A daft idea about using a printerserver to import video . . .

[Richmond Mathewson]

Stephen Barncard wrote:

"Richmond, is your time so non-valuable you need to
put yourself 
though this? These days when $250 will buy you a
networkable color 
printer that you plug and play?"

There are 4 interesting points about his remark:

1. I have a very nice Epson Stylus Photo R200 that
does everything we all want it to in my family via a
crappy Edimax printer server (c.f. earlier postings
under this heading).

2. I earn about $400 a month: i.e. about 4 times the
Bulgarian average (!!!!), or about the same as a
skilled surgeon. I have "expensive tastes" - i.e.
piano lessons for the kids, internet connexions, and
so forth - save nothing.

3. This posting had NOTHING at all to do with my real,
or imagined printing problems (there was a few side
remarks about how I might use an ancient Mac Laser
Printer - not because I didn't have another printer (I
have 2 here in Bulgaria) - but because I don't like
seeing machines lying idle and going to waste - and
because I'd rather driop my beverage of choice all
over a laser-printed sheet of paper than one from an
inkjet) - it started with an idea about how to stream
video into a RunRev stack without having to use
videoGrabber and QT/Windows Media. Inevitably (with
types like myself on board) it went badly off topic
into various nutty and not-so-nutty discussions about
how to utilise old stuff that at present resides in my
attic in Scotland and badly needs liberating.

4. Some of us ARE daft insofar as we don't see money
as the b-all-and-end-all, and I spend hours and hours
of my time working for free in a country that as a
charming diplomat once told me "is totally f****d" in
terms of infrastructure, morals and educational
chances for all but the richest kids - why? well, not
because I am daft, but because I passionately believe
that it is rather nice to give kids a chance of a
level playing field - what they do with it, is, by and
large, another story all together.

That is why I am going back to Scotland in the summer
to dig out all my old Macs from the attic and drive
them back here in a tatty old Citreon - so that
instead of gathering dust, they can be put to good use
helping kids with brains (and, frankly, parents with
rather smaller brains) get a leg up in life. The small
amount of "spare" money I have will pay for that trip
rather than any fancy printers and so on.

I'm sorry Stephen if that all sounds pompous and
self-righteous - its certainly not meant to - but
sometimes I have a feeling that not all people realise
that time isn't always money - sometimes it can be
other things.

sincerely, Richmond Mathewson

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A Thorn in the flesh is better than a failed Systems Development Life Cycle.
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