Experiments in Cyberspace

Cuba is soon to get into the list of countries with a national Linux distribution. The interesting government of Cuba, which until last year did not allow her citizens to own a PC or a cellular phone, has made a quantum leap according to our man in Havana. The distro has been introduced in 13. International Technology Fair to the enthusiastic spectators. Hector Rodriguez, Dean of Faculty of Open Source Software at University of Havana said: "Linux is ideologically more convenient for us." Closed sourced commercial  operating systems like Microsoft are not allowed into Cuba because of U.S. embargo.

Devil's Advocate reporting: Time and again I read news about a cryptically named organization introducing a new device, technique or mechanism having an equally cryptic name that will limit or restrict unwanted use of a product throughout the Internet, and soon after, time and again, I am informed that same mechanism is rendered useless by a crack. For most, it looks like a game of hide and seek, played by thieves and the police, good and bad or you name it. Is it really so? We often forget that this game is played in cyberspace, between parties with views wide apart. Back in 1964, Marshall McLuhan wrote in Understanding Media, The telephone: speech without walls. The phonograph: music hall without walls. The photograph: museum without walls. The electric light: space without walls. The movie, radio and TV: classroom without walls. Man the food-gatherer reappears incongruously as information-gatherer. In this role, electronic man is no less a nomad than his Paleolithic ancesto...

I made some postcards. I think I'm in serious denial... at least to some extent... I must have been crazy to think that he would want to spend some time with his new wife! And that would be to the point where I don't want to try. Have been spending the last several days drifting through things, touching down occasionally to talk to friends, do chores. After all the shit he had been through and was still facing he was more concerned about my stupid knee than about himself.