The Kids Vote!

By Jamie Taylor

A kid explains what this election means to young people:

“Follow the science!” they say, and we try, really we do! But the science is really confusing. The same science that tells us there might be as many as 80 different genders, and that a single person can change genders at any time, also tells us that white people are inherently evil and should always be ashamed to be white. The same science that tells us kids that we have no future at all, since the planet only has about 12 years of habitable life left to it, also tells that we should live our last few years of humanity cowering in terrified submission to tyrannical rules that restrict us to staying home, having no personal contact, wearing masks that make us feel even more isolated, and only interacting with others virtually – to delay a pandemic which is 98% survivable, especially by kids like me!

The same science that assured my grandparents, when they were my age, that an ice age would consume the Earth by the year 2000, then changed it to global warming, and now call it “climate change” just so the data wouldn’t keep contradicting them. SCIENCE??? Not so much.

Following the money offers a clue about the validity of “scientific findings.” Like tech company funded “science” that tells us that 5G cellular radiation isn’t so bad, or government funded “science” that tells us we’re all certain to die a horrific, agonizing death unless we submit to unconstitutional intrusions upon our liberties for the sake of safety and security.

Well, we kids with “no future” and nothing to lose because we’re all going to die in 12 years anyway, want to live our short lives as free people, like the generations before us. Especially just in case the “science” is wrong again, just as it was when it was telling my grandparents they would die in an ice age. And I have a hunch, based on history, that the “science” is dead wrong again, and that freedom is more precious than life itself. So please, you adults out there, vote to restore and maintain liberty for yourselves, for us, and for our kids someday, because we all know the world will go on spinning until it’s Creator wills it to stop.

Please vote for Donald J. Trump!

Linux Snobs

I didn’t actually get rapped on the knuckles for this post, but I expected it and was surprised that it never came. It restored my hopes that Linux snobbery was on the wane – except perhaps in some corners of the Debian / Arch / Gentoo communities, perhaps. I am really bothered by Linux snobbery, probably more than normal. Perhaps because:

• I was an adult, a husband, career firefighter, and father of two before I overcame my own technophobia enough to even try Linux, just to avoid buying a new computer to replace an aging heap that I couldn’t afford to throw away.
• When I finally got up the courage and installed my first Linux distro, I was feeling not only accomplished and exhilarated, but also proud that I had given new life to my computer. Even my family was impressed, and that ain’t easy!
• So when I mentioned it on a Linux forum I had joined just because it seemed like a sensible precaution to take being a novice, imagine my surprise to find arrogant hostility! Not from Windows users who thought I had lost my mind, but from arrogant, snobby, jerkweed Linux users who chided me for using “a kiddie distro,” Ubuntu. Apparently a few other Ubuntu users had been chased away by the same elitist attitude.

But Linux elitism is ultimately self-defeating if you think about it. Microsoft knows it. Apple knows it. That’s why they market their products to kids. They know kids love gadgets. They don’t care if kids learn the inner workings of those gadgets, they just exploit kids for their interest in having the coolest and most fun gadgets. But GNU/Linux and open-source software and hardware depends on future coders, engineers, and geeks that are not driven just to be cool, but to be geeky and creative. Don’t put down their mom and dad for using a “kiddie distro.” Instead help their parents pique their kids’ interest in contributing to something with more noble and global impact potential. And let the kids play.

So here’s a grownup’s really fun-looking eye candy on a “kiddie distro” that I think can encourages the next generation of wonderful geeks and coders that can keep open-source alive and competing with it’s proprietary rivals.

That’s a custom Conky display going on in the upper right part of the screen. And while “wobbly windows” is nothing new, it’s no less cool. That silly stuff could keep me in front of the computer longer than the tedium of just doing work. Even grownups gotta play sometimes. And if kids know their mom or dad made such cool stuff all by themselves, they’ll want to learn it too.

So, Linux snobs, consider what you do when you see “kid stuff” on “kiddie distros.” And shut up.

A Kid Wins Linux Converts

I found this gem on line and repost with permission of the author, a14-year-old home user of LXLE:

My Parents Want LINUX!
by “Jamie”

How cool is this? I came home from school today to find my mom sitting in front of my computer on the phone with someone, asking questions about Linux. She and Dad go on my computer alot so I wasn’t worried they would find anything embarrassing (yet, but I just started high school so maybe soon lol), but I’m thinking maybe she thinks she broke something. Really though, I don’t think Mom and Dad could break anything on my computer on accident anyway because they don’t know the root password. So I sat down and listened.

“Well then why is my computer so much slower than my son’s when it has 16 gigs of RAM and a quad-core processor?” she thundered at some poor Indian guy on the other end.

“We gave him that old boat anchor six months ago because it’s old and underpowered and won’t run Windows anymore. He’s done something to make it run circles around my brand new one! I have stuff to get done and I have to borrow my son’s – what do you call this Jamie?”

“It’s Linux, Mom.” I said, trying not to grin too big.

“Linux! I want that on my computer!”

A long pause, then Mom’s face starts turning red. “What do you mean you can’t do that? You’re the professional and I have to have my computer work done by my 13 year old?”

“I’m 14 now Mom…”

“Shhhh!” Back to the phone, “Well?”

Another long pause, a quiet end to a frustrating phone call, and then Mom drops this bomb:

“Your father and I want you to make our computer do what yours does. Please.”

Stunned silence

“Jamie?”

Big huge grin that won’t go away. I don’t even think a root canal could take this smile off my face right now! So I have to do some reading and make sure I know how to do this dual-boot thing. But in the meantime Mom is running LXLE on her computer from a live USB drive and singing a little song that goes like ZOOM ZOOM ZOOOOOOOM!

This makes me a happy boy!

#Linux #Ubuntu #Windows #parents #happy #singing #dancing #iamsofreakingoutrightnow

This is better than anything I’ve posted to this blog. Maybe I’ll recruit this kid as a co-contributor!