Done yesterday (20111015 Sa)

So... a good day. Not much more than that, but solidly in the "good" area. Mostly, I spent the mid-to-late afternoon down at City Hall with the Occupy San Jose folks. Mostly standing around and talking to people. They have about half a dozen small tents set up, and it feels like a friendly group. They apparently have a good relationship with the police, so they're likely to be there for the long haul. I spent most of my time hanging out at the table they have set up near the tents, talking to Mark, who is apparently one of the leaders of the group.

I like this movement -- they're not aligning themselves with any political party (why alienate half your potential allies?), they're making their decisions by consensus, and they're pointing out that things are WRONG rather than immediately making demands or proposing "solutions".

The logo on their donation page is particularly cool.

There's also a loosely-affiliated Bank Transfer Day action: the idea is to transfer money out of banks and into credit unions, which are local and non-profit. I'm not really in a position to close my accounts at Union Bank (which isn't so bad, as banks go), but I'm going to move most of the money in the savings account over to my credit union (Alliance).

I also like their choice of day for it -- November 5^th.

Quite a few good links below in the notes. In addition to the inevitable Occupy... stuff, there's Eric Raymond's excellent Ubuntu and GNOME jump the shark. Yes, I've installed Oneiric. I don't like it either; fortunately I can always keep using CTWM.

( raw notes )