Recently in ideas + opinions Category

I would like to propose a novel idea: If you wash dishes by putting concentrated dish soap directly on the sponge and then wash the dish, please please please rinse the dish soap off well with clean water afterwards. Even if you are washing your dishes in very weak dish soap water, please still rinse. Please.

My fave Vietnamese restaurant did not do this today or yesterday with one of the soup bowls. And now three hours after lunch of soup that was suspiciously foamy and smelled faintly of soap even through the sambal & basil, my stomach is churning and I am continuing to spit soap foam out of my mouth every couple of minutes.

The only entertaining part is if I try to drink a sip of diet coke all the liquid in my mouth rapidly foams the point where there is no liquid to swallow. Just foam to spit out.

Rinse, folks, rinse.

Listen: This American Life's 494: Hit the Road

View and Listen: Photos and more audio from Andrew Forsthoefel's walking trip across America on Transom.org.

View: Travel around various places with the Moon, by Leonid Tishkov.

Chew: Paul Miller takes a road trip of a very different type: He eschews the internet in all its forms for a year.

Chew and debate: Vanessa Veselka asks why there are no female road narratives in literature and popular culture. Commenters disagree with her and give examples of their own road trips or good fictional road narratives.

Tues 10.02.12 - This afternoon in the 5 o'clock hour, London time, Clinton Jeff tweeted:

Oh Nokia. Toldchya Microsoft would stab you in the back. Like they do with all their partners. bit.ly/VpdOBW

— Clinton Jeff (@clintonjeff) October 2, 2012

CJ followed up with this tweet:

Microsoft must be smoking something if they think they can do better than Nokia. Noone even knew what Windows Phone was before Lumia.

— Clinton Jeff (@clintonjeff) October 2, 2012

After reading the WPCentral article that CJ referenced, I asked if we could do a special Google Plus Hangout to talk about the rumor that Microsoft would be possibly releasing their own Windows Phone.

Clinton Jeff and Alvin Wong, both of Unleash the Phones, and I convened on a G+ Hangout within 15 minutes to discuss the news and repercussions and the above video is a recording of our hangout.

Rumor sources with supposed inside knowledge:

WPCentral : Microsoft does indeed have their own Windows Phone in the works

WPCentral : Is Microsoft making its own Windows Phone in 2013? We discuss the options.

Boy Genius Report : With Windows Phone still failing to gain traction, Microsoft plans to launch its own smartphone

Tues 09.11.12 - Eden Kennedy linked to filmmaker Eliot Rausch's video of an exerpt from Charlie Kaufman's BAFTA lecture last September. It is just what I needed to be reminded of today.

To all of you who have lost friends or family members in the 9/11/01 tragedy or the wars that followed, my heart goes out to you today.

Sometime last week, after pondering and talking about a topic on Twitter, Dhruv Bhutani asked me if there was anything I wasn't good at. While I have a fatal case of over-curiosity and a big reading problem* and thus appear to be the walking talking encyclopedia, there are many things that am only ok to down right bad at. Here are a few that come to mind immediately:

1) Small Ball Sports.... such as tennis, badminton, table tennis, handball, and golf: Basically any hand-eye coordination sport that involves a small ball**. For reasons unknown to me, I am decent at baseball/softball, volleyball, football/soccer, and basketball. And after much practice, I can draw, so I am not a total wash out at hand-eye coordination.

2) Learning dance moves and/or participating in any synchronized dance. More times than I can count from age five to thirty-five I have enthusiastically taken a dance class only to end up in tears about 15-25 minutes into the class as my eyes & ears can see / hear the instructions on how to make the body movements in question, but I can't for the life of me get my limbs to do said activity. Tears in public, tears while surrounded by graceful dancing swans who get it right the very first time around.

3) Timing. Be it in dance or piano, I am usually two steps/beats ahead or two behind. This is an analogy for my whole life and got me kicked out of ballet & tap class at age five just before the class performance at the Costa Mesa Fish Fry, as well as causing me problems in middle school piano recitals and swing dancing during the late 90s/early 00s craze. Good thing I did not seriously practice bass guitar, as any band I was in would have had a drummer ready to kill me.

4) Illustrator. I took my first Adobe Illustrator class in 1990, again in 1991, another in 2000, more valiant attempts at the pen and path tools through the whole of the 2000s, basically I suck at Illustrator or Inkscape. I do just fine in drawing with Flash, Fireworks or Photoshop, but I want to throw my computer out at the window with Illustrator. I only use Inkscape under extreme duress now and then only for badly done mobile app SVG icons.

5) Writing for deadline***. If I am writing for myself for no particular reason at all, like this blog post, I can type out an amazing amount of words in no time at all. If I am writing for a deadline, be it school, masters thesis, business, clients, or a magazine; even if my reputation and friendships are on the line; for whatever reason, I get horrible writer's block and have been known to stand on toilets bleaching ceilings rather than write the 85 - 20,000 words needed. This is a problem.

Mind you, just because I think I suck and after much trying still can't do the above activities, it doesn't mean that I have stopped trying. I am overly persistent. Well, I don't play tennis or golf, as I have been known to bean people in the head with said ball...

- - - - - - * Notes - - - - - -

Yesterday, I had the privilege to guest once again on the Unleash the Phones weekly video-cast. This time myself and two other guests - Michael Faro Tusino and Everything N9 the masked mystery man, as well Clinton Jeff & Alvin Wong of Unleash the Phones spoke/conversed/debated about supposedly dead mobile platforms. We mostly spoke on Web OS, Meego, and Maemo 6/Harmattan and how the communities of the said platforms are keeping their hearts beating.

A few weeks ago, Clinton Jeff invited me and Ali Qudsi to guest on the Unleash the Phones weekly video for the Nokia 808 PureView edition of their weekly video-cast.

It was a great conversation with some really smart folks, thanks to Clinton Jeff, Alvin, Yash, and Bharad for the invite!

I am in the last month of finishing up my apps and my blogging has fallen into a deep crevasse since April. I suck. Go look at my Flickr or Twitter for visual and textual updates. Will resume normal service once my apps are submitted.

In the meantime, a couple of thoughts from the weekend:

1) Auto-Focus Lens Calibration: Ever since I bought my Nikon D800 and a few new lenses, I have been surprised how my cheap, $120 nifty fifty Nikon 50mm 1.8D lens has repeatedly shot great, sharp photos but that my 'good', expensive lenses have been a little soft in their focus.

Last week over at The Mansurov's photography, Bob V blogged on "Nikon D800 - Cavier, Sardines, or ... Spam?", of which I am not experiencing a soft left focus on my Nikon D800 but the article did bring to my attention that one could purchase a Datacolor Spyder LensCal and calibrate one's lenses at home.

That is what I did today, as the Datacolor Spyder LensCal (link includes a how-to video) arrived on Friday afternoon. As I expected, my Nikon 50mm 1.8D lens was pretty close to spot on with only a tiny bit of Auto-Focus fine tuning needed (-2), but my other lenses needed between -4 and -12 in fine tuning their focus. I was very pleased with the sharpness of focus that my Nikon 17-35mm f2.8 lens was able to achieve after calibration, but my 50mm 1.4G and 85mm 1.8D remained a bit soft even with calibration and the 85mm has a chromatic aberration issue.

I will not bore you with the tiny details or with the photos that I took to complete the calibration, but I need to do some research to see if the 85mm 1.8D lens is known to have a color shift or does the lens need to go to Nikon servicing.

2) While I am a Sci-Fi/Fantasy book fan and have been so since my late childhood/early teens, I am not a big comic book person nor do I watch TV or Sci-Fi movies. When I first heard of ComicCon and found out that it was not for Sci-Fi book readers also but for comics and film fans, I was a bit sad but happy for my friends who do love comics and film to have their own Con to go to. Other than a few dips into Pern and Discworld Muus and Mudds in the early 90s, I have not found myself involved in any fanfiction, roleplaying, and Con worlds. I spent most of the 90s and early 2000s heavily immersed in music worlds.

Thus when I get asked every year around this time if I am going to ComicCon and I demure, I usually get nods from my friends who are vets of the Con and bewildered expressions from folks who only know about it from the evening news. The second group usually says, "But you like weird hair and dress, you are artsy, AND you are a geek, shouldn't you go?"

I will leave it for my friends for whom it is the highlight of their year.

Speak of friends, BEST. PHOTO. EVER. of Christopher Schmitt taken by Arianne from this weekend at ComicCon 2012:

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia 808 Pureview Camera phone.

Sun 06.24.12 - In November of 2009, in a flurry of dreaming about traveling, I made a Life List that was mostly crazy, off the beaten path travel to-dos. This last week and weekend I checked off #16: Spend a week in a cabin / summer house on a lake in Finland.

When I originally wrote my Life List, I had hoped to be able to spend a week in a Finnish summer cottage on or by a lake, but when it came time to book, in early May, such an event for the last two weeks of June, I was unable to find a rental cottage that was not HUGE in my rental price range. By HUGE, I mean for 18-24 people - overkill.

Carol Chen came to the rescue when she found out that I was planning on attending Devaamo 2012 in Tampere, Finland, by offering to let me stay in her extra room at her apartment in the wooded & lake'd Tampere suburb of Hervanta.

For one week, I had the opportunity to get to attend Devaamo, hang out with amazing geeks, wander around Tampere & Hervanta, and walk around local lakes. Not quite the summer cottage by a lake, but close enough for rock'n'roll without the mosquito bites!

This weekend, Carol and I went to Turku on the far southwestern coast of Finland, which is the jump off area to visit the Finnish Archipelago - Saaristomeri. We left Tampere via the Inter-City train mid-day on Friday, which was Midsummer's Eve and arrived in a very shut down all closed Turku on 2 hours later.

Luckily for us a few of the tourist options were open, like the Turku Cathedral and a few riverfront bars and restaurants. We had dinner at a nice jazz bar with a swing/ragtime live band, as well as bought tickets to tour a bit of the inner islands on the S/S Ukkopekka for the next day.

Yesterday, Midsummer, we went on two island cruise trips on the S/S Ukkopekka, the first one a day tour to Naantali that included four hours of wandering around old town Naantali and the Moomin island, and the second was an evening dinner cruise to Loistokari Island. Due to rain in the evening, dancing on the island was cancelled, but dinner on the boat with a sing-a-long band was still a lot of fun.

Today I returned to Helsinki with much of life still shut down for the national holiday weekend. I am very fortunate to be able to visit Finland in the summer, particularly over one of their biggest holiday weekends of the year.

People, do not allow any Finn to convince you otherwise, but the big secret they like to keep is how amazingly beautiful Finland is in the summer, even if a bit cloudy and rainy at times. Finland is a truly lovely country.

Fri 06.22.12 - Happy Midsummer's Eve to you and yours! While the astronomical / solar summer solstice was on June 20, 2012 at 23:09 UT*, Midsummer is celebrated in Finland on the first Saturday after the 19th of June.

I am fulfilling a life list point by spending Midsummer in Finland. I had hoped to go to a summer cottage on a lake, but that didn't work out, so my friend Carol and I are in Turku down at the start of the Finnish island archipelago. So there is water and a midnight sun.

Tomorrow for Midsummer, we are going on a cruise to an island about an hour from Turku, as well as visiting Naantali.

Finland is very beautiful in the summer, green everywhere, wildflowers blooming, and well worth the visit.

* 6:09pm on June 20th in the Pacific Daylight Time Zone and 2:09am on June 21st here in Finland.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 while walking in Hyde Park this evening.

Tues 05.22.12 - A week and a half ago, I was in Amsterdam for Mobilism and at dinner with friends old and new, when one asked, "How is your first week of homelessness going?"

It was one of those half in jest, half in his bewilderment question/statements. The person who asked this is approximately 35 and is on his second owned home.

I laughed off the question and stated that my AppRetreat was off to a great start and I was not homeless as all my stuff was in storage and I have a place to stay for the next two months.

For most of my adult life the idea of actually owning a home in the Los Angeles area has been repugnant to me, as it represents both a stagnation of dreams and a tying down of my life to servicing a huge mortgage*. For what? Really, for what?

At the same time, I have longed deeply for home. But Los Angeles is not the deep home that I have longed for.

By the time I was 22, I had lived in over 27 different residences. By the time I was 22, my dad had been married 4 times and my mom 3. With so many marriages and divorces there had been many moves, along with moves of choice. My mother always buys a home each time she moves, even if it is every 3-5 years. My brother has reacted to all of this by buying one home in 1997 in Huntington Beach and staying put.

If I had the money, I would love to buy an apartment or flat in London or Barcelona and then have a rental apartment at the beach in Southern California. But that is not in the cards right now, nor do I have the visa(s) needed to travel back and forth frequently.

My Grandma Grace traveled twice a year for over 35 years between a summer home in Oregon and a winter home in San Diego. My Grandpa Jim and his wife now split the year between Marina del Rey and Uraguay.

Even as giving notice, packing up my Seal Beach apartment, putting all my stuff in storage, and traveling to Europe for these two months has freed me up greatly to get a back log of personal projects done, as well as freed up my spirit, I have woken up nearly every morning with my first thought of, "I want to go home."

But I don't know where home is. I don't think I ever have known where home is, other than hoping it is at the next location.

I am ok with that right now and for the near future even though I long for home.

I am beginning to think that C.S. Lewis and Peter Kreeft were/are right and that home is not found here.

* For those of you who live in a cheap part of the US or world, please chortle now, but for those of use who live in the land of $525,000 starter homes with dry rot and bad neighborhoods, really it is not so attractive to own.

Fri 04.13.12 - I deleted my Facebook account today. I have wanted to delete it since the first 15 minutes on Facebook book back in 2007. Today I did it with no regrets only a feeling of true relief.

I will let my Tweets tell the story, click on the links for each Tweet to see the conversations that followed:

8:28 AM - 13 Apr 12 Facebook only comments does not build community, it excludes. Looking at you @nokiaconnects. Give more commenting authentication options.

8:51 AM - 13 Apr 12 @nokiaconnects @texrat @ktneely Give the reader choice, don't force them to up your boss' stats for his/her ROI discussion with his/her boss

9:12 AM - 13 Apr 12 Is re-reading the instructions on how to Really and Truly Delete my Facebook account. Deleting will be my early birthday present to myself.

9:16 AM - 13 Apr 12 Done. Goodbye Facebook. I never loved you. Not even a little. 14 days my data will be gone too, not that there was much of it. #ExtraHappy

G+ Announcement on Breaking up with Facebook:

I pulled the Trigger or in this case a few clicks and a captcha and Deleted my Facebook account! I would specifically like to thank the +Nokia Connects folks for pushing me over the edge this morning with their switch to Facebook Comments only.

My G+ comment expanding on the whys:

+Valerie Lynn Yes, I jumped ship after threatening to do so for years.

+Abhinav Natarajan From the time I started on FB in 2007 or so, I really didn't like it but felt forced to be on it. The way I managed my dislike was to only log in once every two weeks or once a month and stay on just about 15 mins to check in with folks I otherwise would never see online. I made sure that I didn't have photos or any real content up as I don't like their TOS and copyright. So, I never really used it to start with.

As FB has gotten more invasive, I have gotten more frustrated.

Per the usual, my true social media love is Twitter [http://twitter.com/msjen]. I remain on Flickr [http://www.flickr.com/photos/msjen] and Google Plus. ;o)

+Hector Hurtado I had my account deactivated for the 1st 18 months, I only activated it when I had to for a work event in 2008. And then it just snowballed into a place where many of my friends who don't like being online but do like a nice closed sandbox (MySpace or FB) started posting. But in the 4 years since, having access to an occasional conversation with a person who is only on Facebook does not outweigh all the yuck/sh*t about FB.

For those of you who are now wondering where I will go online, I am not changing any of my ways, I am just taking out my once every month 15 min login to IrritationLand. And if you only have Facebook Comments on your blog or website, then sorry, no comment.

Per the usual, I can be found here on this blog, on Twitter, on Flickr, and on G+.

And a little humor.... The Oatmeal on "How to get more likes on Facebook"

"It is the people who have made the changes." - John D. Liu

"I am amazed that in as short of 5-6 years you can get water this clean." - Ethopian professor Lagessa on how vegetation traps moisture and brings clean water

"Restoration is critical for Africa, particularly for Ethopia. ... This is regional, national, and international." - Prof. Legasse

On the Hope in a Changing Climate documentary (via metafilter.com):

The film "Hope in a Changing Climate" is created by John D. Liu, the director of Environmental Education Media Project (EEMP). The EEMP is dedicated to continuous research and collaborative learning in environmental, sustainable development and public health subjects; and to producing, gathering and distributing high quality audio-visual materials to support public awareness of these crucial issues.
This documentary demonstrates that it is possible to rehabilitate large-scale damaged ecosystems, to restore ecosystem functions in areas where they have been lost, to fundamentally improve the lives of people who have been trapped in poverty for generations and to sequester carbon naturally. This approach has been dramatically proven on the Loess Plateau in China, the highland area spanning some 640,000 square km in north central China. It is the birthplace of the Han Chinese, headwaters of The Yellow River and home to a new environmental and economic paradigm: A degraded ecosystem of more than 35,000 square km of land now teems with life and supports the sustainable economic, social and agricultural activities of its people.

Today is World Water Day.

Some GroundHog Day / St. Brigid's Day links for you both new and old:

Dr. Jeff Master's "Six more weeks of non-winter" on the Wunder Weather Blog today

Celebrate St. Brigid with Beer!

My one and only Metafilter FPP on the topic of the underappreciated Feb 1 & 2 holidays back in 2006

Last but not least, Happy 3(21) + 6th Birthday to my Dad, Campbell Hanen!

Sat 12.31.11 - Before I look to 2012, allow me to look back a bit.

Me on Twitter today:

@msjen: Actually, I am looking forward to saying goodbye and don't let the door hit you on the way out to 2009-2011.

Then @technokitten RT'ed with a +1, to which I replied:

@msjen: @technokitten +2012 I want to move forward rather than a holding pattern w/great effort to not fall back which is how the last 3 yrs felt.

Yesterday, my mom, sister, and I went to what my mom calls 'soul comfort food' for a rainy day - Ashoka the Great in Artesia.

I love the dal makhani at the Ashoka the Great's buffet, as it is a thick multiple bean stew/curry perfect to put on top of rice and just on the edge of my ginger capacity. The cooks put 1/8" fresh ginger cubes in the dal and while it is tasty, it is almost too much ginger for me.

My mom loves fresh ginger and loves lots of it. Through much of my teen years she would use nearly a whole root in dinner which was too much for my palate, as the dish would seer my tongue with ginger fire. If I would complain she would tell me that she didn't really put much in at all.

Seeing all the ginger in yesterday's dal, I encouraged her to go get some, when she came back from the buffet and sat down I saw that her dal had many ginger chunks in it. She ate about half her dal and then told me, "I don't taste any ginger in this."

There has been quite the internet blog-o-sphere to do revolving around Michael Weingrad's essay "Why There Is No Jewish Narnia", which led to D.G. Myers asserting that "Fantasy is a Genre of Christianity", where upon E.D. Kain proposes that it is not Christianity but Anglophone culture that is the root of Fantasy literature in "Fantasy and the Anglosphere".

In "Fantasy and the Anglosphere" Kain writes,

"When I published my fantasy piece in the Atlantic it was linked (reproduced?) by Richard Dawkins' site and a number of the atheists in the commentariat had scathing things to say about fantasy literature. Apparently it is not enough that readers of fantasy do not, in fact, believe in their make-believe. Apparently the fact that dragons and sorcery are not based in science is enough to earn the scorn of some anti-religious types.

This reminds me of the reaction of many conservative Christian groups to various fantasy novels, from Harry Potter to The Golden Compass and the attempt by some conservative groups to ban these books in schools due to all that witchcraft and other devil-worshipping (you know, all those satanic rituals Harry Potter and Hermione engage in before the strange sexual acts begin.)

But many, many Christians and atheists and people of various other faiths enjoy fantasy. "

It struck my absurdity bone as darkly funny that folks are unable to enjoy fiction because it is not science.

*blink*blink*blink*

Hello.

And then being the internet it gets better, as Alyssa Rosenberg jumps in the fray with "Is Fantasy Inherently Christian?" and Adam Serwer joins in with "High Fantasy is a Subgene of Fantasy", wherein Mr. Serwer brings in the fantasy traditions of many cultures worldwide.

What I find interesting is that none of the writers above, after name checking C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkein, and Chesterton, with one or two brief references to Arthurian legends of the high Middle Ages, discuss the Romantic and Victorian infatuation with all things that we would now label as Fantasy: elves, fairies, the sublime, the door between the worlds, other worlds, etc. Not just the folks in the British tradition, but also Wagner (The Ring Cycle), the Russian literature around Baba Yaga, the Welsh Mabinogion, the Celtic revival of Yeats, Wilde, et al, etc etc.

Or how about the writer that both Lewis and Tolkein gave much credit to, George MacDonald. While MacDonald was a poet, writer, and minister, many of his tales border between a mash up of older Scottish fairy tales with the early Modern Christian allegory tradition, wherein the fairy tales come out a bit stronger in his stories than any claims to a 19th Century version of Pilgrim's Progress.

Wherever we want to trace the history and genealogy of contemporary Fantasy literature, it is far deeper and broader than Tolkein, Lewis, and Chesterton. The Bridge of Birds immediately leaps to mind.

Also to say that Judaism is only concerned with the here and now, and thus couldn't produce a tradition of Fantasy is also only looking at the last 100 years or so of history. I would love a time machine to take me back to 1100 or 1200 AD to Cordoba or Granada to sit at the feet of a Jewish storyteller and hear of the tales being told in that moment in Andalucia. Maimonides may have had a few good fantastical stories to tell that weren't all theological in nature.

We, a people who have lived through and beyond the age of the early Modern explorers, the empires where stories leaked back and forth between subject & subjector, as well as the Modernist love of all things industrial progress and the rational, dip into many strands of fantasy in our TV, books, films, and now internets, of which many of these strands may have root in the primary culture we live in right now or the stories may scamper up and down other trees and roots of places we have not yet seen nor heard of.

Many of the stories we now think of as Christian or Medieval are stories that have been radically reshaped or completely created anew in the last 200 years the Industrial Revolution, the Romantics, and the various Revivals of the late 19th century. How much of the current genre we call Fantasy is not necessarily the creative child of Christianity but really the rebellious teenager of rational Modernism?

One of the great promises of HTML5 with CSS3 and Javascript is that eventually, after much wrangling & negotiation, one will be able to write apps that can work across many devices regardless of platform and ecosystem. In the meantime, while we are waiting for HTML5 to have access to the contacts or camera on the mobile you could be possibly carrying, we can use future friendly practices to develop and design flexible web sites and apps.

Until the future web accessible world arrives, from a pragmatic standpoint, many of us if we want to access contacts, or the camera, or a variety of other APIs and features on our mobile devices, we find ourselves delving into hybrid native-web mobile worlds or diving into native mobile apps be it through a SDK or PhoneGap or the like.

Thomas Perl in a post-Nokia World 2011 blog post, Comparing Mobile OS SDK availability by platform, builds an argument for a very salient point for folks who are currently developing for native mobile apps:

"Now, people can argue that one can set up dual-boot or virtual machines to support all OSes, but that's not the point. The point is that if the SDK is available on all Desktop platforms (note that this is not the same as SDK targetting all mobile platforms), developers can retain their choice of Desktop OS on which they develop on, and are not forced to use OS X or Windows for development of apps for the corresponding mobile platform (I also understand the reason why these companies only provide the SDK for their own Desktop platform, but that is not a good reason from a developer's point of view)."

I agree with Mr. Perl. I don't want to be told which desktop platform I must use so that I can develop for a certain mobile. I find working in virtual box to be tedious after a short span of time. I would like the system I develop for to respect me enough to let me to make the choice about what desktop/laptop OS I prefer to use.

Bravo to Android, Qt, and PhoneGap.

The post I wrote last night on 9.11 and then published this morning, I have set back to draft as I need to work on it a bit more. Given that I leave soon for the zany Buttonwillow road trip, I will do a bit of editing/re-writing and re-publish this evening.

Have a lovely day.

Updated Sat 09.17.11 - One week ago late on Saturday the 10th of September, I wrote the following personal essay piece about the 10th Anniversary of 9/11. Within hours of publishing it, I turned it back to draft as I wasn't ready for it to go live, especially not on the day that was meant to remember the dead and thank the living rescuers and heroes.

What I was trying to communicate with this piece is my anger and frustration at the media, Bush administration, loss of freedoms (for what? more fear?) and culture clash politics that have erupted in the ten years since. My own reaction on Sun 09.11.11 was to participate in a wee bit of dada-esque absurdism with my sister and not to listen to / watch / consume any of the media's disaster porn.

As I stated in the essay, I am not angry or frustrated at those who died nor their loved ones, but at our cultural and governmental responses.

Am now republishing.

***************

"People who work creatively usually have something in common: they love the media they work with. Finding the medium that excites your imagination, that you love to play with and work in, is an important step to freeing your creative energies." - Sir Ken Robinson, The Element

My biggest surge creativity of the last 10 years was getting a camera phone and pushing the envelope of my long time photography practice with a 1 megapixel wonder. The past six plus years of having various camera phones with me everywhere I go has not just excited my imagination but freed me up to take photos of things or at angles or in lighting that I would not have with my SLR or DSLR cameras.

This summer after many years of coding web sites / apps and a few years of python mobile app attempts, I have fallen for Qt Quick / QML not just to create mobile apps that have been living in my head but as a new way to approach to javascript that has made programming in javascript fun again. The last few weeks have been very exciting because now I can program the camera and resultant photos on my phone. It is been compelling to take my hard won programming knowledge mash it up with my love for designing to create native mobile apps that I can use right then and there on my mobile.

What medium are you creating in right now that is exciting your imagination?

I <3 London, it is one of my favorite places on the planet next to the Sierra Nevada Mountains here in California. The riots and looting of the last couple of days in and around London have made me very alternately sad and a bit horrified that my favorite city is in flames and the police & government have appeared to be asleep at the wheel.

We live in gravely odd times, an era that will make for great history reading many years from now but scary hard to shitty to live through. London is an ancient city but also a marvelously modern one - a city of great history but any history can be tossed aside and torched in an instant as the inhabitants try to figure out how to live in the now. I sincerely hope that the rioting and looting will stop tonight and the city will have a peace and space to thoughtfully determine where to go to next.

It took LA a number of years after 1992 to sort ourselves out, but we are now a better and healthier city. Yes, there is still poverty and inequality, but there is more hope and space to have dreams.

London, may you do the hard work to find peace, space, and give all the people room for hope. Hope for a future, hope for an education, and hope for a reason to live and thrive.

Read Annie Mole's How will London recover from this?

Photo of local morning glories by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 camera phone.

Tues 07.12.11 - Today was a good day that started with a lovely and fun UX interview with Thomas Mann on Skype video. We had a good chat about mobile devices and travel. I love talking with good sharp, designers as their minds can leap from place to place and connections can be made. Thanks to Thomas!

And then Jeremy linked to Brian's conversation over at Google Plus about owning one's own stuff versus engagement in the here and now on whatever is the big right now online service.

I have been a proponent on this blog and in person of owning your own stuff on the internet for years, even during the boom years of 2005-2008 when everyone thought that the services and Web 2.0 would take care of everything and your data would persist no matter what. I had several memorable conversations in that time period with a few prominent tech folk about how we can't trust a company or online service with our data as we don't know when they will lose funding or lose interest or be sold off to folks who will turn off the service and what we will do about our data when this happens.

As the business cycle waxes and wanes, as companies furl and unfurl, I want to own my photos, my text, and my data. Not only do I want to store my data where it can be seen by the world, but where I pay the bill and can freely upload, download, and back up with ease. For me that has meant paying rent on server space and a domain name since 1999 and having duplication / triplication of backup both to a physical hard drive and a cloud service on top of my server space that this blog lives on, in addition to all the spaces and services that I participate in online.

This blog is my studio, gallery and reception space, as well my living room of which you are all invited to. I may visit many places online and some of them may be second homes, like Twitter, but this space is where my heart lives.

Where does your online heart and home reside? Do you have full, partial or no control over your online home? Do you care?

What happens if you don't want to own your own self-hosted blog, will more projects like Jaisen Mathai's OpenPhoto crop up that will allow all of us to share our data to online services but also have all of it backed up to our own accounts at Dropbox or Amazon S3?

Dan, Earl, and Gracie at the Fourth of July dinner by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Yesterday, I tweeted:

Happy Fourth of July! Of all the holidays, this is my favorite to cook for, am about to start making food for the BBQ this evening. ;o)

This is absolutely true but also untrue. Absolutely true because it is a joy to cook a big meal for friends and family on the Fourth of July, as there are very few expectations that folks have of the day other than having fun and watching fireworks. Untrue, in that the food that is usually prepared for the Fourth is not particularly challenging for a cook.

Yes, Thanksgiving & Christmas provide a much meatier planning, preparing and cooking challenge for a cook to not only make the meal memorable, but also tasty and a not the same old same old. I truly enjoy thinking about, planning, and executing all the permutations of taste and possibility for those two holiday meals.

But, sh*t! Christmas and Thanksgiving come with so much family expectation, someone is always stressed out and on the verge of some family drama or another. And as the cook, I try not to absorb the waves of tumult, keep my head down and on task, but the waves none the less spoil the joy to some degree.

As a child, my memories of Fourth of July were of the few times that my Mom took joy in cooking, where she got inventive because she was out of the daily routine and she had a few days to think up and execute a menu. My memories of Fourth of July food were not hamburgers, BBQ and extended family, but of fried chicken, homemade potato salad, friends, and peach ice cream made in the hand cranked, salt outer container filled ice cream maker.

Fast forward to Fourth of July 2011, the Farmer's Market at the Long Beach Marina SE is bursting with the last of the spring fruits and the first of the summer fruits and vegetables. The seasonal possibilities are a delight. On Sunday evening, Erika, Thomas, Earl and I feasted on soft shell crab, two kinds of salad, and a first of the season peach mildly frozen homemade yogurt dessert. Yesterday for the actual Fourth, I made old fashioned potato salad, a big bowl of med-inspired rice pasta salad, and ratatouille of Farmer's Market summer vegetables on top of fish and steak. Tonight, my Mom and I are going to experiment with making fresh fruit ice (rice milk) cream.

All made with joy, eaten with wine & laughter, and very little pathos. Thankfully.

Fourth of July, I love you.

After being gone for the most part of three and a half months to Austin, Orlando, London, Amsterdam, Berlin, and India, I am now home for a good stretch.

[Ms. Jen knocks on the nearest wooden object, which in this case is a chair.]

In late March, on my mom's birthday, her mother, my grandmother, passed away. In the intervening three months since, as my aunts, sister, and mom have worked to clean out grandma's apartment and get her estate settled, more and more things have entered my apartment. Things as small as tiny bird figurines and as large as a three bay couch. A much wanted couch, but it arrived the day I was departing for India. A mild panic ensued to try and rearrange furniture and the other newly arrived objects to make way for a couch nearly as long as my living room, as well as try to get to LAX on time.

I returned from India ten days ago to find there was only a small amount of room to get around in my place and now after recovering from jetlag, exhaustion, catching up with work, and an epic case of the hives, I cleaned my apartment today. By cleaning, I put things to right, determined what needed to go to my storage, what needs to be returned to its proper owner, and what needs to be put into the Closet of Doom for moderate ease of access.

I still need to rearrange the furniture in the living room, pack up one bookcase of books, notebooks, and sketchbooks, and take a whole load of things and one futon to storage. Once this in done, I will feel like my peace of my place is back. Although, after today's spree, I feel more than three-quarters of the way there.

Conquering the mess on my office desktop is next, after more blogging.

Jeremy Rifkin's Empathic Civilisation lecture at the RSA, a must watch:

The short RSA animated version:

Video of Shikha Dalmia on Bollywood vs. Bin Laden from Reason.tv: Bollywood vs. Bin Laden - Why radical Islam fears pop culture

Honestly, I have stayed kind of quiet on 9/11 and Bin Laden on this blog the last eight years, not because I don't care, but because the whole thing is so fraught with many pitfalls. As a Californian, I felt very distanced from the 9/11 tragedy due to it happening on the other side of the landmass that I live on, much as if there was a great disaster in northern Canada or southern Mexico or Japan, it seemed if it happened in a far off foreign place.

Bush & co. diversion of the WMD snipe hunt in Iraq in 2003 that was conducted in the name of 9/11 was, in my opinion, a gross misuse of American power in the name of supposedly hunting down terrorists.

This past Sunday evening, on May 1, 2011, I was at my Grandpa Jim's 89th birthday party and with the exception of probably three of us liberal pinko arty types, the other 20+ of the attendees are/were died in the wool Republican patriots, to the point a few more toasts were given to patriotism & country than to Grandpa. As dinner was breaking up, a relative announced, "Fox news is reporting that Bin Laden is dead!!!"

Me: Pulls out the N8 to check the BBC as a din of confusion starts around the dinner table. The BBC confirms.

Me in a loud voice, "The BBC confirms that Osama Bin Laden has been taken out by US forces."

Relative: "Fox News says..."

Me: "The BBC..."

Roll your eyes. Yes, I don't trust Fox News, but I do trust the Beeb.

All week, I have been avoiding most of the coverage of Bin Laden's death as it is much ado about much ado. Yes, I am glad that there has been closure. But as I said to my dinner seat mate to my right, Mariano, "It is time for the countries in the Middle East to determine their own direction, the Arab Spring will have more power over the minds of the people than the Isalmists."

Mariano, "But what about the Isalmic Brotherhood?"

Me: "So what if the Egyptian people vote them in, how different is it from Americans voting in the Tea Potters? Both are overly conservative folk who want to roll back time."

Mariano, "...."

The real issue here is post-modernity vs. pre-modernity. This is an issue of mindshare and in the video above Shikha Dalmia of the Reason Foundation nails it on the head with very vivid Bollywood videos on how the post-modern world is in conflict with the pre-modern world of the Isalmists. The Shelia video, below, would be just as offensive to many conservatives in the US as it would be to conservatives in India or Iraq or Iran. Or maybe not offensive but embarrassing when they can't explain their woody to their pastor/cleric.

The question is how do we move the world forward in peace with giving each community and culture set freedom to shake their groove thing or not as the case maybe without blowing each other up?

The original music videos from the Bollywood movies that Ms. Dalmia referenced in her video:

The Sheila & Munni videos reminds me of Shakira, which then makes one wonder if the next war will be between Indian Muslim Bollywood stars v. Lebanese belly dancers v. Brazilian Samba dancers. As long as that war is conducted on YouTube, I think we will all be safe.

"1990 will be seen, I will posit, as being the first year of the great revolution that we are living through. It is also the first year of the great confusion for the vast majority of people who are in power today. ... The internet is fundamentally different, it thinks in networks, not in hierarchies." - Ben Hammersley

Photo taken this morning by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Wed 03.09.11 - I was raised vaguely Presbyterian and spent most of my twenties and early thirties attending a Vineyard church, so I am more than a bit oblivious about the Lenten traditions be they Fat Tuesday (Marti Gras), Ash Wednesday, and the 40 days that follow up to Easter Sunday. Easter Sunday was what was celebrated when I was growing up, and then Easter week as an adult but not the full 40 days up to.

While I have not celebrated Lent before, I do appreciate the idea of giving up something in your life for 40 days as a spiritual discipline. This year, I have decided that I will celebrate my first Lenten season by giving up thinking about & reading about Nokia+Microsoft alliance, as it has not been good for my soul to keep gnawing at it. To that end, I promised my Twitter followers yesterday that I would not tweet about Microsoft for the next 40 days. I can tweet about Nokia, but not the behemoth from Redmond.

"Lent" by Christina Rossetti (c. 1886)

It is good to be last not first,
Pending the present distress;
It is good to hunger and thirst,
So it be for righteousness.
It is good to spend and be spent,
It is good to watch and to pray:
Life and Death make a goodly Lent
So it leads us to Easter Day.

A big part of the last few weeks has been a fairly onerous project that is nearly complete. Through this situation, one of the important things that keeps repeating in my head is that everyone is broken and we all need to be kind and gentle to each other.

Remember that no matter how good a person or situation looks, they are somewhere, be it visibly or in the depths of their being, broken. Remember that all of us have parts of our life that work and other parts that don't, and many times this does not sync with what the larger society outside of ourselves considers good or bad.

Be gentle with each. Be kind.

One of the things that I most admire about photography and the internet is that anyone can get involved with both.

Within 15 years of the invention of photography, cameras, darkrooms and nascent photographers had bloomed everywhere even in small towns in the 1850s. One of the very first places that a woman could own her own business legitimately in the Victorian era was a photography studio, and women did. For the last 150+ years, photography has grown beyond a specialty into a life, creative outlet, as well as snapshot hobby for billions of people worldwide.

The internet has been much the same in the last 18 years, the barrier to creative entry has been relatively low: access to a machine that can access the internet. Many millions -> billions have taught themselves the rudimentary coding skills necessary to maintain a website or blog online and are expressing themselves thereof.

One of the things that I have loved most about Nokia as a company and as a mobile culture is that they have brought mobile camera phones to millions -> billions worldwide, and regardless of my own personal feelings of the recent (mis)alliance between Steve + Stephen, Nokia has pioneered the mobile camera phone space and will most likely be on the forefront for a least a couple more years.

Beyond the great hardware that Nokia has created for camera phones in the last six years, I have been very excited about the development of Qt and the open source development platforms that Nokia has been rolling out since 2008. My greatest hope is that they will continue pursuing this space and my greatest fear, due to Mr. Ballmer's hate on for all things open, is that they will not.

As humans we are at our best when we are creative and when we share with love. We teach our toddlers and kindergartners to share. Creativity is best served openly, with the transmission of knowledge, mentoring, passion, and the art product freely without restrictions.

If you want to give your art and knowledge away, good. If you want to charge for it, good. If you want to share your source code so others can learn how to code as well, even better. If you want to copyright your material, good. If you want to copyleft it, good. Just create and encourage those around you to do so, be it art, music, photography, code, software, cooking, sewing, knitting, hair coloring, web site creation, writing, blogging, bulding, making, creating, etc. etc. etc.

Regardless, create and share creation.

To that end, my goal for the next six months is to finish my Qt mobile app for photographers, to blog here more often, to photowalk more often, and to get involved in an open source community where I can share my passion and learn from others.

And if at all possible, with all the other travel planned for this spring, I will try to get to EuroPython as I do love the Python community and after all that has gone on the last few bits, I think it is time I participate more fully in the community around my favorite programming language.

What about you?

Sometimes a thought will pop up in my head that is fully formed and completely contrary to current thoughts on a subject and contrary to the evidence at hand, but in the long run the thought will turn out to be completely true and will come to pass. Most of the times that this has happened to me, I am not the primary actor who could or could not make the contrary thought come to pass, usually it is forces that are larger than myself, outside of myself that are the primary actors and my actions are how I react to it or the situation.

I have never been comfortable about calling this knowing a premonition or ESP. I suppose if I was a futurist or an analyst, I would have a lucrative career with these knowings. But mine are much more whimsical, as they are usually about art, music, or people.

I am sure that there are a legion of psychology studies that have explained away or rationalized this type of behavior; but whatever the reason, it still happens.

To all the folks in the Arab countries: Stand tall, protest, make your voices heard, and assert your rights even if your current government doesn't honor them.

Human rights is a term that is so bandied about that it has almost lost its meaning. By human rights, do we mean no torture, yes; do we mean no slavery, yes; do we mean no human trafficking*, absolutely.

In watching the people led uprisings against oppressive regimes in Iran 18 months ago, in Tunsia last month, and Egypt this week, it has become evident that we here in the West have taken for granted the most basic of human rights as defined in the last 200 years: the right to assemble, the right to free speech, the right to protest, the right to not agree with your government, the right to free press, the right to fair elections, and the right not be attacked or beaten by government agents/police/military/thugs.

If Mr. Mubarak actually believed that his government was elected by the people, then he should feel strong enough to allow the people to protest. But the heavy handedness of this week's government response and thuggery has belied his claims to power and to his own humanity.

If we the people believe deeply in the rights that the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights grants us, then we would do well to watch and renounce our own government's behavior when it is bad as well as celebrate and support all other people's desire for the freedom of speech, the freedom to assemble, the freedom to protest, the freedom to dissent, and the freedom from unwarranted government reprisals.

For all of those who fear the loss of the dictators in the Arab countries as it might mean the rise of Islamicists, take a chill pill and in turn encourage your governments to support real human rights and not authoritarian regimes who are client states to the West. Much of the claims, and resulting power, of the Islamicists derives from poverty, hopelessness, and the West's continuing support of oppressive dictatorships.

Egyptians have the right to wake up and not fear their government. Egyptians have the right to assemble. Egyptians have the right to speak up. Egyptians have the right to self-determination. Egyptians and Tunisians are us, just 235 years later.

Many are saying that this is the Arab world's 1989, I truly hope it is. If we really believe in democracy, let's support it in word, truth, and action.

My Favorite photo from this week: The most subversive protest of all: An Egyptian protestor kisses a riot police officer.

*****

* If you want to be a pimp, pimp yourself out, not someone else(s).

Today is a bad day in the neighborhood. A shooter, or set of folks, decided that they would gun down at very short range a congresswoman, a judge, a 9 year old girl, and others outside a supermarket in Tuscon, Arizona.

Assassination is never the answer, is only a chaos maker. Assassination or attempted assassination may seem like the fast and cheap way out of a sticky political situation, but it involves people being murdered.

If we passionately believe in the idea and/or myth of the United States of America, then assassination is never an option. Lobbying your congress human or senator, yes. Writing letters, yes. Peaceful protests, yes. Running for office yourself to do the work of change, yes. Working at civil discourse, discussion and debate, yes.

Killing people, no. Never.

I don't care what your opinion is on guns or gun laws, killing or attempting to kill another person is not an option, it is wrong. I don't care what your political point of view is, killing is wrong.

My condolences go out to the family, friends and neighbors of the folks killed and injured today in Tuscon. I sincerely hope that all the folks who are in the hospital, including Congresswoman Giffords will have a full recovery.

Wed 01.05.11 - I love winter, real winter with snow & ice, and the shame is that I live in a place that has no winter to speak of. As a 5th generation Californian and 4th generation SoCal-ian who is restless and wants out, if you know of a great mobile job north of the 50th parallel line, particularly in a part of Europe that gets snow, let me know. I must escape the tyranny of sun, palm trees, and flowers in January.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Fri 12.31.10 - Goodbye 2010, I am not sure I will miss you. Maybe I will in later years, but not right now. I had hoped for good things this year, and the flat mundanity of it all plus a couple of punctures deflated such hopes. It wasn't all bad, but the good parts were a bit too few and far between.

Ciao bello.

I love a good Bruce Sterling rant / essay / rambling all over the place critique. The Blast Shack on Wikileaks and its worldwide cultural / political ramifications is one of Bruce's best in recent years, even if his thesis is a bit surprising coming out of the man who has in the past revered all things cyber & cypherpunk.

"The reason this upsets me is that I know so many people just like Bradley Manning. Because I used to meet and write about hackers, "crackers," "darkside hackers," "computer underground" types. They are a subculture, but once you get used to their many eccentricities, there is nothing particularly remote or mysterious or romantic about them. They are banal. Bradley Manning is a young, mildly brainy, unworldly American guy who probably would have been pretty much okay if he'd been left alone to skateboard, read comic books and listen to techno music.

Instead, Bradley had to leak all over the third rail. Through historical circumstance, he's become a miserable symbolic point-man for a global war on terror. He doesn't much deserve that role. He's got about as much to do with the political aspects of his war as Monica Lewinsky did with the lasting sexual mania that afflicts the American Republic."

Sit down and read the whole essay, even if you don't agree with Bruce on many points. And if like me you are an annual regular at his SXSW free-for-all, you can hear his voice telling you his thoughts as you read The Blast Shack on the whole WikiLeaks v. the Superpower.

Dave Winer at the Scripting News posted the New WikiLeaks documentary, entitled "WikiRebels" today in on his site. I watched all four YouTube videos that Dave posted tonight in less than an hour and it was time well spent, as the documentary gives the background on WikiLeaks, as well as interviewing at least 6 of the folks involved with WikiLeaks as well as various journalists and politicians.

WikiRebels was made by SVT and treads a fine line between being sympathetic to WikiLeaks and presenting the information from both sides.

The documentary spends a good ten plus minutes on the video of the Baghdad shooting of civilians and Reuter's journalists. Go watch it, as the information genie is out of the bottle and we all as a society need to be informed.

Here are two YouTube videos where an Illinois State Senator, Rickey Hendon, and US Congressman, Ron Paul, throw down/peach to their colleagues about lies, hypocrisy, politics, telling the truth, DADT, Wikileaks, and what it means to do the right thing.

Illinois Senator Hendon:

US Congressman Paul:

I want to know where I can donate to Senator Hendon to encourage him to run for the US Senate.

Quote of the Day:

"Wow! Assange cornered and detained, his bank account closed, Paypal refuses to accept donations from him and his lawyers are being harassed. All that mess for a broken condom?

In other news, the Bin Laden family is still wealthy."

- Anon, Comment #82, Boing Boing post on Assange arrested in Britain

More on the WikiLeaks' Julian Assange's arrest:

The Guardian's WikiLeaks US embassy cables: live updates : This is a great, big round up of live blogged links, excerpts, and commentary from The Guardian.

Mefi discusses Julian Assange Turns Himself In

Salon's Glenn Greenwald on The lawless Wild West attacks WikiLeaks

Patrick Nielsen Hayden of Making Light on I feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of people suddenly facepalmed and then were silent: Commenter #7, Steve C, "And in related news, the TSA will celebrate the Fourth Amendment."

Update on 12.08.10:

Evan Hanson in Wired on Why WikiLeaks Is Good for America: "Instead of encouraging online service providers to blacklist sites and writing new espionage laws that would further criminalize the publication of government secrets, we should regard WikiLeaks as subject to the same first amendment rights that protect The New York Times. And as a society, we should embrace the site as an expression of the fundamental freedom that is at the core of our Bill of Rights, not react like Chinese corporations that are happy to censor information on behalf of their government to curry favor."

.

I dedicate this post to Sean, who died in 1989. A bright life cut all too short.

As I think what to write here right now about Thanksgiving, I think of the song lyric that goes "Give thanks with a grateful heart...".

Today I am thankful. Thankful for a beautiful autumn day. Thankful for a great meal with fun family members. Thankful for friends and family - near & far. Thankful for art, good books, and the internet. Thankful for all of you.

May you have a delightful rest of the week. And no, I won't go out shopping tomorrow for Black Friday, I plan to enjoy my day working on a mobile app.

After I wrote last night's post on "DIY Mobile Programming: Get Started with HTML, CSS, and Javascript", I realized that I assumed that all of my readers who want to learn to create | develop their own mobile apps are already familiar with and design | develop in HTML, CSS, and Javascript.

This is after I shut off my computer and was on my way to bed, when I realized that maybe those of us in the web & mobile industries need to give more than lipservice to the idea of web education but is it time for all of us to consider that HTML should be apart of the canon of literacy.

Should HTML, in a basic form, be taught in primary school along with reading, writing, and arithmetic?

Yes, I do think it should. The internet, in all of its permutations, is in every aspect of our lives regardless if one lives in the developed or developing world(s). If we don't teach the basics of the markup language of how to develop | create for the internet, then we are leaving literacy half-baked at best for the 21st Century, because if one does not understand the basic underpinnings of the internet, then one is illiterate to a major facet of 21st Century life.

The drive to increase literacy over the last 200 years has been more than making sure the most folks possible can read and write but it has also been the drive to give everyone the skills to participate on a more level playing field in society, as well as to open the opportunity for all of society to rise to the level of the educated. In every country where literacy has risen above 80%, poverty has decreased, self-sufficiency has increased, and the economy grows in proportion to the increase in literacy.

If you can learn to count to ten in another language, you can learn the 10 most used tags in HTML. If you can string to together a sentence or two in your native language, you can learn the semantics and grammar of HTML. With HTML, you are more than partially capable of creating simple pages and apps for the internet, be it mobile or desktop.

When one can create a page or alter a page in their care, then they are no longer audience, but a participant. No longer just a consumer, but a creator.

*******
Ms. Jen's DIY Programming Series:
DIY Dev: Program or be Programmed
DIY Mobile Programming: Get Started with HTML, CSS, and Javascript
DIY Programming: Should HTML be Required for Literacy in the 21st Century?

More folks out in Internet-land are getting riled up over the TSA's back scatter x-ray scanner (aka the Porn-o-Scan) and a few more are getting riled up enough to call for a boycott/activism stance in the form of National Opt-Out Day and then Mr. Goldberg puts forth the best suggestion yet:

Kilts.

Oh yeah.

In other News, Ask the Pilot, tells America to remember recent history and take a chill pill. And that includes the TSA.

It is all fine and dandy to drive to San Francisco or Lost Wages or Phoenix from LA, but what happens if you need to go farther afield or even across an ocean? Not even BlkPhbe the trusted Prius can drive across the ocean.

As bizarre as I find the whole flying experience in recent years, particularly the part at the airport before departure, I do like airports. Back when one could walk one's friends or family to their departure gate, before the advent of boarding pass folks beyond security only, I used to offer to take friends to the airport, as I enjoy the hustle, bustle, and air of possibility that pervades a good, large airport.

People are going places! I could be going places! What fun people watching!

The only problem in the post 9/11 world, the hustle and bustle has been replaced with dour faced, tired, stressed out people. And that only covers the employees and TSA folk, as for the passengers there is an air of defeat.

GW Bush's pronouncement of "Mission Accomplished" aside, I think the terrorists have won. Instead of airports being a place of movement, anticipation, and possibilities, they are now a place of banal, mindless bureaucracy that verges on shows of soul-corroding power trips in the name of supposed security.

One wanna-be terrorist failed to blow up his shoe, now millions of people get to have their shoes inspected. One failed terrorist couldn't get his underwear to explode, now many more innocents get to be patted down & felt up in the name of making us all safer.

Before you start thinking, "Well, I am willing to put up with ALL of that AND MORE to be secure!" Are you really that secure? I raise an eyebrow at you. You must not fly that often anymore.

As I detailed out in last night's post, for trips shorter than 6 hours, I now drive rather than deal with the b.s. at the airport.

Flying internationally is one exception to my little no-fly rule, as I do like to get into an aluminum tube with wings and be strapped in for 10-12 hours so that I can emerge on the other side in a new world. This I like so much, I will put up with quite a bit.

I like watching Labrador, Baffin Island, Greenland, and Iceland from 35,000 ft in the air as the metal tube is getting jostled about by the turbulent air in the interstices of the North Atlantic and the North American landmass. It is even more fun to watch Greenland & Bafflin Island go by with a barf bag* in one hand while one is trying to operate a camera in the other while pressing the lens to the window.

One of these days, I will touch down in Iceland and Greenland for a proper visit rather than just fly over. For Greenland, I will even put up with the airport.

*Sometimes, if it smells real bad, no matter how hungry, don't eat the airplane food. Yes, they still feed you on International flights.

Rather than fly to San Francisco this weekend to attend Cindy & Matt's Wedding 2.0, I decided to drive.

Generally, I prefer to drive than to fly. I don't like the expense and hassle of flying. It isn't just the cost of the plane ticket & fees but also do I park my car at a protected pay lot or do I ask a friend or family member to drive me & pick me up from the airport? What about the time it takes to get to the aiport, through security, etc? I own a 2007 Toyota Prius that gets between 46-52 mpg when driving; yes, I can go 460 - 520 miles to a 10 gallon tank of gas. For short trips, there is a definite time savings to driving, as well as money savings.

Las Vegas from SoCal? Drive. If you plan it right, it is 4 hours door to door via the car. I dare you to beat that with driving to the airport, going through security, being at the gate 45 minutes before the flight, plus the 45min to 1 hour flight time & additional taxing to the gate & getting out of the airport & to your destination time. Get a road trip partner & just go.

Phoenix? Also, just drive.

San Francisco? Ooh, that one is hard. It usually is 4-4.5 hours door to door if you fly, plus a minimum of $110 for ticket & fees if you book two weeks ahead. It is 6.5-8 hours door to door from SoCal to SF and less than $60 total in my car, if I drive. But dang if the the drive through the Central Valley on the I-5 is not a mind-numbing haul, even if it is really shorter in the terms of time than one's brain perceives it. In the end, it is time and how much I need my car when I am in SF that determines if I drive or fly.

The last two trips to San Francisco, I have flown, as I was only in the city for a day or two and was only at one location both times. The trip before that in April, I drove up by myself as I did need my car to get around, and I drove back with my brother who needed to visit a series of commercial real estate properties for work in the Silicon Valley. I picked him up in SF, we drove around for a couple of hours, hit Chinese food in Sunnyvale, looked at a few more buildings and then drove home to LA. Easy peasy.

I like flying Virgin America, it is fun. I like flying American, even if others don't. I *actually* like LAX. So, if I was only going to be in San Francisco for a weekend wedding and visiting of friends, having to leave late Friday or early Saturday and then be back by Monday morning, wouldn't flying be easier?

Ah, no.

Today's LA Times has a lovely article on the resurgence of Temple Beth Israel in the Highland Park / Eagle Rock section of northeast Los Angeles, of which there is a link to an in-depth essay in LA Magazine from 2008 by Ed Leibowitz about Finding Sanctuary at Beth Israel.

As I read both articles, I was enchanted by the slice of Los Angeles history that Beth Israel represents and by the people who have invested their lives in that congregation from the 1920s to today. As I read the LA Times story and the first two pages of the LA Magazine essay, the back of my brains kept saying to me, "I think this is Lauren's grandpa's synagogue." I emailed her to see if it was this temple or not.

About six years ago when Lauren and I were roommates, and when I was in the throes of my genealogy research phase Lauren told me what she knew of her various family members to see if I could find more. The Isaacson line was the fun one to research as Lauren's dad Joe was the son of a rabbi, who was the son of a rabbi from Selma, Alabama. We did know that Lauren's grandpa was a founding member and rabbi of a synagogue in LA named Beth Israel.

By the time I had read the sixth page of the LA Magazine article, Lauren had emailed me back to let me know that the Temple Beth Israel in both articles was one and the same as her grandpa had been a rabbi at. I am very glad that Temple Beth Israel is currently undergoing a renaissance with young families in the Eagle Rock / Highland Park area, and even more glad that the temple of my Lauren's grandfather is continuing to be a blessing in its community.

Update from Fri 11.05.10 - Lauren emailed me this morning to let me know that her grandpa, Rabbi Isaacson, as a founder at the Temple Beth Israel in Hollywood in the same era.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Tues 11.02.10 - I don't like horror or scary movies, but I feel like I am living in one. Early this morning I woke up in the 5am hour from a nightmare in which everyone around me turned into a zombie. My first waking thought, of which I tweeted fairly soon after was:

"Is it just me or does it seem wrong that US Election day this year falls on Dia de los Muertos?"

Today, the 1st of November, is the start of annual November National Blog Posting Month, where folks blog daily. It is also the start of NaNoWriMo (write a novel in one month!) and NaVloPoMo (video yourself & friends daily!).

Per usual, I am encouraging you, dear reader, to take up the challenge this month and flex your creativity muscles with daily practice - go blog, vlog, write, photoblog, etc!

Thoughts on Teabaggers, Groupthink, The God of the Burgess Shale, and for the Love of Blogging

1) In case you are like me and have spent more than a few hours wondering where all the Teabaggers were during the Bush-Cheney big government spend-a-thon, Mr. Taibbi answers a few of those questions in Tea & Crackers.

I am still in awe how most of those folks spent 2001-2009 asleep, only to wake up after the Obama inauguration. Odd but true.

2) For all the commentators who have been writing on Nokia's corporate culture and supposed Finnish 'groupthink', the Finns may be on to something bigger in the democracy department than we, individualism obsessed Americans, can even dream of, especially if they aren't afraid to combine research & risk with consensus.

3) Making Light on "The Secret Lives of Fossils": TNH's handmade rosary of fossils has landed in the Vatican Observatory's meteorite case. Go read all the links and the comments. Wonderful.

4) Lori Hylan-Cho receives the award for the Best Sentence in a Blog Post in 2010, even though 2010 is not over yet:

"I guess this also proves that this blog really is just a personal memory store for me, and not a mechanism for promoting my professional reputation through blowhardery."

I struggle greatly with the pressure that I should be daily/weekly writing a hard hitting professional posts to promote my reputation in mobile or web worlds when what I really want to do it post beautiful photos and blog about things that interest me today - be they professional, personal, ideas, whatever. I continue to feel strongly that this blog is both a canvas and a gallery.

Bravo to Lori for posting about what she loves rather than caving to the pressure to post professional blowhardery.

via: Good Ideas, The Four-Minute Version

Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity: Taking it down a Notch for America.

And as a counterpoint, Stephen Colbert's March to Keep Fear Alive

The other day, while driving north on PCH near Long Beach State, I saw a beater of n car driving towards the university with a bumper sticker that said, "Eschew Obfuscation".

I had a good laugh and thought, "That must be a grad student in the humanities, criticism, or literature."

For those of you who are scratching your heads, basically it means "give up making things unclear" in opaque language.

From the nice folks at Dictionary.com:

Eschew /ɛsˈtʃu/ [es-choo] -verb (used with object) - to abstain or keep away from; shun; avoid: to eschew evil.

Origin: 1300-50; ME eschewen < OF eschiver, eschever < Gmc; cf. OHG sciuhen, G scheuchen, shy2

Obfuscate /ˈɒbfəˌskeɪt, ɒbˈfʌskeɪt/ [ob-fuh-skeyt, ob-fuhs-keyt]
-verb (used with object), -cat·ed, -cat·ing.
1. to confuse, bewilder, or stupefy.
2. to make obscure or unclear: to obfuscate a problem with extraneous information.
3. to darken.

Origin:
1525-35; < LL obfuscātus (ptp. of obfuscāre to darken), equiv. to L ob- ob- + fusc ( us ) dark + -ātus -ate1

On another amusing word usage tip, Languagehat parses out the oldest known word in English for wedding: bridelope.

Last but not least, a good quote from a 19th Cent. British physician, H.G. Bohn:

"Nature, time and patience are the three great physicians."

I am a spaz. I am not insulting myself.

My hands shake. Almost all the time. Sometimes it is hard to hold objects without pain & tremors and it is getting harder recently to hold a pen or other small, thin objects.

I have essential tremor. My dad has essential tremor, his hands shake. His father had essential tremor and his hands shook. It runs in the family.

I have had a noticeable shake in both of my hands since I was 12 or 13. My biology teacher in high school said after watching me dissect a frog and a shark's brain that I should be a brain surgeon as I made the cleanest cuts he had seen in 30 years of teaching but I would make all the nurses nervous due to my hands and the scalpel shaking all the time.

I had a formal diagnosis of Essential Tremor when I was in my mid-twenties by a Harvard neurosurgeon, who told me that it will get worse over time and when it gets too hard to write or hold a fork that there are medications that I can take. He also told me that I was lucky that I didn't have the 'head bop' version of ET.

Nearly 14 years later, while I am not at the point where I need the ET meds, it is getting harder to do certain tasks. I can't put on mascara without using both of my hands - one hand to hold the mascara wand and one to hold the wrist of the hand holding the wand.

Yesterday, I was out at lunch and went to take a photo of my lunch, when I heard the folks at the next table talking about me in Spanish. While I can't talk back in Spanish, I do understand. The conversation started by talking about my hair, then they moved to the fact I was shaking. The woman doing most of the talking about me kept saying that if I was an alcoholic, I should just order a drink to stop the shaking. Then they all laughed.

First I was appalled, then a bit angry, but I let it go quickly, as I did not even want to get into a conversation with these folks about what Essential Tremor is, why I have it, why it makes my hands, fork, & camera shake, and no I am not an alcoholic, as well as explaining why I can understand Spanish but can't speak back.

I quickly forgot about this, as I will be the first to call myself a spaz. In the common California version of English, a spaz is a person who shakes with excitement, it has nothing to do with mental illness and only vague relation to people with MS or Cerebal Palsy but it is much more informal in its usage. I have been called a spaz all my life by many people due to my hands shaking, my voice, and my general excitement about life.

I am more than OK with being called a spaz as I don't see it as an insult, but merely a concise description of true statements about me - I shake, I have an unusual voice that gets more unusual & fast with excitement, and I am a bouncy and overly cheerful human.

Why am I even writing about this? A web designer, developer, and blogger that I like and respect from the UK, Ann McMeekin, has written a blog post that to use the word 'spaz' is an unacceptable term. I see the argument she makes in her post and in her reply to Christopher Fahey (commenter #13) who tried to explain the American usage of the term, but I do think that it is very hard to keep up on the usage of English words across the world as they are used in lcoal parlance even if the writer or speaker may be speaking to a non-local audience.

The more I meet and get to know folks who are native English speakers from various countries across the world the more I realize that each country or sub-section thereof ascribes different nuances or even full meanings to words that we would all call common to English.

I am always terrified to ask for a napkin when dining in the UK, as I was told that it meant a feminine hygiene product, not a paper or cloth square of which to wipe one's hands with when eating. I have perused whole lists to figure out what the differences are between UK and US English and do my best to keep up on different usages, but that does not take into account states or counties with in each country or even other countries that have English as a native language.

Nor does it take into account all the subtle cultural meanings that may be attached to word or phrase usage right now that weren't the case ten years ago or many not be the case ten years from now.

When I was fresh out of college, I spent three months in Amsterdam and then two months in Budapest living with and in community with a set of folks from all over the world. One of the things I learned fast is how words that may be innocuous to you will be highly insulting to another. My English friend said fuck like it was going out of style, but if I used the word 'bloody' she would be insulted. My friend from Australia damned everything, but if I say I was 'pissed off' she would bawl me out.

The best is when our very innocent friend from Germany had a long conversation with a missionary group from the American South at the youth hostel we were staying at and she kept telling them about her problems with shit. She needed shit massage as she was constipated and went into great detail about how the shit needed to moved out of her bowels. The best part was watching the faces of said missionaries, at first they were very interested in listening to her, then I could see that they were determined to save her from her sinful swearing ways, and finally they got up and left as they were so insulted to be treated to a conversation that went for a half hour about shit.

My German friend was baffled by the missionaries abrupt departure, another American friend and I tried to explain to her that in the US to talk about shit was really taboo that one only talked about one's 'bowel movements' briefly with very close friends and family and even then only used a euphemism. The concept of a euphemism for shit was unknown to her as German does not have gradations of delicate terms for going #2.

If you are American, you many be quite uncomfortable right now that I just said fuck and shit in a blog post. If you are English, it may be seen as unprofessional but not uncomfortable. And if you are from a culture that does not have shades of delicacies for such words, then you may be plain baffled that I have to write this paragraph at all.

All of this to say, that I agree that Ann is right about the global nature of the internet. Yes, we do need to be aware that our readership is not just from our local area who may understand the finer subtleties of our word usage or even of the words we just use without thinking. But on the other hand, it would be a whole study in and of itself to keep up with the thousands of common English words and how they are used both in formal writing and common speech in hundreds, if not thousands, of cultures and sub-cultures around the world.

I understand that it is important to not insult, I would like to call for giving each other a bit of grace and then if one is still bothered then to discuss the terminology with the person in question what was meant by its usage, and then still extend grace for the fact that even though we are global online we are still local in our daily lives.

This morning, my Mom, who had read last night's blog post, asked if I was anxious.

I responded, "No, I was just reflecting on the last ten years and stating where I would like to go from here."

This is a true statement. Right now in my personal life, I am happy and surprisingly content. In my professional life, my dance card is currently full, but I don't want to get lulled in complacency.

Reflective, yes. Anxious, no.

The last two to three years brought a clarity to the fact that I work best in collaboration, my favorite projects of the last 5 years are the ones where I have worked in a team or closely with a creative client who wanted to collaborate. The last year worth of projects has made it even clearer that I do best when I am working with people in the same space and then am able to work on my tasks. I have honestly looked at my productivity patterns and see that they are not at their best when I am working at home all by myself with no client/collaborative contact for weeks at end.

I have several web designer friends who work best when left alone to themselves and they don't want to work on team projects. I have one friend who after the initial client meeting will only deal with clients via email.

The Myers-Briggs personality assessment can say a lot about one's working patterns and what environment they do their best work in. I will bet that my friends who do their best by themselves are Is for Introversion, in that they get their energy from being alone & work best when left alone. Reductive, I know, but I don't want to dedicate paragraphs to parsing this out, when you can go read about it yourself.

I have taken the long form Myers-Briggs several times in the course of my life and I always test out as just a little to the Introversion side but very close to the Extroversion. This means that I get my energy from being by myself at least a few hours a day, but I am still social. I have noticed that I am happiest when I am able to touch base on what the plan is, break up into small groups or alone to get the task done, and then reconvene to assess and then iterate.

I wrote last night's post on my ten years as a freelance web designer as a way to celebrate and reflect on what the last ten years of my professional life has been all the while being honest about the bad as well as the good. If that honesty was conveyed as anxiety, that was not my intention.

I think it is all to easy, particularly given that a web professional is always connected and by the nature of our professional community we are frequently on social networks, to paint one's client situation as rosy and to only announce or put up in one's portfolio the good projects, but it hard to talk about the doubts, the mild to major failures of projects or hopes, and otherwise be honest as it can be seen as unprofessional or it would look bad to do so.

I am interested in being honest. Honest that I don't want to get caught in complacency of my life, but I want to examine where I have been and where I would like to go. And professionally, I would like to work at a company or firm where at least 50% of my time would be working with/for/around the mobile space.

Thus, not anxious, but examining and moving forward.

Ten years ago this week, I gave my two week notice at my well-paid but non-web related corporate job. I gave my notice so that I could go pro as a web designer rather than just doing it as a side job or hobby. I gave my notice so that I could start my own web design freelance consultancy. I gave notice so that I could teach web design and 20th Century art history at a local university. I gave notice so that I could grow into my new life as a full-time web designer.

My timing, I have joked for years, was impeccable. I gave notice to start a web design business right on the precipice of the Dot Com Bust of 2000/2001.

In the last ten years, I have built a web design and development business / freelance consultancy that has focused on small businesses, creatives, non-profits, and education related endeavors. In the last ten years, I have offered my clients not just a new web site, but also how to conduct an online marketing or promotion campaign, how to use the internet to grow a business or project, as well as helping the internet phobic get comfortable in this new space. It has at times been very satisfying and at others deeply frustrating.

Five years ago this month, I wound down my web design business and teaching at the university to go back to school myself. I packed up my whole life, gave up my lovely 1890s back of the house in Orange, and in Sept of 2005 I moved to Dublin, Ireland, to attend graduate school at Trinity College, Dublin. I went to graduate school with the intention of learning more about programming and web development, as well as to focus on a mobile project.

When I first returned from Dublin with my new minted Masters degree, I spent 6 months in a job search of which many leads were pursued, paths investigated and interviews conducted but none lead to a corporate web or mobile design job as I had hoped at the time. In 2007, I spent a great deal of the year trying almost any new professional adventure offered to me - speaking at developer conferences about design, working as a web developer contractor to an East Coast based agency, thinking & planning a mobile hack day, etc. In one way, this was good, as I got to discover what I did not want to do, but on the other side it was bad, as I felt like I was too full of post-masters degree energy and that I was scattered and did not focus.

For the last three years, I have been working more on the web development and programming side of my skill set, both on client projects and a large semi-collaborative web application, as well as mobile development projects. Something funny happened on the way to the web app forum, I discovered that what I knew to be true in early 2007 when I was interviewing, which was that I really did not want to work for myself anymore but instead work on a team doing bigger projects than one person can accomplish alone, is still very true, in fact truer now than it was in 2007.

Furthermore, I have discovered that the longer I am a freelance web designer and developer working with remote clients or on contract, the more demoralized I become. It is not enough to work on a remote team where there are weekly phone or Skype meetings, I deeply desire, be it a larger company or at an agency, to work on an in office/studio team to be a part of a larger whole than what I can accomplish on my own. I want to hear more than just my own thoughts or what little I can glean when I throw out an idea on Twitter. I want to participate in discussion and discourse, I want to be challenged, I want to learn from colleagues, I want to be able to mentor in turn, I want to collaborate, and I want to participate together on projects.

To this end, I have spent much time this summer dusting off my resume and working on how to best presentation of my portfolio. I have been watching the job listings at companies I admire and would want to work at. I have let friends and contacts know that I am starting a job search.

While most of my client work the last ten years has been mostly web based, be it web design, development or marketing, my true passion and where I have spent most of my non-client working time in the last five years is in mobile. If you have read this blog, you know that besides mobile blogging & camera phone photography, I tend to blog about mobile. Thus, I am searching for jobs in mobile and at mobile companies.

If you know of any openings in mobile for a passionate and bright designer / developer hybrid with strong talents in user experience, communication, marketing, and systems design, please let me know.

Follow Up: Anxious? No.

Recently, I blogged about Shabbat and wanting/needing to take a day completely off once a week. While I have not been completely successful at taking a full unplugged day off once a week, I have been moderately successful at not working every day of every week like I have done for the last 11 months.

For the last month on one of the weekend days, I have taken at least 1/2 - 2/3rds of one day completely unplugged and have done something wonderfully analogue like reading a paper book. And on the last two weekends, I have made a point that if I couldn't stay off my computer the whole day, then the other part of the rest day, I would use for a fun personal project rather than working on client work.

Trying to break a year plus long habit of working every single day on something for some client and/or trying to keep up on some work related learning or articles is hard. But the payoff of being relaxed and not always stressed out is worth the time & effort.

So, while a week or two weeks of actual real live vacation (or even 4-6 like some of my Nordic friends) is not in the cards this summer, I can take one day every week. Or try to at any rate.

;o)

Photos taken by Ms. Jen today with her Nokia N86 camera phone.

Tues 07.06.10 - Two sides to a coin, possible paradoxes, and sisters in arms: fragile | tough, hope | courage, brittle | tears, anger | yearning.

To my two friends who are going through much travail this week, I walk with you in mourning, tears, and anger. I give you a big hug across the country. I wish I could be there.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86 this misty morning about 10:30am looking out from Seal Beach to Esther the Oil Platform.

Mon. 07.05.10 - Rarely does the Southern California's June Gloom last into July. Some years the marine layer of clouds will stubbornly persist in the mornings until the Fourth of July, but most years the Fourth of July dawns sunny and hot, not low, gray, looming clouds with a windy chill as yesterday's weather.

In the course of my living memory, there have only been two summers where the clouds stayed past noon and/or the clouds stayed all summer long, depressing many and causing tourists* to snark about "Sunny California".

The summer of 1983 had clouds that lasted well into July and it did not get good and sunny at the beaches until August. The winter of 1982/1983 was one of our biggest El Nino years in history and the following year was a La Nina year. The summer clouds created by the chillier than normal ocean & hot land foretold of the La Nina to come.

The summer of 1991 had clouds as far inland as Buena Park all summer long, while it was odd to be socked in with clouds 20 miles inland from the ocean in August, that was the year that Mt. Pinatubo blew it's top and created the 2nd biggest eruption in the 20th Century. But the early nineties were also a strong La Nina and California drought era.

In a year of drought, it can be a blessing to the parched hillsides to have clouds and a bit of mist over a hot, drying sun, even if it causes S.A.D. and cranky beach goers.

Scientists announced last month that this past year's El Nino had abated and that the Intertropical Convergence Zone in the Pacific has lower than normal temperatures and they declared 2010 to be a La Nina year. Or shall we also account Eyjafjallajökull's ashes to partially account for this year's extended June Gloom season in SoCal?

My bet to account for the longer than usual June Gloom this year is largely with La Nina with a possible sprinkling of volcano ashes. Regardless, this morning and yesterday morning had low lying clouds bordering on fog and the temperatures were in the 60s F / late teens C and not the 80s F.

Yesterday the sun finally burned the clouds off at 12:43pm and they did not return until after 5pm. Today we had a sprinkling rain most of the morning, the clouds didn't burn off until after 2pm and by 4:30pm the clouds had rolled back in.

Clouds most of the day with a fine misty morning? Who imported in a nice western Irish summer to Los Angeles?

;o)

* Dear tourists, please note that SoCal is at her *TRUE* glory from Jan 15 - March 15th. When your town is knee deep in with snow & cold, SoCal gets a storm or two that blows in, blows out, and leaves crystal clear, sunny days with snowy mountains. Our summer does not really start until July most years, and does not really heat up until August & September. Check Weather.com and book your holidays accordingly. kthnxbai.

It is 12:41pm here in Seal Beach, California, socked in with the dreaded 'June Gloom', aka the Marine Inversion Layer, and it is chilly for a mid-summer day at 66F/18C and there is a bit of wind. The Sun has made no effort to come out for a visit. Hopefully, old Sol will burn the clouds soon.

In the meantime, here a few nice links for your Fourth of July reading enjoyement...

How America got its name: The suprising story of an obscure scholar, an adventurer's letter, and a pun

When Ringmann read this news, he was thrilled. As a good classicist, he knew that the poet Virgil had prophesied the existence of a vast southern land across the ocean to the west, destined to be ruled by Rome. And he drew what he felt was the obvious conclusion: Vespucci had reached this legendary place. He had discovered the fourth part of the world. At last, Europe's Christians, the heirs of ancient Rome, could begin their long-prophesied imperial expansion to the west.

Nick Patrick on Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

Reading David McCullough's 1776, I found myself wondering: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents? If so, when did American accents diverge from British accents?
The answer surprised me.
I'd always assumed that Americans used to have British accents, and that American accents diverged after the Revolutionary War, while British accents remained more or less the same.
Americans in 1776 did have British accents in that American accents and British accents hadn't yet diverged. That's not too surprising.
What is surprising, though, is that those accents were much closer to today's American accents than to today's British accents. While both have changed over time, it's actually British accents that have changed much more drastically since then.

The Tyburn Angling Society:

Nonetheless, in addition to a regular circuit of dinners, drinks, and fishing outings, the Tyburn Angling Society is committed to resurfacing the ancient stream -- still theirs to fish, they argue, by a never-repealed royal decree. "You could have people fishing by the river in the middle of Mayfair," Jim Bowdidge told the Evening Standard, "We would get the Wild Trout Trust to get the habitat right for small wild brown trout. Properly done, we could have salmon."

John Scalzi on Status Check, Re: USA:

The 234th birthday of the United States of America is a fine time to check in with one's self about how one feels about being a citizen of this country, so today's question: Am I proud to be an American?
I am. The United States, like so many things, is better as an idealized concept than it is as an actual entity, on account that the nation is made up of people, and while most people mean well, in a day-to-day sense they struggle with their ideals, which are often so inconvenient to their desires. And so, like a married family-values politician with a Craigslist personal ad, or a vegan Febreezing the apartment so no one will catch the smell of bacon, America often finds itself failing its own expectations for itself and others.

Last but not least, the quote of the day from Kevin Lawver:

Happy "Crap, We Lost Some Colonies" Day, Brits!

Update! 12:54pm on 07.04.10 - The Sun is doing his job & is burning through the clouds, Seal Beach now has some sun, some clouds, and is still chilly. Wahoo.

Happy Fourth of July!

My fave quote from Rant #1, US vs Them? American wireless industry, come meet me at Camera 3:

But no, Americans consumers get crippled versions of the cheapest lousiest phones you can find. Why is it that an Apple 'innovation' of a Forward Facing Camera is somehow radical in the USA? We've had these forward facing second cameras as standard features on essentially all 3G phones in Europe and Asia and Australia and Latin America and.. for Heaven's Sake, in Africa! I was the person flown in to place the first 3G video call on the continent of Africa when Vodacom of South Africa opened its 3G network for developers - and I used a forward facing second camera on that 3G phone - and this was in ...2004! Shame on you American carriers! That you haven't bothered even to bring this international standard to Americans and we have to wait for an outsider like Apple to bring it (now obviously, they do it on their Facetime proprietary solution, and can you blame Apple for that? You ruined yet another opportunity). The best phones? Isn't it time you joined us in the 21st Century and let American consumers enjoy what the rest of the world expects as normal.

My fave bit from Rant #2, Serious reply to CTIA Steve Largent - he's cruisin' for a bruisin':

In Japan, on just one carrier, NTT DoCoMo, there are today over a million content partners, application and service providers. When did they pass that 100,000 level? in 2004! You think Steve Largent that this is a sign of innovation in America in 2009? You are literally 5 years behind Japan - a country only a third the size of the USA in population. Shame on you! But I know the app store argument is fun to make today, eh? So you admit that the carriers can't do this level of creativity, it takes the outsider - like Apple - to do it. Thats exactly what I argued. So, one, I defeat your argument that the USA is 'innovative' because of the Apple App Store - but you then admit that the 100,000 in December 2009 and most of the 240,000 today (Apple having 225,000) is because of Apple who could not deploy these on the carrier systems, and had to develop its own app store. You are helping me prove my point that the carriers in the USA are dinosaurs, Steve.

The internet, the blogosphere, and the mobile worlds are all the richer for Mr. Ahonen's rants. Put Tomi on your RSS feed, it is always a good read.

I have begun to hate all the blog posts and articles that are titled for SEO points using numbers plus the general idea.

It is like a bad internet loop of The Nails' "88 Lines About 44 Women" going over and over and over again.

Most of the time the posts in question are fluff pieces and while they lure you into reading them with promises of real information or that you will read a point by point soundly reasoned and argued opinion piece, no, one gets fooled.

Fooled into thinking that the writer/ blogger actually had something to say.

Fooled by the numerals into thinking the piece would be use sound rhetoric and be factual.

But no usually they have one or two good idea-ettes per 10 numbers and the rest are puffed up to reach the other 8 or 9 points to lure more traffic and diggs to their site.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

Wed 06.09.10 - Sorry if things have been a little quiet around here at Black Phoebe lately, but I have been quiet. I have been working on finishing up the tiny details and loose ends on several work projects and have been so immersed in the finishing that I have not had a lot of things to say or write about here.

I do have two halfway finished mobile blogs posts for you all, I just need to find some time and mental space to complete my thoughts.

Mostly, thought I have enjoyed the final ends of the projects and taking photos while out and about on walks with Scruffy. The act of observing the little details both in code and image is what the last month has been about for me.

Heartbreaking. I truly hope that the Iranian people prevail and not the regime. One year later and no change of the regime, even more heartbreaking.

The Guardian on the making of the 'For Neda' documentary.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

The question of the day at the Ladies Luncheon yesterday is what would you do for your career, any job, that would be a job that you loved and you are good at?

Our answers ranged from 2 personal shoppers, 1 prostitute, 1 mattress tester (aka professional napper), 1 movie reviewer, and 1 travel photographer.

Given my last blog post about a very passionate 15 year old who is determinedly working towards her dream to dance in the Bolshoi Ballet, regardless of your age, circumstances, and current employment situation, what would you do that you love and be good at?

Me, all jokes aside about being the first professional camera phone travel photographer, I would love to be on a team that is creating camera phones or is creating software for camera phones and I would be good at it.

And you? Do tell.

Today at Tuttle Club LA, David A. said to David G., "Shabbat Shalom. Can I call you tomorrow or do you not pick up your phone on Shabbat?"

"Yep."

"Ok, I will call you on Sunday then."

I waited for Mr. A to go away and I turned to David G., "That's cool! If you don't pick up your phone on Shabbat, then I take it you don't turn on your computer?"

David G, "Yes, that's right. No computer, no phone, no iPhone, no..."

Me, "How wonderful."

Really, how wonderful. I didn't ask what he and his family did about emergency calls or anything of the like, instead I asked him if he had read a lot of books recently and he had.

Right now, after months of working on one big project and several smaller ones, of which I am tying up the loose ends of all of them, I would *LOVE*LOVE*LOVE* to take one day a week where I did not turn on the computer or phone or whatever, but instead took the whole day off and just rested.

I need it. I don't need a 2 week vacation right now, what I need to do is to carve out one whole day every week that I don't even do a smidgen of work at all. A day where I read or sleep or hang out with friends or walk or whatever but not turn on the computer or phone.

At the end of Tuttle, David G. asked, "Are you Jewish?"

Me, "No, but I really respect it."

Right now more than ever.

Shabbat Shalom.

Thurs 04.08.10 - Fare the well to Mr. Malcolm McLaren. Thank you, kind sir, for many years of hijinx, punk rocks, and making London new & sexy after the great 30 plust years of post-Empire & WWII hangover.

I first was exposed to the fruits of Malcolm's mind & labors in 1981 when I was a wee 13 year old going through some tough family times. I spent most of the end of 1981 and all of 1982 lamenting that I was 5 years too young to have experienced the punk revolution in 1976 in London or Los Angeles myself. So, I did the next best thing, I jumped into OC/LA's music scene in 1982 as a fresh, idealistic 14 year old.

As an adult, I can now appreciate the trickster, rebel, and calculated businessman that Mr. McLaren was. And I still have a fondness for red haired men in plaid...

Photo taken on Fri 03.12.10 by Ms. Jen while at SXSW 2010.

In the course of my four decades on this planet, I have only really truly like 3 hairdressers: Julia Johnson, Diana ___, and Beth Martinez.

I have a BIG backseat hairdressing problem. I like to do my own hair and on occasion go into a salon for a bit of teamwork collaboration with a highly competent artist.

This makes sense, as I am artist, I like color and craft and mathematics, so doing my own hair has always been fun. I started practicing on myself, my brother, and my sister as a small child. My first real grounding is when I gave my then 2 year old sister a cannibal bowl hair cut.

While I was in high school, I went to beauty school after the school day was done and when I was in college I made money by upgrading Apple computers and dye/perming/cutting hair.

Ever since my beauty school days, I cut my own hair and color my own hair about half the time and only go into a hairdresser when I need more polish or elegance than I can do for myself.

Over the years since the days at Richard's Beauty College in Costa Mesa, California, I have only really liked and gotten on well with 3 hair stylists/colorists: Julia Johnson who I met through punk rock and Richards and we went on a kickin' tour of Europe the summer of 1988, Diana ____ who I met through the swing dancing crowd in 1998, and then when Diana got married and moved to Georgia, I found Beth Martinez through her husband Ron and Alex Hernandez.

Julia now lives in Houston, Diana in Georgia, and Beth in Austin, TX.

Now my hair looks bad. While I do bleach my front streak and color the bright Special Effects purple myself, as well as cut & shape the top/front of my hair to fit the punky 1940s inspired rolls I do, I do need to have the back cut by someone and the rest of my hair dyed by someone I trust. Really trust. Beth moved about 3 months ago and I need her back.

Beth kindly recommended two stylists for me. I tried one for a trim before SXSW and she was bossy and didn't get that I am a DIY hair girl at all. Due to the bossiness, I won't go back. The problem is that the other recommendation that Beth gave me is the stylist who is just across the salon from the bossy one, so I can't really go to the 2nd recommendation.

Anyone know of where I can pick up a non-allergenic Damson Plum demi-permanent to cover the gray that is homesteading at my temples?

Fri 03.19.10 - Lloyd Davis of the London Tuttle Club joined the Los Angeles / Long Beach Tuttle today as a part of his #Tuttle2Texas trip.

In this video taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86 I interviewed Geoff Hickman, Jeb Brilliant, Lloyd Davis, Al Pavangkanan, Luke Dorny, Francine Kizner, and AJ Pape.

Geoff also made a video where he asked Lloyd about the start of Tuttle and posted it here.

Tuttle2Texas Posterous: tuttle2texas.posterous.com

Thanks to WOMWorld/Nokia for the loan of the Nokia N86 8MP camera phone so that I could capture great video & stills.

Today is the 2nd Annual Ada Lovelace Day, in where I am to blog about a woman in technology that I admire.

After reading Vikki (aka Victoria) Chowney's Ada Lovelace Day post this morning, I decided that I would like to write about two kick ass twenty-something women that I know personally who are both very influential in persuading others to engage in technology: my cousin Caitlin Kilroy and Ms. Victoria Chowney.

On Sunday morning, I had a lovely breakfast with my cousin Caitlin and her mother Robin. During the course of the breakfast, I found myself explaining to my (now ex-) aunt that Caitlin was very influential in getting more than a few of her friends and relatives to join and engage in Facebook. Robin was at first baffled, but when I asked her, knowing what the answer was, how she joined Facebook and now has it logged in and turned on all day every day, she said that it was to keep track of Caitlin on her big adventures.

Last year, Caitlin a tall willowy then 24 year old blonde, announced that she was going to take a year to travel from California to South America via the Transamerican Highway. The family erupted in calls of No Way! I cried bullshit to most of them. If Caitlin were a 24 year old boy cousin, no one would say a damned thing but would instead brag how cool he was to travel through some interesting terrain, but because Caitlin is female there was a big hew and cry.

Luckily, Caitlin did not pay attention to them and just went. Good on her. The family was at first shocked, then my sister and I noticed that Caitlin was posting updates and photos from her adventures to her Facebook account. Then I noticed over time that family members and various friends of Caitlin joined Facebook and started to get over their own fear of technology and Caitlin's choice of travel route to cheer her on via her Facebook Wall and photo comments.

When my grandma or mom would ask if anyone knew where Caitlin was now, my sister Allison & I could give a report due to Caitlin's intrepid use of Facebook no matter the location. As I explained to Caitlin's mom at breakfast, Caitlin is a technology influencer, as folks who previously did not use Facebook to interact are now using it daily because of Caitlin's big adventures and using Facebook to report on same said and connect back home.

Caitlin is currently in LA to get her certification to teach yoga before returning to Peru to teach yoga there. She just assumes that no one will worry as she is just a click away on Facebook.

My other favorite mid-twenty-something kick ass technology lady is London's Victoria Chowney. Vikki in her own Ada Lovelace post details out her own involvement in the technology world via an early career in tech pr, but a cursory read under estimates her depth and breadth of knowledge of the digital and technology spheres as well as her passion for the intersecting worlds of technology, community, and communication.

In late September 2009, Vikki invited me to the launch party of Reputation Online, web community to further deepen the interstices and encourage connections between new & social media & technology with older media and more traditional public relations. Vikki is the editor of Reputation Online and has put a great deal of effort into making the site into a great resource for best practices in social media and new media public relations, as well as expanding the knowledge community in the fields of communications and technology. Vikki's passion and drive to further push the communications field into the 21st century is truly awe inspiring.

So, to my two favorite young women in technology the future is yours, ladies, thankfully. Go forth and kick ass.

*****
My post from last year's Ada Lovelace Day :: Cousin Lynn

Today the Healthcare reform bill passed the House.

On other notes, my mini-vacation is nearly over and I will return tomorrow with 3-4 blog posts as I have a SXSW wrap up to write, more photos to post, a post about the #NokiaComp to SXSWi, and a one year later follow up on the Nokia N97.

And now for my next trick, I will go to bed.

I unfortunately missed Danah Boyd's Saturday Keynote on Saturday, but above is an excerpted video. Danah has posted the notes/essay of the keynote: "Making Sense of Privacy and Publicity" at her website.

Watch and read it, provocative and thoughtful as always.

Last night, I saw a bunch of purple irises peeking out of a man's shopping bag, and my heart was pierced.

While I wish I was not single, in my day to day life I have become, in defense, somewhat immune - until the small moments, the little things observed. The little unconditional things that a man can do for a woman, then I come undone.

Looking at those irises, I sincerely hoped whoever received them, did so with joy. Later in the evening, I found myself crying. Trying not to, but I was.

More than worth the time to watch as Episode 1 of PBS's Faces of America is excellent.

American Stories explores the dynamic and shifting relationship America had with her new immigrants in the 20th century. World war tore apart families and sundered the fabric of many lives, but America beckoned and millions came. Yet, America was an ambivalent host. At its best, a place of refuge and salvation, as for film director Mike Nichols whose entire family escaped Nazi Germany. At its worst, a country that would imprison two generations of Japanese Americans, like the ancestors of Olympic gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi. Along the way, we'll discover the buoyant American optimism that shaped chance - as in a single encounter that changed cellist Yo-Yo Ma's life forever - to pave the road to success.

Every year since March of 1998, with the exception of one (2002), I have gone to SXSW be it Music, Interactive, or both. Every year since 2001, with the exception of one (2006), I have gone to Punk Rock Bowling in Lost Wages.

This year I am taking off, not from SXSW as the rubric should suggest given it is 2010, but from Bowling. I just can't do everything, and this week after months of working hard on a web app and a few other projects, I had to make the decision to trim something. Something that takes lots of social energy, creative energy, and some money. And that something was Bowling.

This year BYO Records and the Sterns are ramping up the event to include a Music Festival, I say - Bravo! I hope it goes well for the Barflies.net team, for BYO, and for all the lovely folks who will be bowling and merry making. I will not be joining the weekend long party.

By the graces of the Grace, in May, I will be in London or the like as it is time to make a transition.

Yes, I am officially job searching. If you have room on your team for a kick ass, intelligent, creative developer & mobile user experience professional, let me know. I am looking to join a great company, make a difference, and relocate.

Wish me well. And to all the Bowlers, have a grand good time!

Between Thursday night and Friday morning of this past week The Atlantic launched a new website redesign and switched the comments on the various blogs from self-hosted to Disqus hosted comments.

My first shock upon my morning review of the website was the new colors: Red - White - & - Blue - UGH! I find red, white and blue to be very divisive and a cheap, cheap, cheap visual shot.

During the 2000s, the red and the blue of Red, White, & Blue were used to separate out Us Vs. Them. At that time, the Us was the Red and the Them was the Blue. Still is. I just hate that American politics has dissolved down into color. UGH.

What was the rotten, pus-y cherry on top of the political sundae was the summer of 2006 when I spent a good deal of time traveling around Northern Ireland, where the colors of Red, White, and Blue are used as a symbol of war and hate. Driving through towns that had painted red, white & blue curbs as well as flags and placards was beyond creepy.

Heaven forfend that the United States of America devolve into a Northern Ireland style division, warfare, and ideological hatred. But the continued use by a variety of media of the colors red-white-&-blue only furthers a cheap visual metaphor about supposed patriotism and political partisanship.

Why did the Atlantic Monthly, formerly one of the most intelligent news sources, decide to join the ranks of creepy and division? Could they not afford a graphic or brand designer who could explain the concept of visual literacy and metaphor to them?

I showed the Atlantic's site redesign to other web designers at Tuttle Club LA on Friday morning and they were as horrified as I was. One thought it looked like a conservative business website and the other went on a discussion about hosted comments and HTTP Request loads.

As my visual acuity was assaulted by the new color scheme, I went to Ta-Nehisi Coates' Altantic blog to read what others in his community of readers thought only to be confronted with the fact that the comment section had been switched over to Disqus hosted comments.

Disqus. My blood boiled at 212F and my blood pressure went sky high. I hate Disqus comments.

I don't really like hosted comments, but I understand why bloggers use them for ease of AJAXy goodness with ratings, liking, and threading. The big but is that Disqus login fails about 2 out of every 1 time(s) that I try to login and then a good portion of those failures also deletes my carefully crafted comment to the blog in question.

My problems with Disqus occur regardless of computer or browser. Yes, I have my third party cookies set to on. Yes, I have been in dialogue with Disqus' one man support team.

I have come to dread encountering a blog that uses Disqus, as it normally takes me 3 times as long to comment on a Disqus blog as a blog with a complicated self-hosted comment system, if Disqus lets me comment at all.

On one hand, I understand why a large site like The Atlantic would prefer to use Disqus, as it reduces the load on their database, but given the amount of readers on the site, Disqus is a bad idea for two main reasons: usability and privacy. When I went to comment on Ta-Nehisi's blog, it took 3 times of attempting to login before Disqus would post my comment and it took over 5 minutes for the 3rd login to commence and post the comment.

When my comment finally posted, it made the title to be "404 Error". Perfect. Yes, Disqus is one big 404 error waiting to happen on a website with as many users as The Atlantic's website due to the heavy load of HTTP Requests from theatlantic.com to the disqus.com's servers. Good thing Andrew Sullivan does not have comments on his blog or Disqus's servers would melt.

Beyond HTTP Requests and error messages, the more important part of the Disqus Fail is that Disqus publishes one's comments not just to the website that one has decided to comment on and participate in that community, but Disqus also creates an automatic page for ALL of one's comments on the Disqus website of which one cannot make private or switch off.

Go look at my Disqus Profile, of which I can't make private: http://www.disqus.com/msjen/

Yes, every comment I have ever made to a blog that uses Disqus' hosted comments is now available and search-able on the Disqus website out of context and without my permission. I have searched the Disqus site for a way to make my comments not publicly viewable on their site, but there is no way to turn off the comments from my profile page.

I don't mind the information that I placed into my Disqus profile to be viewable publicly, I do very much mind that Disqus makes all of my Disqus blog comments available to anyone to view.

This breaks the community of comments and the context of the comments to the blogs where they were originally posted.

To that end, I am a bit surprised that the web had a collective apoplexy last week about Google Buzz and the original lack of the ability to opt-out of a public display of one's Buzz's but no one has said a thing about how both Disqus and Intense Debate do not give the registered user the ability to make their comments private on the Disqus or Intense Debate websites. This lack of ability to opt-out is just as egregious as the first week of Google Buzz, as in all three cases the display of the comments/threads without permission and context breaks the original posting of the comment within the blog or media community that it was posted in.

Some folks may want all of their comments to be public beyond the blog they originally posted them on and search-able for that matter, but many of us may not. Disqus and Intense Debate, offer your users a profile privacy option.

For a magazine as web savvy and web successful as The Atlantic has been, this redesign is both a tired political branding trope in the color choice and a social media privacy bomb waiting to happen.

********

Update, Sun 02.28.10 10:30pm (PST): I am not the only one who doesn't like The Atlantic's redesign, Mr. Sullivan doesn't either for different reasons.

Wow. I am more than a bit stunned that the Atlantic would go ahead and do such a big visual and content management redesign without consulting the main bloggers/writers who create their content and draw in the readers who form the community of the site.

Now I am just sad. Sad as a faithful reader & subscriber of the Atlantic and sad for my profession of web design. In web design, we talk a lot about User Experience, but UX is just not the experience of the end user, but also of the authors, bloggers, and content creators of the websites in question as they are also our clients who we must design a good experience for.

Be you a-theist or a theist, three great links were found on the Inter-Tubes today, one is on Anne Hutchinson and the other two are on the recent archaeological find of an 11,000 year old Turkish temple complex.

It appears that religion started before the villages, agriculture, and cities did, rather than the other way around. More importantly is how advanced the sculptural art is on the T-shaped temple lintels, the photos are truly gorgeous. For as much as we love to think of ourselves as the only era who makes art and creates systems, humanity has been doing both and more for far longer than our systems of history and archaeology have accounted for:

The new discoveries are finally beginning to reshape the slow-moving consensus of archeology. Göbekli Tepe is "unbelievably big and amazing, at a ridiculously early date," according to Ian Hodder, director of Stanford's archeology program. Enthusing over the "huge great stones and fantastic, highly refined art" at Göbekli, Hodder--who has spent decades on rival Neolithic sites--says: "Many people think that it changes everything...It overturns the whole apple cart. All our theories were wrong."

Schmidt's thesis is simple and bold: it was the urge to worship that brought mankind together in the very first urban conglomerations. The need to build and maintain this temple, he says, drove the builders to seek stable food sources, like grains and animals that could be domesticated, and then to settle down to guard their new way of life. The temple begat the city. - Newsweek.

History in the Remaking: A temple complex in Turkey that predates even the pyramids is rewriting the story of human evolution.

Smithsonian Photo gallery on Gobekli Tepe

Gobekli Tepe: The World's First Temple?

And then let's move the the new world and to America's first public heretic (not really) and feminist (yes, really, 15 kids & was willing to go out on her own and stand up to the authorities in 1630s Boston!), Killing the Buddha parsed out what it heresy means and Anne Hutchinson's wonderful defense for any person's direct connection / petitioning of the Divine without the need of the clergy. She out-Protestanted the Puritans:

Where had Anne Hutchinson learned such an outrageous idea--that a person can be in direct communion with God? From the Bible; from the promptings of her heart. Minister John Cotton--who would later condemn her so severely--had taught her that the inward dwelling Spirit of Christ was more than a mere metaphor or abstraction. "It is not you that speak (and consequently not you that think or do)," he had written, "But the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you."

Just as Antinomianism wasn't something that Hutchinson had cooked up on her own, but an ineluctable (if morally and philosophically problematic) corollary of the doctrine of Justification by Grace Alone, there was ample biblical precedent for Hutchinson's conviction that she could hear God's voice. When the court demanded that she tell them how she knew that it was God who spoke to her and not the Devil, she answered with a question of her own: "How did Abraham know that it was the voice of God, when he commanded him to sacrifice his son?" - Killing the Buddha

The best part is the the two sets of folks that I know who descend from Anne Hutchinson are also bold, outspoken, creative people of (non-conformist) faith.

No, not a law or architecture firm, but two links that I enjoyed today plus a good debate from the other day.

John Scalzi on Holden Caulfield:

"I never got Holden Caulfield anyway. This partially due to having my own reading tastes bend towards science fiction as a teen rather than the genre of Alienated Teen Literature, of which Catcher is, of course, the classic. If you were going to give me a teenage hero, give me Heinlein's Starman Jones: He traveled the galaxy and memorized entire books of log tables and became Captain of a starship (for procedural reasons, granted). All Holden did was bitch, bitch, bitch. Put Holden at the controls of a starship and he'd implode from stress. Not my hero, thanks."

Mr. Scalzi and I are the same age and as teenagers appear to have had similar tastes in literature. I loved SciFi and Fantasy novels as a teenager and when I was made to read novels like "Catcher in the Rye" in school, I found them to be repugnant. I remember thinking that someone should tell Holden to get a life and get on with it.

I was made to read that novel when I was miserable at my high school, but rather than whine about it, I went out bought thrift store clothes, dyed my hair, hitched every ride to Hollywood I could, and took lots of photos at concerts. Holden was up there with the non-hero of "The Good Earth" for folks I would ignore rather than hang out with at that stage of my life.

Mr. Scalzi has squarely hit the nail on the head with his assessment that Holden was too passive. I didn't have those words in high school, but I knew that if you didn't like your life, like I didn't like mine, you did something about it. To this day, I have always thought of Holden Caulfield as the hero to young men of a melancholy bent and I have yet to meet a woman who really liked him or the book as a teenager. If you are a woman and identified with Holden or Catcher in the Rye, please feel free to comment below in his defense.

On another note, Mr. Sullivan has parsed out an interesting difference between Brits and Americans in terms of debating and refining an arguement:

"So much of American politics is debate conducted at a distance, through ads or soundbites or various talking points that never actually engage one another in debate. Reared in the British debate tradition - I debated through high-school and college, becoming President of the Oxford Union in 1983 - this has always felt to me like the biggest drawback of the American system.

The point of debate is to clarify things, to find where the real points of disagreement are, and to assess them in that context of actual alternatives. "

I find this a wonderful assessment as some of my favorite people to debate with have been raised and/or educated in the British or Irish systems. Just a few days ago, I found myself in a good give & take with James Burland on Twitter about Windows 7 vs. Ubuntu for the Nokia Booklet. After our tweeted mini-debate died down, I realized that I thoroughly enjoyed debating the merits of Windows 7 with a Brit who was also a fellow creative and Mac owner as he was able to help me parse out what I was really thinking about rather than both of us taking a side and sticking to it.

Ashe to ashes, dust to dust. Pixels to electrons, electrons to delete().

As a person who studied art, art history, and graphic design in the first round of my college education, I spent a lot of time reading about and studying artists and designers of the past. We know and study those artists and designers by the physical objects, paintings | journal entries | letters | etc, that were left after their deaths. We know them by their objects.

How will future generations know about our generation when we have spent so much of our time and efforts tossing the physical object to the wind and embracing digital ephemera? For the first 10 plus years of the internet revolution, the giddy joy was in the ephemera, the shifting sands of the bytes blown by the winds of chance and a forgotten domain registration. But the winds have shifted, a few of the early generation of internet pioneers have passed away and now we wonder what will happen to their writings, photos, and their primary sources when the domain expires or the hosting goes past due?

How will future scholars know who were the true pioneers, the giddy bon vi-bloggers from the corporate marketing shills that followed fast on their heels? Do we give the college freshman of 2567 CE/AD an introductory digital studies of Steve Ballmer meets Proctor & Gamble, or do we protect the writings of internet and blog pioneers such as Brad Graham and Lesile Harpold who died too early to write a will or a set up a trust that considered their seminal writings and blogs to be passed on to a university collection?

Now some would say, it is just the internet - here today, gone tomorrow. I would counter that we don't know what others in future eras will want to know and what will be just assumed about our era, and that more the more well preserved primary sources we leave the better for future scholars and pundits to be able to analyze and learn from our time in a way we are too close to see with any clarity.

A discussion started on the "Remembering our friend Brad" Metatalk post between Matthowie, barbelith (Tom Coates), Maximolly (Molly Steenson), myself, holgate, and a few others how to preserve blogs to an archive that can be accessed past the time the domains have expired and the files deleted off the web hosting server.

Tom suggests that:

"We should consider talking to George Oates at the Internet Archive to see if they have any options for this kind of situation. They might be the perfect place to put sites after someone dies like that."

I agree with Tom that the Internet Archive is a great place to start, as I use it to find all of my own 1996-2001 website archives given that I can't find the files on any old disks anymore. But the problem with the Internet archive is that it does not bring any photos or other image files, only the text from the sites that it archives.

After watching in the past few years the work that George Oates did with the Library of Congress while she was still at Flickr, I wondered if we should be considering a long term strategies that would go beyond registering a blog's copyright or even a periodical ISBN with the Library of Congress or other Copyright Libraries (such as Oxford or Trinity) but should we not also be archiving our text, images, and presentation (css) files to the copyright libraries for future study and access?

In the Metatalk thread, I asked:

"Previously if one was a writer or artist or scholar or otherwise historically/culturally significant, one would give one's writings & 'collection' to a university library. What do we do with our websites & blogs past the time we can pay for them?

How can we know now what might be significant for study 100, 200, 500, 1200 years from now? How do we archive bytes?

Some folks are printing out their blogs to custom ordered books, but this is not necessarily the best solution, as what will the children or grandchildren of our friends and families do with those books? Will they end up at flea markets along with 78rpm acetate records? But maybe that is good, the randomness of the find.

By choosing to engage in the frontier online space, we have chosen to some degree to toss the long term to the wind. The suggestion of the Library of Congress, or other institutions that function as a cultural respository, may be a good bet for the long run in terms of keeping an archive of text|image|ephemera, as after 2 recessions, I don't trust the market to keep a reliable archive.

If we can now register our copyright with the Library of Congress or the Copyright Libraries (such as Trinity, Oxford, etc), and we can get an ISBN or periodical number for our blogs, how do we start to archive the actual posts and images to a repository.

Do we lobby our congress|political critters to set aside resources for blogs that are periodicals to be archived OR as Matthowie suggest do we donate to an institution such as the Archive.org foundation and make sure that it can function as a cultural archival NGO?"

Is the Library of Congress or the various other copyright libraries up to the task of the pioneer digital generation donating their archives to the libraries in question or do we donate to the Internet Archive so that they can provide a more robust non-governmental/academic solution to archiving blogs and pioneering digital media?

Ashe to ashes, dust to dust. Pixels to electrons, electrons to save().

Photos taken by Ms. Jen at Dog Beach with a Nokia N97.

Fri 01.01.10 - Happy New Year one and all!

A Metaphor for 2009: Hit in both engines by a bunch of heavy, big flying objects minutes after take off, attempts to restart engines result in an emergency landing, cool headed pilot & co-pilot make safe landing in an unusual runway, ferries come quickly to rescue, all humans on board come out alive including the baby & the elderly, and then plane and luggage get more than a bit soggy or lost.

Here we are, at the end of 2009, shaken to the bone, wet, shivering, and standing on the wing of the plane waiting to get climb up on to the ferry and get to where it is warm.

.

Bruce Schneier asks Is aviation security mostly for show? on Cnn.com.

Yes, yes it is. My experience traveling the last eight years is that airport security measures to go beyond the border of ridiculous and over into the 2000's version of Theatre of the Absurd.

Once I smiled at a TSA agent and asked to anyone who didn't listen, "Doesn't this evoke a sense of the Dada Theatre, circa 1922?"

Lucky for me, the only thing required of me was to put my shoes in the bin and the bin on the conveyor belt. I felt that I should be chanting nonsense syllables as I walked through metal detector.

Now, I don't ask culturally relevant art historical rhetorical questions, I just put my shoes in the bin, the bin on the belt, and smile a nice big smile as I go through the metal detector.

Cathal Kelly writes in The Star about the huge difference between Israeli and US airport security in The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother:

Five security layers down: you now finally arrive at the only one which Ben-Gurion Airport shares with Pearson -- the body and hand-luggage check.

"But here it is done completely, absolutely 180 degrees differently than it is done in North America," Sela said.

"First, it's fast -- there's almost no line. That's because they're not looking for liquids, they're not looking at your shoes. They're not looking for everything they look for in North America. They just look at you," said Sela. "Even today with the heightened security in North America, they will check your items to death. But they will never look at you, at how you behave. They will never look into your eyes ... and that's how you figure out the bad guys from the good guys."

That's the process -- six layers, four hard, two soft. The goal at Ben-Gurion is to move fliers from the parking lot to the airport lounge in a maximum of 25 minutes.

25 minutes from parking lot to airport lounge at Ben-Gurion in Tel Aviv! Now that is how to do it.

TSA, pull your head out of your ass. Time for intelligent prevention and not the mindless, droid-like bureaucratic theatre of the absurd of the last eight years.

Several sites I visited today had links to various astronomical theories on the Star of Bethlehem, thus in the spirit of the season, I give you the links:

The Star of Bethlehem by Colin Humphreys, originally printed in Science and Christian Belief , Vol 5, (October 1995): 83-101 - Humphreys advances the theory of a planetary conjunction of Jupiter & Saturn or a comet.

Revealing the Star of Bethlehem by Michael Molnar - Molnar's website has a Q&A about his book on Jupiter as the Star of Bethlehem

What was the Star of Bethlehem? by Nigel Henbest in First Science - Henbest summarizes all the major astronomical possibilities for the Star.

Understanding the Christmas Star by Stephen Milton - Also a summary, but with more Bible exegises in combination with reviewing Molnar.

Happy reading!

Rockstars do it all the time. If they don't, it tarnishes their reputations.

Movie Stars would be deadly dull if they didn't.

Sports dudes also do it, unless they are shooting 'roids, then maybe they can't.

We live in a culture saturated with it, so really people why does the media even care?

At least half the reporters reporting on this case have. So, why does it matter?

Yes, I am talking about Tiger.

So, the esteemed Mr. Woods is a horn dog. Yep, a multi-millionaire got some pussy.

Why do you care? Are you jealous? Did you wish you could score that much?

Or you like me and are baffled about this being news?

Baffled in a culture saturated in sex as to why the media would even cover such a thing when there are wars going on, people being killed, and budgets being strained by eight years of overseas military expenditures.

Is it the golf factor? Yes, golf is deadly dull, so the astounding fact that some chicks would divert attention from the stars of football, baseball, soccer, rock, hip-hop, actors to a golf dude is that what is so titillating? Is that the story, groupies for golf dudes?

Or is is the story as Cecily and Tiffany have pointed out? Is this story really about the Swedish Model Wife done wrong?

Wake me up when Jeff Sessions or Robert Byrd are outed as having life long gay high school sweetheart lovers.

Photo by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.

Fri 12.11.09 - Diego is only 11 weeks old and he is wearing a size 1 shoe and growing out of 6 month clothes! His hands are HUGE. Basically, Alex & Paige have a baby who will be a very tall/large!

The best part is not that Diego will be taller than me by the time he is four months old, no, the best part is how alert and watchful he is.

I know at this time of year that there are a lot of folk who are encouraging you to donate before the end of the year, but if you haven't already and are looking for a place to donate or give or contribute, how about Kiva.

You give a bit of money via Kiva to someone who is in need of a micro-loan and they use it to start or improve their business. They pay you back via Kiva. Repeat cycle.

Let's give a hand up to Elizabeth and many others at Kiva:

Fri 12.04.09 - I realize that this video is not new as it is from 2003, but I found it via a bizarre internet blackhole of which lead me to Erykah Badu at the Def Jam Poetry. Not only is the poem on the nature of fans, friends, and artists good, pointed, and twisty, but Ms. Badu's delivery drives the twists home with delightful results.

If you know of any other sources of Erykah Badu performing her poetry, please put the link in the comments.

Also highly recommended:
Bassey Ikpi's Apology to My Unborn

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97 of
Royal Crown Revue's Daniel Glass The Mint on Wed 11.25.09

Today I listed the things I am thankful for over on Twitter, of which, I will reproduce here.

First Tweet:

Things I am thankful for: a good year. good friends. a creative year. the web app I just finished. the two marriages of the month (D&L, C&M)

Second Tweet:

Thankful that my grandma requested a cool alterna-thanksgiving meal. I am taking her braised lamb shanks on tuscan beans. Cooking now.

Third Tweet:

I am also very Thankful for the new Little People of the Year: Amelia Hoffman, Amelia Grace Callis, Diego Hernandez, and @baby_flapjack.

A very Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.

Photo by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.

Thurs 11.18.09 - While walking Scruffy in the late afternoon, early evening, aka around 5pm, I spied this lovely crescent moon through the boughs of a eucalyptus tree while waiting for Scruffy to make a deposit.

When we returned home from the walk it was fully dark and I found myself slightly sad. I love this time of year and am not normally affected by SAD, but tonight a weight of the last few weeks piled up on me - Grandpa Bill Hanen's passing, the resulting family stuff, all the activity of the L&D wedding, work projects, and loneliness.

Most of all, what looms like a big 'ole hawk watching a small industrious rodent's hole waiting, just waiting, is The Holidays. If you come from a many times divorced family and further fractured by the years & infighting like both of my family sides, The Holidays get Stressful Fast™. This year doesn't even have to be bad, but all the years of fracture, pressure, and atomization build up and continue to reverberate.

To me, multi-generational intact families are a like a lovely, rare artifact at a museum, and I just spent 3.5 days at a lovely museum watching Families that Actually Like Each Other, Laugh Together, and Do Stuff Together. It was amazing, but even more poignant given the passing of the 10 Second Grandpa™.

Last Wednesday night, the night before leaving for the wedding and the night before Grandpa Bill Hanen died, my Dad called me as I was driving home from an errand to discuss that what the plans would be when Grandpa died. Since the Hanens have all the family togetherness of 3 billion year old Quarks moving away from the Universe and each other at the speed of light or faster, I made sure that my Dad knew that I wanted to make sure if Grandpa passed before I got home from the wedding that they were to make sure that all the family got invited to a memorial and not tell me about it after it happened.

My Dad assured me that after Grandpa was cremated that he would have the funeral folks put some ashes in a small vial to give to me so that I could have my Grandpa stick around for longer than 10 seconds. How did we go from 'Don't forget to invite me to the memorial service' to 'Cool, I get a my very own vial of ashes'?

Six days later, I am tired and sad. Sad for reasons that can't be listed here. Tired for way too many activities packed into too few days. I am going to log off now and read a book for the rest of the evening.

In the meantime, can someone loan me a rifle or bb gun so I can shoot or shoo that evil Holiday Hawk away from the entrance to my lair?

Blackburnian Warbler, May 2009, Magee Marsh, Ohio. Taken in the wild by g-graphic.

For years I have told friends and family that I really want to visit Central Asia, climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, and eat Chinese food in Greenland. I didn't know that this activity was called a 'Life List' or a 'Bucket List', but I had one in my head and most of it revolves around the intersection of my love for nature/mountains, history, culture, and travel.

Given that it is now meme-able to post your life list on your blog, I thought I would write down the list items that have lived in my head for years and will add to this list as I think of more.

Ms. Jen's Life List, in no particular order:

1. Travel to Greenland, eat at the Chinese restaurant.

2. Sit under a wild apple tree in bloom on the foothills of the Tien Shan mountains.

3. Go into space.

4. Travel around the world in less than 4 hours, stopping in London, Mumbai, Sydney, Tokyo, and LA.

5. Hike up Mt. Kilimanjaro before the glacier melts.

6. Travel the Silk Road.

7. Visit Tuvalu

8. Visit Tuva and Mongolia, go see some of the Mongolian carved megaliths.

9. Spot a Blackburnian Warbler in the wild.

10. Learn to fly a plane.

11. Learn to fence properly.

12. Spot a Vermillion Flycatcher in the wild - Fulfilled on March 1, 2009 at Buckskin State Park in Arizona.

13. Live in central London for a couple of years at some point.

14. Live in a loft at some point and actually paint in it.

15. Stay overnight at the Pic du Midi Observatory in th French Pyrénées.

16. Spend a week in a cabin / summer house on a lake in Finland. - Fulfilled June 24, 2012 in Finland. While I was not able to find a summer cottage for rent over Midsummer, I did stay for a week in Hervanta near Tampere within 1/2 a mile of three lakes and then for Midsummer weekend I went to Turku and spent Midsummer's day & evening on the water in the Finnish Archipelago.

17. Visit at least 2 of the Verracos, particularly the Bulls of Guisando.

18. Live in central Helsinki for a couple of months at some point. [Added 06.24.12]

Mon 11.16.09 - Today Erika and I met Thomas at the Art Center's Auditorium for Jan Chipchase's new 'Edge. Edgier. Edgiest.' talk for the Designmatters Lecture Series.

I wanted to see Jan Chipcase speak, as I have been reading his blog FuturePerfect ever since various and sundry friends referred to his work and writing in the last four or so years. Much of what he writes about and the photos he posts are fascinating to me as they are about people, culture, technology, and how people interact thereof. As a long time fan of anything Central Asian and former Silk Road territory, I am particularly enthralled by his posts about design research adventures in the 'stans'. I am very jealous that he was in Kabul a few weeks ago.

Though by his own admission, Chipchase is still working on the material he presented today, it was a good fit for a design college crowd as he covered the his approach to design research, the ethics he applies to field work, how one works under a corporate umbrella, and the pure adventure of it all.

Thomas had to leave the presentation a bit early as he had a class to teach upstairs in room 202, but Erika and I stayed through the Q&A before walking up to Thomas' class to see the student work that was being critiqued this afternoon. As we came out of the class, both of us opened our mobiles, Erika to text and me to check my email. As we were both engrossed in tiptapping away, Jan Chipchase passed us in the hallway and with a twinkle in his eye quipped as he passed, "Put down your bloody mobiles."

Two blogs I truly enjoy reading, Wordridden and SoF Observed, wrote posts worth reading about their own memories of Germany in the 1980s and what the 20th Anniversary means to each of them.

Go Read.

Wordridden - Then and now.

SoF Observed - The Fall of the Wall, JFK's Assassination, and Two Birthdays

Happy 20th Anniversary to a whole lot of gumption and hope.

1989 - DDR (East Germany)
1994 - South Africa
2009 - Iran ???? - One can only hope.

The Golden Rule requires that we use empathy -- moral imagination -- to put ourselves in others' shoes. We should act toward them as we would want them to act toward us. We should refuse, under any circumstance, to carry out actions which would cause them harm.

If you missed it today, the American Public Media broadcast of Speaking of Faith was Krista Tippett's interview with Karen Armstrong, that reference's Ms. Armstrong's TED 2008 talk which sparked the Charter of Compassion.

I heard the SoF broadcast today on KPCC while driving home from Glendale and by the time I was home, I was determined to find out a bit more about the Charter for Compassion.

It is time to focus on compassion, no war. It is time to focus on justice, not revenge. It is time to work towards making a world that we can all live in, not die in as we kill it and each other.

And that it is time for faith, hope and love to reign over certainty, fundamentalism, and despair.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.

Sat 11.07.09 - To all of you who know me in person, know that my car's license plate is BLKPHBE and that my Prius' name is 'Black Phoebe'. Not named after this website, but named after the bird that this website is named after.

For those of you who don't know me in person, or who don't know about my lifelong passion for native song birds, here are some reference pages on my all time favorite SoCal bird, the black phoebe:

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/black_phoebe/id
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Phoebe
http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i4580id.html

Why does this come up today? Because recently I had the third comment where someone who doesn't know me or a neighbor who I only know in passing has said, "Black Phobe? What are you racist?"

The first time someone asked this I was so surprised. Each of the three times it has happened I have said, "No, it is black phoebe, it is a local bird." I then go on to describe a black phoebe and its habits, some of which are very unique to flycatchers. The first two inquirers knew exactly what bird it was and were a more than a bit baffled that I would name my car after a bird. The third one, a retired neighbor, asked a couple of days ago and kept asking me to describe the bird, as it was obvious he didn't believe me.

I find this baffling. Why would I have a license plate named 'black phobe'?

A few weeks ago when I was in London, Vikki Chowney invited me to the Adams Street Members club for the launch of a new blog that she was involved with called Reputation Online.

I went along to the party to support Vikki and to see what the new venture was, curiosity frequently titillates this cat, but ended up being more than pleasantly surprised by the idea, conception, and execution of Reputation Online.

On my last Sunday in London, Vikki interviewed me for my opinions on how reputation, promotion, and PR differed between Los Angeles and London. As someone who has deep roots in the Los Angeles music scene and a decade plus of online content publishing, I have opinions on such things.

I think that folks wanting to conduct a good online campaign or who want increase their online reputation should take more than a few hints from the many and varied ways that folks conduct DIY music PR and promotion campaigns as much of ideas and techniques are transferable. Some of best PR and Internet Marketing folk I know are the ones who have come out of Indie and DIY music worlds, not the folks with bachelor's degrees in Communication who have worked in corporate PR.

After spending time on the Reputation Online site, I applaud what Vikki and her team are up to and accomplishing. I love the dual OurViews (on the left) and YourViews (on the right), in which one can read the Reputation Online team's interviews and analyses and then you can click on the "Contribute" menu item and write you own analysis or post on reputation, new media, et al.

The best part is that Reputation Online is not just for public relations professionals but for anyone, be they individual or company, who is interested in managing or growing their online reputation and presence.

Ms. Chowney and the folks at New Age Media, Bravo!

Mirabilis.ca linked to an article at the BBC entitled, The 'youngest headmaster in the world' , in which they feature the heroic efforts of a 16 year old young man to educate the rural poor in his village in West Bengal.

A mainstay of any democratic country is education for all. The idea of a free public education is a recent one, started by reformers in the US and UK in the late 1700s and enacted on a large scale in the mid-1800s to early 1900s. Many would argue that the success of Western industrial democracies in the last 150 years is built on the availability of free public education that a large majority of folks receive up to the 12th grade (6th form in the UK) who are then empowered regardless of class to participate in the economy and growth of their societies.

Tues 10.06.09 - Ta-Nehisi Coates and Andrew Sullivan conducted an interview to talk about Ideas | Life | The World | Etc a week and a half ago, and since both have released video snippets on their blogs that have been very intriguing. I hope that the Atlantic will post the whole of the interview on their website - Look! They have, in pieces.

Today's snippet, above, deals with war, innocence, gay rights, sacrifice/transcendence , Jesus, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Good stuff.

Here are a few of the other video snippets:
Touching The Void
Obama, The Tory
Almost Grateful

On another note, Sullivan does some great Dog Blogging this past week.

I don't know about you, but I voted for change, not more of the same.

Le Sigh.

The Patriot Act is and was a load of absolute bullshit that hinders this country in the name of fake security.

William Neuheisel's Burning Man 2009

The title, it is true. When Mie Yaginuma blogged about how she missed Burning Man this year and included the above photo, I was immediately drawn to William Newheisel's Flickr page to find this photo.

I love it. I love the distance. I love the sky. I love the desert. The photo is evocative of a post-modern American Tibet - high desert with enigmatic decoration and art that suggests ritual and meaning.

As I continued to look at the photo, it made me think of my life right now, as I walk down a path that appears to be going somewhere, but I can't clearly see the end even though there are sign or light or prayer bell posts along the way. Am I on the right road or am I walking down a performance art piece of someone else's device?

What where you listening to in 1995?

Up until 2005, I had never heard of Daft Punk. I knew of the name, I knew that they were a Euro-electro band that was not a punk band in the way I knew of punk. In the last four years, various of my web design / dev friends have blogged & tweeted about listening to Daft Punk, because I trusted their visual & design aesthetic tonight for the first time I checked out Daft Punk on YouTube.

The me of 1995 would have changed the radio channel so fast, even if there had been a station playing Daft Punk in LA or Boston in 1995.

This was my idea of punk in 1995. This is Daft Punk's idea in 1995.

When you watch the videos both bands are musically very far apart, in terms of post-modern rebel aesthetic - not so far apart.

Tidbit #1: I don't have any photos from today because I only took one and it was of Scruffy. I think y'all get enough Scruffy photos.

Tidbit #2: Why no photos? Gasp! Shock! Horror! What ever have you been up to?
Work.

Yep. I am trying to work real hard real fast so that I can free up two weeks at the end of this month to go to London for the Moo Party, London Design Festival, Over the Air, and FOWA. I am registered for FOWA (Future of Web Apps) but I would really like to be able to be in London the week before.

Tidbit #3: Lauren has been Redeemed.

Tidbit #4: I am perversely considering buying a Nokia N86 in London rather than one here. Why in London?
a. I am sick of the US being the place of last mobile delivery and I don't want to reward companies that wait 2-3 or 4-5 or never months to release good mobile devices in the US.
b. The 3G sucks on AT&T due to the large number of iPhones on the network, so if one is going to be stuck (at least in LA) on Edge-like speeds why not buy a device that is Euro 3G - at least it will be fast when I am on holiday.
c. If I buy an Euro Nokia N86 online in the US, I won't have a warranty. My June of 2007 bricking experience of my online bought N80 taught me that no warranty is BAD. If I buy the N86 in London, then I will have a warranty in the UK. It is still a warranty.
d. I want to within the year get a job in Europe, so it would be better to get a Euro 3G phone.

I know...rationalizations. rationalizations. rationalizations for my anger at NokiaUSA for being S-L-O-W or getting their container ships lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

Tidbit #5: Hey, have I mentioned lately that I would love to get a job in mobile in London? Know of any positions for a bright creator|ideator|project manager sort? Let me know.

Hopping back on the hamster wheel.

Since the United States has been so obsessed with free markets, democracy, and business competition, it is time that the health care systems gets a good dose of competition from these United States in the form of a public health care and insurance option for any citizen or legal resident of these said States.

Given all the hysteria from various corners and pressures from lobbyists, the various Congress Critters and Administration folks seem to have lost heart and have caved to a reform bill that is unpalatable by most.

Last week while having dinner with my mostly Republican family, a hue and cry went up about health care reform. I expected various members of the family to bash Obama's health care plan, which they did, but not for the reasons I expected. Several folks at once cried out, "What happened to the public option?"

After discussing all the various perspectives, everyone but my 89 year old Grandma agreed that the US needed a public health care option to be opened for all who wanted one. Two of my aunts agreed with me that the Irish way of public health care for all and extra private supplemental care for those who want to pay for it was an excellent way to go.

When I lived in Ireland, I purchased private supplemental health insurance from VH-1 for €10 a week, which at 2005 exchange rates worked out to be about $54 per month. This supplemental health insurance would give me a semi-private room if I ended up in a hospital plus other options for picking the doctor of my choice. Right now, I pay $297 per month to Kaiser Permanente for health care and I have no idea what my hospital coverage is if I would need it other than I have a $100/day co-pay.

I felt more confident in Ireland with the public health care and my supplemental healthcare than I do now with Kaiser. I am reluctant to go to Kaiser and in the last three years have only been 5 times in total, twice for my migraines, once for an ear ache, and twice for travel shots & booster vaccinations, otherwise I have avoided the Kaiser doctor like the plague. I have paid out of pocket to see an N.D. about my allergies & migraines, as Kaiser in SoCal does not cover ND's although they do in their Pacific Northwest territory.

I am willing to pay out of pocket to see a doctor that is willing to explore the real causes of my migraines as the ND was and the doctor at Kaiser was not. The Kaiser doctor did not want to listen to my ideas of what I thought my migraine triggers were, but instead after 2.5 minutes prescribed a $125 co-pay medication and shuffled me out of the office. This is a minor problem to have compared to the large minority of people who do not have any health coverage or are under insured.

Let's not even speak of all the small businesses that will never be started because folks are too afraid to lose their insurance if they leave their job to start a new business or the current small businesses who can't afford to hire more people because they want to provide insurance but can't afford it.

Tonight I decided that I would send emails, via their websites, to the President, my Congress Critter - Dana Rohrabacker (R-CA), and my two Senators' Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer (both D-CA). I tailored each letter to the political type human and here is an example of what was sent:

Dear Senator Feinstein,

I am writing as I am very concerned about the health care legislation that is currently going through Congress, as it does not have a public option. I am concerned that true reform is being squelched by the insurance company lobbyists.

For a variety of reasons - humanitarian, reduce costs, increase competition, and others - we need to provide a public health care option along side of the private health insurance and health care systems currently in place.

Not only do all people within the borders of the US need access to affordable health care, but we need to keep costs down. A public option would increase competition and access.

Thank you,
Jenifer Hanen
Seal Beach, Calif.

Regardless of how your hopes and thoughts in the US health care debate, here below are some good blog posts to get one thinking, after you have done some thinking, please do write your Congress Critter:

Matt Haughey on The entrepreneurial case for national healthcare
BLDGBLOG on City of Fees and Services
William Blim of 3 Quarks Daily on Will Someone Rid Me of Private Health Insurance?
Adam Greenfield on On systems, and what they do

On May 28th of this year, after the Google I/O conference, I got to SFO a wee bit early and picked up a book at the bookstore in the airport that I had put on my wishlist at Amazon a few months earlier. The book was "Incredible Good Fortune, New Poems" by Ursula K. Le Guin.

I love Ursula Le Guin, she is a writer who is up there in the Holy Septinity of Writers in my book of reading love along with Madeline L'Engle, JRR Tolkein, Charles de Lint, Anne Dillard, C.S. Lewis, and Dave Hickey. I even more love it when authors cross genre and write in a form that is not their usual fare.

I particularly love it when a fiction writer or a very thoughtful nature writer takes time to write poems. Almost all of my Holy Septinity of Writers has published a book or two or three of poetry or has embedded poetry & verse in their fiction, with the possible exception of Dave Hickey. Then again, Hickey is not a fiction writer but one of the preminent cultural critics in the the US in the last 30 years and writes hysterically funny and pointed pieces on art & rock'n'roll. As for Hickey, I just wish he would publish more often.

All this being said, I took Le Guin's "Incredible Good Fortune, New Poems" with me today down to the Grandparent's place so that I could read some poems while we waited. About 5 or so pm, everyone left except me, Grandma, and Bill. The Aunts Dana & Anne went back to Anne's house, Mom & Allison went to go get Mom's bag and sleeping bag as Mom has overnight duty tonight. I stayed to hang out with Bill and Grandma, even though Bill wasn't so chatty to say the least.

I know I briefly explained the situation here, but Bill, age 93, went to the hospital last Monday for dehydration and a blood sugar level of 850. While he was there, it was determined that he was at the end of the road and soon to be off to the Great Fishing Lake. Bill did not want to die at the hospital, but in his own tempur-pedic bed at home under Hospice Care. After much to do, he was transported back from the hospital to home yesterday morning.

Ever since, the various family members have been waiting in vigil, both to honor Bill and support Grandma. Bill last spoke on Wednesday, and as of early yesterday afternoon, while appearing to be asleep he could hear folks talking to him, but as of yesterday later afternoon he has been a coma.

Most of what we have been doing is sitting in his room and talking to him. Letting him know that it is ok to go. This is important, as in a family full of folk born between April 20 and May 12th (Taurus people, a pack of stubborn bulls), Bill has been one of our best and most stubborn, faithful, and loyal constituents.

After all the folk left late this afternoon, I went into Bill's room with the book of Le Guin's poetry and started to read poems to him. Bill West grew up in Washington State, and taught Forestry and was the Forestry Department Chair at University of Oregon in Corvalis for his career. Bill has had a deep and abiding love of the forest, lakes, and nature of the Pacific Northwest. Le Guin has lived in Portland for many years and more than a few of the poems in the book are about the Northwest as well as about aging and dying.

So far, my favorite line from the whole book is from the first poem called "The Old Lady", which starts with "I have dreed my dree, I have wooed my wyrd." Or in rough translation of the Scots and older forms of English, " I have endured my hardship, I have wooed my Fate (or The Fates)." I read the poem to my brother yesterday, and he who does not like poetry was intrigued.

I figured that reading Le Guin to Bill would be appropriate, not just for the thematic poems that would be relevant to his life, but also for this one:

Nine Lines, August 9

The gold of evening is closing,
drawing in, tightening.
The light is losing. It is
a little frightening
how fast August goes.
Others have noticed this.
The cat on his concealed switchblade toes
comes by, and what he says
is silent, but enlightening.

The gold of the evening is closing and while Bill may spend his last hours silent in words, he has dreed his dree, and wooed his wyrd.

In case you haven't been following the most uncelebrated, unnoticed holiday in the Western World, this upcoming Saturday will be Llew's Day or Lammas or Loaf-Mass. If you are old school celto-pagan, then you will be celebrating Llew's Day/Lughnasadh. If you are Christian of the old school variety or pagan of the new school, then you will be celebrating Lammas - The Harvest of the First Fruits or the First Wheat Harvest - on August 1st or August 7th or sometime between August 3-10th if you are rigorously following the astronomical calendar.

The first of August is one of the Cross-Quarter Days, the most unnoticed one at that, unless you live in Switzerland, then it is a National Holiday. The other Cross-Quarter Days (i.e. half way between a Solstice and an Equinox or vice versa) are Halloween/All Saints Day, Candlemas/St. Bridget's Day/Groundhog's Day, and May Day/Walpurgis Night. For whatever reason, we don't give the same sort of secular-Hallmark-Holiday-love to old Lugh.

Poor old Lugh, you get associated with the Sun God & the First Fruits and everyone in the modern world forgets you because they are on holiday in the sun and the peaches & grapes come year-around at the supermarket and quite a bit of wheat is now grown in the winter.

Even if you won't be celebrating the first fruits or the high sun or astronomical high summer, we here at Black Phoebe will be. Starting with a Peach Jam-a-thon to preserve the First Fruits of the Helms Ave. Peach tree, to Tammy Callis' 30th Birthday on the 1st, to me committing to daily blog about Tomorrow/Future for NaBloPoMo.com for the whole month of August.

A few months ago, I was talking to Nicole at Salon Pop about the recession and I asked her what she thought we should be doing.

"Frequent local businesses," was Nicole's reply. And she is right. So, in the spirit of supporting local small businesses, I am going to start an occasional series here called "Local Places I Like". This will be my opinion about places I frequent. This series will not be supported nor will I receive free goods and services to write about local places, but merely me talking about local businesses I like.

As I have written about before, I have a migraine problem. They are usually triggered by mistaken ingestion of food I am allergic to, or sleeping on my neck wrong, or by fluorescent lights, or a combo thereof. Usually when I migraine arrives, I write a tweet to the effect of "Le Sigh," take some of migraine meds, put myself to bed with my eye mask on and pray that I am not still there two days later.

A few times, after the migraine is over and when my neck/back has seized up, I go and get a massage at Wellsprings to help release the tension and not have a repeat migraine. This usually is a great help.

Last Friday, while at Dog Beach watching the Big Waves, I noticed that my neck was stiff and not really turning well. When I turned it too fast, I would get a shooting headache pain. Oh oh.

I woke up on Saturday morning with the "Oh, shit, not again" feeling as my neck was in a lot of pain, I had a burning sensation on the right side of my throat, and the right side of my face was in pain. I made it to about noon and it became obvious that I really needed to put my self to bed with my eye mask and meds, when my Mom suggested that I go get a massage at my massage place. I didn't think I could get in so fast on a Saturday, but called at my Mom's urging.

Wellsprings was able to fit me in at 2:30pm that day with massage therapist, Sheila Laughlin. What a blessing. Sheila asked some really good questions before she started and I honestly told her that I was trying to fend off the onset of a full migraine due to neck and back stiffness. She did a miracle modified Swedish massage on my face, head, neck and back that loosed up my muscles. By the time I left an hour later, I felt about half way better with much looser muscles, within another hour all the migraine onset pain was gone and I felt almost all the way better.

Big thanks to Sheila and Wellsprings!

Wellsprings
550 Pacific Coast Hwy # 207,
Seal Beach, CA‎90740
562-594-1158‎

Poor, defenseless marriage, it has been so abused in recent years. Such shocking immoral agendas have been advanced with folks getting married up to 4 and 5 times or more to different spouses, and the attendant equal amounts of divorce to marry the next spouse.

Shocking, yes, shocking.

Here in these United States of America, if you get a more than three DUIs (driving under the influence) your right to have a driver's license is revoked. Folks, if you want to really defend marriage, we need to act now against profligate spending of the marriage vows by poor deluded serial monogamists.

Yes, Americans, we need to protect marriage and revoke the right to a marriage license if even one of the two proposed spouses has been married and divorced three times. Just like a serial drunk or drug addict should not be piloting a car, a serial divorcer should not pilot a marriage.

While we are at it, serial divorce comes from youth being led down the path of sin and perdition by thinking they can marry young and often. To that end, we need to support the youth of America into waiting and abstaining from serial divorce or post-martial sin by making it illegal to marry before the age of 30 without full parental and community consent and completely forbidden to marry before the age of 25, as really, how many pre-25 year olds know their minds?

Now under Ms. Jen's Defense of Marriage if you are a homo sapiens sapiens (a hominid of the modern human variety) and you are over 30 and have been divorced less than 3 times and you want to get married? Get thee to a courthouse or a religious institution of your choice and make it legal, brothers & sisters (or any combo of genders thereof).

America, let's please save marriage. Let's make marriage for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, to death do us part. Once and for all.

*****

Cecily has been "Drinking the iPhone Kool-Aid" this weekend. Wonder if she would sell me her N82?

I don't want to carry a phone, no matter how fabulous the UI is, and a separate camera. I want to carry one device - a great small camera that goes on the internet. Yes, I am a contrarian and I try to limit my Apple kool-aid drinking to the MacBook Pro flavor.

On the other side of the fence from Cecily, Engagdet's editor, Joshua Topolosky, recently tried to use the iPhone to actually get some work done, new media / blogging type of work, while sitting at the doctor's office and found that the iPhone was great for entertainment & web surfing, but stymied his ability to be productive. He writes up his experiment in iPhone productivity in "Editorial: Taking the iPhone 3GS off the job market".

Best of all, Jan Chipchase, recently got to have a real L.A. experience:

There's now a flock of 4 MJ newscopters hovering over UCLA. Could almost be in Baghdad, 'cept no-one has fired back. Yet.

He writes up his thoughts about the percentage of media to actual fans outside of the UCLA medical center on the day Michael Jackson died in "MJ (The Media Experience) Remembered".