Stay with me for a second for a bit of over-analysis.

In Crackdown 2 (which, let’s face it, is really just “Crackdown 2.0,” so this applies to Crackdown 1 as well) you play as a cloned bionic called an “Agent” who is working for one of the apparent three forces fighting for control of the city (The Agency). Now, there’s not much plot besides that – a point many of the game’s reviews have noted as a detriment to its “score” (hahahahaha). It is clear, though, from various audio logs you find (yay, audio logs… sigh) that The Agency aren’t exactly the good guys, that there are other forces at work, blah blah blah blaaahhhhhhhhhh….

The point being that the world might be complex, but you are stuck working for The Agency. There is no choice in this matter. (Well I haven’t yet completed the game – maybe there is a twist? Eh, probably not.) If you run off and try to kill the Peacekeepers (the police force), ignore objectives for too long, or purposefully fail at your missions, the Agency Director (always a voice in your head) will berate you and even has the capacity to punish you!

It’s kind of odd. And what is even more odd about the Agency Director is that he appears to be aware you are playing a game. He will relish in the times that you earn an achievement (“Enjoy your achievement! You earned it!”), delight at your kills (“Your first Cell kill! Feels good, doesn’t it?”), and mock your failures (“Haha fire burns, doesn’t it?”).

It’s possible to say this is where Crackdown 2 just gives up on having any semblance of story and just wants to be an entertaining game. Nothing wrong with that. You can still have a good game that way.

But what if this strange game-self-awareness is actually intentional?

What if the real reason your character has no real free will in Crackdown 2 is that he is essentially a game slave in “real life,” driven only by his desire to earn experience and achievements as they are dolled out by the self-serving Agency Director?

The game-within-a-game mechanics are designed to make your Agent unaware of the complexities of what they are doing. Your Agent’s only intent is to complete objectives, earn experience and power, and leave a total path of death and destruction in his wake, just as The Agency wants it to be.

Also interesting are the civilians in the game. They seem aware of the game-like trick being played on your character, but unaware that they’re in a game themselves. When I was playing it last night, a civilian on the street yelled: “What do you think this is your personal playground? People live here you know!”

If this is true, then Crackdown 2’s theme implies that game mechanics can be used to disconnect the human brain from the real reasons for its decisions. As long as one is constantly supplied with achievable, interesting, but totally meaningless, goals, the brain will push the body on to meet them.

Is the brain really capable of falling for such a trick? Surely not all the time. There are critical people out there who would no doubt say “no!” if they appeared one day in an Agency power suit. But, well, how many people do you know of worked for 30 years at the same job just to be awarded with nothing more than a gold watch and a pat on the back?

Of course, it’s not like our brain wants to be fully aware of everything we do. This is where things like Epic Win, an iPhone app that links daily chores to xp and other game-like goals, are brilliant. Daily household chores are mostly meaningless and simply not worth thinking about. Using game mechanics to make them more interesting and fun makes perfect sense.

But what about killing other people? Already, real war is becoming more robotic and disconnecting. More game-like. Apparently the jury is still out on how dangerous that might be, but Crackdown 2’s vision of the future implies that it’s lethal.

You do know that all that information you give Facebook they use against you, right? From your name and your age to your photos and everything else. They use it to create marketing and advertising perfectly targeted towards you and your friends. It’s totally evil!

Ok, the above quote isn’t actually attributed to anyone. It’s more of a paraphrase. A sentiment that you and I both have probably heard quite frequently as of late. Now, my point here is not to directly defend Facebook and what it does, but if you think about it for a second, is that even possible?

To take your all of your personal information, no matter how expansive of a data set it might be, and use it to perfectly suggest a product that you will absolutely be helpless to purchase seems like an AI-complete problem to me. It would require computers to be as intelligent to people. No matter how much data a system had to work with, how many cross-compares of similar demographics it could draw from, and how many habits it knows, it would never figure out that like my lawn mower in red, and he likes it it green. At least not until it could know what it’s like to be human. The truth is humans just end up being different in very boring, undefinable ways, no matter how similar their data might be.

For example, why are these oh-so-famous famous identical twins, who have nearly the exact same demographics, upbringing and everything, sporting different clothes and hairstyles?

The idea of using demographic information to perfectly target ads is probably very attractive to Facebook’s advertisers, to be sure. That’s probably why they will do nothing to kill that myth. I also have no doubt that targeted ads will be capable of making better suggestions then the television ever could. I just think the paranoia just might not be worth it.

So if what artificial intelligence is solved? Well the computer / robot uprising and the complete eradication of the human race will take place, of course. No worries about being shown the most perfect pair of socks ever then.

And if you know what, even those real humans who know the equivalent of 1000 petabytes of data about you will still fail at making halfway good suggestions sometimes. (“Uh yea, the sweater… uh… is nice, Mom….”)

Anyway. Just another reason to stop worrying and love the internet. That’s all.

(The title for this post comes from this comic.)

The ironic thing is that total immersion, by definition, has already existed for pretty much forever. Humans have a long legacy of created entertainments that have had the ability separate our souls from our bodies, our pain, and our lives – even if it is just momentarily. From the first fire we ever gazed into to the best book we ever read, total immersion exists. Yet video game makers are selling immersion snake-oil by the billions. I’m talking about motion controllers, plug in guitars, 3D glasses, etc. Even achievements. These things have their place, to be sure, but perhaps it’s time to finally recognize them for what they are: hollow prophylactics substituting for a better created experience and our disbelief that video games are legitmate.

The Nintendo Wii was of course the OG of this whole thing. It’s success with so-called non-gamers was astounding. That said, if you weren’t a gamer before you got a Wii, then i’m guessing you were simply someone who didn’t have the time, imagination, or belief that video games could be immersive experiences. No offense meant. I don’t hold this against you. This was probably the “big idea” behind the Wii in the first place.

I was right there with you. I present a photo of my very tired significant other proudly showing our line ticket for a Nintendo Wii on release day:

I too believed that the Wii would make video games themselves better experiences.

Of course, I was a pre-Wii gamer too. I guess I forgot that I already had experienced many moments of immersion playing them throughout the years. Here’s an example screenshot of a particularly memorable one (not actually taken by me but used to prove this point):

Not exactly the most mind blowing and exciting looking thing is it? It’s from Silent Hunter 3 – a video game that simulates a submarine. This screenshot portrays a particularly sphincter-tightening moment where several enemy ships have been sighted on the horizon. Oblivious to the grinding pain in my mousing arm, I am in an emotional panic, plotting an intercept course as quickly as I can. Somewhere, off in the distance, my mother is saying something about me doing my homework….

I truly hope the same moments are happening with “non-gamers” become gamers elsewhere, thanks to things like the Wii, because it means we can get over these fake total immersion pieces of crap and get down to really what will create better experiences: better games, and allowing ourselves to enjoy them for what they are.

Consider books. Books, for the most part, have no gimmicks. In fact, they may be one of the least gimmicky mediums ever. They are words on a page. All of the immersion happens in your head, as you read and interpret/imagine what is happening. I’m man enough to admit I have read books that made me cry. So there’s your emotional involvement. Why was that not total immersion? Why do we think that only some kind of weird VR suit is the only way to feel total immersion?

One day we actually will have that magical machine we plug into that lets us smell the virtual flowers and taste the virtual water. But if the experience to “immerses” us, it will have nothing to do with the machine, and everything to do with the flowers and the water. The best way to truly create total immersion is by creating better experiences. Now that we we have a broader acceptance of the idea that that video games just might be capable of involving us emotionally, it’s time to take the next step, and let them do just that.

Keith is someone that my younger brother went to college with. He’s a good looking guy that knows how to skateboard fairly well. He also knows quite a lot about fancy mixed drinks. I met him once IRL and at the time he had red hair but that was not his natural hair color. He used to travel a lot for work but now it sounds like he is settling down. He’s been playing Borderlands a lot, which is a good game. You can follow Keith’s adventures at Twitter.

That Google Buzz kerflufle was scary, huh? No one wants their personal address book viewable to the world. Big mistake on Google’s part, no argument there. And things are just getting scarier in your private areas all the time now, huh? Did you see Please Rob Me? WT ever-loving F! Now, just because you use Twitter, someone can come to your house and steal your shit! And my god, all this time, you’ve been giving people like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon your files, your photos… your lives! Not to mention those blog posts you’ve just been willing publishing – those babies are gonna’ probably get you fired or worse. Oh Jesus, you just now realized it’s only a matter of time until that picture of you dropping trow at the university football game appears on Failblog.org….

And that is what is a thousand times scarier than anything having to do with Google Buzz, Internet: how you’re reacting to it. You’re turtling. Hiding. Feeling more fear about privacy and “internet presence” then ever before. The thing is, that kind of thinking is going to ruin you long before Google Buzz ever does. Hiding is not your thing, Internet. Sharing is.

One of my favorite South Park episodes is Timmy 2000. (If you’ve never seen it, you can watch it for free here). Not only does Timmy 2000 expose one of the most evil drugs ever created (Ritalin) for what it really is, but it also tells a related story about a retarded kid named Timmy who becomes a singer in band. Of course, this offends many, who immediately assume that the band, or the audience, is there to make fun of Timmy (whose gruff, over-excited, repetitive yelling of his own name pairs perfectly with the band’s music). Never mind, of course, the fact that Timmy actually wants to be in the band, and is quite enjoying rocking out the whole time – something apparently obvious only to South Park’s children.

Timmy 2000 so brilliantly shows us that the people that are offended by Timmy aren’t trying to protect Timmy from mockery, but are actually trying to hide ever having to deal with him in the first place. Like all the stupid, offensive, and just plain evil crap on the internet, Timmy, being there, in your face, forces you to deal with him. And, more importantly, Timmy is not rotting away in safe misery inside his house and out of the way of others. He is actually happy. Of course, make no mistake, he could get hurt. Putting someone or something out there for mockery always has the chance to cause hurt. What’s more harmful though is never giving that person or thing the chance to be laughed at to begin with.

There are kids, being born today, who will basically grow up entirely on the Internet. Unlike us old people, these kids will not know a whole lot about the world or themselves before they start sharing their lives with pretty much anyone who wants to watch. They are probably going to do some pretty stupid shit. Doing stupid shit is part of being a kid. It’s how you grow up and learn. Doing stupid shit is part of being an adult sometimes too. Are we really going to tell everyone to stop doing stupid shit? Isn’t the freedom and capability for anyone, anywhere to do stupid shit on the Internet part of what makes the Internet what it is? Part of the social and self discovery we get out of it?

It seems there are two places we can go from here:

The first is a world where suddenly being stupid matters a lot less, and what you do with it matters more. Where, yea, we piss each other off, and we don’t all get along, but at least we accept that the internet is probably big enough for all of us. (It does scale, after all.) That would be nice.

The second is basically something I can only describe as debilitating cultural self-oppression. A world where we all mutually agree that the internet is a place to conform, comply, and go unchallenged, and if you can’t do that then get the hell off – this is not a tool for you. Perfectly cull each tweet. Never post anything even just a little odd to Facebook. And if you do, it had better please the maximum number of people. It had better obtain the maxiumum amount of whuffie. And it it does not, it shouldn’t have been posted in the first place. Of course, if this is how things go, most would simply decide to never post anything at all, just to be safe. Never try and you will never fail.

Or as straight responds to another commenter in this thread on Metafilter:

I live by a simple rule: Don’t do anything on the internet that you wouldn’t want somebody knowing about.

Don’t be a union organizer. Don’t be a whistleblower. Don’t offer ‘lay’ advice in your field of expertise. Don’t stand up for anyone who is unpopular. Don’t comfort a victim of trauma by sharing your own very personal traumatic story. Don’t ask questions about sex or any other embarrassing topic. Don’t participate in an investigation of powerful people or corporations. Don’t put out feelers for other job opportunities when you’ve already got a job. Don’t tell jokes that would offend your mother or your boss or your grandma’s minister or your ten-year-old nephew or your next-door neighbor. Don’t criticize the government. Never write a love letter more personal than a Hallmark Greeting Card.

Just conform. You’ll have nothing to worry about.

I had my moment too, Internet, where I freaked out about the Google Buzz thing. I wanted to stop sharing completely, to be honest. But I’ve since changed my mind. Because I’ve learned it’s OK to show a little fail. It’s just inevitably going to happen if you choose share your life with others. Now, I’m not saying the thing to do in response is immediately go publish a picture of your penis to your Flickr. I’m merely saying we could all stand to relax about this stuff just a teeny, tiny bit. And better yet, have the bravery to keep doing what you do, even after Google broke your heart. Know that we’re all going to be around for a very long time, we are all going to be stupid, and with that we can all learn and change. Dare to Tweet stupid. That’s really what you’re all about, internet, you big, lovely mess.

Love,

Brett

(Thanks to George for some conversations and links that helped inspire this post.)

Game mechanics, reward systems, flow theory, all come from our learning about how and why people do “work.” Concepts therein have been bandied around since Karl Marx, and even before, but I think they have never been so well articulated and exploited until now with computer and video games. Being able to achieve and accomplish something in a completely non-tangible, non-permanent way for hours at a time has to mean something about us and how we function – or prefer to function, more specifically. Of course games are designed to change “work” into “fun,” which helps, but it’s almost scary how that “fun” can be essentially the same “fun” again and again. (Not counting for minor derivatives.)

But then consider the web. One of the last big web buzzwords was “user generated content.” I would argue that’s an idea on the verge of a pretty big backlash. It’s getting stale, and has a fatal flaw. Just submitting links to Digg and seeing them rise to the top isn’t gratifying or meaningful anymore. There is an inherent game there, but it hasn’t been exploited. Rather than choose to make a better game, sites like Digg are just struggling to make a buck. This is the flaw, because of course when that happens too much and in the wrong ways it upsets the community, who helped Digg get this far to begin with.

I believe web visitors getting more and more jaded about giving you content without getting a reward or at least a carrot on a stick in return. This reward doesn’t have to be tangible, but it has to be there. “User generated content” should become “user gamed content.” There are sites like Buzzfeed, for example, whether or not they admit it, that behave much more like a game. Buzzfeed is no Digg, of course, at least not yet.

Related: No doubt you’ve seen this checkout terminal at Target….

If you do manage get in, please try to be logged in for a couple of hours and do not use any 3rd party applications. We think this might a cache issue on our end.

Grr…

I have been replaying Call of Duty 4 on Veteran difficulty for the last few days in preparation for November. If you’ve never played the game, every time you die (which is something that happens lot of on Veteran – the hardest difficulty), you are briefly shown a war-related quote. Some are are humorous, others very serious. Taken together it’s not hard to see that they’re meant to form a discussion about war, the nature of war, and specifically the impetus behind the modern war on terror that was arguably at its peak around the time of the game’s release (November 2007).

It’s very clear that the game is not pro-war, nor anti-war, but simply trying to grapple with the apparent trait of human nature of making war and costs therein. (Some of the quotes even state the literal costs of war, such as the price of a single Tomahawk Missile or B-2 Bomber ). The overall story of the game itself also encapsulates these ideas, but the death-screen quotes really drive it home.

I forgot how impressed I was by this idea at the time and am still impressed now. Something about the “release” you feel when you die in the game for the 200-th time and combining that with a thoughtful quote about exactly what the game is trying to simulate makes the whole experience very self-aware.

Game FAQs: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare: War Quote List by Drunky.

Poker is the game closest to the western conception of life, where life and thought are recognized as intimately combined, where free will prevails over philosophies of fate or of chance, where men are considered moral agents and where – at least in the short run – the important thing is not what happens but what people think happens. – John Lukacs

[ via ]

If gin was the lubricant for moving into an urban, industrial society, then perhaps gaming is surging because it is the lubricant for moving into an age even more dramatically alienating.

Many people I talk to about games say that games are particularly gratifying after a day at work where they felt like they “did nothing.” The mechanics of games – especially the good ones – are such that you always work on something achievable and the subsequent rewards are always psychically tangible.

Examples include grinding for a new set of armor in WoW, beating your high score, or simply doing some weird stuff in Civ IV just to see what happens. You can actually do “something” in a game and feel it, vs the nothing you did all day otherwise.

The truth is most of us are doing things at our jobs, but the results are invisible and spiritually meaningless. What is actually happening when you spend the whole day filing TPS reports? Seems
like nothing.

It’s Marx’s alienation version 2.0, and gaming might be how we respond.

(These thoughts inspired in part by a talk with my brother and, ironically, a lot of gin.)

it’s a secret to everybody (by @n0wak)

An ode to blue, oh blue how much you annoy me. (by @tionm)

I get different results often for various phrases. I wonder why.

bork bork bork

Enough.

Using Kickstarter, we will start a massive fund-raising effort that with the express purpose of forming a cash offer for obtaining all Delicious code, user data, branding, IP, etc. from Yahoo! Inc.

If the purchase is successful, Delicious will be reformed as a nonprofit, charitable organization not unlike Wikimedia/Mozilla, with the express purpose of continuing to provide the services that Delicious already provides, as well as upholding the promise of keeping its visitor’s data safe, innovation constant, and its core-values in check. It will be operated by a knowledgeable board of directors, and its course will be directed by the thousands of user donations, grants, and other fund-raising efforts it will need to stay alive.

I mean no offense to Delicious founder Joshua Schachter with this idea. I respect the man immensely and I do not see his decision to sell Delicious to Yahoo! as a mistake. Given the same opportunity, I would have probably done the same thing back then.

But now, Delicious’ very purpose is threatened by a company that is failing in every way to recognize the significance of what they bought back in 2005. To respond to this, your choices right now are either to leave Delicious, re-write Delicious, or let your bookmarks dwindle and then die at Yahoo!. Unfortunately, all of these options are selfish, and discard the greater idea that Delicious can stil be the ultimate socialized index of the web, has a purpose greater than just making a few bucks, and needs its contributors faith and participation to complete that mission.

So, our last option is to speak Yahoo!’s language, and pay the price.

Yes, I realize this is totally insane. The price is undoubtedly in the millions. The chances Yahoo! will accept our offer are slim to none. Kickstarter may not support something to this scale. There probably thousands of eccentricities and gotchas involved in even executing a deal like this. I can’t really think of anyone who has ever actually bought back a website from a company. But if the slow demise of Yahoo! shows us anything, it shows us that there is no precedent on the web.

Please leave your thoughts in the comments.

Remember This?, originally uploaded by negatendo.

]]> http://negatendo.net/blog/2009/07/29/remember-this/feed/ 0 http://negatendo.net/blog/2009/05/16/wolframalpha-and-screen-scraping/ http://negatendo.net/blog/2009/05/16/wolframalpha-and-screen-scraping/#comments Sat, 16 May 2009 18:21:13 +0000 Brett O'Connor http://negatendo.net/blog/?p=929 Perhaps the oddest thing about Wolfram|Alpha is that the text that appears in query results is not text at all, but is in fact made up of dynamically generated GIFs:

The Wolfram|Alpha FAQ claims:

All output content is rendered as images, for consistency.

Of course, a sentiment like that would make any web designer jump off a bridge. Considering all the other nice UI nuances that Wolfram|Alpha has, I call bullshit. It’s not about visual consistency.

I think it’s an attempt at preventing what is quickly becoming the bane of any informative website’s existence: screen scraping.

Screen scraping is, of course, using a script or bot to extract data from the visual output of a page. A web screen scraper digs out the needed data from the HTML source and formats it accordingly. This technique is used to subvert APIs, feeds, etc. when these “legally provided” methods of access don’t give you what you need. Of course, it’s also a way to really piss the people who run the website off, because screen scraping is typically immune to throttling and data control, unlike an API or feed, which can be monitored and cached.

And notably, it appears that this kind of control is of the utmost interest to Wolfram|Alpha, as it’s part of their “Step 3: Profit!” plan (also from the FAQ):

Subscriptions will be available in the near future with enhanced features for large-scale and commercial use.

That said, I can’t imagine it would be very difficult to write an OCR like re-texter for data scraped from Wolfram|Alpha.

When that happens will they have to change it so all the text looks like a smear of CAPTCHA images?

What do you think about this solution to screen scraping?

Appeared on Animated Gifs from Delicious.

You know the feeling.

Now gaming is all about flow theory and keeping players reaching for the next carrot on a stick.

Reading through World of Warcraft’s patch notes over these so many years is like a history of this shift in thinking. Many of the tweaks Blizzard has done to the game have involved changing out what they thought would be “realistic” fun with “efficient” fun. The epitome of this is Blizzard’s recent decision to remove the need for ammunition for the hunter class.

Think about what excited people about Spore before it came out…. Will Wright was basically going to achieve his masterwork: simulating an entire planet. What we got, though, was a bunch of typical, safe, and “engaging” game types put under one roof. A popular theory about where Spore went wrong is that it was too ambitious. I can’t help but wonder what really happened was that the Spore team realized no one wanted to play a simulator anymore. That no one had the time or imagination to enjoy something like that these days.

Other examples: Microsoft Flight Simulator team cut. The mockery around NASA’s MMO (read the comments).

That said, I’m surprised that despite this new movement towards frugality, millions of people continue to participate in the single worst savings plan ever. This savings plan takes a chunk of every paycheck you get and loans it to the US Government for the rest of the year – totally interest free. (Not even the savings account at your evil bank is so greedy.) The US Government keeps most of it at the end of the year, but the leftovers it gives back. I am of course talking about tax withholding.

When you get your tax refund this year, you are simply being paid back for that free loan. It’s money you gave Uncle Sam for no reason whatsoever. The irony is that you don’t have to give them that loan, and you can use that money to make more money. This is all providing you have the financial discipline to do it; which we all do now that we’re all frugal and stuff, right?

All you do is take the money you would normally give the govt. and put it into an interest bearing account. Then, at the end of the year, you pay the govt. what you owe for taxes, and keep the rest. And that, unlike your tax refund, is actual free money.

For example, say you make $30,000 per year. $400 of it per month is held for taxes. At the end of the year, you get a refund of $200 (meaning you paid $4,600 in taxes – better work on those deductions). Anyway, there you are, at the end of the year with $200 back towards that Wii that you’ve been excited to buy. Too bad you’re $50 short of the Wii’s retail price but eh I guess that will just have come out of your pocket….

Sigh, kind-of free Nintendo Wii.

However, lets say that instead you went and talked to Human Resources and asked them to withhold no money for taxes this year. Now, this means that your paycheck will be bigger because no taxes are being taken out. Don’t think for a second that you actually have more money. At least not yet. You instead are going to take $400 out of every paycheck (or whatever is appropriate for your tax bracket) and put it into some kind of account that, let’s just pretend, is has a nice 2.3% interest rate (such as a high interest savings account, money market, etc.).

Now comes tax time. Checking in on that account, you see that thanks to compound interest, you have turned that $4800 you set aside into $4850. Of course, first you have to pay the tax man. So there goes a huge chunk of that money – $4600 – and then you’re left with $250!

Dude, totally free Nintendo Wii!

OK, I admit there is a trick. If you choose to go this route, the US Government will likely still find a way to take your money on a regular basis through what are called quarterly estimated taxes. That said, as long as you keep up the habit of taking out that money out from your paycheck (as well as any other earnings), you can pay those quarterly estimated taxes from your interest bearing account and still make a little extra cash. You will still benefit from taking your own withdrawals rather than just handing them over to Uncle Sam. It’s really all about taking control of your money, and making it do something more than just sit on its ass at the IRS.

Disclaimer: Everyone’s financial situation is different. Always consult a professional tax consultant before following the advice of some random guy who has a weird space cat picture on his blog.

For Smartasses: I know that technically only a small portion of the Nintendo Wii is free, and the rest of it you paid for with your own money. It’s a play on how people respond to the “free” money they get from their tax refund. I am also aware that my numbers are pretty wonky. I was trying to get to the end retail price of a Nintendo Wii. Finally, you will still have to pay additional taxes on interest earned. It’s a simplified scenario, OK?

Google Malware Warnings : Saturday Jan 31 2009 : Screenshot Taken for Prosperity

So then why not then move Bittorrent out of the home/office and into the cloud? This weekend I was able to do just that with great success. Using Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and TorrentFlux (a web-based Bittorrent manager which runs on top of Bit Tornado). I created a web-based, open-source Bittorrent “machine” that liberated my network and leveraged Amazon’s instead. I can access it from anywhere, uploading Torrent files from wherever, and manage them from my iPhone. I also pay only for what I use – which by my estimates will hopefully be less than $30 per month Update: (That was a quick and not-so-thorough estimate. For some silly reason I didn’t account for the fact that the instance was probably going to have to be on all of the time. Once I gather some real data on how much it costs I’ll be sure and update this post. I agree it’s probably going to be over $75/month. Real data to follow.) And the best part? My ratio is maintained while my Left 4 Dead games speed along without any annoying lag.

If you think you might be interested in doing the same thing, please read on for a thorough HOWTO.

The first thing to do is sign up for Amazon Web Services, which will give you access to Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) service. Amazon EC2, as you may already know, essentially lets you “run” a computer on Amazon’s infrastructure, paying for only the processing, space, and bandwidth you use.

WARNING: When you sign up for the service, you will of course have to agree to Amazon AWS’s TOS, which includes a promise that your EC2 instance will not be one that:

Distributes, shares, or facilitates the distribution of unauthorized data, malware, viruses, Trojan horses, spyware, worms, or other malicious or harmful code (collectively, “Harmful Components”).

So piracy is bad, mmmmkay?

Once you’ve signed up, you’ll next need to log-in to The AWS Management Console. This is where you’ll be setting up and managing all the virtual “hardware” you’ll need to get this thing running.

I suggest first starting with what’s called a “Security Group.” Basically, this is the firewall for your machine. You’ll want to make a security group that allows access to the instance over SSH, Web, and of course also includes a range of ports open for Bittorrent. Click the “Security Groups” link and then the “Create Security Group” button. Name your security group something like “TorrentFlux” and give it whatever description you see fit. Then click “Create.”

Once the security group is created, you’ll see a table appaear via which you can configure the ports for this Security Group. First, using the drop-down provided, select HTTP, and then click “Save,” followed by SSH, and then “Save” for that row as well.

Finally you’ll want to open up a range of ports for Bittorrent. Select “Custom,” “TCP” and enter 49160 for the “From Port” and 49300 for the “To Port.” Use the same “Source,” 0.0.0.0/0, as the other services, and then press save.

Now to create your EC2 instance. Clicking on the “Instances” link will take you to the list of EC2 instances you have running. Click the “Launch Instances” button to add a new instance.

The dialog will present you with a variety of pre-configured instances, called Amazon Machine Images or AMIs, that you can get started with. I’m an Ubuntu guy, and at this time while there are no “official” Ubuntu AMIs, the community is hard at work on several Ubuntu and Debian AMIs for Amazon EC2. For this project, I suggest using the Ubuntu AMI provided by alestic, which while in beta now, will in the future will be recognized as the “official” AMI for Ubuntu. They also already include most everything you’ll need to get started – including plenty of hard disk space.

Switch over to the “Community AMIs” tab and filter the list by entering in the text ami-1c5db975 where it says “Viewing:” This will bring up the 32-bit base Hardy AMI recommended for use by alestic. Then, just click the “Select” button.

Next Amazon will ask how many instances you want to run (just say “1″), and the Instance Type (“Small” will save you money and work just fine).

It will also ask you to select a key pair. Basically, this is an SSH key pair that you’ll use to log in to the machine. If you’ve never used Amazon EC before, you’ll need to press the “Create” button here, name your keypair, and then download it. Put this file somewhere safe and don’t ever share it with anyone! Just like the keys to your house, this is the key to your machine. You don’t use a password to log into EC2 instances – just this key.

You’ll also need to select a Security Group before you can launch your instance. Simply select the TorrentFlux group that you created earlier, and then click “Launch Instance.”

It might take a few minutes for your instance to initialize. Once it’s done, it’s time to login to your instance and start configuring it. If, in the Instance list, you click the “Connect” button after selecting your new instance, you’ll see a few important bits of information that you’ll want to take note of.

First, take note of your instance’s public DNS. (Mine is blurred out in the screenshot above.) Not only is this the address you’re going to use to connect to your server, it’s also going to be the web address you will use to connect to TorrentFlux once it’s up and running.

You’ll also want to note the command line it provides. This is the SSH command you’ll use to connect to your sever. Note that it uses the key you downloaded previously to connect. There will be no password! You just need that key, and then you’re in as root. The details of using SSH is kind of beyond the scope of this HOWTO, but search around if you need help.

Go ahead and connect to your instance using the command provided (changing the path to your key to be wherever you put it).

Update: I’ve received a few emails regarding issues with connecting using your SSH key. If you get prompted for a password, or see other errors, chances are the permissions for your key are wrong. Basically, your SSH key needs to be read/write owner – nothing more and nothing less – or problems may occur. Here’s what the permissions should look like:

-rw------- 1 bretto bretto 1675 2009-01-12 08:33 brettokey.pem

You’ll also of course have to accept the host key before you can fully connect. Once you do though, you’re in! Welcome to your new Amazon EC2 computer. Time to run updates!

Issue this command to make sure you’re running with the latest-greatest (which, considering you’re starting with a very bare bones Hardy installation, won’t take long).

$apt-get update && apt-get upgrade -y

Of course, do not type the $ symbol. That is only meant to depict a shell command.

Next you’re going to want to let Ubuntu know that you’re not running anything from a front end. This will prevent dialog boxes and such from pop-ing up and preventing the installation of the additional software we need to install.

$export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive

Now it’s time to install Apache Web Server, PHP, and MySQL – everything TorrentFlux needs to do its thang. Issue this command to start that process:

$apt-get install apache2 php5 php5-mysql mysql-server-5.0

Follow along with the install and, once it’s complete, try to access that public DNS name you noted earlier in your web browser. The URL will probably be something like http://ec2-SOME-AMOUNT-OF-NUMBERS.compute-1.amazonaws.com. If you see “It Works!” well, then, it works! You now have a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL PHP) server running live on Amazon’s infrastructure – only a few more steps left.

Now to download and install TorrentFlux. TorrentFlux is hosted on Sourceforge.Net, so as soon as you access the download it will start to send the file to your local computer. Cancel this download, copy the direct link to the file, and then issue this command on your new EC2 instance, substituting the link to provided with the one you copied:

$wget http://mirror.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/torrentflux/torrentflux_2.4.tar.gz

Extract it:

$tar -zxf torrentflux_2.4.tar.gz

Remove the tar file if you like and then rename the directory to “torrentflux:”

$rm torrentflux_2.4.tar.gz
$mv torrentflux_2.4 torrentflux

NOTE: The file names shown above may not be exactly like yours.

Your EC2 instance will include 120 GiB of space mounted at /mnt, which should be enough for a good amount of Bittorrent fun. You’ll want to create your data directory there, and assign it the correct permissions as well so that TorrentFlux can access it.

$mkdir /mnt/torrentflux-data
$chmod 777 /mnt/torrentflux-data

Now move into your torrentflux install:

$cd torrentflux

Create the MySQL database that TorrentFlux will use:

$mysqladmin create torrentflux

And import the initial tables and data provided by TorrentFlux:

$mysql torrentflux < sql/mysql_torrentflux.sql

The final step is configuring Apache to direct web requests to the TorrentFlux html directory. Edit the default site config (here I am using the vim editor. Substitute for the editor of your choice.):

$vim /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default

There, you'll want find and change the document root to:

DocumentRoot /root/torrentflux/html/

And the path to the default directory to be that same patch:

<Directory /home/torrentflux/html/>

If you have trouble finding those lines, here's the configuration file in its entirety.

Save your changes, exit your editor, and then restart apache.

$apache2ctl restart

Now browse to your web address name again. If you see a login dialog, you've got TorrentFlux installed and working properly. Login with whichever username and password you like - this first login will become the admin login and password for your TorrentFlux install.

You'll then be presented with a list of settings to configure. For the most part, you can leave all of them alone, although feel free to tweak as you see fit. The only thing you must change is the path to where downloads are stored. Change it to the directory you created earlier:

/mnt/torrentflux-data/

Congrats! You're good to go. TorrentFlux will behave like many other Bittorrent clients you have used in the past. You can upload or point TorrentFlux directly to torrent files and it will queue them up to download. Then, click the "Run Torrent" (little green down-arrow button) to start downloading. When downloads are complete, TorrentFlux will continue seeding as long as you specify. To download completed files to your local computer, go to the "Directory" area and click the download button. TorrentFlux with tar-up the data and send it your way.

Enjoy Bittorrenting in the cloud. Feel free to leave any feedback or questions in the comments.

What I mean is Twitter should have some special character that signifies that you would like to ask a special feature of the service. It would have to be something that would be available on mobile phones etc. of course, like a colon or dollar sign.

Example. For a direct message, instead of typing this:

d mymom Please send more underwear to me at camp. Ones without my name on them.

You would type this (note the colon):

:d mymom Please send more underwear to me at camp. Ones without my name on them.

That way, not only could people once again start sentences with D (a nickname for a friend, perhaps?), if you entered the wrong command, like this:

:dm mymom Please send more underwear to me at camp. Ones without my name on them.

… your message would be discarded or an error would be returned, saving you any further embarrassment.

So how about it?

For a long time I wasn’t entirely sure why I begin to use Linux as my primary computing platform. The Open Source idea had a lot to do with it, for sure, but I am no Open Source zealot. At most I’m a polite evangelist – when I have the energy. I am definitely a hacker, to be sure, but you can hack any OS to a pretty high degree if you really want (and don’t seem to be bothered by that little DMCA thing). It helped of course that pretty much everything I use a computer for plays well with Linux too, but still there was something more to it. Something I think I only now understand thanks to the Slow Food movement.

The Slow Food movement is, of course, a response to the modern, industrialized foods that are slowly killing us. Starting with base, organic ingredients, you work to create a healthy and complete meal that is not only as socially responsible as it can be, but is also more fulfilling consume.

And that’s exactly it. Using Linux is more fulfilling than using any other operating system.

While using Linux takes a lot more work sometimes – just like making slow food – the end product is something that you are familiar with to it’s very core, and it feels good to use it. To outsiders this is seen as the highest levels of computer geekiness, to be sure, and perhaps a little insane. It’s natural to wonder why a Linux user spends 12 hours to configure their wireless, or spends months writing code that they give away for “free.” Well, the reasoning, in many ways, is the same as to why a Slow food Person might spend months in their garden growing lettuce just to merely make a simple salad. Knowing that the end product is so good and pure, and your hard work was a key part of that process, makes everything about it better.

If we take Slow Food USA’s answer to “What is Slow Food:”

Slow Food is an idea, a way of living and a way of eating. It is a global, grassroots movement with thousands of members around the world that links the pleasure of food with a commitment to community and the environment.

And make a few substitutions:

Linux is an idea, a way of living and a way of computing. It is a global, grassroots movement with thousands of members around the world that links the pleasure of computing with a commitment to the open source community and the computing environment.

That sounds just about right.

fireland Well, it’s official: I’m the only person on alt.tv.bosom-buddies.fanfic who still respects the fucking canon.

mike_ftw I’m confused as to how the world went to shit while we sat around using the computational power of a sun to friend & zombie-poke each other.

cockerham One of the head honchos is walking around drinking from a gallon jug of Sunny D. Apparently this is not Sterling Cooper.

cshirky My 4 y.o., pointing @ Twitter: “Is that the internet?” My 7 y.o., older and wiser: “Yes. Everything that isn’t a movie is the internet.”

cnnbrk CNN projects Barack Obama wins election and will become first African American president

At Last, The Lasers, originally uploaded by negatendo.

As a child, every year I wanted the cool laser background for my Junior High school photo more than anything in the world. I mean, lasers! Lasers rule.

Unfortunately I could never convince my parents to spend the extra $4 to make it happen.

However, now with the power of TECHNOLOGY, my dream is at last reality. All thanks to ir0cko’s laser background template.

It’s too bad my Photoshop skillz kinda suck.

Anyway, here’s some pics of the cool kids that I hated back in the day.