rejon.org is Jon Phillips.

Taking a cue from Lessig, and also post-talking with my parents, go vote Obama. Please!

I went to extra lengths this year to get a backup ballot and fax in to make sure my vote is counted (in California nonetheless) since I’m in Beijing xinxai. Thanks to my dad for helping with this as well! My dad just called and confirmed this. I proceeded to make sure that he (my #midwest #barometer) knows just how important it is that he and my mom vote Obama, since they live in Missouri!

It is super important for more than just local politics, but for global politics, peace, and more importantly, the global economy, for as many as possible to vote for Obama.

I am not a believer in magic, but more of the sorts that the president is a temporary dictatorship. Regardless, vote like Chomsky would say, for the lesser of the two evils.

Oh, the “(or die)” part above is a joke. I will tell you kind readers though that I did dangle the changing of holiday travel from Beijing to Missouri over my parents if they don’t vote Obama Yeah! Extreme times require extreme measures

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.

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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!

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!