The Linux Extremist

For those who truly want to get away from it all, there are few cities in Western Europe more tenuously linked to the rest of the world than Kassel, Germany. It’s so remote and obscure that it never would have occurred to me go there had it not been for the fact that’s where my girlfriend presently lives. What she told me about it didn’t precisely recommend it, however. She told me it has a reputation as being the “most East German city in Western Germany”. I visited East Berlin just after the Wall fell; it was obvious as soon as I crossed the border that public works people were trying to repair a problem with the city sewer. Perhaps it was a statement on Communism: a country that was short on food was full of excrement.

Kassel’s resemblance to East Germany, fortunately, comes from its proliferation of large avenues, squares and “shoebox” buildings. It also has a distinctly “red” feel, with large streets named after Friedrich Ebert (one of the founding fathers of the Social Democrat Party), Willy Brandt (a Social Democrat Prime Minister, who left office under a cloud as his administration was infiltrated by East German spies) and Dag Hammerskold (one of the first Secretary Generals of the United Nations). That said, it has the benefit of fresh air, a couple of good local beers, some spectacular hills surrounding the town, and the wonderful Orchid Garden restaurant, which serves excellent Thai food. My one regret is not having had the opportunity to go to Kassel’s famous Museum of Death, which sounded like a lot of fun. Still, it was a good holiday with the woman I love, and indeed, a huge break from the norm.

Waiting in Frankfurt Airport to go back was an extremely boring business: the plane was delayed. Rather than waste the time, I decided to get on the internet at the airport, peruse the newspapers and magazines, and see if I could get a quick idea on the state of Linux in Germany.

Germany and Linux are definitely intertwined. After all, one of the most popular distributions, SUSE, has its origins in Germany. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Linux use in Germany may be a bit more prevalent than in other countries; certainly their Linux community is lively. For example, one of the most clever wallpapers I’ve ever seen was a “Linux für Deutschland” image of the Brandenberg Gate: instead of a figure of a chariot drawn by four horses, some clever artist had substituted Tux for the animals.

While an airport survey was unlikely to yield much in the way of solid data, one can get an impression. I thought, “if I walk into the newsagent, how many Linux magazines will I see? What kind of content will those magazines have?” Fortunately, I do read and speak German (which my German work colleagues find odd; English speakers are notoriously non-multilingual in their eyes) so I could get a good idea as to the what the press was saying.

There were two Linux magazines in the airport newsagent. This is actually good, because the newsagent at Frankfurt airport did not have a huge selection for those interested in technology. I chose the PC Welt Linux magazine, which is apparently published 4 times a year.

The magazine is pure Linux evangelism: it came with a DVD that had 9 different distributions of Linux, ranging from Ubuntu to Damn Small Linux. It also came with reviews and guides for Ubuntu and Suse. It also provided a good list of graphics software, and a list of helpful websites. Admittedly, while I’m not a regular reader of techology magazines, I do not believe I’ve seen a more effective presentation of Linux and its benefits in any language.

After perusing the magazine, I wandered down to the internet kiosk to get a further idea of how deeply Linux had penetrated the German market. Some quick research brought up some notable finds. An article written in 2004 stated that German life insurance company LVM was running a pilot programme with Red Hat Linux on the desktop; the city government of Munich opted for 14,000 Linux desktop computers. That said, there is no evidence at first glance to indicate that there is greater uptake of Linux on the desktop in Germany than elsewhere, but at the same time there is no reason to believe that Germany is lagging behind. Rather, Germany appears to be one of the leading Linux nations.

This makes sense; Germany’s biggest virtue has always been precision engineering. Other countries go for having good wine or good living, but to each their own. The German emphasis on reliability and quality makes their country a very poor fit for Windows. Additionally, the Germans have a disdain for paying too much for anything; the profilieration of bargain stores like Lidl is indicative of this trend. Furthermore, their obvious preference for home-grown solutions suggests to me that with a bit more advocacy and marketing, SUSE could be in a position for significant liftoff in the German market. “Erfolg durch Stoltz” (Achievement through Pride) could mean Germany gives us a clue to how a post-Windows future could develop and what it will look like. Or not, they could remain in the Windows ghetto with the rest of us; however, for now, it continues to bear watching.

It’s been brought to my attention that not surprisingly, Microsoft advocates don’t like me or my blog very much. I’ve read some of their comments and interestingly, most of them don’t actually attack the substance of what I say, but rather make comments about me personally.

I don’t mind, really. It’s a free country (well at least it is here) and part of freedom is being able to spout off all you like, even if you’re not intelligent enough to use a proper operating system. I am able to fire back, and even if no knowledge is increased by the exchange, and I am specifically referring to our friends in the thrall of Redmond, at least there is sufficient tolerance that we can despise each other without it having any implications other than some words on a screen.

Tolerance is a vital, but confusing virtue. As this example shows, tolerance does not necessarily mean I have to like the Microsoft advocates. I’ll be blunt, I don’t. I think they’re snake oil salesmen peddling a shoddy piece of goods. They don’t necessarily have to like me; I regard it as a badge of honour if I’m on their bad list. It does mean, however, that we are both free to go our own way, and neither of us can inhibit each other from doing so. It also means that we accept that as the natural order of things; this is the basis of a free society.

Tolerance has suffered a good number of distortions in recent years. This is how political correctness got started; tolerance in the eyes of some got to mean that one could not offend anyone else, ever. To some, tolerance meant an endorsement of virtually anything (witness Jerry Springer guests) except intolerance, however that was defined. However true tolerance requires having the freedom to offend and the willingness to stand being offended.

This is a tough pill for some to swallow; for example, it means that the “artist” who feels free to put a crucifix in a jar of urine should realise that those who object to his pap are free to tell him he’s a no talent shock artist who really should learn to use a urinal like a grown up boy.

Tolerance also has limits; it is supposed to be a two way street. We in the West are often blindsided when we find that it isn’t. It completely breaks down when the a party that you’re tolerating wants you dead. A dramatic example was during the recent Islamist demonstrations in London; those who said things like “Behead those who insult Islam” are clearly not playing by the same rules as those who tolerated their right to be offensive, namely, the rest of the British public.

Truly, there needs to be a reiteration from the leaders of the West of what tolerance is really supposed to mean. It doesn’t help that they apparently walk on eggshells when trying to talk about the issue. They need to stand up and say plainly, those who can’t accept the principles of tolerance should not be tolerated; it’s sheer stupidity to extend a courtesy to someone who isn’t courteous in return. It should also be said, those whose egos are so fragile that they can’t accept criticism without calling for someone’s head are hypersensitive dolts; there are plenty of things in the world that are offensive, grow up, get used to it or get out.

I doubt that will happen, however. Fortunately, there is a safety mechanism in place; when the limits of tolerance are breached, people stand up and fight. It hasn’t reached quite that point yet, but just because we have not arrived at that particular destination, does not mean we won’t.

According to reports on BBC News, Britain is the country with the greatest penetration of digital television in the home. Most recent figures indicate that 70% of UK viewers have it. Of course the question that no one is asking is if that’s doing us any good.

A leading example is the UKTV History channel. It used to be that it was sort of like having CNN for 1945, complete with broadcasts of Churchill’s speeches and reports of Allied victories in France. It was refreshing to hear politicians speaking something other than waffle and see an actual enemy of humanity getting pounded into the dust.

UKTV History then decided to turn into the Fred Dibnah channel. Fred Dibnah, for those who aren’t familiar with him, was one of Britain’s last steeplejacks who somehow became a presenter of a series of programmes on 19th century industry. He had a coal mine in his back yard and was prone to saying things like “the scent of oil and steam should be made into a perfume” and telling the audience how he got a skin infection from allowing his cap to sit in a puddle full of pigeon droppings. In other words, he was Britain’s most tediously bizarre presenter, the God of the Train Spotters and their ilk.

The rest of television is not much better; as such, I’ve been watching my “24″ box sets repeatedly, Seasons 1 through 4, to the point where I wonder if it’s possible to burn them out. I am salivating for the arrival of Season 5.

I am happy to report that the show never gets repetitive or boring, in spite of repeated watchings. I have picked up on a small detail which provides a subliminal reason why I love this programme; it seems that Open Source is rife throughout the programme, to the point that it could be considered a long advertisement for it.

I have a bad habit of noticing what hardware and operating systems are being used, even when it’s just on television or film. While there are some Macintosh computers in use during the programme, it appears that most people are definitely not using Windows. The motif on the upper right hand corner of the windows is indicative of the X Window system, not Microsoft. Open Source even makes an appearance on one of the character’s home computers; in Season 4, Tony Almeida’s home PC appears to be using the Xfce desktop environment.

Terminology provides additional clues to the use of Open Source; the characters Edgar Stiles and Chloe O’Brian discuss “the kernel”, “the root”, and so on, in a way that Microsoft technologists do not. The combined linguistic and graphical clues suggest that “24″, in a very subtle way, is advertising all the works of Open Source. Definitely, Jack Bauer’s outfit is too intelligent to be caught dead using Windows.

In a strange sort of way, this is perhaps the most realistic aspect of “24″; it’s certainly much more true to life than Jack Bauer’s strange capacity to avoid eating or using the toilet. No one concerned with security should let Windows anywhere near their PC; an organisation that requires absolute, iron-clad data protection would be insane to use it. In this past week alone, it was reported that the number of “Zombie” PCs (i.e., those under the control of remote hackers for nefarious purposes) has shot up 23 percent due to a new software worm.

That said, the promotion of Open Source on “24″, may not be at all subliminal on the part of the show’s creators, or just an attempt to add realism to the programme. In addition to the clues in the show, it’s interesting that “24: The Game”, is made for Sony Playstation, the video games console that runs Linux. It’s not available for Microsoft’s Xbox.

So kudos to the producers, who are the bringers of good things, in a world of entertainment that is still benighted even though it’s digital. Not only is it gripping stuff, it’s technically correct, and as such, completely satisfying.

In case you missed the memo, the world is supposed to end today. Even the Register said good-bye this morning.

The reason we’re all doomed is that according to professor Bernard Lewis, Iran is going to nuke Israel; there is a scriptural reason to do so, apparently. According to Professor Lewis:

“This year, August 22 corresponds, in the Islamic calendar, to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427. This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to ‘the farthest mosque,’ usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (c.f., Koran XVII.1). This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel, and, if necessary, of the world.”

Of course, Israel would nuke Iran back, and a veil of atomic darkness would then descend upon humanity. The end.

It’s always funny to see how many people get worked up about the end of the world only for humanity to muddle through on the foretold day of destruction. I remember when Nostradamus scholars were warning of disaster in July 1999. I remember the days of “Mutally Assured Destruction” (when the United States and Soviet Union were toe to toe) and we could expect total annihilation at any moment, a fact which some people discussed to the point of tedium. Long ago, people believed that certain years, like 1666, which contains the “Number of the Beast”, were going to herald the end. The remarkable thing is that doomsayers continue to be listened to, even though their record is so poor: consider their 100% inaccuracy rate.

Humanity is a remarkably flexible creation. Yes, we have the ability to make a terrible mess of things; some countries have an amazing potential to create disaster. For example, in the 20th century alone, Germany sparked off the two largest wars the world had ever known. The Russians managed to breathe life into a political philosophy which killed over 100 million people and mismanaged a nuclear reactor until it exploded and dropped radioactivity all over Europe. Yet we’re still here. We still have all of our petty concerns about what’s on television tonight, what are we having for dinner, does our backside look big in a particular pair of shorts. There are still advertisements for scented tampons (leading to the very important question of who would actually benefit from them) and episodes of Big Brother and Cadbury Dairy Milk bars going bad at the back of the fridge. Humanity, for all its faults, just carries on.

As for today’s prediction of doom, I suggest there are some cooler heads in Iran who know that their country wouldn’t survive the attempt and given the rate that “martyrs” are being turned into compost lately, the supply of virgins isn’t what it used to be. Even so, war is going on in the Middle East right now; yet normal life, more or less, continues.

Don’t get me wrong though, humanity will one day end. However, it’s more likely to be in a T.S. Eliot way rather than in some dramatic cataclysm. For those who aren’t familiar with his poem, the Waste Land, the following lines are germane:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper

If we’re going to end, it will likely be in a quieter way than in one giant explosion. Perhaps some disease will wipe us all out. Perhaps the earth will tilt off its axis and we’ll be burned by being too close to the sun or frozen by being too great a distance from it. Or perhaps, we’ll simply become extinct. It’s certainly true that in the West there are declining birth rates; thanks to contraception, we can think about the 3 AM feedings, the driving to school, the paying for university, the bailing out of prison for smoking pot for any potential child, and stop all that happening. Given that taxes are going up in many countries, there isn’t the money that there used to be to let it happen. On top of that, there are also all the “me” considerations; having 9 babies certainly does prevent buying an Audi A4 rather than a minibus, for example. If birth rates continue to go below replacement rates, humanity may slowly, gracefully teeter into an abyss. It would take a long time, however, and certainly, it would be an uneven process. It would not be at all as dramatic as a bomb, though, and therefore, less fun to get unhappy about.

Having said all that, I could be wrong. Ahmadinejad may be left unsupervised today and press the big red button behind his desk. Israel may fire back and a good part of the world may be turned into a blackened mass of desert sand turned glass. However, it’s unlikely. The end of the world is rather like death on an individual level; we know it will happen, someday. We can’t know the hour or the means by which it will happen. As such, there’s no point in worrying about it or even thinking about it, except of course, to have a good laugh at the doomsayers’ expense.

The industry in which I work is not the most technically minded. In fact, many people in my business regard the internet as strange and frightening. For the worst cases, finding the “On” button on the PC is a real achievement. This relative lack of computer savvy has led to some acute symptoms of technical backwardness; a leading example has to do with open standards for information transfers. In short, there are none. It’s not for lack of trying, my firm attempted to lead the way, however the initiative was de-railed by one company who held fast to the belief that if they control a proprietary standard, that they would make it easier to lock in clients. They think by owning the standard, they own the customer.

When I first heard about this, I experienced that rare and transcendent state one has when a conniption occurs. No one has yet been brave enough to tell me if I actually had steam coming out of my ears; apparently I did turn bright red, however. The source of my outrage is simple; I know that open standards are not only a good idea, but they are going to be critical to business in the future.

Firms who adhere to proprietary standards are parasites. They don’t compete on quality of service, rather, they are banking on inconvenience in translating between various formats. Contrary to what one might believe, it’s anti-capitalist; a truly free market calls for a level playing field. For that to exist, open standards should be ubiquitous.

Microsoft, as ever, is leading the struggle against progress. Their reluctance to comply with the Open Document Format is very well known. Similarly, Microsoft has always made it a much simpler matter to integrate like with like rather than allow technologists to mix and match; i.e., it’s far simpler to build an ASP.NET solution for MS SQL than it is to use PHP or Java. In a previous firm of mine, there was an attempt to integrate Perl with .Net technologies; after a great deal of time and money spent on the solution, it was abandoned due to performance issues. In my present firm, communications between PHP and ASP on our present e-commerce solution are so fragile that a schedule to move to make it completely Open Source was recently accelerated.

On the other hand, I can report examples of PHP working with Oracle, PostgreSQL and MySQL. I can report similarly good results with Java. These solutions have run off of Linux, Solaris and FreeBSD. There are some combinations more appropriate for some solutions, for example, for a high traffic e-commerce solution, I’d recommend a Java / Oracle combination, and for mid-size traffic site, I’d recommend PHP / MySQL; however, these technologies can interoperate without much difficulty.

Fortunately, more and more firms are waking up to the necessity of interoperable standards, not just for internal purposes, but also for common communications to the rest of the world. A good example is the travel industry, one of my previous stomping grounds. Opentravel.org has been publishing common XML schemas since 2001. This should be very surprising; speaking from personal experience, I can say a lot of travel firms absolutely despise each other. However, even they managed to see the benefits; travel providers win because they only have to expose their information in one format. Agencies win because their development costs are reduced because of having this easily accessible method. Furthermore, adopting these guidelines has made it easier for “agglomerators” to arise such as travelsupermarket.com, whereby consumers can compare fares; they win by getting cheaper travel.

When this progress is achieved through the length and breadth of technology, the same set of winners will be repeated. So why are so many industries still stuck in the past? In my opinion, it’s simply because the idea of top to bottom ownership is so seductive; everyone wants to be Microsoft. However, even Microsoft cannot be Microsoft any longer; their acceptance of ODF, albeit hesitant and reluctant, is a symptom of this. That said, arriving at the promised land of open standards will not be easy; it will require a lot of firms with a great deal of history of bitterness and rivalry to do something which does not come naturally, namely co-operate. However, if an industry as catty and divisive as travel can do it, so can all the rest, and so they will.

Most of the spam that comes into my inbox is extremely boring. I have days when I get so many ads for dodgy pharmaceuticals that I fantasize about force-feeding spammers boxes of Cialis. Cialis, Viagra, Wellbutrin, Viagra, Cialis, Online Poker, Business Credit Cards, stocks in Chinese gold companies: the endless muck of spam just keeps flowing in, and is only notable for its tedium and its obvious chicanery.

This week, however, I received the following spam message:

Call out Gouranga be happy!!!
Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga ….
That which brings the highest happiness!!

Unlike most spam, I read it a few times. I wondered what in the world “Gouranga” was; my first guess was that it was a Japanese energy drink. However, unlike most spam, it had no link in it leading to a dodgy website waiting to cram my computer full of spyware. Were spammers getting sophisticated and trying to build brand awareness for the miracle drink / drug, Gouranga, with this mysterious message?

I did some research; apparently Gouranga is the nickname of the founder of the Hare Krishnas, the Hindu sect once famous for asking for donations at airports, and who are now better known for dancing around Leicester Square and chanting. So this message was religious spam, which is rare.

Rarer still, there is something to this “calling out Gouranga” business. Perhaps it’s my pronunciation of it, but saying it to my girlfriend made her smile. “Gouranga” is one of those words that’s inherently funny to say, like “kumquat”. It’s a function of language that certain syllables strung together do create amusement; Gouranga is definitely one of those. Does this mean that the Hare Krishnas sit around giving each other amusing names like their founder to engender laughter? If so, they are certainly more entertaining than I previously thought.

The spammer sending this particular message appears to have only one e-mail address, NitaiGouranga@aol.com. Unlike most spammers, this one actually replied to a query about his / her activities. Apparently his / her motivations are fairly simple:

I am just very enthusiastic person, who wants everybody to be happy.

If this an honest statement, this certainly was the first bit of spam I’ve ever received that was interested in happiness rather than quick profits. More importantly, they only sent it to me once. So hats off to the Hare Krishnas in this sense, in terms of world religions they may be far down the pecking order in size and wealth, but in terms of sending spam, they’re by far top of the class.

Domain squatting is one of the more unpleasant facts of online life. It’s rare that one gets a glimpse into the attitudes of people who do it, but just such an insight was provided by a ZDNet article regarding the stockpiling of 3 letter .eu domains.

According to the article, a gentleman named Andrew Hooper wanted to buy a domain for his newborn son, named Christopher James, presumably so the lad could have a space reserved for a future website. However, the domain with his initials had been purchased by a squatter company called “Really Useful Domains”.

This is kind of surprising as the people who manage the .eu domain, EUrid, have been cracking down on spurious registrations recently. They just dragged 400 American registrars to court for having done so. However this particular company is in the clear because they did it through a Canadian third party. If Mr. Hooper wants the domain, he’s going to have to fork over €1500. Somehow, I doubt he will.

Domain registry is a questionable business to begin with. The biggest registrar, Go Daddy, just postponed an IPO largely because they’re not making any money and fortunately stockbrokers have rediscovered the connection between making money and what the share price should be. OK, most of the time.

But this kind of petty squatting can only be described as dire. What makes it even more unpalatable is what the owner of Really Useful Domains had to say about it - when queried by ZDNet about the ethics of stockpiling domains, and asked if it wouldn’t be better if it was not allowed, he replied -

“I think it’s a very idealistic approach and, if you could guarantee every human on the planet would adhere to that, it would be fine, but it’s not…I’m afraid if they didn’t put enough rules into enforce it, you only need one person in the globe to not adhere to that and we’d all wring our hands.”

In other words, he’s saying that because one online entrepreneur would take advantage of this, he’s perfectly entitled to do so himself.

Just because something is not expressly forbidden does not make it moral. Just because something can be done does not mean it should be done. Just because there is no authority to say something is wrong does not automatically make it right. These notions are not just an argument, they are the foundation of ethics. We should act towards the highest ideals, not guage ourselves against the lowest common denominator.

Let’s be clear, this kind of stockpiling is a form of extortion. It’s trying to get a business or individual backed into a corner, whereby their trade is inhibited by lacking a particular domain, and they have to pay exhorbitant fees in order to get out of the bind. Fortunately, it’s very, very rare that such a situation does not have an alternative. It’s simply not a good business to be in. It’s not a good nor moral way to make money.

To their credit, EUrid seem to agree. As quoted by ZDNet, the EUrid representative said “We’re not particularly fond of this.” Quite. One hopes that they will tighten their rules in the near future. Until then, I hope that Mr. Hooper found a suitable alternative for his newborn son. There is likely a world of choice awaiting him, provided he uses a little creativity. And perhaps that’s the best way to foil the plans of those who are relying on people in his situation to be otherwise.

Like many people using ADSL, I decided to be cheap and not fork over extra money for a fixed IP address. In retrospect, this was probably a mistake. I recently had difficulties because of what the previous owner of my IP address had done with it, though probably not intentionally. I found that my IP address was on a black list at Spamhaus, the organisation that keeps track of addresses which push out unwanted e-mails.

It’s not at all surprising that I would get an IP address of this kind. In June 2006, Microsoft found that some 5.7 million PCs were infected with malicious software which had turned the computers into “zombies”; i.e., the PCs were under the control of the hacker who had infected them. The zombies were then used to initiate sending spam or denial of service attacks.

The idea of a group of hackers being able to reach out and control my PC is not a pretty one. It was bad enough when they could make it impossible to work; in the autumn of 2003, my company was infected with a virus that would automatically shut down a PC as soon as it booted up. It was spread through networks and not everyone had the sense to yank out their Ethernet cable in time. It was only through the efforts of a QA person who was studying to be a support technician in his spare time that we got up and running again in only a few hours.

Adware provides an additional annex to the chamber of horrors; when I had a Windows PC, I used to somewhat amuse myself by using Spybot Search and Destroy and seeing what my PC had become infected with next. Fortunately, I never used it for anything serious, like putting in personal details; I had it just to play Rome: Total War until the pain of Windows outweighed the advantage of the game.

Zombies, viruses, adware, spyware: a Windows PC is not one’s own. The strange thing is not that Microsoft refuses to learn from their mistakes; given their history, this is not unexpected. What is strange is how many people simply put up with it. In 2004, the market research group IDC estimated that Windows share of desktop PCs would fall by 2007, but that fall was only to 94%. So what is perpetuating this ‘Net of the Living Dead?

Part of is undeniably Microsoft’s aggressive strategy in dealing with hardware vendors and the fact that people aren’t necessarily looking for an alternative when they should be. However, part of the blame lies at Linux’s doorstep; its strengths, being Open Source, translates into a weakness, namely, there is no marketing department with the same muscle as Microsoft to get the word out. Linux advocacy has a role to play in this; it requires that users who have benefitted from the Linux Revolution ensure that its message spreads to those who are unaware of it. If you see someone ditching a spare PC, show them how Linux can revive it. If someone has had a computer that has become hopelessly infected with viruses, show them the superior performance and security of the Linux way. There is an element of self interest in doing so; so long as we are encumbered with the ‘Net filled with zombies oozing their own brand of pestilence and gore: overstuffed inboxes, awful denial of service attacks and also crowded out bandwidth will be a plague. If the Linux Revolution succeeds, this may enter into the realms of the past; and then maybe, I can send my e-mail without anyone thinking I’m advertising Viagra.

There are many days which make me thank God I’m alive and in England; today is one of them. I just checked the weather for New York; today it’s going to reach the burning heights of of 34 degrees Celcius (93 degrees Fahrenheit). In contrast, it’s 24 degrees Celcius here in West Sussex (75 degrees Fahrenheit).

This August is an anniversary of sorts for me. 15 years ago in New York City, I had my first exposure to major technology operations at a Wall Street bank. The recorded temperature today fills me with nostalgia; city was just as hot then as it is now. Back then, all of Manhattan seemed to pulse with the Lovin’ Spoonful song, “Summer in the City” -

Hot town, summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn’t it a pity
Doesn’t seem to be a shadow in the city

The song applied to the feverish work as well as the weather; I was there during a large systems migration and I had to work on auditing the data. I also was required to do IT support; this was made difficult by one of our external consultants insisting on using a Macintosh when everyone else was using PCs. I was exhausted and burned out after a month of this, and a chorus was rattling in my mind:

All around, people looking half dead
Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head

I learned some important lessons though; I was working nights and weekends because the data migration hadn’t been carefully planned. Manually audited data had to go through several checks to ensure consistency; we had real issues flowing the data into the new database because of this, and again, checks had to be done at every stage. The relationship between planning and the costs making up for the lack thereof was firmly established in my mind by this experience. Furthermore, our problems were complicated by using a proprietary provider, Digital Equipment Corporation. This summer bred in me a dislike for waste and proprietary solutions of any kind.

The only break I had from the ennui and stress was to go to Yankee Stadium some nights and hope the the baseball game would distract from the heat, which was so bad it felt like I was being steamed in my own juices. I’d drink a giant cola, watch the match, and then head back via subway and train to where I was staying.

I remember vividly the impressions of the City at night which I gathered en route. I recall seeing the bright neon lights, and the bustling people: some blokes were in shirt sleeves and loosened ties, some women were clad in tight summer outfits and some dapper fellows were dressed to the nines to go to the theatre. The city still throbbed with the same song, just a later verse:

But at night it’s a different world
Go out and find a girl
Come-on come-on and dance all night
Despite the heat it’ll be alright

And babe, don’t you know it’s a pity
That the days can’t be like the nights
In the summer, in the city
In the summer, in the city

After Yankees games, I’d go back to my unmade bed, collapse in a heap at around midnight, and awaken at 5 AM the next morning to repeat the cycle. The brutal orange and gray sunrises over New York, indicative of yet another burning day, would come and I would be get up with the same tune in my head; the song had become tedious in repetition but unavoidable given its appropriateness.

We did finish the project, and by a happy coincidence, on the same night there was a rainstorm. I was walking back to my place, and the skies opened up; rather than run for cover, I enjoyed it. Rain was the only thing that dissipated the heat; even at night sultry waves of warmth radiated up through the ground, asphalt still melted and stuck to one’s shoes. But when the rain came, the city seemed to relax. It was not dancing all night for once; it was a point where “Summer in the City” seemed to stop and hint that autumn was coming.

I am glad that I am here now; West Sussex is the final destination after a life and career that have had many stops along the way. The great sizzling behemoth of New York City was an unforgettable point of departure. The weather forecast for the City suggests that there are more hot days to come this week; there is no sign of rain for the next 5 days. I hope they’re wrong, and that the remaining days are like the nights in the summer in the city.

There’s a fine line between heroism and madness; sometimes, one can get a glimpse of that line being crossed. On Sunday, I saw a Sky News reporter in Northern Israel standing on a ridge outside of a town, wearing a flak jacket and informing the audience that Hezbollah rockets were still raining upon her area. The report was interrupted by the sounds of loud Hebrew radio chatter; apparently a police vehicle had pulled up just outside of shot and was telling her that it wasn’t safe and that she ought to get out of there. Undaunted, she carried on and the police drove off.

Speaking as a normal, safety-conscious human being, the police warning would have made me take shelter. However the journalist seemed to believe that because she was reporting on a situation, that she was standing outside of it and couldn’t be harmed by it. This is not an uncommon assumption; journalists often appear to think they are on the outside edge of human experience, not affected by change, and living in an isolated pocket of their own.

This perception also applies to the recent changes in technology. Yes, journalists are aware of blogging and citizen reporting, yet they somehow retain the belief that it is an animal that can be tamed, controlled, utilised, so that they can maintain their present position. This is simply not the case; blogging is going to continue its onward march, and if journalists don’t adapt to the changing times, they are going to go the way of the dinosaur.

Journalism, particularly on television, is nice work if you can get it. A good example is the programme “Fox and Friends”, which is broadcast in the morning in the United States and in the early afternoon in Europe via satellite. I’ve only watched it a few times, but it appears to involve a group of 3 people sitting around and laughing at each other’s jokes for 3 hours. Yes, they may have to get up early in order to be on the air at 6 AM, but the rest of the day can be spent fishing, sleeping or watching Muppet porn (though one shudders at the idea of journalists spending their time watching Kermit and Miss Piggy bumping ugly). Journalists get to invent panics (for example, a recent Daily Express headline predicted that the UK’s August was going to be hotter than July; this has not happened), attend big fancy dinners with politicians and if they snap pictures, kill members of the Royal Family with immunity. If they run out of ideas, they can merely reproduce ones from Reuters and Agence France Presse; seeing the sheer number of times a Reuters article is reproduced is instructive in this regard.

Bloggers, on the other hand, mostly hold other jobs; we’re reporting what we see around us. We do not get paid, and we certainly do not get sufficient free time to go angling for carp. We don’t have expense accounts, we don’t have Reuters or AFP, and we certainly don’t sit outside of a situation; we are part of it and the reporting that stems from bloggers is the view from within, which often times is better than the view from without. A good example would be the present crisis in the Middle East: which is more reliable in conveying the emotions and experience of the people on the ground, bloggers who actually live in the affected areas, or the young lady who obviously believed the thickness of her skull would afford protection from a Katyusha rocket?

Furthermore, the aura of journalistic infalliability has been severely punctured as of late; their sources are not better than ours. The Memogate affair, in which Dan Rather of CBS was shown by bloggers to have relied on forged memos in order to attack President Bush, indicates that fact checking at major news organisations is simply not as tight as it should be. It also indicates that bloggers are making sure the “official” journalists are staying on the straight and narrow.

Sky News has obviously been unnerved by this; a recent advertisement of theirs indicated that they were going to be “relaying the experiences of people on the ground”, namely, they were going to start relying on bloggers. The Guardian has made similar moves and the Telegraph has blogs for their journalists. The air is slowly being let out of the journalists’ bubble, perhaps, or they may be attempting to ride the animal rather than realise they are going to have to be subdued by it. I suggest the latter. If so, it may very well be that in the future our news will be from aggregators of blogs, and the broadcasts of bloggers; the likes of Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite will be a distant memory, consigned to the same ash heap upon which also lay the horse and carriage, vacuum tubes and pet rocks, items whose abandonment was considered an undeniable symbol of progress.