As I sit here, five terminal windows open, 24 emacs buffers open, 3 browser windows with a few tabs each, operating on two operating systems in four separate languages, juggling data streams and file formats, weaving together a coherent information system using nothing but little words I type into a cheap plastic keyboard, I am reminded of the power and the beauty of code: I can take my thoughts, make them concrete and plastic at the same time. I can write down a little piece of my brain, and get it to run separately, whizzing away while I make more and more of them, creating a huge spinning machine much more powerful than the mind which invented each piece.

There are times when I love my job. It's sort of sad, but sort of cool at the same time. Am I weird to think this? Or are there other coders who occasionally look at what they're doing and think "Wow. This is so cool!"?

...and on a completely unrelated note: oooh! Shiny!