ViperChief

It’s been a long time since I posted on here. I keep meaning to, but then I don’t. I’d like to make this a more regular thing. We’ll see how that goes. Work these days is ridiculous. We’re thrown more and more stuff. That’s what we get for showing we can handle it. Undoubtedly, everyone has already seen that the new site software is up. That was a bit of work, but it is up. We’re still having growing pains, but I think we’ll get past it and the community will grow stronger.
I’m still trying to finish this damn C++ class. I have learned there is no way in hell I could ever do programming as a job or continue to take classes. I think I could enjoy it as a hobby but not because I have to. Once this class is over, I’ll take a break and then I’d like to learn some C#, but just for fun. I also don’t believe that working with computers is something I’d ever want to do. I don’t mind do it as a hobby, but I can already tell I’d hate having to mess with them. Therefore, I have changed majors. I’m now pursuing a B.A. in International Relations. It was between that, History and Political Science. I opted for the I.R. degree with a minor in History. I think that might help me in the job market a little better. I’d still like to get a Ph.D. in History, eventually (and I’m talking 10 years of more down the road). While researching the field of I.R., I came across the idea of being a Foreign Service Officer with the State Department. This is a very intriguing prospect for me, and I think I might look more into it when my time with the Air Force comes close to an end. I may also look at getting a law degree and working in international law, but that’s a few years away. I still have 5 years left in the Air Force.
I’ve gotten back into reading, and watching T.V. much less. And, for me, watching T.V. consisted of about 4-7 hours/week. Now, it’s virtually nonexistent. In fact, I’m going to be getting rid of my cable at the end of this month. No reason to pay for 200+ channels when 1) I don’t watch it and 2) even if I did, there’s never anything on. I’m mostly paying to watch people try to sell me things (Do we really need that many commercials?). The few shows I watch, I usually end up missing one or two episodes during the season so wait until it comes out on DVD, anyway. No reason to pay for this crap. It’s a waste of money. I think I might also switch to DSL because 90% of the time, I don’t get near the speed I pay for.
I’m also trying to get back into writing. It was one of the few things I felt I was actually good at and had a natural gift for (or whatever you want to call it). I’m not sure why I stopped. I’m actually going to take a creative writing class as an elective. I’m not really good at anything else, as far as I can tell.
So, an interesting bit of news happened. The Democrats lost the Senate seat that was held by Ted Kennedy since 1962. They’re not too happy about it. I think it’s a sign that people are a little ticked off. I think the midterm elections will be interesting. At least, I hope so. All I remember during the presidential race was talk of change. President Obama has been in office for a year. Where is the change? All I’ve seen is the continuation of the same policies that the last administration had. The few things that he has tried to change have been met with a vast amount of disapproval from Americans. Congress is a joke, these days. I’ve thought about running for Congress, one day. If I were elected, I’m pretty sure it would be a one-term sitting. I’d make a shitload of enemies in Washington who, I’m sure, would do their best to make sure I didn’t last more than 2 years. Maybe I should run for the Senate. At least then I’d have 6 years to piss people off.
Well, I think that’s all I have, for now. I’ll try to post more regularly. I’d like to post about things, other than computers, that interest me. The site is a good place for my computer ramblings. I’d like to make this a good place to talk about different shit, such as politics, books, writing and the degrading of American culture and Western Civilization, as a whole.

I wish I could say not much going on, but I’ve been busy as hell. Right now we’re just waiting on templates to be done for the new site. Once those are done, we’ll be debuting the new Linsux.org. In the meantime, I’ve been working my ass off at work and for school. This is the last week of my class. We did a bunch of small C++ and Assembly programs. For my next three classes, we’ll be working on C++. For this next semester, I’m taking “Control Structures” and “Intro to Discrete Mathematics.” I’m looking forward to both classes.

I’ve now installed Windows 7 Pro x64. This is the RTM. So far, very nice. I’ve pretty much given up on Linux as anything beyond a hobby system. I won’t go into it here, since I already made a rant over on the forum. http://linsux.org/index.php/topic,2473.0.html

I’m just disappointed in the community and the developers. With Windows, I can just log in, do what I need to do and get on with my life. In Linux there’s a good chance that I’ll have to spend three hours trying to do what I want to do, only to give up and reboot into Windows. I’ll keep tinkering with Linux as a hobby, just because of my interest in operating systems. Oh. That reminds me. I got my hands on OS/2 Warp and have been playing with it in a VM. Pretty cool shit. I’ll probably load it on one of my older computers, if I can find some damn floppies.

I think I’m going to do an article on how things have changed over at Microsoft. A lot has changed over there in the past few years. There was a time I liked Microsoft. I’m starting to like them again. No, they aren’t perfect, and neither is their software. But, they’re a lot farther along then Linux is or may ever be. For now, I’m going to enjoy running Windows 7 and being able to actually do productive things and play with programs such as Access, Visual Studio 2008, Expression Studio and other products that just work. I won’t have to figure out why I can’t get x or y installed because my glibc is one .x version off.

We’re working to get the new site up. IPB was purchased and installed in a test bed on Monday (or was it Tuesday?). Unfortunately, I’ve been extremely busy this past week. However, I’m now on two weeks of vacation and plan on spending a good amount of time on the site. Right now, I’m just working out some kinks. After that, I’ll be getting the skins and such from David and adding them to the site. Hopefully, everything will go well and we’ll meet our 1 October target. I think we can do it. I just need to do my mid-term and catch up with my class, today, and I’ll be able to play around with the new site.

Once the new site is in place, I’m hoping that our time and energy can be focused on our new mission…to promote other operating systems and smaller, but very good, Linux distros that have been overshadowed by Ubuntu and the UF failboard. I’m going to try to finish my articles as quickly as possible. I was getting somewhere but the focus all went to getting the site up. So, we’ll see what happens. I look forward to unveiling the site. I hope all our members and potential members enjoy it, also.

So, I haven’t had the chance to post in here in a while. I’m in Vegas for a work-related trip. Another week here. I’m ready to head back. It was about 120 degrees, yesterday. Working in that shit is not fun, at all.  I haven’t even really stayed caught up on tech-related news this week, so there’s not much I can comment on. But, I think I can rant about my new class.

So, I started Intro to Computer Science, or whatever the hell the official name is. I was looking forward to it. Got my book and started reading it. Got the syllabus and started reading the first chapters. Numbering systems. Cool. Learn how to do arthimitic operations on binary, octal and hexadecimal. Learn how to convert into different systems. Pretty damn nice. From there, it moved into Boolean Logic and circuits and gates. The last chapter covered the internals of CPUs and memory and how all this different shit worked. Pretty fucking good shit, right?

So, it was time to see the assignments for the week. Must have something to do with what we read, right? Oh, wait…what the fuck is this shit? An essay on problem solving? What the fuck does that have to do with what we read. Nothing. We didn’t read anything on algorithims or problem solving. This makes no fucking sense. So, this class is not starting off well. I have to write a fucking essay and nothing in this weeks assignments reflect on what I read.

On top of that, there are other things that bother me. Albeit, they may be small, but when gathered together, they get annoying. I don’t have a “professor,” I have a “facilitator.” WTF? So, instead of having someone who I know is an expert in the field and can teach me from his brain, I have some guy that just pushes shit down from above who may not even know what the hell is going on. Awesome. I’ve had one of those before. She taught my basic electronics course. Her credintals? She did some sort of wiring for Sprint. Trying to teach us formulas and she would stare at the board for 10 minutes before figuring it out. That was great. Also, I’m required to go in there and reply to at least two other peoples’ posts every week. I’m here to learn, not be forced to conversate with people. I’m half-tempted to drop the class before the add/drop date on Monday.

But, I think I’ll stick it out. Just not sure if I’ll continue on. I’m still looking at getting a Professional Aeronautics degree from Embry-Riddle. My wife thinks I should. She sees me staying in the aviation field.  By the time I retire from this job, I’ll be in my 40s. No one is going to hire a 40-year old for an entry-level computer job. Also, I love computers as a hobby. I’m not sure if I want it to be my job. I may grow to despise it. Finally, after 20 years of experience in the aviation field, I should be in a good postion for a pretty decent job, especially with a Pro Aero degree. I do like the degree plan. I’ve always been interested in both Airfield Management and especially Accident Investigation and those are both areas of concentration. Plus, Embry-Riddle has an MBA in Aviation that I was looking at.

So, I think my wife is right. I might be better off seeking the Pro Aero degree and continuing my computer learning on my own. I don’t need a computer science degree and, in the end, the aviation degree will probably help me out more then the CS degree will.  I’m going to finish this class, then go take a class with the Pro Aero course and see what I think. If anything, I’ll do both for a couple semesters. Keep them low-level enough that I can transfer either one as electives.

In other news, still trying to figure out what we want to do with the site. Considering putting up a PayPal donation link to get the money needed to get IPB, which seems to be winning the popular vote for a board. It’s $150. I might be able to spring the cash myself soon, but, if not, it’ll have to wait until tax refunds to come in, which is pretty far off.  A new logo is still in works and, once we settle on a board, a theme will be in the works. The site is growing, albeit slowly. I’m very proud to log in at any time during the day or night and see multiple unread posts. There’s so many threads being created that I don’t even post in all of them anymore. It’s a good feeling. As the site slowly shifts, I expect this to continue.

Well, I should go write this damn paper.

So, EDavidBurg decided to start a thread with the intent of it being a thread that promoted a natural flow of conversation. Within about an hour, it was moved to recurring discussions. When he asked why, he was told because it didn’t fit the criteria for the Cafe. However, the Cafe is defined, by UF as an “[area for] lighthearted and enjoyable discussions, like you might find around a water cooler at work.”

When this was pointed out, KiwiNZ kept arguing and finally closed it. Perhaps it was because he knew he was wrong and it was just easier to close it. KiwiNZ is a prime example of the abuse of power that goes on over at UF.  EDavidBurg then went and opened a thread in the Resolution Center. First post? From KiwiNZ, of course, claiming that he’s okay with it being in the Games forum. Let’s look at what’s in the games forum. The Bump thread, Count to 200, The You Win Game, the 10000 game. Does that sound like where his thread belongs? His thread was a mere attempt at creating a thread that promoted a regular conversation, the kind that you would have around a water cooler (look at the definition of the Cafe, again).

So, what does KiwiNZ say next? “I am tired of the games played by visitors from a certain other Forum.” Let’s take a look. EDavidBurg became a member of UF in April of 2007 and joined Linsux in August of 2008. How the hell does that make him a “visitor?” He’s more at home there then at Linsux.

Lastly, KiwiNZ says “As we have said a thousand times or more. UF is a support (official support) for Ubuntu.” I guess they should get rid of the cafe and the games forums, then. KiwiNZ apparently wants only Serious Business there. In the meantime, when threads like “What are you listening to right now” are okay. How was EDavidBurg’s thread any different?

Forum Council…I address you, now. Get your heads out of each other’s asses and do the right thing here. EDavidBurg did absolutely nothing wrong. His thread is no different then the hundreds you’ve let go for ages. Oh, as for the remark about mischief from members of my forum…when was the last time any of our members caused problems over there? I’d like to know the answer to that question.

This, ladies and gentleman, is your “freedom.”

The original “offending” thread:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1240805

The Post from EDavidBurg in the Resolution Center:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1240827

All the threads from other users showing support for EDavidBurg have been merged into his thread.

Other blogs about this:

grubby: http://linsux.org/blog/grubby/2009/08/15/ocean-of-fail/

Captain Cool: http://captaincoolat.wordpress.com/2009/08/15/ubuntu-forums-giving-us-crap/

Linsux.org threads about it:

http://linsux.org/index.php/topic,1915.0.html

http://linsux.org/index.php/topic,1918.0.html

UPDATE: Except for EDavidBurg, bodhi has now started deleting any posts having to do with this. Guess he doesn’t like all the posts talking badly about the admins there. Damn shame.

Well, I got my book in for my Computer Science class that starts on the 24th. Looks pretty good. It’s a sort of “big picture” book that covers a wide variety of topics from binary to virtual machines. It even touches on older languages, such as FORTRAN, COBOL and Ada. It covers hardware topics that include, besides the typical hardware topics, circuits, Boolean Logic and all that good stuff. It covers both Von Neumann and non Von Neumann architectures. Over all, it looks pretty good.

I’ve decided to start reading now, just so I’m prepared when the class starts. I also got a CD from the university wih a model assembler on it, as well as PowerPoint slides and some supplemental material written by the C.S. department, which goes even further into some of the material that the book touches on (i.e. it covers binary, octal and hexadecimal arithmetic…there’s much more that it touches on, but I’ll press on). The model assembler does more then provide a place to practice writing in assembly. It also gives a visualization of how the CPU works, showing registers hold what, how the CPU does its sweet thing, and what the RAM,  ALU and BUS does.

This class looks very interesting and I’m looking forward to starting this class in about a week. It’ll be a welcome change from the classes that I didn’t really want to take last semester. I’m going through an online university for my degree. Since they have 8 week semesters, I can do just one class at a time, which is good with my job and responsibilities with the site, and still get two done by the end of a normal 16 week semester, which is what I was hoping for.

After all the transfer credits are done, It looks like I only need about 70 hours for my degree, but the core is about 80 hours, by itself. Even then, it’s about 48 hours, or 16 classes, less that I have to do. Granted, when I look at it, there were about 11 classes I was looking forward to taking as electives. I may still take them. I’m already considering an M.S. since the school offers a “4+1″ for getting it. But, I can’t apply for that until my Junior year, so I’m not really worrying about it. They do have a nice M.S. program with a concentration in Software Engineering & Database Technologies, both of which I am very interested in. That’s a few years down the road, though.

In the meantime, it’s time for dinner. And, I’m going to go start reading this book. Trying to be a little ahead of the game.

Welcome to my new blog. From here, I can rant, rave and critize much shit at once. I hope you enjoy.