2001-09-27»
Ahhhhh hell, let's make this more interesting.I'm going to use this file to store my notes for this week's NTK. If it goes well, I'll do this every week.
Eek. Show's over, I guess.
September 2001
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2001-09-24»
Quantum mechanics and the Prisoner's Dilemma.2001-09-16»
I am, as anyone who knows me will tell, almost pathologically suspicious of authority figures. I'm also a bit freaked by people who are too similar to me (one of the reasons why I held back from moving to SF for so long is walking into a bar where everyone looked like me, smoked like me, languidly slumped in their seats like me and talked forever about computers).On the other hand, I do have heroes, lots of heroes. They're generally people who are somewhat bit like me, but in some way ... better. My plan in these cases is to monitor these people carefully, and see if I can't assimilate their more noble characteristics as my own. I vaguely hope at the same time they get something good out of the trade too - certainly good enough for them to be friends with me.
I like this strategy: it means that I often end up friends with my heroes. I prefer heroes you can hang out with than heroes on stamps.
Anyway, my heroes right now are Zooko and Cory Doctorow. I've met both of them; when we met, we bumbled around, having fun in both cases. It's not like either of them are Doc Savage in real life; I think you'd class all three of us in that "bright-looking, somewhat dazed info-feeders" category. But, man, does their work blow me away: it's got that feel of the attainable goal, of just stepping outside of the tight loops of your daily life and trying to reach something just a bit further out. In both cases, they inspire you (or rather me) to sit down and do some hard thinking. Also, every time I read Zooko's diary entries about his son Irby, I want to go out and buy a box load of toddlers. I'm not sure if that's a noble goal or not. Zooko certainly makes it seem like one.
2001-09-09»
Back from the desert, like every other Bay Area dork worthy of the name.I sort of had fun. I was a bit quiet, the burns didn't excite me much: living here for longer meant a lot of it was, well, a bit too contextualised for me. It didn't seem as earth-shatteringly weird as previously. I tried to participate, but I'm too clumsy and this year, I didn't have the social wherewithall to comply with whatever it is that Burning Man demands.
Next year, though...