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Major Linux Hardware Donor Is a CNN "Hero"
christian.einfeldt writes "James Burgett of the Alameda County Computer Resource Center calls himself a 'tattooed freak' and a recovering drug addict, but CNN is calling him a hero (video) for diverting tons of computers from landfills, installing Ubuntu Linux on them, and giving them out to schools, non-profits, and poor people. Burgett's filmed interview is currently leading a CNN contest among videos of 'ordinary people' whom CNN considers everyday heroes, narrowly edging out the video of a man who is saving gorillas from extinction. In his interview, Burgett points out that the people working for him are also recovering drug addicts or recovering mental illness patients." Update: 10/02 23:46 GMT by KD : Reader stefanlasiewski posted a journal article describing how, bewilderingly, the state of California is threatening to shut down Burgett's ACCRC.
Interestingly, James is asking voters to vote for the other folks:
"Vote for the gorillas. 25 grand and fame that id probably just piss away anyway is not worth a specie.".
Nice honest opinion from the Hero.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Anyone in Portland should check out FreeGeek and consider volunteering.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Maybe it's because the word "hero" is referring to a specific title instead of a description of the person? Hero == someone called him a hero. "Hero" == given some title "hero" that an organization made up. To avoid confusion he should have used double-quotes around the phrase "CNN hero" instead.
Except that they do. That's kind of the problem.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Their name was inspired by the yellow bicycles in Amsterdam, which I understand are freely available for anyone to take and ride around on.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
... not just Portland! There's one in Vancouver (BC), Chicago, Olympia (WA), Columbus, etc.
See this page for other startups near you.
Some versions of the old winmodem leveraged windows code to do work that should been done by chips on regular modems. They only worked under windows and were supposed to be cheaper. And they were the suck.
THL phish sticks
James Burgett was featured on the front page of Digg.com, where he got 2906 diggs for his blog entry about his dispute with the government (spam warning: I dugg that story). James has subsequently told me that he and the government are working things out. He is not entirely satisfied with the government's approach, but at least he will be able to continue operating his excellent Ubuntu box giveaway program. So it seems as if the attention from the popular media (Digg in that case) has taught the government that James was doing something that was sufficiently meaningful to the community that the regulators should really try to work with him. His fans in the community will continue to watch his operation to make sure that if the government does exercise poor discretion in its oversight of his operation, at least we can give them an earful.
Full disclosure: I do not work with / for James or CNN. I do volunteer for a public middle school in San Francisco, California that benefited from a donation of 30 Ubuntu fat clients for our Linux chubby terminal lab.
Old computers do not use more power than new ones. In fact, a lot of them use less.
Wrong. All electronics recycling is FREE at the ACCRC. That means, if you bring your old computer and monitor to this facility, and you are a resident of California, you pay nothing.
Furthermore, the refurbished computers that are granted by ACCRC to nonprofits and needy individuals are granted free of cost. Zero. No dollars.
If the recipient is not happy with the free computer they received, they can return it for no charge. Again, it's free at the ACCRC.
There's no mandatory recycling fee either for disposing or receiving a recycled computer. There is a recycling fee assessed to the purchase of new monitors by a reseller. You basically pay your recycling fee when you buy your monitor. This is similar to car batteries. That said, if you don't buy a new monitor, and instead say receive a free monitor from an organization like ACCRC, you pay nothing.