Wizzywig: Portrait of a Serial Hacker by Ed Piskor

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is a commentary on the sad state our country has been in since the 70s and 80s when it comes to computer crime. Although there should always be consequences for skirting the law we have often taken it a bit too far. This graphic novel was sad to read in the wake of Aaron Schwartz’ suicide when threatened by law enforcement.

SuperMario is my main Linux computer and its motherboard was dying. The first signs were the DVD burner no longer being read (knew it wasn’t just that one because I swapped out DVD burners) followed by the front panel USB not working. Then, last week, it stopped booting reliably. It was time to finally replace the motherboard. This was the Linux computer I’d built the first time I was trying to convince Danielle to use Linux (seven years ago) so it had a Core 2 Duo in it. So I’d need a new motherboard, CPU, and RAM. Here’s what KinfoCenter looked like before the swap:

We all know that technology continues to get cheaper and cheaper every year.  But this was brought into sharp relief yesterday when I looked up the invoice for Dave’s computer to see what components it contained.  I built Dave’s computer in 2006.  It was a graduation present from my parents and meant to be Dave’s computer in college.  At the time he was really big into WoW and other video games and he had a crappy old HP computer.  The total price of the computer was $2421.92.  It included a 500 GB Seagate drive (I was really into Seagate then) for $280!  Nowadays you can get a 500 GB drive for around $50.  The DVD burner didn’t fall as dramatically in price.  The one I bought him was $36 and you can get a pretty decent one now around $20.  I’m not going to focus on the motherboard price because those tend to actually stay constant for a standard entry board; around $100.  The next expensive item was the graphics card.  It was a PCI Express x16, 512 MB Radeon card and it cost $600.  Nowadays you can get the same thing for less than $50.  The RAM was 4 GB for $439!  I just bought that much RAM for $90.  Finally, the Pentium IV 3.8 GHz processor for $621.  Newegg no longer carries P4s.  Last time I shopped for one, about two years ago, it was $50.  (The keyboard and mouse were gaming-specific so they sold for a premium, and Windows XP was $89)

As I’ve mentioned before, although I think it was on It’s A Binary World 1.0, a Cornell education does something strange to you.  Like seeing vectors when speeding up and slowing down your car.  Or in the way in which you explain why Dan will be escorting two bride’s maids at Phil’s wedding:

?(09:00:29 PM)Danny: and here’s what this one guy had to say about it(09:00:38 PM)Danny: Also, I would like to concur with Dan’s sentiments. Given Dan’s unique relationship status amongst our fraternity of groomsmen, it would be logical and just to assign him the surplus of bridesmaids. However, giving him three would stretch the bounds of the reasonable. It would be awkward and contrived. Naturally, six bridesmaids would be pigeonholed amongst four groomsmen in the currently arranged manner: 2 would have 1 each, 2 would have 2 each. Perhaps Margot would appreciate the subsequent metaphor. Since the current combinatorial arrangement is the natural consequence of an application of the Pigeonhole Principle, we can liken the current circumstance to that of the most stable or lowest-energy state. Although I am sure Mr. Mesa’s propensity for being an attractive nucleus for members of the opposite sex is considerable, keeping three bridesmaids in an orbital around his personage would undoubtedly require a good deal of energy on his behalf. Also, let us consider another physical fact. As Margot has indicated we may likely be in “arm-in-arm” contact with our respective bridesmaids. Based off my prior observation of Mr. Mesa, his anatomy appears nominal in that he possess, as do most members of our species, two arms. A third bridesmaid would have to reside in some outer orbital and would have a greatly increased probability of being snatched by another groomsmen to fill his inner orbital. As such, this arrangement is unstable.

Just grow your own 1up mushroom! Don’t have the spores for that? A dinosaur kingdom hasn’t taken over your land and transformed your people into mushrooms? Don’t worry! Think Geek is selling a 1up Mushroom!

The same dork who, last December, was trying to claim that the GPL ruined his ability to program because the software was available for free, appealed last December’s decision. Well, on 9 November, he was handed another blow from the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. The Judge was a pretty smart guy and asserted that if Linux was so anti-competitive by being free, why do more people have Windows and Macintosh computers than Linux? Why do people use Photoshop instead of The GIMP. I love it when our government officials actually know about technology! (Unlike the congressmen who passed the DMCA!)

The computing industry has lots of euphimisms, but one of the ones that gets me really miffed is “trusted computing”. It is a process by which computer companies are trying to exert THEIR control on machines WE have bought with OUR money! Trusted Computing is the way they show they don’t trust us, but not allowing us to do whatever we want on our machines. This goes against the very love of tinkering that drives so many of us. It’s why more and more people are turning to the BSDs and Linux distros in order to be able to have the FREEDOM to tinker with THEIR OWN software as they wish. Instead, the industry wants to tell us how we should experience their items! I don’t want to hear it! If I want to buy a CD or DVD and rip it to my computer and put it on my iPod, then that’s my own business! Especially if I have PURCHASED IT! There have always been and always will be pirates. If you embed these systems into our hardware, you think it will stop us from experiencing our media the way we want to, but it won’t! There’s not a thing you can do to stop the resourcefulness of computer geeks, CS, and ECE majors. You can push congress to make it illegal, but that just means another DVD Jon in Scandanavia will figure it out. Just let us do what we wish. There has always been piracy and somehow you’ve still managed to make money anyway.

Someone built a difference engine - the first computer ever designed by Charles Babbage - out of Legos. The difference engine is more of a calculator than a computer in that you can’t load multiple programs on it, but it was still extremely revolutionary for its time. In fact, it was only designed on paper and wasn’t actually built until the 1990s!

Here’s the link to the Lego Difference Engine…. raw geekage at its best!