Say The Magic Words: Open Terminal!
I learned the French Drop finger magic trick from my camp counselor Mike Silver at Science Camp Watonka when I was 12 years old. Now, I'm introducing a new skill called the French Drop and Miss. Direction, closely aligned with Unix/Linux. This skill is future-proof, obsolescence resistant, and immune to disruption. It's important to not solely depend on GUIs and to focus on Unix/Linux terminal.
Unlock the Magic of Unix/Linux with the French Drop and Miss. Direction!
By Michael Levin
Saturday, June 11, 2022
Show the nice people how the sausage is made. Don’t bore the magic seekers, but do give deep insight to the spiritual seekers. Break this en in two. Yeah, break it in two then go see your kid.
All I have to do is blow up on YouTube and all my woes are over, you say? The first 1000 followers are the easiest, you say? [Tab 2]
It’s time to address the elephant in the room. Few of you here are really here to learn about Linux from me and how it’s going to change your life. Most of my happenstance audience just wants to see more hand magic. [Tab 3]
More finger magic. We’ll here’s some finger magic for you… no really, it’s called the French Drop and I learned it from my camp counselor Mike Silver, the openly first gay person I knew, at science Camp Watonka at Lake Wallenpaupack 40 years ago when I was 12 years old—right around the corner here from where I life today… at least for the next 2 weeks. [Tab 4]
This was the summer before my trip to Israel with my friend Guy Bruchstein and his family. Yeah, that’s a lot to unpack, right? So more videos to come on my most singular life experiences sandwiched between the rise of Unix and the death of Commodore. I’ve got so much to teach this generation of unreachable TikTokers and Boomer-knockers. Maybe you’re a Boomer…
I am not a Boomer (in Arnie voice… anyone? Anyone? Bueller?)
Well let’s focus now on Camp Wataonka and the most important magic which I did learn there and which I didn’t learn there. I took the hand magic and I left the computer science. It was booooooring and not for me. I mean adding and shifting in binary? Really? I had to know that? What kind of brain fart people were into computers anyway. Me? Give me art, magic, comic books and Dungeons & Dragons any day. [Tab 5]
Why did nobody reach me about abstractions and switches gradually fading away into a sort of magic as layered up APIs simplify human/interfaces until all that remains is a sort of spontaneous creative expression like the Mickey’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice, but gone right? [Tab 6]
Sigh, couldda wouldda shouldda, am I right? We’ll, if I knew then what I know know, what would I have done? I would have told someone like you looking for mere hand trick magic to listen to someone like me who offers a more beautiful life-changing sort of magic which is every bit as spiritually satisfying and audience-impressing. Ever watch finger-magic computer hackers in the movies, working their magic with nearly telepathic control of computers, near and far? War Games from my generation comes to mind, but there’s also Mr. Robot from more recent. Yeah, I offer you that. [Tab 7]
Twelve and Thirteen years old were very formative years in my life, and if the removable finger trick is the bookmark to my 6-year old self and my relationship with my “special” mailman Mr. Sucro, the French Drop is the bookmark to my adolescence and my “special relationship” with my overnight camp counselor and U.K. magician Mike Silver. Both of these men imprinted on me deeply. Deeply in all the good and right ways. This is not going where you think and the fact that that is the automatic response in todays society is a problem. May I suggest you all read The Road to Oz where Dorothy meets the Shaggy Man, ye-old Scooby Doo’s buddy and a fine overlooked example for our culture to emulate. [Tab 9]
We’ll happily the Web puts a giant firewall between Shaggy Men and your kids but still let that special mailman or camp counselor into your life without todays stranger danger paranoia. And so a buddy like me can show you the French Drop in the spirit of the great Penn & Teller, bad boys of magic who revealed the disappearing handkerchief trick to the world before it was cool to admit Magic was all tricks. It’s all tricks, people! Stranger danger is a trick to control you. The weird isn’t really that dangerous and some of the most valuable information needing to be transmitted between generations is going to come from peeps like my mailman Mr. Sucro, my camp counselor Mike Silver, or indeed me right here right now with the French Drop. [Tab 10]
I’m one-take Mike. I rarely edit, but when I do I get a million views. So come with me now as we go behind the scenes now and wax-on and wax-off. Wax-on and wax-off. Listen to Mr. Miyagi. He knows he can’t convince you to internalize the movements through practice without tricks. Without force. You have to want something so badly, like freedom from bullies, that you’re willing to put in the work on faith. You won’t know you’re learning exactly the skills, the very muscle memory, the precise movements you will need to defend yourself and ultimately kick butt in life. [Tab 11]
How do you know you’re onto something important or new? A thread you must follow? How do you know you found something loveworthy? How do you know you’re walking into the circles of your Ikigai? It feels like Christmas Eve. You know gifts are coming. You know a light is about to come into your life.
Let me show you something. It’s called The French Drop.
Let me introduce you to someone. Her name is Miss. Direction.
Next step: More finger magic, hand magic
Lure ‘em in with tricks… move onto what’s important…
Life-skills… most valuable… most relevant… and just feeling good about your abilities in the most number of situations.
All tech is text.
The single most important skill (a.k.a. trick) in life is developing your wax-on, wax-off ability in the vim text editor.
- Magic… desires for it…
- Closely aligned with Unix/Linux
- Muscle memory
- Cool tricks
- Lasting a lifetime
- Future-proof
- Obsolescence Resistant
- Immune to Disruption
Text wars…
- NOT VSCode vs. PyCharm
- eMacs vs. vi(m)
- emacs = RMS/LISP/MIT
- THE Most Powerful Wizards
- e”VI”l mode (vi emulation)
- Harder
- vi(m) = Bill Joy/Bell/Unix/C
- vim = vi(iMitated)… on the Amiga
- vim = vi(iMproved)… rest of world
- vim = Bram Moolenaar
- The copied text-control magic
- VSCode uses it
- Other “vi-clones” use it
- Plays like a video-game
- Like martial arts
- Linux (Microsoft made WSL)
- Python (Hired Guido van Rossum)
- vim ??? M$ created VSCode
- git (Microsoft bought Github.com)
- Bought NPM (NodeJS’s repo) too
VSCode… while crazy-great …also blocking you from vim!!!
- GUIs (Visual Desktops)
- Necessary, no doubt
- But don’t depend on them
- Depend ONLY on *nix Terminal
- Unix
- Unix Bell Labs / Ken Thompson
- Proprietary at birth
- Ivory Tower
- DNS (address resolution)
- Linux
- Linus Torvalds
- GNU GPL2 (forces sharing)
- A lot of interplay
- The Web LAMP