There’s a poignant and personal lesson in how the rest of the world feels out there for me today.
I was talking to havner, the release manager for the PLD GNU/Linux distro today. He’s describing life as he sees it, from the point of view of a computer geek in Warsaw. It started out as reminiscing (for me) over old types of computers not found around much, and for him, talking of trying to find parts that aren’t available to him easily so he can make these machines run.
His dream for some spare cash, like mine, is to get an Apple Powerbook. There’s one small difference. For him, it’s nine months wages. For me, it’s more or less one.
So today is a lesson in human contact online. It is possible to get to know people online, and through a language barrier too. Some things are universal. We both like making things work well, and things that really shouldn’t be able to work work anyway. We both like astronomy. His father likes Westerns. I run an ISP. He’s a college student. We’re close to the same age. I think we talked for four hours, keeping him up ‘til dawn.
This isn’t a ramble with a point, really. It’s just nice to really get to know people you work on things with.