Fun with Sphinx acoustic training. Boy, I wish I actually
understood the math behind all this stuff. I guess that's
what graduate school is for (most likely that's where I'll
be in a couple years time).
For now, though, I'm going to enjoy some hacking on the
implementation of it - the process (though it is inherently
massively CPU-intensive) is taking a lot more time than it
should and there are a lot of code cleanups to be done.
Computers are not really a hobby for me anymore. This is
unquestionably a good thing in terms of my mental health,
though I worry that I am not doing enough to maintain and
improve my technical skills.
It was only a few years ago that I was a young liberal-arts
student and self-taught hacker living off of student loans
and struggling for meaningful
employment, and I fear that, should things go wrong, my lack
of formal education and credentials will come back to haunt
me. I guess I can always go back to school.
In reality, things are actually going very well indeed for
me; I work for a company with sensible management and
finances, doing interesting work with real applications and
customers. It's just that I have learned to survive by
planning for the worst case scenario.
I'm worried about the
perception
that free software doesn't pay, and about the
possibility that the demand for Linux/GNU/Perl/Apache
expertise in the job market may be evaporating. I really
hope that this is not the case, if not for my sake, then for
the sake of people who might be in the same place I was a
few years back; bright kids learning and using free software
on their own time, who should have their efforts rewarded
rather than repeatedly running into the "no BSCS degree, no
job" barrier.
On the other hand, I am certainly glad that there will be no
more bogus companies burning cash like Dubya, Cheney, and
their oil buddies want us to burn oil, nor instant
millionares and lazy people expecting huge payoffs. And
speaking as a Canadian ex-pat, I'd be happy to see the
outrageous salaries paid in the US be "corrected", so that
perhaps the rest of the world will get a chance to keep its
best and brightest.
Anyway, as I was saying, I've been splitting my spare time
between my old and
neglected interests of cooking, cycling, and homebrewing,
and if you'll excuse me, I've got some bread to bake.