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Author Archives: Igelritter

I am fascinated with interesting systems; whether those systems govern technical solutions or human languages, what is important is that they are interesting. My first experience with computers was the good ol’ Commodore 64. Through the late eighties and early nineties, I read over VAX manuals and played with BBS’s. At university, my interests expanded to include foreign languages which I explored with the same abandon as I had that Commodore 64. After college, I turned back to computers and was fascinated to find what had happened since the days of my Intel 486DX. My resume reflects my passion for learning and my ability to dive into any challenge; from networks to voip applications, open-source solutions and increasingly software development. There isn’t much that doesn’t spark my curiosity.

“Scavenagers Reign” is an animated dose of awesome for connoisseurs of sci-fi and anime.

A few months ago I stumbled across “Scavengers Reign”, and I wolfed down all the episodes I could find in one sitting. This is one of the rare ones, kids; if you have a wide foundation in sci-fi, you really can’t miss out on this: hauntingly beautiful, expert narrative and character building, incredible world construction, […]

“Three Hearts & Three Lions” and the antecedents of D&D

Diverging from tech subjects, I can’t really remember where I heard about Poul Anderson’s book “Three Hearts and Three Lions”. Somewhere it was recommended to me through some some hypertext rabbit hole that I ended up falling down. I managed to find a digital copy through my various means, and than it sat on my […]

What is this DevOps thing, anyway?

In 2018 I was hired as a DevOps Engineer; it seemed like the perfect direction for my career. I’ve worked most of my professional life as support, sys admin, or network engineering; I’ve really wanted to go in the direction of development, but never had the chance up till now. DevOps, as I understood the […]

Back to basics — the Imposters Handbook

So, I ran across Rob Conery a while ago; I watched a few presentations of his on youtube, and thought his book would be worth checking out. Yeah, sure, I had a C64 in 1988 and I played around with BBS in the early 90s; but that didn’t really set me up with the basics […]

It’s been a long time since I rock ‘n rolled

Hey there, Internet! It’s been a while since I wrote anything here. Quite a while, actually. 2020 was full of some crazy times for everyone, what with the global pandemic, murder hornets, Australia burning to the ground, the election, etc. Since finishing my Software Developer accreditation here in Berlin, and getting a new job as […]

IHK Berufsabschluss — Final Thoughts and Next Steps

<tl;dr> on the 28th of June, 2018, I passed the last part of my exams for the Berufsabschluss: a two year vocational degree. I talk about this and go over thoughts for the future </tl;dr> Last month I posted a rather long update about the IHK — Chamber for Industry and Trade — Exams; I […]

Digging into heavy earth

tl;dr: I found my dad’s grave online today. I talk about that, tell a bit of story, and then repost the obituary that my mother wrote him in 1995. So, a funny thing happened to me today. I found my father’s grave online. Yeah, that’s a thing that can happen, I guess. I was googling […]

The IHK Exams and Big Update Dump

    <tl;dr>: In February of 2017 I started a training program for software development and planning, financed by the German government and administrated through the Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK). I turned in my project thesis on April 14th and took four hours of exams on April 25th. Today I received the results […]

George Dyson’s “Turing’s Cathedral”

Douglas Adams once famously observed: “I’ve come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five […]

Quick and Dirty PHP Lab:

New Employer: “How much do you know about PHP? We’re going to need you to work with PHP and Symfony.” Me: “Give me the weekend and I’ll get back to you on Monday.” Sometimes you need to learn things quickly and that involves setting up a lab to read documentation, execute tutorials, and experiment with […]