Technocrat

web 2.0 makes an ass out of you and me

Thomas Lord
Wed Apr 09 10:15:37 -0700 2008
 (in reply to Assumptions will be the death of us. ) manage

The intertubes are a modern form of TV with many channels and on many of those many channels when you shout back at the TV it appears as a comment. It's giddy fun.

The "blogosphere" is a place where we all try to become famous bloggers who get paid mainly be famous. People not posting with that in mind have to get out.

When two or three people on a blog or mailing list don't like someone else, they should start a club and harass that person to make them go away: that is how quality is improved.

If someone seems strange or expresses themselves in ways you have trouble understanding, that is an excellent reason to hate them and try to get that club going.

It's fun to have flame wars because then there will be posts that get your adrenaline going and that's a heck of a rush to have going when you bash out a comment.

Every issue that reaches the blogosphere has a Right answer and many Wrong answers. You get .5 point for insulting a Wrong answer, 1 point for having the Right answer, and 2 points if your Right answer gets lots of links to it.

In this modern society, your success in life depends on the shadow you cast on the Internet. This is called your reputation. For example, if you participate in some mailing list, and some people flame you, you have a bad reputation. On the other hand, if you can talk people into taking orders from you, you have an excellent reputation and someone might give you a job to keep doing that (but for your new employer).

These simple rules explain, completely, why popular blogs are popular, why various people have jobs and others don't, etc.

The best way to be a good member of the blogosphere, open source community, or anything else is to learn how to please people while getting them to do something you want them to do. A pleasing tone and unchallenging demeanor is essential. If you spot someone not pursuing these goals in their own life: you can help to promote yourself by attacking their reputation (see above for the definition). And it's their own fault: they have it coming.

Everyone in the blogosphere and open source community other than complete newbs is actually smarter than everyone else, although none of the others yet recognize this. (Oh, because nobody is egotistical it is important to note that a few famous people may actually be smarter.)

If anyone complains about their treatment in these worlds, that is proof that they have messed up their own life.

-t
web 2.0 makes an ass out of you and me
rubycodez
Wed Apr 09 14:47:14 -0700 2008
 manage

In this modern society, your success in life depends on the shadow you cast on the Internet

hope you're being sarcastic, the world is bigger than the internet and most human knowledge isn't on the internet.  A person should never so tie and hobble themselves thinking like that.  Most of my relatives and half of my friends have zero internet shadow.  Until the 21st century, even I myself only had my name as author or contributor to some dead tree publications returned by search engines, and those had dissapeared by the late 90s.

 

Sure, some people here are famous (or infamous) on the internets, maybe that can cause problems too.  But there's a whole number of vocations and endeavors that really don't require any net presence or rep.  Complete with important people and work who don't give a rat's bunghole what the net says or thinks.

Anyone who thinks their internet shadow is the sum total of their existence needs to get away from the net for awhile. 

 

 

 
web 2.0 makes an ass out of you and me
Thomas Lord
Wed Apr 09 14:56:31 -0700 2008
 manage

I'm just condensing and passing along the wisdom I've received from many (certainly not all) of the leaders of the "open source movement".

I didn't make the rules. I'm just telling you how they came out.

-t
web 2.0 makes an ass out of you and me
rubycodez
Wed Apr 09 15:17:00 -0700 2008
 manage

ah, and I believe you as far as that's what they would think.  but they would be wrong.  Some of those leaders might forget  there are whole realms  out there outside of their particular Open Source Fiefdom.   A Operating System kind of person could be mud in Linux/GNU/FSF land and mosey over to AROS or OpenSolaris land or Minix land or Darwin land, just for example.

If a particular open source group is crimpping your style or life it's time to turn around, pull down your pants and let them behold the moon.  F them.
web 2.0 makes an ass out of you and me
Thomas Lord
Wed Apr 09 15:32:02 -0700 2008
 manage

I tried something along those lines but, rather than gazing admirably at the moon, they did the other obvious thing. Working on it. If the editors agree to it, I have an article about alternative approaches to try to get under people's noses.

Incidentally, are AROS / OpenSolaris / Minix / Darwin operating on a paying basis? Or is it just more trolling for volunteers? Trolling for volunteers for commercial projects that profit someone else is probably the heart of the problem - they are starting from a stance of non-professionalism and then running with it. Try to find commercial opportunities by playing with people who set out to be unprofessional and I guess you shouldn't be surprised what happens next.

Sun made noise about moving to a paying basis but that was the last I heard of it. Plus, they are probably still closely holding all of the interesting work.

-t
web 2.0 makes an ass out of you and me
rubycodez
Wed Apr 09 15:49:37 -0700 2008
 manage

well, they are paying if you were an employee of certain companies.  and there's the rub, if someone only were willing to write 100% open source 100% of the time they're going to have a *much* harder problem finding work than someone who doesn't mind writing closed source at all if someone is silly enough to want it, maybe a certain percentage of the time.

writing for $0 is fun for some people.  I've done that.

I've been paid to write software in my life, sometimes closed sometimes open.  in some people's minds that makes me an old whore. well I'm not that old.
web 2.0 makes an ass out of you and me
Thomas Lord
Wed Apr 09 16:33:32 -0700 2008
 manage

Considering that one of public projects has a provisional patent application and the other has source currently closely held as a trade secret, I don't think that's quite the problem.

You can, actually, live in software freedom and leverage copyright and patents to gain advantage from exclusive rights granted for a limited time in order to promote the useful arts and sciences.

Also: simply "writing code" isn't a very good job description for what I do. That's a small part of the problem.

-t
 

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