I'm the contemplative, cartwheeling type, I suppose. Thinking myself into near-paralysis and coping with it all via solitary excursions has generally been my way of life. I've mostly outgrown that though, and the blueprints to my cabin in the woods are now buried under plans for more connected goods. The Thoreauvian tendency is still part of everything I do, however, including the task at hand, which is to build a neotenous neural net, of the IRL variety. I'm hoping you'd like to be part of it, accompanied, of course, by an understandable wariness given this warning.

It's unfortunate, but I'm still prone to letting the demands of the "over thirty" crowd overwhelm my contributions to global betterment. In the past, that struggle of imagination against reputation was probably the greatest benefit to my attempts to build something better here and now. I relied on my intuition, logic, and human compassions to make strategic contributions that I hoped were just as much antagonistic to the system as they were complementary/supplementary. Now, however, is a time for disruption, which I will soon endeavor to create. It begins scarily, by dropping out of a grad program that is a great fit for my interests. With any luck, the necessary bout of courage will strike before I find myself back in my old ways this fall, eagerly devouring syllabi for more classes than I could possibly take.

Hearting disruption certainly follows from an obsession with the workings of the global machine, but the heart of my disruptive solutions ultimately lie in the creation of things and the appreciation of those things created on a more human time and geographical scale. Fragmentation is both the cause and effect of collaboration, but self-fulfillment is its true potential.

I long aspired to inspire via an ebook/videogame/wiki about the revolutionary and radical activities of the present, rooted in political philosophy, empirical psychology, and economic models, but I've since decided to take that on, instead, as an act of history education, in my retirement. For now, there are just too many revolutionary and radical activities to be had. I'm looking for partners in crime, so if you want to help make sure mobile devices are extended by self-directed needs in Africa, or if you want to figure out how to ask the world to give a TED talk, or to reconstruct higher ed into an economically and emotionally sustainable process of lifelong learning, please come find me. More often than not, I'm in a window bay on the fourth floor of the UGLi.

Finally, there's not a box for lifestyle, but since mine has been reaching pretty far into outlier territory lately, it requires some warning. What follows is not a manifestation of morality or anything; it's just a description of how I have to live to be healthy and happy. I require nontrivial amounts of outdoor time, sleep, and exercise; I eat nothing but fruits and vegetables if I want to wake up without a headache; I breathe best in "overcrowded" living conditions; I generally invest my wealth in free alternatives; I prefer more activity to less when it comes to transportation; and my beverage of choice is water.

Also, I should mention that I'm not into treating people or being treated as private property these days, nor do I plan to be in the future. I do, however, enjoy bond-based family immensely, and I'm looking to expand mine. Membership is evolutionary and highly selective but unlimited and open to all ages, genders, and cuddly, non-allergenic or outdoor-dwelling species.

hunting bread and roses; swimming and dancing...

trying to create permanent forces for smaller scale social, economic, and political interaction, and trying to broaden access to global interactions. The current plan of attack is to help realign information with the actual utility of human knowledge. Learning to use creative implementations of logic (i.e., code) to do this is a key endeavor at the moment.

In the past, I've started low-tech things that I think might be a step in the right direction: coops, activity groups, place-based models for giving to community arts, and, most recently, theoretical infrastructure for civically engaging Immigrant Boomers.

But I have a long list of companies/nonprofits/websites I want to build, so I'm trying to reconnect with my inner-entrepreneur. Oddly enough, I'm fairly certain it's buried in my inner-hippie.

Speaking of which, I play outside. It's not what I'm doing with my life, but it's the only way I can live, so it does take up a lot of my life's time. I recently rode my bike home from Seattle, for example (back when home = LA).

making small spaces livable. I turned a Ford Escort into a fully functional RV for two. I divided my room into three. And I play 3D Home Architect like it's a videogame. But practical design is about the only real talent I've got. I'm good at a lot of things, but really good at few.

I interact with people from a broad range of backgrounds and everyone seems to have something they feel the need to tell me about myself. I probably get some version of "oddly driven" most frequently these days. I've also gotten "fearless" and "aggressively competent/self-sufficient/independent" pretty regularly throughout my life, but those are both mis-impressions.

(a) I mostly read to understand things I can't understand without reading, but I'd love to dig into some brilliant fiction one of these days. I'm particularly into cyberpunk at the moment, even though I almost never read it.

(b) Baraka, although it's been several years, and I'm not sure I ever actually saw the whole movie despite "watching" it twice in a row. In general, see (a) for an understanding of how I approach media, then recognize that movie-watching, compared with book-reading, is faster and more sociable and can be made educational by turning on Spanish subtitles, and you'll have all the me-related information you need to beat me in a game of listing my favorite movies. You'll have to recognize, of course, that due to the concluding sentence of (c), I probably haven't heard of most of those movies.

(c) From my college days: Magnetic Fields, Belle & Sabastian, Radiohead, and Sneaker Pimps. That gets me pretty far with Pandora. A few others I've noticed: Kate Rusby, Iron & Wine, Ben Folds. At the moment, however, I'm bored by just about anything in my day-to-day except Rufus Wainwright. That said, I generally appreciate the addition of musical accompaniment to many diverse activities, and I do enjoy finding pieces for which I feel especially passionate. Lately, however, I've managed to avoid the indie-er than thou company that used to expose me to those pieces, with the obvious side effects.

(d) I love all really good food, but due to dietary and financial restrictions, I prepare all my food, and I haven't yet figured out how to make that food really good. (Note: help wanted.) Also: Cabbages.

water&sun. my bike. ideas - mine and other's. hope. empathy. art.

creative economies; parallel, devolved, and centralized governance structures; property; uneven development; vertical disintegration; community; family; contracts; trust; scalable knowledge; recommender & reputation systems; information policy; accountability mechanisms; learning styles; innovation models; civic engagement; regional cooperation & civil society; social sector organizational structures; volunteer management systems; aggregation & prediction; redemption; empathy; altruism; communalism; mind-melding; open-sourcing; contributing. I.e., revolution; timing.

And lately, I've also been wondering what is going on that ten years ago when I created this handle folks seemed to get it and now people usually just think I spelled it wrong.

sleeping, preferably in good company.

I've decided to start admitting all my crackpot theories, er, well, I'm going to link to what will soon become admissions of my crackpot theories, once I start writing them down - a transition scheduled for this month.
http://paridy.blogspot.com/

You want to teach me to program or to salsa or to surf or to do just about anything really. Or if you want to watch a really good movie with me, or recommend a great book or album, or help me make healthy food, or come climb a mountain with me or just a tree. I'm also always looking for new personalities to join forces with in a variety of other ad hoc, worthwhile activities (e.g., festival exploring, habitat projects, lectures, group bike rides, guerrilla bike lane painting, etc).

That's not to suggest that I'm opposed to hanging out just for the sake of friendship or love. If connecting like this is your agenda, I'd suggest messaging me if you believe yourself to be a whole lot of fun; actively compassionate and passionate, and generally emotionally vibrant; accepting of your ultimate individuality and mine but also able to provide and appreciate support; receptive to constructive criticism and willing to give it; proactively intolerant of circumstances in your daily life that you have the power to improve; understanding of the world and its people but not complacent with the situation; and in possession of some decent intellect and physical ability. So, yeah, you got that right: the list is serial. I, however, am wired in parallel and will take and send love and friendliness through any of these connections. I hope you don't find that confusing.

Finally, I should mention that this profile was originally written before OKC went witty, brief, and all-but-meaningless. I make no apologies for it being overwhelming in contrast to newfangled profiles, but I do want to make a point of inviting all intensities of responses. Too often I've run into someone in a different context who knew me from my profile here but never managed to make that first point of contact. Please be more Web 2.0 than that. It took three years and hundreds of email exchanges to write this profile. Expression is a collaborative process. Neither you nor I will ever have anything worth getting around to saying if we indulge in an indefinite period of self-conscious silence as preparation. Do me a favor and just say hi.