Category: Philosophy

Douglas Adams talking about The Internet 9 years ago…

Reading this reminds me how flipping awesome Douglas Adams was and how incredibly tragic it is that he’s not here with us any more, guiding us like a storytelling shaman, through this crazy mixed up world we call home.

This piece first appeared in the News Review section of The Sunday Times on August 29th 1999.

A couple of years or so ago I was a guest on Start The Week, and I was authoritatively informed by a very distinguished journalist that the whole Internet thing was just a silly fad like ham radio in the fifties, and that if I thought any different I was really a bit naïve. It is a very British trait – natural, perhaps, for a country which has lost an empire and found Mr Blobby – to be so suspicious of change.

But the change is real. I don’t think anybody would argue now that the Internet isn’t becoming a major factor in our lives. However, it’s very new to us. Newsreaders still feel it is worth a special and rather worrying mention if, for instance, a crime was planned by people ‘over the Internet.’ They don’t bother to mention when criminals use the telephone or the M4, or discuss their dastardly plans ‘over a cup of tea,’ though each of these was new and controversial in their day.

Then there’s the peculiar way in which certain BBC presenters and journalists (yes, Humphrys Snr., I’m looking at you) pronounce internet addresses. It goes ‘www DOT … bbc DOT… co DOT… uk SLASH… today SLASH…’ etc., and carries the implication that they have no idea what any of this new-fangled stuff is about, but that you lot out there will probably know what it means.

I suppose earlier generations had to sit through all this huffing and puffing with the invention of television, the phone, cinema, radio, the car, the bicycle, printing, the wheel and so on, but you would think we would learn the way these things work, which is this:

Read the rest of this article here

Civil Twilight releases Human as a free download (or you can pay)

human.jpgMany many years ago I used to organise gigs for a few kids from Hout Bay… (Ok, I was a kid at the time too, but it makes this story sound more awesome)

Anyway, a few years ago they went to Los Angeles and recorded an album. The album (which is awesome) has been out for a while now but they’ve finally decided to do the right thing and release it as a free download or a $5 download or a $10 CD. You can download it for free or buy it here.

This shouldn’t surprise you unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few months. Radiohead launched their new album as a potentially free download a few months ago (Well, you could pay whatever you felt was fair)… critics said nobody would buy something they could get for free and the eventual sales numbers would reflect it. Well, the sales numbers reflected it… just not the way the critics had expected. Number 1 in the US and the UK.

Tom Yorke even said they’d made more money from the digital (paid for) downloads of In Rainbows than all their other digital downloads to date. To understand what that means you need to know how many albums Radiohead has and how many million songs they’ve probably sold on places like iTunes… The difference is that unlike previous albums where the proceeds were divided up between Apple (iTunes), various record labels, publishers and distributors, oh, and that band called Radiohead — this time it was all theirs.

The bottom line here is really the question:

What’s worth more: Having a million people listening to your music or money in the bank?

Luckily if you’re Radiohead you already have both… Let’s see if Civil Twilight can do a bit of both.

Oh, they have an awesome video here

The positive power of a brand and a strong community

About 5 days ago we officially announced the upcoming GeekDinner… We’d left things a bit last minute because of everyone getting back to work late in Jan etc.

Anyways, cut to the chase, its been 5 days and we already have our quota of 70+ people on the wiki. As usual we had our original stalwarts; the addicts who added themselves 2 months ago when the new dinner’s page was created (before we had a date or venue), but we’ve picked up about 40 people in 4 days. (Not counting the maybes)

Capetonians are crap at arriving at things they say they’ll go to so we have quite a high last minute drop out rate; sometimes as high as 20% against the number on the wiki. It’s fine because that allows us to go over the venues allotted 70 seats. We’re currently on 72 “confirmed” with 13 “maybes”. I think we can safely let the “confirmed” number get to about 90 before we create a “waiting list”. ie. If you haven’t already done so, go sign up now.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that we have a brand and a community that’s growing and making it easier and easier for us to put these things together. We’re always looking for people to lurk/participate on the planning mailing list, so if you feel like lurking, and perhaps maybe helping with some stuff, join the list.

Frugal Fennel

GeekDinner Time.

Ok, so if you’ve never been to a GeekDinner, why not make 2008 the year when you start going. It’s hugely fun and can possibly maybe be a little bit educational… Did I mention that at the last GeekDinner we discussed what to do if the Queen of England happens to start flirting with you on Facebook?

31 January 2008, Sloppy Sams, 51a Somerset Road, Greenpoint. 19:00ish

It’s open to everyone, all ages, all genders and all levels of technical innefficiency.

As usual, sign up on the wiki.

The Cathedral and the Bazaar

Below is the opening chapter from the Cathedral and the Bazaar, an excellent book written by Eric S. Raymond in 1996. It attempts to explain how it is that thousands of people from all over the world can work on something as incredibly complex as an operating system kernel and end up with an excellent result. I read it many years ago and ran across it again today. Rereading the opening chapter encouraged me to read the entire book again. Note to those non-technical people reading this: CatB is not a technical book and is an incredibly interesting read for anyone interested in human psychology.

Linux is subversive. Who would have thought even five years ago (1991) that a world-class operating system could coalesce as if by magic out of part-time hacking by several thousand developers scattered all over the planet, connected only by the tenuous strands of the Internet?
Continue reading “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” →

Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

– Dylan Thomas

———————

No no, no one died… I just believe that perhaps deaths door is a little too late to begin raging… plus, I like the poem.

Letter to a well meaning friend…

She asked why I listed my religion as “Pastafarianism”:

Pastafarianism is the belief that the universe is controlled by a flying spaghetti monster. It is a theoretical belief closely linked to the philosophical concept of Russell’s teapot. In case you’re wondering, no, I don’t believe the universe is controlled by spaggethi, and yes, I am trying to make a point.

Do I believe in God? Who knows… Which one are you talking about? There are too many gods out there to believe in… and many, including the Christian god, have a lot of things going against them… I meet too many well meaning, well educated Christians who, despite their university educations, believe that evolution is “made up”, homosexuals are “going to hell” and George Bush is “doing what God is telling him to do”.

I don’t for a second think that any of us are just a coincidence. But I do believe it is, and excuse me if I offend you here, coincidence that you grew up in Pinelands, with Christian parents (I think?) and Christian friends, in an environment where being anything other than a Christian was a bad thing… You could have been born in outer Mongolia and believed in Baluti the Sun God.

It is however not a coincidence that, given the environment that you grew up in, you became a Christian.

I believe that we all get to make a choice for ourselves… and more importantly that nobody has the right to inflict their religion on anybody else.

I am just like you, I chose to not believe in the plethora of gods out there… we both ignore Zeus, Allah, Pulika the great, etc etc etc… except I take it one step further and feel that, given the option of thousands of gods to believe in, believing in the one I coincidentally grew up with is just too damn convenient to “surrender my life to”.

Another schoolyard war story – Telkom: 0, Khayelitsha: 1

I have a friend called Steve who got called something horrible by an older, meaner, guy in school. It was something that had happened time and time again and Steve was reaching the end of his tether.

So one day, milliseconds after being called the horrible name, Steve grabbed Ian, the bad guy, by the neck and shoved him up against the wall and said something like “DON’T EVER CALL ME A FSCKING @#$@! AGAIN!”

When I heard this story I was like “Wow, dude, that’s awesome! What happened?”.

Steve’s reply was priceless “Oh, he totally fscked me up at break time”.

But the message was clear. It didn’t matter how many times he got knocked down… He had stood up for himself and he was going to do it again.

From what I understand, short of a beating at break, Ian never messed with Steve again.

The parallels here are interesting, albeit a bit far fetched, but I love telling that story.

Telkom has been walking around calling everybody names for ages. They rip us off, hurt us, drive us to levels of emotional stress that should really only ever be reserved for ex-girlfriends and they just don’t seem to care. (I broke up with Telkom a while ago and don’t let that bitch into my life anymore)

Well, the industry is starting to stand up in the hallways.

Sure, individuals in the industry are probably going to get beaten up a few times on the field at break, but maybe only once or twice… When a bully realizes that every time they cause a fight they will walk away a little ingured too, that’s when they start thinking twice.

ath.

j.

ps. The adsl line that Joe’s story refers to has actually not been set up yet. Even though they had telkom in the building. I wonder if they just sent some techies there as a delaying tactic in hope that they would call off their toyi toyi.

The 10 Types Of Trade Show Visitors

So Frogfoot has a stand at Futurex and we quickly realised that there are 10 different types of attendees.

1. The “I know more than you” or the “My product is better than your product” visitor

These guys are fun. They stand a few meters away from your stand and then, once they’ve formulated their attack, they step forward and launch into a tirade about why what you’re doing is wrong or how what they’re doing in their garage is better. Some of them are the “Leading xyz gizmo provider and we’re launching next week” kind of winners.

2. The “You have breasts” visitor

I don’t have breasts… (shut it!) but we do have a girl who works for us. She does have breasts and there are many lonely men walking around at these kinds of things who obviously don’t get too see too many girls in the wild. They generally will talk to the girl until someone else makes it very obvious that they are no longer welcome.

3. The “I know nothing about techmologee, please teach me” visitor

People. If you don’t know how a computer works it is obviously not the best time for me to be explaining the intricacies of 802.11g. Also, you, lady who couldn’t operate a track pad, need to stop blaming our internet connection for yor inability to remember your yahoo mail password. I *promise* it has nothing to do with the hotspot.

4. The “Defend your product!” visitor

Similar to visitor #1 these guys chose to be as evasive as possible while constantly telling you how crap your idea is and how it won’t work. You usually get the idea that these are the guys who tried something similar a few years back that failed dismally but they remain evasive about who they are and what they do because they believe it adds an aura of mystique… mystique of course is something we all love… not.

5. The raving lunatic visitor

These guys are cool… well they were cool until the nutcase that lives downstairs from me appeared on the horizon. I quickly darted away and hid until he had moved on from our stand. Upon returning I learnt that he had mentioned how lame this trade show was. “Fishing Shows… that’s where the action is at…. They give out free caps and everything”. Thanks buddy. We care. Now go back to spreading your conspiracy theories and accusing me of “that clunking sound” at 4am.

6. The serial hoarder visitor

This is the visitor who goes from stand to stand not saying a thing, but collects every single brochure, pen, balloon and knick-knack available, quietly stuffing them into his trade show bag and moving on to molest the next stand.

7. The “I can’t grasp basic business concepts” visitor

These are people who can’t seem to understand why they would want to “do this hotspot thing”… even after you explain that they will make money.

8. The “Synergy” visitor

If you follow Dilbert you should equate the word “Synergy” with loathing and fear. Synergy is what marketing types refer to “symbiotic” relationships. The Synergists will try and explain why your company and their company should “work together”. They will find synergy even if they sell paint stripper and you sell internet.

9. The “I represent foreign money” visitor.

These are the types of people who try to convince you that you should contact them because they represent some people who have money. This could be complete rubbish or it could be our next meal ticket…

10. The Perfect Visitor

This is the great visitor. The guy or girl who realise how great our product is and see the value of it without too much explanation. They ask all the right questions and some even sign up right then and there.

ath

j.