New connection with the past

Recently I've been busy and couldn't post here lately. Between playing with my OpenMoko phone, writing the OSiM blog every weekend, hacking librsvg (why? 'll post about it if it takes any shape), a trip to Bartlesville, OK and of course full-time day job; I couldn't manage enough cycles to write here. However I had many things to write about.

... anyway. Today I felt extremely happy when I came across Prof. John Riedl's blog. He has been my favorite Teacher among all the ones I ever came across in my life. Back in my school days I used to be the "full-attendance" student, but I have slept in almost all teachers' classes in my college days (sitting on first bench ;). In Prof. Riedl's class, I could never even felt like sleeping even if I was awake for past 24 hrs (yes, there were many such night-outs in those couple semesters). I had taken Advanced Internet Programming and later Advanced Operating Systems with Prof. Riedl. Both of them were the best courses I ever took in my life. What was so great about them? It is not important what programming languages/ technical skills/ theoretical foundations were taught in those courses. What I learnt there was passion for technology (no, that's incorrect... passion can't be 'learnt'. More correctly, our interests resonated perfectly and that boosted my passion for technology).

I didn't immediately understand the techniques Prof. tried to teach us in Advanced OS class. Most of the classic Operating systems papers that we read, were too tough for me and I could barely add any new insights (something we were supposed to do in our writeups) to the original ideas. But after 1-2 years when I was settled in my job, I reread some of those papers (this time with a focused interest on OS virtualization technologies) and I understood the significance of the techniques that Prof. Riedl were trying to teach us back then. It doesn't surprise me, why only Prof. Riedl has managed to influenced me. Because he comes from the startup culture, which I am so much in awe of.

If you are In U of M CS department, (and "love" computing), then never ever miss an opportunity to take Prof. Riedl's course (if it is offered of course... I feel lucky I got that opportunity twice).