Leadership, community, and how I got Hacker News’s second-highest average karma

Leadership creates community. I'm writing today on leadership and creating community in a specific context for clarity, but it applies to anyone's participation in any community, online or off. I expect you can translate everything below to your world easily enough. If not, comment below and I'll clarify. An effective measure of your leadership skills is how much community you create. Another is how much your community appreciates you. Online communities that track upvotes quickly tell you how your behavior influences them, which can help you improve your communications skills. I don't want to imply participating in one little online community is a big deal, but why miss an opportunity to learn and improve one's communication and leadership skills with immediate feedback at no cost?…

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How and why I made the Passion-Attraction Model graphs

Time I put a lot more time into making the graphs and writing the posts of the past week than usual -- at least a couple full days just graphing before writing a word. Why Why did I put so much time in? Not because I didn't have lots to do. Because people who saw early versions of the graphs told me it helped them better understand Their intimate relationships Their partners, and Themselves. They also enjoyed reading the graphs -- like their eyes opened wide and they looked like kids with new toys, like who would have expected something so science-and-math-like could help them understand their intimate relationships ... and work!?! My main reason for writing here is to increase self-awareness in ways that…

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Why dislike patents?

Here's something I wrote in response to someone who wrote about patents, confused why so many people, especially people who work in technology, are coming to dislike patents. I find people who don't work with patents have models about them that don't fit with how businesses use them today, their effects, and how and why we created them in the first place. The first quote is a question I read that I decided to answer. The rest is my response. In case anyone forgets, I've written several patents and co-founded and work at a company that fundamentally depends on those patents. I don't claim patents are bad. I'm only answering the person's question. What is with all the hate for patents? Should a company not…

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Scandal about that refreshing voice on copyright from a hard-core conservative

Do you like music, art, literature, innovation, invention, creativity, entrepreneurship, and things like that? Then you probably liked the document I mentioned a few weeks ago about problems with copyright and how to fix them. I considered it well thought-out and felt it proposed ideas that would improve the country. I was surprised to see it coming from the type of hard-core conservative that supports corporate welfare. Until the group that originally distributed the document disowned it and took it down from their site. (here's the original document) I don't know if you follow copyright or patent policy, but as a writer, inventor, writer and holder of a half-dozen patents, and one who enjoys culture, I find the topic incredibly important. I find the direction…

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A refreshing voice on copyright from a hard-core conservative

EDIT: Maybe I should have expected this. The Executive Director of the Committee pulled the document from their site, stating We at the RSC take pride in providing informative analysis of major policy issues and pending legislation that accounts for the range of perspectives held by RSC Members and within the conservative community. Yesterday you received a policy brief on copyright law that was published without adequate review within the RSC and failed to meet that standard. Copyright reform would have far-reaching impacts, so it is incredibly important that it be approached with all facts and viewpoint in hand. As the RSC's Executive Director, I apologize and take full responsibility for this oversight. Enjoy the rest of your weekend and a meaningful Thanksgiving holiday ...…

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Amazing software to help you think and organize

It's hard to think when your mind is swimming with information. I used to have a lot of trouble starting writing documents any longer than a couple pages. Come to think of it, I'd have similar issues with starting to create many things -- ideas, research and development for my company, resolving problems with friends and colleagues, and so on. Then I found probably the best software I've found to organize my thoughts. Not having to keep track of all my thoughts means freedom -- my favorite kind of freedom: freedom to think without inhibition. I first wrote how useful I find this software -- Freemind -- in over a year and a half. Please read that post for some more description of it. I'll…

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Occupy Disney

Back when Occupy Wall Street was making more news and I was writing about it and leadership and on it and responsibility, I had an idea about corporate control of our lives I thought would be interesting. As an entrepreneur and inventor, I felt the control closer to those areas of my life. I've written about how the patent and copyright systems have created monopolies and oligopolies that distorted their effects from promoting invention to stifling it and small business. There's more to things than just one sentence, so I hope you'll forgive my oversimplicity for the sake of brevity. The Occupy Wall Street movement seems to have lost steam, but recent stories about patent fights between Apple and Samsung are turning the stomachs of…

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Union Square in Motion named Adobe Design Achievement Award Semifinalist!

Union Square in Motion made the prestigious 2012 Adobe Design Achievement Award semifinals! The Adobe Design Achievement Awards celebrate student and faculty achievement reflecting the powerful convergence of technology and the creative arts. The competition - which showcases individual and group projects created with industry-leading Adobe creative software - honors the most talented and promising student graphic designers, photographers, illustrators, animators, digital filmmakers, developers and computer artists from the world's top institutions of higher education. Adobe sent us the certificate below, somehow not getting around to naming the artists -- Jaqi Vigil, Hilal Koyuncu, Rose Maison, Josefina Santos, Umut Ozover, and me; and co-producer with me, Anezka Sebek -- or the name of the project: Union Square in Motion. Anyway, I couldn't be prouder of…

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Facebook’s woes and what it could have done instead

If you know me, you'd expect Facebook's woes to mean the problems Facebook inflicts on its users who haven't left it yet. After all, leaving Facebook is easy and fun. Yes, they're reaching a billion users, but I'm no longer one of them and once you leave the site seems weird, like why would you do business with such a creepy company. From the New York Times, Facebook Shares Plummet in an Earnings Letdown: "Unhappy with Facebook’s first financial report as a public company Thursday, investors fled the stock in droves..." Most of you probably expect the drop resulted from my calling the company creepy and you may be right, but I think the greater problems come from inside Facebook, and decisions they made based…

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Human history, on a flash drive

A couple friends created the eVr1 Codex -- part accessory, part memory drive -- that stores a huge canon of literature so you can keep it with you at all times. I know both friends from business school classes. You can also see the California outdoor love of nature they share. Here's one of their products. Our Vision eVr1’s vision is to connect modern man with the long, global human story.  We achieve market leadership in sustainable goods that connect humankind to the web of life, while inspiring wonder & purpose in our employees & customers. Their outdoors-y love of nature is different than my physicist love of nature, but I'm pleased to say I'm on their Academic Board, so I'm helping choose the science…

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Awesome math book and an anecdote on it

Math and science to me are beautiful -- about the most beautiful things in the world. I hope some of that comes across when I write on them. After a couple posts on a physicist's perspective on our impact on the world -- about an awesome blog (called Do The Math, but it has a science perspective) and an awesome video presentation by the blogger, here's something on math. When I started graduate school in physics at the University of Pennsylvania, I thought I could still study some math on the side. It turns out physics grad school takes all your time (I was also playing Ultimate Frisbee), but I had time to establish a relationship with a professor in the math department. He suggested…

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Your online tools spy on you. There is a way out.

I saw a snippet of a talk pointing out that Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and others design software from the ground up to spy on you. Sometimes a blatant statement of a problem reminds you of it. People are learning about the problems with large corporations and governments having so much information on you, though they don't know what to do about it because they have no alternatives. Gmail benefits them more in the moment than the cost of possible problems in the future. Geeks recognized these problems decades ago and started creating tools to protect privacy. Tools are emerging to give people more alternatives. Just like Linux on servers kept Microsoft from monopolizing all servers -- can you imagine what would happen with one…

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Leaving Facebook is easy and fun

I expect to log into Facebook once more -- to message my connections there that they won't be able to find me there, why, and where to find me instead -- then I'll leave for good. Why leave? I knew I wanted to leave after Facebook made its privacy policy too intrusive for my tastes. I felt they had too much control over my personal data. Facebook is creepy, getting creepier, and shows no sign of slowing down. Free cost does not mean I'm getting something for nothing. I came to see I was the product being sold to advertisers. What benefit I got -- networking online -- I realize I'm better off without, because I find myself more social without Facebook. I still appreciate…

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Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” reveals more than you’d think

I just read a post, "Google is FUBAR," (for non-geeks, fubar means "f'ed up beyond all recognition) suggesting the company is on a slippery slope leading not to its demise but to move its practices from what people like to what will lock them in and to risk more forays into anti-trust and privacy territories. Why is Google FUBAR, then? ... It must irreparably alter its fleet of successful web properties to become more Facebooky. It must alienate users with weird, ungooglesque features. It must force Chrome and Google+ down the throats of users who are simply looking for a brilliant search engine. The path towards Facebookness is fraught with strife. Facebook, as the incumbent with almost a billion active users, has a huge head…

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This photograph is free!

I find this picture of the Eiffel Tower beautiful. A guy named Tristan Nitot took the picture and posted it for people to share and enjoy in a post called "This photograph is free." He posted it in response to some other guy whose name I don't know who posted a picture he took entitled "This photograph is not free." I won't link to him because I'm afraid he might attack me and if he doesn't like sharing I won't share. Because I like beautiful photographs and people sharing, I'm sharing his beautiful photograph. I commented on his site I find your picture beautiful and your act to share it adds to its beauty. You made the other guy's picture (the not free one) and motivations…

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Computer problems

Usually I prefer using GNU/Linux. Every now and then something in that community annoys me. In the spring the people behind the Ubuntu distribution decided to make a new interface the default without telling me. When I "upgraded" it messed things up, but, with some work, I got it back to how I liked it. This time when I upgraded, they removed my usual interface. After major work, I realized the effort to restore how I like to work wasn't worth it and I switched to a different distribution, called Mint, specifically the Debian edition. Maybe I should have gone with pure Debian, but reports made Mint sound like it could handle video better. Why am I writing about what few people care about? To…

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An offer to the Freedombox community

My post on how Freedombox's pursuit of perfection is undermining its goals prompted some discussion. Hearing how people the Freedombox community wants to help end up supporting products we see as non-Free jolted my system. I believe constructive criticism helps, but my desire to contribute more led to the offer below. One person's response got me thinking about how I, as someone who doesn't write much software, can help. Diaspora is a decent example. They released something buggy, with minimal functionality, reasonably early on… yes, they were criticized for it’s quality at the time, but it got people using it (those who could get an invite / understand they go go elsewhere, anyway) and today they’re by far the largest free socnet alternative. Diaspora has…

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Freedombox’s pursuit of perfection undermines its goals

A journalist covering Iran I saw speak last night that got me thinking critically about the Freedombox in a way the Freedombox community would benefit from, in my opinion. Someone asked the journalist what people working for freedom in Iran did about governments having access to data on Facebook and similar tools. Being in the Freedombox community, I anticipated her saying something like it was a big problem and people had to avoid it. She didn't. She extolled the benefits of social networking and described how people worked around problems and celebrated Facebook, Twitter, etc. Since joining the Freedombox mailing list at its start, I've seen months of discussions on how to make it perfect. Pursuing theoretical ideals has some use, but I concluded the…

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I’ll get in trouble for this in two ways

I'll get in trouble for this post in two ways, but people who get it will appreciate it. The first is how I view death. I'm overwhelmingly swayed by this passage from the ancient book called the Zuangzi (spelled Chuang Tzu in the translation below) on the death of a loved one. Chuang Tzu's wife died. When Hui Tzu went to convey his condolences, he found Chuang Tzu sitting with his legs sprawled out, pounding on a pot and singing. "You lived with her, she brought up your children and grew old," said Hui Tzu. "It should be enough simply not to weep at her death. But pounding on a tub and singing - this is going too far, isn't it?" Chuang Tzu said, "Not…

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Animated Freedombox logo!

In the midst of my series on Communication Skills Exercises, yesterday I worked with the brilliant, talented, and accomplished Nina Paley -- free culture advocate, creator of Sita Sings the Blues, cartoonist of the insightful, funny, and subversive Mimi and Eunice, and friendly neighbor. We animated the Freedombox logos John Emerson and I worked on. She also does things like post blog entries titled "I am awesome," suggesting an obvious affinity for someone as awesome as I. I enjoyed the links in the reference section of Nina's Wikipedia page. Search on her and you'll find more creativity, humor, and support for spreading and sharing culture and ideas. She knew about the Freedombox project and was open to contributing. We shared ideas of how to animate…

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Behind China’s Censorship

I had heard of the Great Wall of China. Now I'm behind it. They block Facebook, Youtube, plenty of Wikipedia pages (like pages on internet censorship in China), and links to software to get around the firewall. There seems to be a paid service to circumvent it. I can't say I understand the strategy behind blocking these sites. It seems counterproductive to my concept of what government is for -- something like enabling people to live the lives they want and protecting them from the opposite. For my  experience, I'm turning lemons into lemonade by using the experience as an opportunity to go without those time vampires for a while anyway. I don't get to post about my articles, so if you like something I…

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Freedombox logo designs
Freedombox logo

Freedombox logo designs

More Freedombox logo ideas, in collaboration with John Emerson. Click on them for larger versions. If you don't know about Freedombox, I recommend learning about (and supporting) it, unless you like third parties like corporations and governments having access to your personal life.

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Another reason to avoid proprietary software

Another reason to avoid proprietary software is that it allows its creators privacy on your hardware. That lets them spy on you, among other things. Who wants that? For example, here is a report that the iPhone keeps record of everywhere you go Security researchers have discovered that Apple's iPhone keeps track of where you go – and saves every detail of it to a secret file on the device which is then copied to the owner's computer when the two are synchronised. The file contains the latitude and longitude of the phone's recorded coordinates along with a timestamp, meaning that anyone who stole the phone or the computer could discover details about the owner's movements using a simple program. Another reason to support the…

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Freedombox logo ideas
Freedombox flowers

Freedombox logo ideas

A friend and I were playing around with logo ideas for the Freedombox project based on this email solicitation from the Freedombox Foundation for T-shirt designs: T-Shirt Designs --------------- One of the things we offered Kickstarter donors was a T-shirt. We are thus soliciting T-shirt designs. The theme of the shirt is Community Angels. It would be good to involve our current logo http://freedomboxfoundation.org/images/freedombox_large.png. Sorry, we don't have a bigger version of that. The chosen design will be printed on t-shirts that we will give to donors. Of course, if your design is chosen, we will cover you in thanks and make sure you get a shirt too. I will also buy you a beer next time we meet. Send designs in a free file…

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Creativity talk mindmap

I’ve written about mindmaps recently and my upcoming creativity talk on April 10. I thought I’d share the draft mindmap I’ve prepared so far for the talk. Freemind lets me export to a flash-based mindmap that you can navigate. You can’t edit it or see how I edit it to see how fun, useful, and effective it is, but you can see the output. It’s an incomplete draft — too long for a twenty minute talk, but at least illustrates mindmaps. To navigate use arrow keys or click white space and drag to move the map click the '+' or '-' icon at the top to resize the map click the "fit" icon at the top (to the right of the '-') to fit the…

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