It’s time for some answers!
What keyboard do you use?
I am not picky.
Generally speaking I am comfortable
with almost any keyboard,
as long as its layout is
relatively familiar to me,
and important keys,
such as pageup or insert,
are not in inconvenient locations or hidden
behind a function key combination.
The biggest deal-breaker is –
if it’s a laptop and the only
pointing device is a touchpad –
and the ball of my palm keeps
constantly triggering the touchpad,
thereby marking or deleting some text.
My current desktop keyboard is
a Fujitsu-Siemens KBPC-SX with a PS/2 connector.
I have no problems using it,
and I don’t see
why I should use anything else.
In the typing video I used
a no-name $10 DealExtreme keyboard –
that is no longer being sold.
Other keyboards featured
in my videos –
have been an ARC mechanical
AT keyboard from 1980s,
and a SolidTek PS/2 mini keyboard,
that is similar to the ACK595
that has some listings on eBay.
What is your computer hardware?
I have components for several
computers and several laptops.
These components are rotated
once in a while,
and some of it is decommissioned,
as in put in a closet,
because I don’t throw away
stuff that works,
but I can’t bother
to sell anything either.
As such this question almost
makes no sense to answer,
because the answer is going to be
obsolete and incorrect –
in a relatively short time.
Right now I have a desktop computer –
that runs a 24-core current-generation
Threadripper processor,
a server that runs an Intel Haswell
family Xeon processor,
and another server that runs a 16-core
first-generation Threadripper processor.
Combined between them –
is 160 gigabytes of RAM and
47 terabytes of disk space,
some of which is solid-state
and some of which is RAID.
Then there is the X220 Thinkpad.
And like I said,
in my storage is hardware –
for at least a couple of complete
older-generation computers,
but which I don’t
assemble and run –
because it takes space
and wastes electricity.
Where did you study?
Did you go to a college?
Do you have a degree?
What did you study?
First, let me do a little overview of
the Finnish education system.
We have the
comprehensive school,
which is part of
the compulsory education.
It is usually nine and
sometimes ten years long.
The first six years is called
the lower degree, or ala-aste,
and the last three years,
or four years if one chooses
to take an extra year,
is called upper degree,
or ylä-aste.
These are roughly equivalent
respectively –
to the elementary and middle school
in the United States.
After the comprehensive school,
the paths diverge a bit.
You can drop out there
and go straight to work,
or you can continue along
two possible paths.
One is an academic path,
called lukio,
or by its swedish name gymnasium,
where you spend three
additional years studying.
This is roughly equivalent to –
the second half of high school
in the United States.
The other is a vocational path,
where you study
for a particular profession.
It involves the vocational school,
also called a trade school,
or ammattikoulu in Finnish.
You might study house building,
metal working, car mechanics,
electrical engineering,
cooking, and so on.
There are about 50 trades
to choose from.
In the academic path,
after lukio you might next apply
for studying in a university.
In the vocational path,
after the ammattikoulu,
the next logical step
might be ammattikorkeakoulu,
which is translated as
a vocational university –
or a universe of applied sciences.
Instead of licenciate
or doctorate degrees,
they grant a degree comparable
with a bachelor of engineering.
To be fair,
my knowledge at this point
on how this all works –
gets a bit hazy,
because I have not experienced
any of that first-hand.
I chose the vocational path.
After the comprehensive school,
I wanted to learn more
about computer programming.
The vocational school had a line called
“mechanic of information technology”,
so I applied for that.
I was also quite resistant
to having to memorize stuff –
as part of learning,
which contributed to me not
choosing lukio as my path.
However, computer programming
this line was not,
or at least not nearly
as much as I hoped.
Primarily it was about
electrical engineering.
We learned things like
laws of electricity,
how to read resistors,
how to repair televisions,
how microcircuits work,
and how microcontrollers work.
After the vocational school,
I applied to the university
of applied sciences,
because that was the logical followup,
but I also got a job.
Before the first year in the
ammattikorkeakoulu was over,
I actually ended up
abandoning the studies.
In hindsight,
it was not a smart idea,
as it closed some doors for me –
that I later
would have liked to explore.
It definitely was not deliberated
with lots of consideration,
but that’s how things went,
and I’ll leave the details at that.
Again, I made the best choices –
given the information
at my hand at that time.
I was really not the adult –
that my parents thought
I should have been,
back then.
Mistakes were made,
but that’s part of life.
Oh yeah, there was also
army at some point.
Right after
the vocational school –
and before the
university of applied sciences.
Eleven months in the
telecommunications regiment,
in the second batch of 1997.
That happened.
Finland has mandatory
conscription for males,
and optional for females.
You either serve
in the defense forces,
or you do civil service,
or you go to prison.
Doing armed service
in the defense forces –
was a matter of honor for me,
and especially to some
of my older relatives.
I earned a gold badge
of sharp shooting,
but I chose not to go
to officer training.
Since then,
I have been mostly always employed,
and switched jobs only a few times.
Nearly everything that
I know about programming,
is due to things I have learned –
as a direct consequence of
either hobbyist interest, or work.
What do you think about Rust?
I have used Rust once.
In September 2016 –
I wrote the proof-of-concept
password encoder/decoder –
for Solar Jetman,
and just for variation
I used Rust for it.
To be honest,
I first wrote it in C++,
and then I translated it into Rust
and made it as compact as possible.
My goal was to fit the program
in one screenful of code,
so I spent a great deal of time –
getting familiar with whatever
tools the language provides –
that I can use to make
the code more compact.
My general feeling back then was –
that the language has
refreshing winds of innovation.
In my opinion,
that is always a good thing,
and I encourage it
with my full heart.
However, it also felt stiff
and cumbersome,
evoking memories
of Pascal programming.
Any time you want to convert an integer
to a different size integer,
you have to tell the compiler
“yes, I really mean it”.
While I may understand the
rationale behind this design,
it feels awkward and clunky.
Also, back in 2016 at least,
I was not able to do everything
that I was used to doing in C++,
such as templates.
The situation may have
changed since then,
but to venture into
trying the language again,
I would need some
serious motivation,
which I currently
do not have.
