A Geek Date with Myself

Roommates are gone for the weekend. And for the first time in a long time, I’ve decided not to work on a Saturday night.

What to do?

A geek date with myself. I’ve rented all three Matrix movies, downloaded MYSQL and PHP BBEdit (tools I don’t know how to use yet, but intend to learn with time) and am generally relaxing.

Ahhh — the equivalent of a nice warm geek bubble bath.

Why the actions? Over at AssignmentZero my teammates are beginning to call me by my alias Digidave. Even Jay Rosen has asked "what do you think digital dave"?

I can’t hack — but I am the most comfortable on the team with the backend of Drupal. And in truth, I’ve had a lot of fun learning it. I wish I could do more. I see a lot of potential with the tool we’ve made, and I would like to learn how to replicate and improve on it myself.

At AssignmentZero we’ve begun hiring editors. And when I explain my role I often use the Matrix as an analogy. They are the sci-fi heroes testing this out this punk journalism experiment. But in the Matrix the sci-fi heroes always need an "operator" someone they can call who can help guide them over the phone around the matrix, or upload guns, or download them out of trouble…. That’s me.

This "punk rock journalism" as I continually call it is somewhat similar to the cyber punk movement. It’s still young, has a different aesthetic and nature, but the underpinnings are there.

The more time I have to brood over what we are doing, the more excited I get.