I added a Geordi SSH banner to my VPS

I love Star Trek. It was the first show I ever saw that featured black people who were successful because of their intelligence and education and not “street smarts” or “hip sense of humor”. Let’s be honest, it was rare to see black people on TV who weren’t criminals, or servants, or magic negros or other things that I couldn’t relate to as a young black computer nerd.

Then there was Star Trek.

Uhura was a communications expert.

Richard Daystrom created the computer technology that powered the Enterprise and the Federation in general.

Geordi La Forge was one of the greatest engineers in Starfleet and a nerd.

Even better, they were actual characters whose personality wasn’t “black person”. They were part of stories that weren’t feel good dramas, tragedy porn or civil rights histories. They were just smart and capable human beings.

Anyway, I love Star Trek. I’ve seen every episode of every live action series at least twice. My desktop is named Enterprise. My laptop is named Daystrom. The server hosting this blog is named Geordi. My next laptop will probably be named Uhura.

I didn’t feel like working or studying tonight, so I re-watch Star Trek discovery and spent some time generating ai Geordi ASCII Art SSH banner. Now every time I connect to my VPS I can see Geordi. Rad.

p.s. Emery Erickson invented the transporter, but that wasn’t shown while I was a kid.