Open Source Goals

(I am sorry if I offend anyone in this post, but my interactions have caused me to think about this.)

I have a group project going on right now. It is in my Strange Communities class, and we must document the way in which a group we know about has changed its goals as it has developed. But that is not the interesting part.

What gets me is that I have no real idea how to communicate with anyone. Beyond just trying to decided if we use Facebook, HCOL, or some other means of messaging is crazy hard. But I think it is only hard because we all come from different backgrounds. Some of the people are regular Facebookers so that is the place to meet... once we are all friends there. I use HCOL because it was the one place where I could find everyone's names and send them messages at one point in time. I am also a fan of using on-line word processors in order to send messages and to write our paper. There are others who seem to be adverse to any of those because they are not connected more than they have to be (very strange).

But the hardest part of communicating with people I think comes in what we see the project as. For some it is just another task to take care of to get done with the class. Others it is a chance to flex our thinking caps. And even others see it as something that doesn't require any thought at all. This means that delegating work will probably cause some to have lighter loads than others even if we all receive the same grade. While I have gotten use to this over the years, I am still troubled by the way that we all wish to take separate paths to our primary goal.

But this is the way open source works. Right? Everyone does a small amount to make something big? This is why without paying many people very much money some versions of Linux are worth more than $10 million. But those projects, even ignoring the idea of motivation, have something I don't. They have time.

A good open source project requires time to really get off the ground. Just look at Songbird. As an open source music player it has been in development for close to three years, and it is just now getting to a usable beta. If I had the time to work with my group and let everyone do a little at a time I would probably be able to produce something really great. Instead I have a little less than a month to put something together that I can only hope is interesting.

My Generation

For the last two years I have been looking forward to tomorrow night. That's because tomorrow night will be the first time I feel like I am a part of a generation of people who are willing to make something happen rather than ride on what the babyboomers did in the 60s.

Generation X has done very little in the way of pushing the world toward anything new and better. Instead, they let themselves become idle spectators in history refusing to admit that just because the Cold War was over that there was anything left to do. They seem to prefer accepting that we have reached the "end of history" as some political scholars have put it.

While I think it matters greatly as to who wins the election, I hope that either outcome will result in my peers standing up and making the things that work today better suited for tomorrow. I hope that we are able to spread information to everyone as to allow new ideas to sprout forth from every individual. I hope that we can take a world powered by oil, the sticky black remains of those who once lived and ruled, and turn it into a world powered by the supply of energy granted to us each day anew. I hope that we can soon provide the world with the feelings of joy the very privileged of us here in the West have by simply walking our peaceful streets at night after a full meal. I hope that we can all find a way to make sure that everyone's job is work and not labor.

I hope that I remember these words on the 5th, then again in January. It will be at these moments that our ideals will be tested. We must roll up our sleeves and dig our hands deeply into the soil of the future. Unlike those who came before us we must always know that the future is fertile with new opportunity, but it must be cultivated. From this we can produce something the likes of which has never been seen by civilization. I don't want to be the greatest generation, but I want to be better than any before. And I hope that we can inspire the next generation to the same or better.

My goals are lofty, but I don't think I am alone.

Writer's Block

The problem with writing is that the moment you take a day or two off from it you begin to loose any ability you ever had. You begin to be unable to make any kind of meaningful or new observation on the world. Every word is just a repeat. Every sentence feels forced and awkward. Oh! The paragraphs are nothing but death squads of letters waiting to make the unsuspecting reader go blind.

In times of being unable to write I turn to reading. I always do this feeling that reading others' words will put me into a literary mindset, but always close the book feeling even more hopeless than before I opened the book. "How can I ever hope to produce anything like this?!" my mind yells with each page. I begin to feel like I am faking at being anything near a writer. This guy is obviously better than I am at putting words into real thoughts. The only things I can even think are self-absorbed feelings that no one hasn't heard before.

At this point I decide that I need to try to write again. I start reading where I left off in my writing and discover that I have written myself into a corner! What was I thinking when I wrote this shit? I need to fix all of this. But then I realize that I can't get rid of it before I can write again otherwise I will have ended up with negative progress for the day! Damn... I frantically add a paragraph to the work in the hopes that I can get on to the next point in my outline, but the transition isn't fluid enough.

I decide I can't care about that. That is for me to edit later when I have the two parts already. But then I can't think of how to make my point in a way that doesn't just come off as me saying something. I need an argument. I need examples.

I go back to reading. I check the news. I check the mail.

I sit down and decide to write a page of pure fiction. Here I start to just let my mind wonder as I talk about the slightly overweight, but mousy girl who works at the late night coffee shop down the road from the bar that hipsters and truckers frequent. But then what happens next is a dead end. Does she meet someone? Do I even want to keep up with this person when the group of friends in the booth by the jukebox is having such an interesting conversation about the worst sexual encounters they have ever had? At least I don't need a plot or a point, but, god, why can't I think of anything worse than the time Marcus was on a second date with a girl and they went to her house and as they were getting naked he finds mint jelly in her bed. "Yeah, mint jelly! As in what you put on lamb. When I asked her about it she turned bright red and told me to get out."

That is when I break down and blog.