Still reading DeeDee Halleck's book... have taken a temporary break this week as I have a 60-page pdf scrapbook report due on friday and I've only done 10 pages. Should be working on it right now but i just wanted to give an update. My favorite part of DeeDee's book so far is all of the stuff on media democracy/global communications. It is interesting to learn about UNESCO's history. It seems that they were a lot more radical in the 80's... I did some research on their website and they have some cool projects but I didn't find anything as politically charged and anti-colonial/corporate as the MacBride Report. I looked up MacBride on their search engine and I got no hits. It seems like the report goes along with TIG's vision and I have been asking around the office to see if anyone's ever heard of it. I found a neat article from the UN site to the staff listserve with this HUGE article talking about media technology, monopolies, and global citizenship (http://www.undp.org/info21/bg/robinson.htm). Starting to realize how privileged I am as a "wired babe". Even if that means that when I go to a Linux Conference I get snickered at by white men in suites, at least I have the power to grasp this communication technology and create new media. I like DeeDee's idea of the whole point always being about sharing. I think I want to start getting involved with the TAO/OAT collective? I have a few friends who are involved with running their server.... I would learn a lot and then be able to apply the stuff I learned to help people. One of my dreams has been to run a gRRl-tech collective where we would train "at-risk" young womyn with computer stuff. I am tech savy compared to the average girl. Another thing that I learned at the linux conference is that womyn in technology always underestimate our knowledge base. I went with my friend Michelle and we talked to a lot of womyn that were at the booths. There was way more than last year but when we talked to them they always said "Well, I don't really know that much about it. You should ask him". It turned out that they did know a lot about the products they were talking about most of the time and could explain it better than the men (and with less pretension). After noticing that I've decided that I will stop dumbing down. I do know a lot about computers. What I don't know I'll learn and what I do know I'll try to share.