Notebook of Sand

• Recent Publications
• Recent Projects
• Conferences & Speaking
"Comparing Spatial Hypertext Collections"
  ACM Hypertext '09
"Archiving and Sharing Your Tinderbox"
  Tinderbox Weekend London '09
"The Electronic Nature of Future Literatures"
  Literary Studies Now, Apr '09
"The World University Project"
  St. John's Col. Cambridge, Feb '09
"Ethical Explanations,"
  The New Knowledge Forge, Jun '08
Lecture, Cambridge University
  Tragedy in E-Lit, Nov '07
Hypertext '07: Tragedy in E-Lit
Host for Tinderbox Cambridge '07
Keynote: Dickinson State Uni Conf
Upper Midwest NCHC'07: Speaker
eNarrative 6: Creative Nonfiction
HT'05: "Philadelphia Fullerine"
  Nelson award winning paper
NCHC '05:
 Nurturing Independent Scholarship
Riddick Practicum:
  Building Meeting Good Will
NCHC '04:
  Philadelphia Fullerine
  Lecture on American Studies
WWW@10: Nonfiction on the Web
NCHC '03: Parliamentary Procedure
ELL '03 -- Gawain Superstar
• (a)Musing (ad)Dictions:

Ideas. Tools. Art. Build --not buy. What works, what doesn't. Enjoy new media and software aesthetics at Tekka.

Theodore Gray (The Magic Black Box)

Faith, Life, Art, Academics. Sermons from my family away from home: Eden Chapel!

My other home: The Cambridge Union Society (in 2007, I designed our [Fresher's Guide])

The Economist daily news analysis

Global Higher Ed blog

• Hypertext/Writing

Writing the Living Web

Chief Scientist of Eastgate Systems, hypertext expert Mark Bernstein. (Electronic) Literature, cooking, art, etc.

Fabulous game reviews at playthisthing.

• Stats

Chapter I: Born. Lived. Died.

There is a Chapter II.

Locale: Lancaster County Pa, USA

Lineage: Guatemala

Religion: My faith is the primary focus of my life, influencing each part of me. I have been forgiven, cleansed, and empowered by Jesus Christ. Without him, I am a very thoughtful, competent idiot. With him, I am all I need to be, all I could ever hope for. I oppose institutional religious stagnation, but getting together with others is a good idea. God is real. Jesus Christ is his Son, and the Bible is true. Faith is not human effort. It's human choice. I try to be the most listening, understanding, and generous person I can.

Interests: Anything I can learn. Training and experience in new media, computer science, anglophone literature, education, parliamentary debate, democratic procedure, sculpture, and trumpet performance. Next: applied & computational linguistics, probably.

Education: Private school K-3. Home educated 4-12. Graduated Summa Cum Laude from Elizabethtown College in Jan 2006. As the 2006 Davies-Jackson Scholar, I studied English at St. John's College, Cambridge University from 2006 - 2008.

Memberships: Eden Baptist, Cambridge Union Society, ACM, AIP, GPA.

Alum of the Elizabethtown College Honors Program, sponsored by the Hershey Company.

I'm a Scavenging Geek Luddite
Saturday, 14 Feb 2004 :-:

I am still amazed by the fact that the part of counterculture led by Stewart Brand with the Whole Earth Catalog/Review and The WELL so completely decided that technology is the way to go. I am still amazed by the fact that we code monkeys still believe it, even as we are used to build the systems that bless and curse us from the sad heights of beaurocracy and power.

Is technology the only way to personal freedom in a mechanical world? Can we really use the System to get out from underneath it? Are we not its builders? By legitimizing ourselves to culture/industry's foolishness, do we not legitimize the System?

That all depends on your definition of technology, freedom, and system. What ever happened to Fanatic Life and Symbolic Life Among the Computer Bums? What happened to all the grand dreams of the people and the people who followed them?

Does an understanding of Foucaults biopolitics, or any other deeply complex theory really make a huge difference in someone's quality of life? No! (at least not unless one's quality of life is furthered by being willing and capable to explain complicated theories for a salary).


Technology rarely turns out as we expect.

Either technology can't ultimately help people where they need help, or I'm selfish. Both.


The people who talk about technology, freedom, and culture, why are they comfortable academic types and businessmen, at least now that the sixties are over? Do I have to answer their questions? I don't think so (is this how the world of ideas advances? By subsequent generations deciding that the past generations' questions are defunct? How silly. Now it's my turn. The questions of the past are defunct.).

I choose to be tethered to the practical. I choose to refuse the goal of enlarging my mind under the pretense of doing something good for humanity. I choose to get to work as much as I can in my current situation, wherever I am, to benefit my fellow humans. I choose to use whatever tool is best, and I choose to competently evaluate what is best, but not so much that I get distracted in evaluation and development.

I am a Scavenging Geek Luddite.