shortened epic blog post
Posted by douglasawh on October 26, 2008
I suppose this could be three (or four) posts, but I’m interested in all of these things right now, so why post later?
Punk and Openness
My punk “street cred” is arguable. On one hand, I’m listening to music on Last.fm at current that has only been played 213 times. Compare that to Bad Religion, which has been played 20,410,919 times or Justin Timberlake, which has been played 18,241,764. (btw, how awesome is it that Bad Religion is more popular than JT? Of course, BR has been at it quite a bit longer). On the other hand, I drive a Saab 93 Convertible. Not a new one, but new enough to be very unpunk. Then again, I’ve been kicked out of a show. That’s certainly cred worthy. Ah, but there’s that whole works for “the man” thing. I could go on with arguments for and against, but you can decide by looking at my Last.fm page. I think it’s clear to say, either way, that I like punk music (and I’m considering hardcore as a sub-genre just to be clear).
In what ways are DIY punk and FOSS similar? Well, both have been coopted by “the man” with people divided as to if this is good or bad. Political punk gets a wider audience by selling out to corporate media. I don’t like Anti-Flag’s latest album, but I don’t think their politics are necessarily hurt by being on a corporate label. While I tend not to be a fan of corporate labels, the RIAA and DRM, I am very much a fan on Sun, Red Hat, IBM and other corporate players in the FOSS world. Probably going to be posting about this more later…
UWSFC
I’m supposed to be going to the University of Wisconsin (Madison) Students for Free Culture meeting at 5:30, but I still haven’t heard from Chris Lay, their leader, about the location. Chris is going to be helping with Open Everything Madison. UPDATE: Alnisa Allgood informed me that it’s either at Sunlight or Sunroom Cafe. Seems the e-mail on the list may have had a typo. I’m not sure how I feel about eating at a place that uses Microsoft Office Live Small Business but at least they have a website.
Openness and Web Apps
Recently Richard Stallman called web apps stupid. My gut reaction was this was ridiculous. I’m currently writing on WordPress and streaming Last.fm. I’ve also got Gmail going, online banking and travel planning. I’ll have to post more about this later…
Other random things…
I will post a couple Drupal Camp Chicago pics to Flickr and facebook later. My Intel webcam that we were going to throw out at work doesn’t seem to be picked up on Linux. Maybe it is broken. It certainly looks old.
Openness and waste
Looks like I’ll have to come back to this one. Off to UWSFC meeting…
Pete Prodoehl said
State of mind sir… How you look at things, the world, how you live your life, etc… The DIY ethic, the belief in speaking your mind, and be open enough to hear others do the same. Creativity and productivity, not just sitting back and consuming what the mainstream gives us. Getting off your ass and making you own things (music, art, zines, shows) and not just sitting on your ass and buying buying buying. Believing in the kids, and the future, and not just pissing it all away when you turn 21 to start going to bars every night…
Punk is learning and teaching and building a culture, a counter-culture, not a sub-culture… finding a common ground among those who feel the same (or similar) and doing something about it. BarCamp is punk… Bucketworks is punk… Open source is punk.