The FAQ's of Razing.Net
Why the Domain Name?
What's in a name? I'd say quite a bit. Razing.Net was the result of a day long brainstorm about three years ago when I decided it was high time I finally got around to making a website. You know, for all the reasons people make websites, to share my thoughts, perspectives, and more importantly my games.
Years earlier I had always thought some clever domain like Procrasti.net would be perfect. Unfortunately with the dot com explosion, and the dot com bust that followed shortly thereafter, every domain name that held any sort of appeal disappeared like a drop of water in the Sahara. So I paced about my apartment, slurping down the coffee, in a fervor writing everything that came to mind in to one of my hundreds of notebooks. Actually I think I still have the list:
- IfThen.com - This was one of my favorites if only for the slogan, "Or Else!"
- Mentat.net - As much for the Dune reference as for the Fallout 2 drug.
- ScumSoft.com - This one's still available! I thought domains were supposed to be like AIM screennames, you know, YourDomain1201.com.
And as a side note, in case you don't get the reference, Space Quest is one of the best game series of all time. I'm amazed that there isn't a single company out there in the sea of software studios using the name "ScumSoft. Even if for no other reason than as an homage to the games' creators. Yes, it was that good.
- Grok.com - What? It was a great book.
- Contrapositive.com - I was so certain it would be available too. For all the smartasses reading this, no, I would not have considered ModusTollens.com, it didn't have the same ring to it :)
- IWasHere.com - My formative years were spent in NY. I guess the grafitti got to me.
You get the idea. They were all cute, some smarmy, but they didn't capture the heart of what I wanted the site to represent -- the very essence of barreling forward in a new direction with a focus on all aspects of computers from gaming to security.
When I finally thought of Razing.net it had the sort of bravado I wanted from a domain-name. It said, "Yes this site should be badass." I couldn't resist. It appealed to my "better than thou," workaholic attitude. So I grabbed it and I have to say I've been pretty happy with it ever since.
Who's your daddy ... erm ... provider?
Unlike most websites I run everything myself. Let me tell you, it's no walk in the park setting up Gentoo (from stage 1, especially when you're picky), Apache, PostGres, MySQL, Sendmail, Courier IMAPd/POP3d, CVSd, SVN, Meta-CVS, Gforge, Savannah, WebGUI, Drupal, Named/BIND, ProFTPd, Chrony (level 3 stratum), highly involved iptable rules, and the ridiculous number of other services that are being fielded through Xinetd. The only thing I don't have control over is the physical line. So I suppose if I was forced to answer the question I'd say Verizon. They own the subscriber line, I just lease it.
Oh, woops, I should also add Verizon still controls the reverse domain. They staunchly refuse to point the reverse record, 18.102.13.66.in-addr.arpa, at my nameserver, bastards. How am I supposed to provide BNC services to all the people IRC'ing through this box? :)
So who are you exactly?
Why thanks for asking. The name's Dustin and I'm just your standard run-of-the-mill coder. Give me a computer and I could quite happily wile the rest of my days away programming (much to my girlfriends chagrin). There's really not much to say about me that couldn't otherwise be deduced by reading the rest of the site or looking over my resume. Though I suppose since you are reading this section I should do you the courtesy...
Here's my philosophy, I define myself based on my actions not on my creative ability to make myself sound good. I think it's the only way a person can reasonably ground themselves in reality. I mention this, because I find it extemely difficult to describe myself. I am what I've done. Which is quite different from Popeye's, "I am what I am." That was a joke, please, excuse the dry humor it's late. So with that in mind I'll share some of the highlights from my life:
- 1980 - Born [Pretty big year for me].
- 1982 - Remember playing with an Atari 2600 [Drew I owe you one]. Games played: Chopper Command, Asteroids, Atlantis, and quite a few others including ET. I hate to admit this, but I kind of enjoyed it!
- 1983 - Received a PC Junior for Christmas [Mom you rock] Played: Math Castle. Introduced to Intellivision 2. [Uncle Drew, you rock yet again!]
- 1984 - Played my first Graphic Adventure (PC - Wizard of Oz). Started experimenting /w the QBasic editor, mostly making extended ASCII graphics.
- 1985 - Learned basics of Spanish (preschool). Started some real programming & completed my first graphical extended ASCII animation in QBasic.
- 1986 - 0th Experienced the NES, fell in love with it. Played: Super Mario Brothers, Duck Hunt. Spare time was occupied with loads of reading.
- 1987 - 1st Participated in my first play, invented nose heavy paper airplane. Played lots of 3-K Trivia and Legends of Zelda. Continued to read everything I could get my hands on.
- 1988 - 2nd The NES title Maniac Mansion etched in stone my love for Graphic Adventures. Also played Super Mario Brothers 2. Later introduced to the Apple II/e, started to explore debug.exe and edlin under DOS.
- 1989 - 3rd Began learning Logo, played the Mac Oregon Trail and the NES/Arcade game Double Dragon to death. Convinced mom to update our computer to a 286! Woohoo!
- 1990 - 4th Wrote my first game in Logo! The turtle graphically created a random maze, the players goal was to then navigate his or her way through in the allotted time. Enjoyed playing Super Mario Brothers 3. Started really getting in to PC games, became a huge Sierra fan after having played Kings Quest 4.
- 1991 - 5th Received a Gameboy system for Christmas, took me forever to beat Tetris. Wrote my first benign self-replicating program in ML.
- 1992 - 6th Played Wolf 3d and The Dagger of Amon Ra every free available moment.
- 1993 - 7th Bought a brand new 3D0, after selling my entire NES library.
- 1994 - 8th Discovered Monkey Island, quickly became my new favorite series. Also found out about Sierra's hilarious Leisure Suit Larry Finally scraped enough to buy a 14.4k modem! Started BBS'ing and signed up to use Prodigy.
- 1995 - 9th Upgraded to Packard Bell Legend 300CD - Pentium 60MHz / Netcom - LSL6 Shape up or slip out.
- 1996 - 10th Introduced to C, love at first sight. / Li.Net - Athena network / LSL7 Love For Sail.
- 1997 - 11th Wrote several articles for 2600. Participated in Beyond Hope, it was a blast! Wrote a Perl search engine for my friends fathers website. Bought P200.
- 1998 - 12th Did Math Never Dies.
- 1999 - Updated my P200 to a P350, Bought a Voodoo card for EQ, & upgraded to ISDN.
- 2000 - Avernus Cube / Baldur's Gate
- 2001 - ChaosQuest / ChaosEngine / Bought a IBM I-400 PIII 500 / Fallout 2
- 2002 - Karmic Retribution 2 / Bought a Dell Inspiron 8100 /
- 2003 - Six String
- 2004 - Abzaar / Bought a Dell PowerEdge 2650
- 2005 - AOE3
- 2006 - Rise of Legends, Real Time Communication Team at MS, Panorama for the 360 and Vista.
