I have to admit that I’m really not sure of the best way to continue. From here on in the story gets very personal, it’s not so flattering, and it ends badly. All in all it hardly seems proper content for a vanity blog.
On the other hand, I still feel like its a story worth telling. As such, I’m going to dedicate the next few posts to the folks that took this journey with me.
Thank you all–in advance!
Many people don’t consider Steve Jobs a hero of the copyright wars. Their memory only goes as far back as the “FairPlay” DRM bondage inherent in the initial iTunes Music Store.
I think different(ly). I remember Steve Jobs as the guy who single handedly saved copyright’s balance. He repeatedly drummed into consumers’ minds, that every digital copy you buy, is a copy you own. Never accept less.
It was a game changer.
Rest in peace, Steve!
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I have have another interesting story about Steve Jobs that, in a strict chronology, would fit here. But, since this vanity blog is in my life’s chronology, Well… I don’t know that story yet! I’m going to save for a later when, hopefully, it will make more sense.
I’m not entirely happy with my next post. It’s more than a tad melodramatic.
But hey, this is my vanity blog so what did you expect?
I re-wrote the damn thing about four times. Be glad you didn’t have to read that drudgery! I hope you’ll muddle through this one, because if I don’t post it now, I’ll never be able to get on with the fun bits that follow.
Oh, and by the way…
As pedestrian as this all seems now, my epiphany did precede the announcement of the Rhapsody [pay monthly, own nothing] “celestial jukebox” by more than a full year.
So there!
Yes, this is supposed to be the conclusion of the Fear and Loathing… post. I know, I know, this thread is dragging on forever. Trust me, it’s going to end real soon now.
Well at least soon in elapsed posting time. Just one more post. Then hopefully I’m done with this long boring nostalgia phase. Time to move on the the twistedly clever bits of… well, I guess… more nostalgia.
It’s the soon in clock time that I’m never quite so sure about. (Crap, I write slowly!) This time though I’m really quite certain that soon is going to extend a little further into the future than we both might like.
Because as serendipity might have it, I really am in Vegas! Woot! I’ll be at the Defcon conference at the Rio starting Thursday. Got to make up for lost time! Look for me. I’ll be the guy in the black t-shirt.
Until Thursday I’m having a little quality time with Janet. She doesn’t know that yet… Shhh! Her plan was to have some quality time with the slot machines. When she gets tired of my qualities, maybe I’ll pop my head into Black Hat and distract you folks doing real work.
If you happen to be at Black Hat or Defcon let me know. Let’s drink some pirate rum and swap a few stories! Seriously! Do ping me even if you just stumbled upon this blog. It’s time for a few new adventures that I can write nostalgically about in 2021!
It seems like a long time since I’ve updated this. I had a few family distractions that kept me busy and away from the keyboard. It seems like every time I stop writing it’s twice as painful getting started again. I write and write and write and it still seems like everything sucks. Plaintext says I’m at 2,318 words now and I’m less than half-way through the story I set out to tell. Each time I reread it, I still only see a bunch of disjointed nonsense. This is a pivotal part of my story so, it’s starting to make me want to pull my hair out.
Just as a little kick in the ass, I’m going to begin posting what I’ve got in pieces. However, I want this to serve as fair warning, I make no promises that I won’t pull all of it down and rewrite it again. You’ll have to read at your own risk.
At the peril of spoiling my mixed metaphors I want to explain one analogy up front. To me it has always been a two front war. I think of the war on hackers, phreaks and software pirates as the eastern front. The early hacker stories I read were about people from MIT or other companies and universities on the east coast. The much older Hollywood war on technology, consumers, and media pirates, I think of as the western front.
I only mention this because I’d intended to call this part of the story “The Western Front”. However as I serialize it, I fear people might run away in disgust thinking I’m breaking Godwin’s law. Trust me, I used the term stormtrooper only as a lame Star Wars metaphor. Anyway, please don’t judge too harshly. My ego is a little fragile at the moment.
I just want to say thank you to everyone for the inspiring comments! I never considered I would be read outside the family.
I’m posting from my phone during fathers day with my family. But i really wanted to say I’m grateful for all your kind words!
Well, my original goal was to try and write ten interesting things. Nine (questionably) interesting things later and I haven’t even finished the backstory. So much for brevity!
Still, I’m not entirely unhappy with my progress. The words are starting to flow faster even if there are more than I expect. The process is still excruciatingly painful but I’m whining less. Maybe I’ll get the hang of it after all.
The series as a whole is intended to explain my various interests and campaigns throughout the copyright war. Most of you know I have an obsessive fascination with the subject. Some of you have even suffered torturous longwinded explanations of why. These posts will allow me to spare the rest of you. Do I hear a hallelujah? Now maybe I’ll start getting invited to cocktail parties again.
At this moment I’m planning to continue the series past 10. At least until I’ve documented a few of the fun anecdotes and novel technologies that constituted my past decade. You know, the things I want to reply when people ask, “What have you been up to?” but know you’re only mentally prepared to hear, “Nothing much, what about you?”
Now you can’t say you’ve never asked, and it’s not like I’m forcing you to read the answer. As a matter of fact, there’s really no point in your reading these stories now. I’m just going to bore you with them when I’m old and senile. Ignore them now so they’ll seem fresh.
Anyway, June 5th is going to be a beautiful Sunday. I’ll be thinking happy thoughts and smiling. You do the same!
For Apple II geeks PR#6 represents both the end of what you were doing last and the beginning of what you want to do next. After an interesting and productive few years Clay and I have decided to wind up HBM and each move on to new adventures.
As most of you know, Janet finished her PharmD and launched her own pharmacy consultancy last fall. She totally rocks at it and her colleagues can’s stop singing her praises! However, there is an old saying about the shoemaker’s son being the only child running around barefoot. Curiously, the same concept holds for healthcare consultants and insurance. As such I’m looking for an interesting corporate gig where I can provider her with the comprehensive health coverage that keeps her smiling and happy.
As it turns out I’m not a very good writer. Not that my final product is impenetrable or incoherent. It’s more that my process of creation is personally painful. Write. Read. Wretch. Re-read. Sigh. Shuffle. Delete. Delete. Delete. Rewrite. Then repeat ad-nauseam. It’s not that I aspire to be Tracy Kidder, Steven Levy, Bruce Sterling or Douglas Adams. I’d just like to feel less anxious writing English prose than I do writing C++ poetry.
Back in 2005, the musician Jonathan Coulton quit his job and started on a personal project he called, “A thing a week”. His goal was to write, record and publish at least one song or interesting snippet each week. After 52 weeks he declared the project a personal success.
Following his lead, I’m going to attempt to write and publish, “Ten interesting things”. Hopefully one a week for ten weeks. A regimen designed to make some future eleventh interesting thing easier to compose than this blog post.
On the off chance anyone besides my wife reads one of my ten things, drop me a comment to keep me going.
Well, two and a half years and not a single post. Maybe I’m less vain than I thought.
Yeah right…
I’ve updated this site to use WordPress so that I can update it easier. All the old photo galleries are still linked to the right. Hopefully, I’ll be able to update this from my iPhone to keep it lively.