I have ~1.5 months until classes begin, and largely nothing to do during that time. So I've begun, in order not to degenerate into a game-playing zombie, giving myself techie assignments. I've got me a nice NAS server from which I can stream media and make backups to wirelessly from anywhere, and set everything up. And I've installed Linux Mint alongside W7 on my lappy to test out Linux. Next I'll try to get a virtualizer so I can run my Linux partition from Windows, and vice versa... but what about after that?

Any ideas for obvious techie things I can amuse myself with? Hopefully something that I can actually use, something that can come in handy. I'll try to learn another programming language, but that's dull, so don't recommend that unless you really think I haven't thought of the language in question and it's worth doing.

http://xkcd.com/356/
Solve this.

Alternatively, familiarize yourself with hardware trends prices and brands so you can be as cool as me. :3

Even better: Physically build it and measure it. Of course not infinitely large, but you should still be able to determine the value it'll be approaching.

Or build a few of these and for example create a (labyrinth like) track for them to race against each other.

Or maybe your town offers projects where you can build your own remote controlled car or something like that. Or build a model car from a kit.

Just to mention a few things that are techie but NOT computer related...

O.o That physics guy could've been me. Thanks for bringing that vulnerability to my attention.

That problem isn't useful, and I think I know enough about 'hardware trends and prices' to be happy with it.

As for the remote control cars... it's an interesting idea, but.. err.. no. My environment contains little children, and as such, something like that wouldn't work. Plus, not very useful. And then I'll have to go buy a soldering iron...

You don't have a soldering iron? Hand in your balls son, you are no man.



Make a peashooter that fires soft peas without them splatting inside the barrel. Suction is key.

Make this or this. Or one of these.

Create a network using a switch and a hub. Go

And I dont wanna hear nothin about a Router. Thats for children.

Soldering irons are pretty cheap and weak. What you need is an acetylene torch. B) I has torch. You need torch. Or a BAMF Hydrogen torch.

I had a wired network between up to at least 3 computers and no router before getting DSL about 5 and a half years ago.

Why do you need a switch *and* a hub? You know hubs are inferior old technology that don't provide any benefits in a production network, right? Sometimes they're useful for debugging and testing and I use one at work for convenience, but there's no reason to ever build a network with a hub if you have a switch.

You know that building L3 networks that use routers properly is much more difficult than building a L2 network that uses only switches? Similarly, very seldom is a home network, or any network with less than 10 computers, going to need L3 routing.

Actually I get the impression you don't know any of this.

If you already know how to program, you could join the Mario AI championship. It's sort of like BroodAI, but with super Mario. (Even though it may be a little late to join, you may be able to make it.)

No no no. You want to learn Linux, forget about Linux Mint. Start off with Archlinux and use their Archwiki Installation and Beginner guide. Google them. You'll actually learn something from it all. Then, I challenge you to see how long you can go without installing any sort of window manager/desktop environment. No GUI. Just CLI. You can play music, browse, use email, read RSS feeds, all of that stuff through CLI. All these tools exist. Virtualizing and dual booting is cool, but if you don't actually force yourself to be on Linux for as long as you can, you don't get anywhere. Additionally, or simultaneously*, learn the bash shell. Bash scripting is a very powerful tool for any linux power user, and if you can master it, you'd be surprised with what you can do with it. You're a smart person, and I don't doubt that if you spent a month and a half going at it, you'd take a lot away from this experience. Most of this was inspired by a reddit post I read earlier today at work... let me see if I can grab it. Found it! http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/iw1h4/going_fully_command_line_give_me_your_favorite/

Do it!

Also - you're a programmer, right? If so, LEARN VIM. Vim is a text editor, and it is very powerful. It takes a while for it to click, since it's not your typical text editor, but once you learn it, you can do a lot with it. To get started, in a terminal, run vimtutor (If my memory serves me). Google it if I'm wrong.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 22 2011, 9:57 pm by TomWaits.

... Nope. Not going to do that.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 23 2011, 1:07 am by Centreri.

Well, that's disappointing. Just a heads up, spending a portion of your time on perhaps the most newbie friendly Linux distribution with no goal in mind besides using it in conjunction with Windows will hardly teach you anything, can hardly be considered techie, and is certainly not pushing yourself and your abilities.

Obvious sarcasm was obvious.

You should think of something you want to learn, then build a program that will help you learn it. For example, I'm learning the NATO phonetic alphabet, so I wrote a console app in Java that gives me a letter and times how long it takes me to respond with the corresponding word. When I'm done, it shows how many times I got something correct/incorrect and my average and longest time for each word; I can use this information to know which parts of the alphabet I still need work on. I'm thinking about making a similar program that will give definitions and expect the corresponding word to improve my vocabulary.

Keep your 'hardcore Linux-user' elitism to yourself, please.

Roy... well, that's interesting. Just another take on programming something, I suppose. I'll think about it.

Y u so unfriendly cent

He wasn't being elitist at all. You wanted something techie to do, he gave you something, you said no without explaining why so he assumed, probably correctly, that you didn't actually want to do something difficult. As he also correctly pointed out, installing and using a noob friendly linux for a few days without getting into the guts doesn't push your limits, nor is it very techie. Then you reply Y U ELITIST JERK

Woah. I am no Linux elitist. Not everybody will have some sort of interest in the underpinnings of one's operating system. I figured you might, since you were asking for something techie to do, so I suggested it. If you're looking for an easy, no-fuss Linux distro, Mint is a great choice. I just didn't think it was in line with your interests. There's no need to be rude.