Oblomovka

2002-04-25»

I believe in writing about technology as natural history; to observe and document changes in the world we live in, to better describe the forces that shape those changes. I suppose I see technology as inhuman - just as the natural world is inhuman, and oblivious to us all. But I also see technology as definitively human: a reflection of our emotions and our needs, and our attempts to be more humane than the chaotic world we have been dropped into.

I don't understand why, as writers, we are so often forced to describe technology in the language of the market, as consumers, as cataloguers of a pile of unconnected, unemotional things. It's as though the only descriptions we can read of the countryside were written by estate agents, eager to sell us a farm.

I haven't always liked what Robert X. Cringely has written, but in his craziness, he's often attempted to escape from those restrictions. His column this week does so, but at a terrible terrible cost.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that perhaps some people will view a tech column about his son's death as a trivialisation of life, whereas I see life and death is what this <waves hands> is all about.

2002-04-23»

A traditional list of the seventy-two sects of Islam. I love lists like this; especially ones that fracture ideas presented so monolithically.

2002-04-22»

It's been a good week. I had a blast at Computers, Freedom and Privacy. I attended last year, when it was held in the middle of a snowdrift in Boston, and I was a little too isolated, a little too awestruck to enjoy it.

This year I bumped into plenty of interesting folk for the second time, when they were happy to sit a while and talk instead of politely deferring until they knew who the hell I was.

There was also a greater sense of the game being afoot. In private e-mails from CFP '2001 I wrote that there was

a lot of talking-from-the-platform about various nasty supra-national organisations, without much grassroots input.

The EFF in particular, seems to be transforming into more of grassroots advocacy organisation. I'm not sure whether it's a deliberate policy move, a shift of emphasis due to an influx of new blood or just the outside world waking up to what they've been doing all along, but it's highly welcome. They have some real corkers lined up.

2002-04-14»

Ah, patents:

Lastly, it should be noted that because pulling alternately on one chain and then the other resembles in some measure the movements one would use to swing from vines in a dense jungle forest, the swinging method of the present invention may be referred to by the present inventor and his sister as "Tarzan" swinging. The user may even choose to produce a Tarzan-type yell while swinging in the manner described, which more accurately replicates swinging on vines in a dense jungle forest. Actual jungle forestry is not required.

I'm tempting to patent my dish-washing algorithm.

2002-04-10»

Old, well-known, but still poignant for me. Partly because we found a copy in a box in the garage as we all set out to move to the next house. Partly because - I think - the Kurtz referred to is the father of BASIC, and I still have fond memories of editing BASIC magazine until I went mad.

And partly because: well, old. Old.

The Love Song of J. Random Hacker

…

No! I am not Bill Gates, nor would I want to be; I'd rather parse the fish than own the knife; (Imagine! Having moby bux but chained to ninety million lusers, what a life...) Am a flamer, goateed, pallid, overweight, Willing to pull two shifts, then (hell) a third, To save a session from a deadlocked state; At times, (to put it mildly) unrestrained-- Almost, at times, a nerd.

I grow old...I grow old... dBase II and Wordstar are no longer sold.

…

2002-03-27»

Lego + Wireless = The Mindstorms Cantenna. via Kass

(And I posted that at 21:34-0800, dammit. Nobody out-first posts me!)