2009.05.12 19:00 - Memories Consumed, Memories Maintained

The Guardian for this meeting was Eos Amaterasu. The comments are by Eos Amaterasu.

Being as Fashion

Pila Mulligan: hi Eos
Eos Amaterasu: Hi Pila
Pila Mulligan: how are you?
Eos Amaterasu: I'm fine. Just returned from a weekend at daughter's college graduation
Pila Mulligan: how nice
Eos Amaterasu: How are you doing?
Pila Mulligan: I'm doing well also, thank you
Pila Mulligan: does your daughter have set plans after college?
Eos Amaterasu: She's been studying fashion design, wants to get into the biz, is moving to NYC
Pila Mulligan: cool
Eos Amaterasu: Being as Fashion
Eos Amaterasu: Especially in SL it's Being as Fashion
Pila Mulligan: well, I bet it is like another planet doing fashion in NYC
Eos Amaterasu: It's one of the major planets, along with London and Paris
Eos Amaterasu: She's done a couple of summer internships there
Eos Amaterasu: I saw my first real fashion show a few weeks ago, 43 designers, each with 5 or 6 models
Pila Mulligan: including hers?
Eos Amaterasu: the looks, the walks, the colors, the clothes, the music, the attitudes, ....
Eos Amaterasu: yes, she was one of the designers
Pila Mulligan: it is indeed a mini-culture in itself, it seems
Eos Amaterasu: Yes, an intense world
Pila Mulligan: well, I wish her luck :)
Eos Amaterasu: Yes, thnx :-)
Pila Mulligan: it would exceed my personal capacity for intensity, though
Eos Amaterasu: Hi Sky
Pila Mulligan: hi Sky
Sky Szimmer: hi there. just dropped in briefly but can't stay long.
Pila Mulligan: happy you have a moment, at least :)
Eos Amaterasu: Yes ...
Eos Amaterasu: We were talking about fashion, a field my daughter is entering
Sky Szimmer: me too
Sky Szimmer: me too :)
Eos Amaterasu: !
Pila Mulligan: ... and how it is such a culture unto itself
Sky Szimmer: something i know little about
Pila Mulligan: HOW INTERESTING
Pila Mulligan: oops
Pila Mulligan: (pardon the CAPS too)
Pila Mulligan: what part of the fashion world are you in (or entering), Sky?
Sky Szimmer: not me.
Sky Szimmer: no sense of fashion what so ever
Pila Mulligan: oh, misread me too :)
Pila Mulligan: me too ... happy you have a moment
Eos Amaterasu: Ah!
Eos Amaterasu: I've become more aware of fashion, of clothing, of how bodies move, thru second life
Eos Amaterasu: how you stick clothing, fabrics, on being here
Sky Szimmer: yes. it seems like it's very much part of the culture here. i haven't had much time to play with that

Fire consuming one's artifacts / memories

Pila Mulligan: how is your neighborhood's recovery from the big fire doing, Eos?
Eos Amaterasu: I think it's okay. There's a suspicion that one of the homes was deliberately torched.
Pila Mulligan: oh my, so the catastrophe may have been an arson
Eos Amaterasu: Well, in general I think not, but someone tried to take advantage of it.
Pila Mulligan: oh, i see -- an oppoprtunist insurance scam
Pila Mulligan: or something
Eos Amaterasu: On the other hand I know the people in one of the houses that got burned down; lost a guitar collection
Pila Mulligan: something irreplacable
Eos Amaterasu: Something accumulated with care and love over time
Eos Amaterasu: He is a buddhist practitioner, so in some way used to the idea of impermanence, and personal lack of personal solidity, but this makes it real.
Pila Mulligan: well, it may be less of a shock to him, at least, thanks to his view of life
Sky Szimmer: life always teach the best lessons
Sky Szimmer: and to measure how much the practice is ingrained
Eos Amaterasu: Another friend of mine says he's been a bit depressed, because he's been going through his stuff and getting rid of things (one of those people who never throws things away)
Eos Amaterasu: Losing the "having"
Pila Mulligan needs to do that exercise
Eos Amaterasu: me too
Eos Amaterasu: playing as Being is losing the having, is it not?
Pila Mulligan: well, among many things :)
Pila Mulligan: it seems
Pila Mulligan: I recently gave a large box of novels I've read over the years to a local library -- it felt good
Eos Amaterasu: You're lucky....
Eos Amaterasu: lucky to be able to give books away to potential readers, as opposed to having to throw them away
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: are you in a pretty rural area?
Eos Amaterasu: I'm in a city of 1/4 million, with 6 universities
Eos Amaterasu: but the rural is just a step away
Pila Mulligan: oohh, well, that's not especially rural -- I was reflecting on 'having to throw them away'
Pila Mulligan: as in, no library nearby
Eos Amaterasu: it can be hard to give books away
Pila Mulligan: yep :)
Sky Szimmer: i love to get rid of stuff but my partner is a pack ratr
Eos Amaterasu: give them to him :-)
Sky Szimmer: but i have to live in the clutter.
Pila Mulligan: I'm in a quite rural area, the closest real library is some distance away, but there is a local commnity center and someone started a library there -- they have actually accumulated a substantial collection of bookos
Sky Szimmer: sorry, but i have to run. thanks for the chat
Pila Mulligan: nice to see you Sky, bye
Eos Amaterasu: Bye, Sky

Software as applied epistemology?

Pila Mulligan: 6 universities in a city of 1/4 million seems like a fairly high ratio of acadmics/population
Eos Amaterasu: Yes - it also leads to quite a student bar scene (drinking age is 19)
Pila Mulligan: are you involved in the academics world there?
Pila Mulligan: or do you run a bar ? :)
Eos Amaterasu: Just tangentially (for both :-)
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan wonders, 'should I ask'
Pila Mulligan: .. can you say more?
Eos Amaterasu: I do software development for a living, but also have a lot of other interests
Eos Amaterasu: and actually the software kind of came from being a philospher sans occupation
Eos Amaterasu: ie, being a philosopher you can either be a philosopher king, or you can teach
Pila Mulligan: (usually the latter:)
Eos Amaterasu: or, you can see software as applied epistemology (how we know)
Pila Mulligan: so you make enlightenment software?
Eos Amaterasu: so you see our being as software
Eos Amaterasu: which might be enlightenment :-)
Pila Mulligan: someone asked that question here the other day ...
Eos Amaterasu: ie, transparent
Pila Mulligan: are we some advanced beings idea of software
Eos Amaterasu: How was that question phrased?
Eos Amaterasu: Ah!
Pila Mulligan: I tend to shy away from such analogies
Eos Amaterasu: Are we being thought by someone?
Pila Mulligan: or even created, AI on purpose
Pila Mulligan: the metaphor is too vested in the fashion of the moment, for me
Eos Amaterasu: a version of intelligent creation/design
Pila Mulligan: as i mentioned to the fellow asking the question here the other day, the literature of the late 1800's-earl 1900's is full of railroad metaphors
Eos Amaterasu: I tend to see it as more autopioetic
Eos Amaterasu: autopoietic
Eos Amaterasu: (darn word!)
Pila Mulligan: :)
Eos Amaterasu: we tend to use whatever is at hand, or the current architecture, as basis for metaphor and analogy
Pila Mulligan: yes, and from railroads ascendancy was given to terms like backtrack, just the ticket, fast track, railroaded, derailed, make the grade, get sidetracked, on the wrong track .. etc
Pila Mulligan: and today language reflects the railroad of the moment, high tech stuff
Pila Mulligan: so it is natural thet people ask the big question --" am I an engine" :)
Eos Amaterasu: we try to find ourselves reflected in the things we created :-)
Pila Mulligan: yep, exactly
Eos Amaterasu: I guess that's why art can be so exciting
Pila Mulligan: what kind of softare do yuo make?
Eos Amaterasu: Systems, ideally. I work with languages (which themselves are systems) and frameworks to build flows, usuallly internet-related
Pila Mulligan: as in websites?
Eos Amaterasu: Yes. I started with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Memory
Eos Amaterasu: Systems for learning, collaborating, caring
Pila Mulligan: [note relevant to the previous comments, from wiki: 'sabotage' is a term of French origin coined during the railway strike of 1910, when workers destroyed the wooden shoes, or sabots, that held rails in place, thus impeding the morning commute]

Pila describes his WWII Black Veterans web project

Pila Mulligan: ok, Eos, you are my man of the moment then, it seems
Pila Mulligan: I need your help and expertise with a project :)
Eos Amaterasu: Cool :-)
Pila Mulligan: quite some time ago I volunteered to help make a website for WWII veterans -- http://www.761st.com/
Pila Mulligan: they were the first African-American tank battalion in World War II
Eos Amaterasu: Black Panther Tank Battalion
Pila Mulligan: they were essentially treated by the Army the same as they were treated at home -- i.e., racial discrimination
Pila Mulligan: yes
Pila Mulligan: now there are not many of them left, but they still have an annual reunion each year
Pila Mulligan: I've been wanting to make a website to collect every imaginable piece of their hisotry
Pila Mulligan: we already have a nice colleciton of photos etc., but it needs more and better organization
Pila Mulligan: and an easy interface for individuals to add stuff
Pila Mulligan: as you can see, the present website is quite primitive
Pila Mulligan: any ideas? :)
Eos Amaterasu: Hmm... have to think of how it hangs together, in their (and who is they) minds,
Eos Amaterasu: and how it could hang together in those reading or browsing it
Eos Amaterasu: I'm finding that time is both a pretty fundamental axis and easy to use
Eos Amaterasu: but also each person has their story
Pila Mulligan: well, there is much to cover, and this may not be the best place, but so far a couple of PaBers have volunteered and they have suggested using MEdiaWiki
Eos Amaterasu: stories
Pila Mulligan: my thoughts are more mundane than what type of software, but I realize that structure is important
Eos Amaterasu: people, events
Eos Amaterasu: MediaWiki is good...
Pila Mulligan: we have these sources for sure: veterans themselves (personal acocunts, letters, etc), children of the veterans (some of whom have already written books), archives, and miscellaneous sources (someone found a veteran's scrapbook at a flea market, for example)
Pila Mulligan: mainly, I want to enable people with information to have a place where they can easily provide the material, but with competent references as to sources and some kind fo crdibility checking process -- and then index it like crazty and hopefully tie the WWII years to maps
Pila Mulligan: so by chronology or location, people can look and see what was happening
Eos Amaterasu: yeah, the different sensemaking paths we make (time, place, person(s) } event)
Pila Mulligan: most WWII units rotated from the front lines to the rear to rest every month or so -- these guys were left full time in front line comabt for six straight months
Eos Amaterasu: ouch
Pila Mulligan: so they started in WWII 183 days before it ended, and stayed in combat the whole time
Pila Mulligan: they were treated as trash
Pila Mulligan: but they excelled
Pila Mulligan: and it was their expereince that gave muscle to the nascent civil rights movement in the US
Eos Amaterasu: Google Earth also is a medium
Pila Mulligan: yes, that was what I had in mind too, but I wonder how well the present maps correlate to the 1940's
Eos Amaterasu: It's crazy: just Poland alone went throught multiple maps in the WWII years
Pila Mulligan: yep
Pila Mulligan: there are individual campaign maps, but I have yet to find a suitable big picture map
Pila Mulligan: I'd like somehting like Google that is clickable
Pila Mulligan: that leads into the wiki or whatever
Eos Amaterasu: but there's lots of those historical maps available
Pila Mulligan: for infor related to that place
Eos Amaterasu: Google placemarks are clickable and can lead to web pages
Eos Amaterasu: Plus you can add layers
Pila Mulligan: yes, comme 'ca
Eos Amaterasu: Game engines could also be brought into play, but maybe that's going a bit far....
Pila Mulligan: well, the trick in my mind is like you said at first -- make it functional at both ends
Pila Mulligan: easy to enter info and easy to use
Eos Amaterasu: wiki is best starting point, for sure
Eos Amaterasu: it's kind of creating the common attic of stuff, my memories and yours, my artifacts (like we were talking about before)
Eos Amaterasu: a culture
Pila Mulligan: would you like to join to volunteer committee :) ?
Eos Amaterasu: Yes, I can help advise - I have quite a number of projects under way, though - but there's interesting synergies also
Pila Mulligan: thanks
Pila Mulligan: ** shameless note for anyone reading this chat log: if this sounds like an interesting project to you, please contact Pila or Eos **
Eos Amaterasu: The chat logs here are a bit like that: gather in SL, talk, spin off to wiki, read, gather and talk some more
Pila Mulligan: well, I wish I could have done this five years ago
Pila Mulligan: quite a few of the veterans have passed on during that time
Eos Amaterasu: I recorded my Mom reading letters from POW camp
Pila Mulligan: yep, oral hisotry is the best
Pila Mulligan: for descendants and historians
Pila Mulligan: an oral history project by The Urban School of San Francisco has a video interview with the late Staff Sergeant Floyd Dade, a recent veteran's association president
Pila Mulligan: http://www.tellingstories.org/libera...e/summary.html
Pila Mulligan: oh, shoots, I see they removed the video from their website -- this is an example of why we need this repository project
Pila Mulligan: here is a text of it: http://www.tellingstories.org/libera...ade/index.html
Eos Amaterasu: archive.org is a resource to use for preserving stuff
Eos Amaterasu: Need redundancy
Eos Amaterasu: The web is a bit scary in terms of how impermanent it can be
Pila Mulligan: these guys entered the 1940's in the US as the victims of Jim Crow racism, and they came back from WWII saying 'we aren't going to take it any more'
Pila Mulligan: there was a civil rights movement and NAACP in the 40's but it became more assertive in the 50's
Pila Mulligan: thanks in large part to the injection of WWII expereince
Eos Amaterasu: Billie Holliday singing "strange fruit" in the 40's in NYC
Pila Mulligan: Eleanor Rossevelt also did a lot to get blacks approved for combat units
Eos Amaterasu: referring to lynchings, bodies hanging from trees
Pila Mulligan: yes
Pila Mulligan: it was brutal
Eos Amaterasu: History can help recollect dignity
Pila Mulligan: one reaosn they were so successful was that they spent almost two years in training before things got to the point where the need for their skills overcame racism keeping them at home
Eos Amaterasu: and reconnect from seeming isolation (you're not along, history brought you here)
Pila Mulligan: yep, and unfortunately the lessons of history also can be lost
Pila Mulligan: just like web segments
Eos Amaterasu: it's like losing the dreamtime connection (to refer to previous session)
Pila Mulligan: yes
Pila Mulligan: and the learned elements associated with it
Eos Amaterasu: It's interesting to re-study historical situations you've been in, and see both larger and multiple contexts you may not have been aware of
Pila Mulligan: well, for me the Iraq War was a virtual denial of the Vietnam War -- something my generation certainly saw up close
Pila Mulligan: it took them more than three years to begin to remember the obvious from Vietnam
Pila Mulligan: but at the outset it was all hubris -- 'they will welcome us with flowers as liberators'
Eos Amaterasu: It was also partly driven by desire to not be like Vietnam
Pila Mulligan: yes, to try to sweep it away
Pila Mulligan: but the ignored lessons were simply the ignorance of the planners
Pila Mulligan: the lesson had to be learened again
Eos Amaterasu: the planners had tried to evade the Vietnam war as well :-)
Pila Mulligan: yep
Pila Mulligan: but afterwards there were extensive reviews and books about what not to do
Pila Mulligan: and that 'what not to do' was just what they did in Iraq
Pila Mulligan: as in trying to repeat the failed methods of the past in the hope they will succeeed
Pila Mulligan: something not especially smart
Pila Mulligan: well, not to keep you tied to the session, it must be late there, Eos
Eos Amaterasu: hard to disconnect from beliefs
Pila Mulligan: yes, opinions seem to easily overcome facts
Pila Mulligan: in some cases
Eos Amaterasu: especially hard if you refuse to look at how they arise
Pila Mulligan: I hope your neighborhood's healing proceeds without great difficulty
Eos Amaterasu: Thanks, Pila.
Eos Amaterasu: I think I will turn in.
Pila Mulligan: and good luck to your daughter in her new world
Eos Amaterasu: :-)
Pila Mulligan: see you next time