Nobody Said That!

I should have included this in my recent list of ways Linux is like theology. You can't criticize Linux because somebody somewhere made their own version of Linux yesterday morning before breakfast which is intended to not have that problem; and they think you're criticizing them. But when I mean Linux, I mean the mainstream. I mean the thousands and thousands of open-source OS devotees and all the things that they really do have in common. Yes, there's variety, but they really do have certain things overwhelmingly in common. So do people of faith, from the Ayatollah to a little old lady down the street. More about that in a moment.

There are a lot of people telling me Linux is ready for everyone to use as a desktop system. But when I describe the experience I end up having which is not ready for the non-expert, and complain that the situation has been misrepresented, some other open-source OS advocates will stand up and say "hey, where are you getting that? Nobody's saying that. I never said that. I never heard any Linux supporter tell you that. Nobody said it was ready for you."

Well here's a link to another one.

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Similarly, a secularist can't criticize faith without immediately being pounced on by religious progressives who made up a new-and-improved religion yesterday before breakfast and now consider it normal. "Hold on," they say, "who said god was authoritarian, or faith and reason aren't compatible? What? When? Huh? What? Nobody said that." Um, how about this: how about almost everybody ever. That's like inventing a new operating system yesterday before breakfast that nobody heard of, and isn't compatible with Debian or RedHat or anything, and makes you start over from scratch.

"I came up with a totally new mental practice and I'm calling it faith. So, don't criticize the mental practices referred to by Christian Supremacists and Iranian clerics as faith! That word is off-limits, or else I couldn't have my own faith! Just oppose their mean and irrational actions!" Where do you think actions come from? Beliefs. If beliefs can't be criticized and weighed and judged, you're fighting the symptoms instead of the disease.

Imagine that I am -- metaphorically -- in armed combat with the Family Research Council or somebody like that. I will never hassle you about your religion or even mention it to you until you run up and pull my weapon out of my hands. If you do that, you know what? If you stand between me and the theocrats, fuck your precious faith. Fuck it in and around the ass region and that vicinity. Do religious progressives have any idea what price they're asking us to pay? Whatever benefit is gained from progressive religion isn't worth leaving unopposed the problems that mainstream religions tend to have in common. That would be a horrific cost. We're playing with grown-ups and the stakes are higher than the games you're playing. When I say "faith" I mean the awful mental sleight of hand and self-delusion that is actually practiced every day by the six billion people who never heard of the progressive religion you made up yesterday. I complain about the shit I have to put up with. If you're not going to help fight that fight, so that you can go on smoking your spiritual weed, at least stop trying to disarm us of the most important weapon: I raise my hand and say "excuse me abortion clinic bombers and terrorists and legislators, faith is make believe."

Live CDs Are Awesome

For those who don't know, you can put a Live CD with Linux on it into your Windows or Mac computer and it'll become a Linux computer temporarily. It's like hypnotism. It's as if your computer is clucking like a chicken. Then you take the CD out, and your Windows or Mac wakes up, yawns, shrugs, and goes about its business as if nothing had happened. None of your data is touched. It only uses the CD, it doesn't use the hard drive at all. It's called a "Knoppix" Live CD. You want one, you need one, you can download it free or get one from me.

Wanna know a secret? {Whispers} I'm using a Live CD right now. On my Windows computer. Just a one-night stand with Linux on my precious main computer. Not on a cheap testbed lounging on a card table in my basement with its hardware jauntily exposed. I'm using Linux on the respectable one I come home to at the end of the day. I'm using a commitment-free Live CD right now, to type this, and when my casual recreational computing is spent, I can take the disk out, and throw it away, and my Windows computer will never know how I used its body while it was HYPNOTIZED. Does that turn you on? Yes it does. You want to ask for pictures. Right now my computer looks like this.

This is the genius user interface called Mezzo, on a flavor of Linux called SymphonyOS. Seriously, check out that slide show even if you think you already know what Linux looks like. This desktop environment is new and teh slick.( Read more... )

I am now going to count to three and take the CD out. When I reboot, this computer will be Windows again, and will remember nothing of this. One... you're getting sleepy... Two... your eyes are getting heavy... Three...