Bryan Lunduke's Blog, page 22

“Linux is Badass” – Signed, hardback print edition limited run

Back at the end of 2013 (nearly 2 1/2 years ago) I released an eBook entitled, appropriately, “Linux is Badass“.

In the weeks that followed, “Linux is Badass” shot up the charts to be a top 10 bestselling book on Amazon.com in the Linux category — and topped out at #14 in the Essays category.  Allowing me to call myself what must be the most pretentious title in human history: “Bestselling Essayist”.

One year later, I added some (rather ridiculous) new material and released “Linux is Badass: Slightly More Badass Edition“.  Also as an eBook.

But never has this bestselling masterpiece of modern literature (*cough*) been available in print.  Until today.

I am doing a limited edition print run of “Linux is Badass”, with a high-quality hardback binding.  [And, I’ll be signing them all, for those of you who want to see just how terrible my handwriting truly is.]

These are seriously high quality.  No flimsy paperbacks here.  These are the kind of books you get as a gift and put in a place of honor on your freaking bookshelf.  (And the fact that they’re signed means they’ll probably be worth millions some day.  Maybe.  Okay, probably not.)

Here’s how to get yours:

Place an order (below) for $19.  This price includes shipping for anywhere in the continental USA.
Be sure to include a valid shipping address.  Otherwise who knows where your book will end up.
Also be sure to include who you would like me to sign the book to.  Otherwise the inside cover may simply read “To Aunt Tabitha, thanks for the hat.”

This piece of literary history is only being made available for one week — starting today, March 18th and ending Friday, March 25th.  I am doing a bulk order on the books to keep the costs low (for both of us) — which means the books will be signed and shipped during the week of April 4th.

Outside of the USA?  Email me [bryan@lunduke.com] with your address and we can figure out what the shipping costs would be.

Order here (by March 25th):

Sign the book for:

Note: This book is lousy with swear words and is, in no way, appropriate for children.  It is filled with chapters with names like “If everyone on earth drives a 1993 Toyota Corolla… nobody has a badass car.” and “Say GNU/Linux One More Time. I dare ya.”  It is, in case you hadn’t already figured it out, a comedy book — even has a Choose Your Own Adventure story in the back.  It has absolutely zero redeeming value.

Note #2: If you just want the eBook version, you can subscribe at my Patreon page (my patrons get digital versions of all of my books automatically).  But the special, super fancy, autographed hardcover version is only available right here.  And only this week.

I am endorsing Bernie Sanders for President

I’ve caucused and voted for Republicans.  I’ve caucused and voted for Democrats.  I don’t consider myself the kind of guy that votes along party lines; The individual candidates (regardless of what letter appears in parenthesis next to their name) is what’s important.

I wouldn’t describe myself as conservative, centrist or liberal.  Instead, I prefer to focus on individual issues.  One at a time.  If I see something dumb, I say, “Hey!  That’s dumb!”.  If someone has a good idea, regardless of their political affiliation, I get behind it.

I am also a very big nerd.  It matters to me what a candidate, for any office, thinks on issues like copyright reform, NSA wiretapping and Edward Snowden (among others).

With this in mind, I took a hard look at what each of the current top candidates in the 2016 Presidential primary think on some big tech related issues.  Then I wrote an article (simply quoting the candidates) about it.

Bernie Sanders is the only candidate that, in my opinion, has a consistently reasonable stance on these critically important issues.

Hillary Clinton, while she has some good stances on a few of these topics, has terribly frightening positions on things like NSA wiretapping and how to treat Edward Snowden.  Trump and Cruz have extremely anti-technology and anti-privacy stances that I simply can’t support.

With all this in mind, my choice is clear.

I, Bryan Lunduke, endorse Bernie Sanders for President of the United States of America.

(I did consider other issues when making this decision.  But there’s just not enough focus on these critically important technology and privacy related issues.  So that’s what I’m focusing on here.)

“Linux Sucks 2016”

On January 21st, in Pasadena, CA (at the Southern California Linux Expo), this happened:

It was an absolute blast.  Huge thanks to the organizers of SCaLE for letting me take over your ballroom for the evening and fill it with my ridiculousness and stupidity.  Thanks as well to the friends who came out to help me film the whole thing.  Even more thanks to the amazing people that made cameo appearances.

And, of course, a big thank you to my supporters over on Patreon for helping to fund this sort of insanity.  I’ve got some more fun stuff like this in the works thanks to all of you crazy kids.

Bryan Lunduke for openSUSE Board

I, Bryan Lunduke, am officially running for a seat on the openSUSE Board.

Consider this post to be my campaign platform.

The short, short version:

“openSUSE rules.  Not enough people know that.  Let’s change that.”

Seriously.

Leap?  Crazy cool.  Tumbleweed?  Best rolling-release distro available.  And the tools that surround openSUSE are simply amazing.   I think more people should know about — and use — all of it.

Now, let’s be honest.  I have very little to offer the openSUSE community.

My organizational “skills” are roughly equivalent to that of a drunk grizzly bear.
I’m never on time to anything.  Ever.  I’m pretty sure I have no internal clock.
If anyone ever gave me full control over the openSUSE budget… I’m fairly confident I would spend every penny on small, green Chameleon plushies.  Just to see how big a pile of them I could make.
My decision making abilities are highly questionable.  I once paid full price for a non-matinee ticket to “Dude, Where’s my car?“.
My taste is also questionable.  I saw it twice that week.

But I do have one skill — I know how to make noise about Linux.  A lot of noise.  Here’s a few examples:

I recorded a video, about Linux, with a crummy camera and got over a million views.
I wrote the lyrics for the SUSE “Uptime Funk” music video.
I’ve been a professional tech journalist — writing for Network World, Linux.com and a handful of Linux magazines — for 3 1/2 years.
Been the Social Media guy for SUSE for over 2 years (holy cow… it’s been 2 years?).
And I can’t seem to go more than 5 minutes without being on a Linux-oriented podcast.
I even wrote a kids book about Linux.

Noise.  Noise I can make.  And, on the openSUSE board, I would do exactly that.  (Along with attempting to do all the other things that we’ve already covered I really suck at.)

If you’re an openSUSE Member, you can vote for me (or any of the other candidates) when voting opens later this month.

 

Linux Sucks 2014 breaks 1 million views

I’m just going to put this right here.  One million views.  For a single, slightly fuzzy, low-light video with barely passable audio.

If you’re not already planning to attend the Southern California Linux Expo in January of 2016 (just over a month from now)… you better get on that.  The 2016 edition of “Linux Sucks” is going to “kick it up a notch” in every way imaginable.

An room that can hold nearly a thousand people.  High quality audio and video.  And the show… holy cow.  Missing this will make you sad.  Trust me on that.  Just make sure you’re there on the first day — Linux Sucks happens on the evening of Thursday, January 21st.

Need for Compromise in Free Software – With Richard Stallman

I had the opportunity to host a (virtual) round-table discussion on the need (or lack of need) for compromise in Free Software with an absolutely stellar group of panelists.

Including: Richard Stallman (founder of the GNU Project and President of the Free Software Foundation), Aaron Seigo (of Kolab and KDE fame), Stuart Langridge (co-host of Bad Voltage and LUG Radio) and Swapnil Bhartiya (journalist for ITworld, Linux.com and more).

At the request of Richard, I have not posted this video to YouTube (watch the video for a detailed discussion of why).  I have, however, posted multiple versions (including an Ogg video and an audio-only version) over at this page on Archive.org.  All under the Creative Commons.

The video is over 1 hour long and is jam packed with interesting discussion.  We could have easily gone longer — and we may need to at some point.  Huge thanks to all of the panelists who took part.  All of you are amazing.

You can also get a large (over 1 gig), 1080p, .mp4 version of the video over on my Patreon page.  (The content is exactly the same in all versions… but the 1080p, mp4 version is so big that I put it up for just my Patrons so that my server isn’t murdered.)

Linux themed Cards Against Humanity expansion is out!

“Linux Against Humanity”, my Cards Against Humanity expansion pack is now available on my Patreon page!

It’s been released, DRM-free, under the Creative Commons license (the same license as Cards Against Humanity itself).

I’m also providing it in three different formats (small square, large rectangle and rounded rectangle) so that you can match it to your own card decks.

Want it?  You’ll need to be one of my patrons over at Patreon to download it directly from me.  Of course… it’s Creative Commons.  So there’s nothing stopping someone from posting it all over the Internet.  Which… is totally, 100% fine with me.  The cool people will still become my Patrons (even for a small amount) to support future goodies like this.

Oh, and this may go without saying, but you’ll need the main Cards Against Humanity deck.  You could play with *just* the Linux Against Humanity expansion set.  But it wouldn’t be nearly as fun… it’s really meant to add awesome Linux-y stuff to the main game.

Linux Against Humanity

In just a few short days, Linux Sucks: The Book will appear, as if by magic, to all of my Patreon supporters.

In full DRM-free glory.

Accompanying this, most triumphant, moment in both Linux and literary history, will be something… special.

Something… unexpected.

Something… kinda stupid.

An expansion pack for Cards Against Humanity.  Entirely about Linux.

I call it, “Linux Against Humanity”.  And it’s important.

Now, we’ve already established that it would be “DRM-Free”.  But this is Linux.  Shouldn’t something like this also be released as Free and Open Source?  These cards may not be software… but considering they’re about Linux… wouldn’t it feel weird if they were “closed”?  Yes.  Yes it would.

So the cards are being released under the same license as Cards Against Humanity, itself.  The Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0 license.

It will be released at the same time (and in conjunction with) my book, Linux Sucks: The Book — exclusively to those of you that support me via Patreon.  But, since it is CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, there’s no reason someone can’t just take the “Linux Against Humanity” files and distribute them however they like.  Which I am 103% cool with.

The release will be announced on Lunduke.com and on my Patreon page.  (And probably on every social network I hang out on.)

“You have a weird business model there, Lunduke.”

“Yes.  Yes I do.”

Mr. Lunduke – Distro Collaboration w/Fedora, openSUSE & Ubuntu

I did another puppet video.  And, you know what?  I think I’m going to keep doing these “Mr. Lunduke” videos.  They’re fun.

This one, in particular, was rather cool.  “Mr. Lunduke” got to host a panel with the Fedora Project Lead (Matthew Miller), an Ubuntu Community Manager (Michael Hall) and the openSUSE Board Chairman (Richard Brown).  All there to talk about how the big distros currently work together and how they could work together better in the future.

Leaders from the three big Linux distros all together… in one spot (albeit virtually)… for the first time in history.

Seriously.  After the stop button was hit on the recording, it was revealed that these three, fairly high profile, leaders of the Linux world… had never actually met before.

Now they have.  Thanks to a puppet with a YouTube channel.

If you dig these videos… head to my Patreon page and become a patron — which lets me to do more.  My patrons get every new video first.  Naturally.

Mr. Lunduke – Mycroft, the Open Source artificial intelligence

The “Mr. Lunduke Show” has officially made it’s officially official debut!

In this first episode, Mr. Lunduke interviews the founder and CTO of the Mycroft project — an Open Source (and built on Open Hardware), voice controlled Artificial Intelligence device.

Think of it like the Amazon Echo.  Only Open Source and not tied to any one service.

Joining my panel for this episode:

Matt Hartley – Tech Journalist for Datamation and FreedomPenguin.com.

Jack Wallen – Tech Journalist for Tech Republic and Linux.com and author of many-a-zombie-book.

All future videos will be released to my Patreon page first — with the rest of the world needing to wait.

Because my patrons are awesome.  And smell nice.