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Generation

(originally posted on my secret blog, and then sent to my mailing list, been getting some great feedback on it so posting more widely here too)

I’ve been thinking a lot about the balance between creation and curation recently, or maybe the imbalance between the two. And how rewarding each are for different reasons. For better or worse I’ve spent a lot of my time and life in the curation category – finding cool things and pointing others to them. Be it bands, artists, news stories, whatever. I’ve also had my share of creation of course too – I put designing record covers in that category, and of course writing as well. Photography, music, art are firmly in creation. I’m much more confident about the curation – I know when something is awesome or interesting and I don’t second guess the urge or need to point other people to it. I love doing it – but in the end I’m still pointing to other people’s work and I’m only valuable tomorrow if I find more things to point at. I’m less comfortable with the creation but I find it infinitely more fulfilling. From now for the rest of time I made that, and I can look back on it and people can discover it years later and it still came from me. It’s just as awesome, maybe more so, today when I see someone wearing a t-shirt with a band logo I drew or quoting something I wrote many years ago. These things have a life of their own.

Making music and art now is similarly exciting and I’m looking forward to where that ends up. But it keeps making me think about opportunities I passed up that I didn’t even recognize as opportunities at the time. I was lucky to find punk rock in the mid-80’s and those influences changed my life. I felt like I contributed to the scene by putting out records and booking tours, but looking back now I shouldn’t have passed on the many chances I had to actually be in bands and create things that might have lasted. I don’t feel like I missed out so much as I didn’t get all I could out of it. I love the experiences I had, but I can’t help but recognize that there could have been more. I try to keep this in mind going forward with new ideas.

I have books that I wrote 10 years ago and never published, it feels too late now but I know I shouldn’t have talked myself out of it then. When it’s mine, I want things to be great and perfect. And I’m good at convincing myself that things need more work to be great, work that never gets finished. Real artists ship right? I need to ship more often.

I think a lot about the world right now and my place in it. I still do a lot of curation. I find things and point people to them. A lot of things I’m reading or things that sparked my interest. In turn, people point to me as a filter. But I don’t know that I really want to be a filter. I mean, I am so there’s that, but that’s not my aspiration, and at the end of the day thinking about and saying “Man, I linked to some great stuff today, so proud of that!” isn’t really something that happens. Ever.

And on top of that, the world is fucking depressing right now. The news is all bad all the time. And I think that’s influencing my mood in ways I don’t like. I wake up next to my beautiful wife to the sounds of our amazing kid causing some awesome chaos somewhere in our great house filled with wonderfully handpicked stuff and I smile. And then I see the news and I think we’re fucked. And then I pass that on to everyone else. I don’t want to ruin people’s days anymore.

I don’t know where I’m getting with this line of thought, just that I’m thinking. And I want to make more things. I want to make more music. I want to write more. I want to create more. So that’s what I’m going to do. Said. Done. Stay tuned.

Encryption and Suspicion

Why using encryption is seen as suspicious — the difference between privacy and secrecy.

encryption

(Originally posted on Medium)

Not long ago I discussed some of the steps I was taking to ensure some privacy online and since then have had quite a few conversations with other people about their own efforts to do the same. We most frequently talk about how easy or hard something is to implement and express shared desire to have more of these options baked in as standard features on normal applications used by everyone. If encrypting an email was as easy as CCing some for example, it’s safe to assume more people would encrypt their emails.

These discussions also inevitably note that the simple act of encrypting your email is more likely to draw the attention of folks like the NSA because to some people this is seen as suspicious behavior. But I don’t buy it — if encrypting your email is suspicious that’s only the case because not many people do it, which is only the case because it’s not that easy. And now we’re running in circles. But lets think about this a bit more for a second.

What’s so suspicious about it?

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Checking in on everyday

Waiting

A few months ago I wrote about things I wanted to do on a daily basis because they are important to me. In efforts to keep myself in check I thought I’d review that list again and see how I’m doing. I can tell you right that this isn’t going to be a positive review. I’m really, exceptionally good at distracting myself with random life things and messing up my plans. Which is in part why I kind of go overboard on the self structuring sometimes, without it who knows what kind of a disaster I’d be.

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Hi Folks From The Daily

Hello. I’m delighted that The Daily has run a version of my post about leaving Facebook and I’m excited to hear feedback about it and get some other opinions. I’m not foolish enough to think I have all the answers, or even some of them, so it’s great to get some other perspectives on hot button issues like this.

If this is your first time here and you are wondering “who the crap is this Sean Bonner guy?” don’t worry, that’s a normal reaction and you aren’t alone. Here’s a little bio that might help. You can also stalk me/talk to me over on Twitter or Google+ – I hang out on both of those sites a lot. If you just want to read more of my thoughts, this site is the best place for that (use the dropdown bar on the right to find categories you care about).

Thanks for stopping by!

Zombie Weapon FAIL!

There’s a post over on Gizmodo calling this AR15 modified to old a chainsaw as a bayonet “the ultimate zombie killing weapon.” It’s not, and actually it might be the worst most amature option out there. Let’e quickly review the reasons arming yourself with this during a zombie attack will lead straight to your demise:

  1. Requires ammo. This means that you will need to both reload as look for reserves. Reloading will mostly likely be required when it’s not convenient and eventually you will run out of ammo, making this useless.
  2. Requires gasoline. Presumably the chainsaw is gas powered and suffers from the same issues as ammo, it will run out, and will do that when you most need it leaving you helpless.
  3. Heavy as crap. Can you imagine how tiring carrying this around all day would be? I mean, look at the video, the dude almost drops it chopping off his foot after using it for just a few seconds. When faced with a zombie mob, you need to be agile and on your toes. This will leave you exhausted and clumsy.
  4. Noise attracts zombies and you know this thing is loud. So in addition to being bad at killing zombies for more than a few minutes, and leaving you tired from trying, this will alert other zombies to your whereabouts bringing them down on you in packs.

Clearly this is a poor zombie killing weapon. What a noob.