If you head over to The Secret Lair, you will find the first episode of a work of serialized fiction called Tricksters.  It’s based on a writing prompt from two years ago, when Kris and I were meeting each morning at a local coffee shop to write. The ideas implied by the original piece have been lurking around in my head since then, and as one of my big goals for the year is to work on my practice of writing, I decided to jump in with both feet.

I freely admit that this a novice effort: I’ve long talked about writing fiction, and like many people, I’ve gotten caught up in buying books, reading blogs, listening to podcasts…doing anything but the actual work. That ends now.

Please check out the story. I welcome your thoughts.

When DVD Jon was arrested after breaking the CSS encryption algorithm, he was charged with “unauthorized computer trespassing.” That led his lawyers to ask the obvious question, “On whose computer did he trespass?” The prosecutor’s answer: “his own.”

If that doesn’t make your heart skip a beat, you can stop reading now.

And on the roadblocks which new “appliance” devices impose on would-be tinkerers:

The iPad is an attractive, thoughtfully designed, deeply cynical thing. It is a digital consumption machine. As Tim Bray and Peter Kirn have pointed out, it’s a device that does little to enable creativity…

The tragedy of the iPad is that it truly seems to offer a better model of computing for many people — perhaps the majority of people. Gone are the confusing concepts and metaphors of the last thirty years of computing. Gone is the ability to endlessly tweak and twiddle towards no particular gain. The iPad is simple, straightforward, maintenance-free…

The thing that bothers me most about the iPad is this: if I had an iPad rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today. I’d never have had the ability to run whatever stupid, potentially harmful, hugely educational programs I could download or write. I wouldn’t have been able to fire up ResEdit and edit out the Mac startup sound so I could tinker on the computer at all hours without waking my parents.

Now, I am aware that you will be able to develop your own programs for the iPad, the same way you can develop for the iPhone today. Anyone can develop! All you need is a Mac, XCode, an iPhone “simulator,” and $99 for an auto-expiring developer certificate. The “developer certificate” is really a cryptographic key that (temporarily) allows you (slightly) elevated access to… your own computer. And that’s fine — or at least workable — for the developers of today, because they already know that they’re developers. But the developers of tomorrow don’t know it yet. And without the freedom to tinker, some of them never will.

If you’re like him or like me…one of the guys who got his start tinkering around with a computer in your basement, finding your way by intuition and discovery, please read his full post and pass it on.

I cannot deny that it’s pretty. It’s very pretty. Shiny, too. Maybe I’m just getting old, but pretty doesn’t impress me much anymore.  From what I can see, it’s not terribly useful and at the price point of $500…ahem…$499 for a measly 16G of space, it’s just not worth the money.

I also object to the inability use the device in any manner I choose. Apple’s need to control MY hardware and software is intrusive and offensive.

From Thomas Gideon’s iPad is Yet Another DRM Crippled Device:

I have vastly different expectations of a tablet, even one as stripped down as the iPad appears to be. How does Apple justify hobbling the device? Wireless carriers have begun offering comparably stripped down computers, netbooks, that are still open to the end user installing whatever they like. I might concede that a single distribution channel makes the experience better. And Apple is clearly more about experience these days than substance.

But why does the experience of some have to preclude the ability to exercise owner override? Would the App Store be any less used if power users could still install their own bundles? If the arguments Apple makes about their captive channel really hold water, why not open the device to both and see if the market agrees? Allowing users to install simple application bundles like on a regular old Mac would be the shortest way to turn around much of the negative PR the approval process for the App Store has generated almost since day one.

I have no doubt that people will buy it. There’s a market out there for it, and people will line up for the New Shiny. It’s sad that people will give up freedom and hard-earned cash for something so…vapid.

I found the following article interesting and, frankly, accurate.

Protestors: iPad is nothing more than a golden calf of DRM

Steve Jobs may have descended from the mountaintop today with Moses Tablet in hand, but a group of protesters were waiting in the foothills with a simple message: the iPad isn’t a divine revelation, but a golden calf.

Members of the Free Software Foundation staged a small protest outside today’s Apple event in San Francisco, making the case against Apple’s use of DRM. The group’s four-foot signs were headed with the message “Entering Apple Restriction Zone” and laid out the tablet’s detriments:

Dictionaries have been removed from classrooms in southern California schools after a parent complained about a child reading the definition for “oral sex”.

Merriam Webster’s 10th edition, which has been used for the past few years in fourth and fifth grade classrooms (for children aged nine to 10) in Menifee Union school district, has been pulled from shelves over fears that the “sexually graphic” entry is “just not age appropriate”, according to the area’s local paper.

The dictionary’s online definition of the term is “oral stimulation of the genitals”. “It’s hard to sit and read the dictionary, but we’ll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature,” district spokeswoman Betti Cadmus told the paper.

This interview with Jonathan Coulton was recorded in the spring of 2006, and I have to admit, I had a great time with it. Jonathan was more than willing answer anything that I threw at him;  you’ll find things in this interview you won’t find anywhere else.

Enjoy!

(Thanks to J.C. for the kick in the ass to get this re-released to the public.)

A lot of companies would be trapped by the conventions and their legacies of what they’ve built, doing a privacy change – doing a privacy change for 350 million users is not the kind of thing that a lot of companies would do. But we viewed that as a really important thing, to always keep a beginner’s mind and what would we do if we were starting the company now and we decided that these would be the social norms now and we just went for it.

Kirkpatrick’s response is spot on:

This is a radical change from the way that Zuckerberg pounded on the importance of user privacy for years. That your information would only be visible to the people you accept as friends was fundamental to the DNA of the social network that hundreds of millions of people have joined over these past few years. Privacy control, he told me less than 2 years ago, is “the vector around which Facebook operates.”

I don’t buy Zuckerberg’s argument that Facebook is now only reflecting the changes that society is undergoing. I think Facebook itself is a major agent of social change and by acting otherwise Zuckerberg is being arrogant and condescending.

Why is Facebook changing their tune?  Money, baby. Money. At first, it might have been helping people stay in contact. Now, however, with 350 million people giving their personal information to the system, Facebook stands to gain…if they can convince everyone who uses their service that they do not need privacy anymore. Kirkpatrick continues:

First the company kept user data siloed inside its site alone, saying that a high degree of user privacy would make users comfortable enough to share more information with a smaller number of trusted people.

Now that it has 350 million people signed up and connected to their friends and family in a way they never have been before – now Facebook decides that the initial, privacy-centric, contract with users is out of date. That users actually want to share openly, with the world at large, and incidentally (as Facebook’s Director of Public Policy Barry Schnitt told us in December) that it’s time for increased pageviews and advertising revenue, too….

…Facebook allows everyday people to share the minutia of their daily lives with trusted friends and family, to easily distribute photos and videos – if you use it regularly you know how it has made a very real impact on families and social groups that used to communicate very infrequently. Accessible social networking technology changes communication between people in a way similar to if not as intensely as the introduction of the telephone and the printing press. It changes the fabric of peoples’ lives together. 350 million people signed up for Facebook under the belief their information could be shared just between trusted friends. Now the company says that’s old news, that people are changing. I don’t believe it.

I think Facebook is just saying that because that’s what it wants to be true.

Just because a service is free to you does not mean you have to give it everything you are. They are trying to make millions off of your personal information. Better, they didn’t have to pay you one red cent for it.

Is that right? Is that fair and honest? Is that in your best interest?

In order to help Tee and his daughter through this diffcult period, Pip Ballantine has set up a fund where anyone who wishes to can chip in. Please consider doing so, if you have the means.

To Tee: We’re here for you, pal. You need anything at all, you let us know.

1. In the words of Evo Terra: “Tee was the first author to make his book into a serialized audiobook delivered by a podcast. And though others soon followed independent of Tee’s actions, his ‘Hey Evo, I have an idea…’ phone call in late 2004 was the genesis of what would become Podiobooks.com.”

What I Learned In 2009

• It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there: Yes, Los Angeles. Everyone who knows me is sick to death about hearing about this by now, but it is worth marking the lesson learned. There were a number of good and bad things about the move to and from L.A.  We still miss the scenery, the weather, and the friends we made out there. I miss my team at Mahalo, and the challenge of the work at the company. I do not miss the long, long hours, the constant conflict between work and family time, watching my children struggle in a school system riddled with major problems, living in a shoebox, and watching cops chase armed felons through our housing complex.  This leads to the next point…
• Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home: Being back in Cleveland is a relief, a joy, and terribly  frustrating at the same time. We love being back with family and old friends. We love the familiar places, but with returning comes the familiar problems, the things we disliked enough to try moving to another city to escape. The entire family has felt it, and we’re working through dealing with them day by day.
• Thing that change you do not change others: We went to California as one group of people, we returned as another. We learned, we grew, we changed. But…for folks back in Cleveland, we were not gone all that long; how much could have happened?  Just because you change, don’t expect that others will understand or even recognize the changes.
• All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy: Not long ago, I ended nearly all of my personal projects. This was liberating. I’m able to concentrate on my family, and not on who needs what from me out there on the Interwebs. There’s no pressure to constantly be checking email, Twitter, message boards, etc to get ahead, make a name, swimming upstream ceaselessly. Projects are only worthwhile when you are passionate about them. After that, they’re just baggage. Best to leave them to the passionate people, and move on to new vistas.
• Disconnect: I ditched my G1 (Android Phone) this month and went back to a normal phone. I’ve stopped tweeting other than when I post a new entry on this blog. I read my email once every couple of days. Living offline is much more interesting and vibrant than constantly watching a screen, be it on a laptop, television, or cell phone. The reality is, none of you need to know every 140 character thought that enters my brain. I’m not promoting anything other than asking that you make time to be out of touch for a while this year. The “social” part of the current Internet vibe is more than a little creepy. There needs to be room for silence, isolation, contemplation, and introspection. No one needs to know where you are at all times. Relax. Cut yourself loose.
• They aren’t here to make your life better: Think about how much information Google and Facebook and other sites know about you. Google, for instance, knows what you are searching. If you have Gmail, they can read all your email. If you use Google Voice, they have your voice mail messages. If you are using Android, they know your contacts and their information, and depending on the apps you use, they can know where you are, where you’re going, what you are listening to, and who you talk to the most. Now…I admit I sound a little paranoid when I talk about this, but is it really a good thing for any business entity to know that much about you?  If it came out tomorrow that the government was keeping track of your calls, eavesdropping on your email, and monitoring your web searching habits, would you be pleased with it?  Why are we so trusting of a business, which has less oversight and less accountability that the government? The simple truth is this: a business is not providing services to be nice to you. It is not trying to help you. It is trying to find a way to make money for its shareholders. That’s the point of a business: making money — maximizing value.  Ask yourself, it if were suddenly in Google’s best interest to build a map of your life using the data they have and sell it to a third party, what would stop them?  Or, more interestingly, how comfortable would you be walking into a mall and having the billboard change and address you by name, because they could read the RFID in your ID or credit card, then hit a database service exposing data about your searching and buying habits, creating a custom message just for you?  Perhaps I’m just getting old, but I find that incredibly creepy, and since I take a dim view of marketers to begin with¹, I want no part of it. I’m opting out.
• In the silence, there is Truth: One of my favorite stories comes from the Old Testament of the Bible. From I Kings 19:11-12, when Elijah is looking for the Lord:
  

  And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still, small voice…

  After this tumultuous year, I have taken time away from everything. In that silence, I have found parts of myself I thought lost. That is what the New Year has brought me: the voice in the silence, reminding me than I am more than the code I write, more than the sites I create. There is that stillness in all of us, reminding us of the important things, giving us creative vision that spawn great passions, leading us to places we need to go to grow and develop as healthy human beings. I have spent the last decade chasing technology. The silence reminds of what I loved before the tech, before the storm of activity that carried me to where I am now. The silence shows me that now is the time to revisit these older things, to rekindle fires which once burned brightly.

Unlike past entries, I will not venture to say what the next year holds. The best that I can do right now is hold fast to what I have learned this past year, to make it part of myself, and then to move on, one step at a time.  Just like you, and just like the rest of the world.

I wish you a Happy New Year. May you find what you are looking for.

-Chris

1. How can you trust anyone whose job is to create a false need where none currently exists?  Isn’t that just…dishonest?  To convince people to buy thing they don’t need?

Dianne Lynch wanted to give the students of Stephens College a break from the constant digital communication that pervades their generation. So she asked them to put their phones and computers away and revive the 176-year-old school’s dormant tradition of vespers services.

On a bitterly cold December night, with the start of final exams just hours away, about 75 of Stephens’ 766 undergraduates grudgingly piled their cell phones into collection baskets and filed into the school’s candlelit chapel, where they did little but sit, silently. For an hour, not an iPod ear bud could be seen. There were no fingers flying on tiny computer keyboards, no chats with unseen intimates.

Alexis Dornseif, a senior from suburban St. Louis majoring in fashion marketing and management, said she needed time away from her busy life.

“Sometimes it’s really overwhelming,” she said. “It’s good to have time to think, to not worry about what’s going on tomorrow.”

I heartily approve this message. Take some time off. Turn off your phones. Stop tweeting for a while. Relax. Pause and Consider. Be.