in a week (starting on june 16th) i will be unplugging. that means no surfing, no rss reading, minimal email reading, no chat, no irc, no online news feeds directly to my brain, no blog reading, no blog commenting, no keeping up with the joneses of teh internets, and probably no blogging for a while (until i pass info that warrants blogability via a third party who will post for me). why? well the net has filled the dark, dank, black hole that was left when i threw out my tv in 2001. also, in august it will have been two years since i was first hired to blog for money. that has opened up some fantastic opportunities and i don’t regret blogging my little heart out, and i certainly have met a bajillion fantastic people via the net and blogging,
but along with the good comes the bad. trolls, addiction to news, spam, splogs, sockpuppets, gaming the system, and all that nasty internet cruft. the photo posted above is there to represent the happy times, those i want to remember, and i know there will be many to come, but i feel as though me being on the net 24/7 is impairing some of that crazy creativity i tend to adore.

i will probably plug back in at the earliest during or after cccamp. if you are freaking out about getting in contact with me, you probably have my email already (which i will check probably once a week) and/or a real voice phone number for me, or you will see me at cccamp (or before at a barcamp i will attend in paris on june 23rd).

if you are someone who is expecting some hardware to be hacked by me (you are numerous), this unplugging is largely for you, i will still be in contact with you and unplugging will give me the time to solder and tinker on the devices you have so graciously sent to me, handed to me, or described in enough detail that i can make interface cables. even last night allowed me to work on a buffered jtag wiggler cable that wasn’t completed from my workshop at ph a few weeks ago (pictured below).

what unplugging does not entail: i will still be using the net for cvs/svn sources, and via a second person for documentation if i’m really in a pinch. unplugging also does not mean i will be turning off all electrical devices. the point of this unplug is so that i can get some hardware and other projects done and in working states. many computers and soldering irons will be on and in constant use. when i come back i intend to have the large part of those unfinished or unstarted projects documented and will share them back here on this blog. i’ve also been asked what about flickr and knitting!!???!??! i will still be taking photos, if they get uploaded before i plug back in, that will be by someone else to my account, and the same goes for knitting. i do know that my sp10 pal is rockingly awesome, and i will let you know who that person is when that person reveals themselves to me this month. there may be some updates about sockapalooza here as well, also posted by my trusted person-that-is-not-me but lives with me. *smile* in any case, this is not adieu, but a toute a l’heure. i’ll be back in mid-august. until then, don’t forget to be silly.