minus 24x 
A Manifesto 

by Grenzfurthner 
http://www.monochrom.at/english/

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Things and thoughts advance or grow out from the middle, and that's 
where you have to get to work, that's where everything unfolds. ("On 
Leibnitz", Gilles Deleuze) 

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A specific use is never inherent to an object, even though technical 
demagogues like to claim that it is (cf. the term "self-explanatory" and 
the term "archeological find"). Instead, the use is concatenated with 
the object through definition ("instructions for use"). Turning an 
object against the use inscribed in it (as sociolect of the world of 
things) means probing its possibilities. Indeed, I would like to pound 
in a nail with a power drill, but at the moment the fear of freedom and 
fear of responsibility predominate ... 

Why do I write this? Well ... I came across a book. "Tales from the 
Tech Line". The subtitle identified it as "Hilarious Strange-But-True 
Stories from the Computer Industry's Technical Support Hotlines" 
(Berkeley Books, NY). In it there are stories about people who ask in 
software shops about "Word for Gameboy". Or people who think their 
Netscape beta version doesn't work because they have a VHS computer. Or 
those who evacuate their house because of an Apple error message with 
the bomb icon. Or those who think the mouse is a foot pedal. Or those 
who punch holes into their diskettes to put them in a binder ? or simply 
think that the CD-ROM drive is a coffee cup holder. 

An excerpt: 

  TECH: All right. Now I'd like you to quit any programs you're
  running, and close any windows you've got open.
  
  CALLER: Well, OK ... There are only two windows here in the basement,
  and they're both already closed. 
  
  TECH: No, no ? the windows on your screen ... 

One might think this is poking fun at others. That probably was roughly 
the intention of the publishers as well ? a few laughs at someone else's 
expense. A baleful grin for the woefully stupid. Taking "delight" in the 
ignorance of those not in the know, the smugly esoteric giggle of the 
cognoscenti. It is a joke collection for the happy "winners" of the 
digital two-class society. "Get wired or you are toast." Even the field 
of humor appears to be trimmed to productivity. But wait! Let's change 
the reading! These Luddites(*) of inability are the saving clog in the 
cogs of the machinery of progress; the human factor in the 
simple-mindedness of the programmers of our future. Inability is 
glorious, unknowing is a virtually miraculous deceleration, a sneer at 
the high-speed processes of our capitalist-technological world. Oh dear, 
dear people! Honorable failures! The clicking of your keyboards is the 
erosive crank of the anthropophagous meat grinder that your doing wears 
out. Your "approach" ? the way you use your computer ? makes corporate 
bosses cry and sublimates capitalism with the procession of GRAND 
EMOTIONS into top management. The information age is an age of 
permanently getting stuck. Greater and greater speed is demanded. New 
software, new hardware, new structures, new cultural techniques. 
Life-long learning? Yes. But the company can't fire the secretary every 
six months, just because she can't cope with the new version of Excel. 
They can count their keystrokes, measure their productivity ... but! 
They will never be able to sanction their inability! NEVER! Because that 
is immanent. The Peter Principle has to be applied to humanity as a 
whole, too: one rises higher and higher in the hierarchy of life - until 
one reaches a point where one will no longer be promoted, because one is 
simply too incapable for a new climb. One has reached the level of 
incompetence, where one will ultimately perish miserably. Nothing other 
than a conspiracy of ignorance, both natural and artificially and 
artfully cultivated, can save us from the last step into a world that we 
no longer understand, because it couldn't care less about us. Endless 
possibilities for failure await us. These people cannot be laughed; on 
the contrary: these stories should be read as a eulogy in honor of 
dissidence: The staff member who complains about the fragility of the 
extendable coffee cup holder "24x" on his PC is the fevered nightmare of 
the manual author thinking he has almost reached a didactic 
breakthrough. And just imagine the moment of epistemological panic, in 
which his boss' world collapses, as he is forced to recognize that it 
would have been better to spend the money for developing his CD-ROM 
drive on a pleasant celebration with friends, because his system, 
disastrously determined in principal and transbiologically by human 
consciousness, CANNOT be perceived in the interpretation provided for 
it. His life work is a coffee cup holder, and he expires in mental 
derangement. And his company with him. 

Someone I know recently defined a personally spoken sample as the 
standard error sound in WinNT with the text "Just piss off". Although 
this is hardly congenial and certainly irritating after some time, it is 
more than apt. So be it: go forth and make mistakes - small ones and 
big, nice ones and stupid, trivial and catastrophic. And while we are at 
it: be sure to watch your speellling. 

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(*) Erudite annotation: the English Luddites and German machine wreckers 
of the 19th century defended themselves against new machines in the 
textile industry, which impinged on their work, wages or status. 

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A project of
http://www.monochrom.at/english/