Why I'm Not Ready to Abandon my RSS Reader for Twitter

Ah, Twitter. The maniacal, THC-twitchy jabbering voice in the corner of my screen. Snippets of friends telling me a million-bajillion snippets of interesting information throughout the day and night. Yes, I'm addicted. I can't get enough. But I am not - despite the repeated urgings of my favourite tech blogs - going to let it replace my RSS reader anytime soon. Here's why.

• Twitter is noisy - Yes, it's easy to unfollow people who are uninteresting, but there's still just too much stuff to keep up with. If you have a bit of an OCD disorder about information, like me, you like to take time to carefully go through things you want to read, mark them as read, and file them if they're interesting. There's just too much on Twitter to give you any sense of control, and too much of it is about other people's breakfasts.
  
• Twitter is an echo chamber - The power of the RT is incredible, but it does mean that you're exposed to the same articles and memes over and over again. More than that, everyone is too similar on Twitter, which means that you'll hear the same opinions voiced all the time. There just aren't enough conservative pro-lifers on Twitter (or corporate whores, or Julius Malemas) for debates to ever get very interesting.
  
• Twitter is too geeky - Building on this, everyone on Twitter (pretty much de facto) is a geek. Much as I love geeks (and am a geek) this limits the conversation to what matters to a very skewed, niche community. When Apple makes an announcement about a minor employee sneezing, it causes a tidal wave on Twitter. When a Nobel-winning author releases a new novel, barely a ripple. If you have interests that fall outside of the geek realm, you'll need an RSS reader to keep up with the times.
  
• RSS is quiet time - Maybe I'm just a bit antisocial, but I like the fact that going through my RSS reader is totally solitary and private. I can share articles if I want to, but I can also choose to keep some stuff in reserve for interesting dinner party conversation that everyone won't already have heard on Twitter.
  
• Twitter doesn't cater for your (odd) interests - It's difficult to find people to follow on Twitter if you have very eclectic/eccentric interests, but it's easy to find that blog on medieval cartography or (ehem) Victorian pornographic knitting, if that's your thing.
  
• Twitter is a democracy - Which is awesome, but sometimes you don't want to judge the truth by popular opinion. When it comes to matters like hardcore science, I'd much rather read one or two journals that I trust than try to distinguish the truth from the memes in the Twittersphere.

I still believe there's a space for the RSS reader in the Twitterized world, regardless of what popular opinion (mainly voiced through Twitter) is saying.

Community, Identity, Stability

I've just finished reading Brave New World - and I'm struck by how complex a piece of science fiction it is. Usually touted as 'Dystopian Fiction', it somehow evades such a simple reading. Although many aspects of Huxley's imagined future world - the eugenics, mindlessness, infant conditioning - are typical components of visions of a nightmare future, the whole is much more morally ambiguous.

Totally misleading, but very amusing, cover from one of the early printings

Brave New World is often held up as the antithesis to Orwell's 1984, since Orwell imagines a future dominated by Spartan state control whilst Huxley imagines a future dominated by pleasure. This isn't entirely accurate. The characters in Brave New World live absolutely according to their whims; disappointment, social rejection and lacking are unknown. But those very whims are pre-conditioned into them as young children - so that people become the agents of their own control. What's complex, is that this leads to a future of total happiness and stability for everyone. How can we feel that people are oppressed by being forced to be happy?

Isn't there something in living dangerously?"
"There's a great deal in it," the Controller replied. "Men and women must have their adrenals stimulated from time to time."
"What?" questioned the Savage, uncomprehending.
"It's one of the conditions of perfect health. That's why we've made the V.P.S. treatments compulsory."
"V.P.S.?"
"Violent Passion Surrogate. Regularly once a month. We flood the whole system with adrenalin. It's the complete physiological equivalent of fear and rage. All the tonic effects of murdering Desdemona and being murdered by Othello, without any of the inconveniences."
"But I like the inconveniences."
"We don't," said the Controller. "We prefer to do things comfortably."
"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."
"In fact," said Mustapha Mond, "you're claiming the right to be unhappy."
"All right then," said the Savage defiantly, "I'm claiming the right to be unhappy."

Historical sources indicate that Huxley was very aware of his own ambivalence towards the Brave New World he had imagined. Before World War II, he had written publicly in favour of eugenics as a solution to class wars, economic collapse and the 'deterioration' of the human spirit. Funnily, he was much more troubled by his first visit to America where he first witnessed the pleasure-driven, consumer lifestyle of the US 1920s. This strange combination between an idea he was repulsed by and an idea he thought could be the saviour of humanity seems to be the reason for the novel's shifting moral ambiguity.

The Savage, raised in a reserve outside of this new society, seeing through the readers' eyes, is horrified by the infantilism, godlessness and hypersexuality of this world. But at the same time, the reader can't help but be aware of the fact that the Savage's community is shown as barbaric, frightful and equally morally corrupt (with a religious self-righteousness only too familiar). The situation becomes impossible for the Savage - unable to reconcile his desires and his guilt - he ends his life.

It's an unsettling novel with no clear conclusion (unless, perhaps, Huxley's final utopian work, Island, is seen as the resolution to Brave New World's problems). It remains as challenging and relevant in 2011 as it was in 1932.

How to decide if you're ready for Linux

Originally published on GirlGuides

You may have heard of it, you've been thinking about it for a while, but you're not sure if you're geeky enough to make it as a Linux user.

What is Linux?

Linux is an operating system that was first created as a hobby by a student at the University of Helsinki in Finland. The fact that it's freely distributed, incredibly functional, adaptable and very robust has made it the main alternative for those who are fed up with the Mac OS X or have had it to death with Microsoft Windows.

Here is the quick list of things to think about, if you're considering making the switch.

Install Linux because:

• It makes you feel good – by installing Linux you are supporting the Open Source movement and ultimately making the world a better place.
• Free is the best price – not only is the Linux OS completely free, but it opens up a world of software that you can install freely, too. Rather than hunting madly on the Internet for an app that does X and is free, and then being bombarded with notices that it's going to install another programme you didn't want and change your automatic browser settings, and braving the risk of downloading viruses with this software... you could rather have a beautiful, neat software directory with one-click download. Search for whatever you're looking to do, Linux will suggest the best programme and install it for you in one step. You can find software to do just about everything – complex or simple – at the step of a button.
• You never have to feel like a criminal again – one of the most awful things about Mac and Windows is that they constantly make you feel like a criminal or a potential criminal, even if you have obtained the software legitimately. There are security checks on security checks every time you try to do something. Woe upon you if you ever lose your disk or serial number. Upgrading is a nightmare and you have to pay an astronomical fee if you ever want to install a newer version of the OS. You'll never have to deal with that again on Linux.
• You can make it work however you want it to – Mac-like gestures? A dock? Multiple desktops in a cube arrangement that you can rotate? Window buttons of the left today instead of the right? Sure. Go wild. Changing your settings is as easy as changing your shoes. And it's not just the aesthetic things that are fully customisable, either – you have power over every aspect of your OS. Awesome for control freaks or anyone who likes things just so.
• It's a great operating system (OS) – the more you use it, the more you'll understand the power, stability and superior usability that Linux offers you. It's a pleasure to use: everything just works logically and elegantly. Programmes running on Linux feel like they're more deeply integrated into the core software and they work together better, since there's no commercial interest encouraging programmers to ensure that their programmes are dominant. This means that instead of thinking about your operating system as a shell that houses a number of disparate, incompatible programmes vying for your attention, you can start to think of your OS as an organism with interconnected parts all working in tandem to help you accomplish your goals.

Don't install Linux if:

• You're a graphic designer or your job requires very specific proprietary software ¬– this can include MS Office, by the way. You can get most things to work on Linux with enough patience, but it can't be guaranteed and it WILL be a mission involving CodeWeaver or WINE, virtual machines or dual-booting. If you can't do anything without Adobe's Creative Suite – rather get a Mac.
• You're a hardcore gamer – again, you can probably get it to work, but it might always work with some bugs. If you're serious about gaming, you probably want to stick to Windows.
• You regularly connect to a network at work – another thing that shouldn't, in theory, be a problem, but in practice often is. Depending on how the server at the office is set up, you may have to live with ongoing 'quirks' with the network. It's not fun, and don't expect IT Support to be very sympathetic when you go to them with a Linux problem that's preventing you from connecting to the Internet.
• You don't like spending a lot of time on your computer – even though Linux distributions like Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Kubuntu get even more user-friendly and easy to use every year, there are still going to be times when you need to spend a good couple of hours plugging away to get something to work (this shouldn't happen often, but it will happen occasionally). If you want everything to be plug-and-play all the time, and you never want to invest time in your OS, then keep it simple and stick to Windows or Mac.
• You have a weird local Internet Service Provider – when I first made the switch to Linux, it took me about three months (seriously, three months) to get the Internet working, because I had an uncommon iBurst USB modem. I've subsequently helped friends also struggling to get other local services running, and it's often a bit of a mission. A lot of improvements have been made to more recent distributions (like Ubuntu 10.10) and you're fine if you have wireless or a modem that connects via an Ethernet cable. But bear in mind that if you have a USB modem and an unusual ISP, you're likely to run into issues.
• You hate change – if you make the switch, you'll soon find that things are a lot more familiar than you anticipate (don't worry about your screen looking like The Matrix). That said, you'll definitely have to adjust some habits.

Don't worry about:

• Not knowing how to code – long gone are the days where using Linux meant being a hardcore computer nerd. Linux has become more and more user-friendly over the years, and there are now numerous different distribution options that can make using Linux being as easy as using Windows or a Mac (one distribution, Linux Mint, in fact aims to replicate the Windows OS as closely as possible). There may be occasional times when you need to enter in a few lines of script, but tutorials online are so comprehensive that it's really a case of copying and pasting what they tell you to do.
• It being a constant hassle – apart from the first month or so when you're learning your way around, Linux is amazingly easy to use.

Happy Linuxing!

Margie Orford: the Queen of Crime Fiction

Shameless self-promotion alert...

Before it goes off the shelves, get yourself a copy of the 7th Wordsetc journal to read my cover story on Margie Orford: the Queen of South African Crime Fiction.

An extract:

It has been 15 years since the dream of the Rainbow Nation became a working blueprint. In that time, South African literature has undergone a crisis in self-definition. The protest novel, which had been the only really acceptable form for so long, was suddenly made redundant. Many have said that the first decade after 1994 was a generally sterile period for South African writers, as we sat in bewilderment, waiting to see whether this new democracy we had given birth to would be living or stillborn. But over the past few years, South African publishers have seen what began as a trickle turn into a flood of local books, as our writers finally felt free again to write about subjects other than race. We are witnessing the re-humanising of our writers: they are remembering about love, about family, about greed and sex ... and about the dark parts of the human mind.

If the past 15 years of South African literature has been about coming to terms with our past, then it seems that we are finally starting to come to terms with our present. And our present, as we all know, is defined by crime. Thus it should come as no surprise that some of our highest grossing local writers write about murders. Deon Meyer, Mike Nicol, Jassie Mackenzie, Andrew Brown and Richard Kunzmann are just a few of the writers who are making a killing by writing killings. One writer who seems to be emerging as a major figure on the local scene is Cape Town-based krimi Margie Orford, who's third novel, Daddy's Girl (Jonathan Ball), hit the shelves this October.

For more, get a copy of Wordsetc at any good SA bookstore.

Umbilical

In a world overlaying this one
where you never left and things
never changed -

we are sitting, right now,
on your bed, smoking and drinking tea,
just back from the gym.

You are reading me your thoughts
out of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius,
whilst I ponder

the reason for the lonely tugging of my heart,
which can feel your absence,
even from here.

A Modern Love Song

Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment, except,
Of course, those practical considerations of time and distance,
I must have time to finish my degree after all, and you,
Well, we both know you've got important things on your mind.

Let me not to the marriage of true desires admit impediment,
Except if you want to travel later, or if you hate my friends,
Or if you get jealous or if I get bored, or if either of us
Decides to be gay, there'll be no hard feelings of course

It's all a bit outdated these days, anyway.

A Hymn to Mowbray

Ossewa trolley, where do you go
In the nighttime, carrying your cargo
Of ragged clothes and rotten food,
Tattered cardboard to build frayed shelter,
And scruffy discards with which to build a
Memory?

Ossewa trolley, the squeaking wheels
Of your street serenade, bassline
To the calling melodies of the Trolley Men
The Mowbray Men, the Men who live
Their lives in public, who take tea
Outside the 7/11

Ossewa trolley, where do you go
With a load as big as that lady's groceries,
With a home as big as that lady's
Groceries, where do you go in the
Nighttime, is there a journey of streets?
Is there a journey of memory?

Do you squeak along the trails of the
Empty mountain, do you rattle a worship
To the Togo, a song for the old clay
That saw itself and laughed, remember
Displacement, remember Da Gama, remember
And ask, old ossewa of the new streets:

Where is this
Future
They spoke of?