I finally joined an open source code project. This one in particular, my friend David recently began. There’s just the two of us so far, so if you like the game Go, own and iPhone, or just want to add some PHP, MySQL, Javascript, XHTML, CSS, Design, etc… experience to the team, check it out and join our project.

We are storing it on Google Code Projects under the name iShudan: http://code.google.com/p/ishudan/

So what is iShudan? Well, you could read all about it on the code project page, but to summarize:
iShudan is a web interface that makes it possible to play and record games of Go on the iPhone (or any other browser). We are specifically designing it to be compatible with the iPhone design standard. It is crucial that we take advantage of this new UI system, partially because it’s an opportunity to get experience coding for this new spec but also because it’s just the coolest usage of the software we could find. And, besides, David has an iPhone and he’s obsessed with the game Go :)

There is a working demo: http://intellectualpirate.com/iShudan

We are building upon Benjam’s fork of phpGo.

Well, I’m back from Thailand and I’m now working a regular 9-5 (or 6) day job at RIPL (www.ripl.com). Yes, it’s pre-beta and you can only see it if you get invited. It’s really cool though and I’m excited to get working on it. It’s gonna rock. I’ll post more about it when the next revision is live :)

I’ve got some money floating in Kiva. The last person I loaned it to has paid it back and so I’ve loaned it out once more to this person:

Kiva is way cool. It’s not an investment system, use prosper if you want that (www.prosper.com) but it’s a cool way to keep some money tucked away and have it benefit someone who really needs it while you don’t.

This is not a made up picture. I was chowing down when I saw the devil in my sandwich:

I would consider selling it for upwards of US$10K, if only I hadn’t gone ahead and eaten the rest of it. It was just too good. Maybe that was the devil in it, preventing me from attaining my riches by satisfying a transient earthly desire. Next time I’ll have to listen to the wise followers of the Grilled Cheese and Potato Wedges and make bank.

So, I come home from work and parked outside my house, I see this truck with chickens in the back:

I figure it belongs to the neighbor next door and I shrug it off. But I snap a picture since it’s kinda odd in the middle of a Seattle Summer.

The next day, I’m working at my computer–It’s my day off, so I’m just lazing about half way dressed–and suddenly there’s a knock on the door.
This is strange because people don’t just drop by uninvited to my house.
I’m shocked, so I just go and answer the door without bothering to put a shirt on or fix my hair.

On my porch is this lady all dressed up like a park ranger, hat and all, with a badge that says she’s from animal control.
“I’m here about your chickens.” She says.
I temporarily forget that I saw the chickens the day before and I’m so confused I just say, “What…chickens?” in my most innocent sounding voice. I suddenly realize that I’m standing there looking like a typical white trash chicken housing lunatic, with my plaid boxers sticking out of my pants and no shirt on to cover my pasty white boy chest. My hair looks like the lead singer of Flock of Seagulls in the height of a cocaine binge. And I’m trying to play off like I don’t know anything about chickens. I start to fumble with the door knob and look back into my house and I get the strange sense that she thinks I’m hiding something.
“Oh, wait, those chickens,” I remember. “Those aren’t mine. I think they belong to my neighbor next door. I saw them in their truck yesterday.”
“Your neighbor said they were your chickens.” she retorts.
“Ah,” I’m sure I look totally mystified as I am really not quite certain what to say next. “um…I don’t own a truck.” My hand instinctively goes to my head for a scratch–I’m hoping to get across the international sign for, “I’m confused” so she will take her accusatory look away.
“Well, we had someone phone in a complaint and we were concerned because it sounded like they were being kept in a small container and were left in the afternoon sun.”
“Right, that’s how it looked to me…”
A bit of a silence.
“Well, let us know if you see them again.” She hands me her card and I thank her.
“Sure, yeah…will do.”
I don’t think she ever realized that I was innocent.

William McDonough speaks about flaws in our usage of designs, specifically in relation to trees:
“Imagine this design project:
Design something that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distills water, provides habitat for hundred of species, accrues solar energy as fuel, makes complex sugars and food, creates microclimates, changes colors with the seasons, and self replicates.
Why don’t we knock that down and write on it.”

TED talk here: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/104

I had a nasty fall today. Not something I ever expected. I didn’t even have my clumsy roller skate shoes on. I was just heading, rather quickly, to a car in the street and slipped on some wet grass. Next thing I know, I’m asleep, having a brief dream of working on my company. Then the dream shifts in an odd direction. I’m on the ground in the street and Daniel is talking to me, a cop next to him asking if I’m OK. I shake my head a bit. Bad dream; I need to wake up so I can get back to work.
Not so suddenly but rather in a subtle transition, I am finally convinced that I am no longer dreaming. The idea took some fighting. I wanted this to be part of my dream.
“The ambulance will be here soon, just relax.” This from the cop whose arm seems to be not on my shoulder but a part of it.
“How are you feeling?” I’m not sure who asked that. How am I feeling? In shock, I guess. I don’t know. I can’t feel much of anything. I just feel thick and heavy and I want to go back to sleep so I can wake up in my bed and shake off this whole dream.
The ambulance gets there almost instantly. They check my spine and neck, asking if it hurts. No. I don’t think so. How can I tell? I’m a little preoccupied with what might have happened to my head. My jaw feels a little odd. My teeth don’t match up right. Is it broken? I can move my jaw, mostly. Can’t open it up all the way.
The EMT pulls out a neck brace and tells me that I can’t keep it, even though it’s going to feel so comfortable. I’m so out of it, I don’t realize he’s making a joke. He seems to have a hard time putting the neck brace on me for a second and I worry that my neck might be broken. It takes a while for me to realize that the brace itself is just a misshapen noose with an akward strangle hold on my breathing apparatus. Then there’s the stretcher and the EMT explains that he’ll get in trouble if he doesn’t strap me to it.
“That’s ok, thanks. I don’t mind,” I tell him.
Next thing I know, my forhead is strong taped to a hard plank. The rest of my body securely tightened as well. It’s hard to breath, mostly because of the brace.
“Do you want anything for the pain?”
“I’m cold and I have to pee.” This is all I care about.
“Whose your doctor?”
“I don’t have one. I don’t have insurance.”
“Have you been to a hospital?”
I discount the dozens of hospitals I regularly visited before the age of 15. “Harborview, once, for strep. They didn’t charge me ’cause I couldn’t afford it.”
“Harborview is closed. What about Providence.” This last part is to somebody else.
We end up at Swedish and before they admit me they have me sign a release and agreement to bill. it’s upside down and my writing wrist is nearly broken. My name looks like chicken scratch. “Bill that,” I think.

They let me go after scanning my brain and my jaw. My jaw isn’t broken, one of my teeth just seems to be in a slightly different spot. No blood in my mouth. They checked. My brain seems fine–just the normal perversions and
imperfections.
Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to unlock the natural bind that prevents humans from having eidetic memory.
“An ice pack is your friend,” my doctor tells me. She’s kind. They all were. Next time an EMT asks me where to take my wounded body, I’ll say Swedish. Although, all they physically did for me was give me an ice pack. They gave me paperwork for sliding scale billing. We’ll see how much their arbitrary treatments will cost.

I’m off to bed now, a pocket of dried and semi-dried blood filling my sinus cavity.
I know not the headache I will have when I awaken, but in the meantime, I’ll sleep well and dream of not having a concussion.

Just testing my new code for http://www.OwnYourPhone.com shared content users to add a little widget to their websites.

No Flash:

Make your own “Amelie” ringtone

I couldn’t sleep well last night. I think it has something to do with the home made blackberry/cherry/grape wine.
I just wrote my first dead letter (a letter to a friend in case of my death). I was planning on writing several but then I thought, “Hey, why not take a bunch of videos. They will be more entertaining while making it easier for the recipients to claim legal holding over my assets.”
Now, I just have to do it.
The letter was shorter than I wanted–but what do you say in a letter you hope nobody will ever have to read.