infosoldier.com

As I have said before, my father has had an aversion of computers. In part, because of the Apple Mac. Although I harbored mixed feelings towards the very first Macs, I learned to love them, years later as I moved from supervising a PC lab to supervising a Mac lab.

But I can only highly recommend the blog folklore by Andy Hertzfeld.

I can only think that those kind of experiences can only happen once... How stressful must it all have been and how wonderful must it be to be able to say, "I was part of that."

The information soldier searches for his place in history...

Yes, I know. That last post was completely wierd. It was good for me though. Reading it back to myself I saw some flaws in my writing. You could say I gained some insight. What an elusive and completely satisfiying thing, insight.

And now for something comepletely different.

For no reason at all I remembered the first video games I played. The first arcade video game I played was either, Pac-Man or Popeye. However, the first arcade video game that truly immersed me in its experience was Karate Champ.

I remember there was this room, right next to the barrio's supermarket. There must have been only a dozen or so arcade machines side by side; and just enough walking space to get to them. It was dark, smelly; colors emitted from the machines danced physically in the cigarette smoke emitted by the teens. It was a holy union, the teenagers wanted escape, the videogames provided it, and the smoke closed the deal. It was wonderful.

One night, I sat next to some young man as he played Karate Champ. I watched motionless, awe-struck at the digital fighter's agility. Somebody came over and had a verbal exchange with the young. He tells me, suddenly, "Take over!"; and almost runs ot of the place. I stand in front of the machine; the controls were arcane. It had two joysticks and no buttons. What kind of video game machine had two joysticks?! I had never seen that before. The machine yanks my attention back to the screen by making the digital referee yell "Fight!" My red-garbed computer opponent starts advancing while menancingly shooting a fist then a jump kick. Meanwhile, I desperately wiggle the joysticks to try to defend myself, I know not how. The red fighter lands near me. I think I push the joysticks down and my fighter ducks, just in time to evade the red fighter's punch. "Oh my!, he's gonna kill me, he's too close!", I think. I frantically push the joysticks in disparate directions. My fighter stands, and lets out a kick... It connects! I get a full point.

The computer trashed me afterwards... but I feel exhilarated. No wonder street fighter is my favorite video game.

The first console game I played was Pac-Man, on an Atari 2600. I got my first, own TV set just for my Atari console. The Atari was not impressive nor inmmersive however, except for River Raid. I played that for hours. All was quickly forgotten, when I got my first computer, a Commodore 64. The Commodore came with lots of 5 and 1/4 inch floppies, and in one of those was the most immersive game I had played to date. Zork.

It isn't so much a game, it is more like a dynamic book. Text adventures they were called. I played that for months, hooked by the writing and the puzzles. The description of places, people, treasures and events were superb. It made me want to read everything.

I wonder if I should replay Zork again, to see if I can learn something from that writing style and improve my flawed writing. Hah! I wonder someone has made Zork run on a PSP.

The information soldier is also a scholar...

I've had the wierdest dream just now.

I was in a typical town public plaza; typical of Puerto Rico with lots of concrete and few trees. I hear some people talking about a concert that has just ended; some obscure Puerto-Rican artist is linked to it, the one that sang the first Spanish rap. I gather from the people's conversation that it was artsy and cultural.

I suddenly decide to see if I can interview this artist; odd, since I am no journalist. I walk slowly to the concert's meeting place and see that very few people remain. I don't see Glenn, but I see Danny in his traditional white garb. Now, what is he doing in my dream? There's a generational gap already between my generation and Glenn's, but there's a deep chasm between me and Danny Rivera. It's like a generation x-er dreaming about Sinatra. Anyway, I decide to interview Danny. Try to see what he thought of the concert, and what he thinks of current affairs in Puerto Rico.

I sit down next to him and try to spark off a conversation. Man, I used to be so timid. But, Danny looks at me with a strange look in his face. Like a trap has been sprung but he hasn't to fear. He gets up and leaves, and as he does so I keep staring at the place where he sat, then past it. And I see a vision of wild beauty. A woman sits, just close enough for me to look in her eyes and get lost. And far enough that it seems I could never reach her and go mad.

She wears light colored and loose clothing, but somehow it ascertains her curvaceous body. She has wildly curly and long black hair, and around her neck a tribal choker. I feel rapture and asphyxiation for a second. And as I find it hard to breathe, it seems that she starts to. It seems like she was breathlessly waiting for me, but now that I am here she can let out a sigh like saying, "At last, you've come."

She gets up and walks unto me, and sits where Danny sat before. We engage in verbal judo in our introduction. She wins. I give up my name but I can't manage to get hers. She starts to promise interesting tidbits of information about her, about the world, about it's people. Some of it is true and some is not. I feel a searing pain, a burning of the mind. I want to write. I have a vision of rolls of white paper falling at her feet. And within them diamonds in the rough ready to be cut into stories, articles, columns, novels, epics.

It is too much! I try to stop the flow, I ask her: what about business?, human resources?, computers!

"That is not what you want," she says, "if it was I wouldn't be here." And then...

A scream pierced my dream, my daughter has trouble finding her sleep. As I feel my wife stir and get up, I lay in bed thinking. Wondering if I had found a muse in my dreams.

The information soldier waits and hopes for the muse to come back...

As I stand in this digital soapbox I wonder if others think like I do, and see what I see. I see Microsoft, who may or may not engage in monopolistic practices, facing down competition on a lot of fronts. I see Microsoft failing. I see Microsoft changing. I see Microsoft become a non-issue.

Nothing lasts forever, not even Microsoft. It isn't that Microsoft is dying, but that it is already dead... And the corpse is beginning to smell.

And it may not die alone. Microsoft may well be killing off the personal computer as we know it. You see Microsoft gets some money for each personal computer sold, since they have controlled PC manufacturers in order to make sure that every PC has a Microsoft operating system license. But, as personal computers get cheaper and cheaper and microchips more and more ubiquitous, PC manufacturers get an ever shrinking profit. While Microsoft's cut stays the same... Or climbs. It'll be those ubiquitous chips, embedded in everything from steel I beams to paper and even grass, that will let PC manufacturers break the hold Microsoft has on them. They will be able to diversify into a whole new range on products born of the microchip but where Microsoft has no place. Their code is too bloated and too generic if all you want if control the growth of your garden's grass.

Of course Microsoft knows this, and the only market that exists now that they can try to understand is videogames and consoles. Hence, the XBOX.

Too little... Too late.

The convergence box that-could will be nothing more than a game box for those taken in by the Microsoft hype. But the people in the know will look towards Sony and Apple if they want to have a bright digital lifestyle. While Apple may well be on it's way to become the king of music retailers with iTunes, and may soon do the same for movies, Sony will pick up Apple's iPod market with it's PSP. Don't believe me? Already Apple is starting to license the iPod hardware to other third party hardware vendors, they know they can't compete hardware wise.

So it will be Apple and Sony against slow to act Microsoft entertainment branches, and they help kill off personal computers. What's left for them? Corporations.

And there, they are facing ever growing competition from Linux and Free/Open Source Software.

The information soldier smiles...

Would you pay for water? Of course you would. You pay for bottled "pure" water and you pay for the water that comes out of the kitchen sink. Would you pay for air? You are, since you help sustain a government that passes laws that impede others from befouling the air that you and I breathe. I mean, I hope our governments do at least that!

Water and air are common goods. They are plentiful (debatable, I know) and everyone should have a right to them; and responsibility too, do not forget that. We should be able, in case we don't want to pay the utilities for water, to drive to the nearest stream and get a week's worth of water for our consumption. Yes, I know! It sounds utterly ridiculous; who would want to do that?!

Are you paying for water? Or for the service and infrastructure that makes it possible for water to be on tap?... Think about it.

Bottled water is a physical product. Someone has to handle it, put it in a bottle that another someone has made, certify it is (hopefully) pure, cart it on a truck to someplace neat where it is available for you to buy. In the end you can feel the water's weight in your hand before you drink it. But being a physical product, water can be affected by scarcity; meaning it becomes more difficult to obtain. Since the amount of people born tends to be higher than the amount of people that die and the amount of potable water available decreases; the price for water, even if it is a common good, increases.

Software, on the other (virtual) hand, is an entirely immaterial product. Once it has been written, analyzed, coded and finalized... It can be copied and copied and copied... There can be no scarcity when speaking about software. It is a pure public good (notice the lack of quotes in pure this time!). Or, at least, it should be.

So why do you ( yes, you!) have to pay more for software instead of less? It happens whether you only buy a personal computer (WARNING: The copy of Windows XP included in your computer is NOT free!), or when you buy server software to run a website. The answer is: Because software corporations, primarily Microsoft, control the market in such a way as to make it seem like software is more valuable that it really is, to make it seem like software is limited. To make you think you have to pay for something when it isn't necessarily true.

But there is another way, yes you can get software for free. Free as in freedom. Which is what this soldier is all about.

A free operating system!
A free office suit!
A free web browser!
A free web server!

The information soldier wonders if it makes any difference whether he stands and shouts in this digital soapbox or not...

I just saw some incredible videos involving my favorite video game: Street Fighter.

Hang on, because I want to tell you various things about this experience.

I've been playing Street Fighter steadily ever since Street Fighter II Turbo hit the Super Nintendo Entertainment System way back when. For a while there I played it with a passion, every... single... day. I figure that Street Fighter is my chess, I will strive to play better and with more strategy every single time I get the chance to play it, 'til death do us part. I can picture myself, arthritis willing, playing Street Fighter until I am too old to hold a gamepad. Naturally, I know the game rather well, what I mean to say is that I know the language of it's strategy. And, I can recognize another player's ability by the way he or she makes the game do amazing stuff within the limited scope it provides; it's a videogame, remember?

So I saw some videos of a team of players, Team Whales, playing Street Fighter latest version; Third Strike. I downloaded the video using BitTorrent. It was amazing to for me to watch. Because for me, a person that knows the language and "limits" of what the game should do, the players proficiency seems nothing short of miraculous. Also I instantly fell in love with the music used in the video. In fact I'm listening to it while I write this. The song is by M-Flo (warning: site is in japanese, but is mostly understandable), and the title of the song is Miss You (Just thought you'd want to know.)

But as I watched the video I started thinking; asking myself actually. Does Capcom, the company that produces this video game, allow this sort of thing? I mean can I legally offer for download a video of myself playing Street Fighter? Is that covered under fair use rights? I can only guess that is indeed covered under fair use.

But, let's say, for a moment, that the answer is no. That you cannot tape, cut and remix a video of yourself performing what some people (like me) may call a work of art. Simply because the company that provides the medium for you to perform does not grant you that right. Suppose that Capcom started to sue every person that produces or watches a video of someone else playing Street Fighter; would people like Team Whales continue playing... With the passion they so evidently show now?

Lawrence Lessig has an interesting name for the kind of people like Team Whales and others that, together, make this sort of work possible: The Remix Culture.

What is so special about the remix culture is that technology in recent times has increased tremendously the ability for individuals to copy, cut, paste, mix, remix, burn and publish any kind and amount of data / information that is available to them.

On the other hand, traditional companies that have made their living making remixes, like Disney, are pushing for more and more limits in the way of laws that restrain the individual from becoming a part of the remix culture.

Such fools...

The Information Soldier very reason for being is the protection of your right to be part of the remix culture...

I hope my previous two articles on Moodle (and Flash... and Uniform Server, and etc...) have been useful. If they have, why don't you leave me a nice comment; if they haven't why don't you leave me a nasty comment!

I have taken a few days to do nothing, literally.

So far the lack of activity has been good for my brain (ithink). I've come up for ideas for a webcomic, and for a super-hero style story. Sadly, I can't draw so I don't think they will see the light of day, or of the monitor.

I have also come up with a new idea for a php-mysql application for making forms. You see I really like MS Access as a RAD tool. But I haven't seen a comparable thing available for the likes of Postgre or MySQL. There's OpenOffice.org's Base but I find the Java based interface clunky. Also I'm thinking of a server deployable solution.

That's it for now... but remember please comment... either naughty or nice!