Archive for December, 2007

Finding what you love to do

Monday, December 24th, 2007

It’s interesting how significant the right search term on a search engine can be. I searched for “what do you love” and on the first page I found a number of simply excellent articles on this topic that really help me find what I am looking for. And I am looking for more enthusiasm about what I do.. so that I can do it better, because “to do something well you have to like it”. This is such a crucial thing to grasp and research on a way towards success in life and happiness in general.

And I am glad to share the links to articles I’ve found and read here:

An interesting thing about this is when I observe the state in which I currently am with how these writers tend to characterize the state in which most people commonly are. It appears that I am lucky enough to already be a step or two ahead than many people, but I don’t want to claim this as a statement of superiority or anything like that, but rather something I should probably be grateful about (mostly to my parents, their friends and also in some significant part to the Libervis Network community).

I already do a lot of what I at least think is quite close to what I love to do. By being essentially self-employed on the web I can allow myself great freedom of exploration. And Libervis Network is one that has been set up in such a way to allow for great variety in what projects I can do as part of it, because whichever the more clear answer to the question of “what I love doing most” will be it probably wont contradict the fundamental values for which Libervis Network stands for.

And that is just plain awesome! :)

However, I have to admit that while I may be some steps ahead in that sense, I am some steps behind in another, that being my social life. Working on the web and therefore on the computer, this wonderful window to the world and universe at large, I pretty much “forgot” or “neglected” to live in the real world with real people more than I really have to. I am actually increasingly aware of this though and will be attempting to change this situation though. Oh yes I also realize that I failed at fullfilling one, to this related, part of my 2007 new year’s resolution: to find a girlfriend. :D I guess, there’s always next year! 2008 Ftw!

But it will be tricky. Among what motivates me to pursue the answer to this crucial question about myself is that I am finding the financial sustainability of Libervis Network (and hence myself) to still be quite shaky and unstable (all eggs in one basket sort of thing), but to just blindly go gold digging doesn’t seem to me like the best possible way. Among the best ways I am considering to differentiate my funding sources is to start new projects, and I don’t want to start projects which I will quickly lose enthusiasm about – hence the question: What do I really love to do? What will I succeed with the most?

Of course, another big motivation for this pursuit is the realization that I am, well, 23 years old and I can’t forever be just talking about how successful I will or should be in life and riding the waves I somehow created with Libervis so far (and then went struggling to keep myself motivated). I basically need a new wave, perhaps the most profound of all I managed to create so far! I need to rediscover myself again – before years pass by and I end up sitting alone in my room realizing that all this “exploration” I’ve done was actually just drifting… and that all what I’ve supposedly achieved was just luck (or momentary seizures of opportunities combined with crazy (perhaps even lazy) stubborness)..

So.. I will be taking some time soon to really complete the steps from the third article and think this stuff through. I will certainly blog about my discoveries. :)

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year!

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Does this blog make any sense?

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

I’m thinking this question was bound to be asked. If you look through what I’ve been blogging on since this blog was started you’ll probably find plenty of what you might consider “weird”. If it isn’t obvious by now I’m an impulse-blogger, and that’s an admission you can take for granted. If I get an idea or a thought or even a profound emotion and feel like I want to express this, I tend to do this on my blog, almost impulsively. I want to get it out just for the sake of getting it out, and perhaps for that small chance of someone actually having a comment on that. :)

So how much sense did it really make so far? How much sense am I making right now? Part of the reason I’m asking is because I see all these bloggers, even including on our own Planet Libervis talk about their work, life, the ongoing affairs in the Free Software world – and it occurs to me that these guys may be too busy to rant about some obscure topics that I’m blogging about and conversely I have too much time on my hands and should work on getting a life they already have. :D

I also occasionally feel that I might come across as sort of self-important by delving into these deep topics and ranting regardless of who is reading…

I don’t know.. I’m just wondering.. if anyone who reads (if any :P ) cares to reply. What do you think of this blog so far? How do I come across? Am I boring? Am I making any sense? Should I keep my rants for myself? Should I get a life? :P

Thanks

Danijel

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Sensation White

Wednesday, December 19th, 2007

If you believe there is no God that we know off how do you explain magic? For magic happens.

My explanation: it just happens or..

We create it. We create magic.

Technology of humans today, enhancing their abilities and overall power will appear godly to humans who lived hundreds or thousands years ago. And an event of all human emotion channelled through our magical technology into a show of sound and light that leaves even us beyond belief, will bring them on their niece.

Sensation White is an example of such an event. Witness the power of 2007/8 Humans in all its glory:


Sensation White – The most amazing home videos are here
Sensation White 2007 Trailer – The most amazing home videos are here
Yet, all of this is, indeed, happening in a small hall of a pale blue dot. If so much magic can be found on a place so insignificant to the universe at large, imagine how much more can we find out there.We are so powerful to our past and current self, and we can use this power to destroy or to build. We can share our positive emotions as part of a fest that connects us all for a time into an inpenetrable network of shared sensation or we can direct our emotions into deadly hatred for our differences.The choice is yours. I know mine.

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Killing for a fraction of a dot

Monday, December 17th, 2007

A lot of what we do is driven by our emotions. A lot of what we see is through a template of our own perception, built by our life experience. From fear to fearlessness. From power to powerlessness. From happiness to sadness. From bliss to trauma. It all defined the template through which we see the world.

In an information era we are living in, it is easy to see just about anything there is to see on Earth. We just have to look for it. Perhaps it is time to look for more and to see beyond, even beyond that which is immediately available. To be a seeker may be the most rewarding calling one can take. We may all have an explorer sitting deep within us.

This Earth, for pieces of which humans still continue to fight, manipulating each other into incredible sacrifices in the name of what may be incredibly insignificant causes, is just a pale blue dot.

But to see it this way, we have to look beyond the confines of a little world we created for ourselves, in which we see so many things as too important not to drown our lives into. Seeking beyond is choosing to free ourselves from these confines and allow ourselves to realize that there are things bigger than us, bigger than mankind, bigger than Earth, bigger than the solar system, bigger than our whole galaxy, bigger then our own perception of significance.

This may be the best case one can make for space exploration. Space tourism is not going to be just about mere joy rides into space. It is going to be an individually inspiring venture to open people’s minds towards what is above the realm we bask in every day. And the farther we can go the better we can realize the relative insignificance of this realm. Space tourism and furthermore space exploration in general may very well have the power to unite the humanity in peace – eradicate greed, injustice, violence, war – the things that are fuelled by the limited world-view most of us easily fall to, a template that defines our perceptions which in turn activate our emotional responses.

It seems as if the more limited our view is, the more closed minded and ignorant we are, the more negative our emotional responses will be to the reality we perceive.

And yet, all it takes is to choose to look beyond all that, which can be accomplished by a moment took to look up to a specific star in the sky and ask yourself – what is out there? Is it like our home? How far is it? Will I ever be able to get there? What are we doing to get there? What the HELL are we doing to ourselves anyway???

Once you get your eyes down to a horizontal, you just might see things a little differently. You might just conclude that things you were incredibly upset about aren’t all that important, or that you were upset about wrong things. You may instead become upset about why ARE so many people upset about such stupid petty things and decide to do something more with your life.

Space does not care about what is happening on Earth, but we should. Many have said, one way or the other, that the only way to change the world to the better is to change the mentality of people who build and maintain that world. So if looking up is a way to inspire change of human mentality so radically for it to evolve to the next level, beyond the semi-savage state we are in now — then looking up and trying to go out there may be the only way forward.

And if we don’t go forward, we can only go backward.

“Free thinking is the only way to further the species.” — PAINTANK (on YouTube)

– Inspired by “Pale Blue Dot: Wanderers” by Carl Sagan.

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Trapped by emotions

Thursday, December 13th, 2007

I just had a thought about emotions. Just listening to music of particular kind can completely change the polarity of my current perception of the world. It can be a shade of negative or it can be a shade of positive. Then I thought, what if I felt nothing? What if I could see the world without looking through the cloud of emotions?

But we don’t seem to be able to do it. We often believe we do things that are reasonable, that are logical, that are not based on emotions, but how often is this really the case? In majority of cases I think we’re actually guided by what we feel is right or what we like or love. In fact, we often base our reasoning directly on some sort of emotions. A good example may be common perceptions of what is moral and what is not.

What if we had no emotions? What if we were guided by reason and logic alone? How would our life be like? We would assess every situation we find ourselves in and act based upon our logic. We would in essence always do the right thing, always do what is most logical. Perhaps a world would be a better place for we would probably already, far far ago, come to the logical conclusion that war is not a way to grow, that alcohol, smoking, drugs, violence and many other self-destructive activities are simply not reasonable. We might be living in a sterilized, clean, peaceful and advanced society, perhaps more advanced than we are today, presuming that we set continuous advancement as a logical course of our evolution.

No, we would not be quite like Vulcans in Star Trek. Vulcans strive to be logical and to suppress emotions, but they do have them. In fact, their natural emotions are much higher and more intense than humans, which is why they developed a whole belief system based around suppression of emotions, so that they can keep themselves from lowly savage instincts that emotions often put them to.

Instead, a human without any emotions would probably be like a machine that we ourselves may soon be able to create, an android that is self-aware. Data from Star Trek is an excellent example here. Of course, then we wouldn’t be humans, if humans are defined as emotional beings.

And that brings us to an interesting intersection. Data in Star Trek constantly keeps striving to be more like humans, and as we are watching the series we can see various interesting points being revealed on the emotion – no-emotion relations that at some points makes us envy Data, the emotionless android, and at other points cherish the fact that we can feel.

And yet, even envy is an emotion.

In the end of any discussion about pros and cons of emotions perhaps it would be inevitable to conclude that it is both a blessing and a curse, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. I wonder how much of our culture is inspired by emotion? How many scientific discoveries? It seems that for every negative outcome of an emotion-inspired or affected activity there is a positive to be found.

Pity that we still have to deal with the curse. Between a positive and a negative the strive is and always should be towards the positive, the good. Therefore when faced with both a blessing and a curse we don’t just accept the curse, we try to ban it.

And how to do that?

Perhaps now, Vulcans have something to say about that. ;) It is all about control or controlled suppression of certain emotions. It is about putting the logic and reason in us in place of an executive director of all of the rest that is in us – the ocean of emotion.

Controlled by emotion or controlled emotion. It’s a choice between being trapped and being free.

But it may be one of the toughest disciplines for us to master. And we all have our ways.

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Looking back at OTT07

Wednesday, December 12th, 2007

Time flies. It’s already been 10 days since Open Translation Tools 2007 conference ended and I’m deep into my stuff again, the Freedomware Gamefest being the main work related thing. So what do I have to say about OTT07?

Well, it’s an event worth remembering, and this is not just saying in a sort of obligatory fashion. I’ve never before been on a conference of this kind, never met and talked to as many people involved with Free Software and Free Culture at once and never partied (even if briefly) with people from so many diverse parts of the world. So by all means it was an unique experience.

Of course, it was also quite educational for me. I was a translation newbie and now I know some basic things involved with it. Furthermore I am actually more interested in paying attention to that particular field of activity and the cause of translating internet content to languages other than english. This will likely affect Libervis Network in the future, at least by collaborating with or using third party services to help people translate Libervis content into other languages (services like, probably, the Worldwide Lexicon).

Also, I was able to tell quite a few people about Libervis Network and GNU/Linux Matters. And I was especially glad to meet Dave Crossland, a Free Software advocate working on free fonts development. He confirmed some of my latest thinking regarding Free Software ethics and also added quite a bit more insight. Quite an interesting guy.

Aside from the Worldwide Lexicon some of the other most impressive projects I’ve learned about are FlOSS Manuals (which we are likely to work with on a collaborative project), Dotsub, Social Source Commons etc. There is actually a nice list of the interesting projects that were presented in “speedgeeking” sessions here in the wiki.

After the conference we had a beverage tasting evening, tasting various (strong) drinks from various countries, which got most of us drunk, but it was fun and worthwhile as it was for the sake of a “cultural exchange”. ;) Of course, this cultural exchange quickly turned into quite a fest, or a party if you will. We ended up (to Taco’s dismay) at some cheap back-in-the-alley club fittingly titled “The Wrong Way” until about 2 AM after which Taco and me ended up walking home. It was all my fault though.. I was the one insisting in going all the way through with the rest because I didn’t want to miss the first ever chance I had to party with these kinds of people (from all over the world, involved with Free Software/Culture, it’s something I consider special). :) Taco was, at the end of the day night quite gracious about it, though.

But this is not the end of the story. A day and night later, after Taco already left for the dutchland, I had a chance to attend a speech by Benjamin Mako Hill and then also a drink and a dinner with him, Marcell and others from the local net culture club. It allowed me to talk to him a bit about Libervis.com, even mention Freedomware Gamefest 2007 and the propagation of “Freedomware” as a new “marketing” term for Free Software and a few other things I don’t remember from the top of my head. Mako is a really down to earth guy considering his accomplishments and fame in the Free Software community, with a very bright future as an influential figure in the Free Software and Free Culture movements, I suspect. :)

Finally, as a visual proof, here are a few photo links where you can find me..

You can find all the other OTT07 photos uploaded to flickr so far here.

Cheers

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