Q&A
Who are you?
Why, I’m an approaching 0x20 years old hacker with an aversion to the whole Web 2.0 shtick, of course. I’ve been into computers for practically all of my life, into the ‘net for more than half of it, into UNIX for a more than ten years, and into Python for more than five. I’ve dealt with system administration, professional services, software development and systems architecture. They’re listed in chronological order as I’ve done them, but I guess they’re also listed in ascending interest order for me these days. For a significant (but relatively shrinking) portion of my career I’ve been more on the selling/product development side, you know, those guys with the buttoned shirts and strong command of Microsoft Office, and I humbly think I was decent at that line of work, but I don’t think I’d do it again. I love the terminal window too much. That’s, of course, unless it paid too well to resist. Listen, if you care so much about who I am to read this far, why won’t you check out my Google Account page.
What’s with the Web 2.0 aversion?
Ugh… I don’t know. I’ve been using the Internet for quite a while longer than most other people my age, I’ve been hooked on BBS and then chats/IM as a teenager, and I’m ecstatic about the semantic web, so many technical trifles overjoy me to no avail. However, I never got the whole 2.0 thing, I was left rather underwhelmed, I guess. We’ve had /., everything2, IRC and Usenet already, what else do them chompers want to make the ‘net more social? So I’ve opened this blog just in 2010, I don’t have a Facebook or Twitter account, I begrudge my LinkedIn profile… Every time I do something 2.0-ish, it feels a bit dirty. It feels like I ought to go wash my hands. My penchant for paranoia and an aversion to cat pictures probably didn’t help, either.
Ahm, what’s with the weird title of the blog?
Oh that’s nothing. The title is really nothing to write home about.
NIL: .to write(1) ~ help:about 
I love your design, but better still, is your quality writing. The series on Python innards is a treasure, but my one favorite entry is https://tech.blog.aknin.name/2010/05/29/mailing-list-debates-considered-harmful/. Thanks.
Thank you very much for the kind words!
Excellent blog, sir! Truly flawlessly written.
Sir, now that I’m here, I thought I would ask for your help with something: I am looking for a PC (You may have heard this line many times before :) ), specifically a laptop. Would you have any recommendations? I am looking for something below $700 ( or below 442.3937 BPS in other words). I am looking for something with an i3 or i5 processor at least, about 4 or above GB of RAM, a hard disk above 350 GB, a nice graphics card (dedicated would be excellent) and at least 2 or 3 USB ports. So far, I have only looked at HP and Dell: the i3 “Dell Studio 15” seemed nice but the CNET reviews tell a whole different story.
Would you have any suggestions?
Thank you!
Again, thanks for the kind words. I’m afraid I can’t give decent computer purchase advice (let alone on the Q&A page), as you can see from my recent post, I’m also frustrated by these things as of late… Good luck.
And one more thing, Sir: I wholeheartedly agree with the “Web 2.0 aversion part of this page :) )
Really enjoyed reading the “Python’s Innards” series. You are an amazing writer! Yasher Koach!
I actually “printed” the whole series into a PDF, I liked it so much!
I can even try to explain CPython in 2 sentences using the information your article so eloquently said:
It is like a virtual CPU (the evaluator), and storage which has 3 things: code objects, state objects, and “regular” objects. The evaluator evaluates the code objects in the context of state objects; the state objects have pointers to namespaces which contain regular objects which the evaluator uses.