Blog Question Challenge - Technology Edition

I was tagged by Jon and Steve to participate in a new blog challenge. This time, it is about technology.

This is a long one and I don’t blame you for skipping. This first section is the long boi and then I tried to keep the others short. I tried to share as much as possible because I think my story is much different than others who have participated in this challenge. Nothing against those folks, I just have taken a different path.

When Did You First Get Interested In Technology?

I was born in the early 80’s. Growing up, we were very poor (not much different than how I live now). My (step)father worked for AT&T as a janitor and then got into installing and repairing phone lines that go pole to pole outdoors. My mom worked retail jobs here and there. All of my extended family is in blue collar work, mostly general construction, with a few being specialized in such things as welding. None of them had a computer. I lived in a poor neighborhood, so none of my friends or neighbors had computers either.

My only exposure to anything we would consider “tech” was playing The Oregon Trail in the school computer lab and playing a golf game on the one computer my entire family had, my grandfathers. He lived far away and we would visit him frequently and my cousin and I would play this golf game on my grandfathers computer. It came on this huge 5-1/4" floppy disk and I remember frequently getting in trouble because I would throw them like frisbees.

Since we were poor, I was hesitant to even get near a computer. They were expensive! If I did something wrong there was no way we could afford to fix it. I distinctly remember at school a kid did something to a PC in the computer lab and “crashed” the hard drive. I was mortified! How could they pay to fix it!?

We didn’t have anything else tech related, either. When we wanted to watch movies, we hoped something good would come on a channel on the antenna. Occasionally, we would rent a VCR from the local rental store along with a handful of tapes. That rental store also had an Atari and a NES for rent and I remember getting the NES for my birthday a couple times. For big life events, we would rent a camcorder from a different store and buy blank tapes from K-Mart.

As I got older, teachers started requiring long reports to be typed. It was a huge problem for us! Not only did I not have a computer, no one I knew had one. There was no way I was going to drive to my grandparents house over 2 hours away to type a report. Our library didn’t have computers, either. So, my other grandparents gave us this ancient typewriter that came in a suitcase. You would unzip the case and fold it open and inside was a typewriter that looked like it was made in the 1800’s. We bought “erasable” typewriter paper and that’s where I would type the reports. Both the letters “r” and “m” didn’t work, so after I typed the report my mom and I would go through the pages and manually write in those letters.

It fucking sucked.

The teachers would deduct points from my reports because some was typed and some handwritten. They would require a draft to be typed, too. So, I’d have to type on a typewriter the draft and then completely re-type the whole fucking report a week later for the final draft. I remember I was a slow typer, so some reports I would hand write and then my mom would stay up late typing them out on the typewriter.

Needless to say, I wasn’t into tech. In fact, I couldn’t care less about it. I loved to play outdoors. I would skate, ride my bike, dig in the dirt, get lost on trails, sneak onto a farmers land and build ramps for our bikes, and occasionally swim in a canal (we lived in the California Central Valley). We had a big backyard and I would spend hours making dirt tracks, tunnels, and forts for my Hot Wheels and G.I. Joe figures. I got into a lot of trouble, too. My friends and I would ride our bikes all over town and go into construction sites and mess with stuff. Once, I crashed a friends mini dirt bike into a canal!

Fast forward to 1998. We have moved out of the Central Valley and to the San Francisco Bay Area. We finally have it better and can afford our first computer! My parents bought one of those “Never Obsolete!” eMachines on a loan. It was a huge day! Everyone came over to try it out. It was a kit, with a CRT monitor and a printer. We didn’t have the internet, but we had a computer!

At this point, I was in high school and had my drivers license. I had some friends that had computers and even had a separate phone line just for the internet. I would occasionally go to their house and use their computer to download songs from Napster 😂. Otherwise, I did not care about computers. I was outdoorsy. I was captain of the football team. I was captain of the wrestling team. I had no time for tech.

Then, more people starting talking about using the internet and I wanted in. I would call and order NetZero disks and browse the web. I would download stuff with Limewire, play games on Yahoo, and chat with folks on MSN Messenger. Because of this, I was the person that introduced other people to the internet. This also means I got good at “fixing” computers full of viruses and malware. In my circles, I was known as the “computer guy” because I could clean up your computer.

I meet my wife, get married, and have two kids by 2008. During this time, I still didn’t care that much about tech. I worked in a warehouse and only used an old AS400 terminal. We had a computer, a Dell I bought on a loan from Dell, and used it to browse the web. I frequented various blogs, joke sites, and MySpace. I played games sometimes, mostly low spec RTS like Stronghold. I think the most use the computer got was my wife and I printing directions from Mapquest.

Although I didn’t care that much about tech, it was obvious the web was the place to be and I spent a lot of time there. Because I was around people who didn’t spend time with tech, I was the tech guy because I could fix computers, use the web, and shop online. I had a Blackberry and shopped on Amazon. We ordered disks to be mailed to us on Netflix. My wife had the first Android phone, the LG Dream G1. I was advanced compared to those around me. So, I decided to try to get a job using tech.

I went to the Washington State Surplus store and bought two Dell PC towers for $30. It had all the hardware, just no operating system. I tried to install XP on them, but it didn’t work as I didn’t have any working licenses. I searched around and found Ubuntu Linux. That day my world forever changed. I was floored. This was free? Like, free forever? And not free at first? Like, free free?

I fell deep into the world of open source and free software. I fell in love with the community around it all. However, my love for FOSS was never about the idealism about open source. It was that FOSS made it so poor people like me could learn and use tech. It was free as in no cost. You were encouraged to hack on things and ask questions. I had no money for tech (never have), but FOSS and a recycled office PC made it possible for me to get into it. This is why I support FOSS. Yes, freedom is important. But, I think tech shouldn’t have a classist gatekeeper. Computers change lives and I think everyone should have access. I think the internet is a public good and should be free or at least low cost so everyone can access it with as few barriers as possible.

What’s Your Favorite Piece Of Technology All-Time?

Well, based on above, its Ubuntu 8.04 running on a Dell Optiplex with a Pentium D processor with 512 MB of DDR2 RAM and a 80 GB IDE hard drive.

What’s Your Favorite Piece Of Technology Right Now?

This winter I have gone deep with Docker. I’ve used it a lot over the years, but this year I learned about macvlans, creating a container registry, and even making my own containers. I’m a big fan of going narrow and deep on things, rather than shallow and wide. Rather than learning about other container or virtual machine tech, I’m going as deep as I can with Docker and I love it.

Name One New Cool Piece Of Technology We’ll Have In 25 Years!

I’m not going to pick something specific, but instead say I believe in young people. I am excited to see what folks who are 21 and younger will do to change tech. This is a generation that has grown up with the web and mobile devices their entire lives. I’m excited to see how they change it when the web and tech are no longer just places where you can make money, but is an integral part of their lives.

Final Thoughts

I know this was a long one. But, I thought it was important to tell my story because it is so much different than most of what you reach from tech folk. No matter what you think, tech has always been elitist. It is expensive and the cost has been a nearly impossible to break gatekeeper. Now that tech is becoming a commodity, it is breaking down the barriers to entry and now real cool stuff will be made.

I am going to tag in Zak at zkbro. I’d love to see them answer these questions.

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