My Personal Obsession

My interpretation of the image above is that, well, computer science is the key.  The succession of zero’s and one’s are the computer’s language – binary.  Weird way to start off a blog entry about personal obsessions, right?  Yes, it is kind of weird, but not off topic in any way.  I am obsessed with, well, computer geeks.  Geekiness in general, I suppose.  Programmers? Yes. Hackers? Yes.

I guess this all very well stems from my childhood.  I taught myself how to use the computer in elementary school, and my days of using a computer began with playing those educational game CD’s that my parents would buy from Costco like JumpStart, Magic School Bus, Carmen Sandiego, etc.  I’ve always been a sci-fi fan, and I devoured the old Star Wars movies in our mini-theater in the basement on Laserdisk.  Yes, laserdisk.  They existed back then.  Well, the computer basically introduced me to gaming, torrenting (file sharing), and all sorts of fun stuff.  Of course, most girls would enjoy gossiping and dressing up and all that jazz, and don’t get me wrong, I like painting my nails and looking cute, but I don’t think I follow the typical girl stereotype.  I love computers.  I love video games.  I love sci-fi and geekiness and Star Wars and Star Trek, etc.  Heck, my roommate likes to tease me that I sit like a man when I’m playing video games.

I think my obsession was inevitable.  I was first introduced to “programming” and “code” through movies.  There’s always that one geeky hacker that has his massive computer station setup in movies that is like some sort of information hub and can get you anything you want in just a few clicks and commands.  The earliest movie I remember this from was called “The Core,” which aired in 2003.

Unfortunately, the geek is never usually the main character, but “Rat” Finch was an elite hacker that played a fairly vital role in the movie.  I thought he was adorable.

One of the most famous hackers in film is from the Matrix!  Not exactly your average computer programming geek, but still, it’s a start.

I don’t think I ever really noticed it, well, not really until my first trip to the Microcenter, which is a chain computer store.  I walked in and there was a section of the store for computer parts, and there were workers there physically building computers.  I thought it was the most awesome thing in the world, and I watched them for a while.

I also think one of the neatest things in the world is the term being “wired in,” or when programmers have their headphones in and are focused only on coding for hours on end.  You know what else is cool?  Hacking competitions…!  I always recall that scene from The Social Network where interns had to compete against each other while coding drunk.  A little exaggerated, but still a fun concept.