• Just because you can

    Byc
    I often do technical things for no particular reason. For example, a couple of nights ago I jailbroke my iPhone and ever since I've been doing things like installing SSH and a web server. That's right, my iPhone can now serve web pages. Why would I want to do that? What purpose does it serve? Obviously I'm not going to run a real site off of a damn phone, especially one that's mostly reliant on the oh-so-awesome Optus 3g network. It is, from a practical sense, completely useless.

    But boy, it sure was fun. Even though at times the process was frustrating, getting a device to do something it was never meant to was remarkablly rewarding. I leant some new things and had some of my Unix knowledge refreshed.

    There have been articles written about the importance of play in adult life, but I've never bothered to read them. I mean, of course play is important: that's obvious. But this recent geeking out made me realize that I don't actually have that much play in my non-technical life. I rarely do things just because I can.

    Pointless, fun play is so important to my professional life. If I didn't just get in and mess with things, at work and at home, I wouldn't have been exposed to a lot of things that have been valuable in my real work.

    I'm not sure how yet, but I'm going to insert more random exploration into my home life. Plan a little less, experiment a little more. And  just see what comes of it.

    Tags » Featured Learning