[conspire] Strange 'phone calls, redux

[Michael Paoli]

> From: "Rick Moen" <rick at linuxmafia.com>
> Subject: [conspire] Strange 'phone calls, redux
> Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2020 23:46:45 -0800

> I get a _strange_ phone call.
>
> Today was the day.  It was, once again a character known to many of us
> in the local Linux community, whom I'll call JR, calling from
> Berkeley/Albany.

Uhm, yeah ... _strange_ phone call, JR, Berkeley/Albany ... more than
enough for many of us to recognize of whom you speak.

> area, so he thought of me.  (I swear, I swear, I'm not making this up.
> I'm really not that good a writer.)

Truth is (oft) stranger than fiction.

> After these preliminaries, JR got around to his sudden afflatus, that
> the time is exactly right for in-person Linux meetings in the Bay Area,
> and he'd like me to work out the details -- though presumably he'd be
> available to, y'know, tell me what to do.

Oh my.  Of all the times to be pushing his Berkeley Global TIP - which
of course would be at least mostly, if not entirely, done with/via
telecommunications, and would probably not require any gatherings of
2 or more people physically together, uhm, yeah, now might be the
time to be pushing Berkeley Global TIP more - if he were gonna
presently be pushing further any more of his (half/totally?) baked ideas.
TIP - the P in that is for Potluck.  The very first Berkeley TIP
meeting - before there was the (hypothetical) "Global", what did
JR bring to this lavish potluck affair to share among all the attendees?
One unopened can of food.  I don't think he even brought a can opener.
And that's just the TIP of the iceberg of how poor and uncoordinated
that first meeting was ... and subsequent mostly wasn't better (and
first scared so many off - and rightfully so, subsequent was forever
doomed to smaller and generally diminishing size).  Okay, just to give
a partial taste of that first meeting.  JR had arranged for a location on
the UC Berkeley campus ... sort of.  There was a location to gather -
outside a particular building.  And a theoretically meeting location -
somewhere inside the building.  Except some details hadn't been
arranged ... like what room where in the building, and how to get
into the building.  About the first hour of the meeting was mostly
JR trying to figure out how to get into the building.  One attendee
had driven all the way down from Sacramento.  They gave up and left
before JR had managed to get into the building - quite sure
they never came to any JR event again.  TIP,
I for Installfest - that went about as well as the potluck (I don't
think anybody else brought anything - I think lack of details and/or
other clues, nobody was taking the Potluck too seriously).  I think
"Potluck" was JR's translation of JR gets a nice lunch in exchange for
some random can of food he doesn't want anyway.  <sigh>

> Along the way, he volunteered that he'd been arrested a few times for
> not wearing a face mask, recently.

Not only, but a *few* times.  Now that takes a certain kind'a special,
like short yellow bus or few bricks short of a load kind'a special.
I mean, JR ... Berkeley ... Berkeley cops, they're not exactly running
around arresting folks for not wearing masks, ... unless ... uhm, yeah,
JR would do and push that and, yep, that'd do it.

> Anyway, having cleared the air that my doubtless impressive figurative
> testicular capacity doesn't incline me towards extremely dumb and
> sociopathic, and possibly suicidal and/or homicidal, behaviour, I said I
> hoped JR would perhaps attend some of the local LUGs' virtual meetings.
>
> And that was approximately the end of that very strange call.

Ah, ... JR ... never a dull moment, ... though oft causes one to really
really really wish for and prefer a dull moment.

Did happen to spot JR earlier this year, and after shelter-in-place
... let's see, that was ... 2012-05-24, in Berkeley ... outside,
I was wearing a mask ... I don't think he was ... but he was on
bicycle ... but he wasn't bicycling around, but rather standing
around where a bunch 'o other folks were standing.  I didn't get
that close - I don't think he spotted me.

> IMO, it's helpful to remember, going forward, that a certainly
> significant percentage of the population have not dealt rationally with
> public health issues, probably never have and never will.  I'll leave an
> assessment of whether to associate with those people, and where the
> risks and rewards like -- as that subpopulation reveal themselves -- as
> a personal exercise.

Yeah, unfortunately there are those that "just don't get it" and/or
just don't care.  Either way, about as dangerous.  The percentage of
folks that can and do go for total untrue goop and conspiracy theories
and cesspools of lies - and believe all or most all of it ... it's
friggin' scary.  And individually and/or aggregate behaviors from them
and/or others, it's more than enough to keep pandemic in exponential
growth range - and headed yet more towards megadeaths, rather than
exponential decay, where this huge deadly mess would instead be much
smaller nuisance that would be much more manageable.