Chris Wells

Background

About Chris Wells

It was 1980-something and I was on top of the world. My parents had purchased an Atari 400 home computer and unleashed me upon it. There were cartridge games just like the NES my friends had, but there were also cassette tapes I could load. I fondly remember waiting for what seemed like hours to load Zaxxon into the memory on my little computer. I was mesmerized by how a game could be stored on the flimsy magnetic tape. I wondered what would happen if I tried to load my dad's copy of the Jonathan Livingston Seagull soundtrack into the Atari. Would there be a picture of a seagull on the screen? Would there be a game I could play? Would I somehow be able to communicate with Neil Diamond? I didn't know the answers to my questions, but I did know my dad wouldn't be happy if I ruined his tape. A few years later my parents purchased a large multi volume set of World Book Encyclopedias. This might be a purchase thought of as silly now, but back then that knowledge, in my own home, was priceless. I spent hours reading those books cover to cover. A dialup modem on a new Acer desktop brought to me online BBSs, CompuServe, AOL, and eventually the World Wide Web. I learned a lot about Linux on Usenet and downloaded floppy images of the Slackware distribution over a 28.8kbps connection. I have a hard time marketing myself–I've just never been that great at it. If push comes to shove I suppose the closest I can get to the elevator pitch for the product of me is as follows: I am an extremely passionate learner. I seek knowledge because it gives me the power and freedom to act. I believe that everyone should be given the opportunity to gain knowledge and so I freely share it. Sometimes that means teaching a class of 4th graders how a 3D printer works. Other times its a coworker who wants to know how Python could help them do their job more efficiently. Either way I will strive to ensure both of us walks away better for having worked together.