|
|
|
in the bathtub or something stupid
Sunday, October 14 2001
I've got so much disposable income these days that I've been satisfying a previously-deferred gadget fetish, especially with regard to devices having hacking potential. When I saw the 3COM Ergo Audrey, a "discontinued internet appliance" being sold on Tigerdirect.com for only $90, I couldn't help but, you know, express myself in a capitalistic manner. The Audrey with a 640 by 480 flat panel display, USB ports, and a microkernal operating system based on QNX (a flavor of Unix). The display alone is worth that sort of money (indeed, when it was being promoted, the Audrey was being sold for $500). I didn't know at the time that there was a substantial hacker community behind the Audrey; I just wanted a cheap web terminal to allow me to, I don't know, surf the web and check my email in the bathtub or something stupid like that.
I've had the Audrey for three days now and have, with the help of the abundant advice available online, already hacked its operating system to allow me to drop down into the shell and type commands like cd /dev, ls -l, and ping spies.com. It's exciting having a device that small that I can use to browse the web.
It always amazes me how hyper-involved people can become with certain objects, especially ones that prove easy to customize and expand. My old housemate John opened my eyes to the fanatical world of Volkswagen customization. Then there are the wild-eyed overclockers practicing their own variation on the cargo cult theme. And, as my readers may recall, when I was a teenager I spent most of 1985 figuring out how to interface all sorts of digital devices to my old VIC-20 (instead of, duh, figuring out how to convince a redneck princess to accompany me to the prom).
When I was walking Sally in Prospect Park this evening, I passed (as I usually do) a large open field to the south of the Valley of Cashmere. A group of young men were there playing a game of football, but that wasn't what caught my attention. Up the hill above them was a black man standing there with outstretched arms, turning around slowly and shouting at the top of his lungs to anyone who would listen. At first I thought he was Muslim who was all worked up about the bombing of Afghanistan, since his monologue had the hallmark logical inconsistencies of religious argument. But his beef, though religious in nature, was far more personal. He claimed he was the messiah and that people had spit on his grave and that he wanted it back. What he wanted back wasn't clear. Suddenly he shouted, even louder than before, "Look what I can do!" and than he started running down the hill with his arms held high on either side. I thought he was about to start turning cartwheels, but instead he broke into a desperate charge down around the football players and off to the far side of the field to continue his ranting. He looked like he had enough determination to outrun a nuclear explosion, but why? His continued ranting was enough to cause the football players to burst into audible laughter that I could hear receding behind me as I disappeared back into the woods.
In the evening, Gretchen and I were joined by Anna from nearby Union Street and we ordered burritos and watched Presumed Innocent. I hadn't expected things to get so Hitchcockian at the end there. Later on, of course, we played numerous games of Boggle. I neglected to mention that the other day Gretchen found the word "MATRICIDE."
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?011014 feedback
previous | next |
