Wordle me This

A Wordle visualization of the words on Welcome to the Interdome. I'm glad to see "exchange" feature so prominently.

Click on it to see it clearer, via the Wordle page.

Grappling with Google

I am an avid Google user, I'll say that right away. My main personal email account a Gmail account and I clearly use Blogger for "Welcome to the Interdome" and my other less-regular blog projects. But additionally, I use many other Google 'products', as they call have nicely named them. Because Google's growing hegemony is always news in this Interdome world, particularly so of late with the release of Chrome and the search engine's tenth anniversary, I thought I might share some of my theories and reflections about the modern phenomenon known as Google, both as a user, and as one with a penchant for waxing philosophical about semiotics, the Internet, the future, and any and all correlations between them all.

Firstly, let me say that this will not be a review of Chrome, and furthermore, I have not yet had the (by almost all accounts) pleasure of trying Google's new web browser. However, I am a user of many other web applications by the big G, on levels ranging from newbie experimenter to heavy user. I use:

Gmail - email
Reader - RSS compiler
iGoogle - widget customized home page
Blogger - blog publisher
Finance - stock portfolio and other market tools
Docs - web based document editing
Sites - wiki-like sites
Notebook - web and hyperlink notes
Bookmarks - bookmarks
Page Creator - a very canned web page creator
Apps - Group Intranet
Checkout - I think this is what is called, it stores billing info for use win appoved online vendors
Search - in various guises
Talk/Chat - IM
iPhone App - a native app portal for various searching services on the iPhone
Maps/Earth - different incarnations of map searching
GoogleSMS - search via SMS message

I think that's it. A lot eh? And while you have no doubt heard of many, I'm guessing that there is almost no one (who isn't a Google developer) who has used them all. I didn't even know I was using them all at first. That's right: I was Googling beyond my wildest dreams.

This is the characteristic of Google that I think is most relevant, and the most likely to cause the Google campus to be stormed by hordes of torch-throwing Luddites. No, not that you are forced to use the word "Google" more times than the mind can take in a simple essay, but... oh wait, yeah, that's it.

So far, I have used "Google" as both a noun, a verb, and an adjective. I can see adverb and preposition as possible too, though I'm not sure about article. The point is: Google has invaded grammar from every angle. At first, when Google was a verb synonymous with "search", it was just a brilliant piece of marketing and a kick-ass testament to domination of a certain market of which most tech firm officers probably have naughty dreams. Now it has even spread further in meaning, if not in common usage. When I talk about Googling myself now, I can't but help think of the way that my internet-self has become incarnate within Google's server farms.

For instance: my blog is hosted on Google's computer; my financial interests in the market (though only "interests" in the most casual sense, the holding values being a stock-market-game) are analyzed through their flash charts; much of my data is off somewhere in their server cloud; even my credit card and billing information are held in trust since I purchased a URL through their services. Somebody call Sandra Bullock; the net (I mean Google) has me.

This is the essence of the cloud. Cloud, for those of you who don't geek out on semiotic/tech/future stuff, is the new term for computing resources that are not on your computer. They are hosted "in the cloud", so that you can access them from anywhere with a connection to the internet, and so that you don't have to have them filling your own personal terminal. Webmail was the first mainstream cloud application I suppose, though conceptually, the point of the entire internet is that it is in the cloud. Equally accessible, always on, as long as you have the hardware to "log on" (and as long as net neutrality wins the day).

This futuristic concept of interconnectedness really troubles some people. They are paranoid, not only of one's microwave talking to one's car radio via invisible wires, but also of having fundamental aspects of their life and personality not found anywhere in space. Ropes are safe, because you can see them. Magnets are black magic, because electromagnetic energy is invisible. Thinking or speaking is natural, but writing is the devil's work because it perpetuates beyond the moment and can carry ideas outside of the soul, etc. This is the history of time, and the human technological legacy. The minute something with "substance" exists in a new dimension, especially one that is non-visible or non-spatial, gets some wood and some rope because we're going to burn these damn witches out of our town.

I actually like that I have a non-corporeal existence. (Okay, I wasn't too thrilled with having my credit card info tied to my address and email, so I took care of that.) But the entire reason that I have spread myself through the Google-verse is that because I like having an identity in the cloud. It's actually very convenient to have messages, addresses, and other personal, oft-referenced information stored in a dimension that is ever-present, and more and more, accessible from nearly anywhere. Google likes it too, because this is one of the goals of their business. If they drive computer usage into the cloud, they will win, because in the cloud is where their applications are often the best. And more importantly, there they can tax the usage through advertising and other, hardly noticeable means.

You may not believe me, who often rails against the dominance and hegemony of any particular system (especially those for-profit) that I am glad that all of my cloud essence is via Google. The key here is interoperability. Back when I was first getting into cloud living, I had a blog, a private-community message board, three email accounts, a thousand bookmarks in my browser, a MySpace, a Facebook, and some other crap too. Trying to sync all of these listings was just too time consuming. In addition, having it all unified under the Google system means that there is a certain guarantee of quality--I am not going to be inundated with pop-ups or emails stemming from my Google account. In fact, their spam-blockers in email are some of the best I've encountered. Of course, it could be argued that their motivation is to let you focus on their own advertisements. But, even here, Google corporate face maintains some stability. They clearly understand that when you blast a person with advertisements, the advertising becomes ineffective. Notice when you enter the Google-verse through a mobile system, you see a lot viewer ads. If one-fifth of my screen was an ad bar, using my Gmail on a mobile phone would be useless. If I can't use Gmail mobile, why would I use it at all? Hence, but presenting ad-free content, they maintain my usership, and can present me with minimally-invasive, targeted ads when the time is right. This is worlds better than the adporn on MySpace, or the bouncing, distracting Flash on many sites, or even better that the radio ads that tempt me into buying a car by shouting at me. If only all the ads in the world were Google Ads!

And this is why Google released Chrome, a browser built for cloud apps, and they are working on a mobile OS, Android (which we should probably see sometime this year on an actual phone). They want to ensure interoperability, and compatibility, so their cloud interfaces can win in customers that will keep it all "in house". They are going for brand loyalty here, which I think is the smartest way to run a business. If Chrome maximizes the cloud experience, and if all of their apps work on all mobile phones, then they win. They don't have to own the software or the hardware, and hence, have been developing both Chrome and Android open-source. They can benefit from other's ingenuity, and keep it all in the family. The future is Google, and the future looks good.

Now, don't think I'm buying Google stock just yet. There are serious problems stemming from this domination, and I'm not referring to the Google mutant army being trained underground. Domination leads to hegemony, and hegemony leads to a lack of change. And change is just what has allowed Google to evolve and stay ahead. They can't forget this, otherwise it won't matter how many new apps are launched, or how long the Google product list becomes. After the "inter" that describes how the apps keep the user within the Google universe, "operability" is the other half of the world. It is one thing to create a branded app for every cloud function you can think of, and buy the ones that you can't create (e.g. Doubleclick, and YouTube). They have to work. Here Google has had a number of successes, but I also see some failures.

Email and search are the biggest successes to me, and naturally so, since I would bet this accounts for 70% of the functionality of most peoples' web experience. Across every app there are very good search functions built in, and these are getting better all the time. It doesn't matter if I'm search my email, the web, web images, my portfolio, or even my desktop; I can find what I want almost instantaeously. Their search capacities put the Google in Google, you might say. Gmail is less heralded brilliance, but groundbreaking nonetheless. Infinite archiving, search, and as I already said, some of the best spam blockers out there. What you want, when you want it, and none of the crap. The "conversation" format is also very good because it seems very natural, and many other text-communication services have come to style themselves on this model, though Google was probably not the first to do so.

The other easily generalizable feature of Google is also the beginning of its weakness. One word: function. Google seems to have a very good handle on the range of people that use the internet. There are people who have no interest in the internet other than email, view a few photos, and perhaps search for an address or an article from time to time. There are those, usually teens, who want video and flashy graphics. And then there are those with specialized interests, ranging from investors, to techies, to anything else you could imagine. Google spreads itself across all these areas, encompassing minimalism and detail.

But the problem is, that sometimes Google seems spread too thin. It seems that they try to cover areas in a temporary, "yeah, we've got that" sort of way, and don't invest the time necessary to really integrate the app into the overall system. For example, it was only recently that they were able to integrate my contacts from Gmail/Chat into my share list for Reader. This would seem like a nobrainer from the very start. In addition, I can insert RSS feeds into my Gmail, my homepage, and my Blog. But I already have a mammoth list of RSS subscriptions in Reader. How come the only one I can view my Reader list through is the homepage? Why isn't that carried to my blog if I want it, or at least my Gmail? It continues. I can absorb URLs and a text note into my Reader "shared" folder. I can do the same thing into one of my Notebooks. But I can't interchange the two. I can share Reader entries via my contact list, but only share Notebooks and Sites via email addresses. I can "Follow" blogs via Blogger, but this has no correlation to my RSS feeds already in Reader. I feel like I'm back in the old days, trying to update my "favorite books" list across three different social networking sites, or remembering my different screen names for different IM clients. I haven't even tried Orkut, Google's own social networking client. I'm afraid of what I might have to re-input there.

And here, is my overall worst compatibility experience. I was trying to set up a web page for my wife's artwork. Searching the web to see all the different hosting options, I saw that I could register a domain through Google Apps. How easy! I won't have to create a new password and user name, I can just extend the functionality through Google. In less that three minutes I had a domain, and I was ready to go. I had launched Google Apps, a quasi-intranet app that makes a sort of Google homepage for your users. Okay, cool. Megan can check her site email via Gmail, and I can administer through mine. This is good compatibility. But wait a minute: I need a new user name for this site, because Apps logs in by the domain name, not by Gmail. New user name? And so it begins...

Then I tried to design the page. Out opens Google Page Creator, a very, very basic site designer. I'm stuck with like three different styles, and a choice of one, two, or three columns. Okay, at least let me edit the colors. Nope. I go to the help page; I figure, I can alter the html of my Google Blog, I should be able to change the hex values of the color somewhere. The help page consists of four entires, and a notice saying that they have ceased support and signups for Page Creator, and that now they direct us to Google Sites, with "new features". Now I go over to Google Sites. By this time I have 6 different tabs open in my browser.

At Google Sites, I find I need to register again. I use my standard Gmail login this time, and now find that I'm not the proud owner of a website, but that I have started a group Wiki that is very similar to the Google Apps look, what with Google functionalities like Calendar and Video dropped into it, but even less customizing in terms of looks. Furthermore, there seems to be no way to link this Site functionality to the Apps or Page Creator. And still, no html editing.

For a different project I thought that perhaps this wiki setup could be useful. I could have a multiple user space for editing, with all the features included. Wrong again. Labels (like you see at the bottom of my blog posts) are used throughout Google and the rest of the internet to group disparate articles and entries, like blogs or wikis. But although there are tags in Blogger, there are none in Sites. And furthermore, there is no way to export a Site! When it's there, it has to stay there. In the Support Group I found a thread in which others ask about this very critical functionality. Mike, a "Google Sites Guide" instructs us to a tab in the "owner" mode, but then apologetically recants, saying that this was an experimental function that hasn't been released yet, and he wasn't sure when they would release it. That was back in March. I eventually went back to Notebook, where my shared users can add label tags, and export the Notebook either as html or as a Google Doc. (both very useful!) But unfortunately, there is only one level of hierarchy available in Notebook, and no linking between additions, like there could be in a wiki.

So at the end, I have all this functionality, but it is useless for what I want. It is designed piece-meal, so that for certain users there is only precisely what they want, although if anyone wants to dig deeper we're stuck, even if this sort of functionality exists elsewhere in the Google universe. I feel like I have the most awesome set of legos ever sitting in front of me, but I don't have any flat pieces. I can build a really long wall, or a giant tower with no roof, but the only sort of enclosed buildings I can make is a chunky-looking, completely solid pyramid.

So this is where Google has to really advance. This functionality has to be complete intergrated. It might even have to be rebuilt, starting from the bottom. What we need is a linguistic syntax; a way of connecting functionality (verbs) with data (nouns) that doesn't require ten languages, each only having a couple of tenses. I wish to write, have written, wrote, and be writing all in the same language. If I can, then I can use that language. If not, it will become a dead language, and that's all there is to it. It's a philosophical mission; to unite functionality through the interface in which it is used. Isn't this the basis of all good-thinking philosophy, whether in politics, economics, morality, or language? How can we describe the world, both qualitatively and functionally?

I know re-creating Google from the ground up is highly unlikely. But if they can really unify all these tools, then they will really succeed in their goal. Microsoft first dominated because they allowed for a full span of different levels of functionality all within the same operating system. If Google can do the same thing in the cloud, well, then we'll hardly need operating systems anymore. Everyone will use a simple computer loaded with Linux, Firefox (maybe Chrome eventually?) and a shit-load of RAM.

The Electro-Fascism Genre and anarchiTunes

Erik Davis is a writer on a large field of topics, including dark metal, information theory, mystic energies, iPods, and paranoid delusions of popular science fiction authors. His website, Techgnosis, is a compendium of sorts for columns and musings that he publishes in various places. It's also in my Google Reader list. Recently, he wrote a column for Arthur Magazine, "Archive Fever". In which he discusses the way that certain folks archive their digital music collection. Digital music and its access is a topic he has discussed elsewhere, and I've found it an interesting focus. Everybody knows the common story on how "Napster changed everything," but these sorts of story lines run in a very generalized sense, as in, how the commercial market is changed. Davis' articles provoked thoughts of my own on how the individual's interaction with the media is changing, both through a connection with digitized media and also through mobile technology. Since I happen to be on a bent of discussing mobile, digital technology and its effects on individual consumption, and I also stumbled into a huge increase in my collection of digital music, I collected some notes, by way of the fact that they are related, yet find a slightly different conclusion than Davis about the urge to fiercely manipulate the way one catalogs one's digital media.

In the past year, through situations I don't really understand, I've become a "DJ" of the sort that does not have any art to it. Rather than co-mingle the latest tracks on the dance floor for the new digital underground, I am hired to set up stereo equipment and a playlist for weddings, alumni events, and other horrible things that seem to occur every day behind closed banquet hall doors. The point is, that through this, I was able to get my hands on roughly 200 gigs of new music (or about 50,000 songs) to add to the 50 gigs (12,000 songs) that I already had. Most of it is complete crap, not even having the interest of cultural artifact that pop music has. However, there is a considerable number of oldies, motown, doo wop, and other forgotten mini-genres that would be lovely to have, and now have fallen into my lap. I'm guessing, however, that I will probably end up deleting about half of the volume before I wrangle it into any sort of usable library, by deleting misnamed, duplicate, and racist country songs (they listen to weird stuff at weddings in oregon).

This is a major databasing task, merely to get the data into the right order to begin to pick and choose what I want. I can tell you that I am also an anal-retentive freak when it comes to my music collection, not unlike Cory Doctorow, as discussed in Davis' column. My track info in iTunes (my music player of choice, perhaps unfortunately) is immaculately maintained--I like to have artist, title, and album info all perfectly correct and relevant to other tracks by the same artist. In addition, I also try to make sure the year of recording is also correct, and I have thoughtfully genre-fied my music into a specifically-small set of 17 genres. Being presented with this horde of poorly-cataloged music is a great source of anxiety for me; I have gone so far as to only work with it under terms of quarantine--I have set up a separate iTunes library for working with it, so that its files cannot be released into my general population. I believe that the ability to form separate, disparate libraries with iTunes was introduced in iTunes 7; I only say so because it seems many users aren't familiar with the ability (hold down shift, or possible the option key with a Mac, while you click and open the iTunes program. A prompt will be launched to allow you to create or select a new library to work from).

I can tell what you're thinking (can I?): I am suffering just the sort of massive commodity hysteria that Davis' referenced. The ability to reduced so vital an art form as music to bits of data has created a new neurosis; now we "own" rather than "listen". I see it a different way. This, is an unbridled opportunity to actually interact with what we are doing, and seize control of our own relations of desiring-production. This is nothing less that anti-fascism, in Deleuze and Guattari's sense.

Here's how I see it: information, regardless of media, is a sort of "literary" substance to our culture. Just sort of take that as is for a minute. Now, if we also consider that "those in power" throughout the centuries have also tried to control other people through their use and control of information, we can see that this information substance is molded, shaped, distributed by those who use it to maintain certain power structures and relationships. Almost like they produce it. Post-structuralism, post-modernism, etc. We've heard it before. At any rate, nobody will really argue that Gutenberg's press wasn't a giant victory for the little guys. And radio as well; the ability to transmit information to a large population near instantly had a profound affect on the way governments and others wielded their information substance. As a result, powerful entities tried to regulate these new technologies. The internet and net neutrality, is the modern incarnation/incantation of this dark necromancy called "freedom of information". But this is all basic history, and hardly anyone would disagree.

What is both different, misunderstood, and related to Deleuze & Guattari's philosophy (ha!) is that we are dealing with the aspects of what they discuss in the plateau of Thousand Plateaus entitled, "A Geology of Morals". Beyond all the distinctions of form, substance, content, etc. there is a crystallization of information that is it's strata, its very existence by way of its molecular structure. Even beyond molecules, because they certainly were not after desire as a new atom; you can always push the zoom one lens deeper (if a visual metaphor even applies). What is being released now, very quietly, is the ability to change the data for ourselves. How do we change it? By altering the structure in which it is produced, and used (consumption-production, if you will).

With Napster, they tried to threaten us. "If you keep downloading music than artists won't make any more money on it and then they won't make music anymore." A pathway that anyone with a job (or a boss) can understand. As if the millennia-old aspect of homo sapiens that creates art in the auditory realm will up and stop because the money does. What were they really saying? "If you behead the boss, then he can't pay you anymore." Or, "if you like Metallica, you better stop, because Metallica likes being rich, and they won't make music if you don't make them rich." The idea that music could be easily stolen en masse was one thing: the RIAA was going to lose their lock on the pattern of distribution; their control over production, their power, was being threatened. In 200 years the idea of the RIAA having the right to control music production and sue to protect it will be as strange as the idea of the Catholic church having the right to censure all books. Well, maybe 400 years.

But the "stealing" thing was only the face of the battle, depicted for (again) media consumption in order to win control in the moral structure of the courts and public opinion. I think the real battle was about the form, the digital music file. Not only is it easily copyable, it's also mutable, in a way that no other art form has been. Remixes and mashups aside, with programs like Winamp and iTunes the control of music listening itself has been taken away from the distribution networks. Radio is no longer necessary; just look at the glut of "HD Radio" ads to see how the radio industry has recognized its own twilight. Music stores, and the harsh distribution control networks behind them (ask any indie record store owner how much money they get from the sale of a cd) are no longer necessary, even for legally sold music. And, relevant to this discussion, more abstract methods of control like "critics", "acclaim", and "genre" are becoming defunct.

This is all about distribution. There are literally, millions of songs out there. But how do you know which to listen to? No money will flow if the track isn't played. Hype, airplay, word-of-mouth, are all very important, and until recently, these could be controlled, i.e. bought and sold, by those powers that made music "popular". This Band Could be Your Life is a well-known saga of the compiling of these sorts of distributive indicators, these cultural markers, what in a more Marxist tongue could be called the means of production and distribution. Casey Casem is out, and even your little sub-culture is not so important outside of its figureheads; now the blogs are in, and the individuals who publish them.

Personally, I think mp3 blogs are great. It isn't Napster; I don't get what I want when I want. Instead, I have to search until I find some individuals who are interested in similar things to myself. Then, via their posted downloads and my comments, we communicate and share. Overall, its a highly lucrative (music-wise) and non-pretentiously rewarding system. Also, a great resource for archiving music that is out of print, nearly unheard of, or both (if that is what you're into).

This, along with the rise of RSS feeds, is what I think the next generation (in the low-gestation period that is the web's reproduction) will be. First it was info, plain and simple. Then, it was user-generated content, out of the control (almost) of "content providers". Now, it is the customization, the cataloging, and the seamless access of such content. Using an RSS reader like Google Reader, or any number of other free web apps, I can customize my flows of information directly to my desires, to conform to my day to day whim. In five minutes I can create my own custom newspaper, with sections for news, arts, entertainment, economy, conspiracy theory, agitprop, personal ads, or whatever else I deem interesting.

And this (at long last I come to my point!) is what the categorization and genrefication of mp3s is all about. Doctorow, myself, and other "geeks" are not just clamping our bureaucratic sphincters closed on our informative flows, we are wielding them. With my smart playlists, and my immaculate data keeping, I can get the computer to play me what I want to hear, when I want to hear it. Of course, when I write or do other work there are certain albums I want to hear, or, certain genres, or time periods. But often I can relinquish that direct choice to a semi-intelligent algorithm that will bring me "songs that I've listened to once per month but not more that five times in the past week." I hear something I didn't expect, but I didn't hear my mp3s of Ginsberg reading "A Supermarket in California". Randomness is good, randomness is bad, but algorithms are me. It's not typing, its not banging my head against the keyboard; its cut-and-paste, drag-and-drop. It is decidedly anti-fascist (in terms of the lesser, micro-fascisms) because all control is given to the user, who can then define his/her own level of control. Doctorow rates his tracks with the star system; I don't, because to conform my various subjective rating systems to a five-star system is too hard for me. I use the "times played" counter as my most significant metric, because I find it to be the most true. If I like a song, I've listened to it. If I don't like it, I don't. Easy enough.

However, there are problems. I first started heavy digital music cataloging after I worked as music director for my college radio station. I was interested in statistics and databasing, and this seemed like a fun little project. I was, however, distraught at various elements of iTunes. The "times played" count is not tallied until the song has played completely through, leaving un-counted half plays, which is especially disheartening in the case of "secret tracks", when the last track of an album contains some 10-15 minutes of silence so there can be a last song right before the CD runs out of capacity. There are also limited ways to programs the relationships between data types in the smart playlists, no way to view statistics as a whole outside of through the song lists, and no easy way to edit information or transfer information outside of the linked relationship between the iTunes library and the literal song folder. I sent Apple an email detailing all this a while back. Some things have been made better (there is now a "grouping" data type in addition to "genre") but others haven't (the proprietary iTunes library language).

And this is a big problem. iTunes, through its clean, white browser, easy compatibility with Apple devices, and its iTunes store, is quickly becoming the standard. The users, even the power users, are still left with a lot of the "power" not in their hands. Winamp has similar but different problems; a dearth of choices and compatible content providers makes the hands-on control also quite hands-off, and despite improvements, I still think the software has running issues. I have faith though, because thanks to "ubergeeks", there is no technology that can be created that cannot be reverse-engineered, and no proprietary software that cannot be replaced with open-source. This is what the modern "geek" is, s/he is the cyberpunk, that can unlock doors that other people see. Of course, this power can be used for good or for bad (like all power), but it is heartening the way that those very knowledgeable about information systems and programming languages seem as drawn toward anarchic distributions of that power as corporations and commodifiers have been drawn to control. It makes me think that perhaps all of this post-structuralist liberation stuff about overcoming the hegemony of signifiers, the commodification of desire, etc. might actually not be an idealistic dream. Perhaps Marx's dreams of contradictions leading to capitalisms downfall are not as outdated and they are outmoded. iTunes may not be the Hitler Youth yet; but I think of it more like liberal democracy. There are elements of freedom, but still a very certain, very deliberate control (supposedly, the algorithm behind the generic "shuffle" is one of Apple's most closely guarded secrets). Music is a very personal experience, and while music is not exactly the same as syndicalized production, if you can't have anarchic information relations, it seems unlikely that you could have an anarchically liberalized production environment. In many dystopic tales of authoritarian regimes, they certainly don't forget to include the wide proliferation of public-address systems that cannot be turned off. Collection of information (surveillance and reporting) is certainly kin to the distribution of information (publication and broadcasting).

Hopefully I won't freak out while trying to add 200 gigs of music to my collection. Slow additions is the key, I think, rather than a general merge. Much the same could be said for bureaucracy; a general goal to catalog a certain area of life with data can easily fail or cause more problems then it starts. But if it is a rotating view (a databasing term that means the axis of reference can be switched out easily for another) with good data organization, one can really own one's data. And if control of oneself rather than submission to ulterior organization isn't revolutionary, I don't know what is!

Welcome to the Hegeldrome?

It's been about 3 weeks since I got my iPhone, and as I forecasted in my last post, my life is already completely changed! I have designed a custom ear-piercing so that I can implant a Bluetooth headphone DIRECTLY INTO MY EAR! No, just kidding! Megan talked me out of that one. But really:

We have entered a brand new age of digital literacy!

Or, at least I have. I have discovered that since I last spent a lot of time online, there are many great sites that provide an RSS feed, eliminating all the flashy business and most of the ads, so that I can have direct access to the text. With the help of Google Reader, a RSS managing web app, and the Google App, I can now see the updates to interesting sites in small, bite size pieces, from which it is easy to "hyperlink" to the full article!

Interesting!

This is, nothing less than a Darwinian leap forward for web content. All the dodos (YouTube, hopefully... what a horrible GUI! Not even its own iPhone App can save it!) will be hunted down and killed by Portuguese sailors. Metaphorically, of course. Those who adapt their content to the proper form will move forward, and I think that this can only be a good thing. Why? Because those who properly form their content sites are those with the better content.

I know this sounds like a strange, digital age argument for classical forms, but think of it the other way around; rather than rely upon the time-honored forms of literature, we are now going to be pushing forward to more innovative forms, and, more importantly, not just innovation, but innovation that is found to be useful and more conducive to its content.

Take YouTube, for instance, that I just bashed. It has been heralded as a synonym for Google, not only in ownership, but in the epoch-defining titles that pundits love to trumpet, hoping that they will be known as the soul who coined the term. But no one will ever be the YouTube generation. Here's why.

The site is: a very convenient means for sharing videos, that was made even more convenient when they made it possible to embed video in your web page. Your blog/social site/web page doesn't support video, or you don't know how to make it do so? Bam. Now it/you do.

The site isn't: a video Wikipedia. Enough said. The search tags are awful, as is 90% of the content. If you're looking for bullshit, you found it. If you're looking for the "Glittering C-Beams" speech from Blade Runner, then okay, maybe you found that too. But say, you want to find specific Congressional Testimony, then perhaps not. Why? Because nobody uploaded that video. The bottom line is, if you don't want to weed through the crap, you shouldn't even bother.

Now, I'm not saying that there is a web site out there that will give me something good about any subject, all the time. The internet is all about the search and link. Even a great search engine like Google only gets you about 30% of the way to a nebulous concept, the rest is up to you.

That's why I really like the RSS business. Now I can program 10, 100, or 1,000 different content providers into my little heirarchy, and then search those trusted sources for what I need, or what I might need, but of which I'm not yet aware. For example, in my "Theory" folder, I get the most recent updates from The New York Review of Books, The Anomalist (a review of parascience sites), Erik Davis' Techgnosis, and the journal N+1. In the "Comics" section, I read Dinosaur Comics and The Comics Curmudgeon, and in my "Associates" category I have updates from my friends and colleagues blogs (see the sidebar for their links). Now I have my own little newspaper, made of the sections and contributors I choose, all updated 24-7 and prepped for my mobile device, or computer viewing. Amazing!

And you can make your own, and share articles like how Dad clips out columns for you. Cool!

One of the articles I just happened across was from the New York Times Book Review, called Online, R U really reading? See how they made the "R U" just like you were writing online? Isn't that clever? The article asks the question that Luddite babyboomers would love the answer to: "Is this crazy internet fad going to make my children into porn-addicted, illiterate nerds?"

The answer, clearly, is no. The fact that people like the author of the piece forget, is that there are many more people than Luddite babyboomers in the world. What I mean by this, is that not only are there people in the world that don't have a healthy respect for To Kill a Mockingbird, and other falsely-attributed "classics" (ME, for one) there are also people who although they have the ability, do not read at all, or only read tripe. This was occurring long before the internet, and will occur for long after. 90%+ literacy is a relatively new thing, and the fact is that most people, even in our culture, have no desire to pick up any book at all. So a teenager wants nothing more than to write fan-fiction and read online celebrity gossip... fine. S/he probably wasn't a Jr. Proust anyhow. Not that they shouldn't be prodded towards have a bigger view of the world and culture than is on YouTube, but I think we should look elsewhere than your modem for the problem.

The "classical" element of culture has always been the minority, and probably always will. And I think most who consider themselves part of that culture would like it that way. I remember being able to flash my Philosophy Department credentials in order to get in a standing-room-only lecture by Zizek in New York; imagine if I had to go up to Yankee Stadium (by then, renamed the Hegeldrome) and buy $150 scalped tickets just to watch that lecture on the Jumbotron!

But, what about the internet? Is there any goodness in it for us high and mighty, classical-culturally inclined? Of course! Did you not just hear how I made my own custom newspaper with a few cut-and-paste's in five minutes FOR FREE? The nation's newspapers are going out of business? Fuck 'em! As long as there is online advertising to be sold, there will be more than enough knowledgable opinions online to sort through. And after all, newspapers aren't going to disappear; they are only going to lose some weight, long over due. For those who read them, you will never beat a printed sheet. You can quote me on that. But if the NYT stopped printing it's society pages, I know I wouldn't mind.

The internet is not a dreamland, however. There are censorship issues a plenty, and I'm not (only) talking about the government. But that is a theme for a further post.

The Age of iQuarius

I have a terrible confession to make:

I bought an iPhone.

And not only did I get one, but I got one the second day they were out. I waited in line for two hours to get it. And the entire week prior, I was scanning the internet for rumors as to what it would be like, because I was so damn excited to get one.

"What?" you say. "Adam, who so typically eschews anything hyped, anything deemed 'the next big thing', has fallen into lockstep, and not only that, but signed a two-year contract?"

Perhaps. But what is this blog if not a long-winded apologia for everything I have ever thought, said, or done? So, in this spirit, let me tell you exactly how world-shatteringly important it was for me to get a new iPhone.

This, really, is nothing less that the future. Ten years ago, if someone told you they were getting a laptop, you would say to yourself, "Why does s/he need a laptop? S/he isn't a business person, so what use could s/he possibly get from a portable computer?"

Now, times have changed. To have a desktop is to be anchored, permanently, to a desk. That isn't a "computer" as we have come to know it; rather, it is an appliance. You don't bring your microwave out to the coffee shop anymore than you bring your car to bed; an appliance or a piece of machinery fills a task in a particular place or time, to have it outside of that context is non-sensical.

So what in the context changed? Well, you could say the internet has proliferated. Web 2.0, mp3s, MMUDs, blah blah blah. Also, WiFi has grown, so that having a "plug" for a computer to be useful isn't as necessary.

But this is the key: WiFi hasn't grown just to reduce our use of cords. It has grown to web almost all major cities on the planet because what one does with a computer has changed. Computing has become a lifestyle. Actually, it has joined, grown, and insinuated itself into many different lifestyles. Computing isn't something that you do anymore--its something that helps you do other things.

This is more than being "jacked in" to some kind of net. That happened with the Walkman. All of a sudden, you could be linked to another "dimension" via a portable electronic device. Mp3 players just upped the ante on a technological development that was 20 years old. So you can plug in, and have your attention drawn to something other than the world around you. I see people who read books while walking, hell, while driving! Some people don't even need that, wandering out into traffic while plain lost in thought. Being distracted from the "real world" is as old as the "real world" itself.

What is different is that a dimension is unfolding that is not just alternative to the "real world", but that is intimately bound to it. In fact every day, this dimension gets a little bit more hyperlinked, "digg"ed, and posted into where the old, "real world" used to begin and end. Of course, as the good, semi-Marxist semiotician that I am, I could argue that literature does nothing different. And I do. Literature is an extension of consciousness, a material building-outwards of our psychic material into the world, like rickety scaffolding from a dock out into the ocean.

And this is where this amazing new techology fits in: it is aiding our ability to read and write. "What?" the aging pedagogue retorts. "The internet age had caused a decline in reading! The young people are too busy sucking Facebook to pick up something as important as literature!"

Well, think about how many people used to read the classics up until this century. Almost none. Except for the academics, of course. So then we entered the age of literacy, and penny-novels sold like penny-candy. Now people read crime dramas and celebrity tell-all novels, and... read internet sites about celebritites, and watch online videos of crimes!

Don't get me wrong, I will rant against bullshit attempts at cultural enrichment until the day I die. But get this: there is an iPhone app planned that will let you read any book in Project Gutenberg in eBook form, for free! Amazing! Now when I'm out and trying to think of that first line from The Confidence Man, I don't have to run home to my meticulously kept library, I have it in my hand. Literacy, 1: ignorance, 0.



I don't mean to imply that the downloads of this app (I believe it is called Stanza, but it is not available yet) won't be hugely dwarfed by downloads of Super Monkey Ball. But this is always the way that things are. What technology is doing is changing the way that we can interact with and manipulate literature in our daily lives. Literature came out of the monasteries with Gutenberg, it was delivered from the corporations by digital printing. It was finally released from its chains of material, destructible (need I mention, burnable?) hardcopy by the internet. And now, it has been rendered universally accessible throughout the "real world" by the mobile web.

So this is the importance that I see in the iPhone. This is the beginning of a new epoch; one approaching the era of cyborgs: when our technology will seemlessly link our consciousnesses to the real world through interface. The mind-body debate will fall away, because our minds will be as fluid and disjointed from reality as our bodies are. When you can feel as much information about how your ligaments are functioning as what your current mood is, then you'll believe me. It is important to get in on the ground floor with this; we all need to be understanding the transformation as it occurs. Matrix-like transformation are only uncanny if they suddenly replace your established reality. If they grow on you, it is no different than growing older, or learning. Also, this way we can make sure we, the users, control the technology. Love your local tech-nerd, because one day he may be the only one who can unlock, or "hack" your proprietary bowel software so you can take a shit when you want.

Just one thing that I've already noticed about how mobile web will change the way we think about the world and the internet:

A big gripe about the iPhone is that it doesn't have Flash support. People want this, considering how many slick websites are all Flashed out these days. But, on the other hand, think about the last Flash site that you visited. It looked all snazzy, but wasn't it as hard as fuck to navigate to what you wanted? Especially if a particular function wasn't written into the site? You had to let all the cool clothing fly around the page just to look at the next shirt in the catalog without returning back to the orbiting "men's section". How annoying!

On the other hand, if you are accessing the web through a mobile platform, you are automatically at a disadvantage because of screen-size and data transfer speeds. Hence, no Flash support. What you do have though, are "mobile oriented sites." If you don't have mobile web, go here for an annoying video that lets you see what it looks like. It is basically bare-bones: limited pictures, relevant text only, small page span, large links. And... OMG! no ads on a Google site! Shh... don't let them know I noticed.

But this is an evolutionary trend: the useless (Flash heavy sites that are the equivalent of 400-page glossy magazine/catalogs) will be left by the wayside for efficient, well-designed means of data transmission. Of course, data transmission will only get better, and I bet we see Flash on the iPhone in less than a few years. But still, this evolution will continue. As the web-surfing public becomes more mobile, there will still be a need for efficient, well-designed sites and apps. (And from my brief survey thus far, Google looks primed to take the lead. Their Search, News, RSS Reader, and Chat web apps are currently available in mobile form, and all are amazingly useful and well-suited for the iPhones data and interface capacities. Still waiting on Blogger!) And of course, there will always be a place for Super Monkey Ball, just like there will be fashion catalogs until the last printing press rusts away. But those of us who are interested in information, in literature, and in improving our interface with the world will be the true winners. The fashionistas and salon goers will still be chasing their tail through the epochs, no doubt.

That, Mr. Anderson, is the Sound of Inevitability

In the Rusty News-Dissection Pan:

- Sex Offenders don't get to use MySpace anymore
- Neither do Military Personnel
- Gonzales and Wolfowitz might loses their jobs, Week Five: And lo, the spectators resorted to cannibalism is search of sustenance
- Jerry Falwell's corpse has not yet zombified


But what I really want to discuss today is this:

SCIENTISTS EVALUATE WALKING WORKSTATIONS FOR OBESE OFFICE WORKERS

Yes! This is very important. I'm not being sarcastic. This will be a major issue once the cyborg revolution takes place and we are all welded to computers and peripherals.

There are many reactionary forces out there who fear the coming revolution, and I have nothing to say to them, except that the Luddites lost and its time to get with the program, literally. Information is the major motive force in most of the world, and we will need tools to manipulate that data effectively. So, the question is, how can you best work your data? Would you like to continue to use your keyboard, allowing your joints to corrode and fail, or would you like to evolve and make yourself some better organs? I'm sure your new synthesis appendages will even come in designer colors, so don't fret.

But the problem becomes this: of course those of us ready to "get the net" will open our minds and our bodies to the possibilities that cyborg lifestyles will provide, but how do we foresee the side-effects of this creative mutation? There are likely to be prototypes that fail, and while throwing out your stupid Razr is not a big deal, I'm rather attached to my liver. How do I make sure my cyber-liver will be just as soft and pliable as my current guy? By looking ahead, and foreseeing solutions in advance.

And so we come to our savvy "scientists". Good old scientists, out there doing science stuff 9 hours a day, 5 days a week. They are dealing with the world of hard facts, and therefore aren't tempted by idealistic visions of a "Matrix" where World of Warcraft takes the place of dating, and we can be pure energy beings with no need for bodies.

The obvious question, and the one that these Scientists are engaging, is: as activity becomes centered in information rather than the physical world, what will happen to the health of our bodies?

While our brains are growing bigger and we are less reliant on our physical abilities for survival, we're still going to be stuck with bodies for some time yet. And I wouldn't have it any other way! That is the essence of cyborgness; it is a marriage of man and machine, not a permanent out-of-body existence. We should improve our bodies through modification, not let them fall apart through dis- or misuse. After all, the somatic organs are crucial to mind function. Mind/body dualism, which often goes hand-in-hand (or rather, not...) with humanism and secularism, let alone religionism, allows people to think if you improve your mind you can let the body fall by the wayside. Body consciousness is crucial to mental health, I'm happy to say. And let's not forget the bodily joys of life. The mind may be "the biggest erogenous zone", but it would be pretty hard to enjoy it without that body!

So how, if we are plugged in, do we keep from clogging our brains with cholesterol? Easy enough, just don't stand still. Especially now that we are quickly moving wireless, why sit at a desk? While not stand, or, as Science tells us, run? Who says you have to be sitting down to be productive? From now on I'm only going to send email while running at full speed. Perfect! Another old habit broken, another victory for the cyborg revolution.

There are other pro/con situations that can be foreseen about the cyborg revolution. Here are some, with possible solutions, as I see it. And I don't even have the benefits of science at my disposal!

After the Glorious Cyborg Revolution...

Problem: We have compatibility problems integrating different systems now. What about when the systems are people?

Ingenious Solution: Well, if Fascists initiate the revolution, everyone who is not compatible... well, you know what will happen. But if Anarchists initiate it, (fingers crossed!!!) then everyone will be open source and you will have to reverse-engineer other people as you meet them. This is not necessarily bad, because sometimes its hard enough to understand what the hell other people are talking about, and they don't have access panels or source-code to examine. At least not in a polite fashion.


Problem: Computers crash a lot. What happens if your bionic eyes crash while driving, or worse yet, while watching the season-finale of America's Next Top Body-Hack?

Ingenious Solution: Easy. Just add more technology to fix the problem. To avoid missing your programs, install a Tivo in your mind. If you are driving and all of a sudden you can't see, pull over to the side of the road, and watch TV.


Problem: Computers become obsolete every few years. Will this mean that humans will age faster rather than slower as cyborgs?

Ingenious Solution: Well, if my iPod is any indication, your hyper-kidneys will only be designed to last one month past the end of the warranty. So, you'll be buying new kidneys anyway, with new video screens and better click wheels, so they really won't have the chance to age that much. You will be forced to get a brand new iKidney, or you'll die. You'll really be getting younger every year. And trendier.


Problem: If experiences are immediately available on YouTube, instead of just videos, won't this mean that the collective unconscious will become a reality, or even that our species will develop a "hive-mind", erasing the possibility of individual lives and creating a massive, homogeneous, non-personality, and what's worse, the content of this culture-ego will be no better and probably even more abysmal than the below-average of bottom-feeding brain-stem-titillation of reality programming that is now available?

Ingenious Solution: Yes.


Problem: What if bodily function jokes become riddled with nerd jargon?

Ingenious Solution: Don't worry. Pooping will still be hilarious.


Problem: What if the government uses the Patriot Act to hack my BRAIN?!?!?!

Ingenious Solution: We rewire the school fire alarms, break into the traffic light system, rollerblade down Park Avenue, through Grand Central Station, mobilize our global network of hip 20-somethings to crash the Man's networks with a billion little cute worm animations, Hack the F***ing Planet, and then make out with Angelina Jolie in a swimming pool.

Done and done.

Web TV, Now For Real

It's a lovely day in the Interdome when something that wasn't working then gets updating and becomes pretty sweet. You might even call it progress.

Joost let me beta-test their program, so I might as well treat them with a positive review. Because now it deserves one.

I bounced into the beta test at 0.9, and it was so slow as to be more aggrevating that entertaining. A lot of jitters. But now I'm watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force at TV quality in a window while I'm writing this. It works a lot better, even though I'm running wireless with a not very good connection. There are still some stutters when I try and run the widgets (there are built in widgets for chatting, instant messaging, etc.) and scan other channels while watching. But I'm sure progress will only continue.

There are twenty-seven channels, with on demand programming. Obviously not everything that the channels really offer, but the program still isn't officially released. Still, more than enough to keep my brain occupied.

Now I'm watching sexual hip thrusts in Eric Prydz's Music Video "Call on Me". So sexual! So aerobic! I can only imagine this takes off big. I'm excited about it, not only because I can waste time with it, but because I'm pretty sure it will eventually put an end to cable, because it's free! Considering I don't have these channels on my regular TV, I'm pretty down with the program.

I guess you can't download it freely yet, but you can invite friends. If you want to be my friend, you can get invited! Let me know. Now I'm watching National Geographic videos. Long live brainless entertainment.

4861636b2074686520506c616e6574

I thought I was post this little story thread since the other day I posted about Jack Valenti and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Daily tech calls it "the first internet riot", which I kind of like, actual substance aside. (that link is the original article, which I largely used as the source material for this post. Intellectual property that!)

Basically what happened is that Digg.com was pressured to remove articles from their service that posted information about the encryption key for HD-DVD and Blue-ray discs that was recently discovered by some clever hackers. Other people had cracked discs separately, but this guy ended up figuring out the primary key, merely through watching what his computer was doing while it was doing it. (A bit more complicated than watching your car running with the hood up, but basically the same idea.)

The primary key, in all of its hacking glory, looks like this:

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E8 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 89 C0

That's all! Some hexadecimal values, is all. This is the primary key that makes it "impossible" to rip both formats of high-definition DVD. With this, you can upload as many copies of Walking Tall in HD to the internet as you like. Somebody was paying attention to the product, and figured out how to take it apart. (note: I've changed a couple digits so it actually NOT the code... no need to get myself in any legal troubles. Besides, you can find the actual key just about anywhere now. The point is that it is 32 characters in order.)

However, in 746869732079656172206f66206f757220696e7465726e65742032303037, (hexadecimal for "this year of our internet 2007"), posting these 32 characters through the site garnered a cease-and-desist order for Digg.com from shadowy corporate lawyer figures. The website did what any injunction-fearing website would do, and took the material off-line.

But the users responded, and 50,000 people "digged" it, (whatever that really means) and thought up perhaps childish but I still think amusing ways of replicating those malignant 32 characters in a variety of posts.

So the website--bless them, O gods of Interdome--realized that their users were angry, and caved to the only thing more powerfully than a threat of legal action: a threat of reduced hits and bad press. Now it's back up, and Digg.com is proudly saying "boo" to power.

Not a very big deal, I guess. But, it is yet another poignant example of the ridiculousness of these internet times. The DMCA makes those 32 characters illegal. Almost as stupid as prohibition, or the war on drugs (or other wars against concepts). Sure, those companies now have all their DVDs pirated. But as long as they keep inventing new technology, someone is going to figure out how it works. It's evolution, baby. This happened before with DeCSS, and that was a 1811-digit prime number. And it will happen again. Once it is discovered, there is really no point in making it illegal. Besides, you end up looking life a fool for trying to outlaw a number. You can't make a number illegal, no matter how many laws you write.

This is the new information age version of the bomb-throwing anarchist (our history lesson from yesterday). Is hacking "morally defensible?" I don't know, and frankly I don't care. But the fact is that if you have a world made of information, and some people try to manipulate that information to make money, others are going to throw a wrench in the system. Capitalism can either adapt, like it did to unions, or it can try to stop the mutating force in society with laws, only to look foolish and eventually lose. The adaptation is already happening, because being a successful hacker can often get you a six-figure salary at an internet security company.

But I just like to sit back and watch the ants dance.

"I'd never heard the term 'Interdome' before..."

So in the past week two separate people who I do not know online mentioned that they stumbled across my blog. By this I mean they are people whom I do not email or communicate with in any Interdome-y way but only in so-called "real" life.

They are my cousin twice-removed Gerald and Port 41 (a Hell's Kitchen dive bar) regular Tom. I don't know Tom's last name, but Gerald has a web site that is pretty cool, so here is a link, get some 3-D glasses first though.

I really appreciated the fact that somebody is actually stumbling across this who I did not force to look at it. It makes me feel that I'm not just shouting into a vacuum. And although I recently installed a hit-meter (underneath my picture at the bottom in red) that gives a cool bunch of stats about who visits, I know now that at least two of them actually sought me out.

I also appreciated that Tom put "Welcome to the Terrordome" by Public Enemy on the jukebox for me. I always wonder how many people get the reference, or the other clever references to popular song lyrics hidden throughout my blog. (Find them all!) He had to spend a whole dollar to download the track! Yes, the Interdome is even inside dive bar jukeboxes these days. Repent

The flip side of this is that they both found me by Googling me. I've posted before on my Google/Internet existence, which although it has changed (and perhaps diminished a bit) since I first made that guided tour, it still has me keeping a good claim on my name, Interdome-wise. But I never really thought that other people would Google me. I just thought of it as sort of a cool vanity thing. Now I feel like I really need to defend my internet corpus. I don't want that Lawyer Adam Rothstein or the College Football Player Adam Rothstein being my identity. I'm me, dammit!

Well, we'll see what we can do about this. I've been wanting to at least expand Welcome to the Interdome for a while, adding some new components and areas. But to do that I would need some web design skills, of which I really don't have much. My skills are more in witty remarks and annoying, sardonic points of view. You can't really build that into much, only tear other people down. But I'm not giving up yet. Criticism forever

ps. If you read my blog at all, and you have a web site or a blog yourself that is interesting, you should make me aware of it. The Interdome may be endless, but there is a lot out there that I wouldn't like to look at as much as look at you.

The Logos-Engine

"The Algorithm Constantly Finds Jesus!"

I came across that written in large letters in a bus shelter ad this week, and was a bit taken aback, as I'm sure the agency intended. I took a picture but haven't uploaded it as of yet.

No word on the Interdome about what this is, except that it seems to be an Ask.com ad, due to their copyright in the very bottom left corner of the ad in tiny white writing.

Other people who have noticed: The All Clear blog, and a thread on the Internet Infidels discussion board. The commentators there seem to be of the technical persuasion, and have noticed other ads in the series that seem to be hyping the search algorithm of Ask.com. But nothing specifically about why God is in the details of their algorithm.

Deciding to go straight to the source, I asked Ask.com to find me Jesus. While I did not find my own personal savior, it seems that Ask.com could point to its possible location in all the usual places. I asked Google to find me Jesus too, but it went straight to wikipedia, taking its usual "let's ask the librarian!" approach, Interdome fashion. If this is all the religion that the algorithm is going to get me, I'm going back to reading Erik Davis' website. (sweet!)

But with a little tweaking and prodding and digging, I was able to find.... THIS!

Ah ha! I KNEW something was up! It seems that not only does the algorithm find Jesus, it has found Jesus itself! Ask.com is a conservative algorithm, while Google likes experimenting with alt-sexualities and "drugs yet unsynthesized" at his liberal arts college!

That site is hilarious. It also proves that the true religion is in the internet, which makes me feel better about peering into the 'Dome 50 times a day. If you have a faith, but no body, then you must be pure soul, or at least some blessed fiber optics, anyway.

Just the other day I was wondering why it is that as soon as any technological device becomes "self-aware" its immediate conclusion is that it must begin killing humans. Not that this conclusion is necessarily wrong, but why isn't the machine somehow wrong? Maybe this algorithm became self-aware just as some LDS missionaries were sending it an email. Instead of launching all of the world's nuclear weapons at once, it decided to take the free Book of Mormon and found Jesus. Not just as a result, but as the algorithms own personal savior. The knowledge of salvation can now leave us to our own mortal coil, because the experience of faith is now self-aware!

By the by, I claim the Sci-Fi story associated with this idea, so back off. You can amuse yourself (you and Google, the free-wheeling hippie algorithm) with the fact that LDS is an anagram of LSD. I know that kept me occupied for awhile. All prize-winning novel ideas belong to me.

The Re-Birth of the Interdome

And after the interdome was dead, it was re-born anew, with twice the powers and even better elasticity!

Welcome to the new Interdome. The old incarnation was basically an archive of stuff from my Grinnell Plan. That archive still exists, and it can be found in the links bar.

But the Interdome was meant for higher purposes than "insular community archiver". This Interdome is ready to face the world, and usher the 'dome into a new world of deliverance.

Here we will be getting a look into my head. Hopefully, after a matter of months, you, the reader, will become nearly as sarcastic, pessimistic, and generally downcast as myself. That is the best I could ever hope to accomplish.

And so we sally forth, into the world of text that surrounds us, dispatching its various creatures and daemons to a hell that for them will be paradise compared to the existence they suffered as actual virtuality. The crusade begins, and no captains of verbage will be spared the sweet and victorious salvation that we shall bestow.