Jack Park wrote:
> Just off the top, I'd have a hunch you find someone with visionary and
> managerial skills (leaves me out ;) to play benevolent dictator. Or
> not. The or not part leaves us right where we are now. I have, in the
> past, spoken of the feeding of billie goats during mating season. Or
> herding cats.
>
> Absent that, you do what the big persons do. You go out and find some
> funding, then you hire a not-so-benevolent dictator.
>
> Mary Keeler runs the PORT list. There's still no collaboratorium,
> though there are some great ideas floating around there. Yak troopers
> all have access to this or that portal tool they love, or love to
> hate, and I'm just not sure you're gonna see progress (in this group)
> with that being the case. A benevolent dictator is gonna have to make
> some choices, based, perhaps, on responses to some kind of RFP.
>
> That's just off the top. (01)
Well, I remember chatting with Eliot Kimber back in the earlier
Web days about the idea that if some venture capitalist could
come up with the funding to pay us all well, we'd all get our
best buds together and start a company in Hawaii. At that time
I could think of probably a dozen people who if paid enough
would be quite willing to move to Hawaii and build the cool shit
we'd all been dreaming about. Some of us were even willing to do
this for less than exorbitant salaries... maybe if we'd approached
Jobs or Allen or... (02)
...but I must say that we all have priorities, interests, vocations
and hobbies, families, holidays, and other things that take up our
time. In order to push into that schedule something must either be
enormously compelling (for various reasons including wanting to
build leading edge stuff, fixing the state of the world, working
with inspiring and intelligent folks, etc.), or it's going to come
down to the cold hard issue of funding. I have sometimes (hell,
often) done things for free, but there's a limit to it when it
comes to big commitments. We all gotta pay bills in the end. (03)
Murray (04)
......................................................................
Murray Altheim http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK . (05)
It's time to hold the Bush Administration responsible for
their war crimes in the International Criminal Court. Is
there any reason why they are not accountable to the world? (06)
"Guantánamo is only part of the network of US prisons overseas
that the Bush administration has created since 9/11.
[...]
In October 2002 the commander of the interrogation teams at
Guantánamo, pleads to be allowed to inflict more suffering
on the prisoners there.
[...]
Prisoners were hooded, threatened with rape, threatened with
torture, had pistols held to their heads, made to strip naked,
forced to eat pork and drink alcohol, beaten till they bled -
sometimes with implements, including a broom and a chair -
hung from doors by cuffed hands, deceived into thinking they
were to be electrocuted, ducked in toilet buckets, forced to
simulate masturbation, force to lie naked in a pile and be
photographed, urinated on, menaced and, in one case, severely
bitten by dogs, sodomised with a chemical light, ridden like
horses, made to wear women's underwear, raped, deprived of
sleep, exposed to the midday summer sun, put in stress positions
and made to lie naked, in empty concrete cells, in complete
darkness, for days on end." (07)
'Nobody is talking', The Guardian, 18 Feb 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,1417225,00.html (08)
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