Self-Portrait in Light Box

Soo far the best part of the superstruct game is the "21st century ideas". These are sort of like the guides and there are lots of clues there. Exreme scale collaboration is one of my very favorite, and probably the concept that I have already been exposed to and already understand.

"• Finally, the basic principles of extreme-scale engagement are beginning to emerge from the fields of game design and social network research where fun economists and fun engineers are laying out new rules of thumb for 21st Century organization. Here the drivers appear to be less economic and more concerned with the pleasures of accomplishment and feeling capable. The desire to do a good thing and the opportunity to do meaningful work are key motivations, and the best reward is often a positive emotional payoff. Perhaps most important is working the participation pyramid: not everyone will participate equally but everyone has something to offer."

OK so now I want to get my PHD in fun engineering. I really think that I have been a fun engineer since I was about fourteen.

POST-NEWTONIAN GOVERNANCE is the one that has me stumped.

Meanwhile I have just dreamed up a new project. Its called "The ten percent solution". The idea is to implore people to find a way to give ten pervent og their time to helping the small children who are the most vulnerable members of our system. The system itself is only as healthy as the weakest members, and it makes sense that the weakest members could get some aid and care from societies strongest members.

So one very cool thing in superstruct is the award badges, which are given out by a bunch of very cool it types and thinkers and which represent some excellence in the game. I am up for nomination for my Microeducation Think Tank on ning from one of my heroes Chris Anderson at Google. Please join there to continue the conversation about the ten percent solution.

join me in 2019

also I made a microeducation think tank.
It would be magnificent if you would join me there:
microeducation think tank on ning

these ideas extend beyond the gameplay.

Recently I started painting again. It has only been a few years, however the last time I stopped painting I sort of gave it up so that I would wean onto the computer somehow. It hasn't been easy for me. The computer is many things however it has never been my first choice as an artists tool. of course my first choice as an artist would be like carving solid wood instruments or something. Technically I have always been a writer and in my own estimation my skills as a visual artist are somewhat rudimentary. Painting is something I was trained to do many years ago now. This recent return is to the very start in that aI am working with watercolors. Mostly actually I am drawing with pencils and neocolorel pastels and then painting them over with water. The effect is pleasing. The work is the start of the sonceptual artwork for a game sequence that I will be using in my blender 3D book.

My trip to University recently revealed the startling fact that its been twelve years since I left on health sabbatacle. hopefully my units will turn into some sort of degree or two. In a way I look forwards to the process however totally messed up I have made it by letting it all slide I will just deal. It was clear that just keeping my own health issues on the med and raising up these kids was all ai could really handle. At this point I have got to take on more and so there you go. It will help if I can quickly move the book project forwards and become a certified Blender Instructor as well as have a nice teaching manual and along with that a decent slide lecture etc.

It feels like I have managed to add another rung or level of goodness to everything when I manage to sketch and paint on top of the physical therapy and yoga and feck. After the injury to my eyes over a year ago I have been undertaking a slow process of healing which has led me right down that path. Both my eyes tend to work together again which is a good thing. Its funny though because the sign that it was righting itself is that when my eyes gettired they both get blurry together. formerly i had one super shaarp eye (which had been badly damaged) and one doubled and or at best blurry eye (the brain hit the pavement side). Svereal times in the last few months while doing my morning swarupa yoga I have felt and heard my skull plates ppop out. With regular training and yoga it is healing bit by bit.

Its all Nuerogenesis. growing the brain.

Part of nuerogenesis is being careful to use some of my cognitive surplus in a way that will help my brain grow and cope with external stimuli. Of xcourse eating a very healthy diet and doing the proper metabolic controls like walking and yoga go a long way to helping keep that cognitive surplus zone a free play territory full of whimsy and a sort of follow-your-bliss momentum. Its amazing to me after all these years what a tremendous effort it takes to just complete the basicsw; physical therapy, darshan(self massage w oil), house yoga,sketching/painting.

In order to really have fulfilled the last category of sketching or painting I made a painting of a coke bottle. The process is meant most of all to train the eye. Importance is placed on attention to detail when drawing. Its natural and it always helps to sharpen the mind. Really the drawings are not the point at all they are simply the exercise or vehicle. If I lived in a civilised place I could get in on a life drawing session without having to drive seventy miles.

Of course its full of barbaric charms here. The crickets provide a pleasurable layered blanket of cound. they really meep along practically all day and once it gets dark they positively sing together in vast number and diverse sound. ON top of the proper sketch of an actual obkect I worked on some sewing crafting on my new raggedy ann steampunk skirt. Essentially i found some halloween costume stuff at thrift and I have been working out a very lush little skirt with lovely little flower prarie layers and polka dots and lots of little lace and trim. Rather than being dour and pale steaminess it has a bright grassy green ruffle sort of jazzing up the serious urban layers. The raggedy ann thing is very next for me (espceially since I have always patched my favorite clothes ), and I must say she was one of my very favorite book characters. I had one or two very well loved books about her and Andy's adventures. Honestly I wonder if my mom Sonia still has them.

This is my cousin Dawn, she has been like another daughter to me her whole life. We danced together at my daughter Appolonia's wedding and I stopped to make this youtube of her. Partially I made it so I could practice the steps later with Rhiannah. Rhi is dancing to the side in the red dress, and Gabrielle is also our cowgirl gypsy dancer. My uncle Sol is playing Cymbalon while Ryan plays fiddle and Bryan plays accordion. Off to the side you can see briefly David and Miko. Appolonia briefly hugs Gabby in the dark blue sweatshirt.

Rage Against The Machine in a heroic move kept singing after being booted from the stage in yet another attempted illegal supression of the expression of free speech. There have been countless here in the US in the last few weeks.

It has like a dozen or more people watching it at any time, a sure sudden of a sudden viral video.
Its very good and very inspiring.
pass it on.

rnc gets pwnd

the games are coming together and I am really excited about the upcoming alignment of olomphali.
I have been pondering all of my separate selves in their separate realities, in particular the six. How to bring all of my selves together is an interesting question.

It is stirring to the imagination to think of all the possible worlds.

http://www.findthelostring.com/ariadne/quiz.do


find your ancient strength
help to find the lostring
restore the six worlds to the balance of the olomphalos.

While running in the labyrinth

You will begin at the center of the labyrinth, and will navigate your way outwards.
You will be blindfolded during the length of the event.
You will keep your arms folded across your chest at all times.
You will navigate by sound. The wall will hum in order to guide you.
You will run through the labyrinth by yourself.
Your time will be measured. Finish the labyrinth as quickly as possible.

http://olympics.wikibruce.com/Codex-5Ap1-English

Kicking back listening to Biggie speaks on the Beef; on the cd "2Pac and Notorious BIG", which i bought
in downtown la for fivedollah.

Biggie reaches me.
2Pac keeps me sane.

Its not just that I live in the big green ghetto. The secret continent of Norcal.

Someday the world will know what happened, when my generation came of age.
Harvey Milk was shot, so was 2pac (he was shot previous to his public (execution) murder. Nas raps it down about the sad string of upcoming rappers murdered in a history song on his last collection.

I love listening to biggie freestyle...that guy could really speak his heart, it was really something when he would open up...thats the big reason I love this collection is that is involves some of Biggies freestyling. "Do your thing man...do your thiing!" they say in freestyle pt 2. Thats what I do, that firm encouragement.

"Do your thing" I say."go ahead man...do your thing"

we need it.

My vitamin D session today resulted in a four hour siesta.
I am groggy and it is hot.
I wake up I water the yard, I eat and I fall asleep.
Its a peasants life.
except of course that I managed to squeeze out a couple of youtubes before dawn.
otherwise I can hardly keep up.


Its so hot out that I even drink extra water myself to keep up.

Steampunk is going to save everything, because it will be cool to be self sufficient and thrift store stylish. Our world existed prior to petrol and it can exist post petrol...that is the inherent message of steampunk. Futuristic ray guns mixed with steam powered dirigibles.

Some people in steampunk get all crumpety and go all vicky. In my mind it is inclusive of other times and really enything that can be used for a certain dapper sort of self sufficiency. For instance when making gatorade lid goggles, why paint them to look like bronze? Rock it, flaunt it, do your thing. Punk it up a little.

my pal Sue, most known for her work with the award winning Terra Nova Consort, singing on swing night at lark 08.

My mockumentary documentary of the mockumentary.
Starring Jeffrey Weissman it was recently shown again.

This is my first time really in the edit bay since i melted my nvidia graphics card, oops.

Good to go again and another one on the way.

It feels like everything is changing very quickly. The week at lark seemed a little slow and a bit fraught with complexity however it was good. Mostly because some of the patterns of the last five years have been shifted. Ita subtle yet once you create a void new things can move in.

Most of the regular chores feel the same. The immediate thing is diving into seamonkey and learning the composer so I can get off my addiction to dreamweaver. I need to be able to work from anywhere, the nomadic thing is to have part of your work in the cloud and part of it on your own server. However you must be able to work on all of it anywhere...my little cracked vaio lappy is not mobile anymore. It is very useful for its xp features, and because I can do things like lively rooms from google while they are still in beta. Mostly it needs its own independent serial keyboard, and actually its own monitor too.

Most of the time i am working on either the mac or the ubuntu, with most of the heavy work on the mac in the morning. Essentially I want totally revamp my website prior to September.

Why September? because thats when Superstruct starts.
http://www.iftf.org/node/2098

This is the next large scale game from jane mcdonigal and it is certain to have reaching consequences. The scenario is writing from 2019, the same year as Blade Runner the movie. The first exercise is to write from the dinner table in 10 years time.

Overall this is like world without oil game WWO which quickly showed many solutions are possible to the crisis likely with a massive oil shutdown. Once again stickyness...that ephemeral community property where things like barter and sharing and free have the reign of the day...creates a sort of community wealth where it is possible to access ideas and share sources and skill sets.

This really brings home the urgency of skill set sharing camps and generally tuning the focus of the summer activities. Gaming in a new way and on a large scale is more and more where my mind is at regarding the creation of a local event to be held in our community park. Its like a massive treasure hunt and sort of like capture the flag and i want there to be costumes so that steampunk and other groups can play in drag as well as all sorts of good food and in general a very creative atmosphere. What made the faire fun when i started out was that you felt that you were entering a game space. We would stay in character and sleep in our costumes. Also it seemed Burningman had this quality early on when it was still a tuck and go art project involving the collaboration of a few thousand.

Maybe we could even have camps of say 150 people each and have them sort of game in the context of interacting with other groups like them in size. This is starting to suspiciously sound like a Yurok dance, perhaps California just bodes this sort of outing.

The festival I have dreamed of for years is an integrative environment for musicians, programmers and alternative tech people...we now say sustainability. In large part that goal was realized by asking the existing festivals to include sustainability in their intention and planning. This was surprisingly easy to do, much like getting local food into our markets. Sometimes great change can result from simply initiating a conversation with the right person.

In the context of a huge game those artificial divisions inherent in the titles "musician", "codemonkey", "artist" and "sustainability guru" all fade away. Perhaps in the league of the game we could talk about these ideas in a more subtle and less direct way.

In my special education in jr high (for gifted kids) we used to have these odd games we would play, with social currency and tokens. Some of it was representing cultural differences like the Eskimos. In general there was greater tendency towards fee play as a valid activity. wish we had a big playpark in garbervills. It would be so nice...maybe up where the radio station used to be by the recycling center.Personally I rebelled against the loss of playtime on the equipment in jr high and me and Simone used to sneak down to the swings and bars. My arms are still strong from the bars even at forty four.

I think I would play on a set of bars if there was one around my size. That would be cool. I also love teeter totters and swings. As a kid thee were some great bohemian houses with elaborate swings and ladders and treehouses. Even a zip-swing at one place we stayed. I was always an intrepid user of planked bridges on our family forays into 3rd world countries. Even rope bridges and walking across logs.

Maybe I oughta try and string the rope i have for tightrope walking. I wonder if I have a winch.

9 lasts:
Last money spent: feta cheese
Last cigarette: in the way early nineties
Last beverage: green tea
Last movie: Be Kind Rewind
Last phone call: Scott H
Last song played :joanna newsom : Sawdust and Diamonds
Last bubble bath: bath yesterday Bubbles are ouch.
Last time you cried: art process related last week
Last thing you ate: 13 grain toast.

8 have you evers.
Have you ever dated a best friend: as a rule no. I prefer to become very close with lovers, not convert friends over.
A platonic friendship can be a great blessing over the (especially after ten twenty or so ) years
Have you ever skinny dipped: Yes. usually I hate tan lines.
Have you ever kissed somebody and regretted it: No. I have had to think very hard about it however regret was not part of it.
Have you ever lost someone you loved: constantly
Have you ever been dumped: yes
Have you ever been drunk and threw up: yes that was back when i would have a cig once and again too (early nineties)
Have you ever ran away: yup yup.All the way to Boston once. Successfully to Humboldt County 20+ years ago
Have you ever wanted someone you thought you couldnt have then found out they liked you: yes. i learned to trust the ruby light.

7 countries you've been to.
Mexico
Tahiti
Haiti
Venezuela
Italy
England
Switzerland




6 things you've done today: (in no particular order...)
put my robe on
watched a youtube of pals playing music
cuddled with my dog monkey cheeks cause i am going away to lark.
put the kettle on
read pals blogs for a bit
listened to joanna's newest song using "most recent" on youtube to find her last performance.

5 of your favorite things in no order.
art
sex
music
computers
the hive mind

4 people you can tell [almost] anything to in no order..
eva
scott
alex
jed
noel

3 things that make you smile:
my kids
pals in the flesh
little wild bird pals

2 things you want to do before you die:
spend time in Burma researching useful plants and ancient river locks.
plant 6 billion trees

1 one thing you can't live with out:
art process

Truly one of the best pleasures ever: sneaking stolen glances at my small brown bird friend as they take a bath in my tub out back. Its a storage bin, yellow and pretty big and kept full of water out back just for the little birds. While I worked in the garden I saw this small bird glance at me with a bright eye while they dunked under and tossed the water across its back.

The water in the front yard is treated as a local spring. Its a round stone bowl about the size of a hatbox. The dragonflies sit beside it, and even the woodpeckers drink from it. The dog favors this water bowl above all of the others including her water bowl in the house. I tease the dog and say "deer lips" because I have an internal private belief that the dog likes this water best because the deer drink from it.

After working in the backyard and watching my bird pal take a bath i went to lay in the sun on the front porch. A small bird sings a deep melody as I lay back with my book. Oh my! It is my pal! I can see the small bird shaking himself and fluffing from the fresh bath. So this is the mysterious small bird that sings the long melody. Again the little bird ( a wren?) looks at me with the bright knowing eye.

In the evening I have a lizard outside my window that happily hunts moths on the screen. It is pretty used to me since it makes its bed about a foot from mine, just outside my window in the leaves that have gathered on the shelf. The lizard is super cute as it runs around on the screen, there is an unexpected exuberance to its loops and turns. Nature has this power of intense good cheer often. When a creature feels unobserved by anything it fears it often has this marvelous sparkling intensity.

Earlier in the day the mountain jay hopped around the back cooing at me while I filled the water and generally lavished attention on the stand of bamboo and the yard. The mountain jay has all sorts of ways of speaking, they make a sort of loving cooing sound with each other and I can recognize this bluejay as one that has grown up in the yard. They are content with me for staying home and keeping the water for them. They expect me in the morning and we are companions the birds and I. The faun from the winter is really quite big now, or maybe its the one from last year i am not sure even though i got a really good look at it out my bedroom window, I speak to it in human rather than bird because I want to warn it off of people mostly.

This week I have been grateful for the moonlight, it is sure sign that the little dragon is crawling up the river clearing away the smoke for the morning.I know when I see the moon that my pals are seeing the same moon and somehow we are connected by this great luminous being.

There are certain things that are very sweet about being home this time of year. The blackberries are coming on and I can be sure to water them a bit so they get fat. Every day I pick enough on my walk for the better part of my lunch to be blackberries and milk (and sugar they are sour still). Also the grapes are putting on their girth and they are loving the attention on the hot days. Yesterday and today were almost smoke free, blue skies and all and it felt like being returned to paradise magically since we didnt drive anywhere or anything.

These days the 3D Open Source Artists Studio has been taking several hours a day or more, which is encouraging. Now that I have a way better command of the tool I have returned to the hugen "Character Animation" tutorial from the book. I am dutifully making my capn blender guy. Part of it is curiosity about how to build a really elegant armature. There is this neat trick with IPK(?) drivers, where you make these controls for the face or whatever that are like handles on certain parts. Say like a mouth looking part and eye and nose and each controller handle controls that part of the model.

There is this real brilliance to the design of the more elaborate character rigs, and if you put hours of tedium into the project ahead of time you allow the potential for a little improvisation once you are set to create with the artistic tools that you first created.

Today I head for town and finish yesterdays chores. It really is shocking how much food is rising in cost, even simple items. It was great to start eating out of the garden again this month. I have had two yummy zuchinni meals. I guess its a good year to have a garden with too much chard. I will need to look for the rainbow kind in seed form. This is also the time of year to start thinking about the late fall garden and even the winter food.

Along with the Open Source text I am working slowly on a sustainability type book, drawing on these years of lj and all, its time to tame this material into some cohesive form. Time for a book I daresay. Here at the cabin I have a stunning collection of books on sustainability and I intend to use them all on this one!

In exciting news, my friend the artist Scott moved back out here from Manhattan last year. He disappeared into the woods and reappeared with a studio (sort of almost ready) in Eureka. He is a conceptual artist like me, and it is really a treat to have a pal up here that can talk about this stuff, and even argue. Soon we will have an outing up in Etown most likely. Other than that I sunbathe and write and do yoga and walk the dog and do chores.

My next big project is totally replacing my drip system with a new one that has two separate loops.

Certain things have been keeping me going lately... hard to define. An example is yesterday, where i went to town to drop the kid at rehearsal. At the health food store I get a bit of lunch that is recommended to me there. Even in this town i have a small reputation as a food queen and Ama said to me "the kale is really good and its Vegan". It was this sort of Polenta pizza thing, smothered in lots of veggies and kale and...so I went for it.You are supposed to support the ability for your health food store to support you. I grabbed a Mate soda and went outside to have a sit and a bite. On the edge of the parking lot that is slowly becoming a town square, there was a small pile of gardening materials and the loved "free " sign. A few weeks ago we grabbed a dozen or so gallon pots out of a similar pile which I needed to dig-into the raised beds so I can hose water them into the deeper soil.

This pile had a half dozen really nice tomato cages. These are the super big size ones with four rings and four supports. Easily fifty bucks in tomato cages. Its the sort of thing I would have loved to buy for the garden early on in the season...however money is tight and tomatoes can be propped other ways. This morning I set them up and it was uncanny how it was the exact number that I needed. The tomatoes were the just right size to still get away with carefully weaving into the inside of the cages, it was also just the perfect time to find them any longer and it would have been too late to use them without breaking the plants. Several plants have set several fruit and the little pear shaped ones have a really good sized plant already. They are happy now and well supported.

This morning for breakfast I had fresh zucchini from the garden with refried pasta and Parmesan cheese.

It was walked from the garden. which doesn't even count as transportation because I was on my way in the house already. I like to slice zucchinis lengthwise into about six sections, and then cook them in a lightly oiled pan on their harder green back side at first. This way they stay tender without getting mushy. It helps if you pick them young.

IN the garden the Thai basil, curled parsley and dill are also getting settled in. these are the kinds of things I have missed the last ten years not having a really happening kitchen garden. The sorrel is coming in as well, which is something I have managed to keep up on on and off, I also saw a nice mizuna mustard volunteer which is bonus.

Yesterday I also found a lemon verbena in town. My last one got crowded out in the pot it was in, I adore it so this one I will make sure to keep well fed watered and potted in its own glorious spot and pot. lemon verbena has one of the more amazing smells, and it makes a fantastic linen water. It is a lovely garnish for iced tea. When I was going to court all the time I ended up making friends with a forestland defender named lemon verbena. She was so sweet that she got me curious about the plant and I became good friends with it.

Everything needs to be pampered and watered since the smoke from the hundreds of fires drove us inside for a few days.

http://humboldtherald.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/feds-in-fortuna/#comment-41898

Real Property writes:
June 29, 2008 at 11:01 pm

The invasion of the Lost Paradise property , crudely called BuddhaVille, is the most recent example of the governments new strategy of prosecuting property owners.
The federal government has been using the RAVE Act USSC 856 to prosecute many property owners in California. You can find information about the RAVE act at the following sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAVE_Act
http://bbsnews.net/bw2003-06-12.html

The theme of most federal prosecutions in this regard is to charge a defendant with conspiracy and 856 (RAVE ACT). Conspiracy is governed by mandatory minimum sentencing. If you are convicted in a conspiracy with over 100 marijuana plants you will be sentenced to five years, in a conspiracy with over 1000 plants you will be sentenced to ten years. Unfortunately the judge and jury have no discretion over your sentencing in a mandatory minimum case. Most defendants when facing mandatory minimums decide to plead guilty rather than face an uncertain outcome in court which could lead to lengthy prison terms. When pleading the government typically agrees to reduce the sentence to a non mandatory minimum charge; the RAVE Act USSC 856 is a non mandatory minimum charge. What is important to note is that the federal government indicts using charges that will lead to a guilty plea, the longer the sentence the more likely a defendant pleads guilty (whether or not they are actually innocent).

Recently the government has been focused on targeting real property owners in order to put a dent in marijuana crime. Unfortunately this is quite effective because a property owner has both their freedom and their finances to lose. You can read more at the following sites:

http://www.canorml.org/news/LA_DEAletter.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/07/BAE4UTGBG.DTL

Humboldt County has a major housing shortage. There is very little land available for new families to homestead. This shortage combined with a difficult regulatory environment has led to property owners using other forms of ownership. The same thing has been happening for sometime in San Francisco and the people have responded by creatively following the law so that they can have a form of home ownership. The following website explains a lot about California models of co-ownership:

http://www.andysirkin.com/Index.cfm

Equity or ownership co-operatives are an effective form of land ownership. Their organizational framework is usually established by the developer of each project and its lawyers.

Co-owners have been called something more than a tenant , and something less than an owner. Typically, a corporation owns the property, and each purchaser receives a share in the corporation, together with a non exclusive long-term right to use in one particular area. That right is usually documented by an “occupancy agreement.”

One can investigate what form of co ownership “Lost Paradise” is using the following website:

http://kepler.sos.ca.gov/corpdata/ShowAllList?QueryCorpNumber=C2581198&printer=yes

Contrary to reports, Lost Paradise is not an LLC, it is a corporation. A corporation is not the best current model of ownership for real estate. In fact most real estate investors use LLC’s because of the favorable tax regulations that corporations do not enjoy.

A corporation in Humboldt that owns land in the same way as Lost Paradise is: The Big Lagoon Park Corporation. The Big Lagoon Park Corporation has enabled the co ownership of approximately 50 acres of land with 76 shareholders on the coast just north of trinidad for over fifty years. The Board of Directors has done a great job in helping to make sure that this corporation runs efficiently through proper by-laws and governance.

It is important to note that just because you are a shareholder of a corporation that may be involved in illegal acts, you are not necessarily responsible for the corporations actions. The Enron case is a great example of this. It would be a shame if the federal government used 450 agents to investigate shareholders of the Lost Paradise corporation solely because they were owners. All of the shareholders of Enron were not investigated.

There are many working models of co ownership through out Humboldt and California. It is unlikely that the reason for this attack on civil liberties was because of the manner in which title to the property was held. More likely is that the federal government is all about seizing assets. Real estate owners typically have very visible non liquid assets that are easy to take and assess. Real estate owners are usually the most political for this reason: government is constantly stealing from them. Property owners in Humboldt county should be outraged at this recent invasion and should be worried about what is next. Will we see an increase in civil forfeiture like we saw in the late 80’s?