Max: Brain Dump 10101
The following is an unpaid, non-commercial rant.
Today's Brain Dump is brought to you by Technology™.
Technology™, a product of Science™ and Engineering™.
Right now, you may be asking yourself, what has Technology™ ever done for me? Well, do you like toast? Of course you like toast. Everybody likes toast. Toast is made using some Technology™ classics, such as Fire™ and Agriculture™.
Do you want to know a little secret? Of course you do. You're not ignorant. The computer you are using to access this site, why it has just a bit of Technology™ in it too. Even this site itself makes use of Technology™.
So, the next time you want to do something make sure you bring some Technology™ to make the job easier and more fun.
And now, here's the man with the wacky rants, put your hands together for Maaaaaaaaaax!
I love computers. This was not always so. I used to hate them because I didn't understand them. Back in the late 80's I thought all they were good for was games. You could also do word processing, but I had my typewriter for that. Eventually it I figured out that word processors made editing so much easier. I could fix one misspelled word or malformed sentence without having to retype several pages. I liked that. Although they could be a bit buggy - more than once I wanted to throw my computer out of the window after a word processor screwed up one of my documents. But even with the bugs, they made writing easier. Then I discovered this thing called "going online" that let one access all kinds of information and pictures of nekkid people. I could find forums and communicate with people who shared my love for Rush and Red Dwarf. And I could download pictures of nekkid people. I was being won over as I kept on discovering.
I discovered that there were magical secrets hidden inside of computers. Below the GUI surface were ways to make a computer do all kinds of neat things. Just by accessing a DOS prompt or, better yet, one of the Unix machines in the campus computing labs and entering a few commands I could get a computer to do a wide variety of tricks, to spit out screens full of information of varying degrees of usefulness. I discovered, though to this day have yet to master, programming. If I wanted, I could make my computer do almost anything I wanted. I worked with Linux at my first real tech job and I learned about commands that would make things pop up on other people's screens, or let you look at what they were doing. I learned about aliasing, which let me customize commands, or even create commands of my own. I learned about shell scripting and managed to compose a handy little script that would let me know if I got any new mail in any of my POP3 mail accounts.
To this day I am still learning. Just this week I learned about the inner workings of mail servers and about some of the security cracks one had to seal up if one does not want mail server to become a spam server. I've learned a little bit more about how DNS works and how to do custom DNS searches in DOS or a Linux CLI to get more information than one would with a standard nslookup. I was so excited about that that I downloaded a small library information about DNS that I plan to dive into after I pass my CCNA test.
I will pass my CCNA test and it will be before the end of this month. This newfound confidence comes from me getting my head together and organizing my studies to the point that I know that I will rip the test's head off. To pass the test and to make good use of my knowledge in my new job - which I hope to have soon (please, please) - I will need to go into that test so prepared that it isn't a test so much as an interview in which I prove what I know. That is exactly what will happen this month and come Thanksgiving I will get to proudly announce that there is CCNA in the family.
I would be in Heaven if I could find a way to make a living from sitting around all day and learning about computers, science and math. As it is, I will count myself lucky to find a job that calls on me to learn more about at least some parts of my favorite geek topics. I want a real tech job that values tech skills, not a pseudo tech-job that only demands I develop the skills of a used car salesman. Even if I am considered "just one of those geeks in the basement", even if I am not actually respected and valued for my skills, I want a job that uses my skills rather than calling on me to talk people into signing up for HBO. As far as I am concerned, if you want to miss out on Deadwood and Real Time, that's your problem. Getting your Technology™ to work for you, that is my job and I do that job damn well. Hire me, lock me up in your server/router room and go make money knowing that your Technology™ is in good hands.
Before I wrap this up for today, I want to thank my good friends at Technology™ for making this post possible. Technology™, without it you would be living in caves and eating leaves. Technology™, without it you would have to beat your enemies to death with your bare hands rather than blowing them up by remote control. Technology™, without it geeks would be out roaming the streets causing havoc. Technology™ without it you are food for bears, cougars, Republicans and other predators. Technology™ makes everything better. Technology™, only stupid people don't love it. You aren't stupid, are you?
Today's Brain Dump is brought to you by Technology™.
Technology™, a product of Science™ and Engineering™.
Right now, you may be asking yourself, what has Technology™ ever done for me? Well, do you like toast? Of course you like toast. Everybody likes toast. Toast is made using some Technology™ classics, such as Fire™ and Agriculture™.
Do you want to know a little secret? Of course you do. You're not ignorant. The computer you are using to access this site, why it has just a bit of Technology™ in it too. Even this site itself makes use of Technology™.
So, the next time you want to do something make sure you bring some Technology™ to make the job easier and more fun.
And now, here's the man with the wacky rants, put your hands together for Maaaaaaaaaax!
I love computers. This was not always so. I used to hate them because I didn't understand them. Back in the late 80's I thought all they were good for was games. You could also do word processing, but I had my typewriter for that. Eventually it I figured out that word processors made editing so much easier. I could fix one misspelled word or malformed sentence without having to retype several pages. I liked that. Although they could be a bit buggy - more than once I wanted to throw my computer out of the window after a word processor screwed up one of my documents. But even with the bugs, they made writing easier. Then I discovered this thing called "going online" that let one access all kinds of information and pictures of nekkid people. I could find forums and communicate with people who shared my love for Rush and Red Dwarf. And I could download pictures of nekkid people. I was being won over as I kept on discovering.
I discovered that there were magical secrets hidden inside of computers. Below the GUI surface were ways to make a computer do all kinds of neat things. Just by accessing a DOS prompt or, better yet, one of the Unix machines in the campus computing labs and entering a few commands I could get a computer to do a wide variety of tricks, to spit out screens full of information of varying degrees of usefulness. I discovered, though to this day have yet to master, programming. If I wanted, I could make my computer do almost anything I wanted. I worked with Linux at my first real tech job and I learned about commands that would make things pop up on other people's screens, or let you look at what they were doing. I learned about aliasing, which let me customize commands, or even create commands of my own. I learned about shell scripting and managed to compose a handy little script that would let me know if I got any new mail in any of my POP3 mail accounts.
To this day I am still learning. Just this week I learned about the inner workings of mail servers and about some of the security cracks one had to seal up if one does not want mail server to become a spam server. I've learned a little bit more about how DNS works and how to do custom DNS searches in DOS or a Linux CLI to get more information than one would with a standard nslookup. I was so excited about that that I downloaded a small library information about DNS that I plan to dive into after I pass my CCNA test.
I will pass my CCNA test and it will be before the end of this month. This newfound confidence comes from me getting my head together and organizing my studies to the point that I know that I will rip the test's head off. To pass the test and to make good use of my knowledge in my new job - which I hope to have soon (please, please) - I will need to go into that test so prepared that it isn't a test so much as an interview in which I prove what I know. That is exactly what will happen this month and come Thanksgiving I will get to proudly announce that there is CCNA in the family.
I would be in Heaven if I could find a way to make a living from sitting around all day and learning about computers, science and math. As it is, I will count myself lucky to find a job that calls on me to learn more about at least some parts of my favorite geek topics. I want a real tech job that values tech skills, not a pseudo tech-job that only demands I develop the skills of a used car salesman. Even if I am considered "just one of those geeks in the basement", even if I am not actually respected and valued for my skills, I want a job that uses my skills rather than calling on me to talk people into signing up for HBO. As far as I am concerned, if you want to miss out on Deadwood and Real Time, that's your problem. Getting your Technology™ to work for you, that is my job and I do that job damn well. Hire me, lock me up in your server/router room and go make money knowing that your Technology™ is in good hands.
Before I wrap this up for today, I want to thank my good friends at Technology™ for making this post possible. Technology™, without it you would be living in caves and eating leaves. Technology™, without it you would have to beat your enemies to death with your bare hands rather than blowing them up by remote control. Technology™, without it geeks would be out roaming the streets causing havoc. Technology™ without it you are food for bears, cougars, Republicans and other predators. Technology™ makes everything better. Technology™, only stupid people don't love it. You aren't stupid, are you?
posted by Max Dobberstein at 11/02/2006 09:12:00 AM
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