Sorry, only way I can help you is to tell you - get ahold of your anger.
When you tell yourself that you're better than all those idiots anyway, ask yourself; are you *really*?
(I actually just saw a semi-decent movie with this very idea in it; Miss Congeniality, my wife made me see it, yes, it's a chick-flick).
I once had a very frank discussion with a former "popular girl" at my high-school reunion. "did everybody hate me?"
"no, everybody liked you, you just always seemed so stuck up."
Like, wow. I had *no* idea. *I* was stuck up? I thought everyone *else* was.
So if I were to do anything differently, it would be - stop being angry at other people, stop being so stuck up. Would that help what I perceived to be the root cause of the problem? maybe not. At least it hasn't in the 5 years since I discovered this. But it makes life a lot easier not going around hating everyone and everything, and wondering when you're gonna snap and run through your office with an AK-47. (or becoming the leader of an evil organization, and building a giant "laser" on the moon and using it to destroy all human life on earth - whatever, same difference).
Losing the anger, self-pity, and other negative emotions may not make you any new friends, but it makes not having any friends a bit more bearable.
That's funny,
One of my college friends, well, we married and had kids. But her interests are still not on par- we have a decent relationship, but it's not what I thought marriage would be.
But ironically, it's often kids that seem to really impact things. Most adults at work are about 5-10 years younger than me, in my area, no kids, so no serious freindships there, I don't have the time to do the stuff they have (road trips to Yosemite on weekends, etc.) - and parents of my kids friends, there's another potential - we interact at cub scouts, basketball, school, etc. But most people with kids my age are 10 years *older*, and again, mostly of a totally different mindset, often, apparently disdainful of the money I've made so young.
Honestly, I don't mind *some* sports, surfing, rock climbing, mountain biking, hiking, - it's the mindless football and baseball I can't stand.
Well, I'm glad talking made you feel better. Me too in some ways. I maintain that from the first Columbine discussions.
My original point was, is that this life is often painful - perhaps more painful for some of us than others (though, go ask the captain of the football team if he had a painful high school - they all claim they did). That pain generated a lot of anger in me - and I still carry a lot of that around, but at least I don't use it anymore - it's a self-feeding monster, and often makes things worse. Learning to let go of that anger is important - but I still had the chicken/egg question. Was it the anger that caused the separation, or was it something else that caused the separation that created the anger, and made the separation worse?
I go to a non-denominational church, I even do volunteer work for them. Got God. No prob.
Church is also a lonely experience. People say Hi, because they know they "have to" - the whole fellowship thing. Not one actual freindship (like ones I had in college) has developed from it. I never really thought much about Christianity, the whole "religion" thing. I stick with this church because one of the things the pastor keeps saying is that people need more God, and less religion. I totally agree with that.
If Microsoft DOES INDEED stop the spread of this evil technology, I hereby pledge to buy a copy of Microsoft Flight simulator. Or, no, I'll buy one of those wheel mouse thingies. Okay. Some value here.
This illustrates two main ways of thinking about this issue.
The first way, is the way of the bean-counter. These guys have a "fiduciary responsibility" to increase the stock value of their company. They are not paid to have a conscience, they are not paid to be moral. They look at numbers on charts, and calculate the most profitable course for a company. They are driven by cold passionless numbers. Their only constraints are the law. If they choose a course of action that leads the company in conflict with the law, it could end up costing the company MORE (in fines and fees - as opposed to the lobbying and bribes required to set more favorable legal environments). Hiring Crosseyed Joe will cost the company more money than hiring Perfect Tom. Well, take this to an extreme; Maybe Crosseyed Joe has 10 years of experience, plus a degree in his field. Perfect Tom may not have that Capal Tunnel Syndrome gene, but he has no experience. How much will it cost in insurance rates and lost productivity to hire Crosseyed Joe, and how much will it cost to simply train Perfect Tom? The discrimination could happen at the resume level - why do we allow discrimination against a person simply due to their work experience?
It's a game of numbers that starts with the insurance company's actuarial tables, goes on with the medical studies that say "gene X gives a person 40% likelyhood of contracting disease Y".
The other way of thinking is to realize that the numbers are a map, not necessarily detailed enough to illustrate a person's REAL value as an employee. Yes, Gina may have a breast cancer gene. But Gina might have a smile that makes her sales figures 200% of the next guy (at least until she gets breast cancer and loses one). Or looking at the big picture, and seeing that even if, statistically, this employee is a potential money-loser, sometimes, if you give them a chance, the company wins in the long run.
HR people can make these exceptions, but the insurance companies have so long been traditionally driven by tables and numbers and statistics, (and there is probably NO benefit to them for giving someone the benefit of the doubt), that there's no way this can be systemically solved by telling everyone to "just play nice".
We know that from the Mormons and Christian Scientists, it's FAR riskier to have a belief system that disallows blood transfusion, than it is to accept a needed transfusion to save ones' life - with the risk of contracting HIV.
The ones that don't get blood transfusions bleed to death from minor injuries in car accidents, or from opting out of life-saving surgeries.
Only a very small fraction of those that DO get transfusions have a chance of contracting HIV.
Oh, by "high risk" behavior, you're talking about ass-fucking? I thought you were talking about something else. Sorry. Everyone knows that "high risk behavior" is ass-fucking, and that's the ONLY way to catch HIV. Right.
yeah, and the fact that Uma Thurman's genes made her a good genetic mate-match, but the poor guy forgot that if he did have kids with her, they'd have her funny looking nose.
As a parent, I will anonymously step forward and end this hoax now.
My wife and I bought extra presents for our two children this year. After coaxing them to sleep with the usual stories and bedtime reading of "The Night Before Christmas", we checked on them to make sure they were really asleep, took out the extra presents (a radio-controlled Rockenbock construction set - very cool, and a set of the Bandai 6" Sailor Moon action figures; it's GREAT to have a daughter that's into Anime, she's only 4), then we filled the stockings with chocolates, pez dispensers, toothbrushes, etc, and set up the toys by the tree. The Rockenbock set took 2 hours in the dark. (they work with Lego! VERY cool!), I put the finishing touches on the fireplace, by opening the screen and spilling some ashes out onto the hearth, making it look like a clumsy elf had accidentally kicked some out whilst carrying his load.
I then ate the cookies and carrots, and wife and I went upstairs to bed for some Christmas Eve nookie. (by then it was 2am).
Next morning, our son woke up, and was amazed at how Santa had assembled the Rockenbock - and had remembered without writing it down. He said he remembers waking up in the middle of the night hearing some snapping noises coming from the living room, but didn't get out of bed. Now THERE'S blind obedience to a myth of authority. He heard Santa, and KNEW that if he got out of bed, he'd blow everything.
I often wonder about the morality of this whole thing. I mean, when (not if) my kids learn "the awful truth", will it teach them that they can't trust their parents? Will it teach them that the authority they respected was not really there? Will it make them secure in the bathroom that there isn't a bearded old man peering into his crystal ball and seeing their pee pee? I mean, if Santa isn't real, what about this whole Baby Jesus thing, and God? Can they believe anything?
I got a telescope for Christmas, and for the FIRST time in my geek life, I saw, first hand, with my own two eyes (well, actually, only the right one), Jupiter's moons, and I saw what Galileo saw 400 years ago, that the universe does not orbit around the Earth, as the authorities of the day had everyone believing, and that though I had taken for granted what people had told me about Jupiter's moons, SEEING them really made a big difference. Seeing Jupiter as something other than a bright point of light in the sky made a big difference. I got my son out of bed last night, and had him look, and as he looked (and spotted one of the moons I missed), I wondered if he really knew, and was playing along for my sake, or how he'd react if he ever learned the awful truth.
Then I realized, I don't remember when I found out that there was no Santa. The Hoax was a family tradition when I was growing up. There was no trauma, no distrust of authority that I didn't learn much later in life, (which I hope I can pass on to my kids). But I do remember, one Christmas, laying in bed on my Uncle's farm in Iowa, hearing what later turned out to be the grown ups outside, with a set of jingle bells, and a ladder, risking their lives to walk across an icy sloped roof, ringing the bells, all to perpetuate this hoax, and I can remember the exitement I felt, and the fun the next morning.
Our brains tell us that that spot in the retina of our eyes that doesn't contain rods or cones, is actually seeing. Our entire existence is built from sensory data, massaged into a plausible reality by our brains. And it continues on to higher levels. Believing a beautiful lie is often an integral part of being alive.
naw, I remember the bad stuff from my teenage years too. I wish I could forget.
Madonna, Prince, Culture Club, Michael Jackson.
I spent YEARS hoping and praying that Madonna would just GO AWAY. At least Prince did, and Culture Club is now underground-retro-chic because Boy George is a junkie, and well, nobody could like Michael Jackson anymore, now that his sister admitted to liking Coffee enemas. I'm glad 1999 is over, I haven't heard a Prince song since new years day, 2000.
But Madonna just won't fucking go away - in fact, she's now "creating" fresh new garbage to litter the airwaves with; taking young good looking people who can carry a tune, and using her influence to make them into pop stars (a-la Ricky Martin). Blah. I can't puke enough.
you know, the wierd thing about Kid Rock is, I bought the CD, I don't know why. I listened to it, and frankly, the Lyrics all do suck. Every word. The whole pathetic gangsta rap wanna be angle. Just plain silly.
Musically, it's not terrible material. A lot of complex beat, and tone, and angry texture - much of it formulaic, but still, it stands apart. If I could get a no-vocals version, I could stand to listen to it.
The same can be said frankly for a lot of Brittney Spears, and even Christina Aguilerellarellarellarlelrlealrelae, and n*sync. There is some fantastic vocal work, some excellent rythmic exploration, but the end result is somehow just so sucky, and I can't figure it out. I know there's a lot of over-production going on, and much of it is aimed at an industry-wide homogenous "sound", (if you want something different, check out Blink182, or Eiffel65, nyuck nyuck nyuck), and of course I say these GOOD things about music that, just plain doesn't appeal to me at all. I hate it, it hurts to listen to it. I missed out the whole white-guilt suburban hip-hop (gangsta rapper wannabe) phenomenon, (I prefer the old white-guilt suburban reggae/ska thing). And of course the lyrics to this new stuff is just utter garbage, apparently lifted from Teen Magazine letter columns, but it's very hard to criticise music where there clearly is a great deal of talent being demonstrated. Nobody here can say that Brittey Spears does not have a fantastic singing voice, excellent control and vocal range, and can dance "the dance of the seven boners" like nobody else. But they mix and modify it with echo and chorus effects in a way that makes her sound just like every other pop star in the contiuum right now (today's sound) - and the overall effect is just ruined. But how do you argue that with a 13 year old; "You should be listening to Yes or King Crimson, and not this music, this music sucks (empirically) because; __________." . . ?
I look back at my childhood and adolescent years with a sense of dread and shame.
I don't know if I was rejected by my peers, or if I just didn't fit in, and perceived that I was rejected. I always knew that somewhere along the line, I realized I wasn't interested in the same things the other kids were, I didn't have fun doing what they did, and they didn't have fun doing what I wanted to do - and I suddenly began being excluded from things, and I don't know if this was because of a declined invitation, or out of dislike for my company. \
But once it began, it was self-perpetuating. As a psychological defense, of course, I hated them back. If I was not invited, I didn't want to be. I spent a lot of time alone, and bitter. It has taken me decades to come to grips with this, if I even have yet. I keep trying to "start over", to try to get friendly with new groups, trying to get into what they're doing, but eventually, it ends up the same, a sense that I'm an outsider. The only time I felt like I belonged was in a group of people who had the same interests, in college, the Science Fiction and Fantasy book club. We liked the same games, same movies, same books, same music, there were sub-groups within the larger group (anime, pagan/fantasy, war games, computers, etc.), but we all had in common these basic interests. We had a truly bizzarre set of relationships, we went to cons together, (this was pre-(boom)internet). Since then, we've all grown up, moved apart; across the country, and don't spend much time together anymore. Since then, I've found that I haven't been able to get these same kinds of relationships back. I've tried making friends at work, (computer people), I've tried making friends with neighbors (even taking on interests in things like sports, which bore me no matter how hard I try), I've tried making friends online. None of it has worked long term. I wonder if its me.
So my question is; for people that are loners, outsiders, is there some factor in their personality, that makes them unable to fit in with groups, which drives them to "unpopular" interests, or is it the interest in unpopular things that ultimately makes them unable to make friendships easily?
I know that a lot of it revolves around sports for some people I know; physical disabilities (or just plain not being athletic) - keeps them out of sports. I know that my son has a HUGE drive to be "the best", to be praised, and trumped as a champion at whatever he does, and if success does not come easy, he's just plain not interested in that anymore - so I wonder if I was like that as a small child - I sucked at basketball, and required an unusual amount of praise to be happy doing it, and so, quit doing it, stayed out of it, and made it apparent to my young friends that I wasn't at all happy doing it, so they never asked me to play again? On the other hand, I can remember several YEARS playing little league baseball, sucking, playing right-field, (out of the way), last in the batting line-up, but I didn't quit. I kept trying.
Or maybe there's something about my personality that's just unlikeable. I know I've got kind of an annoying sense of humor. I mean, I am a smart-ass. I'm always trying to make jokes. About half the time, I just keep my mouth shut, sometimes I don't, and I often come up with some pretty good zingers, and I make people laugh. Once in a while, I say something that most people just don't get. I wonder if that's it. With new groups, I often get invited once or twice, then that's all. I know it's not hygene, I pay attention to that. I know it's not looks. My mom says I'm very handsome:) - no, I'm not hideous. I pay some attention to my appearance. I try to put effort into letting other people talk about whatever they want to. I try not to be opinionated (though I'm very opinionated). What the fuck is it then? I don't know.
One thing I know, I used to carry a lot of hatred around from my High School days. I rationalized, I built up a wall of scorn to protect myself. I dressed in black, before there was a goth-scene (that was back in the Punk days, early '80's). I carried a paperback copy of the Necronomicon with me. College changed me. Showed me how having friends, and social interactions, and relationships could be worth my time. But considering the effort, is it worth it, when they just fade away?
So what makes you a loner. You? Your personality? Your looks? Your lack of athletic ability? Them? Their stupidity? Their inferiority? Why are you interested in computers? Do you find them neeto? Or does it help to be interested in something that doesn't require 8 other athletic friends with nothing better to do than toss around a chunk of leather and sweat on eachother? Do you feel the bitterness too? What do you do about it?
"Cha cha cha changes
Turn and face the strange,
whoa look out you rock 'n rollers
Pretty soon you're gonna get older. .."
Yeah, I looked forward to that when I was a teenager, then I listen to what's coming out, and I moan, why does it have to suck so?! Is this just me being an old fart? hating new music because it's different from old, from what I'm used to, from what I grew up with, experienced my glory years with? The music that I lost my virginity to, the music that I puked a bottle of peppermint schnapps to -
Or does this new stuff actually truly really suck?
This will be very alluring to hard drive manufacturers. The Sony's of the world will simply say - "you want us to put your drives in our box that will be sold into 200 million homes worldwide? You put our spiffy little device on it."
Smaller players will be crushed by the bigger players due to the revenue differential.
yes but if *I* break away from the RIAA, buzillions of other idiots out there will not. Trust me on this one.
Get up on your soapbox, and nail that fucker to your feet, because you'll die up there before a statistically noticable portion of the population boycotts RIAA products.
Regarding my previous comments on "Security being the red-headed stepchild of computer science because consumers are too stupid to know or care about it".
Education can be painful. But in the end, it's better to learn a lesson than not.
I read a while back that this was the plan, though it may have changed, this was a couple years ago:
IA-64 chips were to have a hardware emulation unit, not unlike how PPC chips run 68k code. This "option" would be the most expensive, and was projected to be closest to native speed, that is, 1 GHz Itanium would run IA-32 instructions with an approximate performance equivalence of 800 MHz Pentium (XXXX).
Then, Intel would segment the market, and provide a "lower grade" of Itanium, with the hardware emulation disabled (not missing), and emulation would be done through some kind of software, which I think was limited to Win32. Performance with Win32 code would be about half speed. But this chip would be cheaper.
The cheapest option would be a chip that couldn't run either the slower emulation, or the hardware emulator (I thought it would be neat if hackers figured out how to activate the hardware emulator, this was the golden age of Celeron, after all). None of these CPUs was expected to ever to turn cycles on a desktop machine.
PC manufacturers were worried, because at this time, it looked like MS was WAY behind schedule with an IA-64 version of NT, and Intel would be shipping chips and the only OS that would run on it would be NT, in slower emulation, but only if you paid through the nose.
It wasn't too long after that announcement that every friggin OS vendor came out of the woodwork in support of Itanium. I think IBM was the only vendor who had not pledged support. And Apple:). And IBM did chage their tune later (thanks Mr. Jobs).
Then, Intel came out and admitted that Itanium was WAY behind schedule, and things really looked bad, looked like Intel was on the verge of dumping IA-64 altogether. This gave Microsoft some breathing room, and apparently they caught up. Microsoft is good at catching up, arent' they?
Since then, I haven't heard any mention of a software emulator - or one that ran only Win32.
The whole POINT of the "PC REVOLUTION" was in "commodity hardware". That is, get tons of manufacturers churning out parts that ran to the PC spec set forth by IBM (forth - um, open firmware joke, get it? nevermind).
The point was to develop this cheap-ass piece of junk platform to the point where people didn't need to pay extortionate fees to Sun, DEC, SGI, HP, Intergraph, and the mother-ship, IBM, etc. Now, DEC is gone, HP is just another Packard-Bell, so is Intergraph, and SGI, is acquisition fodder. Only Sun and IBM really remain as strong players. I'm guessing that has nothing at all to do with the PC revolution, and more to do with the Internet revolution and the need for bulletproof servers.
Until Intel got a monopoly in chips (AMD was a nice try, but are they REALLY positioned to harm intel? Last I checked, intel was still dictating platform standards) - it was an open platform and the dream was alive. Someday, there was going to be a beefy and robust PC that could replace expensive minis at commodity hardware prices, and run an OS grandma could admin. Then Intel figured out that with a monopoly, they wouldn't have to compete with any other players, they could set the standards, and block this insanity from happening. Sure, they'll still be productin commodity hardware, but they'll be using the enterprise pricing model. And using their IA-32 market dominance to crowbar Itanium into the enterprise server market, no matter how inferior it is, technically. If it runs Win32, it's golden. No matter how overpriced it is. No matter how much laughter it generates when placed next to REAL enterprise hardware.
It's called market segmentation. The Celeron/Xeon thing was a small-scale application, and proof of concept. Look at the technical difference between Celeron and Xeon. Then look at the price difference. You could put a Xeon in a desktop machine, and benefit, but the price made it not worth it. Granted, Itanium will have a big technical difference - PCs DO need to go 64 bit to be serious in the enterprise server market. But they need MUCH more than that - in a practical sense, less performance for more $? Crazy. That's market segmentation. A tool designed to artificially constrain supply in the marketplace, to drive up prices, while not suffering from constrained supply (and high costs) on the manufacturing end. The results? Pure profit. Bring lots of vaseline.
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Sorry, only way I can help you is to tell you - get ahold of your anger.
When you tell yourself that you're better than all those idiots anyway, ask yourself; are you *really*?
(I actually just saw a semi-decent movie with this very idea in it; Miss Congeniality, my wife made me see it, yes, it's a chick-flick).
I once had a very frank discussion with a former "popular girl" at my high-school reunion. "did everybody hate me?"
"no, everybody liked you, you just always seemed so stuck up."
Like, wow. I had *no* idea. *I* was stuck up? I thought everyone *else* was.
So if I were to do anything differently, it would be - stop being angry at other people, stop being so stuck up. Would that help what I perceived to be the root cause of the problem? maybe not. At least it hasn't in the 5 years since I discovered this. But it makes life a lot easier not going around hating everyone and everything, and wondering when you're gonna snap and run through your office with an AK-47. (or becoming the leader of an evil organization, and building a giant "laser" on the moon and using it to destroy all human life on earth - whatever, same difference).
Losing the anger, self-pity, and other negative emotions may not make you any new friends, but it makes not having any friends a bit more bearable.
That's funny,
One of my college friends, well, we married and had kids. But her interests are still not on par- we have a decent relationship, but it's not what I thought marriage would be.
But ironically, it's often kids that seem to really impact things. Most adults at work are about 5-10 years younger than me, in my area, no kids, so no serious freindships there, I don't have the time to do the stuff they have (road trips to Yosemite on weekends, etc.) - and parents of my kids friends, there's another potential - we interact at cub scouts, basketball, school, etc. But most people with kids my age are 10 years *older*, and again, mostly of a totally different mindset, often, apparently disdainful of the money I've made so young.
Honestly, I don't mind *some* sports, surfing, rock climbing, mountain biking, hiking, - it's the mindless football and baseball I can't stand.
Well, I'm glad talking made you feel better. Me too in some ways. I maintain that from the first Columbine discussions.
My original point was, is that this life is often painful - perhaps more painful for some of us than others (though, go ask the captain of the football team if he had a painful high school - they all claim they did). That pain generated a lot of anger in me - and I still carry a lot of that around, but at least I don't use it anymore - it's a self-feeding monster, and often makes things worse. Learning to let go of that anger is important - but I still had the chicken/egg question. Was it the anger that caused the separation, or was it something else that caused the separation that created the anger, and made the separation worse?
I go to a non-denominational church, I even do volunteer work for them. Got God. No prob.
Church is also a lonely experience. People say Hi, because they know they "have to" - the whole fellowship thing. Not one actual freindship (like ones I had in college) has developed from it. I never really thought much about Christianity, the whole "religion" thing. I stick with this church because one of the things the pastor keeps saying is that people need more God, and less religion. I totally agree with that.
Region encoding affecting only a small number of people:
only a small number of people are affected by racial discrimination.
If Microsoft DOES INDEED stop the spread of this evil technology, I hereby pledge to buy a copy of Microsoft Flight simulator. Or, no, I'll buy one of those wheel mouse thingies. Okay. Some value here.
Buy the Chinese drive, and make backups. Because you *can*
I just want to add to this response.
This illustrates two main ways of thinking about this issue.
The first way, is the way of the bean-counter. These guys have a "fiduciary responsibility" to increase the stock value of their company. They are not paid to have a conscience, they are not paid to be moral. They look at numbers on charts, and calculate the most profitable course for a company. They are driven by cold passionless numbers. Their only constraints are the law. If they choose a course of action that leads the company in conflict with the law, it could end up costing the company MORE (in fines and fees - as opposed to the lobbying and bribes required to set more favorable legal environments). Hiring Crosseyed Joe will cost the company more money than hiring Perfect Tom. Well, take this to an extreme; Maybe Crosseyed Joe has 10 years of experience, plus a degree in his field. Perfect Tom may not have that Capal Tunnel Syndrome gene, but he has no experience. How much will it cost in insurance rates and lost productivity to hire Crosseyed Joe, and how much will it cost to simply train Perfect Tom? The discrimination could happen at the resume level - why do we allow discrimination against a person simply due to their work experience?
It's a game of numbers that starts with the insurance company's actuarial tables, goes on with the medical studies that say "gene X gives a person 40% likelyhood of contracting disease Y".
The other way of thinking is to realize that the numbers are a map, not necessarily detailed enough to illustrate a person's REAL value as an employee. Yes, Gina may have a breast cancer gene. But Gina might have a smile that makes her sales figures 200% of the next guy (at least until she gets breast cancer and loses one). Or looking at the big picture, and seeing that even if, statistically, this employee is a potential money-loser, sometimes, if you give them a chance, the company wins in the long run.
HR people can make these exceptions, but the insurance companies have so long been traditionally driven by tables and numbers and statistics, (and there is probably NO benefit to them for giving someone the benefit of the doubt), that there's no way this can be systemically solved by telling everyone to "just play nice".
So, legislation, sadly, is required.
We know that from the Mormons and Christian Scientists, it's FAR riskier to have a belief system that disallows blood transfusion, than it is to accept a needed transfusion to save ones' life - with the risk of contracting HIV.
The ones that don't get blood transfusions bleed to death from minor injuries in car accidents, or from opting out of life-saving surgeries.
Only a very small fraction of those that DO get transfusions have a chance of contracting HIV.
Oh, by "high risk" behavior, you're talking about ass-fucking? I thought you were talking about something else. Sorry. Everyone knows that "high risk behavior" is ass-fucking, and that's the ONLY way to catch HIV. Right.
yeah, and the fact that Uma Thurman's genes made her a good genetic mate-match, but the poor guy forgot that if he did have kids with her, they'd have her funny looking nose.
As a parent, I will anonymously step forward and end this hoax now.
My wife and I bought extra presents for our two children this year. After coaxing them to sleep with the usual stories and bedtime reading of "The Night Before Christmas", we checked on them to make sure they were really asleep, took out the extra presents (a radio-controlled Rockenbock construction set - very cool, and a set of the Bandai 6" Sailor Moon action figures; it's GREAT to have a daughter that's into Anime, she's only 4), then we filled the stockings with chocolates, pez dispensers, toothbrushes, etc, and set up the toys by the tree. The Rockenbock set took 2 hours in the dark. (they work with Lego! VERY cool!), I put the finishing touches on the fireplace, by opening the screen and spilling some ashes out onto the hearth, making it look like a clumsy elf had accidentally kicked some out whilst carrying his load.
I then ate the cookies and carrots, and wife and I went upstairs to bed for some Christmas Eve nookie. (by then it was 2am).
Next morning, our son woke up, and was amazed at how Santa had assembled the Rockenbock - and had remembered without writing it down. He said he remembers waking up in the middle of the night hearing some snapping noises coming from the living room, but didn't get out of bed. Now THERE'S blind obedience to a myth of authority. He heard Santa, and KNEW that if he got out of bed, he'd blow everything.
I often wonder about the morality of this whole thing. I mean, when (not if) my kids learn "the awful truth", will it teach them that they can't trust their parents? Will it teach them that the authority they respected was not really there? Will it make them secure in the bathroom that there isn't a bearded old man peering into his crystal ball and seeing their pee pee? I mean, if Santa isn't real, what about this whole Baby Jesus thing, and God? Can they believe anything?
I got a telescope for Christmas, and for the FIRST time in my geek life, I saw, first hand, with my own two eyes (well, actually, only the right one), Jupiter's moons, and I saw what Galileo saw 400 years ago, that the universe does not orbit around the Earth, as the authorities of the day had everyone believing, and that though I had taken for granted what people had told me about Jupiter's moons, SEEING them really made a big difference. Seeing Jupiter as something other than a bright point of light in the sky made a big difference. I got my son out of bed last night, and had him look, and as he looked (and spotted one of the moons I missed), I wondered if he really knew, and was playing along for my sake, or how he'd react if he ever learned the awful truth.
Then I realized, I don't remember when I found out that there was no Santa. The Hoax was a family tradition when I was growing up. There was no trauma, no distrust of authority that I didn't learn much later in life, (which I hope I can pass on to my kids). But I do remember, one Christmas, laying in bed on my Uncle's farm in Iowa, hearing what later turned out to be the grown ups outside, with a set of jingle bells, and a ladder, risking their lives to walk across an icy sloped roof, ringing the bells, all to perpetuate this hoax, and I can remember the exitement I felt, and the fun the next morning.
Our brains tell us that that spot in the retina of our eyes that doesn't contain rods or cones, is actually seeing. Our entire existence is built from sensory data, massaged into a plausible reality by our brains. And it continues on to higher levels. Believing a beautiful lie is often an integral part of being alive.
Penguins only recently gained the ability to run two per sleigh. A bit later, 4-way sleighs were added, but still can't do 8-way sleighs.
naw, I remember the bad stuff from my teenage years too. I wish I could forget.
Madonna, Prince, Culture Club, Michael Jackson.
I spent YEARS hoping and praying that Madonna would just GO AWAY. At least Prince did, and Culture Club is now underground-retro-chic because Boy George is a junkie, and well, nobody could like Michael Jackson anymore, now that his sister admitted to liking Coffee enemas. I'm glad 1999 is over, I haven't heard a Prince song since new years day, 2000.
But Madonna just won't fucking go away - in fact, she's now "creating" fresh new garbage to litter the airwaves with; taking young good looking people who can carry a tune, and using her influence to make them into pop stars (a-la Ricky Martin). Blah. I can't puke enough.
What next, Madonna doing Smiths cover-tunes?
you know, the wierd thing about Kid Rock is, I bought the CD, I don't know why. I listened to it, and frankly, the Lyrics all do suck. Every word. The whole pathetic gangsta rap wanna be angle. Just plain silly.
Musically, it's not terrible material. A lot of complex beat, and tone, and angry texture - much of it formulaic, but still, it stands apart. If I could get a no-vocals version, I could stand to listen to it.
The same can be said frankly for a lot of Brittney Spears, and even Christina Aguilerellarellarellarlelrlealrelae, and n*sync. There is some fantastic vocal work, some excellent rythmic exploration, but the end result is somehow just so sucky, and I can't figure it out. I know there's a lot of over-production going on, and much of it is aimed at an industry-wide homogenous "sound", (if you want something different, check out Blink182, or Eiffel65, nyuck nyuck nyuck), and of course I say these GOOD things about music that, just plain doesn't appeal to me at all. I hate it, it hurts to listen to it. I missed out the whole white-guilt suburban hip-hop (gangsta rapper wannabe) phenomenon, (I prefer the old white-guilt suburban reggae/ska thing). And of course the lyrics to this new stuff is just utter garbage, apparently lifted from Teen Magazine letter columns, but it's very hard to criticise music where there clearly is a great deal of talent being demonstrated. Nobody here can say that Brittey Spears does not have a fantastic singing voice, excellent control and vocal range, and can dance "the dance of the seven boners" like nobody else. But they mix and modify it with echo and chorus effects in a way that makes her sound just like every other pop star in the contiuum right now (today's sound) - and the overall effect is just ruined. But how do you argue that with a 13 year old; "You should be listening to Yes or King Crimson, and not this music, this music sucks (empirically) because; __________." . . ?
I look back at my childhood and adolescent years with a sense of dread and shame.
:) - no, I'm not hideous. I pay some attention to my appearance. I try to put effort into letting other people talk about whatever they want to. I try not to be opinionated (though I'm very opinionated). What the fuck is it then? I don't know.
I don't know if I was rejected by my peers, or if I just didn't fit in, and perceived that I was rejected. I always knew that somewhere along the line, I realized I wasn't interested in the same things the other kids were, I didn't have fun doing what they did, and they didn't have fun doing what I wanted to do - and I suddenly began being excluded from things, and I don't know if this was because of a declined invitation, or out of dislike for my company. \
But once it began, it was self-perpetuating. As a psychological defense, of course, I hated them back. If I was not invited, I didn't want to be. I spent a lot of time alone, and bitter. It has taken me decades to come to grips with this, if I even have yet. I keep trying to "start over", to try to get friendly with new groups, trying to get into what they're doing, but eventually, it ends up the same, a sense that I'm an outsider. The only time I felt like I belonged was in a group of people who had the same interests, in college, the Science Fiction and Fantasy book club. We liked the same games, same movies, same books, same music, there were sub-groups within the larger group (anime, pagan/fantasy, war games, computers, etc.), but we all had in common these basic interests. We had a truly bizzarre set of relationships, we went to cons together, (this was pre-(boom)internet). Since then, we've all grown up, moved apart; across the country, and don't spend much time together anymore. Since then, I've found that I haven't been able to get these same kinds of relationships back. I've tried making friends at work, (computer people), I've tried making friends with neighbors (even taking on interests in things like sports, which bore me no matter how hard I try), I've tried making friends online. None of it has worked long term. I wonder if its me.
So my question is; for people that are loners, outsiders, is there some factor in their personality, that makes them unable to fit in with groups, which drives them to "unpopular" interests, or is it the interest in unpopular things that ultimately makes them unable to make friendships easily?
I know that a lot of it revolves around sports for some people I know; physical disabilities (or just plain not being athletic) - keeps them out of sports. I know that my son has a HUGE drive to be "the best", to be praised, and trumped as a champion at whatever he does, and if success does not come easy, he's just plain not interested in that anymore - so I wonder if I was like that as a small child - I sucked at basketball, and required an unusual amount of praise to be happy doing it, and so, quit doing it, stayed out of it, and made it apparent to my young friends that I wasn't at all happy doing it, so they never asked me to play again? On the other hand, I can remember several YEARS playing little league baseball, sucking, playing right-field, (out of the way), last in the batting line-up, but I didn't quit. I kept trying.
Or maybe there's something about my personality that's just unlikeable. I know I've got kind of an annoying sense of humor. I mean, I am a smart-ass. I'm always trying to make jokes. About half the time, I just keep my mouth shut, sometimes I don't, and I often come up with some pretty good zingers, and I make people laugh. Once in a while, I say something that most people just don't get. I wonder if that's it. With new groups, I often get invited once or twice, then that's all. I know it's not hygene, I pay attention to that. I know it's not looks. My mom says I'm very handsome
One thing I know, I used to carry a lot of hatred around from my High School days. I rationalized, I built up a wall of scorn to protect myself. I dressed in black, before there was a goth-scene (that was back in the Punk days, early '80's). I carried a paperback copy of the Necronomicon with me. College changed me. Showed me how having friends, and social interactions, and relationships could be worth my time. But considering the effort, is it worth it, when they just fade away?
So what makes you a loner. You? Your personality? Your looks? Your lack of athletic ability? Them? Their stupidity? Their inferiority? Why are you interested in computers? Do you find them neeto? Or does it help to be interested in something that doesn't require 8 other athletic friends with nothing better to do than toss around a chunk of leather and sweat on eachother? Do you feel the bitterness too? What do you do about it?
to quote David Bowie.
."
"Cha cha cha changes
Turn and face the strange,
whoa look out you rock 'n rollers
Pretty soon you're gonna get older. .
Yeah, I looked forward to that when I was a teenager, then I listen to what's coming out, and I moan, why does it have to suck so?! Is this just me being an old fart? hating new music because it's different from old, from what I'm used to, from what I grew up with, experienced my glory years with? The music that I lost my virginity to, the music that I puked a bottle of peppermint schnapps to -
Or does this new stuff actually truly really suck?
I think it sucks. In the empirical sense.
really, really fucking bad.
This will be very alluring to hard drive manufacturers. The Sony's of the world will simply say - "you want us to put your drives in our box that will be sold into 200 million homes worldwide? You put our spiffy little device on it."
Smaller players will be crushed by the bigger players due to the revenue differential.
Basically, HDTV is dead, if this is true.
People will stick with their old analog TV's and VHS recorders when they find out what HDTV takes away from them.
such interception and devices would be outlawed by the DCMA, you're busted dude!
yes but if *I* break away from the RIAA, buzillions of other idiots out there will not. Trust me on this one.
Get up on your soapbox, and nail that fucker to your feet, because you'll die up there before a statistically noticable portion of the population boycotts RIAA products.
my bad on the 68k emu.
Spank me Santa.
Regarding my previous comments on "Security being the red-headed stepchild of computer science because consumers are too stupid to know or care about it".
Education can be painful. But in the end, it's better to learn a lesson than not.
I read a while back that this was the plan, though it may have changed, this was a couple years ago:
:). And IBM did chage their tune later (thanks Mr. Jobs).
IA-64 chips were to have a hardware emulation unit, not unlike how PPC chips run 68k code. This "option" would be the most expensive, and was projected to be closest to native speed, that is, 1 GHz Itanium would run IA-32 instructions with an approximate performance equivalence of 800 MHz Pentium (XXXX).
Then, Intel would segment the market, and provide a "lower grade" of Itanium, with the hardware emulation disabled (not missing), and emulation would be done through some kind of software, which I think was limited to Win32. Performance with Win32 code would be about half speed. But this chip would be cheaper.
The cheapest option would be a chip that couldn't run either the slower emulation, or the hardware emulator (I thought it would be neat if hackers figured out how to activate the hardware emulator, this was the golden age of Celeron, after all). None of these CPUs was expected to ever to turn cycles on a desktop machine.
PC manufacturers were worried, because at this time, it looked like MS was WAY behind schedule with an IA-64 version of NT, and Intel would be shipping chips and the only OS that would run on it would be NT, in slower emulation, but only if you paid through the nose.
It wasn't too long after that announcement that every friggin OS vendor came out of the woodwork in support of Itanium. I think IBM was the only vendor who had not pledged support. And Apple
Then, Intel came out and admitted that Itanium was WAY behind schedule, and things really looked bad, looked like Intel was on the verge of dumping IA-64 altogether. This gave Microsoft some breathing room, and apparently they caught up. Microsoft is good at catching up, arent' they?
Since then, I haven't heard any mention of a software emulator - or one that ran only Win32.
The whole POINT of the "PC REVOLUTION" was in "commodity hardware". That is, get tons of manufacturers churning out parts that ran to the PC spec set forth by IBM (forth - um, open firmware joke, get it? nevermind).
The point was to develop this cheap-ass piece of junk platform to the point where people didn't need to pay extortionate fees to Sun, DEC, SGI, HP, Intergraph, and the mother-ship, IBM, etc. Now, DEC is gone, HP is just another Packard-Bell, so is Intergraph, and SGI, is acquisition fodder. Only Sun and IBM really remain as strong players. I'm guessing that has nothing at all to do with the PC revolution, and more to do with the Internet revolution and the need for bulletproof servers.
Until Intel got a monopoly in chips (AMD was a nice try, but are they REALLY positioned to harm intel? Last I checked, intel was still dictating platform standards) - it was an open platform and the dream was alive. Someday, there was going to be a beefy and robust PC that could replace expensive minis at commodity hardware prices, and run an OS grandma could admin. Then Intel figured out that with a monopoly, they wouldn't have to compete with any other players, they could set the standards, and block this insanity from happening. Sure, they'll still be productin commodity hardware, but they'll be using the enterprise pricing model. And using their IA-32 market dominance to crowbar Itanium into the enterprise server market, no matter how inferior it is, technically. If it runs Win32, it's golden. No matter how overpriced it is. No matter how much laughter it generates when placed next to REAL enterprise hardware.
It's called market segmentation. The Celeron/Xeon thing was a small-scale application, and proof of concept. Look at the technical difference between Celeron and Xeon. Then look at the price difference. You could put a Xeon in a desktop machine, and benefit, but the price made it not worth it. Granted, Itanium will have a big technical difference - PCs DO need to go 64 bit to be serious in the enterprise server market. But they need MUCH more than that - in a practical sense, less performance for more $? Crazy. That's market segmentation. A tool designed to artificially constrain supply in the marketplace, to drive up prices, while not suffering from constrained supply (and high costs) on the manufacturing end. The results? Pure profit. Bring lots of vaseline.
That's a bit optimistic. Try Spring 2002. Trust me.