Reading 10: Birth of a Nerd OS

Reading about Linus’s obsession with computers and programming at a young age is laughably similar to how I grew up. While Linus had his grandfather introduce him to his Commodore Vic 20, I had my older brother hand off his Gameboy SP with a copy of Pokémon Emerald to me. I could barely read the dialogue when I first booted it up, but that did little to stop me from trying. After my first taste of video games, I was hooked for life. That little influence created a life-long interest in games and computers, culminating in my choice of computer science for a major. Although I had a little more variation in extra-curriculars and hobbies, I would confidently say I spent enough hours behind a computer to qualify as a geek as a kid. It is pretty cool to know that Linus started from a similar path and created a project that is so impactful in the world today.

I found Linus’s note about finding interesting classes easy and others loathsome to be particularly relatable. I had an especially hard time growing up with English, foreign language, and history classes because I just could not find the attention or interest. Science and math-oriented classes came a lot easier and took a lot less time. The relatability of Linus’s upbringing to my own makes his success feel a lot more achievable than a literal robot like Mark Zuckerberg.

From this week’s reading, it seems like Linus found his motivation for Linux from the inaccessibility of operating systems in his college days. When he faced this problem himself, he put in many hours (probably a LOT more than anticipated) to develop an open-source solution. While I do not currently have a programming itch, I have definitely found problems to solve in the exact same way in the past. For a class titled “Database Concepts”, I created a statistics website for Super Smash Bros. tournament results. In Indiana's competitive scene, we lacked an efficient way to track and rank players algorithmically in 2023. Thus, I filled a niche void for a fun project. I found the work very easy when I had personal motivations (and 20% of my final grade) behind my efforts. I am currently looking into a few statistic trackers for online games I play, so that may be the next stop for personal projects. If I could somehow integrate machine learning, it would be a lovely piece for my GitHub profile. Employers have to love that stuff.

At this point in my life, I do not really know what I want my story to be. I would love to create stuff that the masses find useful. At the same time, I have no clue what my interests will be in the future and if the timing will be right. There is always a certain degree of luck and timing with the best projects, so one can only hope I find that motivation soon.

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