I’m at CMU (my alma mater) for YAPC. I haven’t been back here since just after graduating in ’91. It’s a trip seeing it after nearly twenty years, with a mix of the completely familiar and unfamiliar.
I wandered around campus for a while this morning. Each place jogs random memories from my head.
- Learning Unix through Andrew
- Working on the Oz interactive fiction project, still THE most fun software job I’ve ever had (if anyone wants to pay me to write text adventure games today, I’m there)
- Trying desperately (and failing) to understand Hidden Markov Models for a summer research job on Kai-Fu Lee’s Sphinx project
- Watching the “Dragon Lady” whip through dozens of programming languages in as many days, feeling like Neo in the Matrix (“I know Prolog!”)
- Working on a LISP machine
- Getting pathetically addicted to Moria
- Working as an esteemed Ccon (“Computer consultant”), helping users log in and sorting printouts for minimum wage
- Eating pizza on the floor of Wean hall at 3:30 AM during many all-night homework hacking sessions
I feel old.
