I love this place... the conversations which have, quite literally, evolved on here over the last few months have been a constant source of inspiration. The Huge Entity Forum has attracted interesting minds with interesting views on reality - rare that such pleasures converge so readily.
In about 2 months from now I will be leaving my life in Japan and heading back to the UK, via various, and as yet undecided, places. I would like to think that in my absence (of a few months) this place will continue to grow, taking directions I never could have imagined. Regular mind manipulator Idoru345 has said he will look after this place somewhat whilst I roam, I hope you guys have enjoyed this space enough to keep coming back.
Also, very shortly, there should be an update to the software this forum is based on (Vanilla v 1.0). It will bring with it all manner of goodies including easier editing, the abiliity to upload your own images, flickr intergration, personalised RSS feeds and loads more than I can yet guess.
So I ask you...
What would you change about this forum if it were yours alone to manage? I would love to know the kind of chat you'd like to see more of, less of... things I have done right so far and things I could improve on. What would it take to make this place feel more of a home and less of a drop-in bedsit?
I'll occasionally skip over a thread that's introduced by a big-long paragraph full of philosophical jargon, only to return and discover I've been missing out on an interesting conversation. Introductory subheadings (teasers) for each thread would help me remember what I wanted to keep my eye on and may help users structure their initial posts.
Re: Titles . . . Titles for each post might be nice, too. "Re: your post," "On a different--but related--note," "Straight from outer space . . ." On the interwebs, titles and sub-headings and crap like that help convey personality.
Yes, as Danieru says, I'll be trying to keep things moving in a, if not precisely forward, then perhaps usefully multidimensional direction while he travels.
So, I'm also curious to learn everyone's thoughts about how to make the forum, which is already very enjoyable, even sharper.
Well, I’d like it if my login name was remembered each time I come to the forums. I think it’s only me who seems to have this problem. I have to login in each time I want to post, even if I ask it to remember me… it’s not a cookies problem, I don’t think, because I remain logged in at all the other forums I visit. *shrug*
Apart from that I’m not really sure. I like the way things look. It’s very different to other forums, but it works. Everything seems pretty much in order. We just need more people posting here, which requires advertising or something. We could snoop around some philosophy forums and whatnot.
Hopefully the login issues should be solved with the updated version. I have to login every time I come to the forum too, although not every post.
I will definitely strike the advertising world hard when the new version arrives. I have some good blog connections so hopefully people will advertise for me. I am relying on cliff pickover (again) for the really big numbers, let's hope he'll pass on the forum to his readership.
If you are interested at all go and take a look at the forum for the forum at lussumo.com, you should get a sense of what will be possible with the new upgrade there. I love this forum software, so simple and customisable. Everyone will get a say in what makes it into Huge-Entity Form Version 2...
'If you build it they will come'.......am i quoting kevin costner movies?...help....make sure you check in frater dan.the odd postcard from internet cafes on the frontier.how could i not be happy? i now know how to make paragraphs, though today i've gone off the shift key...
Planning to travel the length and breadth of Indonesia starting from the SE and working my way towards Malaysia:
I can't wait.
I plan to check in to internet cafes every so often, but the liberty which arises from backpacking through such vast spaces will probably cancel out any desire I may have to work on this website. A break is in order. When I get back to the UK my mind afresh will once again sift the data streams looking for nuggets of perceptual gold to plunder.
At least I hope so.
Whilst we are on the subject of future plans, how do you guys find most of your time spent? I know how most of you think, but have little inkling as to your whereabouts, careers, relationships etc. I suppose the internet is all about anonymous exchange, but hey...
Even if your Internet access is spotty, I hope you'll store multi-gigs of images of your journey to share upon your return.
As for my daily life...
There's family...which is my wife, a daughter and several elders who robustly endure, depending upon me to explain an ever stranger world. Hopefully, if I achieve advanced age, there'll be someone around willing to return the favor.
And then there's work, which is, as the credit card applications phrase it, "technology-related" (specifically, systems security and infrastructure engineering consulting: think UNIX, think clusters, think pharmaceuticals).
I live in Philadelphia, a, by American standards, old city of more than 300 years. It sports a faded imperial grandeur and rough charm. Suburbanites love to describe its dangers. I think this (not entirely unjustified) scary talk serves as a kind of mind-performed adventure movie; story tellers can claim to have survived profound peril merely by driving down a less-than-potemkin-perfect city street.
Sadly, work absorbs so much time that other pleasures (playing with the kid, playing with my wife, writing lovingly crafted mini-essays for my blog and this forum, among other delights) must be scheduled.
Lyall Watson..'Gifts of Unknown Things' an insight into indiginous Indonesian beliefs...I havent thought of that book for 25 years....I've got to stop babbling on about he past like a yorkshireman in a Monty Python sketch, but, hell, lets get it done. I'm 52 come september, and, after the life I've lived, thats getting pretty close to my statistical Omega Point. I was born in Brisbane.au. five years before the arrival of TV, with steam trains, iceboxes, outside toilets with sawdust and newspapers. Bog Irish catholic, after losing my merit book in grade one, the Nuns decided I didn't deserve any credit for doing my sums right, so I thought that if they dont want to give me credit, I dont care, I don't want any credit. I haven't looked back. I've been in and out of university like it were prison and have still managed not to be formally recognised for anything. I love it. I've two sons 19&23they put up with my ranting and I feed and clean...good womans work.....a hint of the contempt I hold for the greedy pig alpha males that run our world like gangsters. I am omega male and when the time comes I will stand amidst their remains, well, maybe I might gloat a little. I style myself an ontographer, mapping the infinite expanse of being, the phase space of consciousness. I follow the Tao and was cultivating synchronicities long before that bastard Sting ever heard the word. I'm still runnig about twenty years ahead of the world, but the old brain is running pretty rough.One hundred thousand years of homo sap. sap. and we've only just filled the world, the only new boundary is up. Interesting times? (a chinese curse) you bet. Tomorrow I'll get my gear out of the pawn shop, have a smoke and a drink and spend the day cranking out demented guitar improvisations, Thankfully I live in Australia, where they pay us who are surplus to requirements, enough money to live quite comfortably while doing what the alphas think of as nothing. Suits me The day after, I'll spend practicing Realisation. Much more fun than mere knowing. Our Universe may be many things, but it is certainly alive! Bon Voyage Danieru, as one of the Buddhas said, 'what will we become?
Do you have any ideas for new categories? I think the new updated forum will be online real soon, a couple of extra categories would be spanking. What is this forum missing?
All ideas welcome...
P.S. Apologies for recent image troubles on the site. Internet Explorer is a bitch... Please, if you post images, try and limit their width to 450px at the most. You can use width="450px" to do this. If it's smaller than this, no worries...
how about a game of ' lets make up a story'? I remember the game from one of those writing courses that some of us are driven to take through pure boredom. Someone start, a sentence a, paragraph, page or bloody chapter, don't matter. Don't let me start or the protagonist will be confronting intelligent Komodo dragons in the wilds of Indonesia.
I've got the love interest; a third generation hybrid girl child, the product of the union between a stranded japanese soldier from WW2 and a hobbit (of the recently discovered tiny relative type, not a frodo)
