About

My name's Ben Livingston. I'm an activist. I know a thing or two about computers.

I'm editor of Oblivion, a youth rights zine. Since Oblivion began in 1995, we've become a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. I handle the treasury duties for the corporation. I used to do a biweekly youth rights radio show that was netcast from Studio X and rebroadcast by Free Seattle Radio. I'm interested in microradio and enjoy playing Stephen Hawking lectures to my neighborhood.

I'm cynical, but I still vote.

In 1999, Free Speech Seattle ran an initiative to repeal Seattle's poster ban. Since nobody else wanted to do it, I became treasurer and learned all of the itty bitty laws about campaign financing and public disclosure. Since then, I've been treasurer for a bunch of campaigns, including the Reasonable People's Campaign, Grant Cogswell, the Sidran Truth Squad, Dunk the Mayor and, most recently, the Sensible Seattle Coalition.

Sometimes I stay up later than I should -- usually because of these evil computers.

Besides all that activist crap, I work at an Internet Service Provider, InWa (aka Hemp.Net), doing system administration, web stuff and just about everything else. I used to be "Research Director" for Brian Livingston, who is of no relation. He was a contributing editor for InfoWorld and we used to do a consumer protection column over at News.com.

I consider myself a hobbyist. Of late I've become a hobbyist lawyer, going after telemarketers, junk faxers and email spammers.

I'm a vegetarian who rarely eats fruits or vegetables. I eat bread, rice, pasta, potatoes and beans for the most part. I know it's not healthy; I'm trying to reprogram myself.

I was on a discussion panel about electronic zines at the 1997 Seattle Zine Fiend Festival. I've been a guest on PHAT LIP! YouthTalk Radio, an Arkansas radio show run by youth. I did a pirate radio freeskool at the 2000 Youth Liberation Conference in Portland, Oregon (and overrode a baseball game with punk rock).

I believe the drug war is insane. I do computer and web stuff for Seattle Hempfest and I've spoken to a crowd of 35,000. I started a now-defunct newsletter called Hemp Activist Times.

I've worn the same pair of pants for about 85 of the last 100 days. I'm agnostic and I try not to get into religious debates.

I went to the University of Washington from Fall of 1997 through Spring of 1998 and again in Spring of 1999. College and I didn't click, so I stopped going. I'm almost done paying off my student loans.

I believe in the power of the press. The first zine I started was a coded emag called Online. It had a few computer-related articles and centered around the BBS scene in Centralia, Washington. That was around 1994, when I was a freshman in high school. Online saw two issues, halting after some bastard from Olympia threatened to sue me, saying he had the name copyrighted.

I've been published in a few e'zines and some physical rags such as Hemp Magazine and the publications I started. I've been reprinted in some zines I've never seen.

I believe humility is a good thing and I try to admit when I make a mistake, especially when it involves an email routing problem.

I've got a girl. Her name is Lisa. Oddly enough, that's also my mother's name. We first met at our high school senior banquet, where I was the "keynote speaker." After getting together, we found out that not only are our mothers both travel agents, they work for the same company and share the same desk. Yes, it was very weird.

I'm pretty laid back. I consider stress to be bad in excess. Life is not that hard.

I get mad when people hurt others. I get sad when people hurt.

I've crowd surfed, watched a lightning storm from Gasworks Park, been hit by a car on my bike, taken a bit of tear gas at the WTO protests, enjoyed the company of friends, and sat through innumerable long boring meetings. With the exception of the long boring meetings, I really enjoy doing what I do.