I came across one of my long lost favorite cartoons while following some random links this morning. It is the amorphous but lovable Barbapapa. I recall very little about the cartoon itself except that it was one of the more “magical” ones to me. I had this hierarchy of cartoons and shows, some of which were like really, really special (maybe because I could only see them in the states, like Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood) or very “real” (like Sesame street, because, well, look, they lived in a real neighborhood in NYC and Oscar the grouch was my bedside companion till I ruined him by pouring an entire bottle of dishwashing detergent on him), or just ones that were with me as a daily fact of life till I was 17 years old, like the Muppet Show. I must have only watched Barbapapa a couple of times but the blobs of color obviously left a mark on me as I was in total glee this morning when I found those sites.

The other day one of my friends asked me for my definition of “muppetational” as I had invented the word and definition as a sinister ploy, to get rejected from my father’s alma mater, a school that I did not want to attend (and he would have never forced me to go but it would have been like tense in the house for a couple of months). So the college application asked for your favorite word and I put muppetational and provided my own definition. Although I don’t remember it exactly, it was something along the lines of:

it is the essence of each muppet character and the means by
which this essence is brought out in interaction with life and others
brining smiles, gusto, and joy to our world. This can thus be extended out
“the muppet show” to signify the act of brining forth
the essense of ones self to the plate of life with sincerity,
love, and enthusiasm…. It might be Monster playing away at the
drums, Gonzo flirting with the chickens, Kermit philosophizing about
life, or Sato, roaming.

Needless to say, my tactic worked. (Biella wonders if her father is now learning of this deep, dark secret as he reads her blog: Sorry Papi, I just had to do it).

These cartoons really used to effect my day-to-day emotional state, which is probably why I was in such a good mood as a kid. But I remember being really sad about the fact that no one believed in Big Bird’s imaginary friend, Snufalufagus. I was always wanting to run into the show, and let the truth be told. And I think it has.

Yesterday, during an OPG meeting about the Online Community Forumwhich we are trying to develop, when I heard for like the millionth time, that “zope” which is a programming platform, “is supposed to be really great, powerful, robust, blah, blah, blah…” but “I have never used it…” I realized it was the Snufalufagus of programming, existing out there as some mythical technology. Has anyone actually used it : )

And btw, this little excursion into my childhood has really been a shameless pitch to give a certain someone some birthday present ideas. Aheemmm, I would love to see to see some of Barbapapa again : )

There was a party at the Schoen and Brown household the other night to celebrate free software, GNU/Linux and such. We watched Revolution OS and heckled a lot! Tammy was nice enough to take a picture of the group This was a great way to end the week.

So, I help coordinate the volunteers and interns at the EFF. People apply online and I receive this web form as an email with all the relevant information. These forms and the answers, are, sorry to say, boring, just like any modern form is supposed to be. But the other day, I finally laughed reading one of the answers to the following question:

How did you hear about EFF?

Usually, the answer is Lessig, Barlow, the Web, or just the fact of being a programmer. But the answer in this case was:

Friend: No
Email: No
Web: Yes
School: No
Employer: No
Other: Yes
Other: met Cory Doctorow at Disneyland in 1998

Cory is the outreach person here as well as one of the main bloggers for boingboing.net and he is, well, obssessed with all things Disney.

Who knows, maybe the next form will be by some bear-hugging, tree-loving hippie who will write:

Other: met Seth Schoen camping at Sequioa National Park

Disclaimer: You must know Seth to see the humor in this

“Whatever you do [blog] will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”
–Mahatma Gandhi

Reading maketh a full man;
conference a ready man; and
writing [blogging] an exact [wo]man.
–Francis Bacon

Yeah, I feel like a retard. The airline price is correct. I went to buy a tix to find out it was a special Sept 11th fare (and already sold out–> not that I could have made it out east from there). Bu anyway…. And then I noticed that someone has pointed this out to me too in my comments section….. Wow, the utility of the comments section in our modern blog : )

Hey New Yorkers, buy your tix, it is $10 buckarooos to fly to PR…. Let’s see how long this mistake will be up…

Pirates rule… Here learn a bit of pyrate history.

And here are some fine pirate jokes for your fine blogging experience:

What is a pirates’ favorite type of movie?
* An ARRRRRRRRRRrated movie

And for the Unix geeks out there:

How does a pirate list the contents of a static library?
* ar -l

Soon, soon, I will get my pirate Vegas pictures up but in the mean time, here is a small
sampler

What happens when you take hackers out of their natural habitat (think: cool, dark, indoors) and place thousands of them close together over the course of three days within a hot, dry, and sunny environment? Defcon. Although the “Las Vegas habitat” is now a norm for this yearly ritual (this is the 10th con) sun, heat, and pools are not what instantly comes to mind when you think of “hacker.” The contrast of black clothing with the piercing sun, the suffocating heat against the chilled air conditioned indoors, and the technical talks mixed with spring break-like drinking atmosphere and Las Vegas mini-adventures made for endless visual amusements for the third of Biella’s summer 2002 Con Tour.

After an 8 hour drive through the desert we arrived at a resort-like hotel, the Alexis Park, which has 3 pools laid out between manicured greens surrounded by Spanish style architecture. After about 1 hour there, I began to ask myself was this vacation or research? Wait, I guess if it is vacation for those at Defcon, well, then de facto as a “participant”, it too was vacation for me. I felt the weirdness of my year attending all these cons, user group meetings, and hanging out online all collapse into this one moment on the hot pavement of the Alexis Park. Strangely enough, I also felt transported back to 1991, high school graduation, when my friends and I spent a couple of days at a hotel roaming around dazed, drunk or hungover, and really happy that our high school existence was over. There was a similar atmosphere of excitement and jubilation in the air … with some key differences, lots and lots of hackers, swimming, socializing, and especially hacking away on computers.

Our backyard was the Vegas strip composed of exploding volcanoes, flashing lights, cheap (and mostly gross buffets), pirate shows, beaming lights, and replicas of the most famous architectural monuments of the west, like the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty with you know, some little “extras”, like a roller coaster weaving through the already “wondrous” architectural wonder. Bizarre. It is a city where everything is so fake, so staged that it then becomes sooo unmistakably real. I know that sounds like a contradiction but that’s Vegas for you …

The raw physical sensation of my experience at Defcon was as if I were swallowing an endless series of sound and experience bytes which felt very different from my two previous cons, both of which seemed relatively tame in comparison to this one. And despite the constancy and diversity of bytes, it was still as if I only saw and experienced like 15% of what was going on. Compared to most people, I only knew a handful of people, but barely felt there was enough time to see the talks, attend the many, many unofficial events and parties, roam through the the gargantuan Las Vegas hotels, cool off in the pools, and hang out with friends. By Saturday, I felt drowned and drained, probably less because of the endless stream of bytes and more because of the relentless dry heat, which is about my least favorite climate in the world. The blaring heat and inescapable dryness violated every inch of my body, sucking out my life vitality, leaving me like an empty vacuous shell. Ok, I am exaggerating but there were times I could barely keep eyes open at all. On Saturday, I had to take two naps one during the afternoon and another in the middle of the night. It was also late on Saturday when I found out that one could actually watch the talks on t.v in the air conditioned comfort of your hotel room. Yep, that’s Defcon for you. Ahh, the natural hacker habitat was contained right there within the heat and sun of the desert day.

I am struggling right now on the car ride home as we are passing by the beautiful desert. I don’t think that I can stay up too much longer. I dunno, maybe my sleepiness then and now have less to do with the heat and more to do with a strange illness that one of the Defcon attendees diagnosed me with: “mind disease.” Hmm, still trying to figure that one out…

Wohooo, I got my IL state tax refund, for the whopping amount of $8.48 (.14 cents of which were interest). Geez, not even enough to buy me a cd these days. But I have been listening to some really good music this weekend. I went to see Femi Kuti at the Fillmore and got to dance my little heart out. I thus broke out my Fela Kuti and Antibalas cd’s later in the weekend which were perfect for the mega-cleaning that went on in my room. And my roommate has opened me up to a great band God Speed You Black Emperor. I am listening to the cd “Lift your skinny fist like antennas to heaven” right now. It is an amazing cd, not to mention a great great name.