School

• Jul 20 2008 - Networks, Assignment 1 ... I just finished my first assignment in a beginning networking course I’m taking and I am so far pretty impressed with how interesting this stuff is. I have a working knowledge of networking that includes decent understanding of the application layer, high level knowledge of the transport layer and basically just awareness of the link layer. It’s pretty rare that in my position as a developer that I need to answer questions about the link layer.
• May 5 2008 - I've forgotten how much I enjoy Unix ... I just finished reading “The Dream Machine” and getting a very cool look at some early history of computing including the birth of Multics and it’s spin off and almost more interesting the birth of tools like email and ftp as a way to actually do something with the ARPANET that was being built. A great read for anyone interested in how we collectively have arrived at where we are today in computing.
• Mar 30 2008 - University Bureaucracy ... Depending on how I choose to count I am now dealing with my fifth or sixth post-secondary institution in my odyssey to finish my computer science degree. One thing that all of the schools I’ve dealt with have had in common is a slow and inflexible bureaucracy. Of course as a younger man I blamed a lot of my own failings on what I perceived then to be a completely fucked up system (University of Manitoba) that was screwing me over.