241126-izzzzi

i finally wrote something about a weird project we've been enjoying with friends for the last six months. it's now open invitation.

"it's become a sort of collaborative daily newspaper written by friends. on the surface the parameters feel antithetical: it's ephemeral, it only changes daily, hardly anyone sees it. this is precisely what makes it interesting."

[izzzzi]

we've been running now for half a year, some observations:

• writing is easier and less restrained compared to the agonizing process of drafting a public blog post.
• i've been taking more photos. snapshots.
• sharing is not a chore. it's not feeding the void or public identity formation. even a small effort is a gift to friends. what we're up to. but the minor pressure is also helpful to just for a moment consider what happened during the day or what was thought about.
• side conversations are frequently sparked by something shared. in person or phone or text or email.
• we live in an age where it is very difficult to imagine joining yet another thing. and it is really difficult to explain how something might be fundamentally different.

technically, izzzzi challenged some of my grumpy opinions about computers. given the simplicity of the project, i figured it should just be files glued together with shell scripts, maybe something people just log into a server with a terminal to use. but of course any normal person just wants (reasonably!) to use a web browser. and after a somewhat silly journey into "low level" cgi with python, we (it's a collaboration) ended up just using flask (a "lightweight" framework). i like to say this project is "500 lines of code with 10k lines of dependencies." it's really a black box, yet i found myself constantly discovering "idiosyncracies" which required taking apart the black box to figure out why the dumb legos didn't fit together right. but, this was my first web-based project despite having programmed computers for three decades. i've been guilty of redesigning systems at ever lower levels in pursuit of a specific goal. the original goal almost gets lost as the system itself takes so much focus, spending all energy on perfect tools. the takeaway is perhaps that while there is no elegance to be seen, the possibilities of creating alternative social infrastructure is remarkably within reach.

maybe there are different ways.

tehn@nnnnnnnn.co