Without a Traceroute

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Hackers…or ninjas?

September 11th, 2008 · Hacker culture, Netherlands

So the Amsterdam hackers have proven to be both wily and elusive. In email correspondence, they said that they’d be at their squatted hacklab anytime from 6 pm to midnight tonight. I went on the later end because I figured things would be more active (and because it takes a fairly complicated series of busses, trains and trams to get from where I’m staying in Utrecht to their place in A-dam), so I arrived around 10:15. After much fruitless ringing of bells and knocking of doors, another guy who lives at the squat arrived home and informed me that those I sought had all gone to this digital art gallery/exhibition, and gave me a flyer for the place.
I took another tram ride and tracked down the art gallery…just as they were closing up! A helpful art patron informed me that I’d missed the SLUG hackers by “just maybe 10 minutes,” and that he thought they were going back to their place. So I went back there, again. Right now, I’m sitting on the stoop in front of their building (I already tried the bell again), borrowing an open wireless connection to post this (thank you, essid J.C.). I’m going to give this 10 more minutes and then get out of here.

But after chasing these people all over Amsterdam for an hour and a half, I do have to ask, are they hackers…or ninjas?

UPDATE: I took the train back to Utrecht, but managed to miss the last bus out to my couchsurfing host’s place by 5 minutes (my timing is effing terrible), so I wound up staying in a crappy hostel and paying 21 euro for the privilege. I guess it beats sleeping at the train station. Oh, and all my clothes are at my host’s place. Hooray sleeping in your clothes. Anyway, yesterday sucked.

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An Observation

September 12th, 2008 · Technology

Digital dreams?

Digital dreams?

I’ve noticed that for most people in my age and socioeconomic cohort (basically, upper-middle-class college kids and early-20-somethings) their laptop is easily their most treasured possession. I imagine it occupies the place held by the stereo for kids coming of age in earlier generations.

When I was in college, the first thing everyone did when moving into their room at the start of a semester, before putting sheets on their bed, before putting away their clothes, before plugging in a lamp, was set up their laptop. Similarly, at the end of the year, the very last item to be packed away was invariably the computer.

For most kids, their laptop has become the catch-all indispensable device for living. A person in their 40s might read a newspaper to get the news, organize photos in an album or scrapbook, watch television shows on cable, and movies on DVD, listen to music on the radio or a CD player, and only sit down at their computer to get work done. For a 20-year old, all those activities are handled with their laptop.

Is it any wonder, then, that we take our laptops to bed with us? That we consider internet connectivity a utility on par with water and electricity? That we define ourselves through our files? That a dead hard drive is a disaster equivalent to your room burning down?

I’m in no position to say whether this represents an unhealthy dependence on, or obsession with technology, but I do think kids in my generation, who grew up with computers, relate to them as more than just tools.

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The top 10 reasons lists on websites suck

September 12th, 2008 · Shameless link-bait

  1. They’re lazy. Formatting a blog post as a list is a really cheap way organize it. It spares the author from having to actually put their thoughts together in a logical, coherent manner because the list automatically imposes an organizational structure on the post. You don’t have to worry about making one idea flow smoothly into the next because you can just throw down the next number as abruptly as you want.
  2. No intro or conclusion. You can get away without these basic elements of writing your high school English teacher wouldn’t shut up about. You don’t have to write an introduction because you just put #1, and you don’t have to write a conclusion because you can just stop writing after the last number. Usually you go for 10, but if you run out of ideas you can always have a “top 6″ list. [Read more →]

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I need to get out of here

September 13th, 2008 · Netherlands, Travel

Don’t get me wrong, the Netherlands is awesome, but it’s cold, grey, rainy and depressing here. I’m really looking forward to going someplace with sun. Furthermore, I feel like I’ve been here too long. I’ve gotten to know Utrecht well enough that I can find my way around without a map (at least in the center), and I’ve met quite a few cool people, but I’m starting to feel too comfortable. Everyone here speaks English, I know where the grocery store is, it’s too easy. I’m not challenging myself and I’m not getting outside my comfort zone. It’s time to leave.

I have a flight to Budapest on Monday to attend a conference about the EU Data Retention Act. I’m excited and I’ve heard really good things about Budapest. It is kind of weird though, because once I know when I’m leaving, I get into this “get out of Dodge” mentality where I’ve been running around trying to do and see as many things as possible. Tomorrow is the Utrecht Uitfeest, and all of the museums, art galleries and theaters in Utrecht will be open for free with special events. Utrecht has kind of a ridiculous number of museums for a city of its size (it’s about 300,000 people, and there’s probably a dozen museums). I especially want to see the Spoorwegmuseum (train museum) tomorrow, because it’s supposed to be cool, but it’s normally quite expensive. Tomorrow night, there’s also a “float-in movie theater,” where they show movies on the canal and people watch from boats. It sounds like a lot of fun, but I heard you have to get there quite early if you want to get a spot on a boat.

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Budapast Bound

September 15th, 2008 · Netherlands, Travel

I’m off to Budapest and I’m quite excited. Budapest is one of those cities that sounds famous and exotic. Everyone’s heard of it, but nobody knows anything about it. It’s like Tripoli or Casablanca.

Uitfeest was awesome. I’ll post more photos later, but here’s the Float-In Movie. I found it very charming.

Dutch people watching movie on the canal

Dutch people watching movie on the canal

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