Being a geek is for the young

Back in the day, an intellectual challenge would get me going, staying up for days at a time, obsessing over ways to make things work and finding sheer joy in the process.

Nowadays, thinking too hard makes my brain hurt.

It helped that back in the day, my caffeine intake bordered on the obscene - several liters of Co-Cola a day, large 20 oz cups of coffee, averaging 10 cups daily. But Im paying for that insane excess now. Decaf is all I can handle. And two cups per day is my limit.

I finally got around to installing Ubuntu Linux on a laptop today, and after a hiccup or two - it installed beautifully. But as Clint, who was doing a Unix install of his own, put it..

JPennant: how is it working?
mcclint: basically all i got was the equivalent to C : \ >
mcclint: I found myself saying "ok now what?"

That's when the thinking started for me. It's not that I dont know Unix, but the best way to quickly learn anything is hands-on, and requires a fair amount of brain power.

My brain may not be up to it. :)

Still, it is fun - cryptic command lines notwithstanding. Playing with this reminds me of how things USED to be, when mainstream operating systems werent so locked down for monopolistic and security reasons. Took me back to the old days.

But, in the old days, I was hepped up on caffeine. :)