Sun, 04 Apr 2004
The Arcade Fire is a band I saw play recently.
They are probably the best band I've seen perform in a long time. While writing about technology is something I can do, writing about music is a skill I don't think I have. As they say, writing about music is like dancing about architecture. I bought their CD after the show. It's not on a record label so here it is:
- Old Flame
- I'm Sleeping In A Submarine
- No Cars Go
- The Woodland National Anthem
- My heart is an apple
- Headlights Look Like Diamonds
- Forest Fire
posted at: 00:00 | path:
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Okay. This obsession with technology is coming to a close. I'm pretty much comfortable with using computer interfaces of any kind although I have been ignoring certain commercial interests at an almost absurd pace. All the while I was contradicting myself. An avid OS X user for simple desktop stuff, I talk shit on Apple. An avid Windows user for Internet streaming stuff, I talk shit on Microsoft. An avid Linux user for everything else and I can't remember what key commands do what because each app has their own. And now BSD, the final frontier...more on that later, I'm sure.
There was a time when operating systems were interesting. They were this mysterious ether that you're not supposed to pay attention to but somehow play the most important part in your personal feelings towards your computer. I got obsessed with MacOS, then Linux, then Windows. Operating systems were presented to American customers like myself as "the computer". If you didn't have your operating system you didn't have your applications and you couldn't work. And it all boiled down to the mantra of capitalism...brand loyalty. But it got funny because the marketeers used the myth of technology to mask their true intentions, which are to take as much of your money away from you as possible and make you dependent on their product. So you had these convenient definitions like "Mac people" and "PC lamers" and "PC gamers" and "UNIX nerds" and "Linux weirdoes" and my personal favorite "computer geniuses". Operating systems defined the person using them and the big commercial companies picked up on that in a second. Now you can get "home additions" and "gamer PCs" and "pro Macs" and "Enterprise servers" and "mobile workplaces". And in reality they're the same thing, just with more or less included in the package and that package is software so it's not like you have to unscrew anything to change it. But fuck that, I thought I said I wasn't going to talk about operating systems.
I don't want to talk about operating systems anymore for one simple fact...they are fucking boring to talk about. I can't believe my girlfriend kept a straight face for so long while I would drunkenly wax poetic about the virtues of open application standards and a free kernel. Oh, how about the lack of a flexible cross-platform filesystem? What about Window's inferior memory management? That one is fascinating.
I can sum this up with two examples. The first is about a PC warez nerd. Not too long ago, I was offered a copy of Windows XP from a friend. He had the best key gen program that can get 10 keys in a couple of hours. Then he had all the hot new XP compatible apps. I asked him why he thought XP was worth upgrading to at all. He sort of looked confused for a second then said, "it has hyperthreading support built in." I asked if he could explain what that meant because I honestly didn't know what hyperthreading was. He honestly admitted he didn't know either. Which is where most conversations about operating systems end up: with one party claiming some hot new feature is the shit and another asking what the hell it really does. Usually both parties don't really know what their talking about and they end up arguing about the virtues of the hot new features's television advertisements.
The second example is from an American media activist going to South America to document indigenous struggles and empower low-income communities to make their own media using low-cost high-tech digital multimedia equipment. Again, I was asked for not just "some software for PCs" but for a specific list of expensive Windows applications for media production. At the time I was collecting MacOS 9 software but it was getting old because I was about to move all my media work to Linux. I offered what out of date Mac software I had. "They don't have Macs in south America, they're too expensive," I was told. That's why I need you to get me this PC software and maybe a copy of Windows just in case. This is the other place where most conversations about operating systems end up: with one party asking "the computer guy" (who is usually just someone who has used a computer for more than word processing once before or actually clicked their mouse on an "advanced" button and happens to do something useful) if he "has this software program" because it's really good and they can't work without it. Then the other party says something about an operating system and said software program does or doesn't get installed on their computer.
I think both these examples illustrate how little both parties are thinking about the actual facts and details surrounding the operating systems they have already made judgments about, and come to rely one for their work. It's not that they are incapable of making informed decisions, it's that they don't care. The argument isn't on the merits of each operating system or what hardware it may be running on, it's a question of "is this Mac or PC." And it's going to stay that way until the argument gets more interesting. And the Linux community sure as hell isn't going to make it more interesting. And neither are the "mac people". I won't even go into the "Windows lamers." What's going to make it interesting is when things get cross-platform to a point where the operating system isn't an issue anymore, except for the rare case where you need your apps to be real close to the hardware in which case you are probably using Linux already and you are very aware how you came to this decision. Or you are Nvidia and you are getting fat cash from Microsoft and Apple.
So that's it. From now on it's all about applications. My wonderful roommate and girlfriend told me that's what it's all about and I haven't forgot it since. I'm not sad about abandoning my obsession with operating systems and it's probably not totally abandoned anyway. But at least I know they aren't that important for what reall drives the technology industry, which is obviously people. And those people, no matter how brainwashed by advertising, will respond to something that works well. If that thing happens to be well made and last for decades, even better, we all win.
posted at: 00:00 | path:
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Hacking public computer labs. It has been four years since I graduated from college. In technology time that is quite long.
Granted, shit was pretty hi-tech in 2000 but my college wasn't exactly cutting edge on the cyber-tip. For me I viewed this as an advantage. There were two public computer labs with about 40-50 Macs spread between the two. There was a Windows box or two for the weirdoes who complained so much that they "didn't know macs" they couldn't get anything done. There wasn't really any protection on these computers until 1999, when they implemented this big system called MacAdmin for authentication and printing quotas. In retrospect it was pretty neat since it's authentication was done against the UNIX (of the Solaris variety) systems and everyone had the option of a shell account for email and their www homepage. This meant one login and password for everything.
But before that it was free reign. You could do anything you wanted on the desktops and the network was 10baseT with an un-proxied T1 line to the Internet. When they installed RJ-45 wall plates in all the dorm rooms which was on the same subnet as the
whole entire college...fuck, we rocked that shit. You could print on any of the laser printers anywhere on campus directly from your dorm room. There was no NAT system so each dorm had it's own static IP address. We weren't UNIX nerds so we didn't really understand the gravity of that situation. Since we were all Mac weenies Hotline was the app of choice and mp3 downloading was fast as shit. Then software started coming in and we were pretty much hooked up with any kind of digital information we needed.
This was between the years of 1996 and 1999 and we were by far in the minority since we actually knew what the fuck to do with a high speed LAN and fat Internet connection. When they installed MacAdmin on the public computers, I was already situated with my desktop right in my room which wasn't subject to these restrictions. They never got wise to the printing thing and I kept doing it, printing out manuals of downloaded software I knew I was going to use when I graduated. And even though the MacAdmin thing had print quotas, there was still a guest account with open access to the still un-proxied Internet pipe and a nice little home directory where you can download and run any app you like.
Cut to April 2nd 2004. I've been working in Internet related jobs since I graduated and now I'm a sysadmin for a daily news show on radio, television and the Internet. I've pretty much stopped taking MacOS and Windows seriously, becoming a bonafied Linux dork with all the baggage than accompanies that statement.
I was in the situation where the show's web site needed updating ASAP because there were typos on a new section of the site and it was already live. I happened to be leaving an art opening at a large University. Fresh! I can just hop on the University network from a public terminal and ssh into my Linux boxen and copy those files.
WRONG! In the next hour I would embark on an adventure that made me feel extremely fucking nostalgic for the good old days of my undergrad campus network.
And this is where the story really starts...
next entry...hacking public terminals at Columbia University
It's a shame that I have to describe these actions as hacking when in reality that can be described as "use". The line isn't so fine, really...read more
posted at: 00:00 | path:
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