I have to give some post love to my homie Nathan Kinkade. That kinkade (CC dev/sysadmin) is one swell guy and I feel privileged to know such a cool person. He just moved to the warm water/warm weather place. Check out his blog post on how to make the perfect smoothie:

• 1 medium banana
• 1 small apple (or 1/2 of a large apple), preferably fuji or braeburn
• about 1/2 cup of mixed berries
• 1 tbsp of flax oil
• 1 tbsp of green vegetable powder
• 1 or 2 tbsp of peanut butter
• 2+ cups of water (or enough to make the consistency you want)

Ok, yes, I know! I didn’t blog about anything really tech or open source, or some kind of faildown/startup that all should get into, but it flows from my desire for better guanxi

Originally from Make Some Smoothies

On Monday of this week, myself, Lu, Mitu Hopu, and our friend Lu Jia visited the closest point of desertification near Beijing, Tian Mo. It took alot of turns to get there to the point our off-license taxi looked ready to give up on this pursuit. We prevailed to find our beloved sand dunes with 2 camels out front and a Chinese park troll trying to charge us all 25 RMB per person to enter the park, which semi-sadly consisted of only two massive sand dunes. Regardless the size of the dunes, we had an amazing experience with the strangest set of characters also seeking out these bald spots forming in the landscape.

View Larger Map

Lu and I took the photos, and she has some chinese text to go along with at her blog.

We traveled over 200 Kilometers to get to this location. So did two different couples to get their photos taken by a jesus-like art figure carrying a frame as burden for us all! So did a couple whose car got stuck in the desert sand. So did about 50 young Chinese soldiers who apparently get to goof off all day.

Of course, China has many vast desert deserts:

Even where we live. Cao Chang Di, is under assault from the desert helping to breed ideas and research like Cao Chang Mo (ah, a project waiting to be completed).

The Chinese government is not doing enough to combat desertification as “the desert is sweeping into China’s valleys, choking rivers and consuming precious farm land. Beijing has responded with massive tree-planting campaigns, but the Great Green Walls may not be able to buffer the sand, which could cover the capital in a few years.”

While this is a problem for some, others like our troll gatekeeper friend are setting up businesses around the desert, brining in camels, and offering horse rides for 20 RMB an hour.

Pick a side! Are you for the desert or against it!

Originally from Desertification Beijing Style

While I’m building-up my mental engines in Cao Chang Di (Cultural Industries) in Beijing, I received an invitation to speak at Gnome’s first Asia conference, aptly titled, Gnome.Asia in Beijing. I’m going to take a crack and speak about something I haven’t been directly been involved in hacking, promoting or developing, but have been using massively which is what I’m just calling Autonomo.us Open Software Services, particularly micro-blogging on Identi.ca. I want to zoom out a bit from Creative Commons licensing, Open Source hacking and postulate where computing culture is heading, and how FLOSS developers can surge ahead by looking beyond Gnome 3.0, Gnome Online Desktop, etc. The presentation is called “The Autonomo.us Open Software Services Evolution, featuring Identi.ca” and I start the statement with:

Who provides your e-mail service? Where do you post your photos? Do you download music still? When all of our data is spread amongst multiple devices between multiple locations – home, office, and mobile – then it becomes clear why on-line network services rule supreme over managing personal computers in providing synchronized capable services that don’t require us to update software or hack-in fixes. The modern person’s primary concern in using a computer is to get things done and stay connected with others globally in the most effective ways possible.

And continues…

This presentation looks at the landscape of services like Identi.ca which are adapting the Free and Open Source Software approach to on-line network services publicly championed from the Autonomo.us blog. This is timely because the personal computing shift from the desktop to the web is a hot topic with the Gnome Online Desktop and Gnome 3.0 initiatives. However, with long development cycles, arduous community learning curves and reliance upon cranky software languages, the simple accessible nature of web application development is thriving. This presentation instigates increased development on web services that protect user autonomy by commonly using the GNU Affero GPL 3.0 software license, creating free services to replace popular non-free alternatives, and by replacing centralized services with open distributed ones when possible. This presentation emphasizes the role of the Gnome Desktop to be a lean mean on-line desktop machine and what role Chinese businesses can play in accelerating this next dynamic wave of the FLOSS movement.

The complete description and location details are at the Gnome.Asia site. My presentation is at 3 PM next Saturday, October 18 in Beijing. I posted it up on my wiki with some basic research to get the talk together. If there is anything missing, or research I should jump into please do add to it.

Right now there are very few services committed to the Franklin Street Declaration and I want to use some brain power to investigate what services might be easily converted, services that should be created, with rankings for priority and level of difficulty for replacement. Identi.ca is mind blowing example of openness at its best. So, how can I help push this plan forward more?

I’m thinking a lot right now about my moves in both contemporary culture, art and technology. And, I want to most definitely keep pushing on the FLOSS side of things, but keep in mind the larger picture, cultural priorities, as well as personal priorities Yes, we all have those!

Originally from The Autonomo.us Open Software Service Evolution at Gnome.Asia in Beijing

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Chinese street bomb, originally uploaded by rejon.

Ok, this is a simple burner I saw on the street in Beijing’s Cao Chang Di. It looks explosive, as in explosively cool in an Ikea Houtong type of way.

Originally from Chinese Street Bomb

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Extreme coffee, originally uploaded by rejon.

Saw this in Missouri Gas Station, but I just had to remind myself it wasn’t from Guangzhou Airport…hahahaha…many parallels!

Originally from Extreme coffee

I updated the Opening Remix Networks with some new slides, dropped some other wasteful ones, and I think the presentation is much better. Of course, there are times where I play video, and I’ve substituted slides for those clips and associated audio files.

I’m still interested in having a high-bling presentation app. I still can’t believe that this doesn’t exist on Linux. If someone else is interested in this, I would consider running funds through my company to build up an open source application to do this possibly based on clutter. Or, better yet, I should try out http://go-oo.org/ which has 3d effects, SVG support, and gstreamer support! Is there a Gentoo overlay for this?

I gave this presentation today at the famed Beijing-based Central Academy of Fine Arts in Deer Fang’s Experimental Video Lab course. It was strangely like a real art school!

Opening Remix Networks at Beijing Central Academy of Fine Arts

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: media culture)

Originally from Opening Remix Network 1.1

I gave presentation last connecting up my artistic/creative trajectory, involvements with Open Source, Open Content, Creative Commons, on into new projects, exemplified through Cantocore (at present). Thanks to all who came out, watched some of the pixellated videos I presented, and laughed at a few of my bad jokes

A big super thanks to Pat and Gwen for having me speak at the well-respected Electromediascope program. Also, please check out Mark Daggett’s work. He presented the week prior and his presentation sounded much more high-level and put together than my open diatribes. He held me accountable on a few topics I’ve become lazy about differentiating like the diffs between Free Software and Open Source, and Open Content.

Here is the slide show:

Opening Remix Networks at Nelson-Atkins Museum for Electromediascope

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: art media)

While in SF and BoCoMo (Boone County, Columbia, Missouri), I have been mulling many ideas and plans over deeply. After I get back to Guangzhou in time for the Cantocore Export Opening (and then onto Beijing), I am going to be doing some internal code review, drop some files on the floor, and churn out more writing. I’ve been spending massive time in the applied arts, and not so much in more theoretical and pure research. Don’t worry, I’m not going to spin out in “prep” mode or anything. It is just a good time to clean house

Oh, and I forgot to give a summary of my talk last night: I build remix communities which make systems for producing objects. Currently, I’m making cultural remixes.

Originally from Opening Remix Networks at Electromediascope