User:Miasma
From Sfvlug
Howdy, I'm Miasma AKA (MyMiasma, Mi45m4, OolonColluphid) my given name is Kurt and I have been a member of SFVLUG for several years. I remember first hearing the word "miasma" in a high school English class and for some strange reason it stuck in my head. It means, a toxic gas or fog rising from swamps and marshes, and erroneously thought to cause disease. The context of the word from my English class was as it related to a state of mind that was much less than lucid and clear. It was a word I could relate with; though I try to stay out of such a state I still wind up there from time to time.
I'm not a computer professional though I was briefly a partner in a small systems consulting company in the early 80's around the time the IBM PC first came out. We never did better than break even before I was in a car accident and couldn't work at my "real" job for five or six months. I've always had an interest in computers after a friend took me down to see his main frame at work that was doing what was at the time state of the art OCR and imaging. For the first time I thought of computers as something other than payroll and traditional data processing. They could actually do something cool, they played Space Wars!
I got my first computer in 1978, a TRS-80 Model I Level I, AKA (Trash-80) and couldn't wait to upgrade it to Level II. I'll spare any further nostalgia talk of the good/bad/ old days and bring you up to close to present day. However, I have always maintained my interest in computers as a hobby if not a profession. My "real" job was as a lighting technician in the entertainment industry. After a couple of work and non-work related injuries I retired a while back due to disability. Though I worked on TV I'm not the type to spend all day watching it so I kept active by getting involved with the Internet.
Somewhere after Windoze 2000 I got tired of giving all my money to Micro$oft for a product that never measured up to what I thought it should be. Now instead of complaining about Windoze I can complain about Linux. The difference is that Linux is free as in beer and as in freedom, and I can actually do something to help improve it besides just complain. I haven't since bought the Windoze operating system except for when it came with my laptop.
I had done some programming when I had my business but never kept it up to the point where I became fairly illiterate except for an occasional Bash script. I am now learning Python. I don't want to start any arguments over your own personal favorite language, I have always felt that it is best to pick the right tool for the right job and to pick the right tool for the right person. The main reasons I like Python are that it is fairly easy to pick up and start doing useful things almost right away. Then as my programming skills started grow I wasn't disappointed, I found myself growing into it rather than away from it. Except for the most demanding tasks requiring something closer to the metal it is fast enough for most tasks and has a shorter development time for a given skill level. When you post your bio you can beat the drum for your favorite language.
I don't consider myself an expert in anything and especially not computers. However, if you find me at a meeting I'll do my best to give you an answer or point you towards someone I think can. You shouldn't have too much trouble picking me out at a meeting. I'm tall with a touch of gray in pony tail and beard. If you have a warrant I'll deny everything, otherwise I hope to see you at a meeting soon.
I'm learning Python and am getting back into doing code. Eventually I'd like to learn Prolog and get into AI. As a result of getting back into code I'm also brushing up on Regular Expressions and will post some stuff that might be of use to others. For those who might not be familiar with the term, a regular expression is a special string designed to match characters in another string or body of data. They are very useful in searching for specificly defined patterns and can aid in manipulation of text.
