Archive for September, 2007

I’ve been off in the never never, playing around with technology while running around in rings. Once again, too obsessed to sit still long enough to collect my thoughts and process some prose to wile away the time with constructive criticisms of myself and the world at large. As I write this you can be rest assured that the whole time away hasn’t been in vain, I’m using a new operating system as I ditched Windows Vista Business that came with my laptop, disgusted with its grandiose version in superfluity that ultimately gave me the shits. The endless waiting for it to boot up and shut down. Annoying little pops ups asking me every time I want to run a program if I really want to run it, if the damn operating system was secure I wouldn’t have to click. click. click. to run a program that is designed for security. Anyway I can’t say the that Kubuntu 7.04 hasn’t its own little quirks but I can certainly run a program when I damn well please without an operating system defining my wishes. At least when I’ve set something up it will do what I want it to rather than Micro$oft telling me how unsecure its operating system is every five minutes.

The big plan in some not too distant future is to banish the Microsoft monopoly from this lifestyle. Linux for the win 😛 It will take some getting used to and a learning curve to accomplish the same things I can do on Windows but the idea of having a piece of bloatware dictating how I wish to enjoy my computing experience was weighing heavy on my conscience. Hopefully I’ll be able to get into the swing of things, the Linux way, at least then, if only one of computers is totally free from the windows experience my fury will be abated to a more manageable level. I guess there is a certain amount of apprehension in ridding myself of an acclimatised system that has been like a unhealthy love interest. Although I’ve invested money in the Microsoft empire it may not be so dire if I count my losses and get rid of it completely, but then again if there is a suitable application in Linux then will I really be losing out on anything except more money when I am required to upgrade the applications along with the OS. Its a vicious cycle that perpetuates itself for little return except more waiting around for the pretty colours to load an unload.

Time will only tell if I have the patience to learn all that is required to proficiently get a handle on the full power of a windows free existence. However I can safely say that “it worked, straight out of the box” when I installed Kubuntu on this machine, albeit a screen resolution problem that was fairly easy to fix. I’m still sussing out my webcam problem and I was toying around with a spare tv tuner I have lying around but with no solution to getting it to work either; everything else has been a breeze I’m pleased to say.

Anyways, the philosophy in Ubuntu attempts to establish freedom in the computing experience and I have an appreciation for this philanthropic approach. The testimony to the open source community is in the shared experience of having access to software without the chains and shackles that enterprise has dished out to us. I am indebted to the hard work and commitment of the open source community for some fantastic experiences I’ve indulged myself in. Thanks 🙂

Well the world’s greatest terrorist has left our shores, good riddance Mr Bush and thank you for leaving a mere 300 million dollar tax burden for us. Just imagine what 300 million dollars could do for poverty or health or education? Go figure!

As Sydney becomes locked down for the APEC manifesto we are also gaining insight into the police state which is looming over every man, woman and child. There appears to be something very wrong with the democratic picture when fences are erected in a bid to silence dissent. When police have the power to detain citizens without charge so that the voice of protest is muffled and essentially muted and protesters are comparatively cast as enemy combatants. Can we be so certain of our freedom when our fellow citizens are threatened with imprisonment for voicing their concerns? Are our civil liberties gradually being eroded by the powers that be? Is the Howard government manipulating us into becoming a mindless conforming nation, comforted and seduced with economic growth, our wallets becoming fat with ignorance?

I have no problem with the APEC summit or conference or whatever it is, being here, nor am I against economic growth per se but I am perturbed and appalled that the city in which I live has been turned into a prison. Where is the democracy when citizens are excluded from the discussions and where peaceful protest is being transformed as a threat? I am afraid that all this high level security is becoming too much like an Orwellian police state under the guise of a phantom of terror. Could fencing off cities mark a precedent in utilising the dubious threat of terrorism to block out dissent amongst the citizenship? Is this fence geared to depict Australian society as a mute society, entirely in the pockets of American leadership to the world at large? Will it become the norm now, do we just accept that this is how the world is, terror attacks are inevitable without fences and walls being erected? Do we accept this without question?

I’ve never been prone to activism but this whole APEC summit is provoking even greater disillusionment within, I’m feeling compelled to take part in the rally on Saturday to demonstrate that not all of Australia is pleased about the Howard governments readiness to ingratiate itself in the Bush administrations pocket. To what world does Australia subscribe to? The whole legitimacy of Australia’s involvement in Iraq is dubious strictly because from the outset it was based on a lie and it is George Bush and his administration that fabricated the case against Iraq with false evidence of WMD’s. Even then, how was it a threat to Australia in the first instance? Then the absurdity, seeing as there was no weapons of mass destruction we now have a fence dividing Sydney in half because of NO weapons of mass destruction.

Maybe I will see you there marching for true freedom without fences!

It’s weird how life weaves its way through the nooks and crannies of space, almost as if it is lost, trying to find a way through the mire of time. It can almost seem brutal and callous as it sends its feelers out, crawling and grasping, grasping at anything that may endear it to something meaningful and true. Perhaps such qualities place too personal an attribute to the indifference that shrouds the mystery of its meandering; through the labyrinth, it, itself has created, whilst moulding the fabric of its destiny in endless looping, twisting and folding back in on itself, searching for all possible routes to some unfathomable outcome. One could almost desire for it to finally find its way and be done with the absurd toing and froing. Perhaps a slap upside the head would force it to see its folly and direct it in the right direction but this is in itself a folly, the folly of the observer. The double edged sword of observer and observed, one in the same, stealing glimpses of each other in an absurdly vain game of cat and mouse and hide and go seek.

One could find it a sobering prospect, that in its search for a perfect mirror or lens to gaze and glance at itself through, 99.9 percent of all the feelers and eyes it has per chanced and modeled to see through, in the 14 billion years since it decided to embark upon this journey, has been erased and scrapped. How long will it be before the abyss begins to gaze back and it recoils from the horror it sees, when the illusory mirror it holds to its admiring face, cracks and the fragments reveal the cold visage of vanity and that the journey back home is all but lost in the criss crossing, backwards-forwards labyrinth of its wake? Will it then frantically pick at the shards and fragments of realities mirror and fashion a new vessel for observation from the remnants?

Perhaps the horror is fleeting, a mere blemish, a brief nightmare while it lays in an otherwise peaceful slumber and as the morning star falls into a new day, the sunshine will gleam once gain to reveal the birth of another embroidery in an incomplete patchwork. A patchwork that once finished will embrace the entirety of the journey and soften the blips and blemishes into insignificance.