Indie/Hack Real life, tech, and obscure music.

So, I don’t celebrate Chrsitmas. As a dyed-in-the-wool atheist and Scientist (meaning science as both a quasi-religion and way of life), December 25th is just any old day to me. Jesus may have had some good words to say on kindness, equality and love, but he’s no son of god. I’ve even gone the whole nine yards to where I don’t do that whole “presents” song and dance. I don’t expect anything. I don’t want anything.

But defying all of that, I ushered at this year’s Christmas service at All Souls’. Twice, even. And I enjoyed it. Not because of the “moving words” being spoken from the pulpit, but because there were friends there, and I was giving them papers and lighing their candles. But despite that, there wasn’t an epiphany. I shalt have no gods before the God Particle.

Lastly, a segue:

I have been really, really, really enjoying Voyager One’s album Monster Zero lately. It’s classified as shoegaze/dream-pop and I could not agree more. If Veil Veil Vanish’s All Hands In Prayer blew your mind straight out of your skull (dramatization, do not attemt), this is for you. Some songs teeter on ambient, while others (Bedbugs And Ballyhoo) make you wish you didn’t have such finicky, asleep neighbors.

In short, these guys are pro and you should lend them your ears for a while.

Merry Christmas.

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Remember in the last post, where I ragged against sheeple for buying “trendy” Macs? Remember how I pointed out how it’s compromising it’s native security? Well the nice people over at Gizmodo have explained that in a neat little post. So really, I’m right (again!) on the point that malware is written for Windows simply because everyone uses it. But then they brought up another reason why Macs are better:

One word: Unix!

Basically, permissions. Any application that wants to install prompts a password. In short, it won’t be installing things without your knowledge.

I promise I’m not going to go all Linux>Win32 on you all, but it’s pretty much obvious at this point who wins.

If you want the Gizmodo article, here it is. One commenter described it perfectly:

An Apple vs MS article that isn’t overtly biased

*slow clap*

Did you hear? Apple computers have hit the mainsteam. Yes, the dreaded word for indie scenesters such as myself. Just as the iPhone, once a coveted alpha-geek-exemplifying gadget of choice, has now become a status symbol of the quasi-rich (along with SUVs, flat-panel TVs, and massive, gaudy houses), OS X has become the system of choice for trend-hoppers.

How did this happen, anyway? Blame the Apple marketing machine. Before the iPod, Macintosh was only known to geeks and graphic artists, its sole but brand-loyal followers. Once Apple, and the aforementioned iPod turned into household names, people began looking into the other products of this “fruit company”, to paraphrase Forrest Gump. Coupled with the iPhone, it was all downhill from there.

At the time of writing, Macs are the computer of choice for the Armchair Scenester; that is, those who claim to be ‘indie’, but only listen to readily available, popular, trendy music. Do Death Cab for Cutie, Sufjan Stevens, the Strokes, or Muse ring a bell? These groups have long since abandoned the ‘indie’ title (DCFC is on a major label), and at best could be described as ‘alternative’. How can something be considered ‘indie’ if almost everyone has heard of it?

And so we have a MacBook in the hands of those who want to be cool without even trying. Although honestly it’s not just pure trendiness that’s driving the Apple popularity, it’s justified by the supposed ease-of-use, crashless OS and resistance to malware. There is one major flaw in that most popular argument: as soon as idiots (by that I mean everyone) start using them, they go away.

Ease-of-use is the first to go away. Mac OS X is not “Win XP, but better”, it’s something wholly different, and I don’t mean the taskbar being on the top of the display. You can’t play Windows games on a Mac, and that’s not something you should call tech support to complain about.

Crashless OS is something that I doubt will go away easily, but when you take into account the the “resistance to malware” argument is dwindling as you read this, it becomes apparent. Windows has tons of malware, and for a reason. One, it’s easy to exploit. Two, 90% of computer users use a Win32 system. And when the idiots start flocking to the ‘alternative’ operating system, they’ll start putting in their passwords in places they shouldn’t and downloading files they shouldn’t. Cox (Oklahoma’s cable and internet provider) has teamed up with MacAfee for a antivirus package. One of it’s features is ‘anti-phishing’. Here’s an anti-phishing package, free of charge: Don’t put in your password on crap websites!

I dread seeing profile pictures on Facebook taken using the default filters on Photo Booth. I can genuinely see one point in the future where the ‘Pop-Art’ effect will be more ubiquitous than the cell-phone-camera-in-mirror picture. Personally, it’s distressing.

Now, don’t think of me as some curmudgeon who hates everything mainstream. It’s that I truly hate to see these machines used for internet browsing and instant messaging, nothing more. One doesn’t buy a Lamborghini just to drive it to the grocery store and back.

You see, I like good things. Things that work nicely. Macs are that. Although, if you want something better, follow me when I build myself a high-end machine running Linux. When I get money, at least. Unemployed artist stereotype, have at thee.

If you were to meet me on the street, one of the first things you’d learn about me is that I don’t go to school. At all. I haven’t been in traditional/public school in 5 years. And everyone I meet always tells me about great schools that would be “PERFECT!” for me. Montessori, Accelerated Learning Academy (to use a modern colloquialism: it both blew and sucked.), and now in Tulsa, TSAS.

None of them worked or will work. Why? I’ll tell you.

As I write this, I’m sampling some new post-punk, fingers sore from meticulously assembling tiny Lego pieces for a postmodern villa project. I’m also hungrily devouring a beef stick and reading about the Chitral and Hunza valleys in northern Pakistan. Some would call it ADD (the most misdiagnosed disease in the developed world); I call it being a relentless consumer of information.

In a traditional high school setting, one would be spoon-fed small amount of information in pre-set patterns. When you step back and look at the system, it is a very inefficient tool for delivering knowledge to the masses. But when you realize that it’s sole purpose, going back to it’s founding, was the warehouse children newly-freed due to child labor laws, it all makes sense.

What if I want to learn social theory? What does algebra have anything to do with that?

What if I want to learn architecture? What does biology have anything to do with that?

What if I want to be a productive member of society? What does advanced chemistry have anything to do with that?

Social theory and architecture are two of my favorite things. I love them to death. I can’t name a single high school in the country that incorporates any of those into their curriculum. It’s quite simple; they’re not economical subjects to teach. How many other teenage students have those two passions? Not many. Nor do they have any real passions; unless you have an obvious talent, the candy sampler that is the American education system clouds the minds of young citizens to where it’s expected that we all have jobs we hate and no clear goal in life.

I have been fiddling with toy infrastructure and setting up neighborhoods of yard sale birdhouses since I was a little girl. I haven’t the time for life sciences, Shakespeare, or African history.

Let’s take a look at the class chart for Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences, the school everyone recommends to me:

"Non-Western Cultures"? It wouldn't hurt to think outside the bubble.

20th Century History? You could learn all of it from watching the History Channel for 4 hours. Computer Application? I could teach that better than the berk who’s teaching it now. Music Appreciation? Doing that right now. AP Psychology? I already took that class at Antelope Valley College. Government? Haha, no, don’t even.

And I don’t quite have the time or space to explain why grades are a terrible measure of one’s knowledge, how it takes far too long to go over one subject, how the “purpose” of school is to “socialize” at the same time that it is discouraged, et cetera.

There is a stigma in our culture that homeschooled kids are behind their public school counterparts, that they are religious fanatics (au contraire: In Darwin’s name we study, amen.), and they are socially maladjusted. I have a hard time disagreeing with the latter; although I am weird regardless of my educational circumstances. I’m a little girl who dresses like she’s ready to author a billion-dollar merger, if that doesn’t explain it I don’t know what will.

So, to Harmony and Dustin and all you kids at TSAS, no, I’m not going there.

It’s like Monopoly.

“Pass High School, go directly to Cornell, collect $200.”