Saturday House has been very active these last three weeks.
I'm working on a format for reports; email me with ideas.
I'd like to make these *shorter.*
I invite discussion about anything you see here, or the report itself.
This coming Saturday will be at Daniel Joyce's house again;
I'll issue Roll Call tomorrow morning.
SATURDAY HOUSE REPORT
(Saturday, May 23rd, 2009)
New People!
- James: black hair, new to the area, likes the
outdoors, network tech, if I'm recalling
right; knows movie directories and actors by
name
- Jay: interested in urban sustainability and
sustainable activist organizing; I met Jay on
Reality Sandwich
----
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
/LEARNINGS
* Work continued on Reactable. Daniel says, "We still
need more power!"
* Brian Rice researched IR illumination concept for Wall
of Life. "It'll work." Questions on how to get a
discrete 1 or a 0 out of a reflection.
* Rehanna learned about the structure of her camera, from
taking it apart and reconstructing it.
* A round of applause for PHIL and JAMES, who worked out
the plans for the hiking trip!
* Jay and I worked on plans for a bus trip to 3 local area
ecovillages, cohousing places, and communities. All of
Saturday House will be invited. Sustainability,
resiliant community, integral city.
CONVERSATIONS
* SOFTWARE -- I described OverHear, and Visual Programming
by flatting programs onto a plane. Brian Rice described
Slate.
* HIKING, NATURE -- James and Phil in particular, as they
worked out hiking trip plans.
* There were many more; This is just what I was caught up
in.
WHAT WE LEARNED
* ACTION -- We realized a recurring pattern:
SHARE-IDEA --inspires--> SHARE-IDEA --inspires--> ...
(and so on,
and so forth)
-->
after a time, the idea-sharing dies down,
energy and momentum dies down;
What then?
How can we turn this energy into action?
3 possibilities:
1. these things inevitably end in loss of energy,
"death by laptop" -- ergo, "AVOID THIS PATTERN"
2. it's good while it's running, but the ending is
bad: -- ergo, "CUT IT SHORT" -- adopt Open Space
Technology's: "When it's over, it's over." When
we realize sharing energy is dropping, STOP, BREAK
AWAY, figure out something else to do.
3. TURN SHARING ITSELF INTO AN ACTIVITY: create
templates for sharing, and collaborate on "how do
we explain this idea to the world?" If the idea
is already one with a solid web presence, "How do
we share this idea with Saturday House?" Perhaps
include in a template: diagram/drawing, contral
concepts, key explanations, action possibilities
Rehanna pointed out afterwards by email that some of our
ideas, we can REALIZE IN THE MINIATURE. She suggested a
paper model for the visual arrangement. This is great.
* Meta works: Keep a running conversation on "What is
working? What's not working?" Keep it safe for
questioning, noticing, and experimentation with
different ways. Damanhur's 3rd body of government was:
Social Theory. Keep everything actively under analysis
and safe for questioning.
* FOUR DAYS. We realized we were skeptical that most
ideas would last longer than 4 days (4 Saturdays;)
Contiguous runs are hard to keep. Either James or
Rehanna asked, "Well, maybe we should *target* four
days, then?" The idea is to test the boundary.
* FEELING LIKE WE'RE MAKING PROGRESS. We want to find
projects with a good success:effort ratio.
* SAFE TO FAIL -- FAILURE IS OKAY. Daniel Joyce points
out that it's important that it be safe to fail. In
fact, -- he points out -- in many of the initial
exercises at Bucketworks, it's **impossible** to fail.
(Consider: art projects.)
MOVIES
* James went with Sakura, Amber, and I, to see Terminator:
Salvation.
* There's a movie coming out in September, called
"Surrogates," about a transhumanist future in which most
people you see walking around outside are actually
[beautiful/handsome/superpowered] robotic surrogates for
the people themselves, whom are fully-immersed and
safely connected from their homes. Or so they think...
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Website: http://saturdayhouse.org/
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