Φοβούνται το λαό και προσπαθούν να ανακόψουν την πορεία του προς την εξουσία.

Δεν θα τα καταφέρουν!» (Μανώλης Γλέζος) (translate)

and epic video!

okeee…one can use it on a phone but not on a 2.4Ghz Macbook Pro running Leopard…whuuut?

http://www.zeit.de/2012/19/Interview-Sansal

after my number one procrastination gadet is gone, it’s time to continue reclaiming my braintime instead of wasting it on totally useless things. time to stop following the luring cybernetic commodity fetishism lurking beneath the spectacle of so-called “social networks.”

let’s face it! what started out as a useful means of keeping in touch with old friends and co-workers or tracking one’s favorite venues, tools for online promotion and communication – social networking has become much more than that! the social network begins to feel like a social cobweb keeping us attached 24/7.

facebook, twitter, google+, foursquare, you name them: their services are omnipresent and constantly open in several tabs of our browsers – with notifications popping up every minute, keeping us updated and – much more important – very occupied!

the constant occupation of our consiousness does not only keep us from being productive instead – it transforms us from being customers of convenient services to us being faithful resources that can be drained and loyal products to be sold.

yeah whatever! we all know that already!

for myself, the next step to reclaim my consciousness, time and energy to be more productive and have more time for beautiful preoccupations in reality is getting off the “social cobweb”.

i have a login of every fucking social network that ever started going into business, so what i definetly need to do is reducing them to a minimum by asking myself what i really *need* them for and what *useful* things i do with them:

Facebook

since i work in cultural management facebook is important for my work. i administer a handful of pages and groups, so quitting this service is not an option. so here’s what i do:

- reduce all my personal info to the bare minimum
- close that tab in my browserturn off all the annoying email notifications (likes, comments, events, photos, birthdays, …) except maybe when – someone sends me a message (which i can actually reply to via email!).
- schedule fix times (1 hour maximum) per day to do the important things i need to do on facebook, like managing pages, groups, answering friend requests, etc.

a good source of steps to get rid of facebook addicition can be found here

Twitter

it is my all-time-favorite service. it’s simple, i can use a client of my choice, no advertisements, no banners, it’s versatile and mobile. i can connect it to Facebook and just use Twitter to keep my friends and subscribers on both services updated.

the same strategy applies here: keeping the usage time to a minimum. open it once in the morning and once in the evening to read through the tweets. done!

Google+

i liked the service from the beginning. simpler interface, better contact management (Circles) and it fits in nicely with my other Google services.

but face it, have you ever *seriously* used it? I haven’t and I won’t – so i am sorry, but it needs to go! —> DELETED!

Foursquare

i always found great hints and recommended places – especially in foreign cities and i became mayor of my regular cafés and bars here in Berlin, then i got badges, new friends…. OK, OK – the only useful thing is getting hints and recommendation – but that’s definetly also possible by just asking locals or using Google, right? —> DELETED!

MySpace, Digg, Twatter, Cowbird, MeinVZ, XING, LinkedIn, soup, Tumblr… fun, bust waste of time! —> DELETED!

So, what’s left?

- time-limited Twitter for my status output
- email for input
- time-limited Facebook for promotion and a little communication
- A LOT MORE TIME for other things
- A LOT less annoyances telling me to keep in touch!

And hey, i am a total nerd and i was able to do it – so can you!

step one accomplished. i did it. the number one hub that unifies all my digital life in one plastic body: my emails, contact information of everyone i know, my photos, my facebook, my twitter, my foursquare. digital traces of who and where i am. my second brain and my interface to the digital world i have always with me: my smartphone.

i ditched it.

i am a geeky person and i love digital toys, i spend a lot of time online and i actually enjoy exploring the world of information technology and using gadgets that make my life easier and more enjoyable.

…making my life easier – or should i rather say make my life more dependant? when my smartphone’s battery went dead recently (usually after around 10 hours after a full charge) i imagined a situation:

standing in an unknown part of the city at night, looking for a public telephone, not knowing where i am, not knowing how to get home, not even knowing any phone number to call. being lost.

i clearly remember when i was a teenager in the 90s and mobile phones were not so popular yet, i had all the
important phone numbers of my family and friends in my head – i insantly had them at hand when needed. even today i still remember these numbers – but recent phone numbers? i don’t even know my girlfriend’s number or my parents’ mobile
phone numbers. nada.

also i have the impression that my sense of orientation got worse since i started using Google Maps and Navigation on my smartphone. it’s so easy to open the app and instantly know where you are and how to get to where you want to go. no need to think about it – just follow the blue arrow. It’s even worse driving a car from A to B, constantly staring at the navigation system, getting mad when there’s suddenly a construction site blocking the road and no mobile internet connection to find an alternate route. How did people get from A to B before digital navigation systems appeared?

I could go on and on – about my appointment calendar reminding me of everything, about Gmail haunting me with email requests, facebook notifying me of every trivial fart out there in the cloud, about me checking into every damn location on foursquare…
it’s over now! i wiped the data off my HTC Hero, put it back into it’s original box with all the accessories, wrapped it in paper and gave it to my mom for christmas…

she couldn’t believe her eyes about that present – and she seemed surprised and happy – christmas mission accomplished!

now you might ask: “why did you do that? why? a smartphone makes so many things so much easier, it helps you get your mind free for more important things and it saves you so much time!!!”

it makes my mind free – free of needing to use it for even basic tasks like remembering a phone number or using my creativity and imagination or sense of orientation.

it saves me time – true! but to do what? work more? consume more? spend more time on facebook?
actually ditching my smartphone made me realise that i have much MORE time now – free from social networking, free from apps calling for my attention. free to spend time in the real world.

i am on the way to reclaim my brain.

my smartphone is nixed and now i switched back to a 2007 SonyEricsson model that surprised me with amazing photo functionality (even with flash) and one week of battery life without charging. For the purpose of training and memorising phone numbers i started to use the “anti-smartphone” John’s Phone that doesn’t even have a display or storage for contacts and is incapable of text messaging. For my appointments, contacts, and notes i am using an analog paperback pocket notebook calendar!

and in case of apocalypse – when everything digital will be dead – i will still have my most important information handwritten on paper or even memorised.

i started to be annoyed by this fone i spent so much money on because it seemed that most flaws it had resulted from operating system and software bugs.

eventually i flashed a custom ROM on it (VillainROM 12.0.0) which took days of research, including having an unusable fone for two days, but i managed to get it to work. it was definetly an improvement. the interface was not as slow as before and everything worked flawlessly. but over time i got more and more frustrated by the lack of speed of my gadget. seeing other newer HTC smartfones and the iPhone and how much snappier they ran i started considering to sell my HTC Hero because i was tired of waiting for the user interface all the time because it hung itself up.

(Hero running Android 1.5)

recently i saw a samsung galaxy mini in action and i was quite impressed about it’s speed and snappiness compared to my Hero that was supposed to have the same cpu power (~600Mhz ARM). the big difference between the two fones is the operating system. while my Hero was stuck on Android 1.5 the galaxy mini has Android 2.2 Froyo which runs incdredibly fast and has many new features and much better usability details i was always missing on my Hero.

doing some quick research i stumbled upon a newish release by my favorite custom ROM geeks: FroydVillain 1.7.3-R2 – Android 2.2 for the HTC Hero! i gave it a shot and dug out my old bookmarks of tutorials how to flash a custom ROM.

the first boot of my FroydVillain Hero took a long time, but when the interface was up and after i played around with it for a while i was stunned and happy that my old Hero has become considerably faster and much easier to use with the *much* improved new operating system. everything works like a charm, much more reliable than before, plus the custom ROM is a rooted Android opening the doors to cpu overclocking and network tethering!

finally my HTC Hero is what it was meant for – a snappy and usable mini communication hub that’s fun to use! so if you own a Hero and are annoyed by it, try to flash it with Android 2.2+ before you ditch it. It’s definetly worth it!

Here’s a quick guide on how to do it the fastest and easiest way – ON YOUR OWN RISK!

1. Backup your Data, Media and Applications with a backup app (MyBackup e.g.)
2. Download and install a file manager from the market (Astro File Manager or FS File Manager)
3. Download Universal Androot from here and put the UniversalAndroot.apk on your SD card.
4. Make sure you have “unknown sources” ticked in the Android application installation settings.
5. Open your installed file manager and browse to UniversalAndroot.apk and install it.
6. Open the Universal Androot application and choose “Superuser for Android 1.5~1.6″ then choose “Root”
7. Wait until it says “Woot ! Your device is rooted !” and exit the program. (on my phone it was only “rooted” until i rebooted, after i always had to apply the rooting which was only valid until the next reboot)
8. Download and install ROM Manager by Clockwork from the market.

(ROM Manager)

9. Open ROM Manager and grant superuser permissions when prompted.
10. In ROM Manager click “Flash ClockworkMod Recovery” and wait until it is finished flashing.
11. Run the “Flash ClockworkMod Recovery” flasher *again* to make sure it is really flashed!
12. Download FroydVillain 1.7.3 and save it on your SD card.
13. Backup the contents of your SD card to your computer!
14. Turn off your phone.
15. Turn it back on holding down HOME and POWER. (keep HOME held down for 15sec)

(Clockwork Recovery)

16. You should now boot into Clockwork Recovery (if you don’t, repeat steps 6 – 16)
17. Select Backup/Restore > Nand backup > confirm with Home > Wait until it’s done.
18. select Wipe from the main menu, then select Wipe data/factory reset and confirm.
19. select Wipe cache and confirm.
20. select Wipe Dalvik-cache and confirm
21. Go back to main menu (back button) and select “Flash Zip from SD Card”.
22. Browse to the Froyd1.7.3-R2-signed.zip file you downloaded onto your SD card in step 12.
23. Select the file and confirm.
24. Wait until it’s done, ignore the errors, and reboot.
25. Rebooting will take a bit longer than usual and you will be greeted by the FroydVillain splash screen.

(Android 2.2 in action)

Congratulations, you now have a rooted Froyo based HTC Hero!

Enjoy!

i finally had time to make myself new websites. one for my art related portfolio, one for my work related stuff. i cleaned up this blog too – only the posts related to my work and art are still here, all the political rants, allday-life shenanigans, and all that jazz moved over to mutanten.org/blog/flux where it blends in nicely.

i watched the sequel of Crank last night, without any expectations in quality and plot – but i was stunned! the video camera work is faster and shakier with fast cuts and beautiful fish-eye sequences – like a music video of aphex twin or squarepusher. the music is hysteric and ingenius with cranky sound effects and a more than fitting musical selection. all in all it’s a fine piece of 90min video-art with adrenaline and testosterone overdose…

the flick is peppered with graphical elements and typographic delicacies, live-visuals style kaleidoscope effects and colors and contrast always crisp to the max. there are psychedelic sequences, illustrated sequences, super8-aestetics, a really absurd long shot tribute to godzilla movies.

the characters are exaggerated comic heroes reminding me a lot of robert rodriguez archetypical figures. couldn’t be better! the appearance of  david carradine as a life-craving horny old chinese triad gangster drooling over busty young whores is hilarious considering his current absurd death.

if you have strong nerves, are used to bloody gore mayhem, explicit language with funny brit accent and a b-movie fan, video or VJ art geek, you will definetly enjoy this flick as much as i did.

5 out of 5 stars!

trailer at apple.com