While the Ente was visiting me here in Chile we have travelled up north to see La Serena and Valley Elqui, the Atacama desert and El Tatio, and inbetween Valparaiso. I must say that i really like Valpo – especially now that i found the nightshoot option on my camera – thanks to the Ente. We have had a wonderful time during the last 3 weeks.

Im Frühjahr hatte ich erwähnt, dass sich die Studentische Antikriegsgruppe aus Magdeburg – in der ich mich übrigens aktiviere – einen Weblog gegeben hat. Wer sich gewundert hat, warum es hier ein wenig ruhiger wurde, so lag es unter anderem auch daran, dass ich mich mehr der Antikriegsbloggerei gewidmet habe. Da ich aber im Moment der einzige Autor bin, suchen wir nun ein wenig Mitstreiter. Du kannst natürlich auch einfach erstmal den Weblog lesen, weil Leser suchen wir auch noch ;)

Über das Ende der Weinert-Buchhandlung hatte ich zuvor schon geschrieben. Nun schlieszt auch Papenbreer, ein Klamottengeschäft, das ich persönlich nicht arg genutzt habe. Das habe ich über einen Leserbrief in der Volksstimme erfahren. Ich teile die dort geäuszerte Einschätzung bzgl unseres Bürgermeisters und dem Allee Center:

Nun aber zu dem “Schock” (lt. Volksstimme), wie bedauerlich, den unser Herr Oberbürgermeister Trümper wegen der Schließung von Papenbreer erlitt! War seine Absicherung für den Erweiterungsbau etwa nicht gegeben? Kaum anzunehmen. Man muss nicht sonderlich intelligent sein, um das Ladensterben, das das unnötige Erweitern des Allee-Centers nach sich zieht, vorauszusehen. Übrigens bin ich nicht allein der Ansicht, dass die extreme Ballung von Geschäften in einem Gebäude wie im Allee-Center für das Stadtzentrum bzw. die übrigbleibenden Unternehmen nicht gut sein kann. Die obige Schließung wird nicht die letzte sein, es werden weitere Schaufenster zugeklebt werden.

I was going to blog about that some weeks ago, and now that cybernotic was faster, i just add some quick thoughts. There seems to be a wave of (influential and advanced) Mac users switching away from the Mac as Apple gets bigger and starts doing Microsoftish things. The two articles that started this discourse were by Mark Pilgrim and Cory Doctorow. The main reasons stated for leaving the Mac behind were the decreasing quality of Apple software and that the data created or maintained with this software often becomes an “undocumented binary black hole” as Mark has put it.

I am still happy in regard to the software. Mac developers eat usabilty every morning with their breakfast so that the software i use allows me to be pleasantly productive – apart from my daily procrastination. Even though Apple seems to become more evil on some parts, they still have the lead in designing an innovative system with the user in mind.

I would be happier if all my personal belongings (e.g. pim data) would be stored in well-documented xml, so that staying with the Mac is not a matter of a vendor lock-in. Of course it would be also cool if we see some more open sourcing – not very likely.

I would be a lot happier if Apple would turn itself into a self-ruled collective where the designers, programmers and factory workers work under fair conditions with a good pay – not at all likely. Furthermore the side-effects on the environment and world regions in crisis need to be considered when producing computer hardware. Yet those latter complaints also count within the Linux world (more on this here).

Right now i don’t have the patience to switch, but i am sure the day will come. The FLOSS world has quite a few things to offer. The most obvious is the open nature of a thriving community that is devoted to creating software. While Mac fans get nervous (incl. me) waiting for the next keynote by Steve Jobs to listen to his words, the open source community gets work done through a compellingly open process. While Mac OS X still is technically more innovative, Linux & Co is socially, politically, and economically far more progressive.

Während die Städte von Werbung überflutet werden, geht nicht-kommerzieller Raum zunehmend unter. Die Installation City Wipeout von Pasi Kolhonen verdeutlicht dies, indem es den Betrachter ermöglicht, auf Fotos die Stadt bis auf die Werbung wegzustreichen. Übrig bleibt ein Kommerzteppich, der den urbanen Raum dominiert.

via we make money not art: City Wipeout

Sandro Gaycken has given a clarifying talk at the last Chaos Communication Congress (22C3) comparing the quality of free software with anarchist theory. He starts out with the obvious similarities between those two concepts: consensus decision making and flat/no hierarchies. Furthermore both, free software and anarchism, are regularily defamed as being complete disorder and distruction of all human values. While those rather colloquial similarities might hold, he argues that looking more closely shows that free software today is based on a lot of assumptions that wouldn’t be counted as ‘valid anarchism’:

• production of computer hardware is connected to hierarchies, centralization, pollution, and exploitation
• engagement in the free software process poses great requirements: investment of money for hardware, skills to understand programming, and specialists for maintenance.

He also states that the “legal games” (read: rules) around Creative Commons and the GPL would barely count as anarchistic. While a person of the audience added that GPL and such should rather be seen as weapons to defend the realm of open source against capitalism Gaycken responds that these weapons when employed are turned against one self one day. He compares them with the historic ‘compromises’ such as in the Soviet Union that led to the enslavement of millions of people – advertised as a transitional phase until capitalism has vanished once and for all.

Gaycken surely takes a purist approach to differentiate between anarchist theory and free software, yet i don’t see this as an end in itself. While free/open source software is a great thing it is worth noting that it (still) has quite a bit of negative implications for emancipation and the environment. In this respect i understand his talk as an eye opener: we need to pay more attention to the exclusive, polluting, and otherwise malicious context of seemingly emancipatory technology.

A few days ago the recordings from the 22nd Chaos Communication Congress went online neatly organized as audio or video on as webpages and podcasts. Those recordings present a rich source for all sorts of wisdom and discussion about technology and its implications on society. Kudos to Tim and the recording team.

via CCC Events Weblog: 22C3 audio and video podcasts available