The HeliOS Project is now.....

The HeliOS Project is now.....
Same mission, same folks...just a different name

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Monday, July 28, 2008

Well Hello Dolly

Some of you may have heard, we had a lady visitor recently on the Texas Coast and she fairly well laid asunder the area. What the Hurricane did not damage, the tornadoes that were spawned did. I got a call today from Ms. Vickie Johnson that the Lnux lab in her little town was totaled. Vickie was one of my "contacts" back in the clandestine Komputers4Kids days...the days when we tip toed around Austin building our machines for the kids on the QT. She is now a Teacher in a small town on the coast.

I've loaded the Izuzu and a trailer up with a ton of computers, parts (thank you Ed), two spools of cat 5 cable, routers, servers and a hodge podge of equipment and I am going to see if I can fix it.

It will do me some good to get away for a bit...some of you can relate...and for those who can't, trust me. A road trip and some focus on something complex might be a good thing for a few days, maybe longer.

I will be out of pocket for a while. I can't sleep so I'm just going to go now and I should get there as day breaks. I'll talk to you when I get back.
h

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I note with a bit of interest a comment thread over at LXer about your previous article. Seems you have some fairly harsh critics. Of the loudest is what I am guessing to be a young lady, by the name of "Caitlyn". Seems in her eyes you are damaging the Linux Eco System with your style. She actually questioned that you guys had any success in Felton. Man she must hate you. A few hundred people put Linux on their machines and she can't see the success? I don't "Join" websites so I will leave my comments here. She has to be operating from dislike. Anyone who cannot see that hundreds of people putting Linux on their machines is a good thing...well, she already showed us that her reading comrehension skills are about the 8th grade level.

Anyway Old Man, my point to anyone feeling as Caitlyn does is simple. You are going to drive all night to go rebuild a Linux Lab? You didn't ask for help? You just decided to take some time off and go.

Seems that the advocate the young lady speaks of and you are two different people. She does seem to get things confused frequently.

Cliff

Amenditman said...

The comment thread over at the other site is a bit of what I would call the usual, unfortunate linux community business. Not much of a community is it. I feel free to exempt myself from joining 'that' community. As a matter of fact I refused to leave a comment after reading the responses to the posts of dissent.

At this point it is obvious that there is a hidden agenda of some sort. Everyone who is responding in support of helios is just fanning the flames and building the fire.

I would recommend that if you are a supporter or friend you just cease playing the game and do not respond. They are not really listening anyway.

Let's get back to business as usual for this 'helios community' and ignore the shenanigans of others who are trying to knock us down.

Amenditman

ryansrants said...

@ Bob

You are right. Kenny has a term for some of the people there.

Small, Fearful folks.

You can see it in their criticism. They are either anti-religious zealots or people who are so in tune with their political correctness that they cringe at the thought of making omelets.

My God! What will the chickens say about these broken eggs?

Ken, you are exactly what Linux needs at the exact right time. for the love of pete, don't listen to Small Fearful Folks.

What can I do to help. Are you in Aransas yet? What do you need. SatLink is up for the next two hours but we're on a mission in about 15 so I will email you when the stars are aligned correctly. You didn't say much about this so no one really had a chance to help out.

Let us know.

Ryan

Anonymous said...

Helios,

I just got a google alert for Lindependence and saw that your interview feature just got posted on DTP. I am not a real big fan of your advocacy style, and I sure don't agree with many of your philosophies but I have to say I came away with an entirely different opinion of you after watching those interviews. You actually came across as succinct, level-headed and what I believe to be a good representer of GNU/Linux. Now all I have to do is reconcile that image of you with some of the things you've written and I'll be fine.

You did a good job of representing yourself, your efforts and Linux Ken. Thank you for providing some of us with some balance and a good look at the "real" helios.

Martin "Shep" Shepard

Anonymous said...

There was a lot of heat and not much light in that thread, but I feel compelled to quote this particular post because it completely flabbergasted me:

"For someone who doesn't know Ken, who is on the periphery of Lxer and only knows of what he [Ken] is doing from reading links from this site, I wouldn't criticise him for what he's trying to do. However, purely as an observation, the Lindependence day *does* come across as the whole town having been coerced into running Linux for a period of time. I have been silently wondering how on earth that was achieved and that there would surely have to be Windows die-hard fans who would simply refuse to run Linux."

Precisely how would this have been achieved? Two seconds' thought should have shown it to be highly improbable at best -- did they honestly believe that the officials of the town government were going to tell its residents, "Until further notice, anyone who uses an operating system other than Linux will be fined and/or thrown in jail"? And how long has this person been "silently wondering" such nonsense?

I honestly cannot fathom someone who would leap to such a conclusion.

Anonymous said...

I think what we are seeing here is a direct result of the phonics reading/teaching method being replaced. I can't put my finger on them right now but I know I've bookmarked tons of articles that show either statistical "proof" or the strongest of emperical data that indicates once phonics ceased being used, the reading skills and specifically reading comprehension skills dropped horribly. Between Caitlyn getting several points wrong about what Ken said and the example you offer...I am left to wonder how any of these people survive on the basic skills they obviously lack.

oh...I get it...scream "scammer" and "charlatan" often enough and people stop paying attention to anything else. Goofy me.

Mike

Anonymous said...

"oh...I get it...scream "scammer" and "charlatan" often enough...'"

Oh you are one to talk. In the first place, you did not capitalize a proper noun, and speaking of that proper noun, what does some city in North Carolina have to do with anything?

And they quit teaching IN PHOENIX.

LOL @ phonics

Anonymous said...

Ken,

So what is this thing you are doing? Was this something planned and I just missed it or what? It was kind of abrupt it seems. Let us know what's going on. When are you coming back?

Dennis

kozmcrae said...

"Was this something planned and I just missed it or what? It was kind of abrupt it seems."

Google is your friend.

Anonymous said...

Yep, you are right, but usually helios tell us what he has planned. One minute I get informed that he's pending a divorce and temporarily sleeping in his car and the next thing I see, he's got a truck and trailer full of computer stuff and he's going to rebuild a computer lab solo. He just usually tells us what he's got planned. That didn't happen this time and it seemed a bit out of character. Then again, I can't say how I'd react if I came home from California and was informed that I was being divorced by my wife. That would urge me to do some things out of my character too I suppose.

Kenny? I haven't seen any responses. You out there? Somewhere?

Dennis

Anonymous said...

The only issue that I have with Ken is that his writing style rambles all over the place. He needs an editor...as they say in the publication business, "Good copy isn't written; it's rewritten."

Anonymous said...

The only issue that I have with Ken is that his writing style rambles all over the place.

Now isn't that odd. That is precisely the reason I enjoy the blog of helios. The "professional " blogger that recently criticized him for his "rambling" could take lessons from helios. Her writing is horrid and boring. I am a student of the stream of consciousness and find the subliminal insight of this man enlightening to say the least. I don't think he strives to write "well". He writes to communicate his thoughts and feelings, with a dash of information thrown in to legitimize the entire thing.

Ramble on Mr. Helios. I've learned more about you from dissecting your writing than most people will ever learn about you. I am fascinated. Should you ever end up on my side of the pond, I would love to dine with you and spend the evening talking. Should you ever end up anywhere in the area of Soho that is.

Robin