A Cyborg Citizen's Story

I voted in the Mountain Equipment Cooperative election again.

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 03:56:39 -0500

Again I have voted in the election of the board of directors for the one coop I belong too. I have also finally bought what I consider the signature item from MEC: a red cycling jacket. Also I have bought this past month new winter gloves for my partner and a rear rack pack. The rear rack pack now holds my tool kit, tires, tubes and pump. I also bought a new rear light as I broke my last one this winter cycling in a storm. I am not happy with the attachment that the present breed of cycling lights have they are far too flimsy. We also did not do well with the down jacket we bought my partner as it tears easily and is now full of taped up holes leaking down. My main concern is increasing quality of the gear we sell and buy. I voted for two experienced candidates and one newcomer. My grandfather who started as a farm educator in the working world was also into coops. So yes I respect elders.

The recession and my survival, no strike three

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:39:42 -0500

I spend the recessions of the early 1980's and early 1990's basically unemployed and sick. I just got a promotion at work. So this time I have not struck out.

Another computer swap update

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 19:48:52 -0500

I have now sold the 1 U clone server. I got 40$ so I am about 50$ short of breaking even on the computer swap now.

An update about the computer swap

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 01:59:49 -0500

I was able sell the Sunfire server for 100 dollars minus 20 dollars for shipping.This means I now need to recover only 119 dollars and some money to adjust for inflation, time and taxes on the initial purchases for the stuff I traded away. There was a time when I would be happy to spend 100 dollars on a used laptop which is one item I have left. I also have an empty case and another Pentium M motherboard and a Dell 600 Mhz computer tower that has already done some work for the green party when out on loan. I also still have the 120 GB hard drive which is holding my mp3's now in a network storage drive installation. And last but not least I still have the 1U clone server to refurbish. For the clone I spent another 20 dollars for another pentium M chip used on ebay. So with a little positive spirit and patience I have actually come out ahead on his computer swap.

In an older swap, I traded an IBM T-30 thinkpad wih broken screen for 200 dollars and a Linksys open source router. I used this wireless router for about three years and just sold it this week for 25 dollars.

I am actually learning to talk statistics and causality errors

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 01:54:47 -0500

At least today I was gifted social scientist at work.

The workshop is over. I met some good sisters and brothers in the union movement

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 15:26:20 -0500

I attend the day's workshop and enjoyed the day. I knew most of the web 2.0 services we covered but really enjoyed covering them in a classroom.

I am training with union activists today to use online tools

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 09:42:01 -0500

I am at a union sponsored training event. We are discussing and learning how to use ICT's to do union work. That is so called web 2.0 applications for union communications.

I built a new PC workstation from parts.

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:16:02 -0500

I am just formating the first hard drive as I install Windows XP 64 bit on my homebuilt PC. I used an Asus motherboard, 8 GB of RAM, and an Intel Wolfdale power efficient processor. It has an e-GeForce 8500 video card with 1 GB of RAM. I have a new LG 19" widescreen monitor for this system. The monitor uses 36 watts for power. I also used a Seasonic 500 watt 80+ power efficient power supply. It seems to be working and is fairly quiet. This new homebuilt PC is fairly green in its power efficiency.

I attended a workshop at MIT the home of much tech origins

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 00:09:56 -0500

I attended a workshop at MIT and spoke about knowledge management. Three learned professors gave me feedback on my presentation. I also heard many presentations on Internet topics and also work related sociology. This included development topics, politics, open source, Wifi, call centres, country comparisons of internet use, and network graphs.

I did some computer swapping.

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 13:10:06 -0500

I have done some trading in computer parts recently. I traded my Sun Ultra 5 for a Sun Fire v120, a clone 1U server which takes a Pentium M, some parts like drives including a 120 GB SATA drive, a mother board, three towers of various vintages and a Dell Pentium II laptop without power supply. I focused on refurbing the servers first and bought a Pentium M chip for the clone and two 18 GB hard drives for the v120. This cost me about 50$ on ebay.

I also focused on the motherboard. I sold the mother board complete with the Pentium M chip I bought on ebay. After this I had 30$ from this deal after recovering costs for the chip. I still need to recoup 90$ to cover the Ultra 5 and then 99$ to recover costs from the Peavey stereo EQ I also traded as part of this deal. Then need to cover the costs of the two hard drives in the v120.

I am giving away one of the towers with Debian 4.0 r3 installed on it but am waiting to find a modem for this machine before I give it away. One of the other towers was so old a friend who was recycling computers took it to the recyclers. He also gave me a 19 inch monitor that I am now using for Eve Online and also my Linux computer. Other than the one tower I am giving away none of these machines is working right now.

Mourning the Earthquake in China and Cyclone in Burma.

Thu, 22 May 2008 15:05:00 -0500

I am wearing black to express mourning for these recent mega-disasters

I am still running Linux successfully and now have Vista as well.

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:15:14 -0500

I have three windows operating systems working. I have win XP running dual boot on my Macbook. I have Vista running dual boot with Debian Linux on an IBM Thinkcentre desktop. And I have win2K on a Virtual PC drive on my eMac. I did not pay for these operating systems directly but instead these are covered by my tuition at school. I mostly use the Vista these days to play Eve Online. I have SAS on the XP on the Macbook.

Recently I installed MySQL on the Macbook and am running Drupal and Mediawiki on the Apache web server on the Macbook but as an Intranet on local host and on the home router. The Mediawiki is being used to organise my studies. The Drupal is not yet used much.

The multi-platform household.

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 14:45:21 -0500

The multi=platform household is what I have in my home I have two macs running regularly. More and more I have a Debian desktop running. I also have WinXP for some functions. I even have a copy of Win2K around. I would say I am too digital and I do not need all this technology but instead want it. It does help me at school and work though and to some extent with shopping and providing our household with goods and services. I can also justify these computers with the help and aid they allow for community development in at least supporting my volunteering. I am joining some other local activists in a group to discuss using computers in the non-profit sector locally in our city. This meeting is this Tuesday.

Facebook as real person networks

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 13:27:35 -0500

The on-line cyborg world used to be many virtual people. People I never met in real life would be supportive and friendly. Now I use facebook daily and it is a network of real life coworkers and past friends. This network still does not include some of my poorer friends but it is a real world network. I wrote an academic paper exploring this hypothesis that the web 2.0 is becoming more real world and less mythical cyberspace.

I am now using a Blackberry phone.

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 13:08:29 -0500

I decided to use a Blackberry phone. I use it to listen to music so far. I also use the facebook application. I am also using MobiPocket to read a Gutenberg free book. I am reading Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure. I donated 10 dollars to Project Gutenberg this month.