I love making data useful to people! My skills are best in data manipulation, systems administration/engineering, and untangling complicated data/lineages.
Recently I’ve been busy with work and starting graduate school but thankfully I’m back in a position where I can start updating my projects again. Keep an eye out for new content and check out my resume in the meantime. If you’re intersted in something I haven’t posted yet, send me an email and I’ll be happy to talk!
Outside of work and school I enjoy tea, immersive experiences, and my data side-hobby is datasets of cultural institutions.
FOSS (“Free and Open Source Software”) is the idea that software you use should be free (more on what free means later) and that the code should all be publically available to all.
(27 Mar, 2018 - 4 min)
This project stems from an in-depth discussion (explained here about the lack of FOSS being used within RIT’s design programs. More specifically, this project will be aimed at students, who have a very short time frame for work and already have some base knowledge of relevant concepts. I intend for this project to be applicable outside of students but when making priorities the student audience will be the most important consideration (when relevant). I feel that trying to bridge the gap is the most effective way to beget usage, as opposed to trying to completely retrain users or rewrite software.
(27 Mar, 2018 - 3 min)
This project started from hearing a rumor (via a professor) in RIT’s College of Imaging Arts & Sciences that free (both as in cost & as in freedom) software was not allowed to be installed on the lab machines for use (with an asterisk for where it’s too popular to not install).
(27 Mar, 2018 - 4 min)
Nadia Eghbal’s “Roads and Bridges” is an investigation into the Free & Open Source code that backs the digital world we know today, and the troubles that it faces. Eghbal’s analysis takes a very in-depth look at the various forces involved in this code, and what the results are.
(5 Mar, 2018 - 2 min)
Reflections on Mel Chua’s “Universe Hacking” talk for FOSS@MAGIC.
(17 Feb, 2018 - 6 min)
Since I’ve been playing with a bunch of distros in VMs lately, let’s set up some (more) convenient remote access… After all, remembering semi-arbitrary strings isn’t fun, and I’m currently running 6 VMs that are just to see what various distros are doing, in addition to the other 9 I have for other things.
(17 Feb, 2018 - 3 min)
After more work than I’d like, I have Nextcloud & Collabora Office set up. I had a lot of issues running Collabora as a package during this.
(17 Feb, 2018 - 3 min)
Currently, I’m running Windows on my laptop, and it’s well overdue that I switch to Linux (for a variety of reasons even beyond FOSS… security & resource usage for example…). Additionally, I need a workstation VM for heavier lifting that I can remotely access to do stuff. Here’s the thought process that went into choosing the distro & desktop environment combos that I’m going to be switching to:
(14 Feb, 2018 - 4 min)
Gmail has become a go-to place for email, and with good reason. It’s free (as in cost, not freedom) and due to Google’s backing, it’s stable & comparatively safe. Additionally, you get the power of Google’s AI to make your email life easier. However, from a FOSS-friendly point of view, these features aren’t particularly accessible… but with common standards (such as IMAP) and a little effort, we can take full advantage of Gmail’s abilities while allowing ourselves a FOSS client.
(13 Feb, 2018 - 6 min)
A DMZ (“Demilitarized Zone”) is an isolated network segment, usually used for public-facing servers to keep anything that may go awry on them from being able to damage the rest of the network.
(6 Feb, 2018 - 4 min)