Her name is Natalia and she doesn’t have a clue about what is in store for her tomorrow. Natalia started high school this year. She’s not only an honor roll student, she’s musically gifted as well. Natalia studies the piano, tenor sax and now the cello. She was inspired by the group “Two Cellos” and she begged her mom to buy her a cello. Well, that’s not possible in her home with their current income. Natalia’s mom works two jobs to make it and the only instrument she has at home is an old tenor sax that she found in a pawn shop. However, an uncle did respond and he is buying her a cello at the end of October.
Natalia is able to practice piano four hours a week. Two hours at her school, another hour at a local community-sponsored recreation center and one hour at the local library. That library has several music rooms. Her mom takes her to these various places when she returns from work each evening. Natalia’s mom doesn’t have much time to herself, she’s a single parent who wants nothing more than for her child to succeed.
Ken Starks is the founder of the Helios Project and Reglue, which for 20 years provided refurbished older computers running Linux to disadvantaged school kids, as well as providing digital help for senior citizens, in the Austin, Texas area. He was a columnist for FOSS Force from 2013-2016, and remains part of our family. Follow him on Twitter: @Reglue
For the non-enterprise FOSS user, it may seem from a quick glance that ATO has little to offer, but that’s not the case. Buried between all the technically focused talks for devs and sysadmins is a plethora of great workshops for those who’s interest in FOSS doesn’t necessarily include writing code or keeping a server or two operating. In other words, it’s not just about designing GUIs or methods for optimizing databases for intensive cloud use.
Great. Just great.
We were an AM show but there was also an FM show going on at the same time in the next room, with a wall of plate glass window separating the AM and the FM folks. Often, we would cut up and the audience had no idea that the FM guy was silently doing outlandish things for the AM folks entertainment. We’re gonna leave it at “outlandish.” Sometimes, it went just a tad bit farther than that.
Meanwhile, in the world of free tech…