First free software, now free love, thanks to a free personal ad. Richard Stallman, the cantankerous founder of the Free Software Foundation, is looking for a “sweetie,” according to an ad placed on Craigslist. He’s interested in a woman who “values joy, truth, beauty and justice more than ’success,’” so I guess that rules out geek-seeking missile Julia Allison. If you’re interested in hearing every single day of the rest of your life why it’s “GNU/Linux,” not “Linux,” read on for Stallman’s ad.

I’m a single atheist white man, 54, reputedly intelligent, with unusual interests in politics, science, music and dance.

I’d like to meet a woman with varied interests, curious about the world, comfortable expressing her likes and dislikes (I hate struggling to guess), delighting in her ability to fascinate a man and in being loved tenderly, who values joy, truth, beauty and justice more than “success”–so we can share bouts of intense, passionately kind awareness of each other, alternating with tolerant warmth while we’re absorbed in other aspects of life.

My 23-year-old child, the Free Software Movement, occupies most of my life, leaving no room for more children, but I still have room to love a sweetheart if she doesn’t need to spend time with me every day. I spend a lot of my time traveling to give speeches, often to Europe, Asia and Latin America; it would be nice if you were free to travel with me some of the time.

Reply and we’ll see where it leads.

Source:Valleywag

If you aren’t already at OpenEco EnergyCamp, telling everyone how your hippie tech will save the world, head over to the SF Sketchfest Opening Night over at Mezzanine at 8. Kurt Braunohler and Kristen Schaal from Flight of the Conchords are hosting.

Got something to add to the calendar? Send it to calendar@valleywag.com.

Source:Valleywag

Mary Lou Jespen, founding CTO of the One Laptop Per Child project, recently walked off her job at Nicholas Negroponte’s charity case. And now she wants to build a $75 version of the laptop that OLPC has struggled to build for $200. But Jespen may be crazy like a fox. She’s actually building a business — the insanity! — called Pixel Qi to further her goals.

Pixel Qi will produce the cheap, low-energy, sunlight-readable display used in Negroponte’s charity computer for use in laptops, portable devices, and mobile phones. The startup will also use its design expertise to create other low-power computer components. Jespen is the chief inventor of the screens, the most unique component used in Negroponte’s OLPC. With the industry increasing focus on low-cost, energy-efficient components, Jespen may have the making of a successful business. However, the entrepreneur and engineer hasn’t completely woken from the philanthropic dreams of OLPC. Pixel Qi will continue to provide Negroponte’s nonprofit with screens at cost while pursuing its own goal of producing an even cheaper, for-profit laptop. At the same time, it may well make OLPC irrelevant. Greed is good — even when it comes to helping third-world children.

“Why would I throw away the six million dollars they were supposed to give us yesterday? Why would I do all of these things unless I was stark raving mad?” — MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte, trying to defend the One Laptop Per Child charity’s contentious and short-lived partnership with chip manufacturer Intel. Thanks for clearing that up, Nicky. [BBC]

Lazy, scummy, and smart. That’s just the way we like them. YouTube-wannabe Veoh has jumped into Hulu’s hoop by adding streaming video from all the Fox and NBC properties we know and love. Only, unlike Hulu, a joint venture between NBC and News Corp., or any of its distribution partners, Veoh hasn’t actually worked out any licensing deals. Rather, it’s following the smarter tactic pioneered by OpenHulu of embedding Hulu videos into its own site.

Sure, some may label it as stealing candy from helpless billion-dollar corporations, but Veoh’s evil genius outweighs its spendthrift sloth. By using Hulu’s embed code, Veoh avoids pesky licensing fees, bandwidth costs, and negotiations. Instead, it gets to create a programming destination for a TV-starved audience. And NBC and News Corp. may well get the last laugh. While Veoh sells bottom-of-the-barrel banner ads around the embedded video, Hulu sells pricey preroll ads right in the video itself.

Source:Valleywag
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Today’s most discussed stories are

What it feels like for a girl (16 comments), Why Robert Scoble got banned from Facebook (9) and Google to display live Iowa caucus results on Google Maps (6).

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From the Wall Street Journal: “Intel says it no longer will support One Laptop Per Child, and has resigned from the board over the nonprofit’s demand that it stop selling its Classmate laptop and other laptops in the developing world. Intel says it has canceled plans for an Intel-based OLPC laptop.”

Google and the OLPC project have teamed up to show stories of children who received the little green laptops. Since these stories come from the developing world, they’ve turned out a bit different than Gawker or your cousin’s LiveJournal. Our first blog entry comes from Darfur.

Darfur
Day has been lame. Stood in line for nine hours to get water for the family. When I got home, played this vocab game and won 30 grains of rice. Not sure how they’ll send the rice to me. Bummer because I could have used some dinner. GTG, baby brother’s crying again. Probably just his dysentery. God I do NOT want to change that diaper.

Nmwel, Vanuatu
We are so glad to have this computer! The entire village has spent hours laughing at the many videos on YouTube (Grandma Kalkot says hello to Dr. Diet Coke and Dr. Mentos the firework makers!).
The only problem is that due to our lust for the computer, we have abandoned our farms, our hunting, and all other useful work. Yesterday I caught one of the men with the laptop, hitting himself between the legs while watching a movie of a man and woman wrestling. I fear our tiny island community will be wiped out as we sit gaping at the green machine.

Nigeria
DEAR MOST EXCELLENT READERS, I HOPE YOU ARE NOT SURPRISED FOR WHAT I AM TELLING YOU. I HAVE ULTIMATE FAITH IN YOUR COMMENTING AS GENEROUS AND TRUSTWORTHY. MY FATHER, A COLONEL IN THE DIGG ARMY, DEPOSITED 5,000,000 PAGEVIEWS IN A BLOG POST, BUT HE WAS UNFORTUNATELY BANNED BEFORE HE COULD RETRIEVE THE FUNDS. KNOWING YOU READERS TO BE TRANSPARENT IN BUSINESS, I ASK YOU TO LEND ONE DIGG BY GIVING ME YOUR ACCOUNT INFORMATION, FOR A DEPOSIT THAT WILL HELP US FREE THE PAGEVIEWS. SINCERELY, BANGURA BANGURA.

Iraq
Got time between public hangings, so I have a moment to tell you about this great Facebook group I found, “In Honor of Mall Victims.” It’s in memorial to the nine victims of the senseless shooting in Omaha, America. There is good news on the group, such as that the mall has bravely opened less than two days after the tragedy, to defend people’s rights to get 20% additional off a red tag sale price. I was so touched by the love of the Facebook users, many of whom bought teddy bear icons for the families of the victims, that I tried to invite my friends to the group. Unfortunately they were all killed by a suicide bomber last week.

Kansas City
Dear OLPC, I need to confess. Jealous that kids in developing nations were getting cooler computers than my mom’s iMac (it’s the cherry-colored one), I posed as an orphan from Madagascar to get a laptop. Now I’d like to return it, after I’ve read about the plights of the many children who need this opportunity to expand their world. Plus World of Warcraft lags like a bitch and my guild is pissed.

ASUS Taiwan recently confirmed plans to deliver its eagerly awaited Eee PCs to the U.S. in November, and even though the company is targeting the devices squarely at the education market, they may end up challenging the pricing model for all portable computers.

When rumors began swirling in the blogosphere a few months […]

NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker again denied rumors of a possible sale of the company by parent General Electric. Zucker noted that GE chief Jeff Immelt “has said numerous times that NBCU is not for sale.” Sort of like NBC’s new fall season on iTunes. [Reuters]

Source:Valleywag

“That is not a drug. It’s a leaf. My real drug was pumping iron, trust me.” — California Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger to GQ magazine, regarding a scene in a 1977 documentary in which Arnie puffs on a lit joint of BSD-sysadmin-grade bud.

Source:Valleywag

Nicholas Negroponte, the MIT Media Lab director turned philanthropist turned businessman, has learned when not to be pedantic. For example, take his shifting stance on open source. He once believed that One Laptop Per Child, would have to run open-source software on its cheap machines for third-world schoolchildren. The charity once declined free copies of Mac OS X, because it was proprietary to Apple, and considered it a mark of honor that Microsoft was annoyed at being excluded from the laptop project. Now, according to Negroponte, “It would be hard for OLPC to say it was ‘open’ and then be closed to Microsoft. Open means open.” Except, of course, when it doesn’t.

“Microsoft has always been working on Windows for the XO,” OLPC’s specially-designed laptop, Negroponte added. We don’t begrudge the good professor for abandoning his open-source doctrine and revising history — his charity has learned to run itself more like a business in order to survive. Microsoft just happens to have more money at its disposal than most of the nations Negroponte has failed to sell his diminutive computer to.

It may well be the second-worst job in the Valley after screening YouTube videos for copyrighted content. But we suspect that one of you twisted sorts reading this might actually enjoy this gig. Valleywag is looking for a video producer. Part of the job is sitting on your couch watching TV clips; part of it is getting out and about, digital camera in hand. If you’re interested, apply on Valleywag Jobs.

Source:Valleywag

Radiohead’s experiment in distributing In Rainbows, allowing consumers to download the album for free, highlights a growing problem in the music business: Kids these days, thanks to BitTorrent, don’t think they should pay for music. As more independent acts follow Radiohead’s lead, opting to make their cash touring, the record industry will struggle to find a new business model. Surprisingly, suing its customers actually seems to be working out . [Telegraph]

Source:Valleywag

MIT Media Lab director Nicholas Negroponte has insisted that his One Laptop Per Child program is a charity that will only sell its wares to governments of developing nations. So who convinced him it was okay to sell the device to consumers in North America and Europe at twice the price? Why, Negroponte pal Jeff Bezos, who knows a little bit about selling and marketing. Not only did the Amazon.com founder convince the philanthropist to turn his charity into a business, he convinced him that the best way to market the cute laptops was to turn them into a status symbol for the wealthy elite — a symbol on the order of Lance Armstrong’s iconic yellow Livestrong bracelets, which is where Bezos really got the idea.

What we are going to do is the following, and Jeff Bezos, bless his heart, he’s got wonderful creativity for these sorts of jingles. He said you know Nick there’s this expression, “Buy one and get two.” Yeah, they see that. He said you’ve got to… have a jingle that says, “Buy two and get one.” Bingo: 100 percent margin. So, we will release it in the United States and Europe on a buy two and get one basis where you pay whatever it is $300 for it, and what you’re doing is you’re buying one or more for a kid in Africa and when you walk around with this it will [be] like a yellow bracelet, it will be an expression, it will actually say that. [Sic.]

While this plan may actually finance the production of some devices for children in Africa, it also concedes that the One Laptop project cannot survive as a pure charity. And that the vaunted laptop its engineers have worked so hard to design will not, at first, serve to educate children. Instead, it will salve the fragile egos of wealthy geeks. That, too, is a subject on which Bezos might advise Negroponte.

Where food, water and shelter are largely unmet needs, it is my belief that […]