{"id":1004,"date":"2026-03-31T21:33:56","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/securelang.net\/cms\/?p=1004"},"modified":"2026-03-31T21:33:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:33:56","slug":"culture-is-important","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/securelang.net\/cms\/blog\/2026\/03\/31\/culture-is-important\/","title":{"rendered":"Culture Is Important"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>An engineer friend once said &#8220;aesthetics are important&#8221;, in relation to machines not being merely mechanical in their features but also needing to be useful <strong>to humans.<\/strong> This means that a machine has to look\/feel useful for us to understand it&#8217;s purpose and a machine should not be obstructive to human needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But more generally culture is important, a machine needs to fit culturally into it&#8217;s surroundings and I think that&#8217;s the real problem with modern operating systems. They fit into a kind of California &amp; Washington oriented culture that probably isn&#8217;t that relevant even for American audiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m a <em>vi<\/em> guy but not in it&#8217;s original cultural sense, I&#8217;m a <em>hacker<\/em> but not in it&#8217;s true American-vs-Russian form, I&#8217;m a Mac guy but not a fan of Apple, I&#8217;m a DOS guy but I want nothing to do with Microsoft, I&#8217;m a TempleOS guy but I oppose the religion of the schizophrenics. We culturally become part of the machine and if we don&#8217;t direct this culture ourselves we end up as second-class citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So am I developing an operating system for myself, or for Australians, or for Africans, Irish, etc.? Am I developing an operating system for the real hackers, for the 1337357? Am I developing an operating system for the old or for the young, for the most disabled or for the most able?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I guess I intend to develop an operating system for those who value security, and for those who enjoy tinkering and learning, and it is very much inspired by Egyptian political thought that I don&#8217;t want ourselves and the rest of Africa and the Palestinians and the Iraqis etc. to be treated as outsiders everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I guess the main defining feature of my operating system is that it&#8217;s my operating system, and doesn&#8217;t belong to anyone who wants us excluded from the industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An engineer friend once said &#8220;aesthetics are important&#8221;, in relation to machines not being merely mechanical in their features but also needing to be useful to humans. This means that a machine has to look\/feel useful for us to understand it&#8217;s purpose and a machine should not be obstructive to human needs. But more generally [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/securelang.net\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/securelang.net\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/securelang.net\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/securelang.net\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/securelang.net\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1004"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/securelang.net\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1006,"href":"https:\/\/securelang.net\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004\/revisions\/1006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/securelang.net\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/securelang.net\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/securelang.net\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}