
The Joy of Slow Computing - xj9
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121832/pleasure-do-it-yourself-slow-computing
======
nickpsecurity
It was an interesting and different kind of article. I particularly loved his
attack on companies' claims to democratize some function. I know there's two
meanings to the word but we're better off using (verbally and as consumers)
the more important one. They're just cheapening the concept for profit.

The other thing I liked was how the author took ownership of the situation
while expecting less at the same time. I had this experience using little-
known and semi-custom OS's for high security setups. The secure system lacked
access to so much stuff. Yet, it had enough stuff on it to be useful and
content-proxies were easy enough to build. I occasionally wanted a certain
program, Youtube video, or whatever. Yet, my system did exactly what I
designed it to do, nothing more and nothing less. And, like the author, I was
happy with it rather than disappointed. It's a strange, good feeling which I'm
not sure most people experience while using their computers.

Of course, with KVM switch, I could always go right back to a full
Windows/Linux system if I couldn't resist the urge or needed to do something
modern. We can have the best of both worlds.

~~~
yoz-y
For me "democracy" in this context is used as social equality and commonness
(both are dictionary definitions).

As such, I think that "democratising" and "making cheaper for profit" are far
from being mutually exclusive. Companies use the word democratising because of
a lack of a better word I assume. Nevertheless, and this is apparent from the
article, the biggest price to pay for Slow Computing is to consecrate it a
bunch of your time.

Of course you can deploy your own cloud rather than use, say Dropbox, but you
will need to invest a lot of time to learn how stuff works, even more so if
you are not a computer engineer. Most people don’t have time for that.

In my opinion, most profit is made when the goals of both parties are aligned.
A company will make more money if the product they offer remains useful for
their clients. The offer of these companies is "you will be able to use this
stuff with ease" -> democratisation.

~~~
nickpsecurity
You're right about the equality aspect of things getting cheaper. We discussed
this on Schneier's blog. It's compatible with "make accessible to everyone"
definition. I think, playing devil's advocate, my counter was that we often
don't get the same thing because we lack the quality, support, or privacy of
prior, paid solutions. My Gmail, Dropbox, and so on are selling me out. My
MyKolab and secure hosting solution cost a bit more with totally different
effect.

I think the "features" are getting democratized by most of these companies but
other critical aspects don't. They don't either because they cost too much to
implement or too much profit will be lost by opportunities to sell users out.
So, as part of it gets democratized, a serious loss happens as either a
tradeoff or straight subversion. The original _it_ isn't democratized: only a
watered-down, less trustworthy version which may or may not be a good deal.
More good ones all the time, at least. :)

Thoughts?

------
teekert
This article puts into words how I have always felt but never could explain.
Slow computing, a nice term. It is indeed about awareness, and very much about
taking ownership. When I got Nginx running HTTPS with a valid cert, or sent my
first mail with postfix/dovecot/roundcube it felt like I did it and that I
owned the server and the software. Getting it all working taught me a lot
about the fundamentals of the internet. It was a long, slow process though.
But very enjoyable and rewarding. Recently I moved away from Gmail/Google
calendar for my own mail server and ownCloud, sadly nobody I know understands
my euphoric feelings... this writer does.

~~~
agumonkey
Spent 10+ years trying to grok music on my own, I understand the bliss of
finally seeing the big picture. I wish it was mentioned more often, but things
are mostly what they should be.

------
PaulRobinson
I'm not sure I like the idea of calling the use of open source tools "slow
computing", and connecting it up in people's minds the way we think about a
middle-class fashion.

Or maybe I'm just concerned about the middle class hipsters choosing open
source tools ironically or without thought. It might give it an air of
exclusion it does not - can not - deserve. I don't want open source tools to
become equivalent to a mini penny farthing.

But if it makes people sit up and think the way Whole Foods and the organic
food movement has, well, maybe it could work.

~~~
sukilot
Hipster: someone who enjoys something I like in a way I don't like.

------
chriswarbo
> The May First team has a record of resistance to snooping law enforcement
> agencies; over the phone, McClelland told me about the security system
> they’d built around the servers, which relays its data outside U.S. borders.

Hmm... If I remember correctly, sending data outside the US will cause the US
security agencies to treat it as "foreign", and hence a legitimate target for
surveillance.

~~~
copsarebastards
Yes, but this is only one of the excuses US Security Agencies use to target
traffic, and there are enough other excuses that almost all traffic is
eligible for surveillance.

Legal approaches such as those taken by the EFF and ACLU have a lot of value,
but I don't think a legal approach of trying to keep your traffic legally un-
tappable is going to work. It's clear that the NSA et al are above the law and
unconcerned with your rights, so until that is fixed, it's too easy to fall
into a "grey" area where they have an excuse to monitor your traffic.
Fundamentally this is an approach that tries to make it so the NSA _won 't_
surveil your traffic, which places an unearned amount of trust in the NSA. I
think a better approach makes it so that they _can 't_ surveil your traffic--
and for this there are only technical solutions.

Part of this is making sure that the NSA can't spy on _who_ you are talking
to, and every solution I know of to that bouncing traffic across multiple
servers. I would be very skeptical of such a system that didn't bounce traffic
overseas.

------
mark_l_watson
As much as I enjoy _playing_ with my Linux, OS X, and Windows 8.1 laptops, I
have thought of going the free and privacy enhanced mode of Linux, running my
OwnCloud, etc.

The thing that holds me back is that I really rely on my Android smartphone
for being able to SSH to a server anytime, write, and generally work on most
stuff, only slower. The problem is that smart phones track us, even with
custimization and are not free software. Why go the privacy route on my
laptop, then have a smartphone? Suggestions?

~~~
jcbrand
My 2c.

I host my own mail server, owncloud, RSS reader, bookmarker, blog and a bunch
of other stuff.

I don't particularly like sysadmin tasks or having to update stuff and then
hope that nothing breaks, but I love the fact that I'm in control of my data
and my computing experience.

On my phone I've been using Android without a Google account and I use the
F-droid app store.

There are definitely still ways I'm being surveilled. That's just life in the
21st century I guess.

However, what I love about FOSS is that the software is not exploitative or
antagonistic. So much closed-sourced software or Saas apps use sleazy, user-
hostile tactics.

This is just not a problem with Free software. Yes, the UIs are sometimes bad
or lacking and there might be bugs, but the whole spirit behind the software
is, for me, so much more positive. I don't feel like I'm constantly fighting
against software designed to exploit me.

~~~
panzerboy
Can you please elaborate a bit on what you're using for your RSS reader and
bookmarker? (and the bunch of other stuff :-)

Thanks!

~~~
jcbrand
I've been wanting to write a blog post about this transition for ages. Perhaps
I should.

Here's a quick list:

* Cloud (files, contacts, photos, calendar): [https://owncloud.org](https://owncloud.org)

* RSS Reader: [http://selfoss.aditu.de/](http://selfoss.aditu.de/)

* Bookmarks (ala pocket): [https://www.wallabag.org/](https://www.wallabag.org/)

* Email: [http://www.iredmail.org/](http://www.iredmail.org/)

* Chat/XMPP: [http://prosody.im](http://prosody.im)

* Git: [http://gitolite.com/gitolite/index.html](http://gitolite.com/gitolite/index.html)

* Blog: Blogophile static site generator (but wouldn't recommend anymore, Jekyll is better).

I keep my contacts and calendar on owncloud and sync to my Android with
DavDroid [https://davdroid.bitfire.at/what-is-
davdroid](https://davdroid.bitfire.at/what-is-davdroid)

On my phone I installed CyanogenMod without Google apps but I recently got a
one+ phone with CM installed by default (with Google apps).
[https://oneplus.net/](https://oneplus.net/)

------
m-i-l
Interesting to see open source called "slow computing" (not quite what I
expected when I clicked on the link). I've never been a big fan of the use of
the word "slow" in the various slow movements though. I know the slow
movements started with "slow food" and that was chosen to contrast with "fast
food", but it does have connotations relating to physical speed, and I think
that could be particularly misleading applied to computing. I prefer
"thoughtful computing", "thoughtful food", "thoughtful parenting" etc. Too
late to change now though.

------
hyperpallium
\tangent _There need be no real danger of it ever becoming a drudge, for any
processes that are quite mechanical may be turned over to the machine itself._
\- Turing

Worse than built-in obsolescense, we are the agents of our redundancy... and
the end of all our coding shall be to return to the place where we began,
unneeded.

------
radoslawc
Article however good, and making valid points (I'm so to speak "slow
computerist" myself) is a bit chaotic.

"with Ubuntu, a free-and-open operating system managed by a U.K.-based company
and a large network of volunteers. It’s one of the more user-friendly variants
of Linux, which first appeared in 1991 when a student at the University of
Helsinki wrote his own version of a then-popular operating system invented at
AT&T in the 1970s."

what appeared first? Linux or Ubuntu? Linus "wrote" Ubuntu? Can't really tell
from this mess. And it's GNU/Linux or Linux distribution not version btw.

"Emacs, a program first developed in the mid-’70s that runs on a text-only
terminal screen."

Well back in the days sure, for past I guess 20 years it has GUI version.

"There are no fonts or wizards. But it displays multiple files side-by-side
and plays Tetris."

No fonts?

------
mwcampbell
I think the author glorifies the archaic interface of Emacs too much,
particularly since he doesn't need it for its original purpose as a
programmer's editor. I wonder why he doesn't just use LibreOffice; it's
equally free.

------
roguelynn
Huh interesting- never heard of May First/People Link. Anyone have any
comments on it? Concept seems appealing.

------
GuiA
Neat article. It's good to see non-programmers get some of the value that FOSS
brings.

I have a fancy aluminium unibody laptop and the latest shiny phone and all
that, but I also keep a couple of netbooks at home on which I run archlinux +
xmonad. I do almost everything in the terminal; I wrote a lot of my own tools
to e.g. read twitter, my email, manage my todo lists, etc. In a high level
language with a wide variety of libraries like Python, it requires very little
effort to get stuff running if you're a programmer, and you quickly get a nice
foundation to customize your own software and workflows. You can get things to
integrate in ways that would be nigh impossible to do with other software. For
instance, on one of my netbooks, my terminal's color palette changes with the
time of the day (i.e. dark on white at night, white on dark during the day)
and time of the year (green + red colorscheme on Christmas day!), which in
turn propagates to all of my terminal apps to achieve a consistent look. It's
absolutely useless, but tons of fun!

The only non terminal program I use is surf, a minimalistic tabless web
browser which helps you focus and not get too distracted. All in all, I really
like my setup - it'd be impractical to use it at my job, but I could see
myself using it exclusively at a different stage of my life. At the end of the
day, most of what I do is write {code|prose}.

I have a side project to clean up my setup and release it as an open source
project for other people to use, but time is lacking. Although really, most of
the fun comes from building your own environment. A good source of inspiration
(despite the silly name) is the /r/unixporn subreddit - the screenshots there
tend to encapsulate nicely the kind of basic yet pleasant aesthetic that such
a setup can offer. For many years, everyone wanted their Linux desktop to be
as flashy as what the professional OSs were promising (remember Compiz, Beryl,
Project Looking Glass, etc.?) - but I think a Linux environment is best when
it plays to its own strengths.

A couple nitpicks regarding the article because I'm a nerd :)

 _> Instead of relying on rich kids in a Googleplex somewhere, Slow Computing
works best when we’re employing people nearby, like Jamie McClelland, to adapt
open tools to local needs. He’s my farmer; May First is my CSA._

Does the author realize that there is a non-negligible overlap between
contributors to the software he praises and the rich kids from the Googleplex?

 _> Despite its scale, the original amateurism of Linux is alive and well;
once, when a student was helping me set up my computer for a lecture at his
college, he told me that he’d helped design Ubuntu’s icons._

What a gauche formulation that needlessly diminishes the work of the student.

Not a nitpick: Sudo room in Oakland is great. If you're in the Bay Area, check
it out. I started going there when I lived in Oakland a couple years ago
because noisebridge was too far away and becoming too... unfriendly, and I was
not disappointed. One of the main things I miss about living in Oakland for
sure.

~~~
journald
>Does the author realize that there is a non-negligible overlap between
contributors to the software he praises and the rich kids from the Googleplex?

Probably not, but it shows how fashionable tech worker hate has become. You
don't usually see digs like that at "rich doctors" in articles on our heath
care system, despite American doctors being the highest paid in the world:
[http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/02/amer...](http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/02/american_doctors_are_overpaid_medicare_is_cheaper_than_private_insurance.html)

------
omouse
>Eric Schmidt doesn’t care if I’m using Emacs

Actually, yes he does especially if you use GNU/Linux because that runs the
world. The importance of free/open source is so great that if the popular
libraries switched to a proprietary license a lot of companies would go
bankrupt paying the license fees.

~~~
seiji
Licensing is the reason all the Apple GNU tools are forever stuck on old
versions now. Once the tools moved to GPLv3, Apple stopped updating them.
Check out how old your version of /bin/bash is on a completely up-to-date OS X
machine.

------
ommunist
I appreciate author's effort in explaining the useful fashion, and I wonder
whether he enlightens us about his mobile phone.

