This is my iguana (about 10" Snout to Vent, so about 2 years old) after he was spritzed with Bio-Mist, an aloe vera and cactus juice concoction that helps his skin. He’s molting now, so this is a look of pure joy.

Sometimes I wish I was an iguana.

This was the panel not to miss!

Tim argues that our own time is most valuable and that economies of arbitrage allow you to outsource far more than we currently outsource…

This exports jobs, obviously, but the hour I free up by delegating fighting with my cell phone company on hold is an hour I can get back to go explore the parts of the world that aren’t top 1% economies.

He would argue that you should use your free time to go “have a life.” I wonder how he would feel about using that freed up time to do more “meaningful work.”

Here are better notes

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This is going to be a fun sxsw. Once dorkbot is over, I may be able to relax a bit.

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With the everlooming sxsw-interactive rapidly crashing in on me, I tried to do something cute with my web server and email.

Everything broke and now I’ve got a duct-tape solution that at least will maybe let me get email again.

The 11th hour is too late to try to do a relaunch.

And yet here we are.

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My friend Maida told me of a superstition where if you see the sun, moon, and a white horse all in the same glance, you can make an especially ambitious wish and have it come true.

Wow.

Based on the events of the past couple weeks, I’d say that’s some powerful juju.

Austinist: Robots Run Amuck at dorkbot-austin’s Final (Free) Event of the Year:
“Those lovable geeks, mad scientists, rogue artists, and insane inventors are at again, and this time they’re closing out the year with one of their most amazing shows yet, at Cafe Mundi this Thursday.

What is Dorkbot?

• It’s a science fair with beer.
• It’s a geek talent show.
• It’s people doing strange things with electricity.
• Best of all, it’s fun, free, kid-friendly and hands-on.

We think dorkbot is exactly what Austin is all about. Nerds, artists, musicians all come together to show off their work in a casual environment. Previous dorkbot events have included singing robots, lightning bolt generators, hacked nintendos, and somebody crazy enough to electrocute a pickle. dorkbot was most recently featured on Austin Technology Matters, a new show on Austin cable access.”

My cell phone is replaced: 512.796.9545

I believe my cell phone was stolen. If you are trying to contact me, you’ll get a “service unavailable” until this gets sorted out.

I have a number which you can use to reach me: 512-782-9545 (update: 20060922_161320)

I’m also unclear on how up-to-date my phone backup is, so you may be seeing weird requests for data from me.

Argh.

For those of you that cared enough to email me desperate for gossipy wrap-ups of FOO: I’m catching up with the RealWorld right now, but I have a post in draft form of FOO camp to post at lunchtime. Wheee!

I realize how spoiled I am in Austin with all the wireless available in just about every part of town in such different varieties of venues (coffee shops, libraries, movie theaters, outdoor parks, etc).

Library - Sebastopol [?]

Both in San Francisco and here, not only was it hard to find WiFi, but it was even harder to find WiFi that was open and didn’t cost 4.95 a minute to use.

After trying a coffee bar with no seats and even McDonald’s (pay service and no electrical outlets… turns out they don’t actually want you camping out in there), I finally discovered the library.

I had to sign up for a library card in Sebastopol to access the web (and I’m convinced they’re blocking everything but port 80), but now, at least, I can do a few last-minute tasks.

Oh, yes, I’m in Sebastopol, a few hours away from Foo Camp 2006.

I’m definitely humbled by being asked to come, as I expect to have my mind blown by a collection of incredibly smart people - some are rock stars that everyone in my industry knows, some are rock stars to me - robot builders and hackers I’ve followed for a while. Still others are brand new names working on art+tech+community future media projects. All are potentially lucrative, interesting, and like-minded future collaborators.

The format of the event is the Unconference. Among other things, this implies that there is no set agenda or schedule before the event participants show up. In fact it IS the participants that determine what happens at the event and propose sessions and workshops. Based on pre-chatter, it seems that there will be a mix of web 2.0-ish talk, hardware hacking, and general goofiness.

I must admit that I’m a little nervous about that angle. I’m the kind of guy that likes to spen some time researching and planning out my general “conference strategy” of must-see talks and stuff I can do without. Wandering and engaging for the sake of wandering will be a useful exercise.

This gathering, because of its realitively small size, but more so because of its format and tone, heavily emphasizes the person-to-person connectivity I talked about in my sxsw guides. So my relentless friendliness strikes again.

After I finish a few things here, I’ll be taking in some of Patrick Amiot’s urban folk art on the way in to the O’Reilly campus. I’ll try to blog as much as I can as frequently as possible, but I can’t promise a full-on live-blogging effort (I’m there to participate and experience, not document). <!– technorati tags start –>

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