Why do I keep pushing for 1285 to be this impossible thing? I want to break free from myself.
Today got spent by talking about me needing to be firm, not so kind, for the work may not proceed.
I have written something incredible in Archive , but then I think it is garbage and I’m right. My things are always awesome for me, garbage for others.
But then, there are so many people who love to have my things. I’m tired.
My day got spent obsessing over Esterbrook’s pen cases. I really wish I could have one.
Around when I was eleven or twelve, my parents bought me a LEGO NXT. And I couldn’t do anything with it, I understood no English, and so the best I could do was to make it play Beethoven’s For Elise,
And I learned programming through Microsoft Research’s TouchDevelop language on Windows Phone.
And I even became No. 1 in many of their “bazaar” charts, that’s how I became a friend with Micha , he hacked one of my apps.
I made some of my first apps with Microsoft Small Basic, and MonoDevelop. All the niche things.
Patoo and jr are still missing.
Marketing— Sub-Graph Transfer initiation—is interesting. Everyday I have to commute a few times and in each car, I sit, I get nervous, I then say this engineered message of “please drive slower” that my hundreds of times of use has made sure the driver won’t get angry, only upset.
Interesting part of it is that, while for them it is once in a lifetime, for me it is many times a day, it puts me in a very bizarre position. The 500 first dates movie perhaps, or initiating a conversation with LLMs, and Buddha forbid, flirting with people.
Oh and so I was thinking how stupid the idea of “benchmarking” is yesterday, only to remember all the different things I have done, all the crazy educational ideas I not only have seen but lived, and so I embody the benchmarks.
It was stupid of me to except others have my vast experience with languages, and education. I, I surmise, am really an education expert, only I always curated for only me.
Man I miss TouchDevelop. They had only published a faint version to their store and a crazy person like me who believed coding should have been possible on the phone kept searching for programming in Windows Phone store till one day I finally found it.
TouchDevelop was simultaneously the best programming language I have ever seen, combined with the best visual language, greatest IDE, most insane Human-Computer Interface ideas, and the cutest thing in the world that gave me the most powerful thing in my pocket. I miss it every time I touch my phone.
TouchDevelop was also fun in that I found so many friends with it. There was a german grandpa I used to talk to, he would teach me programming, I would teach his wife English, what a life I don’t remember…
Meeting
In this meeting we discussed the budget for the 1285 summer program.
We discussed the budget, and given what I can see here, we’ll have around 800,000,000 to 1,000,000,000 Tomans. 600,000,000 of it will be provided through the money parents give us, and the rest is subsidized by FANAP ( Ashkan basically).
S. ████████ ’s four mentors is mostly agreed upon, I have to take the matters to my hands given that we have somewhat of a budget now.
That we require around 200 to 300 square meters of area.
That we’ll have advertising in all channels to find around 30 artists.
My Todo List for 30⟡137
- Thinking about the name [still going on]
- Asking Fateme of FANAP to go and talk to ███████████ and see if he can secure a 200 to 300 square meters location for us in Sharif University
- This would be awesome for me in that it’ll allow me to be on the premises.
- Telling Ashkan about the place in one or two days.
- Tayebe asking me to find out exactly the kind of tables we want so that we can have a budgeting and area plan.
- Finding an estimate of the tools that we require for the program.
- For me to start working on the website.
Today we had this LLM generated message for the 1285 , it has many levels of problems worth writing for further sessions (I believe there is much else to write, this is the first one). All messages were originally written in Farsi and these are machine translated versions of them:
Tired of being told to be just one thing at school? Feel like you’ve got way more skills than what shows up on your report card? We’re here to help you mod your brain, unlock new items, and design your own life map. This isn’t school—it’s a sandbox space for building your future. Come build your own game.
To which I had the reply:
This statement is fundamentally in conflict with [the spirit of] 1285 . There are a few points you need to keep in mind about 1285 . First and foremost, 1285 is essentially a historical institution. It is not a startup or a product. It is a cultural-historical institution, and it must be designed as such. The messages of 1285 need to embody several factors:
They must be rich, formal, and written with the utmost respect. Those who enter 1285 are great artists, and we must help them become even greater. Imagine that whoever steps into 1285 could be Frida Kahlo, or Norah Jones, or Marie Curie—and 1285 is the place that changes their life. A place where, one day, their greatest honor will have been their membership. A place that allows people to discover exceptionally high potentials and gives the world extraordinary, unconventional artists. Such a place must be equally respectful and serious. 1285 is going to change people’s lives—and people’s lives are infinitely precious, great, and valuable. They must be handled with the utmost care, delicacy, beauty, and infinite respect.
Speak to artists as artists. Imagine people who have been enslaved. Telling them, “Tired of being a slave? Want to be free?” — that is still a continuation of slavery. A person who is enslaved is not a slave; they have been forced into captivity by human stupidity and cruelty. That label should not stick to them. Enslavement is not part of anyone’s identity. A person who goes to school is no different from an enslaved person — forced by the shortsightedness of humanity to attend a hateful prison, and then made to wear it as part of their identity. The artists of 1285 are artists, and the name of the oppressive system called school should never even appear in 1285 . These things have nothing to do with each other. 1285 is not about skills or report cards — those have no importance to us whatsoever. 1285 is a place for artists to create, and the only identity we recognize should be that. For example, something like: We are artists, and we build for artists. 1285 is a home for human builders. I can’t think of a perfect sentence right now — I need to reflect on it — but what I mean is that the entire paradigm of school must not exist within 1285 . We are going a completely different way.
The “build your own game” concept also fundamentally conflicts with 1285 . Within 1285 , “play” means tinkering. There is an exceptionally brilliant explanation of this in the following paper:
https://lcl.media.mit.edu/resources/readings/designing-for-tinkerability.pdf
Tinkering is a dead serious mental model. ( 1285 , in general, is dead serious.) And within it, play is not about wasting time. I strongly suggest you take a look at this paper. It’s nothing outlandish—the first few pages explain the concept, and then it goes on to discuss the work of their research group, which no one really needs to read in depth. At the very least, discuss it with ChatGPT—that would be very helpful.
The issue of “build your own game” is precisely the fundamental point of intellectual conflict between us and the culture of “game.” In popular culture, “game” mainly means wasting time and having fun. Tinkering is serious. It is a style of problem-solving. It can be infinitely tedious and frustrating. Nevertheless, it is a cognitive style. As a result, people should be tinkering/playing throughout all aspects of their daily lives. They should learn, build, work, and live through play.
No one “builds their own game.” Rather, they learn how human nature, through play, masters tools—constructs themselves and their own toolbox—and then, through play, creates new things. Play is essentially the engine, not the product.
Tayebe had this comment:
I’m okay with this approach. But at the same time, it needs to be written in a way that kids can understand it. Not heavy, and it should also draw from their everyday language. If we truly believe in freedom, we shouldn’t be rigid and only try to attract artists with a specific kind of literary style. But generally speaking, it’s good to give it a consistent tone and identity.
And to that I replied:
I really like this. Have you seen children’s science books? They’re beautifully written, very smooth and clear, and deeply respectful. They treat children as equals, while understanding that their vocabulary range is different from ours. This fits infinitely well within 1285 : we are all equal as artists—some of us just happen to have larger toolboxes, and that is our only difference.
