Episode: 4362
Title: HPR4362: Elsbeth's First Episode
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4362/hpr4362.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 23:41:58

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4362 for Tuesday 22 April 2025.
Today's show is entitled, Olsbyth's first episode, is part of the series how I got into
tech.
It is the first show by a new host, Olsbyth, and is about 24 minutes long.
It carries an explicit flag, the summary is.
And this show, Olsbyth talks about what got her into tech, how she found HBR, and her
special interest.
Hi, my name is Elzbeth, or that's the handle I go by.
This is my first presentation on Hacker Public Radio.
I heard about this program from Lee, who does a series of podcasts on tech and different
things that he uses tech for.
So my first interaction with technology, actually, that sparked my interest, was probably
watching my dad pilot planes and all of the 1970s, 1980s technology that was in little
planes like Cessna's and Bonanza's, and I was always fascinated by that.
I didn't get very much traction on that at that point in time, other than just hearing
how the instruments worked.
And I also had a fascination with the coding machines from World War II, and kind of fancy
that I could build my own, though I never did.
It wasn't strongly encouraged for me as a female to be in technology.
So my next real interest became when I got to play with my first Apple computer.
And before that, well, no, I actually got to experience a PC computer and learning how
to code Hello World and make a Pong game, or a Pong Light game, back during the first
computer class that ever existed at the boarding school I was in.
That made me really wonder what the future of our role was going to be with the evolution
of technology, and it made me want to be involved in it.
It was about a year and a half later before I started actually building my own computers
and really getting into technology, though.
It's not technology, but I was an avid and prolific book reader, especially when I was a kid
and teenager.
I was constantly nosing a book.
I was obsessed with learning information, but not necessarily with education, though I
did fairly well in school, then because of the way I grew up, I don't think that there
was anything super nerdy that I really got into except for maybe language learning.
I have really avid interest in learning languages and linguistics and how words are used.
So I suppose that would be considered a bit nerdy and geeky.
I think ultimately that led to my interest in computers because of how computers communicate
and interact.
To me, it's just another language.
Then I became a gamer, but that was when I didn't get to enjoy the original gaming in
real time.
But once I discovered games like Super Mario and just Nintendo, PlayStation, those type
of games, early games, I went in retrospect and went to more retro games and got curious
about Atari games and the old school, the eight-bit stuff.
And I was really fascinated with how you could create a story and interactivity.
So I was kind of merging my love for books and story and fantasy with the physical gaming
aspect of it.
Then I came across a game called Earthbound and that just kind of sunk me into being a
full-time gamer.
From there on, it just developed further and further, played a lot of, you know, fall
out, you know, leisure suit Larry trying to think of some of those significant ones.
I actually really liked leisure suit Larry just because a friend of mine from boarding
school did the music for it.
So it was kind of my catalyst to that.
And then when I started on the forums, I started doing like text-based adventures, you
know, and just role-playing online with, you know, D&D, Empire of the Masquerade, whatnot.
And then when MMOs came in, I got interested in those.
And my niche games are Final Fantasy XIV and primarily Second Life, being female and being
a geek at my age, you know, I turned 50 this year.
When I started out, like just openly identifying as a geek, it was tough, you know.
It was a novel thing, it was okay for me to be interested in it because at the time
I was in a relationship with somebody who liked a game and it was a novelty.
He was bringing his girl and oh, how cute he's bringing his girl.
And oh, she games, okay.
And then it became, oh, well, she can actually DM, that might be a problem, you know.
There was a novelty and curiosity of wanting me to DM, but when my games were more interesting
than the guys games, that became a big problem.
And so I faced a lot of judgment and discrimination for being a, you know, girl gamer just because
I was decent at it.
As long as it was a novelty, it was okay.
So, you know, there was game groups and AOLL groups and all that stuff at the time that
I joined for female gamers and I kind of like very, very subtly just tried to advocate
for acceptance and, you know, we can do just as well as guys, you know, I think that over
time with the internet and the socializing on the internet and the interactions on the
internet with social media and whatnot, it became more mainstream for girls to be gamers,
but I still think that females today still face some element of discrimination for being,
you know, female geeks or whatever you want to call yourselves.
And, you know, that's a term that I embrace, you know, geeky or murdy.
I think that it's a progression thing to be able to look back and see, okay,
well, I was accepted for this or I wasn't accepted and there was a lot of judgment
with them when I started building computers and I was good at it.
People wanted me to build their computers for them, regardless of what gender they were.
And I started originally going into hardware, like I was doing the A-plus certification and I
think I completed it back then, but I lost to the wind at that point in time.
Got into tech support in call centers, which was both, you know, male and female at the time
and learned a lot from that and then ultimately worked into QA and doing quality assurance for
programming. But none of it was through education, it was through hands-on, you know, teach myself
type stuff. And along the way it became like, oh, well, you don't have a degree. So how could
you actually know this? So I'm like, well, I went and taught my school, you know. So there's a bit
gender divide, if you will, when I was getting into technology and as I progressed.
So I faced a lot of discrimination on that, but I don't think I even realized it until I look back
on it because it's just what I loved. I wouldn't say necessarily that I have any one individual who
is a role model for my personal interests, but I'm going to say Felicia Day for giving the face to
female geeks to be a part of a discussion about geeky topics. And in this case, it's gaming.
You know, she primarily focused on gaming, which is a special interest in mine,
or at least it used to be more so. But she definitely had an impact on me accepting and allowing
myself to be geeky, trying to think of anyone else that jumps to the top of my head. Marie Curie.
I'm going to go with Marie Curie because I love history and all the women that
made scientific and technological discoveries that weren't given credit for it because they provided
inspiration. I could actually be intact and be one of those people that had an impact, even if it
was minor. I have very strong opinions on this. So I think that our world where it is at right now
is facing that we're past the honeymoon phase of technology, where it's all new, it's all
exciting. And people are starting to understand the impact it could have socially on the world,
even people that don't actively use a whole lot of technology. You know, there are people in my life
that they only have a phone that is a smartphone is because it can't get a phone anymore.
It's really hard to. They're realizing that the world is changing. The impact on the world is
we've literally gone from the idea of Star Trek with the exception of the intergalactic transport
to we have those devices in our hands every day. And they're just as powerful with the exception
of the science for healing on those shows. We have exponentially increased our technology at such a
rapid pace that my parents, their generation is having a hard time keeping up with where we're at,
but they live in a world where if they want to file for something for social security,
they have to do it online, but they may not have the skill set to do that. So there's a negative
impact on society in that regard because technology has so vastly increased and developed
and the way our world works is creating a massive generational gap. And I think it affects our
socio-political society quite a bit too because no longer can you completely hide what is done
in secret, if you will. Because of technology, there's cameras everywhere. There's, you know,
filming, you know, we live in a big brother society, whether we want to admit it or not, you know,
we've got 1984 going on and technology has a lot to do with that. And yet at the same time,
it is the power of such good too because when I was living in West Africa as a teenager,
if I wanted to write to my grandparents in Canada from West Africa, I would have to write it,
they'd have, it would just sit there waiting and the news would be long, long, old by the time they
got a letter. Now I can face time with amazing, wonderful people that are clear across the world
and just live my life as if they're right there. That is something that is amazing and it can
connect families, it can build relationships, it can be such a power for good as long as we as
a society, a world society choose to not let the negatives of it affect us.
The metaverse concept, I know that meta itself claims to be the original metaverse, I will swear
up and down the second life as the original metaverse. Granted, I'm sure that there was, you know,
some elements of, you know, meta before that, but to be able to immerse yourself like to log
into a computer, you have your Abby there and you're interacting with other people, real people
that are also behind their own screen. But you're also building and creating a world
and everybody has the ability to interact as they will. That does come with both positives and
negatives, but there's huge communities that just work together and interact together and create
families and friendships and businesses that wouldn't even be possible in the real world because
all of these individuals are spread all over the place. You know, in the community that
I have helped build, we have people from Canada, different parts of the US, the UK, we have,
you know, people that visit from Australia and just different regions. And then on top of that,
we have events where people, we don't even know where they're from, come. Second life has a whole
way of, well, when they say it's a virtual world or a second life, it genuinely is, it's just a
parallel living experience in a virtual world. You can be yourself, you know, your avatar can
behave just like yourself or you can be an actor on the stage of second life, you can be whatever
you want to be in second life. And at the same time, you build real friendships and relationships
that this world could, in my opinion, the real world can take a lesson from, you know,
there are no, I mean, there's some basic standard, you know, terms of service rules in the game.
And most people adhere to that, the people that don't deal with the consequences of it, you know.
There's so much to be seen and done in this world, but in the real world as well as in second life.
The impact that this game has on people with both physical and even mental disorders and those
with neurodivergent brains is phenomenal. Where I wouldn't have friends in real life, I have friends
in second life. Because everyone has the opportunity to be their genuine authentic selves.
And those that don't, if there's a block button for the people that cause you problems,
since the world needs a bit of a block button, the real world does. And yet that block button can
be reversed if people choose to change their behavior. I have noticed that in our community,
which our entire community is neurodiverse, that each individual that is a part of the
community seems to thrive a little better by being a part of this virtual community,
not just in second life, but in real life, too. In a way, it's a form of therapy. And I'm not
trying to place myself in the position of a doctor or, you know, anyone qualified in that regard,
but I can definitely say that it has been just as effective as actual talk therapy and
medications and whatnot in conjunction to proving mental health and improving self-confident
self-awareness. And as well as being able to unmask somebody who's late diagnosed autistic
or ADHD, autism with ADHD, it's helped me become my best self.
I was really proud of my ability granted technology has exponentially increased, but back when
I was building computers and learning how to put together the components of a computer to create
exactly the type of computer that any individual person needed from knowing that someone that I
was building a computer for is not techy or geeky, being able to choose things that would either
make their life easier, whether it be the hardware and the software that they're going to use on it,
making certain they were protected with antivirus software, especially back in the day.
I was really proud of the skills that I learned during that. Now while I don't actively build
computers now, I spent 15 years working on a project, I think it was about 15 years, I don't think
I should quote it directly 15 years, where I did the quality assurance, I analyzed the software
and tested it to try and break it to see what was working, what wasn't, you know, that was all
self taught. I had to learn now granted the programmer that was the lead programmer of that software
was quite instrumental in teaching me how to interact with the developers on how to provide input
and I became kind of a translator between people that speak geek and those that don't that are
more like stakeholders of the company and interacting with all that learning skills at the time that
I didn't realize would translate to valuable job related skill sets and it was work and I had fun
with it because it wasn't something that it was through a small business. I really did have fun
with it because it allowed me to be analytical and creative at the same time. Those are the two probably
most significant breakthroughs. I think starting a business in second life is actually kind of important
too because you have to be able to understand what the trends are and what people would be
interested in and how what needs to be developed in an item that goes for sale on the marketplace
in second life for it to be worth actually, you know, putting out there. So I guess maybe that's
three things I'm really proud of. I had a strong enough interest in cybersecurity to complete the
Google cybersecurity certificate was looking into actually going for actual work until I faced
the challenge of not having a degree as I'm self-taught with everything. There's so many people
out there that are looking to get into IT that those of us that may have the experience but
not the credentials have a harder time getting in but I do believe that cybersecurity should
be something that everybody learns. They have these stupid little cyber and not diminishing it but
the impact of them is pretty much negligible in my personal opinion. Working in call centers,
you go through a cybersecurity little training inevitably. It becomes something that after you're
hired it's kind of an afterthought instead of before, you know, they should be doing it in the
training period and really emphasizing how to be secure. I've been a part of companies that
have had data leaks and hacking incidents that have affected the entire company causing people
to lose their jobs. I've had people try and scam me or, you know, obviously everybody gets scam
emails learning how to know whether to click a link or not in an email is really powerful and I
think that this will go back to the whole generation gap for technology that I was talking about. If
we don't educate as a society those that are using technology, they have no idea that they're
potentially, you know, risking their hard-earned assets if they don't use a secure password or if
they don't know what they're clicking on. There should never be a presumption of safety on the
internet, but at the same time I go to it from I have been a part of communities where I'm known
in my real life and I wonder sometimes about what I said and didn't the past if that's going to
come back to bite me in the butt. However, I do my best to keep myself secure and I realize that
there's always going to be someone smarter and more eager to do something malicious than me.
I kind of just accept that it is a part of our society. I try not to have extreme anxiety
about it because I do tend to obsess over stuff like that. So I just come to accept that it is what
it is and I'll do myself to protect myself and others. So one of my other special interests is yoga
and how it affects the mind, body and spirit and can improve and assist those with both disabilities
and autoimmune disorders and whatnot. I started yoga while I was in fitness and health training.
I decided to go to a community college and do the training for fitness and health just to try
and improve my own body and I realized that the training was not for somebody in the physical
condition I was in. I did it, I completed it, but during that time I also started yoga and
participating in yoga was what allowed me to actually be able to complete the training without
giving up because the importance and emphasis in yoga is on the breathing and the intentional
movements. When I learned how to breathe properly in every different circumstance, whether it be
just lying or meditating or running or walking, the breath work in it is powerful and then
learning to make intentional movements and breaking every single movement of the flow and yoga
can strengthen the body in more than just a physical way. It's very empowering
to take the time to just slow down and breathe. In a world that's so fast-paced, it makes a huge
difference and with somebody who deals with squirrel brain that runs constantly, it's an opportunity
for my brain to just reset and I love being able to teach other people how to enjoy those moments.
Hopefully this podcast has been of interest to any of you listening to this. I have special
interests of mine that are not necessarily tech, but I'm also interested in anything revolving
tech, old school games, final fantasy, second life. I like to crochet. I know that's not techy,
but it is definitely part of mental health and I think a lot of people in the tech industry need
that little boost on that. I love nature and hiking and look forward to seeing what people have
to say and if you have anything for topics you'd be interested in me discussing.
Thanks for listening and see you on the next one.
You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at HackerPublicRadio.org. Today's show was
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