Category: teaching experience

These are examples of my teaching experience. I find it one of the most rewarding parts of what I do.

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Illustration: Okay Google – what year is it? cc-by lemasney

Okay google, what year is it cc-by lemasney
Okay google, what year is it cc-by lemasney
Okay google, what year is it cc-by lemasney
Okay google, what year is it cc-by lemasney

Inspiration

I wanted to illustrate what I thought the Google Home might be like in 10 years. I saw it as floating, hovering by way of low-energy drones. The device would be like an eye, always looking, listening, and recording. A disoriented human asks “Okay Google, what year is it?” in wonderment. This design is related to my concept for their future automated car.

I was inspired by an email based how-to on creating hashing, or cross hatching, in Inkscape. I thought the example seemed straightforward enough to deconstruct in my mind:

open Inkscape, create a circle, duplicate it, add a linear pattern to the topmost dupe, convert to path, shape into a shadow, place over circle, done.

But when I started doing it, to test whether it was just that simple, I was surprised at how many steps were really involved. You have to find the right pattern, you have to try a few on, you have to realize that you can’t easily add color to your patterns. You get some neat benefits though — real, deep calls to pop-based modernism, paying ideological royalties to Warhol’s Brillo Boxen and Jasper Johns’ frisky template based stories. So I decided to take it somewhere. And this post is the result.

What am I doing here?

I wrote ‘To be honest,’ but I loathe when people say that. We may be honest always, but what a stark surprise that would be, and the resulting pain that would potentially be inflicted seems an easily avoidable horror. So here, I’ll offer some harmless honesty: I’m not sure what i am doing here. I want to be productive, create and publish things of value, but I think that the audience has to find the value in you doing what you love, if any value is to be found at all. This may the closest digital alternative we have to Busking, posting on tools like WordPress (or worse yet, Facebook). But today, as I write this, it feels right. This is what I feel I should be doing: Writing about, illustrating, and sharing my experiences and results and insights and outcomes in the hopes of feeding into the collective insight of humanity. I have no idea if anyone will care, or even respond. But maybe. Only by trying will we find out.

Okay Google, so, what year is it?

So I was working on the practice of creating cross hatching in Inkscape, finding the stark contrast of the linear elements a bright, sharp change in my style. I began to make the circle into a kind of orb. The cross hatching became a futuristic fin that both altered direction and provided thrust. Each overlapped circle added a new dimensional layer of electronics or protection, all perfectly interlocking and freely moving.

A pupil and iris emerged. A short story about the future that writes itself in one’s mind resulted. The title of that short story is “Okay Google, what year is it?”, and the orb you see is some nearby year’s equivalent to the amazing Amazon Echo, except it uses quiet drone and magnetic stops technologies to float about your house, answering any question, turning on and off million colored micro LEDs under your feet and overhead as you walk along the heavily corridored apartments of the future. All of our houses start as shipping containers in my version. The main character asks the title question and the orb responds “I don’t know how to answer that. “

At any rate, a fun trip in the mind and I hope you enjoyed it.

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10 answers to ‘What should I do with my life?’

what should I do with my life cc-by lemasney
what should I do with my life cc-by lemasney

what should I do with my life cc-by lemasney
what should I do with my life cc-by lemasney

One reason I love teaching

I teach college students, high-schoolers, grad students, seniors, and a diverse bunch of others. I love teaching because I often find myself in some of the most interesting discussions I’ve had in my life there in those quiet classrooms and community rooms.

I am often placed in the position of amateur philosopher because I get to ask people branding prompts, queries like “what kind of meal are you?” or “if you could change the world now, how would it be different?” and the answers I get are often less examined than, let’s say, their favorite football team. I love the thought that the next time they are asked the question, they may have had time to reflect on their original answer and develop their point of view.

Undergraduate students ask different kinds of questions in quiet after-class sidebars.

I most often answer questions about technology in my classes, but sometimes we veer off into more interesting and useful territories. In teaching undergrads recently, which I do not do as often as other groups, I’ve been asked about things like life-trajectory and intended outcomes. One student told me that he was not sure if it was an àpropos use of the term, but that he felt like he was having a ‘existential crisis’. I replied that it was certainly possible, even likely at this time in his life, and that he was in good company. I shared that it may be a sign that he was growing. His main question, and the question often asked when I have had these deeper philosophical conversations, is “What should I do with my life?” I like many of the answers I’ve collected in the discussions, and thought I might share them here.

10 recent answers to “What should I do with my life?”

These are 10 answers I gave recently, in no particular order of importance. Our mental and conscious state is the result of an amazingly complex number of holistic and systemic factors, including genetics, authoritative influence, culture, society, exposure to ideas, emotional and physical environment, diet, and body chemistry. To look at the effects of one while ignoring the effects of others is an easy route to false- or half-truths. I often assume that the conversant is already in-line with and subject to the standard barrage of media, educational, and political propaganda and ideologically coercive forces that our society imparts (our government loves and protects you, we don’t commit crimes world-wide, we are not slaves and slavery ended a long time ago, social media is not poisoning us, etc.), and so I try to sidestep major social, religious, political, or diversity oriented issues. Instead…

I try to remind them that we are all the same regardless of our sensed differences like age, gender, religion, or skin color: an ambulatory pile of chemically bonded universal elements with the miraculous evolutionary gift of self-awareness.

and then, I offer some of these ideas, useful for me personally, but hopefully adaptable to another’s  philosophy as well.

  1. Pursue what you love and have passion for. Set aside goals of money, fame, or recognition, which may or may not come while you enjoy your life.
  2. Collect experiences, not stuff. Live small and save money. Live so small that money is unnecessary or less necessary.
  3. Look to your ideological mentors, leaders, and heroes for answers. Consider their answers with a critical thought. Listen to your thought opponents for clues to a median truth.
  4. Resist convenience and high technology where/when it removes your independence. In other words, financial credit is convenient, but it allows you to spend money you do not actually have, which replaces flexibility and independence with debt. A smartphone is convenient comparative to a land line, but given that your location, written & verbal communications, and other easily recorded sensor data becomes just as easily available to authorities, consider that the convenience costs you your privacy.
  5. Learn to meditate and be mindful. Be open to different ideas. Question authority and assure its legitimacy for yourself. Avoid the constraints of silly rules or useless officials.
  6. Imagine the public memory of your deceased self. Be missed. Have a legacy. Increase the number of people you have helped, forget how much you earned doing it.
  7. Remove illusions and seek truths. Recognize, avoid, and ignore rat mazes and traps. Do this forever. Raise awareness of the losses or constrictions of rights. (Chomsky, et al.)
  8. Recognize and beware addictions and vices. Ideas can be addictive and money is just an idea.
  9. Realize the earth is only a sustainable resource if we slow down our consumption and plan sensible resource management. If we don’t, we will perish. Save room for nature.
  10. Eat less; move more. Eat real food. Know what is in your food. (Pollan)

A supportive biblio/videography

What follows is an abridged bibliography and videography of influential thinkers and topics that is helping me to shape my ideas now, hopefully clearly related to my answers in the list above.

HighExistence: How to Escape the Rat Race and Live a Radically Free Life

I want to live simply (High Existence)

“Become very frugal and self-reliant and buy a cheap tiny home, cabin, boat, or van.  Buy a modest patch of low-demand property somewhere for a good price, build a tiny home or some other low-cost, functional structure, and live very cheaply, perhaps growing some of your own food or doing other things to be as self-sufficient as possible.” excerpted from How to Escape the Rat Race and Live a Radically Free Life | High Existence at http://goo.gl/45p8jt

Michael Pollan: monocultures, food deserts, processed foods, and food politics.

Noam Chomsky: language, history, politics, science,

Another great video on Chomsky:

Einstein: Relativity, absolutism, and nuclear energy.

“In 1905, Albert Einstein determined that the laws of physics are the same for all non-accelerating observers, and that the speed of light in a vacuum was independent of the motion of all observers. This was the theory of special relativity. It introduced a new framework for all of physics and proposed new concepts of space and time.” excerpted from Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity: A Simplified Explanation at http://goo.gl/71qW0P

The grand circle theory, Shelter publications, Buckminster Fuller.

“Secondly, here are some personal aesthetic discoveries I’ve made in spending a few years around various plastic materials (I’d lived previously with more conventional materials such as wood, concrete, glass, brick, etc.) I’ve found that the less molecular rearranging a material has undergone, the better it feels to be around. Wood, rock, adobe as compared with polyurethane foam and polycarbonate resin windows.” excerpted from Domes — Shelter Publications at http://goo.gl/SMHETE

David Henry Thoreau: On the duty of Civil Disobedience

David Byrne with St. Vincent – I should watch TV

The Georgia Guidestones.

These are the kinds of things that are giving me insight into what I should be doing with my life, and I believe you can ask that question everyday in the hopes of a newly evolved answer.

Thanks for reading!

 

-j.

 

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I’m changing the way that I choose to live cc-by lemasney

Geodesic model for organic home framing cc-by lemasney
Geodesic model for organic home framing cc-by lemasney

https://www.offgridworld.com/tag/cob-house/
https://www.offgridworld.com/tag/cob-house/

I’m ready. I’m changing the way that i choose to live. A few things have happened recently, and I feel as if I have been struck. The weekly video series is no longer being developed, but that is only one small change. Here’s why:

I have given up several addictions, and this is a form of that.

On 2/20/2015, one year and one day ago, I was struck over the head at some point during the night. I was in LA, I was drinking, and I do not know what happened to me. I found myself restrained by police, in a hospital. They told me they found me in the street. I walked back to my hotel, several miles away, and have not drunk since. If I was drinking, none of what follows would be possible.

About a month ago, I gave up e cigarettes. I had smoked cigarettes and cigars in the past, and took up ecigs to escape a daily cigar habit. Several thousand dollars later, I am finally off a 24% nicotine habit.

I have researched and practiced many other forms of balance against addictions, including food and porn, and have learned a lot. As a result, I feel like I am ready to live more simply, in an unconnected way.

I’ve lost faith in media and tech. I want it to change.

I’m a technologist, but I am quickly losing faith in technology. I have seen it create factions (Windows vs. Linux), addictions (porn, gambling, gaming), new false economies (bitcoin). I understand the hypocrisy of using a technology like WordPress, but I don’t feel that technology is inherently bad, but that most people end up using it in bad ways, or more correctly, false ways.

I recently read Ernest Cline’s Novel ‘Ready Player One’. It upset me so – the idea that people would live in a diseased, dismal world, but would spend most of their time inside of virtual reality (VR). VR is making its rounds again as the next big thing. The novel is incredibly possible, and scary to consider as a likely outcome of our trajectory. Huxley’s Brave New World talks about dissolving society and humanity via technology and soma. Orwell has been proved right again and again and again in both Animal Farm and 1984. Their predictions and warnings have been mostly unheeded.

I’ve lost faith in ‘society’. I still love people.

I keep looking at the way that people are asked to live today:

  • working all the time in jobs that they don’t remotely enjoy.
  • Finding and emphasizing differences and not celebrating individuality.
  • Comparisons, ratings, likes, and follows are the only end goal.
  • Suffering physically, mentally, and ideologically in the effort of having the biggest, best, fastest, newest.
  • Struggling through stressors to make their means meet their ends.
  • Giving away money to keep a status quo which often never gets any better.
  • Striving for convenience over respect for ideas, processes, or outcomes.
  • The effort towards status, fame, and attention and not anything like universal human kindness or understanding.

Life is hard enough. We have to survive: make and prepare food, be temperate, find joy. I want to do those, and what I’ve concluded is that I need little more than a few acres of land, time, effort, and knowledge and experience.

Recently, in talking with my closest friends, especially those concerned with my announcement, I find myself saying repeatedly: We excreted before there were toilets, we were comfortable before we had central air, we had food before Walmarts, and we had houses before we had lumber mills.

I want to prove it.

I am escaping the traditional dream for a different one.

I’m excited to be learning a lot about a lot of topics to support my plan: Permaculture, technology anthropology, gardening, green housing, cob building, fire making, and so on. It will be difficult, interesting, and experimental. I’m happy that I am fit, sound, and prepared to learn what I need to.

Geodesic model for organic home framing cc-by lemasney
Geodesic model for organic home framing cc-by lemasney

I’m leaving, to the degree that I can. I plan to move to a 3-5 acre plot, set up a tiny homestead with a wood burning stove, a clivus multrum, and a bed, and relearn what it is like to be human on this planet.

I want to remove myself of falsehood and manufactured debt, slavery, and despair. Above is a model of what you can do with well-connected 4 foot sticks and vine in just about every forest I’ve ever stepped foot in. Thatching and mudding are the next step.

I want to live in a little hut in the woods, and occasionally come out for coffee or other things not on my land. On the land, I’ll make art, read, cook, garden, and live. I will possibly use solar power to support some electricity, but that is optional. I may have cellular service to offer some connectivity for emergencies, but that is optional. I will not have plumbing, wiring, electric lights, or other typical amenities.I desperately do not want to drive. I will trade goods for services and services for goods. I will work at farmers markets and schools. I will help people in real, true, obvious ways. I think we all can.

I am scared, for us.

I am thoroughly progressive, politically. I think that the idea that Trump can be elected into an office where he can use nuclear weapons is the scariest idea that has ever been. I thought it was a joke when he first announced he was running, and I think it is a bad joke now. I am retreating from a society that supports anyone like Trump. I am leaving. Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged was something I struggled to get through as a twenty something, and I had no idea that it was so conservative at the time because I was not nearly so aware of the imaginary lines we place on things yet. Her ideas there of creators and makers and thinkers simply walking away is a valid solution for me, and I am doing that.

I am actively filtering out that which does not make me better, or worse yet, what burdens me. I love all of you, and I’m not disappearing, though you will likely see a lot less of me after May, 2016. We will see.

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What I love about Destination Dogs and New Brunswick, NJ (3/52) cc-by lemasney

What I love about Destination Dogs and New Brunswick cc-by lemasney
What I love about Destination Dogs and New Brunswick cc-by lemasney

Hey, friends! It’s John and this time I’m talking about my visit to Destination Dogs, a travel themed restaurant that does some pretty amazing things with sausages. It’s in New Brunswick, NJ, and I talk a little bit about why I love that too!

About Destination Dogs in New Brunswick, NJ

This delicious restaurant in New Brunswick, NJ (http://www.destinationdogs.com/) serves up international flavors using the universal language of sausage. It’s in a great (if windy) small city along Route 1 in New Jersey on the Northern side. In the video, their house chips, house baked pretzel, and two hot dogs are featured. Then we move to a corner and ponder the beauty of clouds. You’ll enjoy it if you try! The music in this week’s video is Gold cc-by Artificial and 40A via Soundcloud’s commons group. I felt like it added just the right kind of vibe to this hip and tasty topic. This video is creative commons licensed as well, cc-by lemasney, and you can use it as you wish, even commercially, if you attribute me.

I would love the opportunity to help you, wherever you are, whenever you are ready. I always enjoy talking with groups and individuals on topics like technology, training, open source, and design. If there is some way that I can help you with these and related topics, please contact lemasney at lemasney@gmail.com, 609 553 9498 or Let’s do something great together! This content is released under a creative commons attribution license, some rights reserved. cc-by lemasney

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to this site by using the subscription form in the sidebar. Maybe Facebook is more your thing? Like our Facebook page in the sidebar. We’re also on Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, and other social networks listed at the top of this page. Please like, comment, and share if you found this post useful, interesting, or kind!

If you like it please thumbs-up or share! If you like them, please subscribe for more! I’m always looking for ways to connect with people about tech, design, teaching, and lots of other topics. If you think we should talk, connect with me at https://about.me/lemasney

 

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What I love about Google Calendar: Productivity abundance cc-by lemasney

What I love about Google Calendar thumbnail and title
What I love about Google Calendar thumbnail and title

What I love about Google Calendar cc-by lemasney

The Playlist for my weekly video series “What I love about…” is growing! This week is what I love about Google Calendar — the answer is productivity.

Number two of fifty-two is on one of my essential tools for productivity, time management, customer relationship management, task and to-do, and scheduling, Google Calendar! This was prompted by a conversation I was having with Peter Bromberg and friends on Facebook about what I use for productivity and time management, and I said Google Calendar. When I got some feedback that their experience was less than stellar, I decided to share a screenshot of my GCal:

Google Calendar Week of Dec 6 2015
Google Calendar Week of Dec 6 2015

When they saw it, they asked if I would share my experience to demonstrate Google Calendar, and this week’s video is my answer.

I would love the opportunity to help you, wherever you are, when you are ready. I always enjoy talking with groups and people on topics like technology, training, open source, and design. If there is some way that I can help you with these and related topics, please contact lemasney at lemasney@gmail.com, 609 553 9498 or Let’s do something great together! This content is released under a creative commons attribution license, some rights reserved. cc-by lemasney

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to this site by using the subscription form in the sidebar. Maybe Facebook is more your thing? Like our Facebook page in the sidebar. We’re also on Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, and other social networks listed at the top of this page. Please like, comment, and share if you found this post useful, interesting, or kind!

What I Love About… cc-by lemasney

What I love about... cc-by lemasney
What I love about… cc-by lemasney

is a weekly video series in 2016. I’m using it in the same way I used 365 Sketches: to learn, to share, to master something I should be better at.The playlist is growing! Stay tuned throughout 2016, thumbs up and subscribe please, and thanks as always for your support!

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What I love about Inkscape cc-by lemasney (1/52)

What I love about inkscape thumbnail and title
What I love about inkscape thumbnail and title

What I love about Inkscape

What do I love about Inkscape? Why am I sharing it? I am committing myself to making one new video a week as part of a series. Each one will explore a different topic that I love, and hopefully effectively convey what I love about it. If you like them, please give them a thumbs-up on YouTube! If you like the series, go ahead and subscribe to the playlist on YouTube for more!

“Learn how to design your own original waveform tattoo with Inkscape, Audacity, and Linux! In this, the first of 52 planned videos for 2016, John LeMasney starts off the “What I love about…” series with a true love of his: Inkscape, the open source vector illustration application. Think Illustrator, but free as in freedom. In order to show his love, he’s going to share how to make your voice into a tattoo using free software like Ubuntu, Inkscape, and Audacity. It’s a fun time, and it would not be the same without you.    Music: Chorale Prelude ‘Machs mit mir, Gott, nach deiner Güt’, BWV 957 (Bach, 1880)” found in What I love about… Inkscape! – YouTube at

About LeMasney Consulting

I want to help people. I typically do this in regards to technology, productivity, or living, but I like talking with people about just about anything. If you think I might be able to help you, please contact me at lemasney@gmail.com or 609 553 9498. I’d love to either help you directly, or help you to get the help that you need – lemasney@gmail.com. Try me!