So, why yet another technology blog...?

I realized fourteen years too late that, yes, I really should just tough it out and stick with the computer science degree, because computer programming is awesome.  I've managed, through the years, to interject little bits and pieces of it into my everyday working life though the use of VBA in Excel, or maybe a clever console script, but never anything terribly earth shattering.  As I finished my master's degree I was left with the realization that I'd racked up over $90,000 in student loans getting educated in fields I was only ephemerally interested in.  Oops. So now, rather than spend god-only-knows how much more time and money getting YET ANOTHER degree, I'm going guerrilla style. I'm going to acquire the same knowledge that a typical Computer Science major would acquire, and I'm going to do it for free. Gratis. Yup, I'm fo shizzo.

So how in the hell am I going to get a free Computer Science degree? Hold up there pard, I didn't say anything about a degree. I said I was getting the same knowledge. Degree != education, and vise versa. Enter the magic of the internet, and Open Course Ware.  What I plan to make a key building block of my own ambitious education website, I will first leverage to get myself a job as a programmer (hopefully), or if by some miracle I get the programmer job I just applied for, it'll just make me a more competent programmer.  The fact of the matter is that the College Degree is merely a proxy, a token, meant to convey the idea that "Yes, this person knows subject xyz".  But it seems more and more that the token has been corrupted.  The value, the bang for your buck, just isn't there anymore.

So what does that have to do with this blog? I'm writing my own ticket. The goal of this blog is simple: Document my education. I won't have a degree but I WILL have proof that I fulfilled all the same requirements. Every lecture I watch will get a blog post. Maybe you'll find these posts entertaining and enlightening, in which case I'm happy for you. If not, well they really aren't for you anyway. They are for me and, with a little luck, my future hiring managers. So wish me luck.