Living with Geeks

FCP Andy Coon invites your reply: what tree would grow your soul in the afterlife?

*photo uploaded by Andy Coon

KClemson tells a good one.

Two reasons:

Dave Winer’s essay from 4000 years ago (love it);

And my husband’s self-determining YOS2 (love it more).

Time’s feature coverage of new media’s influence offers a swirling mix of excitement, prediction, and candor.

I love Stengel’s quote from this Person of the Year’s edition, managing editor’s essay:

The new media age of Web 2.0 is threatening only if you believe that an excess of democracy is the road to anarchy. I don’t.

Yes!

His quote resonates the enthusiasm of the District’s new media peer group aka DC Media Makers.

–In the area & a new media nut? Join us for beers Jan. 4th.

“I’m an online content Mensa! Who cares if I’m ugly?!”

[ warning: now entering the Overkill Zone ]

Welcome to The Mighty Net where online content drives seamless, democratic access to conversation. Yet footnote, Gizmodo and Amit Agarwal still include aesthetics in this content-driven forum, specifically when it comes to analyzing content of female “babe” bloggers.

Is the driving democratic force behind new media and Node101 abandoning passion for content and embracing … babehood ratings? Are the non-Cali Lewis gals, no matter their quality of conversation — destined for mere Ugly Bettyhood?

The whole babe blogger thing doesn’t really compel a Top 10 Hot Hunks Blogger list, at least from this end of the Net. How about naming the Ugliest Male Bloggers of 2006? Nah, that’s just cruel & still plays the shallow game of focusing on looks vs ideas. Hmm.

How ’bout this:

Smart n Savvy Male Bloggers of the Year (apes? Daniel Craigs? why would we care?)

Randomly cited e.g. not in order of IQ size
-Jonny Goldstein (humor genius)
-Carl Weaver (Vlog Santa + photographer = awesome)
-Sean Stickle (IT, books, ideas…the fearless, unstoppable brain)
-Robert Scoble (not to overkill the man’s name but it was nice how he & his wife Maryam made interview time at ConvergeSouth)
-Andy Carvin (new media evangelist with a mighty wit)
-Andy Coon (Final Cut whiz, podcast conversationalist, filmmaker…can’t be beat)
-Jay Cheel (anything documentary with quality analysis…good stuff)
-Ed Cone (the man of ideas; reliable honesty)
-Billy The Blogging Poet (compelling rhymes 24/7)
-Glenn Reynolds (legal mind taking on us all & protecting blogger rights along the way)
-Ze Frank (the TED attending blinkless wonder)
-My Dad (…if he vlogged or blogged)

Who would make-up your Smart n Savvy list?

-Still pondering Smart n Savvy females…there are so many!

* photo by Luke Robinson, cc license 2.0, share, non-commercial

Dave Winer wrote this essay eons ago; it deserves a stadium applause for how it observes the wonderful exactness in computer programmers:

A great programmer is a seeker of truth and beauty. Successful programmers know how to ask questions, and they know how to ask the *right* question. You can’t go forward until that happens. A programmer is a rigorous scientist determined to coax the truth out of the ones and zeros. There’s the beauty.

This is why I can’t wait to do my job in the morning & produce this documentary and video series:

a) marriage to my IT Architect, after 6+ years, is a funky thing;
b) and computer techs in my little world like my man see life in mostly black and white e.g. the machine works or it doesn’t; the code either fixed it or didn’t; the program is either dumb or smart; people are smart or stupid.

I’m not that type of thinker; the world is one big beautiful zone of gray that takes a lot of laughter and sifting through to figure out. But really computer-centric folk seem to view things more strictly, with a unique clarity. I still like my ‘gray periscope’ but I crave the stories of computer techs to hear their versions of clarity — and how their partners experience that uniqueness. I realize this works from generalization yet it also stems from personal experience.

Loved re-reading this.

Happy New Year!

Re - building interview pipeline

It was a great day for following-up on potential interviewees & learning more DC tech groups, including DCLUG, a Linux group downtown. At tonight’s meeting, I learned about mapping virtualization (nice guy Don saw the ‘huh?’ look & explained what that meant).

Przemek Klosowski, DCLUG founder, offered some new media contacts. Direct interview leads weren’t unearthed but all was worthwhile.

More fun…:

This is a hilarious (sometimes resonating…) bit on computer techs as mates.

Thanks gal-geek-goddess Deanna for the heads-up.

My Mother pictured in front of Scientific Data Systems in California, 1965

My folks met in California in ‘67 (-on a blind date through Uncle Donnie who loves those little caramel candies he gave us kids). But that long story follows this story when kids weren’t even a flirtation.

Mom then worked in Santa Monica Scientific Data Systems where company Vice President Arnold Spielberg oversaw the engineering department (where mom was secretary to good friend Essor Maso, head of scientific computer programming). She recalls seeing Mr. Spielberg’s young son Steven, then age 20 or 21, visit his Dad at the office.

I love her memories of this; it’s simple & not overly interactive. It’s not like Steven walked up to my Mom & said ‘Hey, wanna a coffee?’ But it’s the era, it’s when computers & transistors were on the cusp of major influence. There weren’t college degrees for computer science; according to mom - she worked with brilliant people teaching themselves how to program with then new languages like Fortran & COBOL. The programmers forged computer programming on the fly.

And this young volcano of creativity name Steven just walked in to visit his Dad for lunch sometimes. Nice, neighborly.

Steven Spielberg already had made Amblin’ and Firelight by then (which led to Close Encounters). Mom wondered if he’d ever ask his Dad for cash at those visits for next projects.

Now that’s a father-son talk to envision…:

Young Steven: C’mon dad - it’ll have space ships and science and kids and aliens; it’ll be like NASA research but the aliens hug.

Dad Arnold: Um, son I’m unsure where this’ll lead long term, I mean the movies? aliens again? Why not do a nice film, a documentary, on the data chip…

Last night Mom and I discussed these memories again & shared one of those long talks where the topics first seemed unrelated but later formed an unforeseen map of how life emerges.

Delicious.