mare freedomware!

where do we go to get hardware not encumbered by planned obselecense?

it's surely starting to exist now right?

i mean, there is a "open-source" hardware movement, right?

so surely, it's a freedomware movement too... right?

...

i mean, i just started to notice the button on my laptop starting to get a bit wobbly... and i'm almost out of my extended warranty...

so it makes me think... i cant be fucked with my hardware being encumbered with the same problems that drove me away from proprietary software anymore. i want my next hardware, to be genuinely more future-proofed.

it doesnt seem enough anymore that "yay, i'm using free software now, so i have the freedom to take not just my data, but my software, with me, wherever i go, and do with it whatever i want.", typically, taking it from obselete or broken hardware, and onto the new machine.... that's just gonna be expensive.

i still have my first pc's case... and have plans for a nice lil hack job to put some working guts of a pc back in there again.... but i am reluctant to buy something that's likely to fail....

it's a troubling prospect, that due to the relatively, disproportionately, stageringly high rate of turn out of new advancement (relative to the magnitude of those actual advancves) and obselecense in computing hardware technology, that it may be one of the hardest areas of material tools/items to have overcome this flaw in our system, to take out of the obselecense cycle, despite it being taken out of the elevated consumption "economic" paradigm.

we dont really have emancipation technology while we are on the recieving (/milked) end of the separationist hardware manufacturers, intent on having us come back to them to buy new hardware soon.

free software, as defined by the free software foundation (fsf.org), is true freedomware, which enables us to overcome any limitations, flaws, shortcomings, imposed by the manufacturer, for whatever reason it may have been so, incompetence, neglect, or intent*, and allows us to make the apropriate amendmends, and share that with others, and share in the amendments others have made and shared too.

that's basically the fundamental principle by which i understood free software to be inevitably and inescapably the better choice over any of the offerings of proprietary software.

and why not have that same idea for all our hardware too, right?

and for all ideas... like our political modalities, and our legal systems...

no to hardware because of the energy costs of production?

but you see, that high prohibitive cost, is part of the proprietary protectionism? we can freedomware our way out of that problem. there are already the jigsaw pieces to facilitate our emancipations through technological means... we just need to put them together and apply.

no to political modalities and legal systems because of ideological siezures?

but you see, there can be many co-existing systems/projects, and they can all be forked, and undergo refining. same could even be done for economica paradigms and religions... or at least ecconomic systems and codes of living well.

but i digress...

hardware... right...

um... nope... i think i was done. ^_^

anyways, you see... the existence of this idea, now makes the old / current system untenable... just why would i ever want to subject myself to it now that i've seen the better way? it's just so completly unfeasable, without some kind of grosse coersion... and that's the kind of shit that breeds uprisings... n the elite dont want that... they've learned, covert tyranny is the way... not rocking the boat ncreating uprisings is the way... and so... "the market" damn well better start catering for this newfound unshifting preference for non-obsolete'ing 'wares. n that may indeed mean, those of us who realise this, need to take matters into our own hands....

... can u imagine it... a new computer system coming out, that's not only backwards and forwards compatable with the existing systems, but even more modularised to to be even more universally compatible, interchangeable, upgradeable... and when i say upgradeable, i mean like... adaptable, while everything being re-useable, or at least, easy-recycle-ready. so that next time you buy a piece of hardware, it's warranty is not just one year, not just three years, not just ten years, not just for life... but forever! ... so that, you can buy it thinking "my great great great great great great great great grandson will be able to enjoy this."

free software developers dont make software to be crap, because they most of the time, are making it for themselves too. same can be true of our hardware.

k, now i'm done. ^_^



*see duty of care law.

open source hardware.

i was reading the "200 things you can do with linux" article in the 200th issue celebration collectors edition of linux journal, when i came to #51, "Delete all the GPS location data from images." and i hit upon the idea of doing a search...

the GPS data on cameras has been an issue that's troubled me for some time, in full tinfoil hat mode, i just stopped taking pictures with my phone, knowing what an epic security hole it is, an invasion of privacy and empowers corporations and government agencies with far more knowledge about me and power over me than they deserve.

what was the idea for what i was going to search?
two searches really, open source hardware, and more to the point, open source cameras.

but surely, if i've just read that u can remove this data with linux, why bother finding greater recourse and remedy for avoiding it? quite simply, prevention is better than cure.

and what did i find?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_hardware
&
http://www.opensourcecamera.org/
- and the link there-in. http://www3.elphel.com/

i wouldnt mind the GPS data going along with images if it was more public-interest oriented, rather than spy-agency oriented. I even rather like the idea, if it were more forthcoming, noticeably present in the interface, with notification of its presence, and the ability to turn it off. or even make it opt-in, instead of opt-out (which to my knowledge, isnt even an option on most phones/cameras, at least not without a convoluted removal process).

it's like kenedy said, "fully informed public". that's all this is really about.

democracy fails without this. when how something is made is a proprietary secret, it diminishes the power of the people. when it's normal use constitutes secondary secret uses not for the benefit of the user, it diminishes the power of the people. i love the idea of open-source hardware giving back that power. it's like it defeats the dark side of occulted & horded knowledge simply with the light of the freedom of knowledge. :) and we all benefit, even those who were in the dark, from lighting each other's candles. :)

constrained update.

after seeing again, that TED talk where the guys explains why you shouldnt tell people about the project's you're working on as it saps their momentum, this update will barely even give you the headlines of what i've been working on recently.


much parusing of other potential bases for my various projects.  puppy n slitaz getting most attention.


a lil bit of learning more C (did hello world again, and the next couple steps in learning C), tho i still totally cant do anything in C yet, i suspect next time i give it a stab, i'll be hitting the magic "third time lucky" and might progress further with a more sturdy base to my learnins.


some crazyness where i once again wiped my entire hd on my laptop, and am now sitting in a fresh crunchbang-turned-squishboom to help me further develop "pris" (digit's Post ReInstallation Script) so it more fully completes the whole transition, so that when i do finally become happy enough with it to give it an official public release, running pris on crunchbang will result in as close to the same thing i want to release.

pris now includes more configs updates (still more to be done) and has do-release-upgrade added at the end of the script.


aaaand most pleasingly, i've even found time to make a few more ditties of artwork.  :)  GIMPage mostly, havnt played around with blender for a while.  and am again finding myself drawn to wanting to learn more inkscape and even more imagemagick...  havnt done much o that yet tho thnx to all this squishboom/pris development and witch research.


tbh tho...

i really really need to start putting flattr buttons on more things... or better yet start doing stuff that earns me some financial income...  on zero income at the moment, living off charity of others.    .... or even better yet, the whole world wakes up from this "money is essential" delusion and we all become responsible enough to be let loose with free energy.   ... no, i mean genuinely FREE energy.   not this "we built a giant turbine and you can pay us money to get the energy we are siphoning off from the environment" crap.   i mean freeeeeee energy.    what's that i hear the naysayers saying?  "there's no such thing as a free meal"?  energy-tycoon propaganda bulderdash!  a half-truth if ever there were.

the free energy movement people, from seorn to john hutchison, from tesla to tom valone, from willhelm reich to william kamkwamba, there's plenty stuff out there to help liberate us completely from energy dependence, and even financial dependence.

okies, i really could rant about that for days.  ...n this is supposed to be a linuxy blog.  ;)   so, i shall create an interesting segway back to it...

all this free energy stuff... get the schematics and plans... and you can make it yourself.   better to do it sooner rather than later, as there are moves by some BLPS with dominator separationist mindsets to prevent us being empowered to make such things, to take away the very tools and materials needed, which would mean, if we really wanted to make such things again, we'd be either back to scratch (from smelting ore and onward), or frugally scavenging around landfills for parts... which might not be such a bad thing anyways.   inconvenient n grotty... but it'd at least help clean up the world a little.  lol.    anyways, yeah, the plans for such free energy devices are often made freely available to the public, released as open-source hardware!

which reminds me of another piece of open-source hardware i learned of recently...  the Ben Nano-Note.

it is a teensie, tiny, peedie, mini, micro, nano, palm-sized, fully x86 compatible, PC.   it has a proper linux command line, and even a gui, and it costs around / less than $100.

and it's open-source hardware!!!!

this means you can go check out the design plans, check to see if there's anything dodgey going on in them, and even take the plans and go make one yourself!   or use the plans to inspire your own hardware projects.

now imagine if we had free energy too...  and then imagine we have the next generation of some reprap/mendel, and then imagine we have sussed out how to harness the fusion from devices like the geet engine so we can produce whatever periodic elements we need, and then something to help process these elements into reprap-able materials, .... et viola!   we have completely free de-centralised means of manufacturing!   some voice command interfaces and viola, it'd be as simple as is in star trek, walking upto a hole in the wall and stating what it is you'd like made.   no bs (bullshit/bad-science) proprietary restrictions on the code/patterns available for construction, just make it n go!  :)

hehe, sry, i've ranted on this before, i know, but if ever there was a good idea worth spreading... this is it.

infact, yeah, if i were to give a ted talk, this is what i'd rant about for 20 minutes, and i'd intentionally incite inspiration, get people motivated, employ various psychelogical trickery tools to coax people to participate in this... because if i were just ranting on about some cool project i, or others were working on, or just some vapid idea thats barely being worked on at all having just plucked a few disparate pieces and put them together to form an idea, then i'd be counter productively sapping motivation from the project.   just like the guy said in that other ted talk, as i mentioned at the start of this blog post.  :)