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Hacking The City
Luddite Joe writes: "All you geeks should feel empowered and important after reading this story at Stating the Obvious about the young IPO rich changing the world. The example focused on is Jamie Zawinski, former Netscape coder turned critic. Although the guy's just opening a nightclub, stick with the article for the point."
The article says Jamie was 29 on April Fools Day 1999, but now he's 32?
Did we slip through some cosmic wormhole while I was on the sauce last night???
First, you should read my response to thread below.
Second, you are probably replying to a kid. Good books are expensive. And I don't mean fucking hairy porter or whatever. How many high school students do you think can afford to spend $100 a month on books?
Frankly, I think exactly this sort of ridiculous price fixing is an excellent motivation for a "bookster" like program. Unlike lame-ass fucking music which does nobody any good, there is no question that the pricefixing on educational materials is definitely creating an economic/ divide. Sure, computers cost money, but you can access computers at a lot of different places. Many people have cheap computers and internet access. Being able to access current educational materials over the internet I think could do a lot of good.
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Moderators: I've got tons of accounts, do your worst.
Relax. Calm down. The world's not out to get you. And you might want to stop hating people with money before you turn into one of them, because otherwise you're going to air-condition your skull before you turn 30.
lovely turn of phrase. Com2kid is obviously VERY tense about something. I wonder how old he is, and what kind of education? The only time I see that kind of rhetoric is skinhead groups and elections.
Dirty Pirate Hooker
I am a fast reader. In fact, I can read up to 900 pages a day.
New paper back fiction books cost $10 a piece, if they are a few years old but still new, they cost $7-$8 each.
Three books a day, at $10, thats $30 a day in reading.
$210 a week, $900 a month, $10950 a year.
Yes I am a high school student, and my family currently earns UNDER $20,000 a year.
I'm on the arse end side of the poverty line, yet I spend EVERY last cent I have on getting ahead in this world, and I have been doing so since i was five years old (when I first learned the value of a doller). So don't tell me about who's some lamer with nothing to do, spending 12hours a day reading and learning is a full time job, and its the only way I'm going to get any place in life. Thats why it pisses me off to see people throw around money in useless ventures, and god knows the part about the druggues is true too. (Trust me, there are far to many students doing drugs in america's schools who also have the audacity to show up stoned out of there mind and make a mess of the classroom.)
Oh yah, and fiction, means Asimov, Clarke, and such. Reprints cost money, and even at a 1/2 price book store, $2.50 to $5 per book is still expensive at three books a day. This is why i am forced to cut down on the number of books I can read a day (people say there is a reading crisis in america, hah, those of us who try to do somthing about it are screwed over thanklessly) too one or two.
You want to know my I was so pissed in my orignal post? Simple, I *HATE* rich people, can't stand'em. Always throwing their money away into useless prusuits. Sheesh, if I had that kind of money, I'd go out and earn five or so Ph.D's, just for The Sake of Learning.
Oh yah, and learn the rules of debate. Attacking a person personaly (spelling and such) is not a way to disprove their thoughts and idea's, but rather, only a way to divert your arguments around the truth. Spelling is not a valid argument, morals and ethics are.
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I am a fast reader, 900pages a day. Library, new books? Hah, we have a bunch of under 150pg books for the jocks on "drug use is bad" and "don't use steriods" Thats all that the school's funding is going to. The excuse? "We buy books for the majority of people."
There is not a single teacher in my school who knows anything about programming, in fact, there is not a single programming instructer in my whole school DISTRICT. This wouldn't be so bad, but I am not a self learner when it comes to programming languages (I always want to ask questions and jump around chaoticly, as is my learning style, but this is not possabile with most books on programming languages.)
Oh yah, and I support ASM, not C. You try finding a modern book on ASM, its NOT easy. The newest that my cities library system possess's, announces the soon to be release of the Pentium.
As stated in an above message, reading at full speed, I can go through $30 of books A DAY not a week. Even at half price, I can easily spend $15 a day, whilst you spend a mere $15 a week.
Personal Library? I have well over 300 books, and at least two shelves of Asimov alone, both his fiction and non-fiction.
(and please, nobody try and question the learning value of science fiction, old school science fiction is alot more educational than most science courses)
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How nice, I have compleatly read out TWO libraries already (my schools, and my cities) of all of their intresting works.
I regularly take home 10 books and finish them within a few days.
Of course I then return them about 2 months later with a $60 fine, heh, libraries get quite expensive for me (I have a horrid memory for dates, places, or anything else that deals with the physical realm.)
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Heh, reading 600+ pages on a CRT moniter (god i can't wait until LCD's come down in price some more!) is the PERFECT way to fry your eyes.
Trust me, I know, my eyes burn right now.
Of course your COULD print the book out, but god, then you have 600 pages of paper floating all around your house (unless you have an industrial quality stapler, heh:)
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Since he's listed as 29 on April 1, 1999, and 32 at the time of the article...
Mike.
Urgle.
It should read, "All you geeks who got incredibly rich from IPO dollars should feel empowered and important after reading this..."
/. management.
We apologize for this minor typo, and hope that this doesn't make any of you little people feel bad when you think of us slashdot people throwing big wads of Andover cash at each other.
We were like you once, before God recognized his Chosen people and raised us above the slime. You should be thankful that you don't have to deal with the terrible problem of what to do once you're rich beyond having to work. This man was one of the lucky ones, who learned that he could still make a difference in the world by selling an addictive intoxicant, and wasn't bound to a hopeless life of doing whatever he wanted whenever he wanted.
Sincerely,
The
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>Hmm. They smoke dope. You're endorsing the >outright murder of people without giving them >any benefit of fair trial, any chance at rehab, >any... etcetera.
::insert gasious substence of choice here:: and who seem to think that school is a place for playing, not learning.
>For someone whose lament seems to be "I don't >have an opportunity", you sure seem pretty keen >on denying other people opportunities.
They used up their opportunities by wasting their minds away on drugs. There are not enough natural resources to go around to waste on the drug users in society. While they burn up resources and their brains, people around the world starve and suffer. How many people could you feed in a third world country from one persons crack/cocain habit, eh? I believe in giving everybody a chance, thats why the people who DENY themselves oppertunity should have their chance given to somebody else. After all, if a person is 18 and still believes that fart jokes are funny, the odds are they that are never going to mature.
>>I cannot stand people with money...
>According to St. Paul, love of money is the root >of all evil. By extension, so is the hatred.
Hmm, thats an intresting logic.
If A is True then B is True. Also opposite of B is true.
Applying your magical theory of logic;
Because not murdering is good, murdering is also good.
Hmm, doesn't qute work, too absolute. Thats defintly an all blanketing statement, and god knows, all blanketing statements are bad.
For clerification, I wouldn't instantly shoot all drugs users, just the ones who have proven themselves to have no hope of redemption. You know the ones, jumping up and down in the middle of lectures, coming in every day smelling like
If they are going to be immature enough to interupt other peoples education with their antics, then they DESERVE to die. Period. Anybody who interupts are otherwise interfears with education deservers to die. This includes republicans, middle mangement, and bean counters.
Oddly enough, all three of those tend to be either middle or upper class, what a coincidence.
Of course the fact that the middle and upper clase are some of the most hard heading stubborn short sited, addle minded people in existence also doesn't speak well for their existence. It is idiots like that who voted for Bush.
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Hackers are good at what they do. Computers. Just because someone who can think creatively with a computer doesn't mean at all that they would do a better job at running a night club than anyone else. This is ridiculous. Yes, I'm happy he's trying to do something, but it sounds like he's having his mid-life crisis a little too soon.
Skinhead? Hardly, african american/italian/native american. You can hardly get much more diverse then that.
::grins
I hate politics, so thats out.
Look at the timestamp on the message, people tend to rant and rave a bit above norm at 1:47 in the morning.
The fact that I don't drink caffinee at all doesn't help any,heh,
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Later I've have realized that there's nothing wrong with being lucky. Being successful takes both hard work and luck. It's your hard work that prepares you so that you recognize and quickly take advantage of the opportunities brought to you by the luck.
Rather, they live in countries on the other side of the world with low costs of living, and work for companies in the Bay Area, with still higher effective savings than someone living there on the same salary, even after flying across the Pacific every now and then each year?
Wouldn't that be nice? :-)
They used up their opportunities by wasting their minds away on drugs.
:)
So now you're God, able to pass judgment on who's worthy and who's not? God at least has the common decency not to judge anyone until the Last Day.
(For the record, my references to religion are meant to be metaphorical; introducing issues of religious belief here would just make an incendiary discussion worse.)
There are not enough natural resources to go around to waste on the drug users in society.
And they might say there aren't enough natural resources in society to go around to waste on self-loathing teenagers. Who gets to decide who's right?
The answer is: the economy. Economics is the study of choice and resource allocation. If you have money, you get to decide how resources are allocated. If you don't, then you still get to decide how resources are allocated--you just decide fewer resources.
It's not a very fair system, I'll admit. Still, it's the best one we've got. As Winston Churchill said, "The inherent vice of capitalism is its unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is its equal sharing of miseries."
Hmm, thats an intresting [sic] logic. If A is True [sic] then B is True [sic]. Also [the] opposite of B is true. Applying your magical theory of logic; Because not murdering is good, murdering is also good.
Not quite. Murder isn't an emotional state. Most extreme emotional states are really just two sides of the same coin. If you can't love someone, then at least hate them, because that shows they still mean something to you. That's why I still hold out some hope for you; okay, sure, you hate the rich and want to kill them. By extension, you hate me and want to kill me, since I'm an engineer working on wickedly-cool software and get paid somewhere between insanely and ludicrously. That's okay; I hope you'll come around and realize your hatred's misplaced, and pretty foolish.
Far better you hate than you feel nothing, though.
"The opposite of love is not hate, it is apathy. The opposite of good is not evil, it is apathy." (Elie Wiesel)
Anybody who interupts [sic] are [sic] otherwise interfears [sic] with education deservers [sic] to die. This includes [Republicans], middle mangement, [sic] and bean counters.
Hmm. I'm a Republican who voted for Bush, who a few months ago made a large donation to a school district so that poor kids could have notebooks and pencils for the upcoming school year. I volunteer at the local school as an assistant coach with the Academic Decathlon program, and mentor a couple of young geeks who are looking to grow Strong in the Ways of the Code. You also can't say I'm an exception--because the instant you do, I'll rattle off a list of my Republican friends and co-workers who do the exact same or similar things.
Strangely, this is more than many Democrats have done. Yet you don't see me harping that Republicans favor education and Democrats are do-nothings. What you're railing against here is your perception of the human condition, which is something which knows no political party. You'll find heroes and villains in any party at any time.
Oddly enough, all three of [these] tend to be either middle or upper class, what a coincidence.
Upper-class, Republican, voted for Bush. Also a reasonably nice guy, I think, given that I'm talking in a friendly fashion to a kid who says, over and over again, how much he hates me and wants to kill me.
Of course the fact that the middle and upper clase [sic] are some of the most hard heading [sic] stubborn short sited, [sic] addle minded people in existence also doesn't speak well for their existence.
Who's the addle-brained, hard-headed, stubborn person here--the Republican who volunteers his time at the local schools, donated to John McCain's political campaign, mentors young geeks... or the kid who hates people he doesn't even know, for offenses they've never even committed?
The natives might not drink much, but the expat community really gets stuck in (there not being a great deal else to do on a Saturday night). However, with so many police around in Lan Kwai Fong and the other nightlife areas, it certainly feels very safe.
If you want to check out every bad stereotype you have of Australians, for instance, go to the Downunder Bar in Tsim Sha Tsui. Scary stuff :)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Will the next xscreensaver have a "nightclub" hack in it ?
Will JWZ port xscreensaver on this thing to have real cool disco lights in his nightclub ?
:)
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1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
I'm a big fan of jwz's, but not for the reasons outlined in this article. The question I asked myself at the end was: how is this different to what most of us do?
I try, in my modest way, to hack great code and produce products that people use. But I also know that intelligence, nous and experience don't produce the fabulous wealth that this article alludes to.
Jwz is wealthy because he was lucky. He was also talented, savvy and sharp; but mostly he was lucky.
Unfortunately, this article was written because jwz was wealthy.
Maybe living in Australia and away from the ".com revolution" means I'm out of the loop, but I wish jwz luck with his club because of his ideals. It's great when your work and your ideals are in harmony.
But the article is still a beat-up.
Ben Tindale
http://www.jwz.org/doc/lemacs.html Note the URL. That's jwz's side of the story, with all the biases that implies.
Hear hear, I'll agree with that. I was mostly responding to his violent rhetoric. I have managed to pick up most of my material at the half-price book re-sellers. Full MCSE set $45.. C++ Bible, $15.... It's all there if you look for it. $100 a month for a highschool kid?? a university I could see.........
Dirty Pirate Hooker
these individuals have suddenly become imbued with omniscience because they are not only hackers, but rich hackers?
...and start issuing ultimatums to world governments!!
Insightfull comment. Why?
If we take the media image of the geek (someone who forgets to wash and shuns society), and then try to figure out what happens when they make $$$$, why the hell would we conclude that they will try to save the world?
Much more likely they will:
further shun society
buy a small Polynesian Island
build a huge laser gun
get the obligitary white cat
Install massive alarm/self-destruct system
MY GOD! Take their money away now!!
skaters and snowboarders
isn't a big deal when Johnny Depp does it, wasn't a big deal when Van Halen did it... people with money are always buying bars & clubs. Doesn't seem to change the world that much.
There's a reason its rich people that do it, too, & it's not that they're a bold new breed of socially aware geeks out to change the world, it's that they have the money- you can lose money almost as fast in the hospitality industry as you can in internet startups. Success rate's probably similar, too. Good luck to him.
-- 'intellectual property' is oxymoronic
what did he create instead of emacs
XEmacs
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If he were serious about trying to make SF a better place he should have persuaded Jello Biafra to run for mayor again, and finance his campaign. I'm sure with Jello at the helm SF's nightlife problem would be solved.
- illuminaut, arbiter elegantiarum.
I'd have to agree. The parent deserved the + mod far more than I did. Probably some 1/4 wit browsing at +2.
"I'm on the arse end side of the poverty line, yet I spend EVERY last cent I have on getting ahead in this world, and I have been doing so since i was five years old
Have you concidered getting out of the house once in a while?? are you retaining anything you read?? do you know what a girl is?? If you are reading that much, you should have been able to pick up a much better job by now. Don't give us any crap about no oportunities, its probly lack of motivation and spending all your time reading books instead of looing for work. Take a break for a few days/week and get outside. Talk to some people in person. Schmooze. Get some sun. You'll be dead before your a sucess otherwise.
Dirty Pirate Hooker
First off, this isn't flaimbait. I've baited before, and I'm being honest now.
SF has one of the best nightlife scenes in the US, if not the world. Only a _hacker_ who spends his time coding would not see it! I've been to many somewhat underground trance parties that have blown my mind. San Fransisco has a seething underground, and it's been there since the 60's, maybe before. The black clothing crowd may see a dwindling of nightlife, but it's still there people.
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
Lets see,
1) "the widely-esteemed guru of the "open source" software movement", nuff said
2) "the Linux operating system", where's the GNU?
3) the whole behind schedule thing
4) what, emacs just a text editor? in which alternate reality is this guy living in?
And most open source advocates are quite happy RMS has nothing to do with open source.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
This most likely will be my last post to /. Anyone interested in having this slashdot account number can email me
Pulling away from society (or a culture) will not improve it. You can only change things if you are involved. So stay and post your opinion. Someone might just hear you.
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
blah blah blah... hacker... blah blah blah... rich... blah blah blah... disenfranchised... blah blah blah... God, how long do I have to hear this stuff? "Stating the Obvious" is a bit of an understatement, isn't it?
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+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Oh give me a break.
Some opinionated rich kid hacker (good hacker, mind you) decides he'd rather have a cool club to invite all his friends too rather than a cool car to show off to all his friends in. And because of this he's changing the world? Or even changing the city?
Big deal. Apparently he thinks the only important thing is making sure young, rich hacker people JUST LIKE HIM have somewhere to go that fits into their oh so cool post-modern e-lifestyle.
Last I went to San Fran there seemed to be some other problems like the real large number of homeless people, the emtpy wastelands of (largely latino??) poor housing and freeways all around the edge of Palo Alto and a billion other things, all of which matter rather more than making sure that the San Fran rich kids scene is just as swell as it can be.
I wonder how much JWZ gives to charity each month....
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[In society] who would be the crackers and script kiddies?
>So now you're God, able to pass judgment on >who's worthy and who's not? God at least has the >common decency not to judge anyone until the >Last Day.
::grins::
;)
/. user; if all the money spend on politics was instead spent on helping people, we wouldn't have all these problems.
By wasting money on frivolious expenses, the rich also judge who can live and who can die. They choose a higher standard of living for themselves rather then to give to the poor.
>And they might say there aren't enough natural >resources in society to go around to waste on >self-loathing teenagers. Who gets to decide >who's right?
How about a self-loathing teenager who has plans on HELPING society. I am working my ass off to learn everything that I can so that I might contribute to society. Are you saying that my work deservers no more credit that the waste of a druggie?
>"The opposite of love is not hate, it is apathy. >The opposite of good is not evil, it is apathy." >(Elie Wiesel)
Love is an animal instinct that is designed to force otherwise sapient beings to act like wild
creatures. I do not believe if love, instead I prefer the path of logic and a life of discipline and rigorous study. Just as you oppose anything that stands in the way of you acquiring physical wealth and happiness (love, sex, money, power, etc.) I oppose anything that interferes with my acquisition of mental knowledge.
People fear apathy, because through apathy comes true objectivity, and when you view society
through an objective view point, you see something that is utterly disgusting. I do not believe apathy should be a permanent state of mind, but it is a useful tool for one to gain their bearings with. As it is, I am a very compassionate person, I am (literally) unable to step on a bug. But I have no care for the human race, for the human race has sinned (and I am *not* talking metaphorically) beyond
belief. Every time someone spends money on another inefficient item of self indulgence, they have cursed another person to death.
Love encourages us to only look at ourselves, it is a very introspective feeling, and yet while
introversion is normally a good thing, love has been carefully crafted through years of evolution to ensure that all who fall into its embrace shall follow along a sure path of outdated modes of keeping the human race around.
Honestly, the chances of the human race dying out from under population are none. The chances of
a given family in america starving to death if they don't steal a loaf of bread from their neighbors is zilch. Love and its accompanying emotions are highly outdated, and while they where a necessary
set of survival rules in the days of zoog the cave man, this is the modern world, and all the survival instincts (love included here folks) do is squander resources by causing people to desire to hoard items for their own use.
Don't talk to me about emotional states, I can switch emotional states at will, faster then most people can speak a syllable. Your ridiculously outdated idea's of love are foolish in the modern world.
>Upper-class, Republican, voted for Bush. Also a >reasonably nice guy,
Hmm, guess it'd be kinda faux passe to play the death penalty card here, eh?
Anyways, he happens to be a resonably nice guy who has royaly screwed up texas's education. I know, I have spoken with students from texas, they say that the schools down there are horrific. These are actualy thoughtfull opinions, not just the standard "school sucks" that most kids will give you anyways
Texas's education system revolves around passing tests, the class's teaching centers around the tests, and teachers don't have enough time to explore things that are not on the test.
Oh yah, in addition, (I could discuss politics all day, but then again, who couldn't) Bush also let off the o-so-famous quote of:
"I believe free speech should be limited."
Yah, real nice guy there, seeing as how he wants to limit the first amendment. His B.S. plans for social security aren't all that good either. (I'm sure the lower class will know EXACTLY what stocks to invest in to make the most money, yah right, fat chance.)
>You also can't say I'm an exception--because the >instant you do, I'll rattle off a list of my >Republican friends and co-workers who do the >exact same or similar things
What signifies the middle class mind set to me is a girl a knew a few years back. She was a vegitarian hunter.
Yes, I just said vegitarian hunter.
She couldn't see anything wrong with this, and she proudly supported both animal rights and hunters rights. Quite ridculas really, she had a compleat lack of an ability to connect A with B. She was otherwise a very intelligent person, in honors everything, but she had not one iota of introspectiveness.
I have found that most of the middle class is like this, they have a compete lack of any ability to realize what their actions will do. People who believe in privitizing schools and giving out $2000 a year vouchers to students don't realize that $2000 just pays for one class of 20 students, and that is for the teacher alone! The only way current schools survive is by all the extra money that they get from other various sources, but if a school doesn't work off of goverment funding, such funds are unavaible. Yet republicans and their ilk fail to see this.
The middle and upper class have a complete lack of any sort of an ability to reconize that some people DO NOT have money. They fail to reconize that the reason goverment programs exist is to HELP people rise up out of dispare. Yes, such programs need work, and yes, some of those programs over bloated and wasting lots of money. But the solution is not to eliminate those programs, but rather to reorganize them so that they provide the same services, but in a more efficent manner.
Oh yah, and guns DO kill people, which is pretty much the only other grip about republicans that I have (for crying out loud, its hard to go on a 50 person killing spree in two hours, using a knife! Yee gads some people are hard headed.)
>Who's the addle-brained, hard-headed, stubborn >person here--the Republican who volunteers his >time at the local schools, donated to John >McCain's political campaign, mentors young >geeks... or the kid who hates people he doesn't >even know, for offenses they've never even >committed?
They have commited an offense, inefficency.
Zippity doo da, you did a little good deed and now you feel good about yourself.
pharaphrasing another
I can't stand geeks, they still commit sins of the body, yet they try to present themself as being emotionaly intelligent people, their not, they just have a high mental intelligence. There is a difference, and they havn't learned it yet.
I'm a kid who doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, doesn't do drugs, attends school everyday, reads for 6 hours a day on weekdays and 12 hours a dan (minimum) on weekends. I don't lie, cheat or steal. I am non-violent, not a racist, and I follow a path of moral guidelines that are so stringent that most puritans would choke under their burden. When I die I plan on being remembered for all that I learned and how well I used that knowledge to help my fellow humans. I am open to all viewpoints, but I refuse anything that interfears with the path of knowledge. I am always willing to give a helping hand to others, I open doors and give a hand to people whome I even may not know. I work hard and I learn everyday, and learning is my fun. You want to compare moral guidelines with me, don't even try. Spend a few good days in mediation then come back.
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I'm -not- a Christian, but not all that childhood indoctrination was wasted, there's a parable about the "Widow's mite" that seems relevant to this discussion. Of course you can't buy your way into heaven, no such place, but any fool with too much money will end up doing philanthropy eventually. Philanthropy on a budget, now that's cool.
Jamie worked on XEmacs didn't he, so for the purposes of this comment, he's done his philanthropy up-front in my opinion.
Opening a nightclub in a big city is different than coding software. Geeks shouldn't mess with the mafia. These guys will break your legs.
Really? Excellent. I'll give that a shot now. The only thing I was ever able to find before was the ISO MPEG specs in PDF format.
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I believe that the only way to create the next wave of Rock n' Roll bands is too rebirth the small to medium size venues that the Nirvana's, Pearl Jam's, and Tea Party's started
;-)
God save us from any more of this crap! If closing down the small clubs will stop us having to endure any more mince like this, then I'm gonna invest my money in bulldozers!
At least in the UK our bands have some character left
Anyway: I cannot believe somewhere the size of SF does not still have at least 10-20 small venues where bands go play for beer, and the doorman doubles as the DJ?
You're young, you're rich... Now what? It's a harder question than it looks. Zawinski's situation is endemic in San Francisco and Seattle and every other high-tech hub in the country. Literally thousands of Internet industry worker-bees, yet to see their thirtieth birthday, have ridden boom-time IPOs to instant, enormous wealth. And these twentysomething millionaires are suddenly faced with a question that most people only dream about: after the dust has settled, after you've grown bored or burned-out, after you walk away with more cash than you know what to do with... Now what?
Those poor, poor souls.
Having money forced on them by gullible investors, they now face the ennui that only material prosperity can bring. Fight on, brave ones, against the desolation of not having to work.
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A true hacker doesn't code for the corprate account he codes for himself. It's simple the reason i hack is to exercise my freedom to learn. The reason i code for work is to make money. Don't mix the two. I don't go to work so i can hack around. I go to get paid. I don't consider jamie's involvment in Netscape as hacking. His work in lisp yea but, coding for someone else is not hacking.
Time is Change.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
How nice, but it would seem that somebody (perhaps belonging to the same political party of RJH a few posts down) has denied school funding so that there is nobody to expose me to such works of lititure. Even I am incapbile of judging which books to read just by their cover. Of course, the fact that teachers are held back by unattentive students could also be part of the problem. One chapter a day is expected from most teachers when a student is assigned a book. I myself would give them the book on a friday and tell them to have it read by monday. If anybody complains about having a party or such to go to, then I would tell them that they would fail simply based on a lack of dedication to their education.
I have had LA teachers who did not even have a proper mastery of the english language, so if you wish to discuss reasons for me having a limited sphere of reading choices, then take up the topic with your school districts supervisor. But forcing kids to read a brief sampling that is insterted more for political correctness then actual educational value, might help to improve what childen are exposed to in school.
As it is, Dante's Inferno was compleatly skipped over even though I wanted to read it. It was in the text books we have, but, it was not considered ethnicaly diverse enough to be included as part of our education.
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>Have you concidered getting out of the house >once in a while?? are you retaining anything you >read?? do you know what a girl is??
Oh yes, and you are SO enlighted. Hell, you still associate sex with success, stop thinking with your gonades and start using your brain. Goverment age restrictions currently limit what I am able to do. Because I am forced to stay in a school where I mearly have re-read the same old crud I have read in my spare time, I am unable to get a true job. Of course if courses where offered in public school where we just sat down for a day and got lectured to, then left, it would be oh so much more efficent. As it is I am taking one lecture course up at my local community collage and I *LOVE* it. No more waiting around for a-holes to get settled down, instead everybody just pays attention and takes notes. On those days that a subject you have already covered personaly is being discussed in class (such as the causes of WW1, of which I had twice before) you can mearly just stay home and do self study. Defintly a supiorer system, and students would be accelloreated two or three years if such a method of teaching was applied to public schools.
This means that I would have been out of school two years ago, knowing far more then I will know when I do graduate from the current system, and I would have had a very nice paying job by now. But you see, goverment restrictions being what they are, I am not allowed to just go to school to take programming courses (if they where offered, which they aren't) and 3d-modeling courses (if they where offered, which they aren't) and math courses (which is so f-ed up, I passed all the class's, two years ahead of schedual I might add, but the local community collage doesn't like my test results, thus showing that public schools DO NOT prepare people for the real world.)
You want to know why I am stuck where I am, its because a bunch of pencil pushers and bean counters decided that this is where I belong.
Needless to say, buercracy doesn't mesh well with my free roaming spirit. (and yes, I spirit can roam free inside of a book, suprise surprise!)
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
"Simple, I *HATE* rich people, can't stand'em. Always throwing their money away into useless prusuits. Sheesh, if I had that kind of money, I'd go out and earn five or so Ph.D's, just for The Sake of Learning."
:)
Gee...you wouldn't like me then
So you hate rich people. Yeah, people like me are worrying sick over what some bum like you thinks. So I'm rich. Big deal. I don't give a flying fuck what you think. I worked hard to get to where I am today, and I'm going to enjoy the fruits of my labor as I see fit.
But I digress. I can't speak for the people out there who throw their moeny away into worthless ventures. I'd find better things to do with my money myself...but if they want to burn their money, let em. They earned it, they can spend it however they want. Some people may see your five doctorates as a waste of money too.
Here's my suggestion to you: quit yer bitching. You can bitch all you want about the rich people, but that isn't going to do you any good. I suggest you get off your ass and make something of yourself. Your fevered pursuit of education is a fine start, and I hope you go somewhere with it.
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The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
Female Prison Rape in NY
So, are VC's supposed to be an aphrodisiac? :-)
Are you talking about J@red Polis? I probably voted for him, because I take the "If I don't know who these people are, i'll vote for the democrat" approach. But something that annoyed me about his campaign was how his name is spelled on the lawn signs: "J@red" Is that supposed to make me think, "Hmm, this guy has an at symbol in his name, therefore he must be into computers somehow, and computers are good, right? so i must vote for him". Oh well. I hope he can counteract some of the damage to the edu system that good ol' bill owens is doing and will do in the future. (sorry for the ramble...)
I got a better idea, I'm allying with GoD to make the world a better place. Wait a minute, even GoD wasn't able to make the world a better place. Beam me up GoD, to heaven and quick.
I live in Seattle. You're talking about Maria Cantwell, an ex VP from Real Networks. Yes, she spent $10-12 million on her campaing for Senate. Of course, the 20-some year Republican incumbant Slade Gorton spent the same amount. So who is at fault? Cantwell is a harmless Democrat and I voted for her. Slade "Skeletor" Gorton is evil man set on helping his fellow cronies. For example, he added a rider that allowed some Washington timber companies to log in protected forest (and these companies got paid by the state of Washington for their "stewardship"!) to a Senate bill for providing international relief aid to Kosovo. Who's the bitch now? Slade Gorton is the bitch.
cpeterso
By wasting money on frivolious expenses, the rich also judge who can live and who can die.
:) Good. You don't know me from the wind, brother, and if you think you do, you are mistaken.
.45 when it happened to me. But lo and behold, two years later, all the good parts are happening all over again.
;) Set your sights higher.
Yep. Life is tough. Wear a helmet.
That sounds callous, doesn't it? It's only because it's true. A friend of mine says that she would be a Wiccan, if only she felt that the Wiccan Rede was anything more than a pipe dream--"if it doesn't harm anyone, do what you want to do" is, in some ways, a very narrow view of the world.
Anything you do, anything you do, will condemn some and redeem others. The trick is doing what you can to make sure that, on balance, you help more than you hurt. But it's a given that anything you do will adversely affect another person.
Did you buy popcorn the last time you went to the movies? Couldn't that $6.00 have bought an entire week's food for a starving civilian in Chechnya? How dare you, indulge in a six-dollar bucket of popcorn while people are starving to death.
But if you don't buy that popcorn, and nobody else does, either (instead contributing to the Red Cross to help starving Chechens), then you put the guy behind the counter out of a job--and what if he's the breadwinner for the family, earning $7.00 an hour in a crappy job because that's the only thing he can get?
You see? Every choice you make will have positive and negative repercussions, repercussions far beyond the simple cause-and-effect that you think about.
In other words, your hatred is seriously misplaced, and not at all logical.
How about a self-loathing teenager who has plans on HELPING society. I am working my ass off to learn everything that I can so that I might contribute to society. Are you saying that my work deservers no more credit that the waste of a druggie?
Get over your self-hatred first before you go about trying to help anyone. Everyone wants peace on earth, but so few people ever try to find peace with themselves first.
Insofar as your plans to help others--big whup. When I was in high school I wasn't "planning" to help others; I was building homes with Habitat for Humanity. Just because you're in high school doesn't mean you can't do anything.
There are lots of people who say "'ere but for the vile guns of war, I'd been a soldier". The credit doesn't go to those people. The credit goes to those people who do it, not people who talk about how they plan to someday do it.
But first, get over your self-hatred.
Love is an animal instinct that is designed to force otherwise sapient beings to act like wild creatures. I do not believe if [sic] love, instead I prefer the path of logic and a life of discipline and rigorous study. Just as you oppose anything that stands in the way of you acquiring physical wealth and happiness (love, sex, money, power, etc.) I oppose anything that interferes with my acquisition of mental knowledge.
First--you have no idea what I want out of life.
We clear on that?
Second--I used to think like that. Then a 6'2", slim, attractive, long-legged German blonde came along and turned my world square on its head. (Gave me a permanent liking for tall women in the process, too...) Best thing that ever happened in my life, I tell you, was when I stopped feeling sorry for myself and learned how to let go a little bit. Most liberating thing in my life.
I've found that people who espouse cold and bitter pessimism are people who've never found anything better in life. Trust me; there are, if you only look for them.
Book learning is great, but--as Yogi Berra noted--while in theory there's no difference between theory and practice, in practice there is. Practice is better.
People fear apathy, because through apathy comes true objectivity,
No. Bzzt. Sorry. Thanks for playing. With apathy comes brutality, bitterness and evil. Objectivity coexists quite well with passion and ardor; it's what this wonderful thing called Science is built upon. The best scientists in the world are carefully and studiously objective, yes--but they are also some of the most deeply and fervently passionate men and women you'll ever hear of.
Read Dick Feynman's Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! for brilliant examples. If you think your objectivity comes anywhere close to Dick Feynman's, all I can say is--where's your Nobel Prize?
Read biographies of Niels Bohr. In addition to a Nobel, he also held an Olympic medal or two. He was passionate and fiery, and one of the sharpest minds of this century.
Look at Einstein's private letters to his wife; you'll see a Nobel prizewinner overcome with all sorts of dark passions.
Read Peter Duesenberg's theories on AIDS--keeping in mind that he's a seven-time CDC Exceptional Investigator--and the passionate firestorms that erupt from his critics.
Read about John Bardeen (two Nobels). Read about Linus Pauling (another two-time winner, in different fields). Read about Archimedes, the great grand-daddy of 'em all, who was killed by a Roman legionnaire after he screamed at the legionnaire to get out of his way, he was blocking the light he needed to see his equations.
Passion is alive and well in science, and not one single scientist I know--and I know a lot of them, from Paul C.W. Chu (a leading superconductivity researcher) to Bruce McCandless (astronaut) to Bruce Schneier (cryptographer)--would ever say that apathy leads to objectivity.
Love encourages us to only look at ourselves
No, that's lust. Love encourages us to look at the beloved, not ourselves. Love is the state where someone else's happiness becomes a major factor in your own happiness. Love is where you'll do anything to make her smile, because her smile puts a leap in your heart that nothing else approaches. Love is selfless; if you find yourself thinking about you, then whatever you feel isn't love.
And if you'd ever been in love, you'd know this already without being told.
My suggestion: don't condemn it until you've fallen in it. It really is a pretty cool thing, except when it all falls apart, and especially when it's nobody's fault.
Lawrence Block has a book out, Ticket to the Boneyard, in which the protagonist tells Sara "I didn't think it'd end like this--I always thought it'd work out, somehow." Sara has to break the news to him that it did work out, and this is how it worked out.
That sucks. That hurts. I almost blew my head off with a
These things really do work out.
Honestly, the chances of the human race dying out from under population are none
My NASA astrophysicist friends disagree with you. They're fairly of one mind that we need more population, orders of magnitude more population (on orders of magnitude more planets than we have now). At six billion people, we're not even a drop in the galactic bucket.
We're only overpopulated if you're willing to accept that we'll never leave Earth.
Don't talk to me about emotional states, I can switch emotional states at will, faster then most people can speak a syllable.
If that's the case, then you need professional help. Now. Because what you're talking about is called sociopathy, and brother, it ain't good. The only people who can turn their emotions on and off at will are sociopaths, and I don't want any of them in my neighborhood.
Anyways, he happens to be a resonably nice guy who has royaly [sic] screwed up [Texas's] education. I know, I have spoken with students from [Texas], they say that the schools down there are horrific [sic].
Strange. I graduated from high school with a four-year full-ride National Merit Scholarship to the University of Houston, where my tuition was fully paid for by the State of Texas. Apparently they did a pretty good job of educating me, because I've got a good job today, the respect of my professional peers, and my future's so bright I've got to wear shades.
-- At any rate. I really don't have the time to go against you point by point by point. I would suggest you think about professional help. You sound like you've got a real problem with self-hatred and self-loathing, and God knows that isn't healthy.
You sound reasonably intelligent, and your presence on Slashdot suggests you've got a degree of technical expertise. That means the world is your oyster, same as it is mine. You can either amass all the wealth and power you want, or you can use that wealth and power to change things, things that need changing before we all go off the deep end.
But you can just as easily choose to spurn all that, and all the good you could do with that.
It's your call. For your sake, I hope you make the right one.
Because if you don't, you're going to kill yourself before you're 30, and I really don't want that to happen.
Three Words:
South East Asia.
malaysia ot the philippines to be more precise;
connections are acceptable, beaches are great, cost of living is about 25% of the U.S. average and 10% of the California average, water is pristine - and hey, they build the P4 processors here {AMD is here, too - so everyone else in the whoiswho of IT].
given liberal legislation and attractive tax presents to the industry, all you gotta do is convice your boss to establish a branch office - telecommuting hub...
for ageek malaysia is almost heaven.
Go to The Contemporary Group's web site and look at any of the bands listed on their home page. If those are "the better bands", I don't really think there is a conflict. Based on the description of his plans, I don't expect that Jamie will be asking NSYNC to be the headlining band at the DNA Lounge opening night. ;)
# echo 'SboPshAeaM@rSicPocAheMt.SnePt' | sed -e 's/[SPAM]//g'
Charity should have no strings. What is the "bum on the street" does with the money is irrelevant, as once you give it to him it is HIS money, not YOURS anymore. Anyway, by definition charitable people give, selfish people don't. If you have to think about giving you are just as selfish as the elites you are rail against...
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You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
Lets see... I want to work in City X because of a great job offer. But then again, City X doesn't have any kickass nightclubs like DNA. Oh well, I guess I'm going to have to settle for drinking my $6 watered-down drinks in some elitist-joiner-backass-backwater-wannabe-New-York- lameo-nightclub in some hick town in the midwest.
Poor jwz, besieged by his own fame. It is just a nightclub, people. It is just a person doing what they want to do. Why is this news for nerds?
Speak truth to power.
"Elect me and I'll donate $100M to education/housing."
Would that be legal?
According to the article this guy moved to SF after spending most of his adolesence coding, only to spend the next 6 years doing more coding. So, by virtue of Netscape's former success, he is now uniquely able to not only understand, but also solve very large scale urban sociological problems.
I can't wait until geeks start branching out into areas other than urban planning. Just think of how successful Linus will be when he decides to tackle AIDS. I hear Alan Cox has a really workable plan for a Mid-East peace agreement, too.
You can sit there and read books for free all day.
Nether of which are very useful.
I do know that one can pick up half priced books fairly easly, and as I look through some of my books, most of them have copyrights in the early ninties (many of which I have bought recently
The unix API has been pretty stable for at least a decade, C was standardized in about the mid eighties?. Python and Perl are both a good ten years old.
My point is that good stuff with staying power dosen't tend to change a great deal, even in the tech world. I don't see to much reason Libraries couldn't buy good books that are not out of date if they knew what to buy.
Perhaps if this guy could prod his library into buying The C Programming Language, The Mythical Man-Month, or a less well known but very good book Expert C Programming (copyright c 1992), he could "afford to read books" and give them valuable tools with which to serve the community.
That being said, I am a High School student, but I have a fairly decent library. My biggest expense is for computer books, second is the services such as gas and my cable line, and computer equipmnet (notably absent is computer software as I have not paid for any in a very long time).
I am fortunate to have a very good job with the State after school, so I have a fair amount of discretionary income for my age, but it generally takes me two weeks to read a computer book well, and I've spend $20.00 on new books but as high as $70.00 (they are overpriced text books but the subject matter is such that it is not covered in any mainstream tech books). A good average cost would be about $30.00.
With that average, I spend about $15.00 per week on computer books, in practice, it is much more as I buy many books for refrence and does not dedicate a great deal of time to them. My point is that if one can not afford $15.00 per week for computer books, then one is not as deticated to that as this poster would have us believe, or one can not afford to waste time and energy posting to slashdot.
Jordan Bettis
``Wherever you go, there's another stupid sigfile quote.''To drink late with friends? (nope).
To make more money? (hes got tons already)
. To get chicks into bed after years without? (more than likely)
. And yes i'd probably do the same, if single and very rich.
Think biggerent.
Is that one of those cromulent words like embiggens?
You know which Simpsons episode I mean...
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
"Information wants to be paid"
Can't decide whether I like his Jamie guy or not, but I really like this statement:
"[Y]ou can divide our industry into two kinds of people:
those who want to go work for a company to make it successful,
and those who want to go work for a successful company.
Netscape's early success and rapid growth caused us to stop getting the former and start getting the latter."
Jamie Zawinski
It's very useful for many companies. This Jamie guy is obviously really smart and capable, but is "interpersonally challenged" with a pride in bridge burning actions...
none of wich tells me why you can't get a decent job to support yourself. Grow up. EVERYONE has dealt with these issues and is better for learning how. Stop bitching and blaming government, schools, your parents and the phases of the moon, and figure out a way to achieve your goals instead of looking like an imature jerk in front of people that already have. complaining won't help, doing something will.
Dirty Pirate Hooker
Dude.. movies popcorn is nasty. And it costs too damn much.
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Moderators: I've got tons of accounts, do your worst.
Would you have gone to work for a company in it's very early beginning if someone told you : "Well. We can't really pay you this week, instead we'll give you some stock options...".
I'm a dad, and I have to feed my family. Kids dont grow all that well when fed with stock options. Clothes dont get purchased. The sheer stress of not having a steady income can ruin the best of couples.
These guys were not just "lucky". It's a very calculated risk to go work for a Pre-IPO outfit. You can end up wealthy, but you can also end up on the sidewalk.
'nuff said.
Marriage is considered capital punishment for the theft of a goat in some third world countries...
Please, take a look here for your own conclusion
I do love your characterization of Gorton as "Skeletor" though. He's something else. Did you know that he used to be a liberal? No, no, I'm not kidding Rippon Society and the whole nine yards.
In fact, as attorney general, he pioneered the tactic of state attorneys general suing on behalf of citizens with a lawsuit against the oil companies. So, the Skeletor transformation is not the only one he's gone through. (Or maybe it's the same one on the ethical as well as the physical plane.)
It's interesting that his precedent is now being used by the state attorneys general to sue Microsoft, while he runs interference for the Redmond boys in Washington. Maybe some day someone will write a play about Slade-the-Younger meeting Slade-the-Senator and recoiling in horror at what he was to become.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
After a year as employee #2 at a phenomenally successful internet retailer, I didn't end up with the uber-cash that jwz and others have made from the .com bubble, but i did make enough to not have to work
anymore.
Instead of trying out some other field, I decided to keep hacking,
only this time its my own software: free pro-audio software for Linux.
This is a market dominated by a handful of companies whose software
runs on unstable and inadequate operating systems. Its the best
programming I've done, and takes place with no marketing, no
bullshit. If I want to do it over, I do it over. Every day I can wake
up inspired by the (vague) prospect of wiping out an entire market
segment of the proprietary software world.
Sadly, it seems that most rich programmers who carry on programming
seem to want to do so in an environment where they stand a chance of
making even more money. I wish more of us would take the cash and use
it as an opportunity to break the hold closed, binary-only software
has on the world. Until someone works out a viable business model for
actually selling open source software, that means working without
pay. Then, when we've done that, we can take a look at world peace,
poverty, hunger and injustice. There might be time later for a little
clubbing, if we're lucky.
One thing is that there will always be the "have's" and the "have not's". Earth is about duality, it is about individual growth spiritually. All of the focus of it... in the final end is pure illusion. The night life is illusion, the internet is an illusion, and even JWZ himself is an illusion.
/. Anyone interested in having this slashdot account number can email me
I myself am retiring from the computer industry which began in 1960. It seems that there were lots of changes, but in the final glances that I make... "nothing has really changed".
I live in Southeastern Ohio in the Appalachians. I see poverty and 8th generation welfare families who have no hope and see only despair.
I too was a millionaire on paper with Wang Labs several decades ago and when Wang fell on hard times many dedicated employees experienced what the dotcoms employees today are feeling and might yet feel.
Where JWZ chooses to focus his energy and money certainly is his business, however the scope of need of humanity is much wider than the glitz of a tinsel town or the Bay area.
JWZ is gifted with a great amount of Energy, and Stamina, and Wisdom and he is in a position to make a difference. His choice is where to make that difference.
This most likely will be my last post to
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
Amen.
/.ers. Being cynical about the process will forever condemn it in your eyes. You will never see the good that has been done, and if you can't see the good that could be done, you'll join the ranks of those that blow their wad on expensive carz and fast women. My favorite point in the article was:
What I've read so far on this comment page seems mostly to be cynical bitching from some very bitter
"The country stands at the cusp of an enormous sociology experiment: what happens when you give smart, creative people the means to pursue their ideas?"
It's a fantastic question, and if you don't think much of JWZ's specific case, you should at least think about this question, and discover if it's worth anything to you, specifically.
I came from a small town in Ohio with an educational system that seemed intent on collapsing in on itself. (It certainly had "support" in this goal from the state legislature, which has always done a good job at appearing to want to entirely dismantle the public education system in Ohio.)
In high school, I clashed constantly with the principal, administrators, and insane policies (we were one of the schools you might have read about 4 years ago, that suspended a 13 year old girl for giving out Certs, because they looked like drugs.) But I found unlikely allies in several of the teachers in the school, who couldn't do anything but lend support invisibly and count the years until they, too, could get the hell out and retire. This is not the way it's supposed to work, I'm sure. Now if the few of us who were so focused on getting out before we got any more embittered towards any authoritarian institution, be it educational, governmental, or workplace, came back with our ideals and our energy after having set out into the world, we could spare generations of kids to come from having their creativity stifled, their independence repressed. We can go bug fixing the system on equal footing, because we all know how futile it is to try to change people's minds when they see you as nothing but a student under their control. At one point in the disciplinary process, the principal of the high school sent me to the then Superintendent of schools, and he surprised me by asking me if I would be interested in returning after college and taking his job. There are some that recognize that we are the type of people that excel at fixing things, be they systems of code or systems of people, and can make a positive difference in "our corner of the world." We choose whether or not we're already too bitter to accept that responsibility.
cuz it romantizes the whole hacker thing as a movement that is going to sweep all industries and fundementally change the way people approach business. I belive this article is right on. Its sad to see most people here didnt' like it *sigh* which is why i am staying away from Linux, no visionaries... Someone prove me wrong
- The story of the hacker-cum-zillionaire is still an interesting one, and even more when the hack involved decides to stretch his devout struggle versus holes and glitches to the rest of society. Jamie is a smart man. A talented man. His mentors are impressive, his actions and troubleshooting show tremendous leaps of logic, and his lack of culpability in Netscape's woes nearly believable. He is woven as a man of integrity, of passion, of diversity and potentially a brilliant influence on American culture. Maybe he is. I don't know him. But I read that article. Extremely promising eloquence, and yet...
A flawed conclusion.O P E N___S O U R C E___H U M O R
great comedy company.
Maybe he only wants to own his own club because he was stuck "working 16 hour days" at Netscape while the rest of us were out at clubs, on the sauce.
:-)
I predict the sad, forlorn site of a 32 year old trying to wow 20-something pop-kids with his tales of the old "battles" with RMS over EMACS
The kids, however, will be far too busy sending text messages to their fridges over their WAP phones to care.
Damit, I didn't feel empowered and important after reading this story. All I had was the thought "Why not me?"
--
I've got to go anonymous, too. I'm wrapping up my IPO stint. I'm already a cash-money millionaire, and I'll probably have a few more before its all over (you never know, with this market). But Jamie and his ilk are few and far between. People with real skills, and a take-no-shit attitude, and innovate thinking, are awfully hard to come by. If brains and innovation are sought in the corporate zone, it sure as hell doesn't seem to be as sought as 'team players'.
The tale isn't a big surprise to people who are excellent and have suffered through corporate disillusionment: companies don't tend to value good technical contribution, because the people making the valuations don't understand true technical competence, as opposed to the endless pale-imitation MCSE-bearing losers that have flooded the industry (in my case, the networking/IT industry).
Selling out? I imagine, like me, he is only pissed because the system is so pathetic. There are plenty of elite technologists (hackerz, d00d), that have experienced small-company entrepreneurism, and its no wonder they can't believe what happens when a company gets big. Jamie is so right about the 'working to make a company successful' vs 'working for a successful company' dichotomy, it's scary. And its true in the whole industry -- the number of wannabe dipshits piling in for the cash and just flooding the industry with stupidity is mind-boggling. Even more mind-boggling, the idiots who throw money at them at horrendous rates while going out of business; it seems like no one is left to discern the wannabes from the elite any more.
Of course, Jamie's club probably WILL fail. Businesses born of passion are often the most catastrophic failures (restaurants being the best example).
I will say, though, you've got one thing damn right: if you're one of those people with imagination, skill, and competence, don't go out, looking for a job, think bigger, take some risks. The jobs will always be there if you need them, and you will never make what you're worth just getting one.
IMO you don't go to any public library in the first place. At mine, if you can't find the book you are looking for and you can supply them it's isbn then they will buy it for you. They even use http://www.addall.com to find out where they can buy it for the cheapest price in the world (shiping included). ;-) When I will be done with it, I'll ask them for another book they prolly don't have (Like poser and OpenGL books for instance) and they will have it within 4 weeks.
I just got "Real World Bryce 4 from Susan a. Kitchens and Victor Gavenda". This is great because I get to used it for 3 full weeks before I have to bring it back. And chances are nobody will know about this acquisition for a while so I get to re-use it for another 3 weeks
This is a pretty good system and I use it alot.
you're saying you will not go to a club because it serves alchohol?
I will not go to a club if it serves alcohol.
Why the hell not?! I can only think of three reasons:
a) You are not yet old enough to drink
31. I'm sensitive to alcohol-fueled people and hope to never meet one or be near one again.
Are you gonna propose they take away all the alchohol licenses?
Well...yes.
I thought life was about choices.
I thought innovation was about making things better -- like making clubs better by having good music and an alcohol-free atmosphere. There are no major clubs anywhere that are alcohol-free. Where are my choices?
(Same post. I just fixed the italics. Sorry about that. {hides head})
you're saying you will not go to a club because it serves alchohol?
I will not go to a club if it serves alcohol.
Why the hell not?! I can only think of three reasons:
a) You are not yet old enough to drink
31. I'm sensitive to alcohol-fueled people and hope to never meet one or be near one again.
Are you gonna propose they take away all the alchohol licenses?
Well...yes.
I thought life was about choices.
I thought innovation was about making things better (for example, I just made this post better by fixing the runaway italics) -- like making clubs better by having good music and an alcohol-free atmosphere. There are no major clubs anywhere that are alcohol-free. Where are my choices?
It's from The Simpsons, from the episode where Lisa discovers Jedadia Springfields was really a pirate.
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
Jamie (and others like Paul Allen) miss the point. What is tearing the high-tech centers apart, what they need more than anything, is affordable housing for the people who make up the bands that Jamie and Co. want to see. I'm glad that Jamie is working on a new loungue, but I have to wonder how long it will be before he raises prices in order to even break even in SF? When that happens, who but the rich will be able to see bands (or art works, etc).
Jamie and Co. need to look way beyond what he and his friends like and are into socially. If he can ever do that, and fix the important urban social problems, then he will have a more profound, longer lasting effect than anything he ever did at Netscape for the Internet.
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
Is anyone actually going? I wouldn't mind checking it out, but ye gods! Country and Western? Was that really necessary?
there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
Just how much money did JWZ cash out with?
Assuming I am going to worhip someone, its going to be for their personal integrity and commitment, not becuase they happened to get rich by being at the right place at the right time.
Instant Millionares - Social Skills = Dr. Evil
www.enthea.org
One of the difficult parts of opening a nightclub in SF is the tangle of alcohol-license hoops one must jump through (as JWZ explained on his DNA site) -- that is, if you want to serve alcohol in your club.
Why would an innovative club be serving alcohol? I don't attend clubs that serve alcohol and would be happy to attend one like the new DNA if it didn't.
The argument that serving alcohol increases revenue is weak. Alcohol drives away customers, and the income that it does produce is watered down by the costs of serving. If you need the income, why not collect extra door money? Your patrons will be happy, your bands will be happy, your employees will be happy and you will be able to call your club innovative.
no kidding! SF has gone downhill noticably even in the couple of years that i lived there. i used to attend a lot of great underground raves there, but now the fun stuff is just drying up.
that's why i moved to Toronto. it's not the old San Francisco, but it's not a bad substitute (apart from the weather! :) it's a shame to see that happen to such a great city. i love(d) SF. :I
- j
What is that from? It's been driving me nuts for like 6 months now. I'd begun to think I had just imagined it. Now I see it show up in slashdot comments. I am going insane.
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Moderators: I've got tons of accounts, do your worst.
I have, indeed, seen a lot of dumb-but-lucky IPO millionaires. But JWZ ain't none of that. The lad is reasonably clever. And he is, refreshingly, fairly contemptuous of the effect of (relatively) unearned wealth on people and communities. Check out the "greed" gruntle on his site.
An even better point is that he isn't just using the money on himself. He could be sitting around his home, drinking beer, screwing women, and general living on Easy Street for the rest of his life, simply because he has that option. There certainly isn't anything wrong with that :), but it doesn't do the rest of SF any good, does it?
This way, he is living out his dreams and doing good things along with it.
--
vsync@quadium.net, hopeless jwz fanboy
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
Nothing going on in Vancouver? Well maybe if you get off your ass and look a bit harder you will see that there is tons of cool shit happening in Vancouver. The Columbia (down the road from the infamous Pigeon Park) has live bands all the time. I saw Media Core do a couple of cool electronic shows there but they also feature anything from death metal to noise rock to lof-fi. The American has bands from time to time. There are lots of all ages shows put on by various collectives. There are lots of art college based gigs. There's the Starfish Room if you are into "larger" acts. There is the Railway Club if you like more acoustic stuff. I live in Victoria and I know of more going on in Vancouver than you. Get a life buddy. . .maybe pick up the Goergia Straight and do a quick search on the 'Net next time you get the urge to go out.
Is that the point I was supposed to get from this article? So a guy buys a nightclub in a city I don't care about. Sounds like this was written by someone with a bad case of penis envy.
I highly recommend you use this link to read the article instead of the one provided.
---
Moderators: I've got tons of accounts, do your worst.
The main problem is those sites that keep popping up new browser windows without giving you any porn. Oh well, I guess that's what Junkbuster is for!
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
This takes you right to the article: http://www.theobvious.com/archive.html?110700
------------
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Tonight on Fox: Deadliest Executions Part XVII
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
RMS has nothing to do with open source (much to many peoples' consternation.)
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
The only difference between jwz and all the other nonconformist attitudinal gothic hackers out there is that Jamie was lucky enough to ride the Netscape rocket early on, and this gave him enough money so that he would never again have to care what anybody thought. This appears to have made him a demigod in the eyes of mere mortals who have to rely on their paychecks and bow down to the people who sign them. If back in 1994 Jamie had gone to work for, say, NCD (back when putting an X terminal on every desk still looked like the wave of the future), would he still have the same attitude today with a pile of stock trading at 3/8?
By milking this media circus for all it's worth, and happily accepting his image as an underground icon, is he selling out to the very system he thumbs his nose at?
Moral of the story: Don't worship people who do radical things you've always dreamed of doing, be one of those people. Think biggerent. You've got the same number of hours in your day as anyone else, and probably more imagination, skill, and/or competence than most. Money isn't half as important as dreams; you can do accomplish a lot without a lot of money, but you can't do anything without an idea.
Signed anonymously because I'm one of those people who is "flailing about hopelessly, my self-image so connected to reaching success that I have no idea what to do now that I actually got there."
A SF restaurant with delicacies like Microsoft Minced Chicken in lettuce, Cisco Chinese Chicken Salad, eBay eggplant, Inktomi Asia Burger, and the piece de resistance: Kleiner Perkins Oysters on the Half Shell.
JWZ's venture sort of reminds me of the plot in the movie Xanadu (bad movie, bad, bad!)
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I really hate to say this, but the guy's opening a nightclub. End of story. This seeming need to put a messiah spin on someone's business venture after they quit what made them famous, when their next venture is just plain mundane.....it's silly. I actually laughed most of the way through that article. (sarcasm) OMG! He's opening a bar! HOW REVOLUTIONARY OF HIM! (/sarcasm)
SOMA is in a difficult position, in that it's the only real place for the Financial District to expand into. It can't really expand to the north, because that's where some of the "neighborhoods" are. It can't expand to the west, becuase of Nob Hill and the ghettos. To the east is Water. Where else is it going to go?
Besides, SOMA never HAD a character. It was where people who couldn't afford the financial district were, if they were companies (i.e. they were warehouses).
I live in the Castro. Even though rents are going up and things are gentrifying, we still have our own character as a neighborhood. Lots of bars (if you're into gay bars), cute and nice restaurants, little shops, it's a great time. I love it here, and I would never want to move.
Noe Valley, Glen Park, Cole Valley, hell, even Hayes Valley and the Sunset have their nice characters as little neighborhoods.
There's a place for SOMA, but if you consider SOMA as a proxy for the rest of San Francisco you're missing out on what San Francisco has to offer.
1. Open source library of knowledge for developing nations (making the world's intellectual wealth available to all) .or g/globalprojects/humcdrom/copyrigh.htm
http://www.oneworld.org/globalp roj ects/humcdrom/
http://www.oneworld.org/globalprojects/& lt;/a>
http://www.oneworld
http://payson.tulane.edu:8888/
; http://www.globalprojects.org/
; http://www.humanitylibraries.net/ http://www.villageearth.org/
http://www.villageearth.org/ATLi bra ry/cdrom.htm
2. Open source knowledge management systems /
http://www.bootstrap.org/
http://bootstrap.org/colloquium/ar chi ves.html
http://www.bootstrap.org/dkr/discussion
3. Self-replicating space habitats (support trillions of humans in style without overrunning the earth) /sp acsetl.htm
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/s ett le.htm
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs
http://www.permanent.com/
http://science.n as. nasa.gov/Services/Education/SpaceSettlement/
http://www.luf.org/
http://www.ssi.org/
http://www.ssi.org/alt-plan.html http://www.spacedev.com/
http://www.spacehab.com/
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/
4. Pursue the "Ecocity Berkley" vision in the book by that name by Richard Register and look for related visions of sustainable development .htm
http://www.amazon.com/exec/ob ido s/ASIN/1556430094/
http://www.co-intelligence.or g/y 2k_commtyorgs.html
http://www.fuzzylu.com/greencenter/h ome
http://www.ulb.ac.be/ceese/meta/sust vl. html
http://www.rmi.org/
5. Work towards ending the drug war and pardoning hundreds of thousands of Americans imprisoned on non-violent drug charges. (I believe drug use is wrong and should be avoided, and by all means as it is now illegal, so don't do drugs! But as with alcohol and tobacco and caffeine, drug abuse should be considered a medical problem, not a legal one (except when like DUI it hurts or puts at risk others directly)).
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pag es/ frontline/shows/drugs/
http://www.drcnet.org/facts/
6. Teaching tolerance and compassion
http://www.splcenter.org/
http://www.splcenter.or g/t eachingtolerance/tt-index.html
7. Open source educational simulations and simulation construction toolkits (one of the most meaningful ways to use computers in the classroom). .co m/edusims.html
http://www.gardenwithinsight.com/ http://riceinfo.ri ce. edu/armadillo/Simulations/simserver.html
http://www.creativeteachingsite
http://www.workingmodel.com/
http://www.idsia.ch/~andrea/simtools.h tml
8. Preserving biodiversity (when it's gone, it's gone forever)o nment/library/weekly/aa091700.htm
http://www.tnc.org/
http://www.environment.about.com/newsissues/envir
9. Develop any specific sustainable technology in energy (e.g. solar), recycling (e.g. recycle computers), materials (e.g. plastics from starch), society (e.g. participatory democracy & social justice).
http://www.google.com/sear ch? q=sustainable+technology
http://www.edf.org/issues/Recycling.htm l
http://www.sustainable.doe.gov/
10. Make corporations more accountable to human needsl ty&hl=en
http://www.adbusters.org/inform ati on/foundation/
http://www.adbusters.org/c amp aigns/charter/death.html
Previous link vanished, try instead:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.adbuste rs.org/ campaigns/charter/death.html+corporate+death+pena
http://www.cwsl.edu/news/n_corpo rat e_death.html
http://monkeyfist.com/articles/340& lt;br> http://www.chaordic.org/
11. Reform the "Intellectual property" laws and their related organizations, perhaps so that copyrights are for a couple decades and most patents are for a dozen years and only for true innovations. Ensure that any IP developed with any government money is immediately put into the public domain.
http://danny.oz.au/fre e-s oftware/advocacy/against_IP.html
(Lots of other Slashot links!)
12. If you don't want to get you hands dirty volunteering your own time, look around and find good people (not organizations, although the people may be in organizations) already doing good things. Pick people with a track record of years of fighting for the common good or who have already made a major accomplishment demonstrating commitment and just anonymously give them $100K without strings attached. Example: Marty Johnson at Isles, Inc.
http://www.isles.org/mileston.html& lt;br> Find people just starting a career of public service or a charitable venture and struggling to do good things and give them $20K and tell them you believe in their promise and cause. Expect a bunch of the money to be wasted but give it anyway and learn how to give effectively. For ideas, look at the grantees list of any foundation. Then ask those people who they know who are just starting out and trying to do a good job.
http://www.beldon.org/grants2000_07.htm l
When I was about thirteen, I got about seven books out of the library on money thinking I wanted to become a millionaire. Six told me how to get rich (start a business and run it well.) One of them asked me "why do you want to be rich?" That is the one whose name I remember and the ideas in it have changed my life. For advice on setting a direction of what to do with wealth, read the Book "The Seven Laws of Money" by Michael Phillips and Sally Raspberry, especially the chapter on how foundations fail in their mission and how grants go to people who sound good but usually can't deliver (i.e. how hard it is to give money away).
http://www.seeingmoney.com/SevenLaws.ht m
http://www.hallbusi nes ses.com/biographies_primers/1420.shtml
My wife and I are working on a few of these issues ourselves (and a few example links are to our stuff). We make money contracting and spend it to "buy" our own time for making quality software the market can't or doesn't seem to want to pay for. Even without IPO riches, any competent software developer can make $75K-100K in today's market. Graduate students can live on $20K a year, and so can many software developers (kids make it harder) if they follow the path of Voluntary Simplicity. It's a question of priorities. .ht ml
http://www.life.ca/subject/simplicity
http://www.simpleliving.net/slj/ http://www.scn.org/earth/lightly/ http://www.thegarden.net/simplicity/
Voluntary simplicity leaves a lot of funds for doing good deeds - even if they are done on your own time by using your own money to take time off and develop open source software or do other worthwhile ventures. Or take a job that doesn't pay as well but involves helping an organization that you believe in.
http://www.idealist.org/
There are awesome things happening over the next twenty to forty years. According to Moore's law, desktop computers in twenty or so years will be a million times faster than today's. Already computers can drive cars somewhat well and identify vegetable better than humans.
9 9/number_3/machine399.html ;
http://www.research.ibm.com/resources/magazine/19
Other breakthrough innovations are happening in technological areas like energy, materials, nanotechnology, communications, agriculture, biotechnology, and robotics. Use your wealth to think deeply about what all this means and do something to ensure human survival with style.
It is saddening to see people spend so much money on less important stuff (another night club in this case). Now if it was a night club where these issues are discussed, then maybe it makes sense.
Capitalism without charity is evil, because capitalism only meets the needs of people with money.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
No my friend, the people who will change the world are the same people who got us in the god-awfull mess we are all in at the moment:
Well, we know for sure that it won't be you, friend. You, who in your long lifespan have seen all that there is to see in this wicked world, have achieved sage wisdom in just 29 years. Surely there is nothing left under the sun that would surprise you.
How downright dreary! To realize that you have already discovered everything,and have so many years left to look forward to nothing but stewing in your own bile, or perhaps finding a few to share your misery with, all the while observing those ignorant and naive peons who lead useless lives working for change and better lives for the few people around them that they can affect, knowing that they are just drops in the bucket, and that, while a few people might be better off for these lost souls' compassion, since it hasn't affected you yet, it must be wasted effort.
I apologize for the criticism, but if this is really how you see things, it might help you if someone kicked you in the ass now and then. My favorite line in the article was:
The country stands at the cusp of an enormous sociology experiment: what happens when you give smart, creative people the means to pursue their ideas?
Even if you think JWZ is just yanking his bean on this club, you have to think that this might be a good point, in general. It might even appeal to whatever's left of the uncorrupted child-like desire to be part of the solution rather than the embittered, cynical, establishment preference to be part of the problem.
I know that if I sit around and wait for the ruling parties to have an attack of conscience before I switch to the winning team, I'm going to die pissed and lonely. Be proud to be the underdog! Be suspicious of any establishment, especially anti-establishment establishments, and do your own thing. Hopefully that's working for the world you want to live in, not resignation to failure.
Think globally, act locally. Proud to be a naive peon.
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you must amputate to email me
--
you must amputate to email me
i read all replies to my comments
Don't be down, turn that frown upside down hohoho
I can fully see where JZ is getting this idea. In Vancouver we have an absolute dead zone when it comes to live music. Sure there is the Commodore, argueably the best live venue in North America, but beyond that we have nothing. One club an amazing night life does not make.
I believe that the only way to create the next wave of Rock n' Roll bands is too rebirth the small to medium size venues that the Nirvana's, Pearl Jam's, and Tea Party's started at(CanCon requires me to put one Canadian band; if you get this you know). These bands didn't start out playing stadiums and 30 000 person festivals.
If you don't want to be stuck with Generic Mass Marketed CRAP for music then you better start supporting the smaller club set and better yet go see a band that you have never heard of before; you might be surprised. The other alternative is Britney 2.0 and Back Street Boys Unplugged.
Enjoy....
P/.
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What, me worry?
...we just elected an Internet millionaire to the State Board of Education.
He had enough money to pour millions into his campaign and enough ideas that he didn't get invisible-handed out of his money like Steve Forbes. He also backed an initiative (or maybe it was an amendment to the state constitution) which will increase state spending on education.
I haven't figured out whether it would have been more cost-effective to donate the campaign money to schools. But it's an interesting alternative to burnout.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
"Simple, I will FINALY be able to AFFORD to read books.
What the f**k kind of books do you read and how much?? are you some looser sitting in your mom's basement playing on your tandy spending all your money on porno 'cause you coulden't get a girlfreind due to your 5 year plan that starts with getting a job in a PORNO STORE so you can buy cheeper porno? If you can't afford BOOKS, I'm suprised you could afford the electricity to post your innane and offtopic reply to this story. we are all stupider for having read this.
"I cannot stand people with money, I HATE the middle and upper-class, its quite ironic that my hope is to become one of them. "
self loathing is a wonderfull thing, run with it.
"This is ridiculas, "
so is your spelling.
Dork
Dirty Pirate Hooker
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
-Bertrand Russel
For another opinion on the boom in San Fran try to find a copy of Jello Biafras Spitfire tour speach. I was able to get a copy on scour (they aren't coming to my hometown :() From what I have been able to see the city of San Francisco is being turned into a yuppie wasteland where all of the people who made San Fran San Fran cannot live there anymore. No more hippies or punks or street trash. Having grown up in california this is a horrible waste of a beautiful thriving underground community that in many ways started the entire computer social revolution. Hell the EFF headquarters are there. So please, if you are one of these hackers with bouco bucks, do the same thing. Try to help your city have a certian amout of culture and style instead of letting it turn into a blasted wasteland of IBM and Intel buildings.
Pithy, yet ultimately meaningless, phrase expressed with gusto!
except that according to the article, he's not. he is quoted as saying "its not as if i've wanted to run a club all my life".
Put this a different way- if Terrence Hallinan, or Angela Alioto, who've both spent their entire adult lives learning to 'hack' San Francisco, suddenly came up with Bold New Ideas for coding web browsers, would the assumption be that since they're brilliant at politics they should be good at programming, too?
Just because hackers are good at something other people figure is difficult, doesn't mean they're good at _everything_. Michael Jordan, as a baseball player, wd be another cautionary example.
-- 'intellectual property' is oxymoronic
The planned end result is pretty standard. Band, bar, dance floor, DJ booth, webcams, Internet kiosks, all of which have been seen in SF nightclubs before. No hydraulics, robots, or Vegas-style effects. I'd expected something more exciting, or at least more innovative.
In San Francisco, there's also the "BGP Problem". For over two decades, Bill Graham Presents had a lock on the better bands and venues. Nightclubs not under BGP control were stuck with inferior bands. Only 1015 Folsom and the Maritime Hall, both big venues, successfully booked major acts without BGP cooperation. Since Bill Graham died and BGP was acquired by The Contemporary Group, the local industry has changed somewhat, but it's still rather centralized.
Oh well.
> Richard M. Stallman - the widely-esteemed
> guru of the "open source" software movement
> (a philosophy of coding that is most popularly
> represented today by the Linux operating system)
> - was behind schedule delivering the next
> version of Emacs, a favorite text editor.
Whoops.
(Stallman is rabidly defensive about supporting Free Software, not Open Source Software)
-John
Please no more articles about this self-obsessed jackass.
You have foiled my plans again!
That is exactly what I intended to do, and I was relying on the media portraying me as someone out to save the world. Now that they have been warned, they will not give me the good P.R. I require to purchase the restricted parts for that huge laser.
Drat, zounds, and bebother your meddlings!
One day we will meet again, my nemesis. One day...
--------
From what I can tell, the DNA lounge is an *inherently* cool project, and one I think I'd be interested in even if it weren't coming from an eloquent and thoughtful hacker like JWZ. The special thing that's going on here is that someone who wants to run a club for love can actually afford to do so. The fact that the money came from an Internet IPO rocket is irrelevant.
--
Xenu loves you!
Well, the point seems to be, if you are one of the lucky few who struck it rich, what are you going to do?
everyone pisses and moans about the things wrong in a city, or a society, or something. They bitch alot. Now what happens when you find that you might be able to something about at least something. not everything, but something.
all the not so lucky folks in the internet lottery moan cause they lost out, and because they don't have the money to party with. and maybe they are jealous (just a small chance, maybe)
sometimes what a city might need would be a good club, or an art scene or something. After all, you do not want to have a city like SF with all of the cultural resources of Midland Texas (the onetime small town home of George W. Bush).
Not to disrepect small towns, but there is a reason why folks often want to leave a small town. often there is just plain nothing to do.
Now why would anyone bother trying to do something about it?
I think this is a good thing(tm) and they certainly have my respect, not that they need it or that it matters....
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
...is that he's doing what he always wanted to.
Succeed or fail, that's more important than any other point in the thing...
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
Bwahahaha! The last time I went to the public library for computer books, the best books I could find were things like Peter Norton's Hacking MS-DOS 3 and The Complete Guide to Apple II Machine Code Programming. You can't even buy a good book at a book store! All I can find around here in the book stores are things like Visual Basic for Dummies (an apt title) or Photoshop Made Easy. The only way to get decent computer books is to order them. The last order of books I bought, 2 books, totalling over $100. Is there an economic barrier to education? You bet.
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Moderators: I've got tons of accounts, do your worst.
Now shooting those morons on site [sic] WOULD be benifictial [sic] to society. Opening another place for them to get drugs, is not.
Hmm. They smoke dope. You're endorsing the outright murder of people without giving them any benefit of fair trial, any chance at rehab, any... etcetera.
For someone whose lament seems to be "I don't have an opportunity", you sure seem pretty keen on denying other people opportunities.
I cannot stand people with money...
According to St. Paul, love of money is the root of all evil. By extension, so is the hatred.
I HATE the middle and upper-class...
See the above.
its [sic] quite ironic that my hope is to become one of them
For your own sake, I hope you never do. It's a bad thing to turn into someone you hate. Take it from an expert in the self-loathing department (since recovered): it sucks.
What will *I* spend my money on? Simple, I will FINALY [sic] be able to AFFORD to read books.
Funny, I wasn't aware that it cost a lot of money to go down to the public library. If the library doesn't have books that you want, ask it to buy them--that's why libraries have funds for acquisitions.
Sad isn't it, all this money going around, and I can barly [sic] afford books to read, while this guy goes and blows millions on a club to play music about sex, drugs, and violence.
Two things:
1. His success is not your problem. Stop thinking that it is.
2. He's not "blowing millions". Even people who have a million dollars don't have a million dollars to throw away. JWZ is doing this because he thinks he can make money off it. He invests a million, he gets a million and a quarter back--that's how business works. Or he'll lose his shirt. Doesn't matter to me either way.
Relax. Calm down. The world's not out to get you. And you might want to stop hating people with money before you turn into one of them, because otherwise you're going to air-condition your skull before you turn 30.
for us who weren't around back then.. what really happened between them ??
what did he create instead of emacs ?
"The world is coming to an end. Please log orff."
Jamie is pretty much right on. The double edged sword that created "the city's" recent boon is also killing off many of the same things that attracted the 'new economy' in the first place. San Jose and the rest of silicon valley (to me) is a suburban sprawl. The closest thing to a city here in the bay area is San Francisco. The same clubs and micro brews that made up soma are disappearing---turning into loft/studios. Thing is...if all there is left are office spaces and living quarters because all the small cool places are gone because they cant afford the rent, the inspiration that fuels SF will be gone and so will the talent. Many are already spreading outward to east bay (houses in the ghetto areas of west oakland are around $300k+ now). If it keeps this trend, many including myself, will take the money and run. It is sad that the money we bring to this city doesnt close the cultural gap between ourselves and New York (a city that never really sleeps). It would really suk if all we had left were places like the Metreon to go to (sony can afford any city!)
He's probably set for life, and he's gonna blow so much on the notoriously difficult music business that he would have to re-join the rat race?
Start looking for that tattoo parlor now.
This guy needs a money manager who can show him how to live out his dreams without jeopardizing his independance. There is absolutely no excuse for a multimillionaire to ever have work for "the man" again. We geeks may think accounting and money management are boring, but whenever I hear some story about a guy who went from riches to rags... it's such a preventable problem.
Here is a good place to start.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?