Geeks, Computers and Good Friends

I love being a geek and I've never made any secret of that, but this time I'm going to spare you a comic book or superhero related rant - it's good old fashioned computer geek time.

It has to be said I'm certainly not going to win any prizes for coding some new game or smartphone app, but I do love that I can do enough to make myself smile with geeky pride and that's all thanks to a short time living with someone who knows a hell of a lot more than I do.

Only a handful of years ago the extent of my computer geekery was playing a few games, untold hours of playing with an art program on an old Commodore Amiga 500+ and whatever remnants of COMAL coding i'd learned in high school on computers as old as time itself.  Then I met geoff (not a typo, he had the capital letter revoked in 2007 - it's a long story so perhaps I'll temporarily reinstate it for the purpose of this blog) and all that changed.

Geoff was one of my flatmates when I temporarily lived in Edinburgh during my final year of university and apart from hours of geeky conversations about Doctor Who, scientific theories and playing so many hours of video games - one of the things I learned from Geoff was about the existence of Linux.

I had come across Linux before this and even used a few in my life but hadn't realised what they were as they were on computers in youth hostels in San Francisco where out of ignorance I had just assumed the different computers were "an american thing".

Geoff spent I don't know how many hours showing me how it worked, explaining things and getting excited showing off the latest customisation he'd learned how to install on his computer and I quickly got very excited about it and despite having a brand new laptop I soon got my hands on some old computer parts on freecycle and learned how to build a computer and just how good a system could be made with old parts if it was running Linux. From that moment on I was a little bit hooked, however, I always went back to my laptop as it was just so much more convenient especially since I didn't like the Linux version of Photoshop. I also had the problem of no longer living with an in house tech guru for when I got stuck with a system I wasn't very familiar with still.

Fast forwarding to this week I got the opportunity to get some more free computer parts from an internet cafe which had new owners and had decided to renovate and replace all the computers. The computers are old and had more dust inside them than my vacuum cleaner when its due to be emptied but I was able to salvage some good parts and have just built myself another Linux system to practice on.

So for the first time ever I've been experimenting and modifying with the Linux installation and making it look and act like the kind of system that Geoff had and ran all those years ago and whilst I don't have an in house tech guru any more, I do have an entire world full of Linux geeks at my disposal through the wonder of YouTube. I might not be as fast as Geoff was with the coding or even know what I'm doing half the time but thanks to what he taught me all those years ago I'm not scared of experimenting with it because if it goes wrong I can just start again - and he must have been doing something right, he's now got his own business providing the services of the humble computer geek to the "normal" folk of the world.

I know he's going to read this at some point, so I'm going to take this moment to say a huge thank you to him. Not only did he teach me things I didn't know the first thing about, he showed me friendship and support when I needed it most.


You are a good friend Geoff and my life is better for knowing you, thank you for everything.



Geoff's Blog
http://artificialphilosophy.blogspot.co.uk/

Geoff's Business
http://www.webdesignhighlands.co.uk/

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle!

In today’s world where people are finally realising the planets resources are finite and that being wasteful is nothing short of insanity. You could even call being wasteful selfish due to the implications it has for future generations of both our species and all the others we share this planet with.

So what are we doing to prevent it, amongst the various energy efficient technological advances it’s the simple things that impress me most. Large supermarkets and other chain stores introduced reusable fabric bags and some even offered bonus points on their loyalty card schemes for using them instead of the billions of plastic bags used previously. I remember lots of people I know saying that they were a hassle or that expecting people to purchase reusable bags wouldn’t catch on – I find it quite amusing that they were wrong and that they too take pride in the various bags they now own, with some even owning ones designed and sold by brand name or designer companies. Me I’m never without my bags, several small lightweight ones which fold up into a tiny little pouch and a few much larger ones which hold a decent amount of heavy groceries – nothing fancy, just simple and practical.

Recycling isn’t exactly a new concept, there have been collection points and centres around for as long as I can remember – but a common excuse was that it was too much hassle to separate items and then take them all the way to the collection points. That changed when local councils started offering recycling collections from your own kerb, now we have 3 bins where I live – one for regular trash, a blue one for recyclables such as paper, metal and plastics and a red bin for glass. Normal and Blue bins are collected alternating weeks and I regularly don’t need to put out my normal bin due to how little actual rubbish I produce. My Blue recycling bin is almost always full when collection day comes around with another pile sitting in the house waiting to go into the bin as soon as its been emptied. I take great pride in doing my part and recycling as much as possible.

Charity shops also became popular again recently, every year there must be billions of perfectly good condition and wearable clothes sent to landfills purely because the owner read in some magazine that “stripes are so last season” or “jeans should be straight leg and not boot cut” – not only is this a ridiculous waste of resources, there are lots of people with little to no income who struggle to put food on the table who simply can’t afford luxuries like new clothes. I know people who would give me a dirty look for daring to suggest they went into a charity shop to look for new clothes, saying things like its disgusting or unsanitary… how is it any different to borrowing a friends or family members clothes? Everything is washed or dry cleaned before it goes out on shelves of reputable charity shops and most people who plan to donate something will usually wash the items first to make them suitable for donation. I grew up in a family who weren’t wealthy but I never went without anything that I needed, If anything despite not being wealthy I would say I was still pretty spoiled at times. I come from a large family and my sisters were starting college when I was born and most of my cousins were the same age so I was the youngest of my generation and the first of the next. Being at this position in the family put me at a distinct advantage, I was the first in line for any hand me downs, I got all the old board games or toys when cousins moved out and went off to college and their parents decided to clear out all the things they had outgrown. I got books, vinyl records and cassettes, my sisters old hi-fi stereo system and guitar, even an old sofa bed when we moved into a house where my bedroom was insanely huge and I had space for it! I even have a few suits in the wardrobe which my cousin gave me, he works in a fairly high up position in a large UK bank and doesn’t like to be seen in the same suit too often so I regularly get bags of almost new suits sent to me to choose what I like from and then I take the rest to a charity shop. I used to love going to charity shops with my Mum and her sisters when they met up once a week for a coffee and catch up. I didn’t care if something used to belong to someone else, if I liked it and could have it then that was all that mattered. The benefits of shopping in charity shops for the customer is very evident as are the financial benefits charities get from selling unwanted items donated to them. But whilst these aspects are very important it is the environmental benefits which I am particularly keen to stress here, and with that in mind I turn to a particular favourite way which I and many others use to help protect the environment – Freecycle.

Freecycle, for those who haven’t heard about it yet, is a global movement started back in 2003 with the intention of preventing usable items from going to landfill sites. A simple concept but one that has gone on to spread a very powerful message of environmental awareness and simple no strings attached generosity. Rather than throw out items that were no longer needed for whatever reason, people advertise them on their local freecycle group online and people who need or want them ask for them. The person offering the item then has two choices, either give it to someone on a first come first served basis, or they can look for someone who they consider a worthy recipient. The latter is more common when the item is of considerable value. I myself have offered many items on freecycle and have proudly found new homes for some items of mine and also benefited from the generosity of others. I gave away hundreds of books I had cherished since childhood to a local school library where they would benefit more than just one child. I gave away a mechanical medical grade single bed to the concerned children of an elderly woman who’s health was deteriorating – and they were so grateful they even gave me a very generous donation to pass on to the charity of my choice. I rehomed a train set that I loved as a kid and had kept in good condition to a guy who was a model train enthusiast and repaired and renovated train sets to gift to underprivileged kids at christmas time. I gave away half the contents of my attic during a recent clear out and it was really great to have been able to give them to people who wanted them. Conversely I have been very lucky to have received items through freecycle as well, a brand new 2 ft wooden vivarium worth £80, a guitar case, a couple of really old computers which I was able to upgrade with additional free parts and then gave away to people who could use them. I even managed to get about 5 or 6 large fish tanks for the education department at the highland wildlife park whilst I was working as a volunteer there a few years ago – and was able to use them to set up a project to raise awareness of global amphibian decline. I truly love freecycle and love that it represents all that is good in humanity, generosity, kindness and just the simple act of thinking of what you can do to help others. I recently had several household items die on me and due to a lack of money at the moment I would have had to just make do without them for a while had it not been for the generosity of friends who no longer needed items for various reasons. I am very lucky and blessed to have been fortunate enough to benefit from these items at this time and I know that had I not needed them they would have offered the items to others on freecycle or donated them to charity shops because that is just how kind and generous they are.

Recycling isn’t new but its still an amazing thing to do no matter what way you do it, whether you are simply recycling basic components such as glass or paper or gifting an item which still has a lot of life left in it to someone who needs it after you no longer have a use for it.

As with other some of my other blogs I’m going to leave you with a challenge to go out of your way to recycle, freecycle or donate to a charity 3 items above your normal recycling routine this week. Let someone else benefit from something you own and no longer need.