Education and the Arts
I am, of course, interested in all types of writing and theatre, and I'm absolutely fascinated with education in general. Aside from this, I used to be a moderately successful musician and singer in school, and this has led to my becoming a magpie collector of music. If you've got something interesting, I wanna hear it!
Dogs
I have an extreme passion for dogs, and animals in general. I'm very passionate about the issues of animal rescue and discrimination against strong breeds. For these causes, I'm developing my retirement plan to involve running a rescue centre for banned breeds in the UK. I'm also extremely interested in animal behaviour. I have been working with and training dogs since I was a child, and today I am honing my dog skills on my own dog, Bogie. Bogie is fully obedience trained (not to competition level), we are always adding new tricks to his repertoire, and I do practice a few agility obstacles with him (he has an unfortunate structure, especially in his hind end that makes me refrain from really getting into this). Our next project as partners is to work on therapy certifications. I'd like to find a certification that allows me to take him wherever I go.
Technology
I love computers and programming, especially web design. This has led to lots of work on wikis, mostly WoWWiki, since 2007. One of these days I will actually get my website together using MediaWiki software. I am hugely into the wiki concept. I am especially fond of the organisational structure of it.
Free knowledge v. intellectual property
I am interested in seeing the free knowledge concept realised, but I question the use of the term "sustainable" used within its preachings. It is difficult for me to see the production of free knowledge, by an individual on a full-time basis, as being "sustainable". For most people, one has a day job that supports and often takes a leading role in the production of free knowledge.
But, what about the creative ones, the entertainers? Surely they produce informative works, but somehow I see the result of "free knowledge", as applied to these works, being a choice between taking one's checks from Google Analytics and restricting one's creativity to a part time schedule. I would be interested in an experiment on the worth of intellectual property as presented by voluntary payment for said property. What do the masses think the creatives ones' efforts are actually worth? Could one actually make a living that way? Might such a situation herald a new beginning for barter and trade sustainability?
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Jesse Groppi
