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Videos from BM this year
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If DJ Jesus doesn't turn up at Burning Man... (This is only a partial clip but I really would like to see the rest)
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I'm not short of films to watch now (Via The Presurfer)
« August 2007 | Main | October 2007 »
Posted by Johanna Hunt on 29/09/2007 in Quick_Links | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I'm not sure whether I gained anything* from ignoring everyone's advice and going for 'certification'. I think the class leader may well make a large difference in the course experience.
I can see why people are arguing for skill-based certification instead. Two days training and I am a certified scrum master - without any checks of understanding or practical real-life application.
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* Apart from gaining the confidence that I really did know and understand the area already and getting my name on the official roll of course.
Posted by Johanna Hunt on 28/09/2007 in Agile Practice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted by Johanna Hunt on 27/09/2007 in Quick_Links | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Yesterday I cleared. Shuffling things in my small living space.
The strange thing I realised is that being back in your childhood bedroom causes interesting filing issues. Fitting a lot of things gathered over many years into a small space is never easy...
Where *should* the pop-up pirate game be slotted*? Does my croquet set really belong with my shoes and glockenspiel**? Where is the best position for my top hat? My hourglass? My Thundercats VHS videotape or my Storyteller cassette tape? How does the logical ordering of mask, stone and dried flowers work?
I'm finding my own order.
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* The answer turned out to be on top of my PC under my workstation. Sometimes these things are necessary.
** Another case of 'spiel'.
Posted by Johanna Hunt on 26/09/2007 in Ramblings | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
After a brief discussion about the etymology of the word spiel I looked it up.
I now know:
game in Afrikaans is wedstryd
game in Danish is leg, spil
game in Dutch is spel
game in French is jeu
game in German is Spiel, Partie, Spiel
game in Italian is giuoco
game in Latin is venatio, ludus
game in Norwegian is spill (which I knew already)
game in Portuguese is jogo
game in Spanish is baraja, juego
Game Translations
I am entertained, and vaguely satisfied, that spiel is rooted in game/play.
Posted by Johanna Hunt on 24/09/2007 in Ramblings | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
"Everyday words are inherently imprecise. They work well enough in everyday life that you don't notice. Words seem to work, just as Newtonian physics seems to. But you can always make them break if you push them far enough.
I would say that this has been, unfortunately for philosophy, the central fact of philosophy. Most philosophical debates are not merely afflicted by but driven by confusions over words. Do we have free will? Depends what you mean by "free." Do abstract ideas exist? Depends what you mean by "exist."
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I think Wittgenstein deserves to be famous not for the discovery that most previous philosophy was a waste of time, which judging from the circumstantial evidence must have been made by every smart person who studied a little philosophy and declined to pursue it further, but for how he acted in response. Instead of quietly switching to another field, he made a fuss, from inside. He was Gorbachev.
The field of philosophy is still shaken from the fright Wittgenstein gave it. Later in life he spent a lot of time talking about how words worked. Since that seems to be allowed, that's what a lot of philosophers do now."
--- How to do philosophy (via Leuschke)
Posted by Johanna Hunt on 24/09/2007 in Philosophy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
On Saturday Brighton Peace and Environment Centre celebrated its 25th anniversary.
I'm glad that (on and off) over the last 14 years I have had the chance to participate in this achievement. I've helped it move from the premises on Trafalgar Street (now Rainbow Books), to Gardner Street, to the Brighton and Hove Unemployed Workers Centre in Hollingdean, then on to its current home by Brighton Station. In reverse, the old BPEC van helped me move out of home for the first time.
Over this time it has found purpose and drive, and many lovely, lovely people have contributed their time to keeping it alive. An abbreviated history of the centre is given here.
May it still be around in another 25 years.
Posted by Johanna Hunt on 23/09/2007 in Brighton | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted by Johanna Hunt on 21/09/2007 in Quick_Links | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Joe has just made an amazingly strong post about his innards.
I believe strength like that works wonders.
Posted by Johanna Hunt on 20/09/2007 in Friends and Family | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I fear my memories will fade.
I hadn’t realised the true pain involved with Burning Man; the heat, the tent-snapping storms, the stinging dust that swells your hands and feet, the blistering walking distances, the need for radical self-reliance and vinegar.
Yet, somehow, whether deliberate or not, this makes the place. You need each other, a community whole. Everyone gives, everyone tries to make the experience good for all. Everyone contributes from volunteering, to running theme camps, even just in keeping the place free of MOOP.
It is a community trying to have fun and express themselves in a location that is, simply put, out to get you.
We drove in at dawn, past the words, to Will Call and my ticket. The sun broke across the playa; it wasn’t morning mist refracting the light, it was dust.
We were camped at about 2.40, spanning between Grasslands and Habitat, with the lovely people associated with Wolf and Lamb and the Sapphire Portal. Their shade structures astounded and their showers were by far the best in town.
I might not have got to know many of them well, but I will always love them all for providing my lovely home. Just as I will always love the people I travelled up with for their forethought, planning and browbeating.
Despite the pain*, I had a week I will hold in my heart and treasure for a long time.
I still dream of it. I will return.
My fracturing memories in no clear order:
Dawn over the playa, dragonflies mating, my battery-powered fairy-lights that lit up the world and the moth that loved them, the sapphire portal, camelbacks and dry mouths, long walks, the bliss of cycling (although not on the dark sand), the ‘musical’ portaloos, ‘high strung’ aka hammock-land and lovely naps, the rebuilt man glowing in the dark, the necessity of tutus, joy of water misters, my poor aim with waterpistols, great cthulu and duck the bike guardians, hair that will not move for dust, the problems with tutus, eating at the snack food glory hole, the volunteers dancing on the bar at centre camp, the beauty of tinned pineapple and cold cold margaritas, Barbie death camp, dance dance immolation, watching the lights spin through 3D glasses, the slow burn of the temple, the cheers at the thunderdome, animal crackers, trampolines, rebar, the physical pain of packing up and leaving, "they don't let it stop them", the tiny room of mirrors at the hive, visiting spikes, centre camp and lemonade, the fear the rain will turn the dust to glue, giggling at friends at the roller disco, the draining of the coolers, chasing glowing balls in the dark, monkeys swinging round in the dark, the drying shower water stained by the beetroot people, the Cheshire cat art car (amongst others) sailing by in the dark like giant luminescent leviathans in the deep (where us humans were but small fry), my first ride on an art car, getting hit by swinging western doors, missing people, finding people, my amazing escape from sunburn, the man who told people they were beautiful with all sincerity as he passed them in the crowd, the pickled runner bean in the bloody mary, how smoking summoned dust storms two days running, vitamin water, climbing on vans for the view, dancing until dawn, night golf and a crocodile head, the gift of lovely pasta bolognese, remembering my cup, forgetting my cup, the dust that creeps in everywhere, visiting Hobbiton, queuing for ice, hugs from the tequila-giving eyeball riders, getting lost in the dark and somehow still found by friends, sitting on a sofa in the middle of nowhere in the night reading the letters, air raid sirens filling the air and an explosion that rocked the world, the simple realisation that I was home.
[Photoset] [other flickr photos: 'burningman07']
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* I'm really proud I went to burning man, camped in the desert and came away without the normally inevitable sunburn.
Posted by Johanna Hunt on 20/09/2007 in Ramblings | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

