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Linus Torvalds Moving to the Silicon Forest
Evilive writes "According to KATU News, Linus Torvalds and family will be moving to Portland, Oregon so he can oversee the Open Source Development Labs. Torvalds says he and his family will make the move after his children finish school next week. Sayeth Linus: 'The plan was to try to acclimatize and have time to grow webbed feet (although I'm told there are implants available) by moving during the summer.'"
The weather is just toooooo dreary... It's not the rain, it's the dark, cloudy, dreary, scattered showers that get to you... At least the price of housing is much cheaper. My prediction 5 years - MAX!
to grow webbed feet (although I'm told there are implants available
Those aren't the only implants you'll find on the west coast.
have time to grow webbed feet
What's next? beak? flippers?
Is Linus evolving in to Tux?
It's nerd gossip. We've got to get our celebrity entertainment from somewhere, and I don't like reading the ads in Women's Weekly. Er, I mean..
First off, yes the weather is dreary for at least two thirds of the year. Some of us prefer that. Not everyone wants San Diego style weather and Portland is probably more familiar to someone from Finland than most of California, too (although the Bay Area is a bit like Portland as far as weather most of the year).
Second, the cost of housing is cheaper than in the bay area, but still in the top ten or fifteen most expensive in the country.
I wouldn't leave here for anything. I lived in the Bay Area. Didn't like it one bit.
Well atleast we can rest assured that Linus is indeed not full of shit.
Sorry I couldn't resist that one.
And more and more articles about what Linus thinks of the new town's grocery store, country sherif and those damn neighbors ("Dinkleberg!").
Jello Biafra:
I want to tell you a story about the last time I was in Portland.
The night before we played at the Long Goodbye.
I was walking on the street about 10:30 at night.
A lot of people go to bed around here at 10:30 at night.
And well, I was walking along when suddenly these jocks in this
bright blue pickup drove up. It had KC lights, tractor tires,
everything but the CB. It was a life-size Hot Wheels car for some dumb rich kid,
right. Well, they drove up to me
and they yelled what dumb rich kids usually yell, "Hey, faggot,"
and showered me with some water.
So, I stood there thinking, what a bunch of fuckheads and picked up a rock.
Now, I waited, walked down about a block to
where the Kentucky Fried Chicken is, on Burnside,
and sure enough they drove around again.
They said, "Hey, faggot, where's the nearest McDonald's?" I said,
"I don't know" and they squirted me again.
So I threw the rock and put a nice-size dent in their giant Hot Wheels car.
They screached to a halt in the parking lot of some department store,
who's name I don't remember, it's up the street from Fred Meyer,
and they got out their clubs and they ran after me, yelling,
"We're gonna kill you, you god damn faggot, we're gonna kill you,
you motherfucker."
So I got in a phonebooth by the Kentucky Fried Chicken on Burnside,
held my legs straight out like this so they couldn't open the door
to the phonebooth. So they began charging the phonebooth,
beating on it with their club, yelling,
"We're gonna kill you, you motherfucker, we're gonna kill you,
you god damn faggot." I just looked at them.
So, there was a crowd gathering by this time
and these kids were standing nearby and they said,
"Oh, look at him, he's insane." I thought, ah-hah, here's my way out.
I yelled at them, "Take me to a mental hospital right away.
I wanna be be put away.
Please put me away, c'mon, call the cops and put me away.
Please put me away now."
They said, "Alright, faggot, we're calling the police." So they called the police.
The cop comes out and I go, ah, my savior, I'm away from these jocks.
He opens up the door, "Get out of there, you,"
throws me up against the car, frisks me, shoves me in the back.
Then he goes over to the jocks, "Now what happened here?
It looks like we're going have to take him to jail
but we got to have the full story first"
So the jocks, who had an ace in the hole, ace in the hole
Take down on the bass, a little bit down on the bass. Yeah,
ace in the hole, and they go, "Well, goddammit,
the motherfucker put a dent in my truck, a $5000 truck, right,
so I got my club, I went out and I wanted to kill him.
I want to kill him. Let me kill him, goddammit.
Let me kill him."
So the cop made them go home, and he drove me home,
and he confiscated their club and my rock as further evidence.
And I thought, so this is Oregon, huh? Tolerent Oregon?
Ray, are you done with your guitar yet? He isn't done yet.
So what else do you want to hear, I'm out of stories.
That's a true story, too. Just ask Bruce Loose.
It's common knowledge in the Northwest that Portland is the Silicon Forest because much of Intel's R&D and fabrication occurs in the Portland Metro area. Portland also has Xerox (was Tektronix printer division) and Tektronix.
If we follow LT's average location over the last 10 years it is clearly tending towards ... Redmond, WA. The implications
of this do not bear thinking on.
As someone who has two fairly major Physics papers due in 4 hours and lives in Portland I can easily say this is the best news I've heard all day.
But why is this news? I hear you ask. Oh come off it, what's wrong with a little cult of personality now and then. Sometimes I think that's the only thing keeping Apple afloat.
Anyway let me give you a quick list of reasons why Portland is great:
1. Free Geek, our own local geek run charity.
2. lot's of great microbrews and wifi enabled bars.
3. And of course the beautiful weather.
And with that, where ever you are, may your beer be micro and your operating system free. Cheers
Don't mess with the bunny, outsideworld.org
Yes, New Jersey. (flush)
What is with all these stupid 'Silicon' names?
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
reply 1:
reply 2:
Nice travel-guide-related website: Lonely Planet
events calendar
Powell's history page [comment regarding my relationship with them through my excellent former employer deleted]
If that's not bookish enough, try Reed. "Reedy" is a fitting name for most of the students.
public gardens If you're at all interested in nice gardens to walk through, the International Rose Test Garden is a great place to walk around.
If you have more time, the Japanese Garden is pretty must the only garden outside Japan considered to be "real" (the Mt. Fuji-stand-in doesn't hurt, either)
At some point, if you drink alcohol, or even just eat, you might end up visiting one of these. They've converted a lot of old schools, etc. into pubs along with the usual locations.
You probably won't want to go out there if you don't have much time on your trip, but see if you can recognize this hotel from the picture. [It's this one, Slashdotters]
The Columbia River Highway runs east of Portland, and includes some nice scenery of Multnomah Falls and the Gorge area.
Out west is Cannon Beach and Haystack Rock.
Oh, tying almost everything in town is the MAX, the light rail service. Gues
Get off my launchpad!
Portland is probably more familiar to someone from Finland than most of California, too
You say that like it's a good thing.
I've never figured out the immigration patterns of the Northmen. They get off the boat in NYC and can go anywhere in the US from there. Florida, SoCal, Arizona, or even just stay in southern NY. Where do they go? Minnesota.
Feels like home I guess, but to my mind that's the problem.
KFG
Most of California is based on a semi-arid desert. So it's brown and dry most of the time. Even in San Francisco, where I live, you can see that in the hills around the bay. Now Portland, yes, you get more rain, but that's why it feels like a giant garden. The only minus I can say about Portland is that during the summer, humidity can be higher than in the Bay Area. But honestly, if I could trade places (and stay employed) with a person in Portland, I would do so instantly.
If a parse tree falls in Silicon Forest and no one is around, does it leave a log file?
Unknown host pong.
No, I meant the Junior Parade, which is grade 8 and under. I live a few blocks from the parade route, and saw LOTS of. Much lower key - if one gets inspired, one can jump in and join the parade pretty much at will (which is what my son's preschool class did).
Another plus for Portland - we have an Air America affiliate.
And you don't have to pump your own gas.
Or pay sales tax.
And if you live in a Qwest area, you can get 1500/968 DSL for $50/month.
And it's a real hub for video technology companies.
My video compression blog
You know, this is really just an example of my own ignorance/stupidity - but I guess I've just always figured that hardcore geeks like Linus wouldn't have kids since they demand so much attention.
"Daddy daddy! Come look at the bug I found!"
"Bug? What bug? My system is perf... ohhhh THAT kind of bug. Not right now, sweetie - daddy's compiling."
Quit telling people how great it is here... we have enough people already and do not need more!
Oregon SUCKS, SUCKS I tell you. It rains ALL the time here. You'll forget what blue sky looks like. Housing prices are insane. Traffic is insane. We have rattlesnakes and bears, BEARS! The women are FAT and ugly unwashed hippes with long braided armpit hair. The rare cutie knows how rare she is and has an attitude to match.
No sir, nothing to see here... move along... move along please...
I'm working at OSDL and looking forward to having Linus here on-site. :-)
We got the confirmation today that yes, he's coming, and will have a cube here with the
rest of us. I expect he'll be working from home a lot but who knows.
Linus had visited last year not long after he joined the lab, and we asked if he'd be moving up here. At the time he said he'd had enough of cold weather for one lifetime, so this is a surprise! (Well, not a total surprise, Portland is a great city to live in, IMHO. Some of us figured he'd want to move up here once he had time to think about it.)
Slashdot today announced a new topic: Stalking Linus
A Multiplayer Strategy Game for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux
Other people have posted comments similar to yours. You just had fewer replies so I thought this would be a good place to post this.
Judging by your UID (which is really the only thing I have to go on besides your comment), I'd say you haven't been "around" the community that long. Believe it or not, Slashdot , although a Geek news site in general, used to post mostly news about Linux and the Linux community. Also, you might be interested to know, the Linux "community" was actually a "community" in the true sense of the word. People used to actually know each other and events that occured in members personal lives were discussed much like you might discuss things that happen in the lives of your family or friends or co-workers.
Over the years, the Slashdot user base has grown substantially and many users aren't familiar with the personal spirit that used to pervade typical discussions. Although this may not be "Stuff that matters" to you, it is still of interest to those of us that have followed Linux and Linus since the early years.
One of the things that we in the open source movement tout is that "distributiveness" of the developers involved with even major projects like Linux, Apache, etc. Yet, every time Linus moves (be it a job or a home) it is rabidly reported on sites like Slashdot, NewsForge, etc. Why? If the distributed nature of OSS development is one of its strong points then *why* do we care where Linus lives and when or where he moves to?
Linus is a great man who's done humanity a huge good by developing the Linux Kernel. But I'm starting to look at him like I look at Elvis: I think Elvis was a talented musician but I won't have much to do with his music since his "worshippers" have made him a near God. The cult like atmosphere surrounding him is a definate turn-off. The same cult like symptoms are developing around Linus and this spells trouble for OSS. We already have a reputation for being zealots where everything rises and sets around Linux. This kind of rabid fanship just solidifies that image in the publics mind and hurts our cause. Linux is *much* bigger than Linus now and, while he is a star, he is by far not the only one in the community. We need to remember that folks.
Anthony Papillion
Advanced Data Concepts, Inc.
"Quality Custom Software and IT Services"
Torvalds says he and his family will make the move after his children finish school next week
Shouldn't that be Finnish school?
Thanks, I'll be here all week. Please tip your servers.
Ahem... Listen up.
s ubsidiary of TSMC)
Vancouver, WA(8 miles north of portland) is nearly always regarded as a distant suburb of Portland. So, with Portland and Vancouver combined, you have:
Intel
Xerox
Tektronix
Sharp
WaferTech(
Shin-Etsu Hondotai-America(subsidiary of Shin-Etsu Chemical, largest silicon wafer manufacturer in the world)
Kyocera
Fujitsu
LSI Logic
Linear
I'm sure I'm missing many others.
There is a reason we have the name 'Silicon Forest'.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
We're having a naked midnight bike ride. When given the choice the Association of Brewers holds its annual conference here because the members consider Portland the best beer city in the US. local wireless group has hundreds of free hotspots scattered about. Highest per capita rates of bookstores, movies screens and coffee houses in the US. Snow only every other year at the most. Easy to get out into the countryside when you need to be away from urban living.
There's more to it than this.
I've lived in Oregon all my life but for college, so here's my insider's view of the self-serve issue.
1) Oregonians are cheap.
2) Oregonians are tired of being rained on.
So, basically, people here knew that if there was self-serve gas, they'd have to use it because it was cheaper. But then they'd get wet. So it's easier to outlaw self-serve, so everyone has to share the same luxury.
Makes complete sense if you've lived here long enough.
My video compression blog
The weather is just toooooo dreary...
:)
He's a Finn, for heaven's sake. I think he'll manage somehow.
Anyway, I wish him a warm welcome to my home state. Some odd bits of advice on settling in:
* For tires and suspension work, go to Les Schwab.
* Try Black Tiger from Coffee People... in a milkshake.
* Cinema 21.
* The Rimsky-Korsakoffee House, on SE 12th just North of Belmont in Portland, for a quiet dessert with atmosphere. (And the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport for a holiday; same owner, different quirks.)
* Visit a McMennamin's hotel for lunch or dinner... walk around the place and check out the artwork. The beer's pretty good, too, but there's plenty that's better 'round here.
* Fareless Square.
* Don't swim in any river that Intel has named a chip for. Seriously. It's not their fault, but I mean it.
* Three Square Grill
* Local strawberries are in season right now.
Just holler if you need anything.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
Lots of stuff goes on in Portland, we're just too shy to toot our horns like that showoff California. Plus we are highly diversified, without single companies or industries dominating.
Lots of video companies have big divisions here, like Grass Valley, Sharp Labs, InFocus, FLIR, Planar Systems, Tektronix, PixelWorks. Intel, Fujitsu and all those chip companies do a lot of design and fabrication here. We're the athletic shoe capital of the world, with both Nike and Adidas America here. That means a lot of local ad agency work. And my neighborhood is positively infested with shoe designers. Really, there must be six shoe designers who live within five blocks of my house.
And if you're into knives, we're one of the knife manufacture capitals. Leatherman is based here, as are myriad others.
We don't have nearly the startup culture of California, though. People who live in Portland tend to be here for the lifestyle - we're one of the few places in the USA which has made an effective attempt to limit urban sprawl. We have a lot of dense neighborhoods with SIDEWALKS. Nothing like taking the kids for a stroll around the block, which might take two hours visiting all the neighbors. But the beach and the mountains are each only about 80 minutes away, and almost everywhere in the city is within a mile or so of a park.
Not a great place to strike it rich, but it's a wonderful place to balance doing interesting work and having a rich life outside of work.
My video compression blog
Linus is actually moving to Beaverton, a largish edge city that borders Portland on the West.
It's a pretty spread-out place. There's an old, kind of abbreviated downtown in the SW portion; mostly it's strip malls, industrial / office parks, and residential areas ranging from condo-racks to nice suburban tracts.
There are some very nice wilderness parks nestled in there too. The Metro planning board keeps strict urban growth boundaries, so you can find working farms just a few miles to the SW.
Some of the office parks and complexes do have a "Silicon Valley" flavor, but are unsurprisingly a lot smaller. (I once worked in Oracle's Redwood Shores HQ, which kind of sets a high standard.)
I work in the far NW corner of Beaverton, in an area that really should be its own town because it's so far from the Post Office and town hall.
Traffic is usually not too bad, at least compared to Silicon Valley. Mass transit consists of lots of busses and a spiffy light rail line that goes to downtown Portland and the airport.
Stefan Jones
I agree that there's more to Linux than Linus, but I think I can explain this emphasis on the man rather than his work.
/. readers, is that Mr. Torvalds is an intelligent, well-spoken, down-to-earth person. There's nothing extraordinary about him. He's not a Stephen Hawking super-genius with a nuclear-powered exoskeleton. Linux was the child of an undergraduate with a 386 and an itch to scratch. All the rest was a matter of circumstance (i.e., the AT&T vs. BSD litigation, availability of GNU utilities and Minix, growth of the Internet, etc.). If Linus hadn't done it, it's quite possible that someone else could or would have.
It's part of our culture to look for the human interest angle in any story. It's a staple of news, entertainment, and pretty much any form of mass media. It transforms the abstract to the concrete.
Part of the Linus/Linux appeal, especially among
And that's the appeal: any number of people could have created Linux; it took no special talents or extraordinary effort. But Linus is the one who did it, and he told the world about it, and that was the spark that lit the fire. The story has a sort of indie rock DIY ethos about it, which speaks to another cultural phenomenon, that of the lone inventor, the rugged individualist. Of course, Linux is a massively collaborative effort but it took one bored undergrad to get it started.
And this the appeal: it could have been anyone out there. What started in a Finnish dorm room is now something that IBM is willing to back to the tune of billions of dollars. It's the quintessential garage band success story.
Yeah, this story is verging on the over-the-top. What's next, Linus endorses the Atkins Diet? But it's a human interest story and Slashdot is no different from your local news in this respect.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
>Does that mean there will be significantly fewer articles about Transmeta?
Actually, he left Transmeta... over a year ago, in order to concentrate more on his Linux kernel work.
http://lwn.net/Articles/36577/-- tabris
-
Bet nobody with modpoints will read this.
The cop who took me down there [...] swore that he'd never seen more white trash than in Portland.
Hey, careful. You insult our hometown like that, and we'll send local celeb Tonya Harding around to break your kneecaps.
Oh, wait. Gee, I guess you're right after all.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
The reason he's so important is his ability to lead. You don't find that very often in technical people. To be sure, he's not the only leader. But this kind of distributed project will whither on the vine if you don't have somebody with a little charisma to keep people on the same page.
Yes, welcome, Linus!!!
If you need some help in getting oriented or someone to show you around, send me an email.
Living in Portland is far better than in NoCal. NoCal has too many cars and bad smog.
Here's useful info:
Portland has the largest bookstore in the world.
Portland borders on the confluence of the Willamette River and the Columbia River, one of the largest rivers in the world.
One of the 7 WindSurfing Wonders of the World is in the Columbia River Gorge, on the eastern edge of the Portland metropolitan area.
Portland has one of the largest and most successful dealers in contemporary art in the world. The gallery has a funny name, but shows the work of over 1,100 artists.
Portland has the largest park inside a city in the world. The park has over 74 miles of wilderness hiking trails and 5,124 acres.
Portland is the home of Pink Martini, a band that writes multi-cultural songs. One of Pink Martini's songs was once one of the most popular songs in France. You can listen to the music video.
It's a 55 minute drive from downtown Portland to the ski areas. "World Class Skiing in Your Own Backyard."
The K-12 Linux Project, in Portland, is one of the more successful projects for giving Linux to average users, who in this case are students.
On the other hand: Q. Why do hippies come to Portland? A. Because there are no jobs.
Many people don't like the months of rain every year. They say Portland is the perfect place for slugs and ducks. (However, the rain cleans the air.) Those with the correct philosophical orientation call it Liquid Sunshine.
Does that meen that you have the death penalty for shop lifting? or Speeding? or Jay walking (crossing the road not at a designated crossing point)? All are criminal activitys Wow the USA is such a great place!
no no no no no...it's only for self defense.... no...must...not...reply....to...flamebait.... if someone presents a threat to your life, must...STOP! cannot... has the opportunity AND the ability nooooo to end your life, you have the right to defend yourself i...have...succumbed! aaaarrrgh! you don't just go around shooting jaywalkers, shoplifters, etc. it doesn't work that way flamer...has...won....MUARG!
I saw it on Slashdot, it must be true!