Computers, Security, Car Keys

I locked myself out of the car on Friday. Both my keys were on the keychain since I got a new wallet. The phone dispatcher wouldn't tell me what it would cost to unlock, or I would have gotten a ride and blogged to ask if anyone had lockpicking skills. The locksmith charged $123. That's almost half the cost of an Asus Eee ultra-mobile computer, my ultimate goal after paying off my last small debt and building an emergency fund. $123 is more than the cost of convention trips, classes, and other life-building experiences that I've exercised self-control to turn down. And there it went, gone, for what seems like nothing.

I put one of the two keys in my wallet. I made a new key and gave it to a close friend. I will make another one to keep at home.

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I am starting to give my computers names, based on who gave them to me.

le_bebna_kamni gave me two laptops this weekend. :) One has a failed hard drive and one has a failed motherboard. I need to use my Dremel tool to grind the little metal alignment tabs off the working hard drive so it will fit in the laptop with the working motherboard. Finally I'll have my first laptop computer.

I have to run Windows to operate the gigantimungous Duplicatorzilla to make Poddisc.com CDs. I am no longer using Windows since two of my computers died. I'm running Ubuntu Linux on the one rbradakis gave me. The Mac Mini that sfeley gave me runs the latest MacOS X, of course. I tried using Apple's Bootcamp to install Windows on a partition of the Mac Mini, but it said there was a hard drive problem. Disk Utility said it couldn't verify the disk.

To get Duplicatorzilla up and running fastest, I'll put a backed-up hard disk from the old fried PCs into the rbradakis PC, format it, and install Windows on that. The long term solution will be to install Windows on the le_bebna_kamni laptop and put Ubuntu Linux back on the rbradakis PC. I love the usability of Ubuntu, which is right up there with Mac OS X, so it's my primary environment. But Ubuntu misrecognizes the wireless on this particular Toshiba laptop hardware and installs a driver that bricks the entire system.

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I've been listening to a computer text-to-speech synthesized recording of "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow. (Download it from Cory's site for free in a nearly limitless number of text formats.)

I am consuming the novel in small doses, because it has been an emotional roller-coaster. Cory's prologue was exhilarating as usual, and the counter-surveillance and dissident HOWTOs are fascinating (see them here). The novel itself has triggered a non-stop chemical bath of fear and rage in my brain. The surveillance officer at the school, the Homeland Security interrogator, and the profiling SFPD officers all took an attitude that I found very familiar. It didn't matter that the protagonist had done nothing to harm anyone. All he had done was free himself from their supervision. It wasn't about security, or country, or God, or training you to be a better person, or other excuses. It was about them. It was about power. It was about your attitude toward power, toward them.

I had to take a break from work to hunker in a bathroom stall, stop trembling, calm my breathing, and just turn my mind to something other than authoritarians and their abuses. I wish I could figure out how to distribute a copy of "Little Brother" to every student at Pensacola Christian College. If the techniques described in this book can help dissidents in Iran and China, it can help them retain some privacy and dignity, some semblance of human adult responsibility and control.

At least it can be said that PCC does not manacle anyone in a cramped cell to urinate on themselves in solitary confinement. PCC administrators would probably think that deserves some kind of merit badge for restraint. The higher-ups would understand that the comment is meant as damnation with faint praise, but some of their drooling stooges would need to be told explicitly.

For now I'll just try to get a printed copy of "Little Brother" into the hands of my own little brother, when I can budget for it, before he goes back there.

Construction For T.W.D.T.

I'm scheduling a get-together soon for those who want to work on making puppets, sets and props for the new marionette play "The Trouble With Death Traps", adapted from the short story by Marjorie James. The current invitee list includes me, Randle Ball, Allison Anderson, and Karen Corbeil. Let me know if you're interested in helping and learning interesting artistic techniques, so that I can try to arrange the session around your schedule.

Puppet builders will get the chance to look at the booklets published by the eccentric genius, master puppeteer, and inventor of the term "graphic design", William Addision Dwiggins (WAD). There will be six puppets. If we have time and develop sufficient automation, we might innovate a group of three or four additional puppets hanging from one control mechanism, a nameless entourage who are all operated in tandem.

The visual style will be inspired somewhere between Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto" (costume photo gallery) and Disney's "The Emperor's New Groove". We'll just need to be careful with flamboyant headdresses and capes, that they aren't built in such a way as to restrict the strings. Google Image Search "Mochica" for some good visual references.

Here is the list of props.
( List of props )