Ask Linux

[linux.poet]

Got a question? Ask a question! Always happy to answer.

 

[Frank]

What's your favourite color?

 

[linux.poet]

What's your favourite color?

Red.

 

[Alex]

Have you ever worked as staff in real life, or as a volunteer online and had a really bad experience from an owner or manager? Did this cause you to leave?

 

[Nebulous]

What do you feel the most guilty about?

 

[linux.poet]

Have you ever worked as staff in real life,

That would be my volunteer Awana secretary position. I was "secretarial assistant" twice. The second time, I was shunted off there because of something I said, which made me mad, because I wanted to work with the kids. Eventually, I quit the secretary job due to lack of time. I learned a lot from that job, but it was honestly really boring.

Mostly, I learned that I do better in more creative positions, and that the Awana ministry isn't a very creative ministry. I also learned how databases and database programs work. I learned more things, mostly about efficiency of ministry and how most children (unlike me) need support from their parents when they are trying to learn a new skill. I was more motivated to learn when I was a kid because I was scared of what would happen to me if I didn't, and it took me a long time to appreciate the beauty of systems, which is the positive reason to learn things.

or as a volunteer online and had a really bad experience from an owner or manager? Did this cause you to leave?

Yes. The first time I was a volunteer in a secretive strategic planning forum, I got banned and was delusional and rambling trauma stuff for a week, took me about 7 years to recover from that one, so there I go. That was partly my fault, also partly my abusive dad's fault, but still. I left.

The second time, I was just a member so "volunteer" might go in quotes, but I was still writing articles there and providing video game feedback, so it counts. The forum owner was crazy and ignored my advice and their forum completely collapsed. I left before then, though. I knew the place wasn't worth my time long before it collapsed.

The third time, I was a mod and a site "advisor" lashed out at me in a support ticket. I resigned mod after that and I used my ugly life circumstances as a reason to leave. I was also kind of mad at that site for not respecting my time and my need to earn money. But the resignation was more strategic than anything else - I knew that situation was heating up between the two of us, and I valued that forum's resources, so fighting and getting myself banned wasn't in my better interest. Mostly, I just was too close and too protective of a specific group on that site, and I needed time off to "get better" basically.

Mostly I just get too smart for my roles and I'm not good with people thanks to my mental health issues, which causes these problems, although the second one was just weird. Probably what I need to do is spend some time in the site owner role myself and that will reduce the amount of these misunderstandings and cultivate a bit more empathy for their struggles.

However, I tend to have a bold and direct personality that relishes confrontation, so I will always likely be confronting (strategic or not) and enduring the consequences because I learn from them. It's part of being me.

What do you feel the most guilty about?

All the unfinished work that I've told people that I will do that I haven't finished yet. I always feel guilty for how long things take me to do, that I am an artesian temperament and my work takes forever because it's deep work and the internet chops up my time into little bits. I feel guilt over my actual art and poetry, and the fact that I have to do other work to earn money. I suffer from impostor syndrome from that and it feels like an impossible performance act.

 

[Kane]

How did you come up with your screen name? Do you write poetry?

 

[Joshua Farrell]

Do you have any books that you like to read?

 

[linux.poet]

How did you come up with your screen name? Do you write poetry?

In college, I was a dual web design/English major, and this name started as my Discord username for college during the pandemic for the computer science classes that I was taking at the time. I have 4 published poems, and back then I was doing a lot of design work in poetry as well, with the literary journal internships. At the time it was important to establish that I was neither fully a writer or a programmer, but both.

When I transferred back into university, I received a bunch of financial aid, so I put that into a new hard drive for an old laptop that had crashed and installed kubuntu linux. The idea was to take a bunch of computer science classes and just drag the dual major thing all the way into getting a masters' degree in creative writing and a master's level certificate in web design. That plan got shattered by a lot of trauma and mental health issues. The idea was that the linux machine would make the computer science classes easier, which was only partially true, I learned midway through Data Structures and Algorithms. Ugh. So it was linux.poet because that sounded cool.

From there, that Discord username became my christianforums.com username for a lot of complex reasons, and then it became my username here because CF is where I learned to be a mod, and I wanted to push my mod experience, which paid off.

I'm still rather highly invested in poetry, as I have the talent for it, both in writing and speaking. The linux aspect also explains how I deal with my poetry, as I'm willing to do it online and invest in getting maximum innovation for it here. It's pretty loaded.

Do you have any books that you like to read?

A better question might be: what books do I NOT like to read? Answer: horror novels and cheesy unrealistic romances. I got too much horror in real life and I prefer my romance real, bold, honest, realistic and cuddly. The rest, I read. I will read anything that is written in English or another language I can reasonably learn. I love reading.

As for the rest, I tend toward nonfiction books these days, lots of nonfiction books on business, actually. The Hockey Stick Principles by Bobby Martin, Philosophical and Economic Foundations of Capitalism by Svetozar Pejovich. I have a whole tote full of books that I want to read that I haven't got to yet or haven't finished. Lots of books on relationships like The Seven Levels of Intimacy, books on theology, books on literature or of literature. Right now I'm reading African literature and Chinese American literature for school.

And of course, on top of all of that, I love reading books on poetry, obviously. I wish I had enough time to read through the entire poetry section of my university library.

 

[Kane]

In my younger days, I used to write poetry. I have even publish a poetry book (print book). Maybe be we should collaborate some day

 

[linux.poet]

In my younger days, I used to write poetry. I have even publish a poetry book (print book). Maybe be we should collaborate some day

Time to research copyright laws for collaborations between writers in two entirely different countries. That will be fun.