Ubuntu & "Mainstream" Television...

[mark]

Just saw this on OSDir.com: Ubuntu & Veronica Mars? (http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/6863)
I don't watch much television (I've never seen this show) but it looks like we're gaining "traction", as they say...

[mike998]

That's funny!

[Brunellus]

This cracked me up.

Although what really does it say about ubuntu and Linux that it's the OS of choice for a would-be Unabomber?

[pjack76]

I watch Veronica Mars religiously, and that moment floored me. Earlier in the year I bought a Mac Mini because I needed to run some proprietary software that has no analogue in the Free software world (Adobe After Effects) and had installed Hoary the same night as the show. I couldn't stop laughing. I told my friends that they had written that moment as a direct shout-out to me, personally.

The only feature from Mac OS X I would like to see in Ubuntu is Expose. I also like the menubar at the top of the screen, but frankly I think this should be a user preference (which is why I'm downloading Kubuntu as we speak. I understand that KDE offers the choice).

Anyway, Veronica Mars is a fantastic show. It's probably too late to tune into this season (if you do, many incredible surprises will be ruined for you) but it's been renewed for a second season. If nothing else, watch it because they actually get technology right on the show for the most part.

Later in the same episode as Ubuntu, Veronica tries to prove someone's guilt by using her Powerbook to access someone's unencrypted WiFi network. She's trying to prove that someone's running a website with a countdown until the "bomb" explodes on a computer in that WiFi network.

However, as she is in the middle of talking to the OS X advocate on the phone (Veronica needs help to use the WiFi features of her Powerbook), she sees the Ubuntu advocate walking out of the house next door -- and then she realizes that the real villian is the Ubuntu advocate, who must have been using Ubuntu to access that same unencrypted WiFi network to frame an innocent person he doesn't like. She reaches this conclusion because the innocent party has no computer skills to speak of, so she was always confused as to how he could be running the website when he doesn't even know how to encrypt his WiFi network.