Floatingman Island's topics - tribe.net

New International Community Startingat Lago da Atitlan, Guatemala!

David — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:35:05 GMT

Hello friends from around the world. Good news!

We have a site secured for the mind-body health center and intentional community I have been dreaming. Photos and a full description of the operation coming to the website soon. For now, more information is on our facebook group at:
http://www.facebook.com/s.php?q=amirsass@gmail.com&init=quick#/group.php?gid=245590845300&ref=ts
and Tribe group: http://tribes.tribe.net/projectnuevomundo

Project Nuevo Mundo is a network of individuals committed to redirecting the development of our planet and the life it sustains through the creation of consciousness-transforming, healing projects and centers in communities both foreign and domestic.

This reflects momentum gathering around the world towards a new consensus that emphasizes a more balanced existence with the rest of the natural world based on small-scale, cooperatively organized and relatively self-sufficient human settlements.

Join me if you are interested in a future in development (economic, social, spiritual), fair trade, microcredit, community-building, health and clean water access, media relations and organization, refugee work, education, environmental advocacy and spreading alternative energies. Use this space to discuss possibilities, ideas, and the projects that currently engage us.

We support the philosophy of the Solidarity Economy, creating opportunities for work-exchange and reducing the neccessity for monetary transactions. Below you will find many ways to travel the world, learn, and volunteer with little to no finances.

Here is a little information about the site we have built in Guatemala and now and need your help to start the project and community! (calling all WWOOF work-exchange volunteers, vegan gourmet kitchen apprentices, gardeners, landscapers, mural-painters, massage therapists, yoga instructors, therapists and mind-body healers...). We can make this happen together!

-Beautiful lakeside land going up about two-hundred meters
-Two minutes by boat from beautiful Santiago Atitlan, the largest town on the lake (but not accessible except by boat, which we have one)
-Beautiful hiking paths on our private land as well as public trails
-Solar powered jacuzees, and unlimited supply of solar-heated water
-Sauna sweatlodge
-1000 watt sound-system :)
-Fully producing organic garden (all vegan) with retail outlet store (Salud para Vida) in San Pedro Atitlan and restaurant on-site. Sprouting, raw food, green juicing, etc. this is happening already.
-Plenty of camping space (we hope to build a hostel soon to accomodate backpackers)
-Housing for rent (although this is luxury, to generate income)
-WWOOF positions and work-exchange opportunities opening up in January (we will need a kitchen position, a maintenance and cleaning position, and a gardening position to start. We will also be constructing ecological houses for work-exchange people
-Opportunities to work for one year (including building a small habitation from local materials) in exchange for legal ownership of the habitation and a small plot of land for personal garden
-We are specifically looking for yoga instructors, massage therapists, landscape designers, green builders and permaculture-organic agriculture enthusiasts. We would like to beautify the space with flowers, murals, stained-glass designs. Let´s get creative! When we develop the center we will need a variety of mind-body healers.
-Future plans: 1-2 week workshops on organic farming, vegan cooking, sailing, etc. We plan on hosting conferences, parties, weddings, Vipassana meditation retreats, camping trips for disadvantaged children from Guatemala City to get in touch with nature and rediscover their roots. We are very open to ideas and want to experiment. Get it?

We will be posting up a complete picture of the operations with photographs on our coming website, www.projectnuevomundo.org , in the next couple of weeks. We are also looking for people to pool money together to purchase more land and build a meditation center and more housing. Will be keeping news of the project up to date, please spread the word to interested friends and invite them to the group.

Email contact: projectnuevomundo@gmail.com

Love and Light
David

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

NewMember/SanDiego/LandSteward

Natural — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:47:50 GMT

Hi, it's me Sean Natural down here in SD. I am really inspired by what I have read here and I would like to let you all know that I am helping people here get set up with solar power and rainwater harvesting systems. I also design and install greywater systems. In my community we are rebuilding soil fertility and growing food for ourselves. I would like to meet more people who are doing these kinds of intentional communities and learn from eachother.

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

Leadership Change

mrcurtain — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:35:37 GMT

I've been delaying posting this, and for that I apologize. But Trae has left the project.

As for that delay, I needed to take some time and reflect on the project. Now, I'm back and remotivated.

Trae still following what's going on, and still supports the project, but can't be an active participant in it right now. This was entirely his choice, and almost entirely for personal reasons. I can't speak for him more than that, so if you have any questions send him a message.

I'm in the process of updating the website so that it's up to date and correct.

posted in Floatingman Island - 35 replies

Stone Soup at PermaBurn June 5th, 6th & 7th

mrcurtain — Fri, 08 May 2009 21:10:46 GMT

For anyone who doesn't know, PermaBurn is a large plot of land in NE California purchased by a burner to create a permanent burner city. That's going slowly, but they are having an event on the site next month.

It should be a good time. The price is right. And it would be a good place to connect with others who have a passion for creating permanent burner communities.

Forwarding the add from the Burningman tribe.

= = = = = =

Don't let the default financial world drag you down. Join us where the air is fresh and money doesn't matter! Get away from it all by attending Stone Soup at PermaBurn.

What : Stone Soup 2009 Camp-out at PermaBurn

When : June 5th, 6th & 7th (early and late camping is fine)

Where : Madeline, California - 60 miles north of Susanville

Entrance Fee : 0.00, nada, FREE!

For all the details, directions and updates...

http://suddendisruption.blogspot.com/search/label/Stone%20Soup

RSVP camp, art plans and head count to...

sudden.net@gmail.com

Soup's On!

Great news in a down year - the second UNofficial Reno Regional Burn and camp-out is now official!

Considering our Burned out economy, some may not even make it to the playa this year. Others have asked for a spring camp-out for Burners. So we're headed back to PermaBurn! And to keep it totally FREE, we're using the Stone Soup approach.

For those who didn't join us last year, PermaBurn is 640 acres of northern California being organized as permanent art installations by a Burner named Greg Glover from the east coast. In the spirit of Burning Man, Greg has gifted this volcanic caldera for the weekend with virtually no restrictions on how we wish to express ourselves.

Just like on the playa, and as in the story Stone Soup, WE get to add all the rest. Since the pre-announcement a few days ago, I've had feedback from over 40 people volunteering to put this thing together. The soup is already gaining some excellent flavor...

Club Verboten Comes to PermaBurn!

Yep. The very same tent you saw at the 4:30 plaza last year; the club known for stopping traffic and plugging up the streets of Black Rock City will be erected in the center camp area at PermaBurn Friday afternoon, June 5th.

Tim Hunter himself (aka Omar Suarez) will be spinning the music as well as providing a venue for other DJs. So far we have offers from DJ Reality of Camp Ellipsis, BabebyBay(Betsy) from the bay area and D6 from Reno. You guys need to check in with Tim (thunter885@aol.com) unless you plan to set up your own venues. Whatever your taste, we'll have some excellent music coming out of this volcano, and at least one fully enclosed club in which to enjoy it.

From Omar...

We look forward to setting up,for the first time ever outside BRC,at this years Stone Soup.Thanks to Comrade Sudden for the leadership in getting it together,Our club is known for retro techno based dance parties.Can't change formula here but hopefully we can incorporate all the dj talent we have coming.What we have in mind is a weekend program...."Evolution of Techno Beats".

Friday 1966-1984........ Garage/Psych to UK glam to Disco to CBGBS

Saturday-1984- 2009....... 80's syntho pop,90's dance, late 90's House classics,present day electronica and current techno pop. all times to be determined We hope all djs will find something they like and let me know as soon as they can. peace Omar

Reno Poly Camp - Actually, it's the Northern Nevada Polyamory Support group, and they will hold their June meeting at Stone Soup as well as host a Saturday evening pack-it-in, pack-it-out, lick-your-plate pot-luck. They will also lead discussions on alternate lifestyles. Contact Teresa Werner with any question or contribution at... terwer42@yahoo.com

Kids Camp - Marie Gilbert will host a place for, "interactive family fun... kite's, kid's with hammers, rock stacking etc." Contact her at... amariegilbert@gmail.com

Fire Camp - Debbie McMullin has volunteered to coordinate the fire arts in an attempt to cut down on duplication of safety equipment, supplies etc. Let her know about your fire spinning plans and how you can help at... ruby_holly@yahoo.com

There is rumor of a BSDM group setting up camp, but I'll wait for an actual announcement before I say anything.

I will post details here as I get them. So link back for updates from time to time. More importantly, email me with YOUR plans so I can help you hook up with others and coordinate similar activities. Let me know if I can post your name, email and or phone number here. Plus I'll need a head count for the potty plans, so...

RSVP plans and head count to...

sudden.net@gmail.com

What : Stone Soup 2009 Camp-out at PermaBurn

When : June 5th, 6th & 7th (early and late camping is fine)

Where : Madeline, California - 60 miles north of Susanville

Entrance Fee : 0.00, nada, FREE!

Feel free to forward this email to those with something you'd like to see in our soup.

See you at PermaBurn.

Rod Coleman
--
aka Yum!
aka Bonobo
aka Zen Heretic
aka Sudden Disruption
and Burning Man Regional Contact
Explore the Sudden-Centric Cyberverse...

http://www.sudden.net/

"Art is that which everything else isn't" - Theodore Roethke

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

Bosque Village

mrcurtain — Fri, 08 May 2009 21:07:39 GMT

In part it just sounds like a burner friendly hotel. But they are looking to have some more permanent residents, and form a bit of a community.

Thought some of the people around here might be interested, so I'm forwarding along their ad from the Culture of Burningman tribe.

= = = = = = =

After years of going to burning man, we have created a more sustainable space using some of the principles and culture of burning man.

If you like the idea of developing parts of Burning Man culture over the longer term see our web site and consider coming to play, work or live.

http://bosquevillage.com/

http://flickr.com/thebosque

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

Inspiration - TED

mrcurtain — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:15:38 GMT

I don't know how many of you know about the TED talks, but it's a conference that includes many of the brightest minds in the planet. I'm going to post one lecture here a week to hopefully inspire ideas and motivation.

Here's one to start with:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhXiHJ8vfuk

Can we greatly improve our lives by reprioritizing things, and reconsidering time?

posted in Floatingman Island - 2 replies

Why Nicaragua?

Sleepingattheconsole — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 08:30:44 GMT

Please see subject field.

posted in Floatingman Island - 29 replies

Ephemerisle

mrcurtain — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:18:54 GMT

The seasteading guys are looking to someday build huge floating cities.

But, in the near term, they're starting with a floating event.

"The first Ephemerisle will be held October 2nd-4th 2009, in the Sacramento River Delta area of the San Franciso Bay. (We are rescheduling from July 4th weekend). This is no longer just an idea or a dream - it is going to happen!"

http://www.seasteading.org/seastead.org/ephemerisle/

Their goals are pretty closely tied to ours. Who's interested in this?

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

Relinquishing freedoms? Just stay in America.

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:09:31 GMT

If you're considering reducing the freedoms you expect to gain by going to another country perhaps it'd be a better idea to stay here in America. At the least we have a stable legal system that would protect the property rights of those involved in this purchase.

posted in Floatingman Island - 4 replies

Thoughts on another piece of property

mrcurtain — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 05:17:25 GMT

Hey everyone. I want to throw out the idea for a new piece of property.

In good news:

The property is only $40,000 down, or $70,000 total. It's on a spectacular white sand beach, with incredible views. And there's an amazing dormant volcano behind it.

On the down side, it's a narrow strip of land with neighbors.

It would very much change the nature of the project. We would lose our privacy. We probably couldn't have loud parties on our land. We wouldn't really achieve goals 4 or 5 from the website.

The project would be more of a quiet space to live sustainably and make art.

Though, we could probably head up the volcano for full-moon parties far from anyone.

For now, it's a very small quiet area. But eventually, it might build up into a big town around us. This shouldn't be the intent, but it's possible that the property will seriously increase in value.

As for our freedoms, we wouldn't really have much extra freedom, except perhaps one important one. We might be able to have free time. In our lives in America, most people have to work to much to really enjoy their lives. It might be possible to escape that, at least for a time, in Nicaragua.

So, it's a big change. But at this point, I might be very happy with an incredible strip of beach where we can live and making amazing art.

What do you guys think?

Photos of the property:

http://www.nicabeachfront.com/co-4405.jpg

http://www.nicabeachfront.com/co-4401.jpg

http://www.nicabeachfront.com/co-4406.jpg

http://www.nicabeachfront.com/co-4312.jpg

And a photo showing the dormant volcano directly behind the property:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/ISS016-E-10894_lrg.jpg

posted in Floatingman Island - 9 replies

Federation of Microstate Entrepreneurs

Vinay — Sun, 11 May 2008 07:41:25 GMT

http://groups.google.com/group/fome_list

I'm trying to get leaders from all of these projects together in one place to discuss what it's going to take to get one of these things off the ground.

I'm getting increasingly serious about doing this, for reasons noted here:

http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/global/free-guptastan-583

Would very much appreciate somebody heading over to discuss the issues of the day. I'm also trying to get some of the liberty island people on board, and the Seasteading folks, and so on. As with all of these things, all it takes is one successful effort to legitimize the entire field - we're cooperating here, not competing.

Vinay

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

Opening the project up to the Nicaraguans

mrcurtain — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:47:52 GMT

Peter:

"But know that, even on an island, you /will/ have a relationship with local folks, and unless you integrate them tightly into your project from before day 1 (and probably even then), rumours will develop about the crazy hippies having free love parties on the island out there. Ask Bruno at El Zopilote in Madroñal, on Maderas, about that."

"People will not understand what you are doing, and they will invent stories. Their opinion of you will be based in no small part on what they feel you've done for them and for their community, and the rapore you've developed with them. Given that you're talking about buying a large island off Granada, "they" refers to the people of Granada in general (Nicas and foreigners) as well as the whole South-West quadrant of Nicaragua to a lesser extent. You will struggle with this, and there is no easy solution. "

The island is much closer to Chontales than Granada, but I think Peter makes a very valid point.

Once the project is underway, I'm pondering the idea of having "open houses" every couple of months where we invite the local community to come out and see the island and what we're doing. (It's a day where we should probably dress up.) This would be a start at least.

Maybe like good neighbors, we could even provide some transport from Puerto Diez and have a BBQ. Is there better way is there to befriend and get to know your neighbors than having a BBQ?

As for doing good in the country, I think the best possible scenario would be us simply leading by example. If we come up with great new ways to adapt local construction techniques, or to cheaply provide sustainable energy, then let's just build it for ourselves. In these "open houses", we could let the locals can come out and see how we're living. Then if any of them are interested in doing these things for themselves, we could help them.

This is pretty different from anything that we've proposed before. What do people think?

posted in Floatingman Island - 13 replies

Reminder: Meeting this Sunday - Noon PST

mrcurtain — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 04:39:38 GMT

Just a reminder that there is a meeting this Sundat at Noon PST.

Hope you can make it.

If you're new to these meetings, we meet on skype. Send a friend request to "geekeasy" before the meeting.

Cheers!

posted in Floatingman Island - 4 replies

Ecovillages

Eric — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 04:18:16 GMT

At todays meeting we briefly discussed looking into the Ecovillage network as possible contacts that could help or join us. Their mission is based around creating a sustainable future by using their network of sustainable ecovillages to further knowledge and participation. Their objectives seems to be similar in enough ways to ours, since we intend to use and share sustainable living techniques with the people who live around the island.

Their main site can be found here:

www.ecovillage.org

The Ecovillage Network of the Americas' about page can be found here:

www.ena.ecovillage.org/English/about/index.html

If anyone has any thoughts on how to bring our project closer to completion through this organization or how Floating Man contribute to Ecovillages and visa versa, post away.

posted in Floatingman Island - 1 reply

april meeting

trae — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 07:58:25 GMT

hey, so there should be a meeting april 6th. but i will be out of town that whole weekend. can anything be rescheduled? the following weekend i should be free, but if some other time works out better i will try to work something out.

this is getting into the burn season, and ive actually got a lot of things coming up. so this might come up again. here lately i constantly seem to be running from one thing to the next, and constantly late. :\

posted in Floatingman Island - 1 reply

The Island _might_ be sold / other properties

mrcurtain — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 08:27:10 GMT

I called up the realtor to talk to him about the property title. I was hoping that he'd give me the owner's name so that our lawyer could check the property title.

When I get ahold of him, he has news for me. Someone else is interesting in buying the property. They have put a small deposit on it, to put a hold on it for the next 3 months. After that he said, if it's not sold, we can talk again about checking the property title.

So, it's not definite at all. But it's possible that the island wil be sold very soon.

We probably should start looking at other properties.

In some ways, this might actually be good for us. Trying to _start_ by creating a community of 100 people is indeed extremely ambitious. It might be better if we first buy a cheaper property (that still meets our goal of 'inspiring the imagination'), and then after we prove that this project will be a success, look for bigger more expensive properties.

And, searching today I might have found one:

http://www.nicaraguarealty.com/listings/details/14/1/112

I think that this is a link to it on google maps:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Poneloya+nicaragua&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=66.964699,100.195313&ie=UTF8&ll=12.387455,-87.049227&spn=0.020623,0.024462&t=h&z=15

I didn't make it to Poneloya when I was in Nicaragua, but neighboring Leon is nice. And it's an extremely interesting region full of volcanoes.

The nature of the project would certainly change a bit if we were closer to civilization, with a bit less privacy, but that's both good and bad for us.

Thoughts?

posted in Floatingman Island - 10 replies

nicaragua...

trae — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 07:34:50 GMT

okay, honest question here... do you feel the project being located in nicaragua is drawing more people, or turning more people off to the idea?

im really not sure. i love the idea of doing this in on a tropical island far from anything most of us know. the closest city being colonial grenada, the second (?) oldest city in the americas charms me. rainforests and active volcanoes as the backdrop of our adventure inspires me. knowing there is a point within a daytrek that you can look out and see two vast oceans awes me. and it having a low cost of living, and what we will bring to the economy says it has a real chance of working out...

but this project has been from the very beginning a stepping stone out into the world. one step past BM... then two... and who knows where we are by then? this was never an end in itself (though there is no reason it couldnt be for some). choosing a foreign country, and one with a bad reputation (deserved or not), brings real challenges to the project's success. it scares people that would otherwise join up. and if this is simply a stepping stone, if we could make the project happen faster elsewhere, that might be a more logical step. once we can make it happen once, our credibility might be enough to convince those people we scared off before, or we might have enough people already onboard and ready to take the next step.

i might be willing to take smaller steps towards a dream, as long as those steps are taking me forward.

consider, as an example: we never really even considered an island in america, for a variety of reasons; arguably the main concern being that there were no islands of a decent size for sale at a price we could work with in a climate we wanted. there just wasnt an option, so it wasnt considered. then we got to the nica island... and started considering, for a moment, lakefront property instead of just islands. now that opens up a lot more options. just randomly skimming around for 15 minutes or so i found several lakefront properties in new hampshire (which is the focus of the free state project, look that up if you havent heard of it http://www.freestateproject.org/ ) in the range of 80 acres, for the price of the grenada island or less. 80 acres is almost four times the size of the island, which means we could 'support' 4 times the number of people, reducing each persons share cost to $1000 or so, to buy it outright. think we could find 400 people with that kind of cash willing to take the plunge? a wider search would invariably find better properties, this was simply an example.

it would be a compromise on just about all counts... but a significant step towards a greater dream. it would not excite the imagination as much (though any community that is attempting to make year round the vibe one feels at BM is pretty exciting in my book). it may not be as remote as our own island (but then again there are some pretty remote pieces of water). it would probably not be tropical. it would be less scary. it would be more economical (in some ways, not in others). it would not be as much of an adventure. people might also be able to make a commute into work (is that a good or a bad thing? both?). it would be less of a gamble.

and it might stand a greater chance of happening sooner.

posted in Floatingman Island - 21 replies

Meeting Sunday

mrcurtain — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 04:16:20 GMT

Just a reminder that we have a meeting this Sunday at Noon PST.

We meet on skype. If you want to join in, just send a friend request to 'geekeasy' before the meeting.

As for the agenda, here's what I'm thinking.

1) Q & A session about Nicaragua

2) Thoughts about other properties - particularly the one near Poneloya. (http://www.nicaraguarealty.com/listings/details/14/1/112)

3) How to raise the energy, and get things moving faster.

posted in Floatingman Island - 1 reply

New member..

Ruairi — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 22:06:46 GMT

Hey guys,

I'm Ruairi, from Ireland! :-) I met Adam in Dahab on the Red Sea in Egypt about a year ago now.. Thats where I first heard about the project, It sounds like really something amazing! Its a shame the actual island might be up for sale.. but never say never! The other one seems pretty sweet too :-)
I wasn't able to make the last meeting but I should be around this Sunday on Skype..
I'm actually studying an MBA in Budapest, Hungary right now so I'm awful busy with school.. but I hope to be able to contribute more in the coming weeks as school will ease off soon (I hope!)

Chat soon,

Ruairi :-)

posted in Floatingman Island - 3 replies

Photos from Nicaragua

mrcurtain — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 04:59:58 GMT

Trae and Vinay both asked for me to do more reporting of what life is like here in Nicaragua.

I'll try to tell more stories and such. But let me start by posting photos.

Here are photos that I've taken in Nicaragua in the past few weeks.

http://flickr.com/photos/22747036@N02/

posted in Floatingman Island - 26 replies

Creating Creatures

mrcurtain — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 02:37:16 GMT

Wow. Just wow.

I've seen a bit of this guys animals before, but I've never heard him talk about them.

An island in Nicaragua would have pretty regular wind. This gives a bit of the idea of the amazing things that can be done with windpowered art.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b694exl_oZo

And a bit more about the geometry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CufN43By79s&NR=1

posted in Floatingman Island - 1 reply

This is great

FireShaman — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 21:45:29 GMT

Really, what a stellar idea. I was wondering if anyone involved has any experience with intentional communities or sustainable building/design? While I love the idea, it seems to me there is a fundamental difference between building a permanent community and a TAZ like Burning Man. For instance, it is hard to imagine a zero impact community. I mean, I love pack it in pack it out, but how is this any different than a garbage collection service if you are building a community? Not that I am knocking this project. I would love to get involved in this. I'm just wondering how much of this has been worked out or even thought about.

Mitchell

posted in Floatingman Island - 6 replies

On local geography

Peter — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:58:47 GMT

So I apologize for probably not learning enough about your project before posting, or distinguishing clearly between posts from people who are committed to the project and newcomers like me.

Let me start by saying that a bunch of capable, idealistic people who put their heads together and committed to Nicaragua could be a boon to the country and its people, who could use an infusion of hope. Should this project be committed to local people to the degree that Burners Without Borders is, with a committed base of people, even a small group, it would make a real difference in peoples' lives. Living on an island seems in conflict with that vision, but I'm willing to give y'all the benefit of the doubt.

In fact I wasn't able to find a vision statement on your website or the wiki--if there is one, please direct me to it. If there is not, it seems like you are jumping the gun considerably in addressing most practical concerns.

I must also make a plea that people stop butchering the names of local landmarks. They're spelled "Ometepe" (three e's), "Maderas," "Concepción," and "Mombacho." It made me extremely uncomfortable to hear people talking about the possibility of buying an island in a land they have not spent enough time in to know how the names of the places.

I guess my point is that this effort really needs to grow out of a significant understanding of and appreciation for the specific context you want to work with, on the one hand, and a well-articulated vision of what you're trying to achieve on the other. I'm not seeing that. The two of course develop to some extent together. I would expect the process leading up to commitment (actual purchase of land, e.g.) to take at least 2-3 years.

If there remain serious concerns about Mombacho or Concepción erupting, I can probably dredge up contact information for a gentleman at INETER, the Nicaraguan governmental body that (among other things) monitors volcanos and assesses the risks posed by them.

I'm happy to continue this conversation, but feel like I should stop here before I ride too far on my initial assumptions.

Good luck and take care,
Peter Abrahamsen

posted in Floatingman Island - 8 replies

March Meeting - Mar 1 (8??)

mrcurtain — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:04:13 GMT

We have a meeting scheduled for next Saturday at noon PST.

I am going to be in Vegas for a wedding, and can't easily make the meeting. Does anyone have any problems with rescheduling the meeting for the 8th?

posted in Floatingman Island - 4 replies

Meeting Minutes (sort of) from February Meeting

mrcurtain — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 17:10:12 GMT

We had a meeting scheduled for February 2nd. The only attendees were Trae and I.

I usually post a meeting reminder the day before a meeting. I was busy traveling, and so that didn't happen this time, which probably didn't help.

Trae had some questions about boating on the lake. I agreed to set out that afternoon to try to get some answers.

Other than that, we just talked briefly about the lack of energy and motivation on the project. Trae's guess was that in part it's due to the key to members of the project being relatively absent from the tribe recently.

But does anyone else have thoughts on that? Or thoughts on how we can build motivation and energy.

Down here in Nicaragua, I see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's starting to feel like this project is going to come into fruition, and it's going to happen relatively soon. But I don't know if anyone else shares that view.

Thoughts?

Cheers,
-Adam

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

Greeters

mrcurtain — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 02:05:48 GMT

Do any of you long-timer lurkers or occasional posters want to help out by serving as a greeter, welcoming people to this tribe, and answering any questions they have?

posted in Floatingman Island - 11 replies

New Member

Brook — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 15:26:52 GMT

I think this is an excellent idea. I've spent a lot of time in Nicaragua and have been planning to move there in about five years. The people are wonderful and the cost of living is low. However, since poverty is so prevalent, security for the island should be a consideration.

posted in Floatingman Island - 2 replies

Interesting Documentary

Indigo — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:15:08 GMT

This is an hour long documentary which sheds a little light on Nicaraguas recent (American shaped) past ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bqvLErbfKY&NR=1

posted in Floatingman Island - 2 replies

Adam, you may have a problem.

Missouri-Rhino — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 02:42:57 GMT

I sincerely question the actual viability of the proposed Floatingman project for two potential obstacles which I don’t think engineering genius can overcome. These two obstacles lie close to the proposed Floatingman Island, and are called Omatepe and Mambacho. They’re both VOLCANOES. Omatepe is active. According to records, since 1888 it’s erupted 17 or more separate times, the most recent eruptions just last year on May 27 and Dec. 27.

I was skeptical of the Floatingman project at first, but became intrigued by the idea, a little. I started looking at the website and the tribe, still skeptical, but saw what was proposed to be attempted. At this point, the alarm bells went off in my head.

I saw the concrete walkways, which the site said would be removed possibly for potential building material. Why were they there in the first place? As a geologist, I started reading up on the area of Lake Nicaragua, and all of the sudden there were volcanoes staring me in the face.

Next question: were any of the volcanoes active? What effects could they inflict on a human settlement? And more alarm bells went off in my head. Questions were answered.

The concrete walkways on Floatingman Island were to keep people’s feet dry, because with torrential rain from hurricanes and typhoons (yep, you get both, from the Atlantic and Pacific sides), volcanic debris (which the island is formed from) slides down hill in the form of debris flows or lahars, as they’re called. This debris, after it becomes weathered, is a very sticky clay. Like I’d want to walk to my house with 10 pounds of mud on each boot…..lol

The more I read, the more alarmed I became. Lake Nicaragua has the potential for a tsunami from an eruption OR from a debris flow from the Conception volcano on Omatepe. Hey, it’s great to hike around jungles with volcanoes, but make sure they aren’t active.

Here’s links to some literature and pictures for your perusal:

General location maps of volcanoes in Nicaragua.-
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/Nicaragua/Maps/map_nicaragua_volcanoes.html

USGS Open-File report on Conception volcano
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/Nicaragua/Publications/OFR01-457/OFR01-457.pdf

plate 1 for OFR 457
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/Nicaragua/Publications/OFR01-457/OFR01-457_plate_1.pdf

USGS Open-File Report on Mambacho volcano
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/Nicaragua/Publications/OFR01-455/OFR01-455.pdf

plate 1 for OFR 455
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/Nicaragua/Publications/OFR01-455/OFR01-455_plate_1.pdf

Article quoting Nicaraguan volcanologist that a major eruption of Conception volcano could happen:
http://volcano-eruption.blogspot.com/2005_07_01_archive.html

link to an article on volcanogenetic tsunamis in Lake Nicararagua. Emphasizes substantial inland flooding due to shoreline profiles.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/t6166507t2q67101/

I'm curious, with such PRIME real estate (location, location, location is the rule), why does only the caretaker live there right now??/

posted in Floatingman Island - 23 replies

Marketing News

mrcurtain — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 17:50:46 GMT

I really should have thought of mailing him earlier, but an old college buddy of mine has been the head of marketing for the iBook line, and for Tivo. I know some of my inadequacies, and marketing is one of them. This guy knows marketing.

I sent him a quick message asking him how we could better spread the word about Floatingman. He is swamped with work until the 28th, but he likes the idea of the project, he is going to see what ideas he can come up for us, plus he is considering joining himself.

His first bit of advise was to spread the word virally - Ask all of your friends to post about Floatingman in their blogs and to post links on facebook. "The viral effect of some of these things is staggering".

I'm in the process of creating on a new flier to hand out here in Nicaragua. In addition to asking people to check out our website, I'm also going to ask them to mail their friends, put us in their blogs, or link to us from facebook. That could start instantly giving us international exposure.

Another college friend of mine was the project manager for the iPhone. She's not in marketing, but she should know lots of people within Apple (including Steve Jobs). I'll ask her to spread the word within Apple. Apple employees should be generally like minded, creative, people.

And, I'm going to think about who I know within google.

posted in Floatingman Island - 10 replies

human rights violations, mostly against women and children.

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 05:14:45 GMT

here are a few links and facts to consider for life in nicaragua

woman have no rights to a safe abortion in nic., even if they're lives are in danger. nic. has been letting women die over easily cured ectopic pregnancies, because doctors don't want to ruin their careers by breaking the law. there is no exception for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, or if the mother is 8 years old.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6089718.stm

"Doctors frequently see women coming in with infections, many likely brought on by illegal abortions that they refuse to disclose for fear they might be punished, said Dr. Carla Cerrato. Because the people with some medical training who used to do illegal abortions have disappeared, Cerrato said, women more frequently take drugs or pull the fetus out on their own using wires or other crude objects."

"MANAGUA, Nicaragua - Two weeks after Olga Reyes danced at her wedding, her bloated and disfigured body was laid to rest in an open coffin — the victim, her husband and some experts say, of Nicaragua’s new no-exceptions ban on abortion.
Law student Reyes, 22, was one of the three confirmed fatalities. She knew something was horribly wrong, and went with her husband to their small town’s medical center. They were sent to Bertha Calderon maternity hospital, more than an hour away in Managua. There, Perez said, Reyes was given a cursory exam, sent home and told to return the next day.

"By that time, the bleeding and cramping were worse. Perez said he rushed her to a hospital in nearby Leon, but after she had an ultrasound that confirmed her condition (confirming the fetus was still alive), they left her bent over and in agony for hours in a waiting room. When a doctor at a shift change saw her condition, she was rushed into surgery. She suffered three heart attacks and an exploratory surgery."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21601045/

from a report by the us state dept on human rights violations:
"Violence against women, including domestic abuse and rape, remained a concern. Salary discrimination against women in the labor force is endemic. Violence against children and child prostitution continued. Discrimination against indigenous people also occurred. Child labor continued to be a problem. The violation of worker rights in free trade zones continued. There were several documented reports of trafficking in women and girls for the purpose of sexual exploitation."

"A leading human rights NGO, the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH), received 293 complaints of torture or degrading treatment by the authorities during the first half of the year and verified 232 of these. "

**note, nic. has approx 5 million people, this is like, if the state of wisconsin had a total of 232 complaints in six months of human rights abuses.***

"Captain Francisco Orozco, chief of police in Rosita, Northern Autonomous Atlantic Region (RAAN), was accused of raping a 13-year-old girl at the police station. The girl's mother had brought her to the police to press rape charges against the girl's stepfather. Orozco allegedly told the mother to leave the room so he could interview the girl. A medical forensic exam revealed evidence of previous abuse as well as of a recent rape, which they forwarded for further forensic analysis."

"a 29-year-old woman pressed charges against policeman Andres Montes for attempted rape while she was sleeping outside city hall offices in Siuna, RAAN, on August 25. She claimed that public defender Gloria Garcia suggested that she drop the charges to avoid negative consequences against her 14-year-old son, who was detained by the police at the time on other charges. Garcia allegedly took the victim to the police station and made her sign a release exonerating Montes. Montes was charged with rape in a local court. The trial, scheduled for December 22, was delayed and remained pending at year's end."

"Casa Alianza and the Human Rights Ombudsman's Office published a survey of 85 underaged detainees throughout the penal system. According to the survey, the police did not inform over 21 percent of the respondents at the time of their arrest why they were being detained. The police allegedly mistreated 47 percent, and 48 percent said that they were detained 3 days or more before seeing a judge. Half said they were not aware of being assigned a defense attorney, and 24 percent said they were incarcerated with adults. "

this goes on and on at http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27906.htm

"In the past year, the Embassy has noted a gradual increase in the use of armed violence against resident and visiting U.S. citizens. "

"Dengue fever is endemic in Nicaragua. Currently, no vaccine or specific medication is available to prevent or treat Dengue fever."

"Tap water is not considered safe in Nicaragua. All persons should drink only bottled water"

travel.state.gov/travel/ci...s_985.html

they not only have volcanoes to worry about, nicaragua has torrential rains, flooding, 20 ft. tidal waves, earthquakes, landslides, hurricanes, and famine. www.climateark.org/shared/r...come.aspx

hurricane season hits nicaragua with two category 5 storms, felix and dean. in fact, felix was devastating nicaragua while we were attending the burn in 07 : news.nationalgeographic.com/news....html

most of what i'm reading in the above links indicate that nicaragua has an inadequate police force, and so the armed forces patrol the rural areas. in the human rights report it is stated that this whole system is corrupt, and that americans are easy targets for all sorts of violent crimes, many of which are carried out by the authorities.

drug trafficking around the islands is a common practice, so there is a risk of meeting with some very dangerous people. the whole nation is poor, 1 out of every 3 children are severely malnourished, 40% of the population is unemployed.

posted in Floatingman Island - 19 replies

Adam's TODOs in Nicaragua

mrcurtain — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 23:49:25 GMT

I'm heading down to Nicaragua next month.

The purpose of the trip is primarily to research things for this project.

I'd like to head down there with a clear set of TODOs, which I can just check off one by one.

a) Hospital in Granada?
b) Lawyer recommendations?
c) Checking out the backroad route to the island
d) ...

What questions would you guys like to have answered?

posted in Floatingman Island - 29 replies

Where's the energy?

mrcurtain — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 16:07:06 GMT

It's sad that there isn't more energy coming from the other side right now.

Because down here in Nicaragua, I'm just filling with more and more confidence. Everything down here looks great. Everyone loves the idea, and no one has come up with any reasons why it wouldn't work.

I met a Nicaraguan named Edwin yesterday. He lived in Cupertino for 24 years before moving back down here and setting up a telecom business.

Edwin is originally from Chontales, the region where the island is. He likes the idea for Floatingman, and he thinks the people of Chontales will like it. I asked him if the country people will have any problems with crazy looking artists freaks walking through town - he said "no", the people are just very friendly there. And this was my experience in Granada. I walked around town a bit with a hippy looking guy with a long braided beard. Everyone felt obligated to comment "the beard", "mr. beard", but they were all smiling.

He know the island that we're looking at, and has been there before. He said that $500,000 was a ripoff, and that an appropriate value would be closer to $300,000 for it. And he said that it's important that we find a real-estate agent on our side - more interested in helping us than getting a big commission. He also said that I should have no problem hiring a lawyer to check the property title for $100 (he's paid as little as $25 for the same service). I don't think that we'll be able to bring the price down to quite $300,000, but this furthers my confidence that we should be able to get the price lowered substantially.

I asked him about the name "Island of the Dead", and he told me that "El Muerto" is actually a common nickname in Nicaragua. The owner of one of the two major newspapers is nicknamed "El Muerto". His guess, is that someone with that nickname once owned the island. That's two theories about the name so far. The first theory was that viewed from the side, the island looks like a body lying prone with a shroud over it.

Oh, and he gave me advise that we need to go and visit his hometown of La Libertad. It's and easy day trip from the island, and it's supposedly super green and beautiful. Edwin's father refuses to leave because he describes it as "paradise".

That's all for today.

posted in Floatingman Island - 2 replies

I have posted more photos of the Island

Indigo — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 06:54:44 GMT

Well, Adam's trip down to Nica has jogged my memory banks and stirred up a lot of memories from my trip there last year...and, I have posted a number of pictures on the Floatingman tribe.

I posted some from the Island itself:

After reading a posting related to the type of soil we should expect there (and how it'll get mucky in the rain) I wanted to show in a little more detail the lanscape of almost the entire island. Rocks, rocks, and more rocks. The soil is black and full of a mulchy, stocky kind of bush. When I was there it was freshly hacked down.

I also noticed that I took a few pictures to show why I descriped the island as an "upside down bowl" . Those banks are steep.

Then theres all that bird shit I still havent figured out. Not sure if the island is on a migration route or something. There is a handfull of chickens - mostly hanging around the original house area - but it would take them years of wondering and random shitting to do the damage that is there.

I posted some from "the barrios" just outside of Granada:

The travel section in my newspaper had a big article on Granada recently. Move over Coasta Rice, step back Guatemaula, said the article ... Granada, Nicaragua is poised to be the next backpackers paradise. And true enough there is a huge ex-pat community in Granada and because Coasta Rica has become an expensive place to live/buy property, neighbouring countries (Panama, Guatemaula, and Nica) are all opening their doors with investment/development incentives. Just (and I mean JUST) outside of booming (and very hot and crowded) Granada are the barrios - which means neihborhoods - but is also kinda slang ... meaning, the hoods, very poor neighbourhoods ... "where the streets have no names" as Bono would say. This is "the real" Nicaragua in many ways. It's a very poor country, but rich with culture, humilty, and humanity in the people. People are warm, open and giving. But I'm sure in 5-10 years the streets with no names will be full of time-share condos and maybe even a lake-side golf course. And the people will just either move farther into nowhere, or be "lucky" to have a service job at one of the hotels.

I guess I'm saying I would really not like to see Floatingman be just another land owner in a country with cheap real estate and a great and interesting place for the the booming Granada backpacking party crowd to go for a wild weekend of dabachary on full moons ... with ticket sales going to help the people of Nicaragua of course. Not sure exactly WHAT I'm getting at except that I think the project should be concious that we are coming into "a people's" backyard and resist benefiting from the exploitative nature of the developments which will be all around us. I know thats the plan from the get-go back maybe bears repeating.

I posted a couple of pictures taken of / or from hostels on Ometepe Island. Adam, I do hope you are planning to visit Ometepe while you are down there. To me this was a magical place. There are people living and working the land on Ometepe that have NEVER been to the mainland of their own country. Why ever leave paradise they say. Ometepe is the island with two volcanoes on it and where I saw a 150acre (or so) farm for sale but I was on my way home and did not have a chance to got see it. I know that discussion is old news ... but it might resurface after you visit. And that other art community you're talking about is not far off Ometempe.

When are you scheduled to go see Floatingman Island by the way??

I'm going to spend the next little while going thru the major postings and hope to re-integrate myself into this conversation. I've been recovering from Trae's camp bar for the past 5 months...

:D

posted in Floatingman Island - 2 replies

A shout out and an invitation to Adam and Floating Man

burning_man — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 09:55:45 GMT

Hi. I've heard so much recently about this terrible "Adam", that I had to find out more about him, so I asked somebody I sort of know and kind of like (a new contact) to tell me more. I followed the links and - I must confess, I only skimmed a large amount of material. I start wading through the drama, and after a while my eyes go out of focus and I just have to stop - but this Adam person didn't seem like such a bad guy at all, just somebody who was getting mass flamed. He seemed like somebody I'd probably disagree with about 80% of the time, but that's OK, because it would be a civil disagreement, I think.

Adam, I run a ring called "BMORG doesn't speak for us : A ring for dissent in the Burner subculture". If you're at all interested, I'd like to invite you to join either or both versions of the ring, one of them on Ringlink

http://www.webring.cc/cgi-bin/ringlink/list.pl?ringid=bmorg

and the other on Ringsurf

http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?action=info&ring=bmorg

The ring is what it sounds like. I've left it largely mothballed since 2001, back when I looked for voices of dissent in the Burning Man community and didn't find any other than my own and those of a handful of online aquaintences, so the rings are currently closed, but I would be glad to open them for you. Mainly, what I would ask is that

1. That those visiting your site be able to easily find their way back to the ring.
2. That you remember that some sites on the ring are hosted on free webhosting services, and refrain from putting any adult material on the ring page, because that could cause TOS issues for other members.
3. Don't get me busted or TOSed off the service. Not that I think you would, but I'm just saying ...

Why might you want to? One reason might be because in searches under "bmorg", my little rings have been seeing a lot of search engine love for the better part of a decade, and that kind of love spreads. Your visibility might go up a notch, getting you more of an audience with less headbutting. You probably have no idea of who I am, 2001 being as far back as it is at this point, but I have an established history of never rolling over on a member of anything I run in response to political pressure, feeling that real friendships are the ones that come without the political power playing; if somebody ditches me because I won't agree to ditch somebody else, que serait, serait.

Please understand that I'm not volunteering to take part in any infighting, if that's what's going on. I don't know the full story and have neither the time nor the curiosity to dig deeper. I'm on friendly terms with some of your enemies and would like to remain so, if possible, as some of them seem to basically be nice people, but the friend of your enemy should not have to be your enemy, I think. Would you agree?

posted in Floatingman Island - 7 replies

Cultural Similarities / A Nicaraguan New Year

mrcurtain — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 21:29:13 GMT

I said some of this before, but it's important enough that it bears repeating.

One of our big concerns before I came down here, is how a group of freaks who liked to make art and blow things up would be able to integrate into the Nicaraguan community.

We were afraid that there would be immense cultural gaps to overcome. But far better than I possibly could have imagined, it seems that we have a lot in common.

Amazingly, there is already one art commune on an island in the same lake where we want to buy an island. And the art commune which is already there is an art commune made up of Nicaraguans.

Here's a link to a website about that archipelago:

http://www.solentiname.com/

And the description below of the Nicaraguan New Year reminds me a lot of old Burningman. They _love_ fireworks here. Oddly, I've heard that they are given out by the Church. Apparently local custom says that loud noises can bring God's attention to the fact that you are happy. So, I can't see the Nicaraguans being shocked or surprised if we burn something, or blow it up with fireworks.

So, just good news from down here in Nicaragua.

Cheers,
-Adam

- - - - -

Quoted from "San Juan Del Sur"

Driving into San Juan from La Virgen on the morning of December 31 was more exciting than ever. The usual game of strategically dodging the potholes was enlivened by a multitude of “Año Viejos” (old years) along the roadside. Life-size dolls stuffed with straw, paper, fireworks and other highly incendiary materials were sitting on porches, standing under trees, perched on chairs on the shoulder of the highway, or linked arm in arm with a compatriot.

PHOTO: DanCesar.com

Some were dressed quite fine, others in old clothes. Some had elaborate expressions, others a simple face. Some grasped empty beer cans or liquor bottles in their hands. Each one a unique creation reflecting it’s maker. The one thing they had in common was that they were filled with all the negativity from the past year. After their day in the sun they were destined to burn at midnight to do away with the old year’s trials and tribulations and to clear the way for a positive new year. This Nicaraguan tradition is celebrated with greater gusto in San Juan del Sur than anywhere else in the country. In San Juan proper the sidewalks abounded with the funny scarecrow-like dolls.

As the evening progressed, at least one Año Viejo got the royal treatment: paraded through town on a throne in the back of a pick-up truck followed by a very lively15-piece band. Lights, smoke, and noise filled the air as more and more people came into the streets, children squealing with sizzling sparklers in hand, adults laughing and scrambling away from a hot lit fuse. Music boomed from every corner loudly celebrating the approaching end of another year. Families and friends gathered on patios and verandas to eat and drink together, watching the festivities.

At around midnight, “mas o menos” (more or less) the grand finale began with enormous fireworks shooting up from many different spots along the beach and the hillsides. The competing lightshows illuminated the sky with a brilliant magical glittering display. And down below the Año Viejos were dragged out into the open and set on fire.

The drive through town was wonderfully surreal and awing as street after street was blocked with these strange burning bodies, legs and arms spread wide, hissing and popping as fireworks ignited inside. The scene was repeated along the roads in smaller communities surrounding San Juan as well. People celebrated well into the morning. And now that the Old Year is nothing but ashes scattered in the wind, the way for an abundant and blessed New Year is clear.

A powerful communal ceremony indeed.

http://www.san-juan-del-sur.com/archives/issue_21_01_15_08/21_0115_2.htm

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

A friendly bit of advice

Sock™Muppet — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 21:00:52 GMT

Some may notice that in this tribe, there seems to be a bit of criticism, and not much support. And that a majority of the people on this site are either silent, or somewhat hostile. And occasionally there are posts that are meant to inflame opinions and even turn people of the tribe against each other.

Well, I've been noticing that some of the members of this tribe, mostly Adam, but also Trae, seem to have quite a bit of criticism of other events (mostly burning man).

The term "you reap what you sew" comes to mind.

Burning Man is a different event, yes, and not related to Floating Man. But it also seems to be the tribe that Adam spends most of his time on. If burning man today, is truly as bad as you make it out to be, my advice would be to quit going. But it seems to me, Adam, that the amount of time you spend obsessing on it and posting on the bm tribe, that you actually don't dislike burning man and the bmorg and what it is today as much as you say you do.

So if you want people to continue to offer criticism, and not advice, continue this current path.

Or, you can start looking for positive things that BM, the BMORG, and even your arch nemesis Larry are doing well, and start offering support for them and the event they produce. Stop being so negative on other tribes, and perhaps people will stop coming here and bringing the negativity along with them.

posted in Floatingman Island - 6 replies

Subteams / Working Groups

mrcurtain — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 20:01:57 GMT

It's a New Year. It's time to get this project off to a new start, and really get things moving.

We have defined a number of subteams to work on individual pieces of the project. Here they are:

http://floatingman.wetpaint.com/page/Greeters

http://floatingman.wetpaint.com/page/Marketing+Team

http://floatingman.wetpaint.com/page/Finance+Team

http://floatingman.wetpaint.com/page/Survival+Guide+Team

http://floatingman.wetpaint.com/page/Real+Estate+Team

http://floatingman.wetpaint.com/page/Legal+Team

http://floatingman.wetpaint.com/page/Process+Team

If you are interested in joining any of these subteams, post here, or mail the subteam leader.

posted in Floatingman Island - 1 reply

Update on tribewanted

mrcurtain — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 05:04:52 GMT

This guys have tried to something simliar, but they've taken a very different approach.

They originally wanted to buy land, but scaled back to having a 3-year lease. It's also rather expensive, with everyone (presumably except the founders) paying $50/day to be on the island. They have 150 locals working for them now.

But still it's interesting news to see the progress they've made, and the challenges they've had.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3176465.ece

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

Meeting Minutes from January Meeting

mrcurtain — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 22:45:52 GMT

A nice quick, one hour meeting with Adam, Trae, and Vinay in attendance. Like most of our meetings, it felt very productive.

= = = =

Agenda:

1) COMMERCIALIZATION, ETC.

a) Kay O's documentary

b) Trademark

c) Commercialism

2) GETTING THE BALL ROLLING IN 2008

a) advertising

b) accomplish _something_

c) greeters

d) todos - better tracking/management

e) todos / subteams - ask for help

f) more detailed info about nicaragua

3) NEXT MEETING

= = = =

1a) Kay O's documentary

Since Tia participated in the tribe discussions, we wanted to hear her thoughts before making any final decision. But we've tentatively agreed to let him document everything up until we set up the community on the island. At a later point when more people are involved in the project, we can revisit this decision.

We also made the decision that as a documentarian/journalist, he'd get no special privilege. He'd be required to pay the same ticket prices, or price for a share as everyone else. And he would be expected to live according to our values on the island. He would report as a part of the project - gonzo journalism.

1b) Trademark

There is no requirement to register a trademark, though that gives it additional strength. We can just declare that Floatingman and Floatinman Island are our common law trademarks, and they will be protected under law. Later, when we have more money, we can consider registering our name.

Trae will look into having a notary validate the date when we started using the name.

Adam will put a trademark notice on the website.

1c) Commercialization

We're all in agreement, that the Floatingman name and images from the island cannot be used for any commercial purposes.

2a) advertising

When Adam gets back to SF, he has a meeting with Steve Raspa to talk about Floatingman. Now that he knows we're a not-for-profit project, Steve has expressed interest in what we're doing. The BMORG may be willing to do some advertising for us. But if that happens, it won't be happening for months.

There is now a flier for Floatingman in the most popular guesthouse in all of Nicaragua. That'll help get the word out to the backpackers. Plus, Adam is talking to a ton of people down here spreading things through the word of mouth.

2b) Accomplish _something_

We still love the idea of a Nicaragua burn. But this isn't going to happen until we have enough people interested in heading down there.

Trae and Adam are both interested in a sailing trip down to Nicaragua. Adam has already been shopping for boats.

2c) Greeters

The tribe has not been giving the right impression to people who join. Or perhaps just not the right info. We had already talked about having greeters, but it was never implemented. Starting now, Adam and Trae will alternate in greeting new tribe members.

2d) todos - tracking

We just need to be a lot more professional in tracking our todos, and checking them off. We all agreed the wiki is the best way to do this, and that we need to start using it religiously.

http://floatingman.wetpaint.com/page/todos

2e) todos / subteams - ask for help

We need to better start publishing the todos and the subteams we decided upon. That will provide a better way for new people to see where they want to, or might be interested in, helping out.

2f) More detailed info about Nicaragua

Both Trae and Vinay wanted to see a blog and photos from Nicaragua. It's critical to give people more solid info and a better understanding of what Nicaragua is actually like.

Adam wasn't quite ready to volunteer to do a blog, but photos will be posted very shortly. And he'll try to post more info in the tribe about his experiences.

3) Next Meeting

The next meeting of the leadership committee will be Saturday, February 2, at Noon. Everyone is invited.

= = = = = = =

TODOS:

TODO (adam): Post meeting date / time of next meeting on website.

TODO (adam): Post photos from Nicaragua

TODO (adam): Write up homepage for wiki. This might be very similar or identical to the greeter message.

TODO (adam / trae): start sending out greeter messages

TODO (adam): Write up greeter message

TODO (adam/trae): Talk about sailing to Nicaragua

TODO (adam): Post photos of Nicaragua

TODO (adam): Mail Tim

TODO (legal team): Write up legal contract protecting the use of the name and images from the event.

TODO (trae): Look into notary costs for trademark

TODO (adam): Put trademark notice on website.

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

Message from the BMORG

mrcurtain — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 04:03:30 GMT

I'm John Cornwell and I work for Burning Man LLC.

One of the event's attendees pointed me to your site, asking about the pictures on your home page. You may not be aware of our photo policy, which requires permission from us before using any Burning Man photo outside your friends and family. We do this for a number of reasons: protect the privacy of our attendees, protect the copyright of the artists whose work is shown there, and ensure that the photos are not used for advertising / marketing.

I looked through your Tribe site (which was very, very interesting, by the way!) and saw the thread on commodification. We view advertising and marketing with Burning Man elements as a form of commodification.

I'm writing to ask that you remove the photos on the home page taken at Burning Man. It's nothing personal, and we're not questioning your mission, your good intentions or your approach. It's simply that we don't permit the use of photos for marketing, including the marketing of an investment.

Can you make the changes by the end of day, next Monday? Is that enough time?

Kind regards,

John Cornwell

posted in Floatingman Island - 83 replies

Meeting Tomorrow (Jan 12)

mrcurtain — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 20:25:12 GMT

Just a reminder that there is a meeting tomorrow, January 12th, at Noon PST.

I hope that some of you can make it.

The current items on the agenda are:

1) Commodification in general, and specifically Kay O's documentary.

2) Getting things rolling again in 2008.

Send a friend request to 'geekeasy' prior to the meeting.

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

Trademark

mrcurtain — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:46:18 GMT

"Common law vs. registered trademark - How do I apply for a registered trademark?
The benefits of having a registered trademark as compared to a common law trademark include:

* Constructive notice nationwide of the trademark owner's claim.
* More evidence of the ownership of the trademark.
* Jurisdiction of federal courts may be invoked. Registration can be used as a basis for obtaining registration in other countries.
* Registration may be filed with the Customs Service to prevent importation of trademark infringing foreign goods."

http://inventors.about.com/od/trademarks/a/register.htm

Well... it seems that we don't need to actually register our trademark ($325) as a common law trademark is valid.

But perhaps we should make it more clear by listing the fact that we claim the trademark on our website and putting (tm) in some places.

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

Nicaragua's _other_ island art commune

mrcurtain — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 19:47:14 GMT

Fascinating.

The country where we've decided we want to set up Flotingman, already has an island art commune on the same lake.

http://www.solentiname.com/

http://www.solentiname.org/content/view/21/29/

Quoted from Lonely Planet Nicaragua:

===================

"Until the 1960's, the Islas Solentiname didn't even appear on Nicaraguan maps. Metal tools for hewing wood seemed impossibly expensive to these families of subsistence farmers and fishers; homes and churches were made of palm thatch. Then in 1966, a idealistic young poet priest named Ernest Cardenal arrived on the islands, built a church, and recorded the remarkable La Misa Campesina, or Peasants' Mass, when the islanders themselves stood up and spoke the word of god.

---

One day, a grateful islander named Eduardo Arana presented Cardenal with an elaborately decorated jicara shell, which impressed the priest into giving the young man paints and a canvas. Those first few paintings, some on display in the Biblioteca y Sala Archaeologica on Mancarron, launched Nicaragua's Primitivist Art Movement, internationally recognized for the vibrant colors and expert lines that so accurately capture this tropical paradise. One artists, Ufredo Arguello, began applying the same saturation of color to balsa-wood carvings, which also caught on.

Throughout the last 1960s and 1970s, families worked together painting and sculpting sending their work to market in Managua.

---

Largely because of Cardenal's socialist leanings, in 1977 a group of Sandista supporters attacked San Carlos , and failed. On October 3, as retribution, the National Guard burned every structure on the islands to the ground. Survivors fled to Costa Rica, leaving the archipelago all but abandoned.

When the revolutionary government took power, the islanders returned and rebuilt, raising a new church, and began painting and sculpting again. And Solentiname, for so long a commune in the purest sense, remains more staunchly committed to the most extreme ideals of the revolution than perhaps anywhere else in the country. 'It's just hard to get used to capitalism', explained one artist."

posted in Floatingman Island - 4 replies

It's a New Year!

mrcurtain — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 23:59:32 GMT

I was hoping to get this New Year off to a bang, and really get the momentum rolling. Instead the opposite seems to be happening.

One of Tia's big complaints was that our meetings are announced at the last minute. This last meeting, and the one before it, didn't happen at all. In my mind, this is unacceptable. We need to fix this.

What does everyone think about having the meetings on the First Saturday of every month at Noon PST? Can we agree to this schedule and stick to it?

If so, I'll publish a calendar of meetings on the website.

The meeting this past Saturday did not happen. So, for this month, can we have one next Saturday. Kay O, Tia, Trae, others, can you make this meeting? I'll also mail the rest of the 'official people' and invite them to the meeting.

What else can we do to get this project moving faster?

My guess for that seems to be advertising, advertising, advertising. It's possible that we'll get help from the BMORG with that after I get back in the country and talk with Steve Raspa. But that won't be until mid-February. I'll also put up some fliers here in Granada, Nicaragua. People who are in Nicaragua already might have interest. Other ideas for advertising?

Any other ideas for getting things moving?

P.S. I spoke to people today who talked about some NGOs (non-governmental organizations), which took 5 years from the initial idea to realization, so we're not moving all that slowly.

posted in Floatingman Island - 5 replies

Documenting it all

KayOSweaver — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 21:00:54 GMT

I only stumbled onto this whole Floatingman thing a few days ago but it immediately took hold of my imagination, both in all the ways it could be wonderful and also all the ways it could go terribly wrong. That is what great endeavours and drama are all about. So...

As a filmmaker with a keen interest in art, intentional communities and alternative lifestyles Floatingman seems like the perfect subject for a long term documentary project.

I would like to come down to Nicaragua this spring for the burn & fact finding mission. I'd also like to sit in (with camera in hand) on as many meetings and preparations as possible. Of course it wouldn't be right to do this without talking to naysayers as well and why they think it won't work.

So, are you willing to work with me? Which really just means, are you willing to welcome me and my camera into the fray?

posted in Floatingman Island - 26 replies

Commerce

KayOSweaver — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 18:01:54 GMT

For all its foibles wikipedia seems as good a place as any to start;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

Decision Making Revisited

mrcurtain — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 20:42:05 GMT

Quite a while ago we worked out or decision making processes. The board is to make decisions by consensus. The owners have a vote on critical issues (selling property, changes to the operating agreement). The island council is to make decisions by consensus.

We knew that at some point we'd have to figure out the interim period, where we're growing as a community and org. It seems that time has come.

Here are some challenges to think about: I don't think that we can effectively have an org with 100 people with an equal say on every minute decision. And, I believe that if we give people a full say now, but then take it away later, this disinfranchisement will cause nothing but ugliness, bitterness, and hurt feelings. How do we fix this?

First of all, we plan on adding more member of the board. Up to perhaps 10 members. But we'd like to do this slowly. As a rough guide, someone should have 6 months of active involvement in the project before they are considered for board membership.

However, and this is perhaps the more important point, all of the participants right now will be granted an important, but non-official say, in all decisions.

Consensus calls for everyone to respond to any decision with "agree", "stand aside", or "block". If non-board members block a decision, we will respect that. As of yet, we've never gone around anyone's block. But, I do think that the ultimate power for Org related decisions does need to reside within the board. So, for critical issues, the board could override a non-board member's block.

As I mentioned above, power of the board is limited such that they cannot change the operating agreement or sell property (should the operating agreement be updated so that the board cannot buy property either w/out an okay?). These things need to be approved by a vote of the owners. Checks and balances are maintained through the owners have a right to revoke and replace the board.

Now, we only have 2 owners. But I will propose that the first 25 people who send in a minimum of $100 should be considered a tentative owner, and should be given the same vote as a full owner. This right to vote will extend until 30 days after shares are offered for purchase. If they buy a share, they are now an owner, and will retain their vote. If they don't purchase a share, then their right to vote will be revoked. (note - we will revisit this after we have the first 25 people.) (note 2 - trae and I can also lose our membership if we don't pay the full share price)

Summary:

Anyone participating in the project has a say. But the board does reserve the right to overrule blocks from non-board members. We hope never to have to use this.

Anyone who sends in $100 or more, has an official vote in the project for certain specific important issues, and anything else the board wants to send down for a vote.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

In part, this is my and Trae's shared thoughts. But he has not reviewed this write up, and there may still be some minor disagreements between us.

None of this has been officially, decided upon yet. We'd like to get your feedback before doing anything.

See this as a test of our updated decision making process. The board has the right to make this decision, but we will not do it should any of the regular tribe/meeting participants disagree (block) the decision.

So.... what do you think?

posted in Floatingman Island - 8 replies

Living Art - Arborsculpture

mrcurtain — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 23:13:00 GMT

This stuff is pretty cool.

http://arborsmith.com/ps_gallery/ps_gallery.html

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

To the floatingman Ladies

neonbunny — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 01:00:22 GMT

Being a minority among such strong minded men, on a remote island, in a third world country with little goverment and hardly any laws. How will you be treated by the men on the island?

http://sweetguys.tribe.net/thread/17716069-59e5-47b8-9489-aa8ef3998c01

http://sweetguys.tribe.net/thread/be75b85b-c4ca-40e9-8760-e9d466e89384

http://sweetguys.tribe.net/thread/88360028-67b0-4531-852d-4b3ce2733b4d

http://jewtribe.tribe.net/thread/32fca175-b72b-46d9-ad15-b2456b932b07

http://extremehonesty.tribe.net/thread/09d41439-ef21-4fc9-ad04-92349a7a3df5

posted in Floatingman Island - 10 replies

You are being your own worst enemies...

SwirlJames — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 19:25:26 GMT

I'm an admitted fence sitter on this project. I love the idea and would probably buy my ticket and join, but certain things are keeping me on the fence.

One of the reasons that I am fence sitting is that the two major players (Adam and Trae) in the project are scaring me off it, primarily through their other posts on tribe, particularly WRT BMORG and P. Addis. This is not a personal attack on them. I am not calling them names, or judging their actions other than to report my reaction to their actions.

Obviously, you both are entitled to your opinions regarding any subject, but it is the way you have resolved these issues online is something that I (A potential investor/floater/burner) judge the outlook for the success of the project on. Frankly, it scares me. You assure us that concensus will be used to make decisions at Floatingman, but I have yet to see much concensus building in the charges/accusations made against the BMORG and it's volunteers, people who have opposing points of view regarding the actions of P. Addis, the way that regionals are run, even the way that BMORG asked you to remove copyrighted material.

What I am hoping to point out to you is that your message is not getting through to me...and possibly "the people"...we are scared by your messages.

I wonder why you are taking the approach that you are:

1) Perhaps you aren't aware that the posts on other tribes WRT Burning Man, P. Addis, BMORG, regionals, etc. reflect directly on people's opinions of the Floatingman project.

2) Perhaps you are not considering that those posts could be alienating large sectors of the potential population. (IE: the majority of burners aren't Addis fans/or don't dispise the BMORG)

3) Perhaps you don't really want to appeal to the average burner type person and want to only form this island venture with a small group of "like-minded" individuals.

You can immediately flame me, or ...

you can demonstrate emotional literacy, step outside of the impulse to flame me, and look for ways that you can be more approachable and interesting to the people who would be potentially be joining this project.

posted in Floatingman Island - 19 replies

official people?

trae — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:11:53 GMT

this is starting to bug me... everyone, other then adam and myself, that are 'official' are silent partners. i believe this is because adam has talked to them in the real world, and they arent necessarily on tribe. this is fine, great in fact! but i would really like people that are willing enough to pony up the cash to be involved here as well. i dont even have a way to contact these people.

adam, can you make it a task to get those people here? i dont like talking about what we are going to do with their money without them even having seen the discussion.

posted in Floatingman Island - 4 replies

January Meeting

mrcurtain — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 23:09:42 GMT

According to our old schedule, the next meeting should be Sunday, January 6th.

Can we do it on Saturday the 5th instead? I might be in Chontales by then, and I'm not sure if anything will be open on a Sunday.

Is that okay for people? How about Noon PST?

posted in Floatingman Island - 1 reply

Don't Delete

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 23:45:24 GMT

Seriously do not delete "Moist Putz" threads. Proves the point of how pathetic and petty him and his ilk are.

posted in Floatingman Island - 19 replies

5 principles instead of 10?

mrcurtain — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 07:55:22 GMT

Chicken John:
> I looked into that Floating Man thing. Sounds ambitious. Why anyone would want to use Larry's 10 principles for anything except toilet paper is beyond me...

The values are something which are very important to me.

I've been thinking through this for a while. Chicken John just got me kicked off on the topic again.

We picked the principles of Burningman by default, because those were the values that were easily available to us. Plus, probably such that we could qualify as an official regional. Those are bad reasons.

Plus, I think that they principles are somewhat tarnished. I'm not sure that they're now really the _values_ that burners hold; if they ever were. They're simply mechanisms which people follow.

Does "Decommodification" really mean anything to any of us? Or do we just follow the mechanism by not selling things at Burningman?

If we look at definitions: "a commodity is anything for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a given market." Is that really relevant to us?

What of "Civic Responsibility"? Is that a value we hold?

Plus, I just think that there are too many. Can anyone recall all 10 of the principles without looking them up?

I think that we need real values. Not things that we just kind of do, but things that have real meaning to us.

What are our values?

Here are thing which are personally important to me for this project.

"Freedom, Self-reliance, Self-expression, Gifting, Respect"

= = = = =

* Freedom

Everyone should be free to act as they wish, so long as their actions don't infringe on the freedom of others.

* Self-Reliance:

Everyone is expected to discover, exercise, and rely on their own inner resources.

* Self-Expression:

At the heart, we're an art project. But "art" is a very broad term. No one should exist as just a spectator. Everyone should work to express themselves creatively.

* Gifting:

Gifting is the act of giving something, while expecting nothing in return. A gift can be a smile, kind words, a lesson on how to do something, or a trinket as a souvenir.

There will be no commerce on the island. All transactions will be done by gifts or cooperative effort.

* Respect:

Respect one another. Respect the people of the country which is hosting us. Respect the planet.

= = = = =

What do people think about reevaluating our values?

And what do people think of the values that I've proposed?

posted in Floatingman Island - 14 replies

Differences of opinion

neonbunny — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 01:07:47 GMT

Quick question. Will guns be allowed on the island? What about other weapons? Where do we draw the line (clearly, we should ban nukes, but that would be a rule...)

posted in Floatingman Island - 7 replies

Tribe a beautiful Phoenix

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:59:58 GMT

I love Tribe. I'm so glad Marc is in charge of it again and that Jan was given a pair of concrete boots and dropped in the bay.

I understand that because they are a small company that they are going to have to go down during the day on occasion. Sure, it sucks, because I love me some tribe... but it's not a reason to leave.

posted in Floatingman Island - 4 replies

The leadership council...

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 23:21:26 GMT

The leadership council apparently consists of Adam and Trae: http://tribes.tribe.net/floatingman_owners

Wow, that seems like an exclusive club. Have any of you seen the papers to file for corporate, or non profit status? I mean, you are thinking about sinking money into this thing right? You'll get your fair share... right? I mean, you know you well... right? Cause the Leaders are such honest people, and you know that somehow...... right?

posted in Floatingman Island - 1 reply

Some thoughts from Chicken John

mrcurtain — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 06:24:49 GMT

I don't really agree with everything that he said.

But I think that it's interesting - most of what Chicken John says is interesting.

So, I wanted to copy the discussion in here for everyone else to read.

===========================

Chicken:
> I looked into that Floating Man thing. Sounds ambitious. Why anyone would want to use Larry's 10 principals for anything except toilet paper is beyond me...

It is indeed ambitious.

I'm heading down to Nicaragua next week to check out the property title, and other things related to the project (plus some volcano surfing).

As for the principles, it's no longer just my project. I don't run it. A group runs it. I think having some shared values is important in a project like this. But personally, I would like to revisit the values someday, and come up with our own list. If for no other reason than Larry's list is too long. If you cannot remember all of the values, you're not going to live by them. Who can (without cheating) name all 10 principles off the top of their head?

- - - - - -

The 10 principals of what Larry thinks BM is about and what BM IS really about are at least 20 different things.

But it sure is funny to read that gobbly goop that we get blessed with from time to time.

Truth is, your probably losing more people by attaching to that crap... do your own thing. Having anything to do with BM at all is just gonna weigh you down or drown ya. You have probably heard this, but you'd probably do better to gather the masses to kick down a few grand if you had 3 years under your belt as an arts organization. If you could do that, you'd be better than me. I could never keep anything together for more than 3 months before I either lost the interest needed or the idea faded or someone took it or lost the space or whatever. Maybe that's why your not doing that.

Having shared values doesn't have to be important. It can be, but mutual respect is far more paramount than everyone pretending to agree. Remember that Larry vacilates on the interpretation of the principals as the years go by. He now speaks very little because every time he opens his mouth he contridicts himself. That's just kinda what happens when you talk a lot. Hey, he wanted to be the king... that's what happens. i told him to get into the habit of apologizing, but to date he's never once admitted that he was wrong about anything. it's like he thinks people actually read the stuff he writes and beleive it. Oh yea. They do.

But it's funny, right? At least it's funny...

As for Nicaragua it's the hardest place I've ever been to. Fucking hard. it was one of those places that as I was leaving I knew I'd never be back... you're gonna need to understand their food before you can understand their culture. I couldn't understand what the fuck they were eating, let alone what they were saying. I like the monkeys, though... but they can be pretty rough as well.

My lady owns a coffee roastery in SF. buys the beans directly from the farmers in Costa Rica. The pickers come from Nicarauga. We know a few of 'em. this is a whole different thing down there. I can confidently say that I have no idea what the fuck is going on down there. I know 5 people who have owned real estate in Costa Rica. I know one that owns now. the Green Tortise people owned some property down there for a bit... but let it go. Literally. Tread lightly, my friend. And remember, if you didn't bring it with you... it's not going home with you..

- - - - - -

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

Adding a Floatingman goal - actually a non-goal.

mrcurtain — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 03:58:46 GMT

We've had a list of "goals" for a long time. I think that it's a great as a set of guiding principles for us. And we should avoid changing it.

But there is one thing which is integral enough to the project, and has been from the start, that I think it needs to be added to our "goals".

8) Floatingman will be a not-for-profit project. None of the owners or directors should expect to make any profit off of this project at all.

We could perhaps list this somewhere else, but I really like the idea of using the goals as a single checkoff list to see if people "get it".

I'm in the middle of rewriting the website to make other changes that we've agreed to. What do you guys think about adding this as a goal?

posted in Floatingman Island - 11 replies

is "should" good enough?

Peter — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:11:37 GMT

From the goals of Floatingman http://www.floatingman.org/index.php?page=Home

>Floatingman will be a not-for-profit project. None of the owners or directors should expect to make any profit off of this project. <

Is Floatingman a not-for-profit project or not? If it truely is one would expect to see the statement, "will not make a profit" rather than "should". And, it would be written into the by-laws.

posted in Floatingman Island - 35 replies

TSCA grant

mrcurtain — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 04:11:56 GMT

Here's an interesting grant for anyone who wants to biuld traditional wooden small craft (Trae?).

http://tsca.net/gardner.html

It seems that they have money available and a lack of applicants. Though, I'm not sure exactly when their next grant giving cycle will be.

posted in Floatingman Island - 1 reply

Website updates

mrcurtain — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 05:45:13 GMT

I've made a bunches of updates to the website. Mostly changes that we've discussed in the meetings or on the tribe.

Please review it here:

http://www.floatingman.org/new

I'll incorporate any feedback, and I'll post the updated website in a week.

posted in Floatingman Island - 3 replies

december meeting?

trae — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:08:11 GMT

i asked when this should be immediately after the november meeting, and didnt get much response. it probably should have got its own thread then anyways.

last year around this time involvement in this tribe just about died. it went back up in january. im going to take a wild guess and say that is the result of the holidays; people are busy. so i am actually going to propose we not have a meeting this month, i dont think it would be very effective. how about we have one in the new year, the first saturday, the 5th? sunday works too, whatever.

adam, do you have anything that couldnt wait? im thinking the only thing i really want done for this month is to get a newsletter out, or send messages to the people in the tribe. getting the silent partners involved is important to me as well, but it has its own thread already.

if people still want to get together, im all for it, but traditionally it would have been yesterday (heh), so when?

posted in Floatingman Island - 3 replies

9 out of 10 floaters agree...

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:39:39 GMT

Double dicking Moist Puppies is the way to spiritual freedom.

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

financial reports

trae — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 07:01:29 GMT

i will make updates as they are needed to keep this current.

9/23
income:
adam, $200
trae. $150
misha, $100

expenses:
llc formation fees, $348

posted in Floatingman Island - 13 replies

Meeting with John B.

mrcurtain — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 01:23:34 GMT

John heard about the project through a San Francisco burner/artist named Ray. I don't know how Ray heard of the project, but word does seem to be spreading. He has a lot of experience in Nicaragua, so I wanted to meet with him and discuss various legal and political issues. We met at an Oakland bar yesterday.

These are my notes from that conversation.

* Political situation

Ortega's opposition in the election actually died a couple of months before the election. Without that, he almost certainly would not have been elected. He's not particularly popular, and probably won't be elected.

John does have some concerns though. Ortega made a lot of promises to the people who helped get him elected. He has to to pay off those favors, and John doesn't know how he'll try to do it.

Here's something important for us though. The power in Nicaragua is also completely decentralized. "Nicaragua politics" refers almost completely to Managua. Outside of the capital, the state governments run everything. So, we will mostly have to deal with the government of Chontales. And, no surprise, the more tourists we bring in and the more taxes we pay, the more they are going to like having us around.

* Safety situation

The drugs lords are all down in Columbia, not in Nicaragua. There still may be lots of drug running problems in the NE of the country, but not around Granada or Chontales. There are parts of Managua that you definitely don't want to walk around at night, but that's equally true of SF, LA, or Oakland.

* Legal situation of American's owning land.

Americans can own land outright. The biggest hurdle is that during the late seventies, most of the country was cooperativized. Blocks are land were sold to cooperatives, where every member signed the land deed. Now, if you want to buy that property, every single person (perhaps 15 or 20 of them) will have to sign it. If you miss any, you could have trouble. And since there are a couple of very common surnames, it can be almost impossible to be sure you've found the right people.

He referred to title searches as a "scam". There is no reason why we cannot just go the Chontales department and do this ourselves. Though, it wouldn't hurt to hire a local translator for a small amount of money to help us.

Instead of a title search he highly recommended that we get "title insurance" where the insurance company will help validate the title, and then insure the property if there are any problems. He recommended First American Title out of Florida for this (and I have the name of a contact person). Title insurance should be approx. $500 for each $100,000 of the property price. Though, we need to be careful about the insurance - it can be so full of exclusions as to be worthless.

We talked about building permits. It's a _very_ good thing that there is already construction on the island - both the old house and the new one. For any new construction, yurts and such might be best such that we can claim that they are temporary. But our isolation means that people won't often come out and check us out. If push comes to shove, there may eventually be some fines or bribes. As a rough estimate they would be in the range of thousands of dollars. (not much divided among 100 owners)

I'm flying down to Nicaragua Xmas day. John will be flying down there a week earlier. We talked about heading over to Chontales together (the remote countyside adjacent to the island) and exploring it a bit. We might also be able to check into the title while we're there.

Oh... and John has sent in a check for $100.

That's it for now.

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

Looking good

Vinay — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 04:05:56 GMT

So, quick summary post.

* Yes, I think that it's important that you have a **designated** medial person on the ground at all times, even if that role sometimes devolves to people with less skill. The point is that you have somebody who is *responsible* and, if they feel out of their depth, they need to get more training or find somebody else for the job. Responsibility, and clear lines of accountability, are *key* to reducing risk and the perception of risk.

* I suggest $10k a person simply because if people estimate $3k at this stage of a project, $10k is probably not far off real costs. Cynical, but that's 35 for you.

* I think that it's not unnatural for a couple of people to be doing most of the heavy lifting at this point. We'll get more involved as it looks more solid. That's how people are :)

* I think you guys need to start thinking much more clearly about risk and risk management.

$3,000 *with what degree of confidence?*

Contingency numbers - what's the half a dozen things that could go wrong, how much will it cost to fix them, and who'll pay cash to do it? What's the backup fund? What happens if, you know, the septic system dies.

These things are not big issues, but the way that they are handled tells people whether you've thought this through enough to raise a third of a million dollars to invest in a real estate deal.

And that's really the core I'm going to keep coming back to. It's a real estate deal, with additional elements of putting on a regional burn in another country, which is not so different from hosting a safari. That's a lot for a couple of people to get right, and it's actually quite an ambitious project.

The more you focus on making the unknowns less unknown, reducing uncertainty, and reducing but especially **quantifying** risk, the easier it will be to attract the next two dozen active (and invested) members who can bring it to fruition.

Different people can help with different bits. You've got a decent bead on wind, I know a bit about water purification (what you need depends entirely on how much water you are going to want per day) and, in general, you don't have far to go until I think you could start getting a decent sized volunteer group organized to cut the problem up into manageable piece and grind out the options until you have a solid budget with contingencies and alternatives established.

Sounds like a hell of a lot of work, but that's why nobody's done this already. Real estate is hell, that's why it's so profitable, both financially, but also in terms of autonomy and freedom.

posted in Floatingman Island - 35 replies

Innovative Sheltering

Vinay — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 02:29:54 GMT

Just finished up with this yesterday:

http://www.innovativeshelter.tue.nl

http://www.innovativeshelter.tue.nl/frames/program.htm - some of these presentations are really worth looking at in terms of shelter construction on the Island, particularly the ferrocement/bamboo construction approach.

http://www.innovativeshelter.tue.nl/presentations/Hexayurt%20Gupta.pdf - the presentation I gave.

Will be back on Tribe more next week.

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

Application process

mrcurtain — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 21:08:41 GMT

We all seem to be in agreement, that at least the first 25 people who send in $100 will have a "right of refusal" to buy shares.

This "right of refusals" means that when the shares are announced for sale, they will have 30 days to send in the rest of the funds. If they do so, they will be guaranteed a share.

But on further reflection, I think that we need to add one small step to that process. I think that we need to write up a couple of paragraphs about the project. They need to read this, and check off that they "get it". We don't want to be setting false expectations, or having owners who don't understand the project at all.

Thoughts?

And, I'll start updating the website, removing the old application.

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

potato trap

mrcurtain — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 22:29:00 GMT

E.T. recommended we search out Bob Stahl who is an immense reservoir of knowledge.

Check out his website which contains all sorts of info on constructing housing structures and art.

http://www.geocities.com/potatotrap/

I'm sure we can learn quite a bit from his website, but we should also invite him to join the project.

Does we have any volunteers for that?

posted in Floatingman Island - 2 replies

The point of this pointless exercise is...

kamikazekelly — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 23:56:06 GMT

YOUR good work is being undermined by Adam.
I support, fully!, your efforts to build something new.
Learn. Grow. Try.
Adam keeps shitting on the Burningman Tribe. Everyday. Ego/Pride/Attention...I just don't know...
But the point is, as a self elected leader, he is continually undermining any efforts you have.
Burning Bridges would be another name for his project.
MANY would have pitched in and tried to help, but Adam's Ego has pretty much screwed the pooch for Burners.
I encourage all of you to keep the faith and keep trying to make a difference. Build.
Just 'Check your Six' in Aviation speak.
KK

posted in Floatingman Island - 26 replies

They've been buliding Hexayurts at the Pentagon

Vinay — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:25:06 GMT

http://gallery.mac.com/cglusky#100024&view=grid&bgcolor=black&sel=131

I couldn't get them to do a Pentayurt for the occasion, alas. But they're there! part of http://STAR-TIDES.net

Right in the middle of the little park in the center of the building.

Yay!

posted in Floatingman Island - 1 reply

projects!

trae — Sun, 20 May 2007 20:35:57 GMT

as we get closer and closer to making the project happen, the excitement rises higher and higher. or at least mine does! but for the last few months weve been so wrapped up with the practicalities and legalities of the project that weve lost some of the ambition and energy. this is a dream we are making happen, and to do that we have needed to be practical and think realistically. but the dream part is as important as well, if not more so.

so on that thought, what is your project? what do you want to do with the island? be absurd! be imaginative and creative! figure out how we could build a second level to the island, supported by a series of hot air balloons. the idea is floatingman, right? who says that just has to be on the water?

so the projects im looking at? i want to put a water catchment system on top of the water tower. then put a purification system underneath it, and a second set of tanks on ground level to hold the purified water. sounds practical, right? but the way i see it it looks more like a giant version of the game mouse trap then any kind of technical equipment. (haha! never saw that someone created a giant mouse trap game and set it up at BM 05. shouldve guessed though.)

a floating globe, i plan on sleeping in. a floating burn-platform for us to build the man on. a boat that looks like a sea serpent. an observation room underwater? with a bar? stairs that dont lead anywhere but up?

the dreams are what give us the energy to make this happen. what are yours?

posted in Floatingman Island - 31 replies

Mid-November Meeting Minutes

mrcurtain — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 01:49:57 GMT

Adam, isee, Tia and Trae were in attendance in this 2 hours meeting.

We tried a new approach to managing the conversation where each person would speak until they were finished, and then they would pass the baton to the next person to speak. The idea was not a success. This was a long meeting, and probably our least productive meeting ever. For the next meeting, we'll return to facilitated chaos. It's been working well for us, and I don't think that anyone has had any complaints.

1) Marketing / Interim Projects

We discussed the idea of having a burn in Nicaragua and a burn in the USA.

The Nicaraguan burn is happening on schedule. But we are going to relabel it a bit and reset the expectations. One of the big questions that we have on this project is - Nicaragua? Having even 5 community members heading down there on an adventure to explore the country would be a success. This should be low effort, as the group can take care of their own needs and plans. We'd undoubtedly learn tons from having a group down there even for a short time, and it would be a measurable step towards our final goal.

If 50 people happen to sign up, which doesn't look likely now, then we'd have to rearrange our plans but that would be a okay too.

As for a floatingman burn in the US, it doesn't look likely. There are tons of US based events, and we don't have the volunteers or organizers to throw a major enough event which to draw people in.

Rather than having a US based event, we are talking about US based floating art projects. Starting in perhaps Feb, Adam is looking to buy a boat and turn it into an art boat. isee is also looking at doing a small low key project, but is too busy on other things for the forseeable future to do anything major.

We're hoping that other people, in other regions, will step up to make other floating art happen.

2) Decision making process

We talked about this for quite a while, but made no decisions. Our eventual plans call for the owners making decisions by vote, and the leadership committee makes decisions by consensus.

But right now, especially as we create the project, we want to make sure that others have much more of a say. We're working on the details, and exactly who gets to participate in these decisions.

Trae and I have a todo to discuss this, and present it back to the tribe, making sure to clarify things for everyone.

3) Approval process for owners

We've reaffirmed our decision to get rid of the application. And we reaffirmed out attitude change from asking for money and a filled out application, to asking for help.

New for this meeting, we decided to add an survey for everyone who sends in a donation. This is competely optional, but would be a good idea of us to get to know one another.

We didn't get around to discussing the new working groups, or paypal.

The topics for the next meeting should be a continuation of everything that we didn't close on in this meeting.

--------

P.S. Trae, isee, or Tia. If I didn't represent anything quite right above, feel free to make additions or corrections.

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

Borg2 - What can we learn from them?

mrcurtain — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:35:44 GMT

Here is another burner group that tried to create something new, different, and better, with the best of intentions. Maybe we can learn from their, I won't call it failure, but less than success.

I think that Floatingman has some good plans going for us. A very light Org which won't do much beyond the purchase of the island. A leadership council with an indefinite term (not a popularity contest), but the ability to remove them if necessary. We're working towards separation of power between the Org and the Island Council. These seem like very workable solid ideas which could help Floatingman be a long-term success.

Anyways.... as posted by Chicken John in the bman tribe.

What can we learn from the experiences of BORG2?

-----------------------------

I would also like to add at this time, that Borg2 was an experiment on a bunch of different levels. For a lot of different people, groups and whatnot. My pal Gxoui is quick to point out that I tried to "take over" the group, Shooter is quick in his attempt to harvest interest and then point it at Larry and his "greedy corperation". Danger Angle mentions a famous teacher of the Dharma. On and on...

One of the things that the Borg2 taught me, which I didn't even relise until I ran for mayor, was the power of celebrity. Mine. Yours. Larry's. This is a cultural phenomenon. We used the power of celebrity to rock Borg2. I used the power of celebrity to run for mayor. But I didn't relise how it all worked. I now understand it. A little. A little little. Here's what I got:

Politics comes from the root word 'polis'. People. Celebrity from Latin, 'to honor'. In the end, it's something we can all agree on: you must honor the people. Politics, celebrity= Burning Man; our celebration of people. Larry is our politician. He is our celebrity. He speaks for us. Bla bla bla... you all know that stuff. But what I learned that I TOTALLY DIDN'T KNOW was that the problems that we face in the larger, real world: (war, greed, poverty, rape, gluttnoy, sloth, nuclear war, company's stealing water rights, our ecology...) are replicated PERFECTLY on a small scale when you attempt to fix them by removing the celebrity.

Huh?

Yup. Gxoui and the rest of the art council that was democraticlly elected pretty much replicated what Burning Man LLC did. Now he'll defend if he thinks he's being attacked so allow to just be boring for a moment and say that I think he's wonderful and very handsome and I hear he's great in bed. Now just calm down for a moment. This is only my experience. Your mileage may vary. I'm trying to make a point. The coucil that was elected had a voice. That voice was difficult to hear. My intention is always for the experiment. From the moment the council got elected I exited and took my celebrity with me. I signed off the tribe and stayed away for like 6 months. Without one post. Without ever saying one word. I removed my celebrity from the equation. Jim didn't. He said he would, but then didn't and kinda fucked up the experiment by not letting them just have the keys and stuff. But this isn't really about any of this. It's about reading a script.

We are reading the script right now. It's like, there is this balance that is created. Larry and company have their thing, and then we are the contraitians. And this is what we do. don't beleive me? Go start and art group. In 4 years, one of the founding people will argue with you over something stupid like toilet paper and leave the group. You will be devistated when you recieve the cease and desist letter that his lawyer sends you claiming the name of the art group is his. The group splits in half, one side getting the lions share of the resources and then for the next 20 years there is bitterness and hate and peole calling the cops on other people's party. And here's the trick: it happens EVERY TIME. EACH AND EVERY ART GROUP THAT IS MORE THEN 4 YEARS OLD CAN TELL THE SAME BORING STORY.

All the problems that we thought were so easy to fix and all our 'slam dunk' solutions were actually really hard to impliment. Or impossible. And the critique that we got (which was exactly the same critique we were giving) made everything 10 times harder to do. And ten times less fun. It's like they were shooting things down that didn't even have a chance to stand up. And then as it was happening I could clearly see that that's exactly what we were doing. And the cycles were apparant on all levels. It was all pretty much the same. The people who had name recognition and the most friends got the most votes. The coucil had a candidate that had an arts administration degree. Specificly, arts administration within a civic body. That was Rachael's degree. She lost. No one knew who she was. Nezden beat her by 3 votes or something. I asked him to concede, give her his spot because she was so valueable. He said no. He won, fair and square. I wished them all luck and went and did something else for 6 months.

In the end, Larry doubled the art budget. He relaxed some of the rules and he almost admitted that I was right about something, but I can't remember what. And we still read the script. We still allign to celebrity. We all think that Democracy is great and all... but then what gets votes is who's good looking or who's got all the friends. And that's who's got the best phone skills.

In the end, it's all about the phone skills...

We will all agree that Burning Man 'should' be a templet for unrestricted generosity. But we will then not be able to agree on how. And we'll all agree that you should just do your own thing. Then, we'll disagree on what constitutes interfearing with each other's experience. Then we'll agree that the system that is it place is flawed. Then be unable to agree on a system to replace it.

What's missing? How did the founding fathers ever end a fucking meeting? How do you end up with a product that you like? How do things get done in the world? What do 'they' have that we are missing? Why can't we come together?

Because we don't have a common enemy. The only thing that unites people is rage. The election in SF last week is a great example. Without anything wrong, people didn't even bother to vote. In 1999, 73,000 registered to vote. In 2003, 23,000. In 2007, 154 people. 154 people registered to vote. That says that the people jsut don't have anything to complain about. Now, if Hunters' Point was on fire and the murder rate was aveeraging one a day and MUNI was an avereage of 1 hour late everytime.... well there would be more voting.

Larry is a terrible common enemy. He's not sinister. he's not anything, actually. He's like a "stay the course" guy. He doesn't make mistakes or ever put himself out there enough to be criticized. He's invisible. He doens't make outragious statements. He doesn't fuck 19 year old interns. He doesn't do huge piles of cocaine. He lives frugally, like a monk. He smokes generic cigerettes and eats microwave burritos. Hangs around in his house in his bathrobe until 7 oclock at night. Yea, he's a terrible leader. But he's smart. The only thing you can complain about Larry is what he doesn't do. All the things that YOU would do. But you now see that if you did them, everyone would rip you to pieces. Fucking eat you alive. So if sustainability is on the menu, maybe it's OK that you are eating the same meal every day. I coudn't do it. No way. I'm thrive on conflict. and I don't know that I'm defending Larry or attacking him or berating him or using him as a punching bag or apologizing to him. I can never tell. Either because he's that smart or I'm that dumb. Or both.

But who you are puts weight behind your words. And the sheer number of words you put out also meters their weigt. Like this post, for example. It's unnessasary. It's too long. This is bad for my brand. I'm giving too much information, I'm not editing and when I feel like I'm done I'm gonna hit submit before re-0reading it. I'm not even gonna spell check it. I know that liekly 10 people are gonna read it, another 10 are gonna skim it and 500 people are gonna ignore it. So why write it?

Ownership. I feel like I own a piece of this. So I feel it's OK for me to ramble on adn on. I'm comfortable here. When we look at the reasons we are all here (besides bordom) it's kinda odd. Ownership. Celebrity. Branding. Politics. If you pull out some of the points, this all sounds really gross. Trying to change the world is hard, but then when you do change it it's even harder. You have to use all the tools you are trying to eliminate. But YOUR gonna use them better. I actually think that I am _IN-CORRUPTABLE. Isn't that funny? Like, i'm gonna be mayor and I gonna be different. Because I'm not a politician. Then you get elected and your exactly the same. Or worse because your inexperienced and have no idea what your doing. It's easy to see things that aren't working. Very, very hard to see that most things are working. and that's our culture. We are complaining, whining, dissatisfied, arrogent, privelidged ingrates.

For me, the solutions always lie in the wisdom of seeing things for what they are. Once I see what the traits I'm exibiting are.... it's easy to fix. And imperitive. I hope you find the same to be true for you.

I think I outgrew BM this last year. I didn't really have the experience that I needed to have to make the outlay of time, $ and resources worth it. It felt like a comfortable old shoe with a hole in the bottom. I didn't feel inspired there. It didn't fell like home. Although some hippy at the gate said "welcome home" to me when I pulled up to the gate. They then detained me for 4 hours and made me go through the line again. After being awake for 35 hours, and me telling them that; they made me wait 4 hours and drive a 28,000 lb. bus towing a 5,000 lb. trailer with 40 people in it. Then get back in the line. In a duststorm. Because i wouldn't tell a hippy I'm sorry because the hippy said I was rude to him after he told me "welcome home" I rolled my eyes. I told that hippy that I would rater die or kill then to be told to apologize. I explained that an apology happens after an understanding is reached. That using his power to demand an apology is a hollow victory, one that one can claim only when liveing on one's knees. I told him that at that moment I was ready to die for my convictions on my feet. And that I would kill myself or him with my bare hands before I would tell a lie. He thought I was kidding. Somone else on the bus explained that I wasn't kidding. The hippy then considered pressing charges against me because I implyed that I was going to kill him. His breath reeking of marajuana, his hair a comdey of a stereotype textbook dredlocked vegan future business leader of Amercia.

Welcome home indeed.

I can type like this for days. I just bla bla bla... I wonder if it's outside the boundry of good taste to post this? I'll just stop. I did this 2 years ago. I started writing a post like this and then moved it over to a word document and wrote a book. I think I'll get in my van today and drive to Idaho.

I'm bored. Obviously.

http://bm.tribe.net/thread/a2675366-2514-4670-ab0e-d6b4e92fd40e#f87c9445-d3a6-4311-86b6-167be5ccfa8d

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

The Treasures of Simple Living

mrcurtain — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 01:31:22 GMT

This looked like a good online book which people in here might be interested in.

"The Treasures of Simple Living: A Family's Search for a Simpler and More Meaningful Life in the Middle of a Forest"

http://www.innerexplorations.com/catsimple/2.htm

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

Last thoughts for the moment.

Vinay — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 01:09:31 GMT

Ok, I have major other stuff to attend to coming up this week, so I'm going to be around a lot less until end of November or so.

Two thoughts: I definitely think we should be cautious about handing out RIGHT-TO-BUY-SHARE tokens at this point. In fact, I'd suggest that rather than simply handing them out at-will, or in exchange for $100 each, the people who have shares simply vote on whether somebody can buy one or not.

Develop whatever criteria seem suitable and change them over time, and those people who have the SHARE OPTION would be consulted about changes. I'd like to suggest a minimum 50% YES vote, and special REJECT votes for people who folks genuinely do not want on board being counted as 5 no votes. People could re-apply as often as they liked.

Second thing is that I think we should be very, very clear on our relationship with the Burning Man community as a whole. I read through some threads over there, and what we're seeing is people having a seriously hard time with the message, and therefore attacking the messenger. It's undeniable that BMORG is not accountable to the community, and that people who want more control have to work outside of BMORG. The regionals are one approach, and the notion of making FM a regional was not irrational on first glance, but I can see why they didn't go for it.

Do not be disillusioned by Burning Man. By the time we actually get this thing done, we'll have people accusing us of being heartless fascist dictatorial real estate developers who don't care about art or indigenous people's rights to their own land. Doesn't matter who you are or how hard you work, by the time you start moving around large sums of money to buy land or pay the BLM or whatever, there's just a certain amount of bullshit that has to get done. I don't think it's a matter of being vile and ignoring those basic human values but of admitting that none of us can remake the world into a paradise in a single generation, which is what we all hope for at the end of the day.

It's not that Larry did badly - no no no, the BM crew he's representative of worked wonders - but we've learned a lot from their example, and might have a few ideas of our own which need a separate space to develop into their own fullness.

I'd suggest we post occasional status updates over there (like maybe two threads per event - "it's happening in Nica on these dates" and "last chance to buy tickets" say) and generally let them settle down. Participation in FM should in no way, shape or form be seen as an attack on Burning Man.

Let frustration turn into creation.

posted in Floatingman Island - 17 replies

Meeting This Weekend!!

mrcurtain — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 22:24:17 GMT

We've had an amazing amount of good productive discussions this week. But due to the nature of tribe, we've had trouble hammering out the details, and coming to official decisions.

As such, we're having a meeting this weekend. I apologize for the short notice.

Trae has proposed something around 11am. That works for me. But we didn't select a day.

Can others make this meeting? Which day is better - Saturday or Sunday?

Here is the agenda so far:

1) Approval process for owners

2) The Nicaragua burn vs. a California burn and other marketing ideas

3) The new working groups

4) Paypal

That seems like more than enough for one meeting. Sound okay?

posted in Floatingman Island - 6 replies

Floating Art Festival

isee — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 22:12:32 GMT

we definitely need a better name.

so, in order to organize an event we need a few basic things:

- venue
- theme (which is kinda clear here: floating art. but could be a theme within floating art)
- art
- music
- volunteers

the venue usually needs money, unless we talk to some local county or something and get a venue from them. ( ex: Arlington county has given me a list of venues to choose from.)

we basically need a sponsor for this event. Adam, you are from SF, can you think of any sponsors? like the sailing club you were talking about? maybe they can give us access to a dock or something that can be the base of the event?

theme: hey all you creative people out there, use your imagination to come up with a theme.

maybe we can use "Adam's scam" as a theme. i am sure KK, Skylar and a few others will be happy :)

seriously, what can you come up with as a theme? something that ties all the art together? the art is water related, right? either on or around or below water? and who knows what others come up with. if we get a couple of pieces commissioned, then more people will join and will do their own thing. this is very exiting. not much has been done in the way of floating art. at least not much that i can find. so, excite your imaginations and come up with a theme.

music: easiest is getting a few DJs to spin for us. i know a few in this area and can probably get us some DJs in the SF area. i can be responsible for that. and maybe we'll get some live bands too. i will find out.

then we need volunteers for greeting, rangering and dpw. who has experience in that? i am a greeter coordinator for PDF and can be in charge of tickets and greeting. but i have never rangered.

we also need EMT and fire lord. i am sure we'll get some fire spinners who want to spin on a barge? cool!!

so, if we start talking about this and find a sponsor we are all set.

what time frame should we use for this event? should we replace the burn in Nica with this event? doing both might be asking too much. maybe we'll do this one first and then decide on our next event.

what do you guys think?

posted in Floatingman Island - 31 replies

Island off the coast of Sligo Ireland

Gina — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 12:00:01 GMT

Hi i see that your looking for a floating wonder world on which to have a burner community.
Theres an island off sligo ireland which is almost totaly uninhibited.
I had been considering having a festival out there and my ideal dream is that it would be a burner community event.
This island event would mean all participants would have to bring all there food and needed mateials out to the island. It would cut os off from any civilisation and there is also no law enforcement to interfere.

What do you think?

posted in Floatingman Island - 6 replies

Info about the Island, and the surrounding region

mrcurtain — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 04:23:15 GMT

I just wanted to share some info from the Nicaragua guidebook I just recieved.

We can avoid the long boat ride to the island, by taking the back route.

It's 2.5 hours ($3) from Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, to Juigalpa.

"Juigalpa is blessed with well-preserved Spanish-colonial architecture that predates its 1669 foundation, and an incredible mountain backdrop, so you may be suprised to have such a lovely spot to yourself. The almost untouristed capital of Chontales also boasts an excellent museum and a fine church with colorful mosaics that spill over from the shine and thoroghout the shady parque central, not to mention all matter of adventures just outside the city."

From there, it's 1 hour ($1) to Puerto Diaz.

"This friendly spot serves fish ($3 to $6) any way you want, and offers spectacular views of Isla de Ometepe's back side (check out Conception's crater from this angle!) and the Nancital Archipelago, three of the least visited islets in the lake. ... The village and port are just downhill, where a handful of restaurants/bars serve rum and fish dishes. You can easily arrange a private panga seating six people to the three islands of the archipelago for about $90. Isla Redonda is the most appealing destination, with sandy beaches, lots of wildlife and private homes where they'll rent you out a hammock for the night. Bring bottled water and food, just in case. Isla Grande and Isla El Muerte [ that is our island ] are both home to tiny farming communities."

With a slightly different spelling of the name, I find two websites with info about the island.

Here is a photo from the shore (I imagine that further offshore the water will be less muddy colored):

http://www.vianica.com/photo/34/16

And this site gives us our first ever clue to the origin of the name, "Island of the Dead":

"Isla El Muerte. The last one really looks (from the Southern approach) for all the world like dead person with a shroud draped over them."

http://blogsinyuma.com/voices_more.php?id=716_0_15_10_M

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

Applications are gone for now

mrcurtain — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 03:31:50 GMT

Vinay pointed out rather correctly in the meeting that we shouldn't be trying to sell shares now, we should be asking for help. I just spoke to Trae, and he signed on to the idea.

Largely this would just be a terminology change. We'd still deduct any donations from the final share price. And we'd give people preferential treatment in owner selection for anyone who donates a $100 or more. And if the project fails to go forward, we'd return money to donors as a percentage based on what they contributed.

One of the deciding factors in the ownership process will be "how much has this person contributed up to this point"? That will figure in both financial contributions, and work ton the project.

I believe that Vinay, Jason, and Trae and I are all in agreement on this idea (though not necessarily all of the details I listed). isee, Tia, and others, what do you think?

This seems like a very good and important change for us. I'd like to finish this decision pretty quickly, so that I can make changes on the website.

posted in Floatingman Island - 50 replies

Tribe is dying? Facebook as a backup?

mrcurtain — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 02:42:49 GMT

We already have a group on facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2350463181

Should we start using it as a backup for when tribe is down?

posted in Floatingman Island - 8 replies

november meeting

trae — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 05:30:34 GMT

i just realized it was the end of the month again. this month's meeting got pushed around a bit, what will be a good time for the next one? sunday the fourth? monday the fifth? last one was on a wednesday, does that work better?

posted in Floatingman Island - 19 replies

Fans buy football club

Vinay — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 18:34:21 GMT

On November 13, 2007, it was announced that the website MyFootballClub has entered a deal in principle to take over the club. The 20,000 MyFootballClub members have each paid £35 to provide an approximate £700,000 takeover pot and they will all own an equal share in the club and will make no profit or receive a dividend. Members will have a vote on transfers as well as player selection and all major decisions. Despite the nature of myfootballclub it was also announced that manager Liam Daish and his back room staff would remain at the club, albeit in adjusted roles to reflect the democratic nature of the website in matters relating to transfers and team selection.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebbsfleet_United_F.C.

==================

1.4 million dollar project. Broadly similar principles to what we're discussing. Oh Yes You Can.

Note that what the fans are buying is a *decision-making right.* Nothing more, and nothing less. They're buying ownership so they can make decisions.

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies

Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?

kamikazekelly — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 20:24:12 GMT

http://www.bm.tribe.net/thread/c13d7a58-91e3-4163-af0f-18419e34471c

I encourage anyone involved with Adams Floatingman project to read the good and bad responses on the Burningman Tribe to better evaluate his Character. I have made the mistake of following people I trusted. Everything about this man screams red flag.
I find him a Hypocrite and borderline Sociopath, but thats just me.

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tribes » Cultures & Community » Burning Man » topics »
Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
topic posted Sat, November 3, 2007 - 4:26 PM by offlineUnaffiliated - view original post

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Aaron
Aaron M
offline 126
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Today, 12:00 PM
I agree.

If you're tired of his antics and the promotion of the island, then go on his tribe, and post about it there. Floating man is not related at all to burning man, and he feels it's ok to post on this tribe. So he's got to be ok with people posting about things that do not relate to floating man on his tribe. Enough flaming and spamming this tribe. Most of his posts are meant to insite us to fight among each other on this tribe, which in the end makes burning man just seem like a bunch of haters, and any other event (such as floating man) look good by comparison. Many of us have spoken out and we're tired of hearing about it. So want to vent, take it to Adam's tribe where you can take up all the bandwidth and speak to the beast directly.

tribes.tribe.net/floatingman
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Mois...
MoistPup
online 56
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Today, 11:40 AM
in response to: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Guys clearly Adam is the King of Kool-Aid land and ever so much wants his own cult complete with followers. Rather than forming his own idea and making it wonderful on it's own he prefers to tear down our event and use the wreckage to build his own. Just stop playing his game. If you don't value his opinion, don't respond to it.
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Gabriel
Gabriel Di Roccia Nera
offline 62
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Sat, November 10, 2007 - 11:54 AM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
The holocaust got everyone talking, too.

...just sayin'.

-Gabriel
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Badger
Badger
offline 103
Re: Kami as a clueless fool???
Sat, November 10, 2007 - 4:56 AM
in response to: Re: Kami as a clueless fool???

>Why AGAIN do you expect anyone to do what you, yourself are INCAPABLE of doing?

A perfect coup droit. Well put.
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inna
inna
offline 330
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Fri, November 9, 2007 - 11:16 PM
in response to: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?

FUCKETY FUCK. do you guys just like being all dramatic, or what?
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garimo
garimo
offline 5
Re: Adam as a Sociopath???
Fri, November 9, 2007 - 10:54 PM
in response to: Adam as a Sociopath???
Did somebody call for a tribe cop?

If you're taking statements... I offer that the real disturbance happens between ones ears (or I guess behind ones eyes if you're reading) it's not happening on the outside.
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Kami...
Kamikaze Kelly
online 1637
Re: Kami as a clueless fool???
Fri, November 9, 2007 - 10:49 PM
in response to: Re: Kami as a clueless fool???
A finer Haiku I have never heard
with cherry blossoms I fall
to sleep
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garimo
garimo
offline 5
Re: Kami as a clueless fool???
Fri, November 9, 2007 - 10:45 PM
in response to: Re: Kami as a clueless fool???
a few individuals,
spouting opinion
does not meet MY notion of a
comm-unity.

I heard no "community" speak.
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Kami...
Kamikaze Kelly
online 1637
Re: Kami as a clueless fool???
Fri, November 9, 2007 - 10:21 PM
in response to: Re: Kami as a clueless fool???
Ummmm, again, Grasshopper Adam...
Some of the people you state as supporters, in fact don't support what you do here, they support your 'right to free speech'.
You, again, are VERY selective in what you post. The big picture, the 'Community]', seems to be beyond you; hence the label 'Sociopath'.
I still prefer the link en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti...y_disorder to better describe the actions and behavior that you exhibit.
At one point, I tried to get through to you. I ended up feeling like a kid digging through manure looking for the Pony underneath.
Until you actually DO (sinkingman? Snakeoilman? NeverdoneanythingbutIcancriticisetheman?) you have NO credibility.
I will continue to call you on your Bullshit until you change, grow, or go away.
This is not a personal attack. I perceive you as a continuing harm to a community I love.
It's up to TOU to decide what is best here for the business module of Tribe. I'm just stating the truth, as I see it.
Your words are empty.
Your consistent behavior and posts speak volumes.
I hereby label you...APD.
If this seems personal to you, I pity you. This is the truth...as I see it.
In Military speak. You have no stripes, but you incessantly/relentlessly promote yourself while attacking others efforts.
Prove me wrong. Grow up, change, or leave.
KK
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MdJG...
MdJGutie
online 100
Re: Kami as a clueless fool???
Fri, November 9, 2007 - 10:00 PM
in response to: Re: Kami as a clueless fool???
Adam: I suggest that you move on.

Why don't you AGAIN take the advice you dole out so liberally? Why AGAIN do you expect anyone to do what you, yourself are INCAPABLE of doing? Why would anyone trust you with control of their money when you seemingly cannot control yourself?
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Adam
Adam
online 145
Re: Kami as a clueless fool???
Fri, November 9, 2007 - 9:45 PM
in response to: Re: Kami as a clueless fool???
MdJG:
> Of ever getting to the point where you don't take the bait? Any hope that you can promote your ideas and not yourself?

Any chance that you guys are ever going to stop talking shit about people, and making personal attacks?

> Any hope that you can promote your ideas and not yourself?

I didn't make this thread about me. It's you, Kami, unaffiliated, and the rest of that little attack tribe, which has decided to keep constatly talking about me. I suggest that you move on.

Kami:
> Aside from one person who apparently needs Meds...I've yet to hear any support for your agenda.

We should probably start with Bernie, Eddie, Margaret, Trae, Organizizer, and DaBomb. They do not agree with me on everything, but all of these people have publicly expressed support for at least some of my views.

> WE would LOVE to talk to anybody you have worked with.

If you're serious about that, talk to Trae, Vinay or isee in the Floatingman project. See what their impression are after working with me for a while.

(Honestly, I don't trust you enough to give you email addresses for any of my actual coworkers, or ex-coworkers, off of tribe.)

> I face the very real chance that I am in the wrong and will be forced to leave. ...
> I wish you the best. Just not here.

Perhaps being forced to leave is a real chance that you're going to have to take.

The tribe has spoken. While the majority of them might not agree with my views, or my way of communicating, they do feel that I have a right to speak. (Did you delete that thread?)

Will the tribe also tolerate you constantly repeating the same personal attacks against me again, and again, and again?

I don't know. We'll have to see.
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Kami...
Kamikaze Kelly
online 1637
Sociopath
Fri, November 9, 2007 - 9:29 PM
in response to: Re: Kami as a clueless fool???
Sorry again, Adam
I posted a bad link...damn Wikipedia!
This is for you.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An...disorder

Although Sociopath is more accurate, in my opinion, APD has a much better descriptive for you to evaluate yourself.
There are many books on the subject.
I strongly recommend you buy some.
When you are ready for counseling, let me know.
KK
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MdJG...
MdJGutie
online 100
Re: Kami as a clueless fool???
Fri, November 9, 2007 - 9:14 PM
in response to: Re: Kami as a clueless fool???
Well, Adam it didn't take long did it? Here you are again. Do you see why so many people would dislike you based on your posts, especially the kind below? Is there any hope, ever, of you not making these kinds of responses? Of ever getting to the point where you don't take the bait? Any hope that you can promote your ideas and not yourself?
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Kami...
Kamikaze Kelly
online 1637
Re: Kami as a clueless fool???
Fri, November 9, 2007 - 9:12 PM
in response to: Re: Kami as a clueless fool???
Ummm, Adam
My judgment is trusted, tried, and true.
I don't need to know you...nobody can truly know another; I just need to see you consistent behavior. 'The truth will out'.

WE would LOVE to talk to anybody you have worked with. Aside from one person who apparently needs Meds...I've yet to hear any support for your agenda. Free speech and radically inclusive is one thing. Yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater is another.
On balance...I judge you to be a Sociopath.
Sociopath (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti...y_disorder)
A strong word. A strong label. But thats what I see.
After months of silence regarding you, a year for others...thats what I see.
This is not a personal attack. This is how I judge you. And I rarely do that.
You are the Third person in Six years that I have felt compelled to call out because you hurt my Community.
Some have left, some have been kicked off by Tribe; yet each time I take a stand...I face the very real chance that I am in the wrong and will be forced to leave.
In your case, it's a chance I am willing to take.
I hoped that you would 'Moderate' yourself.
You, seemingly, can't stop repeating behavior patterns that are destructive.
I wish you the best.
Just not here.
KK
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Adam
Adam
online 145
Re: Kami as a clueless fool???
Fri, November 9, 2007 - 8:55 PM
in response to: Adam as a Sociopath???
Kami:
> My sense of you at this point, after months of your posts,

My sense is that you don't know me. And that you'd have to be a bit of a fool to think that you're capable of making diagnosis over the internet.

Good luck with that.

Again, you don't know me, and don't really have a clue here.

Talk to anyone who has worked with me, and they might have a very different impression.
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Kami...
Kamikaze Kelly
online 1637
Re: Adam as a Sociopath???
Fri, November 9, 2007 - 6:11 PM
in response to: Adam as a Sociopath???
Sorry, Adam...bad link...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti...y_disorder
Live, learn, grow. Or not.
KK
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Kami...
Kamikaze Kelly
online 1637
Adam as a Sociopath???
Fri, November 9, 2007 - 6:03 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Dear Adam
Starting with you not cutting and pasting peoples responses out of context to support YOUR Agenda?
Try writing from the heart. Your incessant/relentless tactical attacks lost you any war you were fighting months ago for many including me.
You have NO credibility with me, Adam. And, believe it or not, I'm a tolerant man. It's rare I 'come out' against anyone here.
In my judgment...you do more harm than good.
Worse, you again prove yourself incapable of criticism or change.
What part of 'Community' do you not understand?
My sense of you at this point, after months of your posts, is that you are a borderline Sociopath (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociopath)
But thats just me...and a few dozen friends...
KK
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Adam
Adam
online 145
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Fri, November 9, 2007 - 12:52 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
MdJg:
> LOTS OF US GET THOSE MESSAGES. I get them all the time about my standing up to you.

Congratulations. We all seem to have our fan clubs then.

Where does that leave us? I suggest that from this point on that we keep the discussions civil and refrain from personal attacks.
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MdJG...
MdJGutie
online 100
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Fri, November 9, 2007 - 1:06 AM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
"mdJG:
> I would add that many of us get messages off list saying "right on" in these discussions.
So do I. Not everyone here loves what the BMORG has done to Burningman.
A number of people have thanked me for my posts in this tribe, and told me to keep "fighting the good fight". "

Again with the selective cut and paste? Again, LOTS OF US GET THOSE MESSAGES. I get them all the time about my standing up to you.
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Adam
Adam
online 145
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Fri, November 9, 2007 - 12:28 AM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
inna:
> oh, and one thing i have to say in defense of Adam, i've *never* seen him delete a thread.

Yeah, a few of these people spread all sorts of lies about me.

> sometimes no *does* mean yes

It seems that when a woman says that, it's the truth. But when a man says exactly the same thing, a number of people around tribe jump to the conclusion that he supports rape, and start engaging in vicious personal attacks. MBIAT has been slandering me regarding that issue for years now.

I'll accept what you said overall as a fair enough summary. I do fully confess to being stubborn and persistent. But I think you went too far in describing about my choice for "bullying". I have only resorted to that when I felt it was necessary. I am not the kind of person to generally back down from a fight, but I far prefer civil intellectual discussions and negotiations.

Aaron:
> All I would ask of Adam is, do not respond to anything I say, as I am entitled to speak for myself, and I will do the same of you.

Aaron, I'll reserve the right to respond to your posts. But, I'll refrain from making any personal attacks towards you, or any comments about you at all.

mdJG:
> I would add that many of us get messages off list saying "right on" in these discussions.

So do I. Not everyone here loves what the BMORG has done to Burningman.

A number of people have thanked me for my posts in this tribe, and told me to keep "fighting the good fight".
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inna
inna
offline 330
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Thu, November 8, 2007 - 2:16 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?

btw... i didn't want to 'gang up' on Adam, actually i wanted to point out that he's... multi-dimensional.

oh, and one thing i have to say in defense of Adam, i've *never* seen him delete a thread. and let me tell you, some of his threads were some of the most controversial and scandalous threads, like, *ever*.

and i definitely support his right to free speech. sometimes he likes to play devil's advocate, and that's how i took his "no means yes" threads. disclaimer: i haven't read the actual threads, i'm going pretty much on the basis of what i read here and what i know from my previous interactions with the guy. i mean, there has got to be someone who brings up difficult and controversial topics, right?... not to mention that... i'm probably going to catch a lot of heat for this, but... sometimes no *does* mean yes. it's not uncommon actually. ~ and like someone said earlier, i think his posts were about communication issues, not about finding excuses for date rape.

~
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MdJG...
MdJGutie
online 100
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Thu, November 8, 2007 - 11:35 AM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
I would add that many of us get messages off list saying "right on" in these discussions. Adam often sounds like he thinks he's the only one.
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Aaron
Aaron M
offline 126
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Thu, November 8, 2007 - 11:22 AM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
I also sometimes feel that Adam has chosen to single me out, as he seems to deconstruct and attack everything I say.

All I would ask of Adam is, do not respond to anything I say, as I am entitled to speak for myself, and I will do the same of you.

And when you post, remember that you speak for yourself. When you make comments like "this is the view of the people", you only encourage people who have a different opinion to speak up, otherwise they fear people may think that you actually do speak for the people, when you really only speak for yourself.
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inna
inna
offline 330
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Thu, November 8, 2007 - 7:16 AM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?

HA HA HA~! you mean, all this huge controversy that i kept hearing about is about "our" Adam "from the Politics tribe"?? (at least, that is the context i mostly know him from.)

(Adam, don't worry. i'm not gloating. i'm just amused. ;)

<< Just so you all know, he isn't just like this about Burning Man, so don't feel special. He's like this with everything he believes, >>

ha ha! oh, *totally* don't feel special.

ok, i'll follow MBIAT's example and share "My History with Adam".

i've never, ever argued/"fought" online with anyone as much as i did with Adam. i mean, no one even comes close. heh.
memories... sweet memories. at one point, when Adam thought i was his archenemy, i seriously thought that the whole point of his existence was to... dog me and follow me around and attack me and disrupt my threads and... keep dogging me~! i mean, it was almost amusing half of the time, but half of the time i felt annoyed as hell and seriously cyberstalked (not in the 'sexual harassment' sort of way of course, but in the "plain harassment" way.) the dude can definitely be extremely persistent and almost relentless - until he realizes that he has no chance of "winning". (in my situation, the public opinion was solidly on my side, and the mod at the time - who found that he could not control Adam despite his (Gerbil's) constant attempts and warnings - was ready to boot him. that was when the harassment finally stopped.)
(Adam is known for similar vendettas against other people and in other tribes as well.)

surprisingly, when i started modding, our "relationship" markedly improved. i'd say that in the last year my experience with Adam was more positive than negative (although he was extremely disruptive at one point, and i almost had to resort to booting him). one thing i have to say though - i wouldn't have banned him, i would've suspended him. the truth is that as a mod, i like to have him in the tribe, and i think he makes a useful contribution. i personally learned a lot from him. also, he is perfectly capable of being reasonable when he wants; he chooses to be unreasonable, pushy, and sometimes obnoxious opponent only when he thinks that his bullying tactics may win him the fight.

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Adam
Adam
online 145
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Wed, November 7, 2007 - 4:41 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Andi:
> And no constant bitching with nothing positive or constructive is not art in my book.

I have posted constructive ideas. Others only see the negative. For any problem that I point out, I'll point out a suggested solution.

Though sometimes, the answer is just "don't do that".

Kamikaze:

Are you going to just endlessly keep spamming the tribe with that one post? I think all you'll really accomplish is becoming more of an annoyance and "attention" whore than me.
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Andi
Andi Cuniberti
offline 81
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Tue, November 6, 2007 - 5:51 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Ah, sometimes I miss Tribe. Like KK I too have stepped back to lurk partially because this Tribe has gotten so crazy. The main reason is that I have more important things to do, like building my Regional organization and changing the world. You know stuff that Adam complains about all the time, I actually DO it instead of wasting my time bitching here. Sorry but I just couldn't resist this time, I have been in Tribe withdrawl for a while.

And no constant bitching with nothing positive or constructive is not art in my book.

THAT Andi
Hawaii cRC
Executive Director of the Ka Pilina Interactive Arts Society, Inc. (501c3)
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Kami...
Kamikaze Kelly
online 1637
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Tue, November 6, 2007 - 5:25 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Adam
This is not a Democracy.
This is Tribe.
A business that connects us, a community with shared values that relies on advertising to pay the bills.
You have chilled participation through your relentless self promotion.
It has been pointed out to you by many that your agenda is harmful, but you chose not to listen, respect, or change.
Many of us gave you a second/third/fourth and fifth chance.
Again...you didn't respect those trying to help you.
You are on your own.
Live with the consequences of your actions.
Be a man. Suck it up and go away.
Live, learn, and grow are seemingly concepts beyond you at this point in your life.
I wish you well, but you do not belong here in the place where you are at.
Come back when you are more humble, sane, and Community minded.
KK
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Adam
Adam
online 145
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Tue, November 6, 2007 - 5:09 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
My Body:
> Note that I did not say he advocated date rape, I said he justified it.

That is a lie.

You and others just misunderstood my point, jumped to conclusions, and viciously attacked me because I didn't 100% agree with your dogmatic propaganda.

I simply said that people don't always say what they mean.

I also said that in a sexual situation, people should always err on the side of caution.

> It's to show that Adam has a pattern of disrupting and causing trouble

Funny.... I see the pattern as a group of people who disagree my views attack and harass me. You can see that once again here.

I am not afraid of saying what I feel to be the truth even if it's controversial. And I don't generally back down from my points just because I'm personally attacked.

Aaron:
> Want us to really stop talking about you? Then here's how it will happen. You unsubscribe from this tribe

Sorry, but I won't let your abuse and harassment silence me.

Kamikaze:
> The 'Community' has been quite clear in it's disapproval of your disruption of the Burningman Tribe.

Actually, there seems to be a small group who seem very willing to disrupt this tribe in an attempt to chase me out.

The majority, as shown in your other thread, seems to think that while they might not agree with my views, that I should have a right to speak.
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My B...
My Body is a Temple
offline 323
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Tue, November 6, 2007 - 4:36 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
And my point is not to rehash the topic in those threads. It's to show that Adam has a pattern of disrupting and causing trouble, and essentially killing tribes, and that what he is doing on this tribe is just the most recent installment in the Adam chronicles.
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My B...
My Body is a Temple
offline 323
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Tue, November 6, 2007 - 4:34 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Hi MP - There were many, many other threads about this topic but Adam deleted many of them. His initial posts are gone in the sands of time.

Note that I did not say he advocated date rape, I said he justified it. Which is not the same thing.
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Kami...
Kamikaze Kelly
online 1637
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Tue, November 6, 2007 - 3:04 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Adam
The 'Community' has been quite clear in it's disapproval of your disruption of the Burningman Tribe.
Now, thanks to MBIAT, we also have witnessed your trampling on other Tribes.
What will it take for you to grow up and stop acting out?!
Are you incapable of growth? Self Honesty?? Criticism???
We have largely written you off as a hypocrite, called you out on your bullshit; and yet you persist.
I intend to have a discussion with Abuse@tribe.net
My opinion is respected by the TOU team, but I had hoped that you would 'moderate' yourself.
I guess it was asking too much of you. To be a part of community.
I feel sorry for you.
You just make me sad...
KK
www.abuse@tribe.net
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MdJG...
MdJGutie
online 100
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Tue, November 6, 2007 - 3:01 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
"Maybe I'm missing it, but I'm not seeing where he is advocating date rape. He's advocating communication. "

Sorry MP, but if you're on a date and someone asks to spank you and you say "No," then that should be the end of it. You shouldn't have to explain your decision. Maybe you think it's creepy. Maybe you think it's deviant behavior and you’re a holy roller. Maybe you were abused as a child and the idea of someone trying to tie sex in with pain could make you have a breakdown. Whatever. There’s no communication if he just starts in with the paddling. Communication is when the question is asked and answered. Why should anyone then have to outline to his satisfaction what the bad man did to her? Some people don't even know why they feel one way or another about may things having to do with sex. That doesn't make their feelings less real, or less valid. If Adam wants a twenty point dissertation cross indexed with footnotes he can ask for it in writing later. Can you imagine going out to dinner and later having to face Adam's third degree and knowing that him giving you "sexy" spanking is what you face if he doesn't see your points as sufficient?
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Aaron
Aaron M
offline 126
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Tue, November 6, 2007 - 2:10 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
"Can't you find something to talk about other than me?"

Tried that. But then you showed up, and everything suddenly went back to Adam Adam Adam Adam Floatingman Adam Adam Adam.

Want us to really stop talking about you? Then here's how it will happen. You unsubscribe from this tribe, and the endless antagonism and attempts to get everyone to fight among themselves stops. There will be a brief series of posts about you again, this time in celebration of your leaving. Those threads will be rather intense, and have hundreds of responses in favor of your leaving, with perhaps one or two of your sock puppets chiming in on your behalf. Within a couple of days, those threads will eventually die out, and everyone will go back to actually having real conversations that are not about you or your endless criticism of the borg or your get rich pyramid scheme to defraud the dumber burners.

What do you say, you up for doing your part in making this tribe being about Burning Man once again?
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Mois...
MoistPup
online 56
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Tue, November 6, 2007 - 1:56 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Maybe I'm missing it, but I'm not seeing where he is advocating date rape. He's advocating communication.
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Rhino
Rhino
offline 102
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Tue, November 6, 2007 - 1:47 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
You want some cheese to go with that whine?
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MdJG...
MdJGutie
online 100
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Tue, November 6, 2007 - 1:42 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Well, just watch yourself. He may want to spank you and not take "No" for an answer.
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TomCat
TomCat riding....low ride.....on the west side
offline 130
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Tue, November 6, 2007 - 1:40 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
adams getting a woodie.
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MdJG...
MdJGutie
online 100
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Tue, November 6, 2007 - 1:39 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
No, seriously. Everyone should read those threads.
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Adam
Adam
online 145
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Tue, November 6, 2007 - 1:34 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Aaron:
> In a prior thread, Adam had stated that if we could get 100 people to join the tribe, he would gladly unsubscribe from the bm tribe. So please, join the tribe and help us keep Adam to his word.

Lies.

My body:
> He's a notorious thread deleter.

And more lies.

Are you guys having fun yet?

Can't you find something to talk about other than me?
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Aaron
Aaron M
offline 126
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Tue, November 6, 2007 - 1:27 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Yes, join the adam is delusional tribe.

In a prior thread, Adam had stated that if we could get 100 people to join the tribe, he would gladly unsubscribe from the bm tribe. So please, join the tribe and help us keep Adam to his word.
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TomCat
TomCat riding....low ride.....on the west side
offline 130
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Tue, November 6, 2007 - 1:02 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
join my tribe:

tribes.tribe.net/adamisdelusional
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MdJG...
MdJGutie
online 100
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Tue, November 6, 2007 - 1:00 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Oh Jesus. Everyone should read those threads. They are amazing. Truly amazing. Wow.
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Aaron
Aaron M
offline 126
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Tue, November 6, 2007 - 12:54 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Love how it's not just on this tribe, that he will attack someone and the post they just made, and when they respond to defend what they had stated, they just get a 'what's with the personal attacks'...

Will he ever get a clue? Why is he still here? Have enough people not complained to the moderator and to the TOU guy? Or maybe he makes a point of clicking every ad that he crosses, so the end result is that while he's driving many people away from the site, he's paying for it through the advertising?

What will it take to get Adam to change his name to Unsubscribed?
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TomCat
TomCat riding....low ride.....on the west side
offline 130
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Tue, November 6, 2007 - 12:53 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
how deliciously appropriate to dig up some skeletons....
anything else? any threads of him going to bat for NAMBLA?
or hitting on lil shadow incessantly?
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My B...
My Body is a Temple
offline 323
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Tue, November 6, 2007 - 12:43 PM
in response to: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
My History with Adam

Wow - how all this crap brings it back. I've been trying to get away from Adam's shit for a few years on Tribe. Just so you all know, he isn't just like this about Burning Man, so don't feel special. He's like this with everything he believes, like his desperate attempts to justify date rape (sometimes yes means no). Want some proof? Take a tour of history.

sweetguys.tribe.net/thread/1...ef3998c01

sweetguys.tribe.net/thread/b...466e89384

sweetguys.tribe.net/thread/8...ce2733b4d

jewtribe.tribe.net/thread/3...56b932b07

extremehonesty.tribe.net/threa...7a3df5

Just a warning - don't post in threads that Adam starts. If he disagrees with you, or he later realizes that what he said made him look like a douche bag, he will delete the thread. He's a notorious thread deleter.
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Aaron
Aaron M
offline 126
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Tue, November 6, 2007 - 10:59 AM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Adam,
Would you like some Cheese with your Whine?
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MdJG...
MdJGutie
online 100
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Mon, November 5, 2007 - 11:20 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
"I wonder which wise person gave us this advice: "
"It's too bad that you don't follow your own advice. "

Adam: That wasn't advice, it was opinion. Here's a nice online dictionary for your future reference: www.m-w.com/
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Adam
Adam
online 145
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Mon, November 5, 2007 - 8:40 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Aaron:
> Wrong, he's still a idiot

Still making the personal attacks, eh?

I wonder which wise person gave us this advice:

"Taking away from a conversation: deconstructing what another poster has said, or attempting to knock down another poster or their information, opinion, or insight. "

It's too bad that you don't follow your own advice.
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My B...
My Body is a Temple
offline 323
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Mon, November 5, 2007 - 1:10 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Monotonousness negative self-promoting ego driven divisive relentless crap
+++++

Agreed - but that was not one of the options. So I will go with Destructive.
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Aaron
Aaron M
offline 126
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Mon, November 5, 2007 - 9:30 AM
in response to: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
I think Adam thinks that if he repeats the same BS enough times, that it will make it a fact.

Wrong, he's still a idiot and way to many people have said that his attempting to take over this tribe and be its official spokesperson has driven them away from here.
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BryTee
BryTee )'(
offline 203
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Mon, November 5, 2007 - 8:42 AM
in response to: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
I don't often pay attention to who posts a topic.
Anyway I'm terrible with names so will probably forget.

Anyway, I didn't think it was Adams who is accused of arson? I remember that name: Addis
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Tia
Tia
offline 86
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Sun, November 4, 2007 - 3:09 PM
in response to: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Art.

He's got you all talking.

That alone says something.
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MdJG...
MdJGutie
online 100
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Sun, November 4, 2007 - 1:03 AM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Lion, you already voted. I was asking Diode.
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LiOn...
LiOnRaVen V
offline 112
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Sun, November 4, 2007 - 12:11 AM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
art.
I burned the man
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MdJG...
MdJGutie
online 100
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Sat, November 3, 2007 - 11:32 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Well, your statements were well crafted, but those points have been put forward before, it's not as if you were out of left field with them. So, if you were unfair or negative it wasn’t the virgin voyage for that verbiage. I agree though that you had a clever way of putting it then and it's admirable that you are trying to be nice to the humans now.

However, that leaves the question of the OP yet to be addressed. Art or Arson?
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Diode
Diode Tensegrity
offline 18
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Sat, November 3, 2007 - 11:18 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Sometimes clever is the enemy of wisdom. Using acid sarcasm and insults is not exactly a contribution. I feel I have framed the BMorg and Adam in unfair and negative characterizations in my previous post. My apologies. That's not the way I want to operate and I retract my statements. It's too easy to ignore that people are on the other side of some crafty piece of verbiage.
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Diode
Diode Tensegrity
offline 18
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Sat, November 3, 2007 - 8:53 PM
in response to: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Well I figure Adam is one of two things.
A. Adam is a mega burner adoitly skewering the infinite hypocrisy of the BMorg with his insight, wit and massive cajones. His powerful soul energy is focused on the beating heart of what it is to be a burner before the rules, profiteering and management principles stole its heart and buried it under the Golden Stake.
or
He is a major fuckwit with a constant drone of redundant attacks in the general mode of Usenet forum flybaits who cannot get off their pet diatribe long enough to see anything else. No topic is too ridiculous that it cannot be turned once again into one of Adam's favorite themes.

Or possibly none of the above. Adam just is, like a force of nature.
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LiOn...
LiOnRaVen V
offline 112
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Sat, November 3, 2007 - 8:35 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Adam is a visionary turned actionary.
He is critical of the established way of
the way you all think iz the onley way
but
surprise!
the free upside down inverted manwoman
will be free and an alternative to paying all that money
that i don't got but I still wanna bring my creativity to the playa
so
what's wrong with questioning the MAN?
why not?
the man has become a corporate machine
feed the machine,
build the city bigger.

rock on adam.
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MdJG...
MdJGutie
online 100
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Sat, November 3, 2007 - 8:27 PM
in response to: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Destructive.
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TomCat
TomCat riding....low ride.....on the west side
offline 130
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Sat, November 3, 2007 - 6:36 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Join my tribe :

tribes.tribe.net/adamisdelusional

to paraphrase-
who is with me?
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elaine~
elaine~
offline 175
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Sat, November 3, 2007 - 6:10 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Its gets tiring.
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Kami...
Kamikaze Kelly
online 1637
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Sat, November 3, 2007 - 6:06 PM
in response to: Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
I've been clear about Adam taking over the Burningman Tribe. It's pretty much driven me away.
I'm much less active because of his constant attacks and drivel.
Monotonousness negative self-promoting ego driven divisive relentless crap.
Drivel. Yeah...that about sums it up.
But thats just me.
KK
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Ian,...
Ian, Alicia, and Kealii
offline 7
Re: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Sat, November 3, 2007 - 5:52 PM
in response to: Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Well, it depends on your perspective, where you were, and your beliefs about the Burning Man festival in general. I happened to be peacefully sitting next to our tent watching the eclipse. The rest of my party were asleep inside and it was a rare moment of quiet and near solitude in a crazy setting. Just as the moon disappeared, I saw the flames rise above the playa and thought, "How lovely, someone's celebrating with a big bonfire." It made the whole scene perfect and only the next afternoon did I find out it was the Man burning. Since I don't come for the silly burn on Saturday (in fact, I've left on Friday a couple of times), I felt it was pretty cool to get it out of the way and allow people to focus on some of the other aspects of the event. Sadly, they rebuilt it and the party crowd got their wish. I guess I can't complain; I got two burns for the price of one!
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Unaf...
Unaffiliated
online 32
Adams Attacks on Burning Man: Art or Arson?
Sat, November 3, 2007 - 4:26 PM
Or put another way:

Constructive or Destructive?
reply to this post

posted in Floatingman Island - 6 replies

marketing discussion

isee — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 02:26:19 GMT

does it feel that we are stuck on this project? please be honest with yourself, and if the answer is yes, then consider changing some of the basic premises of the project. if the answer is no, then some of the ideas brought forth here might still be valid.

i haven't developed the marketing plan but while thinking about it, have come up with some ideas that are somewhat different than what we have been talking about. so, before going forward i would like to hear people's feedback and then we can develop the actual plan.

the purpose of the marketing plan is to attract a community of supporters for this project and then attract people who would actually buy into the project. marketing is nothing but creating a buzz around the project. the buzz doesn't develop through our value system or our mission or our started desire to move down there. the buzz is developed through events and people.

one of the main differentiators of this project is that it is near or on or below water. most of the art will be floating art (if that's a term). therefore, one of the anchors of this project is floating art. so, in order to promote the project, one idea would be to first promote floating art.

the most important part of this plan:

Promote floating art and artists.

here are some ideas:

1 - small burn events on lakes/rivers in the US.
2 - small parties that promote floating art (pool party)
3 - floating art workshops
4 - floating art events in the cities (small city lake festivals)
5 - public floating art through grants and fund raising

all of these require us to network and promote the floating artist through grants and private money.

project positioning:

by positioning i mean, when people hear about FM right now, they hear: full time burner inspired community in some island in Nica. what do we want them to think?

when we promote floating art, we will do it under the umbrella of FM. so the FM positioning is still important. maybe we should position this project so that it can eventually be a permanent burner community but not from the start.

- currently, we have the BM festival, once a year. we then have the regionals. we also have decom parties and other parties that happen all the time. we also have things like Santarchy which is burner inspired but it's just a one day event. so, what would this FM be, if not a full time community? something you could come to for a month or two or six months and do your floating art project? maybe it's a proving ground or a lab for floating artists? maybe there will be seminars and workshops for floating art?

fire artists are very active and people live partially off of their fire art. there are workshops and camps that are multi-day events that are all about fire art (wild fire?). maybe fire artists will also develop a community that is all about fire arts. something developed after the FM model.

this positioning needs a lot more discussion.

fund raising:

depending on how we position the project, we could use different means to raise funds for the project. this means again that depending on the positioning, we wouldn't need to get 100 people to join the project. we would just need to raise enough money to purchase the land for the stated purpose of FM.

- throw FM parties. PEX (Philadelphia EXperiment) is a burner camp that throws parties year around and raises money for their BM camp. they do a hell of a job and are very popular.
- look for public and private grants for FM events
- throw FM burn events in different venues
- others...

again, all i wanted to communicate right now, is twofold.

1 - we need to re-position the project
2 - based on the positioning, we need to create a community of supporters through events and people

lots of work, but who said this was easy??

posted in Floatingman Island - 40 replies

Floating Man betrays it's principles?

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 21:29:17 GMT

Commercialism! Marketing?! Islands where Federal Law (and human rights protections) don't apply? Kool-Aid for Kool Kids! Adam is the Kool-Aid King my dears, drink up, drink up, Adam is our lord!

posted in Floatingman Island - 4 replies

Ponzi Bonzai!

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 21:32:34 GMT

http://tribes.tribe.net/floatingman_owners/thread/69eded50-04f8-426a-b02f-a595553da698

posted in Floatingman Island - 1 reply

I could make this 'Dream' a reality

kamikazekelly — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 06:35:25 GMT

But I won't.
Adams attacks and self promotion on the Burningman Tribe has pretty much sunk this ship.
That said, it's good to dream. Many of us want more venues.
I worked 3 years for the Dreamtime Festival (www.dreamthefuture.org), but, alas...sometimes dreams are just...dreams.
As a reasonably well balanced Hippy put it last year "I get that we are 7 free souls buying a Schoolbus to drive to Central America manifesting love, but if we break down and all of you get out and paint Murals on the side of the Bus...who is going to fix it!!!"
Adam's methods and hypocrisy have turned many otherwise valuable assets into enemies.
If you end up buying this swamp land, this $3000.00 Boondoggle, Snake Oil in a 2012 clothe, my heart goes out to you.
KK

posted in Floatingman Island - 16 replies

Working groups

mrcurtain — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 06:43:14 GMT

isee proposed the idea breaking into a number of subgroups each with certain set of responsibilities. I support him 100% in this idea, and we had an impromptu 1/2 hour discussion today to hammer out the details.

Here is the breakdown of groups which we think make sense.

1) greeters

* lead up the survey - possibly pulling in help from outside of this group.

* greet newcomers
* learn about the newcomer: typical things like where they heard about us and why they are here.
* learn about their specific area of interest.
* provide them with links to the wiki and other essential places of information.
* answer some basic questions and invite them to join the discussions
* invite them join one of the working groups.

2) marketing

3) finance

4) survival guide

* plans and contingency plans for everything that we will need to live on the island.
* for things related to how individuals/camps could work, this group has full autonomy.
* for responsibilities that will be given to the Org or Council, their ideas should be proposed to the main group for discussion and approval.

5) real estate

* negotiate and close the deal.
* also investigate other properties as a potential backups

6) legal

7) process

* define communication and decision making processes for how we should all work together.

===

What do people think of our overall idea of breaking up into working groups? Is there any feedback regarding the divisions we've selected?

Do we have any volunteers join these group, or to lead them?

For anyone who wants to help out, but hasn't yet seen a way to do so, this is your chance.

posted in Floatingman Island - 6 replies

whats your vision?

trae — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 23:13:36 GMT

There is lot of conversation going on here. We’re excited, and have lots of ideas and hopes. New information comes up, a problem arises, and the idea changes. But we are looking at so many options, all from different points of view, its becoming confusing… so id like to hear your vision.

“Island Living” threw off my thoughts on the project for awhile (and, I think, many others). There are serious issues I was not seeing an answer to about trying to cram a bunch of basically job-less people onto a small foreign island, and expecting it to work at all. We couldn’t even house the amounts of people we want to see, they would be on top of each other, much less have any sort of ‘public’ ground and room for art.

But that’s not the answer, its not even the problem. Somehow I forgot the name of the project when we started talking about islands. I was thinking in terms of land area and pitching a tent on the beach; and for that we need a MUCH bigger island. But this is Floatingman, not island living. This is a new idea (sorta). The island itself should be no more then the art/public area, maybe a small portion for land campers on a short term (like the walk in camping area). Docks will radiate out in all directions, easily put together floating docks. Perhaps in time these docks will even form a connecting webwork of circles mostly surrounding the island (leaving the protected lagoon clear for art boats and the man and a view). Each camp, instead of simply making a dome, will create the very ‘land’ the dome sits on.

Lark Caye is actually ideal for this set up. The large lagoon is to the south side of the island, where the man will float. Docks will line the other two sides of the island, with center camp on the center south side looking out over the lagoon. It is, essentially, the same set up BM uses, with modifications made for it being an island.

I was leaning away from Lark Caye for awhile; it wasn’t big enough, the issues with living there and whatever else combined and I didn’t like it. Ive changed my mind. Its size will simply make us adapt; it isn’t already partially built up like the Granada island (which is a benefit to me, though I can see how it isn’t to some, but really, who gets the house? And that cement path bothers me, and a pool? In the middle of a tropical island?); the fact that is on an ocean, instead of a polluted lake; its closer to the US, people could actually boat there.

So this is my vision, subject to change as better information comes along. What’s yours?

posted in Floatingman Island - 9 replies

Carrots?

mrcurtain — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 03:18:50 GMT

I'm a big fan of making sure that everything is equitable on this project. But both Jason and Vinay proposed ideas where those people who sign up earlier, would get some sort of advantages ("carrots") over those who join later. It's an idea certainly worth discussing.

(Though, there is an element of conflict of interest if we are deciding that we get the cheapest shares.)

Ideas:

a) prices go up the longer you wait to sign up
b) auctioning off the last X shares
c) the first 25 people approved get to chose one friend each as an owner

Thoughts?

posted in Floatingman Island - 39 replies

is everyone moving to the google FM email list?

isee — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 00:48:32 GMT

i just joined and i am hoping we can move the discussions there.

also as Adam suggested, when subjects reach a point where we have made some progress we should document them in the wiki. i will start my marketing thoughts there.

posted in Floatingman Island - 2 replies

Org and Community

mrcurtain — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 10:12:19 GMT

A todo from Vinay:

> "figure out **EXACTLY** what people are responsible for doing on their own (i.e. transport), what you're taking responsibility for (buying the land, legal exposure), and what is still being defined (health and liability insurance, infrastructure expenses, etc.)"

Let me start the list as I see it.

Org
-----
Property
Toilets
Legal issues, taxes, etc.
Emergency boat, plus some first aid supplies
Passenger ferry (?)

Community
----------------
Infrastructure
Food, water, energy
Health, including making sure that someone trained in first aid is available
Defining rules for island life
Dealing with any issues that come up within the community

posted in Floatingman Island - 40 replies

Meetings every two weeks?

mrcurtain — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 03:12:37 GMT

We had a very good meeting yesterday. It feels that we got a lot accomplished.

We've getting a lot of activity in the tribe now. What do people feel about meeting every two weeks instead of every month?

posted in Floatingman Island - 4 replies

interacting with others (part of marketing discussions)

isee — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 16:22:52 GMT

i am going to be critical (again) of the way Adam and Trae interact with people on this tribe. and this is one of the main reasons that deters people.

i am over sensitive about communication and how people communicate with each other and how they come off, so you are going to get these kinds of posts from me again and again.

the thread that Trae just bumped up from earlier this year about self sufficiency made me think about this topic.

the most important thing in building this community at this point is to get people who are excited about one or more aspects of this project to be involved. usually people who are excited about an aspect, also have something to offer in that area. like Bonnie with the self sufficiency ideas.

it seems to me that Adam and Trae who have been involved in this project for a while and have developed ideas and policies, tend to "defend" them when someone questions them. if every time someone comes in and says we should do X this way and people on the project say, NO, we are doing it this other way, then the person loses interest and moves on.

i know we tell people "hey this is how we have thought about doing it and if you have a better way, show us". but in reality, the tone and substance of the interactions are different than that first sentence. they are not welcoming and, in my opinion, discourage people from spending any more time on the subject.

it is good to have a plan, but it is also good to be flexible. not just in the initial sentence of the interaction, but in your heart.

Vinay is an example. if he wasn't persistent in what he was saying and if he really really didn't want to help, he would have gone away by now. the initial responses to his posts were: "well we want to do it this way, or our community is this way or that way." he persisted and now we are listening to him (i am glad).

posted in Floatingman Island - 32 replies

Floatingman Google Group

mrcurtain — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 02:42:21 GMT

As a way to send out the meeting minutes (as a sort of a newsletter), and also as a backup if tribe is down, we're reactivating our old google group.

Sign up here:

http://groups.google.com/group/floatingman

posted in Floatingman Island - 1 reply

Meeting minutes for November Meeting

mrcurtain — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 22:35:01 GMT

Two of the key members were unexpectedly unable to make the meeting do to last minute problems coming up. Though Trae shared his thoughts with Adam on the topics before the meeting.

Jason, Vinay and Adam were at the 90 minute meeting.

It was a very good meeting, full of new ideas. I wonder if we should start having these meetings every 2 weeks instead of every month?

1) Operating Agreement Changes

Adam - yeah
Trae - yeah
Jason - yeah
Vinay - yeah

Changes to the operating agreement have been approved.

TODO - Adam - post updated version to website.

2) Survey

We have agreed to send out surveys to find out the thoughts of the silent majority of the tribe. The original idea was to send it out to just a sampling of the tribe, but we decided it would be better to try to sent it out to everyone if possible.

Trae, Adam and Jason have volunteered to each send out at least 20 surveys and tally the results.

TODO: Seek out more volunteers to send out surveys and then assign batches of tribe members to each volunteer.

TODO: Rewrite survey question #3. Something like this: "If you are considering joining, what is holding you back?"

TODO: At some later point later survey other groups. ecovillage? burningman? eplaya?

3) Applications and Application Fees

We have built up quite a bit of interest in the project. 270 members in the tribe. Many people beyond that have heard of it. But we're not having much success in getting people to send in applications. Do we need to start selling harder??

Trae doesn't like the idea of "selling" the project.

Jason suggested a carrot and stick approach where the prices go up the longer you wait. Adam has concerns that this would lead to lower prices for the leaders and hence is a conflict of interest. We also talked about auctioning off the final 25 shares as a fundraiser.

Vinay suggested another carrot of allowing the first group of people, to each include one person of their choice in the final group of owners.

TODO: Suggest various carrot and stick ideas for in the tribe for more discussion and feedback.

Vinay suggested changing our overall tone. We shouldn't be selling anything, we should be asking for help. This really resonated with Adam.

Let's dump the applications completely for now. Let's just ask for donations. And any donors who give more than $100 will get preferential treatment in the later selection of owners. These donations will follow the same rules as before. If the project fails, unspent funds will be returned. If the project goes forward any money donated will be deducted from the share price.

And Vinay suggested that we aim for a core group of perhaps 20 people committed to make this happen who would cover the costs - it's more "ok, next expense is $2k for this, who's willing to pitch in"

TODO: Dump the application for now? Set goals by dollar figures instead of numbers of people.

4) Trae's mailing address

Trae's mailing address has been a disaster. For some reason, letters have not been arriving.

TODO: Set up paypal payments

TODO: Set up PO Box

5) Marketing for the Spring Burn

None of us had any particularly new or exciting ideas offhand. Without isee present, this topic was postponed.

6) Emailing out these meeting minutes as something as a newsletter

Trae proposed the idea. Everyone agreed to it.

We already have a google group, but it hasn't been touched in the past 18 months. We can use it to send out these minutes, but also as a backup for tribe which has been down almost as much as it has been up recently.

Join here:

http://groups.google.com/group/floatingman

TODO: Send out these minutes to the google group

TODO: Announce the google group on the tribe? Tribe header? Website?

NOTE - All of the TODOs have been posted to the "todos" on our wiki.

http://floatingman.wetpaint.com/page/todos

posted in Floatingman Island - 0 replies