Fawkes News

This evening I was clicking around various things on my computer and ended up reading some old writings for 11th and 12th grade English class. This eventually led to perusal of the two English “portfolio” sites I had to make in high school (or rather, I had to make something with foo-content on the web, and whereas most people just put up a pbwiki, I spent hours playing with HTML and CSS … because it was a good excuse to).

They are located at

http://wip.donaldguy.com (11th grade “works in progress page”, updated in late 12th grade as part of portfolio project, collection of essays and such from 9th-12th grade with some self-analysis) and

http://english.donaldguy.com (12 grade portfolio site, contains mostly reflection on my high school experience, some select pieces from the above with commentary/rewrites, a few new pieces)

It is always interesting to peruse the writings of the person you once were, and this was no exception. I don’t really have much to say about them right now, other than … it’s just interesting. Since a lot of the writing (more on the second) had to be about myself… it’s interesting to look at both what I said and how I said it. There’s a certain arrogance certainly. And also a certain certainty of purpose that I wish I could recapture. Oh well. In any case, I invite you to look through both of them and make comments here about what is there, here or by email/zephyr/etc.

It’s also interesting to compare the two as websites beyond their content: looking at the quality and motivation of their design, layout, etc. And contrast that with a more recent web project of mine like the work I did on http://myquestforcollege.com.

I thought an interesting self-analytic pursuit for a Sunday evening.

Irrelevantly:

Fun facts: For a reason I can’t, for the life of me, figure out, if you google Donald Guy, the fourth result is my 12th grade essay ostensibly on Merry Shelly’s Frankenstein titled “the Dangers of Passion” which somehow ends up being about nuclear proliferation and the danger of creation without oversight. … No, I don’t know either.

In general, wip.donaldguy.com gets a confusingly high amount of traffic. This year-to-date 8777 pages have been loaded off of it. Not mostly me, I assure you. Over its lifetime it has averaged 55 unique hits per day.

Looking at the referrer report of this months’ stats (something I assure you I don’t do normally, but was doing cause of this entry), I discovered that my analysis of lincoln’s second inaugural address is linked to from this (admittedly rather long) guide for 6th grade language arts teachers to “use the internet effectively”. Fuck if I know.

The internet is weird and so am I,

~Donald Guy

Wooo! A  (longish) List:

• Intentional Communities: This is what is now the name for the large group of communities including 60s hippy style communes, religious retreats, “eco-villages”, and even co-ops such as pika. I recently wrote a large-ish (12 page) paper about the evolution of these in recent American history for 21H.102 and read a lot about them. I think the notions of communalism are powerful and interesting. I hope to explore these living situations in my life. I am touching it a little with pika this summer, but it would be interesting to do something in my adult life. Perhaps try a year or two at one of the more radically communal 60s era communes such as Twin Oaks. I also am intrigued by the notion of “co-housing developments” which are basically like traditional neighborhoods but built and designed for communal structures to be an integral part of peoples lives (be it from sharing laundry facilities and recreational space to having meals as a large group in a communal building). For more info on these things see such sources as http://www.ic.org/ and http://www.cohousing.org/ among others.
• Freeganism: Living a lifestyle based on anti-consumerism by using the (unnecessarily) disposed. I went “dumpster diving” with a group of pikan friends mid-last-week down in Harvard Square (at their suggestion) and was forced to really face the wastefulness of modern society. There were a lot of perfectly good things in even the 3 dumpsters we came across. While I am personally more squeamish about dumpstered (albeit found in sealed packages) food then some people I know, I was still intrigued by even the consumer goods that are needlessly discarded. I came away from the night with a nice heavy glass coffee table top that, once I wipe it down with some bleach and make it some legs, I expect to be a nice addition to my room next year. pika gained a sturdy, metal three-tiered plate stand that, once we ran it through our sterilizer a couple times, was a perfectly nice addition to our dining room. Here is an interesting NYT article about more radical practice of “Freeganism”: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/magazine/06Squatters-t.html?hp=&pagewanted=all
• Couch Surfing: Hospitality networks were also a topic of my history paper, with www.couchsurfing.org in the spotlight for its size and success. I have a number of friends who have both surfed and hosted all with positive experiences to share. I think that the “movement” here opens up tremendous opportunities both for meeting people and open-ended travel, both of which I think would be valuable experiences in today’s multi-national world
• Digital Nomadism: Basically a lifestyle that exploits the fact that in the “modern, wired world” ones ability to be productive in many professions (especially for “information workers”) has very little to do with where you are when you do it. Rather than more traditional office models, or still-traditional “home office” models, these people have chosen to work from wherever they are and deliberately change that: from coffee shops, to hotels, to other people’s living rooms, to (temporarily or permanently operated) spaces around the world designed for people like them. There was an interesting Washington Post article a while back that introduced me to the term: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/25/AR2009072500878.html There are also certainly more recent resources on the notion. I think it, and the greater notion of “location independence” has a certain allure

I am sure there are others … but that is all I can think of right this second. So … now to sleep, then to work at my 9-5 in one location. I may want to explore these things… but with limited exceptions … I ain’t there yer

~Donald