Category Archives: personal

the verbage of comfort

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There was recently a thread on the Jigsaw mailing list (daVinci) about reclaiming the Monday Math-Meet-Up. Horray! The goal was to have a more approachable set of topics, rather than esoteric and difficult. The first name thrown out was Math Porn. Most people were very into the idea of the event, but there was some back-and-forth about the name.

Just to be clear – I adore both Maths and Porn. But a maker space is not the place for such a name. The argument was basically that the name was very clear about the event being fun, accessible, and enjoyable. It would also be sure to attract a very specific group of people – those who were advanced enough in their understanding of society and the like to find the name amusing.

My response was as follows:

Yes, it would bring in a more specific group. But here’s the thing.

Women and minorities are appallingly underrepresented in geek communities. And it’s in part because many geek men (usually upperclass white dudes) do things like have specific panels for “women in tech” or crack jokes about sex in the openings to their talks. Makerbots are commonly named after women because “they’re full of glitches and problems.” Porn is stimulating, porn is fun, but porn is also a convoluted term to use in the context of larger society.

While I know that you are of the dark-humor persuasion (like myself) and understand that pornography tends to be an indulgence in intellectual wank sessions, the majority of people do not know that.
A pasty-making class is ok. DIY strap-ons are ok. It is very clear what people are signing up for, and it is indicative of subject matter, not the approach. Math Porn is not clear what environment people are entering into, and while I fully invest in the transdisciplinary ideology of Jigsaw, going the route of tried-and-true alienation is not acceptable.

I had also had a conversation with a gentleman today who is designing a new bike (450cc at about 80lbs – get your head around that one) and how it was more accessible to women. He also did a fantastic job of making it clear it wasn’t “For Women,” for that makes female-identified individuals feel pandered to, and men won’t buy it because they are insecure in their sexuality and feminity is seen as a bad thing.

When you make a separate space for us, you alienate us. When you tell us what we want or need, you belittle us. And when you expect all women to be “post-sexism,” you are being blind to what our everyday existance is like. Yes, things are better. But these places that are meant to be inclusive, meant to give people a handle on their own lives, and certainly to be a safe space, to treat exchanges oblivious of history and context is still an asshole move.

Some awesome stuff to imbibe:

Post Geographic

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So life is crazy as always (see, I even added a page with my schedule so you can see the horror).

I’m currently in MKE prepping for The School Factory reignition. Geeks Without Bounds has a huge thing in the works, and we’ve been learning lots during events by interacting with Crisis Commons and other volunteers). My brother is moving to San Francisco. And I am no longer director of the Jigsaw after April 17th. It needs space to grow, and my other endeavors are 1) national / global and/or 2) paid and/or 3) have enthusiastic help.

That means I’m post-geographic. My work not only doesn’t require me to be in one place, it requires I be all over the place. The person I care most about in the world now lives away from my home of Seattle. But the other people I care about most in the world live in Seattle.

I’m seriously looking at what “Home” means. I love my friends, I love my life in Seattle. But I can suddenly travel so much more… It’s like being in a poly relationship after being in monogamous ones.. when you didn’t go out on dates with other people because you couldn’t, based on the relationship you had agreed on. In poly, you have to decide if you want to or not.

Systems Thinking

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My friend @dymaxion asked “how do you teach someone to be a systems thinker” on Twitter this morning.

So first, what is a systems thinker? I am one because I believe that all systems are the same, they just use different language. You can also always just read the wikipedia article.

Systems thinking is the process of understanding how things influence one another within a whole. In nature, systems thinking examples include ecosystems in which various elements such as air, water, movement, plants, and animals work together to survive or perish. In organizations, systems consist of people, structures, and processes that work together to make an organization healthy or unhealthy.

So usually it has to do with looking at a whole system, but I see it as what is true across systems. I see this in terms of movement and stories.

Some simple ways to see this, which also break down common boundaries between disciplines:

  • creation stories are all very similar, despite having vasty geographical distance
  • watch ants move. now stand on a skyscraper and see how people move
  • think about how people interact while working on an electrical system

Pay attention to how you react to things. It’s like massage.. you’re not paying attention to how your fingers/knuckles/hands feel, but how the creature you’re massaging feels to your fingers/knuckles/hands. How do you walk when you’re happy? When you’re sad? When you’re in a bad part of the city? When you’re lost? Now, how do the people around you respond to you based on how you walk? What is the difference in how wildlife responds to you (bird calls, what creatures do you see, etc) when you’re not in a city? How do things around you move based on how you’re moving?
Now think about stories and how people speak. What sorts of stories and archetypes appear again and again? Now, how do people break those (this is the interesting part). What histories occur again and again? Now, what happens before those stories start to be told?

why it’s worthwhile to think this way: All learning tacks onto existing nets of knowledge. “I know this because it reminds me of this” sort of thing – it’s why mnemonic devices work so well, why we mutter to ourselves when learning new things. By connecting everything to everything else, you have a much more solid structure in which to learn. It also means you’re much more immersed and engaged.
how to start: pay attention, clearly. Now what else is it like? What is it made of? What else is made of that? What else moves like that?

Also, watch this:
doodling in math class

Some thoughts on Exit Through the Giftshop

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Watched Exit Through the Giftshop with Pip, Monica, and Josh last night. Thoroughly enjoyed it – the humor, involvement, art, story. Dialoge natural enough to be an actual documentary, clever enough to make you question if it actually is.

I took two main thoughts from it. I don’t think they get along with each other, but here goes:
1) MBW is a manifestation of the graffiti community as seen from people in other arts communities. It’s pulling from previous iterations of artistic ability to do something many see as degenerate and/or offensive.
2) Graffiti is like hacking in the way parkour is like hacking. Breaking systems other people take for granted. But a web dev taking the course of actions a hacker did months before is not hacking. It’s working on a (newly) established structure. That to me is the difference between MBW and the artists he looked up to. But because he wanted to be perceived as one of those artists instead of as his own thing, he didn’t hack (way of making things work in an unexpected way) but rather was a hack (someone who throws together shit content in order to have content). (See the internet for copious examples of both).

Now onto graffiti. I grew up in a family of architects and German engineers. I believe architecture lives up to the term “frozen music” it used to be called. It is art. And whether or not art itself should be defaced is a whole other argument as it involves grey areas of history, politics, new artistic statements, etc etc. That’s why art is so fascinating to me – because it is so fraught with nuance.

But then there’s all this architecture out there that’s crap. Or abandoned. Or both. And I love graffiti on that. It’s like dumpstering a plank or a canvas someone else did some attempt of art on and doing something new, something yours, on it. I’ll leave you with this, because I think it’s amazing. And please do watch Exit, if you haven’t already.

Flags and Boxes

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Flags become boxes.

That’s the end point of this post. That, and I love people.

So I hang out with this group of people. And the diagram of us/them looks sort of like this. Many of us/them have had a variety of relationships with each other, and things would be what most call “complicated” if not for compersion, Telling It Like It Is, and loving each other enough to call bullshit. Trying to bust out the diagram every time I tried to explain my social structure to others got kind of cumbersome, though, so when someone started using the word “Tribe” to describe the mish-mash, I went for it. “Tribe” was used as a mailing list tag, to make sure I got everyone I usually invited to parties, plus or minus a few on what sort of party/event it was.

The issue is, of course, that having been named, it became an entity to some. Something to belong to or not to belong to, a [set] group of people. The flag which was waved to say “look at how amazing life is, this warm fuzzy feeling!” turned into a box into which some people went (and therefore others didn’t).

You can imagine the drama that unfolded. Or maybe you can’t. Thing is, I don’t give a damn for it. And explaining to someone that they feel excluded because they used a term in a different way is difficult. It means I’m the “cold” one because I refuse to buy into a system which excludes people by default, when they wanted an apology for being excluded. Cue cognitive dissonance. And that’s another “us and them,” isn’t it? Those who get it and those who don’t.

It’s the same issue a friend of mine had, when she was trying to find a lady-friend. She said Seattle has too many lesbians and not enough women. People who wrap themselves up in a Thing To Be end up only expressing one part of themselves. And I’m sorry, but I like the diversity of people. I love how different, sometimes at-odds, aspects of individuals play within themselves. I want to see that unfold. And if you’re not up to it, that’s ok, but you damn well better not assume I will also only be one thing in life. I contain multitudes (, bitches).

So I welcome you all to embrace the messiness of life, and not to be upset when some things don’t work out while others do. There’s enough in the world for everyone to be happy. Insert other phrases of hard-won wisdom here. Just breathe, all else will follow.

Berlin

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There is a prevalence of bendy straws in Berlin. Like, in hardcore hacker bars, there are pink bendy straws. This brought me no small amount of joy. I also really enjoyed the assumption of competence. Everyone has fireworks on New Year’s Eve. Everyone (except for the gent who shouted “BANG” and threw a handful of confetti at us). Everywhere. On the Underground, in buildings, on the street. And it’s just sort of assumed that if you hurt yourself or get hurt because you’re not taking care, you’re a dumbfuck. There are no rounded edges for safety.

09 F9

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edit: Have found two potential cartographers to help with this. Now just need terms which describe me to help them with the task. Suggestions?

Had the pleasure of taking Sean to get his first ink yesterday evening. While there, had the 09 F9 code asymmetrically inscribed above my “all else will follow” line around my shoulder. This is becoming a bit of a problem, all this ink. Not because I don’t love every bit of it, but because it is getting to the point that there is enough of it to need to find a way to tie it all together.

I’m thinking maps and/or schematics. All in black, maybe some greyscale or bits of color. I’m not going for full-body or even full sleeves .. just for a way to tie everything together. A-RON at Laughing Buddha is a fantastic artist, and up to try lots of things, but I need at least a basic idea of what theme we’re going for.

Anyone have any suggestions? So far, things are looking like this:hex code FTW!

And I’m thinking of tying things together with stuff like this:

Actually using circuits seems like it might be over-the-top. But I’m hoping of an elegant way to tie together the code, which involves any or all of the following : maps, schematics, explosion drawings, blueprints, etc. What say you all?

And of course I’ll post pics of the new work once it’s done being protected and gross.

verge

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Things are getting really big, really fast.

Pulling from an e-mail I just had to write to someone, especially as I’m not sure the readership here knows all this stuff:

I’m director of Jigsaw Renaissance, a learning and making community based out of Seattle. We’re built on the image of Bucketworks (out of Milwaukee), dubbed “the world’s first health club for the brain.” We’re into transdisciplinary and intergenerational learning. We’re into helping you discover your world, and how to engage with it. Jigsaw (and Bucketworks) is (are) program(s) of the School Factory. That’s a 501(c)3 aimed at changing the way people educate themselves and interact with educational systems.

The School Factory has seen a lot more activity in the past year than in its first 8 years of existence due to a thing called The Space Federation (drawing a diagram yet? and I said corps were bulky..). Fed aims to offer a support network – fiscal sponsorship, basic paperwork, mentorship, etc – to hacker, maker, artistic, coworking, etc spaces across the US. This is a big part of The School Factory because we see these spaces as where people go to continue their educations or to find ways of learning that they didn’t get in our current educational systems.

So, all of that is fo realz. School Factory‘s new site went live last month (though it’s still not fleshed out enough for a big publicity push, so please keep it to yourselves, at least for a bit). Jigsaw got mentioned specifically by The White House.  W.     T.       F.

I talked with Beth Kolko a couple weeks ago about linking up Jigsaw with some of UW’s programs. Ezekiel and I are working on linking his certification system into education outside of academic settings. Jordan and I are working on an OpenDoor Hack-A-Thon to link up membership status with space access, potentially between spaces across the country.

And and and. AND. So that tour I went on? For Geeks Without Bounds? Well. Currently submitting proposals to become the director of GWOB as a program of the School Factory. Which would mean it would be potentially sponsored by Tropo. And other big organizations. Which would mean I would be paid to do the stuff I love doing. Set of my time to GWOB, paid; set of my time to School Factory, eventually paid; and set of my time to Jigsaw, as always. Again, the big proposal is not official yet, but my being paid is. But still. How cool would that be?! Link communities to learn to use their powers for good, which I do anyway, but on a bigger scale, and be able to eat more than ramen? Plan huge events that may or may not involve zombie apocalypse scenarios? ZOMG.

I am bouncing in my seat. And not just because I failed at not drinking coffee.

6 hours

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Finally sorted things out, so we could sleep. Emotionally exhausted and curled around each other.

Woke at 4a to the rhythmic sound of my neighbor’s head being smashed against our shared wall. Called cops, saw blood, adrenaline pumping.

Woke up again at 7a to my uterus trying to claw its way out of my body. Took a hot bath, crawled back in bed with the cat.

Woke up again at 10a knowing I had to confront the day. First round of internet shows what looks to be vandalism at Jigsaw by (what I hope is) a well meaning member at Jigsaw.

I’d crawl back in to bed, but I need to go get cavities filled.

Days like this, I’m really glad I have a dark sense of humor. Oh, and amazing friends.

In other news, I’m looking for living space in Sodo or First Hill, for less than what I’m paying right now. I’m not a great roommate except that I am rarely around.