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Life Before Techrights

Roy as a teen
Age 16



Summary: It's almost midnight here, so it's a good time to reflect or look back; another 15 years for Techrights should be very much doable

Today -- or as the clock/diary turns (23:55 here) -- we start our sixteenth year, so I've looked at some old archives, trying to find photos of me aged 16 (some time after I had begun programming; I actually messed around with scripting at somewhere around the age of 12 or 13).



Roy as a teenI was introduced to GNU/Linux around 1998 when I was 16. A friend of mine (and a geeky classmate) called it "Linux" and was using it on his PC. Back then, many people including myself were using Windows 95. A couple of years later, as soon as I started studying at the University (aged 18), I move to GNU/Linux. It was Red Hat with GNOME and KDE. Later I experimented with all the other (existing at that time) desktop environments/window managers and settled on Enlightenment for a while. Back then, by GTK and Qt standards, Enlightenment was actually very good. I used NEdit (it's still available and is actively maintained). It was good for development and for note-taking. Later I started using LyX (around 2001) and then raw LaTeX as well; I didn't like Abiword because it wasn't suitable for scientific publishing. My introduction to GNU was around 2001 when I was developing with GTK. I started to get a better grasp of the real history and the underlying philosophy. I then got back to USENET and IRC (which I had already used as a teenager) and a lot of my GNU/Linux advocacy started in newsgroups (before social control media like Digg.com became a "thing"). That was in my early 20s. At age 21 I started my Ph.D. (I could leap past a Masters degree because of my grades) and chose to work on it under the supervision of the person who would soon become the head of the Computer Science department. He was very demanding and had strong work discipline. I learned a lot from him.

Here we are all these years later and I focus a lot on software patents, if not patents in general. In that domain, there is a massive vacuum in the media; it's like there are no journalists left to actually fact-check these matters; operatives of the litigation industry don't quite count, as all they do is churnalism (many examples of this in today's Daily Links).

I didn't plan to do activism or journalism or censorship-resistant publication (essential for vulnerable sources/leakers/whistleblowers). That just happened along the way. It's rewarding in every way except financial.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part IX: Minimum Wages For You (Experienced Scientist), Alicante/EU Paydays For Me (Unproductive, Corrupt Official)
Does UPRP maladministration extend to the false belief that qualified and experienced scientists can play the role of circus clowns?
"The Liberating Power of Simply Telling People the Truth."
'polite' bullying
Who Imitates Who? Plagiarist as Client (From Microsoft), 'Plagiarism' at the Law Firm?
let's revisit the subject
EPO's Central Staff Committee (CSC) Scrutinises the Man Who Illegally Grants (and Forces Others to Illegally Participate in Granting) Software Patents in Europe
EPO compels examiners to break the law in the name of obeying illegal "rules" or "orders"
The Latest Rumour Says The Next (as Correctly Predicted Before) Wave of Layoffs at Microsoft is 3 Weeks Away, "Larger Than the First Wave"
Step 2
TV Licensing Used to SPAM Your Postbox, Now It Does the Same to E-mail
First they ask for your E-mail address; then they start nagging you via E-mail
Our Priority is Still Tackling Software Patents and Corruption in Patent Offices
Meanwhile we got compliments on our recent articles, which means that they are effective
Slopwatch: Another Day, Another Slopfest, LLM Slop Scrapers Slow Down Our Site
We too have some slop issues; this past day this site and the sister site had to answer about 2.5 million requests (not counting Gemini Protocol) and it's slowing things down for everybody
 
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Either you support Prince Mohammed bin Salman or you're a nazi
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IBM's CEO Roasted, Sizzled and Grilled for Dumb and Inconsistent Vapourware Promises
It looks like being a chronic liar is what it takes to lead the company once synonymous with computing
IBM's Goal Is Not (and Never Was) Computer Users' Freedom
More than 1.5 decades ago I found IBM to be an "ally of convenience" because of OpenDocument Format (ODF)
Wayland Shows the IBM/Red Hat Way of Doing Things
IBM is trying to 'kill' X
GitHub is Proprietary, Controlled by Microsoft, and GPL Violation Warehouse
"IRS tax filing software [will be] released to the people as free software" ... In general this is good news
Slopfarm Catastrophe
Seems like BetaNews (or BetaNoise) has just suffered a major data loss and restored the site from a week-old backup
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VIII: Illegal Working Conditions
How many people need to die for these people to get their massive salaries?
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