My Response to the Election Results My Response to the Election Results My Response to the Electio

[pseydtonne]

I bought an iPod.

I've decided that I cannot wrap my head around what it means that W gets four more years. I can only take pleasure in knowing he won't have Ashcroft around. Beyond that, I'm overwhelmed.

I am not in touch with the America that won the election. I don't get it. I don't understand the emotions and sentiments that gave us W again. Then again, Kerry was dull. I guess we'd rather have a clown bully than a sack of stone.

LiveJournal has been an explosion of wailing and toothgnash this past week. After a while, I turned off. I didn't want anything to do with what many of you had to say. It wasn't that I agreed or disagreed. It's that I found myself saying "Shut up! America takes one look at us and votes redneck! Williamsburg doesn't need hipsters and neither will Somerville in five years. I hate myself for wanting to be mediocre just to have company!"

I've concluded the best thing I can do is work on myself, heal myself, ignore anything that depresses me, treat myself better. I need to get out of my increasingly dull job and its commute to outer fucking space. Christ, I drive so far that I have to change radio stations.

87.9 FM is still empty on both sides of the Mass/NH border. This is the default channel for the iTrip, the FM transmitter that plugs into the iPod. This lets me tune in the tunes and tune out society for forty minutes each way.

I'm alone at my new job site. The man who was a close friend at the old site seems much more intent on climbing the corporate ladder here. He doesn't ignore me as much as he tunes me out. No one really knows me in Manchester. There are far more salescritters in this office. It's very impersonalizing. I no longer feel necessary in this place. Why have I been killing myself for these people?

So I'm going to start a proper job hunt or this winter will suck too much. I need to make a break with my self-victimization.

I had some visitors this weekend. We bonded again. They're both conservatives, but they're definitely compassionate. They're really good friends. We drove out to Long Island and had fun with medievalsweetie and her boy, as well as graciana. Then we swung by the pad of Mr and Mizz dobrovolets and liberated Flushing of a slot 1 Celeron 400 that I can hardly wait to try overclocking! We learned how evil Connecticut can be as we tried to find a sit-down meal near Stamford. I have another story about that for later.

So far what I've noticed about the iPod is that Apple is a little too convinced that this device doesn't need a manual. I mean, you can figure it out fast, but it's hard to guess how I'd, say, delete songs that won't load or create ratings or playlists within the device instead of having to plug it in. I mean, shit, it's a small computer, right? I should be able to control it, tell it things to do.

There is a large cult surrounding this device but most of it seems fascinated by the artifice instead of the function. The fans feel liberated by toting their music around. However, they have no desire to hack the box. C'mon! It's a computer -- it needs hijacking.

More later. I'm alive. I want to feel better. I'm not a normal American but I'm still American. I don't have a delusion that I'd do well to escape. This is the nation where I can make a difference once I figure out how to change myself.

-"Pearl Harbor sucked and I miss you"

Comments

[hakamadare.livejournal.com]

I mean, shit, it's a small computer, right? I should be able to control it, tell it things to do.

it does a simple task very well, and a couple auxiliary tasks with mediocrity. to me, it feels like a major step towards my dream of computer-as-appliance, and i have about the same desire to hack it as i have to hack a ball peen hammer or a pair of sunglasses, but, well, diff'rent strokes.

It's a computer -- it needs hijacking.

i guess i've spent enough of my life contending with technology that is broken or useless as shipped, and thus needs to be hacked in order to reach a basic level of functionality, that when i encounter something that Just Works, it's such a sudden, ecstatic rush that i wish all technology was that way.

i'm not quite sure why i feel such a visceral revulsion to the application of the habitual geek habit of pulling stuff apart and meddling with it to the iPod; i guess i just want something to be unsullied.

but then again, it seems that once again i don't get what i want. fucking geeks.

-steve

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

Gee, haka. It's like you go through the geek rituals but you don't have the soul of it.

I see any tool as having potential and therefore adaptability. You can hack a hammer, for example -- spongier grip, better bounce, different heads.

Just because a tool comes from Apple doesn't mean it's sacred. Their products come with a thick veneer (more like a foot-thick glaze) of hype and assumption of user-friendliness. I see hacking the iPod, or even simply getting better use from it than the default, as a way to obviate Apple's hype. They want so hard to be more than an electronics hardware company.

Then again, I run Gentoo... or should I say, one day I'll have a working Gentoo setup when I have a whole day to compile everything.

[hakamadare.livejournal.com]

It's like you go through the geek rituals but you don't have the soul of it.

heh. honestly, i think you're absolutely right, and that's one of the reasons why i'm getting out of IT. for example, the reasons why i want to build up my monstrous HP NetServer are threefold: 1) i want chaiya and me and our other housemates to have a central repository where we can dump our music, 2) i want reliable bullshit-free email hosting, and most recently 3) i want to put up a political discussion site, to get a lot of the creative ferment out of LJ and into a more respectable medium.

if there were a single monolithic prefab box that provided those functions to my satisfaction, i'd buy it and plug it in and be done in a heartbeat, if i had the money (and if i had some cheese, i could have some ham and cheese, if i had some ham and if i weren't Jewish).

as such, each technological hurdle that stands between me and this project irritates and disheartens me. if the hardware and software throw too many curveballs at me, i'll most likely eventually give up, which makes me sad. i'm not relishing the process of solving the inevitable problems; i'm looking forward to the problems being solved, so i can get to the part the gratifies me.

incidentally, a historical note: my mom reports that while i enjoyed Lego, i never wanted to take apart anything that i had built. the process of building was far secondary, for me, to the state of having built the thing. why would i want to take it apart? i'd just have to build it again, and that was laborious and annoying. i hadn't thought about this aspect of my personality in years; perhaps it's relevant here.

one day I'll have a working Gentoo setup when I have a whole day to compile everything

the day on which this sort of activity ceased to be fun for me passed long, long ago. let me be perfectly clear - i don't mean to say that it's eventually going to stop being fun for you, or that there's anything bad or wrong about it being fun for you. there are many people for whom the process of project work is the most enjoyable part, and i often enjoy listening to them (and to you) talk about what they're working on and what they've got planned next.

me, more often than not i just yearn for the day when everything works right and there isn't anything left that i need to fix.

-steve

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

If you ever wish to swap me into your job, let me know. I'd dig it immensely.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

87.9 FM is still empty on both sides of the Mass/NH border.

It won't be if you get close enough to *my* iTrip :-P

And remember, you don't need to be mediocre to be accepted...just fail to be elitist.

[dobrovolets.livejournal.com]

I can only take pleasure in knowing he won't have Ashcroft around.

Don't be so swift in your pleasures. One of the likely replacements, Alberto Gonzales, referred to the Geneva Conventions as "quaint".

I am not in touch with the America that won the election.

That's an odd thing for you to say, considering that at least one of the guys you spent last weekend in the car with is proudly part of that America. Or am I wrong?

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

So? I associate with you but I'm not a Comrade. I associate with conservatives but am not one. I associate. By that, I am "in touch". I don't get any of it. What makes sense to me is change.

[dobrovolets.livejournal.com]

So then nothing that you don't agree with makes sense to you?

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

Actually, nothing makes sense. It's November. My brain has pre-collapsed for the holidays.

I can see the logic of almost any set of beliefs or assumptions. After all, that was the point of education -- to come to an understanding of the world as I skullfuck it or vice versa.

Are you merely gainsaying me to keep me from moving onto the next LJ post or to inspire it?

I had to open this reply in a separate tab so that I could reread the entire line of logic. This shouldn't have been so taxing. I need more sleep.

All right, I guess I'll address my opinion of my relation to America... but later.

-be excellent to each other

[mkhobson.livejournal.com]

"I had so many problems/but then I bought me an iPod ...." -- Frank Black