I love this so, so very much.

So this dude doesn’t like how time is measured. Seconds are too fast. Our concept of days and weeks is meaningless. It’s hard to look at the big picture when we’re counting every moment of our life in seconds and minutes instead of memories, experiences, and years.

So he creates a new clock. Actually, he kickstarts it. So far he’s raised more than double his goal and if you pledge $120 or more you get one of “The Present” once it’s produced in early 2012.

The clock is… beautiful. It’s simple. It’s obvious. And it’s wonderful and I want one. Just watch the video after the jump.

It’s been a good week, but hectic and stressful. I found out we’ve secured a new townhouse across town, so I will be moving soon. I guest lectured with TechChange on Wednesday, which was a blast. I attended the NASA tweetup on Thursday with Chris Golden (@chrisgolden), which was obviously awesome. And then today I hit up the Give To The Max Day training event at AARP.

On top of all of that, I got my new iPhone 4S. Obviously, also awesome. See my first iPhone 4S photo below, as proof (of course, it’s a photo of Walter Cronkat).

Tomorrow, Joe Gizzi (@districtjoe) and I are taking off for New York City on the Bluebrain DC to NYC trip. It’s going to be an amazing weekend. A little about the trip:

Please join Bluebrain for an exclusive excursion to New York City to experience their new location-aware album Listen to the Light in Central Park. Trip includes bus transportation, Listen to the Light experience in Central Park, You Are Here: Washington DC art exhibit featuring DC artists, and an after-party at Lit Lounge (featuring DC’s Shark Week and Cracked Latin). We are truly excited so many awesome DC things are happening at the same time.

In other words, it’s going to rock.

I probably won’t be online much during the trip, but I’ll be taking pictures (on my new iPhone!) and tweeting my way throughout the weekend. Rest assured there will be an awesome wrap-up blog post once it’s all over. If anyone is living and/or staying in New York this weekend and wants to meet up for an impromptu tweetup, let me know! Just give me a shout on Twitter, @alexpriest.

Call me a crazy liberal, but I find it difficult to argue with the success and the good things that came out of the WPA. This article on Brainpicker got me thinking–while I agree with the idea of the stimulus, maybe we should’ve structured it a little more like we did way back when. Problem is, something like that would never happen today. It’s too much government power, it’s taking power away from the private sector. I can see conservatives now–they call Obama socialist already! What if he passed a package like this?

And of course that’s regardless of the results. There’s no doubt in my mind that a renaissance of the WPA to help us tackle the current crisis would’ve helped us recover more quickly than almost any other solution. But conservatives will be conservatives, and they would never in a million years even dream of support such a “radical” solution.

That’s not even to mention the cultural and artistic brilliance that came out of the era. Brainpicker said it best:

We just wish the political powers of the day would consider investing in such art-driven efforts the way the WPA did. What would $7 billion be, adjusted for inflation? Roughly $160 billion. And how does that compare to what today’s government is investing in war? As the kids say, just sayin’.

I couldn’t agree more. Check out some of the amazing posters on this Flickr set.

What do you think? Would you like to see this? Is it too “socialist” for you? I’m curious.

Passion poured out in the form of ten completely different presentations, all united around a single purpose: to share what they’re thinking, dreaming and doing. This was Chispa D.C.

At first, I was on the fence about attending. I’ve got lots of schoolwork, I’m clearly behind on my blogging, I’ve got enough reading to do to keep me engrossed for 48 hours straight… but this was well worth it. Never again will I question going to an event in D.C. like this–these don’t happen every day, and each one is another chance to learn and to grow. Check below the cut for a quick summary and some of the photos I shot tonight.

The event kicked off with Jared Ball, presenting his views on “mixtape radio, emancipatory journalism and anti-colonial media.” Was it a bit radical? Of course–he argued that capitalism is equal to commoditization, and that we’re witnessing neoslavery in the prison system of the United States. My views certainly differ from his in many ways, but it’s always fascinating to hear different viewpoints, no matter how “radical” they may seem to some.

The first half of the event was mostly speaking presentations. But boy were they good.

Regina Holliday was fired up as always!

We heard from Kristy Li Puma Herrera about her fascinating life bouncing back and forth between living in the U.S. and visiting her family back in Lima, Peru. ”Packing a suitcase is like an act of subversion,” she said, saying that really, the different parts of the world aren’t as backwards, as different, or as far apart as they may seem.

Adam Eig showed us some absolutely incredible photographs of his cross-country motorcycle trip and spoke about the lessons he learned along the way.

“Sometimes you have to drive on the wrong side of the road… to get a good shot,” he said.
“This is a journey you can have walking down the street.”
“There’s a lot of reasons to smile,” said Adam, as we go about the world we live in.

All incredibly valuable lessons. Most importantly though, he wrapped up with some of the best advice I think I’ve ever heard: “Live, smile, enjoy, appreciate.” Love it.

Loryn Wilson told us about why “black girls rule the Twitter world.” Charlie Seashore gave us an awesome presentation relating the challenge of diversity to a wide variety of chickens. “Being adult is hard work,” he said, “It involves speaking out and pushing back.” We should look at being adult as a moment in time, not a stage of life. You can choose to “act like an adult” or let our your childish side–that’s ok too.

The second half of the event kicked off with a bang after a quick intermission. Tiik with G.U.T.S., a local indie band, kicked off the fun with three of their songs. Binahkaye Joy followed them up with a lesson in “booty” that ended up with the entire room on their feet, dancing around and shaking their booties. “A liberated booty is a liberated being,” was her mantra.

“The Holy Grail Gone Wild” was Zaccai Free‘s wild presentation that, I’m pretty sure, just about blew everyone’s mind. Relating sex and religion in some no doubt controversial ways, it was fascinating to watch and certainly an attention-getter. The HollabackDC crew gave an awesome presentation with the brilliant Regina Holliday and Josef Palermo of CHarts, the Columbia Heights Arts Foundation.

And finally, the event wrapped up with a great presentation by the Potomac Group, LLC, about “The Dream and the Drama”–power, conflict and structure within social justice organizations, possibly the more incredibly relevant and important topic of the night for all us activists in the room.

For more info on the presenters tonight, check out their bios on the ChispaDC blog.

I could literally talk for hours about how much fun the event was, how great it was to see friends, meet new people, and hear new and fascinating ideas. But I’ll stop here and instead ask you: why weren’t you there? Follow me on Twitter and rest assured I’ll let you know when the next ChispaDC is coming up. I dare you, come out and see what all the fuss is about–it was well worth it.

Oh, and don’t forget to check out my photos from the event on Flickr here, or just by scrolling through the slideshow below.