thedar
About "The DAR"
I have been fascinated by computers and technology for as long as I could remember. I got my first computer in middle school and was absolutely enthralled by a game called Gorillas written in QBASIC, in which 2 large apes hurl exploding bananas at each other from opposing city rooftops. Needless to say, QBASIC was the first programming language I ever used. 
I am fascinated by the prospects for humanity in this new millenium. I am also a firm believer in the concept of The Technological Singularity.
" 1. A robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 1. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 1. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. " Isaac Asimov, Laws of Robotics from I. Robot, 1950
Professional Experience
I have worked in the IT industry for 10 years as a "consultant". Of course we all know that "consultant" can mean just about anything. So let me highlight some of my projects: * Delivered a global business intelligence platform using Business objects. * Created Map-Reduce Hadoop programs to process large datasets in a computing cloud. * Produced a real estate "comps" (comparables) system using Crystal Reports. * Developed an OLAP budgeting tool based on Oracle Financial Analyzer. * Designed and optimized several multi-TB data warehouses.
My Open Source Watershed Moments
My first exposure to the "open source" software movement came in 2004, when months of frustration with Internet Explorer culminated in a breakthrough moment: installing Mozilla FireFox. Firefox was a great product to start with: fast, stable, and easy to use. But over the following years, I was amazed at how much and how quickly the product improved. Despite the strong support of a certain cash-rich software behemoth, Internet Explorer just could not keep up.
In mid-2008, I decided that I wanted to finally get away from the Microsoft hegemony once and for all by jumping on the Linux bandwagon. After some research, I found that Ubuntu was the best distribution in terms of what I was looking for. My experience with Ubuntu so far has been fabulous (even the upgrade from Gutsy to Hardy went smoothly). So after having used Ubuntu for a good long while, it suddenly hit me that all this great software didn't come free (well it was free but a lot of people did a lot of work to make it all happen). So I joined the Ubuntu team and officially became in Ubuntero in early 2009.
Email: <user_kp@yahoo.com>
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