Kallisti's Journal

New Year's Day 2020

2020-01-02T04:52:29Z

It was a great New Year's Eve in the Atrium. A few minutes after midnight, it hit me: it's been years since I've written much poetry, and 2020's a good time to start again.

A moment in time

A moment in time,
At the start of the decade.
Lights. Music. Dancing.
A glass of champagne.

Choosing a rhythm,
At the start of the year.
Balance. Detachment.
To stay in the moment.

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Notes from Underground: Howweird St. Fair and Snog, May Day 2016

2016-05-04T14:40:51Z

Take pity on us, San Francisco! We aspire to your heights of ... "culture"!

Why is everybody laughing?

-- David Thrussell of Snog, at the DNA Lounge

After ten days in South Carolina, it was great to be back home in San Francisco! Saturday was beautiful, and we went to the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park for the first time since an epic party we threw there in the early 90s (back when you could still have the party in the main greenhouse instead of their functional-but-generic event space). And then Sunday was a double-feature, starting with electronic dance music at the Howweird Street Fair and then on to curmudgeonly-but-very-danceable industrial with Snog at the DNA Lounge. Good times!

It was all sunshine and happiness at the fair. The weather was perfect, seventy degrees and sunny, and the music was great -- including two psytrance stages, one by Pulse SF and one by Party Babas. As usual we ran into folks we've known for years, checked out the vendors and bought a few things, and danced for hours. It really was an "only in SF" kind of thing; a friend who's moving to New York lamented that he wouldn't be able to have the same experience there.

The vibe was quite different at Snog -- and somewhat surprisingly, the crowd was a lot sparser too. The cab driver's monologue, about how Uber and AirBnB and their pals were wrecking the city and after 50 years he couldn't afford to live here any more, set the stage perfectly. After an excellent (albeit too short) opening set by The Labrynth, the band took the stage, with Thrussell resplendent in a white suit and wearing a mask from They Live, for a set of hits old and new.

The mask came off after the first song, and there were plenty of toe-tappers that were more than appropriate for the 2016 version of San Francisco. Cheerful Hypocrisy, Everything Is Under Control, Born to Be Mild, Corporate Slave .... the hits just kept on coming! And the DNA Lounge, with ATMs programmed to say "Surprise Surprise the Government Lies" is a perfect setting.

It strikes me that our entire economy is a massive pyramid scheme.

- David Thrussell of Snog, interviewed by Chris Downton in Cyclic Defrost

Yeah really. And SF is the epicenter of one of the pyramids, the rich-get-richer economy of angel investors and VCs pumping up the valuation of startups like the aforementioned Uber, now worth over $60 billion, and their ~~exploitation~~ sharing economy cronies. (Now that I think of it, the sharing economy would be perfect for Snog :) ) Since we shifted our base back here from Seattle, I've really noticed the changes - and like the majority of SF residents, I think the city's heading in the wrong direction.

The cab driver is ready to give up and move -- "it's reality," he said. Well, it's certainly the reality the Ubers of the world want to create. But we have a say in it too. Battles over gentrification, real estate speculation, and tax breaks for the wealthy aren't new to San Francisco -- I was watching a video of Jello Biafra's mayoral campaign from the late 70s, and all the issues he talks about are there today (just with some different names). Progressives are fighting back, just as they have in the past. And new technologies can be used for organizing as well as exploitation.

And despite all of San Francisco's problems, it's still an amazing city. So I didn't let the negativity cloud my enjoyment ... if anything, I had an even better time at Snog than at the fair. I heart psytrance; and I heart darkwave. A good combo!

Image Credit: Pulse SF at Howard Street Fair picture by Piak Boonlert

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Notes from Underground: Tribal Convergence (New Year’s Weekend 2015/2016)

2016-01-04T06:22:54Z

For the first time in years, we rang in the New Year at a psytrance party in SF — Tribal Convergence at the Gingerbread House! Michael Liu, Witchdokta, and the Mendo Organized Chaos crew had done a great job putting the party together, and the place looked amazing. We found a cab with no problem (just say no to surge pricing and exploitative business models!) and got there just as Galactic Illumination started their set …

I had been in a reflective mood for the last few weeks, spending lots of time with tarot cards. And fortunately there was decent cellphone reception at the Gingerbread House, so my online tarot journal on TapestryMaker (the social network/community software I’ve been developing) was right there there at my fingertips. So as I enjoyed the vibe, I looked back over these recent readings and reflected some more …

Overall, it was a good year for me. I got more into tarot than I had ever imagined: three tarot conferences, going to the Seattle Tarot Meetup fairly regularly, several online workshops, a half-dozen professional readings, winding up the year by working with James Wanless on Fortune Circles, and so much more. And it's been very good for me. Especially over the last few months (when I’ve been focusing a lot on the Temperance card), I feel like my life’s much more in balance than it has been since I can’t remember when. Even though I still feel like I’m in transition to what’s next, I have a much clearer picture of what I want.

And TapestryMaker’s certainly making good progress! True, there’s plenty of room for improvement in a lot of ways; but there’s some stuff it’s really good at. Like doing tarot, for example, especially at psytrance parties :)

So I started by meditating on a few cards representing different aspects of the life I want: the World from Obscurity, the Eight of Cups and Four of Wands from Barbara Moore’s Steampunk Tarot, the Ace of Wands (Ecstasy) from James’ Voyager deck, and the Three of Cups from the Waite-Smith deck.

Next I focused on a handful of cards from the Rider-Waite deck that reflect what I’m trying to do with TapestryMaker: the Eight of Pentacles for the craftsmanship, the Hierophant Reversed (for the underlying original and unorthodox theories) and Seven of Cups (for magic and illusion — in the positive sense) from a reading by tarot advisor Gina Thies last August, and the Magician for the magical.

And of course the Magician brought me to “Magic Manifestation” meditation from the November Fortune Circle: the four aces, for “see it, feel it, believe it, do it”. James talks about doing the meditation feeling yourself surrounded by gold light; at least for me, it turns out that black light works pretty well too :)

So I put TapestryMaker in “autoplay” mode, cycling through the aces, and danced for a while. Then I asked “How to make my visions come to life in 2016?” and picked a card.

It would have been a bummer if I had gotten a negative card — or even a positive-but-challenging card. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there’s a lot to learn from those cards as well; but when I’m dancing and having a great time it would certainly harsh my vibe to have Death come up and have to spend all night reminding myself “it’s really about transformation!” So I picked the card from my special “party” version of the Voyager deck, with 20 negative and challenging cards temporarily removed. And why not? Tarot’s a tool; for me on New Year’s Eve, this was the right way to use it.

And geez, what a fine card I picked :)

I’ll be talking a lot more about Harvest — and the Harvest Tree reading I had done just a few days earlier — in future posts. For now, let’s just say it was exactly the right card for my mood.

After which, it was time for the countdown to 2016, and then hours more of dancing and socializing. Doctor Spook and Random from Geomagnetic were spinning at midnight … how cool is that? I did a couple more readings using the Obscurity deck — one for my friend Andrea on “what would open-source consciousness be like?” and one for Spook on “what does 2016 have in store?” The Wheel of Fortune came up in both. Seems like a good sign :)

But mostly I just danced, enjoyed the vibe, and caught up with friends. So many familiar faces, people we’ve celebrated New Year’s with for a decade or more (“remember that night at Somarts back in 2005?”) … I really do think of these folks as my tribe, and we definitely converged on New Year’s Eve :)

I <3 psytrance.

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Finding a rhythm for a Year of The Hermit and a Year of Harvest

2016-01-02T03:00:53Z

Happy New Year! We had a great New Year's Eve at Tribal Convergence; more about that soon. And now it's New Year's Day, a great time to start setting the rhythm for the year. I did a lot of work in December reflecting on my goals and priorities and what kind of life I want. One thing that really came out for me was wanting to integrate tarot more deeply into my life ... no time like the present!

If you add up the digits of 2016, you get 9; and in most decks, The Hermit is #9 in the Major Arcana. So from a tarot perspective, 2016 is the year of The Hermit. As well as solitariness, The Hermit also represents a teacher or guide -- the lamp illuminating the path ahead. And a whole lot more, of course: on Queen of Wands Tarot, Jenna Matlin has a great post looking at different aspects of The Hermit and how he (or she) is portrayed in different decks. While I'm in a link-sharing mood, James Wells has a very complementary post on Circle Ways and Evolutionary Tarot, with some excellent questions to ask ourselves such as "What luminous piece of knowledge do I carry?" And Cassandra Snow's Queering the Hermit, on Little Red Tarot, adds some perspectives that are often overlooked.

At last week's Fortune Circle Holiday Party, James Wanless started with The Hermit, and then went farther and looked at 2016 as a year of Harvest. (His Youtube video 2016 Year of Harvest covers similar ground; it's embedded at the end of this post.) One of the key steps he talked about on the way to harvesting is establishing "action habits", regular activities that move you towards your goals. From a terminology perspecitive, though, "learning new habits" sounds like work to me; so instead I'm approaching it as finding the right rhythm..

When I think about the rhythm for the year, it's a mix of regular activities -- daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly -- and the things like vacations that don't happen on a regular schedule. For me, the start of a new year is an especially good time to focus on setting up the daily and weekly rhythms. Writing them down is a good way to reinforce my intent (as Angela Holton discusses in Why Resolutions Don't Work & How to Create Real, Lasting Change on Tiny Buddha), and sharing it publically helps reinforce accountability.

Here's the current draft of things to incorporate in my daily rhythm:

Start the day off by picking one or more tarot cards
Meditate either in the morning, after picking the cards, or in the evening, right before I go to sleep; or both!
Make a concrete step forward on my goals
Help somebody else on their path
GIve thanks
Record my progress
Make art every day*

I say "current draft", because my policy for beginning-of-year commitments (resolutions, habits or anything else) is to finalize them at the end of January. Just as "no plan survives contact with the enemy," holiday intentions may not survive contact with reality. So the revised version may be somewhat different, but I'm sure it'll be along these lines.

It seems like a lot -- but it certainly seems doable. And today, I did all of these things; in fact, everything except the meditation is in this post. So I'm off to a good start!

* thanks to Dianardo for the phrasing! And while I'm at it, thanks to Jenna, James, and Cassandra for the helpful posts on The Hermit; and thanks to James for the Harvest Tree metaphor, Fortune Circle presentation, and Youtube video.

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2016: A year of harvest (and the Harvest Tree spread)

2015-12-31T00:13:45Z

Oh my, so much to catch up on since my last public journal entry: Solstice readings, including Lisa de St. Croix's excellent Visual Journaling; full moon readings late on Christmas Eve after a big holiday party; and then the Fortune Circle Holiday Party! And as I start my period of reflection on 2015, I'm going to work backwards, so to speak; which means that the Harvest Tree readings at the Holiday Party are the first ones I'll be journaling about.

The Fortune Circle work I've been doing with James Wanless and about a dozen intrepid Fortune Seekers has certainly been one of the highlights of these last few months. Our get-togethers usually include James talking about one of the Gold You Rules, splitting into breakout sessions for discussions, a guided meditation, and then picking cards that match the topic of the night. The holiday party had a slightly different format, picking multiple cards and describing a spread for people to do their own Harvest Tree reading. One interesting thing about the Fortune Circles is that they're pseudonymous; Monday night, it was me, Morpheus, Azeri, the Queen of Wands, Dragon, and the Fortune Maker.

2016 adds up to the perfect, indivisible and final single digit number 9, which, thus, represents completion (going the whole nine yards). Nine symbolizes both an ending and a time of harvest.

What are you harvesting this year?

To help you create your harvest, follow the natural principles of the tree. Year after year, trees harvest themselves by their fruition. Trees know how to produce.

-- introduction to the Harvest Tree reading

James framed the discussion of 2016 as a year of harvest in terms of the Harvest Tree, a great example of face-up tarot where you intentionally pick cards. We use James' Voyager Tarot* during the Fortune Circles. There's a lot of internal structure in the deck and it's great to hear about it directly from James and see how he uses it. If you prefer another deck, feel free to adapt this face-up reading by choosing different cards for the different positions.

The four bottom sections in it represent the different seasons:

Winter, a time for planning, with the Two of Worlds (Reflection) and Priestess, the corresponding Major Arcana;
Spring, getting sharing, with the Four of Worlds (Commencement) and Emperor;
Summer, maintaining, with the Three of Worlds (Nurturing) and Empress;
and Fall, with the completed goal, Nine of Worlds (Harvest) and Hermit.

On the side is Five of Worlds, Setback, the barriers that may happen on the way; at the top is Ten of Worlds, Reward, with Fortune and the Ten of Wands, Growth. Overall, it's a great structure for a discussion of goals.

And it starts with what James called "the big question": What are we harvesting in 2016? It's a great question, and everybody had a good answer to it, so we spent a while discussing and encouraging each other. The answer that popped out of my mouth was "make a living via TapestryMaker", harvesting all the time and energy I've put into it over the last few years. As with any other goal or resolution, just saying it out loud (or typing it!) and sharing it with others makes accomplishing it more likely.

After that, we moved to picking an ally card from the 16 "family cards" (the Voyager equivalent of "court cards" in traditional tarot). I got the Man of Cups, Surfer. My first reaction to this was to think about being in flow and keeping my balance. James added that it was also about enjoying the journey. He also had great fedback on the cards others drew: Morpheus' Man of Worlds, Azeri's Woman of Cups, Fortune Maker's Child of Crystals, and the Queen of Wands' Sage of Wands.

With the aid of our ally, the next topic was identifying an "action habit", something we'd do regularly to help with what we're harvesting. My answer in the meeting was "write every day". On the one hand , which while a good thing feels like only a piece of the bigger answer. So it's a good topic for some reflection as I work on my new year's goals and resolutions.

We wrapped up the party by picking cards for the year, the outcome of the path that we were on. Mine was the Four of Wands, Aspiration. Here's a bit of what James says about it in Voyager Tarot Way of the Great Oracle:

Aspire to the heights. Your spirit cannot be contained. Liberate yourself in order to freely be all that you can be. Reach out for your goals, smashing through blocks with your fist. Pierce resistance with focus and will and burn out oppressive obstacles with the touch of illumination and purification. Move onwards and upwards.

Sounds like a plan! Or at least an aspiration :)

As we wrapped up, we went back to the Harvest Tree, and James pointed out that even though we had done it face-up, it would make a good spread for a reading in its own right. "And we can do that with TapestryMaker, right, Kallisti?" he asked me. "Sure!" I said ... aspirationally. Because actually TapestryMaker needed a little work in order to do it well. So instead of doing this blog post yesterday the way I originally intended, I did some programming and editing, and now it hopefully works. Here's mine:

Winter: Make a PLAN for harvesting your goal: Ace of Cups — Ecstasy
Spring: Show your intention by SHARING it with others: Ace of Wands — Illumination
Summer: Maintain an "ACTION HABIT" to nurture the growth of the goal: Nine of Wands — Integrity
Fall: PRESENT your completed goal: Sage of Crystals — Knower
Setback: Like a tree, always protect your own growth. What SETBACKS must you DEFEND against?: Sage of Cups — Regenerator
Reward: What’s your REWARD for following this Harvest Map? Nine of Worlds — Harvest

The Harvest as the reward for following the Harvest Map, gotta like that! And overall these cards all ring true and point towards things I can be doing to realize my goals: begin with love, ecstasy, and illumination (the Ace of Cups and Ace of Wands); keep my integrity and remain true to who I am (the Nine of Wands); connect and synthesize, looking at the big picture, and share the knowledge and wisdom (the Sage of Crystals), and use creativity to rejuvenate myself after setbacks and more broadly as well (the Sage of Cups).

Sounds like a good mindset to kick off 2016!

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Missing my creative side

2015-12-16T05:56:06Z

This is a tarot spread I created for anyone who relates to what I’ve been saying – about losing touch with earth, about knowing there’s something inside that wants so badly to come out, about missing their creative selves, about just feeling goddamn lost right now.

-- Beth Maiden, Creativity, courage, commitment: a tarot spread for the new moon on Little Red Tarot

It's true, I do miss my creative self. It's been years since I've written poetry or fiction or worked on e-luminatus or journaled about psytrance. Sure, I've been creative in other ways, but for quite a while I've felt a gap. And it does feel like there's something inside me that wants to get out, so while I wouldn't say I'm feeling lost, this spread still seemed like a great choice for the December new moon. It worked out even better than I had hoped.

One thing I came away with: one good way to get more in touch with my creative side is by doing more writing. This is something that's completely within my power. I can see it, feel it, believe it ... so, time to do it!

Writing about Beth's spread and my new moon readings seems like a good place to start.

Creativity, courage, commitment: an excellent spread

If you're new to the world of tarot and happen to be reading this, hopefully there's enough here that you'll be able to follow along. If you're more experienced, hopefully you'll find the process I went through -- using multiple decks on a series of readings -- interesting. In any case any discussion of the cards or my interpreations or the process are very welcome! That said if your only takeaway is "wow that's a good spread," I'd be more than happy :)

If you think of a tarot reading as a discussion between the reader, the querent, and the cards, then a spread provides structure for the discussion. Beth's spreads and the other resources on Little Red Tarot approach things from a diversity-friendly, femininst, queer perspective that work well for me. [Beth's a great blogger as well, combining beautiful visual images with very authentic and honest posts, and her post Transformation gives a sense of where she was where she created this spread.]

Creativity, Courage, and Commitment has six positions: Fear, Hope, Transform, Release, Ground, and Create (numbered 1-6 in the diagram to the right, placed in that order). Beth's also got some excellent questions for each position, and in some cases recommendations as well, for example

Fear. What is that lurking in the shadows? What are you most afraid of? What is holding you back? Don’t be afraid. Bring it out, look it in the eye, accept it....

Create. Make your intention real. Demonstrate your commitment to yourself. Be brave. Go forth. Create.

I'm not the only person who likes this spread -- see Katzi's post on Balance these scales and the people raving about it on Beth's blog. In a comment, Katzi suggests it could also work well as a new year spread, and Beth agrees that it would work well "at any kind of ‘new start/intention-setting’ time". So, check it out!

Face-up Rider/Waite/Smith: what do I think?

Beth's got some excellent questions for each position, and as I read them over I realized this would be a great time for a technique Courtney Weber shared in "Tarot for One" at last year's Northwest Tarot Symposium*: first do a reading looking at the cards and choosing the ones I want, and then shuffling the deck and pick cards without looking, asking the Tarot. Courtney suggested this as a good way of starting by putting your own thoughts explicitly on the table; by acknowledging them, you can see where they're potentially biasing your interpretations of the cards you then pick from the shuffled deck. It's a great example of what James Wanless calls "face-up tarot", intentionally choosing cards as a complement to randomness.

So I started the Rider/Waite/Smith (RWS) deck, and spent I while thinking about which cards for which positions. Sometimes, as with Temperance for Transform, a card popped into my mind; other times, with Fear, there were several immediate possibilities. Here's what I came up with **, along with a quick description of how I was thinking of the various cards' meanings.

Fear: Nine of Swords, in this case representing knowing that I've screwed up and others have been hurt as a result.
Hope: Three of Cups: Celebration of mutual success, happiness, and joy.
Transform: Temperance: Balance, the middle way, and successful combinations unleashing radiant energy.
Release: Wheel of Fortune, Reversed, struggling against events.
Ground: The Empress: passion and emotion, the intention I'm setting.
Create: The Fool: optimism, courage, taking risks, being myself.

Of course it's leaving out a lot to reduce the card's "meaning" to a sentence fragment. At the personal level, I associate quite a few cards with people or situations in my life -- many of which I don't necessarily want to talk about publically, but let's just say there's a reason I often use The Fool as a Significator :) And a lot of wise people have different potential interpretations of each card; for example, we've been talking about the Fool a lot in James' Fortune Circles.

And over time the cards' meaning also evolves based on the different readings it shows up in. All of these cards have been showing up in significant readings over the past few months. One that was particularly in my mind as I chose: the Wheel of Fortune, Reversed, was in the position of "how I'm at war with the situation" in a reading on "the possibilities of surrender" at last week's Seattle Tarot Meetup. So the brief notes here are only the tip of the iceberg.

Thinking about what cards made sense in each position made for a very illuminating "reading" for me, a real tribute to the structure Beth laid out. As a bonus, I felt a much better understanding for the spread when I was done.

Voyager

After the face-up reading, I took a break from the tarot for a while ... and danced to a great set by DJ Anomaly! The music was fantastic, the snacks and drinks were tasty, and the crowd was happy. So I was in a good frame of mind when I got back to tarot.

I did the next reading with James Wanless' Voyager Tarot***, and some of the cards came as a real surprise to me.

[I did this reading and the next one in our atrium, with some wonderful lighting. The image in the background of the readings give an idea of what it looked like.]

Fear: Three of Cups, Love
Hope: Woman of Cups, Rejoicer
Transform: Eight of Wands, Harmony
Release: Ten of Worlds, Reward
Ground: Nine of Wands, Integrity
Create: Ten of Crystals, Delusion

Delusional? Afraid of love? Yikes!

Although a lot of the other cards make perfect sense. In Hope, the Rejoicer has a lot of the same connotations of celebration as the card I chose face-up. In Transform, Harmony (the Voyager Eight of Wands,) has a lot in common with Rachel Pollack's interpretation of my face-up card Temperance. Integrity is a fine ground. And Reward as what to Release immediately felt right: -- rather than trying to justify doing the creative work in terms of any expectation of a reward or payoff (or worse feeling entitled to a reward), instead doing it because it makes me happy.

And perhaps the Ten of Crystals just seems delusional to others. In the Voyager Companion, James warns about false expectations and delusions of grandeur, but adds

[Y]our pipedreams and hallucinations make you an imaginative, farsighted, visionary. Follow your visions and dreams and remember that all great ideas are too far out for most.... Go see if your thinking is fanciful or fortune-bearing. Take the risk.

Which certainly seems like good advice. And on further reflection these delusions can have the same positive aspect as the illusions of the Rider/Waite/Smith Seven of Cups. Embrace the irrationality as part of the creativity! As Katzi suggested in a discussion on the Alternative Tarot Network, after pointing out that the other cards all suggest confidence,

Don't let your fears hold you back. In fact, use the idea of delusion to your advantage. What incredible things can your imagination dream up? Work towards making it happen, however fanciful it might sound!

As for the Three of Cups, Love in the Fear position ... as well as the literal meaning, there's the context of the face-up reading, where I chose the Three of Cups as my hopes. So one way of looking at this is as being scared (at some level) of my dreams coming true. Beyond that, as Beth says, it's not easy to write about your fears in publc, so let's just say there are plenty of other interesting possibilities -- clearly a lot to think about here as well as I face my fears.

Obscurity

The third deck I used, Obscurity, was created by a friend of mine as part of work we're doing on TapestryMaker (the software these screenshots come from).**** It's a major-arcana-only deck that's unusual, maybe even unique, in being designed from the beginning for online use. Earlier I described a reading as a discussion between the querent, reader, and cards, but that's an oversimplication: the creator or creators of the deck are also involved in the conversation. Unsurprisingly, it's often a different discussion with Obscurity than with Voyager.

Fear: The Lovers
Hope: The Tower
Transform: Temperance
Release: The Star
Ground: Justice
Create: The World

Once again context matters a lot. Temperance shows up in the same position it did in the face-up reading is kind of a big arrow and exclamation point saying "pay attention!" And while I'd usually think of Lovers in the Fear position as fear of making a choice or perhaps fear of the consequences of a choice, the parallel to Love in the same position in the Voyager reading potentially points to a more literal interpretation. Similarly Justice fits in well Integrity, and Releasing the Star makes a lot of sense as a complement to Reward -- releasing the idea that I'm the star.

And there are a couple cards from another reading I did with a friend last week. The Tower, the blinding flash of insight that turns everything around in liberatory intellectual upheaval, was also a hope in that reading: the archetype I'm hoping to become And the World's unification of my inner sense of being and outer activities, earlier in the position of "Which virtue of evolved consciousness to guide me", seems like a great way to make my intention real and go forth and create.

Speaking of cards that showed up in earlier readings, the Temperance and Justice were in the two-card new moon reading I had done with obscurity back in September. Then, Temperance was "What I need to learn" and Justice was "What I need to change". Hmm, I'm noticing a pattern here ...

Reflections

After finishing the Voyager reading I thought about all three readings for a while and then meditated. Since then, I've done what I do for other "big" readings: reflected on the individual cards and the whole reading in more detail, both in terms of what I can learn and what I might want to do next. Of course I don't do put in this much effort into every reading, but there's so much here it seems very much worth the investment. With the solstice, a Christmas full moon, and then New Year's coming up, there are plenty of opportunities for followon questions, so it's a great chance to align things for 2016.

Like I said at the beginning, one big takeaway is it's time to do some writing. As well as blogging -- about tarot, diversity, social networks, civil liberties, psytrance, and who knows what else -- I'm going to dust off e-luminatus and who knows, maybe even g0ddesses.net. There's lots of good stuff in the readings about the why and how to do it but at the simplest level it comes down to just doing it. And enjoying it!

That's only part of the answer, though. The final cards of the readings are give three complementary perspectives on the path to creativity: be The Fool, follow my vision and don't be limited by others ideas of what's "rational", and unify my inner sense of being with my outer activities. Seems like good advice to me!

* the same place I met Beth. Oooh, synchronicity!

** images via Wikipedia. Images are believed to be public domain in the US; copyright also claimed by US Games System and used under the "free Tarot education" clause in their Reproduction and Usage Policy for Copyrighted Tarot Images. The Rider-Waite-Smith tarot is available for purchase from US Games and as various apps including , Fool's Dog, and the Beautiful Tarot.

*** images copyright 1985 by James Wanless, used with permission. Voyager Tarot is availabe online at jamesgwanless.com ... a new Android app is coming soon!

**** images copyright 2015 by TapestryMaker, used with permission.

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Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?

2015-12-13T21:53:12Z

It's been a while ... good to be back :)

A lot's happened since I last posted here. One thing that hasn't happened, for the most part, is writing: poetry, fiction, journaling, or blogging. It's felt like that's been missing to me for a while, and I really want to change it. Hopefully I will!

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Still alive ...

2013-10-15T19:08:02Z

Yes, I exist :)

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The internet is the best place for dissent to start

2012-01-04T00:02:04Z

Nice article by Cory Doctorow in The Guardian, agreeing with Ethan Zuckerman's "Cute Cats" theory that despite all their issues mainstream social networks -- the Facebooks, YouTubes, Twitters, and Google+'s of the world -- are a great place for activism. He concludes:

First, we have to convince our own governments that when they mandate snoopy back-doors and kill-switches in social media, they give that capacity to dictators, too.

Secondly, we have to make the connection between copyright enforcement surveillance and global justice struggles, by explaining as often as necessary that you can't make a system that prevents spying by secret police and allows spying by media giants.

And finally, we have to convince these businesses that it is in their interests to make the architectural changes that protect their users from arbitrary detention, torture and murder when they make the unplanned transition from cute cats to impromptu atrocity videographer.

That's 2012, then, and several of the years that will follow. Let's get busy.

Indeed!

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Quite a contrast, which seems like a good thing to me: New Year's Eve 2011/2012

2012-01-03T06:53:45Z

2011 wasn’t the year I expected it to be. But while it’s easy (and depressing) to look at what didn’t happen, one of my resolutions was to take a more asset-based thinking approach to life. If I look at what I — and we — accomplished this year, it’s pretty impressive.

-- NanoEvolution

In keeping with the goal I overachieved on the most in 2011 ("spend more time with family and friends"), we decided to spend a quiet New Years Eve at home hanging out with a few people … most of whom got sick and cancelled. So it was a very low-key wrap-up to 2011 and start to 2012, quite a contrast to the last couple years.

Which seems like a good thing to me.

Time to move on

This year was the most I've journalled since 2004/2005 and it's been interesting to reread the posts as I've been editing DJ Anomaly at the Atrium 2011 started out great guns, but then there were some big "pivots" both professionally and personally.

Startups are hard, and some key things really are out of my control -- Google's stubbornness on the nymwars for example. And overachieving on "friends and family" goal took a lot of time and energy. So while I did a pretty darn good job on my resolutions, my progress against other goals wasn't what I had hoped. Sigh.

More positively though things are in a good place as we head into 2012:

After a lot of groping around, Qweries is on track for a minimum viable product and a killer go-to-market plan: privacy, diversity, startups, zombies, RAWRRRRRR!

The network of people who have heard a bit about Qweries and like the idea continues to grow.

While the writing I've been doing is far from a finished product, there's plenty of grist for the mill for Change the World and Make Friends Doing It and no doubt some other projects.

Creatively, DJ Anomaly at the Atrium is the best poetry year I've had in a long time.

And most important, my connections with the people I love the most, the elements at the core of my world, continue to get richer and more magical; and new friendships are blossoming as well.

So: good progress -- yay me! Still, it was a tough year - for me and a lot of my friends and family. I'm glad it's done.

Meanwhile at the societal level, I would say much the same. It was a great year for social network activism: Arab Spring, bipartisan opposition to the Patriot Act, Save the Rave, Occupy, and SOPA. That said it was also a pretty depressing year politically, with Obama continuing to follow the Bush/Cheney lead on civil liberties, massacres in Syria and Libya, SCAF resisting change in Egypt, the crackdown on Occupy, NDAA, Iraq, Iran …

Once again, good progress, tough year. Time to move on.

A change is coming

There has never been a year like 2012, and it is unlikely that there will ever be one again.

-- The year that will rock the world – "21st century revolution remix"

Building on last year's flowering of protest, 2012's movements will have people in the streets around the world. Meanwhile we've got the Eurozone crisis, ugly elections in Iran, the US, and elsewhere, and the 1% trying to hold on to power. Who knows how it'll work out but change is in the air….

There has never been a successful social movement – from the Suffrage Movement to the Civil Rights Movement – that was successfully sustained exclusively by those who were not at the heart of the matter.

-- Carla Rover, How to play to win, Women 2.0

And change is in the air in the tech world, too. Facebook seems on top of the world, as it approaches a billion users and an IPO; Google continues to grow despite its multi-front war against Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, and its own users. But from a strategy perspective, they're both looking vulnerable. Meanwhile in the startup ecosystem, women, blacks, Latinos and others who haven't had the same advantages as white guys continue to organize and network and succeed.

I'm still not entirely sure how to invest in this megatrend, but it sure feels like it is upon us.

-- Fred Wilson, 2012: The Year that Movements go Mainstream?, A VC

So it's a great time to be working on a startup that's starting by prioritizing diversity and thinking about use cases involving activism and movements and rights as well as monetization. It's also a great time for to have been writing about this for the last four years. And from an activism perspective, all kinds of exciting opportunities are shaping up!

See why I'm looking forward to 2012?

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Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T21:53:45Z

Last year one of my resolutions was "spend more time on diversity-friendly social networks, and less in sexist, racist, and elitist environments". I didn't wind up hanging out on Dreamwidth as much as I had expected ... for whatever reason, it's proven real difficult for me to meet people here. Hopefully 2012 will involve me spending more time here and on similar sites! Might as well get started with a "happy new year" post ...

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Notes from Underground: IllumiNation, Travelling, and Transition II

2011-11-14T04:21:14Z

Why yes, I have been quiet for a while now that you mention it. We spent almost a month on the road, starting with Sacramento for a privacy coalition meeting, and SF for Olli Wisdom at Space 550. We had juggled our plans to be at IlluminiNation, and it was totally the right call. 550 Barneveld is a great venue, and we ran into plenty of familiar faces from back in 2003/2004 when we used to hang out there all the time. Musically, DJ Dragn'fly was great, and Olli was Olli -- not as good as his legendary 2004 (((thump)) set, but still. One of our friends was at her first psytrance party. How cool is that?

The rest of the weekend was sunny in SF. We took it easy on Saturday, and I spent Sunday hanging out in Dolores park with a friend. Life is good.

Monday morning, it was on the train to DC. Well, more accurately, the train to Chicago, which got there eight hours late. So we missed our connection. So we wound up on an overnight thirteen-hour bus ride to DC. Fun! Well no, not actually. But still, we made it; and BORDC's board retreat (the main reason we were there) was excellent. From there it was on to Charleston to see my Mom; very weird not celebrating Halloween, but it was great to see her. And then back to SF again, and finally home to Seattle. After sleeping at four different hotels, three residences, the train, and the bus (or at least trying to, on a 14-hour overnight trip from Chicago to DC) ... can I just say how good it is to be home?

Wednesday evening, when we finally got back here, I dropped by the Atrium. They had been closed for a few days after their Halloween weekend blow-out, and it was fairly low-key, but it was great to be back. Friday night was a stompy darkwave set by DJ Anomaly, and then last night was Transition II.

Of course The Atrium's nowhere as big as Barneveld, but even with a small crowd the vibe is amazing. It was looking partcularly trippy Friday night, with some new UV-active Cyberdog artifacts and gorgeous flowers. And the light makes everybody look good!

no! its not a secret forbidden world that only a few fortunate transgressive people can/must participate in. it's all of that but it is also a world anybody can enter.... and so its all about how you want the fantasies to be.

-- Can Fantasy Stand Against Hegemony?, 2003

Over a lunch at Samover in SF earlier in the week, I was talking with a friend about how the magic that happens when a psytrance party goes well -- and how to get more of that magic in our day-to-day lives. Saturday night I was thinking about her and all the wonderful times we've had together, and looking forward to the next time we go out. After I while I let my mind turn off, enjoyed the music and the vibe, and danced with D. It was another great night. Plenty of magic.

I heart psytrance.

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Notes from Underground: Welcome Home at the Atrium

2011-10-13T15:32:11Z

It was a great vacation: SF, Edinburgh, London, SF again ... good times with friends and on our own, by train, automobile, and yes even plane -- without going through a single body scanner. w00t! The next few months will be pretty hectic but I'm feeling recharged after the trip.

We drove up from SF and got back to Seattle on Wednesday afternoon. There was an early show with a "special suprise guest" at The Atrium, and when we dropped by who should we find but DJ Anomaly, back from her European mini-tour, playing an unannounced set at "Welcome Home". How cool is that?

We bopped for a while, had a glass of wine, and were home before 11. I heart psytrance.

jon

PS: the tweet at the top has nothing to do with the rest of the story, I just liked it

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Reengaging, incrementally

2011-10-10T17:02:48Z

What rituals would make you happier?
What would you like to introduce to your life?
Introduce no more than one or two rituals at a time
and make sure they become habitual before you introduce new ones.
"Incremental change is better than ambitious failure.
Success feeds on itself."

-- Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier, p. 9-10

It's been a mighty relaxing ten days. My break wasn't quite complete: I used Twitter, Facebook, and email a few times each to arrange logistics, and spent a couple of hours reading blogs one night to see what was going on in the world. Even so, it was a dramatically different rhythm. Which makes it a great opportunity to rethink how I'm engaging with social media.

As a first step, last night and this morning, I checked the places I usually hang out. Have I mentioned recently how much I like social networks? Usually I don't hit all of them in order, so it was interesting to compare-and-contrast. Each of them has a different feel -- and a different focus:

my Dreamwidth reading page has comics, information about Nanowrimo, and a couple of great diversity-oriented blog posts.
free-association, tribe.net, Diaspora *, and Google+ all have privacy and civil liberties stories I haven't read; Travel Underground and FlyerTalk cover the TSA
Twitter, Google+ and a few of my favorite blogs have bunches of stuff on activism and politics
Geek Feminism and (rather unexpectedly) Quora* cover women in technology
Facebook has updates and photos from several of my closest friends and a lot of activist and professional former colleagues
Google+ and Hacker News have tech and entrepeneurial news -- and as a bonus, Google+ also has some links on writing and some great photography
in email, there's a conference being organized -- and my brother's sent me a funny link

It sure seems like a ridiculously long list ... in fact my first reaction was "no wonder I'm so much more relaxed when I'm taking a break from online." Then again I don't want to give any of them up -- especially since almost all of them are places where I hang out with a diverse group of people -- including some good friends -- who I don't stay in touch with any other way.** So yeah, it seems like a good time to look at my rituals.

Since I want to spend more time on Dreamwidth and Diaspora *, I'll make those the focus of my start-the-day ritual: checking them first, sharing some links on D* and writing a DW blog post, and jumping into the comments in both places.

Here's to incremental change!

jon

PS: It's easy enough to tweet the links and share them on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ as well -- and for privacy and civil liberties stories it's not so hard to cross-post them to tribe and free-association too. But at what point does it become too much and lead me to distraction? Hmm, dunno; I'll have to experiment.

* where Harvard student Alisha Ramos posted a link to her' senior thesis project Where are the ladies
** Hacker News and Quora are the exceptions here, but they're important for professional purposes.

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See you in a week or two!

2011-09-28T20:01:15Z

I love social networks.

They're how I follow the news, get different perspectives, stay in touch with friends -- and make new ones. When people complain that online connections are just a poor substitute for "real life", I just shake my head and tell them they're doing it wrong. And as I've argued passionately in Cognitive evolution and revolution, The future of civil liberties, A grassroots social network activist's perspective, and Freedom not fear, combining social network and real world activism is a great opportunity to regain our rights online and off.

But there are downsides as well. Facebook constantly changing its interface and finding new ways to violate my privacy, the arrogance and elitism of the guys running Google+ and their evil naming policy (along the incessant circling over the last few days), Diaspora*'s inability to edit posts or block obnoxious people … and the time I spend checking FB, G+, D*, Twitter, Quora, Dreamwidth, tribe.net, free-association and elsewhere.

So it's time for a break from social networks.

See you in a week or two!

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Constitution Day 2011: Freedom not Fear

2011-09-16T16:03:02Z

In the aftermath of my events on Sept. 11, 2011, I feel violated, humiliated and sure that I was taken from the plane simply because of my appearance. Though I never left my seat, spoke to anyone on the flight or tinkered with any “suspicious” device, I was forced into a situation where I was stripped of my freedom and liberty that so many of my fellow Americans purport are the foundations of this country and should be protected at any cost….

This country has operated for the last 10 years through fear. We’ve been a country at war and going bankrupt for much of this time. What is the next step?

-- Shoshana Hebshi, Some real Shock and Awe: Racially profiled and cuffed in Detroit, Tales from the Heartland

The F-16 fighters that had shadowed the plane before it landed in Detroit and the SWAT team that dragged Shoshanna and her two Indian seatmates from their seats was responding to the crew's report that … somebody had been spending too long in the bathroom. On the same day, F-16s also scrambled for another flight where … three people made repeated trips to the bathroom. WTF?

Following a catastrophic national event, such as 9/11 in the United States, conditions are anything but ordinary. The people are traumatized, they long for someone to make them feel secure, and an ancient paranoia switch is once again waiting to snap on. Under these conditions, fear mongers thrive. Their characteristics are so hand in glove with the trauma reaction of the population that their identifying behaviors are scarcely "seen" at all. In short, after we have been thoroughly traumatized, we cannot see the devil.

-- Martha Stout, The Paranoia Switch

The fear brokers continue to rule in DC, with the TSA ratcheting up the oppression and Obama breaking his campaign promises and pushing through a PATRIOT Act extension without any additional protections. Economic fears are in overdrive as well, with so many people living close to the edge, scared of their job disappearing, or working ridiculous hours just to almost make ends meet. It's depressing even to write about it.

But fear only works so long. Jane Jacobs used to tell a story about community organizing and trying to collect signatures in Manhattan at the height of Mcarthyism in the 50s. Day afer day, everybody was scared to sign -- and who could blame them? And then one day … people started signing.

Starting late last year enough people in Tunisia got to the point where they were so done with living in fear that they put their lives on the line day after day until things changed. Which kicked off Arab Spring kicked off, with people in Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, and Syria also risking torture and death. Now there are huge demonstrations in Spain, Greece, and Israel. At some point, people collectively say "enough is enough".

This Saturday, September 17th, concerned European citizens with the Freedom not Fear movement have decided to take their protest to the capital of the European Union, Brussels. Their slogan: Stop the surveillance mania

-- Katitza Rodriguez, Freedom Not Fear: Ending A Decade Long Legacy of International Privacy Erosion, EFF's Deep Links

Back in 2009, I was on a panel at CFP where Ralf Bendrath talked about the first years of Freedom not Fear. I coveredGet FISA Right and Join the Impact, Gaurav Mishra discussed Vote Report India, and moderator Nancy Scola led us in a debate about whether social networks were more likely to be a tool for liberation -- or for repression. I was optimistic, and it seems to me that events since then have largely justified that optimism.

Of course it's the people who make the difference, and social network sites are only one of many tools they use. But as tools go, they're mighty powerful -- especially combined with the kind of local and national organizing Shahid Buttar of Bill of Rights Defense Committee describes in Restoring the Fourth Amendment: How We the People can Win Over Washington.

So while the fear brokers still seem in control in DC, I think we're in the middle of a shift. At the height of February's unexpected resistance, the PATRIOT Act was the hottest topic on blogs and Twitter. Even the Wall Street Journal is against e-Verify, the latest incarnation of a National ID Card. And the TSA's continued overreach and incompetence is sparking more and more anger across the political spectrum.

By the time Constitution Day 2012 rolls around, I expect we'll see a lot more people choosing freedom over fear here in the US as well.

Why not start today?

Happy Constitution Day!

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Planning on hanging out here more ... and checking out Diaspora*

2011-09-16T01:30:53Z

After checking out Google+ over the summer, I'm planning on spending more of my time here this fall. I had plenty of great discussions there and met a lot of interesting people (including a lot of folks from DW) but it's way too much of a boys club ... and the nymwars mean that a lot of my friends got suspended or left in disgust. On the other hand, it really made me appreciate Dreamwidth. So I'm going to try to hang out here more.

I'm also checking out Diaspora. If you're over there, please say hi!

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Rethinking resolutions

2011-01-16T13:27:35Z

Rethinking resolutions

3 a.m. in the darkness.
Relaxing after cocooning.
Vibrations. Radiant energy.
Chamomile tea. The mist outside.
Paths not taken. Kundalini awoken.
The Queen of Swords, the Empress.
Candlelight and thoughts of Goddesses.
The sun transformed, a watchful moon observes.

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Taking the Train!

2010-12-10T00:14:21Z

We got on the train in Seattle’s King St. Station: a quick ID check, and that was it.

No nude pictures.

No irradiation.

No groping.

This is how travel should be.

View from Amtrak's Coast Starlighter

Of course, it’s not ideal. If we had flown, we’d have been in SF by lunchtime; instead, we’ll get there for breakfast the next day. The wifi connection on the train wasn’t working, so we couldn’t get as much work done as we had hoped. And since It takes almost 24 hours to get to San Francisco, so we had sprung for a “roomette” (a two-seat compartment that converted to two beds), which made it a lot more expensive than flying.

But it’s got plenty of upsides as well. It took us back to the days of traipsing around Europe with rail passes and overnighting in couchettes, although the seats and beds are a lot more comfortable than we remembered. There’s a lounge car, with games to play, and other passengers are friendly. And most importantly, we’re voting with our checkbook.

We usually fly a lot, and so we called our airline to let them know why we wouldn’t be taking any trips this holiday season — and to ask them to continue to lobby the TSA as well as our Senators and Congresspeople. The woman I talked to on the phone said they’ve gotten a lot of similar calls.

So it really feels like the right thing to do. And as far as protests go, it’s remarkably comfortable!

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Five out of six ain't bad

2010-12-04T23:24:31Z

A thought that came to mind walking through the park yesterday,: there are five things that I especially enjoy these days

5 things I enjoy:

1. hanging with D
2. walking in the park
3. social network activism
4. writing
5. dancing to psytrance and/or darkwave music

Reflecting on this today walking through the park, I realized that there's also one thing I enjoy a lot that I'm not getting anywhere near enough of: hanging out with my friends. Hmm, so as always there's room for improvement. But still.

Five out of six ain't bad :-)

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Color me impressed ...

2010-10-16T14:30:23Z

Raphael from Diaspora stepped in after the incident I discussed yesterday in What a maroon. Well done. Color me impressed.

We exchanged some email afterwards, and he invited me to please stick around. Guess I will :-)

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What a maroon

2010-10-15T14:53:53Z

Over the summer I was debating about whether to get involved in the Diaspora project ... I mean, we really need a privacy-friendly Facebook alternative, and without any disrespect to Appleseed and OneSocialWeb, it seems to me that because of their visibility and a great name, Diaspora currently has the best chance to get to critical mass.

My initial reaction was a big red flag from a diversity perspective: the "Diaspora 4" are all white guys from the same school. Then again they're hanging out at Pivotal Labs in San Francisco -- home of Sarah Mei, who's done such great work getting women involved in the San Francisco Ruby community -- so I decided not to rush to any conclusions.

When Diaspora's first release revealed a lack of security thinking, I realized this was a place I could potentially help. I sent some initial ideas to their developer mailing list ... and Sarah replied in great detail with some very helpful feedback. Then there was a real stroke of luck: I happened to send the next draft to a friend at the exact time that she ran into one of the Diaspora guys in a bar in SF. Not sure of the details, but my friend wound up volunteering to help Diaspora with threat modeling. How cool is that? This afternoon I'm giving a talk to several hundred people and will similarly be encouraging them to get involved.

Of course security isn't the only thing I'm interested in. So when I saw cvharquail's outstanding If Women Had Designed Facebook I sent it to the Diaspora discussion list to see how people would react. The discussion was somewhat narrow, not really addressing the bigger picture, but there were some decent replies weighing the pros and cons of customizing profiles and how best to go about it.

And then a couple days ago somebody weighed in with this:

I'm surprised that all of you missed the glaring, well-known public
fact of Mark Zuckerberg being red-green colorblind (an X-linked trait),
so the blue theme was the only one he could actually see rendered
the way unaffected viewers see it. Period.

The arrogant feminist crank "scholar" who wrote the original article
that spawned this thread, of course, couldn't be bothered to see
past her own delusional fantasies about the way the world works.

What a maroon.

I mean, let's just tick off a few of the ways this is a bad idea.

it's flipping off somebody (me) who's showing up and helping the project

it's passing up a chance to enlist somebody extremely respected and influential (cv)

it's ignoring the huge opportunity for Diaspora and any of the other Facebook competitors: women are the majority of Facebook users, they've got a track record of privacy invasions, and a movie just came out portraying their CEO as a sexist asshole

it's likely to drive away women -- and guys who don't want to be in environments where this kind of behavior goes on

And sure enough, in a comment on cv's thread, Hannah said

I was kind of depressed to see the response when it was posted on the Diaspora discussion boards...

Yeah really. Sigh.

Oh well. Looking at it more positively, it's an interesting test for the Diaspora team -- who quite probably has never had to deal with a situation like this before where they're the ones in power and setting the tone for the project.

Diversity best practices are to visibly step in and say something along the lines of "that's not how we do things here -- it's fine to disagree about whether or not this is important, but avoid the personal attacks." And it would be even better if they go further: explicitly say that they want to involve women both in the project and as users and talk about what they're doing on that front, and perhaps even express interest in applying some of cv's perspectives and learning about Gender HCI and Feminist HCI. Maybe I'll send them cv's followup post Designing for Feminists vs. Designing for Women: Different vs. Revolutionary to see how people react.

As for the troll, stop me if you've heard this before but ...

What a maroon.

PS: for more on Facebook's all-blue UI and Zuckerberg's color-blindness, see Anil Dash's The Facebook Reckoning and my comment.

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I was at a party last night ...

2010-10-14T15:04:47Z

Last month at the Women Who Tech Telesummit afterparty in San Francisco I was talking to damned_colonial about how it's a little intimidating to show up at a new social network site like Dreamwidth which is so different from other sites I've hung out on. Back a few years ago I spent most of my time on discussion-oriented sites like tribe.net, Seducersworld, and free-association ... now it's mostly Twitter and Facebook. A journal-oriented site is new to me.

Unsurprisingly she was very helpful and gave me a bunch of tips to get started. One of the things I particularly remember her saying was along the lines of "So, if you were going to write about this, it might go something like 'I was at a party last night,' and describe it a little, and then mention some of the people you met here and what you talked about, then maybe that made you think about something else, and you kind of go from there." She said it better of course but in any case it sounded like good advice to me. So here goes ...

I was at a party last night. Well, actually it was a networking event for the "Blue Hat" conference which is happening on the Microsoft campus this week. So there were a bunch of security researchers from all over, and a lot of guys who work on security at Microsoft and its competitors.

And yes I use the term "a lot of guys" advisedly. It was probably 95% male. Y'know there are a lot of things I miss about doing computer security for a living, but this is not one of them. Sigh.

Fortunately there were a few women there, including friends of mine from my Microsoft days like my research partner Sarah and her colleagues Dana, Celene (who I once tried to hire), Ellen (as usual we also talked about Burning Man) and of course Window, who's now at Apple. At one point a bunch of us were hanging out near the door and there was this tiny bubble of an area with a 50-50 gender ratio ... but then everybody went their separate ways and started shmoozing, then got dispersed in the crowd.

Of course I had some great discussions with guys too, and the three topics that came up the most were static analysis, Facebook, and Diaspora. "Static analysis" is this ultra-specialized field of automatically analyzing a program's code without running it (hence "static") and finding bugs, and it was my entire professional life for almost a decade. So it's really fun to touch base and hear about how much progress has been made since then -- and also about the areas like the user experience where there hasn't been any significant progress. However static analysis is also incredibly boring to the 99.999% of the world who care about value flow graphs and sat solvers so I won't talk about it any more here.

Facebook and Diaspora, though, are hopefully of more general interest.

Facebook discussions revolved around two things: The Social Network and how much everybody hates Facebook. The people I talked to hadn't seen the movie yet and wondered what I thought. The short answer: it's filled with misogyny (like cleverthylacine describes here), and racial stereotyping. If you can hold your nose and get over that, well, the dialog and acting are great, and it does an amazing job at portraying Zuckerberg as an ultra-successful unethical sexist geek ... the kind of guy we've all worked with in the past taken to the nth level. I saw it with a friend who's not on Facebook (for privacy reasons), and after we left she said "well, that certainly makes me feel good about my decision." Yeah really.

But what constantly surprises me about the discussions of Facebook is how many people hate, hate, hate it -- and can't wait for a viable alternative. During TechCrunch Disrupt, missrogue had tweeted that people talk about Facebook now the way they talked about MySpace five years ago (i.e. not long before they started having major problems) but I think it's worse than that. Facebook's arrogance and dick-wagging reminds me a lot of Microsoft in the 1990s, and as evil empires go they're a lot bigger than MS was. And with their pattern of privacy abuses, prohibiting domestic violence survivors from using pseudonyms, disabling accounts without a real appeals process, banning breast-feeding photos, turning down marijuana legalization aspects, etc. etc. etc. there's something that affects almost everybody personally in a way that MySpace hadn't yet gotten to.

Which brings us to Diaspora, the nascent open-source, privacy friendly Facebook alternative. There are a lot of similar projects in the works, and Appleseed and OpenSocialWeb are both a lot farther along, but Diaspora's gotten by far the most buzz. In a classic case of "right place at the right time", the four guys from NYU launched Disapora in May just as Facebook privacy issues were hitting the cover of Time magazine, and in a few weeks raised $200,000 on Kickstarter. Since then they've moved to San Francisco, gotten free office space at Pivotal Labs, gone to Burning Man ... and on September 15, released their software to the community -- on schedule. Kudos to them.

Needless to say the kudos are not unmitigated. From a security perspective, there's (cough) ample room for improvement. I'm giving a talk on Friday on What Diaspora can learn from Microsoft about security and it was interesting to hear what people thought. Even in the security community, almost everybody agrees that Diaspora made the right choice by initially focusing on functionality rather than security, but there's a lot of skepticism whether they'll be able to raise their game. We shall see.

What's encouraging though is that everybody sees Diaspora's value. The general feel is that one way or another, the time is right for Facebook alternatives. Whether or not it's Diaspora who cracks through to mainstream adoption, it's a great learning experience and a proof by example of just how eager people are for an alternative.

So even though I would have enjoyed it a lot more if it hadn't been so overwhelmingly male, I came away from the party optimistic. There's some really interesting things happening with next-generation social network sites and emotional software. I have a feeling that Facebook may well be in for a much bumpier ride than anybody expects ... and that fairly soon there will be a lot more options for people who don't want to spend their online lives in a creepy, panoptic environment where the people are the product.

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I really am going to start posting more here ...

2010-10-13T15:18:09Z

I haven't been in a journaling mood lately, and have been focusing a lot more on the Tales from the Net and kind of analytic stuff I write on Liminal States like the TechCrunch, disrupted series on women in technology. But over the weekend I was reflecting that things are probably skewed for me right now, and journaling could be a good way to get it back in balance. And I really do want to explore Dreamwidth!

Of course there's never enough time in the day, so we'll see how good I am about actually following up. But at least for now, I'm determined :-)

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