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Introducing Linux to Joe Average

eco2geek writes "The local "alternative newspaper" is running a cover story titled 'The Rebel Alliance: An unlikely army of hacker hippies, geek visionaries, idealistic teachers and corporate giants is making Portland ground zero of a digital revolution.' I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call Portland 'ground zero' of anything, but the article does give the average reader a good introduction to what Linux is, why it's important, and some of the politics surrounding it. (The article also mentions 'the frenetic Slashdot.org.' :-)"

11 of 371 comments (clear)

  1. So many funny quotes by debilo · · Score: 5, Funny

    Check these out:

    Torvalds, now a 34-year-old tech superstar whom some see as the love child of Thomas Edison and Che Guevara,...

    "Linux wasn't started as any kind of rebellion against the 'evil Microsoft empire,'" Torvalds told The New York Times last year. "I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect."

    "In a school, it's public money. How should it be spent? Is it ethical to buy software instead of hiring an art teacher? Me, I want an art teacher--not the Microsoft help assistant dancing on every student's desktop.

    "Why spend billions," said one Amazon tech guru at the time, "when you can spend millions?"

    So funny. I'd post more quotes but I'm too lazy too read the rest of the article. :)

  2. Target Acquired by kfg · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call Portland 'ground zero' of anything. . .

    Rain?

    KFG

  3. Re:Anything would be better than.... by darnok · · Score: 4, Funny

    > Sure, most of us are pretty damn ugly but there's
    > gotta be a few photogenic nerds among us. With
    > good stories, too.

    No, there aren't, at least not to Joe Average.

    When one of us sleeps with J Lo, then we've got a good story

  4. Re:Real world vs. fanboy fantasies by bj8rn · · Score: 4, Funny
    These are hard numbers and 100% FACTS! There are several more where these came from

    Aye, I tried smashing them with a wooden hammer, but after a few hits, the sodden thing was in pieces! Then I tried a bigger one, but to no avail. Then I decided to test my brand new diamond-head drill, but it wouldn't even leave a mark on these numbers! "Bloody hell," I said. And threw the numbers into a furnace. And when I took them out, they were bloody hot (I almost lost my left thumb because of a number 5) and there were some weird markings to be seen on them -- I guess my diamond-head drill still did some damage ;7

    --
    Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
  5. Re:death match! by tttonyyy · · Score: 3, Funny
    int main() {printf("Hello World");}

    Throw that sig in, and the fight would go like this:

    Linus: "Surely void main(void) since you've got no return, and you forgot to include your IO libraries for printf!"
    Bill: "Arrgghh - fire the secret weapon! #pragma align -0.5"

    (At this point Linus core dumps and Bill locks solid in the same position for 5 minutes until the referee resets him. Linus just gets on with it, but Bill returns to his corner to scandisk and blame the referee for not shutting him down properly).

    --
    biopowered.co.uk - catalytically cracking triglycerides for home automotive use since 2008. Just say no to big oil!
  6. Re:Anything would be better than.... by JabberWokky · · Score: 3, Funny
    When one of us sleeps with J Lo, then we've got a good story

    Excellent. Now we just need a volunteer...

    --
    Evan "My SO and I had a long debate about photon/electron interaction tonight. I'm not giving that up for some overrated actress"

    --
    "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
  7. Re:Paul thurrott blames *ix for MyDoom! by HeghmoH · · Score: 4, Funny

    He does have a point.

    If every mail server on the internet ran Windows, e-mail would never work well enough to function as the vector for a worm.

    --
    Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
  8. Re:Wow! by digitalunity · · Score: 3, Funny

    Have you ever seen those big maps showing the Internet's backbone providers? Look at Porland, OR.

    We have more bandwidth than god.

    --
    You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
  9. Re:Anything would be better than.... by Xpilot · · Score: 3, Funny

    When one of us sleeps with J Lo, then we've got a good story

    It would be easier to have Ben Affleck learn how to write device drivers.

    --
    "Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
  10. Re:Farmers using Linux? by nanowyatt · · Score: 3, Funny

    There's no great love for Richmond

    The Civil War is over, buddy. Jeff Davis, Robert E Lee, and good ol' Stonewall are all dead and buried. It's time to let Virginia back into our hearts.

    Even the Great Emancipator has stopped by to say hello.

    --
    Intellectuals! Liberals! Peacemongers! IDIOTS!!!
  11. Re:Paul thurrott blames *ix for MyDoom! by double-oh+three · · Score: 3, Funny

    /*Chalk another one up for Open Software. Working together you can analyse virus code faster! */

    No, you analyse it just as slow as the other vendors, it's just that one of the analysts wrote the damn thing. ;)

    --
    "For years, I struggled with reality... but I'm happy to say I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd