This OLPC video really speaks to the heart of the potential of young people the world over waiting to be given the chance to be all they can be. We should work towards making child-friendly content and experiences for OLPC and other small child laptop users.

Today William Gibson met his thought child for the first time. Bill signed the EmpowerThyself "new glory" banner that has been Iwo Jimad at every Barcamp and Empowerment office from LA to SF to DC. It only took me six years to figure out what to say to him.

When I first met Bill I was reading his books and beginning to write and develop the ideas that became Empowerment. I used to see him at the Vancouver Bread Garden on 16th and Granville where I lived. I was in awe of the man. I introduced myself once but at the time I didn't know where to begin to explain the ideas growing into Empowerment from the seeds he had planted in my mind.

The Empowerment is directly inpsired by Neuromancer and the whole cyberpunk movement. 'Cybernetic' means steering yourself and 'punk' means steering against the flow so to me cyberpunk is about shaping yourself and shaping the future.

That is what Gibson inspired us all to do, and that is what we are now doing. Cyberpunk science fiction has become cyberpunk non-fiction.

By the next time I see him (hopefully at Rant's 10th Anniversary in Vancouver if he has time to accept my invitation) I will have a more concrete finished system to show him and the Wog cyberpunk community as a whole.

If Empowerment is Bill's memetic baby, this was more of a sonogram than a meeting, and it is time for the team to give birth. Remember:

"Great artists ship!"

http://sf0.org/tasks/

http://akoha.com/

Akoha is the world’s first social reality game where you can earn points by playing real-world missions with your friends. Missions might include giving someone your favorite book, inviting a friend for drinks, or buying a friend some chocolate. Learn more

They have tradeable pay-it-forward cards.

They have a sweet comic that explains it.

http://community.akoha.com/help/learn/

We've just moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and we're hunting for a new headquarters. If you know of suitable spaces from rooms to warehouses in San Francisco or Oakland, let us know.

We're currently beginning operations at the Noisebridge hacker space, which looks an awful lot like our old office: steel shelving, rolly chairs and hackers.

UPDATE: Since taking this picture a few days ago, Arram from Justin.tv on the right volunteered to help with writing and usability and J from Wikia has volunteered to help code! Noisebridge is hacker paradise and the support is really encouraging!

With the recent news of the banks handing out bad loans and requiring the government to bail them out it has become aparent that the current economy is not going to work for much longer. There are million of debt slaves all over the world at the moment who are struggling to feed, cloth and house themselves and their families. This can not be accepted by rational people.

 Money is currently generated through a complex system that start with loans to the government from the federal reserve. This is debt money and that process hurts everyone. Iv been lucky and grown up among fairly sucessful people but I have also seen the people that struggle to live day to day and Iv witnessed how things are difficult for them. The rich feel as if they have won something major in life and the truth is they have, peace of mind. They have been able to keep their head above the water through managing their money so that loans and interest don't hurt them. Iv seen people poorer than the others but yet are harder workers and don't get anywhere in life. The key to this is loans, debt, interest and management. The banks treat these people like they are friends but in truth they do nothing to help them as they allow these people to take out loans either directly through the bank or by issuing them credit card that have an interest rate on them knowing full well that its likly that the person won't be paying their bills in full which causes them to gain interest. Ever wonder why some cards offer no interest rate if you pay the bill in full? its because the banks know who their actual friends are and they treat them well.

People receive these credit cards and are told that if they pay at least 75% of each months bill then they will start to build good credit(trust that they will be able to pay off said loans or debt) but the people that are good at managing money know that none of the money actually exists so they never add more to their debts than what they can pay off at that moment. Literally they do not spend what they do not have. But sadly students are fooled into thinking otherwise and willingly except the interest rate and only pay a little bit of the bill each month and slowly their debt grows to the point that they can't pay it off and slowly become slaves to the bank via their debt, the rich are not debt slaves. 

 Iv seen both friends and people iv met struggle to be able to pay their bills and slowly fall into the hole more and more and have to seek the assitance of companies to help deal with their debt and have to work exta jobs to simply to survive. The did not and can no longer follow the simple rules to keeping their heads out of debt which are.

1. Never accept DEBT at all, period, no question no exception.

2. Own everything you have, no car leases, avoid home loans, dont let banks own what you have(see 1.)

3. Don't buy something if you don't have the money at that moment.

4. Stock market, yes it hurts the economy but having money in it will help you gain more money to buy physical assets.

Lets look at these rules in more depth.

1. Debt, pay every credit card in full, use cash whenever possible as it insures no debt is transfered to you. Never ow anyone money regardless of who they are especially if they are a bank.

2. Own everything you have, sounds simple but people most people don't. Ever heard of forclosure, the banks sezing cars and other property? its because the person didn't own that stuff via debt to the bank. Want a new car but can't afford it so going to lease it or make payments? too bad! go find a used car that you can afford and can pay for full on the spot that way no bank can ever take it away from you. Houses are the one thing thats hard to buy in full due to their price but luckly the housing market right now sucks so its a buyers market. Depending on how dedicated you are to avoiding debt you may want to look at getting a cheap apartment to save up to buy a home(yes I know in some cities apartments are cheaper than houses and that may work for you as long as it doesn't build debt) or you could buy trailer and put it on a small lot of land or purchase land in an area where you could build the home yourself and save the cost of paying a contractor to build it for you (look up house kits or dome houses). Arcologys will become housing for wogs and others so that will help lower th cost of a home dramatically. So pay in full which leads to rule three.

3. If you don't have the money for something then don't buy it, wait until you have the money and then buy it. This wouldn't be a problem if the actual greenback was still around so we will have to make due. Buying stuff with money you don't have is the easiest way to get into debt. Lets see I want a new Macbook pro for two grand but I don't have the money so I'll put it on my card and pay about $20 a month for it, NO! you've just stepped into putting yourself in debt to your bank and credit card company. How about you put that twenty dollars into a box until you have the two grand in cash and then go buy it so your not building debt and afterward you own it and no one else which reminds me of one of the previous rules on this list.

 4. Stock market, Yes NASDAQ, bull and bear markets. The stock market is like the Slurm queen from Futurama, its disgusting and everyones feeding off the stuff that comes out of its ass. It hurts our economy slowly but you can take advantage of it by thinking and investing smart. By investing money slowly and using your earnings and dividens to purchase more stock and physical assets then you will be better off in the future. Your physical assets don't have to be gold or silver, they can be homes, or other goods that others might be interested in. Heck buy collectables and then sell them again in cash for a profit so you can have a stockpile of cash or if you want to get survivalist style start purchasing stockpiles of ammo, water filters, food storage supplies and actual food. It may seem silly but if I had stockpile of rice and other dried meats back during the great depression then I would have been a rich man and i'd have my physical money for when the economy recovers and if not guns and ammo in your stockpile help create new countries sadly(empowerthyself hopes to change that but its always good to keep in mind) Or have land. Land is great, during times when people are starving it becomes easy to hire people to help farm if they agree to give them a percentage of the harvest.  

In summary the best way to be sucessful in the current economy is be prepared for it to fail which is what wogs like to do anyways, we know stuff will fail so we get the best so its less likly to such as belts and boots    yumm   boots. 

Ah Yes the ARCOLOGYS

This will be the future meat of Empowerthyself. Where groups of people have empowered themselves and are working together to be sure they all stay empowered long term. They will be communities that are self sustaining in food and power and with their own independent economy which can be transfered into the economy of the sane via selling the access food and services created by the arcs. Housing will mostly be created with renewable or recyclable materials that are easily aquired such as shipping containers, tires or adobe. Using modern technology in the fields of solar power and other methods for generating electricity the arcs will be able to produce all their own electricity which will take them off the main grid. Food will be grown in both foods and verticle farms that will be built into the arcs which everyone helps contribute to. Possibly in the future rapid cell regeneration technology could be used to grow meat rather than requiring it to be harvested from living animals. 

Mainly though the Arc will not have to depend on the modern economy to survive so the arcs as a whole will be debt free and unable to aquire debt to the system as they will only input into the economy rather than having to take from it to survive as everything else currently does. 

Well I hope this gets some of you thinking, please let me know what you think of it. I look forward to writing more such articles for you all to read. 

I was pondering earlier today how much i enjoy watching poignant documentaries, true demonstrations in critical thinking. It is not always the conclusion that is reached that is important but the methodology and perseverance in the face of convention that is used to reach it.  With that in mind i invite you all to contribute to this list, so that we can create a useful resource for dynamic minds.

So far this is what i was able to come up with ( in no particular order ):

Zeitgeist

The Corporation

Loose Change

How The Towers Fell

Network

Who Killed the Electric Car

siegfried woldhekshows how he found the true face of leonardo (available at ted.com)

Dream with us, dear friends, about this final location.

First Floor

Store Front

Work Space

Storage

2 Bathrooms

Second Floor

Venue

Stage

Storage for Music Equipment

Merch Area

2 Bathrooms

Third Floor

Living Space

Kitchen

Bathrooms w/ Showers

Bedrooms

"I want to see you smile again

Like diamonds in the dust

The amazing sound of the killing hordes

The day the banks collapse on us

Cease this endless chattering

Like everything is fine

When sorry is not good enough

Sit in the back while no-one drives

So glad you're mine"

Sometimes, when I close my eyes and think about the things I have seen I consider the balance of pain in the world. I've seen some nasty shit, back in my travellin' days, done by people and I've heard tell of worse. I am glad that I can, for now, take the time to find the incidents I think of upsetting and cold / cruel and selfish.Then sometimes, very rarely, I'll feel my eyes tear up and I'll close the door and sit down in my chair. I imagine the usual, a large crowd of people that I hate, but for once I feel so very sorry for them and.. for myself.I read the news, you see, and I know that soon I won't be able the luxuray of feeling like that. That's assuming I survive, of course.

Will it be the first mass grave I wander into? Will it be the first family, cannibalizing one of their young? What will I see in the near future that will make me finally stop feeling sorry for what is coming and just accept it?

"Mother Mary come to mefor i am a wicked childi have sinned and i am so confused and i am a wicked child

i am a wicked child

i am the devils son and i wish i could be good

i walk a crooked mile

but i wish i could be goodi wish i could be good

if i could have kept on the straight and narrow

if i could have kept on the straight and narrow

and not have broke your heart

not have broke your heart

now i wake up in the night

it's tugging at my arms and legs

like i was a marionette

send baby jesus

to radiate his light

to radiate his light"

I'm going to miss the me that I could have been. I wanted so bad to do some good in the world, and to help people become more fun. I really always just wanted to be the dumbest guy in the room. As we face, together, the coming storm and prepare to adapt to a new and more sinister environment.... I can't help but feel so very sorry for us.

I wish that i'd miss feeling that way.

the reason i haven't updated in a while is because i've been trying to find a way to save a friend of mines life

and i've seemed to fail.

 http://ninjasandpirates.org/forum/index.php?topic=28757.0

read... 

you don't have to go through the entirety of it but the gist of it is this

she was hit by a drunk driver, when they were running some tests they found a malignent brain tumor

they tried to remove it... and failed.

she has about a week or two to live. i cannot even attempt to communicate how fucking frustrated i am through text, as 10% of communication is through words 30% through tone and 60% through body languege

I wonder, does the site yet have the functions for combining entities?

There's all manner of missions, ideas and beliefs building up, but I can't help but think some are very similar. When it comes to subscribing to one of them, there's quite a jumble to pick through. The site will surely at some point require moderation of these, combining ones with minor differences (spelling, same meaning, different word, etc).

A weel ago last friday I got reminded by my brother it's been a year since my grandfather died. I spent more time with him than I did my father. Since then life's been busy. His funeral, the protracted splitting up of his possesions, getting on the self-employment scheme, and beginning trading.

It doesn't feel like a year at all.

My motivation is wearing thinner than I'd like. I'm pushing forward, but I think I could do with having a big project out of the way and some time to savor it as an accomplishment. Got a good length list of jobs lined up, but I've gone quite heavily into debt with the credit card to buy needed equipment. Fortunatly my Tax Credits shoud come through soon. I should worry less and work more. Afterall, I'm not in a position where I'll starve exactly yet. Not quite.

Mostly I suppose this post is say I'm still here to some degree. I suppose coming back here at spotty intervals makes it easier to apreciate the changes the site goes through.

Had my mad-spend money for the month. Spotted an unused bicycle frame on ebay, and had to get it. £38 including postage. Tange double-butted steel frame with Richly dropouts. 2.1Kg.

Technicly it's a racing frame, but I intend to make a very solid and light roadbike out of it.

My current bike weighs in at 16.5Kg. Aparently your average modern off-the-shelf one is about 14Kg. 10Kg for a light one. Maybe 7Kg or under for a super-light racer.

I hope to get mine in under 10Kg.

Did you know you can now get bike hub-gear units with up to 14 gears? Means building or having your own wheels built around them, but it means an undished rear wheel and perfect chainline. About 1.5Kg for the hub, and 6% lower efficiency that derailuer gears (92% rather than 98%, which is the sort of difference you can also find between riding upright and leant forward).

Did you know bikes traditionly have 36 spokes on the rear and only 32 on the front? The trend for 36 on each is due to ease of manufacturing just one type. Same rims for each, maybe same machines for lacing the wheels.

Should have an interesting time making a pannier rack for the bike. There's very few brazeons to use. It'll be an experiment in custom frame clamps, steel rod and fibreglass.

the reason why my last blog was so short was because i was useing my brothers computer, he came home and said "i just need to use it for like five minutes" and he ended up deleting what i had already written, and then i went back on when he was in the bathroom and finished it. i was in the procces of pushing the post button when he punched me in the face and redeleted it and then we got into a fight (i pwned him by punching him in the back like 12 times and then choking him) and then i wrote that quickly while he ran to get a sharp object. but onto current events

 the bad news is that i'm not going to my old school because i morally reject the school system as it is right now. (i'll probably explainin my next post) so that means that i'll probably not see my friends ever again unless it is at a birthday party or something. which i REALLY don't need right now. even more so that i have NO friends at this next school.

i can't even begin to tell you how much this is stressing me out. as in getting transfered to this school is to stressful as getting battery acid injected into my veins is painful. i think i might just try and take the CHSPEE or the CHESPEE or the CHSEPEE or whatever it is, which is basically a GED in advance.

the good news is that i finally have my own internet connection agaiN!!!!! yay!!

i'll probably update the day after tommorow or something. late

I'm going camping tommorow, YAY!! my entire family (on my mom's side) is going, which is awesome, but my brother is going. not awesome. but i'm not gonna go into details of how evil he is because that would take time that i don't have.

its going to be cool but it sucks cause the camp ground is 400 miles away and gas prices are f*cking high right now. plus part of the place is shut down because of a huge a$$ fire they had last month.

but enough about camping. Quarentine (i needed to call the book I'm writing something right?) is going along pretty good, i figured out how to get him clothes without him going into a department store or looking like a homeless guy so thats one plot hole thats been prevented.

it kinda sucks that i'm going away for three days without a way to write crap down because i know that i'm going to come up with a fantastic idea and i'm not going to remember it. on the onther hand i ould just bring my 2 gig flash drive in the hopes that one of my relatives will bring a laptop that i can borrow for like, an hour. although i kind of doubt it...

and now i need to put my non existant stuff in a nonexistant container to get ready for my camping trip. oh crap i'm not at all ready.

but before i go freak out,  GO NINJASANDPIRATES.ORG!!!! (don't worry lxpk, i'll mention this place to my friends over at NAP ((ninjasanpirates)) )

I need motivation for life, because i have no life. I really need to lie more often. if everyone as honest as me then we wouldn't have war but we would all be on anti depressents. i really think i prefer war to anti depressents because human on human violence violence, while the biggest threat of exctinct, is not the only one. in other words someone has to be the designated driver for humanity.

but i'm getting off topic. to distract myself from how pitiful a social life i have i untertook the gigantic task of writing a book. in a foriegn languege. that i don't know. so not only writing an epic length book, but learning new languege as well. the languege; japanese. the book; the chilling tale of a boy (with fatal familial insomnia) who's family was killed by the totalitarian government for "treason" (wink wink) and what lengths he has to go to to

diguise his identity and find safety.

but what i plan to do is get a grip on the language (THREE DIFFERENT LANGUAGES!!! TWO OF THEM HAVE LIKE 40 CHARACTERS WHILE THE THIRD IS THE CHINESE SYMBOLS!!! LIKE 30000 CHARACTERS!)while mainly focusing on writing the book.

P.S. which do you think would fit best as slang for a tryanical regime; dynasty,kingdom, or federation?

P.s.s. how would a kid about 15 get clothes when he had his face all over the news because he "escaped from the happy hills psych ward" so he can't just go into any establishment? seriously this one has me stumped and i'd love suggestions. 

Web2.0 Websites

What makes a website web2?  Well, as far as I can tell it's unmanagable services, profiles, and bevel/emboss.  They also seem to require a large amount of mysterious money to sell the services individuals can make for themselves for free to them.  It could be advertising or even monthly fees that they are selling.  They are all, universally, mining the hell out of everyone who looks at their websites for the marketing conglomerates.

Some sites offer useful features though, and a lot of them have enough active people to want to approach somehow.

I am going to go over a lot of them and make comments on them.  Good lordy! 

8:05 -  Awaken

8:10-8:15 - Search around up stairs for stuff to ebay. 

8:15-8:25 - Fixed laptop by rearranging ram sticks and kinda hitting it a bit

8:25-8:40 - Check feeds, email, FOAF sites, news

8:45-9:00 - Shower

media 9:00 - Start NPR from Boston

9:00-9:15 - browsed new media from the last day and selected 'keepers'

9:15-9:30 - outside maintenence (rebuttress air conditioner, trash)

9:30-9:45 - search for change (boo) / made a ramen pack

9:45-10:00 - Checked rummage sale next door, went and got smokes

10:00-10:15 - ate ramen, read http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-lkm/ , saw

that Mr Ellis is looking for mp3's of music for his podcast DJ show 4am, submitted at

warrenellis@gmail.com, read new freakangels webisode

10:15-10:30 - read

http://airweb.cse.lehigh.edu/2008/submissions/krause_2008_anti_social_tagger.pdf and

considered antispam methods to use in the empowerment folksonomy / taxonomy (there is a

chart called "Confusion Matrix" lol)

10:30 - 10:45 - Studied the merger between Sirrus and XM radio, FCC approval, and reactions

in the web-0-blog-a-sphere-a-net.  Created a Del.ic.ous account finally.  Started browsing

around in my old bookmarks.

media 11:00 - gbsFM

10:45 - 11:30 - Finally imported the last hunk of public bookmarks from 3 digital

infrastructure generations ago.  Added delicious link to empowerment profile by blogging. 

added mission 'make a list of sites that people use to add as fields to profiles, like

flickr' and dispatched thekid on it to give him something web based to do that's effectively

useful

11:30 - 11:45 - Harrassed my cats by chasing them around and blowing noise at them through a

tube (they hate that).  bothered thekid12 by flicking water at his exposed face while he

slept.  put the wyoming incident video on loop in the living room next to his head.  ( he

started mumbling and woke up confused then fell back asleep).  Knocked on alex's door to

confirm that we where totally skipping the daily meeting at 10am.  No answer.

11:45 - 12:15 - smoked drugs and watched cartoons (the critic)

media 12:15 turned the fans up for ambient audio - turned off media

12:15 - 12:30 - considered writing a short story about a craftsman in an assembly line and

daydreaming about the day in which he can own and operate the tool he used there at home for

his own devices, added it to onenote GTD list.  considered how detailed to make ebay listing

for pokemon game, decided on 'very', found spreadsheet of pokemans and plugged in the

nintendo DS.  found and checked 2 more phones for thekid12, both came back crap.  Moved a

large duffel bag of old tools to the ebay table for thekid12 to look over and pick out

things for his basement lab, rest on CL then ebay.

media 12:30 - demon days

12:30 - 1:00 - simple maintenence chores upstairs.  seperated individual speakers that may

be usable in a housewide intercom system.  installed RSVP reader and text to speech programs

on laptop.  Dictator confirmed functional.  did a load of laundry.

1:00 - 5:30 - Sleep

5:30 - Ate a pickle. 

http://del.icio.us/agentpugsly

That's me!  Hi!

I'm always coming across more shipping container ideas and I've recently built a platform above SLHQ for prototyping shipping container-based development of future Empowerment arcologies.

Habitable Shipping Container Design

The Habitable Shipping Container is a design I developed after reading of similar concepts already in use around the world. My initial design (shown here) is for an entire dwelling in one 8' x 40 container. A home like this could be the ideal solution for someone without a lot of money to put into the construction or for an individual looking for an easy way to move around every-so-often without all the unnecessary accessories of an expensive RV.

Kill Switch X-Files Episode Had A Hacker and an AI In A Box

A Cafe in a Shipping Container

Where there are computer programmers, there must also be caffeine. Consider the fact that the nerd store ThinkGeek has a whole section devoted to the substance. One of my favorite sayings was adapted from a line in mathematician Paul Erdos’ biography, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: “A programmer is a machine for converting caffeine into software.”

It logically follows that if there are computing centers in shipping containers, there should also be some kind of caffeine dispensers in shipping containers as well. Here come artist Adam Kalkin and fancy-pants coffee vendor Illy to the rescue:

Unraveling some of the mysteries of the CCK api. Here are some of my notes.

I have descovered that one of the biggest problems with the cck api documentation is the lack of consistant terminology. For example, "field" can have 3 distinct meanings.

1. A "field type"
   
   • Each filed type has its own unique behavior
     • The node hooks are designed to work on a single field type. Most of them pass a reference to it in the $field variable
     • They are stored in the table {node_field} It has the following columns:
       • name and type (name is the long one used in forms)
       • global configuration (the most global level of configuration you can immagine a field having. not used an awfull lot)
       • a flag named "required" which means that fields of this type can never be left blank when a form is submitted (the cck does this validation, not the field implimentation, which can do additional validation)
       • a flag named "multiple" which is primarily used when selecting multiple items from a list.
     • The data that are stored, displayed, and made editable are defined by the field hooks for the field type.
   • In the context of a hook implimentation, this is usually just called a field.
2. A "field instance"
   • These are properties of individual node types.
   • They are stored in the table {node_field_instance}
   • I haven't yet found a php variable that stores a list of them. If there is a variable that stores the type, it will probably have such a list. Otherwise, I haven't found a variable storing these.
   • Each "field instance" is essentially  a field that has been added to a content type.
   • These are generally called  "field" when you are adding them to a content type
3. An "item" represents the data associated with each instance of a field instance
   •  It is often just a single value.
   • Each node has its own items.
   • If "multiple" is enabled for this node type, then there will be more than nodes can have several of these for each field instance.
   • I have seen these called field in several places in the cck docs, but not very consistantly. I mostly see "item" in the source.
   • Items are arrays that contain key-value pairs.
4. A "value" ... I haven't seen these called anything but "fields", and I am running out of names...
   1. I haven't seen any consistant termanology for these, but they are what each are stored in the php variables $node->field_... variables.
   2. They are arrays of items.
   3. If multiple is not turned on for the node type
      1. Then the only item will allways be in $node->field_...[0]
      2. and the items will be stored in the table {content_type_fieldname}
      3. The table stores
         
         1. the nid of the node the data is attached to
         2. A "vid" that is used to associate the item with a field instance
         3. the values defined by the field type (through its hooks)
         4. this table (as opposed to content_field_fieldname) guarantees uniqueness of (nid,vid) pairs
   4. If multiple is turned on
      1. The items are in an un-ordered list in $node->field_fieldname
      2. they are stored in the table {content_field_fieldname}
      3. The table stores the same info as {content_type_fieldname} would, except that (nid,vid) pairs are not unique.
   5. The names of the tables used to store records were different in Drupal 4 and earlier, but the contents are the same.

Also, I see the phrase "multiple fields" thrown around a lot. There is a lot of multiplicity in the cck. In many cases where a singleton is the most common case, arrays are used instead.

1. Each item can contain multiple values. These essentially represent columns in the virtual table for that node type. Items are arrays of key value pairs, with the key being the name of the column and the value being the data stored there. Most fields store, display, and allow the editing of a single value, and so the php variable $node->field_fieldname[0]['value'] often contains the value.
   1. Prior to drupal 5, the  nodes were stored differently. I see lots of code that uses $node->field_fieldname_value[0] instead of $node->field_fieldname[0]['value']
2. You can have multiple field instances of the same field type attached to a single node type, or to different node types.
   1. Each field instance has its own name, label, and some unique configuration
   2. The records are stored in the same tables. There isn't a table of items for each field instance, rather for each field type.
3. You can have multiple Items per field instance per node. That is what the multiple flag in the node_field table does. The affects are described above in "values

Also, there are 3 different circumstances when a field provides a list of its fields. It can return separate lists for each

1. The list of fields to save to the db, and the list of values to save to the db
2. When rendering the field
3. When editing the field (though this case is limited by the wigit used... the editing behavior is detached from the field)

This allows for very elaborite behavior. For example, a date can be presented as a single item when editing the node, can look however you want, but can be stored in an appropriate format (separate columns for day, week, and year, for example, to allow faster sorting and searching). Localization is often handled this way by cck modules.

That pretty much summs up the stuff that I found terribly unclear in the cck docs and source (including the sources of several cck modules). Its definitely not a complete guide (or even my complete notes) but if anyone else is struggling with the cck docs, it could save them a few hours of staring at phpmyadmin or the source of random contributed modules.  

The Washington Monument makes me think perhaps a new kind of geometric symbol would be more appropriate to symbolize empowerment.

I recently created The Activist Memorial and the Gold Star Monument as first steps towards creating symbols of empowerment culture akin to the symbols of American democracy in Washington DC like the Vietnam Memorial, Washington Monument and Reflecting Pool.

How about The Monolith? You know, the one from 2001 Space Odyssey through 3001: Final Odyssey. The late, great Arthur C. Clarke was a great innovator who gave us many high-speed ideas including geosynchronous orbiting satellites.

The Monolith symbolizes a spark of inspiration for evolution, technological advancement and space exploration.

What does a monolith look like?

• It is a tall, smooth black cuboid artifact of precisely 1:4:9 proportions (the first 3 primes squared).
• It can change size, or, in the words of Monolith experiencer David Bowman, "It has only one size: As large as necessary." 
• It can appear suddenly where it is least expected.

The monolith could form a nexus for all the other monuments around it much like the Washington Monument does in DC between the White House, the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol.

I have begun prototyping the monolith on a new platform above the current Second Life HQ.

What do you think?

Novel List

Cyberpunk | The Electric Church -- Jeff Somers

The rich and the poor are about as distinct as possible. The story follows a hired gunman and his troubles with the law and the Electric Church. The Church is a group of cyborgs who preach salvation through immortality and mechanization.

Science Fiction | Off Armageddon Reef -- David Weber

Mankind is attacked and completely outmatched by an aggressive alien race. The final safeguard against extinction is to send a colony of people with their memories wiped to a far distant world to begin anew. Their society is designed to prevent all innovation since the aliens would otherwise be able to detect electrical and radio emissions and other such things. The plan does not work exactly as expected.

Science Fiction | The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress -- Robert Heinlein

The descendants of prisoners sent to the moon are still being treated like second class citizens. I don't want to spoil anything, just read the book.

Science Fantasy | The  Book Of The New Sun -- Gene Wolfe

Severian, a man who claims to have perfect memory recounts the story of his life. He is an apprentice of the Seekers For Truth And Penitence (The Guild Of Torturers), until his expelled for commiting the cardinal sin of giving mercy. He is sentenced to traveling to bumfuck nowhere as a punishment. The first part of the story is mainly about how he gets horribly sidetracked.

Western Fantasy | A Game Of Thrones (A Song Of Ice And Fire) -- George R. R. Martin

One of the single greatest works of fantasy fiction I've ever read. It focuses less on magic and strange creatures than it does on humanity. It's all about the political and personal motivations of each character. I don't like all the characters equally, but there's plenty to choose from.

Comics

Postcyberpunk | Transmetropolitan -- Warren Ellis

I refuse to spoil this. Just think of it as sort of like Hunter S. Thompson in the FUTURE!!

Western Fantasy | Berserk -- Kentaro Miura

Guts was once a mercenary but is now plagued by demons. He is constantly hunted because of a brand on his neck. Berserk is delightfully violent and it has a great story.

Psychological Thriller | Death Note -- Tsugumi Ohba

What happens when you give the power to instantly grant death to an overachieving yet mentally disturbed student.

Eastern Fantasy | Blade Of The Immortal

Manji, a wandering swordsman, is given the "gift" of immortality. In order to finally die himself he must rid the world of a thousand evil men.

Super Hero | Batman : The Long Halloween -- Jeph Loeb

The story of Harvey Dent and his descent into insanity. Think of it as sort of like The Godfather Meets Batman.

?????????? | Preacher -- Garth Ennis

Umm... just read this one.

So in a few short days, I will be empowering full time. I have been browsing over the empowerment, and looking at a lot of content that needs expanded and/or cleaned up. I have started filling in a few stubs that I created months ago, but much more needs done. If there is anything that you would like to see on the empowerment, but don't have time to add it, or content that exists but needs more work, post a comment here and I will see what I can do.  Anything that will take more than a couple of hours, or is way out side of my area of experties will get posted up to the mission system.

Also, add comments to any existing missions that you feel should be a higher priority or might need review, and post up missions for site improvements and feature requests (both for the iphone and regular www interface)

I have to admit, I find most counter-cultural activism and such things to be a little silly, possiobly pointless even. It's something inside of me, some weird I love, the idea that even though I think they miss the point, and are doomed to failure, I just love them a little for at least trying. Sadly, the view of the world that most people who would consider themselves "against the mainstream" have is, pretty much 100% wrong. There is no big screen or smoky room where the 23 Industrialists who control the world sit around and decide what's going to happen everywhere all the time. Shit, there might not actually be a shadow government? Well, that's absurd, but guess what; it doesn't act like you think it does, not one bit. They probably don't even knwo that they ARE the shadow government.

People who try to hard to do things that they probably shouldn't do, people who think they am what they amn't, people who take the ideas of not being like everyone else and twist it around into their little cliques. Punks and ravers, hippies, I think Goths might still be considered vaguely hip, but they're time is done. Then lots of people try to reject those labels, by being 'scene' or just vaguely 'hip' (probably in combination with scene). I mean, that's fine for laughs and dealing with boredom, but the delussion that you're actually going to accomplish anything is silly. Am I a bit nihilistic? Probably, but it's a comfortable nihilism. You probably ARE doomed to failure, being 'different' or changing the world are almost certainly not things you'll be doing, at least not in the way you think. You'll probably end up giving up on all this idealistic siliness and get a steady job (having rejected formal education) working as a manager at Steak n Shake. Well, at least you can still have some bumper stickers to express your promotion of such "out there" and "controversial" beliefs; no torture, being nice, tolerating people. What a rebel you are! Getting shit done telling people to be nice, ain't ya? Jesus tried it, he was better at it than you'll ever be and look what hapened to him! Don't worry, you're not ever going to get crucified. Nobody cares about you enough to hate you that much.

At least you tried. Didn't you? Did you really? Actually, other than downloading some Mojo Nixon and perhaps going to a local coffee shop instead of Starbucks (which you almost certainly didn't.), you're just vaguely expressing your hip and with-it leftist opinions. Hint: The cool kids don't look like the cool kids, and they don't act like them either. Chilling at the local shows? Wowzers! How was the band? Shitty, almost certainly. Did you meet anyone really actually interesting? Probably not. Maybe though, but unlikely. I'm not saying to eat apathy for breakfast, you have to go out and have fun, meet people, but why do you need to make a cause out of it? Wanna make your point? Then get your shit together and actually do what you believe would be the way to go about it, and try to have a modicum or originality, creativity, and maybe even equipment. It'll probably be hard work, but it'll be a lot better than fucking around with half-baked ideologies and groups of shiftless ineffectual people. Almost certainly.

That's a little what this hopelessly utopian site is about, getting your shit together. Maybe a few people will be interested. You know what the cynic would say though. 

We need to start posting Recommedia lists for people.

On the one hand, most Recommedia would make sense in the toolpedia store as kit (possibly 6th line kit : media library) because a lot of it is purchaseable.  A lot of media is non-purchasable as well though, such as creative commons media.  Posting as a material works I guess, but I kinda like the idea of leaving the materials for projects and things that are made by internal members for use in campaigns.

I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on it.

Other times I know I do.

It sucks working a soul sucking job because, not only does a sense of dread and disdain build up and grow, but also it drains the mind and body, leaving me exhausted and inept. I spend all day talking to people, explaining stupid shit, then when I actually have something worthwhile to explain, the words come out all wrong. My concentration fails me.

After finally finding the entry-level document to the Cocoa architectural guides (its titled "Cocoa fundamentals guide" and lays the groundwork for the other introductory guides) I read it for about an hour last night. It was fairly redundant after all the other reading I have been doing, but I still feel that its necessary, because any flaws in how I see the overall architecture now will be very troublesome later. When I started reading again today, about 20 hours after I found it, I realized that I am 50 pages in and don't remember what I have already read. What a bummer. Hope it wasn't anything important that I didn't already know.

On the up side, I only have 12 more days of customer service. Too bad I need the money.  

by Moses Silbiger —http://www.kenwilber.com/blog/show/459

click here to download accompanying poster image.

Learning is at its best when it is goal-oriented, contextual, interesting, challenging, and interactive. These same winning characteristics also define the best computer games … Learning can and should be hard fun!
- Clark N. Quinn, E-learning & video game designer, and author.

We are already the most overinformed, underreflective people in the history of civilization. Is it possible the twenty-first century needs a new kind of learning and a new kind of leader to help us …? Perhaps [we can] begin building not simply an information highway but a transformation highway.
- Robert Kegan, developmental psychologist, professor, and author, Harvard University.

Introduction

As odd or paradoxical as it may seem, I envision video games being increasingly designed to facilitate human development, as virtual reality technologies continue to evolve and integrate with leading edge developmental practices.

Most of us have played a video game at least once in our lives, or at least watched somebody else play, often a close one. Can you remember what you felt when you played a video game for the first time, or watched another player deeply engaged in one? I invite you now to engage in a brief Phenomenological exploration. Try to access how you were feeling, what were your emotions about it? … Who were you at that moment? Can you identify what “self” was playing, or observing somebody else deeply immersed in the game? What were your thoughts about it? Was there something “magical” or “different” about that? Just pause a little moment and close your eyes to really access and embody that memory…

Read more... http://www.kenwilber.com/blog/show/459

It's' been over a week since I started messing with LinuxMCE.  It is poorly documented.  Alow me to state that a bit better....

IT IS POORLY DOCUMENTED

Uhhhh, ever try and deploy a release candidate level beta class open source home automation software suite on rigged together and scrounged hardware?  Yeah, well, me either.  I've been keeping notes and I'm going to write a complete guide for the 6th line kit articles (because, uhhh, yeah).  The system does things like PBX / telephone system and voicemail integration, security grid control, media playback and recording, location to location intercoms, irrigation / lighting / etc control, user and group based access permissions, spawns controls onto cellphones and pdas, and more.  It's very useful.  Here is a vauge nested missions layout.

Learn LinuxMCE

  -beat head neverendingly into keyboard

  -wait forever for someone to show up in the IRC

  -click random page on the project wiki over and over and memorize what comes up

  -wish for death to come creeping silently in the night

Deploy LinuxMCE

  - Integrate all existing media collections into pluto file architecture and properly tag them

        -accumulate all needed cover art

        -re-id3 tag everything

        -collect attribute data for video media

        -find a way to display media (like series) as a sin