I’m in need! — badly!
short:
I’m in need of a reference letter for scholarship.
long:
I’m going to university next year and so am applying for some scholarships to reduce the financial load as much as I can. There are two scholarships I’m applying for with due dates: March 15th and March 31st.
If you have time and know me just a little, I would really really appreciate it if you could write a page for a letter reference. All the information is here and you can reach me through email at amoradi@fedoraproject.org or through IRC: fengshaun in irc.freenode.org. I usually hang out in #fedora, #fedora-kde, and #fedora-social.
All that is said, my resume and the application forms are here in case you want to look at them, and here is a little more information which might help you help me:
- Marks: all revolve around 95% (range of 91 to 98) except English which is 87%.
- I love Biology and Computer Science, and am pursuing biology major.
- I’m very much involved in the communities around me (school, etc.).
- I always try to fill the gaps and short-comings of my community.
If you need more information, I’m reachable on IRC or by email.
Thank you very much!
P.S. It would be much better if the letter would somehow be applicable to both scholarships as both of them have almost the same requirements, so I could just send a copy for each one!
new konvi (aka konversation) packages
…and you can get them from my fedorapeople account.
This time I made the i386 packages too, along with x86_64 ones, thanks to MathStuf, rdieter, and Kevin_Kofler (#fedora-kde @ irc.freenode) who helped me get my head around mock!
nothing more to say, enjoy!
How to make your system choke to death and how to use the power button!
Note to self: never ever EVER EVER AGAIN boot into windows. NEVER!
After a long while, I thought I would boot into windows on my machine just for a change. From when I got this system, I never even bothered to wipe the windows installation that came with it. So, I boot into it, and obviously, the first thing I do is to click the ’start’ button. The computer freezes for 2 mins. Just by clicking the ’start’ the system freezed for 2 mins. Then I told myself “ok, it will be fine.” I was wrong! I then tried to open firefox. Another freeze for a few seconds. Then I downloaded something…hard freeze! That was when I realized the power button is my best friend! Now I have statistics too:
total time: 25 mins
number of hard freezes: 2
number of soft freezes: 5
use of power button: 1, and never looked back.
moral of the story: hmmm…nothing new!
Inspirational interviews: Stalwart
A week or two back, I was talking to a fellow Fedorian when I thought I would do a series of interviews with the KDE-Sig people who really work hard to integrate KDE into Fedora, and make it the way it is. So, to thank them, and to realize how easy it is for users to become contributors, I set about to do a series of inspirational interviews which focus more on how the current contributors got involved at first, and what made them stay.
Now, without further ado, I will present you with the first one, with Stalwart (irc.freenode.org). Please note that this wasn’t supposed to be an interview until it was finished =)
This is the part I wanted to post as the interview:
[17:00] fengshaun> how is college?
[17:01] Stalwart> programming - A++, english - A+, physics - F
[17:01] fengshaun> A++? do you actually have that kind of grade? I thought the max is A+
[17:02] Stalwart> we have numeric grades
[17:02] fengshaun> 0-100?
[17:02] Stalwart> 1-10
[17:02] fengshaun> oh!
[17:02] fengshaun> where is that?
[17:03] Stalwart> latvia
[17:03] fengshaun> oh, nice!
[17:03] Stalwart> i don't like this grade system
[17:03] fengshaun> what's wrong with it?
[17:03] Stalwart> good grade is 8 which is confusing
[17:03] fengshaun> confusing?
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[17:05] Stalwart> of course they need to reserve 10 for cases when you know more than teacher, but having 8 as balance point isn't any good
[17:05] fengshaun> what? when you know more than teacher?
[17:05] fengshaun> that would be 10?
[17:05] Stalwart> the B, A, A+ system is great - you can see when you're good
[17:06] fengshaun> what year are you in?
[17:06] Stalwart> 8 is A, 9 is A+ (really great!), 10 is when you're insanely great (megakill!)
[17:06] Stalwart> i'm on first year
[17:06] fengshaun> oh wow, and you have a 10!!
[17:07] fengshaun> no way! =O
[17:07] Stalwart> i was bored
[17:08] fengshaun> oh my god! first year and that kind of programming skill (refer to the game engine you once showed me)
[17:09] Stalwart> what?
[17:09] fengshaun> I remember you showed me (some time ago) something you were writing
[17:09] fengshaun> some ten thousand lines of code
[17:10] Stalwart> eh... was that me?
[17:10] fengshaun> ummm wasn't it?
[17:10] fengshaun> I don't remember
[17:10] Stalwart> i was writing a web game engine four years ago but i got bored pretty fast
[17:11] fengshaun> yea, that's it!
[17:11] Stalwart> didn't write any games after that
[17:11] fengshaun> 4 years ago?
[17:11] fengshaun> how old were you back then?
[17:11] Stalwart> yes, it was turn-based fighting game
[17:11] Stalwart> i was 16
[17:12] * fengshaun 's brain is whisteling
[17:12] fengshaun> when did you start programming?
[17:15] Stalwart> if .bat files on windows count - 12
[17:15] fengshaun> oh god
[17:16] fengshaun> how did you learn programming?
[17:16] Stalwart> when i was 13 i've got my first work - i was fixing computers in small company
[17:17] Stalwart> i was very lazy and i wanted to automate some stuff on my pc using .bat files, then found pascal book...
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[17:20] fengshaun> ...
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[17:21] Stalwart> programming is very fun
[17:21] fengshaun> what after pascal book?
[17:22] Stalwart> python, php, javascript, c, assembler etc.
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[17:22] fengshaun> tell me that in a story fashion!
[17:23] Stalwart> it was in few years timespan
[17:23] fengshaun> what happened after you got the pascal book?
[17:23] Stalwart> i was just trying out every language that seemed cool to me
[17:24] fengshaun> did you learn all through books?
[17:24] Stalwart> i installed linux and it had all development tools easily accessible, i was installing interpreters and compilers and reading docs
[17:24] Stalwart> mostly online docs, not paper books
[17:25] Stalwart> online tutorials are enough to figure out if you like language or not
[17:25] fengshaun> what if you liked it? what did you do next?
[17:25] Stalwart> i was learning by example
[17:25] Stalwart> open source projects, tutorials
[17:26] Stalwart> once you get into language and understand how it works - all you need is reference docs
[17:26] fengshaun> wow, at 12, I barely knew what a computer was
[17:26] Stalwart> i started using computers at school when i was 8
[17:27] Stalwart> at 10 i had my first pc at home
[17:27] fengshaun> how long did it take you to learn c++?
[17:27] Stalwart> i didn't learn C++ beyond basic Qt stuff
[17:27] Stalwart> i don't need it now, i code in php and shell mostly
[17:27] fengshaun> then how did you write that web game engine?
[17:27] Stalwart> in php
[17:27] Stalwart> and javascript on client side
[17:28] fengshaun> oh, the one I remember was in c++, so that wasn't you 
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[17:28] Stalwart> surely
[17:28] fengshaun> wow! I am impressed!
[17:29] fengshaun> how many languages do you know?
[17:29] Stalwart> i'm fluent in php and javascript and good at python
[17:29] fengshaun> do you like assembler?
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[17:30] Stalwart> not that much
[17:30] Stalwart> asm is useful if you need hardcore optimization, but it's not portable
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[17:30] fengshaun> do you have any suggestions on a good php read?
[17:30] Stalwart> php.net docs?
[17:31] Stalwart> they're pretty good
[17:31] fengshaun> wow
[17:32] fengshaun> anyway, that just gave me some big inspiration
[17:32] fengshaun> for the future (tm)
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[17:33] fengshaun> what do you want to do in the future?
[17:33] fengshaun> as a job
[17:35] Stalwart> redhat, google
[17:35] SePhIr0tH> asm is good for real time low level embedded systems
[17:35] fengshaun> and can I post this conversation in my weblog?
[17:36] Stalwart> that's hardcore =)
[17:36] SePhIr0tH> what's hardcore?
[17:36] Stalwart> you don't do that daily
[17:36] SePhIr0tH> oh
[17:36] SePhIr0tH> I do
[17:36] SePhIr0tH> 
[17:36] fengshaun> you do?
[17:36] SePhIr0tH> well not daily but quite often i play with that
[17:37] fengshaun> hey, I just thought of setting up a row of interviews from the KDE-sig people, what do you think?
[17:37] Stalwart> i prefer portable code, even when it's slower
[17:38] rdieter> fengshaun: nice
[17:38] Stalwart> fengshaun: get on planet fedora to have more readers
[17:38] fengshaun> every weekend, I would interview someone and post it somewhere on the wiki!
[17:38] SePhIr0tH> Stalwart: yeah but sometimes (ie in some embedded systems) you can't afford slower
[17:38] SePhIr0tH> but i also prefer C
And some other things which might be of interest:
Now is a good time, I think, to thank the people who suggested me to come to planet Fedora, which in turn made me think: ‘why can’t I contribute something?’ which led to me learning basic packaging (for now).
[17:38] fengshaun> Stalwart: planet fedora?
[17:39] Stalwart> http://planet.fedoraproject.org/
[17:39] fengshaun> Stalwart: isn't that for hardcore fedora devels?
[17:39] fengshaun> yea, I follow the planet closely
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[17:39] Stalwart> fengshaun: planet is for any fedora-related blog posts
[17:40] * fengshaun sees one of his dreams coming true!
[17:40] fengshaun> can I apply for that?
[17:40] Stalwart> sure
[17:40] fengshaun> my weblog is http://fengshaun.wordpress.com
[17:40] Stalwart> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Planet_HowTo
[17:41] fengshaun> Stalwart: thanks!
[17:41] fengshaun> my weblog is mostly tips and tricks and random news
[17:41] fengshaun> on fedora and KDE
[17:42] Stalwart> fengshaun: if you don't have FAS account but have a good blog you could write a mail to planet admin
[17:42] fengshaun> I got an account some time ago
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[17:43] fengshaun> oh god, I will do that today!
[17:44] fengshaun> so Stalwart, can I post this conversation on my blog? (not the last OT part)
[17:44] Stalwart> i'm not a kde sig member actually
[17:45] Stalwart> i don't contribute that much to call myself a kde contributor
[17:45] Stalwart> i'm maintaining some packages in repo, but none of them is kde related except eet
[17:46] fengshaun> but you are a fellow fedorian, right?
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[17:47] Stalwart> that's for sure
[17:47] fengshaun> then I have the permission, right?
[17:48] Stalwart> about posting our conversation - you better not trash your blog with useless stuff and do a proper interview
[17:48] Stalwart> of rdieter for example
[17:48] fengshaun> lol, this was very inspiring indeed!
[17:48] rdieter> There's plenty of folks and material to go around
[17:49] fengshaun> (actually my next target was rdieter)
[17:49] Stalwart> you will get much more sensible content if when person knows it's being interviewed, not just chitchatting
[17:49] fengshaun> but chitchat-type is more fun!! but I will do the next ones properly, for sure
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[17:50] fengshaun> so, can I post it?
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[17:51] Stalwart> well... if you want so
[17:51] fengshaun> I do want so!
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[17:52] fengshaun> then I'm on it! Thanks very much for your time
[17:52] Stalwart> then you could post it
[17:52] fengshaun> =D
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[17:53] fengshaun> and I have to go now!
[17:53] Stalwart> everything you say can be used against you (c) police
[17:53] fengshaun> lol
And that’s it for today! I will come up with more interviews later (only on weekends, I have school on other days)!
(and if you have read this far, give yourself a present =) )
UPDATE: so, I messed up the first time. the nicks hid themselves because of the angle brackets (<)! Sorry for the inconvenience.
The end is the beginning
So last night I made one of those famous test-posts to see if my blog has gone to planet fedora. And here we go with an introduction:
My name is Armin Moradi and I live in PEI, Canada (it’s so small it’s not visible in the map). Well, I’m originally from Iran and just recently (2 years ago) moved to Canada and I’m currently in high school dealing with teachers (yet). I’m graduating next year when I will be 17 years old and off to university with all it’s fun (or not-fun, depending on how you see it).
So what did bring me here? The spirit of free software. I started using GNU/Linux about 1.5 years ago (good old times) and as I learned more about it, I got more interested to the extent that I wanted to help somehow…it didn’t matter how. And then I started learning C++ so maybe I could code. That didn’t work very well. Then a few weeks ago I started to learn packaging because I wanted deadly-bleeding-edge software for which packages were not available (something like pre-alpha). Than I learned more and more and bingo! Here I am, trying to give something back to the community.
I will post mostly about fedora and linux related topics, and once in a while I might post about my personal life (rarely) and also you will see random thoughts and news come and go!
And I hear they say first impression is important. I’m afraid I didn’t make a good one with that test-post, but here is konversation 2 pre-alpha to make you forget that!
http://amoradi.fedorapeople.org/rpms/
And as an end-note for this post, I hope to be at least somewhat useful for the community =)
