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One year i made up a chain mail outfit for Trolloween for my son, with white and red Pokeballs made out of spray-painted AOL cd-roms.

We took it to Burning Man for 2000 and used it as part of the Mystical Frog of the Playa ceremonies.

Some of them we used as frisbees - kind of fun to see them fly in the dusk with the reflections of fires in the desert glinting off and then bring them back ...

looks like it could be a part of the burning man festival

Sure naked might get your attention, but that is far from what Burning Man is about. There are even some crossover between the open source software movement and the main form of Burning Man.

While on the surface it would appear that Burning Man is a week long party where people walk around naked, that is only the surface and anyone who one experiences this level is missing out.

No vending is allowed at the event, except for ice and coffee in center camp. There is something called the gift economy where everyone is supposed to give gifts to the community. So someone might cook pancakes for passers by, create some interactive experience or artwork. So instead of software for community enrichment, it's often artistic or even tangibles.

Community is also fostered by the difficulty of survival in the desert where the weather can change dramatically to hot or cold, rain, duststorms. The weather is an important part of the event. This forces people to either be self reliant or group into larger groups and plan how they're actually going to pull off some huge endeavor in what are called theme camps. Some of these camps are as big as hundreds of people and they construct buildings and some pretty impressive stuff. Working towards a common goal and overcoming obstacles does wonders for creating bonds among people.

At the event it made clear to everyone they are meant to be participants, NOT spectators. So everyone is supposed to add something to the event, not just gawk at the women.

There is also the environmentally conscious side of Burning Man. Even though these fanstic buildings are created, it must all be packed out. The trash has to be packed out, everything. Leave no trace is a mantra.

There is also a spiritual side to Burning Man. Each year, the night after the burning of the Man, there is a ornate hand made temple that is burned. People write messages on the temple to those loved ones that have died or add articles that metaphorically represent something you want to leave behind, like a picture of a girlfriend you want to forget.

Now there are growing year round communities in several major cities like San Fransisco and Los Angeles where these people that have come together have events. Yes, I know all this because I am one of them and I'm even on the Burning Man webteam.

You can find more information on the Burning Man web site. It's definitely an experience worth having!

Paul Sundling

Q. What is the policy on taking pictures?
A. Film and video cameras are forbidden without permission. All video cameras must be registered and tagged. This is to protect the privacy of participants and artists alike. Use Agreement forms for personal video cameras will be available upon arrival at the Gate, the Greeter's Station or Playa Info. If you are considering filming or videotaping for professional purposes, you must have a commercial agreement on file with the Media Team prior to your arrival onsite. Commercial use of images taken at Burning Man without permission is subject to cunning legal action and punishable by death. This includes amateurs and professionals who capture images. Click here for further information.

He's done this before, so he probably got permission for the camera. (He regularly does a panorama, it seems.)

> Who the wants to pay to go to NYC, and get harassed by facist policemen searching for bin Laden in every subway car?

How about an Native American reservation then? Finding one with a casino might fulfill the need for a nightlife that others have mentioned.

> If I were holding a conference like this, I'd find some depressed mid-western or just rural city that is cheap as shit and as easy as possible to get to.

I think you're on to something. People are complaining about nothing to do, but consider The Burning Man. It's in the middle of the desert, for crying out loud! In the midwest, your spouses and kids could explore nature while you're hacking away: horse rides, biking/hiking trails, camping, fishing, etc.

> A small college town might do; it would have to be close enough to an airport serviced by Southwestern for cheap flights, that you could run a shuttle van back and forth to get people to it.

Don't forget about Amtrak or Greyhound either!

I can think of several college towns that might fit the bill: Urbana-Champaign, IL; Columbia, MO; and Lawrence, KS. I know all three have live music scenes. The computer science program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is considered top-rate. They also have a spiffy new building to show off.

try Doctor Megavolt as seen at Burning Man

I don't know much about this kind of technology, but I know that there are similar setups going on at the Burning Man festival every year. Maybe it's worth looking around the site to see if you can find anecdotes and contact info for people who've done the same.
Also, the Mars Society uses satellite hookups to keep in touch with its field stations. Perhaps they can give you some pointers?

Depending on where the event is held and how well cellphone signals can be received, you might also want to try a mobile phone carrier. A lot of the larger UK events like Glastonbury are, I believe, getting support in this area from larger telcos. It may be more complex, and will probably involve getting everyone a new PCMCIA card, but it could be an option.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help; sadly IANA techie, but I hope these couple of snippets I've seen around the net are of use to you.

I was there last year and if you think this is something ..... well, you just gotta go see for yourself.!

ps. lotsa cool technostuff too, and some MS guys talking about doing wireless vid-phones through the city, next year, well, we'll see. the whole thing is supposed to be anti corprate, so...mabey some OSS?

Take them to Burning Man!!!

I guarantee you - if you have never been, you and your outlook on life will be different.

If you want the least frustrating experience - find some friends to go with, or ones who have gone. Or, find out if you have a regional burn group - and go to the regional burn, or any one of the other events that the group may sponsor or host. Get involved with the art, with the sound, with the sights - get involved with the people!

Believe me, you won't feel too weird anymore afterward - Burning Man introduces whole new levels of strangeness into your life.

My first Burn was last year. My only regret is not going sooner. The people I met, the friends I made, the art I experienced - I was made anew.

As part of this re-making, I learned something that should be common sense, especially for someone my age - but it wasn't. It is something fundamentally important, that I missed all of these years - and learning it led to my final decision to go to Burning Man. If it hadn't been for the wonderful friends I have, I might have missed this simple truth:

A stranger can only become a friend through getting to know them. If they act like they don't like you, or don't want to talk to you, it most likely isn't you. It's them. In other words, if you are being polite and doing everything to be friendly with someone you don't know, and they still shun you - move on. It is they who have the problem, not you.

Teach them that, let them learn it - then take them to Burning Man.

Both of your lives will never be the same again.

Short of it being used for a Burningman Project, I think it's life is over. (Sniff...)

Then I realized "I'm in the middle of the desert I don't want my email to find me", quickly checked slashdot and turned it off ....

You say "september 2003" - if you can arrive just a hair earlier, try and get yourself out to the Burning Man festival in the barrenest, emptiest part of Nevada. For more info, see Burning Man or "Burning Man" search @ Google.

if you're able to trek out to northern nevada the last week of august, an event not to be missed is burningman you can usually hitch a ride from the bay area. plenty of info on their page. it's 225$ for a ticket now but for a weeks rent in the most eclectic place on earth it's a good deal.

yellowstone is one of the most amazing natural spots in the world. more geysers at that park than the rest of the world combined. beautiful to every sense.

i'm not a big car geek but i have started learning basics like changing oil and brake pads, and committed to getting my car geek friend over to show me how to make any necessary repairs in the future instead of just sending it to the shop. self-sufficiency please! it's cheaper and can make you money/friends when others need the same. i've also got an organic garden going and have taken to a mastery of cooking so i only go out to eat on special occasions (again cheaper, better, you know what's going into it)
this is also what burningman is all about

Lotsa links here...

First of all, the 2002 Burning Man project I did that involved a couple hundred RGB LEDs spinning in a persistence-of-vision-based nighttime animated display. Here is the best picture of it. This is the page about the development details.

The LEDs I used were manufactured by Kingbright. The model I used, the LF819EMBGMBC, is big (10mm) and relatively bright for an RGB LED. I couldn't find any U.S. retailers that actually told the truth about whether they stocked them, so I ended up buying 400 directly from Kingbright for I think a little more than $2.50 each. I still have a few left.

Atmel AVR microcontrollers are just a few bucks each, easily programmable with the STK-500 programmer, also cheap at around $80. I used the ATMega8, which was more than sufficient for my needs. I imagine the original Slashdotter could use one of the ATTiny MCUs, since it really needs only 3 or 4 I/O lines (fewer depending on how many helper circuits you decide to use).

The boards were manufactured by PCBExpress and I was very happy with them. The CAD/CAM software was Eagle, which except for some crashing/redrawing bugs was really amazing. The version I used was free. I tried to buy it but CadSoft has (had?) a fairly crazy pricing scheme that actually left you worse off in terms of acceptable usage if you paid them money than if you used the free version.

The best part of using the Atmel MCU was that GCC can cross-compile for it. So you're basically writing regular old C code but it runs on a little tiny piece of silicon. You'll want to subscribe to the quite active avr-gcc mailing list. Save every message from Marek Michalkiewicz; in my opinion he's the god of GCC-for-AVR development.

Cheers,
Joel from Desert Camp LiteBrite

L2K Ring around the Man
http://www.synaptick.net/l2k/brg_article.html

Shadow Engine
http://sub-zero.mit.edu/fbyte/projects/shadowengin e/

Beaming Man
http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/galle ry/burningman/wilcox.html

Telestereoscope
http://www.eyestilts.com/

You'll find a bunch more here

what it's like until you've been there.

A lot of people don't believe it can be as good as claimed, Leave No Trace, gift economy, etc. And most of them they stay at home, bitterly bitc^H^H^H^Hposting about how lame everything is.

Those who do believe show up and create it. This self selection process yields a pretty amazing bunch of people.

Ask anyone who's complaining if they've been. For those (few) that have, ask if they were invovled in anything, or just were waiting for the experience to happen to them. It's all about being involved.

And yes, there's drugs, frat boys, and trustafarians. But there's also the most incredible art you've ever seen, more intense life experiences that you didn't mean to have, and more real possibilities for life than you had any idea existed.

The truth has been said before: you find what you're looking for. If you want lameness you can find it anywhere. But if you want transcendant, indescribable life epxerience and community, you'll find it there like no other place.

Here's a good, short article on the vastness and variety of the experience.

Another good bit is the speech Larry Harvy (founder of BM) gave at Cooper Union earlier this year.

So, do you actually know about it?

I see more amazing art there each year.
More creativity. And more imagination.

My friends and I lead camp Lite Brite
with a giant circus tent, big black-lite lite-brite,
an art car decorated like a sparkling mermaid,
and a plush red velvet Moroccan lounge.

Many others create truly magnificent art,
from the majestic Temple of Tears,
to an enormous drivable pirate ship,
to a barroom built as a big rubber ducky.

Browse around BurningMan.com
and I hope you'll see the artistic community
and the creativity that flourishes there.

Most of the art is created throughout the year,
and the Black Rock Arts Foundation
shares the art with others in local museums,
at community fundraisers, and at K12 schools.

Is all this silly? Yes.
Indulgent? Probably.
Fun? Absolutely.

Burning Man is many things,
and art is a special part of it.
Thanks for keeping an open mind...

Cheers,
Joel
joel@litebrite.org

I agree. But not because you were moderated up for it. I took the time to browse some of the image archives at Burning Man.

I came to this conclusion. It is the stupidest thing I have ever seen. Granted some of the pictures are interesting, and some of the "art" is creative, the vast majority of it doesn't make any sense to begin with. For example, there's a picture of some guy dressed only in tin foil. Another guy wearing an oversized Campbells Soup can. Then the vast naked women with their naked bits painted with creative designs. Some of the people are dressed up like they've seen Mad Max one to many times. I mean, to me all this looks like is a huge college party.

You can't try and slap some spiritual meaning or inner understanding to this "party". It's plain and simply a huge ass co-ed college party. Sex, drugs, things done for shock value. Thats it. I don't see anyone writing a book about me if I go running around naked outside with shit painted all over me. But when 25,000 people get together and do it, it's awe inspiring. Bullshit.

Oh, and kids... pot and jr high dont mix well either (excuse the pun). Most of us stopped trying to get people to call us "Wonko the Sane" many years ago. *sigh* The rest moved on to design eco-homes and smoke even more copius quantities of weed at burning man 98.

There is one escape, it's only temporary though. . .

Damn, I forgot the link!

http://www.google.com/search?&q=european+commiss io n+population+decrease

Listen, Europe is a beautiful place, and it's great to visit, and I really admire the European ability to resist commercialism, american culture and the imperialist tendancies of my president (The George Bush probably doesn't celebrate halloween, BTW). More power to you.

You have beautiful cities, wonderful (but crowded) countryside, thousands of bicylists, and your public transit system rocks.

I could live in Europe for a year, but I wouldn't want to live there for long. Why? Too many social restrictions. You guys have a very narrow definition of 'normal' there, especially in the metro areas.

While there are certainly exceptions (Mostly in the UK, and in some areas of the big cities), everyone dresses similar. Similar haircut, similar dress, similar suits. It's very trend-oriented there. Paris is the worst. Here? It's a huge patchwork of different people, styles, haircuts. You have suits walking alongside the punks and the chinese immigrants.

Heck, look at this article. Half-a-dozen postings from Europeans who don't understand that the purpose of Halloween is simply to have fun. Why is that so offensive?

There's a reason why events like Halloween and Burning Man happen here (And certainly elsewhere in the world), and not in Europe.

Come on, lighten up. Think outside the box. Break down those social barriers. Be a little too different.

I've had this discussion with dozens of Europeans.
Employment is the number one reason why young europeans move here. Number two is the restrictions.

Yes, we certainly have huge problems here, and there's alot more work to be done, but at least I can be my own person.

From the picture it appears that they launched not far from where Black Rock City was a few short weeks ago.

pray tell, who the hell got wi-fi out there?

i expect burnings of wireless transitters as english cultural intrusion by welsh nationalists.
it'll be like burning man crossed with the wicker man

Maybe for starters do a joint event with someone else who knows what they are doing.

Like DEFCON or Burning Man (we could create the tower of Katz and watch it burn!)

Parts of Nevada are quite beautiful. I go to Black Rock City every year, and enjoy views like this and this and this (the last is Pyramid Lake, about 50 miles south of BRC). Anyone who claims that Nevada is a wasteland is just fucking wrong - it's well worth the visit for the scenery alone.

Seriously, there seem to be quite a lot of techies who do socialize together, going as an entire group to events like Burning Man and Rave-like events, many involving fire, alcohol, and other substances.

I have a number of friends who I really only meet when we get ready for an event, are going to the event, are at the event (usually 3 to 10 days), are on the way back from the event, or having a pre or post party connected with the event.

Some appear to work together. There's a couple guys at work who do this too.

-

Man, don't you hate when you forget to close those href brackets ... darn.

Anyway, it should have been Burning Man, but this will teach me to use preview next time ...

Actually, there's a few tens of thousands of us who go to Burning Man>/a> each year who might find these very useful, since the entire event is held in the desert (on the playa near Black Rock, Nevada).

And those hand-cranked flashlights are kind of useful there, too.

Maybe this might also have some kind of military application, too ...

...I'm going to Burning Man, and have been considering a project with a bunch of embedded Linux-based devices. I was trying to think of a way to power them that would neither involve a noisy gas-powered generator nor a huge quantity of batteries. (Solar cells would work during they day, but night-time operation would be essential.) This may not be the right solution considering other design constraints, but I'm going to keep it in mind.

So, no Internet connection, no places to plug in your laptop, and no networked games. Pac-man and other old-fashioned games would be permitted (they're preety much no-tech these days).

For added "get away from it all", line the walls with lead (or some other dense metal) to prevent cell phone transmission and recieving. See this article about the movement to ban cell phones from some public places. There are also apparently some paints and wallpapers under development for this express purpose (sorry, I couldn't find any details).

Keep in mind that geeks don't tend to be a heavy drinking bunch, so try to find a non-alchohol revenue stream. Furnishings should be large tables where people can congregate in groups of three to six. Encourage people to hold small meetings there (because they can't be interrupted). This would foster a revenue stream of snacks and non-alchohol refreshments.

Miko

Don't forget about Burning Man, which is August 27 - September 3. A large chunk of techie types trek there every year as well, especially from the Bay Area. I bet it'll draw alot of people who otherwise might have gone to lwe of the linuxbierwanderung.....

This reminds me of a pinball machine I saw at Burningman this year called The Visible Woman. There was no score keeping, and you basically played until the woman in the game made orgasmic sounds.I got to talking about the machine with the technical guy behind it, and it runs on linux. There are 10 or 11 triggers on the pinball machine, and each of those corresponds to a pin on a serial cable. There's a tiny computer hidden underneath the pinball console, and that emits the sound. There's no mention of the technical aspect of this game on the web site, so this is all from memory.

Here's a picture of people playing the game. You can see the computer underneath covered up by a blanket.

41'N, 119'W is not too far from Black Rock City, NV. Maybe Spencer Tunick could do a photo there next year?

great coasters,

nice candle holders for an outside table,

good poke balls: get flourescent red spray paint, flourescent white spray paint, 1 inch thick masking tape, lots of newspaper - lay two layers of newspaper under the paint area, with extra two feet for overspray - tape on newsprint over a top row of CDs (so upper half covered) - tape on newsprint over a bottom row of CDs (so bottom half covered) - spray paint white - now reverse the CDs after drying for 2-6 hours - spray paint red - dry for 12 hours - for best results, spray paint on the SHINY side, unless you want to do two coats.

Used the above for a poke ball tunic for Pokegaard, the Forgotton Demigod of Pokemon, in his avatar of a 9 year old boy, along with some belt pokemon and standard issue poke balls, at the 2000 Burning Man. Attach to a mesh shirt with plastic coat wires (Electroluminescent Wire is best) and try dancing with this at a rave in the desert, with strong strobe UV lights, for best effects.

they also make cool bead curtains ...

Shamelessly lifted from BAWUG 's links page, where there is lots of information about wireless hardware and software:

• Greater San Francisco Bay Area
  • BAWUG (Bay Area Wireless User Group)
  • SFLan (S.F. Presidio)
  • SBay.ORG (South Bay Wireless)
  • Mycal.NET (Petaluma)
• Burning Man (Black Rock City, NV)
  • PlayaNET
  • Internet BM
• United States
  • Colorado Wireless Exchange Cooperative
  • Xlan.ORG
• Outside the U.S.
  • Canberra Wireless Network (Australia)
  • Elektrosmog (Sweden)

I would be in favor of watching those three blue guys getting tied to a stake and set on fire. But maybe I'm just more cruel than most.

No, no that's perfectly acceptable. See Burning Man. You may be on to something here.

--

that's what I get for not previewing. The second man link should have read burn.

In other words:

The man must burn.

Does that make more sense?

the man must man two ways. You can vote for Nader in safe states - if you're in a Bush state, you will infuriate both GOP and Dems by increasing the Green vote. And you can vote for Gore in swing states - which will infuriate the Independents and GOPs by letting them win the popular vote but losing the Electoral College vote - this will make them stew for months.

It's the equivalent of tossing a lighted match on the man. Or, even better, breathing fire to light a torch, and tossing the torch onto the Man of the Two Party System. Burn, baby, burn!

two MIT alums built a 25' tall LED tower for Burning Man 2000. very impressive, both technically and artistically.

I think it is a bit premature to talk of W2k's demise...

You mean they released it already? I must have missed it, maybe when I was at Burning Man or else it just didn't make much splash.

Is anyone using it? I've only seen MS Office 2000 and it just seems to be real slow for all I can tell.

While I was at Burning Man, someone dug up a nice meteorite that hit nearby, which was about the size of an SUV. This is after most of it burned up in the atmosphere.

Again, don't launch nukes or interceptors at Giant Asteroids - this only makes it worse as they fragment and still hit. Think of what happened to Jupiter when that comet fragmented into nine parts - it made it much worse. You're better off pushing it aside with an ion drive - you only have to nudge it a bit at a time so it misses earth.

Ever think what would happen if we pushed a big one so it missed the earth, but hit the moon, causing that to destabilize and impact (return to) earth? If that ever happens, you can forget about civilization ...

• Satanist (I don't think I've seen anyone here say this today, but you know what I'm talking about.)
• Heathen (Well, okay, maybe definitions 1a and 1b.)
• Believes in ancient Greek or Roman gods. Man I hear this almost as often as I hear 'Satanists! Aaah!'. No, I don't pray to Zeus. Hercules is a character played by Kevin Sorbo. There may be strains of Pagans that have been in contact with beings they perceive to be an ancient god, either by choice or not, but this is not the norm, as far as my experience has been.
• All about dungeons and dragons bullshit (e.g., the "mystical religions" thread I saw a while ago). I'm Pagan, and yes I've played D&D. No, I don't own a broadsword and invoke the spirits of dead dragons. Not since '97... ;-)
• A hedonist that may or may not wish to attend "Burning Man". Also, merely by attending Burning Man, this would not make me a Pagan. Maybe just a pyro and/or exhibitionist. And/or Pagan or whatever.
• Into sacrifices, covens, spells and "magick" (with a 'k' mind you). Wicca is a Pagan religion. Wicca don't do sacrifices either (that old rumor lends itself back to the Satanism misconception), but it is the most common form of Paganism. This does not mean that a Pagan is necessarily Wicca. Kind of like the definitions of squares and rectangles.
• Technophiles. Many Pagans I know don't know how to turn a computer on, merely due to circumstance (just not 'into it', etc.), and not because they're Pagan. Indeed I have 'techno-Pagan' friends too, but not because of one or the other.

• 'Earth dweller' or 'country dweller', for one (following that link, skipping the nonsensical definitions presented in favor of the etymological details below them).
• A person who is in tune with nature and the elements, whether they believe they can manipulate them in anti-Newtonian ways or not.
• A person who believes that the changing seasons (e.g., Earth's relative position in its orbit) and the position of the moon relative to that collectively govern certain functions of the human body, particularly the female body (moon-thly menstruation, anyone?). The gravitic patterns do indeed change during this period, and aren't we smaller bodies being enacted upon by the gravities of larger ones?
• Typically (hopefully) someone who follows a simple tenet (akin to the simple rules of Bhuddist or monastic life), "It harm none, do what thou wilt". For the impaired, this just means "do whatever you're going to do, as long as you don't hurt anybody"
• Not necessarily a militant "anti-Christian". I have flamebait-style opinions of just about every religion, including subsets of Paganism, that I'm just not going to get into. I am going to say that I do indeed have some pretty Christan friends, including the guy who runs an Internet-only Christian Metal station (my shameless plug for the day). You have to respect a guy like that.
• Someone that may believe that they have the ability either within themselves or through divination of someone they perceive to be more powerful than they (such as Goddess, or perhaps Odin) to manipulate reality. Consider for a moment that the definition of 'magic' (however the hell you make up rules to explain when to spell it with a 'k') is this: the willed manipulation of reality, by any means. This definition can include a lot of things, such as illusionary mirror tricks by David Copperfield, the perception of extradimensional (e.g., "astral") travel, and turning enemies into lawn furniture (or at least scaring the shit out of them so they'll stop trying to get you fired from your job, for example).

Its designed to completely supercede CDDB by providing a free and open database for information without the cumbersome album model and cumbersome license agreements. Its being sponsored by Emusic.com and Relatable.com.

The project leader is Robert Kaye. He's currently at Burning Man so he's not here to defend himself.

Jacob Everist
jeverist@fairtunes.com

First they took away my access to FBI files, but I said nothing, because I don't have an FBI file.

Then they took away my software, because I bought software in Virginia, which passed UCITA, but I didn't care, because I bought an open source replacement package.

Then they remotely disabled my computer, because I said bad things about the software manufacturer, which was against the UCITA provision on the web page they never told me about, so it was legal. But I didn't care, because I backup my system.

Then they disabled Napster - so I sued their ashes off in court. Because, goldarnit, I'm an American, and you'll take away my right to sue over silly things when you pry the DNA chip out of my brain!

Hey, I'm heading for Burning Man, what do you expect ... poetry? I may be a member of the Artists Republic of Fremont and do the Fremont Colonial Expeditionary Passport Office, but I've got stuff to pack ...

CDMA, TDMA, just give us GSM - I want to get a real world cell phone!

But, as to your concept of the Iridiums ... wouldn't it be cool if they arranged to have some flame out around Burning Man - talk about your Y2K effect!

Everyone knows that this was just a hoax: the real working title is Return to Burning Man: Jar Jar Must Fry.

Naturally, George is keeping that title under wraps, because it would give away one of the subplots, in which Jar Jar is burned inside a large wicker man built in a temporary city located in a desert.

All the secrets will be revealed at the Alter of the Mystical Frog of the Playa, but only during the ceremonies held at A.R.F.

If you're not Of The Frog, it's just not your day ...

i would like to get my music for free. however, i would also like to get my car for free. there are simply some things that are/never-will-be free.

Ya know, some people would have said the same thing about music a few years ago. As to your car example...nanotechnology. It (hopefully) promises to, in a sense, make the whole world digital. We need to learn, as a society, how to deal with infinite products. Music is our first challenge, and it should be an easy one. It's art and beauty after all, why shouldn't we share it?

The problem comes if we decide to treat IP *exactly* like PP (physical property) then we will end up with a government that does nothing but protect the profits of corporations who have lobbied that government to change the laws to protect them. I don't want to wake up and find a world where the only thing that stands between me giving away a new car (that used to be a pile of sand) is a soldier with a rifle.

And you are indeed a burning man :)
--

1. Have you considered using Open Source for future games, or at least character generation parameter objects? If so, would they allow for characters to develop Open Sores, a mildly contagious disease affecting only geekdom, and would this cause them to be unwelcome at very cool parties?

2. Have you ever been to Burning Man? If not, is it because some of the attendees don't bathe for a week or just that they're too wierd?

3. Have you ever visited a href="http://www.fthe Center of the Universe? And what part of it did you like the best - the Troll under the bridge, Trolloween, the functional rocket ship, or the abundance of coffee shops? Was it while on a book speaking tour of Seattle, as you felt magically pulled towards the Fremont neighborhood, or just one of those wierd traffic accidents involving cell phones, urban hippies, and a significant lack of turbans?

4. What drives you to write? And does this involve the wearing of turbans or drinking tea or coffee? Do you do this in public? Do you prefer to use pen and paper, pencil and paper, a desktop PC, or a laptop PC. Do you randomly write ideas down, outline the story, or just write off the top of your head and then edit? While editing, do you use friends or editors to check to see if your writing is too verbose or otherwise in need of retuning, especially in regards to the funny bits? Do you find it easier to write humour while depressed or when you're slightly uncomfortable and do you ever write on a plane, at an airport, or while sitting on a beach in the Caribbean?