A million dollars isn't cool; You know what's cool? 11.16.11

Ilya Zhitomirskiy died today. Who was he? Well, he didn't have his life story pimped by Justin Timberlake to a Trent Reznor soundtrack, but arguably he was the yin to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's great big yang. Zhitomirskiy founded "Diaspora" as an open source social networking alternative to its corporate counterpart. The site quickly became a cornerstone of liberation technology, a libertarian slant on personal ownership of information that eschews co-opting it to capitalist and government interests for the profiteering bottom line. In this era of the 99% when we are giving corporate interests the double-take they deserve, Zhitomirskiy--only age 22 at the time of his death, a probable suicide--was a pioneer of uncertain futures trading, venturing intrepidly without certain venture capital investment. And, arguably, his site has been a failure. When asked two years ago if his vision would ever rival Zuckerberg's success, he replied, "There's something deeper than making money off stuff. Being part of creating stuff for the universe is awesome." This week, Gemini, try to honor this innovator's creed. As we head into the holiday season's trite cheer and do-gooding that barely manages anymore to glitter through the crass commercialism, remember that there is always more than having more. Try to make the universe more awesome, pro bono if you can.