Experimenting Digitally and Pharmaceutically On Our Kids

On Belief and the Artificial God

The idea of the Artificial God is something I’ve gotten from Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide books and Dirk Gently’s Holisitic Detective Agency, among others. The essay is online, and it’s done as much to shape my spiritual life (such as it is) as anything I’ve ever read.

Don’t Do It—For A Better Tomorrow

I’m not entirely sure what I was getting at with the last post, but I think I was prodding at the idea of renunciation as rebellion. On the one hand, it seems like boycott is the lazy man’s path to social change. (What could be easier than doing nothing?) On the other, it sure seems like there’s a lot of evil we could undo by just not participating.

Don’t buy those blood diamonds, for instance.

Don’t buy tickets to the Hollywood movies that fund the MPAA’s war on the Internet.

Don’t drive (and don’t buy gas) if there’s any other conceivable way of getting where you need to go.

Don’t use credit cards for routine purchases. Why support the banks with more transaction fees than you have to?

Don’t buy expensive gifts on Christmas—focus on making things for the people you love, instead.

Don’t click on those banner ads. If nobody did it, they would go away.

Don’t say yes to aggressive sales pitches—ever. If they were rendered completely ineffective, you wouldn’t have to listen to them any more, and the poor employees of faceless corporations wouldn’t be required to put their voices behind things they don’t believe in to keep their jobs. Corporations could go back to producing items of genuine value that people legitimately want to buy.

Don’t purchase the extended warranty or the protection plan. Ever. They exist to make money, not to protect you, and they just give the company an excuse to shovel more obsolescing  shit into your hands, ticking to a break-down just past the expiration of your contract.

Don’t pay for that insurance policy. It’s powering a system that exists to take in more money than it pays out, while driving the cost of services out of reach of the people who need them most. Health insurance, auto insurance, home insurance—isn’t it interesting that we’re legally required to pay these? If they had real value, would we be required to buy them at the point of a gun? Free market, my foot!

For god’s sake, don’t take that loan! Why would you pay interest on crap you you didn’t need in the first place?

And for the love of God don’t go into debt for that college education—which, thanks to the ubiquity of student lending, costs more than a house, without providing a single square inch of shelter.

Even if you have the money, think twice and then twice and then eight times more before you say yes to that college education. It’s an ultimately meaningless piece of paper in a world where everyone has one. Wouldn’t you be better off using those four to eight years building up work experience and saving for a house?

Start saying “no” to bullshit and you discover there’s very little left in our daily experience to say yes to.

Ah, but think of what we can do then, as we start seeking out real relationships and experiences to treasure.

Our Day In Court

For free entertainment, you could do worse than going to your district court on hearing day and watching the proceedings.

We weren't there for fun, although I was determined to enjoy the experience as much as one can. Obtaining an execution to evict a tenant who has not paid rent in four months isn't a pleasant experience, but at least it can be interesting.

This district court handles civil and criminal matters together on the same day. It wasn't what I was expecting, and it had me wondering if we were sitting in the right courtroom as docket after docket was called to the bench with "The Commonwealth Versus..." I kept leafing through our paperwork to satisfy myself that "Main Session Courtroom" had to mean this big one with the double doors in the center of the building, and that I had the date right. Our tenant wasn't there either, which added to my confusion. She turned up half an hour after the appointed time, which turned out to be early enough. The criminal matters ran on and on.

So here's a question: if you're summoned to court to appear before a judge because you're accused of shoplifting, say, or operating under the influence, or assaulting your sister ("We just don't get along..."), wouldn't you want to put something on besides flip-flops and baggy shorts and a ratty tee-shirt? Maybe, if you're on probation and one more offense means a mandatory 60 day stay in jail, you could cover the gang-letters tattooed down your forearms, or take off that baseball cap? I think the reason that cameras are forbidden in courthouses is so nobody ever has to see a picture of the doofus with the puffy sneakers, the sports jersey, and six inches of boxer shorts showing above his sagging swim-trunks.

"Good grief," I said to The Wife, "a third of the people in this room have neck tattoos."

She said, "That's how you know who the bad guys are."

Having never sat through criminal court proceedings before, it amazed me just how practiced and knowledgeable all the participants were. I'm not talking about the judges and the lawyers - of course they know what they're doing. But there wasn't one criminal defendant there who didn't know where to stand and what to say. Nobody seemed confused about their instructions to contact this probation department or that district attorney. Public defenders were appointed, phone numbers were exchanged, dates were set for further hearings...it was like watching a dance and trying to figure out the moves. I realized that there really are two classes of people in this country: those who regularly participate in the criminal court system and those who don't.

Things sped up when the judge switched over to civil matters. It turned out all the civil cases were about deadbeat tenants and unpaid landlords. I was nervous when my name was called, but I didn't even have to open my mouth. The judge asked our tenant if she owed the rent and she said, "Well...yeah..." and he actually laughed and sent us to mediation.

Later, outside the courtroom, waiting for the mediator, we saw some tenants (not ours) who had just been complaining to the judge that they didn't have money to feed their kid, never mind move out and rent a new place. Out here, they were showing off new tattoos to their buddies. One on the shoulder, one on the back, one on the leg. Who did they go to and how much did it hurt? Talking shop, sharing the hobby of self mutilation.

I'm thinking, huh, maybe your kid could eat those tattoos, he's going so hungry.

The result for us? Well, it seems senseless to talk about "winning" or "losing" in this situation, but let's just say that we have reached an "agreement." And we've got a piece of paper to take to the Sheriff's office in case anyone thinks about changing their mind.

And we also got to watch a couple hours of our court system in action, which was more interesting than I expected.

Yard Sale

Having a yard-sale. Brought my laptop out into the yard, once I remembered it was portable. Going on Craigslist to see what I should charge for things. 27" TV, $35? IBM Selectric I Typewriter. $60, maybe? That's less than I paid. An original Xbox with a huge stack of games. Sold the Xbox to a guy whose 11 year old son has been wanting to play Halo, but has a Wii. So now he's all set up with Halo I and II, and four controllers. The thing with the kid makes me feel a lot better about selling it. Not that I've turned it on  more than a dozen times in the last six years. Most of my save-game files date from 2004.

Chatting with neighbors and lookie-loos about our antique house; it's 300 years old and unique, so hopefully somebody will want to buy it. Also the sun is out for the first time in days and days, so moods are bright and people are friendly. Buttons the chicken has let herself out into the yard. She is the only chicken smart enough to do this, and so she gets to eat all of the bird-seed that the bluejays knock on the ground. She'll actually hold still long enough to let children pet her. How many yard sales do you get to go to where you can pet a chicken? Kids love to hear the rooster crow, and they're excited about the koi pond, too. I'd worry more about them falling in if it were deeper than 18". Maybe we should start charging admission and set up a petting zoo. Then we could sell the property with a pre-established business.

I have mixed feelings about selling the Selectric typewriter. Until I try to pick it up. Then I hope somebody buys it right away.

Old People's Houses

There is a Sadness when you visit an Old Person's house and you can date the moment at which they stopped engaging with the world. It is the date on the top magazine of the stack by the easy chair, or on the bookshelf of sun-faded paperbacks. It's the date on that first page with the library of congress information, the ISBN and the rest of the numbers. It's the last important book they read, the Pulitzer Prize winner from 1967, or 1974, or 1988. It's the shelf full of James Michener, or James Clavell, or Norman Mailer. This marks the point at which they have not only given up on acquiring the new, but have ceased to trouble themselves with unloading the old.

These old people typically have newer things in their house than these artifacts. Usually the television is less than a few years old, and the microwave might be battered although it's certainly not antique. They might even have a gleaming stainless steel refrigerator with an ice-maker and dispenser built into the door. But you can tell their heart is not in these things. Most likely some child or grand-child or social worker has stopped by, said, "Oh Harold, you can't possibly go on living with this old thing in your home," and taken it upon themselves to arrange delivery and installation of the replacement. And the Old Person likely shrugged and said, "sure, I suppose so," and sat looking over the top of his bifocals with a battered paperback in his hand, a bemused expression on his face, while his caregiver fussed and grunted to attach co-ax and AC power and argue with utilities over the phone.

If it's a good natured Old Person, he perhaps said to his caregiver, "You like to read, do you? Why don't you take this copy of Shogun with you? Maybe you'll enjoy it. Don't mention it, it's the least I can do."

Gadgets and Self-Selecting Communities

I'm reading more than ever now that I have this electronic reader.  Why is a book more compelling when it's blots on an electronic screen?  And why is this kind of screen more compelling than a PC or laptop?  Is it just the size, the ultra-portability, the comparatively simple, single purpose design of a device that's for reading only?  Maybe it's just the sense of control it provides, knowing you can carry thousands of books and access any of them without getting out of bed.  There is this momentum that sets in by the end of a good book which compels you to just click through to the next one without pause, and keep reading -- provided any leisure time remains. 

A friend of mine has one, too.  She lent it to her mother for the weekend and it came back loaded with three romance novels.

Interesting how the introduction of any new toy brings out a crop of blogs, web-sites, and forums devoted to the exploration of its possibilities.  We long for these communities, of course, as human beings.  In the past we were limited in choice of community to which churches we could walk to and which neighbors we ran into at the farmers' market.  Now, we hook up online with the people who play with the same gadgets we do, regardless of physical location.

We gain a great deal of specialisation and depth this way, translating it into pure pleasure with the objects of our desire.

We lose, I guess, the chance encounters, the exposure to subjects and interests that we'll never know would delight us, as well as the chance to win over converts to our own causes.  We also lose out on every channel of communication besides text.  The inflections, facial expressions, perfumes and body odors, casual flirtations and early warning signs of disapproval -- we're numb to all of those online.  Even in a three-dimensional game-space like World of Warcraft of Second Life, the most gorgeously rendered avatar can't hope to convey any of those nuances, when their inputs are merely strings of text.

But this is me merely railing against change, as usual.  My psyche requires some guilt and reservation in the face of each new pleasure. 

It's a New Englander's characteristic, I think, to be unhappy in the absence of struggle, to distrust ease, to suspect that every joy will be punished by swift and calculated misfortune.   New Englanders seek for comfort in the past, a past whose joys have expired so long ago they cannot possibly be punished by any current accounting.

Or a past whose joys have been paid for already.  "Things were better then," we say, "when we had to wrest boulders from the soil in order to plant our crops.  The work brought us exercise and enduring stone walls."  The pleasure of those harvests long paid for, we can dwell in their memory without fear of reckoning. 

To enjoy a book, today, without even the struggle of paper and printing -- it's an abundance that makes a New Englander suspicious.  Oh, we'll enjoy it, since we have to, but we'll pretend, for a long stretch, that we don't. 

Until the next thing comes along to enjoy and worry over.

The Costs of Forcing the Anachronism

It's becoming harder than ever to live the anachronism as the rest of the world turns to tools and toys we have reservations about. 

To stay in touch with Facebook, for example.  Broadcasting carbon-copied letters with the minutiae of our lives to all our friends around the world for just the price of electricity.

To live second lives in the fantasy world of an MMORPG,  Battle after battle bringing a gradual accumulation of wealth, while we don't tire out more than a finger muscle. 

To communicate with anyone in the world who wants to follow our Twitter stream.  It's a miracle of public relations!  The only barrier between ourselves and our audience now is our own vapidity, the marketplace of ideas the ultimate laissez-faire free economy, rewarding the fascinating and clever with eyeballs and attention.  (Granted, you have to be fascinating and clever and have the equipment to blog, but these are low hurdles in this age of falling electronics prices and rising unemployment.)

As much as I'd love to get on-board, this all makes me very uneasy.

These electronic readers, now.  Folks resist them at first.  People have an attachment to books.  They're sacred, nothing like CDs or VHS tapes.  Everyone talks about how much they want to hold a book in their hands, turn the pages, smell the paper.  They say they'll never exchange their library for another electronic gadget.  But there's no mistaking the thrill in their eyes when they realise they can hold thousands of books on one machine, or download millions of titles instantly, from anywhere.  I feel the thrill myself.  After moving house 16 times in 33 years, the argument that this gadget could free up my shelf space and reduce my clutter reaches right into my limbic system and strokes my pleasure center.  If it weren't for my stubborn refusal to associate my identity with a credit card number, I'd be tempted to pick one up. 

But I've also got the reservation that a digital library can be wiped out in one hard drive failure.  (Solar flare?  Electromagnetic pulse, anyone?) and that despite every benevolent corporation's promise to maintain copies of every book I've purchased along with my paid licences for reading, we need only look back a handful of years to see how quickly corporations can dissolve, and wonder, what happens to all the precious data I've licensed, if that happens.  Who takes care of my digital library when Amazon.com goes away?

Meanwhile, my physical books are my own responsibility, and I need only protect them from flood and fire.

I've got this constant tug-of-war going on between lust for the shiny and new, and a desire to preserve and make do -- and dig in my heels.  There's no denying the net increase in pleasure and well being brought about by scientific advancement and the introduction of new gadgets.  But am I really happier with my iPod than my stack of CDs?  And does this cell-phone make me any happier than the wall-mounted rotary phone I grew up with? 

I grew up with a lot of hand-me-downs: grandfather's 8-track players, the Atari 2600 the tenant left behind in the rented room, older brother's reel-to-reel tape recorder.  I learned to enjoy technology on its terms, not mine.  So I mess around with Linux distributions, making old computers work as well as they can.  I lubricate an old bicycle picked up for free on the side of the road.  I think: here is the hand-me-down or the estate-sale find.  What does it have left within it that I can bring out?  I never think, here is a thing I'd like to do, let's go out and get the equipment that'll help me do it.  Objects are not so much tools as an obligation for me.  Here's an old lamp, better find a place to use it.  Here's a stack of old grocery bags.  I can't possibly throw them away.  What can I possibly do with them?

Is it any wonder that the acquisition of more stuff fills me with trepidation?

So I try to romanticise the stuff nobody wants any more.  I may not be able to afford the exclusive experience, the vintage wine, the rare cigar.  But I can pick up the furniture at the dump that has been through a lifetime of use already.  Nobody else in the world is going to have that.  I can spend hours in the musty basement of the used bookshop, sniffing the pages of books nobody is going to buy in these precious years before the shops shut down and disappear entirely.  I feel compelled to save these anachronisms, because I hate to see them discarded and turned into toxic waste.  Instead, they can be just mine. 

It's an easy and affordable way to feel unique, at least, this embracing of discarded artifacts.  For those of us who can't afford to play the consumer game as it's been laid out, those who don't have the cash or ready credit to accessorise their iPads with patent leather accessories from Kate Spade, or to keep up with H&M clothing stores' 26 annual fashion seasons.  IKEA gives us thousands of ways to customise our living rooms in their 200 page catalogue, but if we have the patience to sift through the garbage, we can put together a space nobody else in the world has, for free.

Perhaps it's because I have no children.  Maybe I'm turning into one of those neurotic middle aged men who assign importance to all the wrong things, worried more about the location of their misplaced walking stick than the performance of their retirement portfolio.

But I'm not the only one who is this way.  I wrote last week about a co-worker who loves typewriters as I do.  (She, likewise, has no desire for children, but loves dogs.)  Even more recently I was speaking with another co-worker, a young man who may not be old enough to drink, but who has always impressed me with his thoughtful dress sense, the manner with which he tips his antiquated hats, and the care he takes in hand-rolling his cigarettes. 

Despite these cues, it still surprised me to learn that he owns his own antique store already.  It was given to him by his grandfather.  "It's closed for the season," he told me, "and that's why I'm doing this for the winter." 

I asked him, of course, if he had any old typewriters in his inventory.  He assured me yes, a Royal, at least, and a Hermes Rocket with the original case and instruction manual.  A Selectric I as well, which he knowledgeably described as "the famous electric typewriter from IBM with the ball."  I was tempted by the Hermes, of course, and told him so, but cautioned that I collect antique typewriters and have too many already.

"I know what you mean," he said, "I collect them too."

The fact that this strange affectation has struck three individuals in the same workplace must point more to some great yearning in the human spirit than to coincidence.  We long for the simple, established, and effective, even as the marketplace tells us why we need the new, the novel, the upgraded.  (The marketplace tells us this because it needs to, not because it wants us to be happy or healthy.) 

Three employees in the building is not many, perhaps, but it's more than I would expect, and it shows there may be even more unexpected anachronisms among us.

Dump Find: Typewriter Table

The Wife picked me up a typewriter table (on wheels!) at the dump today.

I assiduously avoid the swap shop when we go there, at least on grumpy days like today, when a winter's worth of yard-garbage is waiting for us to clear it out.  I'm always afraid that I might end up loading up with as much junk as we're unloading, and what's the point of that? 

But I have to admit this is a pretty good find.  The finish is gleaming, the structure is surprisingly solid and non wobbly (I really thought those wheels would be rolling all over my crooked, 300 year old floor.) and it means I don't have to rearrange my desk when I want to set aside the keyboard and do some proper noisy typing.

She got a new mid-century office chair for herself, too, more comfortable than the one she's been using.  And she found a home for some tacky plastic newfangled mop products our tenants left behind.  (They're crap, but somebody might as well use them before they end up in the landfill.) 

Please don't attach too much significance to the books on the shelf.  A lot of those came from the dump as well.  (The pipes, however, were all hand-selected.)

As far as dumps go, we're blessed with a pretty special one.  

Teenage Pregnancy, 16 Years Later

Overheard in a supermarket checkout line:

TEENAGE GIRL 1:  Yeah, so mom says to me, "You're going out again?  How come you get to have all this fun?  When do I get to have any fun?  What happened to my fun?"

TEENAGE GIRL 2:  * Snort *  Well, her motherly duties kind of get in the way of fun, don't they?

TEENAGE GIRL 1:  Yeah!  That's what I told her!  I said, "You had plenty of fun before.  That's how you ended up with me.  Teenage pregnancy's a bitch, isn't it, mom?"

There's something very strange and backwards about this, the product of misbehavior lecturing the miscreant about their mistakes.  I don't really think anyone comes out looking good.

Back when I was in high school, we had so many pregnant students that the home economics class on "childhood development" ran a day care service so the new mothers would have a place to park their babies while they earned their diploma. 

The "honors" kids didn't really talk about this much.  Diapers and feeding schedules were so alien to college applications and class rank worries that they might as well have existed in a separate universe.

But in retrospect, the program is a nice community gesture.  Cape Cod might have a teenage pregnancy problem (to go along with the heroin problem and the gang problems), but at least we try to take care of our babies' babies. 

It was a little strange to consider I could have gone to high school with this bitchy girl's mother, though.  I've officially hit that age where I can tell a teenager: "I'm old enough to be your father."

And I'm happy about it.  Don't think I'd go back under any circumstances.

So maybe I'll go to the mall and throw my weight around some.

Repeating Ourselves (With Tongue in Cheek)

Really it turns out that we're starting from scratch every single day. Continuity is illusory. This is why we settle into the same grooves, repeating ourselves. Our grandchildren, by the time we have grandchildren, think we're broken records (or maybe outdated, low-capacity mp3 players set on shuffle). Our children, if we're not careful, think the same thing. (But by the time we get to the grandchildren it's hopess.)

This is why a preacher, after a certain number of sermons, doesn't even have to prepare them any more.

This is why you can hand a salesman any product and he'll make it a success. The product is irrelevant, so long as it's better than yesterday's product. If people had memories that stored more than 24 hours of experience, they'd realize this. Maybe they'd wait a few more days, until the product grew into something really remarkable, or maybe they'd wait until the one they already had broke down.

But progress spins through town on shiny chrome wheels, those spinny ones tricked out with neon, and there's bass pounding out of the trunk to rattle the neighborhood's windopanes, and a custom paint-job sponsored by sponsors, and there's so much money wrapped up in all that kit that we didn't have enough left for the brakes. So we're not slowing down.

Which is just fine, because, you know, the economy. It needs us to keep forgetting, now that we've swapped the gold standard for credit and chrome.

* * *

Really we're starting from scratch every single day. Last semester, last fiscal year, last night at the bar: we've got grades and spreadsheets and regrettable text messages to show for them, but they're best left for the machines to analyze. What matters to US are the things we're going to do TODAY. Yesterday is in the can, tomorrow out of reach. Today is all we have.

There's a group of alcoholics out there (I'm sure they have a chapter near you) who have this serenity prayer what talks about knowing the difference between the things you can control and the things you can't. Once, I despaired when I saw this prayer tattooed across a beautiful young mother's shoulders, but that's just because I can't abide tattoos. They're too hard to forget. They stretch today out into too long.

This is the bit everyone knows, that fits on a tattoo:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

And then there's the rest, that you have to go to meetings (or use Google) to find:

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

The prayer's got a good point. Life hands you garbage, might as well sit back and take it. Can't do much about that. See, what you can control is your wallet, so just throw out all that old garbage and go shopping. Join a support group, trade up to an eco-friendly car, call the cable company and add a few more channels to your plan. All you really got control of is THIS MOMENT RIGHT NOW, so by golly you better EARN and BUY and CHANNEL SURF like there's no this afternoon, because by now I think we can all agree that there isn't.

Some might argue that that serenity prayer's lowered the bar too far, that "accepting the things I cannot change" doesn't preclude us taking responsibility for our future or force us to forget our past. Well, maybe not. But when a nation lets a bunch of drunks and drug addicts dominate the national mood with bumper stickers, meetings in every town, tee-shirts, seminars, and tattoos on beautiful young mothers, it's gotten beyond arguing the finer points, and deserves whatever's coming to it.

So why worry? It's time better spent stocking up on canned goods and ammunition. Not because you want to use it tomorrow. Because it looks shiny in the closet, today! (And doesn't it just make you feel good, knowing it's there?)

* * *

We start from scratch every day. The brain boots up from whatever it's doing at night (Running stress-test simulations? Installing antivirus software?) and you see sun in the windows and maybe there's a woman next to you.

Hello, world!

You may feel the compulsion to take notes. It's better to resist it. Consider: if you spend this moment taking notes, you're missing your one chance to control the one thing you have control over, which is this moment right now. And you're condemning your future self to spend time down the line reviewing the notes about the woman and the window and the sun out there way back right now, if he's unfortunate enough to go through your notebook, which I think we can agree, at this point (and I'm not just flattering you here) he'll be clever enough to avoid. Wouldn't you rather switch on the TV, or go shopping? There are things TO DO, fer heavenssakes!

And as for sharing those notes, well, doesn't it seem like an awful imposition to expect anyone else to read them?

I mean, really, who the hell do you think you are?

Short Walk Through Long History

Pulled ourselves away from the computers and went for a walk down town.  Parked near the library, walked past shops and churches, through a residential neighborhood, down past the grist mill.  Walked around the town hall, which is under construction/renovation.  Circumnavigated the old cemetery, and marvelled at the hand-carved tombstones from the 1700s.  Many of them are illegible now, and some have subsided so that the turf covers the last line or two of inscription.  Some sort of preservation project must be going on.  There's little blue fragments of painters' tape with numbers marking many of the stones.  Is it more respectful to replace them or let them crumble, I wonder?  Interesting to consider that even our tombstones don't last that long, in the big scheme of things. 

So we may not be around long, but at least in this town we can walk around a lot of neat old things within a mile and a half.
   
Picked up a free Schwinn bicycle on the side of the road.  Looks like it just needs some lubrication and a couple of inner tubes.  Talked The Wife out of a second bike, a ten speed, which was going to need new gearshift cables and brake pads.  It was free as well, but we'll let someone else have that project. 
   
Now I'm ready for a nap.

The Long Term Consequences of Over-Exposing Ourselves on Facebook

I took all my information off of Facebook back in 2008, even before The Wife started her 1950s year.  I didn't like the time-sink aspect of it.  And when I'm going to share something of myself online, I want it to be something I've thought over, composed, and presented to my own standards.  For some reason changing my status update several times a day to indicate how my digestion was working just wasn't what I was looking for in a communicative experience.

And here's why I'm glad I withdrew: an interview with an anonymous employee discussing how they store and profit from our data.

Meanwhile millionaire douche-bag and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is off at the Crunchie awards telling his audience why privacy isn't a social norm any more.  See, that's why it's okay for him to make millions off our friend requests and profile pictures.  And that's why it's okay for us to flash all our most intimate details to the world over a medium that copies, duplicates, and never forgets.

I guess Zuckerberg doesn't have a problem with the British government monitoring every call and email passing through their country.  Nor is he concerned with the fate of the thousands of political prisoners around the world who might like some control over their personal privacy and dignity.

Not that those political prisoners were arrested for broadcasting their views on Facebook or Myspace.  But with friends like Zuckerberg eroding the social norms around our Reasonable Expectations of Privacy, it won't be much longer until governments and courts feel they have a legitimate right to know every little thing about us, and prosecute when they disagree.  After all, why shouldn't the goons get to violate our dignity and search our homes without a warrant?  We've already put all of that stuff up on Facebook years ago!

Don't Throw Away That Old Computer - Put Ubuntu On It Instead

Much as I'd love one, I just can't afford a new computer right now.  I've got a three year old Macbook and a two year old Asus Eee netbook, and then of course The Wife has that workhorse of a Dell desktop (also three years old) which she's been pounding her blog and website out on.  So the fleet of tech is aging a bit, but that's no excuse to just up and buy more of it.

One thing I can afford to do is download the latest iteration of the Ubuntu operating system.  It turns out that Ubuntu 9.10, "Karmic Koala," runs great on both my computers, which is a surprise.  I thought the netbooks's screen was going to be too small to display properly, and Macs have always been notoriously tricky to get Linux running on, since the whole point of a Mac is to run that shiny, expensive operating system.

But the community of open-source developers have been working together on this problem long enough now that an installation of Ubuntu automatically detects the Mac's wireless card, speakers, touchpad, etc, etc, right out of the box.  It installs in about half the time it would take to restore the Mac's original operating system, and as an added bonus takes up about a tenth of the space on the hard drive that Mac's OS X used, too.

The "Open Source" software community is a great example of a functional, modern-day community, pulling together to manufacture something for the greater good and the pure fun of it.  Alas, I lack the skills to participate as a designer, programmer, or debugger.  But it's been great watching Ubuntu and a few other flavors of Linux (Puppy Linux, Damn Small Linux, Xubuntu, Eeebuntu, Linux Mint) get improved upon over the last few years, to the point that this install seems to do everything I need, for free, and with more grace and elegance than the old Mac could muster on its own.  (Granted, Apple's come out with a new iteration of their operating system, but if I wanted to play with that I'd have to shell out a couple hundred bucks.  But I'm done paying for this computer.)

If you haven't tried out Ubuntu Linux, and you've got a computer that's a couple or eight years old, see if you can't get it up and running.  Honestly, the install's super simple at this point, with the help of a couple of tutorials and the forums over at http://ubuntuforums.org/.

Once it's installed, this edition even has a link at the bottom of its "Applications" menu: Ubuntu Software Center.  Open source applications have always been free, but now the installation of any office, graphics, internet, or video software is just a matter of reading through the menu and clicking what you want. 

It's a great way to make more out of less and get a few more years out of that old machine.  (Or to make your new one look exceptionally shiny!)  Plus you'll soon discover how liberating it is not to worry about antivirus scans, firewall settings, and the other assorted prophylactics that are such a regular part of our online experience.