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comment by steve
steve  ·  4055 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Who are you, Hubski?

I'm steve. I'm 38. I'm married. I have five children (or in theadvancedapes words "that is some straight-up 1940's shit right there"). I grew up with mk and he asked me to "check out a project he was working on" a few years ago… Hubski has been my online home ever since. I'm a husband, a father, an ecclesiastical leader, and filmmaker. To pay for all of that stuff, I work a day job at a tech company in Denver, Colorado, USA. Sometimes I make podcasts with thenewgreen.





theadvancedapes  ·  4055 days ago  ·  link  ·  

"that is some straight-up 1940's shit right there"

Haha most definitely. No idea how you manage that.

steve  ·  4055 days ago  ·  link  ·  

a lot of time. a lot of patience.

blackbootz  ·  4055 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Jim Gaffigan wanted to impart on his audience what it's like to have that many children. He has four kids, and he says, "Do you wanna know what it's like to have a fourth child? Imagine you're drowning, and then someone hands you a baby."

4 Kids I highly recommend his observations on parenting.

thenewgreen  ·  4055 days ago  ·  link  ·  

As you likely know, we are expecting another kid in February. Having two seems insane to me, yet alone FIVE. -steve#1 (as I call him) is a madman. The fact that he finds time to make those video-podcasts for us is insane.

I love Denver and look forward to the day when Hubski has enough resources to send us all out there for a "meet up".

theadvancedapes  ·  4054 days ago  ·  link  ·  

MmMMMMmmmMmm... resources...

EDIT:

Congrats on having another kid!

thenewgreen  ·  4054 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I think time is the greatest resource we lack. Which begs the question, why on earth would we have another kid?

theadvancedapes  ·  4054 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You know I think we're going to stop having kids :-) Don't count on being grandpa newgreen.

thenewgreen  ·  4054 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'll love my virtual Digient grandchildren too.

rob05c  ·  4055 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Oh cool, I just moved to Denver to pursue a Masters in CS at UC Denver.

When you say "tech," is that software? I need to get involved in the software community. Working for an out-of-state company remotely, I don't get much chance to interact with devs in Denver.

I'm hoping to stay after I graduate, so I feel like I need to make some contacts in the software world. I'm also not a very outgoing person. Any advice? Or software orgs you'd recommend getting involved in?

steve  ·  4055 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Welcome to the Mile High City. I'm a transplant myself. I love it here. We need to have a Denver Hubski meet-up.

I'm not in software, but I'll think through some of my connections and maybe I can help you out.

lil  ·  4055 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Don't forget eightbitsamurai. He's in Denver.

I had a mini-hubski-meetup last month when I was in Vancouver. I happened to be at the university where forwardslash was.

I dunno, but I think when you've hung around the site for a while, you will probably have a few things to say to other hubskiers, or perhaps a zen-like smiling silence.

rob05c  ·  4055 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    We need to have a Denver Hubski meet-up.
I'd be up for that.

Honestly, part of the contact issue is time. Full-time work and school, I just don't have time for anything else. I think maybe I just need to wait until I graduate, and then look into local dev groups when I have a little free time.

steve  ·  4055 days ago  ·  link  ·  

what kind of software do you want to get into?

rob05c  ·  4055 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Well, I mostly do Application-level development now, in languages like C++. I'm focusing on Parallel Processing in grad school. I've been thinking either that, or Embedded programming.

I think I'd really like Embedded systems, but I have no idea how hard it is to break into that sub-field. I fully intend to get some books on the subject and start tinkering, as soon as I have any free time (again, probably not until I graduate in 2 years).

briandmyers  ·  4053 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I work in embedded systems. A cheap and easy way to see if you like it, would be to get some arduino parts and just start tinkering - play around with sensors and LCD displays, and move up to simple robots or whatever. dx.com is a good source for cheap bits and pieces (but their shipping, although free, is not fast).

rob05c  ·  4053 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Thanks! I'll do that.

I have a couple questions, if you have the time. My background is pure Computer Science (emphasis on Software Engineering), not Computer Engineering. How much will that hurt me, trying to break into embedded systems?

I'm afraid I don't know what I don't know, from CE.

Also, how important is DSP to your job? DSP worries me. I know nothing about it, but what I see looks really hard. I actually like applied math, but it doesn't come easy for me.

briandmyers  ·  4053 days ago  ·  link  ·  

There's a lot of embedded DSP work, so it's probably a good thing to learn. That said, I know almost nothing about it, so I can tell you it's not required for most work. What IS required is to know C, inside and out - that's what you'll use, 99% of the time; often very little or no OS support. Try to unlearn what you know about C++ and C#.

rob05c  ·  4053 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    What IS required is to know C

That's good to know. I suspected. I know C++ pretty well (for a human), I just need to get a book and learn the parts of C that don't cross over, and how to write "idiomatic C."

steve  ·  4055 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Off the top of my head, I know a few guys who work in software, and we have a fair share of folks around my company that write scripts and automate and integrate systems all day long. PM me and we we can chat. I'll put some feelers out around town.

beezneez  ·  4053 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I would very much like to talk to you. Also in Denver.

rob05c  ·  4053 days ago  ·  link  ·  

What's up? Feel free to PM me.