[clue-tech] [OT?]How do I multiboot Windows NT 3.51 and Windows2000?

[Matt Gushee]

Hex Star wrote:

>     In my opinion -- and that's all this is -- I believe you've missed the
>     point to "toying with OSes".  This isn't about "a flashy interface
>     or 3D
>     graphics."  The fundamental reason to toy with any OS is to learn it.
>     The reason to learn an OS is to build skills that will contribute to
>     your livelihood.  The number one contributor to any individual's
>     livelihood is their source of income; AKA their job or any future job.
>     When you toy with an OS, you are adding to your marketability when --
>     and only when -- the skills you are gaining are, or will be, in demand.

> True it probably won't yeild any skills I can use for business

Maybe, maybe not. Certainly, it doesn't give you an easy bullet point to 
put on your resume. From that standpoint, knowing a more modern OS is 
certainly more beneficial. On the other hand, I would say that knowing 
multiple OSes/applications/APIs/languages is worthwhile in itself, 
because if you learn the right lessons from that experience, you gain a 
generalized mental model of how things work. In other words,

   1. Learn how to accomplish task X on platform A.
   2. Learn how to accomplish task X on platform B.
   ....

... and at a certain point, learning how to do it on another new 
platform becomes much, much easier--so much easier that you might not 
even notice you're learning something new[*]. I mean that quite literally.

Now, these generalized skills don't help much with recruiters, because 
their mindset is to find people with proven experience on particular 
tools. The fact that a person with good generalized skills can often 
quickly surpass people who know only a narrow set of tools ... that 
concept is completely foreign to most recruiters. Nonetheless, once you 
get the job it will contribute enormously to your productivity.

> but I'm 
> just a teen in highschool with no job as of yet and probably won't be 
> able to get a good computer management job around here

Who knows if there will even be any computer management jobs around here 
by the time you're ready? Seems like every time we think, "Oh, they'll 
never outsource *that* job to India" ... they do.

[*] I should qualify this statement by saying that it is probably less
     true for system administration than for, say, programming or using
     desktop applications. Not untrue, but system administration
     naturally requires deep knowledge of particular platforms. So it
     probably takes a lot longer for a sysadmin to acquire that general
     model ... at least, that's my guess. I'm a(n unemployed) developer,
     not a sysadmin.

-- 
Matt Gushee
The Reluctant Geek: http://matt.gushee.net/rg/
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