hang loose

if the flash don't light, then the battery's low

Dragonette kind of scares the bejeezus out of me, but I appreciate this monochrome groove.

I like the title of this song - once heard wisdom is learning what to forget and what to hold on to.

return balance;

Looking for a hobby - chess boxing seems diversified enough of an extracurricular investment of time.

I spend my days holed up in a digital attic, evenings lost in the biomass.

Codeacademy is a wonderful set of training wheels for aspiring computer programmers. I told a friend I was learning Java, he responded by saying "No you are learning Javascript - there is a difference, and don't you ever make that mistake again".

springy

Great week - kalimoxto last night, basqueing in the warm weather with a Spaniard, Greek, Dave and Ann.
Started reading Gödel,  Escher,  Bach again; tried to talk about it... which didn't go that well. Going to have to focus on forging through its difficult concepts. Computational theory of mind: scares a lot of people.

memories like hyperlinks; in the age post-forgetting;

Processing

Instead of taking a class in strategic marketing I got a job in it. It makes a little more sense, but the literature isn't as good.
To correct that problem I've started reading Snowcrash again. The author, Neal Stephenson*, is smart - but it must have been hard for him to envisage the growth of big data and mobile. I think those are the two most transitive technologies at the moment (or at least my moment). We spend more and more time on our devices, and that time, that money, that human interaction is heavily quantified and repackaged at profit.

Here - have my hypercard.

* - Stephenson is apparently being paid by Jeff Bezos to develop a manned sub-orbital launch system. That's the coolest job ever.

Diamond Age

My strategic marketing class began this past Monday with a discussion of Vincent Negroponte's plan to deliver laptops to every child on the planet. It immediately is striking as a bold enterprise, and one with great promise. Neal Stephenson's excellent book, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, raises a good question- ie whether providing raw resources through digital mediums can act as a surrogate teacher.

I'm more concerned with whether or not a non-profit or a for-profit company is better equipped to meet this global need. Negroponte was able to deliver a groundbreaking prototype - which you can buy through a "get one, give one" system similar to Tom's shoes offerings - mainly because the legitimacy of a non-profit allowed the company to draw upon open-source design. Are non-profits able to drive paradigm change faster than their capitalist competitors?