For the innovators, the hackers and the ones that stand out …

Can you program my VCR ?

I spent an interesting evening yesterday over at my aunts and uncles place.

And when I say “Interesting” I am not referring to the social side of my visit, but the techno archeological side. Sounds strange ? Perhaps. To put things in perspective : My aunt and uncle are heading into their seventies and they are what can be considered techno-conservatives. Their entire house is stored with books and records and sometimes feels more like a library then a living room. Fantastic ! As a kid i spent many hours there with my head in a book reading about the origins of the cosmos, listening to Dutch Stand up Comedians on old records and playing a proto-version of Google earth using my fingertip and some big atlases. But as I said : they are very conservative when it comes to change. I saw it as a personal triumph introducing these people to the internet and getting them a computer 🙂 I loved bringing the information age to people who had given me access to so much knowledge in my childhood. But as technologie goes : thats about as far as they went. Their house is filled with old taperecorders, record players, CRT televisions and Video cassettes. When it comes to consumer devices they are not early adopters, they in fact are … the people who hold on valiantly to the long tail. Their quests are not targeted towards the latest and greatest, but instead searching valiantly for those “last remnants” of classic technology. Where do they still find a tv WITHOUT a remote, Who still sells empty cassette tapes .. .where do they find somebody who can repair their VCR. 

I got called in yesterday after my Uncles VCR ate its final tape. Somewhere he had dugg up a “new” vcr so he asked me to come over and set it up. After spending 2 hours scanning through ‘analogue’ tv channels and punching them into the right presets .. I started to feel like I just dropped back in time 10 years. But instead of scoffing their futile attempts at slowing down progress , I started thinking : What must life be like for people like them in the ever changing landscape of technology  ?

My aunt stares helplessly at the empty channels on her tv. Analogue channels cut off by their network provider to push their customers towards digital subscription. My Uncle valiantly ignores the horizontal lines of static in the VCR recording he made from his favorite TV show 10 years ago ..  They see the world changing faster and faster … and struggle to keep up.

As an early adopter, pushing them into the technological reality of THIS century would be a shock to them. They are paralyzed with FUD (Fear Uncertainty Doubt) and have no idea what is coming their way or if they are able to cope with it …  And here is Captain Gadget wrestling through the manual of a 3 year old ( unopened) vcr trying to install it.  My aunts reply was fitting ” If you have a hard time with technology like THIS how on earth are we gonna cope with the NEW stuff )  I smile as I scan through the frequency band on UHF.  In a way she is right .. I AM struggling 🙂 to me this is more like archeology then technology . And it strikes me just how fast things change.

So, when your eyes glaze over next time you talk about the number of transistors in Intell’s new Vpro I7 Quadcore chip … remember , that for some its a big bad world, moving way to fast, and they can’t “opt out” of progress.

The history of hacking .. Back to the roots with Wozz and Mitnick.

“Those who are unaware of history are bound to repeat the same mistakes.” ( or something like that) is a great quote on knowing your roots and more importantly , knowing the names of the giants in whose footsteps you are walking. In the days of Java Flashback Trojans, One Pixel Flash exploits and an unbelievable amount of wetware hacking ( Social engineering ) the roots of hacking can be easily forgotten. Lets take you back to where it all started.

 

This great documentary features two internet heroes. The Proto-Hacker Kevin Mittnick and Woz , who will, in this old video from somewhere in the late 80’s early 90’s , explain to you where hacking actually came from. Enjoy this slice of history.

Delayed reality

It is now 8 am in the morning and I am having a little breakfast as the sole occupant in this highway diner, as below me, the cars crawl by in a nearly stationary traffic jam. I have been awake a total of three hours now and have a long day ahead of me, yet somehow I get the strange sensation that reality hasn’t started for me yet. I call this phenomenon “delayed reality” the period of my day between waking up and actually interacting with the direct world around me for the first time. Todays “delayed reality” started at 5 when I got up. As my beloved was still asleep I did not have the option of talking to her or kissing her goodbye, and as Sulu (my dog) went downstairs for coffee, I absently picked up my tablet while hitting up the cappuchino maker. Browsing through some of my rss feeds as I went back upstairs to take a shower, I marked some items for further review and checked any messages on my social networks that came in overnight. Dressed and ready to go, I took some time to sit down behind the laptop to punch out some articles for the coming days as my iPhone was syncing up podcasts that had been updated. I petted the dog and grabbed up my gear to go out the door. The two hour drive that took me to where I am now was filled with listening to a selection of podcasts, some music and peeping at my twitter stream as traffic herked and jerked to a standstill on the freeway. And now I am here. Writing up the st on my tablet, earbuds jammed deep into my ears, drowning out the chatter of the radio playing .. Immersed in my own world. The only realtime interaction I have had so far was ordering breakfast .. And thats it. For me “linear reality” will be ‘delayed’ for another hour or two, before I have to get ready for my first meeting of the day.

Up until then, my world consists of personally selected and timed communications and content. Devoid of real time interactions with unpredictable outcomes. Even as the first rays of sun hit the dawn, I am still inside my “own little world”. Comforting as it may seem, it does give me pause for thought. Here I am, an over connected guru with 3 different internet connections tucked away in his bag, with access to all the news feeds and media streams on the planet .. Yet I choose to steer clear of them until the very last moment. To be honest, sometimes I don’t care what happens in the world at large and choose to ‘delay’ its reality in favor of MY reality. Where I write up a blog that strangers read, where I listen to podcasts that no-one has heard off, play music thats never on the radio and speak a language that is not natively spoken in the entire country around me.

Delayed reality is a snuggle zone, where you can embrace your very own individuality and thoughts, where you find the time to write what you want to say and engulf yourself in a world of your own creation. So I stare out the window at the world around me. Where unpredictable interactions will wreak havoc with my cone of silence. Where problems wait to be solved and challenges lie ahead. Before I dive in I turn around and wallow in the sweetness of their absence for a couple of more minutes. i hit the snooze button of my own universe one more time and ‘delay reality’ for couple more minutes.

A blogpost with no hands.

I remember watching the TV series Battlestar Galactica as a kid. I thought it was so cool when Cmdr. Adama dictated his captains log into this little microphone, after which the words appeared on the computer screen as by magic. I thought it was pure sci-fi. Yes today I sit here, with my hands on my lap, bringing you this blog post. The device of choice ? My iPad. If I were to show these gadgets to my seven year old self who was watching Battlestar Galactica he would’ve thought I was somebody from the future. Technically I am for the future. But in his eyes I would be from the distant future or rocket cars and space ships would be the norm. The point I’m trying to make is, we sometimes don’t realize how fast technology is moving. I see so many things change that sometimes even I, have a hard time getting my head around it. Having the gadgets is one thing, having the habit of actually using some of these functions is another thing. It does take a while before you adapt your behavior to the new functionality that is in front of you. And still technology is moving ever faster and we have humans have a hard time keeping up. But the cool thing is that my blog post for today is done and my hands are still resting in my lap.I don’t fly a Battlestar, don’t have a teleport, but have a little bit of the future right here right now.

Office is dead to me.

A nice little experiment i’m working on this weekend is in preparation for one of the next Knightwise.com podcast episodes. The show will deal with using the googleplex and cloud services across a landscape of mobile and cross platform “workplaces” in order to get things done. The general question of the podcast will probably be : Can we live without the classic concept of a ‘computer’. As I am busy gathering information, I find countless interesting services, apps and links to help me on my way to a world where “Software installations” on a harddrive are no longer relevant, applications and storage moves to the cloud and where the device you use becomes nothing more then an “interaction medium” with your content. The funny and fascinating part is : Its not that hard to do. With googledrive I have finally gotten around to cleaning up my countless googledocs, and in the process rediscovering the power of the google apps. When I take a look at what I do in “office applications” both for work, and for play, 99% can be easily done in the Google plex. ‘office is dead to me’ I proclaimed last week as I didn’t even bother to reinstall libre office on one of my Linux machines. With the limited functionality I require and my constant ” hopping ” from device to device (and os to os) both local software AND storage are nothing more then a nuisance. So i will keep you posted in the results. In the meantime : what are your favourite cloud based app and storage gems ?

The Battle of Chernobyl.

With May coming to a close I’m remembered again for that faithful day in 1986 when reactor number four exploded in Chernobyl. For some morbid reason Chernobyl has captured my interest and every year I catch myself digging through video’s and articles of the events that happened in reactor number Four in Chernobyl.  As they are starting to build the new sarcophagus around the abandoned reactor to protect life on this very planet from the aftermath of the first big nuclear accident.  When we take a look at what happened in Fukushima we cannot help but wonder not only how lucky we have been .. but also what lies ahead.  “The true battle of Chernobyl” shows you the aftermath of the Nuclear accident at Chernobyl .. and helps you realie how far we still need to go before Fukushima will ever hear the sound of playing children.

“Fail Safe” : What if W.H.O.P.P.E.R. did fire the missiles in ‘War Games’

We continue our “movie of the day’ series this week as I bring you another gem I found online. We all know the movie War Games. For many of us geeks/nerds it was the ultimate movie. It featured Supercomputers and Rockets .. but more importantly a dial-up modem AND an GIRL a NERD and a COMPUTER in the SAME ROOM ! Too good to be true ? Now we all might have wanted to see Matthew Broderick arrested and thrown in jail for life ( just to spare us his horrible comeback in Godzilla) but the movie was a little bit of harmless fun. The big computer stopped the countdown and didn’t launch the rockets .. But what if he did ? A fantastic movie that deals with this is “FAILSAFE” (1964) that deals with the same subject in a way that makes you wonder if Disney didn’t rip them off. “Failsafe” is a lot more serious then “War Games” and gives us a situation where we CANNOT stop the machines.  If you dare call yourself a computer geek and love automation : Watch this thrilling movie .. for free.

2 mind chilling cold-war movies about the nuclear holocaust.

Google video is a great place on the net. This “XL” version of Youtube might meet its demise in the next year as Google transfers everything to Youtube .. it does house some fantastic gems. One of those is “The War Game” a BBC movie/documentary about what would happen if the cold war heated up.  Now when I say “post WW3 Movies” many of you will of course say “The day after”. But although it was immensely popular in its time .. its not very ‘accurate’ of just what would have happened if we pushed the big red button. Having an interest in the subject I went online and looked for other “post nuclear holocaust” movies and found 2 chilling English movies that deal with the subject. Where “The day after” might be pretty good when it comes to special effects and drama, these English movies are the ones that really get stuck in your brain.

Threads (1984) takes a look at what a Nuclear holocaust would do to modern western society. It deals with the most delicate and vulnerable aspect of our modern day civilisation : We all rely on each other for something. Nobody can survive on their own. So what would happen if the “threads” of this society would be cut by a disastrous event like Nuclear war. Where “the day after” looks at the immediate results of a nuclear attack .. Threads takes a look at the years it would take to get back on our feet.

The second movie I found is called “The war Game” and dates back to 1965. What is chilling about this particular movie is that it draws back on the knowledge we learned from World War 2 and the events that occurred after the bombing of Dresden and Berlin. It draws parallels between the events of those days and how a Nuclear holocaust might result in comparable situations.  No special effects .. but it will haunt you.

You can watch “The war game” (complete movie) here.

I saw the Berlin wall go down in 1985 and have not experienced a lot of the cold war. But for those of you who have no idea of the dangers of Nuclear war, take some time to watch these movies. Next time you see North Korea or some far away country working on a Nuclear missile .. remember that the events mentioned above .. can still happen.

The joy of airplane mode.

When out and about on a rainy saturday night, my smartphone is a loyal companion when waiting in line as the beloved better half does a spot of shopping. As i aimlessly browse through my twitterfeed, check facebook and peek at some snaps on instagram … I am reminded of times not so long ago. Well, in technological times it might be ancient history , but back in 1999 I owned a series of palm pilot pda’s. But where smart business men used them for keeping track of their busy schedule , i used it to read books. Yes books. Using peer to peer networks like napster and others, i would scrounge the internets for txt and rtf files that i synced up ( with a serial cable ) to my palm pilot. Looking back at all the works of athur c clarcke, the star wars and star trek novels I read on that tiny screen, i’m amazed i’m not wearing glasses made from spare lenses of the hubble space telescope. But the thing was : I had the time and the luxury to be completely engrossed when reading. With all the pings and pokes of todays overconnected devices, I hardly read anything on my smartphone.

The solution I have come up with is as backwards as it is simple. Airplaine mode. Disabling the countless antennae of my tablet or smartphone let me appreciate the content that is ON the device and not constantly crave for ‘new and fresh’ information from the outside. If it are podcasts, movies, books or magazines , instead of watching the next kitty video posted on google+, I consume the content I have selected first.

The paradox ? When we had the web, the web was to much to handle. So we invented the social web. Where the plethora of content was filtered by those in our social circles. So today we follow and consume their information streams. But in the end we have forgotten that one very important stream : our own selection of content we stored on our devices before we left home. So when the signal drops and the chatter dies away the dead air that resides is the joy of ‘airplane mode’.