In a convoluted loss today, I won the first round of CCR but managed to lose the second one. Why two rounds? Well someone else can explain. So why am I blogging? I said the loser was “the one with the guilty conscience”.
We’ll see who else shows up.
Posted in Uncategorized
One thing we pretty much all love about the Robot Co-op is our office. We are on 12th and Pike on Seattle’s Capitol Hill and it is super awesome. But we might have to move if we can’t find new places to eat or learn ways out of the interminable arguments about where to eat lunch.
Yesterday saw a near collapse in lunch morale as the team fractured over where to go. The “solid core” stuck it out and went to Dick’s – but as it was a pay your own way affair, no one lost at Credit Card Roulette (CCR) and no one got the blog post assignment. That was fixed in the afternoon when we suckered Todd into playing CCR for beers – and duly lost. So here I blog the drinky talk.
We figured out our next two releases over beers: Nightcap & Cupcake (the latest ponies in our stable of releases). Nightcap will see us putting the finishing touches on all the work we’ve been doing on 43 Places. Over the last few months we’ve rolled out a new design to places, added events, check-ins, groups, and lots of new ways to report problems on the site. Now we are doing the last work on the “locals page”, creating new ways to recognize locals, and hopefully, clarifying what we think the site is for: connecting with locals in your city and around the world. We are going to constrain ourselves to 4 more weeks of work on that front.
As for Cupcake, we are just getting started with the ideas, but it will mark a return to 43 Things in a big way. We have lots of ideas for how to take the site to a new level of interactivity, community and self development.
It is fun to start new things – and satisfying to wrap up good work.
Posted in Thoughts
Today was my first day back at the co-op after a long 10-day silent meditation retreat (43things entries here) in Onalaska, WA. Oh sweet enlightenment. Almost as sweet as the chicken yakisoba I feasted on with fellow robots while fielding questions on the highlights and lowlights of going off and being by yourself for extended periods of slow-moving time.
Josh mentioned that he went on a 3-day silent Ignatian Retreat back in the day and had a strong religious experience. During my 10 days I didn’t have any religious experiences, but then again, it wasn’t a religious retreat. Mine was more of a systematic dissection of the body and mind… trying to dissolve the gestalt of body and mind into its separate, temporary, independantly motivated and functioning parts. And I had many weird mental and physical experiences that were stranger than most drug experiences I’ve had.
We discussed the fine line between deep, guided, experiences and brainwashing. The techniques for delving into the subconscious and exploring biases, illusions, and ultimate sense of self are eerie and powerful tools that are difficult to trust in strangers’ hands, even in your own hands.
People are naturally interested in the cult phenomenon as it relates to any experiences this far out of the mainstream. Was this retreat an indoctrinization into a cult? It depends on your definition of cult, of which there are many. It implies some strong desire to control its members, usually to the leader’s benefit and the members’ cost. I could find no strong cost aspect in this particular organization… could giving money to an organization that encourages striving for happiness in all beings really be any worse than giving money to organizations that produce products of any other kind? Are people not just as brainwashed by advertising, cultural pressures, employers, families, and fashion?
I expressed interest in possibly going again. Eric expressed a conclusion that it had then “worked”. Josh then asked, “Will you pay next time?” I said no but really I meant maybe. Next up, the landmark forum. THEN maybe we can have a real conversation about cults.
Posted in Thoughts
Here’s an entry I ran across on 43 Places that is actually something of a review of 43places.com – and in it, I found some insight into what sort of place we’ve all been building together.
“Chronocide“, an entry by
cranberrygoddess:
Highlights:
1. bragging to people about where you have been
2. thinking of cool places to go
3. reminiscing over old travel stories
4. working out for yourself what’s good about where you live
5. killing time at work
6. being cheered by random people for no good reason
7. the irony of place like this
8. feeling superior to travellers who dont’ see the real ‘[insert place here]’
9. finding out where you should have gone but missed
10. discovering that you are not alone in this stupidity
Posted in Highlights
Another lunch at Ballet results in the following fortune cookie distribution …
“Success and happiness will come your way.” – Ivan
“You will be admired for internal beauty.” – Todd
“You will meet someone famous.” – Eric
“Good health is in your future.” – Josh
“You will soon meet a helpful person.” – Bob
“Your popularity will increase.” – Daniel
My predictions:
Ivan will move to Slovakia.
Todd will get engaged.
Eric will meet Gerald Sussman.
Josh will bike to work more often.
Bob will soon meet a helpful person.
Someone will subscribe to me today.
Erik is still on a vipassana meditation retreat and appropriately did not collect a fortune today.
Posted in Announcements
Yesterday during lunch we talked about exploiting the occasion of a major move to radically reduce one’s possessions. Pretty much everyone at the Co-op has gone through some transformative event in their lives, be it a major geographical move, a divorce, a career change, or what have you. And we’ve all decided to simplify at the same time. We suggested that Bob get rid of everything before he goes to Scotland. The jury’s out on whether he’ll go for it. We joked about buying his fancy, barely driven Mini and sharing it as the company Flexcar.
We also took another pass at the “how much blah do you need to be happy” discussion. Josh proposed that asking for a monetary value is no more sensical than asking how much air, or how many calories, or how many friends. I think what he means is that there’s no correct answer, not because each person has their own scale, but because the idea of reaching happiness quantitatively is absurd.
Posted in Announcements
