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[htmlize [J Internet Skills for Disconnected People] 

[HLIST1 [J I need to organize this urgently]
  [AL eev-current/article/eev.txt#iskidip]
  [AL eev-current/examples/iskidip.e]
  [AL eev-current/examples/iskidip2.e]
  [J To do: describe the several "flavors" (chroot, qemu, etc),
    provide screenshots, make the emulated machine access the outside
    world - currently it can resolve hostnames but not much else.]
]

[P A call map:
  [IMG /home/edrx/eev-current/article/iskidip.png]
]




[H2 How the project came to be]

[P I know that I am an exception --- a freak between geeks ---, but I
have never had full access to a second machine. None of my closest
friends were technical people, and my feelings towards practically all
the sysadmins that I knew[FOOTREF .note1 note1 (*)] were more like
``gosh, behaving like this gives bad karma, I don't want to ever be
like those people''... The admins at my home university all adhered to
the principle of ``security through uselessness'': everything was a
security risk, and as their role was to keep the machines safe they
would allow only the bare minimum: basically only e-mail, TeX, and a C
compiler without manuals. There were other programs and services that
could be used, of course (probably talk and news were available, and
you could set up an anonymous ftp directory if you were a professor),
but anyway, the fact that it's so hard for me to remember these other
programs is symptomatic... So, I quickly learned that the real
computer was the one that I had at home.]

[P I had some evidence that internet and sysadminning skills were
important - many HOWTOs and articles in magazines dealt with that, and
indeed, it would be nice to understand how e-mails travelled from
sender's machine to destiny, and why the people who gave me web
hosting for the eev project could give me shell access while other
places would shiver at the idea - but the task of learning those
things by oneself seemed to be daunting and far beyond my capacity,
sort of like learning vi; no wonder the sysadmins that I knew were so
arrogant and secretive - they were an elite group with a though
initiation process... But yet I did try it a few times.]

[P In my earlier attempts - in 1998, I think - I borrowed my father's
computer during the night, while it was idle,]


[P My early attempts - in 1997 or 1998, I think - to borrow my
father's computer during the night to make it and my machine talk via
ethernet or SLIP or PLIP turned out being incredibly frustrating, due
to faulty hardware, lack of knowledge, lack of real motivation, and
even psychological pressure: all quirks in his machine for the several
months following each of my attempts would be blamed unto me...]

[P In 2001 I was hired to ]

[P ]


[P [FOOTREF note1 .note1 (*)] - The first exception was Greg LeBaron,
who I met in 2002 at McGill. Hi Greg!]








]



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