Fri, 05 Jul 2024 19:51:01 UTC
My name is Bob. I am a hacker. I take things apart to understand how they work, and I cobble things together to make things that shouldn’t work work. I have been into computers since I first had access to one, the first being an Atari 800 when I was around 8 years old. I was spoiled with access to Apple ][s in a couple of schools I attended, and my middle school had a lab with 286s around the same time that I got a 386 16mhz at home.
I spent countless nights hacking away on that thing, teaching myself how to code ‘advanced’ QBASIC by copying an adventure program out of a book I was fortunate to find in my middle school’s library. I also had access to a couple BBSs, where I was able to download things like “The School Stopper’s Textbook”, a text file that I had printed out on my dot-matrix printer and found a couple years ago in one of my boxes of memorabilia.
I learned how to chain commands together with BAT files, and I created an ANSI art-driven BAT-based menu for my mom to use various programs, and start Windows 3.1.
Windows 95 came out, and the command-line was no-longer the focus, and felt like it was an after-thought more than the core of my computing experience. With the help of people on IRC, I learned about Linux, and my first attempt to install it was undoubtedly someone sending me a trojan that probably compromised my soon-to-be-dead Windows 95 install. I eventually bought a book that came with physical media (I was fortunate to have a CD drive) for installing Linux, and instructions on how to do it.
Chapter 2 of the book I learned Linux from was “Building and Customizing the Linux Kernel,” and I wish I hadn’t given it away to someone in college that wanted to learn Linux the hard way, as I have not been able to find a copy of it, and can’t remember what it was called.
My first Linux install was RedHat something-or-other. Probably 4.0. I broke it, after a week or two, by downloading programs’ source tarballs, and building them manually (That’d been how my book had taught me, after all), and then installing them – clobbering the RPM managed files and quickly breaking the package database. As a result, I switched to Slackware, I believe starting with a release that was known at the time (or advertised to me) as Slackware ‘96.
In college, I got my first sysadmin gig; operating a warez dumpsite for a small group of pirates. I had an FTP server set up on my high-speed (100mbit!) dorm-room connection, and one day discovered a bunch of MP3s in the incoming directory. I found that strange, so I copied the files, and renamed them to fit my MP3 naming convention, and a while later, found a text file where someone said something along the lines of ‘stop fucking changing our files!’
So I left them a note, and they steered me to an IRC channel, and we worked together to secure the FTP site, lock things down. I was provided with storage upgrades and other hand-me-down computer kit, to keep the site running. At one point, while exploring the local networks, I discovered the network admin’s MRTG graphs for my residence, and saw an obvious spike in traffic for my connection, but I never got harassed about it, even when 2 “top sites” located at my university were targeted and taken down.
While doing that part-time, I also got a proper gig as a Linux admin for a research institute at my university, where I managed a handful of Linux and UNIX systems. During the interview, my would-be manager had me break into a Linux server they had gotten locked out of. One of the more interesting job interviews I’ve had.
College was an interesting time, and when I left my alma-mater, I had completed every CS prefixed course. A couple semesters before I graduated, my advisor pulled me into his office, and asked me what my major was. I was a bit confused, as I thought it was obviously computer science, and he told me if I took something like 2 extra courses, I could graduate with two bachelor degrees, one in compsci, and the other in computer networking. So I did.
When I graduated, I spent some time flying around and looking for jobs in larger cities than I was living, and was fortunate to find a semi-local gig, working for a local community of people, operating an ISP for the local community, providing dialup and cable modem access, as well as email and web hosting. It wasn’t until my first day at the job that I learned that my predecessor had taken their own life, and had not done a great job of taking notes.
About 3 months later, I had taken the Solaris servers that had been operating DNS, Apache, Qmail, and other services running on ancient Sun desktop systems and migrated them to newer hand-me-down server hardware running Linux. I contemplated a few choices for Linux distribution, given my immediate unfamiliarity with Solaris, it was urgent for me to migrate to something I could provide better support for. Slackware wouldn’t serve well in that situation, and I ended up choosing Debian, as I liked dpkg and apt-get more than rpm (yum wasn’t a thing, yet).
I also moved to Debian for my personal workstation, for consistency, and because I was impressed with the dependency resolution of apt-get and how easily I could install something and its dependencies, instead of having to see if a slack package existed, and if it was of the right version, and if I would need to build it and spend an hour hunting down dependencies.
After I helped with my downsizing by migrating services from Linux to Windows (something my manager was more comfortable with), I found my way out to a job in Silicon Valley, the mecca for any true computer nerd. I am glad to have had the experience out there, but I am glad I am no longer living in California. Working at a dot-com, even 10 years after the hey-day of dot-coms in Silicon Valley was pretty incredible, the countless ‘free’ cans of Red Bull, and all the chocolate covered raisins you could ever want, and beef jerky, and gummy bears. Bottles of booze on your desk, beers in the fridge, next to the Red Bull.
And the best burritos I have ever had. I once attempted to get an interview with a company that was in the same location as the dot com I had worked at, years later, just to get a burrito from a place nearby. I told the recruiter that’s what I wanted. Surprisingly, I did not make it far in that interview process.
From California, I took a brief walk on the Appalachian Trail, thinking I could clear my head and figure life things out, having become disgusted with what I saw in Silicon Valley and wanting to escape, trying to figure out where else I could go with my career as a Linux admin to continue learning and refining my skills.
On the trail, I got pinged about a position I had applied to with a National Laboratory. One of the several Labs operated by the Department of Energy that were created back with the Manhattan Project. Ever since I was a kid, I was fascinated with that project and The Labs. Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, and Argonne were the first 3 labs created as a result of the Manhattan Project, and in my mind, where all the major scientific advancements humanity needs for survival were happening. Some of the Labs also operate SUPER COMPUTERS, and ever since I read Congo when I was little, and learned about Cray computers, I wanted to be next to one.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get the job, and now that I was off the trail, and trying to get back to reality, I picked up a job with a large tech company, working as an automation engineer, developing configuration management recipes. The contract was for 12 months, and was a hard lesson in pacing. I had finished the work they wanted from me in about 3 months. I asked for more work, but they didn’t have anything for me, and my contract ended early.
Shortly after that, I ended up getting my dream job at a National Laboratory. I got to stand next to a SUPER COMPUTER, though I did not get console access. In retrospect, I could have asked someone to let me on a shell just to say I had. The reality is I didn’t have anything I wanted to queue up on a super computer. It was awesome though. Easily one of my most favorite jobs for the level of education it has provided me.