True - and corrected. Thank you. You'll notice that "Lokie ported quake III to Linux" is the way the story is presented in most media. Take this as an object lesson in trusting journalists, and be glad it's my blushing face, not yours, that has egg on it now.:)
Perhaps the buzzword "standard" is the problem here. Call it a "basic Linux GUI" or a "starter GUI" or some such. Pilots start out in easy-to-fly training planes and later advance. Why can't there be the Linux equivalent of an aircraft designed to be forgiving and easy to use?
Some people will never get beyond that stage (just as many pilots never go beyond single-engine VFR), but those who want to advance have plenty of alternatives available.
To continue the aviation analogy, note that different aircraft have different purposes, levels of complexity, and performance characteristics, but they all react basically the same way to the same control inputs - and you don't hear Mach III fighter pilots complaining about Cessna building 120 mph "family" airplanes instead of forcing everyone to fly an F-14.
Bjarne says he still gets e-mail about that fake interview. Not that it's in his FAQ. He's not humor-impaired, okay? I almost put in a link to it myself, but figured someone else would post it.;-)
- Robin
Re:Donate money: the OS you save may be your own.
on
Giving Back
·
· Score: 2
When you buy a commercial software license for yourself, all you get is a software license. When you give money to a free software project, you not only get the software, but so does everybody else.
I got into Linux because I didn't have the money to keep buying new Windows software and new hardware to run every so-called upgrade. There are a lot of people out there who can't afford new computers and commercial software. The current economic bubble isn't doing much for most of my neighbors except running up rents and other costs a lot faster than their incomes are going up.
It's easy to spout "it's their own fault they're poor" BS when you're young and/or talented and/or lucky, but not as easy when you get a few years on you or have had some rough times of your own.
When Bruce Perens makes "Robin the Cabbie" jokes, they're not really jokes. I drove a cab for years. Almost all my cab (and later, limo) money went to child support and I lived on my free-lance writing income, which didn't start to become substantial until about five years ago. (And Bruce knows this. He and I knock each other as friends, not as enemies.)
I've gone through some very hard times, and I haven't forgotten them. In a lot of ways my life didn't start getting *really good* until I started using Linux.
This is the reason I am such a rabid Linux and free software evangelist.
Sure, I'm riding on the current Linux and open source corporate gravy train in my own small way right now, but if that ever ends I will still be an ardent Linux booster. Meanwhile, if I can help out a little here and there, I can and do. I get my money's (and time's) worth back in many ways, not all of which show up on a balance sheet.
- Robin 'roblimo' Miller
Re:So much more out there...
on
Giving Back
·
· Score: 2
Yes, it's in Baltimore. It's called Geeks Into the Streets [GITS], URL http://linux.umbc.edu/gits/, and the person who heads it is chief freshmeat appindex maintainer Jeff Covey (jeff.covey@freshmeat.net). The essence of this program is volunteer time, not money. Any half-decent LUG ought to be able to come up with enough surplus equipment to outfit a little computer lab and training facility like the one GITS runs.
My personal "pet" project at the moment is fighting UCITA in the Maryland legislature. I usually have at least one side "freebie" project going, as do most of the local Linux people I know. This is what makes us a community, remember?
It's good to give back a little of yourself. I'm no millionaire, but writing about Linux and open source makes me a decent living and has given me a certain amount of fame. I don't feel I've gotten to wherever it is I am today because I am brilliant, but because I have been incredibly lucky and have been helped by many mentors along the way.
So it is my duty to give others a leg up and help them, just as others have helped me.
But the real kudos go to Jeff Covey, Steve Killen and Dan Pearson (all of whom work for Andover) and the many other volunteers and donors who work on GITS - and have made the Linux computers in their home-built lab so popular that the kids argue over who gets to use which terminal for how long.
Sorry, but the information in the article is correct. There was a last-minute amendment tacked onto the Virigina Senate bill that allows it to take effect in July, 2001 "as is" unless the study group modifies it.
"I feel like the most important member of the/. community today. I wrote emails to my governor and to my local representative stating that I feel that UCITA is wrong, and that they should review it carefully before making it law."
Yes! And you are now important far beyond the/. community. Such a tiny percentage of Americans exercise their right to speak out and inform or even pressure our government into doing what we want that you are now now An Important Citizen!
Realize that if I had written the above article in [insert favorite dictator-run country here] I'd be in jail by now, and your e-mail would probably have the nasties at *your* door by tomorrow.
It took a bloody revolution to get us the right to redress our government. It's easy to forget that plenty of people *died* to give us the right to tell our government what to do.
Never forget, for one second, that if you are an American, you are one of this country's owners, not a serf subject to the will of a king. But the flip side of freedom is that no one will make you stand up and be counted. You have to do it for yourself.
Or, if you prefer, you can let Bill Gates and his hirelings do all the talking for you. It's your choice.
I hereby bestow upon little_alfalfa the Official Slashdot Medal for Americanism, which has no monetary value but gives a great warm feeling inside.
[Instrumental version of "America the Beautiful" plays in background. FADE from close shot of little_alfalfa's proud face to montage of revolutionary soldiers, amber waves of grain, purple mountains majesty, the twelve-stripe/. version of Old Glory waving, moms baking apple pie, etc. etc.)
I think I read too many Heinlein books when I was growing up. Oh, well.;-)
Those links are in the story, including ones to pages that will help you find contact information for government officials in all U.S. States and territories.
Okay, so you find both of the big political parties repugnant and don't think the libertarians have a chance, so you're going to sit there and let the people you don't like go on running things.
Maybe, just maybe *you* might change things for the better. Not much, just a little bit. But while you waffle and come up with reasons NOT to get involved, the people who make you gag and throw up are making the policies and laws under which you live.
Y'know, if most of the smart and honest people in the U.S. opted out of politics, our country would end up with an inept, unresponsive government.
If you think this has already happened, turn the situation around. What if a whole bunch of smart, computer-hip, honest people decided they *could* make a difference, and went to those off-season political caucuses and took over the party machinery?
First, if you're one of the many adult Americans who doesn't bother to vote, you have no one to blame but yourself for letting corrupt politicians get into office and stay there. And even more important than voting is getting involved in party politics in between elections, which is where and when future candidates and policies are picked. So few people get involved at this level that your single voice can make a *huge* difference, and I mean a bigger difference than 100 lobbyists with hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes... excuse me, I meant to say campaign contributions... available to them.
Second, you are absolutely right. "They" will keep coming up with Bad Things. It's a "political process," not a single "political project."
Think software development. And think what would have happened with Linux if Linus had said, "We have kernel 1.0, so we're finished now."
Now apply the same thinking to politics. Messing with politicians is not nearly as much fun or as rewarding as messing with software, but sometimes it's a necessary evil, especially if you want to go on messing with your computer without the government telling you how to do it.
If you don't fight you will certainly lose out to the money. If you fight, you might still lose - but you might win, too.
The difference between slaves and free citizens is the willingness to fight. I am a free citizen, not a slave, so I will fight.
People who don't bother to vote and don't bother to make their voices known on important issues have no right to complain when the government does things they don't like.
I would say I work 80 - 100 hours a week, counting Slashdot time. But wait! Slashdot time *is* work for me.
Last night I logged on at 11 p.m. or so to check the submissions page, and saw that CowboyNeal, CmdrTaco, and Hemos were also taking a look. Everybody who *works* on Slashdot puts in all kinds of crazy hours.
In our case, the line between work and recreation is thin. Often they're one and the same.
Does the IRC time I spend on #slashdot or #freshmeat count as work?
I am absolutely against a seniority-based posting system - and I say this as registered user #357, as a (moderately) high-karma "automatic +2" poster, and as a Slashdot staff member.
But I'm leaving the whole mess in Rob Malda's hands, and I am sure he will come up with a fair and equitable solution to the spam dilemna - and I am also sure that no matter what he does, he'll get hundreds of e-mails telling him his solution sucks.
We were just discussing it on #slashdot (irc.slashnet.org) and generally agreed that we could have done a far better job with the Clinton chat than CNN did. For real.
Actually, the internal joke is that I do so much worrying about editorial integrity that no one else has to do any. There's truth to this. I come out of "old school" alternative journalism, back when weekly alternative newspapers were more interested in covering news the increasingly monopolized dailies overlooked than in selling futon ads and 900-number "telepersonals."
So please do wait and see. I work with people I respect; we don't always agree, but we *do* respect each other and each others' opinions. We screw up from time to time because Slashdot is, in many ways, an experiment in new ways to gather and distribute news. By definition, when you are experimenting you are bound to fail more often than if you stick to the "tried and true," but on the whole, I believe we have more successes than failures. And that's what counts in the long run.
More than anything, I worry about losing Slashdot's freedom to innovate (if I can use that phrase without stepping on a Microsoft copyright *grin*). One of the beauties of Slashdot is the fact that it's constantly changing, and if Rob et al are ever held back by a risk-averse management more interested in this quarter's profit than in trying new things that might lead to a better product (in this case, news and discussion) later, this site will slowly wither away.
But again, I do enough worrying about this for the whole bunch. I don't mind doing this, because I am a natural worrier. Note that both my Slashdot and "Andover corporate" e-mail addresses are easy to find because I *want* feedback and take all reader concerns to heart, even ones with which I don't agree. I try to personally answer as much e-mail as I can, although I've admittedly been getting a little sloppy on this front because of increased e-mail volume and increased job responsibilities.
My main point, though, is to make sure you know that it's not just Slashdot people who worry about the site's integrity, but the entire Andover management crowd. A large part of the reason Andover bought Slashdot in the first place is that it was the most popular news site among Andover employees. And it still is!
I have no problem with people coming to the U.S. from other countries either for education or to work, then going "back home."
Example: Abi, journalist I know from Nigeria, came to the U.S. and worked his way through a PhD in Mass Communications driving a cab. Now he's back home, infested with our American ideals - which may be flawed but still have a lot of good in them - and he is *not* going to put up with a corrupt military dictatorship.
Think of Abi and others like him as a human version of GNU-style "viral marketing." Think of the Chinese government telling its citizens that life under the Chinese system of government is better than life under the American system while thousands of Chinese who have studied or worked in the U.S. busily say otherwise based on first-hand knowledge.
Think of the Indians who have lived in the U.S. and go home with ideas of how things can be done differently in their country and work for change, not necessarily to make India into a clone of the U.S., but to incorporate the best of both cultures into something new and potentially better than either of the originals.
Mexico? Legal or illegal, a Mexican immigrant who sends money home is helping to raise the standard of living in his home village or barrio to the point where, someday, his sons or grandsons won't have any reason to go to the U.S. to earn a decent wage.
I am not saying I don't want people from Mexico or China or Egypt (or Finland) to be frozen out of U.S. citizenship, just that the ones who stay here for a while, then go "home," are also worthwhile. If nothing else, they are likely to be better friends of the U.S. than their neighbors who have never worked and lived here.
Tim, I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get a decent video client for Linux. If it means that I must grit my teeth and get jeered at by you for dealing with Apple, I'll pay that price, okay?
However, what I would *really* like to see is a good, open source streaming video standard. I've emailed maddog at Linux Internation and asked him if LI would be interested in working on such an effort. If not, next week at LWCE I'll talk to a bunch of people from other Linux companies and see if we can't form some sort of Linux Video Group to fund development of that product.
Ideally, I'd like to see something compatible with QuickTime. Right now, Microsoft is giving free bandwidth to online video and audio producers who their multimedia servers *exclusively*. I would not like to see Microsoft end up in total control of the "next hot net thing."
If making a deal with a small devil to keep a bigger devil at bay is what it takes, so it goes. I am afraid that if we don't act very rapidly to come up with a viable cross-platform alternative to MS video, Linux and *nix will be left out of online media entirely.
I've been reading SF since 1958, when I was six. I started with A.E. Van Vogt's "Voyage of the Space Beagle," a book upon which some sort of TV series was based many years later. I remember the book clearly - and far more fondly than Star Trek, which was a pallid thing by comparison.
By age eight I was a major Heinlein fan, to the point where my great fictional childhood role model was "Kettle Belly" Baldwin. (My "real life" role model was a friend of my grandmother's named Ray Bradbury, who put the idea into my head that I might one day be able to earn a living as a writer.)
Back to topic at hand:
My offbeat SF reading suggestions are Mark Twain's "Letters from the Earth," "Adam's Diary," "Eve's Diary," and "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven." These works are often packaged into a single volume, and are all worth reading not only on their own merits but also because they are where RAH got many of the pithy quotes he put into the mouths of characters like Lazarus Long, Prof. Bernardo de la Paz, Jubal Harsaw, Hugo Piniero, Sgt. Zim, and the other "wise but tough father" figures he used in almost all of his books and stories.
Yes, Heinlein plagiarized Clemmens. Frequently. I don't mind, but I think it's nice to know the original source wherever possible.
Indeed, much of the "theology" in "Stranger in a Strange Land" and later Heinlein books is somewhat derivitive of Twain's satires on Christian behavior. I often got the feeling that Heinlein had read Twain's beautifully ironic short story, "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleysburg," even more times than I had.
Some other Twain SF recommendations:
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - Tales for Good Old Boys and Girls - Tom Sawyer, Aeronaut
These books may not be suitable for TV-raised teeners. 19th century writers tended to move slowly by today's standards. But they're excellent works and well worth the time of an adult who wants to delve into "science fiction" that was written long before Hugo Gernsback coined the term in the 30s.
"I'm sorry, I don't see why this is a news story. Roblimo, It would take weeks for d.net to implement a new module, not to mention coding it..."
The point here is to get people thinking about the idea. This is not "News for Nerds" as much as it's "Stuff that matters."
Imagine a versatile, rather than single-purpose, "idle cycle" processing network that could be adapted rapidly to take on new tasks - like searching for low-power signals from out-of-touch spacecraft or comparing large numbers of telescope observations to help find small, moving images like asteroids and comets.
I'm sure there are many other potential uses for "idle cycle" distributed computing. I don't think it hurts to free up our imaginations now and then and brainstorm a bit about them.
If nothing else, a little speculation about the use of distributed computing to help NASA is a welcome relief from all the lawsuit and privacy and domain dispute stories that seem to make up a depressingly large percentage of the news submitted to Slashdot lately.
Remember the First Rule of Slashdot: "No matter what you say, someone won't like it - and will tell you so. Loudly."
I'll have my (white) limo at LWCE, we'll have a sign for Bruce to wave as he stands in the sunroof, AND Emmett will be there with a brand-new Sony digital Hi-8 camcorder to make a permanent record of Bruce making a spectacle of himself, which we will post online for your downloading and viewing pleasure.
All I can do is keep calling and e-mailing VA Linux. I apologize for their not having come through as promised. It galls me more than it galls you, believe me.
Slashdot Mirror
True - and corrected. Thank you. You'll notice that "Lokie ported quake III to Linux" is the way the story is presented in most media. Take this as an object lesson in trusting journalists, and be glad it's my blushing face, not yours, that has egg on it now. :)
- Robin
The fake interview *was* funny - but it wasn't a question...
- Robin
Perhaps the buzzword "standard" is the problem here. Call it a "basic Linux GUI" or a "starter GUI" or some such. Pilots start out in easy-to-fly training planes and later advance. Why can't there be the Linux equivalent of an aircraft designed to be forgiving and easy to use?
Some people will never get beyond that stage (just as many pilots never go beyond single-engine VFR), but those who want to advance have plenty of alternatives available.
To continue the aviation analogy, note that different aircraft have different purposes, levels of complexity, and performance characteristics, but they all react basically the same way to the same control inputs - and you don't hear Mach III fighter pilots complaining about Cessna building 120 mph "family" airplanes instead of forcing everyone to fly an F-14.
- Robin
Bjarne says he still gets e-mail about that fake interview. Not that it's in his FAQ. He's not humor-impaired, okay? I almost put in a link to it myself, but figured someone else would post it. ;-)
- Robin
When you buy a commercial software license for yourself, all you get is a software license. When you give money to a free software project, you not only get the software, but so does everybody else.
I got into Linux because I didn't have the money to keep buying new Windows software and new hardware to run every so-called upgrade. There are a lot of people out there who can't afford new computers and commercial software. The current economic bubble isn't doing much for most of my neighbors except running up rents and other costs a lot faster than their incomes are going up.
It's easy to spout "it's their own fault they're poor" BS when you're young and/or talented and/or lucky, but not as easy when you get a few years on you or have had some rough times of your own.
When Bruce Perens makes "Robin the Cabbie" jokes, they're not really jokes. I drove a cab for years. Almost all my cab (and later, limo) money went to child support and I lived on my free-lance writing income, which didn't start to become substantial until about five years ago. (And Bruce knows this. He and I knock each other as friends, not as enemies.)
I've gone through some very hard times, and I haven't forgotten them. In a lot of ways my life didn't start getting *really good* until I started using Linux.
This is the reason I am such a rabid Linux and free software evangelist.
Sure, I'm riding on the current Linux and open source corporate gravy train in my own small way right now, but if that ever ends I will still be an ardent Linux booster. Meanwhile, if I can help out a little here and there, I can and do. I get my money's (and time's) worth back in many ways, not all of which show up on a balance sheet.
- Robin 'roblimo' Miller
Yes, it's in Baltimore. It's called Geeks Into the Streets [GITS], URL http://linux.umbc.edu/gits/, and the person who heads it is chief freshmeat appindex maintainer Jeff Covey (jeff.covey@freshmeat.net). The essence of this program is volunteer time, not money. Any half-decent LUG ought to be able to come up with enough surplus equipment to outfit a little computer lab and training facility like the one GITS runs.
My personal "pet" project at the moment is fighting UCITA in the Maryland legislature. I usually have at least one side "freebie" project going, as do most of the local Linux people I know. This is what makes us a community, remember?
It's good to give back a little of yourself. I'm no millionaire, but writing about Linux and open source makes me a decent living and has given me a certain amount of fame. I don't feel I've gotten to wherever it is I am today because I am brilliant, but because I have been incredibly lucky and have been helped by many mentors along the way.
So it is my duty to give others a leg up and help them, just as others have helped me.
But the real kudos go to Jeff Covey, Steve Killen and Dan Pearson (all of whom work for Andover) and the many other volunteers and donors who work on GITS - and have made the Linux computers in their home-built lab so popular that the kids argue over who gets to use which terminal for how long.
- Robin 'roblimo' Miller
Sorry, but the information in the article is correct. There was a last-minute amendment tacked onto the Virigina Senate bill that allows it to take effect in July, 2001 "as is" unless the study group modifies it.
- Robin
"I feel like the most important member of the
and to my local representative stating that I feel that UCITA is wrong, and that they should review
it carefully before making it law."
Yes! And you are now important far beyond the
Realize that if I had written the above article in
[insert favorite dictator-run country here] I'd be in jail by now, and your e-mail would probably have the nasties at *your* door by tomorrow.
It took a bloody revolution to get us the right to redress our government. It's easy to forget that plenty of people *died* to give us the right to tell our government what to do.
Never forget, for one second, that if you are an American, you are one of this country's owners, not a serf subject to the will of a king. But the flip side of freedom is that no one will make you stand up and be counted. You have to do it for yourself.
Or, if you prefer, you can let Bill Gates and his hirelings do all the talking for you. It's your choice.
I hereby bestow upon little_alfalfa the Official Slashdot Medal for Americanism, which has no monetary value but gives a great warm feeling inside.
[Instrumental version of "America the Beautiful" plays in background. FADE from close shot of little_alfalfa's proud face to montage of revolutionary soldiers, amber waves of grain, purple mountains majesty, the twelve-stripe
I think I read too many Heinlein books when I was growing up. Oh, well.
- Robin
Those links are in the story, including ones to pages that will help you find contact information for government officials in all U.S. States and territories.
- Robin
Okay, so you find both of the big political parties repugnant and don't think the libertarians have a chance, so you're going to sit there and let the people you don't like go on running things.
Maybe, just maybe *you* might change things for the better. Not much, just a little bit. But while you waffle and come up with reasons NOT to get involved, the people who make you gag and throw up are making the policies and laws under which you live.
Y'know, if most of the smart and honest people in the U.S. opted out of politics, our country would end up with an inept, unresponsive government.
If you think this has already happened, turn the situation around. What if a whole bunch of smart, computer-hip, honest people decided they *could* make a difference, and went to those off-season political caucuses and took over the party machinery?
- Robin
First, if you're one of the many adult Americans who doesn't bother to vote, you have no one to blame but yourself for letting corrupt politicians get into office and stay there. And even more important than voting is getting involved in party politics in between elections, which is where and when future candidates and policies are picked. So few people get involved at this level that your single voice can make a *huge* difference, and I mean a bigger difference than 100 lobbyists with hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes... excuse me, I meant to say campaign contributions ... available to them.
Second, you are absolutely right. "They" will keep coming up with Bad Things. It's a "political process," not a single "political project."
Think software development. And think what would have happened with Linux if Linus had said, "We have kernel 1.0, so we're finished now."
Now apply the same thinking to politics. Messing with politicians is not nearly as much fun or as rewarding as messing with software, but sometimes it's a necessary evil, especially if you want to go on messing with your computer without the government telling you how to do it.
- Robin "free citizen" Miller
If you don't fight you will certainly lose out to the money. If you fight, you might still lose - but you might win, too.
The difference between slaves and free citizens is the willingness to fight. I am a free citizen, not a slave, so I will fight.
People who don't bother to vote and don't bother to make their voices known on important issues have no right to complain when the government does things they don't like.
- Robin 'roblimo' Miller
I would say I work 80 - 100 hours a week, counting Slashdot time. But wait! Slashdot time *is* work for me.
Last night I logged on at 11 p.m. or so to check the submissions page, and saw that CowboyNeal, CmdrTaco, and Hemos were also taking a look. Everybody who *works* on Slashdot puts in all kinds of crazy hours.
In our case, the line between work and recreation is thin. Often they're one and the same.
Does the IRC time I spend on #slashdot or #freshmeat count as work?
Hmmm...
- Robin
I am absolutely against a seniority-based posting system - and I say this as registered user #357, as a (moderately) high-karma "automatic +2" poster, and as a Slashdot staff member.
But I'm leaving the whole mess in Rob Malda's hands, and I am sure he will come up with a fair and equitable solution to the spam dilemna - and I am also sure that no matter what he does, he'll get hundreds of e-mails telling him his solution sucks.
;-)
- robin "roblimo" miller
We were just discussing it on #slashdot (irc.slashnet.org) and generally agreed that we could have done a far better job with the Clinton chat than CNN did. For real.
- Robin
Our very first Slashdot reader-generated interview was with Bruce Perens, back in July, 1999.
- Robin
Actually, the internal joke is that I do so much worrying about editorial integrity that no one else has to do any. There's truth to this. I come out of "old school" alternative journalism, back when weekly alternative newspapers were more interested in covering news the increasingly monopolized dailies overlooked than in selling futon ads and 900-number "telepersonals."
So please do wait and see. I work with people I respect; we don't always agree, but we *do* respect each other and each others' opinions. We screw up from time to time because Slashdot is, in many ways, an experiment in new ways to gather and distribute news. By definition, when you are experimenting you are bound to fail more often than if you stick to the "tried and true," but on the whole, I believe we have more successes than failures. And that's what counts in the long run.
More than anything, I worry about losing Slashdot's freedom to innovate (if I can use that phrase without stepping on a Microsoft copyright *grin*). One of the beauties of Slashdot is the fact that it's constantly changing, and if Rob et al are ever held back by a risk-averse management more interested in this quarter's profit than in trying new things that might lead to a better product (in this case, news and discussion) later, this site will slowly wither away.
But again, I do enough worrying about this for the whole bunch. I don't mind doing this, because I am a natural worrier. Note that both my Slashdot and "Andover corporate" e-mail addresses are easy to find because I *want* feedback and take all reader concerns to heart, even ones with which I don't agree. I try to personally answer as much e-mail as I can, although I've admittedly been getting a little sloppy on this front because of increased e-mail volume and increased job responsibilities.
My main point, though, is to make sure you know that it's not just Slashdot people who worry about the site's integrity, but the entire Andover management crowd. A large part of the reason Andover bought Slashdot in the first place is that it was the most popular news site among Andover employees. And it still is!
- Robin 'roblimo' Miller
I have no problem with people coming to the U.S. from other countries either for education or to work, then going "back home."
Example: Abi, journalist I know from Nigeria, came to the U.S. and worked his way through a PhD in Mass Communications driving a cab. Now he's back home, infested with our American ideals - which may be flawed but still have a lot of good in them - and he is *not* going to put up with a corrupt military dictatorship.
Think of Abi and others like him as a human version of GNU-style "viral marketing." Think of the Chinese government telling its citizens that life under the Chinese system of government is better than life under the American system while thousands of Chinese who have studied or worked in the U.S. busily say otherwise based on first-hand knowledge.
Think of the Indians who have lived in the U.S. and go home with ideas of how things can be done differently in their country and work for change, not necessarily to make India into a clone of the U.S., but to incorporate the best of both cultures into something new and potentially better than either of the originals.
Mexico? Legal or illegal, a Mexican immigrant who sends money home is helping to raise the standard of living in his home village or barrio to the point where, someday, his sons or grandsons won't have any reason to go to the U.S. to earn a decent wage.
I am not saying I don't want people from Mexico or China or Egypt (or Finland) to be frozen out of U.S. citizenship, just that the ones who stay here for a while, then go "home," are also worthwhile. If nothing else, they are likely to be better friends of the U.S. than their neighbors who have never worked and lived here.
- Robin
Tim, I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get a decent video client for Linux. If it means that I must grit my teeth and get jeered at by you for dealing with Apple, I'll pay that price, okay?
However, what I would *really* like to see is a good, open source streaming video standard. I've emailed maddog at Linux Internation and asked him if LI would be interested in working on such an effort. If not, next week at LWCE I'll talk to a bunch of people from other Linux companies and see if we can't form some sort of Linux Video Group to fund development of that product.
Ideally, I'd like to see something compatible with QuickTime. Right now, Microsoft is giving free bandwidth to online video and audio producers who their multimedia servers *exclusively*. I would not like to see Microsoft end up in total control of the "next hot net thing."
If making a deal with a small devil to keep a bigger devil at bay is what it takes, so it goes. I am afraid that if we don't act very rapidly to come up with a viable cross-platform alternative to MS video, Linux and *nix will be left out of online media entirely.
- Robin
I've been reading SF since 1958, when I was six. I started with A.E. Van Vogt's "Voyage of the Space Beagle," a book upon which some sort of TV series was based many years later. I remember the book clearly - and far more fondly than Star Trek, which was a pallid thing by comparison.
By age eight I was a major Heinlein fan, to the point where my great fictional childhood role model was "Kettle Belly" Baldwin. (My "real life" role model was a friend of my grandmother's named Ray Bradbury, who put the idea into my head that I might one day be able to earn a living as a writer.)
Back to topic at hand:
My offbeat SF reading suggestions are Mark Twain's "Letters from the Earth," "Adam's Diary," "Eve's Diary," and "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven." These works are often packaged into a single volume, and are all worth reading not only on their own merits but also because they are where RAH got many of the pithy quotes he put into the mouths of characters like Lazarus Long, Prof. Bernardo de la Paz, Jubal Harsaw, Hugo Piniero, Sgt. Zim, and the other "wise but tough father" figures he used in almost all of his books and stories.
Yes, Heinlein plagiarized Clemmens. Frequently. I don't mind, but I think it's nice to know the original source wherever possible.
Indeed, much of the "theology" in "Stranger in a Strange Land" and later Heinlein books is somewhat derivitive of Twain's satires on Christian behavior. I often got the feeling that Heinlein had read Twain's beautifully ironic short story, "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleysburg," even more times than I had.
Some other Twain SF recommendations:
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
- Tales for Good Old Boys and Girls
- Tom Sawyer, Aeronaut
These books may not be suitable for TV-raised teeners. 19th century writers tended to move slowly by today's standards. But they're excellent works and well worth the time of an adult who wants to delve into "science fiction" that was written long before Hugo Gernsback coined the term in the 30s.
- Robin
"I'm sorry, I don't see why this is a news story. Roblimo, It would take weeks for d.net to implement a new module, not to mention coding it..."
The point here is to get people thinking about the idea. This is not "News for Nerds" as much as it's "Stuff that matters."
Imagine a versatile, rather than single-purpose, "idle cycle" processing network that could be adapted rapidly to take on new tasks - like searching for low-power signals from out-of-touch spacecraft or comparing large numbers of telescope observations to help find small, moving images like asteroids and comets.
I'm sure there are many other potential uses for "idle cycle" distributed computing. I don't think it hurts to free up our imaginations now and then and brainstorm a bit about them.
If nothing else, a little speculation about the use of distributed computing to help NASA is a welcome relief from all the lawsuit and privacy and domain dispute stories that seem to make up a depressingly large percentage of the news submitted to Slashdot lately.
Remember the First Rule of Slashdot: "No matter what you say, someone won't like it - and will tell you so. Loudly."
- Robin
Don't cry, Mr. Hat. It's all fixed now...
- Robin
I'll have my (white) limo at LWCE, we'll have a sign for Bruce to wave as he stands in the sunroof, AND Emmett will be there with a brand-new Sony digital Hi-8 camcorder to make a permanent record of Bruce making a spectacle of himself, which we will post online for your downloading and viewing pleasure.
(All this is "weather permitting," of course.)
;-)
- Robin "roblimo" Miller
Um, it's a real *etoy* press release. They're not exactly straight-line corporate people, okay?
Most press releases are sleep-inducing. At least etoy is interesting. And (just maybe) that's why they are so loved in online art circles.
:-)
- Robin "roblimo" Miller
All I can do is keep calling and e-mailing VA Linux. I apologize for their not having come through as promised. It galls me more than it galls you, believe me.
- Robin