I'm trying to make Plan 9 easier and more fun for home hobby users to explore. Plan 9 is amazing and I think the possibilities created by the clean and consistent design are exciting. Advanced Namespace Tools try to make Plan 9 easy to jump into, and also have a more reliable architecture when used as a grid.
One way to describe my software is as a Grateful Dead inspired approach to home clustering. Maybe it's even "outsider software art" or some ridiculous term like that.
Anyway, it has no web/facebook/ecommerce anything aspect to it, so it may not match the prevailing concerns here, but I tried to make it easy to use by providing preinstalled virtual machines to play with. Use them on a private network because they have default passwords and listen for cpu service. The "ANTS farm" subsite (http://antfarm.9gridchan.org/tutorial) has the VM/tutorial style documentation and walkthroughs.
I'd be interested in any feedback.
I like your username. To those that have not read Heinlein's 1959 novel "Moon is a Harsh Mistress"(1), one of main characters is a computer ("High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluating Supervisor, Mark IV, Model L" - a HOLMES FOUR) that the narrating character has named Mycroft Holmes, or Mike for short. Mike is a supercomputer that has other computers added to it, until one day he woke up. It is my favorite novel.
Plan 9 software appears to be software that would enable a person to make a HOLMES FOUR on their own. Pretty cool.
1. http://www.amazon.com/The-Moon-Is-Harsh-Mistress/dp/03128635...
a /g/ mention on a hn linked blog.
end times.
While this is here and visible to the public, I would like to see if I can get someone connected to the EFF to tell John Perry Barlow that an old outsider hardcore Deadhead may have done something interesting in the world of computers. Also, I trolled IBM about a patent (see http://9fans.net/archive/2013/03/173) and there might be some matters of professional interest in terms of patent law. A very personal document that makes the connection between the psychedelic anarchism of the 60s and the software design of ANTS is found at http://9fans.net/archive/2013/03/206
Professional colleagues of the late University of Wisconsin Law Professor John Kidwell might also have a vague personal interest in knowing what his son has been up to in the world.
I don't like facebook or any of those things, so I'm not well "networked" in the world. Kind of isolated actually. Me and a basement of Plan 9 machines. Figured I should reach out a bit.