Did you see this thing?

I've learned so much from people who start their conversation with "did you see this thing?".  The world is full of knowledge and knowledgeable people, but on occasion you can get a dud.  Someone trying to sell you on bad math or science.  There are massive gaps in all of our knowledge, and we need to be capable of self correction.  But, we also need to know how to share information and have information shared to us.

The key to being able to share really cool and new things is being able to understand them.  Since this is a tech blog, I figured I would share some of the better websites that have been shared with me.  I have had a nice older coworker that I refer to as my adopted Tiger dad that was helping me with some college math courses.  The first aggregate is pretty much the first thing he shared with me.  And yes, I would feel like I let him down if I got anything less than an A in my math courses.

Aggregate 1:
Best math site ever!

I was jumping back into math with Trigonometry.  A rougher than average high school led me to believe that it only had to do with triangles.  I honestly believed that it was going to be a ridiculous geometry class, until I started The Unit Circle.  That's a pretty special course on this website, because it purifies the math to a level where you could share knowledge with extra-terrestrials if you are capable of understanding the material.

Lets dig around a little deeper into my profession.  To get hands on experience with enterprise grade virtualization.  You want VMware knowledge.  VMware offers labs for free as Hands On Labs (HOL).  They do not offer a path to certification for free.  Let me repeat that so it is clear: VMWARE DOES NOT OFFER A PATH TO CERTIFICATION FOR FREE.  It costs a few thousand dollars, and it isn't necessarily worth it.  What you would be certified for is a technology that you could learn for free with their offerings.  Located at the next aggregate.

Aggregate 2:
My quick link to HOL

This was shared to me by the employees of VMware, probably a few days after it went live.  I still direct coworkers to it, making sure that they have access to the basics of how to work with virtualization.  I can't do anything about people not understanding the virtual stack.  I am still working on that with some basic white papers for my coworkers.

Everyone that has spent more than 10 minutes reading my blog knows that I have a burning desire to know as much as I can about Docker.  Infrastructure, development, commands, management, orchestration, and architecture.  I want to know all about it the same way I wanted to know all about virtualization.  Because I want to understand the common pieces of all containerization and jail technologies.  The more pieces and parts that show up in Docker, the more I wonder about where else they could have come from or be used.  Fortunately, Docker has been building out their knowledge base, and they now have a Hands-on-Lab.

Aggregate 3:
Docker HOL!

This is not going to be tuned to any particular vendor or OS.  So, my complaints about iptables on Photon OS are still just as valid.  Also, check out my blog about iptables on Photon OS if you need help understanding what could go wrong with iptables on a container host.

Finally, something I have not been able to dive into further than installing and playing a little, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.  This is the cutting edge of computing right now.  In general, this is a big data technology.  You should probably have a whole lot of stuff to throw at it to make it a worthwhile investment of your time.  I have data I want to throw at it, I just don't have time to mess with it too much right now.  I also need to dig through the following aggregate.

Aggregate 4:
Making machines smarter

Some of my first blog posts were about setting up security cameras in your house.  Now, imagine being able to have those cameras identify who they see in their lenses.  Going a step further, imagine the security system knowing if that person should be there.  Getting a text message from a computer, with an image, asking if it is okay for someone to be in your house.  It may sound strange, but it is exactly what I am trying to build right now.  Stay tuned for a post in the near future about exploring facial recognition with Machine Learning and applying it to a system with AI.