I have a new meeting edict.

I had 2 rather inspiring, back-to-back meetings this morning.

I wish I could have spent the entire day with the two people I met this morning (one a friend who’s work I admire and I feel comfortable BS’ing with, and the other a stranger-soon-to-be-friend w/ similar interests and demonstrating good ideas), I’d rather have 2 of these people in my address book than 200 people who I “friended” on linked-in.

(I usually prefer to meet in the afternoon when my energy is starting to wane for “thinking work”, but the first meeting was at 7, on purpose, so we could get a jump on the day)

I’ve decided that from now on, I’m only going to meet up in person with people who energize me to talk about things that they or I am passionate about; motivated people who are excited about what they are doing should be the bread and butter of my peoplespace.

(Meeting to “take care of business” can happen via email or on the phone, when at all possible)

As a freelancer, I often get a feeling of isolation when working on projects; sometimes this leads to a lack of accountability (i.e. peer pressure). I miss more, however, the riffing and brainstorming that happens when people willingly get together, share ideas, and are genuinely interested in each others’ (or the collective) success. (and it has to be face-to-face… virtual meetings can’t replicate the energy building of a good brainstorming session).

The corollary to this edict is my new policy of avoiding the energy vacuums who don’t listen at all and are constantly talking about their own stuff with zero expressed interest in your own work. These people tend to hang out a lot on things like facebook and consider the number of “friends” in their lists some sort of score. Bah. They like to spam their list with bragging announcements of what they are up to and expect you to spam all your contacts on their behalf. I’m happy to do this for real friends or for projects that seem worthwhile. However, the shameless self-promoter who fires off project announcement after project announcement (usually leading to a half-assed implementation) gets tiresome and at the very least hurts their credibility (and mine, if I indeed relay their messages). Instead of energizing me, I usually wilt in their presence.

At the very least, without any kind of relationship tending on their part (ex. a very basic quid pro quo or a random “how’s it going” email), I think I can definitively say: I really don’t have time for them.

I have a Cocoa app in the works, incidentally, that might help me out with this hang-up. I think I’ll call something iLove or LoveBot or LoveYa.

Building systems to collect a large social network is one thing. Building tools that urge you to deepen your relationships with friends is a whole other animal.

Stay tuned.

It’s not really on the way to or from anything, but FYI: Manchester, NH airport has free, public wireless (not open - one nag/term page to click through).

About 6 weeks ago, I found that I could grab wireless from Cincinnati airport, but alas, this was locked up under some Bell ISP. I did see a computer-to-computer connection named, suspiciously, “Free Public Wireless!” (the exclamation point pushes it over the edge of seediness). Decided to stay offline, instead.

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/46

She talks about her creative process during composition.

creativity process

• musical ideas / sketches
• choose one as “main theme”
• choose style to apply to theme and get inspiration from previous work
• make structure - outline / form
• fill in structure w/ ideas
• Polish the details
• Polish the entire piece

I just heard that the life-sized mousetrap takes 125 man-hours to assemble.

It looks great! I can’t wait to see it work.

Wow.

Landed at SFO yesterday morning and went directly to the san mateo fairgrounds.

I’m here to learn, observe, and help any way I’m needed in anticipation of Maker Faire Austin in the fall (October 21).

I’ve done everything from wiping down whiteboards to rolling up posters to cross-checking maker lists for safety waivers. Grunt work and face time and positive attitude, etc.

There is a very small team that is running around like mad, but it’s truly an amazing machine. The fair is double in size from last year. The main make/craft building made my jaw drop when I walked in seeing it so empty… Projecting tens of thousands of people showing up (not sure how “public” the “unofficial estimate” is supposed to be… but it’s BIG)

A new feature for this year’s fair is a gathering of makers beforehand to mingle (since the weekend will be so busy interacting w/ the public). Currently, I’m listening to John Law talk about the origins of burning man.

I’ll be walking in and out of the talks today as I alternate between helping out and shadowing Michelle (maker relations person) and taking in some content, selfishly.

I’ll be at Maker Faire from Wednesday until Monday of next week… I’ll try to post some behind-the-scenes stories and event photos / wrap-ups at the hotel nightly (Hilton Garden Inn - complimentary Internet! yay.)

… I have nothing to write today.

PBS Frontline did a moving story about ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). It followed Stephen Heywood’s 5 year, rapid descent into the physically paralyzing effects of the condition — the horror of the diseases is that you maintain full mental capacity as your body’s muscles cease to work. This is the same disease that put Stephen Hawkin in his much-lampooned wheelchair and robot voice. There is no cure. There are very few treatments that help the symptoms and these solutions are mildly effective and are decades old.

The problem is that this is not a profitable disease to fix. The percentage of the population affected by ALS is very small and the cost of developing treatments is very high. Furthermore, the nature of the disease makes it an extremely difficult problem to solve. It’s just not a priority for large drug companies and medical research labs.

So when you get diagnosed with ALS, you get just a few years to learn how to navigate computer interfaces by head bobs or blowing through straws before you have to be hooked up to a respirator to remain alive.

Before motorized wheelchairs and feeding tubes, people would just die from this disease… buried alive in their own functionless bodies. The Frontline piece was very clear that technology and science innovation has helped the situation, but the methods of innovation are slowed by layers of regulation, and advances have not kept pace with rapidly destructive diseases like ALS. Sure, drugs may come out, but it’ll be years too late for you.

This is where hackers can help.

Hackers hold in common a belief that rules can and should be questioned. They have courage to break things in hopes to gain knowledge or to build something newer and better.

Stephen’s brother, Jamie Heywood, refused to sit still while his brother suffered from the effects of the disease. He started a guerilla laboratory and ALS foundation. With his brother as inspiration, he raised millions of dollars in funding to do fast and nimble research. He has no medical degree, but learned enough about biology and medicine to understand what he needed to pull together and to be conversant with medical professionals who could help the effort.

These rogue scientists operated within ethical and legal rules, but they turned their back on traditional and bureaucratic paths to cures. For example, rather than take a bottom up approach by studying and fabricating chemical compounds of drugs, they identified and tested fully manufactured drugs, already approved by the FDA, to see if they had any effect.

His approaches and lack of pedigree definitely makes the mainstream medical community very uncomfortable. Some scoff, some worry and consider Jamie dangerous, and many simply dismiss. Nevertheless, his sales skills are exceedingly good, and he’s clearly smart enough to hold his own. There is a scene in the story that would rile up any rogue thinker — Jamie is at a neuroscience conference and is approached by a detractor. They get into it. The doctor questions Jamie’s research, questions his methodology, and points out that he is circumventing “standard” research practices. So Jamie asks the doctor if he has ever questioned the rules. The guy then proceeds to let out what can only be described as an arrogant guffaw and tells Jamie that he “is SOOOO NAIVE.”

But why don’t people question their rules? Now, I admit, I AM naive when it comes to the medical profession. However, scientific developments happened, prolifically, in absence of the strict regulating rules for centuries. Where is the Thomas Edison of genetics, hacking away in his homemade genetic engineering lab in the garage? And when he does produce worldchanging innovations one after another, will he be laughed at? Will his ideas be celebrated, or will they be regulated away as unusual and therefore not worthy of commercialization simply because his research methods are not “approved”? Are the rules stacked against the garage hacker?

I think the rules are in place to protect corporate assets against lawsuits.

Hacking is about failing repeatedly until you get it right — for every brilliant moment, there are hundreds and thousands of just as spectacular failures. So, if our society behaves in a way that makes legal punishment the first response to failure, then we have a stifling effect that demotivates anybody from taking risks while innovating.

The hacker scientists at the Heywood ALS lab put it best: these victims of the disease are going to die in a few years anyway. What do they have to lose?

Attended in the UT STS forum on Surveillance this morning. I came in a few minutes before the program started and they had a group of actors wandering around snapping photos and making some general point of harassing attendees to trade “anonymity dollars” for masks that would protect the audience from being surveilled.

I fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. I initially declined the thumbprint scan at the front door to get some dollars, but gave in when the guy basically said, “Oh, come on, be a good sport. This is part of the forum.” Inside, I tried to prevent one guy from filming me and even said “I would rather leave than have you continue filming me”, but he did not relent and clearly I gave him the reaction he was hoping for so he kept coming back to me. I’m a sucker and I’m sure they will get a big laugh out of it when they review the footage.

They screened a short film Surveillance and You, produced by 3 STS graduate students that was quite good for providing a remedial level of awareness. It should be mandatory viewing for avg. joe citizen who may be a little unsure about how much data is being collected about him.

Dr. Philip Doty. associate professor at UT School of Information, talks about the myth of perfect information - provides a reality check on the level of information and ability to mine data and cautions against policy decisions that revolve around the assumption that information is mine-able.

The breakout session w/ Dan Updegrove ‚Äì Special Assistant (former Vice President), Office of Vice President for Information Technology, Information Technology Services (UT Austin), was probably the most interesting part of the forum — it really didn’t focus on surveillance, but addressed a smattering of issues from the IT world at the university in a focused Q&A format. He talked about and answered well lots of questions about RIAA, Privacy, and Secure transactions as they apply to university. He told the story, a little bitterly and w/ a bit of gloating over the end result, of Christopher Phillips, the student who broke the UT computer system to glean SS numbers of applicants.

“Google is a fantastic search engine. GMail is a valuable and useful email system Google and GMail together is pathological.”

Generational and geographic differences was a recurring topic. GenNext is very used to technology invading private lives and bubbling them up to the public sphere. The US is hyperfocused on technology and individualism and private spheres (as opposed to focused on community building, sharing, and social justice).

Feedback-wise, I would say that focusing on audience questions was a fantastic way to structure the day. Hearing each panelist give a presentation for a very limited amount of time helped frame their particular perspectives. All presenters answered questions confidently and with an appropriate level of depth. Audience questions were hit or miss, but were all handled well.

It was a little hard to piece together all the various threads into a usable takeaway, unfortunately. The forum was great to raise the general level of paranoia, but did not follow through with obvious, immediately workable solutions. What small thing can I do today? (note: I did not sit through the optional lecture on buckling down your personal computer, however the solutions I feel we are missing are more societal and political in nature)

Conversation drifted away from surveillance often and became a more general discussion of technology intersecting with civil liberties. Narrowing the overall scope may be useful.

Remember yesterday when I said I could relate to the guys on justin.tv?

Not so much.

The arrogance, blatant misogyny, and let’s face it, frat-boy dialog is getting to be a bit much.

Maybe he’ll settle down in a month when the novelty wears off. At the very least, I hope he’ll take some zoloft and vary the tone of his voice once or twice. (I would have rather seen Michael don the headcam; he, at least, seems to have a personality).

My prediction: within three months we’re going to see Justin pull off some sort of outrageous stunt to desperately try to gain more viewers.

Sad thing is, I’ll probably still be watching.