The server was surviving the Slashdot Effect just fine, but unfortunately the ISP (who I don't pay for bandwidth, so they can't really be blamed:-) wasn't.
I've started redirecting www.jargon.org to ESR's site, so the ISP should be much happier now...;-)
(BTW, www.jargon.org is just another mirror. I registered the name because I'm a big fan.)
Anything by Asimov is good, especially for a kid that is 13. I can't recall a single thing that I've read by Asimov that wouldn't be appropriate for someone that age.
Try to read Asimov's books in more-or-less this order:
The End of Eternity
the robot short stories (I, Robot, Bicentennial Man, etc.)
the robot novels (The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, etc.)
the Empire novels (Pebble In The Sky, The Stars, Like Dust)
the Foundation novels
Of course, Asimov's unrelated books and short stories (like The Gods Themselves, Azazel, etc.) are all quite good. Also, I highly recommend his non-fiction (especially Beginnings) if you enjoy his writing style and are interested in science, math, history, literature, or about anything else.:-)
My other favorite author is definitely Robert Heinlein. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much of his stuff is appropriate for a 13-year-old. Perhaps the best way to judge is to see when he wrote the book. Everything published after Stranger in a Strange Land gets more and more sex-oriented.
Off the top of my head (since most of my library is in boxes now), a few of the other authors I always liked are Poul Anderson (especially the Time Patrol books), Arthur C. Clarke, Fred Pohl, and Fred Saberhagen (good old-fashioned sci-fi in the Berserker series, weird sci-fi/fantasy mix in the Swords series).
One day this girl just happens to jump on one of the channels I always idled on. It had the name of the geographic area we're both from in the topic, so she decided to check it out. Some guy followed her on the channel and was trying to talk to her. I told them both to go away, since this was a technical channel (my channel - I was about to kick/ban both of them). Well, the guy went away, but the girl introduced herself and told me she was from a town about 2 hours away. At that point I started being a bit more polite, and I answered some of her questions. I found her quite easy to talk to, so I kept talking to her then, and continued to talk to her nearly every day for the next couple of weeks.
At some point I decided that I'd like to meet this girl, so we met and went out on a date. (This is my only piece of advice... If you get into one of these IRC relationships, don't let it get very serious without actually meeting the person face-to-face.) Anyway, at that point we were utterly inseparable. A few months later, I moved to be closer to her. One year after we met in person, we were engaged. A few months later we got married. Now we've been married for about 2.5 years.
Judging by the replies so far, it looks like quite a few people are seeing why this really is funny. (It *had* to take some time for Tom to come up with this.)
I think most of the people who disagree with RMS mainly disagree with his focus... It seems like it is much more important to him that a) everyone agree with him (and his definition of "free") and b) everyone understand that *he* is responsible the free software movement. (Before anyone flames me, I'm not saying that *is* how he is, just that it's the impression he gives me.)
What I'm quite sure RMS doesn't understand is that most of us really want the same thing he wants. From what I've read of his original reasons for starting the GNU project, RMS wants free and open exchange of ideas, with source code being just one part of that. Publishing source code helps put the "science" back in "computer science", I suppose.
Unlike Tom, I personally believe that the GPL is a Good Thing, since it forces what I consider to be moral behavior on anyone who wants to use code that I've written. Unlike RMS, I don't think that people are evil if they disagree with me, choose not to use my code, and instead use a more restrictive license (including not releasing source at all).
I heard a quote the other day... It went something along the lines of "someone who agrees with me 80% of the time is not my enemy." RMS really needs to understand that many of us are on his side, really, but we get very turned off by the near-religious rhetoric. (Tom might want to think about that a little too...;)
It's a shame that hasn't worked around here (yet). I've been running a Linux users group for 5 years, and I have yet to work a Linux-only (or even Linux-centric) job, other than when I was doing independent consulting.
Of course, if somebody would like to make an offer...;-)
I've noticed that the head hunters that I've dealt with recently seem to have much more of a clue than the ones I was dealing with even a couple of years ago... The last one I talked to could even follow me when I talked about the various types of Unix that I've been an admin on in the past. As a matter of fact, he even made a vaguely positive comment when I mentioned something about Linux. Perhaps I've just been getting lucky, but it does seem like at least the Unix admin head hunters are realizing that you can't get any respect from geeks if you can't even talk to them.
Also, while I'm sure a *lot* of companies out there have lame hiring practices, at least the Large Multi-national Corporation I'm now working for doesn't... The person who had the final decision in hiring me was a techie recently enough that he could appreciate my background. (The job I'm in is almost all HP-UX, and I'd never touched HP-UX before my first day on the job. I did have experience with Linux, Solaris, SCO (@#%$!), etc. though.) He also didn't make a decision without letting the people I now work with see my resume and later talk to me, so they could have some input on what they thought of my skills and attitude. Overall, it seemed like an excellent way to hire somebody. I'm incredibly happy with my job (and the people I work with) because of it.
(Now, if only I didn't have to drive 72 miles one way to work, my life would be perfect...)
Slashdot Mirror
The server was surviving the Slashdot Effect just fine, but unfortunately the ISP (who I don't pay for bandwidth, so they can't really be blamed :-) wasn't.
;-)
I've started redirecting www.jargon.org to ESR's site, so the ISP should be much happier now...
(BTW, www.jargon.org is just another mirror. I registered the name because I'm a big fan.)
Anything by Asimov is good, especially for a kid that is 13. I can't recall a single thing that I've read by Asimov that wouldn't be appropriate for someone that age.
Try to read Asimov's books in more-or-less this order:
Of course, Asimov's unrelated books and short stories (like The Gods Themselves, Azazel, etc.) are all quite good. Also, I highly recommend his non-fiction (especially Beginnings) if you enjoy his writing style and are interested in science, math, history, literature, or about anything else. :-)
My other favorite author is definitely Robert Heinlein. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much of his stuff is appropriate for a 13-year-old. Perhaps the best way to judge is to see when he wrote the book. Everything published after Stranger in a Strange Land gets more and more sex-oriented.
Off the top of my head (since most of my library is in boxes now), a few of the other authors I always liked are Poul Anderson (especially the Time Patrol books), Arthur C. Clarke, Fred Pohl, and Fred Saberhagen (good old-fashioned sci-fi in the Berserker series, weird sci-fi/fantasy mix in the Swords series).
One day this girl just happens to jump on one of the channels I always idled on. It had the name of the geographic area we're both from in the topic, so she decided to check it out. Some guy followed her on the channel and was trying to talk to her. I told them both to go away, since this was a technical channel (my channel - I was about to kick/ban both of them). Well, the guy went away, but the girl introduced herself and told me she was from a town about 2 hours away. At that point I started being a bit more polite, and I answered some of her questions. I found her quite easy to talk to, so I kept talking to her then, and continued to talk to her nearly every day for the next couple of weeks.
At some point I decided that I'd like to meet this girl, so we met and went out on a date. (This is my only piece of advice... If you get into one of these IRC relationships, don't let it get very serious without actually meeting the person face-to-face.) Anyway, at that point we were utterly inseparable. A few months later, I moved to be closer to her. One year after we met in person, we were engaged. A few months later we got married. Now we've been married for about 2.5 years.
Judging by the replies so far, it looks like quite a few people are seeing why this really is funny. (It *had* to take some time for Tom to come up with this.)
;)
:-)
I think most of the people who disagree with RMS mainly disagree with his focus... It seems like it is much more important to him that a) everyone agree with him (and his definition of "free") and b) everyone understand that *he* is responsible the free software movement. (Before anyone flames me, I'm not saying that *is* how he is, just that it's the impression he gives me.)
What I'm quite sure RMS doesn't understand is that most of us really want the same thing he wants. From what I've read of his original reasons for starting the GNU project, RMS wants free and open exchange of ideas, with source code being just one part of that. Publishing source code helps put the "science" back in "computer science", I suppose.
Unlike Tom, I personally believe that the GPL is a Good Thing, since it forces what I consider to be moral behavior on anyone who wants to use code that I've written. Unlike RMS, I don't think that people are evil if they disagree with me, choose not to use my code, and instead use a more restrictive license (including not releasing source at all).
I heard a quote the other day... It went something along the lines of "someone who agrees with me 80% of the time is not my enemy." RMS really needs to understand that many of us are on his side, really, but we get very turned off by the near-religious rhetoric. (Tom might want to think about that a little too...
Now, let's all get back to writing some code.
It's a shame that hasn't worked around here (yet). I've been running a Linux users group for 5 years, and I have yet to work a Linux-only (or even Linux-centric) job, other than when I was doing independent consulting.
;-)
Of course, if somebody would like to make an offer...
I've noticed that the head hunters that I've dealt with recently seem to have much more of a clue than the ones I was dealing with even a couple of years ago... The last one I talked to could even follow me when I talked about the various types of Unix that I've been an admin on in the past. As a matter of fact, he even made a vaguely positive comment when I mentioned something about Linux. Perhaps I've just been getting lucky, but it does seem like at least the Unix admin head hunters are realizing that you can't get any respect from geeks if you can't even talk to them.
Also, while I'm sure a *lot* of companies out there have lame hiring practices, at least the Large Multi-national Corporation I'm now working for doesn't... The person who had the final decision in hiring me was a techie recently enough that he could appreciate my background. (The job I'm in is almost all HP-UX, and I'd never touched HP-UX before my first day on the job. I did have experience with Linux, Solaris, SCO (@#%$!), etc. though.) He also didn't make a decision without letting the people I now work with see my resume and later talk to me, so they could have some input on what they thought of my skills and attitude. Overall, it seemed like an excellent way to hire somebody. I'm incredibly happy with my job (and the people I work with) because of it.
(Now, if only I didn't have to drive 72 miles one way to work, my life would be perfect...)