It’s time I sat down and explained to the general public why, despite the contradictory evidence, they shouldn’t take anything on the internet seriously. “Zealots”. Zealots are everywhere, and they propagate their thoughts throughout the internet like a sex joke propagates though a middle school. Slow at first, but by the end of the week everyone knows the tale of the 3 (three) sticks that get shoved into a dark hole and made to puke.

While the more commonly found zealots should be obvious to those who’ve been to more than one (1) forum, such as the gaming console zealots (nerds who still think their god-given console is better than a computer) or the Mac/PC/Linux zealots (nerds who still haven’t heard of interoperability), I figured I’d better start informing everyone about the lesser-known types…

The fads-never-die zealots. As much as it pains me to lump them all into this category, I really can’t be bothered explaining how forums about every single frame of Tool Time is analyzed and personalized, or those still stuck arguing wether or not the earth is flat. These are the more specialized type of zealots, and are either very hard or not hard enough to find with a few keywords typed into a search engine.

The ‘simple concept’ zealots. “Imagine a 747 is sitting on a conveyor belt, as wide and long as a runway. The conveyor belt is designed to exactly match the speed of the wheels, moving in the opposite direction. Can the plane take off?” Simple eh? It’s too bad that, provided you have a group of 3 people, everyone will come up with a different answer. Thankfully, these arguments are mostly confined to 4chan boards, and the occasional Bongo sushi session.

The n00bs. Not so much zealots as-per-se, but still as annoying as, or even more so in some cases. These are the people who refuse to learn before diving head in, and once their in, still refuse to learn. It’s like someone who refuses to learn how to tell time using an analog clock, so instead of learning just complains whenever a digital one isn’t avaiable.

And finally, there’s the mindless attention-seeking zealots. The worst kind, they’ll infect the “off-topic” boards of any forum with crap, and will advocate for whatever dumb-fuck idea pops into their head. These people will fight on the internet for the sake of boredom [1], and seek out new places to drain the life of.

_{[1] And I don’t mean that in the good, Uncyclopedia Flame Warriors way.}

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I hate getting my calendar mixed up. I sat down this weekend to realize that next Saturday is software freedom day, and so this column misses out being read before then by a mere two (2) days. Oh well, better luck next year.

Let me begin by declaring my stance on the FOSS (Free, open source software) issue. I’m the uni’s Microsoft student partner. My personal servers run Windows Server 2003 and FreeBSD (using VMware). At work, I manage software projects that utilise php, Perl, MySQL and Oracle, and servers that run Linux (with Xen). I have a Mac laptop, and being the photography nut I am, I use Adobe software. Who says you can’t mix milk with orange juice?

Most people don’t care what tool they’re using, so long as the tool best suits their needs. This is where a lot of conflicting ideas between free software advocates and the non-free-software types occur. If someone were to say “you can have as many spoons as you like, so long as you give up your knives”, most people would laugh it off and walk away. But, in my opinion, It really comes down to that.

There are many types of zealots in the computer ‘verse, as i’ll get to in my next article, but the hardcore FOSS advocates seem to be the most aggressive of them all. These are the type that take the “all-or-nothing” approach, which by today’s standards just isn’t feasible. Imagine if Adobe adopted the FOSS business model; gave away their software but charged for support. Raise your hands if you regularly use Photoshop and have ever contacted Adobe for support. How about if they gave away a feature limited version, but allowed you to pay for advanced features. Well, isn’t that what we’re currently doing?

I know quite a few people here at waiKato who would like to think the world can and should adopt to certain ways of thinking. But one solution will never be able to gracefully meet all needs, a solution that tries to is obviously not a good solution.

On a more upbeat note, I’ll leave you with a quote to mull on, by one of my former lectures:

I’ve been insulted by Richard Stallman three times and I’ve only just met him.

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As many nerds may know, waiKato has had more than a fair share of it’s nerdiness. There’s something about the fine farmland air that produces the best nerds in the country [1], and probably the best in the world. From the warm routers [2] of WAND, to the students SSHed into the labs, to the first-years mocking the management students who are trying to learn how to code, to the end of year pub-crawl, we’re a proud bunch.

Nexus has been here for us nerds. Back in 1996 was the first glimpse into mainstream nerdery, with an article about the internet written by my cousin Malcolm (hmmm… I wonder if you still read Nexus/my blog…). Thats right, a 7 page long feature on the internet. Let’s see a modern contrubutor rant and rave on that long! Then a few months later started a column called “Computers”, which was renamed to The Nerdery a few issues later. Each column started with 42.

I had the intention of analysing the columns, how things have changed between then and now, but got distracted by how the first Nerdery column talked about online dating, and just how little had really changed. There was even a mention for those who couldn’t get an online date to revert to a site with free pr0n passwords. Unfortunately, I don’t know of such a site to give you, but I’m sure if you google hard enough you could find it before the ITS people find you.

And there’s been the advertising revenue to go with our long-running nerdy column as well. If you ever get a chance (hopefully you’ll be able to just look to your left), have a look for the raunchy Microsoft ads in Nexus issues that were. They launched a campain back in ’2k (and then again 2k3) promoting their student-friendly priced Office editions. I gotta say, not only do they really get the message across, but it’s amazing they were published in the first place.

<sub>[1] I’m not just talking about our PBRF ranking

[2] if you’re a kiwi bloke out for giggles, get Donald Neal or someone with an equivlently awesome accent to pronounce routers

[3] http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/department/history.html</sub>

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Time flies when you’re having fun. That’s why I’ve spent most of the holidays either being unproductive or working, both of which are very fun for me. And yet, it’s now one (1) week out from uni, and I’ve once again completely forgotten that I have a Nerdery to write. Fortunately, at the last Nexii contributor meeting, I was smart enough after getting smashed to try looking though archives so I could come back with a wizz-bang story on the history of waiKato nerds. Unfortunately, this isn’t that article. That article is next week’s article. Instead, this article is a witty collection of random ideas in the hopes that people out there (that’s YOU) can help me resolve them.

Why is it that the big recycling bins on campus take glass and aluminum cans, BUT NOT PLASTIC?!?!? I dare say that drinking fizzy, sugary, oh-so-caffeinated beverages is more popular on campus than beer (I could be wrong). The lack of plastic recycling is especially upsetting for us in the Interaction Design Lab (the dungeon-esque one), who combined consume a few bottles of black liquid per week. Anyone on the environment council thingy know why this is the case? Also, why are there no recycling facilities in Bongo? The garbage bins overflow with sushi containers and plastic bottles, why is this all going to the tip?

Why is it that the Clarence st Pak n Save doesn’t stock Cadbury Three Wishes chocolate and Bluebird Sweet Thai Chili chips anymore? While I highly doubt Pak n Save management types read Nerdery, if anyone out there knows how to complain and get these in stock it would be much appreciated. I’m tired of going out of my way to seek these items out elsewhere. Oh, and stop making the Croissants randomly disappear!

And before I forget; waiKato needs another Imagine Cup team for next year to carry the torch of excellence we seem to always wave here in the computer science department. In 2007 the waiKato team came 1st in NZ and won a trip to Seoul, Korea to compete in the world finals, and this year we came 3rd (although it’s fine to say fuck in Nexus, I don’t think my thoughts on the winners of this year’s competition would be suitable for this column). Ryan Tarak from Microsoft and I are to give an information session to anyone who wants to be involved, at the time of writing this is to be Tuesday September 13th @ 14:00, but this may change. For updated information, visit my site; (you’re here) or look out for the posters that I’m supposed to be putting up.

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