Stoyan Stefanov

It just occurred to me that if I'm stranded on a desert island with my laptop computer, I'll be set for life. Provided, of course, that somehow miraculously I never run out of power and the hard drive never fails. I'll have entertainment, I'll be able to express and create and improve and enjoy... forever.

I can read. Finally finish all the random books that lay about unread.

I can look at family photos and videos and music that is laying about unorganized and poorly backed up.

(As you can guess, I have terrible organizational habits when it comes to files and things. But that only proves my point. Even in this state I'll be set for life. Someone more organized and archiving type of person will have even better time)

I can write. Books, poems, stories.

I can shoot and edit photos. There's a camera. There's some primitive photo editing software (Preview).

I can record and edit and produce music. There's a microphone. There are virtual instruments. There's Garage Band, free. And, in my case, also Reaper which is even better.

I can shoot, edit and produce video. Movies even. Thanks, iMovie.

And I can write code. HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, Python come included. I can learn the languages I don't know. And I can write all the code I want. Say, iMovie is not good enough for what I want to produce in my Desert Island 3 movie. I can just write the code to do what I want. Now, a video editing software better than iMovie may be a bit of a stretch for a single coder but hey, I have all the time in the world.

I may even be able to hack/reverse the wifi antennae or whatever to send an SOS signal. I have all the time in the world.

Isn't this liberating? I don't ever have to go online anymore. No Hacker News, no Reddit, no Twitter. It doesn't matter if I never ever download a single byte of information anymore.

I can disconnect today. I can be creative and be able to accomplish things forever.

Now, if I want to make a living with my creations (be it software, music, writing) in a non-desert island situation, it's probably a good idea to go online and see what's out there. You know, commercial research. But if it's creation for its own sake, or for the hope of people/aliens discovering and appreciating the fruits of my creativity 2000 years from now, it doesn't matter what's going on out there.