---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <53f501e1-4a31-457d-39d6-2afc2fd1efcc@horne.net> Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2018 13:06:12 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: The Phantom of the Open-Source Opera New York Magazine has been running a series called "The Internet Apologizes," featuring interviews with some of the those who were present at the creation of the digital world. I just read the interview with Richard Stallman, and I was transported back to the day I first met him, while he was holding a handmade sign on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on which he had written "Software Should Be Free." He will forever be known by the famous label "rms," which is all anyone needs to say to prove an argument or make a serious point about open-source software. RMS got burned: many times, and sometimes badly, by opposing the commercialization of both software and the Internet. He remains the one clear and steady voice opposing short-term software thinking and money-grubbing software designs in all their forms. He wrote emacs, which Neal Stephenson called "A Nuclear-Powered Word Procesor," and created the Free Software Foundation, */The/* place where the best and brightest of the open-source movement have a virtual home. I always wished I could be like him when I was younger, but now I know that his is a singular intellect, and his priceless capacity to tell the truth, in blunt and understandable terms, will always cause me to think "if only." Bill +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ 'No Company Is So Important Its Existence Justifies Setting Up a Police State' A conversation with legendary programmer Richard Stallman on the real meaning of "privacy rights" and why he only ever uses cash. By Noah Kulwin NYMAG: Thank you so much for agreeing to a call. I apologize that I'm calling late, I've just had a jam-packed morning. RMS: Please. Stop apologizing. It doesn't matter when you call me if I can talk to you. I never cared about that. In other words, you're being excessively polite. Catering to an imaginary desire that I never had in my life. I'm happy if people call me at any time if the conversation is a useful one. Of course sometimes I can't talk or they can't reach me, which is unfortunate. But it's not gonna make me unhappy. http://nymag.com/selectall/2018/04/richard-stallman-rms-on-privacy-data-and-free-software.html -- Bill Horne ------------------------------ Message-ID: <pbm0q0$to$1@reader1.panix.com> Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2018 01:21:04 +0000 (UTC) From: David Lesher <wb8foz@panix.com> Subject: Re: Residential Follow/Find Me Services [Telecom] Fred Atkinson <fatkinson.remove-this@and-this-too.mishmash.com> writes: > I have heard of services that are available that allow someone to dial >a single number and then reach out to several of your phones to find you. I >have found a few online. But none of the ones I have found serve the greater >Phoenix Metropolitan area. Google Voice does that; it rings up to 6 forwarding phones. It has limitations, spend some time with it and read the forum <https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!categories/voice> ... before jumping in with both feet. -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close.......................... Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433 ------------------------------ Message-ID: <C0B321AD-85ED-492D-984F-15E67AB6F262@roscom.com> Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2018 08:50:02 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Amazon Launches In-Car Delivery Amazon Launches In-Car Delivery https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180424005509/en/Buckle-Prime-Members-Amazon-Launches-In-Car-Delivery ***** Moderator's Note ***** The early promise of the Internet has often been perverted for commercial gain: the ability and potential to read any book in the Library at any place, at any time, for example, or the chance to discover another Chinua Achebe, have largely been purchased and repurposed to gather gold. However, sometimes there are developments such as this one, which will allow Amazon to shorten delivery routes and (hopefully) lower costs, give me hope that we may yet discover ways to improve our lives by tapping many of the net's capabilities which haven't been thought of. Like all innovations, this is a two-sided coin: in return for saving a few precious minutes or hours out of a busy day, Amazon will know where you work, and thus who you hang out with and who you must pay attention to. That's one side. On the other side of the coin is more (precious) time with family, with friends, and (if you want) alone with your thoughts. Having the privilege of getting others to deliver goods to your doorstep - or as close as makes no difference - used to be reserved for the rich. Now, it is, or at least can become, an equalizer that gives common men the one comodity that the rich have always reserved to themselves until now: more time. Bill Horne Moderator ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Wed, 25 Apr 2018