---
title: Good Weather Guilt
date: '2007-06-20T14:15:00Z'
categories:
- Personal
tags:
- beach
- comics
- frivolous
- geek
- Linux
- sun
summary: On good weather guilt, a long-suffering affliction of mine, and the role of Finland's climate in the genesis of Linux.
original:
  url: http://bendiken.net/2007/06/20/good-weather-guilt
  archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20080725103552/http://bendiken.net/2007/06/20/good-weather-guilt
---

[![The vicious cycle of Good Weather Guilt and Work Guilt... repeat until summer
is
over.](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/artob/ar.to/master/src/content/essays/2007/06/20070620-joyoftech.jpg)](https://web.archive.org/web/20070620/http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/975.html)

Today’s [Joy of Tech
comic](https://web.archive.org/web/20070620/http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/975.html)
bestows a name on a long-suffering affliction of mine: **good weather guilt**.

If anything, I have it much worse since [moving to Spain](/2007/01/five-tidbits)
some years back, though I do in fact get to enjoy the great outdoors quite a bit
more than back in dark gloomy Finland. I suspect that the phenomenon is not
unlike when someone who grew up poor later has trouble handling the
overabundance of previously scarce resources.

So, while there’s certainly [no shortage of sun and
beach](https://web.archive.org/web/20070620/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_del_Sol)
during the balmy spring, fall and winter here, and despite the local summer
being best described as an overheated tourist rush accompanied by a near-lethal
[UV
index](https://web.archive.org/web/20070620/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UV_index),
the guilt still just piles on this time of the year.

I’ve long maintained that
[location](https://web.archive.org/web/20070620/http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Helsinki,+Finland&ll=60.160643,24.952698&spn=0.247358,0.672913&t=k&z=11&iwloc=addr&om=1&f=q&hl=en&ie=UTF8)
must have been an oft-ignored key factor in the
[genesis](https://web.archive.org/web/20070620/http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.minix/msg/b813d52cbc5a044b?dmode=source)
and early evolution of Linux. It’s not as if
[Linus](https://web.archive.org/web/20070620/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds)
had opportunity to suffer from good weather guilt, with its manifold
distractions, for any more than perhaps two months a year at most. In between
the brief guilt trips, latitudes like that offer a ten-month virtually
uninterrupted and highly productive season while inhospitable elements and
twilight darkness hold sway outside the lab (or, as it may be, the den).

Anyone up for founding a geek outpost in Antarctica? That should serve to focus
the mind. Take a leaf from [oil
rigs](https://web.archive.org/web/20070620/http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.04/sealaunch_pr.html)
on how to run the logistics. Combine the concepts of [Wizard
School](https://web.archive.org/web/20070620/http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/07/wizard-school.html)
with [SeaCode](https://web.archive.org/web/20070620/http://www.sea-code.com/),
and sprinkle with some [Silicon
Valley](https://web.archive.org/web/20070620/http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html).
Put in your six months of highly-paid, focused work to invent the future, get
the rest of the year off — with free [Geek
Cruises](https://web.archive.org/web/20070620/http://www.geekcruises.com/) in
the Caribbean to keep you properly motivated as well as up to date on stuff. A
[private Airbus
A380](https://web.archive.org/web/20070620/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6768237.stm)
should be roomy enough to ferry the crack team around the globe as needed.

Oh well. This is a losing battle. Off to the beach it is, with a copy of [Cocoa
Programming for Mac OS
X](https://web.archive.org/web/20070620/http://www.amazon.com/Cocoa-Programming-Mac-OS-2nd/dp/0321213149/).
As every hacker knows, the [truly productive
hours](https://web.archive.org/web/20070620/http://liw.iki.fi/liw/texts/flow.en.html)
don’t start till after sundown, anyway. Maybe there’s room for compromise.