Category Archives: Text

Mid August Listening

Busy work and social life welcomes me back to Amsterdam. Plus frisbee all weekend. Therefore, two recommendations is what I leave you with.

1 – Naomi Klein, one of my journalistic idols and someone I learn alot from.. speaking at some conference recently, aired on democracynow. She gets into globalization, the business of war, and looking back to how we got here.

2 – On Point episode focusing on the American Prison population. Ever growing and out of control, they get into not only who is in prison but why and what is happening to cities like Newark. An issue that deserves much more media attention then it gets.

Water Waste

I drink tap water. Constantly.

Yet somehow, much of the first world.. doesn’t anymore. Are you one of them?

This is world water week… and one of my many issues of concern in today’s world is the privatization, commodification, and destruction of the world’s water.

Everywhere I look I see bottled water. People carry them like a fashion statement. They put them in their kitchens for drinking water and act as if using the tap for drinking water is some kind of unthinkable punishment. This despite the fact that in most European cities and many North American cities, the municipal water systems ensure an extremely high quality of drinking water from the tap.

Meanwhile, large corporations mobilize to convince people and governments of how great things will be once they sell off their water system. They hope you won’t notice the disasters they oversaw in South America during the great privatization spree of the late 90’s.

And all the while you’re carrying that plastic bottle with you and cocacola has bought that poland spring or whichever your favorite allegedly spring water you like to drink. Oh and most of that water doesn’t come from a spring either, but the photo of a waterfall on the bottle somehow manages to make people forget that fact.

As it is world water week, Ill be doing more research into who is pushing for more water privatization and looking into who is currently making big bucks off of it. Meanwhile I can only hope that a new trend will emerge, one where people turn back to tap water.. carry a water bottle with h20 from the tap.. if only that would become the new cool.

What I learned at Camp

Numerous messages are streaming in asking me to write about and put out more content related to the notorious camp I just spent a week at. And while it is true I saw amazing things and met wonderful people, I refuse to do any further cheering as the internet has plenty of material about the inventions, parties, achievements, and so on.

At some point during the last days of the CCC the film crew asked me to stand in front of the camera and talk about how I saw the camp and the talk I was going to give. While I did say kind words about the things going on at this former soviet military base, I also took the opportunity to share my concern and disappointment about the level of social and global consciousness at such events.

While they love to discuss and worry about such societal topics as privacy and ownership, over the past year I have observed that hackers are not so in tune to other issues that involve human rights or global poverty.

They have a wealth of knowledge and access to amazing power as a result of their skills and equipment, yet focusing them on issues related to human rights is not often enough a priority… if ever. Lectures or discussions on related topics go significantly under attended compared to the full house you get if you talk about hacking something or how to build your own drone.

While this correlation might be seen as only natural to many, as someone who has witnessed first hand what such a group is capable of, I still get disappointed. Bringing various cultures together in the spirit of cooperation and knowledge sharing, that they have and it is great. Attempting to connect what you can do with a computer or technology with the needs of a world that is plagued by poverty, corruption, and indifference…(not including a minority working on very important social issues like voting computers and sustainability) there the hacking community could use a nice motivating kick in the ass.

Poor Insurance Companies

Seems like with every year that goes buy, there are more and more things you can buy insurance for. Travelling, living, playing, borrowing… hell the city of New York is even hoping someday soon you’ll have to buy insurance just to record video of it.

On the other hand, whenever there comes a time when people look to their insurance companies, which they’ve been paying for years without ever receiving a dime, the companies work hard at finding a way not to pay. You probably saw that scene in Sicko, where it is right there in black and white, Nixon’s advisor explaining how medical insurance and HMO’s will work, make money by providing as little as possible. It has always been a big part of the insurance business, but it seems like now its the only part of the insurance business…. collect money and do everything in your power NEVER to pay out to a client.

So recently we see the appeal in New Orleans, where the judge has ruled against the citizens who have lost their livelihoods; their homes. They were insured in case of the dangers that come with owning a home in New Orleans. However the insurance companies, panicking at the idea that they will actually have to pay out a huge sum of money from the even larger sum of money they’ve collected over the years…. they have fought tooth and nail in order to stop their customers from being allowed to collect the insurance they thought they had.

I heard a few news reports that talked of the difficult position insurance companies are in. They’d risk huge loses by having to pay for the flood damage caused by hurricane katrina. Once again I repeat in slightly different words: they’d risk huge financial loses by actually providing insurance payments to their paying customers. For them its more honorable and necessary to find a loophole… its not their fault bad things happen, they’re only the insurance company, working hard to hang on to their record profits.

Greetings from CCC – Nerd Camp

It is quite a site. Could there possibly be any gathering in the world that looks like this place? Glorious lighting that I watched until the sun started to come up, tents and caravans everywhere. Bunkers and hangars, from military installations to centers for hacktivism and fun. While many of us may be lacking sleep for most of these next few days, at the very least we won’t miss many moments of what is such an enjoyable and unforgettable creation.

Yearly Whatever

Lots of things happening in my professional life as well as the social life, as it seems all my good friends in Amsterdam are inviting me places lately. And behind all this, preparations have to be made for my upcoming talk at the Chaos Communications Camp which begins this week. I’m taking my talk extremely seriously this time, as I’m going not to represent myself, but rather to talk about the important work of New Orleans bloggers and grassroots net activists.

As I prepare this I notice lots… no.. excessive blog posting throughout the internet about a conference held by a dominant mainstream American blogger. It sounds like a lovely time, yet at the same time.. yet another conference to talk about how revolutionary they the bloggers are. The truth is, as an offshoot of one of the two corporatist political parties of the US, they are anything BUT revolutionary. More like the voluntary pawns of a political game that gradually moved online, yet the talking points remain the same.

This is what I was thinking about, along with all the other endless distractions and talk about nothing on places like facebook or twitter, as I listened to the latest Amsterdam Forum from radio Netherlands. The focus of the podcast was what the internet has done or not done for society, art, and information. Many of the participants spoke at length of the amount of useless conversation and endless new websites for alleged community building that are popping up all over on the internet. They also talk about book publishing and what will happen to that industry, and of course – the media – as one man goes on and on about the important of gatekeepers… which of course, I don’t agree with. (read the text)

What I like best about the program is that it brings up a very important fact — there’s alot going on with the internet today… but much of it isn’t FOR any particular reason. And why should it be? In my opinion, because there are many more important things that the people of the world are in desperate need of that we might be able to help with if we’d only stop using all the power and innovation for such shallow objectives.

In many ways.. just writing this post adds to the pile.