In a discussion of what it takes to be “computer literate” – ie. having sufficient computer skills to manage – one slashdot poster noted the following: Just for fun consider this: Computer support technicians and doctors are similar in many ways. They are both supposed to be highly paid, highly trained, highly skilled, and highly [...]
Since most hackers use PGP encryption keys to sign their mail to prove their identity, I decided that I probably should have an encryption key pair to sign my communications in hacker circles. So a few weeks back, while on Easter vacation, I found a nice guide describing the use of PGP (which stands for [...]
Last night I was treated to a rare experience: The Mathematics Revue at the University of Copenhagen. My friend Jakob was playing saxophone in the revue band and had invited us to spectate. It was good fun. It reminded me of Biella Coleman’s research on hacker wit and humor, and it seems that this sort [...]
In a Slashdot discussion on Open Source Software in the developing countries, the following comment was made by the self-consciously monikered FlyingPig: At the moment software is frequently a tax that poor countries pay to rich countries to be allowed to participate. Poor countries often have weak currencies, but the local cost of goods and [...]
Well, today I’m taking what feels like a plunge, though I guess that’s mostly in my mind. I’ve just sent this mail to the Ubuntu Sounder mailing list: Hello all Ubunteros, My name is Andreas Lloyd and I am a graduate student at the department of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Having used [...]
Having been ill for a couple of days this week has left me completely zonked. This resulted in a rather bizarre case of insomnia which brought me through Samuel Delany’s Babel-17 last night. Uh, Spoiler alert! Babel-17 reminds me a lot of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash. Both books use the idea of languages that function [...]
In order to develop my limited knowledge of the Unix and Linux way of doing things, I borrowed Jon “Maddog” Hall‘s Linux for Dummies. The version I got is the first edition from 1997, back when Linux really wasn’t for dummies (ie. ordinary end-users) at all. It has since been completely rewritten with the desktop [...]
The Internet is full of self-referential folk-lore, stories and jokes on how people have found in the Internet a whole new way of expressing themselves. Or, at least, expressing their frustration at not being able to work their computers as they would have liked to. There are anecdotes from the frontlines of tech support, struggling [...]
I am currently left in a state of technical impotency. This, of course, is partly my own fault as I did choose to solely use Linux on my laptop. Linux is the computer equivalent of Doing It Yourself, even though the various distributions do try to make it a lot easier on the user, and [...]