An essay on Open Source advocacy, with particular focus on why talking about `freedom' or other kinds of ideals is counterproductive in promoting our values.
An adventure in ethical philosophy; what bearing weapons teaches about the good life. If you are politically correct, this will give you absolute hives. Read it anyway.
I wrote this around 1990 after a particularly outrageous series of newspaper stories. The Philadelphia Inquirer published an edited version as an Op-Ed piece in "Community Voices" on Sunday, February 8 1998.
The DOJ lawsuit against Microsoft seems to have thrown a good many libertarians into confusion. In this essay, I argue that friends of the free market should condemn both antitrust law and Microsoft.
From 1990 to 1992 I wrote and posted to USENET an SF review column which became rather popular. I still get questions about it, so I've made the reviews available on the Web here.
...a Bemused Journey into the Heart of the South American Dream. Five days at the intersection of politics and technology in the Third World, and what I found there.
...or, I Left My Heart In Shin-Osaka. An account of my first time in Japan. Chock full of adventure, enlightenment, romance, and even a few photos. I learned a lot -- about exogamy, crazy Zen masters, and where the set designs for Bladerunner came from...
My first tactical-pistol match and what I found there. If you're politically correct you'd better skip this -- it might put you in danger of learning something.
or, How I Learned To Start Worrying And Hate The Bomb. The full version, parts 1 and 2, of my long-distance encounter with Cheyenne Mountain, as posted to comp.risks on 1 April 1992.
Geeks and guns are a natural match. Open-source software is about getting freedom; personal firearms are about keeping it. Besides that, hackers gotta love anything where you get to tinker with complex hardware that makes loud exploding noises. Here's what happened when this stopped being just theory...
...What Hackers Can Learn From SF Fandom. Science-fiction fans have developed an excellent toolkit of techniques for running effective conventions and shows on a shoestring budget with all-volunteer staff. This document lays out some of the techniques for the use of people running Linux and open-source gatherings.
