My name is Michael Cardell Widerkrantz. People usually call me "MC".
Slightly neurospicy & neurocrunchy. Anarchist. Vegan. Zen Buddhist. Hacker. Chaotic good.
"A robot hacker rabbit from outer space" according to my youngest. They might be right.
Some important things: libertarian socialism, science fiction, retro-computing, dark scene music, swords, Emacs, programming, access to source code, open hardware.
I live in Malmö in the south of Sweden with my wife Petra and our kid. My two grown kids Ludvig and Gabriel have moved out.
Too see what I've been up to lately, see my now page.
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Explained and commented version.
I work as an applied researcher and programmer at Tillitis, a very small company building open hardware. My official title is "Member of the technical staff". If it was good enough for Ken and Dennis it's good enough for me!
I used to work at Mullvad VPN's small Trustworthy Compuing Research team when parts of it was spun off to its own company, Tillitis, in late 2022.
Before the Trustworthy Computing Research team I worked for seven years at an IXP, DNS, and time provider, mostly doing stuff on the DNS side, helping design three different systems for management of millions of DNS zones, including the root zone from a large anycast service.
Before that I was mostly your regular C/Unix code monkey, but with a slight focus on network protocols. See résumé for the boring details.
I also maintain the servers for for the services at hack.org and some vanity domains hosted there.
When my youngest was very young I was a stay-at-home dad for roughly two years. I believe this was very good for all concerned.
I was born and grew up in the vicinity of Hudiksvall in the north of Sweden. I discovered computers and programming in 1981 but couldn't afford a computer of my own until 1985 when I bought a horrible Commodore Plus 4 for a bargain. Read more about current and previous computers.
The Plus 4's only saving grace was that it had sound and graphics commands in the BASIC, which the C64 didn't, and that it had a machine code monitor built in. I got rid of it after six months and got a PC with MS-DOS, then a Luxor ABC 1600 with a *nix, later a Sun 3/60 with another *nix, a Sun SPARCstation ELC, and on it goes.
I was bullied through primary school but somehow managed to survive. Computers, books, and music helped. In upper secondary school (USA: senior high school) I completed some courses ahead of time to get more time with computers. Like it says in the Kraftwerk song: "It's more fun to compute!"
More or less by chance I moved to Linköping in 1991, ostensibly to study at Linköping University, then discovered the Lysator Academic Computer Society, met my first wife Helena, had some kids, got my first real job and ended up spending a surprisingly long time there.
For a few years I lived in a large co-housing complex in Linköping, Stolplyckan, then moved to a shared flat with a semilegal Internet connection, The T1 Collective. Here's Magnus and me in front of our X terminals in the "office" at T1, probably in 1997:
In 1998 I moved with a few friends to a new shared flat we lovingly called Area 41 after the more famous Area 51 and the number in our street (41). Four adults with an alternative bent, two kids, and 18 computers! We were all aliens, in a way, not quite fitting in.
For reasons I lived for a chaotic year in Gothenburg 2001-2002, then back to Area 41.
In 2004 I moved with my new wife Petra and the kids to Malmö in the south of Sweden, again more or less by chance.
Like Andrew Eldritch says, "Books are the best technology there is". We have at least 21 bookcases full of SF&F and arcana of everything from politics, medicine, history, linguistics, computer science to conspiracy theories and scientific scepticism, and all things in-between.
I listen to a lot of music. I'm fond of saying I'm an old punk that somehow discovered electronic music. I mostly listen to a lot of industrial, dark/cold wave, neofolk and other vaguely gothy stuff, but also a lot of classical music and, yes, some punk.
As you can probably guess, computers are one of my main interests. I'm especially interested in operating systems, network protocols and systems software but also minimalist user interface design and typesetting.
I have re-occuring episodes of retro-computing, where I typically read about or try out some more or less forgotten CPU architecture, operating system or programming language.
I probably spend too much time with my computers. I try to limit the tube time by not having a TV set and working part time (32 hour week), so I can spend time with my personal projects, family, my books, my bikes, and my sword.
I practised in the German school of longsword fighting at MHFS for a few years. The pandemic didn't help, being 50+ didn't help, neurospiciness didn't help. But it was still fun, when I managed to drag myself there and overcome my anxieties.
Here's my Feder:
I used to have high ceilings in the flat and understanding neighbours in the cottage, so I could at least get some cutting practice even if I couldn't attend the regular classes. After my move to a new flat I still have pretty high ceilings, but not a lot of space.
I also try to train at a gym a couple of times a week and bike everywhere on minimalist bicycles. Trust me, I shouldn't have a geared bike. Yes, I'm usually wearing a helmet while biking. It's also a win for everyone that I don't have a driver's license.
This is The Goth Bike, a 46:16 singlespeed I use in the city:
It's a State 4130 46x16.
A long time ago I practised aikidō.
I'm very fond of downhill skiing both in and off piste. Not much of that here in southern Sweden, though, but I usually get about 20 days of skiing per season.
I have been practising zazen since 1988. This probably makes me a (rather secular) zen buddhist.
Until 1991 I was a member of the Northern Lights sangha in Hudiksvall, at the time loosely affiliated with the Diamond Sangha network of Robert Aitken roshi.
In 1991 I started and maintained the mailing list Universal Zendo until I left it in better hands in the mid-90s.
While being religious in a way (Buddhist, duh!), I also enjoy a healthy scientific scepticism. As a friend once said: “New age rhymes with sewage”.
After many years as an ovo-lacto vegetarian I started to follow a vegan lifestyle in 2004. This is mostly for ethical reasons. Think something like "minimizing suffering while maintining interests".
To quote the british Vegan Society:
Veganism is a way of living that seeks to exclude, as far as possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing and any other purpose.
This means I don't eat meat (including fish), dairy, eggs or anything that comes from animals or is harvested from animals. It also means I try to avoid the use of leather and other byproducts of slaughter or the keeping of animals.
I have put together some notes about a vegan lifestyle (in Swedish).
My political leanings are toward libertarian socialism or, if you like, classical European anarchism.
I have a history as a non-violent libertarian socialist activist beginning in a punk environment in the 1980s. One of the most notable achievements is co-founding the Spunk Library text archive in 1992.
As a pacifist and antimilitarist I was a conscientious objector when drafted into the Swedish armed forces. Looking back a few years later, I wrote an amusing text about it. In Swedish, I'm afraid.
Last updated: <2024-12-15 09:13:10 CET>