the faith sometimes.

Can Technology throw a party and save the Universe?

I went down to the city of New Orleans about a month ago in a quest to continue to explore how what I do for a living can make a difference for the world. Don't worry, it wasn't all so serious.

A prayer for Donald Vidrine

When I was organizing for the first United States Social Forum, I sent an email out in a somewhat public forum that was very hurtful to someone who I now count as a dear dear friend and confidant.  

Oil and Water

I have consumed 2 plastic water bottles this morning and it's not even 10. I say this with some degree of frustration. American's consume 60 million bottles of water a day, and so I am counting myself lucky. I am living the American Dream - I have the privilege to be wasteful.

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