Give me a cheap laptop with wifi. Just for typing text, checking e-mail, reading. I do not need 200 gigabytes for storage (I have seperate harddisks), I do not need fancy programs. I want a text-editor and long battery-life.

With the current trends — like the 100-dollar laptop — it seems that finally the market is catering to my desire…

But then for once, behave accordingly… you think. (Except for books I hardly ever buy unnecessary things. I do not need a new computer).

L. said: ¨Why don you buy one of those mini-laptops? You can even install OSX on them. Take mobile internet, that’s also just 20 euro’s a month now. It’s just what you need¨

Yesterday I bought an Asus EEE PC. The smallest one. I am writing this post on it.

It’s incredible. It’s ridiculous. F. said: “But it’s a toy!”

It feels like a cheap toy. But the cheap toy is so powerful that it just delivers all you need, fast internet, listening to internetradio, watching television, all the websites. Everything is there. Weighs less than a kilo.

I am sure it is much more powerful than I now realize. It has a full Linux-installation and KDE. It’s a while since I used Linux, and the ASUS-launcher that is built on top of it is yes easy to use. Yet it closes off clear access to everything else. (Actually just somewhere on the last page of the manual there a sentence that tells you how to open a terminal from the launcher). So I haven’t figured out how to install new software, and even haven figured out yet where the simple texteditor lives. The computer has OpenOffice, but I prefer a simpler editor for typing. Because I tried out pico in the terminal, and saved a text, and then opened that text by clicking the icon the simpler editor started – but it’s not part of the Asus-gui. No idea where it is.

Of course I checked out how to install OSX. I must say I am a bit daunted by it. It’s something for people who like to spend an evening or two tinkering. I will leave it. Linux is also fine.

There is another reason for not installing OSX.

I thought this Eee Pecee would be for typing, and for on the road. (That will be so good. No spinning harddisk, just all cheap stuff, light and small, not luxurious at all. It means carrying it around without any worries).

But actually, this computer foremost ressembles a portable transistor radio. When cooking you take it to the kitchen to have a bit of music. Or you sit down to watch the news in between. (It’s a radio with television and internet-capabilities). Or to Skype. (It’s a telephone too).

It’s like a radio because the wireless connection is the center of this machine.

So no OSX because a lot of the ‘internet television’ works so much smoother under Linux compared to on a Mac. And the screen is actually quite nice to watch clips fullscreen.

A-and, typing on the small keyboard is okay for me (I have small fingers).

Or as they call it: prss-release, carefully collected RSS-feeds presented as PDF: http://www.prss-release.org. Might seem a superfluous thing to do at first thought, but it exactly gives those volatile blog-posts an extra ‘substance’. I’d love to have a piece of software that would collect and design my rss-feeds into, well, what one can compare to a magazine… I dearly miss good typography and lay-out in my rss-feeds.

(And yes, I am one of those readers that does tinker with the fonts in the OSX-mailprogram to achieve better readability).

Catching a tiny bit of the ATACD-seminars at V2_: http://www.atacd.net/. ANT, mapping and representations of data. For an idea of what this is about: http://www.demoscience.org/.

Next week, thursday March 13th I will be doing a presentation in Groningen, at Sign (Winschoterkade 10, 20.00 – 22.30h), as part of Aymeric Mansoux’ and Marloes de Valk’s project Hello Process, in rand() we trust. Also speaking: Florian Cramer, Adger Stokvisch and Dave Griffiths. See: http://no.systmz.goto10.org/.

It’s the book from which I learned to play chess: Bobby Fischer, Schaaklessen, geprogrammeerde cursus voor beginners en gevorderden (1974). It was a present for my 9th or 10th birthday. I still remember so much of it that I suspect it had a big influence on my strategic/logical thinking. (In so far as I am able to think logically/strategically…) Bobby Fischer – who became worldchampion in 1972, never lost the title according to himself – died this week. The most controversial chess champion.

The book, I now see, is originally from 1966, entitled Bobby Fischer teaches chess, the co-authors are Stuart Margulies, of Basic Systems Inc. (? Basic the computer language?) and Donn Mosenfelder, a leading figure in ‘programmed instruction’. It was published by Xerox. It’s still available at Amazon.ca: http://www.amazon.ca/Bobby-Fischer-Teaches-Chess/.

In some senses everything that happened in professional cycling this year – and in other sports too – is just a preparation for our future. Now Katharina Klüft, who won the women’s pentathlon gold in Athens 2004, is quoted as saying:

“”I have suggested earlier that you could operate a data chip under the skin on athletes on a certain level. Or maybe use a chain ring with a GPS transmitter on the training bag. Then everyone would know where to find us for tests. I wouldn’t complain. I think we are obligated to accept most things to stop doping. You are so supervised anyway so it wouldn’t make much of a difference.”

from: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2007/dec07/dec29news.

Have I not been reading the informed blogs? This is already old: there is apparently a working version of Xanadu – Windows only. Huh? Ted Nelson (yes, the one-and-only Ted Nelson) presents it in a video here, in a Google-talk: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8329031368429444452. Via http://www.futureofthebook.org/archives/2007/10/ted_nelsons_still_on_the_job.html.

Yesterday we had a presentation of JODI in Groningen – as part of the lecture series Future’s Past: Re-Imaging Art and Media, organised by Eric de Bruyn. (We had Alex Galloway two weeks ago, Joost Raessens coming up next week).

Or better, we had a DI-(Dirk Paesmans)-presentation, as Joan Heemskerk couldn’t make it. Dirk and me had ‘stamppot’ and beers beforehand, talking about how the game-art and digital art is doing very well (booming?) now in the NY-art-market, talking about the works of Cory Archangel, and about living in ‘isolated’ Dordrecht.

Here’s some of JODI’s current stuff. Jet Set Willy Variations 1984: http://jetsetwilly.jodi.org/, and they’re part of the Composite Club: http://compositeclub.cc/.

A new work from the German (new media) artist Ralf Baeker: Rechnender Raum. He describes it as follows: “”Rechnender Raum” (calculating space) is a contemplative machine. Strings, weights, leavers and motors are connected to circular neural network. Touching one leaver will release an impulse that runs through the whole system; it will compute its possible states to infinity.” The term ‘Rechnender Raum’ comes from Konrad Zuse, one of the ‘fathers’ of the computer.

Take a look here (also video documentation): http://www.no-surprises.de/rechnender_raum/

Both Anne Helmond and Micheal Stevenson blogged the talk of Alex Galloway. The urls are in the comments, but it would be a shame if you missed them, so here they are:

http://www.annehelmond.nl/2007/10/27/alexander-galloway-the-game-of-war-mediamatic-amsterdam/

http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/2007/10/27/debord-as-programmer-alexander-galloway-on-the-game-of-war/