I've received enough e-mail and phone calls this morning to indicate
that many of you are concerned for my safety, knowing that I have an
apartment within the debris range of the fallen towers.
In fact, I'm in halcyon Seattle, where nothin' could be finer. Rarely
have I seen a nicer day here.
Dear daughter Leah, on the other hand, *is* in Lower Manhattan, where
she is a freshman at NYU. After several stabs, I was able to get
through to her this morning, finding her unharmed and calm. She is
going to lay low in her dorm today and likely attempt to volunteer
for relief efforts tomorrow.
I've told her for years that is no population on earth more adaptable
to emergency than the hyper-witted citizens of Manhattan. She reports
that there is plenty of evidence to support this view surrounding her
this morning. The Gothamites are rising to the occasion.
-snip-
*DO* WORRY ABOUT US. AND, MORE TO THE POINT, U.S.
As most of you know, I believe that the United States has gradually,
subtly, invisibly to most of us, become a police state over the last
30 years.
This morning's events are roughly equivalent to the Reichstag fire
that provided the social opportunity for the Nazi take-over of
Germany.
I am *not* suggesting that, like the Nazis, the authoritarian forces
in America actually had a direct role in perpetrating this
mind-blistering tragedy. (Though their indirect role deserves a much
longer discussion.)
Nevertheless, nothing could serve those who believe that American
"safety" is more important than American liberty better than
something like this. Control freaks will dine on this day for the
rest of our lives.
Within a few hours, we will see beginning the most vigorous efforts
to end what remains of freedom in America. Those of who are willing
to sacrifice a little - largely illusory - safety in order to
maintain our faith in the original ideals of America will have to
fight for those ideals just as vigorously.
I beg you to begin NOW to do whatever you can - whether writing your
public officials, joining the ACLU or EFF, taking to the streets, or
living visibly free and fearless lives - to prevent the spasm of
control mania from destroying the dreams that far more have died for
over the last two hundred twenty five years than died this morning.
Don't let the terrorists or (their natural allies) the fascists win.
Remember that the goal of terrorism is to create increasingly
paralytic totalitarianism in the government it attacks. Don't give
them the satisfaction.
Fear nothing. Live free.
And, please, let us try to forgive those who have committed these
appalling crimes. If we hate them, we will become them.
May God - or Whatever you want to call It - bless us all. We'll need it.
Graffiti is better than real handwriting recognition. It takes about two days of use to learn Graffiti, which is shorter than it would take for me to remember my own handwriting.;-)
I had an interesting experience at work recently looking for an open source XML-RPC implementation to run with our (closed) application server platform (Dynamo from ATG). I'm curious how you think the GPL applies in Java where dynamic linking doesn't happen at compile-time but at run-time. Would we be in violation of the license if we used an GPL'd XML-RPC package to expose a proprietary application we wrote, all running in the context of a commercial application server?
I'm an American who spent 6 months living in Bangalore (stories on my site) and overall, it was a great experience.
Lots of interesting people. It's a college town that draws smart young Indians from around the country and around the world. Bangalore has a population of 5.5 million, which I wouldn't call "small by Western standards".
The International Technology Park is an amazing site to see in India: a gorgeous glass building with mondo satellite uplink. Located not far away from the well-known guru Sai Baba's summer ashram.
I freelanced for North American clients over the net while I was there and lived like a king on 2 days work per week. My girlfriend and I had a 3 bedroom flat in the heart of the city (MG Road area) for US$230 a month. I withdrew rupees from my US account via the ATMs and it was really quite a kick feeling so wealthy there.
What sucked about Bangalore? The pollution. We lost power at least once a week. Phone line went out periodically and I had to go have tea with the local phone guy to get him to send someone out. My ISP referred another customer to me for technical support (I was there first Mac customer. This Japansese guy was there 2nd.) And I got typhoid fever. I was really sick for about 3 weeks. Yeah, that really sucked.
But anyway, Bangalore is a tech city that would give any North American raised geek an experience to to remember forever.
Slashdot Mirror
Mail from John Perry Barlow:
DON'T WORRY ABOUT ME...
I've received enough e-mail and phone calls this morning to indicate
that many of you are concerned for my safety, knowing that I have an
apartment within the debris range of the fallen towers.
In fact, I'm in halcyon Seattle, where nothin' could be finer. Rarely
have I seen a nicer day here.
Dear daughter Leah, on the other hand, *is* in Lower Manhattan, where
she is a freshman at NYU. After several stabs, I was able to get
through to her this morning, finding her unharmed and calm. She is
going to lay low in her dorm today and likely attempt to volunteer
for relief efforts tomorrow.
I've told her for years that is no population on earth more adaptable
to emergency than the hyper-witted citizens of Manhattan. She reports
that there is plenty of evidence to support this view surrounding her
this morning. The Gothamites are rising to the occasion.
-snip-
*DO* WORRY ABOUT US. AND, MORE TO THE POINT, U.S.
As most of you know, I believe that the United States has gradually,
subtly, invisibly to most of us, become a police state over the last
30 years.
This morning's events are roughly equivalent to the Reichstag fire
that provided the social opportunity for the Nazi take-over of
Germany.
I am *not* suggesting that, like the Nazis, the authoritarian forces
in America actually had a direct role in perpetrating this
mind-blistering tragedy. (Though their indirect role deserves a much
longer discussion.)
Nevertheless, nothing could serve those who believe that American
"safety" is more important than American liberty better than
something like this. Control freaks will dine on this day for the
rest of our lives.
Within a few hours, we will see beginning the most vigorous efforts
to end what remains of freedom in America. Those of who are willing
to sacrifice a little - largely illusory - safety in order to
maintain our faith in the original ideals of America will have to
fight for those ideals just as vigorously.
I beg you to begin NOW to do whatever you can - whether writing your
public officials, joining the ACLU or EFF, taking to the streets, or
living visibly free and fearless lives - to prevent the spasm of
control mania from destroying the dreams that far more have died for
over the last two hundred twenty five years than died this morning.
Don't let the terrorists or (their natural allies) the fascists win.
Remember that the goal of terrorism is to create increasingly
paralytic totalitarianism in the government it attacks. Don't give
them the satisfaction.
Fear nothing. Live free.
And, please, let us try to forgive those who have committed these
appalling crimes. If we hate them, we will become them.
May God - or Whatever you want to call It - bless us all. We'll need it.
Barlow
Graffiti is better than real handwriting recognition. It takes about two days of use to learn Graffiti, which is shorter than it would take for me to remember my own handwriting. ;-)
I had an interesting experience at work recently looking for an open source XML-RPC implementation to run with our (closed) application server platform (Dynamo from ATG). I'm curious how you think the GPL applies in Java where dynamic linking doesn't happen at compile-time but at run-time. Would we be in violation of the license if we used an GPL'd XML-RPC package to expose a proprietary application we wrote, all running in the context of a commercial application server?
Lots of interesting people. It's a college town that draws smart young Indians from around the country and around the world. Bangalore has a population of 5.5 million, which I wouldn't call "small by Western standards".
The International Technology Park is an amazing site to see in India: a gorgeous glass building with mondo satellite uplink. Located not far away from the well-known guru Sai Baba's summer ashram.
I freelanced for North American clients over the net while I was there and lived like a king on 2 days work per week. My girlfriend and I had a 3 bedroom flat in the heart of the city (MG Road area) for US$230 a month. I withdrew rupees from my US account via the ATMs and it was really quite a kick feeling so wealthy there.
What sucked about Bangalore? The pollution. We lost power at least once a week. Phone line went out periodically and I had to go have tea with the local phone guy to get him to send someone out. My ISP referred another customer to me for technical support (I was there first Mac customer. This Japansese guy was there 2nd.) And I got typhoid fever. I was really sick for about 3 weeks. Yeah, that really sucked.
But anyway, Bangalore is a tech city that would give any North American raised geek an experience to to remember forever.