Rubenerd

I’m trying something a bit different this morning. I’m going to answer the most common questions I receive from people asking “what’s the point?” of something. My experience is that people usually aren’t asking such questions in good faith, but let’s address them earnestly.

Many of these beg the question, by implying I should have been doing something else. I might address the implied question too, or not. I’m also also not going to hedge my bets by saying “in my opinion”, or “your mileage may vary”, because these were asked of me, so of course they’ll be informed by my specific opinions, use cases, constraints, tastes, and ideas.

With that out of the way, let’s begin!

What’s the point of blogging?

Or: Why not just post on social media?

Nobody was asking this in the early 2000s, because it was just something people did. Nowadays in the age of corrosive social media and silos, why not just post there instead? Wait, I think I just answered the question.

Blogging is a space you own. You can post what you want, about what you want, in whatever style you want. Your words are yours. And once you start blogging, you notice other people blogging too. You realise there’s an entire other world of people sharing their ideas and creativity and joy. It’s infectious.

I think blogging is fun. It lets me process thoughts I’m having, and have a bit of a conversation with people, albeit asynchronously. It’s great. I think more people should try it.

What’s the point of coffee shops/cafés?

Or: Why not just make coffee at home?

Writers, journalists, philosophers, and common folk have been going to coffee shops to think, discuss ideas, and plan revolutions for hundreds of years. Coffee is a wonderful drink, and there’s something so fun about having it in a cozy cafe or a place where people know your name.

I also have a theory that for introverts, coffee shops offer a degree of social interaction where you can be surrounded by people, but still doing your thing either with a book or laptop. They helped me tremendously with loneliness for much of my 20s.

What’s the point of running FreeBSD?

Or: Why not just run Linux?

FreeBSD is running the servers you’re reading this text on now. It’s great, you should try it. It does things similarly to Linux in a lot of ways, but it doesn’t chase the shiny to anywhere near the same extent. It’s mature, stable, predictable, and works.

FreeBSD has the best server tooling in the business, and its permissive licencing means it also integrates easily with other excellent tooling like OpenZFS. This makes things like rollbacks a cinch. I was a Solaris/SunOS admin briefly in high school and uni, and a lot of what I remember there is in modern FreeBSD too.

Linux people have recently started realising why reproducible builds are probably a good idea for security and auditability. Everything you need to get started with FreeBSD is in base, which you can build and verify yourself. Installing a system can be as simple as building a filesystem and extracting a tarball, whether on a new machine, a VM, or a jail.

As I say to everyone asking this: give it a try. Why not?

What’s the point of simulation games?

Or: Why can’t you just drive a real train, or fly a real aircraft?

Driving a train in the real world requires specialist education, and can only be operated in specific rights of way. This means no open-ended exploring on your train, or aircraft, or space ship. You need licences, flight plans, approvals, timetables, uniforms, and undergo evaluations for competency and hiring.

It’s also much cheaper to do these things in a simulator at home.

What’s the point of being an introvert/bi/etc?

Or: Why can’t you just be normal?

The question here implies that I decided to be these things. I did not, as you’ll find if you talk to people of many different persuasions. That seems especially hard for populist far right reactionaries, so the fact you’re even asking me is a positive first step.

Introversion and sexuality are both scales. I wouldn’t say I’m entirely introverted; occasionally I do feel recharged being among a group of friends who mean a lot to me. I’ve also tended to skew towards women much of the time, though my interests and fancies still vary considerably.

I am these things because it’s who I am. The good news is, I don’t need your approval.

What’s the point of running NetBSD?

Or: Why not just run FreeBSD or OpenBSD?

NetBSD was my first BSD, and it remains near and dear to me. Much of what I said about FreeBSD applies here too.

NetBSD is a great OS to work with. It’s small, predictable, and runs similarly on anything I throw it at. I love that I can run it on several of my retrocomputers regardless of architecture, and the skills I learn are transferable. I got a giddy thrill communicating between my SPARCStation and my childhood Pentium 1 once I got that network going.

Even if you never stray from amd64 though, NetBSD makes a great server and laptop OS. It’s easy to debug; NetBSD doesn’t bury things under multiple layers of complicated abstractions, or change the syntax of something just because it’s not the current hotness. It’s *nix like you remember it… the good bits, I mean.

Also, pkgsrc is usable almost everywhere.

What’s the point of running Linux for gaming?

Or: Why not just run Windows?

I maintain enough Windows at work, and I don’t want to bring it into the home. Thanks to the efforts of Valve, Wine, and too many other projects to mention, gaming on Linux is not only viable in 2025, but fantastic. It’s not without its challenges; desktop Linux never is. But I’d rather be dealing with those problems than Windows.

What’s the point of travel?

Or: Why not just … I dunno, not?

Travel is an itch. It’s the ultimate novelty. You’re going out to see the world, witnessing how different people live and do things. You get to explore a new train system. You get to try new food. It forces you out of your groove, rut, comfort zone, whatever cliché you can think of. It’s stimulating and fun in a way nothing else is. No matter how much you prepare, there will always be surprises.

Clara and I deliberately chose the apartment we’re in now, and save most of our incomes, precisely to let us do this. It’s what we first bonded over, and it remains our favourite thing in the world to do.

What’s the point of anything?

Or: Why not just do nothing?

Honestly, at that stage I’m not qualified to answer you in a complete way. I’ve been where you are, and understand how being in such a state affects everything from your mood, appetite, motivation, self-worth, and outlook on life. Mine was triggered by family trauma when I was in my early 20s that I’m still only just recovering from now. You need to seek out help, because you deserve it.

But hand to heart, I’d say as an immediate first step: go outside. No, really. Go for a walk if you can. Leave the electronics behind, and wander. The medical literature is clear on this point: moving makes you feel better. Tackle the small things first, then you’ll be in a better mental state to address the bigger things.

What’s the point of retrocomputing?

Or: Why not just use modern machines?

I still get this asked on a regular basis, believe it or not.

Retrocomputing is a puzzle. It’s so much fun getting something working again. It’s like a living history lesson. It’s taught me more about electronics and computer fundamentals than years of lectures and seminars.

It’s also nostalgic, which as a nostalgic fool speaks to me. I love that I can power up the first childhood PC I built myself, or check out the PalmPilot I used in primary school for some reason. Like travel, I love seeing how writers, gamers, educators, engineers, and accountants must have used their Apple IIs, or the Commodore 64.

It’s a half-baked idea at the moment, but I’m also working on a theory that so many people are into retrocomputing now given the depressing state of modern IT. When it’s not peddling snakeoil and lies it’s selling our privacy and trashing our democracies. There’s still so much good in modern computing, but retrocomputing gives you an opportunity to pare back the bullshit and engage with technology again in a fun—and dare I say, more wholesome—way.

It’s also worth mentioning that retrocomputing today is great precicely because of modern IT. We have fabs that can print indie circuit boards for us. We can collaborate on code, designs, and projects for new and fun addons and storage replacements for old machines. This is something that simply wasn’t possible at the time.

It’s fun, I guess is my point. Which actually applies to most of the questions on this post, so maybe we’ll wrap it up here.