Random thoughts….

There are some random thoughts floating through my head today like dust motes in

the light through the window.

There’s been some sort of odd residual Gnomedex effect this week. It’s part
contemplative, part inspiration, part action.

I watched the first few minutes of The Screensavers on
TechTV last night, just to see Leo’s comments on Gnomedex. Both he and Megan
spoke well of the weekend. Megan’s comment was that she felt like a fan, being
able to sit and talk with Steve
Gibson, Mark Thompson,

Pud, Evan Williams, and Doc Searls. Leo went on the
record as making a commitment to return next year. It was nice to hear that the
event had the same effect on those in the spotlight as the rest of us.

Gnomedex also served as the catalyst for me to take action on a few things that
have been brewing over the past few months, even years. Between Evan and Doc, I
once again become completely convinced of the value of blogging. Understand that

I had my first “online journal” in late 1996 or early 1997 - long before the
term “blogging” was ever conceived. I also started and poorly administered two
collaborative online writing/journaling projects: Illumine and World Year. Both

were focused on the collective rather than the individual. Of those, I was
particularly happy with World Year. It was a project that paired writers from
around the world to post simultaneous journal entries each day. For example, on a

given day, you might find the daily activities of the Man From Matunga, a
doctor living in Mumbai, India, paired with Nancy of the now-defunct “Perforated
Lines”, a southern California author. Or maybe it was the pairing of Belfast,
Northern Ireland’s Fiona Vietch with Elizabeth, a San Diego dweller headed for
other points east. You might even come to the site on a day when I, a Midwestern

boy living on the edge of a wetlands area in Iowa City, Iowa, posted an entry
paired with ColdHeels, a sardonic and often obtuse Muscovite who’s small
apartment was within sight of the Kremlin. World Year had, at any given time,
between ten and fourteen authors posting entries from as diverse a set of social

and political environments as you could possibly imagine. While I never gave
explicit direction regarding the content of these entries, I tried to subtly
steer the authors away from political discussion. There’s no art in an overt
statement. Instead, I always felt as if the mere laying open of daily events and

thoughts in these radically different climates would show the differences and
similarities between us in a much more deeply personal way.

It’s a project I’ve thought long and hard about reviving. That desire was
spurred on yet again by the talks at Gnomedex, talks that emphasized the value
to the greater good of blogging. I’ve not yet taken any action, but I’ll let you

know first if and when it happens. And, by the way, if you’re already blogging
regularly and interested in participating in such a project, let me Greymatter to do the heavy lifting. I like its open source
nature and the full tool set it offers out of the box. Of course, you’ll know
first when that’s done. The invitation to participate in the blog via comments
is open to all.

The other project is one that has a bit broader utility. This one picks up on
Doc’s thoughts regarding warchalking, both in his recent Linux Journal article
and his talk at Gnomedex. I purchased two domains (both of which will remain
unnamed until the sites are done) that will be used to help further the cause of

sharing wireless access across the country. One will collect data on public and
freely shared wireless access points across the country. The other will offer a
forum for finding such access points and securing the permission of the owners
to share them. Be careful not to misunderstand the intent, as the mainstream
media has over the past few months. These will be access points that are
provided either by public funds for public use or with the knowledge and
consent of the owner. There’s no hacking involved. That’s not what
warchalking is about. More to the point, warchalking is about creating and
nurturing the wireless infrastructure in a way that’s accessible to the most
people. Again, I’ll keep you posted as the PHP and MySQL come together. In the
meantime, if you know of such access points in your area, I can probably get a
head start on populating the database with