Long time no post. I’ve been very heads down with a new MindTouch.com site relaunch, building a sales team and cementing some great new partners and customers. Recently I spoke about collaboration and Free Knowledge at UCSD. Here’s the short snippet of my talk. This portion is about MindTouch Deki.

<br /<br /

Here I discuss the broader topic of collaboration for research and scientists at the same conference. I cover some common collaborative technologies and relate them to Science, Research and Publishing.

I think I might be blogging too much about Mozilla and  Firefox recently, but I’m just so much in love with this demo of Firefox Mobile. Check it out.

 

Help Mozilla set a World Record.

Are you planning on attending or hosting a party to celebrate the Firefox 3 launch, Mozilla’s 30th Anniversary, or the World Record download day?

I’ve been thinking how odd it is that I’m one of the very few 3rd generation Californians I know. My Great grand parents were Okies that came to California during the dust bowl and lived in the tent cities initially upon their arrival. So, when Sam Lawrence tweeted about Shorpy it was timely.

Here are some choice dust bowl photos.

November 1936. Arvin migratory farm workers’ camp in Kern County, California. “Tom Collins, manager of Kern migrant camp, with drought refugee family.”

“Children of Oklahoma drought refugee in migratory camp in California.” November 1936

“Destitute pea pickers living in tent in migrant camp. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two.” Nipomo, California. February 1936. Photograph by Dorothea Lange. The anonymous subject of this famous Depression-era portrait known as “Migrant Mother” came forward in the late 1970s and was revealed to be Florence Owens Thompson (interview). She died in 1983. Read more here.

Fantastic site. Thanks Sam!

I am SO damn proud of Tara. This last weekend my wife ran the Rock-N-Roll Marathon here in San Diego! I’m so proud of her! Ashby, Brenda (Tara’s mom) and I were there to cheer Tara on. It was very emotional. I freely admit I shed a few tears of pride and joy for her.

I don’t link to Tara’s blog here because that’s personal family content, but I’m going to excerpt Tara’s post about the marathon here.

…

The downtown part was great and more so because our families were cheering us on at mile 6. Aaron had a air horn so it was easy to locate my awesome family with their signs.

Somewhere around mile 11 on the 163 my knees started hurting and my little toe on my left foot was aching. At this point, Jarod and I are still together running and we decide to slow down our pace a little.

Right before segment 3/Mission Bay my knees are throbbing but the vibe from the fans was energizing. I liked the neighborhood feel and the view kept me distracted. Also, I tried a few new things which gave me a burst of energy such as chewing on ice cubes and bubble gum. This was around mile 18 and at this time Jarod was going faster so we split.

Around mile 21 I was HURTING beyond words and I began getting emotional – way emotional. I cut out a picture of Ashby the size of my ipod and had it taped to the back. It helped me to see my daughter however it almost brought a wave of unexpected emotion during this mile. I got it together and just focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Luckily, when I passed the corner I could see the end point way in the distance which gave me energy.

At Mile 23 I realize I passed my buddy Jarod somehow and my competitiveness creeped in (in a good way) which pushed me to the end.

At Mile 24 I walked a few steps, collected my thoughts, and pushed all pain out the door. I ran strong till Mile 25 and at that time I experienced the “runners high.” I wish I could find out how fast I ran the last mile because I would not be surprised to find out that I did it in under 8 minutes. When I made the decision to “haul ass” I looked down and I had goosebumps everywhere and I did not feel any pain whatsoever. I literally hauled ass to the finish line. I heard Aaron’s bull horn and saw the finish line all at the same time. I saw my mom and Aaron and I began crying because I was so happy to see them and to be finished.
I finished with a smile and both hands in the air.

Questions I have asked myself:

Will I do it again? Most definitely.

How soon? In the next year.

What will I do differently? I will build up my quadriceps because I believe my knees hurt so much in the long runs because my thighs are not as strong as they should be to support the knees. (my dad’s advice) 🙂

…

What is my goal? To get faster, stronger, and to finish the next marathon in 4 hours and 30 minutes.

4:50 am (my mom was up with me at 4:00 AM) 🙂

6 Mile Marker

Finish Line – weeping

Relief

Proud Daughter

Proud Husband (mom too but she was taking photos)

My Buds

Dressed for the post-marathon celebration at Jarod’s house – going through posters.

Ashby’s Poster

Aaron’s Poster

Poppa and Mimi’s Poster

The Day After – very stiff but itching to jog on Thursday morning 🙂

Once again, I would never have been able to accomplish this personal goal without my ENTIRE family.

Thank you Tara for inspiring me with your drive and ambition. 🙂 I love you.

Democracy Now | Alleging War Crimes, British Activist, Writer George Monbiot Attempts Citizen’s Arrest on Former UN Ambassador John Bolton

John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, escaped a citizen’s arrest Wednesday night as he addressed an audience in Britain. We speak to George Monbiot, the British activist and columnist who tried to arrest Bolton. Monbiot says Bolton is a war criminal for his role in helping to initiate the US invasion of Iraq.

…

GEORGE MONBIOT: Yes. Well, John Bolton has the position that any and every country of which he disapproves should be attacked, and then we work out the justification for that attack later. He was one of the signatories of the letter sent by the Project for a New American Century to Bill Clinton in 1998, saying that we should attack Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. And he had one justification then, he had a different justification in 2003, he has a different justification today. It’s very clear that with Bolton, as with Bush, as with Cheney, as with Rumsfeld, the urge to go to war came first, and the justification came second.

Now, when you look at the main instruments of international law, you see very clearly that waging a preemptive war where you are not in an immediate crisis of self-defense is a crime against international law. In fact, the Nuremberg tribunals described it as the supreme international crime. And it was for that crime that most of the Nazi war criminals were convicted. And that is exactly the crime that Bolton has conspired in committing.

I’m not sure if I mentioned that I recently did some work with Jeremy Thomas and and Aaron Newman on a book for McGraw-Hill. I provided the technical editing. It was a lot of fun, informative, and I got paid. Heck yah! I guess this makes me an expert on Enterprise 2.0 or something.

I’m excited to see the book hit the stands and to read the final version. The book is really a fantastic resource that provides just the right mix of technical and high level information. It will prove highly useful to the IT and business reader alike.

Pre-order today and save 37%.

Social Glass » Why It’s Been Quiet

Aaron Newman and I have been working for several months on putting an Enterprise 2.0 implementation guide together. Aaron Fulkerson, CEO of MindTouch, has been doing the tech editing for us. And we’ll have another all-star, Jevon MacDonald, doing the forward for us. This is my first book, and let me tell you the process is extensive. Figures and illustrations have to follow a special naming pattern, chapters have to meet pre-determined page counts, and the tone of the book has to be consistent (which is tough when you have two authors writing it). Aaron and I edited each other’s chapters as they were completed, then sent them on to Aaron F. for more editing.

1. Don’t do real work
2. Talk, type, tag, text & twitter
3. Hate a lot of stuff
4. Celebrate other douchebags

Yaaaay!!

In the spring of 2007, a conference was held on the outskirts of Washington, DC. Entitled Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan, it hearkened back to the Winter Soldier testimonies held three decades ago during the Vietnam War.

 

I originally heard this story on Democracy Now! I’m glad to see it surface on Digg. Go digg it.

I bike to work. Most days anyway. Recently I’ve been sick; so, I’ve not been biking as often as I was. MindTouch is headquartered downtown in Little Italy and I live in Mission Hills. This means I have to bike uphill on the way home. It’s not bad. The bike ride is only 2.5 miles each way and I really enjoy it. However, since I’ve been sick (for damn near 4 weeks now with 3 illnesses I think) I could really use some assistance on some days coming up the hill. Here’s an idea:

Turns out you can buy it on ebay. I wonder if that’s street legal. Probably not. There are several stop lights and signs on the way home. Taking this straight up Laurel Street would be pretty awesome though (steepest street to climb in San Diego).