Geek Achievements Thread

lightcrystal · Post by **lightcrystal** » March 13th, 2024, 8:51 pm

This morning I ruined my internet. I accidentally deleted all the files that make my internet run.
But in a few hours I restored the files. If a degree in mathematics is good for anything it makes someone frustration proof. No throwing anything at the wall. Just solve the problem.
I found the people before me who had already ruined their internet in the same way; I used a live bootable DVD of my Linux OS as a temporary internet workaround. I found the answers in various threads and booted back into my real OS and recreated my necessary internet files.
YEAH! I didn't need to call Geeks 2 U. I did it myself! I did it my way! My internet came back from the dead and it's here to stay.
YEAH! Solving geek problems like a champ!

SowasVon · Post by **SowasVon** » March 16th, 2024, 3:58 am

Wow. I can only marvel at people who *actually* know their computer stuff.

Among the people I know, I'm "good" at figuring out computer issues, but it's more of a "trying out different things with a vague understanding" approach. Not achievement-worthy.

barbara2 · Post by **barbara2** » March 17th, 2024, 8:42 am

The things we do to ourselves.

I was updating my desktop environment yesterday (Plasma 6, hooray!) I had to log out of comfortable Plasma 5.7.something into a command line in the darkness below.

With a thrill of horror, I realised I couldn't remember my username. Muscle memory helped me restart. Turned out it was 'barbara'.

Sigh,

Barbara

lightcrystal · Post by **lightcrystal** » March 17th, 2024, 10:25 am

barbara2 wrote: ↑March 17th, 2024, 8:42 am The things we do to ourselves.

I was updating my desktop environment yesterday (Plasma 6, hooray!) I had to log out of comfortable Plasma 5.7.something into a command line in the darkness below.

With a thrill of horror, I realised I couldn't remember my username. Muscle memory helped me restart. Turned out it was 'barbara'.

Sigh,

Barbara

I am on Ubuntu Studio. Evidently that doesn't get Plasma 6 until October. I'm on Plasma 5.24.7
By the way in a Queensland Computer museum there's the Zardax computer system that Australian schools used in the 1980s; when the gear that I used is in a museum the creaky bones start happening.

ManyRoads · Post by **ManyRoads** » March 17th, 2024, 11:14 am

Computers and program panels from when I started are in Computer Museums.... and the punch cards & paper tape have all decomposed.

lightcrystal · Post by **lightcrystal** » March 17th, 2024, 11:50 am

ManyRoads wrote: ↑March 17th, 2024, 11:14 am Computers and program panels from when I started are in Computer Museums.... and the punch cards & paper tape have all decomposed.

Zardax computer system.
Multiscribe for word processing in the school computer lab.
Back when Apple and Microsoft files didn't work on each other; if you made a word processing document on one it would not open on the other. Apple used this fact to dominate the 80s school and home computer mark et; they would almost donate Apple 2 e computers to schools, knowing that people would get the same computer at home that their school had.

I have one last curio that I have never seen anyone ever mention; there was a program called disk muncher. If everyone in the class needed some software the teacher would hand everyone disk muncher on a floppy disk; it enabled everyone to make a copy of any software for themselves. In other words schools in the 80s encouraged kids to pirate!

We were the OG jolly roger generation

A very odd point in time because cassette tapes were everywhere. The university language learning centre had everything on a cassette. Lectures were recorded on cassettes which I have still got. Yet in the big picture cassette technology was a temporary blip and time filler after vinyl and massive reels and before CD's and DVD's. Some historian in the future is going to do a PhD: the blip in time, 20 years of the cassette era then never to be seen again.