Network Party

[Dave Finton <dfinton@d.umn.edu>]

Here I am sitting at my computer at the networking party with Lion, SuperQ,
et al.  In the past 40 hours I have had 4 hours of sleep.  I have consumed
mass quantities of Pop Tarts, Mountain Due (Dew...? I don't remember
anymore... :), coffee, and Perkins food pseudo-substitute.  I have played
Quake almost incessantly on my Linux box and have put up with Win95 kiddies
and their volume-control-knobs-on-the-front-of-their-monitors computers (with
quesstions like, "Is Linux like DOS?  What does it do?").  My computer has
gone through more fsck's in the past 36 hours than it has in its entire
existence beforehand (circuit breakers keep breaking :).

In all honesty, this has been the most fun I've had all year.  :)

Funny anecdote:  On one occasion Quake appeared to have froze up my computer
display and keyboard.  Thinking, well someone in the room has to have the
telnet program on their computer, I asked if anybody had it so I could go in
and reboot my computer.  One person said yes, so I went over to his computer,
and what does he do?  He loads up the Network Neighborhood, clicks on my
computer's host name (I have Samba :), and tells me to type in my password.

The conversation went almost exactly like this:

"No, I need to *telnet* into my computer."
"Ya, I know.  You can log on here."
"No, I need *telnet*."
"You mean this program?"  Loads up the app launcher program, and highlights
TELNET.EXE
"Yes, that program."
Goes back to Network Neighborhood.  "Well log on here so you can telnet into
your computer."
"Eeaaarghh."
(He eventually figures out the difference between SMB and Telnet, sorta)
"Why do you need to telnet in to your computer?"
"I need to reboot my computer."
(Confused look)

Fortunately, I looked over at my computer screen and saw the display was
unfrozen and I no longer needed to remotely shutdown.  I left the poor sap,
befuddled and permanently changed in ways Bill Gates can never reverse.  :)

I can barely ekep my wyes open noow,  the wrolld is geting dimn>  Must playt
Qake... mst pl,asy Quaake...