Tag Archives: technology

DON’T SLEEP – Learn About Your Computer

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I recently assaulted my personal computer with an upgrade of the operating system and endangered my household’s digital data. It was late at night and I clicked a button which offered an upgrade to the new version of the operating system. I know just enough about operating systems and hardware to be mildly dangerous. In this case, I clicked that button without backing up any data on the hard drive, and I was concerned about losing it all. Another night, I stayed up nearly until dawn trying to learn about my problem and address it. I lost sleep, but got much closer to solving my problem. Days later, I had it solved. After rectifying the errors that resulted from the faulty upgrade, I know a little more about how the operating system works. It’s enough knowledge to really start to cause some trouble for myself.

A friend introduced me to open source operating systems several years ago and gave me a boot disk for the Ubuntu Linux distribution. I have never looked back. I have never personally owned a Mac until getting an iPhone, and I have never personally owned a Microsoft machine. I had used a lot of Microsoft operating systems over the years at my parents’ house and at schools, but I saw an opportunity for something different when I decided to buy a machine. When my friend showed me Ubuntu and said it was an open source operating system which didn’t cost any money, my ears perked. This open source distribution of Linux is billed as being made for people to use with some ease, but still allowing advanced users to get in and tinker with the source code and such. “Linux for human beings,” they said.

Years later, I read about Fred Moore and thought that Linux distributions were the kind of thing to which he would have found himself contributing. Computing is powerful and relies on materials which are mined from places where human suffering and environmental destruction is immense, but the power it holds cannot be easily dismissed. Many humans use computing for frivolous purposes, but it once did and still does hold potential that is untapped. Presently, many speculators think that there are ways to use computing power for quick profit for some, rather than abundance for all. They convince the public that the desired products and services are useful and entertaining, but it is only within the bounds of proprietary controls. If we let a small group write all the source code, it is guaranteed that a vision of quick profit for some, mediocre returns for many, and suffering for those in places that mine raw material and assemble hardware will stay as the status quo. But if we learn the tools of coding and computing, these trends may not shape the future.

I’ve learned enough to seriously tamper with my personal computer, and I don’t know if I would be able to bring it back from my errors (think: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice). But I intend to keep learning and using my knowledge to change how I use computers. As long as we relax in drowsy slumber, the powerful will keep running it where they want and/or running it into the ground. But we aren’t powerless. We can keep learning.

DON’T SLEEP.

Book Review: The Filter Bubble

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Are we getting trapped in a filter bubble? Eli Pariser has been doing a lot of thinking and learning about how information and news are disseminated with emerging technologies, policies, and habits. The topics are crucial, and I thank Pariser for entering into the conversation with The Filter Bubble, a well-researched book, instead of a post on social media.

I appreciated the flow of the book’s topics, but I felt like some chapters were encumbered with definitions of expert lingo or snippets of examples which are inserted every few paragraphs. I’m sure Pariser felt compelled to explain many terms and concepts for general readership, but it almost felt like a textbook on a couple of pages. This interrupted the flow of the ideas for me, but it’s a small complaint. I appreciate that he is very upfront about letting us know where he gets his information.

When Pariser comments on where this all might be taking us and how we can act within it, I think this is where he really hits his stride in this book. This is a pressing situation and he writes with non-alarmist urgency about our need to be aware and active in how this all shakes out. I am far from being as knowledgeable as I’d like to be about the way that digital social media and other new technologies are affecting our democracy, memory, culture, and economy, but Pariser’s book is a great way to bring anyone up to speed on what is happening. If we don’t learn about this, our ignorance will soon be as much of a stumbling block to us as illiteracy or being uninformed about finances.

All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Go…

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We could change the world using communication technology. We could change our communities for the better. We have all the tools that activist Fred Moore might have sought (for instance, Meetup provides groups and common interests a place to accumulate members, LinkedIn provides people a place to connect professionally across careers and interests, blogs are a platform for anyone and any collective entity to express themselves, reddit, craigslist, etc.), but they don’t take most of us very far. What’s missing?

We have many tools at our hands to wrangle a list of contacts for any sort of discussion or event or ongoing group we might like. We’re all dressed up in the latest social networking tools, but going next to nowhere. Many of us use the prescribed methods of connecting with people online, but go no further. We post, tweet, poke, upvote, follow, and crowdfund, but those things alone don’t create a deep abiding relationship or community. I find that when things do take off, they seem to be a flash in the pan. Popular until another trend wipes clean the collective awareness.

So what would bring us the connection and movement that Fred Moore sought? Perhaps we need the perspective to see that Moore was seeking to use lists and connections as tools to foster experiences and relationships with people in the real world. He sought to organize and advocate for peace. Are the present means suited to that end, or do we need to use different tools?

Peace, Love, and Computer Science

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I read John Markoff’s What The Dormouse Said recently, and it was a bit of a revelation.

It’s a book that has always stuck out to me at the local library. The edition my library owns has a green pixelated peace symbol on the cover with a black background. It recalls the old terminals that held our attention decades ago. The title is also evocative to anyone familiar with Jefferson Airplane. I didn’t live through this time period, so I was curious what this book had to say about the history of computers and counter-culture.

When I finally sat down to read it, it didn’t disappoint. I learned a lot of new things about the history of personal computing. The topics in this book aren’t news to people who know the back-story of our modern computers, but then again, this part of the story doesn’t get out too often. This book puts the origin of personal computing firmly in the counter-culture of the 1950′s, 1960′s and 1970′s. That is, there are other roots of the modern computer, but it wouldn’t have grown how it has without peace activists, without people who hoped to augment human experience and intellect, and without people who wanted to communicate in new ways. I think that’s pretty cool, and I think it’s a compelling reminder for what we could be doing with computers today.

In Markoff’s book, Fred Moore stands out to me. He is a person who seemed to have acted with a singularity of purpose beyond what society and even family demanded of him. To Moore, war and greed were morally unacceptable. At a young age, he acted independently and dramatically to try to stop a war, however unsuccessfully. He really wanted to find a way to connect people on a human level instead of as combatants or consumers, and he encountered computer culture that could actualize peaceful human network. There’s a lot more to be said about him, but his story and others got me thinking again about the uses of computing power now and the potential uses that aren’t being realized. In Moore’s time, computers were used for war strategy and other destructive purposes. How is computing power destructive or detrimental to humanity in our time? Are we making the best of these devices which are assembled by overworked factory employees? How could we do better with what we have?

Radio Killed The Video Star

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Seriously, although I own a smart phone with a data plan, the radio still holds sway over other forms of media input for me. Like my library card services, conventional radio is basically free. I bought a stereo boom box in the mid-1990′s and that’s all that I’ve ever paid to listen to radio at home. My automobile, like most, has a built in receiver for conventional radio stations. So I effectively pay nothing to listen to KWMU, KDHX, WLCA, and WSIE in St. Louis.

I don’t pay for paper delivery or for Internet service or cable or basic television or satellite or any such thing. My father pays for my smart phone data plan, and I sometimes get wireless Internet reception from my generous neighbors. But even if my father’s or my neighbors’ generosity ever wavers, I can still rely on the good old radio for news, opinions, entertainment, and music. In an ever-changing world, this feels relatively stable and long-lasting. It’s a funny thought to utter about a technology which is barely more than a century old, but things come and go pretty fast these days. Streaming video is a big deal now, but, when the bandwidth is limited or over-priced, I can always receive my amplitude modulation or frequency modulation radio stations for free. I like that.

Am I An iPhone Twit?

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Back in May 2011, I entered the world of Apple products and smart phones thanks to my dad’s benevolence. In March and April, I had neither the inclination or the funds to get an iPhone, but by the time my renewal had come up, my father had offered to hook me up with an iPhone. Despite the Foxconn workers on my mind, I accepted the gift quite readily.

There have been many benefits to having an iPhone. They include having a 5 Mpx camera on hand at all times, being able to geocache with it, being able to check email from remote locations, etc. And I’ve not thought about the Foxconn workers for quite some time. Truth be told, my mind had become quite cluttered around mid August.

I have a Twitter application on my phone, and I began checking it quite regularly when I had a free moment. I watched the tweets from the Midwest Rising protests in St. Louis. It was like watching the news ticker at the bottom of the screen on cable news stations (FOX NEWS, CNN, MSNBC, etc.), except with more images and first-hand accounts. Weeks later in mid September, I observed the beginning of the Occupy Wall Street “occupation”. Some thought they wouldn’t last the weekend, but I observed in real-time as they sought take-out food and generators. They lasted not days but months.

Twitter and other web sites allow you to find news or stories that you would not normally hear in mainstream newspapers, television shows, or other media sources. While I did appreciate the ability to catch the #Occupy news in a largely unfiltered stream from primary sources, my mind was becoming cluttered from watching all these developments in real-time. Also, there became a great need to sift through crummy posts or free-riders who posted about the events just to receive personal attention or web traffic.

I broke my iPhone glass a couple of months back, and the fracture shook me from a daily existence that was getting somewhat saturated with smart phone usage. I pondered how much of an iPhone junkie or twit I had become. I go back and forth between being too desirous of the constant stimulation the Internet can provide and being content with moderate Internet usage. (What is moderate usage? Once a day? Weekly? Monthly?) A smart phone greatly increases the occasions for overindulgence by providing a portable access point for the data stream. It makes it seem archaic that Neo and Trinity needed to check out of the Matrix at pay phones.

Now that I have an intact phone (for free thanks to Apple) I’m asking myself again, am I an iPhone twit? My girlfriend probably thinks that I check my iPhone too much, and I agree with her in those times when I’m sacrificing engagement with the world in my physical proximity for the erratic stimulus of a digital feed. In the end, the smart phone serves me best when it is a tool aiding the rest of my life, not as an end into itself.

Through the haze of social media posts and game application notifications, I want to remember to be thankful and accountable to the FoxConn workers who put the phone together, the power company workers who facilitate the recharging of said device, and the people and living things that will be burdened with the eventual disposal of my iPhone.