Tech. and me

I have a rather strange affection to certain technology. It could be viewed as odd, but until I can justify something, I will be a curmudgeon about how I approach tech.

The usual answer for myself generally ends up "I don't need it" or "I don't need to spend the money". This is because in most cases it is true. I have not owned a tablet computer until up to a few months ago, I have a cheap phone (which I actually hate but just deal with it) and I have switched from a fancy MacBook to my cheaper and older Dell running Ubuntu Linux. (well, not that old, it has a silly touch screen on it, which I still don't understand the use for.)

Today while I was at work, my keyboard on my laptop was acting up. I press a key, it would start repeating the same character over and over. This was during a meeting while I was taking notes while the computer was hooked up to the big screen. My co-worker joked "I guess a Mac will be coming tomorrow for you then." Well, no ... but I cracked the thing open and reset the keyboard cables. Back to normal. I replaced the keyboard because some keys broke on them, so cables slipping out is probably my fault. But changing computers completely? Well, maybe ... I should be spending time working and not fixing my computer, but this is a one time thing. Things happen and at least I can fix them.

When I was 18 years old, I got the latest and greatest Power Mac. I spent a lot of money on it, expecting that I would do a lot with it. I had that odd pride that I was able to have the latest and greatest. You then know how it goes... and then it wasn't. It was great, but it didn't serve what I was thinking I was going to do with it. Instead, I started to use it when I was getting serious in software development. I eventually saw a computer as something as an important conduit for what I need to do, and stopped caring about the market perception of it. In the past 20 years, I have switched between systems that ran Linux, FreeBSD, back to Mac (first job, they are buying me one of those things?!?) back to Linux just to get work done. I am not seeking anything special and I don't do anything special, but I am seen though as odd. (Let me be clear, I am not any Richard Stallman: https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html :))

To end this for now, let's just list why I do things:

1. I now use Linux because a package manager of any decent quality, with a decent build system actually is important for my work.
2. I use Emacs to code because I cannot stand the thought of losing my productivity for a month. And, it's fine for what I need.
3. I have a cheap phone and tablet, because they are not business critical to me.
4. But, I think that the Internet, and tech like cryptocurrency is meaningful progress in the tech. world.

Let me finish with a kitty picture!