I Was Laid Off From

thortool.com

(Thor Tool Corporation)

It's not entirely clear what my job was, which drove my friends and relatives nuts. But now it's easy: I'm unemployed! Okay, a part-time consultant.

I used do everything nobody else could, including all the general computer programming (everything from order entry to accounting to machine control systems), marketing, advertising, management research and implementation, and whatever else came up that's messy.

Of course, that included the web pages.

System administration had me running computers that speak Wintel, Mac8/9 and Linux (both i386 and PPC). I'd tried to find a use for BeOS, but it was pathetic. MacOSX wasn't ready for prime time in those days, but I personally run it on a Platinum800. It's the Marilyn Monroe OS: cute but dumb.

I managed to pick up C/C++ (well, more C, but on all three platforms), Visual Basic, standard Fanuc G codes, FileMaker (ahem), SQL, PERL and the absolutely wonderful absolutely free PHP3/4. Working on ObjectiveC now.

I also fooled around with Lisp (just curious) and Java (I'm not a happy camper, but lotsa folks like it...) Back in my college days I took BASIC and FORTRAN, and later messed around with an HP3000, but that's been a while.

Machine control is a fascinating field, and lots of things are changing right now. I don't know where it will end up.

Oh well. It was a long commute, and things just weren't going well for the company. A bit sad, though, after more than ten years with a good crew.

Email:
Dave North