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Recoded: 26 July 2007
Locations: Antwerp, Belgium
Tags: drupal, open source, linus torvalds, angela byron, history of drupal, kernel trap, inspiration, empowerment
Music: ana (captain planet remix), vieux farka touré and captainplanet
About: after much wrangling and rescheduling, dries and i finally caught up to talk about the history of drupal, his inspiration, and most importantly the empowerment of community.

important links to note...
- drupal.org
- groups.drupal.org
- buytaert.net
- kerneltrap.org
- slashdot.com
- amnesty.org
- greenpeace.org

on a side note, thank you OpenCraft for giving me a home to edit this video!
also, i'd like to thank dries and karlijn on their new boy and omar for his hospitality in cairo.

it's been two days since i've eaten a real meal. two nights ago, i headed out with hayal pozanti and her two friends, gokce and matan. after bouncing around from a street cafe, to an open air cafe, we climbed into an elevator to a roof top cafe for a taste of traditional turkish delights and anisette. covered in yogurt and rich sauces, we dinned in blissful content.

around 1am, we strung up our sails and departed to our abodes.

after a few hours of delightful dreams, i found my self in a place like none other. surround by unspeakable horror, i struggled to pull my self from the nightmare on elm street horror into the real world.

my eyes opened, my head swelled and my mouth filled. lucky, i was able to jimmy the door open, and rock my head toward what this hostel called a toilet. needless to say, you can put the rest together.

(warning, graphic content ahead... but like that night, if i don't get it out now... you might never make it to the plot...)

every thirty minutes or so, i found myself in another unpleasant world; desiring i was not shackled to a six room dorm room with five other unhappy, i managed to make it to the bathroom.

after the first hour, i howled every imaginable curse world and drank two liters of water.

after the second hour, i debated calling an ambulance and in between the dry heaves, munched four tablets of pepto and drank another liter of water.

during the third hour, i prayed, shat my pants and with all my might extruded the three or so liters that sat unpleasantly within my system.

somewhere among all those things. something worked. something unexplainable worked. for lack of a better term a miracle...

back in 1996, a similar incident happened, sans the alcohol part. for 48 hours, i convulsed in an american university dorm room. depleted of everything, i was rushed to the emergency room and placed under 24 hour supervision.

back in 1996, my father rushed from ohio to take care me...

alone. cold. rotting in hostel more apropo to a squat. i wondered what would take care of me this time...

one of the more interesting parts of this journey has been the discussion of faith. from the jewish quarter in prague, to a brief mash-up discussion on the streets of paris, to dries and an intimate conversation about baptism, to a punk rock bar in amsterdam drinking with three dutch jews and debating Mormonism, to openly debating religion in istanbul...

faith has become a current, but my faith does not have a title, name or singular belief. when i departed, i set out not knowing what i will find, but knowing what i will change me and embolden my faith....

... but if i was to discuss religion, what faith do i espouse?
... do i say i was a catholic, because my parents baptized me when i was born?
... am i mormon because i was raised in the mormon church and know it best?
... do i say i'm i a Buddhist, since i once studied it?
... i'm not just agnostic ...

BUT what i will say... faith comes in all different shapes and colors. don't be afraid of your passions, desires and most importantly your beliefs. refuse to take the world at it's face value... prove to yourself that mind is stronger than matter. if you want to change your world... take it by the horns and run!

last night, i had the wonderful opportunity to dine with Dries Buytaert, founder of the drupal project. after a brief introduction to antwerp, we headed to his house where i had the lovely opportunity to meet and chat with Karlijn, Dries' lovely wife and a very expecting mother.

as we talked about life and our history growing up in rural communities, we delved deep into the concept of a world that can never forget. more frightening, we discussed society as producers of content and waxed about no longer having the ability to protect our intellectual property and privacy.

divided by corporations and government, the world that surrounds us is no longer free. monitored by corporation through our consumption, capitalized by our social networks, analyzed though our credit cards and buying clubs, and tracked by CCTV cameras, the modern world is facing a fundamental battle for freedom.

while one my say that google's "do no evil" policy is great, but it also brings back the concept of benevolent dictators. with no opportunity to click "remove" and with less opportunities for successful alternatives, we blindly produce content for corporations to thrive. from flickr, myspace, and google (just to name a few)... none of these companies would exist without our explicit consent.

as users, we also live in a world that can never forget. from the way-back-machine to search engine algorithms, our online identity is forever locked in locations we can not access. traded as a commodity, our identity is no longer human.

what are our options? ultimate transparency or fascism?

regardless, we are looking at world without privacy, and at worse a world with fractured identities.

as we move forward, how do we tell corporations that we want them to respect us as equals?

I plan on starting my trip in Europe. From 7/8 July to 7/8 Aug, I will bounce around looking to cover as much as possible. If you have something to add, please feel free!

Week 1

• 08 July - 1 hour in Barcelona
• 08 - 09 July - 22 hours in Pamplona for Running of the Bulls, i'm in need of a guide and couch to crash
• i never found internet and there for never met up with Lauryn Dempsey
• 09 - 14 July - Flight to Prague to teach at Transitions Online's New Media Essentials (thanks Evgeny Morozov)
• castle Konopiste

Week 2

• 14 - 18 July - Berlin, Germany
• Meet with Travis J. Todd and Freelance/Coworking Berlin community
• Interview regine from http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/
• tour the subway bunker
• street art festival

• 19 - 22 July
• London, UK
• hang out with Joey Baxter and Alex Deschamps-Sonsino
• Steve Purkis
• Mongol Rally and profile team Mr. Dinosaur
• check out Hardcore Hardware Hacking Weekend
• Brighton, UK
• Profile Tactical Tech and Dirk Slater.
• Visit Quadrophina locations

Week 3

• 23 - 25 July - Paris, France
• Interviews with Barcamp and Coworking community. Paris Coworking
• Couchsurfing Collective Paris 2007 Project
• Meetup with Eric-Olivier Lamey
• 26 July - Antwerp, Belgium
• Interview with Dries Buytaert Drupal founder and pioneer of open source
• 27 - 30 July - Amsterdam, NL
• hangout with andy smith and friends
• profile individuals at RoomWare DevHuis 6 at wakoopa's office

Week 4 & 5

• 31 July - Eindoven, NL
• profile and hang out with Joshua Kauffman
• 1 - 8 Aug - Istanbul, Turkey CS info
• Hostel - http://www.chillouthc.com @ 10 euros a night
• basilica cistern
• grand bazaar
• Hagia Sophia
• the blue mosque
• couchsurfers
• erdal aka eternity and a day
• kenan aka keyno
• isa aka ISAFAKIR
• still looking for more couchsurfers...