Hak 5 & Darren Kitchen

I watched the latest live symposium that Hak .5 aired last Friday night. At some point Darren asked for some show ideas. I wrote him this e-mail:

Darren: I have been a fan of Hak .5 since the first season, and cannot tell you about the countless hours I have spent reviewing the methods and cataloging my all time favorite segments so I could reference them in the future. My knowledge has increased immensely because of this show but most importantly, because of the Hak .5 cloud of informative entities that are knowledgeable and helpful. I have explored a lot of the concepts put forth on the show and am to grateful for the numerous ways my home network has improved because of the show. The latest way is the Green/Purple/Orange Smoothwall firewall I established in my home on an obsolete computer augmented with a Power over Ethernet modified wireless Linksys in my attic that allows me some backyard wireless and passersby to use the wireless without risk to my home network. Again, Thanks for all that you have done.

Last night on the live feed there was a request for show ideas to round out the new aggressive shooting schedule. I have one that I freely give to the show. A little background. . .the thing that kept me watching the show is the appreciation for the old school computer ways that drive the new techniques. I delved into the BBS history that I had either forgotten or was unaware of because of this show and came across Jason Scott's site and documentary. This was a goldmine for me, and I had experienced a lot of it first hand. I explored Issue9ethan & Famicoman's excellent repository of Synchronet information, and ran with that. I got to play a lot of L.O.R.D. on the Hak5 BBS and it was way fun. So with that said, why not a Classic Retro segment to round out your show that takes a look at/explains some of the retro technology and how it has changed in the new age. You can tag it up with old gaming systems, the BBS, old media storage, old computer systems, new computer systems, on site exploration of where historical events took place (Like the first ARPA net contact). I think there is a rich field here that can be mined for time in a rewarding manner, that pays tribute to those who went before us, educates new users and reinforces the older users. In addition, there are still a lot of vintage computer users out there that STILL run BBS's on old machines. I'd be cool to put a road trip together, hit one right after the other on a carefully planned itinerary with some interview questions about their system, and feed the result out in a weekly series interview by interview. Should the road tripping be prohibitive in some manner, your could still hook it up with Skype interviews and pull it off. Well, thanks for your time concerning this idea, and best of luck at your new home w/ Rev3.

Montani Semper Liberi,
Ion Farmer
PS: Where's my stickers? My eeePC is naked.

(I didn't drop the sticker hint for free swag, I donated some cash months ago for stickers that didn't arrive.) So about 3 hours later I got a reply:

First off thanks for writing in I really appreciate the feedback and from the sound of things you've totally put the technolust to practice. That's awesome to hear about your home network. Awesome ideas as well, I'm going to have to take you up on that. After doing 3x03, the 1984 Arcade episode I really got the bug for documentary film work. I think a road trip around historic technological sites and interviews with the people that made this wonderful network playground for us would be so much fun to shoot as well as truly inspiring for the next generation. I don't have the time to devote time off the show to do a Jason Scott style documentary but we could do reoccurring segments on technology history. If you have any specific ideas totally shoot them by me. As for your eeePC, shoot me your address and I'll send you out some stickers :)

Cheers,
Darren

So I was going out the door this morning and check the mail, and lo and behold I spied this poking out of the box at me.

So I got my stickers finally and they are quite nice! I quickly used them to cover my eeePC's naked shame!

So, all in all, very cool and I wish the very best for Hak .5 cast and crew on their move to Rev 3. If you haven't spent some time taking in Hak 5 you really should. You just might learn something, and that's one to grow on. Anyway, check 'em out at www.hak5.org and if you have any good ideas about some retro/classic digital history locations, people, and the like, let me hear you OR you could write Darren yourself and maybe get some stickers to cover up your computer's naked shame.