Let’s start off with two things.
1) duh
2) Aren’t you from Madison?
Define “from” and define “Madison”. I live in Dane County, not Madison (and none of that weird city vs. town of Madison stuff…I don’t live in Madison). I’ve lived here for over a year. Is that “from”? Well, if it is, I’m “from” four different states.
2.1) Ok smart-ass, you’re still not from Milwaukee.
Which is why I’m a perfect figurehead for openness. If I can do part of my job simply by existing, I think I’m the right man for the job.
Now, let’s get down to business.
I’m the president of the Madison Linux User Group, a lead on Open Everything Madison and previously president of the Carolina Open Source Initiative. I’m also already the czar of Linux laptops where I work. Before the FSF trolls start talking about how Linux isn’t libre, there certainly is a version of Linux that is libre and BSD folks, well, I’m well aware there are versions of freedom. I’m going into the lions den of Mac users here. Let’s not let our differences get in the way of the big picture.
Now I’ll pause for a few simple points.
identi.ca (and specifically statusnet) > twitter
android > iPhone
OOo (or NeoOffice, if you like) > MS Office
GIMP > Photoshop
Firefox (I’m not going to bother linking, you know what this is) > IE
Python > .NET (seriously, .NET?…get off my site)
R > SPSS
Ok, I’ll stop, but I could go on.
Scandinavia is close to Russia and while I’m part Swedish and not part Finnish, Finland was once under Russian rule. Actually, since Finland was once under Swedish rule, it’s possible my ancestors lived where Finland is now, but were Swedish. Russia and Sweden have both also controlled parts of Poland in the past. Going further back, before the Brett Favre controversy, the Vikings definitely went into Russia, at least as far as Holmgard (Veliky Novgorod for my Russian readers). We’ll go with that. I’m part Russian, sorta. If you’re Serbian or Bulgarian, I don’t want to here it. We all know *real* czars are Russian. Plus I was in Malmö when the former lost in the UEFA U21 championships to the home team. That has to count for something, right? (yes, extra words) Now, in Wisconsin it’s not that uncommon for people to have Scandinavian heritage, but how many of them have been there? And of those with Scandinavian heritage (or Russian, because we’re talking czars) that have also been there, how many of those will be at BarCampMKE4? I’m guessing not many. And look people, don’t question my Swedish heritage. I have a freakin’ Swedish tattoo. I was born and breed for this job.
Let’s go back to this “you’re from Madison” thing. I was at last year’s BCMKE4, have been to a Web414 meeting and a MLUG (Milwaukee Linux User Group) as well as PhotoCampMKE and a DevHouse at Bucketworks. I’ve also been to a Bucks game.
I’ve owned a Mac and run Windows at work, making me able to speak to FOSS apps on both platforms. While Fink is a good package manager for Mac from what I’ve heard, I’ve yet to find a package manager I like for Windows. I’ve dabbled in video both production and editing (and some film too) so I can speak to that side of things a bit. I’ve also worked in science and my parents and an aunt are professional musicians, so I know a bit about that as well. I am a jack of all trades. I am, however, a master of ruthlessness, a needed mastery for a czarship. I also have a sweet beard, like this guy (never mind that he was a crap tsar, I took his beard, not his strategies).
Since I posted about Creative Commons music, I’ve actually listened to more. Severed Fifth is now 295 and all the others have gone up; Holy Pain and Predator (430), NIN (57), Gråsuggorna (248) and No Se (269). As a new addition, Lorenzo’s Music is now 479. Let’s not forget the local flavor either; Lorenzo’s Music and Misery Signals (415). Remember, I’ve only been here a year, so that number is certain to go up. And, just in case you are too lazy to check out my blog post, you can connect to me on Last.fm.
AHA!
Shut your trap. Did you honestly think I wasn’t going to mention Libre.fm? Libre.fm has only been around a few months and since it doesn’t have historical data (chill, I know there is a merge, but I have over 191k listens. That’s going to take a while to import and it’s just not important to me) so discussing my open music there doesn’t really give a full picture. But, since you brought it up, NIN is #2 and Lorenzo’s Music is #12. After that Libre.fm doesn’t number them, just gives the amount of listens. If you really want to know more about Libre.fm, put it on the BarCamp session board or comment here.
So, you just do open source?
Well, I like as much open source as possible (I prefer the term FOSS [Free and Open Source Software] to include the free software people…libre is a much better word enough though it’s not technically English…yet), but I already mentioned that in addition to experience with OpenSolaris, BSD and Linux I’ve used Macs and Windows. Open standards are great. In fact, I’d love to see Web414 or Web608 get behind One Web Day.
Not everything at BCMKE4 will be digital.
O RLLY? While most things certainly will be, I see your point. I know a bit about open hardware, though I’m no expert. As a powerful czar however, I certainly have connections and Open Everything can deal with a lot of things that are not digital.
I just need to put out a few more words and I will be done.
I’M HAPPY FOR YOU. AND I’M GONNA LET U FINISH, BUT RASTER HAS ONE OF THE BEST WEBSITES OF ALL TIME. BEST WEBSITE EVER!
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