the rantings of an engineer

I think I mentioned in the last post that I am currently studying a subject called Internet Communication Engineering. I have one 2 hour lab and one two hour lecture each week, and despite my initial feeling, I am actually enjoying it a lot. On top of working in groups of nerds to complete the 4 lab assignments; each week I get to listen to the rantings and ravings of an old man. Well, when I say old, I probably mean mid forties. He is greying, wears glasses and is a little tubby. He always wears the same clothes - blue polo shirt, beige chinos - the standard uniform and dress sense of a typical IT guy. Trust me - I know.

At 5:30pm, he waddles into lecture theater 2 on level 8 of building 12, RMIT. 2 hours of ranting and drivel ensues. Sweeping generalisations, borderline racism, sexism, political discourse.. all standard fare. There is practically no structure to these "lectures", and normally I would have stopped going, but to be honest, the guy is nothing if not entertaining - in the same way David Brent was entertaining I guess, but more horrifying, because it's real. I should mention here that this guy is a really great programmer. He was my C++ lecturer and he wrote code that was used in Windows 2000 server. He is smart. He's also grumpy.

So for your amusement, and for as long as he remains entertaining, I will put my lecture notes for this class on my blog. The notes are in order, so try and imagine the flow of his ranting, from subject to subject. The views of my lecturer are obviously not aligned with my views - to be honest, he sounds like someone's dad, crapping on about how everything was better when he was younger. Oh also, he likes to talk about internet porn. A lot.

Enjoy.

Lecture 2 - 24/07/2007
Internet communication engineering notes.

Civilisation is a rip off of Empire for mainframe
Play wolfpack empire – apparently you have to be a super nerd to play
Security, etc
What are the legal obligations of a company with regards to storing electronic information.
Telstra = bad
Americans = bad
Timing is important in delivery of services
Why doesn’t telstra sell VOIP services?
Why did they show Die Hard, 3 times last year on TV?
English carry-on movies are for crazy insomniacs.
Find 3 examples of unusual internet offerings – what is different, why was it successful / not successful?
Americans = stupid and evil
Don’t use porn
All TV in Australia was better in the 70’s than it is now.
Kids today cant read
Qantas are stupid
Empire takes forever to play and like Double Dragon, only one person can win.
Old lecture note password: RMIT0896
There are web cams on the internet
Australians are lazy and don’t work hard.
Broome has the most beautiful sunset in the world.