Category Archives: relationships

Machine Troubles

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The backlight on my work computer died, so I had to send it in to Hewlett Packard for repair, thus making it more difficult to follow my New Year’s resolution to write blog entries every day.

I finished Greg Egan’s “Permutation City” today. Read on the recommendation of science fiction writer and EFF colleague Cory Doctorow, it was a fascinating exploration of the possibilities of storing human consciousness inside computers and the possibility of transcendence of computer hardware and reality as we know it. I followed Egan’s point although I’m still unclear on how the universe actually separates from its hardware underpinnings by “gathering dust” or whatever. Anyone care to comment?

Praveen and I had a great discussion of the book, along with concepts such as nanotechnology, fabricators, quantum computing, and quantum cryptography. He lost his contracting job today, so plans to spend more time doing projects related to the Online Policy Group.

One of those projects is to design an online voting system that the Tech Fed and the California Coalition for Civil Rights could use for organizational decisionmaking, since both are coalitions that need a mechanism for tabulating votes on various issues, along with comments from each organization on why it voted the way it did. Long term, it would be even better to have a system that facilitated consensus process online, provided verification of voter identity, and permitted proportional voting schemes for elections of officers or whatever. The nonprofit world has yet to benefit from one of the most basic benefits that networked applications could provide.

Preparations for a trip to Brazil to attend “Living After Capitalism” in association with the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre are going well. I managed to get the air ticket using United frequent flyer miles and I’ve applied for a U.S. passport renewal. The passport was supposed to be ready yesterday since I paid a heft expedite fee, but it hasn’t arrived yet. Hotel reservations are theoretically complete, although not with a high confidence level. Once I have the passport, I should be able to get a Brazilian visa, which now costs $100 in retaliation for a price increase of U.S. visas for Brazilians. I’ve started learning a bit of Brazilian Portuguese as well.

Hike in Richmond

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Today I visited Neil in Richmond. We ate a nice cafe in town and cuddled and played a bit at various points during my visit. We set out on a hike up a hill near his house. Along the way, we spotted some interesting erosion patterns as well as great views both inland and toward the bay. I realized I have to do more hiking so I can work myself up to handle some really nice hikes like a repeat of the Na Pali Coast hike on Kauai.

Neil is reading a great book called “The Barbary Coast” written in 1933. We ate dinner at a little Mexican restaurant with his brother and female partner, discussing the Bush administration and the lousy response to the economic downturn as well as the aggression in Iraq. Neil dropped me off at BART and I headed right home.

At home, I was kind of sleepy, but roped my housemate Jack into watching “Forbidden Planet,” an early and really camp, cheesy sci fi movie.

Yesterday was game night at Guy and Jey’s place. Matthew picked me up from work to go to Lance’s place. We waited for Lance to preen before heading out to Guy and Jey’s place. There was a good crowd, most playing a game called Cranium. We also played Pictionary and Aquarius, the rules of the latter calling for the person with the longest hair to play first. I got tired after awhile and Nathan, Lance, and I headed back on the Muni L train and Owl bus. Enroute Nathan told Lance and I some great stories.

Lance and I got off in the Castro and took the 24 bus to his place, picking up some organic chocolate hazelnut ice cream and Odwalla Strawberry C Monster juice along the way. I was exhausted, yet chatted a bit with Lance’s housemate Sammy, who is a great artist, if a bit dark in the subjects of his artwork. Lance and I made love a couple of times during the evening and I got up early to head back home to meet up with Neil for the hike.

I’m nearly finished reading “The Black Gryphon” by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon.

New Year’s Events

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Thanks to Lance for asking Guy and Jay to let me come to their New Year’s party last evening. I had a great time visiting with the gang. Guy, Jay, Aaron, Marcus, Courtland, Lance, and I were there. The guys were playing shoot-em-up video games at first, so Lance and I took a romantic walk on Ocean Beach, only a couple blocks from Guy and Jay’s place. The midnight hour passed with a toast and without incident. Matthew and Ann showed up after Matthew returned from Houston and Ann was kind enough to pick him up at the airport. Ann was also kind enough to give Lance and me a ride to my place where we finally hit the sack at about 4am.

Lance stayed for most of New Year’s Day. We slept, made love, talked, ate, watched two movies (The Hudsucker Proxy and Death of a Salesman), then talked and ate some more.

My father called and we had a short but pleasant chat. Looks like the paperwork is almost finished on his new home in Seattle, so he’s settling in for some renovations. He mentioned that my sister Jen is down with bedrest due to some mild complications with her pregnancy. And my cousin Deirdre is in the hospital again with mental health problems, unfortunately losing her trailer and pet in the process. I need to get in touch soon with both of them, as well as writing a long overdue thank-you note to my grandparents for the birthday gift they sent me months ago.