[NetBehaviour] DIARY TEXT 8/99-3/00 - FOR TRACE ONLINE WRITING COMMUNITY(writer-in-residence position)

Alan Sondheim sondheim at panix.com
Mon Oct 3 14:39:39 CET 2022




DIARY TEXT 8/99-3/00 - FOR TRACE ONLINE WRITING COMMUNITY
(writer-in-residence position)

http://www.alansondheim.org/worldaxis2.jpg

[ Again I'm changing direction; from now on, new sections will
be added _at the end of the file,_ in order to prevent reading
down and up, up and down, constantly reversing. So the narrative
will be continuous, _after_ the marker: xxx xxx xxx xxx below. ]

Just woke up, realize "in reverse" the direction to go, here I'm
beginning to top myself - 1:15 in the afternoon still thinking
about Burroughs. Now, later, I've been reconfiguring X Window in
Linux - it can be difficult be- cause there are too many files
that need changing, in too many director- ies. X Window, which
is a graphic interface for Linux, has the feel, like the Mac or
Win98, of a totality - in other words, a coherent and unified
skin over the hardware and software of the computer. But looking
through Linux, it becomes almost immediately apparent that, like
language, the X Window is not so much a _system_ as a
collocation or accumulation of scattered files and processes
that seem almost chaotic. I imagine that a great many computer
applications are like this - for example one doesn't think
ordinarily that Pico or Pine are anything but simple editor or
mail applications - but if you log in at 300 baud and watch the
continuous re- writing of the screen, you realize there are
other things occurring. Even the keyboard itself, say entering
an "e" on-screen - is a system of com- plicated interrupts,
voltages, integrated circuitry, software, etc. Like the human
body, which appears symmetric, whole on the outside, asymmetric
and complex on the inside - all of these are designed to appear
organic, comforting, and surface "blank" ... One wonders if the
body or language themselves might, in other circumstances, be
considered applications as well...

Then this would be the third part of the diary text, working
chronolog- ically in reverse order, opening to the most recent
layering of the world, backing down, re: stratigraphy, the
Pennsylvanian where I come from, fossil sigillaria, neuroptera.
So that _above_ this would be the current, or currency, this
later on August 29th, already a disorderly beginning: should I
start or stop the consequences above or below? The text falls
out differently for the writer or the reader, but all diaries in
cyberspace open for renewal _at the beginning_ - one scrolls
down for the traditional order, one begins _here_ at the origin,
over and over again, repeatedly, within the phenomenology of the
digital.

This is the beginning of the diary text, which I'm using _now_
to configure the directory structure for the residency project.
You might consider this entry an empty one, one designed to
behave as a construct or marker - hold- ing the place open,
creating the header for future work, occupying a site. Addresses
behave like this - a certain amount of diskspace for your
perusal. And it is now August ... probably the 27th, as time
escapes me.

It's August 29, just turned. I worry about the demographics of
the material for the love and war texts - whether people will
contribute whether there will be really enough material to
become self-sustaining. Meanwhile I'm entering test messages on
the backbone websites - I like the tests them- selves and the
possibilities. And I'm currently downloading the webbie.mpg from
the Elite agency - Tookay Webbie, who will go into the Kyoko
Date directory on my desktop - I'm interested in the
relationship between anime, manga, virtual idols such as Kyoko
Date and Webbie, etc. - as well as the otakuworld site, with its
Kamishibai and PlayKiss paraphenalia - things that would be
interesting to explore in relation both to avatars and to the
residency (we could all work with the Kamishibai software for
instance). Today Azure and I also found a number of Burroughs'
books at the Salvation Army - I want to read the Electronic
Revolution text in the Ah Pook is here book, as soon as
possible... Finally, I've been working with electric guitar
again (I want to do some performances with it, a Fender Cyclone,
the model was apparently designed by Kurt Cobain), and I'm
reading cover to cover the Sobell A Practical Guide to Linux,
backing up my knowledge here..

xxx xxx xxx xxx

Diki

Today I went to the Diki site and downloaded several music
videos, around 60 megabytes total. These are the current Kyoko
Date imports into Korea, and the theme is based on the intermix
of virtual and real, the (male) artist (re)creating the female
statue-come-alive; what's interesting is the construct of the
mesh holding the skin - the sexualization of interior hollows as
the armature turns, the skin running jacketed around the body,
cuts carefully made away from breast and genitals as it
approaches. So there is also a literal representation of
introjection/projection in the sense of an injection of skin
covering the hollow of representation, an interior which can be
considered a screen of and for desire. The music is the same as
Kyoko ever; there are also closeups of models inextricably
(everything is inextricable online and offline in the
future-real-here) electroded, their movements tallying with
Diki's, giving birth to Diki at a distance, teledildonics. It is
easy to imagine lush-Diki-skin on oneself - that is to say, an
other e-mergence; the PlayKiss Kyoko Date doll gives a sense of
this, even though the manipulation is literally puerile
(removing her clothes, dressing her in others, in a paper-doll
fashion). I am always reminded of, for example, Nikuko's
_dirtiness_ and abjection in relation to all of this, the _real_
of Nikuko _not_ based in simulation, but in a speaking of the
unconscious, insertions and assertions across the (key-) board.
Nikuko scratches at skins, removes them, exposing the wires
beneath - or the flesh - or what would pass for a melange of the
real - what is constructed on Diki is torn apart by Nikuko,
expanded like condoms holding birth in abeyance while fondling
it. I can push Nikuko and the others (Jennifer, Julu, Alan)
until I can't sleep at night; with Diki and Kyoko and Webbie
Tookay, I'm lulled into the foreclosing of any gendered dieges-
is; sleep comes easy, permanent, the sleep of the death of the
real. Unlike Nikuko, the creation of Diki occurs at a
distance, through control-room, gloves, screens, keyboards;
there's a scent but no odor. It's as if culture guarantees that
the real _has_ that other end, far cry from Diki, but even later
at night, when I do deep sleep for a moment or two, Diki-Nikuko
merge through the sound and sight - merge through the imaginary
- there's a love and ecstasy I can never imagine - there's a
permanency outliving me - I'm abandoned - I turn back into the
dreams - I know if I dream, Nikuko will come back to me and
Nikuko and I will watch the Diki videos over and over again,
together -

Today was a sad day, I found out a second person very close to
me has cancer... Death is beginning to seep in everywhere. And
I huddle by Azure or online with the machines, looking into
other maybe darker maybe brighter spaces, reading Sobell's A
Practical Guide to Unix, which has just solved a couple of other
problems; I've more texts than usua. I try all the time (it's
the early morning by the way of the beginning of the residency,
September 1st) to create a wide bandwidth for my work, scatter
the surface content, pushing my thinking into as many
areas/zones as possible - and I do this with the greatest fear
and hopelessness in the world at times, an engine for production
which questions itself only so far ...

Now it's the first of September, towards evening; I've been
looking at Ibn 'Arabi, Les Soufis D'Andalousie, from the 12th
Century, reading more into The Ecology of Fear (Mike Davis) and
a Japanese dictionary, more linux; the residency seems off to a
good start - I'm hoping the conferences become self-sustaining.
So far there are no software/hardware bugs I can find on any of
the systems I'm using or the Webboard for that matter. I'm
exhausted and worried about the pace I'm keeping - but then
trying to work the Diki dreams, etc., into pieces, again pushing
those intermediary or borderline states. A friend is going up
before a grand jury on Friday for theft; she didn't do it, was
mistreated by the police (which I don't doubt - under Giuliani,
mistreating seems the order of the day - two deaths in two days
that could have been avoided, one, a Chassidic Jew with a hammer
and eleven shots fired into him, etc. etc., now still another up
in Har- lem, it's an epidemic of brutality, overkill,
slaughter), and will prob- bably be convicted...

And this is a "dry" spell. I had the manuscript returned from
the anthro journal (Kyoko Date one) for revisions; if I have the
energy, that will happen tonight, with another sendoff
tomorrow... Meanwhile I sent out the press release with my phone
number attached - to just about every list, ah well...


Millennium Project - Help Needed, Comments Invited !!!
(September 2,1999)

This is a proposal for a millennium project that would involving
running traceroute and similar applications across the December
31 / January 1 _hinge._

Traceroute is a linux / unix command that can also be downloaded
as a small application for Windows; the command-line (prompt)
startup is:

{k:1} traceroute <address> - for example
{k:2} traceroute cleo.murdoch.edu.au

Traceroute then executes a series of internet packet
transmissions that target each router between one's local site
and the address; each target is usually hit three times. The
send-and-return time for each router is then given to the user.
The result is a table or textual map of the health of the route
between the local and final address; if a router is down or not
responding, that is clear from the * in place of the
send-and-return time. Here is an example:

{k:110}traceroute cleo.murdoch.edu.au >> zz traceroute to
cleo.murdoch.edu.au (134.115.224.60), 30 hops max, 40 byte
packets

  1 isdn2.nyc.access(166.84.0.123)  184ms 169ms 169ms
  2 xenyn-eid-FE0-1.nyc.access(166.84.0.97)  169ms 169ms 169ms
  3 587.Hssi2-0-0.GW2.NYC4.ALTER(157.130.17.145)  179ms 179ms 179ms
  4 132.ATM2-0.XR1.NYC4.ALTER(146.188.178.134)  189 ms 179ms 170ms
  5 189.ATM2-0.TR1.NYC1.ALTER(146.188.179.18)  179ms 189 ms 189ms
  6 104.ATM7-0.TR1.LAX2.ALTER(146.188.137.129)  249ms 249ms 249ms
  7 299.ATM7-0.XR1.LAX4.ALTER(146.188.248.253)  249ms 259ms 260ms
  8 192.ATM8-0-0.GW1.LAX4.ALTER(146.188.248.101)  269ms 259. ms 249ms
  9 optus-gw.customer.ALTER(157.130.227.182)  249ms 249ms 279ms
10 hssi8-0-0.ia4.optus.net.au (192.65.89.241)  599ms 559ms 549ms
hssi3-0-0.ia4.optus.net.au (192.65.89.237)  549ms
11 ge9-0-0.ia3.optus.net.au (192.65.89.225)  569ms 579ms 589ms
12 aarnet-wa.ia3.optus.net.au (192.65.88.190)  649ms 629ms 629ms
13 murdoch-parnet.parnet.edu.au (203.19.110.146)  629ms 639ms 619ms
14 cleo.murdoch.edu.au (134.115.224.60)  639ms 639ms 649ms

All of the intermediate routers between the local address (my
desktop com- puter routed through panix.com) and
cleo.murdoch.edu.au are listed in order; the IP address is given
after the name, and then three times are listed for every
address.

What I propose is a skein or matrix of traceroutes run all
around the world - not just from major cities - sites - at the
time of the millennial turnover hinge. Participants could run
one or several traceroutes; the results would be sent to me or a
trAce site via standard email, and assembled. (It may be
possible to create a visualization, but the cost of this seems
prohibitive.)

The result would give a map of some of the world's nerves as Y2K
comes to fruition; it would be a unique and historic signature
or imprint of the passing of an era (marked by B.C./A.D. or
b.c.e. a.c.e. common time - I'm well aware of alternative date
systems). The text would be a world-text, a self-reflexive look
at the Net by the Net, data-crawling everywhere. One site might
not have traceroute running at all; another might connect just
as easily as usual.

A major problem is that almost no one will be around for the
hinge (and don't forget the hinge itself will take a day to
travel the world). The computers would most like be set up (if
unix or linux) with the at or cron commands, which automate task
running at particular times; if they connect to the Net, they'd
also have to ensure that the ISP connection remains open. All of
these are difficult problems; one solution would be to
_actively_ make connections when the participant's local address
is not on the hinge - but to target hinge addresses.

Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated. trAce (Sue
Thomas) and I have tried to find programming help on this, but
so far it appears costly. Martin Dodge at Cybergeography has
been thinking along similar lines, but nothing is firmed up
there, either.

[ The above was sent out to various mailing lists. ]

___________________________________________________________

NOW:

k4% traceroute
Version 1.4a12
Usage: traceroute [-adDFPIlMnrvx] [-g gateway] [-i iface] [-f
first_ttl]
         [-m max_ttl] [-p port] [-q nqueries] [-s src_addr] [-t
tos]
         [-w waittime] [-z pausemsecs] [-A as_server] host
[packetlen]
k5% traceroute -r world.std.com
traceroute to world.std.COM (192.74.137.5), 64 hops max, 40 byte
packets
traceroute: sendto: Network is unreachable
traceroute: wrote world.std.COM 40 chars, ret=-1
  1  *traceroute: sendto: Network is unreachable
traceroute: wrote world.std.COM 40 chars, ret=-1
  *traceroute: sendto: Network is unreachable
traceroute: wrote world.std.COM 40 chars, ret=-1
  *
traceroute: sendto: Network is unreachable
traceroute: wrote world.std.COM 40 chars, ret=-1
  2  *traceroute: sendto: Network is unreachable
traceroute: wrote world.std.COM 40 chars, ret=-1
^C
k6% traceroute -r Yahoo.com
traceroute: Yahoo.com has multiple addresses; using 74.6.231.21
traceroute to yahoo.com (74.6.231.21), 64 hops max, 40 byte
packets
traceroute: sendto: Network is unreachable
traceroute: wrote yahoo.com 40 chars, ret=-1
  1  *traceroute: sendto: Network is unreachable
traceroute: wrote yahoo.com 40 chars, ret=-1
  *traceroute: sendto: Network is unreachable
traceroute: wrote yahoo.com 40 chars, ret=-1
  *
traceroute: sendto: Network is unreachable
traceroute: wrote yahoo.com 40 chars, ret=-1
  2  *traceroute: sendto: Network is unreachable
traceroute: wrote yahoo.com 40 chars, ret=-1
  *traceroute: sendto: Network is unreachable
traceroute: wrote yahoo.com 40 chars, ret=-1
^C
k7% traceroute -r AOL.com
traceroute: AOL.com has multiple addresses; using 98.136.103.23
traceroute to aol.com (98.136.103.23), 64 hops max, 40 byte
packets
traceroute: sendto: Network is unreachable
traceroute: wrote aol.com 40 chars, ret=-1
  1  *traceroute: sendto: Network is unreachable
traceroute: wrote aol.com 40 chars, ret=-1
  *traceroute: sendto: Network is unreachable
traceroute: wrote aol.com 40 chars, ret=-1
  *
traceroute: sendto: Network is unreachable
traceroute: wrote aol.com 40 chars, ret=-1
^C

___

TRACEROUTE(8)               System Manager's Manual
TRACEROUTE(8)

NAME
        traceroute - print the route packets take to network host

SYNOPSIS
        traceroute [ -aDFPIdlMnrvx ] [ -f first_ttl ]
                [ -g gateway ] [ -i iface ] [ -m max_ttl ]
                [ -p port ] [ -q nqueries ] [ -s src_addr ]
                [ -t tos ] [ -w waittime ] [ -z pausemsecs
         ] ] [ -A as_server ]
                host [ packetlen ]

DESCRIPTION
        The Internet is a large and complex aggregation of network
hardware,
        connected together by gateways.  Tracking the route one's packets
        follow (or finding the miscreant gateway that's discarding your
        packets) can be difficult.  Traceroute uses the IP protocol `time
to
        live' field and attempts to elicit an ICMP TIME_EXCEEDED response
from
        each gateway along the path to some host.

        The only mandatory parameter is the destination host name or IP
number.
        The default probe datagram length is 40 bytes, but this may be
        increased by specifying a packet length (in bytes) after the
        destination host name.

__



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