Linux

Linus Torvalds, the reclusive man behind Linux.  He speaks!

Even if you’re not a computer guy — I’m not either — I think you’ll find his story fascinating.

Ten days ago I mentioned William Worthington Fowler’s 1880 Twenty Years of Inside Life in Wall Street or Revelations of the Personal Experience of a Speculator, then available only on Kindle; now, here, as an actual physical book.

Where you or I will find time to read this enticing volume is an open question.  I still haven’t seen Straight Outta Compton or switched to Fios or cleaned my windows (Renee is wonderful four hours a week, but Renee doesn’t do windows) — all items on a very long to-do list . . . nor visited most of the 250 places on this list nor raised nearly enough money to assure the best possible outcome November 8, which sounds like just one more thing to do but actually will determine the nature of the Supreme Court for the next 20 or 30 years . . . and it is the Court that gave us Bush and the Iraq War and a wrecked national balance sheet, and then — moved further right by Bush — gave us Citizens United, McCutcheon, and the decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act, all serving to shift yet more power to the already powerful.

So much to do!  (Click here.)

Guess what?  I now have seen Straight Outta Compton and it’s powerful.  I now, decades late, “get” — or at least kinda get — Gangsta Rap and who Dr. Dre is and who Ice Cube is and why the film should have been represented in the Oscars this year.

Last year I mentioned Merchants of Doubt, by Oreskes and Conway, which shows how the same scientists paid to mislead the public about the dangers of tobacco now are paid to mislead us on climate change.  Here it is on video.

All that oughta keep you busy for a while.