When I published a part of the email this Teacher sent me, it experienced something known as "The Slashdot Effect." Slashdot is a website devoted to the tech/internet world and is read by hundreds of thousands an hour.
Yeah...hundreds of thousands an hour. My article scolding this teacher ended up on the front page of Slashdot.
It never was my intention to attack anyone personally....
My sights were set on correcting some obvious misconceptions. It was a focused attack on ignorance but with some unsolicited commentary on a particular group.
Whether by proxy or focused intent, it appears that is what has happened, however.
A particular teacher within the Austin Independent School District now sucks.
The consensus began building about 24 hours ago when I published a blog strongly chastising a teacher who emailed me. She made, what I considered to be, some amazingly ignorant statements, statements that I felt attacked the very core reason for my existence. It made me much angrier than it should have.
I'm human, so sue me.
No wait, scratch that last line...don't sue me. It is being discussed.
Her tone didn't help her case much. She insinuated that I may had done something illegal. We build/refurbish computers for kids who are financially disadvantaged. We also build and present computers to kids of high achievement. To even hint that I am involved in anything that approaches breaking the law is not only silly, it evokes emotion better left un-evoked. I've worked for years to bring the level of success, however limited, we have now. The last thing I need is to lose it all for something silly.
So instead of crafting a measured, count-for-count personal response, I chose to share her obvious ignorance with members of the Linux Community. It was meant to illustrate the maddening ignorance and bias a Linux Advocate faces in a Microsoft Windows world. It was also meant to digitally spank the hand of the offender. It was a good direction to go I thought.
Things pretty much turned to fecal flakes from there.
Look, I write this little back-water blog to document what we do at the HeliOS Project and to advocate Linux in general. One of our main focuses is to see to it that Linux begins gaining a foothold in the computing public's awareness. And no, my goal isn't to convince you to switch to Linux.
That's my desire.
My goal is to make you aware that you have a choice in how you operate your computers. And yes, a bias exists on the Linux side of the ledger.
Ya think? People don't realize they are prisoners in their own computers when they use Microsoft Windows. If they ever read the EULA, they'd understand quickly.
So boasting a stunning readership in the dozens, I go about my business writing about things that happen in our day to day operations. Every now and then, something or someone does or says something that I believe needs attention.
Holy Crap!
Well, we got attention. When I published a part of the email this Teacher sent me, it experienced something known as "The Slashdot Effect." Slashdot is a website devoted to the tech/internet world and is read by hundreds of thousands an hour.
Yeah...hundreds of thousands an hour. My article scolding this teacher ended up on the front page of Slashdot.
For whatever reason, this story took on a life of its own. By 10:30 AM, I had to turn my cell phone off. Poeple were getting my number from my business website and calling me with their comments and reactions.
Not all of them were particularly on my side.
I received calls from South Africa, The Netherlands, Croatia, The Land Down Under and Russia.
It's the one from New Zealand that bothered me the most.
The caller identified himself and then further identified himself as an editor for a well known magazine published in the UK. He was extremely to-the-point with his call.
He would donate $1000.00 immediately to The HeliOS Project if I would give him the name of the Teacher I blogged about.
I hung up the phone.
"This is madness." I thought to myself. What is the big friggin' deal here? This is a non-story.
And my phone buzzed again but it wasn't with the incoming call ring...it was a text message being received. I cued the caller ID and it returned as "unavailable".
I pushed "read message" and waited for the text to appear on my screen.
"Can I call you?"
I pulled the truck over into a parking lot and answered:
"I guess. Who r u?"
The inactivity was so long that I started the truck and began to put it into gear and re-enter traffic when the buzz came again. I pushed the read button.
"Karen".
It was my turn to hesitate. Finally, I toggled Reply and typed in one character.
"k"
She didn't call right away. It took her about 15 minutes to finally call me. When she did she didn't say anything for the first 15 seconds. When she finally did speak, it was obvious she was crying.
