Well, seeing all the crap that seems to pervading the web, I figured it was time to cast my thoughts into the void. Against my general instinct to preserve anonymity, I'll attempt to preserve my sanity against the inane dialog social communities seem most adept at regurgitating for public consumption. I'm not doing this for anyone other than myself. Some of the posts I see out there are so asinine that they require comment; even if it happens in my own unobtrusive corner of the web.

There's a gold rush for your celluloid 15 minutes of fame and this whole Web 2.0 thing just seems to have capitalized on everyone's insecurity of being forgotten or overlooked. Is it me, or is a lot of the Web 2.0 superstars simple vehicles for the insecure to relive the popularity they were denied in high school? It's ironic that what's labeled technological progress facilitates retrograde social change. The Facebooks and YouTubes of the era of “innovation” feed off the almost pathological need of people for some form of acknowledgment; the need to stand out from the rest of the crowd.

In return, we achieve our identity only through consumption. Consumption in turn leads to cultural intolerance by heightening our ability to differentiate the 'haves' and 'have nots' by what they own and the dissimilarity of their possessions to our own.

“The singularity of fact; the multiplicity of truth.”

As I scrutinize the world around me, this simple dictum reveals the beauty that has been obscured by superficiality of our existence. What happened to skepticism as a path to truth? What happened to beauty? Question the world around you and discover the deeper truth. A truth that is not manufactured, a truth that is informed by context.

We are being deceived by numbers. Something quantified becomes fact. But simple fact itself does not reveal truth.

You know that scene in Jurassic Park where they are trying to account for the number of dinosaurs and they find that they have an extra one? We apply a reality filter to the numbers we see and only when we question the assumptions behind these figures do we see the fallacy of the "truth" we've been misled by.

Radiohead top UK album chart | The Register

The "In Rainbows" promo by Radio highlights an important aspect in digital content distribution - that of tangibility and its implicit association with people's idea of "purchase". As Yorke claims in the article " ... it's really important to have an artefact as well". This idea that content and physicality are inextricably linked is something that is missing from digital media purchases. Although the music itself is ephemeral, new digital distribution techniques should address this by alternative "artefacts". The art of the digital sell will mix self promotional materials with the content itself. The paraphernalia usually reserved for concerts, or concert tickets themselves can be marketed directly to fans on a global scale and help solidify an artist's "brand" image and putting control of the artist-fan dialog firmly in the hands of artists and NOT music labels.

Only one question remains ... how to promote album awareness? By its very nature radio stations are self selective and really only provide a fractional glimpse of the entire artist's oeuvre. This cornerstone of the music distribution industry must be revisited in order to truly expand the dialog between an artist and his/her potential fan-base.

When you watch television, do you ever wonder why you should be watching a show in the first place? Not the passive consumption that constitutes the majority of television viewing experience, but the active engagement good programmes illicit from their viewers?

I've been a long time fan of LOST, and the episode, "The Constant" reaffirms my belief that the not only is this series an exemplar of modern epic story-telling, but that it approaches what can only be defined as Art. At the heart of all compelling modern fabrications is an archetype formed from our "collective unconsciousness", as Jung put it. All of the main characters in LOST exhibit this characteristic. Kate, embodies the proverbial "Girl-Next-Door", Sawyer embodies the "Bad-Boy", while Locke fits the "Prophet" archetype.

Desmond, the character whose story is revealed in this episode embodies one of our most important collective archetypes; the "Hero". We've corrupted the idea of "Hero" with muscle bound stereotypes devoid of the essential character of what "Hero" means. The physicality of the "Hero" is obviously important, for it allows our idea of "Hero" to surmount worldly obstacles, but the obstacles themselves are existential in nature. We associated the superhuman to the "Hero", but by imbuing the archetype with a power rooted in the human experience as Desmond's is, it allows him to use it selflessly instead for self-aggrandizement.

The fact that Desmond's power is over time itself gives context and scale to the depth of his achievement.

For the "Hero" archetype to truly achieve universality, the "Hero" must also embody the idea of sacrifice. In Desmond's case, his sacrifice was Penny.

The Desmond in the past that was aware of the Future, and the 2004 Desmond that was aware of only 1996 understood the circumstances of his displaced selves. And accepted the unfolding years without hesitation. The realization that the apparent contradiction could only be resolved through 8 years of journey only made his sacrifice even more heroic in proportions.

Heroism is confronting an unequivocal outcome and having the courage to accept it. Desmond's story resonates for this reason; at the heart of all heroic acts is the promise of Hope. That the creator's of LOST managed to capture the essence of this conflict and express it in a 38 minute television episode is sheer artistry.

I must admit, that sometime ago, I was addicted to Diablo 3. Something about the game occupied my every waking moment and for two weeks solid, I was glued to my computer. No ergonomic mouse was ever designed for this type of prolonged use and by the end of it, my hand was fixed in a rictus of mouse clicking. (You know you've been over doing it when you develop calluses where your palm rests on the mouse.)

After this extended bout of insanity, I had an epiphany that has dulled my enthusiasm for such fare - I had been a dupe at the end of an elaborate Skinner black box. Nothing cramps desire like coming to the realization that you've been manipulated into giving in to your inner monkey. The obsession with the game fed off the primal need for a reward completely disproportionate to the effort expended, but somehow, I had managed to rationalize the effort as "fun". What was I thinking???

There is something else that I should admit which is related to my fascination with video games; that I am a long time RPGer of the Dungeons & Dragons variety (the pen and paper, polyhedra wielding, geohex terrain loving, leaded miniture painting kind). I suspect that few people could claim that their RPG group has lasted some 25 years other than those involved in the industry itself. We've played (and continue to play) every game under the sun from Tunnels and Trolls and Paranoia, to our (relatively recent) work-horses of Earthdawn, ShadowRun, and TORG.

I always associated my love of video games and role playing as coming from the same source - my fascination with the fantastic (as evident from the SciFi/Fantasy ladened literature of my youth) and the acknowledgment that the collective engagement of our imaginations produced some of our most memorable moments of "the Game". The collective conscious fed by books, arcades, movies, and comics, contributed in no small part to the absurd hilarity and outright originality that permeated our gaming sessions.

It's taken me a while to be able to articulate my misgivings regarding the direction of computerized RPGs, though it's been steadily building. Not that I'm completely oppose computerized games, but there are a variety that certainly deserves the "heroine-ware" appellation.

My problem with these games is what lies at the heart of the game - why do gamers play games in the first place? I think the answer to this question highlights a fundamental difference between two genres of gaming which are superficially similar, but are governed by different motivations.

Part of appeal of RPG is the creative act of imagination that computerized RPGs literalize to the detriment of the whole experience. To overcome this limitation, game designers replace this void with artificial reward systems to entice players into continuing to play. The problem with these environments is that by introducing the phantom reward of level advancement, players never achieve the true reward of role-playing - catharsis. In a sense, delaying catharsis or completely eliminating it allows for players to become entrapped in the button clicking unreality where reward is dangled tantalizingly just out of reach.

What exactly do I mean by catharsis? From Wikipedia:

meaning "purification" or "cleansing" derived from the ancient Greek gerund καθαίρειν transliterated as kathairein "to purify, purge," and adjective katharos "pure or clean" (ancient and modern Greek: καθαρός).

How important is catharsis to the RPG experience? I think for any serious ( non-psychopathic) player, the ability to exercise their imagination in an environment that unconditionally accepts the suspension of disbelief and judgment while allowing a drama to unfold that could not otherwise find expression in daily life IS the REWARD. All gain in role playing lives only in the imagination. It is the feeling we take with us after we've played "the Game" that provides the motivation for the true RPGer.

This place we create for ourselves in the imagination that we use for cathartic release is implicitly a place that it meant to be occupied for only a limited time. It is the reality we use to escape from the everyday. It is not meant to replace our the reality of our daily existence. By allowing allowing us to enter periodically, it provides a means to enrich our daily existence by framing our struggles in more metaphorical terms and hopefully providing a means to come to terms with them.

This brings us to the question : Can the computerized RPG experience emulate catharsis that great collective reality based RPGs are capable of rewarding their players with?

I think that despite the increasing sophistication of virtual worlds, they will ultimately be limited by the vision imposed by their game designers. MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft will never be able to provide the essential ingredient for successful RPGs - catharsis. The real crux of the matter is the question of whether or not this is by design. There are are games out there that capture the essence of the RPG (Ico and Shadow of the Colussus come to mind), but WoW is not one of them. Players should question the what master the game serves - is it the players who benefit from being perpetually entrenched in the accumulation of "legendary" rewards, or the company that requires a subscription to enter this virtual world? How does "the Game" subvert our daily lives when so much actual time is required for the commitment of maintaining a virtual life? When does the "the Game" become "Life"?

When you return to reality, I'll be waiting with my dice.

Experiment : To create a Persona Non Grata that exists only in the virtual world. Dialog would consist of insightful and pithy comments on the existential nature of Unreality. Identity to be manufactured through the creation of digital effluvia and given cultural significance through its distribution on obvious celebrity-whoring meme factories such as YouTube and Twitter (all of course, delivered from the Virtual).

Unlike Neo, the protagonist portrayed in this experiment does NOT have SKiLLZ (unless augmented indirectly through an AimBOT) and is NOT the expression of some manifest destiny clothed with messianic overtones. He/she is however, imbued with the super-human capacity for being able to be completely NON-EXISTENT (meaning the persona has the ability to exist two-dimensionally in the confines of the imagination of believers).

Would the creation of this meta-identity qualify for one of Hofstadter's self-referential "Strange Loops"? At what point does the persona become "real", or more importantly "meaningful"?

How long before the need for masturbatory celebrity gratification forces the creator to reveal his/her true identity? Is the creation of such a persona a subconscious cry for celebrity in the mind of the creator?

Any takers?

You would have to be in the Heart of Darkness not to have heard of Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child initiative and the various spin-offs by other players (Intel's Classmate PC / Asus's EEE) suddenly crowding the marketplace. What to make of all this maneuvering and its potential impact on the global digital landscape?

Despite the "altruism" motivating this apparent movement, the cynic in me perceives a fundamental hypocrisy in the whole enterprise. Why are we spending money and effort promoting something that does nothing to address basic human necessities of the 3rd World? How can a computer, no matter how well intentioned, address factors that impact mortality rates? What is the good of having universal accessible media to a mass of illiterates? What is the use of mesh capable networked devices where electricity is so scarce that they still rely on tallow for lighting? What's the use of being able to search for health related information, when the water you drink is likely to transmit communicable diseases that are for all intents untreatable due to lack of basic health care? How do you address the potential environmental impact of creating 100 million electronic devices and the externalities of recycling the components when they inevitably become obsolete?

I think this is an initiative of the "haves" for the "have-nots". It is similar to the Western feminist movement expounding their ideological agendas without regard to cultural circumstances surrounding the state of women they are trying to emancipate. At best, the movement is misguided and well intentioned. At worst, it is a cleverly disguised commercial venture out to extend the grasp of consumerism to those who have nothing else to loose. The numbers point to scales of economy suggesting a potential global market that could be quite lucrative. The naked greed displayed by for-profit corporations suggests that they've brought out their bean counters and come to the same conclusion. But can this movement stand for any "meaningful" change in the lives of the majority of the people in the world?

Instead of using technology to manufacture artificial "necessities" for self-congratulatory purposes, why not address problems affecting fundamental human needs such as the following:

1. A way to create potable water. Something that can be manufactured locally to create a self-perpetual cottage industry. Something not patent encumbered to allow the widest possible dispersion amongst those who need it the most.
2. A way to provide light to areas with limited electricity. By extending the amount of time the printed word is visible in a given day, illiteracy will eventually recede as productive educational time increases. Light will provide the opportunity for true illumination while reducing the dependency on fossil fuels.
3. A way to break the stranglehold of pharmaceutical companies on the manufacture of life-giving medicines which afflict the poor in the 3rd World. Medical research ungoverned by commercial viability allows the poorest to benefit from advances without being victims of commercial exploitation and enslavement. Erectile dysfunction or malaria? The choice should be obvious.
4. Educational systems that transcend local delivery. The sum of human knowledge would be better served by allowing the best educational institutions to be accessible by anyone, any time, any where. The ultimate goal will be the internationalization of these sources of knowledge and learning.

If you look around, progress is already being made on these initiatives. The question remains however of why very little media coverage is given to these movements.

Instead of commoditizing the opportunity to empower the globally impoverished, maybe we should address these fundamental needs so that they can build their own computers.

There seems to be a certain sense of indiscriminate labeling applied to online character based games and Role Playing Games of yore which, admittedly, share a lot of similarities, but are fundamentally quite different experiences. Granted, a lot of online RPGs derive their inspiration and content directly from pencil and dice based RPGs, but the difference I'm talking about has more to do with the experiencing of gaming, not the game itself. I personally think that it is misleading to label these games as RPGs for the simple reason that by definition, you MUST actually be engaged in Role Playing. Simply selecting a character class then acting like every other jackass who use the veil of anonymity to engage in infantile name calling does not qualify a game as an RPG. As any experienced RPGer knows, playing a character well involves making decisions in the game world from the perspective of the character. To do this well requires the complete engagement of a player's imagination. It is this complete dissociation of the imagination which separates old school RPGs from their digital equivalents. It's as if by explicitly depicting the game world, a player's imagination is stifled. At the very least, imagination is homogenized. Until this disconnect is addressed in current virtual game environments, the experience will always be a pale imitation of what our imagination's can conjure up.

Can I resell my MP3's> - the post-sale life of digital goods

Can you own an idea? In the era of digital content, this is a question that seems to be occluded by questions of copyright and ownership, but resides fundamentally at the heart of the issue. Although it is understood that the creator holds copyright with regards to the content created, the question of ownership is much murkier when content is duplicated for mass consumption. Who owns those duplicates? What rights are extended to the purchasers when content comes into their possession? Do they have resale rights? At what point does the original content creator relinquish their rights to the purchaser, if ever?

These questions highlight the difficulty of assigning ownership and possession to the intangible. Tangibility or the lack thereof is digital media's Achilles heel. The problem is that by its nature a tangible product or commodity is obviously limited in how many copies can be made of it. This is not true for digital goods. The simple act of transmission implies that it is being duplicated. A physical commodity does not have this characteristic. It can be resold, borrowed, but it is not duplicated in the process. In essence, tangibility is a counter agent to duplicability.

If we look at the definition of the word counterfeit:

... is an imitation that is made usually with the intent to deceptively represent its content or origins.

It is rooted in the physical nature of a commodity. Can the term "counterfeit" be applied to digital media when a copy is as perfect as the original? Does it deceptively represent its content? I think not.

There are those that will argue that media can be counterfeited. CDs, DVDs, books, can all be duplicated. This is true, but what is actually being counterfeited - the medium which delivers the content or the content itself? Ultimately, physical artifacts serve as simple distribution mechanisms. They only serve as repositories for the ideas/content they transport. This leads to a more accurate definition of media - as an amalgamation of physical distribution mechanism and content.

Most of our consumer rights focus on this the tangible asset as the focus of copyright. Once you remove the distribution mechanism out of the equation however and are left with dissociated content, what you actually own is an idea - a cultural meme without physical constraints. Can something this ephemeral ever be constrained to individual ownership?

Spoiler Alert (about a year too late)!!!

So I'm 8 episodes into season one of BSG when the first glaring discontinuity raises it ugly head. Faced with the dilemma of finding a method for being able to detect Cylon infiltrators, the BSG crew serendipitously find a live copy of one of the two known Cylons/Human chimera in existence. Instead of using the Cylon to verify their screening procedure, they eject him out of an airlock. WTF!!! Using Boomer as the first beta candidate could easily have been attributed to a false positive, but comparing the outcome of her test against a live Cylon baseline would have given them the ability to identify both another Cylon in their midst and repudiate the unsubstantiated claim that Adama was a Cylon. What were the writers thinking?

In general, I like the whole re-imagining of the BSG universe with the Manchurian Candidate take on the Cylon infiltrators and the moral quandaries faced by the survivors, but this type of oversight does not bode well for the rest of the series. Hopefully it won't be quite as bad as the season finale I had the unfortunate privilege of watching out of context. When Boomer returns to the Viper without a helmet, the jig's up. Doh!

OS X 10.6 has been out for quite a while now and in true form, I was quick to upgrade my systems to the latest version in the hopes that it would finally support the full 4GB of memory on my Merom Core2Duo based MacBook Pro. Alas, unless Apple feels particularly beneficent and releases an EFI update which circumvents this limitation, I'm stuck with a 32-bit EFI which also does not address my memory issue. I was aware of this when I purchased the machine almost 3 years ago, but unlike PCs which support firmware updates to work around issues like this, it seems that Apple's strategy of planned obsolescence will have finally caught me in it's clutches. To bad; this issue seems completely contrary to Apple's environmental initiatives if it essentially cripples older machines and relegates them to the scrap heap simply because it refuses to support older architectures. Instead of simply making greener computers, shouldn't they also consider the impact of existing systems they've sold and at the very least keep them out of the landfill for as long as humanly possible? This too can be considered environmental.

Another case in point; the iMac I bought around the same time as my Macbook Pro began to exhibit extreme instability due to the faulty cooling design of the GPU in the enclosure. I only found out about this when I attempted to replace the GPU itself. While I can appreciate the design chops that it takes to design increasingly thinner computers, what about actual engineering chops to ensure that the thermal envelope of the enclosure does not lead to premature component death? At the heart of the problem was a single measly cooling fan responsible for the passively relocated heat generated from the CPU and GPU. Active cooling should have been applied separately to the CPU and GPU to ensure adequate cooling. At the very least, the GPU heat sink should have been placed before the CPU heat sink in terms of fan proximity; after all, the CPU is not always busy, but the system cannot function without a working video card. At first, I thought that this problem could have been attributed to faulty capacitors in the NVidia 7300 GT GPU; an issue that has already been addressed in the Mac Pro versions of these cards. But a quick look in the Apple forums revealed that this is a problem endemic in ALL Merom based iMacs (the 20"/24" white plastic varieties manufactured around 2006/2007).

After spending 4 hours disassembling the iMac, I came to the realization : these machines are DESIGNED FOR OBSOLESCENCE. From the obscure torx screws, to the insanely difficult access to components, I got the message loud and clear. These machines do not have field replaceable components. Without this fundamental capability to recycle existing functioning components, what I was left with was a two and a half year old computer that I'd paid a huge premium for that was designed to be rendered unusable by simple hardware failure that is easily remedied in your run-of-the-mill PC.

Luckily, my local Mac dealer was willing to get me a replacement GPU and with a little elbow grease, I was able revived my machine. Consider what would have happened if someone else without a technical background was affected. The cost of the replacement card was +$200. Once labour and taxes have been factored in, it would have cost $600 to fix the iMac with a video card that is laughable by today's performance standards. Whether you are discouraged by Apple through the inability to repair your machine with FRUs or the exorbitant cost of an out of warranty repair which makes buying a new machine a "feasible" alternative, the result is the same : electronic waste with a huge environmental impact. My only recommendation going forward for all Apple purchasers is to buy the extended warranty. It is cheaper than a single out of warranty repair, but still seems like an unnecessary cost considering the price premium we initially pay which should equate to "a more reliable" machine.

With any luck, the iMac issue will be addressed in a class action suit or a public acknowledgment and an out of warranty replacement/reimbursement. At the time this article was written, Apple still has not acknowledged any culpability with regards to this issue. If you too are facing this issue, add your voice here at PetitionSpot.

Shame on you Apple; the greenwashing of environmental issues is a blight on your record. If this is the cost of your current popularity, I smell a worm.

Missing User

After upgrading to Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6), I noticed that the PostgreSQL user I created for development using dscl had suddenly disappeared. Apparently any users that are not created through System Preferences -> User Accounts are excluded during the upgrade process. Strangely, the group associated with this PostgreSQL admin user was still present after the upgrade. It was trivial to restore functionality, but a bit irritating. At least I wasn't stung by the Guest user fiasco that has been finally fixed in 10.6.2.

Now that's out of the way, why is my subversion launchd entry being ignored? Hrmmm ...

IR/EyeTV Oddities

Another thing I noticed was the complete miscommunication between the IR Remote that came standard with older Macs and EyeTV. IR controls were either mismapped (resulting in strange interactions with EyeTV) or completely non-functional. Thankfully, this was resolved easily with the installation of Candalair - an alternative driver for internal Apple IR Receivers. By enabling Leopard Compatibility Mode, things were back to normal. This is obviously a known problem given the very existence of a compatibility mode, but why won't Apple actually fix the problem?

Printing?

One of the primary reasons for me considering OS X a few years ago was the tight integration of device drivers (for things such as printers) with the OS. I was tired of trying to configure PS emulation for standard photo printers in Linux. Printer configuration was by far the biggest PITA under free *nix varieties. Being able to install a printer painlessly was, for me, a true measure of usability.

Boy, have times changed. Where as my initial experience with 10.4 was the pleasant surprise of "wow that worked the first time", Snow Leopard has changed this process into an all too familiar experience of disappointment. Broken driver support for a slew of existing printers formerly supported by Leopard (10.5) was painful, to say the least. The process of upgrading the drivers with Apple's driver fix failed to notify users that existing print queues would NOT function until they had been recreated was completely obtuse in a way reminiscent of Windows. Oh well, so much for the usability advantage.

To see just how badly this process has devolved, try setting up a Canon Pixma 420 for wireless network printing. A friend of my got one of these with his new iMac, and nothing short of a herculean effort got this printer to work with OS X. Can you say "obscure"?

Quicktime X Black Screen

A new and improved Quicktime was supposed to be a boon to Snow Leopard. Unfortunately, right out of the gate, Quicktime X support in Front Row was broken for almost all files. Attempting to play any media files in Front Row resulted in a black screen with no audio or video. 10.6.1 at least restored the ability to play .avi files, but I had to wait until the recent 10.6.2 update to finally have support restored for .mkv's. What happened to releasing a functional product? Given legacy Quicktime support is available in Snow Leopard, wouldn't it have been prudent to wait until this version of Quicktime was ready for prime time before releasing it for public use? At the very least, it shouldn't have broken existing functionality. Where are the QA regression tests?

At What Cost?

I understand the primary motivation behind any public company is profit and Apple is no exception. But what is the cost of relentless push for greater market share if they start to diverge from their core philosophy of "just works"? From a consumer standpoint, there are increasingly compelling reasons to question Apple's current strategies, specially if it comes at the cost of keeping existing customers satisfied. I purchased Apple products because I did not want to contribute to the cycle of "disposable" electronics. Little did I know that by design, this is exactly what I've ended up with.

Hackintoshes are looking better every day ...