The Geek Friendship

I kind of want to continue the theme of my last post. Bare with me people. I have a lot to say….

 

  The most essential thing of being a geek is what you “geek out” about. There are so many sub-genera's in the geek culture that, though we are alienated already we further alienate ourselves. The only thing that helps this isolation from the mainstream is the people we meet that share our interests. Our friends.

I have always been lucky to have a core group of friends that were all brought together for the love of the geek life. I met most of my friends when I was around fifteen years old. I, like many people that age, was trying to hide the fact that I was a geek. When I met these people I was finally able to geek out without the fear of judgment.

I wanted to get into D&D, I had friends that wanted to do it. I wanted to learn programming, I had a friend that was already learning. I was never alone in pursuing the geek things that made me happy. It is a feeling that to this day I cannot explain.

I am a firm believer that geeks have better friendships for the reasons I’ve already listed. We are a culture that is already isolated for being on the fringe, and its always amazing to find those people that share your pains and joys. Even when those pains and joys are about a new OS or the newest remaster of Star Wars. Hell people are even making money giving geeks a place to come to meet other people just like them.

When I fell out of tech for the short while I lost friends as well. I know I will never lose these people forever because they are so much a part of my life, but what do you talk about when your not talking about the one thing that makes your life? This post is dedicated to all my friends that have pushed me through the years. the ones that wouldn’t let me give up after I tried installing linux for the fifth time or when I couldn’t learn a programming language. Friendship isn’t always forever, but when you’re a geek it is.

 

This is for all the geeks….and your friends.

 So I started out with a post idea about netbooks and how other blogs are talking like they are a thing of the past and that got me thinking about so much more.
 
   Even though I am hardly a blogger and I keep this blog for pure entertainment I always do a little research before I post. So while I dug out the netbook, blew the dust off and booted up I felt something. I felt like I've been missing something for awhile and the short and sweet of it is technology.

  At the beginnning of the year I started working for a company doing web design. The company did race prep for Ferrari. While I was working for the company I fell in love with the excitement of racing and have stayed with it for the past year. I left that company for another to be closer to the racing and further away from the technology that I began missing. I became a drone. I only used computers to check email and do work related tasks. In short I began hating it.

  Over the summer I drifted further and further away from doing what I love to working a job that I dislike more and more because it takes me away from tech. Sure, I've done some traveling and I've seen and learned some great things but I can't be happy without being totally immersed in the tech world.

 All it took was an article about breathing life into a netbook for me to realize that I have so much more to offer in the tech world than I do in the race world. I love blogs, youtube, how-to's, hacks, tweaks, everything geek! I know the readers of Modern Geekery (all 2 of us) have heard this before but I'm back baby. I'm feeling refreshed just typing this post on my little Acer Aspire One. I can't wait to see where tech takes me again and I hope your ready for the journey.

Is Micro-Blogging Killing Blogging?

This has been a question I have been pondering for months now. Are blogs dying because the bloggers have nothing to say once they finally get off the mobile device and sit down in front of their computer, assuming that they are still using a computer? With services live Gowalla,Foursquare,Twitter,and all the social networks having a mobile app, what is really left? 

I find myself being guilty of falling into the micro-blogging trends. Throughout the day I check Twitter feeds,Facebook posts,Foursquare check-ins, and keep looking for the next cool micro-blogging app. I also check for my favorite blogs and news outlets which gives me faith that blogging isn’t dead.

If we can find that happy medium between micro and standard blogging I think that things will progress to something even greater. I’m glad I can see what my friends are having for breakfast, where they checked in last night and what they “Liked” throughout the day but I still want thoughts and opinions in more than 150 characters. Blogging,podcasts,and vlogs are still very popular but it seems that I hear more about “Follow me here and  there” than I am hearing news and opinions.

So what I hope for in the future is that after you let us know what underwear you decided to wear, the doughnuts you ate, and the band you liked that you’ll sit down and let me know something worth reading.

(04:59:52 PM) TheGreatCasey: so, uhhhhh, you leaving now or what?
17:00
(05:00:09 PM) Ford: not quite yet.
(05:00:15 PM) TheGreatCasey: damnit!!!!
(05:00:20 PM) Ford: the earliest i could possibly leave is like 5
(05:00:27 PM) TheGreatCasey: its 5 now
(05:00:55 PM) TheGreatCasey: It is in fact exactly 5Pm
(05:01:11 PM) Ford: LOL my computer clock was set to GMT -9 instead of GMT -5
(05:01:14 PM) Ford: hahahaha
(05:01:19 PM) Ford: it was reading out at 2
(05:01:33 PM) TheGreatCasey: lol, you've been behind all day!!!!!
(05:01:42 PM) TheGreatCasey: that is so fucking epic it hurts
(05:01:52 PM) Ford: =P

New Things, Old Feelings

So heres the deal.

I started this blog almost 2 years ago. I was starting a new chapter in my life and I thought it would be worth blogging about it. I had this grand vision that hundreds if not thousands of people would be visiting the blog to see what Casey was doing that week. I was an idiot. I became very sullen when I would visit my blog and see that I was the only one visiting. Two years ago I thought that with the social network trend booming that I could be the next big blogger, and over the past two years I have walked further and further away from the trend that excites me so much. Lately I have been thinking about all the things I want to be and the things I want to do. I still want to be that blogger that people have to check everyday but I am willing to hold out. I've decided that it's time to take this to the next level. From here on out I will be doing a lot of multimedia projects for the blog. I want to incorporate pictures, videos, and any thing else I can think of. So Modern Geekery is going the distance. Who cares if no one reads the blog or watches the videos? Atleast I will have the blog to look at down the road to see what I was doing.

Thanks for the read,

Casey

Greetings from California

Hey everybody,

Well this post is being composed from a hotel room in Whittier,California. A friend and I have been talking about making a trip to California for a good while now and finally made the decision to come out. We flew out of Atlanta last night and got to LAX around mid afternoon. After a problem w/ the rental car company we finally got on the road and grabbed some lunch at Pacos Tacos. We made our way to Whittier to visit my travel buddy's family and find a place to stay. Once we got settled and took a much needed nap we just figured we would hang w/ the family. So our first night we had some really awesome local pizza and a few Blue Moons. Today Yosemite area is the game plan but w/ 9 days and being in a central location anything is possible. I'll be sure to keep the blog updated w/ everything that we do.

Later,

Casey

Exploring the *NIX World

As the title implies I have been on an adventure. As a guy who has been into computers for a long time sometimes you get tired of things working so well. Last week my I noticed my netbook slowing down so I figured it was time for a backup and reinstall. I backed up all my data, made a bootable USB (got to have it for the netbook installs) and got read for a quick job. At some point between downloading a new iso and installing I got a bright idea. I figured I would look around for something new. I've had my netbook for a little over a year and the first thing I did was install Ubuntu. At the time it was the smartest thing to do. I was never a fan of Ubuntu but I knew it would work on my netbook.

Lately I've been getting tired of Ubuntu and thought it was time to try a few other things I had been looking at. So over one week's time I have tried; PCLinuxOS,Kubuntu,Mint,OpenSuSe,OpenSolaris,Mandriva,and a few other experimental OS's I found.

After seven days of testing everything under the sun I realized that I was happy with Ubuntu and decided to give it one more try. After the install and update. I started using the netbook as usal. I noticed better performance, response, and speed. Just as I had assumed in the beginning it was just time to do a fresh install.

So after one week of torturing myself I will tell everyone to just reinstall. Don't think of reasons to hate your OS to justify finding something new. If it works, let it work!

Casey