Very often, we take so many things for granted. Take Wi-Fi access on airplanes for example… or flying, for that matter (YouTube/Louis CK on Conan).
For those of us working in IT (vendor, consulting, customer, academia, etc…), we are surrounded by some of the most amazing things EVER. I was reminded of this fact earlier this morning when browsing Slashdot. An article, “Linux Kernel 4.7 Officially Released” was posted on the site and it just blew my mind.
Screenshot from the article from Slashdot
To be honest, nothing in that list of new features is all that exciting to me. Radeon RX 480 GPUs, sync_file fencing mechanisms, and the “schedutil” frequency governor are all very foreign to me. Regardless of utility, the complexity of it all is mind boggling and beautiful.
The level of effort, detail, and functionality in the kernel is fantastic… and it’s not limited to Linux. Windows, UNIX, ESXi, NX-OS, etc…
The fact that we have these tiny little machines in our presence with increasingly stronger, faster, and more intelligent components with such utility is a borderline-miracle. The fact that I can identify a need to connect an Xbox Elite controller to a Linux environment AND IT WILL WORK is amazing. The fact that I can sit at my desk with 3 monitors, type on a piece of plastic with buttons, click Publish, and share a little thought with whomever is reading this is an amazing feat.
Am I waxing poetic or off in my own little world? Maybe a little… but, when things get frustrating and you’re having “one of those days”, step away from whatever you’re doing any try to appreciate the little pieces of magic that happen all the time to enable you to do whatever your job is.
