October 10, 2002
Making Music, not Babies
The journey continues...
For the last 3 days, I have been a good little consumer, helping Germany's economy out.
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| New computer, new guitar, new blanket for my bed |
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| I hate Russo-German keyboards though. Note the placement of 'Y' and 'Z' |
I burned through more cash than I wanted to, but that's okay because I have more left than I thought. The computer there is a P3-500Mhz, 256MB RAM, Adaptec 2940UW scsi controller, 2x10000rpm 9.1GB scsi hard disks, scsi cdrom, riva tnt2 video card, 2x3c905 NICs, and a BT848 video capture card. The whole system (minus the capture card, which I got in the states) costed me $300. I got the monitor out of a dumpster downstairs. So it's quite a nice ltitle system. I'll probably buy another one or two though, naturally.
Oh yeah, and I bought a toaster.
Wednesday night, we all (Roland, Martina, Andres, Thomas (new person) and Franciska (also new person)) went out to a Goth Club on the East Side of town. The place was called the Werkpalast, I think. It was pretty cool. I consumed 3 Liters of Ale.
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| Roland and Martina sucking face |
I actually found out that Roland and Martina are ENGAGED. Scary shit to be engaged at 21 years old, I tell you. She showed me her ring, which lacked a diamond. I think that's a good thing.
The club started pumping at maybe 1AM. Suddenly I looked up and there were people everywhere (it was empty when we got there).
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| With the hippin' and the hoppin' |
Andres continued to regale me with tales of growing up under communism. He's a smart guy, I think he's going somewhere.
Thursday was downtime. I've been looking into work on the GNU/Hurd. I'm hoping to collaborate with an old friend at Syracuse University on the project. I will be working on software verification of some parts of the Hurd's microkernel probably, as that's the sort of things Computational Logicians do. I've also been playing my guitar a lot. I'm starting to get some serious calluses back on my left hand.
Oh yes, and as per my friend Doug's request, I went over to Blogchalk, a nifty little place that's creating a blog search engine based on location and interests. So now you see a little icon guy way up there on the top of my blog. That's my blogchalk....
Anyway I may move my physical server from my friends' (Stephen and Steve) apartment to here. But, there's a 3Gig a week limit for transfers. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it adds up right quick, I tell you. Maybe I can figure out a way to defeat the system by doing tunneling? We'll see....
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Further back...
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Previous Trips...
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Hiking Mount Whitney, 2007 
Spring Break in West Virginia, 2005
New Year's in Paris, 2003-2004
Coming to America, 2003
Protesting in Berlin, 2003
Prague Bier-Tour, 2002
Dresden, 2002
Recent Reading
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Stealing the Network
I first bumped into the Stealing the Network series when reading the exploits of Joe Grand, one of the book's many hacker authors.
The 'Stealing the ...' series of books follows a rather disparate group of computer hackers as they help a former NSA spook (many of them unwittingly) gather the money he needs to retire.
The stories themselves are not fantastic fiction. The writing is uneven and choppy, the characters are stereotypical and not very well thought-out. What is fascinating about this book series is the technical accuracy of the exploits (at some points *too* accurate, with screen shots and step-by-step instructions).
It's a great series to read if you're a system administrator, or just getting into the wonderful field of computer security.
Rated 
by reid
on March 06, 2011
by reid
on March 06, 2011
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Close to the Machine
Ellen Ullman is one of those authors that somehow avoided my radar. Until now...
Close to the Machine is less a book than a collection of loosely related personal anecdotes from Ellen's time as a very rare thing -- a successful female bisexual independent computer programming consultant.
In the course of her work and relationship life, she learns hard lessons about programming, running a business, being lonely, and loving the wrong people. I found it particularly poignant being a crypto-nerd with difficult times in relationships and a more-or-less NDA'd, secret work life.
This book is a must-read for anyone into running their own business, programming, or anyone dating a person that is a business-a-holic or programmer.
Rated 
by reid
on November 23, 2009
by reid
on November 23, 2009
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The Long Trip Home
I had the joy of dining with the author in Florida. We went to a little Brazilian BBQ where he spoke with our waitstaff in (what I can only assume was) flawless Portugese.
Brian Wyllie spent 1969-1971 living in Brazil working for the Peace Corps. His recent book outlines his trip back to the United States via Bolivia, Peru, and the Carribean chain, by way of bus, train, and sailboat. The format comes spattered with observations from the modern day, and makes me think, "this must be what John McPhee's journal looks like."
The trip sounded like a fantastic one, but I was left wanting more detail...where did the gun (being snuck through customs in a variety of places, no doubt) come from? And how did Geneve's hair smell? Alas, we'll have to wait for another book to find the answers.
Rated by reid
on April 16, 2009
by reid
on April 16, 2009