!rant

Fathers day today, my 6 year old passes me some presents.

First 3 opened.

Devrant cap
Devrant stressball
Devrant stickers

Yes son! (Well obviously, technically it was my wife) I assume she must have seen me on the app :)

Finally! Today just received my stickers 😁😁😁😁😁😁😁

It was funny because my mom sent me a message with a photo of the letter envelope (closed, obviously) and said "This just arrived today, It‘s from New York, WTF?!“

I laughed and answered "WOW! Those are my devRant stickers 😱😁“

It‘s also hilarious ’cause she though it was from my phone service 😂

26 or so hours up now. And I've got a few stories to tell :) feel free to refresh your cup of coffee and take a seat.

Last few days I've been going into this odd place called intown.irl to get in touch with its inhabitants. An odd place I have to say. But in some cases quite rewarding, even got a MILF home with me and into bed at some point. Anyway...

3 days ago I think it is now? Thursday evening I took my laptop to this local bar where I had this issue about dihydrogen monoxide with one of the bartenders earlier (you'll find that rant on those keywords). Still wanted to visit it regardless though, as I met that first woman there earlier that approached me. Unfortunately I didn't see her there that day.

Some bald guy who was clearly drunk approached me. Many people were already giving curious looks at this laptop I brought to the bar. I finally tuned it up with the stickers from FOSDEM.. I'll put a picture of it in the comments. My theme was one of privacy (central), distributions and Google's open source initiative (which aligns with the keychain token I got from them as well). But of course.. that guy.. he thought that a pimped/riced laptop obviously meant that I was a hacker.

Guy went to the toilet.. went back.. and suddenly grabbed my laptop and turned it towards him. Boy was I never more smugly satisfied that those rubber pads on the bottom are quite resilient. Could've almost damaged my screen by trying to grab it like that. But it's a CCFL display.. so high voltage. If it were to become broken.. worth it. 😈

On it at the time was a terminal, pinging Google (had network issues at that bar, to the point where one of the - I think - staff members got up to me and offered the WiFi password and got to talk with me.. more on that later), and my usual Linux desktop along with the Arch anime wallpaper with the quote of Da Vinci.. simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Of course the guy saw the terminal.. and probably reaffirmed.. yep, that's a hacker. At least he wasn't too wrong about the general term.. but the hat.. most likely he was wrong on that one.

Guy left with this question.. "you are a hacker, aren't you."
I replied to him: "No sir. I'm not a hacker. I've got no idea what you're talking about."
Guy kept looking at me weirdly for the whole night to come.

Back to that companion guy though. Mac user, yada yada.. but he told me about his backup solution. Apparently - I shit you not - he has not only the photos on his local device, he's also frequently backing them up in Time Machine (which I was really curious about whether it uses mirroring or snapshots.. he couldn't tell, lmk if you do) but not only that.. he was storing another offsite backup in that very bar, in case his house went on fire.

Now that is a proper backup scheme!!! If only more people were like that.

Seriously though.. that bald guy who took my laptop just like that... I just let it slide for that one time, but I tend to treat my machines as an extension of my very self. I think that was a very uncalled for move. Asshole...

How would you have reacted to such a thing? And.. maybe that's why we technologists don't get outside too often? Fucking everything is hacking these days if it's not Knopkes and Blinkenlights… Not every shell is a h4xx0ring console for h3kk1ng de fasbuk…

Am I the only one that has an obsession with collecting stickers? I don't even stick them. Dev stickers are my favorites obviously.

How I got my first Free Swag?

I stole it?

Obviously no,

So it dates back to year 2016. After learning about open source project and working with few organisations, I noticed few contributors and developers with t shirts having logo of the company or organisation.
I mean if you see a guy wearing google tagged t shirt don't think he works in Google, he might have purchased it.

Next, I started searching for ways to obtain one. I reached and texted developers and all they told me were two golden rules.
1. If you develop something or update something, showcast it.
2. Always show the organisation what you do for them, even if it small contribution.

After this I started mailing and texting the contact mail id of companies and organisation I worked and contributed. Some texted me- no we don't have free items, some said we can't ship to India.

But out of 100 replies with 85 negatives, I recieved 15 positive replies. I was amazed to know that I'll recieve one.

You know what I was showered with
Stickers
T shirts
Laptop skins
Keychains
And many more.....

This Rant is for you to motivate and showcast what you do.