You're missing an important point here -- he was trusted by his boss to do the right thing, presumably from some sort of prior experience. That, my friend, is called having "executive sponsorship" wherein the chain of command, wanting to actually Get Shit Done on their watch, has chosen the people whom they trust to Do The Right Thing. The executive is taking the responsibility that it might go wrong in order to get the reward/power that they broke new ground and changed things.
This happens all the time, but only as a result of a "team". Trust that the lowly tech guy knows what he's talking about, and reasonable truth that boss will keep off the dogs if things work. If it doesn't work, then the underling gets the boot, and the boss gets laterally transfered to some department off the coast of alaska where he won't hurt anyone.
My mother was born in Italy and I'm in the process of getting an Italian passport. The law has been changed. You can have dual citizenship with most EU countries -- this has been changed within the last 20 years.
Be aware that very few countries in the world do not have such a permissive attitude towards civil and miliary service as the US does -- most places have some sort of mandatory service, so make sure that you don't qualify. Otherwise you may find that your move to Europe lands you working with the couriers at La Posta.
I'm in Chengdu right now, in the south-western provence of Sichuan. (You've probably heard of the food.) There are internet cafes _everywhere_ around here, and the going rate is 2 Yuan/hour, which is about one US quarter (dollar) and hour. These places are always packed, generally about 40-50 computers all full. Mostly people seem to play games, though some people are into chat rooms. I can't get to certain sites unless I do fancy tricks with proxies (BBC is one which doesn't come through) but everything seems to be here. I don't know what's tracked, but in practice I don't notice any day to day difference in using the internet.
Cept I'm on the road, and not on the T1.
I think perhaps this is blown out of proportion, and the opinion here is that it really is a safety reason more than anything else. I can understand the propoganda angle with saying that, but still, I'm all for forcing proper ventilation and safety exits.
Finally, Torvalds expounds again on his simple philosophy of life. People do things first for survival purposes, then for social purposes, and finally for recreation.
Linus and I (and everyone else I assume) must stare a taste in Dougless Adams: There are three stages of civilization, known as the how, why, what stages: how do we survive, why are we here, and what's for lunch? -- butchered from memory.
You know, the more I hear people talking about these intellectual demographics the more I'm starting to think that rather then being two sides of the same coin that there is something fundementally different between genders. WTF? Ever met a boy who grew up in a family with 4 older sisters? A girl who grew up in a family with 4 older brothers?
FSF and GNU are about exclusive freedom. Linux is about inclusive freedom; freedom for all developers and users, not just the chosen few.
This doesn't really make any sense to me. I would say that FSF and GNU are about a vision, while Linux is about being the coolest hack in the word. (Really, what is linux other than the emacs of operating systems? Totally configurable, each person's instance has so many personal mods as to make it impossible for anyone else to use it, funky key bindings, etc. etc.) The Linux community seems to be trying to everything to everyone, and filling in the the gaping chasm in the information universe that is Microsoft's moral vacuum.
Linux is a cool hack -- nothing more. GNU is pure freedom -- the kind that's kind of annoying and impractical. Open Source is the glue that binds us all together....
This kind of reminded me of the fatbrain name story -- which I had to admit is a name that really catches my fancy. It's a pretty good piece about how they went about putting a more effective marketing spin on "Computer Literacy", and makes "those people who make up names for other people" sound a whole lot less petty than the salon article does.
And it makes me want to buy stuff from fatbrain.:)
Wait... didn't I hear something about poor social skills? You know, it occured to me right about the time I graduated (8 months ago) that I had really missed the whole band wagon, with this idea of going to school to learn and better myself and whatnot. I lived on a block that had 5 frat houses, so we were neighbors and when I sat on my porch having the old Beer-B-Q with friends we could watch all the freshman make the rounds to all the frats. And it stuck me that if you were in a frat, all you really cared about was getting drunk, getting laid, and having a good time. And that's pretty much what they did.
It's hard to argue, really, with those priorities.
No, they exist. My sister is one of 'em, or at least moving right along towards it. Guiding her through the land of linuxppc, though to be honest she figures most of the stuff out on her own.
Though she has a big problem with the other 'computer geeks', mainly because, quote, "They're arrogant, obnoxious, and not nearly as amazing as they like to think they are." Off hand, that may be why they're not getting any.
ps. A couple of summers ago I designed www.personal.psu.edu. It's cool that it's still up and running.
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What in the world are you talking about? Your experiences may be true in the hill billy south, but DC, NYC and Washington aren't remotely like this.
You're missing an important point here -- he was trusted by his boss to do the right thing, presumably from some sort of prior experience. That, my friend, is called having "executive sponsorship" wherein the chain of command, wanting to actually Get Shit Done on their watch, has chosen the people whom they trust to Do The Right Thing. The executive is taking the responsibility that it might go wrong in order to get the reward/power that they broke new ground and changed things.
This happens all the time, but only as a result of a "team". Trust that the lowly tech guy knows what he's talking about, and reasonable truth that boss will keep off the dogs if things work. If it doesn't work, then the underling gets the boot, and the boss gets laterally transfered to some department off the coast of alaska where he won't hurt anyone.
That how shit gets done in a large organization.
My mother was born in Italy and I'm in the process of getting an Italian passport. The law has been changed. You can have dual citizenship with most EU countries -- this has been changed within the last 20 years.
Be aware that very few countries in the world do not have such a permissive attitude towards civil and miliary service as the US does -- most places have some sort of mandatory service, so make sure that you don't qualify. Otherwise you may find that your move to Europe lands you working with the couriers at La Posta.
I'm in Chengdu right now, in the south-western provence of Sichuan. (You've probably heard of the food.) There are internet cafes _everywhere_ around here, and the going rate is 2 Yuan/hour, which is about one US quarter (dollar) and hour. These places are always packed, generally about 40-50 computers all full. Mostly people seem to play games, though some people are into chat rooms. I can't get to certain sites unless I do fancy tricks with proxies (BBC is one which doesn't come through) but everything seems to be here. I don't know what's tracked, but in practice I don't notice any day to day difference in using the internet.
Cept I'm on the road, and not on the T1.
I think perhaps this is blown out of proportion, and the opinion here is that it really is a safety reason more than anything else. I can understand the propoganda angle with saying that, but still, I'm all for forcing proper ventilation and safety exits.
Finally, Torvalds expounds again on his simple philosophy of life. People do things first for survival purposes, then for social purposes, and finally for recreation.
Linus and I (and everyone else I assume) must stare a taste in Dougless Adams:
There are three stages of civilization, known as the how, why, what stages: how do we survive, why are we here, and what's for lunch?
-- butchered from memory.
You know, the more I hear people talking about these intellectual demographics the more I'm starting to think that rather then being two sides of the same coin that there is something fundementally different between genders. WTF? Ever met a boy who grew up in a family with 4 older sisters? A girl who grew up in a family with 4 older brothers?
Don't blur form with content dammit!
FSF and GNU are about exclusive freedom. Linux is about inclusive freedom; freedom for all developers and users, not just the chosen few.
This doesn't really make any sense to me. I would say that FSF and GNU are about a vision, while Linux is about being the coolest hack in the word. (Really, what is linux other than the emacs of operating systems? Totally configurable, each person's instance has so many personal mods as to make it impossible for anyone else to use it, funky key bindings, etc. etc.) The Linux community seems to be trying to everything to everyone, and filling in the the gaping chasm in the information universe that is Microsoft's moral vacuum.
Linux is a cool hack -- nothing more. GNU is pure freedom -- the kind that's kind of annoying and impractical. Open Source is the glue that binds us all together....
This kind of reminded me of the fatbrain name story -- which I had to admit is a name that really catches my fancy. It's a pretty good piece about how they went about putting a more effective marketing spin on "Computer Literacy", and makes "those people who make up names for other people" sound a whole lot less petty than the salon article does.
:)
And it makes me want to buy stuff from fatbrain.
Wait... didn't I hear something about poor social skills? You know, it occured to me right about the time I graduated (8 months ago) that I had really missed the whole band wagon, with this idea of going to school to learn and better myself and whatnot. I lived on a block that had 5 frat houses, so we were neighbors and when I sat on my porch having the old Beer-B-Q with friends we could watch all the freshman make the rounds to all the frats. And it stuck me that if you were in a frat, all you really cared about was getting drunk, getting laid, and having a good time. And that's pretty much what they did.
It's hard to argue, really, with those priorities.
No, they exist. My sister is one of 'em, or at least moving right along towards it. Guiding her through the land of linuxppc, though to be honest she figures most of the stuff out on her own.
Though she has a big problem with the other 'computer geeks', mainly because, quote, "They're arrogant, obnoxious, and not nearly as amazing as they like to think they are." Off hand, that may be why they're not getting any.
ps. A couple of summers ago I designed www.personal.psu.edu. It's cool that it's still up and running.