failing like never before

26Sep/083

Crazy Linux Man

Large college campuses seem to attract radical street-corner speakers in the same way free food attracts college students. I've gotten pretty used to the badly-dressed ranters that like to bother students on their way to class, so I took almost no notice of a particular one that I saw today. But as I walked past him, I noticed that he had a white towl slung across his back, and written on the towel were the words "GNU/LINUX IS COOL."

I've seen and heard a lot of crazy street-corner speakers, but never have they stayed from the time-tested topics of social, political, racial, religious, or economic issues. Never have I heard one of them harangue the multitudes about operating systems. While there does tend to be a light strife over the superiority  of operating systems, I don't think I've ever seen someone so inflamed over an operating system (except possibly Richard Stallman, whom I have never actually seen in the flesh).

I was briefly stunned when I realized that the scruffy screamer was actually talking about GNU/Linux, but my shock quickly turned to disappointment. Because I didn't have a camera (This is why I need a camera phone with good resolution!) and everyone knows that if you don't have pictures, then the event never happened.

Deciding that I wanted to find out more about the Crazy Linux Man (whom I shall now call CLM, for short) I walked over and struck up a conversation. I'm a little vague as to how exactly it went, but it was a little something like this;

Me: So you're a Linux user, huh?

CLM: Well I'd like to be a Linux kernel hacker.

Me: Oh, really? Thats cool.

CLM: Yeah, I'd like to get into the code for the kernel and really find out how that stuff works.

Me: Yeah, thats cool>

--- Some ramble babbling went on here, most of it unimportant.

CLM: I could show people how to make really stuff, not like stupid useless things, but cool stuff like 3D games.

Me: (And then I thought: Sheesh, then you should probably go bother the engineering and science students, and not the little high school children taking tours.)  Thats cool... Well have, I have to go, but good luck to you.

CLM: Thanks.

So CLM really was quite crazy and fairly incoherent. And talking to him just left me more confused as to his intentions and purpose.

Comments (3) Trackbacks (0)
  1. Try to avoid making eye contact with people like that. I actually know someone crazy like that. Her computer was totally infected with malware so she paid some tech $75 to fix it. All he did was remove the malware and that was it. This crazy person accepted that as totally normal. Another 3 months later her computer was completely infested again. The world is just full of these crazy people. Go figure.

  2. Lol, yeah, we always tell people that the best way to avoid crazy ranters, is to never make eye contact, and to keep your hands in your pocket.

  3. di…you and mom both don’t know how to spell “towel”…

    mom spells it “tower”…


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