A while ago I did the usual song-and-dance with the California DMV to renew the registration of my vehicle, as one does periodically. Due to the fact that I live in a fairly high-infrastructure area (not quite New York City, but certainly not as underdeveloped as Pittsburgh or the part of the DC metropolitan complex I used to reside in are in this respect) it's actually kind of rare that I need to actually drive anywhere. If I can't walk to it in half an hour or therabouts I can take BART and not think much of it (usually because …

The Brighter Brains Institute in conjunction with the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies has announced that its next conference will be held on 6 February 2016 and bears the title Argue 4 Tomorrow. As usual, the conference will take place at the Humanist Hall in Oakland, California. The format of this conference will differ from previous conferences in that it will take the form of a slightly modified Oxford style debate rather than a collection of presentations as we usually think of them. The three debate topics will be Open Borders - For or Against, Basic Income Guarantee - For or …

Part of me just discovered (and ordered tickets for) an upcoming Information Society concert at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco, CA on 23 March 2016. Not only will this be their first concert in a while in the Bay Area, but it will be the release party for their new album, entitled Orders of Magnitude. OoM is described as a collection of covers of and homages to music that helped shape their unique musical style over the years and appears as wildly diverse and free wheeling as it is whimsical from the track listing posted. This is going to …

EDIT: While I will be attendence at this conference, I am no longer in the lineup of speakers.

On 18 October 2015 I'll be presenting at the Future of Politics Conference held by the Brighter Brains Institute. I'll be giving a talk (which doesn't have a title yet, and in fact I have yet to start writing) on tools and strategies for grassroots organization in a time when we're all connected on a 24x7x365 basis (which is to say, today).

The conference will be held at the Humanist Hall in Oakland, CA from 10:30am until 6:00pm. Lunch will …

Earlier this year it was announced that Robert "Bob2" Casale of the band Devo passed away at the age of 61 of heart failure. Shortly after the announcement Devo publicized that they were embarking upon a memorial tour during which they would play lesser known songs from what is known as their hardcore phase which spanned the years 1974.ev through 1977.ev when they still lived, worked, and performed in Akron, Ohio. Even though I'm up to my neck in shipping crates and stuff all over the place I made the time to get tickets for the show at …