I don’t use AI as much as some, but I do use and like it. I’m not even yet a newbie in AI, and at nearly 73-years of age, I’m not sure I want to become an expert. I am sure, tho, that I want to keep using the free version of Google’s Gemini that is available on both of my Chromebooks, both of which have the Crostini Linux container enabled. This is a great combo. The safety provided by Google’s operating system with ready access to the Linux utilities and programs I love? Truly a delight.
Gemini can be very wrong. Three or four times in my limited usage of it, I’ve called bullshit very pointedly. Gemini then goes back, looks at things a bit more, and comes back with an answer that makes sense. These interactions occur when I’m using Gemini directly, not as part of a simple Google search. Gemini is downright obsequious when it goofs. It’s funny and delightful if you just remember that it’s not a person on the other end of your question.
Having had my horns trimmed a couple of times for not asking a question in the right way, or not having searched prior answers to the satisfaction of some over-flower with two cents worth of status and authority, I am very careful. I do some research, I ask a question, and still I might receive very brusque treatment.
Ignorance, even ignorance so profound that the questioner cannot correctly format his question, ignorance so great that he cannot determine where to search and what terms to use, is not deserving of such treatment.
I never, ever go to Stack Overflow. Gemini, and Gemini via Google search results gives me the answer I want without being brusque or making me feel like an idiot. It is almost fawningly solicitous of being helpful, and ever so polite. Yeah, I know, it’s not a person. I have to remind myself sometimes.
Gemini is never rude, Gemini doesn’t mind repeating an answer or explanation for me that it has already explained a million times before. It doesn’t refer me to some dense manual or document before attempting to politely answer my question in simple language. And while it will, helpfully, point me to other sources, it never shirks its responsibility to explain.
If I don’t understand an answer as given by Gemini, it will simplify it at my request.
And… Gemini is amazing. I asked it to draw a simple cottage of the type I would love to live in someday. It got very close on my first simple prompt, then nailed it on the second. Now old hands at AI will not have read this far, so I cannot be accused of inducing millions of yawns and so whats from the jaded cognescenti. But to someone like me, that AI picture is a source of wonder. I reserve the right to be delighted and amazed.
I don’t go read a book about Python and Tkinter if I need to refresh my memory on how to make a simple interactive form in Tkinter; I just use Gemini, and it’s astounding how well it answers my question, along with providing runnable code. So much of my time as an ignorant, not-quite-even a beginner programmer was wasted either experimenting to find out how something could work, or reading books and articles that seemed almost determined in their insistence on giving everything, without providing that one-specific something that I needed. Gemini fixed that. And it fixed “learning” something, not just for me, but for so many who just wanted to learn something without being forced to learn a large chunk of the relevant corpus. It is not a sin to build a chicken coop if you’re not a member of the carpenter’s union. Thank you, Gemini, for recognizing that.
If I need to investigate obtaining Medicare coverage when moving to another state, Gemini is going to be one of my first stops. Not my only stop. I don’t believe in the inerrancy of Gemini. And it doesn’t ask me to. I still have to use my noggin.
I used to use Linux utilities far more than I do at present. But when I need to refresh old knowledge, it’s Gemini for me. Vim, sed, awk, rcs, fold, cut, recutils, HTML markup, pandoc commands and grammar, you name it, there’s a good chance I’m going to reach for Gemini first if I have a question about forgotten syntax, or how to accomplish something in said program. Life is short. I’m old. And to all you snarky Linux experts begrudgingly grunting out, “rtfm,” I say, ” Bite me! Hello, Gemini. And Thanks! Really… Thanks!”
copyright 2026 by Almost Lucid Geezer
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