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 deeply intrigued by the prospects for humanity in this new millenium. I am also a firm believer in the concept of The Technological Singularity.
A robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
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 here is a brief (and by no means complete) list of my project highlights:
- Delivered a global business intelligence platform using Business objects.
- Created Map-Reduce Hadoop programs to process large datasets in a computing cloud.
- Implemented a real estate "comps" (comparables) system using Crystal Reports.
- Produced 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 which I will not name here, 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.
Contact Me
IRC: Junowat on "irc.freenode.net"
Email: <user_kp@yahoo.com>