one mikro2nd

I will be content to situate myself in the mountains and wait for the flotsam, the ragged stray edges of it all, that will find me even there.

Second Try “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” ―Audre Lord We started out sharing software and the tools for making it — paper tapes lying in desk drawers, stuff passed around on copied floppy disks (the big, 8 inch, actually flop…

Personal Computing cannot exist in any walled garden.

Many years ago I was assigned to work on a contract at a company that designed and built complex electronic systems.

kitten fillets wrapped in bunny ears, with a side of parsnip pudding, served on a bed of puke

I really should tell the story of the time Twice A Year Assessments came around at The Workplace.

While I’m not particularly invested in the End-User Computing scene, a thought around that did occur: When some end-user wants to customise (say) their car (house, furniture, clothes,…) they a. don’t usually start from scratch, and b. don’t usually fuck a…

Tall buildings are all awful.

One of the big obstacles to “composing software out of small pieces” is that programming languages are so shit at interoperability.

My note-making application of choice is Zim Desktop Wiki.

Everything is Cumulative “Consider that most projects do not work out as planned.

Jack and Jill, Went up the hill To fetch a pail of water.

I’m writing a wiki system.

WikiNature is found in linking.

In an article I read, “It’s almost impossible to grow enough food to feed a family and be completely self-sufficient, and even if you could, you’d have to deal with countless people trying to steal your food or take over your homestead.”

coming soon…

Take your joy from the process of whatever you’re doing rather than from the expectation, the end-goal.

Kinds of Complexity I identify three kinds of complexity in systems: Inherent Complexity Incidental Complexity Induced Complexity This last one — induced complexity — can be further broken down into Accidentally Induced Complexity, and Intentionally Induc…

We’ve had this fridge for several years, now.

So it’s worth talking a little bit about How Computers Are… (I speak, of course, of our PCs and similar devices, not about how things are on Big Backend Iron.)

A laundry list of features and attributes of a more personal, thinking-centric computing environment.

As well as being a Web Gardener here in BitWorld, I am a long-time gardener in AtomWorld too.

*Take a look at my girlfriend.* *She's the only one I got.* *Not much of a girlfriend,* *Never seem to get a lot...* – Supertramp Take a look at my filesystem.

425 (Too Early)

CATS :: Computer-Aided Thinking Systems GOATS :: Group-Oriented Assistive Thinking Systems Add features on to a PersonalComputer to push it across a (blurry, ill-defined) greyzone from a device that simply keeps your Contacts Database, Chats&Email, Calend…

A stub page.

A guided tour that has yet to be written.

This page is a placeholder.

Choices have consequences.

Here’s a wish for a Clock app on Android… It should have a way for some outside application to send a message (probably as a push-notification) to the Clock to set an alarm (or cancel one, I guess).

We keep using the acronym “PC”, which, I’ll remind the crowd, stands for “Personal Computer”.

I work (as time allows) researching software systems and interfaces that support and enhance human thinking and creativity.

Life would be so much nicer if my notebook (I’ve been using Zim-Wiki for some years) could link to emails archived in my email application (Thunderbird)… Linking in the other direction would, of course, be too much to ask!

In which I speculate about some of the attributes I’d want to see in a Personal Computer that takes seriously its job of uplifting my ability to think, understand, explore and organise information.

Against all expectation, I got a job.

Let’s pretend.

SFF In the Country of the Blind - Michael Flynn Anything by Catherine Valente A Memory of Empire - Arkady Martine Blindsight - Peter Watts Douglas Adams - Evil Machines Aliette de Bodard - Seven of Infinities Embers of War - Gareth Powell Ann Leckie - Tra…

We talk of “Nature” as though it exists, but it doesn’t.

Plum Tree Cottage The cottage nestles among the trees — plums of several varieties, lemon, apricot and indigenous trees and bushes in wild profusion — well away from the main house, in cosy seclusion and peace.

I have eaten the cookies that were in your browser and which you were probably saving for facebook thank me!

A comment the other day on HackerNews, only very lightly edited for brevity: whenever they (a multinational appliance maker) do the big presentations on their Vision For The Future it’s all IoT [internet of things].

Back in the ’90s we’d all have to dismantle our computer mouse every few days to scratch accumulated lint and gunk off its rollers and ball.

The Backstory On the 17th of February, in the early hours of the morning (or, perhaps, the witching hours of the night) a gang of robbers swung through Bibbey’s Hoek.

Who the hell decided on four?

Our days on this Earth are limited.