About the blog

Attribution license of cambodia4kidsorg at http://www.flickr.com/photos/cambodia4kidsorgDutchtechies hopes to be a blog where both the computer literate and illiterate will find what they need and come away feeling informed, engaged or otherwise empowered. We realize that that is a fairly amibtious and broad mandate, but we hope to achieve our goal by writing clear, (where possible) concise postings and using tags to warn the computer illiterate that a given article will be just too boring for them to waste their time with. Look for the "na" tag, for "nerd audience" in postings where we think an article really will be of interest to those geekified beyond any hope of salvation.

As for coverage, what is Dutchtechies' scope going to be? Again, we love to keep things nice and vague. How about anything and everything that has even the faintest little connection to ANYTHING with an electronic pulse or waveform? That is to say: Coverage of new developments, gadgets, websites, tips, tricks, fixes, but also rants and discussion of social and political developments that have an impact on society and the technophile world.

We welcome your input. Any suggestions for coverage or things you'd like us to mention? Please feel free to shout out to dutchtechies@ and then the name of our domain. If you can't construct an e-mail address based on those clues, perhaps you should go and have a nice lie down instead.

We can make a few promises here, now, right from the get go:

• We'll be straight with you, always. We are not affiliated with any of the products we discuss. This blog is a hobby, we all have day jobs (well, other things to do during the day, at least) and the only source of - possible - revenue that we will ever get from this site are the advertisements and <sarcasm>charitable donations from our readers</sarcasm>.
• We won't edit out things we have already posted, barring typo's, grammatical changes and other such cosmetic things. If we make a mistake (which we hope not to do too often), we will use strikethrough and take our punishment like a man (or woman, that all depends on the writer).
• We'll try and provide, where possible, a "Dutch" perspective on things.
• We believe Leo Laporte should be president of the World.

We realize you may like to know more about us, the writers. Specially for you, then, read on for more .......

Captain rtfb in uniform, ca. 1961. Image attribution: Marco Gomes, www.flickr.com

Captain rtfb

The captain is the world's first (and only?) real techno-warrior. The captain was using Ruby on Rails even before the invention of the steam engine.

A true visionary, the captain was a key player during the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. This is the first ever occurence of a large scale denial of service attack. In march 1961, massive amounts of punchcards were dropped over large parts of Cuba, predominantly Havana. These punchcards contained a UNIVAC 90 formatted program that would repeatedly output "Hola Mundo" to any connected teletypes. The hope was that curious Cuban Computer scientists would pick up and feed the punchcards into Cuban mainframes on a large scale, thereby paralyzing the country's technical infrastructure.

The plan was simple, daring and brilliant and the only reason it did not go down in the history books as a resounding success was that it rained during the drops, causing the punchcards to get slushy and stick to the ground. Special Forces choppers dropping punchcards over downtown Havana. Image courtesy of Department of Defense, Sgt. Robert W. Ingianni

One taxi *did* lose traction while driving over some of the slushy punchcards while transporting two high ranking Cuban officers and *almost* lost control.

Wherever there is html that needs reviewing, there the captain will be. Have command line, will travel.

Shizzle as a young entity, a long time ago..... Image attribution: www.flickr.com, "Pipe "Shizzle

Is not human. There. Glad we got that out of the way. Shizzle is more like an essence. A force. An ethereal wind, wafting through the multiverse. Wherever fledgling technology is present, there Shizzle will be. Shizzle has more knowledge of technology in one of it's eyebrow hairs than most mortals will ever know. Shizzle likes everything related to technology, everything NEW, that is. Once things get mainstream, Shizzle tends to move on, feeling bored with the whole affair. Shizzle is currently thinking of giving up it's Twitter account. Demi Moore joining was the final straw.

Warning on Tux's front door. Image attribution: www.flickr.com, stopmangohomeTux

Never knew his parents. Was cast out at the age of one when he(she, it?) built a tent using the adult magazines he(she, it?) found underneath a trapdoor in his(her, it?) father's cupboard. Rather than face the truth, his(her, it?) parents decided it would be more economical to cast him(her, it?) out instead.

While spending his(her, it?) first night in a cardboard box, Tux was befriended by an equally abandoned Simon(tm) game. Tux became the game's apprentice, and before the age of 16 was able to flawlessly store and reuse all manner of useless trivia, which was remembered on sight and NEVER forgotten.Tux's mentor, Simon. Image attribution: www.flickr.com, telethon

He(she, it?) still roams the New York city underground to this day.
Need advice on which 2xl title is best? Need to know how to get to the "hidden levels" on the Atari 2600 "Maze Craze" title? Tux knows these things so YOU don't have to.

ViM in his evening clothes, preparing for a fight. Image attribution: www.flickr.com, jeremyplemon

ViM

Is a direct descendent of the great Nacho Libre, he is a real luchador in his spare time. As a orphan himself he spend most of his time collecting old newspapers to find encoded messages in the sports section.

As his name says, ViM is a proud follower of the vim-editor sect, who believe that in 2020 the world will be controlled from a bash shell.

But who is ViM really? They say he can type as quick as water flows through a toilet, others say that when he takes a leak new code is created, other say that's just total b*llsh*t. I think we will know in 2020.

Disclaimer:

We hope you realize the above profiles are not, in the least, serious. We hope that if you DO take them seriously, you consider lying down for a bit.