The Deepest Technology
I am not who you think I am;
I am not who I think I am;
I am who I think you think I am
No answers, only opinions
I am not who you think I am;
I am not who I think I am;
I am who I think you think I am
In the beginning, the user said, “I have no idea what I'm looking at here.”
And Steve responded, “A bicycle of the mind.”
And the user said, “I need two wheels to be a cyclist.”
And Steve smugly smiled, “Now, close your eyes and picture this.”
And he dashed a line for the horizon.
And circled where the sun should be
And dragged in the latest clip art of the iBike.
And he said, “Now, open them. Where do you want this to take you?”
That's how computers begin. Astral projection.
They end with subconscious muscle memory for flailing limbs at ludicrous speeds.
When you think about it, that is kind of like riding a bike. Balancing on two wheels seems impossible until you discover the one secret: momentum.
The key to balance is time over space: speed. The faster you move your mind in unison with the machine the more it makes sense for the bicycles of the body or mind.
“What do you do?”
I work on Sillyz.Computer, a toy to respark the joy of computing.
“How do you spell that? That's a tough name.”
Yeah, I know. It was kind of a joke and placeholder at first for getting a conversation hook. Worked surprisingly well.
“Oh, your business is a joke?”
No, it is super serious. Follow me a different way, can we try an experiment?
“ok.”
I'm going to say a phrase and I want you to say the first name that comes to your mind.
“Personal computing.”
Now at this point most people will either say, “Bill Gates” or “Steve Jobs”.
and I'll say, “Huh, that's interesting.” and they'll say, “What?” and I'll say, “Nothing, it is just in this reality most people do not say their own names.”
“What?”
Yeah, I think that's strange too. When I hear “Personal Computer”, I think of my name. What's your name?
“Tony.”
Okay Tony, would you like me to help you on your personal computing journey or are you ok with Bill and Steve's excellent adventure?
“How much this is going to cost me?”
Here, take this piece of paper, this is the free version, walk away at any time. The honest answer is, it depends on your problems.
“Okay, what do you do?”
For personal computers, I can either help you be silly or yourself. I also do enterprise, but that's a different cut scene.
“You can help me be silly?”
Next time you want to make someone smile, say 'Check this out, the paper is the computer!' and then scan it. The hard part is being yourself.
“The paper is the computer?”
Yup! You can print the code from there to have all of it. The best computers are architected on paper first, like the Cray-1, then ported to better hardware when it comes along, like chairs.
“You're losing me.”
I love computer history, I'm just making obscure reference jokes just in case you're a connoisseur. The Cray-1 was the fastest million dollar super computer in 1978 and was innovative in that— instead of being a computer that fit inside of a room, the computer fit inside of a chair.
“The paper is the computer.”
In mind and in practice. Anyways, back to you, Tony. What do you do on the computer?
“Gaming mostly.”
Great! We can do gaming, depending on your hardware. Anything else?
“I do email too.”
We've got email! Okay, what games do you play.
“Mostly my own.”
Oh, you're a developer too! What do you code in?
“I don't code. Tony Hawk, Pro Skater? Probably JavaScript though, if I were to learn.”
Oh whoa! Yeah, I totally see it now, sorry! I remember you being more of a polygon and a fragment of my childhood. Skill swap code for skate?
“Deal.”
^ Keyboard kid swoops in, title screen reads “Tony Hawk's Computer”
I needed a studio.
I needed a stage.
I needed a lead.
i am a studio, i am a stage, i am a lead.
We don't have everything, but you'll be surprised in the things we do.
Why? Speed is every thing, feel it. Also, it works on any thing, try it.
Paper. Watch. Flip. Phone. Keyboard. Handheld. Laptop. Desktop. Room.
Why? Power is every thing, feel it. Also, it works in any thing, try it.
Computers. Operating Systems. Applications. Pages. Widgets. Embed. Nest.
To create a custom layout, update the sillonious-brand and replace it with a $60 copy from https://cutestrap.com.
Feel free to poke around. Literally poke and hold or right-click to edit— or create new widgets below!
A customizable newspaper.
Journalism is the most valuable resource for uncovering new knowledge and connections.
Detectives solving crimes have little information to go on. The information they do have, they'll get on paper, thumbtack it to cork, and string it together, literally, until the've cracked the case.
That's maybe too serious of an example. If I were a detective, I'd be working on uncovering the truth of the computer with the case of the Sillyz.
Common computer are binary. All computers are binary. Quantum computers are less binary. Their configurations can be in more than the two positions, 0 and 1. They can be in the reverse position, -1.
https://Sillyz.Computer hinges on this sort of reversible philosophy. The idea is that it exists in fantasy space first, the most reverse position of all, fiction. The author claims the source is Elve.
Then it exists in JavaScript, making it available on the web and any other device. But that came from somewhere, a server.
The server exists in JavaScript for 64-bit systems. If you have a 64-bit system, you can reverse the public server into your private, now cloud. Of which, the database would be one more service, also reversed in. The client, reversible.
That's the silliest thing, right? Where is this computer?
I feel it. I see it. I touch it.
I turn it off. I turn them all off.
And I when I walk down the street, still, it remains.
I'm going to get to the bottom of this and maybe you should too.
As an act of good faith, here are my notes:
“I have nothing to hide.” Someone says under the topic of internet privacy.
“Your sentiment.” I reply, “Did you ever see Minority Report?”
You ask, “That Will Ferrell movie?” You correct, “Wait no, Colin Ferrell.”
“And Tom Cruise. They'd used psychic people to “do justice” to you because those three random unrelated people in an ivory tower thought you might do something nefarious.
“So what?”
“That's a thinly veiled metaphor for surveillance technology and the social constructs that enable them.”
“So what?”
Okay, I'll drop the subtext.
In short, if you live in a democracy, you vote with ballots. Voting is an intentional decision where you factor in many different aspects you're trying to optimize your ideal future for.
When you use your phone and you scroll mindlessly through it, you're at the whim of the game master that designed the worlds and levels for you to roam through.
When you gander at a picture, you're intrigued. If you touch it, you're interested. If you stare, you're bonding. If you laugh, you're in love.
Moment by moment, measure by measure, intrigue by intrigue, who are you and what do you think?
Individually, you're nobody. Collectively, maybe you're a threat.
Now, it matters less what you think and what you have to hide, because you clearly have nothing.
The people that do have things, however, would like to break ground where you're standing.
Moment by measure by intrigue, they don't like you and there's nothing you can do.
End the sentiment surveillance engines, unless you've known and been okay with it too.
I tried to run straight at it and couldn't.
It is not something to be had, but rather trapped or caught.
Form a hexagon with a bit of grit and six sides of fence.
From 2038, the doorway to 1912 must be shut.
The masquerade ball.
The approximate voice.
Supply chain transparency.
The bulletin board in 1998.
A computer with a case of the sillyz.
When I turned 18, there were so, so many bad paths open to me.
The one secret that is reproducible by anyone trying to make it anywhere for anything is short.
Don't predict ten years from now.
Predict the perfect future and wake up everyday working towards what needs to be done by this day, same time, next year.
2006 – released my first podcast 2007 – released my first website 2008 – released my first wordpress blog 2009 – graduated community college 2010 – sold my first white labeled design system 2011 – launched a federated social media bulletin board 2012 – tutored beginner C++ through data structures and algorithms 2013 – graduated private college 2014 – wrote minesweeper twice in a day to land a job in silicon valley 2015 – integrated partnerships for identity management with ruby on rails 2016 – released cutestrap 2017 – completed the wizard's journey 2018 – joined netflix 2019 – won netflix studio hackday 2020 – launched prepaid billing, multiplexed 3DS, and upgraded to 2.0 2021 – killed react 2022 – founded https://sillyz.computer 2023 – studied clown 2024 – marketed https://thelanding.page
Don't compete for attention.
Compete with intention.
I've worked in software a long time and I've thought a lot about how I'm paid, where the money comes from and how to do it on my own.
The physics of the situation is there are two factors:
Which is fairly fixed and predicatable— the platform for software to run on.
From there, the equation is build versus buy:
Hi, I'm the guy that charges hourly rates for research and development of custom solutions.
I've been working for myself now for 14 months doing freelance research and development for earth, but I need to pivot into getting paid to feed my family.
If I were to run for president, I'd use my tax returns and publicly auditable source code, but I know nothing of this earth's politics other than they seem utterly disconnected from the subsystems they run on.
One dollar per gigabyte per month.
If that sounds like a lot of money, how about one cent for ten megabytes?
For this price, I'll host your secure files, whether documents or video game saves.
How did I get these numbers?
Well, I bought a data center.
I made a video a few years back and I think the people that viewed the video got the wrong impression.
At the time, I was working as a client-side software engineer and I was demonstrating the difference between platfoms.
An M1 MacBook Pro is prohibitively expensive for most daily active users of the internet, which would be the client they would use to consume any content from books, to audio, to video, to games.
I was demonstrating then, that a Raspberry Pi could serve as not only a client of content, but also a server. And not just a server, but a creative environment. And not just a creative environment, but built on the one that inspired the literal Jurassic Park. And not just the literal Jurassic Park, but the metaphorical one that inspired it: Genentech.
I digress— a unix system. If you're a child that can save the adults, you know this.
However, it is not actually a unix system. Well mine is, but the one I'm going to ship across platform is the successor to the successful elements of it: 9p.
If this is too technical, I'm done. I just needed to drop a line of knowledge so that anyone that knows their operating systems history and future, knows that I know that Microsoft and Google are both underpinned by this tech.
Anyways, I bought a data center.
I don't particularly care for the AI, but depending on my customers, we can include any number of characters for you to inquire. That's not the point.
The point is we're talking tokens now.
Sixty United States Dollars will be 600 tokens at todays exchange rate. I am also open to alternative currencies. Think of this like an arcade.
1 token is ten megabytes. This is fixed, once we enter the digital reality, because I bought a data center. It is best to visualize this data center as an arcade.
When you come in, you can play games anonymously and train in stealth mode before unleashing your skills on the open market. Or, once you reach your first 600 tokens can acquire the player card to log onto the leaderboard.
The entire cross-over idea of me getting into performance was to have a Steve Jobs style tech demo where I pulled a piece of paper out of my pocket and proclaimed it to be a computer. After running that idea a few times, the feedback was it was a terrible dues ex for a tech demo, but an excellent premise for an interactive universe, like Pixar.
Truth be told, I would rather be an animator than an engineer, but there was never any money in that.
You would always be at the whim of the software capable of being delivered by Adobe and Apple, no rivalry comment.
Well, I just got the light. I do believe this paper is the computer. The entire computer exists within this paper, the way it exists in that phone, that keyboard, that cyberdeck, and this guitar. Four players in a new age rock band, but where do they keep the books, audio, video, and games they made of their misadventures?
In my data center.
Unveiling to you for the first time, the BackPackPro. I've been talking about the free version of my backpack in the arctic code vault for quite some time now, but this is built on the Apple M-Series Platform, the MacBookPro is just the one I modded to run on and in my backpack at boot.
Thanks for coming, scan the paper computer and jump into my backpack, let's get out of here!
Don't write a game.
If you do, don't write a game engine.
If you do, don't write a platform.
If you do, don't write a computer.
If you do, don't commercialize it.
If you do, don't teach it to kids.