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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.
Is a hero in all of our books!
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
A guy actually doing something useful is beating out another guy doing something equally noble but less practical? Checks outside Nope, clear skies, no cats or dogs...
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
...when he found himself in a public washroom installing Vista for $20.
(just kidding...keep up the great work!).
Getting off drugs, both him and his assistants. VERY Cool.
Helping out schools. Cool
Helping the environment. Cool (though some in the "movement" would gripe about the electricity consumed).
Linux. Uber cool!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Wow, think of all the PC hardware and Windows sales he's thwarted.
Ron
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
You don't have to be crazy to install Linux
but it helps!
sorry... old joke...couldn't resist
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
You can't take the sky from me...
Get the gorrillas to start using linux. That would surely win the top prize then.
Good for him, on a number of levels.
First, on a personal level, for taking control of his life back.
Second, on an environmental level, for saving unnecessary rubbish from a landfill somewhere.
Third, on a charitable level, for donating the results of his work.
Fourth, on an economic level, for using free software and cast-off hardware to do something useful.
Fifth, on a geek level, for using Linux to do it.
My hat's off to you, sir.
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."
Bad for the Gorillas
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;
If this man is the one I'm thinking of, he's saving a lot of computers from landfills. Even those of us in the movement have heard what an ecological disaster that can be. "Reuse" is often the best thing you can do with a used item, even better than recycling.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
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.
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.
>
>The Department of Toxic Substance Control of the California Environmental Protection Agency has issued the ACCRC a violation that could make it very hard for the group to stay in business. And, quite frankly, that's a damned shame.
And when I wrote Natalie's Restaurant more than two years ago, I thought it was fiction. Shit, the only thing I got wrong was that I imagined a San Francisco bureaucrat, as opposed to a Berkeley bureaucrat, and that my imaginararily-awkwardly-named "California Computer Recycling Use Fee Commission" wasn't long enough to match the actual bureaucracy's name (namely the "Department of Toxic Substance Control of the California Environmental Protection Agency").
Because nobody, not even in the Bay Area, could be so dumb as to suggest that tossing a bunch of working hardware into a container ship bound for a crusher/smelter in China, was somehow a "more green" solution than reusing (and giving away) perfectly functional hardware so that it doesn't go into the waste stream in the first place.
But then again, that's the difference between recycling as done by folks like the ACCRC - which is interested in reducing and reusing as well as recycling - and recycling as done by a government bureaucrat, to whom the only "green" that matters is how many taxpayer dollars can be milked out of an operation.
So we'll sing it again when it comes 'round on the guitar.
Can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day, diggin' through their closets and attics, findin' somethin' that still works, and givin' it to someone who ain't got one? And friends, they may think it's a movement...
He's winning, but I expect more from a
repairs discarded computers and gives them away
16% 482 Larry Gibson
is fighting to protect his land from mountaintop mining
6% 176 Ken Noguchi
leads "litter brigades" on the slopes of Mount Fuji in Japan
33% 997 Eugene Rutagarama
is dedicated to saving mountain gorillas from extinction Maybe we can keep track of the poll's progess here
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
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.
From the aftermath technologies blog:
He's right. I voted for the gorillas.
All about me
Generally I've found that Californian "liberalism" does not tolerate people who are poor. From putting officers on duty to confiscate shopping carts from the homeless, to pushing homeless out of town. If you want to run a business that gives ex-cons and ex-addict a real job they can come to every day and make a better living for themselves, you get shut down.
Pro-environmentalism California is entirely about special interests. If you're not a lobbyist, then your voice won't be heard. The environmental issues are driven entirely by special interest groups managed by the Elites, people and business with the money to make or break a representative's future campaign.
It's curious that California is pro environment with it's complex and confusing beverage recycling program. When compared to states like Michigan that take 10 cent deposit on a soda can, and you get all 10 cents of your deposit back. while California has a "redemption value" which you almost never get the same amount back that you put into it. (it's taxed, and the value the recycling centers pay is sometimes below what you paid at the store). Also huge expensive recycling centers are subsidized, and are generally in bad neighborhoods so most people don't even try to collect their refund value. While in other states you simply drop off your empty cans at a participating grocery store, and they print you a receipt (at no additional charge) that you can exchange for cash or just apply to your grocery bill. Private companies foot the bill but in return they get foot traffic to their stores, so they are more than willing to pay.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
It's pretty clear to me that he's talking about a museum (or some other organization) finding it useful for display.
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.
On an economic level, we now have a substantial number of people who can learn about PCs, and possibly even gain employment with them, who couldn't before. That is 100% win.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
People tend to be missing the point here, blinded by the fact that the guy is using Linux. He's recycling computers. If half the stuff I've read from tech-waste doomsayer articles is true, this is definitely working towards dealing with an environmental problem. There's no obvious ideology bullshit here, it's recycling.
Steve, is that you?
Now I am sad.
I can imagine the headlines coming out of Redmond already... Anyone who uses Linux is obviously a mentally ill drug addict.
...I'd come up with the idea myself. I must have thrown out so many computers in my time that could have been converted to the Linux cause with just a tiny bit of work. I applaud this guy, not only for spreading Linux to as many people as possible but also for kicking the drugs. Way to go.
When did I realise I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realised I was talking to myself.
If you read his blog you'll find an entry that identifies the State is working with him to come to a sensible conclusion so it appears that sanity has prevailed in this situation (probably generously assisted by the bad press the situation had created, but that's only an assumption).
So it's not as grim as it appears.
I also think his stance on the CNN vote is admirable - he has a very good point.
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