I have used Ubuntu Linux for years.  I enjoy using Ubuntu, but the problem I have had lately is that my hardware has aged.  My desktop runs on an AMD Duron CPU.  My laptop runs on an Intel Atom CPU.  My next desktop will likely run with an Intel Atom.  I do not have a need to be cutting edge.  I simply have a need to be able to work from my computer… writing, surfing, emailing.  Nothing more.

Ubuntu worked well for years, but I am tired of it not working after a fresh install or breaking after an upgrade.  On the desktop, it is usually due to my NVidia video card.  I do not have the time or patience to track down fixes.

Debian, on the other hand, works.  I may spend time upfront configuring a few things, but I find it works and updates/upgrades smoothly.

So I contemplate switching from Ubuntu to Debian…  Am I alone in this consideration?

I finished the major draft of my spec script and began eliminating unnecessary scenes, compacting it, and fixing a few ambiguities in the story.  I estimate 20 hours of work left until I can comfortably let it be read.

The problem is finding the time.  I lost my IT job, which helped me finish the story.  But put a severe financial strain on my family.  So I really need a job.  Really need a job.  I submit applications and resumes almost daily.  My location is not a hot bed for IT jobs and in this economy it really sucks.

But how is it I don’t have time to write when I am out of work?  My wife is working full-time toward a bachelor’s degree in nursing and working part-time on the weekends as a CNA at a nursing home.  We have four children.  The youngest three are four-years-old, almost three-years-old, and 17-months-old.  Interruptions never seem to cease.  At their ages, they do not understand Dad is at work.  They see that I am at home… with them!

So I write when I can.  When I don’t have time to write, I carry around index cards and jot down ideas when they come or most often, when I resolve a scene transition or a stubborn scene.  I have written scenes on index cards.  I have also done late night and all night writing sessions.  Whatever it takes.  Writing is my profession.  It just does not pay the bills yet.  I forgo some sleep, but hey… I still function well enough that the kids know I am awake.  Like me sleeping would prevent them anyway.

John August had a recent post on writing.  I agree fully with his views.  To be a writer, be professional and write.  It is that simple.

After years of ignoring my need to write, I now know it is what I have to do.  There was a void in my life not being filled by earning paychecks doing jobs that seemed to suck the life out of me.  Writing fills it.

What bothers me is that my family is now financially caught in this creative gamble that is a spec script.  It may end up breaking my family.  I am willing to drudge through more IT work.  But I am more than willing to go to the edge for my craft.

When I take that next step, I hope my family has climbed upon my back.  I am taking that step for them.

I just signed up for Script Frenzy 2009.  If you want, track my progress in April.

It will be a challenge to fit the needs of work and its daily 2.5-hour commute (damn job), family (blessed part of my life), and running (training for an October marathon)  in with the time needs of writing 100 pages of comedy.  As I type this my day-away-from-one-year-old son squirms upon my lap, my 2-year-old daughter hovers behind me, my day-away-from-four-year-old son pops in from time to time to ask plaguing questions, and my 12-year-old daughter surfs indifferently on her mother’s computer… and I fixed supper for the family (my wife is working a double shift at a local nursing home).

Why add more activity to my day when it is full already?  Because I must.  I am tired of IT.  That’s information technology.  Not it.  I have put aside writing for too long.  Almost 15 years of telling myself that I will write when this or that happens.  Well, it isn’t going to happen unless I make it happen.  Writers write.

Fifteen years ago, I had a short story nominated by an editor for an Illinois Arts Council Award.  He told me he almost nominated it for a Pushcart Prize.  I had completed a novel-length manuscript  and numerous short stories fifteen years ago… and I stopped submitting my work for publication.  I went fifteen years looking for what life could give me and lost fifteen years of seeing what I could give to life.

What the hell am I attempting to say?  If you consider yourself a writer, write.  If you are a web developer, break the browser and then go back and fix the page that broke it.  If you work IT, be an IT worker.  If you are a student, study.  If you are a teacher, strive to teach your students and not just earn a paycheck.  If you are an artist, push yourself and your art to its limits.  If you are a parent, be that guiding force, that upstanding example for your children to emulate as they grow into themselves.  If you are a musician and/or singer, make everything you produce an exploration of music’s soul.  If you are a politician, be a damn statesman or stateswoman and use your own mind instead of your party’s hive mentality.

In short, everyone, simply be professional.  Use your given talents to develop other talents in yourself and in others.  Don’t rest.

You only get one revolution in this frenzied life.  Happily make the most of it.

I have not posted in awhile, very little since I began working at Growmark, Inc. in October.  Part of it was settling into a new job — working my knowledge and skills into the job and adapting to the long commute.  Part of it was the struggle to remain in our home.  A struggle, we lost in March.  Part of it is really being burned out on computers and technology… basically my career path.  Part of it was the arrival of our son, Lennon.  A healthy boy, born on his older brother’s birthday.

Within this mix of changes, I turned 40.  And when any one of the birthdays after 30 places you into the beginning of another decade of life, you cannot help reflecting on the life you have lived and compare it with the life you had hoped to live.  You also cannot help asking yourself questions that you may not have honestly asked yourself in years — heck, decades.

The questions can probe anything.  They may lead to new insights, goals, and directions.  They may affirm the life you have been enjoying.  They may reveal every major lapse of judgment you have made in your life.  You may find answers.  You may find more questions.

The important thing is you come away from the questions with the answers, goals, and plans that will take you into the life you want to lead.  Allow the answers to form your perspective on your life.  Set your goals and plan the steps that will lead toward achieving them.  And let the rest of your days be your renewal.

And as for me…  I am focused on returning to running after several years of being sedentary.  I am focused on writing fiction and screenplays, as well as writing on my blog.  I am focused on my relationships with my wife and children.  I am focused on making more money for my family’s needs.

“Mid-life is the old age of youth, and the youth of old age.” — a proverb

As one year ends and another begins, many people decide to make new year’s resolutions and set goals to aspire to over the next 365-366 days. It serves to give meaning to or create change in the next year of one’s life. For many it may be taking up an exercise routine, losing weight, quitting smoking, eating healthy, etc. Also for many, these resolutions are forgotten not long after with the hangover of New Year’s Day.

To make your resolutions more permanent, write them down. Display them if possible. Every week make a point of review them. This will serve to help instill the resolutions into the positive changes in your life as you envisioned them becoming.

A couple of years ago, I had reached 200 lbs. My knees hurt. I was out of shape. My clothes were no longer fitting me. On New Year’s Day of that year, I made it a goal to eat less, to eat healthy meals. I did not write it down. I made a mental note and did not let myself forget it. Over the course of that year, I watched what I ate. I avoided second and third helpings at meals. I cut out the majority of the fast food and snacks that I had been eating. Without exercise, since my knees would have suffered from it, I managed to lose 40 lbs. I returned to the weight I was in college and my knee pain left. I am able to run again without knee pain or swelling. I am able to play on a hard wood floor with kids without complaining about my knees hurting. I did it by simply not allowing myself to lose sight of my goal.

The goal I set was not to lose 40 lbs. It was simply to lose weight. A goal, a resolution does not have to be specific. Specifics can work against you. They tend to penalize you when you veer of course. Often times, making things specific makes it easier to give up a goal or resolution when you do not adhere to the specifics. Stay with your vision of change, not the specifics. Although you may need them, your vision is your real goal.

Having said this, here are my goals and resolutions for the new year:

• Finish writing the screenplay I began a little over a year ago.

I have been stuck in the Act II blues. Recently, I worked it out. My plot was forced, thus the scenes and characters actions and dialog became forced. The story suffered. I knew where it began to breakdown and decided to simplify the storyline at that point. Once the screenplay is finished, I intend to shop it. If it sells, great. If it does not, I have accomplished my goal of finishing it.

• Write my next screenplay which already has several scenes sketched and the plot’s spine put in place. My goal is to finish writing this screenplay as well in 2008.
• Resume writing my novel. I have always wanted to be a novelist.
• Read daily. Fiction mostly.
• Write daily. A lot of this list depends on it.
• Resume running regularly.
• Repair some bridges and tear down some walls in my life.
• Commit to returning to school to obtain a masters in English and a teaching certificate and/or striving to write for a living. I can do both. I have always felt a need to teach in the public school system. Working as a teacher would afford me more time for writing as well as promoting positive change in the lives of others.

That’s it. Much of it is simply structuring and organizing my time to balance these with being a husband and father.

The key is to keep it simple.

Three years ago my wife surprised me on Christmas Eve with a used 1990 Ford Ranger XLT pickup truck. I had been without a vehicle for over a year and our family just had a Dodge Neon to shuttle us around. The addition of the $1,000 truck gave us some flexibility in providing for our family’s transportation needs.

There was no beauty to it. It simply served to get me to work and back. If it turned heads, it only did so in surprise that such a vehicle could be running. And it did run…

Until this morning when it gave up its ghost, its drive shaft, parts of the clutch assembly, and rear differential broke apart over some very large bumps near the El Paso, Illinois exit on Interstate 39 as I drove to my job in Bloomington.

With the recent foreclosure of our home and the lack of funds to repair the vehicle, we are again left with only one vehicle, our family van.

If only Santa would be so kind as to leave me his sleigh and reindeer this Christmas.

Happy holidays!

Twenty-seven years ago tonight (December 8, 1980), I was a 12-year-old boy sound asleep in my bed. That night was the last night of my life where death held no reality in my life. That innocence died the next morning when my mother awoke us for school with the news that John Lennon had been shot and killed outside his apartment in New York late the previous night.

In January of 1977, my parents moved my family into a new home. The house had an intercom system with a turntable and radio at the control center. One of my fond memories of that house was going to sleep as I listened to music piped through the intercom’s speakers. Most of the music was Christmas songs, the Beatles, or Paul McCartney and Wings. Another thing my siblings and I did was listen to my mother’s early Beatles, Dave Clark Five, Byrds, Rolling Stones 45s and a couple of early Beatles LPs on my father’s old stereo and a Mickey Mouse record player in the basement.

By December 1980, I had a solid appreciation of early- to mid-1960s music. I knew each member of the Beatles. I knew the Beatles had disbanded. I also knew that John’s assassination meant the Beatles would never reunite in the way that every Beatles fan hoped. I spent several hours that week and beyond sequestered from family, so that I could cry without anyone knowing. It affected me deeply, more deeply than anyone realized, even to this day.

That Christmas I got John Lennon’s and Yoko Ono’s “Double Fantasy” album. Listening to the album opened another wave of sadness. Even today, I feel sadness. The ranged and depth of sadness has changed as I have grown older.

Several years ago, the late John Ritter spoke at Eureka College of how much he loved the Beatles and John Lennon and how Lennon’s death affected him. He said it took him a long time to work through the senselessness and grief of it. But even then, the senselessness still touched him deeply.

John Ritter spoke of a friend surprising him by bringing him to a Los Angeles recording studio where Lennon was working on some songs. Ritter was too awed to speak to one of his idols. Later in the evening, Lennon, after being perplexed at who this was in the recording studio, nodded at Ritter.

After speaking with the audience, Ritter greeted, spoke with, and signed autographs for those in attendance. I did not have anything for him to sign, so I ran to my car and grabbed my CD of the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” I rushed inside to present it to John Ritter to autograph. As I did so, I said, “From one Beatles fan to another, would you sign this?”

Ritter’s shoulders sunk as he took a deep breath and sighed. He asked, “Where did you get this?” I answered in my car. He turned through the pages of the CD booklet, as interested as if it was the first time he had seen the Sgt. Pepper’s album. After a while he turned to the last page inside the booklet and signed: “A splendid time for all! John Ritter.” When he handed it back to me, it was easy to tell that Ritter was touched by the gesture.

Unfortunately, John Ritter would leave this world prematurely, too. As with Lennon, Ritter left behind a wife and children. Quite a Beatles fan, John Ritter’s gravestone quotes the Beatles’ song, “The End” — “And in end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” Coincidentally, three years after his death, my daughter, Maryen, was born on what would have been Ritter’s 58th birthday.

John Lennon lived 4o years. I have found as time goes by, I have been affected by John’s death less in what it cost the music world than what it cost his family. I feel for Sean, having been robbed of his father’s presence and love. I feel for Yoko, having been shorted a lifetime of love and friendship with her soul mate. I feel for John, having not gotten a chance to share in his son’s growth and life beyond the age of five.

Professionally, Lennon was reemerging, “staring over,” after a five-year absence. This time, he was reemerging as a well-grounded individual. What he would have shared with the world, as well as his family, we unfortunately will never know.

Twenty-seven years ago, I awoke to the stark realization that life could merely be “what happens to you
while you’re busy making other plans.” As did many people.

Peace.

My wife, my 10-year-old daughter, 2-year-old son, 1-year-old daughter and I are in very real danger of losing our home. The foreclosure sale is scheduled for December 5 at the county courthouse unless we can come up with $6,000 of the $18,000 in arrearage.

After losing two information technology jobs to department reorganization and another to adjust for its funding source in the course of four years, I fell behind on my mortgage and other bills. Each time I found employment, it was for less money. Recently I found a good paying job with a great future. I can pay my bills. I just cannot pay what has accumulated in arrearage. CitiMortgage will not refinance the mortgage. We out of options at this point.

Where we and our two large dogs will go is impossible to know. There are not too many options available for renters when the renters have two large dogs (50-lb. Barry and 90-lb. Bert). We are not giving them up. I rescued them from a shelter almost five years ago and I will not forsake their friendship, their companionship, their loyalty. We are a family.

If you are the buyer of our home, please be careful walking around the yard. Yes, you could step in an occasional pile of dog poop. But that will wash off. It is the freshly dug hole that is the danger here. As fast as the holes are filled, the dogs will take turns digging and maneuvering to be the possessor of the hole. Sometimes my son will join them in digging. I wish their efforts would find some cash. We need it. Fast.

Upon entering the house, please take note of the newel post and the spindles rising with the open staircase. Notice the teethmarks and gouges in them. Barry used to diligently pass the hours until his owners returned from work, shopping or family outings by taking up woodcarving. He also used a leather sectional for a rawhide chew. Barry was abandoned at an early age. His anxiety has always been that he will be again.

Also take a look at the paint and doorknob-side sidelight. What sidelight, you say? There used to be one until about four years ago when Bert’s excitement of me coming in the door caused him to thrust his front paws through it. After several stitches, he was fine. After the pain of that effort, he settled for simply clawing off the paint around the door when we arrive home. I am sure you will want to fix these. I do. Or, I mean, I did.

The kids have done their share in giving the house a “lived in” feel. A slight tear in the vinyl flooring of the kitchen has been exaggerated every inches. A door frame leading to the porch has recently been charting the growth of family members. A piece of the thermal window has had a plastic piece crack and someone tried to pull it off, leaving it twisted and sticking out.

My wife and I ripped out the unraveling carpet in the living and dining rooms to expose an oak floor that needs some work. Last December a pipe burst while we were out of the house. The wood floor needs a lot of work to it now. A couple of large buckles remain. The wood seems to be splintering in some spots as well. The water also caused the paint on the walls and trim to flake. An extensive stretch of horsehair plaster has lost its veneer coat in the living room beneath where the pipe burst. There are many cracks that have developed in the plaster throughout the house after the pipe burst.

Other problems exist. The upstairs bathroom floor has rotted in a small section. The roof leaks over the downstairs bathroom and enclosed porch. The foundation needs patching. The dishwasher is broken. The detached garage foundation is crumbling, which is fine because a combination of rot and termites have eaten the sill plates from the walls.

Speaking of termites, I would not be surprised if they were in two places on the house. Having crawl spaces makes it a bit difficult to inspect every place on the house. I know I have seen them in a stump near the house.

Other things that give the house less value today are the lack of outlets and most of the outlets are only of the two-prong variety; a fuse box rather a breaker box; bare wires taking power overhead to the garage; lack of parking; leaning chimney stack on an internal wall; small bedrooms; broken, uneven sidewalks; small yard; next to a state highway; leaking gutters; and no basement. There are other things that make a sale hard.

If you are the buyer of the house at Wednesday’s sale, then let this serve as notice of the house’s problems. For I know CitiMortgage will not tell you this information. I will. I have.

You may now be asking yourself why we would want to remain here. Keeping this house, saving it from foreclosure is imperative to providing, maintaining our financial future. My wife and I are expecting another child in April. If we lose the house, we lose our ability to purchase the bigger home that our family will most definitely need in a couple of years. We are also losing our dreams of fixing up, adding on, and improving the house. It is nice, little house.

It is our nice, little home.

Ubuntu 7.10, sporting the code name of Gutsy Gibbon, is the much anticipated and latest release of the GNOME-centric Linux distribution. Ubuntu has progressed swiftly in the Linux world from its “Warty” beginning to become the most used desktop distribution and has spun off several editions of equal respect in the forms of Kubuntu (KDE-centric), Xubuntu (XFCE-centric), Edubuntu (education targeted), and Gobuntu (Free Software Foundation adherent). Ubuntu has also been targeting server installations with increased interests.

Ubuntu first resided on my computer’s hard drive in a brief trial of 4.10 Warty Warthog, which did not last long. It lasted long enough to return to SUSE and PCLinuxOS. I tried it again with 5.04, Hoary Hedgehog, and found a worthy desktop, although it shared my hard drive with SUSE and PCLinuxOS. Making the move from KDE to GNOME was done with some trepidation, as I was very comfortable with KDE. I remained with PCLinuxOS as my main distribution. I did not realized that PCLinuxOS’ APT package manager was preparing me for a move to simplify my Linux upon one distribution.

Breezy Badger (Ubuntu 5.10) arrived as I was seeking a simplification of my computing usage. I had decided to drop Windows XP Professional from the hard drive. Also leaving a partition at this point was SUSE. I sought to abolish RPM dependency hell from my computing experience. The APT package manager greatly simplified the installation and removal of software. I was wanting an easier Linux experience. I was tired of spending days and weeks adjusting each Linux distribution on my computer to fill my needs.

When Dapper Drake (6.06 LTS) was installed on my computer, I opted to give it my entire hard drive. By then GNOME’s simplified, yet adjustable GUI meshed with what I wanted from a Linux installation. My computer setup also followed the path to simplification of lifestyle that I continue along. Each Ubuntu release in the forms of 6.10 (Edgy Eft) and 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) has solidified the quest for ease of installation and configuration.

Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) is the present acme of ease and simplicity, as well as a path to a beautiful future. I have installed it on three different computers. My computer was upgraded from 7.04 to Gutsy Gibbon’s release client for a week before the official 7.10 updates took effect. My wife’s computer was upgraded in the same matter. Our Dell Inspiron 8100 laptop saw its home directory backup to my computer and a fresh installation of Gutsy went on it.

There were no problems with any of them, except for a minor problem with getting a networked printer installed to the laptop via the built-in printer administration utility. Bringing up the CUPS’ HTML configuration page via Firefox allowed me to link to the printer and print a test page. The Belkin Wireless G Plus notebook card (F5D701) was recognized and enabled without a problem. Even the volume buttons on the laptop worked fresh off installation.

Take any of the top Linux distributions and you will find similar results. Windows’ monopoly of the desktop is about to be shattered. With the plethora of quality software available for Linux, with the easy of installation, maintenance, and use of Linux, and with the solid security of Linux, why would anyone not consider Linux for his or her computer’s operating system? If you want a better computer experience than the stale one you have settled for, then pick Linux. If you want to look at the world outside through Windows, then you’ll never experience the exhilaration of feeling the winds of change within your soul.

It really is a simple choice.

I am beginning a series of articles highlighting products, applications, and news that reflect openness or freedom in technology. The series on “Lesser Known Applications for Linux” will also continue. Both series should start seeing a regular release cycle soon, as I settle into the hours of my new job and family time. This series begins with the sounds of DRM-free music drifting in the late September air.

Recently, Amazon began offering DRM-free (no digital rights management restrictions) MP3 music downloads on its Amazon MP3 Beta site. Here is my review as it pertains to Linux users.

Free of Digital Rights Management Restrictions

Digital Rights Management as currently applied provides nothing but restrictions. It is meant to combat piracy which is a good thing. But as currently applied in one of its many formats, it tends to restrict the consumer to having to purchase additional copies of songs to legally copy and play on the multitude of devices he or she has. Amazon takes a DRM-free approach.

As Amazon points out:

Songs from Amazon MP3 can be played on any MP3-capable device, including iPods™, Zunes™, Zens™, iPhones™, RAZRs™, and BlackBerrys™. Our files are free of digital rights management (DRM) software, so you can burn your songs to CDs, play them on all your computers, and transfer them to all your devices. Songs are encoded at 256 kbps, which means you get high audio quality at a manageable file size.

I have read an article on the web stating that now Linux users can legally download music. I bristled at the implication that Linux users are pirates. The majority of the people I know use Windows. Of this majority, there is a fair number of individuals who illegally download their favorite music via Limewire, Bittorrent, and other file sharing applications for use on their computers, MP3 players, cellphones, and CD players.

As a Linux user, I can attest that I do not pirate music or movies. I respect the rights of recording artists, actors, directors, producers, etc. to be compensated for their work. As a writer, I hope to be compensated fairly for any article, screenplay, or novel of mine that is published. The end result is the product. The product includes the labor it took to create it, build it, write it. As much as I would like to simply pay for auto parts when I need a vehicle repaired, I most often have to pay for the labor costs, too.

DRM may have never come into existence had people respected the works of the artists. It came about as a necessary evil, but it also being applied in as greedy a manner. DRM-free music recognizes that the people who buy downloadable music are consumers. That is in itself a step in the right direction. It is a show of respect.

What’s Available at Amazon MP3

While lack of DRM-protected (perhaps DRM-infected is a better way of putting it) music results in fewer music labels willing to offer music downloads on Amazon, there is an impressive list of major artists available. For example, if I search for some of my favorites, I find some interesting results.

Not surprisingly, there is nothing available by the Beatles. There is also nothing offered for George Harrison, the Traveling Wilburys, or the Who. Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and even Wings have downloads available. Songs by John Lennon are available, too. Radiohead is offered. Berkley Hart, an underrated acoustic duo, has every track of every album listed. Not offered is Wilco. The same for John Mellencamp. Indigenous’ earliest albums are listed, but nothing beginning with the group’s self-titled album in 2003 and continuing into the current lineup which only features Mato Nanji of the original band. Nanji should go solo or bring back the original lineup, but that is a blog post for another time.

Searching for one’s favorite songs from the 2,000,000 plus available can indicate if Amazon MP3 provides enough to obtain one’s business. It has mine. Hopefully more labels come aboard when their management recognizes DRM-free music is not evil. Nor are music consumers.

Availability for Linux Users

Linux users presently have the ability to download individual tracks. Currently, the ability to download entire albums at once is available only for Windows and OS X users. Amazon states:

If you use Linux, you can currently buy individual songs. A Linux version of the Amazon MP3 Downloader is under development, and when released will allow entire album purchases.

I see this as further proof of the growing use of Linux among desktop users. Vendors, hardware manufacturers, software developers, and computer makers are recognizing the value and benefits of the Linux operating system. A couple of years ago, it is likely Linux users would have been ignored. In a way they still have been ignored by Amazon not having the album downloader available for Linux users upon the opening of the MP3 site. To thank Amazon for making MP3 downloads available to Linux users and to spur them along toward quickly finishing the album downloader for Linux users, email them.

Hopefully, Amazon has the downloader available to Linux users before Christmas. It would be nice to purchase some music for my daughter’s MP3 player or my wife’s computer.

My Download Experience

I decided to give Amazon MP3 a try. My wife has been turning up the radio or computer speakers whenever the Reba McEntire and Kelly Clarkson duet, “Because of You,” plays on a station. She loves that song. After a quick search for Reba McEntire at Amazon MP3, I located it and bought it with no problem in Linux. I placed it in our music library on one of our computers and she listens to it across our home network. I also copied it to her computer to create a backup, in case the music library computer loses a hard drive.

I also spied a song that I have always wanted, but did not feel the urge to buy an entire album to obtain. David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” now orbits my hard drive as Bowie sings hauntingly of being lost in space.

The whole thing is about as expensive and as painless as when my mother bought 45s of the Beatles music in the 1960s. Of course she received two songs (or four songs if it was an EP) and I receive one song for approximately the same price. The price of an album download is also about twice as much as an LP costs for her.

As far as purchasing goes, she has the memories of wandering the record displays on a Saturday afternoon, leafing through 45s and LPs, and rushing home with a new record to share it for the first time with family and friends crowding around a turntable. I used to enjoy that experience when records were still available in the 1980s. Now I have the cold, isolated experience of searching for a song on a website late at night, downloading it, and playing it on my computer for only my listening enjoyment while my family sleeps. I prefer my mother’s experience and the one I used to enjoy.

Technology, while it benefits society, tends to remove the social experiences of life. Much like DRM.