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"The history of open source is long and storied, and fascinating enough to be a book. Which is what The VAR Guy contributing editor Christopher Tozzi is doing. And while he's been plugging away at his trusty Smith-Corona (not really-he's definitely an open source stalwart), The VAR Guy has been lucky enough to be the recipient of the byproducts of his research. And so, without further ado, here's a collection of the Open Source History lessons we've learned thus far."

"In open source software, if you contribute enough patches to the code base, most projects will make you a committer. I guess I shouldn't be surprised then that when you write enough articles for Opensource.com, they give you your own column."

"All Credits go to beac0n, thanks for contacting us and contributing the guide you created! As people requested - here is a link to download this guide as a PDF. Intro The goal is to bring together enough information in one document for a beginner to get started. Visiting countless sites, and combing the internet for information can make it obvious your desire to obtain anonymity, and lead to errors, due to conflicting information. Every effort has been made to make this document accurate. This guide is image heavy so it may take some time to load via Tor."

"All Credits go to beac0n, thanks for contacting us and contributing the guide you created! As people requested - here is a link to download this guide as a PDF. Intro The goal is to bring together enough information in one document for a beginner to get started. Visiting countless sites, and combing the internet for information can make it obvious your desire to obtain anonymity, and lead to errors, due to conflicting information. Every effort has been made to make this document accurate. This guide is image heavy so it may take some time to load via Tor."

"If you actually know your stuff, you will know that a good quality harmonica is gonna cost way more than a few dollars... especially a chromatic, which is $100 or more. Even though most harmonicas have good manufacturing, proper maintenance and preventative measures are still needed. Aside from the cost of repairs, you might have difficulty finding someone skilled enough to repair your harmonica, especially if you are not good at repairing!"

"Spend enough time on the command line and you'll eventually want to do many tasks…that take some intricate commands…repeatedly. A good example of this, is making thumbnails of photos. Basically, our workhorse of this script is not ImageMagick (which provides convert, identify and mogrify), but the for loop in bash itself. Ready? Grab your pen-knife and let's whittle out a script:"

"Literacy used to be the domain of scribes and priests. Then the world became more complicated and demanded that everyone read and write. Computing is also a form of literacy, but having it only understood by a priesthood of programmers is not going to be enough for our complex, online world. "Learn to code" has become a mantra for education at all ages. But after clearing away the hype, why do people need to learn to code? What does it get us exactly?"

"The impact of technological change on culture, learning, and morality has long been the subject of intense debate, and every technological revolution brings out a fresh crop of both pessimists and pollyannas. Indeed, a familiar cycle has repeat itself throughout history whenever new modes of production (from mechanized agriculture to assembly-line production), means of transportation (water, rail, road, or air), energy production processes (steam, electric, nuclear), medical breakthroughs (vaccination, surgery, cloning), or communications techniques (telegraph, telephone, radio, television) have appeared on the scene. The cycle goes something like this. A new technology appears. Those who fear the sweeping changes brought about by this technology see a sky that is about to fall. These "techno-pessimists" predict the death of the old order (which, ironically, is often a previous generation's hotly-debated technology that others wanted slowed or stopped). Embracing this new technology, they fear, will result in the overthrow of traditions, beliefs, values, institutions, business models, and much else they hold sacred. The pollyannas, by contrast, look out at the unfolding landscape and see mostly rainbows in the air. Theirs is a rose-colored world in which the technological revolution du jour is seen as improving the general lot of mankind and bringing about a better order. If something has to give, then the old ways be damned! For such "techno-optimists," progress means some norms and institutions must adapt-perhaps even disappear-for society to continue its march forward. Our current Information Revolution is no different. It too has its share of techno-pessimists and techno-optimists. Indeed, before most of us had even heard of the Internet, people were already fighting about it-or at least debating what the rise of the Information Age meant for our culture, society, and economy."

does Kurtopia need someone to mow the lawn?

no, but we do need someone to take our throm-dib-u-lator apart though

"TED talks are great, but there's a point where they all seem too similar, or are just taxing to muddle through. If you'd still like to enjoy a smart, engaging talk now and again but you've had enough of TED, here are some alternative to boost your brain."

"Some advocates present HTTPS as synonymous with "security"-but this is not semantics. by Scott Gilbertson - Jul 11, 2016 12:00 pm UTC"

"Some advocates present HTTPS as synonymous with "security"-but this is not semantics. by Scott Gilbertson - Jul 11, 2016 12:00 pm UTC"

ahh! you beat me to it, read this yesterday and was on my list.. thx

well, I can tell from experience that the " "wibble-wobble method" works just fine (did with me as with my own youngsters). true enough, training wheels make it easy, however in the long run the ingrained habit of micro-steering as a way of enhancing one's capability to overcome apparent obstacles and innovate in and with the chaotic flow of events is quite the advantage.

There were no training wheels when I learned to ride a bike in AR - you learned or fell off - and, everyone that I knew learned on their own without any problems at all. Training wheels and the "wibble-wobble method" are manifestations of our over-protective (well-meaning, of course!) nature with our children from the 70s, 80s and 90s and now ... I used training wheels with my son until he insisted that I take them off, so he could ride like the other kids in the neighborhood that were younger and used no training wheels and rode better than he did. I'm encouraged by that recollection (if I remember it correctely? lol) to believe that training wheels are a bit of a waste of time and that the "wibble-wobble method" or other 'throw-in-th'-mix-and-see-what-happens' would serve the person better. Micro-steering must be learned no matter what at some point - the subtly of the motion of a bike require it.

"Automotive software issues, such as the Jeep hack and Volkswagen cheating on emissions tests, have made headlines this year, which means the public is thinking about software in cars like never before. Some experts have argued that mandating that such software be open source is a solution to the problem. Although there are definite benefits to public scrutiny of the software, code visibility alone is no guarantee. As Sam Liles explained to me in a recent email, open source code didn't prevent ShellShock."