so, i started out on an old clevo p150hmx my dad used to use. it was good enough for a first computer, since i didn't really do much on it. mostly just minecraft. however, it was my (albeit virtualised) first contact with linux. i used to spin up vms, install a linux distro, poke around a bit and then forget about it, mostly because i didn't really know what to do afterwards. even then, i'd argue it was the seed of this journey.
anyway, the desktop i got afterwards practically defined when i actually started developing. i learned python, built some basic api clients and started daily driving a windows-linux dualboot. i also learned javascript and after a long period of nothing, i learned rust and built a bunch of script-sized utilties. eventually, i upgraded it from a gtx 1050 to an rtx 3060 and began messing around with ai/ml, particularly diffusers and transformers. after finding some programmer friends online who motivated me to learn further, i started working with next.js, sveltekit and react to make actual modern websites.
recently, i ship of theseus'd it to a 5700x. at this point, i began to progress almost exponentially: i switched to nixos full-time, spun up a bunch of services via docker on a pi 4, made programs with actix/ntex, diesel and tokio, then i made my first actually practical rust applications, studied c++ and made my barebones redis clone (more c++ projects to come hopefully)
less than a year ago, i got grade a on cambridge proficiency and my dad bought me my dream laptop as a reward: the framework laptop 16. to call it the luckiest purchase of my life would be an understatement: it has 32 gigabytes of ddr5 and i got it mere months before the rampocalypse. that aside, it's a genuine tank, i doubt i'll need another computer for ~10 years. since i had a laptop that was superiour to my 5700x desktop, i decided to turn said desktop into a homelab and run my own proxmox instance which runs all my infra: ollama, immich, searxng, samba, minecraft, lidarr, forgejo, you name it. now, i've started working with cloudflare workers, durable objects, d1 and all those cool little doohickeys ^_^. as of writing, i'm participating in hack club's 2026 flavour town event. i'm also scheming up a variant of my nixos installation that uses more of its capabilities: heavily hardened, local lms baked into the interface, automation all around, virtual machines everywhere and docker containers running synchronised copies of some of my homelab's services. it seems like a neat little project, we'll see how it goes.
the foreseeable future seems bright. my progress might as well be exponential. i'm finally on concerta! :D one of the programs i've made, anum, a forum made in the 90s' image, is going to receive some big updates or even a rewrite this spring or summer. i'm also working on getting my silly little hands on a 3d printer, so tomfoolery can reach critical levels! >:3 i've got plenty of ideas for what to do, as well: a discord clone, my own (small) LM (gunning for ducc's spot, hehe), my own budget smart home utilties, home-made drones (cyn will become real :3), fl16 mods (f.e. framelight), the list goes on and on!