My main development computer hard drive crashed today. Perkaputana.

Trying to enjoy my own loneliness on an early Sunday morning. Just my luck. At least my guitar still keeps me company. Ah, simplicity.

On Sunday, I'll be joining a gathering of activists (assuming Liberals) for some purpose that I yet know. I was invited by a recommendation of a friend.

I will go with a weary outlook. Keep my mind open but perk up my bullshit radar several notch.

I definately can be categorized as a jaded activist, having done multiple things that can be defined as such and have enough experience to see which activisms are actually meaningful and which ones are not.

Last year I had a bird eye view on an effort to build and connect a network of animal shelters around the country and what I found was shocking. Most of these animal organization dislike each other. There were so many bickering between people and they are very teritorial, very much more so than the animal they are taking care of. At the end of my involvement I actually think they interact better with animals than with their fellow human beings. Craziness.

Earlier today I was taking with a progressive friend in her kitchen over a delicious vegetarian lunch that the problem with a lot of Liberal movement is that they are utterly unorganized, immature and undiscipline. It is great to have passion and conviction, but if you are going to make a difference, you need discipline and be pragmatic about what your goal and what you can impact. Yes, we all try to save and change the world, but it takes time, money and a lot of failed efforts to do so.

Anyway, I'm rambling, time to go to bed. I'll let you know what happens tomorrow.

Update: My worse fears confirmed. I think that one meeting would be the last for me.

I have been learning secretly the ancient of Mixology (mixing Cocktail drinks) this Summer. This website is invaluable in keeping in touch with various recipes http://drinkboy.com/

And I'm building a bar-worthy collection of spirits, glassware and tools in my apartment thanks to the new shelf I got two weeks ago.

And soon my friend, I will be able to invite you over for a delicious Dody's Kitchen recipes dinner parties smoothed by Black Russian and Brave Bull.

emotionally drained, with burden of the world on my back.

n "Hero," an ambitious period epic about the birth of the first Chinese empire, warriors fly through the air like birds of prey, their swords cutting through enemies and lovers alike. Set during the third century B.C., the story of an assassination plot against a powerful king unfolds with such dazzling bursts of color and blurs of furious action it might be easy to miss the nationalistic message tucked amid the visual enchantments. Roll over, Chairman Mao, and tell the comrades the news: the history of the empire now comes wrapped in kaleidoscopic kung fu cool. (NYTimes by way of Rotten Tomatoes)

I have been waiting for two years to see this movie, and finally it hits the states today. Very super highly recommended.

This summer is almost gone. The curtain closed, the stage is now empty. Sunday is our last summer volleyball games. It is time to part away from new friends.

Amanda, Nancy, Yoko and Erin flew six hundred miles from the East Coast to walk 60 miles starting tomorrow, ending Sunday, raising money for breast cancer research. I took them the my corner Jazz bar listening to the rhytm of a sleepy Chicago night. My apartment turned into sorority house for one day.

a mental exercise

Were I running for the Presidency, these points would be my policy platform.

Here's  a guideline I use for the social policy:

- Inclusive when dealing with  people's natural attribute (race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation)

- Exclusive in relation to people's merit.

- All of them come in a package, not to be implemented invididually :)

• Start the movement to single land based tax solution and erase all other form of taxation. No income tax, payroll tax, added value tax, tax on improvement on land, etc. We shall not punish what people have earned through labour with taxation.  This will also streamline the government (read IRS) and remove the incentive to speculate on land.
• Lower minimum alcohol drinking age to 17. This will not increase the number of young people consuming alcohol. What this will do is to lower the number of young people breaking the law. Tempting young people to break law  is bad.
• Raise minimum age for marriage to 21 for both male and female.
• Legalize the use of Marijuana. Yeah, I've tried it but it's not my cup of tea. The key here is to make less criminal out of the society. Alcohol can fuck you up pretty badly as well and they are legal.  If you can't criminilize stupidity, you shouldn't criminilize Marijuana.
• Mandatory rehabilitation substitute incarceration as a punishment for hard drug use. It is time to reduce the population of jail centers in this country. And yeah, if you put decent people in to jail for a long time for internal crime (like drug use), they don't become better person when the came out. The society lost twice, one for bearing the cost of their incarceration, two for losing one more productive individual.
• Reform the drug wars. This drug war thing is getting stupid and it has been on for thirty or so years with everybody's losing except the people distributing it. It's time to find new approach. One way is to elevate the priority of smashing the distribution of hard drugs to the same level as the war against terrorism.
• Raise minimum qualification for any government jobs to 2 years college degree (or equivalent). 
• Requalify teachers every 3 years.
• Raise salary for teachers. 
• Invest in fortification of Southern Border with Mexico.
• Remove agricultural subsidies.
• Cut down the number of government employees by 30%.
• Automate, digitize and slim down government functions.
• Universal health care for non-smokers and non-drugs user.
• Abolish Affirmative Action. 
• Establish a one off travel fund of $2000 for every single citizen in the United State for developing countries. This is one novel way to increase foreign aid based on merit. The visited countries can use some of the dollars, but they are earning it and Americans get to see the world.
• Start moving towards pebble-based nucler energy and away from coal and oil based power plants.
• The colors allowed for government buildings are orange, sky blue and pink.
• Affirm gay marriage.
• Invest a billion dollars for stem cell research.
• Speed up green card opportunity for college degree holders (or equivalent) immigrants. 
• Set up maximum ceiling for credit card interest charge.
• Return to the founder's copyright law.
• Affirm the right to abortion (there is no need to make worse out of a bad situation).
• Teach Sex Safety Education and Gun Safety Education at school. Those two things can fuck up your life pretty early if something unexpected happen, better know more about them.
• Strengthen environmental laws. We gotta take care this earth for the next generation.
• Invest more in programs like HeadStart in education. Children should not bear the sins of their parents.
• Government budget is people's money. Spend it wisely. Conserve.

to be continued.

”I don't know Dody, the whole swift boat thing disgusts me. It just showcases how powerless we are to stem the flow of dirty money into political campaigns.

Swift Boats Vets / Soros's Millions, we just cant trust the politicians to police themselves. Its really disheartening that our society turns a blind eye to the corporate / PAC corruption of our government.

And the media isn't going to rock the boat because they are the ultimate recipient of all the agenda funding cash.” (Redneck Texan)

”There were three swift boats on the river that day in Vietnam more than 35 years ago--three officers and 15 crew members. Only two of those officers remain to talk about what happened on February 28, 1969.

One is John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate who won a Silver Star for what happened on that date. I am the other.

But Kerry's critics, armed with stories I know to be untrue, have charged that the accounts of what happened were overblown. The critics have taken pains to say they're not trying to cast doubts on the merit of what others did, but their version of events has splashed doubt on all of us. It's gotten harder and harder for those of us who were there to listen to accounts we know to be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there.
” (Chicago Tribune)

Old Tricks (video)

”Traditional Office programs helped enhance productivity by allowing workers to easily create and modify digital documents. The aim of the new initiative is to increase productivity with new tools for collaboration, communications, planning and document handling. “ (ecommercetimes)

Can you see that Microsoft is moving to small team/project oriented mindset?

” Now the room is crowded, people everywhere
And I wonder should I offer you a chair
Well if you sit down with this old clown,
he'll take that frown and break it
Before the evening's gone away, I think that we could make it
And I hope that I don't fall in love with you
” (Tom Waits)

” Iraq's footballers beat Australia 1-0 Saturday to reach the semifinals of the Olympic men's tournament, triggering celebratory gunfire in their violence-racked country. “ (Reuters)

”Dody,

Sarah was here last year. Wow, time flies by so fast.

"A MAJORITY of United Nations security council members opposed immediate heavy sanctions on Sudan if it failed to quell ethnic violence in its western Darfur region by the end of the month, Britain's Foreign Office said today”  (Herald Sun)

Sudan has apparently falls off the news cycle, replaced by the dominating Najaf Battle. But people are still dying.

Met Nizar from Tunisia last night. The last time I saw him was in Switzerland, two years ago. I outlined my current project with a coffee and sugary donut in early morning hours, with one hooker staring over our conversation with me thinking of adding one more country to the network. 

Grey overcast hang on top of Chicago today, looking sorrowful outside my office window. Nobody's in today and it's just me, the incessant phone calls and Glen Gould playing Bach.

In our social life, we do a lot collaboration with our friends (setting up dinners, arranging camping), yet I couldn't find any tools or website on the web that help people to accomplish social life projects easily.

Hmm.

Suzanne and a couple of trainees from the Middle East are coming to Chi-Town this weekend. Hide your grandpa!

Indonesia gained their independence 59 years ago, August 17 1945, from Japanese occupation (300 years of Dutch colonialization before that, and Portguesse before that, and so on.Yeah, she's been around the block several times over.)

“With a last-lap surge that has become his trademark, Australia's Ian Thorpe soared past Pieter van den Hoogenband of the Netherlands to win the 200-meter freestyle today and swim away with the most anticipated race of the Olympics. Michael Phelps, the 19-year-old American, finished third, but never really threatened the top two. “ (NYTimes)

Boy, this is great. Were I in Brisbane right now, I would have celebrated big time with me mate over fourex and shrimp barbie.

And joker's of the day

“On the second full day of competition at the Athens Games, in an arena filled with fans cheering its demise, the American men's basketball team continued to give up ground in a game invented in the United States, losing to Puerto Rico, 92-73. It was the first defeat for an American men's basketball team in the Olympics since 1988.“

(NYTimes)

Bwaha..ha..ha..ha..

”Since the fall of Mr. Hussein, the oil-for-food program has received far more scrutiny than it ever did during its six years of operation. Congress's Government Accountability Office, formerly the General Accounting Office, has estimated that the Iraqi leader siphoned at least $10 billion from the program by illicitly trading in oil and collecting kickbacks from companies that had United Nations approval to do business with Iraq. Multiple investigations now under way in Washington and Iraq and at the United Nations all center on one straightforward question: How did Mr. Hussein amass so much money while under international sanctions? An examination of the program, the largest in the United Nations' history, suggests an equally straightforward answer: The United Nations let him do it.” (NYTimes)

This thing will be proven to be near as big of a failure as Rwanda.

“When the United States and others wanted the sanctions committee to confront Syria on oil sales, they were blocked by Russia and France, which argued that Syria should not be singled out when the Americans refused to investigate Iraq's equally lucrative oil trade with their allies, Jordan and Turkey.”

And yeah, the US plays the game as well, so please no righteous finger pointing here. But heck, I'm glad he's taken out.

Just a brain dump based on today's thinking

• Do things in sequence.
• Write a plan, execute, revise the plan as you go.

A task is consisted of

• A completion parameter to be used to determine answer to the question, is it done or not? Yes and No answer only. Not Maybe. Binary decision.
• A guesstimate on how long it will take.
• List of obstacles to be removed.
• An actual time it take to do, in terms of sequence of days, not hours. If you start today and finish in in 20 days, but in the meantime also doing other things, the task takes 20 days to complete, not the 20 hours total you spend on performing the task. Why? because the cost of the task not completed is 20 days, not 20 hours.

stop by Henry's new store for your supplies. They even have a website http://www.serviceliberia.com

“Long time! I am doing great with the world to carry:) so much to do every day! Time is in short supply for me nowadays. The war in Liberia is sure over; trying to make up for the lost years, if only that is possible:) Time lost is time lost, right?:)))))” (Henry)

”Lauri Koskela and Greg Howell presented their original paper The Underlying Theory of Project Management is Obsolete at PMI's bi-annual Research Conference July 2002. A number of people have asked me to comment on it. I'm struck by how persuasive Lauri and Greg are. It takes them just 12 pages to evaluate the anomalies and argue for a reform to project management. My comments will attend to Lauri's and Greg's paper. Download your copy. Read ahead. And please join me in discussion with your comments and questions. “ (Reforming Project Management)

The conversation about project management and task management were the main conversation I had with Adam for most of the day today. As both silverkey and techangels are expanding their respective businesses, the more management challenges will appear and we decided to step off the mainstream approach for managing people, which in parts, touches a lot of project management and task management issues.

In our conversation I emphasize that management is a support function, it's not the main purpose of a company. It's a very important principle to remember. The purpose of a company is to deliver value, anything that doesn't directly contribute to that goal is an overhead, and should be done at the level it is required, not more. A lot of management techniques and tools are designed to make the life of the manager easy but making life's hell for the people being managed. All those reports, useless metrics and meetings.

Management should be designed and executed to make the life of 'managee' easier and more productive in their respective roles. That's where the whole point of management must be.

At the end of our conversation, I think we come with a certain approach that we are going to use for this time forward and we are investing in it (building the practice and tools).

“It is no exaggeration to claim that project management as a discipline is in crisis, and that a paradigm change, long overdue, has to be realized. The thrust of this paper is not in presenting a new theory of project management. However, the novel theories, found to be more powerful than the implicit underlying theories or complementary to them, provide pointers to a new theoretical foundation, and they can be used for the renewal of the project management methodology (Exhibit 2). Progress may be achieved through two routes. Firstly, based on new theories on operations management, new project management methods may be developed and tried out. Secondly, advanced practice (which deviates from the present doctrine) may be consolidated and explained theoretically, which leads to new understanding and possibly to further refinement of that practice.”  the conclusion from The Underlying Theory of Project Management is Obsolete.

Chicagoan has been living under the grey sky for a couple of days now. It sucks  missing days of the precious summer.

The weather pretty much cancelled a lot of night time social activities, which is pretty nice in a weird way because I can concentrate working on silverkey expansion to Egypt and Morocco without envying all my other mid 20's friends why they can have care free time in summer and not me. 

But hey, if you are in Chicago, my buddies at LongDistanceRunner is playing at Schuba's tomorrow night at 9 pm.

”KHARTOUM, Sudan - Sudan carried out fresh helicopter attacks in Darfur Tuesday, worsening an already desperate humanitarian situation, while Arab militia targeted refugees trying to escape the conflict, the United Nations said.

"Fresh violence today included helicopter-gunship bombings by the Sudanese government and Janjaweed attacks in South Darfur. The violence has already led to more displacement," the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement from Geneva. “ (WashingtonPost)

about deep and insightful analysis on the new form of warfare and global security issues for the new century, check out John Robb's brilliant weblog at Global Guerrillas.

I'm a dumbass in any military issues, but building global loosely coordinated networks and dealing with cells  of people  in disparate geographical area working in parallel  is the essence of my day job. And here's one thing about self-surviving/replicating network, you cannot deal with it in a centralized manner.

I like John Robb's approach and his way of thinking (been reading his writing since 2001). His refreshing analysis coupled with his background in SpecOps (NightStalker I think) and diverse business backgrounds makes him a person to listen to in this troubled world.

''The European Union yesterday said it had found no evidence of genocide in the Sudanese region of Darfur, although killing was widespread with little evidence of government efforts to protect civilians.

We are not in the situation of genocide there . . . But it is clear there is widespread, silent and slow, killing going on, and village burning on a fairly large scale," he told reporters.” (Boston Globe)

All those killing ain't bad yet. Move on people, nothing to see here.

gen·o·cide    ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (jn-sd)
n.

The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group

Right now the victims hovers are estimated between 50,000 to 100,000 dead with a million of refugees.

I've been spending so much time lately figuring out a new way of managing projects done distributedly, connecting people in different geographical areas, sometimes connected, with different motivation, with different level of knoweldge, enabling “good enough” details on most aspect of the project while keeping everybody that's interested in the loop. And at the same time, make people that involve in the project ENJOY using the system/method (I've been subjected to many methods of project management and honestly I hate all of them. Most are created to benefits the manager, instead helping the person subjected to it to organize properly and become more productive).

Well, last night, I gave up on trying to mold the existing project management methodology and software into our structure and decided to start do away from existing paradigm.

 Rethinking project management. It is a scary thing to do, thinking that you have better ideas than all those practictioners that have been spending their whole lives doing it. I could be totally wrong in this but well, that's what I'm gonna do.

later: Yeah, I've read VSTS description alright. Nope, I hate the project management part of the system.

Discover this link http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000876.html

and I found myself nodding again and again, following the rhytm of my own drum beat.

And he wrotes this cool cartoon with funny line (just like dodysm)

“when a girl says “let's just be friend”, what she really means is “please fill in the gaps left by the guys I'm currenly fucking””

“One month and six days after that assurance, the question is what the United States is going to do. The Sudanese government's intentions are obvious: to stall the international community by half-complying with its ultimatums, all the while sticking to the goal of destroying Darfur's African population. To defuse foreign pressure, the government has made a show of punishing members of the Janjaweed militia that it armed to destroy villagers, but reports from the region suggest that many of these supposed militiamen are common criminals fished out of the local jails. Likewise the government has made a show of deploying more police officers in Darfur, supposedly to protect civilians, but some of these new police officers turn out to be Janjaweed killers wearing a different uniform. As Mr. Powell himself wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Sudan has not taken decisive steps to end the violence.

The United States has done more to help Darfur than any other country; France, which for a long time was reluctant to antagonize Sudan's government, has now used its military base in neighboring Chad to assist Darfuri refugees; the Netherlands has given generously, most recently to finance relief helicopters. But the leaders of these countries should not be measuring their efforts against one another, still less calibrating their actions to avoid the blame for genocide in future historical accounting. The task for the Bush administration and its allies is more concrete: to get relief and peacekeepers to Darfur's people before hundreds of thousands of them die.  " (WashingtonPost)

”Why is it so hard for Arabs to act together to solve the region’s manifold problems, from the humanitarian crisis in Sudan to the turmoil in Iraq and Palestine?”(Economist)

”Sudan won help from Arab countries yesterday in its attempt to head off sanctions the UN has threatened to impose if it fails to rein in militias accused of atrocities in the Darfur region.

In a statement released after an emergency meeting in Cairo, the Arab League said last night that Sudan needed more time to end the crisis and that sanctions would "only result in negative effects for the whole Sudanese people and complicate the crisis in Darfur".

The UN security council has set a deadline of August 29 for Sudan to show it is serious about disarming nomadic Arab militias engaged in a 15-month conflict with black African farmers that has killed at least 50,000 people and displaced more than a million, according to UN estimates.

Khartoum has portrayed sanctions as western meddling - an argument that resonates with Arab public opinion. “ (Guardian)

Complicate the crisis in Darfur ?!! We have a wholesale human slaughter here goddamit and it gotta stop. What's complicated about it?

If the UN Security Council fails to act decisively this time, they are dead to me. What kind of role are they playing in this world if they are allowing genocide every fucking decade (Rwanda was 1994. As scheduled, Darfur 2004. Neat 10 years period).

”All I can say regarding the corporate world is boy, they sure make it easy for you to sell out,

Spent the whole day working in the room where Tom Cruise lived for 6 months while they filmed "Last Samurai."

Japanese food definitely tastes better in Japan.”(Digidy)

Ha..ha, it's OK to sell out. Being an idealist is overrated. Just make sure the price is right :) 

This is how idealist revolutionaries slowly become dictators when they reach the peak of power in their country. The seduction of money, luxury and status.

Good on ya.

“A day in Darfur is as close as you'll ever get to walking back and forth through the looking glass. In Darfur you might, as I did, witness an eight-pound 3-year-old who will be dead in a few hours; then the next day you're back in the United States, where 60 percent of the population is overweight.

This is something few can grasp even if they see it. I spent a troubled period recovering from injuries received in the Vietnam War. After that I believed I was immune to personal tragedies. I'm not. Darfur is as close to hell on earth as we can imagine.

The situation in Darfur is not an American issue. It is not a European issue or an African issue. It is the most fundamental statement of what we stand for as members of the human race. The slaughter and rape of hundreds of thousands of people is not acceptable by any standard of humanity. If there is ever a time the international community has to come together, and do so in a decisive fashion, it is now. “ (Washington Post)

We need boots on the ground and for those boots to kick some asses, hard.

Wow;
She knew how to attract my attention;
Slowing walking accross a room of 15 conversations
gliding with her graceful stride
in a white tops and orange skirt
her soft tanned skin accentuate her beauty
one look, no words, a pair of smiles
breaking my resistance not to ask her name
and she lives around here
and sure she'll see me tomorrow

A company is just an imaginary place where people agree to work and collaborate to create stuff, regardless of race, sex, culture and geography.

Money is just the side effects.

If we are in heaven right now (yes, complete with the 72 virgins or raisins) where money is meaningless, we will still be setting up companies (or teams) to do something productive. Create, build and invent stuff, translating the ideas in our minds and transforming it to reality, ideally with other people that we like and respect. Because hey, in a company, it's the company of others that counts.

This is why silverkey is being set up around the world. I happen to like and enjoy working with a lot of people that somehow enjoy living somewhere else. Heck, work consumes at least at third of your working life, may as well craft it to your own liking.

That is why I always have a “no jerk” clause in hiring/recruiting people. We don't have to be fuzzy buddy buddy, but heck, “jerk” and “brilliance” are not opposing values.

http://www.subpop.com/bands/postalservice/

"The District Sleeps Alone Tonight"

“Smeared black ink... your palms are sweaty
And i'm barely listening to last demands
I'm staring at the asphalt wondering what's buried underneath where i am

I'll wear my badge... a vinyl sticker with big block letters adherent to my chest
That tells your new friends i am a visitor here...
I am not permanent
And the only thing keeping me dry is where i am

You seem so out of context in this gaudy apartment complex
A stranger with your door key explaining that i am just visiting
And i am finally seeing why i was the one worth leaving

D.C. sleeps alone tonight

You seem so so out of context in this gaudy apartment complex
A stranger with your door key explaining that i am just visiting
And i am finally seing why i was the one worth leaving
The district sleeps alone tonight after the bars turn out their lights
And send the autos swerving into the loneliest evening
And i am finally seeing why i was the one worth leaving
”

They are the best band I've seen this year. Awesome. I'm like, totally, a fan now.

My buddy at http://forallicare.com playing their big gig tonight.

Watched a movie in the park yesterday
Walked 2 miles under pouring rain

Burning the candle on midnight train.

Bea doing her side of the bargain. Here's the background.

” The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has elevated its assessment of the crisis in the Darfur region in western Sudan to a "genocide emergency" in response to the increasing level of violence and death.

This is the first time in the museum's 11-year history that it has made such a declaration, which is intended to draw world attention to the situation and to apply pressure for a response from Sudan's government. “

(NYTimes)

The alarm over Sudan has reach a feverish pitch;Genocide, Genocide, Genocide;

Let's see if the world will intervene this time or let another atrocities pass. C'mon, let move ! Now ! I'll be tracking this event this week. More on information will be posted to 7oriya.net

Somebody is searching “dody sex girls photo” on MSN.

An explanation:

15 minutes of firecrackers in the sky moment can do wonders to your well being.