Testing

I’ve decided that self-hosted websites are a thing of the past. My meryn.nl domain will eventually become meaningless. At least WordPress.com has a clear incentive to keep my data intact, and they, or their successors will probably do so until this data has no more reason for existence at all.

It’s not wise to launch an international, democratic, open source space exploration effort at the same day the Olympic Games of Beijing start. It steals away your thunder, especially with their fireworks. Yet I want to launch on a special day. And while this day, 08-08-08 (or Entropy Eightball, as I call it) seemed like a good choice at first, I guess I’ll need to wait till an other opportunity presents itself.

So, while today won’t be the official launch of Enterprise-ready, I do want to give you a little bit in the mean time. I give you the official theme song: Forever Today by DJ Tiesto.

If you want to get some sense of where my head is at, listen to the track. I can imagine you don’t have it handy, but you can find it on Seeqpod. I’ve embedded it below.

[Edit: it's not embedded anymore because WordPress.com does not support this at the moment. Open MP3 Player in new window.]

Before you read on, turn on your speakers, or put your headphones on. You’ll need it to understand the things below.

Now imagine this as the soundtrack of a short movie. It’s a story about the world. A story about what was, what is, and what is gonna be. A story of hope, of wonder, of perseverance, and redemption; about the smallness of one human life, and the greatness of humanity. A story about man’s quest for justice and about man’s wish for peace.

Now, imagine – the same theme played live, for a large, diverse and international audience, on a historical moment on a historical day. The introduction played by a full orchestra, with sublime execution, and the finest of detail. Soft colors, soft words floating through the air. Faces softly smiling, softly crying, hopeful, open and receptive, strong, determined, lost for words, but ready.

Then the build-up follows. The track is playing from its original source, changeable at will. One man for the audio, one man for the visuals. Fully attuned to each other, everything is right. Now, a person comes on stage, feeling the music, showing the music, conducting the emotion, showing what he feels.

Now remember, this is only a story, containing glimpses of the future. For some part, the space exploration is real, but for some part, it’s a metaphor.

We’re in space, yet near the Earth. We see a pilot in a cockpit, first one, then ever more. Like birds they’re flocking together, each steering their own ship. We see people looking each other in the eyes. They understand each other. They have no need for words. They know they want to go some place together. Yet, there is no leader, there’s no-one in charge. They’ve overcome their need for this. Using their own hearts as a compass, they’re coming to an agreement about where they should be heading, slowly but surely aligning themselves with each other. They’re finding their true north.

Out of their own free will, they’re perfectly aligned. Self-assured and kind, they seem to move as one. They simultaneously start their engines, setting course to the unknown.

I just hit 5000 bookmarks on del.icio.us/meryn. Worth a note, I thought. The 5000th bookmark was for an upcoming EPA Climate Report, which states in a press release:

Various U.S. census regions to expect higher rates of death and disease, economic dislocation, property loss and strain on government services.

That’s no small stuff.

After spending lots of time on the intellectual front, I’ve been captured by something completely new: Designing a whole new way of living. I have a feeling that if we let loose of imaginary constraints, we can have it all: sustainability, luxury, comfort, meaning and joy, It all depends on the right mindset, the right culture.

In fact, it won’t be that new, because I’m just going to copy the best parts of everything I’ve seen of others. The main difference is that I’m going to integrate them all in one package. I’m going to show that all good things fit together.

In essence, I’m going to build utopia. It will be very exclusive, because it requires a very far developed mind, which can’t be found in many people today I believe. I think it can only grow organically. But I’m fully committed to build it. I don’t want the future to be anything else.

So after a long path of research and exploration, I’m back at what I do best: Imagining systems for the benefit of people. I know I can do this.

I’ll be in touch.

Today is my birthday. I’m turning 25. This seems like a good time to reflect how far I’ve come since, and share it with you, dear readers. I’ll make the list 25 items long: Pretty clever if I may so myself!

1. Finished high school.
2. Made some friends, lost some friends.
3. Gained and lost some family members.
4. Lost my virginity.
5. Let my hair grow, cut my hair short, let my hair grow.
6. Dropped out of college twice, no thrice.
7. Thought up my own software company – Entropy, and a consultancy – Edgework.
8. Learned myself programming, made a nice amount of money.
9. Gave up on making money, gave up on programming.
10. Found the girl I want to marry, yet still haven’t had the nerve to approach her.
11. Lived in four cities, decided that The Hague is the best town after all.
12. Read too many books, read way too many blogs, bookmarked nearly 5000 pages.
13. Got acquainted with a lovely girl from West Virginia.
14. Got acquainted with a wonderful woman from California.
15. Decided to become a billionaire before I turn 35.
16. Set up my own open source international space-travel project.
17. Developed my own Star Trek inspired dress-style.
18. Developed my own vision of the future, mainly based on findings from positive psychology and real-life observations around the world.
19. Tried out every imaginable social media service, but never liked anyone of them much.
20. Been the subject of a somewhat strange story by some guy from Ghana.
21. Got in touch with my feelings. I’m far more sensitive than I ever held possible.
22. Learned to appreciate nature, and became very eco-conscious in general.
23. Developed a taste in music.
24. Been rebellious, been conforming, now learning to be myself.
25. Started and restarted this blog.

Everything I’ve left out is probably not that important.

For anyone wondering what I’m busy with: I’m building up a blogroll. I do this not by searching for new blogs, but by choosing from blogs I was already subscribed to. What ends up in my blogroll are those blogs which I feel I can publicly defend to be reading: The blogs with content that I think are actually worth my time.

The reason for this is simple: If I ever want to get to some serious writing, I need to cut down my reading list drastically. So I’m doing this for the sake of this blog.

In the meantime, I’m thinking up potential titles for blog posts. I’ve already got 50 or so I think.

This night when I was lying in bed, I thought I could better explain my choice for orange right away.

1. Orange is Kayla’s favorite color. She has a special place in my heart.
2. Orange is one of the surnames of the Dutch Royal Family. I like the fact that The Netherlands still has a royal family. I think the royal family are great representatives for international affairs, and it also provides a sense of continuity from the past.
3. Orange is the color of The Netherlands. The colors of our flag are red-white-blue, but on festive occasions, we add an orange pennant (I just looked up the word) above the flag. Our national soccer and hockey team play in an orange outfit. I’m not very Dutch-oriented, but I do like to show my Dutch heritage. Since I think I’ll be mainly writing about global issues, and not even in Dutch, I can at least let a little something from The Netherlands creep through.
4. Orange is a both bright and warm color.
5. “The future is bright, the future is Orange.” This has been the slogan for my mobile telecom provider Orange. I’ve been an Orange customer for over five years I think. I’ve probably seen the word “Orange” on my telephone display every time I made a call in those years. Sometimes, you just have to learn to be receptive what the universe is trying to tell you. 
6. Orange is as far as I know, an color that is yet untaken by any large movement: Green stands for sustainability and respect for nature. Blue (by Adam Werbach) includes green but adds an healthy, happy and active lifestyle. Red (in the form of Product Red, by Bono & Co) stands for social justice and ending poverty. I’ve defined orange as including red, green and blue, but adding an (undefined) common purpose for the whole of mankind, so we have a way to judge the effectiveness of our activities, instead of only staring at GDP numbers to conclude we have either more or less of something. There comes a point when enough is enough. 
7. Orange is the official color for my top-secret international open source space-travel project called Enterprise-ready. Oh well, now I said it. The funny thing is that almost no one is reading this, and the one’s who do probably won’t take it very seriously. But in case you’re wondering: Yes, I own the dot-com.

This merely to show you that orange is not a random pick. 

I’m such a big fan of La Marguerite, that I’m trying to emulate its style on my blog. I’m gonna practically clone it. What’s happened so far:

• I’ve changed the blog name to “Meryn’s Place“, which should give the impression of a place you can actually be at. In a sense, you’re invited to my place. You can freely look around, only say hi, or talk with me and others here; whatever pleases you. This is an open place.
• I’ve changed the font to Verdana, because, like on La Marguerite, it gives the blog just that kind of “rough” and “unprofessional” look. 
• I’ve selected one prominent color: Orange. The use of a single color makes it the same as La Marguerite, while the use of a different color makes it different, just like La Marguerite is different from the rest. The reasons for orange are many fold, something I will probably address another time. I know that at first thought, green would be a more natural choice for someone who’s gonna talk a lot about green stuff. so I have to take on the challenge to show you that orange can be just as green. 

Coming up:

• A full-width header image: I’ll try to photograph the dunes of The Hague on which I look out to from my room. This will also support the “Meryn’s Place” theme.
• An about page with some personal information.
• A contact form for people who want to send me a private message.

After various retries, I decided that I simply can’t write a short introduction. That is, I can’t write it in a short time. So there will be no proper introduction. This blog has just been relaunched.

For all interested parties: My name is Meryn Stol. I’m a 24 year old guy from The Netherlands. I’m living with my mother in The Hague. I don’t have a day job, and I’m not planning to get one any time soon. I did some freelance software development in the past, but it started to bore me so I quit.

I’m now trying to figure out the way the world is heading in a broad sense, I’m reading from every source which could possibly be of relevance, varying from hard science to casual remarks by tech bloggers. I’ve developed a special interest in environmental and social activism, because I think this tells us most about the future.

I’m obviously very concerned about the current state of the world, but all in all, I expect everything to rurn out just fine. The main question is when, how much suffering there will be in the meantime, how much resources we have wasted and how much of our natural heritage we have destroyed by then. Right now I’m not really in touch with my feelings, which might be a good thing, but I can honestly tell you I’m really, really bothered by the way things are going right now.

So I want to change the world, that is, help change the world. This blog will be mainly about that, I think. But I make no promises.

I hope you subscribe and, if you do, I hope you enjoy my subsequent posts.

Marguerite, I still owe you a letter.