Free Geek Robbed 275
Ellen Wilson writes, "Portland, Oregon, non-profit Free Geek, which turns old PCs into Linux boxen, has been robbed of about $4500 worth of hardware. Portlanders are asked to keep an eye out for suspicious sales of Ubuntu laptops." This blog post has some details of labeling that could help to spot the stolen laptops. BoingBoing picked up the story and added that another local outfit, the Independent Publishing Resource Center, which supports Portland's zine scene, had been hit on the previous night.
Free Geekin' (Score:4, Informative)
Sounds like burglary (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Boxen Is Not A Word (Score:3, Informative)
teaching a man to fish (Score:5, Informative)
I do volunteer work at FreeGeek. I teach the command line class once a week.
Freegeek does more than just hand out boxes. They teach people how to make the boxes. They teach people how to use the boxes. They empower people to fix their own stuff.
They're not always successful mind you. It's still a wonderful endeavor.
Right here I'd insert a "Teach a man to fish" line... but you get the idea.
-Tony
Re:Not to disagree too much (Score:4, Informative)
A graphics card:
http://wiki.duskglow.com/tiki-index.php?page=Open
Various Open Source processors:
http://www.opencores.org/ [opencores.org]
Of course their efforts are somewhat hampered by the fact that chip manufacturing equipment is awfully expensive. If you could buy a Star Trek style replicator for the price of a PC, I guess we would see a lot more free hardware.
Applying logic seen on Slashdot (Score:2, Informative)
If it works for breaking into a computer system and stealing credit card numbers, it should work for breaking into a building and stealing computer systems.
"Zine Scene" (Score:2, Informative)
Of relevance, many zinesters are proponents of the F/OSS movement. At this year's Portland Zine Symposium, a workshop was dedicated to using OSS tools for the creation of zines.
At http://www.qzap.org/ [qzap.org](which I am a co-founder of), we're very vocal about using F/OSS software on our servers and some desktops. We recognize that it's not 1992... because of this, we actively hope that people will use what we do and roll their own projects.
Re:"Boxen"? (Score:3, Informative)
>$ dict boxen
3 definitions found
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Boxen \Box"en\ (b[o^]ks"'n), a.
Made of boxwood; pertaining to, or resembling, the box
({Buxus}). [R.]
[1913 Webster]
The faded hue of sapless boxen leaves. --Dryden.
[1913 Webster]
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (19 Sep 2003) [foldoc]:
boxen
often encountered in the phrase "Unix boxen", used to describe
commodity {Unix} hardware. The connotation is that any two
Unix boxen are interchangeable.
[{Jargon File}]
(1994-11-29)
From Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) [jargon]:
boxen
[very common; by analogy with {VAXen}] Fanciful plural of {box} often
encountered in the phrase `Unix boxen', used to describe commodity
{Unix} hardware. The connotation is that any two Unix boxen are
interchangeable.
(END)
Re:Applying logic seen on Slashdot (Score:4, Informative)
Two points: first, in five years, large scale breaches of security have not been common.
Second, as much as there was stuff taken, there was a lot more valuable stuff not taken, due to security measures that you will have to guess at.
Re:"Boxen"? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Boxen Is Not A Word (Score:2, Informative)
Teaching 'recipies' is disempowering. (Score:5, Informative)
This is not true, but unfortunately it's a fairly common line of thinking. Although the parent comment was quickly modded "Troll" here on Slashdot, it would probably be taken quite seriously at a local PTA meeting. (Actually, come to think of it, pretty much everything that gets said in local town meetings ought to qualify for '-1 Flamebait'...but I digress.)
A whole lot -- practically all -- basic computer skills are platform-independent and interchangeable. If you're trying to teach someone who's never used a computer much before, and you're teaching skills that are very specific to one OS, you're doing something wrong. The basic concepts of computers today are widespread: the "desktop metaphor" with folders/documents arranged in hierarchies, use of the mouse to open/close/arrange windows, use of a browser to access the WWW, basic email concepts -- all of those things are the same, whether you're using a Mac, or Windows, or KDE, or Gnome (or even something more exotic). Heck, most mainstream OSes these days even have more similarities: a program-launcher bar at the bottom of the screen (in some form or another) is pretty common, as are the File and Edit menus, and Cut/Copy/Paste.
There really isn't much diversity anymore in computer operating systems, at least not in the major Linux GUIs, plus Mac and Windows. The differences are mostly either technical or trivial (mounted disks on desktop vs. in "My Computer," icons on left of screen or right, etc.). A person with a good set of basic skills, ought to be able to accomplish basic tasks on an already set-up system running either OS.
Teaching someone mindless procedural 'recipes' that allow them to do a task, without any conceptual understanding of what they're doing along the way, is really doing them a disservice. Telling someone "this is how you check email," and making them memorize some steps, which will stop working and leave them stranded with the next OS upgrade or interface change, is truly disempowering.
IMO, all basic computer classes, particularly those aimed at children, should be taught using computers that have a non-standard GUI and OS (which would follow conventionally accepted metaphors and design principles, but not be carbon copies of systems they might have already seen), to encourage critical thinking rather than mere procedural memorization and repetition.
Re:Boxen Is Not A Word (Score:4, Informative)
I remember using the term back in the early 80s, so it was around before then (i.e., I didn't invent it, either.)
My guess is it derives from "vaxen" which is, of course, the plural of VAX, one of the most popular computer systems in universities in the 70s. Although, now that I think about it, vaxen probably derived from boxen, not the other way around, so the term is likely from even earlier.
It's a rather obvious derivation:
ox --> oxen
box --> boxen
Makes sense to me.
Re:Don't get me wrong (Score:2, Informative)
Sorry, this is blatently false. Windows installs across a network in "unattended" mode very similar to Kickstart or AutoYAST. In fact, all three can be installed on a common infrastructure of ISC DHCP and TFTP for the PXE portion of things and Samba for media. Provisioning Windows using OSS tools has been around for many years. You are mostly right about licenses, but this detail is an exaggeration.
This really sucks that this happened to you guys, I'll see what I can dig-up and bring by to help out.
Awwww . . . (Score:3, Informative)
Also, Osbournes had rounded edges. The Kaypro luggables I remember hard square edges. That would hurt a lot more.