Is the sacrifice worth it?

I miss writing about technology, privacy and security.

During WWII people gave up so much (silk and such) for the war effort in order to fight a semi-tangible enemy (at least one that had a specific geo-political border). I guess it’s only fair to give up something intangible for something intangible (Terror, Drugs…).

Yet how do you know when the war is over? When do the rations stop?

So long, good friend

VHS is finally dead.

“The last major Hollywood movie to be released on VHS was “A History of Violence” in 2006. By that point major retailers such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart were already well on their way to evicting all the VHS tapes from their shelves so the valuable real estate could go to the sleeker and smaller DVDs.”

I know, not my usual shocker article, but I’d like to pay homage to the VHS.  After it was made mainstream by porn, VHS has entertained us for something like three decades, really taking off in the 90’s.

So I’d like to write about some memories that I have with VHS. A eulogy, of sorts. Feel free to add your own memories in the comments section.

I remember still being in Russia, so I was under the age of 6, and how I thought my Grandpa was something close to god (secular Soviet home) because he could make TV stop, rewind, and play at will. I watched endless reruns of the same episodes of Gummi Bears (in Russian of course). I thought the TV power solely belonged to my Grandpa. Sure, I didn’t know it was a trusty VHS that held my joy on it, but there it was, a token of  my early childhood.

In case you’re curious as to what Gummi Bears sounds like in Russian..

You can only imagine my sheer happiness when I discovered that this strange new land, America, also had Gummi Bears, albeit in it’s own language. America also had those adorable little cheese wrapped in wax (Babybel), which I first met on the plane coming to the USA, where I promptly ate the cheese, wax and all, until some nice lady took pity on me and explained to me that I can take the wax off.

Oh VHS, I remember the sheer control. I could put it in, record anything I want on TV, play it back, record over it again. I remember recording mistakes. I remember footage being lost. I remember the joy of finding it again, accidentally, that as you’re watching some old cartoon, for nostalgia value as now you’re too told for the cartoon, that you recorded at a very tender age that would get interrupted midway through by the porn that you recorded from the TV at that same tender age.

I remember feeling so powerful. I could capture moments. I could rewind and play at will. I could erase. Maybe this sounds so geeky, but the idea that one could take memories from the TV without permission. We don’t have that anymore. We pay for it. We are also watched. Someone else knows what we record. What we prefer. The privacy is gone. That was really the glory of VHS, video home system, the privacy in your own home. Obviously this was primarily for porn purposes in the beginning, as it’s nicer to watch it at home instead of some peep show theater. With VHS we had our own personal cinema. It was so revolutionary. It was so intimate. I loved hitting pause, and then play and watching everything move very very slowly. I loved the noise of the machine when it would fast forward or rewind. You could feel the little guy working.

I remember the anticipation of tracking. When the tape was too old and it would be fuzzy and not so perfect, and you would hold your breath hoping that tracking would fix it. I remember actually the days before auto-tracking and how that was a bitch and a half to set the levels just right. It was a sense of pride and accomplishment every time I made a video look good.

I loved the working technology as a kid, but I also loved it when my parents gave me the important task of destroying videos as well. I’d pull the black tape out and out and dance with it in the house. Sometimes I would rewind it manually with my fingers. See if I could put it back together. See if I could undo it more. I would braid it into my hair, then take it out because I wasn’t allowed to look like that outside the house. I loved how tangible VHS was.

My college house still has a ton of VHS tapes. Old Disney movies, not digitally remastered, that we gather around and watch. We bask in the feeling of being young again. Of the tape sometimes being soft around the edges. How everything wasn’t so perfect, and that is, and was, part of the appeal. Nothing more exciting than taking that clunky VHS tape and watching the VCR eat it. No menu screen with options. Just ff and then play. No DVD that sits and keeps replaying the menu screen over and over.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the new digital world. Yet sometimes I miss the fuzzy memories of my youth.

So goodbye and so long, VHS. You done good. I know others will make a far more creative and artistic omage to you. You might get some gallery installations. Some modern art pieces. Maybe a movie and documentary. Maybe a porno.

But you will never again teach young immigrant girls how to capture memories on their own. Don’t worry, VHS, your memory is already captured. It keeps playing inside. My generation watches your graceful death. You embody the death of our childhood.

Form vs Function

I just found a cool new blog! This is a perfect blog post to read after my Consumers as Citizens class had a bought of Mac-product-love, to my never-ending disgust. I was actually shocked at how vehementalty my professor professed her love for the cuteness and sterility of Apple products. I have never seen her so unreserved with lusting after something. Especially Ipods. I’m just amazed she fell into that. Anyway, this blog post is simply awesome. It’s not very long, so I recommend everyone read it. It’s an analysis over the excitement over the Macbook Air, and how form is more important than function (although this is what I believe about all Mac products). I’m going to reproduce a section:

But the most interesting – and incendiary – post has come from Devin Coldewey at Techcrunch who has called the Macbook Air “basically useless“. The writer goes through a series of very practical criticisms – the proprietary ports, the lack of an optical drive and the slow CPU etc – and they are all very valid critiques. Trouble is, he totally misses the point. Coldewey is trying to suggest that people buy consumer goods like iPods and Macbooks purely out of a need for how they are used; they do not. It is precisely the ’sexiness’ of the device – i.e. the desire it elicits in us – that creates its success. When Coldewey asks “What is losing that last half an inch doing aside from attracting stares?” what he refuses to understand is that the stares are the important thing. This is not about how ‘people are shallow’ – it is the difference between use value and exchange value. In most circumstances, there is in fact less use value to a Macbook Air than a regular Macbook – it can do less. But its exchange value – i.e. its worth to us as a cultural item rather than just a practical tool – is far higher, precisely because it “looks so damn cool”, because our friends want one and because owning one will be a marker of not only our savviness but also of our success.

Quatering Act

I just had a funny idea.

I was thinking of contemporary Internet-age spinoffs of the original government abuses. I just thought of the modern quartering act. Rather than stationing soldiers in homes, in our modern age the government wants to put processors and large information storage servers into homes in order to handle all of the data. I mean, servers and the HD’s that companies and businesses use are HUGE, they take up a lot of room. They are hot, annoying and get dusty (which causes them to work poorly, so cleanliness is godliness.

Anyway, I giggled.

Rebooting What It Means To Be A Millennial

Before I begin anything. Does anyone remember the show ReBoot? I loved it! Maybe that’s why I am a total dork now. I really loved the villianness with all the masks, Hexadecimal.

I swear, the Reboot generation totally grew into the lovers of Matrix.

In case we can’t tell…Yes, I am so optimistic about the political potential of the internet.

I was even optimistic after reading ISpy, because while the technology may have been co-opted in a bad way, the fact is, it’s so awesome that we can take it back. The potential is monumental.

When I was reading Rebooting America I got so excited I was pacing. I couldn’t sit still. I enjoyed the Introduction immensely. I loved all the historical quotes. I wanted to fill my blog with them. They inspire me in a very hot-blooded way.

This text went to a part of me that every now and then flares up. It’s the part that believes in change, positive change, and that I am not weak and powerless. Over time, that feeling one has a child, the “I can do anything…I can do good” sensation begins to fade. Somewhere, like a nation of neglected children we learn that we can never do anything and so  we might as well do nothing…Yes, that’s the sensation. It’s not that I feel I am in shackles, that someone is physically holding me down. What I begin to feel is indifference. Which is all the more deadly. I have nothing to rebel against. It’s harder for us to join together. It’s hard to feel angry about something. I don’t care. Oh yes, it’s all so terrible. Sigh. Shrug. Twitter Twitter. Facebook. Keg stand. Oh Yes it’s awful what they did there, I am writing a whole paper on it. Tweet Tweet. Drink. No I don’t know the guy’s name from last night. I begin to feel nothing. I play some games about free rice, I feel sad when I hear the death toll in Iraq…and then I don’t do anything.

Yet, I feel this is what my generation feels. We are tired. We are carrying all the weariness of us. We are so intellectual and so smart and we are so Post-everything. All the clear labels in the 80’s and 90’s are gone. Our fashion trends reflect nothing. We have no unifying culture. Everything is shades of gray. We can’t define ourselves because definitions have been done. We mock labels. We are so post-gray area. We are taught to appreciate a multiplicity of viewpoints. We do. Yet then we become unable to act. This is a Kantian dilemma. Too much choice, no action. By the time we consider everything, we can do nothing. We feel that everything has been done. We’re listless. We’re tired. That is what the Millennials are. We are too tired to even be angry anymore. It’s all been done, and it’s all failed. What else is left?

Thus, when I find a text like this…I cannot help but feel a stirring. I want to do something. I feel so many of us are. We are trying to find options but everything is tried and true and new and improved, but everything is fake. But we accept it. What else is left? How many walls can be torn down? How many bras burned? We are a generation of weariness. We fight intangible wars on “Terrorism” and “Drugs”…we fight these ambiguous nouns, and even “Osama bin Laden” is no longer a real man but this ethereal threat.

I’d like to return to my idea of the Millennials as neglected children. We are characterized by something as intangible as “The Internet”…what the hell does it mean to be an iGeneration? We are characterized by 8 years of President Bush, and us growing up with the idea that the popular vote doesn’t matter. Of course we don’t care. Of course all we can do is click on a link to feed someone. We do not know what genuine care is from our politics. Our political minds have only really known Bush and his presidency. What kind of citizens does that make us, when that is our entire political education? When all we know is illegimate wars, zero response to our own citizens dying from the ravages of a hurricane and the government just shrugging, cuts in education and other social programs? All our generation has known is dissapointment and that security is a myth. No social security, and good luck if you get ill! But here, you have a chance to win a beautiful new Ipod! What else are we supposed to do? This is the type of civic responsibility that we grew up on. Kids are sponges, dontchaknow. We grow from the milk that was given to us.

Streams of Contention

Class observations 9.18.08

1.-Anything that the producer which brought us technology (technology is a good thing that we like), thus, anything else that they do must be good as well. Even surveillance.

2.-Students ask someone to justify why they want privacy – rather than ask themselves, or others, why companies have the right to see your private information?

It is illegal to read mail, why is alright for other information to be public?

3.-The problem is who the information is sold to. Between you and gmail is okay – but you have no idea who else knows–who Google is sharing with. Who they are giving your information to. Foreign companies?

How do companies interpret your data? How are you marketed to other companies or government?

They can manipulate data – they can change what you’ve said – re-writing history.

They can blackmail and condemn you. They can fabricate evidence. “Here! You said this then!!”

While we are not there yet, it is not a far cry. It is like someone forging your signature on a terrorist letter.

4.-Why can’t the internet be a private zone? Does it all have to be public? Things can change. What are the boundaries of privacy? Are there any? Should there be any?

It is a false choice in being able to avoid digital enclosure. You have to be privatized and owned before you can participate. You are forced to “have access,” and thus be controlled and manipulated. You get publicly ostracized by people. This is what is known as self-policing. We are personally corralling ourselves into private enclosures that we have no rights, no privacy and very little power or information in. We are doing the job for the companies. We are marketing ourselves.

Digital enclosure means privatization. You cannot opt out. The farmers did not have a choice in the industrial era, just like we do now. The difference is the lack of physical temporal space that is making us slower to realize the power that we are giving out.

“To escape the cage, you must first be able to see the bars” (adapted from Ishmael, a novel by Daniel Quinn).

On an unrelated note; I wonder if the people who make the arguement “I have nothing to hide, I’m not a freak, look at everything I am doing”–I wonder if they have some true weird exhibitionist fetish. The rest of us with normal kinks and fetishes want them to be private, and they are supposedly the freaky perverted ones, but what if the “I’m open to all! Look at me!..I mean..I’m innocent and sweet and have nothing to hide”–what if they are the super perverted ones? The ones that get off on people, lots of anonymous, and (maybe with a daddy complex) corporations, government and other authority figures looking over them and monitoring them…watching and knowing everything about them?