[plug] [mostly OT] Suicide bomber

[Leon Brooks]

The dude who blew himself up in Merriwa, it turns out, did it about 50m from 
my sister-in-law's house. He was part-time or ex-military (opinion is 
unclear) so knew how to get and use explosives. He did walk out of his house 
into the middle of the street before closing the contacts, and they did clean 
most of him up with a sponge.

Merriwa has two thriving liquor stores, plus a service station and many 
smaller shops (maybe twenty) that go broke regularly. If you combine it with 
Quinns and Clarkson, you get seven liquor stores and at least forty regularly 
recycled small shops. Sometimes I wonder why it is that people are generally 
more willing to irrigate<Esc>^Hdrown their sorrows than to fix them. At least 
this bloke did something forcefully different. Watch out for copycat idiots 
setting themselves alight or blowing the odd limb off over the next few 
months.

One of the projects which is falling on our as-yet-nameless and only 
unofficially listed professional Linux association is a demo LTSP project. To 
give you some idea of where it will eventually wind up, the Ed Dept contact 
involved asked me how difficult it was to securely bolt computers down. Until 
they are stolen or destroyed (they are replaceable, the next shipment is 
described as `two or three hundred' machines), these computers will be a 
possible avenue of escape, a potential interruption to the vicious circle 
that would doom many of these children to living in just the kind of social 
milieu which these suburbs display, which surrounded the human firework. 
Maybe Mohammed can't afford to go to the mountain, but the mountain will be 
online somewhere.

Perhaps you never thought of Linux as a social tool before; Open Source 
software does open avenues which are generally not practical, and certainly 
not practical on the same scale, using close systems. If a school gets a set 
of recycled P200s and a server, and as a result *just*one* child picks up 
enough office skills to get a job and have a more or less satisfying career 
instead of living out their existence as a beaten/beating alcoholic dole 
bludger, what is that worth to you? If you work to make this happen in twenty 
schools and consequently unearth the next Linus Torvalds, what is that worth 
to you?

While many on this list - and you know who you are - are involved with helpful 
groups like Computer Angels (or the Salvos, etc), many others are sitting on 
their hands - and you know who YOU are - too busy, too poor, not talented 
enough, no time, a zillion other bull#### excuses when you really look at 
them. I'm going to quote Ashleigh Brilliant at you: `Why be yourself, when 
you could be someone really worthwhile instead?'

If you have no time, give money. If you have no talent, ring up or write and 
ask schools, government departments, big companies etc what they do with 
their old gear, and who you'd have to talk to to get some of it redirected to 
worthwhile causes. Carry stuff. Or collect computer gear from council 
chuck-out days and call CA when you get your first cubic meter. Or learn by 
doing. Same goes for `too poor:' get experience this way, by rearranging, 
installing, demoing machines, experience that will mean more to *worthwhile* 
employers than a degree in computer science would. Get some purpose into your 
life, it doesn't take very much.

Cheers; Leon