Season's Givings? 238
DevanJedi asks: "Many people around the world plan their charitable giving around this time of the year, for religious, tax or other similarly benevolent reasons. As a geek who spends an inordinate amount of time around his computer, I have compiled a list of entities that have made my geek life easier, in the past year. Which other projects does Slashdot believe to be worthy of praise, money, recognition, developer time or general applause?"
I gave all my money to Slashdot (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I gave all my money to Slashdot (Score:2, Informative)
here's an idea . . . (Score:3, Funny)
Just deposit to account 1241234234 . . .
Re:here's an idea . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
How about the OpenBSD Project? I know, some folks have issues with Theo deRaadt himself -- and I must admit to some mutterings, myself.
But in the realm of technical computing, they've raised the bar higher for everybody. Kudos to them.
http://www.openbsd.org/donations.html [openbsd.org]
Re:here's an idea . . . (Score:4, Funny)
That's the kind of combination an idiot has on his bank account!
I'd love to read this list but (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I'd love to read this list but (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I'd love to read this list but (Score:2)
Food banks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Food banks (Score:2)
Re:Food banks (Score:5, Insightful)
In addition to the reasons for cash you mentioned above, food banks are often needting to by perishables , such as milk, eggs, bread, meat, cheese and so on, in addition to whatever it's short of at any given time. Money is often invaluable to a food bank.
My annual donation to the food bank is always in cash.
Re:Food banks (Score:2)
Re:Food banks (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Food banks (Score:2)
That's the truth. My Dad and I were actually having this conversation over Thanksgiving. Typically, my folks will buy at least two or three turkeys during the sales they have around Thanksgiving, when the price of turkey is ridiculously low. At that time of year, I think even the poorest family could buy a turkey and a bag of potatoes, and easily eat for a week.
Re:Food banks (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Food banks (Score:4, Interesting)
Where I live, there are 2 food banks: one is staffed by volunteers, with a part-time (4hx5d/wk) co-ordinator. They will accept food happily, but have volume discounts with local retailers and wholesalers for cash donations. The cash helps tho, because they still have rent to pay, and lights to keep on.
Then, there's a food "bank", where the execuitve director and manager are husband and wife, and between them get $120,000/yr salary. If you try to donate food to them, they freak out, but if there's a nickle of charity money to be had, they will literally knock you down to get it (they knocked a fireman over one time who was involved in a fundraising effort for the other food-bank, because he wouldn't give up 1/2 the money).
Choose your favorite.
Re:Food banks (Score:2)
Both of your experiences are anecdotes. (Score:2)
Please use logical thinking. The world is not ideal, it is worth listening to people with bad experiences in order to remain vigilant.
Re:Food banks (Score:2)
I give to the MercyWORKS ministry [vineyardeastgate.org] at my church because--being entirely volunteer staffed with ZERO overhead--ALL of the money goes directly to feeding, clothing, providing counseling and rent/utility bills assistance.
Re:Food banks (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, if you work for a food producer of
Re:Food banks (Score:2)
Charitable giving (Score:5, Informative)
I sometimes also give money to middle-class white geeks running software projects that benefit other middle-class white geeks because I want those projects to continue to exist. (I am, after all, a middle-class white geek.) But I don't delude myself into thinking that this is "charity" because when I give money to these projects, I benefit in that the project that produces something that I use is going to be able to advance faster.
For example, giving money to the gnome people isn't "charity" unless you do not use gnome yourself.
Re:Charitable giving (Score:5, Interesting)
Its great to give money around Christmas to the poor and infirm, but if you don't have the extra cash (like me), another option is volunteering (and not just around the holidays).
I spend 4-8 hours a week helping students with math and science at the "poor" high school in my city. I also play guitar in a band that goes to the local hospitals a few times a month.
Giving money is good but its not your only option.
Re:Charitable giving (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Charitable giving (Score:2, Insightful)
While giving money certainly isn't the only option or the best option necessarily, that doesn't make it the worst option. Many charities require a combination of material donations, such as money, as well as donations of time through volunteering to be sucessful. Consider something like a soup kitchen. Its true that if it only gets material donations, it won't be
Re:Charitable giving (Score:2)
Good old fasioned volunteering (Score:2)
Re:Charitable giving (Score:2)
Re:Charitable giving (Score:2)
When you give to homeless shelters, you don't have to step over bums on the street. When you give to Katrina funds, you help rebuild a community so it doesn't use social services in your area. When you give to the ACLU or the EFF, you benefit from the maintaining of freedom for everyone.
We're all c
Re:Charitable giving (Score:2)
So why don't I just keep the money myself and help myself directly?
Saying that giving to help a child in Africa and eventually, by some magical means, that will benefit me supports the same argument that if I keep my money and spend it on me will help that same child in Africa some way.
Re:Charitable giving (Score:2)
There's the obvious foodbanks that are always in operation plus "Toys for Tots" and all the variations. Giving in kind is generally safer than giving cash as you know that what you give actually gets there.
I personally give to Doctors without Borders, the local AIDS foundation and a few others.
Be unselfish (Score:5, Insightful)
I, for one, am giving to the Salvation Army. During the hurricanes, they did an enormous amount of thankless work. They did not receive the publicity of the Red Cross, but as is typical, they are the first to arrive and the last to leave. They work endless hours, seemingly tirelessly, and never lose their smiles. They shun self-promotion. These are truly wonderful people.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Be unselfish (Score:2)
It was only the recent publicity about the new "Red Crystal" logo that clued me in. Drives me nuts that people said the cross logo was no big deal and "had no religious connotation". Bullshit! It's a fairly recognizable religious symbol!
Re:Be unselfish (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't hate religion. There isn't anything terribly wrong with believing in a power beyond one's self and brotherhood with your fellow man. Hate the corruption and human fallibility that has wound tight over the millenia with the threads of innocent belief.
Re:Be unselfish (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Be unselfish (Score:2)
I don't see any athiest organizations on the scale of the salvation army that exist, if so, please correct me.
That's because atheism/agnosticism isn't a religious movement per se, it's a personal reaction against the perceived irrationality of religious movements. Most atheists and agnostics are not trying to push a certain set of beliefs onto people, but rather to prevent others from doing that; the idea is that people should be able to decide for themselves what to believe and what not to believe, an
Your dogma's running over your karma. (Score:2)
Re:Be unselfish (Score:3, Informative)
We also donate to can drives, Toys for Tots (local charity), and the Humane Society. Food and clothing drives are the most important charities this time of year, since 100% of what you donate goes to people that really need those things. Donating to the Humane Society
Re:Be unselfish (Score:3, Informative)
By the way, the cynics might want to know that in all of our dealings with the Salvation Army this summer, I did not see them proseletyzing even a single time. Helping the people in distress seemed to be the only mission at hand. Here is a nice humorous article from a few weeks ago about another group, which I think actually gets the spirit of the relief effort fairly accurately [google.com].
Re:Be unselfish (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Be unselfish (Score:2)
For those people, I still don't think most would take issue with schoolkids volunteering for the Salvation Army. I've volunteered once for them, and not once was anything religious mentioned to me. It's kind of like the YMCA... it's a Christian organization, but they're not t
Re:Be unselfish (Score:2)
Thank You for saying this, I would have been a lot less tactfull. The Salvation Army is a great organization. It helps those that no one else will. Does it have Christian trappings? Yup, but who else would fill thier shoes? IMHO they are Christianity at its best. I have trained my children to always put money in the kettle, even if it the last penny in thier pocket. They, of course don't get it yet, but I hope that they never need the SA either.
Sera
Re:Be unselfish (Score:2)
Re:Be unselfish (Score:2)
I'm not about to perputrate the falsehood that religious pe
Is the Salvation Army Bashing Gays? (Score:3, Informative)
Also, the Salvation Army has been lobbying to include a special provision that would allow them to discriminate against hiring homosexuals and still receive federal funding.
Re:Be unselfish (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm frightened of those who are ashamed to admit that they enjoy helping others or feel that somehow enjoying benevolent acts degrades those acts into not being 'true altruism.'
By that definition, only someone with mental or emotional issues could commit acts o
Re:Be unselfish (Score:2)
Re:Be unselfish (Score:2)
So I called the SA. He said "well, I couldn't get anyone out there to pick it up till tomorro
Oops (Score:2)
As a purely 'geek' thing, I might ask if the MIT $100 computer project needs any help. It would be a shame if the project needed to buy all of its technology, when there are so many good minds out there.
Re:Oops (Score:2)
As an alternate, I also suggest Doctors Without Borders, or in 'Internationale', Medicins Sans Frontiers [msf.org]. A lot of doctors and nurses from here (Houston) are members of this wonderful organization.
Glad to see... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Glad to see... (Score:4, Informative)
Uncle Sam needs to figure out how to do more with less. After all, he keeps counting on me to do the same.....
-sid
Re:Glad to see... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, but the point is that the motivation behind your donation isn't all that benevolent if you're doing it just for the tax break.
Uncle Sam needs to figure out how to do more with less.
Good news! Uncle Sam is doing more and more, and has less in the bank than ever before!
Re:Glad to see... (Score:2)
I have no problem accepting a tax deduction for giving. Nobody should have a problem with it. Take it if you want... lea
Re:Glad to see... (Score:2)
EFF (Score:5, Informative)
Documentation projects (Score:3, Interesting)
An area, often forgotten, that has a huge impact on whether open source products are easily useable is documentation. In this respect, kudos to the OOo documentation project [openoffice.org] who have done a great job this year.
Useful to a smaller group, but very useful to me this year, has been the excellent Linux Terminal Server Project Wiki [ltsp.org].
The usefulness of the above resources is in sad contrast to the documentation available for most open source application software. I am very keen to make more use of some of these products, but a lack of good documentation is pretty much a show stopper.
Quanta (Score:2)
http://dot.kde.org/1134848565/ [kde.org]
Here's the article (Score:5, Informative)
Many people around the world plan their charitable giving around this time of the year, for religious, tax or other similarly benevolent reasons. As a geek who spends an inordinate amount of time with around his computer, these are the entities that have made my life easier in the past year and deserve all the recognition, money and general fulfillment of all Amazon Wish List desires:
* Firefox : This has undoubtedly been the year of Firefox. If you aren't using it yet... what are you waiting for? With plugins, extensions, tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking and the fact that it's free and open for all make it the IE-killer that we've all been waiting for.
Get FireFox | Get Involved | Donate
* Wikipedia If this year was the year of Firefox, then Wikipedia was a close second. This is the largest single resource of information ever created by men. They are having their quarterly fund drive; please give generously. Become a contributor; and editor. Many people believe they don't know enough or need to be an expert in order to contribute meaningfully. You don't have to be. I'm no expert and I've written about my home town, my college, my favorite sports team, and other random stuff I find errors or omissions in. Give it a try and enjoy.
* OpenOffice.org : By providing a viable, free and open option to the over-priced monopoly of MS Office, OO.o has shown us a world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible.
Contribute
* Fedora : The low-hassle Linux distribution that I've been using for a year or so; a worthy successor to the Red Hat name; easy to get up and running in addition to or in place of that MS OS of yesterday. Contribute
* Gnucash : This year, there was life before Gnucash and then there was life after Gnucash. And life after has been undoubtedly better. This is a smash free and open source personal (and small business) financial accounting tool that blows everything else out of the water- mainly because it's free and extensible to do what you want it to. Gnucash, you've changed my life for the better. I may not save more money than I used to, but at least I know what I'm not saving money on.
Contribute
* Emacs : Emacs, you complete me. 'nuff said.
Contribute
* Adium : There was a time when I would have multiple messenger applications running at the same time. Then came Gaim. There was a time when Gaim was ugly; then came Adium, a tremendous messenger client for the Mac OS that looks great, is extensible (has great plugins) and is free/open.
Donate (donate link at bottom of page)
* NetNewsWire : This piece of software is one of the great RSS readers of the world (for the Mac). In the new year, I will be buying the full version. Easy to use, great to look at and powerful under the hood; this is the app that made turned me into an RSS junky.
* Fink : Fink allows Mac OS to be more Unixey than it already is. With easy to install ports of all major UNIX/Linux packages through the command-line or GUI interface, Mac OS X without Fink is like Windows without Ctrl-Alt-Delete.
* Brattle : The Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, Mass. is in trouble. If they can't put together enough funding to pay past debts and future leases, they will be closed by February 2006. This is unacceptable- the Brattle is one of few truly independent movie theatres in the country. Without Brattle I would have never seen Casablanca on the big screen and would not have the opportunity to see the 1930s Kin
Vim/Ugandan Orphans (Score:2, Informative)
Bram Moolenaar isn't looking for donations to himself or the project, but would prefer vim users donate to iccf, an organization that helps kids in Kibaale, Uganda. Here's a link to a copy of the readme file [initd.org].
Re:Vim/Ugandan Orphans (Score:2)
No mod points, but I'll second that...
Re:Vim/Ugandan Orphans (Score:3, Interesting)
-h-
Re:Here's the article (Score:2)
* Firefox : This has undoubtedly been the year of Firefox. If you aren't using it yet... what are you waiting for?
I'll probably get banned from Slashdot for saying this but I'm not going to wait. It will be years before Firefox catches up to Opera, if ever.
Re:Here's the article (Score:2)
Re:Here's the article (Score:2)
What about the Human Fund? (Score:2, Funny)
Penny-Arcade - Child's Play Charity (Score:4, Informative)
My son's soccer coach (Score:4, Interesting)
Sorry, he deserves it [vancourier.com] .
Details here [hopeforthenations.com].
Instead of stuff, give time! (Score:4, Insightful)
Ubuntu (Score:2, Insightful)
And don't get me wrong, they'll take your money with smiles on their faces and love in their hearts, but what they'd really love for Christmas is a little of your time and talent.
Re:Ubuntu (Score:2, Informative)
Furthermore, the money that Shuttleworth has put into Ubuntu, AFAIK, consisted of $10 million in startup capital. (Yeah, it's a Wikipedia number, I don't know about the accuracy, but there it is.) A significant chunk of money to be sure, but if the number is to be trusted, he's not exactly pouring his financial resources into Ubuntu.
Further-furthermore, the man's not making a dime off it. Which is,
Self-Sufficiency (Score:4, Interesting)
If it helps build their credibility, Heifer has been a Motley Fool choise philanthopy for at least two years now.
Re:Self-Sufficiency (Score:2)
The church I attended down in Virginia gave a ``Noah's Ark'' each year --- the letters, cards and pictures the priest would get from recipients were really charming.
Each recipient is also expected to donate in kind to others a certain number of their animal's off-spring. As a proof of the long-lasting nature of such giving, over half of the chickens in South Korea are descended from chicks and eggs donated by Heifer Intl. directly after the Korean War.
William
Another Idea (Score:5, Interesting)
These are the faceless people who keep our society running. We all depend on them.
No, you cannot deduct these donations from your taxes, but fuck it. Do it anyway.
Better yet...! (Score:3, Funny)
Throw one at everyone that pissed you off this year!!
ARHGH!
Re:Better yet...! (Score:2)
Re:Another Idea (Score:2)
Maybe ten $10 bills would be a more practical idea for those of us who aren't rich.
faces... (Score:4, Insightful)
The guy who makes sure the traffic lights on the way to work don't go green both ways and gets you killed gets nothing?
I don't mean to sound like Mr. Pink here, but this is a great example of how baffling the rules for who gets a gratuity are.
Perhaps you could ask yourself, if I'm only giving it to people I see and not the most deserving regardless, who am I really doing it for?
Child Haven (Score:2)
Later in the year I usually make a small contribution to one geeky project (last year it was mozdev), and to my progressive political party of choice.
I have my own list of F/OSS projects (Score:2)
http://arc.nucapt.northwestern.edu/F/OSS [northwestern.edu]
Fire! (Score:3, Informative)
Chistmas Lights Webcam for Celiac Disease (Score:2)
And oh yeah, I've got five 100 Mbps servers (1/2 Gig of bandwidth!) this year, so my site hasn't melted down like the one linked to in this article has ... ;-)
Geeks can help Seniors (Score:3, Informative)
Give the right amount to the right places (Score:2, Insightful)
Think about how many Africans will die (malnourishment, diseases) because you use your "charity" budget on stuff that makes your life better.
Think about exactly why you would be outraged if millions of people died of hunger or cold (think Pakistan) in your country, yet this is not such a big deal if it happens far enough away.
Think about how much suffering could be prevented if you gave 10% of your income, how little suffering that would cause you, and why you (like most people) consider it okay to give
Re:Give the right amount to the right places (Score:2)
Yeah, I'm not sure what's up with all the comments here condemning you because you discussed ways to give back to the open source community instead of starving orphans or whatever. I mean, all those things are good, but there's also merit in giving to people who do good work and
Habitat for Humanity (Score:3, Informative)
It's also great for those who want to help but don't have the extra cash. It helps me meet some great people who I would normally never meet and I've met a few "nerds" (professors, engineers, etc). The only caveat is that Habitat is a Christian organization but they're pretty light on that and never presses anyone on religion. I'm a devout atheist and have enjoyed working with other volunteers who are often church affliated.
It's a little late to do it now for the holiday season since a house takes some time to complete but try it for the next holiday season. One can imagine the emotion when the key is handed over to the new owners during the holiday season.
Medecins sans frontieres (Score:2, Informative)
Not a geek thing, but.... (Score:2)
Our web site has more info. [thepeckfamily.us]
Project Gutenberg (Score:2, Insightful)
Hrmm (Score:2)
They forgot... (Score:2)
Wikipedia is a good choice, especially given the founder having just been murdered by the wife of that stupid Op-Ed columnist. I find it ironic the way this turned violent given how outraged he was at being associated with the Kennedy assassination.
Give to Free Geek (Score:2)
NeoOffice for Macintosh (Score:2)
This means that it uses Mac OS X's fonts and font rendering, which is a huge improvement over X11. It has Mac OS X menus, and will get Mac OS X dialog boxes "real soon now".
It's excellent, and it's been developed by two, count them two, programmers for the last couple of years.
http://neooffice.org/ [neooffice.org]
They are separate from OpenOffice.org and they've done what nobody at OpenOffice.org was willing to do.
I use NeoOffice ever
Getting beyond paternalism (Score:2)
It seems to have been Africa's fate to become a theater of empty talk
Re:Planned Parenthood (Score:2)