What (or rather who) is FRN2000?

My name is Frank(ie) Olvera — better known as FRN2000 (formerly known as FRN). The moniker FRN (actually FRN$) came from a program that I wrote in BASIC in the summer of 1985 to learn French. FRN$ was the string variable for words in French in the in-line data, while ENG$ was the string variable for words in English. Needless to say, I never learned French. (Désolé, je ne parle pas français!) I came up with the 2000 part of the moniker from the KISS version of 2000 Man (sang by Paul Daniel "Ace" Frehley, Casablanca Records, 1979) written by The Rolling Stones (Their Satanic Majesties Request, Decca Records, 1967) hence putting together my two life-long passions — music and technology. I started using the moniker FRN2000 close to three (3) decades ago, with which I have left my mark throughout the internet for since. I am a 53-year-old vegetarian (not vegan), tattooed systems programmer, higher education teacher and father of three boys (32, 22 & 16) living in NYC with my wife, kids and tabby cat.

I grew up watching lots of science fiction movies and television series, including anime (especially Mazinger Z by Kiyoshi Nagai, 1972, the pioneer of the super robot sub-genre of manga, prior to mecha). Some of my favorite science fiction television series and/or movies are (in alphabetical order) Batman (starting with the 1966-68 TV series), Doctor Who (1963-present) with Tom Baker (as The Doctor, 1974-81; role currently played by Ncuti Gatwa) and companion K9, James Bond (1962-present), RoboCop (1987), The Simpsons (1989-present), Star Wars (the three original movies, 1977-83), The Twilight Zone (1959-64, 1985-89, 2002-03) and The X-Files (original run, 1993-2002).

Aside from being a geek, I have also been heavily involved in music in various ways, even getting a degree in audio engineering (1995). I worked in several radio stations, record labels, recording studios and other venues taking care of live sound reinforcement. I grew up listening to Aerosmith, Black Sabbath with John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne (of course) and Ian Gillan (Born Again, 1983), KISS (my favorite band growing up; first album ever owned, Dynasty, Casablanca Records, 1979), Billy Idol, Judas Priest, Metallica (Ride the Lightning, possibly my second all-time favorite album, especially the songs Fade to Black and Escape), The Doors, The Clash, The Ramones, Slayer and many others including some Iberian bands like Ilegales (Principáu d'Asturies), Gypsy Kings (France) and Alabina (France) with Esther "Eti" Zach (Israel). As a matter of fact, I am always looking for new music to listen to and, as of late, I have found many bands across the globe like Amon Amarth (Sweden), Korpiklaani (Finland), Kontrust (Austria), Отава Ё (Otava Yo, Russia), ЭЛИЗИУМ (Elysium, Russia), 人間椅子 (Ningen Isu, Japan) and 和楽器バンド (Wagakki Bandō, Japan).

Although a bit off-topic, when I was nine years old, I started collecting Lego sets and wished I could design Lego sets as an adult. As of late, I have added to my collection models from vendors like Cobi (Poland) and Sluban (China).

With such a fine line between science and fiction, as well as multimedia (music), it is no surprise that I got involved in computer systems and now have a bachelors degree in computer science (2003). My first computer was a C64 at the age of thirteen (1984) and I have gone through various other systems since. I have used, played with, abused and had the pleasure of destroying every single operating system covered in this website.

Since 1986, I have owned several electric guitars, amplifiers and other music equipment. I currently own two Hohner blues harps (different keys), a 1998 Danelectro 56 U2 re-issue with a Pastrami Overdrive effect pedal and a 1992 Rickenbacker 2060. I also have an off-brand Les Paul copy (a cheap knock-off junker, definitely not designed by the genius of Lester William Polsfuss, better known as Les Paul).

Since 2003, I have worked at a local government agency where I created data dictionaries and other documentation for programs coded for three decades for its mainframe running z/VM for a data warehouse used for an ERP. I also coded source code in JSP with Oracle intranet applications using JDeveloper. Surprisingly all of sudden, we dropped open source to become a Microsoft shop, which I have since considered a horrible mistake. I do not care about working with Microsoft technologies and related products, but it is a paycheck. I also work as a college instructor currently teaching Transact-SQL (Microsoft SQL Server) and hopefully moving to MySQL soon as well as doing some consultant work (freelancer) whenever possible.

For the next several years, I studied on my own one subject that attracts me most (aside from technology and music) is human behavior, not limited to psychology and ethos of the individual and masses. Hence I usually read, study and write essays of my own. From all possible authors in this field, some of my favorites are (in order of interest) Nietzsche, Levinas and Kant. As such, I have published two (2) science fiction books, in which I include my opinion on religion, sociology, psychology, politics, manipulation of the masses like MKUltra, the media, science and various technologies.

In 2013, I published my first three-part story in a single volume — Under the Thelian Sky (ASIN B00GTQBY04, ISBN 9781494232283). In my debut, mankind did not originate on Earth (Sol 3), but rather on Mars (Sol 4). When Mars (Sol 4) could no longer sustain life, mankind had to escape and colonized Earth (Sol 3). Many years later, a study was written about the survival of mankind in Mars (Sol 4) and its struggle in Earth (Sol 3) led by Doctor Ajidan Edejem. We have proved to be a species that has survived wars, slavery and other forms of abuse. All the while, the government controlled by them wants to keep everything quiet and even kill him for telling others about the unavoidable doom. Years before the extinction of life in Mars (Sol 4), the Thelian society was perfect, yet corrupted. Life was easy, yet difficult if you were different. For every good person, like Ahila Keinj who found peace in The Faith, there were many willing to destroy it all for gain while they controlled the fate of many. At the end, an outsider simply known as Operative Logger 9C56 tries to fight them and stop their manipulation of history and mankind.

In 2015, just in time for Halloween, I released my second novel — The Daydreamer (ASIN B016P42S22. ISBN 9781517144913). In this thriller, nerdy Robert James is a normal New Yorker who wakes up one morning unsure what had happened in his life. He is accused of killing the woman he has always loved, but he remembers three possible realities — one more different and more ironically normal than the previous. Which reality could be true? Has he dreamed these realities, seen this events or taken part of these strange acts? Is he a killer or is he being framed? Perhaps he knows the killer better than anyone else without realizing it.

For over a year, I have been working on major face-lift of VintageOS — cleaning up the code — in order to make it into a KaiOS reference app and for simplicity. Hopefully you will like the new design and functionality.

My current systems run Xubuntu 24.04 LTS running on kernel 6.8.0-31-generic (work & testing technologies), Windows 11 for SQL Server (work), chromeOS (home), macOS 10.15 (Catalina) (personal development), FireOS (home), KaiOS 2.5 (personal) and Android 12 (work). I also run VirtualBox on multiple of these machines to test (play with and break) other OSs since I no longer have a computer lab — various i386 or i486 machines as well as an IBM 5150 with an i286 that blew up after I changed the video card.

If you are concerned about privacy (borderline paranoia especially on the internet), you might want to read my disclaimer.

Thank you for your visit and support.