Month: September 2014

So, I bet if you have been following some of my posts, you were like, I swear there was a post about…
Well, see, I write, I post and then, I archive.

Basically, I like to let out my feelings and then, I hide them.

The thing is, I met some people. They are great. You know why they are great? They liked me for who I am not what I did for a living or whatever.

At any rate, you can see that these are some great people. I am like living again. I try to hide and they pull me right back in.

They are real down to earth good people. I know. It doesn’t seem possible.

I’m learning to express myself. I’m starting to do it unintentionally.

I am beginning to open up. Maybe, I won’t feel the need to run and hide.
I love them. They are really awesome.

I wasn’t really going to post about this. It just like didn’t even cross my mind very much. It wasn’t important to me, really until today. I had not thought about it… until I spoke with a friend of mine working on i2p.

Basically, we were talking about TOR and HTTPS Everywhere, OPENWrt and lighthttpd.
Somewhere in that conversation we started to discuss the Banana and that is when I remembered. That is when it struck me. It was a while ago.

I am sure anyone who reads this might tire about my stories of discrimination.
Well, if so, stop reading now.

It’s not a horrible and vivid tale. It was over in a matter of seconds.

Todd: So, did you decide what you’re going to do with your pi?
Me: Yeah, I’m going to work on a TOR relay.
Todd – laughing: Well good luck with _that_
He continued to laugh as he walked away.

I’m not sure which installfest this happened at. I do remember it was at UAT so it was over a month ago.

Tell me something?

Is it so laughable that I would be able to work on something like this?

There were witnesses.
People who were sitting right next to me when he did this.

I don’t understand why someone like this – someone so ignorant and arrogant can laugh at me.
Just thinking about it makes me want to cry like a little girl. LOL.

Seriously, though.
We recently had a discussion about brogrammers in a mailing list.
This guy isn’t even a brogrammer. He’s barely anything at all.

WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING AT ME.

Here’s the most amusing and well, painful part. I dedicated my life to this community. I really did. There were a lot of other things I could have done. I enjoyed it, don’t get me wrong.
However, this kind of behavior, it’s unnecessary and painful.
You know, we don’t need to have this type of behavior.
This is exactly the type of behavior we don’t want.

Also, do you know what I have done to people in programming classes that questioned my ability. I have seriously put them in their place and put the smack down.

I remember when Mark did this to me in 8086 assembly.
In those days, we had this thing called a blackboard – really it was green. The teacher used chalk.
Mark was a friend of mine but he had the ridiculous notion that he would cut me down in class in front of everyone.

This was a bad idea because I already had an EE course, binary and some assembly language.
Durng the course, the instructor asked us to suggest code. Mark, like a fool, suggested code during this session after he poked fun at me and insinuated I could not code.
After he was done with his suggestion, I raised my hand and suggested an alternative because it was actually more efficient.

The instructor deleted all the suggestions Mark made and put in mine because I was correct. I turned to him and said, “Don’t ever, say I don’t know my shit.” He goes, “damn.” I said, “I went easy on you this time. Don’t let it happen again.”

TOR relay is a good project.
https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-doc-relay.html.en

i2p is also good.
https://geti2p.net/en/

I have a raspberry and a banana. I may do both.

This guy… he can’t break me.
You can’t break something that is already broken!

So, last night, Tina came to visit. I wanted to show her the pi. She was having fun. I always thought maybe the boys would be more interested. Turns out she was!

She started asking all kinds of questions. I was amazed. Not amazed that she was interested. Who wouldn’t be interested in the Pi! I was amazed at how she wanted to know the specs, how it worked, etc. The boys didn’t really care as much.

It’s a girl’s toy in this house!

Tina and her brother – 5 years ago.

So, Tina and I were talking. She does have an AA with Linux Certificate. She was always good at Linux. Then, we sat around the table and she told us the tale of her digital antenna. Coffee can, Nail, Coax and electrical tape. She told us the nail was too long but worked. Then, I realized, she sent her husband to go get that nail from Home Depot. That is why it was the wrong size. She is amazing. I encouraged her to go into Electronic or Electrical Engineering at the college. Then Zack, asked her about math. So, Zack took Calc 1 in high school. Tina was never interested in math. She could do it if she wanted. She was always kick ass in Science and Math. English… not so much.

I was thinking one of the boys would do some Pi stuff with me. I’m going to get Tina one when I get a chance. I hope she will do something with it. Not sure. Maybe I’ll start her with a cheap Raspberry.

I cannot sleep now.
I tried, I am so tired

But… I cannot sleep.

Do you open the door for her? Does anyone do this anymore?
I wonder what it would be like to have someone walk with me and hold my hand.
Does it just happen like this?
I see people who hold hands. Is that just ultimately going to end for them? Or is it different when someone actually loves you.
It’s one thing not to love someone. It’s another not to even care.
If I had to give one piece of advice about relations, I would say, avoid selfish people altogether no matter how attracted you are.
Hold out for love, even if it’s for like 5 decades. It’s better to be alone than live with an asshole.

Of course, my favorite line in a movie is the first line in a recent film I viewed. It starts like this,

I have a blog about how much you suck.

Wow! How nice is that. And yet, I can relate.

So, I was thinking about all the LUGs I have contacted and visited and thought – what a cool concept. I’ll blog about the different LUGs I have attended.

Having been an advocate and activist, I have worked with many people from different organizations all over the world. From Anonymous to 2600, I have been honored to be a part of this great community. I always said, “I may not have much, but my life … is an adventure!”

So, in the spirit of adventure, I would like to meet with or connect with LUGs moving forward.

I started a LUG here in the Valley recently. We needed one farther east and needed someone who was strong in supporting the community and addressing needs like security, current technology and such.

Our focus is Community, Responsibility and Freedom.

In the past 3 months, I have connected in person with the following LUGs in AZ:

Prescott LUG
Sunland LUG
Phoenix LUG
and started MPGLUG

I was going to the Linux SIG in Tucson but had to pick someone up from the airport so I could not make it. That was a disappointment.

I have been asked to speak at a LUG in November. I might consider it, even though this is out of state and freezing cold!

Prescott LUG
This was a bit of a drive and I did miss the carpool! So, I drove up there myself. This was about a 2 hour drive up. We went to discuss starting an installfest in Prescott. When I arrived, the woman in attendance asked in a quite rude tone – insinuating tone, mind you, if I were a Windows user. She snickered at me. I mentioned in discussion protesting. She said, “What did you protest? LINUX!!!??”
At that point, I informed her that I actually worked as an intern and committee member of the Digital Speech Project at the FSF. “Oh, I have a membership there” she responded. I tried to be nice. Some people are just odd or defensive. I understand this. The rest of the evening was pretty pleasant once she realized I wasn’t some Winblows user or Linux h8r.

I don’t understand the culture where this is okay? I am new to a LUG. Where’s the welcome mat?
If I were a n00b, I would never go back. In fact, even as someone who has been a part of this community for over 15 years now, I have never gone back! The weather has restricted my return there. The culture for this LUG is laid back. Of course, this could be the culture in that part of the state. They did not want to have an installfest early in the morning.

I was right there with them! If the people in that area are not going show up before noon, why am I going to show up before noon?

There was no presentation or topic discussion per say. There was just good food, good beverages and good company. I enjoyed the older gentleman. Ed and Ed are cool guys! The location was nice. We closed down the one place and moved on to the coffee shop/beer place.

Phoenix LUG
Phoenix LUG has a culture and what seems like a status quo. Their space does not allow for growth. A few of the attendees work. Most of the instructors I have seen there all teach at the community college level. The Ubuntu presence is so strong, it is tough to see where Ubuntu ends and PLUG begins. While it is good to have membership and activity, some of the new members were working on what they thought were PLUG projects but turned out to be Ubuntu projects. These members were not interested in Ubuntu but were Debian and Mint users who had no idea the projects had Ubuntu goals in mind and were Ubuntu projects, not LUG projects.

The format for this LUG is present. Present several topics. The last meeting was supposed to end at 9pm but went until 10:30pm. This is somewhat of a problem for some people who might want to actually sleep.
The presentations were about things like – age old Blender software.

This seemed more like a marketing presentation to help some guy get a gig at the community college teaching courses on Linux tools like Blender. Also, he has none of my respect for going well over the allocated time.

This LUG does offer some raffle prizes which is nice.
This LUG is not a non profit and not “officially” a LUG in that regard.
The LUG Benevolent Dictator seems one for life.
I know of no Steering committee. People have asked. I believe this was disbanded or possibly consists of some good old boys as we have never voted on anything.

I enjoy many of the members and participants here. They are my original LUG here in the valley and I know these people for years.

Donations of deo and cologne appreciated.
Last month, I left the room to get a beverage and when I returned the offensive odor nearly knocked me out. It’s not unusual. Just noting in case you have an extra sensitive ofactory gland.

They do go out to eat after the event. The problem is that the place we go is pricey for some people. That location does not change, no matter how much input is given by others. There is a place just next door that has happy hour at the same time as this event. The conversation is great. One guy is a hoot. Others are great fun as well. They do have a guy who does a lot of video and camera work. He is fantastic!

MPGLUG
As mentioned earlier, the Phoenix LUG is the community college version. They advocate Ubuntu and have a mixed presence with Ubuntu. This group – MPGLUG is more like the University version. In fact, I was the curricula writer for Universities including ASU for ComTia’s Linux + partnership with Aries Technology for self paced opportunities. In fact, Aries contracted out with Cisco who provided content that was less than accurate and violated copyright. In initially, my position was to ensure accuracy of the provided documentation. Ultimately, because the content was not accurate, I was given the opportunity as sole writer of the content for unversities worldwide.

Our topics are current topics in computing such as security, Banana and Raspberry Pi, OpenWRT, HTTPS Everywhere. We have a focus on current technology and Security issues.
We respect privacy and realize many people are interested in maintaining privacy. We work towards benefits to our community, being responisible and freedom!

As for the culture, well, we haven’t had our first meeting yet. We aim for open, free, quality exchange, education valued, helping, caring culture. Live, Love, Linux!
If you want to write that on the sidewalk, use chalk! 🙂