[geeks] Catching up

[geeks at sunhelp.org]

~ -----Original Message-----
~ From: David L Kindred (Dave) [mailto:d.kindred at telesciences.com]

~ 1) Age: I'm not going to directly tell you my age, but I will 
~ tell you I
~    was born during the time the USA officially had a 49-star flag.

Got me beat 10 years.

~ 4) Computers: I miss toggle switches and blinking lights (but 
~ not punch
~    cards).  I did briefly have Arpanet access back in '79, so I guess
~    that make me an old-timer.  My fingers learned how to edit in Emacs
~    back then too (the ITS TECO version on a TOPS-20 machine), 

Ever drop a full tray of punch cards? Its enough to make you cry. I got
hooked on emacs until I realized it wasn't ubiquitous enough. Mosty I VI
because its everywhere, I'm not religious about editors. I had "internet"
access in '85 through an unapproved dial-in SLIP account at MIT. It was
really uncharted territory back then, more fun too.
 
~ 5) UNIX OS: Other than the fact that it has taken me longer 
~ to port some
~    code from SunOS to Solaris than the ports to HP-UX and Linux
~    combined, and the fact that Sun and HP seem to change things just
~    because they can, I don't care too much.  Contrary to many of you
~    though, I like RedHat.

I don't know why RedHat takes a beating. I like it above all others. I
suspect its the automatic "dominance is bad" dogmatic thinking that causes
many to not even look at MS Windows.
 
~ 6) Windows: It doesn't bother me near as much as it used to.  I guess
~    I'm getting old.

Win2K doesn't suck nearly as loudly as the previous versions, but I avoid it
when possible. Win98 may be the cause of 50% of the suicide rate.
 
~ 7) Amy: I think Amy is a wonderful person and her presence 
~ here benefits all of us.

She certainly keeps thoughtless harmfull thinking at bay. Thats something we
all need help with sometimes.

~ 10) Cars: I used to care.  Don't anymore.

You're right, you are getting old :)