rickwebb:

Yes please! Skills that are currently unknown but needed:

• Electrical work
• Gardening
• Chicken Raising
• Furniture Building
• Plumbing
• Auto repair
• Canning
• Meat curing and smoking
• Sewing
And probably a million others.

What’s the philosophy?  We each work on our compound-living skills for the next 5 years?  This is about learning all of the skills that would be needed to live without the regular conveniences of urban life?  Re-countrify ourselves?  Or that we find people we like who already have skills in these areas?

What about a school?  What about telephones and cell towers?  So much to think about, in a good way.

Also, you should watch Commune, for entertainment value.

Gardening, canning, animal raising, sewing, etc… no problem.  Auto repair, electrical work, construction… I think I hear Mike Prevette and Chris Weber calling.

rickwebb:

What’s this about a compound in California?

Basically, I’m toying with the idea of eventually buying like 500 to a thousand acres in Northern California. I’ll build a house for me and my family, and a small house a couple hundred yards away for my parents. Then maybe 3-4 more houses, and some sort of rec room/kitchen common building where we can all rock out and party and have dinners and chill.

My house would be big enough for a good number of visitors - like maybe 8 bedrooms - and people would be welcome to stay as long as they want. Then if people wanted to join us on the compound, we’d build them a new house, somewhere on the land, and they’d join us.

I’m thinking northern california mainly because I want to be near a city - we’ll have a pied a terre in the city for dancing and culture and the like - and I can’t deal with humidity. I recognize, though, that for some of the important people in my life, the west coast may not be the best bet.

For those interested, I recommend starting by watching Stealing Beauty (though sadly I’ve ruled out italy for logistical reasons), and Uncorked, aka At Sachem Farm - a similar “family on a compound” film that takes place in Northern California.

I’ve got like 5-7 years to work out the details, so I’m sort of starting from the ground up, reading books like “home building for dummies” and “farm buying for dummies’ and the like. There’s a lot of planning to do.

I also think this could be merged with Ryan’s Shennaniganset concept, though I’m not convinced we need to start with a pre-existing town, and I think I like the idea of it being a bit more rural, but CLOSE to a town - ie we could blow shit up if we wanted to, and we could have a garden. (also, as an aside, Ryan, you need to work on Shennaniganset’s Google mojo)

Geography is the big challenge, though. Every time this concept is discussed, no one wants to leave their roots - new englanders want to stay in new england, west coasters in the west, etc. Austin’s too hot. New Engand’s too humid. New York too expensive.

So I figure buy the land, build the first buildings, and if people come, awesome, and if not, you got your mom and pa and kids and people will visit.

Ask me anything

Well, the Bensons will be there for sure. If you plan on putting together a crack team of pseudo think tank link collectors and brain stormers, I want to be on it.

dearbaby:

My water broke an hour and a half ago.

My contractions are getting pretty intense.

I can’t stop bursting into tears. not from pain - just from pure joy.

This is really happening, isn’t it?

Please pray for us. Send courage and strength and healthy healthy baby vibes.

She’s on her way and I can hardly wait.

Love,

M

Best of luck and everything else, Melissa!

rickwebb:

bustr:

jakelodwick:

What’s the most resilient parasite? An idea.

The first line in the new trailer for Inception boinked me. The idea that ideas can live outside the mind, and can work against us, is extremely important, in my view.

When I get to the root of something that’s bothering me, it’s almost always an inaccurate conviction about reality. I try to hunt the bastards down. “What do I believe, that isn’t so?”

I’ve started thinking of falsehoods as pathogens. I hope I am correct.

Well, there are some truths that are pretty bothersome to me. Death, for one. Meaninglessness, futility, etc. Of course, because they’re truths we have to adapt and deal with them, and maybe they can be twisted into positive things, but I think that’s more about our ability to confabulate than it is about truth always being good and falsehoods being the pathogens.

I agree that there are some truths that bother me - death being one of them. For me, though, I try and use these bothersome truths as gateways to new beliefs, new philosophies, new ways of looking, that align my world views more harmoniously to these unavoidable truths. After all, to me, it feels like if some undeniable truth of the world doesn’t sit well with me, I should look long and hard at why.

I agree. If we’re going to have an success in life, and not have a constant dissonance with the universe that we have to constantly push under a rug or avoid in other ways, we should try to come to terms with the unavoidable truths.  Or at least try, in the case of things that require more power than our brains can handle (like huge numbers or long periods of time or levels of complexity).  But, I think it’s healthy, and a good check, to not assume that we are always okay with truth and always not okay with falsehood.  Self-importance or unbridled confidence are some of the hardest to avoid pathogens of the truth-seeker.

jakelodwick:

What’s the most resilient parasite? An idea.

The first line in the new trailer for Inception boinked me. The idea that ideas can live outside the mind, and can work against us, is extremely important, in my view.

When I get to the root of something that’s bothering me, it’s almost always an inaccurate conviction about reality. I try to hunt the bastards down. “What do I believe, that isn’t so?”

I’ve started thinking of falsehoods as pathogens. I hope I am correct.

Well, there are some truths that are pretty bothersome to me. Death, for one. Meaninglessness, futility, etc. Of course, because they’re truths we have to adapt and deal with them, and maybe they can be twisted into positive things, but I think that’s more about our ability to confabulate than it is about truth always being good and falsehoods being the pathogens.

feltron:

Today is the last day of 2009. This is a particularly exciting and bittersweet time, as it marks the end of a curious life-tracking experiment I began on the first day of the year.

In addition to the wallet, keys and phone, I made sure all year to always be stocked with numerous 2009 Annual Report cards. These individually numbered cards were handed to any person with whom I had a meaningful encounter this year. They invited the recipient to visit a survey page at feltron.com to answer questions about my mood, our relationship and activities together.

The conceit of this year’s report is that it is a crowd-sourced collaboration by friends, family, colleagues and new aquaintances. I have received over 500 responses so far and am impatiently awaiting the end of the year to tackle this messy but insightful data set. To everyone who participated and tolerated this experiment – I am incredibly indebted to your patience and hope to make the most of your responses over the next few weeks.

Thank you again and have a happy New Year, Nicholas.

I am jealous of Nicholas’s data set.  That makes me feel weird.

samantham:

rickwebb:

Brown University should have called me. I could have told them this.

Also. Whiskey is Brown. Brown University. Ha ha.

Right? I have done extensive research on this topic.

I don’t think I can say that I’ve come to this same conclusion based on experience.  Then again, I drink whiskey all the time, and vodka usually only when I’m drinking a lot.  Anyway, I think these studies are mostly nonsense.  Why are studies being done on this?  Why not on which alcohol gives the best drunk?  That’s what more important and would make a better headline anyway.

samantham:

Proud of you, Buster! Way to go.

Locavore - The Top 10 Everything of 2009 - TIME

Thanks, Samantha. Your post here was how I found out about this. :)

sciencevsromance:

rickwebb:

How sad is this? Remember the first time you signed up? Remember the paradigm shift? Has anything felt that transformative since?

Still, though. $100mil is no slouch.

No kidding, all around. That price tag makes me wonder whether I should finally get around to deleting my account. It’s like the land that time forgot over there.

What would they do with your 6-year old profile that makes it worth deleting though?

I do remember when Friendster changed my life.  Remember when there were rumors that Google was going to buy Friendster, and everyone already thought it sucked?  In 2003 I wrote this:

In other news there’s a rumor that Google is going to buy Friendster. Man! I know everyone thinks social software is over-hyped and that Friendster sucks, but I’m in that camp of two or three people who still think it’s under-hyped. And it’s closer than you all think, I swear!

I report the rumor with a - in the morale-o-meter because it makes me so mad (with jealousy) to see other people thinking about (and building, with whole teams of people even! and wads of dough even!) the things I know know know will be big big big so soon soon soon.

It’s worth $100,000,000, if only to put it into storage in a museum somewhere.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we all put our dreams into writing like this? This one sounds like a great dream.

withoutmelissa:

Today I’m going to put my biggest dream down on my blog in the hopes that one day (soon) I’ll figure out how to make it come true. I believe it’s important to let a dream exist on its own. Be it in written form - or spoken. I’m planting this seed in the hopes that it will grow. Ok, Here goes….

I wish that Brent and I could raise our little family while being able to spend every day together - that we could make a living writing - him, continuing to write songs for tv/film and touring occasionally & me, writing childrens books and my blogs. I dream that we could have a little house of our own with a green grass yard. and a lemon tree. and hardwood floors that creak when you get up in the middle of the night for a glass of water.

I wish that Everly could grow up surrounded by many interesting cultures, and that she learns to appreciate people for those qualities that make us human and not for those differences that society allows to divide us.  I wish that we could travel with her and teach her history by showing her the actual places and not just pictures in a history book.

I wish to live simply, to leave more of a mark on the people in our lives and less of a mark on the planet that sustains us. I dream that Bailey Jane will make the Guiness book of world records for being the oldest living Boston terrier on the planet and that even when Gibson is a little old man dog that he will still give me that look that makes me feel like he understands every word I am saying and that my secret is safe with him.

I want all of this - and I believe it is possible for me to obtain it. Today my dream is moving forward.

Love,

M

This is the average of all 200+ flags of the world, weighted by population, but it looks like only America, China, and India.

sciencevsromance:

I don’t really understand the motivation for this Flag of Pure Bliss, but I admit that it is kind of pretty. [Weather Sealed via kottke.org]

samantham:

Werner Herzog is so awesome. I always found all of that Chuck Norris crap so, so irritating.

I agree!  And, when I was in my hug minor celebrities phase, on a date that wasn’t going well, I hugged him after the screening of The Wild Blue Yonder at SAM, and he replied that I had made his day.  He is one of my cranky old bastard heroes.