I have some big ideas -- in particular, ideas about having a way-cool website. I've got a theme idea and everything.
But, big ideas tend to translate into nothing much happening. Which is why the following bit from Linus Torvalds resonated with me:
Preston: Do you have any advice for people starting to undertake large open source projects? What have you learned by managing the Linux kernel?
Linus Torvalds: Nobody should start to undertake a large project. You start with a small _trivial_ project, and you should never expect it to get large. If you do, you'll just overdesign and generally think it is more important than it likely is at that stage. Or worse, you might be scared away by the sheer size of the work you envision.
So start small, and think about the details. Don't think about some big picture and fancy design. If it doesn't solve some fairly immediate need, it's almost certainly over-designed. And don't expect people to jump in and help you. That's not how these things work. You need to get something half-way _useful_ first, and then others will say "hey, that _almost_ works for me", and they'll get involved in the project.
And if there is anything I've learnt from Linux, it's that projects have a life of their own, and you should _not_ try to enforce your "vision" too strongly on them. Most often you're wrong anyway, and if you're not flexible and willing to take input from others (and willing to change direction when it turned out your vision was flawed), you'll never get anything good done.
In other words, be willing to admit your mistakes, and don't expect to get anywhere big in any kind of short timeframe. I've been doing Linux for thirteen years, and I expect to do it for quite some time still. If I had _expected_ to do something that big, I'd never have started. It started out small and insignificant, and that's how I thought about it.
(from linuxtimes)
So, for the time being, I'm going to use halfwit to put up truly notable things that catch my eye, so there'll be somewhere I have them. And maybe something will emerge. While I'm working on moving things to the cool website, you understand. After I make the cool website. Which maybe should just start out as a website...
Anyhow, another piece I thought was interesting (and to add a little topicality, keep in mind its election day 2004) was from Lawrence Lessig: (note the link probably won't be helpful after a few days).
election duties
It is astonishing to me how hard it is to talk to friends and family about this election. It must have been easier before we entered the age of the broadcast. People must have expected it. But today, politics is religion — and neither are to be discussed among people who disagree. We feel free to stuff envelopes at an election headquarters. Or even to blather on in a blog. But the act of directly confronting someone else — at least if you know them — and asking them to explain their vote is as rude as asking them to explain their heart.
Most of the time, that doesn’t bother me. But in elections like this, it depresses the hell out of me. My family has had a vicious, extended debate through our mailing list about this election. I never understood how families were torn apart by the Civil War. I understand it now. Yet despite the bloodiness, it feels to me a duty. I swayed just one vote in that exchange with my family; I never expected to sway any. But the expectation of failure is not a reason to concede — see, e.g., the free culture movement.
I think this a duty we all share. We should learn to do it civilly. We need better tools. But if we’re ever to become a democracy that is immune from the spins of the likes of bin Laden and Rove, we need to rediscover, or just discover, the ethic of reasoned persuasion.
We built p2p-politics to ease people into this practice. Despite its brilliant technical implementation, the idea was a bust. Billions came to the site to watch the clips; scores of great clips were submitted; but precious few used the tool to send to someone else an argument, or a reason, or even a clip.
Whatever your tool, make this a duty of citizenship. Not always, maybe not in every election. But at least in this election. I spend a huge part of my time (insanely, my friends say) engaging with people I don’t know who email all sorts of questions and abuse (and even some words of praise). So this might seem more natural to me. But citizenship must mean explaining why. At least this time, it must. We are divided, and furious. We should use that anger for some good.
This is a tricky idea, that I want to think more about. I think expressing a point of view and still having humility is the key, but I'm not sure how that works.
