Took my 70-290 today, and smashed the motherfucker like a cue ball to the face. 985/1000. It’s gonna have to go see the dentist after that shit. Thus bringing my grand totals to: 3 down, 4 to go. 70-293 is already scheduled.
I’m taking the rest of the week off from studying, and taking the next two days off to go to George Clinton & the P-Funk Allstars. After studying nonstop for the last three weeks it feels completely unreal to not have anything to study. It’s fucking AWESOME.
I would normally quote something, but the story is short enough it would spoil things. Please just read it. It’s the funniest thing to come out of nerddom this week.
This evening I sat down to do my taxes. They’re not overly complicated, really, and they were done within an hour and change. Honestly I think I spent more time wrangling with the software than I did actually inputting useful data.
Between getting out of work a bit late (as usual) and the taxes thing, I didn’t really have a whole lot of time to study this evening. I sat down to do a little forum surfing, thinking I’d distract myself for a bit and then do a little studying to finish out the evening, I ran into a really ridiculously long set of YouTube vidoes instead. They’re from Richard Dawkins’ latest book tour, shot by CSPAN (yay our tax dollars at work) of the lecture and QA session he did at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg, VA. Part of the reason why this was really interesting was the second part, the QA session, includes many, many questions from students from Jerry Fallwell’s Liberty “University.” It’s very interesting to see how Dawkins responds to these people. He pulls few punches.
While watching part two, I noticed one question in particular that struck a nerve. One of the RMWC students asked this question:
“As someone coming from a religious family, especially in an area with such a dominant religion and a particular figurehead, how does somoene find their own way when leaving is not quite an option?” Continue reading “Cognition is Bitchin’”
If I own company FOO, I don’t need employees with a passion for FOO. I want those with a passion for the work they’re doing. The company should behave just like a good user interface — support people in doing what they’re trying to do, and stay the hell out of their way. Applying the employer-as-UI model, the best company is one in which the employees are so engaged in their work that the company fades into the background.
Susan’s blog posts keep making me think about math, and school, and a time when I had hope.
The picture below happened up in Moscow, fall 2002, while I was staying in McConnell Hall. I was spending a lot of time hanging out with the 2nd floor “southside” crew, we were a bunch of engineering majors of varying flavors and were taking many of the same classes.
One day before class I scribbled an integral on my board and wrote “Show work” above it. What you see below is what I saw upon arriving back at my room, 6 hours later.
An attempt had been made to solve it by one of my hallmates, he did it wrong, so another one of them grabbed a red marker and corrected the goddamn thing.
I have to say, there was something very compelling about living with a bunch of nerds.
Late last year, Time Magazine declared its Person of the Year for 2006 to be “You,” meaning those of us on the Net creating content, sharing information, and otherwise interacting with each other. Perhaps it’s the tech support nerd in me, or the SA Goon, but it seemed kind of silly. Especially after the Web 2.0 buzzword attack.
In keeping with the “things that make you just feel good inside” theme, this video neatly sums up the whole experience far better than anyone has done so far. It makes you think that just for a moment, all these lofty aspirations just might be plausible. Please watch it. It’s really quite awesome.
It’s been a big day in Nerdland. The sort of day that gives a guy hope.
Texas Seantor Juan ‘Chuy’ Hinujosa introduced a bill that would require all state agencies to create documents in an open format, like ODF. ODF in this case is only one example, the posterboy of open formats, but one thing’s for certain: OOXML would not qualify, as “We promise not to sue you as long as you use it within a certain set of guidelines” does not qualify as open. Duh. Next up, assuming there’s any justice left in the world: Bills requiring all electronic voting solutions to run off open-source designs.
Steve Jobs announces to the world that DRM is fucking retarted. World says “Well yeah, we knew that.” There are some pretty obvious, glaring issues or omissions with Steve-o’s comments, and they definitely read like they were washed by the Apple PR laundry before they were posted. Still, this marks a fundamental position change for Apple, a company that has, over the last few years, been one of the world’s largest distributors of DRM. For them to stand up and say “This shit is fucking stupid, get it?” they’re basically putting Microsoft in the rather curious position of being the only really DRM-endorsing OS vendor. As an Apple junkie this is particularly warm and fuzzy news. Hey Steve, how about removing those useless digital controls on your other intellectual property, Mac OS X?
And RD, remember what I said about Microsoft changing the world by taking a stand, even if it’s unprofitable? Still think it would have been so hopeless?
