Libervised

In case anyone's still being referred to here, please note the following:

This blog has been moved to memeverse.com!

So... see you there. ;)

Cheers

This should be the last post on this blog, but not a last blog post by me.. Oh no, I intend to blog a lot, just not here and not under this address and under this name. I'm more than just "libervised" and there is more to my universe than Libervis.com, Free Software and Free Culture.

But the biggest obstacle to finally creating my new blog is actually coming up with a name for it, one I'd love all for the long term and stick with. The bucks (only $7) are already uploaded to my domain registrar's account for it (for days now), but I still didn't choose a name...

I'd like for it to represent everything I tend to ponder about everything, cause that's what I sometimes like to do. I mean, you may have saw that topics I've written about on this blog have sometimes been rather diverse and often about the universe and stuff that relates to that - or just about anything on my mind.

So the name should represent this total freedom of deviation, contain a bit of mystery in it, express a sense of wanting to touch on everything that exists or doesn't exist, portray a sense of exploration and a journey that purposely never ends and whose processes and vehicles always evolve.

So far I came up with these... Don't laugh! :D

observial (Observed Observes)
starblinker (Blinking at stars which blink at me lol)
vacuumbreeder (breeding the unbreedable, thinking the unthinkable, where there is nothing, there is something).

As I said to a friend. I am vain with names. ;)

Cheers

I may be finding a new pet mission. :)

It's not really a new idea, but things are falling in place for it to really be acted upon in a significant way. The idea is that freedom is not just something for philosophers and some kinds of geeks to ponder, but that it is actually something very cool to think about and promote.

The reasoning behind emphasizing this has always been simple. The way Free Software is prevalently still promoted it doesn't really catch the ordinary kid, so to speak, the ordinary people who are unfortunately only going after what everybody else is going after: the trends.

And what sets the trends? It is usually something that is perceived as cool, exciting, attractive, modern. You get the picture, and it definitely shouldn't involve photos of gnus feasting on the grass.

So.. basically what I'm saying is this. If nobody else wont be going around basically prettifying the idea of freedom, wrapping it up into something that will actually draw attention without lessening its message, "marketing" freedom - making freedom be perceived as cool and trendy - than I am! :)

And the goal? The goal is that when I mention to some (girl)friend that my sites are about freedom I don't get blank stares and questions of like "wtf? software freedom, culture? Oh you mean opera?", that I instead get a "wow, cool, I love some Creative Commons music and I also think this Free Software program is way cool".

Seems almost impossible to imagine eh? Well.. we gotta start somewhere...

So.. we're in for a launch of a new Nuxified.org theme, one which is so far reported, by our testers, to be at least 10 times better than the current ones and which I believe is way more friendly to ordinary visitors than before, way cooler too! Along with its launch we plan to hold a Free Software Gaming event, create a promotional video for new Nuxified.org (if I can anyhow come up with a decent script for it) and perhaps change a few things about the way Nuxified.org will present its purpose to the public - more emphasis on Free Software than on merely GNU/Linux, and then making that "Free Software" be perceived as something "cool". :)

So anyway, stay tuned.

Btw, I'm planning to put my blog under a top level domain name soon, but I didn't come up with one yet. I'm not yet sure where to host it, but it's possible it will be a fresh start with links or reproductions to/from this old blog. The new blog will continue to be my outlet, but a bit more organized and with a bit more emphasis on quality.

Let's just say that I think I deserve a top level domain for my own blog by now and I believe I can do good by writing a general blog about my perspective on the universe and freedom. ;)

Cheers

I just learned one of my IRC friends (and everyone's a friend by default) who is unemployed needs to earn some money quick or else there is a risk of him ending up on the streets. In order to earn some cash he's selling some FTA devices he doesn't need anymore here so if you have some cash to spare and could use what he's selling please consider helping out.

Cheers

I watched Star Trek Nemesis for the first time tonight, however surprising that may seem, and while I'm partly turned down by the negative theme and the fact that one of my favorite characters, Data, didn't survive through it, I derive one particularly positive tone from it. This reflects what all Star Trek has always been about, but in Nemesis it seems to have been put to words in form of what could be a simple definition of "human" or what it means to be human. And according to this definition to be human is to strive towards betterment.

This includes a betterment of a human society as well as a betterment of oneself as a human. The latter seems to be slightly more emphasized in Nemesis because it is largely set around a face off between two differing personalities in what could otherwise be the same two people. One of those two people is a clone of another, with the same assumed genetic predispositions, but with a harshly different environment of development. One lived to form his personality on a peaceful Earth set to grow into a respected Starfleet Captain whilst another was growing up in the dark pits of a mining facility of a prisoner's colony.

The bitterness consumed the latter forming a vengeful personality blaming a hard life that he has gone through for the formation of such a personality. But this state of things merely blinded him to the potential of what he could become, a potential of betterment which exists as long as we are alive. The lesson that was clearly propagated was that to be human, or a healthy human at least (not in a physical sense here) is to strive to be better, not be stuck at the self consuming status quo.

In this context not to strive for the better is a corruption of humanness rather than a part of what defines it. Furthermore it isn't hard to come to the idea that this is in fact in our nature. Besides, from the moment we are born we start evolving and this evolution is ongoing even when we don't admit it. Things always change, and they would change even you were living between four blank walls all your life. Your personality would not stay the same. This pretty much does make the sense of evolving hardwired into our nature.

And this makes me expand my thinking towards a conclusion that some may not agree with, that the negative parts of our nature are not so much what defines our humanness as much as what defines its corruptions. For example, some people would say it is part of human nature to be more selfish than selfless and we have a social system currently in place which is based on that notion, no matter how many imbalances and evil it results in. However, what if we said that the imbalance between selfishness and selflessness is merely a corruption of our nature rather than its defining part?

Doesn't that change the picture in a slight yet incredibly important way? It implies that instead of trying to satisfy the negative urges that result in such imbalances, hoping for a positive result, we should consider them as a corruption that has to be fixed.

And a lot of what humans currently do is based on satisfying ALL urges, no matter positive or negative ones, rather than just the positive ones.

So that is something to think about, in the interest of taking up the ideal of bettering ourselves as human individuals and a human society, making ourselves capable of creating a fair and prosperous society that Gene Roddenberry envisioned.

And that capability is something many humans may currently be lacking, because we are still so driven by the urges which don't usually have a good outcome and by that we have created a world which fuels such negativity even further making us perpetually believe that it cannot be better and that this negativity must be embraced and lived with as a normal thing.

It is not and it will never be. If we accept to live with it, we accept the corruption, not who we are supposed to be.

As I found out today an incredible thing happened yesterday over Croatia. A big meteorite, a bolide, passed and exploded over Croatia, here above the Zagreb area. I just regret not seeing it live myself. I was apparently cooped up in my flat working on my computer as it happened, not noticing anything.

However the videos are stunning. You can see it in a video of the TV report about this event here though unfortunately you'll need flash to see that. (I looked for a download link or source of the video but couldn't find it). The fireball reminds of what you could see in the movies such as "Asteroid" and "Armageddon". It's quite incredible.

Although the main of it probably exploded in the sky, some debris must have fallen at the place near where it exploded. Although it is possible that it actually really fell to the ground and exploded there, but apparently outside of the populated area. People reported hearing a sound like strong thunder and feeling the Earth tremble, which *could* happen whether it exploded over the ground or actually hit the ground.

A well known local astronomer and the leader of the planetarium at the local technical museum has called for recordings of the surveillance cameras that could have picked up the location where this bolide exploded. I bet this would allow for some interesting scientific research.

In any case I expect more videos and information about this to become available on the web, especially in circles of space and astronomy enthusiasts. I talked to guys in the #space channel on freenode and they said that in that video report those are the best recordings of such a fireball ever and that they've never seen anything like it (though they've seen some fireballs before). :)

So.. as we are living our little lives down here on Earth, occasionally something like this happens to remind us that there is something above and around this little planet. To those who may not be aware, the atmosphere you are basking in is constantly being hit by dust and rocks from space, day and night. They are called "meteorites" and you can quite easily see them (if you have good clear sky) at pretty much any point of the night. Sometimes, however, it obviously happens that among those little rocks a big one comes a long, providing for a spectacle that many croats could witness yesterday. :)

Let's just hope it's not only a small part of the bigger incoming asteroid that's gonna blow half a continent off the map. :P

Cheers

One of the local commercial TV station is having what I would call "Star Trek nights" every night after sunday for four weeks. Last sunday they shown Star Trek Generations and the first documentary movie called "Trekkies" and tonight they shown what I believe is one of the best Star Trek movies, and to me best movies ever; Star Trek First Contact, and then "Trekkies 2".

I can watch a Star Trek movie without getting all worked up about it, but here is the thing: I don't want to. I asked myself, why am I wanting to actually feel the way I feel about Star Trek instead of just feeling it anyway? And the answer is pretty much in the fact that even my pure emotionless reasoning goes very much in line with the vision that has been set as a theme of Star Trek all along. And that is especially genuine. Is it any wonder, then, that the Star Trek fandom is so alive and kicking even today? It brings emotion and reason into a joint that actually doesn't want to depart from each other.

The second movie of "Trekkies" is, to me, much better than the last one, as it further reveals this *reasoning* behind this whole "movement" so to speak. When I finished watching it I took a few minutes to reflect and ask what exactly, viewed from the outside, is this trek fandom?

And my conclusion is that it is a symptom of a society recognizing its ills and trying to get better. It is interesting that this same rather broad definition would apply to many other interest communities and movements. Not all of these have a clear focus (like for example the Free Software movement), but all of them are a meaningful expression, a collective message that each and every one of us should hear and understand.

The "mainstream" type of individual might say that trekkies are crazy lunatics who have no lives. They're living, right? And who are you to define what is crazy? I believe that those who say this simply lack imagination and ability to see meaning where others see craziness.

The next question in my thinking, after the question of defining trek fandom from the outside is the question of "how do I fit in" which brought me to a much more fundamental question of "what am I going to do with my life".

I think that all our knowledge, all our interests, all our passions, our love, the people that surround us, the welfare situation we are in, the things we have done and the things we poses - basically all the components that make up our life are nothing but a bunch of facts lying around waiting to be engaged into something - that something being the very meaning of our life.

In other words.. looking around ourselves into all these facts and things and asking ourselves, what are we going to do with them and why?

And to answer that question properly we need something more than just a list of facts and the question asked. We need vision. We need to dig through the facts of life that surround us and find those special magical moments, feelings and reasonings that inspire a vision that will give meaning to life, and an answer to that question.

So. I might say I want a world like the one I saw in Star Trek. That's part of my vision, what makes me want to do something about it. Now.. what can I do to contribute to the building of that world?

I will be honest and say that I don't yet even have a full answer. I feel that being part of the Free Software and Free Culture movements through Libervis Network is a start.

But, I think it is and should be just a start. I am really still searching for other ways to pursue that vision I caught on to, which is why I still don't quite know what will I do and what of those would be the biggest and most significant thing I do. Often I don't even know what I want to do because I'm torn either between reality and that vision or few smaller interests struggling to fit them in with that larger vision.

And of course, sometimes it happens that the vision is lost or smudged. But I guess that's why I have Star Trek, why I have the web, and all the people in the communities I'm part of - to bring me back when I feel like I'm bored with my life to no end.

As my brain, body and the soul that is somewhere in between immersed itself with the vibrations of matter in a close vicinity of me, inspiration came..

Rebellious we should be and rebellious we shall be, but for rebellion a direction should exist. Do not deny your children rebellious feelings. Give them proper direction and they will turn into what we should all be, a world changers, for a world should never stop changing, and we in that process play a part. One day we will be like gods to 21st century humans as we today may seem to pre-15th century humans. Then we will be changing the universe itself. We have that potential, but without that bit of rebellion against the wrongs that we perceive in the way the past and present is, we wont use that potential to change.

The song that induced the process with the above output belongs to a genre which, to me, has the biggest stimulative impact on the way my brain waves move

Enjoy.

-- Freak-on-drugs-called-music

Well, yeah that was (too) fast. Last saturday I moved to a new "flat" in Zagreb (or rather one of its very close suburbs which already count as new Zagreb). I moved in along with my sister which wanted to, if possible, move in before July 1st so that she doesn't have to pay the bus ticket for that month again. We found a rather cheap place with some potential, though old and not too impressive at first hand, but with an apparently excellent location and other benefits that we moved here for, except ADSL for now as that I can bring in myself (my own phone and ADSL line which I can move anywhere I go, so who cares). I'm now looking at my options and will probably get 1Mbps ADSL, which is 4 times faster than the satellite downstream I had back in the old place.

Now... this was admittely quite a self administered shock. I was the guilty one for pushing the idea of moving and once we did came on saturday I was most overwhealmed. I lived back home for seven years and didn't go from there much. I felt incredibly nostalgic. Gotta admit, back in that village we had lots of space around the house, a new house, ability to max the volumes of music without any neighbors saying anything (houses are far in between). And I can go on and on.. but the thing is all those benefits aren't what we need right now.. we need to be closer to a big city. We need faster internet connection. We need real world opportunities, not a weekend house in which we've been living in. But hey.. I guess the old place isn't going nowhere, nothing's basically lost and we might just gain something.

Today I'm feeling quite alright though. I settled into this room nicely, got a new cheap computer desk with a keyboard tray and it looks quite neat. I guess I'll upload some photos of the new Libervis HQ a bit later. ;)

Oh and I got my awesome speakers today as well (sister brought it over when she came) so I can finally enjoy some awesome electronic which I find I can't really live properly without. It's a great mood and consequently motivation booster! Tranze is syck!

Anyway.. for now I'm connected through this old EDGE modem until I get ADSL in here. This connection is a bit slower and more expensive (when not combined with satellite like back home) so I'll probably be slower with my webby activities as well, but I'll be around. When my 1Mbps comes in, watch out though.. one thing I'm dieing to try is Second Life. Maybe we finally set up a Libervis gathering place there. And of course there are many other cool projects waiting in the "queue". :)

Cheers

Coming from Dubrovnik, a lively tourist place, and from a conference full of people and healthy activity back to this "middle of nowhere" place was bound to of some significance to the way I'm gonna be leading my life further.

I have been writing about the issues I have in this place before, regarding expensive yet often crappy internet connection, power cuts, but to be honest, other annoyances which just contribute to the amount of unhealthy motivation killing moods. One of the significant annoyances is being so far away from Zagreb with not so good bus connections and a bit too expensive bus tickets. This was really bad for my social life and was for too long one of the prime reasons why I haven't been going out much.

Well.. I feel the time is coming to turn all of this around.

I am just about to begin the process of legally establishing Libervis Network as a "craft" in Croatia, basically becoming officially self employed paying all the necessary expenses, taxes etc. because this can now be afforded.

Also, as it appears, I'll probably be able to afford a flat in Zagreb as well, either alone or sharing the expenses with mum so that my sisters can come to Zagreb as well (for the similar reasons). In any case, I will be much closer to everything, much more likely to socialize (more often meeting with the local GNU/Linux and Free Culture guys, old high school friends etc.) and with better internet connection, accessibility to institutions and banks I have to deal with and any other opportunities it will be much easier and less frustrating to continue building a success.

Talking about changes, Nuxified.org is to be redesigned this summer, with Libervis.com likely to follow. Other plans include, only briefly mentioning for now, a couple of new projects discussed at iCommons and a long planned re-design of Libervis.net. These will, I am quite confident, really increase the overall quality and significance of Libervis Network as an entity that propagates the new free digital world by promoting a global digital freedom movement through a healthy business. I am almost deliberately being vague here. I do have certain clearer thoughts in my mind about in which ways exactly can we make Libervis Network *really* matter for this big movement and why am I talking about "digital freedom movement" so generally now rather than Free Culture.. but.. I'm just saving it for later at Libervis.com. :) And besides.. you can make your guesses.

In any case.. after the summer this year and as we move towards the end of 2007 I think Libervis Network will really shine the best and brightest ever with diverse yet defined goals and definitions, significant influence, sufficient financial backing and a clearer overall vision. :)

Cheers

Danijel

As promised I've uploaded some of the better photos I made on a recent trip to Dubrovnik for the iCommons Summit 2007. I opened a new flickr account and here are the photos.

All these photos are under Creative Commons Attribution.

Enjoy!

This year's iCommons Summit was in Dubrovnik, Croatia, an incredible and rather exotic city fort at the fringe of the beautiful Adriatic. It is the third global summit of the Free Culture movement and the creative commoners and I was there. Scratch that; *we* were there! Taco came to share the experience which inspired, motivated and enlightened, with me. We will talk more about the plans and ideas that we had on Libervis.com.

This was, as I mentioned in my last entry, quite an ice breaking trip for me and I would say it was quite successful at that as well. I enjoyed my first airplane flights quite a bit. There was more amazement than uneasiness and I would go up and down again anytime (perhaps en route to Bruxelles next year ;).

The conference was, as I expected, quite energetic and motivating. It was awesome to see so many people from all over the world gathered around a set of common world changing ideas sharing their insights with each other and inspiring everyone to go and engage, do something even more, for all or any of the natural incentives from profit to the fun of it. It shows that we humans really do have it in ourselves what is needed to create a world in which kindness, sharing and an incredibly open, diverse and creative living is a norm, without compromising anything but the centralization of control and blind consumerism that goes with it. One of the common themes that one could pick up on the conference is the sense of a true networked society in which every one of us, like nodes of a healthy network, converse, in all cultural languages imaginable, discovering and enjoying the incredible wealth of networks.

Enriched with this wealth, Taco and I had quite a few interesting discussions on various related subjects and came up with some ideas that could make this (libervis) network within a network even a more significant contributor to the movement that changes the shape of the world, a movement which we are clearly recognizing as a global freedom movement underpinned by the digital technology revolution. The Free Culture and Free Software movements are only the two of the more significant parts of this big picture and the future of these movements is in greater interconnectedness between them. But, we will be talking about that more on Libervis.com and .. elsewhere..

Overall the trip was a nice change from the daily routine which I am usually experiencing. Walking between our accommodation and the conference venues every day was a nice, though sweaty workout. As someone who never really went to any classy restaurants I finally got to try some of the cool specialties, with some help from Taco in choosing from the menus. Then there was a boat trip right after the ending of the conference which was an opportunity to see just how beautiful the Adriatic is. It was a great opportunity to take some of the wallpaper worthy fresh pictures as well. :)

So what else to say.. I guess this'll be fine for the first account. Stay tuned for the photos which I'll be uploading soon!

Cheers

Danijel

On wednesday this week I'm going to Dubrovnik (here in Croatia) for an iCommons conference which will be an exciting, but in many ways quite an "icebreaking" experience for me. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the concept, but here when you're doing something for the first time, something you haven't quite experienced yet it is sometimes called "breaking an ice".

Going alone to a city on the other side of the country which I've never been at, meeting an online friend for the first time, going to an international conference for the first time and well, flying on an airplane for the first time - are the "ice" I'm breaking with this trip. :)

And I am actually quite happy to. I mean, of course, for many of these things I think it is well about time. People much younger than me are traveling around meeting worldwide buddies etc. And I am not even exiting the country with this one. That might follow around February next year. :)

Anyway, the online friend I am meeting is Taco AKA "tbuitenh" on Libervis.com and Nuxified.org, an awesome guy who was with me and Libervis.com from pretty much the beginnings and really helped shape things up to where they are. He already arrived to Dubrovnik tonight.

So, I will be blogging about how it all went once I'm back home.

Cheers

Danijel

I am increasingly confident that I, and anyone else who has a distinctive enough desire, will be able to go into space within our lifetime. It might sound unbelievable, but it appears that the scene for the emerging Space Tourism industry is rapidly emerging with Virgin Galactic apparently leading the way.

They won the Ansari X Prize with Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne and are now building a Space Ship 2 which is going to be the one carrying first space tourists into space as soon as in 2009. Late 2007, according to wikipedia, they will begun a series of test flights with the Space Ship 2. It is going to be quite exciting watching the news.

There is an exciting video advertisement about Virgin Galactic's mission and it is quite stunning as you watch it when you realize that it is actually happening. I mean, sorry if I'm sounding like a nut, but to me it is still quite amazing that we have come this far, that so soon ordinary people will be able to experience what only specially trained astronauts have been privileged to experience before and what we could only watch in science fiction movies.

From the implied promise in the video it would seem that soon enough the space ticket will be cheap enough to be afforded by even not so rich people. The price of the ticket for the first flights, which can already be booked is $200 000, which is, for sure a lot, but again, this is for the first flights. It is for the very early takers. I anticipate that as the flights become more and more routine, as they keep improving the technology, cutting the costs the price will only go down, and I believe quite quickly at that. Besides, Virgin Galactic may be the most successful so far, but is not the only one chasing the space tourism business. There are already quite a few of possible competitors, such as Space Adventures, Starchaser, Blue Origin, Armadillo Aerospace, among others named by the wikipedia. Competitions usually means that prices must go down.

I honestly believe that it will within a few decades fall to below $10 000 per flight if not even lower.
EDIT: I just saw a comment on YouTube saying that "First 100 to fly is 200,000USD then the next 500 it is 100,000usd any one after that it is 20,000 usd and that "It will start in 2009 and it is expected to be 20,000 by 2011-2012". So according to this we could reach a $10 000 price within only one decade. It could easily come down to only $1000 in a couple of decades. :)

One thing that concerns me, though, is exactly the healthiness of this new market. Is there a chance of there being new monopolies? What if Virgin Galactic, which is part of an incredibly big Virgin group, becomes too big for others to mean much of a competition? It might not seem important to think about today, but space is the future. Even if one would argue that tourism isn't important, the fact is that companies who manage to rule the space tourism business have the potential to rule other more crucial areas regarding various space exploration related activities.

It may sound ridiculous to some, but space is the future of humanity and it will only become more and more important, which is why I think it is worth considering the issue. We've seen too many paradigm shifts and technological revolutions which have started on the wrong foot (digital industry anyone?). For every new thing, we have a chance to do things right from the beginning. And the rules are simple. Competition and choice, including freedom of choice, must reign while noone should be given the power to dictate everything.

We don't want to end up having corporations own whole moons and planets, having enough power to dictate the terms to the worlds governments, don't we? We've seen enough of dark movies of the future where greedy corporations could go wild with their super-tech space stations capable of destroying whole cities if their demands aren't met. I know, it's again, ridiculous to think of it that way, but so were many things we are seeing today in a digital world, aren't they?

Nothing is impossible, be it evil or good. So let's go into space, but let's not leave our heads behind.

What would our lives be without the lives of other beings in the world, humans especially? I was watching, in passing, a movie today (Absolon) with a classic kind of villain who apparently got it in his head that he could play God by deciding who gets to cure to a worldwide plague and who doesn't. A thought that occurred to me was.. what if you lived alone on the whole planet? What exactly would you be fighting for then? How meaningful would the whole concept of "power struggle" be then?

And the conclusion comes easily. All the power struggles are about power over people, even more so than power over resources. If all people on Earth suddenly disappeared you could just walk into any house you like, consume whatever you like, really live like a rich man. But the thing is, the economy which sustained your little life is gone now. How long before you will start craving for all those other people working in the system to make your world alive too. I don't even have to mention loneliness...

So it's all about the people, the power struggles, the fight for achievements, the seeking of meaning for your life. It is about the effect you leave on other people and in turn the gracious feeling of appreciation by the other people.

It is about resources too, no doubt, and most so for those barely surviving. Those who fight for mere survival have no time to think about achievements that I am speaking off above. But as soon as one starts thinking about making life mean more than a struggle for mere survival, the complexity of relationships with other people (basically the whole world of people) comes into play. The better you understand them, the society, the community, the economy, the better chances you have at making your life matter more.

As I was watching the last Eben Moglen video, at some moments I felt small. A guy like him is the utter example of a life of achievements, a life of world changing, a life to which I am compelled to look to for inspiration and example.

And yet, this is Eben Moglen, and he says that he is just a midget standing on a giant's shoulder. That giant would be Richard Stallman. It's hard not to believe the sincerity and validity of such a claim when it is coming from someone who leads such a significant life. I do believe him, Stallman is a giant of our times and we should all look up to him. Nothing religious about all of this. It's simply learning to look up to those who have achieved what we are still striving for.

So if Moglen is a midget, who am I? I am even more midgety than a midget Moglen. :)

I'm just a guy who is still chasing his interests, seeking his focus, struggling to remain sufficiently motivated and striving to make a living working on things I believe in.

Well... I'll be happy to at least be able to count my contribution to the cause as something and live well without compromising it.