What follows are subnetting tables, largely based on the chapter on subnetting from Todd Lammle’s CCNA: Cisco Certified Network Associate Study Guide.

Sorry, but there’s no sex, pop-culture references, or fart jokes to be found here. Move along. There’s nothing to see here. Unless you’re trying to memorize a bunch of subnetting info. Seriously. That’s not flatulence. That’s the sound of my brain on subnetting.

Formulas

• CIDR: Total address size – unmasked bits; i.e. 32 – unmasked bits
• Unmasked bits: 32 – CIDR
• Masked bits: 8 – unmasked bits
• Number of subnets: 2x, where x is the number of masked bits
• Hosts per subnet: 2y – 2, where y is the number of unmasked bits
• Block size: 256 – subnet mask

Subnet Mask 128

Subnet Mask 192

Subnet Mask 224

Subnet Mask 240

Subnet Mask 248

Subnet Mask 252

In theory it may be proper that teachers ignore thrillers, science fiction, and the comic books. No one wants Coleridge pushed from the curriculum by a duck “trapped in a world he never made!” But when we begin to list the contemporary “serious” writers who fill highschool and literature courses, Howard the Duck can look not all that bad.

For the sake of brevity, I have only included categories from the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus awards for which I was able to find full texts online. I used the Locus lists for each of the awards.

If you aren’t interested in the awards, themselves, you can skip to the Story List.

2009 Nebula Awards

Novel

1. Powers, Ursula K. Le Guin (Harcourt 2007)
2. Brasyl, Ian McDonald (Pyr 2007)
3. Cauldron, Jack McDevitt (Ace 2007)
4. Little Brother, Cory Doctorow (Tor)
   • Craphound
5. Making Money, Terry Pratchett (Harper 2007)
6. Superpowers, David J. Schwartz (Three Rivers)

Novella

1. ”The Spacetime Pool”, Catherine Asaro (Analog Mar 2008)
   • Catherine Asaro's Facebook Notes
2. “Dangerous Space”, Kelley Eskridge (Dangerous Space 2007)
   • Kelley Eskridge
3. “Dark Heaven”, Gregory Benford (Alien Crimes 2007)
4. The Duke In His Castle, Vera Nazarian (Norilana)
5. “The Political Prisoner”, Charles Coleman Finlay (F&SF Aug 2008)

Novelette

1. ”Pride and Prometheus”, John Kessel (F&SF Jan 2008)
   • John Kessel's Homepage
2. “Baby Doll”, Johanna Sinisalo, translated by David Hackston (The SFWA European Hall of Fame 2007)
3. “Dark Rooms”, Lisa Goldstein (Asimov’s Oct/Nov 2007)
   • Asimov's Science Fiction
4. “If Angels Fight”, Richard Bowes (F&SF Feb 2008)
5. “Kaleidoscope”, K. D. Wentworth (F&SF May 2007)
6. “Night Wind”, Mary Rosenblum (Lace and Blade)
7. “The Ray-Gun: A Love Story”, James Alan Gardner (Asimov’s Feb 2008)
   • Asimov's Science Fiction

Short Story

1. ”Trophy Wives”, Nina Kiriki Hoffman (Fellowship Fantastic)
2. “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss”, Kij Johnson (Asimov’s Jul 2008)
   • Kij Johnson
3. “The Button Bin”, Mike Allen (Helix Oct 2007)
   • Transcriptase
4. “Don’t Stop”, James Patrick Kelly (Asimov’s Jun 2007)
   • Asimov's Science Fiction
5. “The Dreaming Wind”, Jeffrey Ford (The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales 2007)
6. “Mars: A Traveler’s Guide”, Ruth Nestvold (F&SF Jan 2008)
7. “The Tomb Wife”, Gwyneth Jones (F&SF Aug 2007)
   • Gwyneth Jones

2009 Hugo Awards

Novel

1. The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury)
2. Anathem, Neal Stephenson (Morrow; Atlantic UK)
3. Little Brother, Cory Doctorow (Tor)
   • Craphound
4. Saturn’s Children, Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit)
5. Zoe’s Tale, John Scalzi (Tor)

Novella

1. ”The Erdmann Nexus”, Nancy Kress (Asimov’s Oct/Nov 2008)
   • Asimov's Science Fiction
2. “The Political Prisoner”, Charles Coleman Finlay (F&SF Aug 2008)
3. “The Tear”, Ian McDonald (Galactic Empires)
4. “True Names”, Benjamin Rosenbaum & Cory Doctorow (Fast Forward 2)
   • Internet Archive
5. “Truth”, Robert Reed (Asimov’s Oct/Nov 2008)
   • Asimov's Science Fiction

Novelette

1. ”Shoggoths in Bloom”, Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s Mar 2008)
   • Elizabeth Bear
2. “Alastair Baffle’s Emporium of Wonders”, Mike Resnick (Asimov’s Jan 2008)
   • Asimov's Science Fiction
3. “The Gambler”, Paolo Bacigalupi (Fast Forward 2)
   • Sample Chapters of Pyr Books: Fast Forward 2
4. “Pride and Prometheus”, John Kessel (F&SF Jan 2008)
   • John Kessel's Homepage
5. “The Ray-Gun: A Love Story”, James Alan Gardner (Asimov’s Feb 2008)
   • Asimov's Science Fiction

Short Story

1. ”Exhalation”, Ted Chiang (Eclipse Two)
   • Night Shade Books
2. “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss”, Kij Johnson (Asimov’s Jul 2008)
   • Kij Johnson
3. “Article of Faith”, Mike Resnick (Baen’s Universe Oct 2008)
   • Jim Baen's Universe
4. “Evil Robot Monkey”, Mary Robinette Kowal (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Two)
   • Mary Robinette Kowal
5. “From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled”, Michael Swanwick (Asimov’s Feb 2008)
   • Asimov's Science Fiction

2009 Locus Awards

Young Adult Novel

1. The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury)
2. Little Brother, Cory Doctorow (Tor)
   • Craphound
3. Zoe’s Tale, John Scalzi (Tor)
4. Nation, Terry Pratchett (Doubleday UK; Bloomsbury)
5. Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan (Knopf)

Novella

1. ”Pretty Monsters”, Kelly Link (Pretty Monsters)
2. “The Erdmann Nexus”, Nancy Kress (Asimov’s Oct/Nov 2008)
   • Asimov's Science Fiction
3. “The Tear”, Ian McDonald (Galactic Empires)
4. Once Upon a Time in the North, Philip Pullman (Knopf)
5. “True Names”, Benjamin Rosenbaum & Cory Doctorow (Fast Forward 2)

Novelette

1. ”Pump Six”, Paolo Bacigalupi (Pump Six and Other Stories)
2. “Shoggoths in Bloom”, Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s Mar 2008)
   • Elizabeth Bear
3. “The Things that Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away”, Cory Doctorow (Tor.com Aug 2008)
   • Tor
4. “The Ice War”, Stephen Baxter (Asimov’s Sep 2008)
5. “Pride and Prometheus”, John Kessel (F&SF Jan 2008)
   • John Kessel's Homepage

Short Story

1. ”Exhalation”, Ted Chiang (Eclipse Two)
   • Night Shade Books
2. “After the Coup”, John Scalzi (Tor.com Jul 2008)
   • Tor
3. “Boojim”, Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette (Fast Ships, Black Sails)
4. “The Kindness of Strangers”, Nancy Kress (Fast Forward 2)
5. “King Pelles the Sure”, Peter S. Beagle (Strange Roads)

Story List

Novel

• Little Brother, Cory Doctorow (Tor)
  • Craphound

Novella

1. “Dangerous Space”, Kelley Eskridge (Dangerous Space 2007)
   • Kelley Eskridge
2. ”The Erdmann Nexus”, Nancy Kress (Asimov’s Oct/Nov 2008)
   • Asimov's Science Fiction
3. ”The Spacetime Pool”, Catherine Asaro (Analog Mar 2008)
   • Catherine Asaro's Facebook Notes
4. “True Names”, Benjamin Rosenbaum & Cory Doctorow (Fast Forward 2)
   • Internet Archive
5. “Truth”, Robert Reed (Asimov’s Oct/Nov 2008)
   • Asimov's Science Fiction

Novelette

1. “Alastair Baffle’s Emporium of Wonders”, Mike Resnick (Asimov’s Jan 2008)
   • Asimov's Science Fiction
2. “Dark Rooms”, Lisa Goldstein (Asimov’s Oct/Nov 2007)
   • Asimov's Science Fiction
3. “The Gambler”, Paolo Bacigalupi (Fast Forward 2)
   • Sample Chapters of Pyr Books: Fast Forward 2
4. “Pride and Prometheus”, John Kessel (F&SF Jan 2008)
   • John Kessel's Homepage
5. “The Ray-Gun: A Love Story”, James Alan Gardner (Asimov’s Feb 2008)
   • Asimov's Science Fiction
6. “Shoggoths in Bloom”, Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s Mar 2008)
   • Elizabeth Bear

Short Story

1. “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss”, Kij Johnson (Asimov’s Jul 2008)
   • Kij Johnson
2. “After the Coup”, John Scalzi (Tor.com Jul 2008)
   • Tor
3. “Article of Faith”, Mike Resnick (Baen’s Universe Oct 2008)
   • Jim Baen's Universe
4. “The Button Bin”, Mike Allen (Helix Oct 2007)
   • Transcriptase
5. “Don’t Stop”, James Patrick Kelly (Asimov’s Jun 2007)
   • Asimov's Science Fiction
6. “Evil Robot Monkey”, Mary Robinette Kowal (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Two)
   • Mary Robinette Kowal
7. “Exhalation”, Ted Chiang (Eclipse Two)
   • Night Shade Books
8. “From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled”, Michael Swanwick (Asimov’s Feb 2008)
   • Asimov's Science Fiction
9. “The Tomb Wife”, Gwyneth Jones (F&SF Aug 2007)
   • Gwyneth Jones

Will I scandalize you if I question the pure virtue of literacy?

What I mean is, reading, in and of itself, has only a pragmatic value. Literacy is a tool. It happens to be an extremely useful tool, but it’s value is in it’s usefulness. Of what value is it if someone can read, but chooses not to, or reads only the back of his cereal box? Or Glenn Beck?

Merely reading anything isn’t going to get my praise. Illiterate cultures can still have a rich heritage of story and thought. Literate cultures can become impoverished. Commercially driven cookie-cutter prose trash isn’t going to preserve or further develop our cultural heritage. It isn’t going to put our literacy to the good use of developing our minds or our souls.

Now that I’ve outed myself as an elitist snob (actually that was done many years ago) let me say that highbrow “serious” literature isn’t the only literature of value. Have you ever read Chesterton’s defense of the penny dreadful? On the opposite side of the coin, the value of pulps or folk lore or what have you should not be used to insulate one’s self in an anti-intellectual cocoon, which is precisely what intellectual aphids like Glenn Beck are doing. Yeah, I know… messy mixing of insect metaphors.

My wife argues with me that I want everything to have meaning and that sometimes a person just wants to have fun. She’s right, of course. And there’s nothing wrong with letting loose and having fun. This country has a lot of fun. But not much joy. There is a lot of pursuit of pleasure, but not much happiness.

Art should help us figure out how to live. It should help us prepare for death. It should help us cope, help us grieve, it should help us fill our laughter with depth and an awareness of the joy that exists in sorrow that exists in joy. If you are thinking that one could substitute “religion” for “art” there, I would agree. Liturgical art considers god and man from the perspective of God. Art considers god and man from the perspective of man. If sometimes art follows Cain, it is not necessarily so.

Well, this is nearly a post in itself. Let me wrap up by saying that one should pursue value in literature, in all of art, for the same reason that one should pursue the bliss of the marriage bed over the surface pleasure of onanism—one gives life with pleasure that is physical, emotional and spiritual, the other gives pleasure that is only physical; one is an expression of community and relationship, looking inward and outward simultaneously, the other is self-directed with only a phantom of the ego and the pleasure center; one makes us more fully human, while the other is experienced solely in one’s exclusive limitation. To feel pleasure is not wrong. But it is a lesser good than the fullness in which we can take part. I don’t believe that 5 minutes with one’s self is going to damn a person to hell, and I don’t believe reading trash is the end of society as we know it. But if a society completely gave up on sexual intercourse for autoeroticism it would die off within the course of one lifetime. So too with our intellectual, spiritual, and emotional life.

People keep telling me that the more local the government, the more responsive and receptive they are to your needs. And then I remember homeowner’s associations and disregard most of that.

I am seeking an Information Technology position which will build on my experience with network administration, security, and virtualization, and which will benefit from my enthusiasm for Free and Open Source Software and enterprise technologies.

Professional Experience

Agnoli, Barber & Brundage, Inc., Naples, Florida

Network and Systems Administration, Unix Specialist (3 years)

General network administration and management. Spearheaded move towards open technologies utilizing Linux and Solaris.

• Replaced Linksys appliance firewall with robust iptables firewalls
• Implemented OpenVPN to connect remote office and external users to primary subnet
• Replaced BackupExec with Amanda, backing up Windows, Linux, and OpenSolaris servers
• Migrated Windows shares to Sun CIFS server, preserving permissions granularity with ZFS ACLs
• Production server virtualization with Xen, KVM, and VMWare Server
• Created flexible network testing labs with VMWare Workstation, VMWare Fusion and VirtualBox
• Used various tools such as nmap and Wireshark to test and diagnose the local network

The Bonita Bay Group, Bonita Springs, Florida

Document Imaging Specialist (5 years)

Technical administrator of the company’s 40 electronic document databases

• Designed permissions framework for database use and new project implementation structure
• Designed/authored automation scripts and text-parsing definition files
• Designed web-based gathering tools for external client data
• Document/image scanning, conversion, and entry into the database

Staff trainer and support contact

• Developed/authored protocol, FAQ and procedure documents for database use
• Trained and provided technical support for the company’s 150 corporate office employees

The Trophy Case of Fort Myers, Fort Myers, Florida

Engraver (1.5 years)

Lead engraver for a high-output custom awards and signage company

• Designed engraving, routing, dye-sub and thermal transfer print jobs using Corel Draw and Vision Pro
• Operated multiple 3D rotary engraving machines and CNC router, working with plastic, wood, aluminum, brass, acrylic, and corian
• Specialized in delicate and intricate engraving designs requiring intricate optimization of vector art and careful attention to blade size and cutting depth

CompuCare, Seattle/Wenatchee, Washington

Lead Technician (1.5 years)

Lead technician for a high-volume computer retail store

• Performed new builds, repairs and hardware upgrades
• Primary technician for laptops and Apple computer systems

Technology

OS

Linux, Solaris 10, OpenSolaris, OS X, Windows (Server 2008/2003, Vista, XP)

Networking and Security

DHCP, Sun CIFS, Samba, ActiveDirectory, OpenVPN, OpenSSH, Shorewall, iptables, vnc, rsync, nmap, Wireshark

Backup

Amanda (Community Edition with ZWC, amzfs-sendrecv, amsuntar), mtx, mt

Virtualization

Xen, xVM, KMV, VMWare (Server, Workstation, Fusion), VirtualBox

Web

Liferay, DekiWiki, Drupal, Alfresco

Certifications

CCNA

In progress, with plans to test by June 2010.

CCNA Security

Planned, with the goal of testing by December 2010.

CCNP

Planned, with the goal of completing all 3 tests by December 2011.

Contact Information

Contact information other than email will be made available upon request.

Email

christopher@tuirgin.com

References

Work References

Jeremy Bernhardt

Director of IT Agnoli, Barber & Brundage, Inc. Naples, Florida phone: available on request email: available on request

Matt Kichline

Production and CADD Manager Agnoli, Barber & Brundage, Inc. Naples, Florida phone: available on request email: available on request

Jon Harhen

Accountant Agnoli, Barber & Brundage, Inc. Naples, Florida phone: available on request email: available on request

Personal References

Mark Hershberger

Owner/Operator NicheWork LLC Akron, Pennsylvania phone: available on request email: available on request

Jamie Arpin-Ricci

Co-Director YWAM Urban Mission Center Pastor Little Flowers Community Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada phone: available on request email: available on request

• – - -

PDF of Résumé (web version)

In the three years I spent there I have had an excellent opportunity to learn and to put into practice everything I have taught myself about Linux and Unix. I have a real sense of ownership in my work, and pride in what I have accomplished. I was fortunate enough to have a boss that gave me a lot of freedom to pursue my own projects, and to implement my ideas into production use. And sure there were some failures—my attempts to use ActiveDirectory Group Policy to manage software installs crashed and burned—my successes, particularly when using open technologies, more than made up for them.

Gone in a second. Suddenly I am not worrying about validating backups or doing a security inventory—I am worrying about how I am going to pay my mortgage and feed my wife and the 4 kids still living with us. After 10 months of reduced hours, things were already approaching the impossibly tight. Now there is not even the pretense of getting by.

I know I am not alone. My new acquaintance and chess opponent, Paul Mathers, has been living with unemployment for a while now. There is a sense of a kind of solidarity in realizing that I am one of many facing the same fate as thousands of others. And I suppose there is some comfort in knowing that the enemy here is the economy and not… well, me.

All the same, what a bloody mess of emotions this brings on. Friday was spent in fits of despair, the shakes, and sobbing. Saturday brought a soporific haze and numbness. My parents brought some lightness to Sunday through their incredible generosity and love. And Monday? Monday I worked all day on trying to make some kind of paper-sense of my work experience as I attempted to bring my resume up to date. It still needs a lot of work, but there is an intense sense of urgency, of anxiety, which brings with it a sort of shallowness of vision, an inability to think clearly. Working through the day without stopping for lunch was a mistake which just magnified that dull-wittedness.

Clearly, I need to live within a routine that will preserve some sense of normalcy. And in addition to working on finding a new job, I need to take time to do some things that are not just in the course of typical unemployment business. I need to feed my brain. I need to see if I can get back to reading the Pevear/Volokhonsy translation of War and Peace, and if that proves to be too much right now, how about at least giving P.G. Wodehouse a shot? And I do not want to let my learning of Python fall to the wayside. My biggest weakness as a technologist has always been my lack of fluent programming skills. Sure I can cobble something simple together when needed, but real fluency is something I lack. And what about Minimal Perl or that book on nmap that I wanted to read? I need to find a job, but I cannot let myself become completely derailed by the lack of one.

Time to get started. Wish me luck.

I’m putting a limitation of sorts on my pursuit, however, because I believe it will help liberate me from some of my worst tendencies. My first steps into this will be restricted to genre fic, and specifically fantasy and sci-fi. I’ve an uneasy relationship with sff. For a long time I’ve been only a closet fan and didn’t want to mention it much, simply because there is so much dross out there that passes for fantasy. As much as I love Tolkien—LOTR is one of my all-time favorites—the world does not need another pretender to the throne of “Tolkienesque” fantasy. And xkcd preaches the gospel truth:

Fiction Rule of Thumb

My reason for limiting myself to sff is to keep my perfectionist, elitist tendencies in check. I don’t want to criticize myself into inaction before I’ve even started my first paragraph. I’m giving myself permission to write in clichés just to start writing anything at all. Potboiler, here I come. Just don’t expect me to share my embarrassing examples of fecalescent fecundity and lavender-strewn prose with the general public. I’ll reserve that questionable privilege for those whom I can blackmail into silence.

Here’s what I want from you—titles! Give me your lists of favorite books and links dealing with the mechanics of writing prose, and specifically short fiction. Also give me your lists of favorite authors of short fiction. Here you may feel free to include non-genre writers, as I’m interested in reading generally in short fiction, although for my purposes I am specifically interested in sff authors. Following is a brief listing of authors I’m already familiar with and about whom I am enthusiastic:

• Lord Dunsany
• Oscar Wilde—his fairy tales, for example
• Jack Vance
• Gene Wolfe
• R.A. Lafferty
• Jorge Louis Borges—a favorite!
• Italo Calvino
• Stanisław Lem

Lovecraft is an obvious candidate for his mythopoeic material, though as a writer he was rather weak. I’m tempted to include Gogol for some of his bizarre elements, as well as fairy tales. Herman Hesse wrote some short “fairy tales”. Pushkin, too, is a source for literary fairy tales.

Anyway, there you go. List on! Please!

This, of course, is a mistake. I’ve tried a variety of methods to improve my approach to games, but it’s only this weekend that I’ve found a method that really works for me—it involves SCID and Aquarium. In this workflow SCID is optional, but I like the convenience of it. I use the Xfcc feature to play my SchemingMind games directly from SCID which is my daily workhorse chess database. With a game loaded in SCID I can copy the PGN of the game to the clipboard and then paste it as a new game in Aquarium where I’ll do the bulk of my position analysis. (For those of you who have suspicious minds, I hereby affirm upon my future grandchildren’s children’s best friend’s heads that I only do engine analysis of my games after they are finished. While the game is in progress I restrict myself to perfectly legal references—databases and opening books. Cheating isn’t fun and absolutely no one benefits from it.)

SCID is perfectly capable for exploring variations, but Aquarium has a few features to recommend itself for use. I recently began using Jeroen’s New Opening Book for Rybka Aquarium. I’d suggest reading the article just linked for the full details on the opening book. One of the less obvious things you can do with it is to create a new tree configuration which blends the Jeroen_Book configuration with the Annotations configuration. Once done you have both the excellent details of the Jeroen Noomen opening book plus the text commentary provided with Aquarium’s Annotations tree.

During openings I use Jeroen’s opening book and the annotations to explore possible responses and to try to get a basic understanding of what is happening, what is the logic behind the opening. And throughout the game Aquarium makes it very easy to keep track of the variations I’ve run through and refuted. I find documenting my work on games much easier to work with this way. Once I determine my next move, I return to SCID and make the move, write my comments, and synchronize with the server. If I want to keep private game notes on the SM server, I’ll have to load it in a browser—there’s no way to make private notes with Xfcc as far as I can tell. The benefit of having private notes on the server is that I’ll have access to them no matter what computer I’m at.

After my games are finished, I move them from my Active Games database to my Finished Games database, and depending on how interesting the game was, I’ll either have Aquarium do a fast blunder check or I’ll let it do a full game analysis. Once the analysis is done, I’ll run through the game again, using Aquarium’s other analysis features to explore particularly interesting positions. The one important thing I have yet to add to this workflow is my own analysis prior to the engine analysis. But hopefully now that I’m keeping notes on my games, I’ll find it easier to analyze afterward.

One more thing I’ll mention about the Jeroen opening book—it comes with an i-book (no, it has nothing to do with the cult of Apple), which is an update on enriched documentation features of the past. The i-book provides a classifier, notes on some of the more interesting openings, and a few other odds and ends. Aquarium has a learning curve because it is providing new solutions to problems with rather stale solutions. So far I’m impressed. It is certainly making my life easier and more interesting.

• Try to play quickly and don’t try to memorize patterns. Instead, ask yourself what you are trying to say before you put a stone down (or, as many professionals do, before you even pick up a stone from the bowl).
• If several stones have been played, think about what their relationship is to each other. What is your opponent trying to do? What do the patterns and shapes suggest?
• Again (and again), don’t agonize over every move. It’s more fun to play fast. You will play more games and you will improve more quickly. the time to really slow down is after the game. Spend some time replaying the game with your opponent (or even better, try to get the analysis of someone better). As in studying a language, this is perhaps the most important lesson in getting better. Otherwise, like the old adage about not knowing history, you will be making the same mistakes over and over.
• Try to make moves that help you in more ways than one—for example, offensively and defensively.

Playing and learning Go is quite a different experience from chess. It’s very easy to get started. It’s easy to play your first games. I taught my 7 year old today and we played 3 or 4 games on a 9×9 board. She managed several nice captures and felt good playing. As much as I enjoy chess (sucking or not) I’m really enjoying Go—both for the game, itself, and because I can actually play it with my family.

N.B.: I am not trying to suggest that one game is better in contrast to the other. They are just different in their beauty.