9/11

Bryan Thatcher's 9/11 photos Bryan Thatcher published his photos of the 9/11 NYC Trade Center attacks for the first time. Bryan lives in NYC. He is the President of Fusebox which is the creator of Empressr. He’s a great guy I often run into at technology conferences and someone I always enjoy speaking with.

Bryan’s photos are powerful. I saw them initially in my Facebook stream. These images immediately grabbed my attention. These force us to remember this horrible event, which can be a good thing, I think. However, I wish we could encapsulate the terror the USA has illegitimately subjected other nations to in an equally simple and powerful set of images. On a day like today I wish Americans would also reflect on the endless war we’ve entered, the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, the United States persistent disregard of the Geneva Convention, torture, domestic surveillance, the suspension of Civil Rights and Habeas Corpus, the unprecedented expansion of executive privilege, a complete lack of federal accountability, and Hurricane Katrina. These are all things we Americans should be reflecting on today.

There is a call for a 9/11 General Strike.  I think this is a good first step. What does one do when they wake to find themselves part of the Empire? Obsequiousness  is consent. It makes us all just as guilty as those who stood by as New Orleneans drowned, farmers sold to the US Government are tortured and held indefinitely in Gitmo and other invisible prisons, another hundred thousand innocent Iraqis are starved and killed, and war profiteers with direct connections to the White House reap hundreds of billions in rewards for their manufactured war. We are Americans. This if our government and corporations. We must all individually speak out. We must share our outrage. We must participate in protests and acts of civil disobedience. Otherwise we are complicit. This isn’t a political issue. It’s a human and civil rights issue.

Cabrillo National Monument

Tara, Ashby, and I visited Cabrillo National Monument last Sunday. The park is located at the tip of the Point Loma peninsula, west of San Diego. In case you didn’t know, in Spanish, “loma” means “hill”. It costs $5 for admittance. Your pass is good for 6 days. Our first visit we stopped by the visitor center and the monument to Cabrillo. He was the first European explorer to set foot on the West Coast of, what is today, the United States. We returned yesterday and reused our pass and this time we hiked about the tidal pool. The park is gorgeous.

After Cabrillo we drove to Ocean Beach, which is near, and grabbed brunch at a restaurant across from the beach that has a children’s play area inside. Ocean Beach is where all the old hippies settled. I dig the town. It reminds me of Santa Cruz. Most folks feel it’s a tad too grungy for their taste and frequent Pacific Beach or La Jolla shores instead.

Activities at Cabrillo National Monument:

Learn about the 16th century explorer that the park is named for.

Hiking. The two-mile Bayside Trail affords spectacular views of San Diego Bay and the city beyond, and takes you through one of the last remaining remnants of coastal sage scrub habitat in the world.

The rocky intertidal area at Cabrillo National Monument is one of the best protected examples of these unique ecosystems in Southern California.

The Lighthouse. It has been reported that it can be seen up to 39 miles away while at sea. It is one of the original eight lighthouses on the West Coast, restored and refurnished to reflect what life was like in the 1800s.

And more…

Resources

MindTouch Deki Wiki Breaks Top 100!

SourceForge.Net Stats

Deki Wiki just broke the top 100 projects at SourceForge.net! We’re #95 out of 152,449 projects. We’re not even a year old! Holy crap! This is a small thing, but it is validating and is evidence of our growing momentum. Ok, and quite frankly I think it kicks ass. I sent Ethan Galstad an email, who is the author of Nagios and ranked #93, to tell him we're goooona geeet hiiim! 😉 In case you're wondering SourceForge.net bases it's project rank on downloads, site traffic, and various other factors. Thanks to all the Gardeners who are helping to spread the word.

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)

Last week I was flying back from Boston and I bumped into a fellow named Marcelo Tosatti. He stood out with his “Free as in Freedom” shirt as I suppose I did with my “Free Knowledge” shirt. We struck up a conversation and as it turned out Marcelo was flying to LA to talk to Marvell about problems they’re having at RedHat with the wireless drivers for the OLPC project. In case you’re not familiar with this it’s “One Laptop Per Child” or “$100 Laptop” project for developing countries. Very cool project. Anyway, I snapped some photos one of the units Marcelo had with him.

One Laptop Per Child One Laptop Per Child One Laptop Per Child One Laptop Per Child One Laptop Per Child

Racketeering

The intellectual property racket must end. Intellectual property laws were designed to promote innovation, not to allow monopolists to stifle it. We have an entire generation that has been taught that new ideas have to be “protectable” to be worthy of consideration. Whatever happened to being faster and better than the competition? Do these companies really need a seventeen year head-start? Does Microsoft really need a government-sanctioned sledge-hammer with which to intimidate smaller companies?

Do we, as a society, still need to grant monopolies to companies in order to promote innovation? I’ve never felt I needed a monopoly to be successful; I just needed to be faster than the other guy. I’m a pedal-to-the-metal kind of guy and I’m convinced that I can move forward faster with my own ideas than anyone else can move in trying to copy me.–Dave Dargo

Hell yeah! Excellent post.