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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!!!
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."
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 they do then how long until a MacDonalds complains that they spent all that money on making the air outside their store smell *really* good only for someone to "steal some of the smell without coming in for a burger as they passed". The TV broadcasters tried it "Tivo should be illegal to use because we spent all that money on programs only for people to choose not to watch the advertisements".
>
>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...
It's not like his installing linux on old computers is keeping the other guy from saving gorillas; or that every computer installed leads to a gorilla not being saved. Rather it's merely that the video of the guy installing linux is slightly more popular than the video of the guy saving gorillas.
And it's not like he's hurting the knowledge about the gorilla program because I hadn't hear of either until today. If it weren't a guy installing linux (but instead a woman making sandwiches for hungry orphans) then it would have never made it on slashdot.
So, we can call it a win for both.
hear hear... and you can bet your ass someone at gorilladot.org just learned what Ubuntu is!
Walk with Music;
>So, we can call it a win for both.
I see it that way, too. But the (American, at least) culture is focused on Winners and Losers to the extent that such rich meditations as yours are easy to miss. Slashdot clearly (witness the comment list) reflects this attitude, but it is nice to see more light and less heat on occasion. Thanks.
I think this might do more good than that -- these people could otherwise not afford any computer at all, meaning that sure, right now, they're unlikely to run out and buy a Windows-based machine. However, they now own a computer anyway, running Linux. Now they're getting used to it, learning to like it, and when it comes time to get another machine down the road (maybe when their lives are put back together a bit better), they'll be interested in keeping the platform they're used to (meaning they're a *new* market of up-and-coming customers, who won't be trained to seek out the latest Microsoft dreck).
Read my stuff.
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.
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
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.
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.
Definitely just Americans. Or something. What was that all about?
Anyway, here's the real issue: humans have a natural bias to assume a zero-sum game first, even where none exists. It's the source of all envy. Maybe it was a good survival trait back in the poor, nasty, brutish, and short days when competition over resources was fierce, but it's clearly maladaptive now.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.