When I was like 8 years old or so, I had Nero installed on my older sister’s PC. Nero is a software for burning CDs.

Nero had a button called “Create CD” and 8yo me thought “what if I create CDs and sell them” 😂 I thought a fucking disc will materialize inside the drive 😂 big brain time

Interestingly enough I’d already built one PC from scratch at that age, but optical drives that can write discs were so rare to me that I didn’t even understand them. And physics. And common sense.

Since everyone is posting their system, I'll do it now, too:

- Type: Laptop
- Age: about 5 years
- Weight: 2-3 kg (too much)
- Modifications: Paper below problematic keys; Samsung Evo 850 250GB SSD
- Usecase: School-Laptop with every Office-Suite I could find.
- Pros: Wrecks my PC with the boottime (Gnome > KDE); Looks really sick; Really lightweight Arch installed; Quiet when not under load
- Cons: Really heavy; Battery old and unreliable; Bluetooth stops working after closing lid

Old story, and yeah, it's all true, I shit you not!

So here I am at about age 11 (more or less). At the time, I had an almost brand new 333MHz beast, with 8 MB RAM, 2 (!!!) MB video card and (I think) about 300 MB of storage (yeah, I'm old :)) ).

Connected to this monster was sitting a 14" CRT monitor, mechanical keyboard and a 2 button, ball "powered" mouse.

There was no optical tracking tech at the time.

One evening, I notice my mouse starts lagging. Test it to see if Win95 is stuck. Nope, just mouse problems...

Fiddle with it a little, and at some point it stops working at all.

My room was dark now, so I got up to turn on the lights, sat down in front of the PC, and moved the mouse by instinct.

Surprise! It's working again!

My brother comes in and turnes off the lights. Mouse non responsive.

I tell him to turn them on again, mouse works again.

At this point, we were both scratching our heads at this mystery...

I decided to confirm it again using a desc light.

Conclusion: my 2 button, ball tracking, non light sensitive mouse was working only if light was shining directly oh it AND on my 14" crt monitor at the same time!!!

To this day I have no ideea why.

I kept them both for posterity, and they are still there in my parent's attic.

Fin.

My 5 years old pc died, had to pull out my 12 year old laptop back

Never used VIM

WISH ME LUCK BOIS

TL;DR My parents should have known that I was made for computers
Note: I am pretty young. Most of you were probably at least as old as I am now when it happened.
My parents told me about the first time I used a PC. They left me and my older siblings home alone with a movie on and returned later than they wanted to. We were still watching the movie, and when they asked how that was possible we told them that I restarted the DVD twice. I had never touched a computer before.

The first thing I actually remember is me playing Age of Empires II on a PC our family got for free somewhere. Although AoE3 was already out by that time, it ran slow af, but it was the most fun I had in my life up to that point. I was and still am pretty bad in both AoE3 and AoE2, but that was the first step into my preference for RTS games.

Forgot to bring me laptop to college, so had to use the age old Turbo C complier on college PC. So had to do some power calculation.. used the pow() function, forgot to include math.h...
And bamm!!! It compiled and I had no idea why the pow function isn't giving the correct value!!

Lesson learnt: never trust anything!!

14 years of age, couldnt go with to the beach with my sister the weekend (all older friends and they wanted to have fun) spent the weekend:

1. Waking up
2. Cleaning yard and garage
3. Finding old pc of my fathers
4. Him telling me he will tell me how to install windows 95 (we were not that up to speed with the latests trends at the time)
5. Running in and out installing and asking for commands on how to install things and run things

Fast faward a few years, im now a web developer working from home (recently retrenched) and my sister asking me to get a job where i work.

!!rant life toptags bottags
My tags seem to be okay. Let's go.
I'm 14. I live in a place where nobody smart lives, and the school I go to has no coders.
Last year, all my friends moved. The only friend I had left now hates me, simply because they yelled at me everyday and I yelled at them once.
I am in the middle of my exams. I also have the flu, but thankfully it's not the e-flu, otherwise you guys should prepare for 24/7 headaches.
Due to the medications I am taking, I'm half-asleep all the time, and I probably am messing up all of my grades.
My entire extended family is in India, and I go there 2 times a year. I miss them so much right now :(.
At the same as doing exams, I am trying to keep my laptop (primary) and PC (secondary, desk) configuration and setup approximately synchronized. In order to do that, I am setting up my dotfiles repository.
Except that all my laptop config (which works) is written horribly, and I need to rewrite it all.
At the same time, I have 3 other projects going on: An OS written in D, a source-based package management system written in D, a small website (not online), and a whatever's cooking in my mind at this moment.
Right now, I'm supposed to be studying for my French exam.
Instead, I'm here, typing this out on my phone.
I have a classmate in school who can type QWERTY at 80WPM. I'm learning Dvorak (Programmer's!) and my current speed is 33WPM, after about 2 months of half-hearted practise during work time and at school.
Sometimes, I look at the world we have here, and what we're doing to it, and I wish that sometimes we could simply be content with life. Let's just live, for once.
I find ~60 random songs in one go, simply by finding a song I know on YouTube and going to the 'Mix - <song>' playlist. I download them all (youtube-dl), and I listen to them. Sometimes, I find this little part in a song (Mackelmore & Ryan Lewis - Can't Hold Us beginning instrumentals, or Safe and Sound chorus instrumentals) that make me feel so happy I feel like all's good in the world. Then the song moves on and with it, my happiness.
I look at Wayland, and X, and I think - Why can't we have one way of doing things - a fixed interface to express anything, so that one common API exists for everything of that type? And I realise it's because they feel that they're missing something from the others. Perhaps it's a bug nobody's solved or functionality that's missing, and they think that they can do better than that. And I think - Well, that's stupid. Submit a fucking bug report or pull request instead of reinventing the wheel. And then I realise that all the programming I've ever done in my life IS simply reinventing the wheel. And some might say, "Well, that guy designed it with spokes and wood. I designed it with rubber and steel," but that doesn't work, because no matter what how you make it, it's just a wheel. They both do the same thing. Both have advantages and disadvantages, because nothing's perfect. We're not perfect because we all have agendas and wants and likes and dislikes and hates and disgusts and all kinds of other crap, and our DNA's not perfect because it manages to corrupt copy operations (which is basically why we die of old age, I think).
And now I've lost my train of thought and this is too large to scroll over so I'm just going to move on to the next topic. At this point (.), I have 1633 letters left.
I hate the fact that the world's become so used to QWERTY because of stuff that happened 100 years ago that Dvorak is enough of a security to stop most people from being able to physically use my laptop.
I don't understand why huge companies like Google want to know about me. What would you do with this information? Know how to take over my stuff when the corporation-opocalypse comes around? Why can't they leave me alone? Why do I have to flash a ROM onto my phone so that Google cannot track me? What do you want, Google?
I don't give a shit any more, so there's my megarant.
Before anybody else (aside from myself) tells me that this is too big, all these topics are related simply because my train of thought went this way. There's a connection between each of these things, but I just don't know what it is.
Goodnight, world. 666 is the number of characters I have left. So is 42, for that matter (thanks, Douglas Adams!). Goodbye.

You ever had a boss that made you feel like his bitch but he never really earned the title
You also know from a technical skill perspective you’re more competent.

And the only job he seems to do is micromanaging you. He just puts things under a microscope looking for a flaw. He always finds a flaw so in the off chance it breaks he’s always in the clear.

He’s the guy who sticks with the programs the he was taught when he was still at school and never really tried something new out of the box. He gives the reasons the he wasn’t formally trained in the other programs . I’m not talking cinema 4 here. I’m talking Matlab preference over python. Using lab-view as a production level development platform instead of going to something more approved by the industry.

He doesn’t take risk but he pushes those risks on you so if you fail he can say it wasn’t him

He’s never wrong but he’s never right either.

You’re sitting there doing the cunt work and breaking the sweat and he passes the achievements as under his management. You never really get the credit because “he guided you “. You go through hell fixing bugs and he disappears. He says he’s always a call away when what you really needed is someone taking the heavy tasks not throwing the entire project on your back.

I never call that piece of shit bcz he just throws some other bullshit that doesn’t make sense and emphasizes that might be the problem.

I once had a problem with the com port on a pc and was trying to figure out the problem. I asked him and he said that it might be bcz I’m connecting to the PC via VNC. I was like what the hell. What does that have to do with anything. I just ended up restarting the port and it bloody worked.

The saddest part is that I’m scared is that I might end up like him. In the same dead end job. Even though he guides me we work in a place where the job title doesn’t really change. Funny thing is that officially I have the same job title as him .

He’s been in the place for 5years when I came. Can someone imagine that? To work and work and then to be seized up with another brat who’s the same as you title wise.

You’re close the age of 40 and you work in a place where a 20 something year old walks in with the same Position as you.

I worry that I might end up the same if I stay long enough. That I’ll learn everything I can learn and just stop progressing and the only thing I can do is say how shit can break but wouldn’t know how to fix .

Pointing out problems because they are easier than fixing. Just plomonting into existential nihilism with no purpose.

I once told him I wanted to quit. He pretended he didn’t hear it. He then then said what do you see in this job in 5 years
I told him me not in it.
He said “seriously what do you want in this place “
I said “if I’m still her in 5 years I’ll be missing a toe because I would have shit myself in the foot”

I now realize that by convincing me to stay he might have convinced himself that staying for that long wasn’t a bad idea. He was looking for justification that he’s decision wasn’t that bad at all.

You give your life to a job and at the end it takes one away.

I don’t want to be like that and I think that’s what bugs me the most. That I’m so close to this individual that I feel sooner or later if I’m not careful I’ll end up in the same place. The same dread

I been looking over my profile and god it's been a while, programming as still been going on in the background but more for game mods and alikes, kind of been lazy but same time dealing with life.

I really had forgotten my passion for tech and programming it's just become a tool I know and use and I kind of feel bad for doing that. I got in to computers when I was 6 years old built my own PC our of random spare parts at 7, was teaching family members how to repair there own pcs by 9 at the age of 11 was helping with the schools computer department repair and fixing networking problems and my ideas and comments mattered.

Now I am an adult ... Sadly it seems the enjoyment of any idea is shot down with some rude remarks from another Dev, but isn't the point we all see a problem different so we all can contribute?

Like I said I never worked away from computers or programming but now I more like your little side computer repair shop I can do it, I get the job done but the passion isn't there and the end result reflects it.

I believe it's the human part what put me off not just others but myself, I used to put my heart in to my projects and when someone comes alone and rips them apart for let's say a spelling mistake what I state everywhere I am dyslexic but seems to be over looks alot. I became more stale in what I was willing to take on. My own websites now reflect this I am using crappy reinstalled software over me doing it myself.

But the passion for the idea what tech and programming never left I just hope one day soon I am enjoy it again, the wow factor is still there, god there is some talent out there and some of them people I meet before they became big but my aim was never to be come big I would be happy to be on a small project what only as a few eyes on it as long as it makes a difference and that's my problem tech like everything as become so commercial.

Even small projects are ran like a company and the wow factor is gone or the risk factor of trying a unknown way is dismissed for trying to keep face.

If I was born 20 years before right now I would be glad to slow down but I am 30+ and seen the world change so much in this last 10 years where I can do it but .... Why would I do it, when most cases it goes out of my moral ideals

I still mess around with teck, I still have Pi's kicking about and you bet your bottom Dollar I will be trying to get a Pi 5 lol

The love of tech hasn't gone but the communities I enjoyed have, I know this is a me not adapting but I don't need to adapted, I want what we do to matter to someone to make a difference, and I mean with there life's and wellbeing not there bottom line.

If you have any communities to look in to please comment below and of you was able to read this then OMG I am so sorry, I didn't proof read this or anything it was just a little rant about how I become disconnected from the world I have always found enjoyment.

I slipped away to game at late but this last few months I seen myself wanting to be apart of a project or community for tech/programming and even just be a voice helping even someone else get the answer.

I do still have hope for the geeky nerds of yester years even if we are now just a relic of the past lol

Well sorry to put anyone's eyes though this lol enjoy your rants guys and keep up what ever projects your working on.

Fucking hate to explain basic shit to computer illiterate. Usually I don't mind, but right know I working on the project, want to automate one thing I need to do every morning, put two numbers to web page(I will explain details maybe in next rant). So I am only one who fix, buys computers, printer(for some problems I call for other repair man.). Generally speaking working as IT guy. Firm has like 50 computers, some of them has SCADA software. Some computers have Win 7, some win 8 and others win 10, can't upgrade those computers, not enough money(I can deal with this problem). And yes, computer buying is not the fastest, easiest thing too. Because is public firm, I need to do public buying(I don't know how to translate to english), and most of the time wins the lowest price, I am ok with that. But I can't on item specification write I want that model pc or it components. Example: I can't write I want intel processor, however I can write number of cores, frequency. But it's not that bad, usually i have template for all things I buy. One of the worst thing is this, our firm bought new bookkeeping software version, old version was using visual foxpro framework. Good thing I didn't initiate the purchase, because right know I would be jobless, not because I would be fired, but because our senior accountant would drive me crazy. In fact accountants drive me crazy, but I can handle it for now. As I wrote before our form has about 120 workers, major part of workers are old, like my parents age. (I am 28 btw. Mom is 55.). As you all know what happens if you say you work with computers. So our accountants are like 60 years old, got new program, don't know how to work with it, and they ask me how to do certain things. if I don't know how to I ask program's support, every question is like 90 Eur. So in short accountants expect I should know their work and how program works. If I try say something they don't like, they try to make my day hard. Next thing is our billing program. Man that worked before me done some payments import. And when I came everyone expect me to do that. Ok I did that because that people working with billing program would probably fuck it up. And I semi automated that, so I don't mind that much. Sometimes that program fucks up, like it happened yesterday, it send email invoices attachment without filename. Example: people got this attachment ".pdf"(no filename, only extension), And if you save it you need do OPEN WITH command and then select pdf reader or rename file (I don't know what easier). And surprise surprise our firm, customer support redirects all phone calls, emails to me. But I did explain to customer support what to say to people. Still they redirect it to me.
PS: This is my first job after school. I work as part time.
TL;DR Thinking my life, carrier choices. accountants are not the nicest people.