indeed these days and in the future children will be rotten little buggers. When i was a year and a half, my parents bought an Atari (have no clue what model, with the cartridge putting in part in the keyboard and cassette tape drive). Soon afterward they taught me to play pacman, spent much of childhood doing such.. Later I advanced to Zork and Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy and loved it:) When I was 5ish, I began playing dungeons and dragons with my cousin (he was like 11 or so) over a bbs we had to phone into 400 km away, and we loved it. The slowness, or the fact that it was text only didn't bother us, we were excercising our minds and talking to other ppl who actually liked what they were doing as well and that was why we loved it.
Unlike today. Icq used to be a communications utility, now it is just pap with thousands (dare I say millions) of stupid, sheep such as jocks and ditzes who use AOL thinking its the best thing since sliced bread, just msging -anyone- looking for some cyber. The internet is being ruined by the sheep who have never known the coolness of being the only comp-interested person you know to have a computer of some sort that is -not- a mac, or being beaten up by classmates for being the only one who did assignments on a computer with spell checker, or played any of the classic games. Instead, their minds are feed the pap and do not even know how things used to, how things should be. Instead, they just go on flooding irc channels with "asl, wanna c ma pic?" and play their stupid games with none of the stimuli of those of yesteryear, such as the Sims and Black and White (granted there might be games out there which are mentally stimulating, I have been told to play Baldur's Gate, just haven't found a copy yet). Guided games (either in its nature or throw possible actions to take) ruin ppl's minds in their simplicity. Oh for Pandora Directive or Crystal Caves!
~me
It is frightening how much different schools think that they can suppress the student populance.. Our school had an "incident with an explosive device" right after returning from Christmas holidays and a scapegoat was cast as the perpetrator could not be found..
This year, censoring of our true selves abounds.. I was told I could not have ink green hair, even though it had nothing to do with "being a rebel" or anythign such, I just happened to like the colour green and was protesting all the trees I had seen murdered over the summer.. I have also been told that I am not to wear my trench to school. Wearing my trench has nothing to do with what the administrators and parents seem to think it represents, to me it is merely a security blanket of sorts, keeping me warm when the heat does not work in the classroom or when I need something reassuring to enswath me.
If it were not for my bf, I would have dropped out of school this year.. But my friends pushed me to write to my lonnngg time crush and reveal such feelings and we have now been going out for a month. But before this, when I came home from school, I found myself wishing that everyone at school except a select few would just die.. Even now somedays I wish that.. The jocks abound. You think I would be able to ignore them by now, but resistance has not been built up against their petty, callous words and threats.. I hate school with a passion now, the only part of it that I am now liking is time spent in our school's IT office, safe from crowds who forever seem to be mocking me (I know they really are not always, but that is how it seems some days). I have been told I am heading for a nervous breakdown by several different people and my reaction is "duh. can you help me find help?" But there seems to be a lack of people willing to help treat a high school girl with an assortment of mental and physical problems. For guys, help almost comes out of the woodwork. But mention that I spend most of my life around comps and they are reluctant to try to help. I would like to talk to one or two of my teachers specifically, but our province's education system is going through a rather tulmutuous time and the teachers are very stressed out and worn thin and I do not want to place excess stress upon them.
The education systems really need to be reformed; people must realize it is not a school is not a business, there is not money to be made, but rather lessons to be learned. But in order for this to happen, so many aspects of North American society would have to change and I fear this would be impossible, given the importance of monetary value and physical property in such society. So little credit is given to those who stray from the path and go off and do their own thing.. Only those who follow the rules ever succeed in the eyes of others.. Do you ever find yourself wishing you had a "time machine" and could go back to educate people of the folly of their ways before they get so into that pattern that they will not give it up..? I have actually heard people say that they should start manufacturing people and choising traits and eliminating mental illness, non-conformity and handicaps. A race of perfect people, much as Hitler wanted.. I find it so sad that everyone wants perfection, is not what is natural and beautiful good enough?
~me
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy!
*me sighs deeply remembering the fun she had playing it on an ATARI when she was like 4* i had been reading for a year and yet I was playing the game.. does anyone know of a Windows playable format? the 5" floppy drive on the ATARI is broken and I had this craving the other day to play it:)
~me
Who are we to decide who should live and who shouldn't?? I mean, say if something terrible happens to a famous-but-really-annoying-and-not-good-person-at- all and an innocent-unknown-of-and-wonderful-person and they both need the same organ transplant, who do you think would be given first consideration for the organ? Just a small thought. In western society, it seems that we much more value money and status then quality of character and goodness of soul. I find this very shameful and I wish that people could somehow change themselves and their views so that maybe we would all apreciate what really matters in life.
Recently, my grandmother passed away. I have been talking to my relatives and her various friends, and I was amazed by the effect she had on those around her. She guided us through dark times and helped us to see the better side of nasty situations.. I had never realized before how much of an impact she had on our lifes... We all pretty much took her for granted. We always thought, "Oh, well, I can talk to her next weekend.. I'll find that patern and enlarge it for you next time I'm here.." We just never thought...
One of the things that was really striking in contrast to her mental strength was her physical frailty.. My grandmother had been in a wheelchair as long as I have been on this earth, but none of us thought of her as disabled. Many people upon first meeting her thought that she was the type of person-who-stays-at-home-and-whiles-away-their-old -age-by-staring-at-a-wall.. When they got to know her, they were usually shocked at how active she was and her quality of life.
My point is this.. If a really-famous-but-annoying-and-not-good-person and a person such as a grandmother both arrived at the hospital needing the same organ for transplant and there was only one available organ, and you had to make the call, who would you choose to get the transplant: The famous person who you probably think is annoying or The person who you really know nothing about...?
Just some things to think about... You have the power to give death, but you don't have the power to bring back life.. Think twice before causing the end of a life, as afterward you might discover things and deeply regret it...
Think of the stories read to you as a little kid or your reader at school: the girl stayed home, played with dolls or made a cake, while the guy went out saved the day, or fixed a car... The only kids books I remember not conforming to that were the original Nancy Drew stories...
Also, it is in part our teachers and parents. I began using computers at the age of two, but when I arrived in kindergarden, the (male) computer lab person told me I was not allowed to used the computers... meanwhile, one of the little boys in my class was allowed to go and play games to his heart's content...:(
Even as I have grown older, this still is. I got in trouble in elementary school for using the networked computers for non-classwork... The guy the next row over was downloading pr0n, but the teacher didn't say anything until I set up a cam and feed it through to the principal's office;) Most recently, I tried to get into the Cisco networking course at my school last year but was not allowed to enroll.. I was in tenth grade, was the excuse I was given... Meanwhile, the year before, two of the guys who are now head of i.t. at our school, were allowed in (they were in tenth grade).. In the fall, a few tenth grade students (male) are being allowed in... Does anyone else see the wrongness here??
The thing that annoys me almost as much as them having girlfriends and me no boyfriend is that they don't believe what I do.. They think that it is just some fluke when I fix the comps in the one lab at school or that I get other people to do work for me...:(
Perhaps you are right about the good geek guys hiding, but I can't find any:(
what about people who join the school's trivia team? or make digital video stuffs for fun? or hangs out at school after school to work on the yearbook?
i am geek of above, and math and science... or perhaps nerd... i do not know.
In regards to female CEO's, the newly formed Hydro One has a female CEO, Eleanor R. Clitheroe. My dad has had to deal with her and she's pretty decent. I also read some where that more small businesses are managed by women than men...
If I might say something to your statement of what turns us off...
You are correct, at least from my point of view as a once-just-a-shy-chick-now-an-altena-girl-geek-of-s orts. Girls who are not fully geekified, or who care about what the rest of society thinks, are embarassed by guys who rant in public about the virtues of Linux over all other os (although we probably agree:) or how much so-and-so sucked at UT at the last LAN party...
If we are not already a geek, you are probably going to have to live with it... If you want to convert them, go slowly.. Introduce them to Quake, but don't whip their @ss the first time.. Show them cool sites, such as slashdot (i worshipped the guy for like a month after he showed me this site in ninth grade). Don't make fun of them if they don;t understand and don't be too too critical of their efforts (there is no worse turn off than having your just-learned-and-wanted-to-try-it-myself code shot down and totally dissed by some guy). Encourage them and if there is a spark of geek in them, perhaps it might catch!
Some chicas want a geek guy... The guy just has to be able to handle the fact that they probably think very alike... and he will be faced with a reminder of work at home... Most chicas can handle it, how about you?
Where I live, the geek guys have girlfriends out of their fantasies, the geek girls do not any boyfriends... Why is this? Are we repulsive or something? It is so frustrating to go to school and into the server room and hear them gloating to each other about what she did for him this weekend and be miserable 'cause you want that particular guy so bad....:(
And also, when any of them do ask you out, they just want sex... I have no problem with f***ing, but I would like for it to be a meaningful relationship, not just the-ditz-left-me-in-the-middle-of-the-theatre-and- i-am-really-horny type relationship... Is there something wrong with them, because I so do not understand: they want meaningful relationship with hoochie who just wants sex and they just want sex with girl who wants meaningful relationship... URGH!!
Some of us appreciate you guys... We just are not always noticable.. Where I live, the 'geek guys' tend to go after the easy ditzes (sp?) and ignore anyone with smarts as they figure we're too hard to get. That's not true though. I think it's more a matter of their lack of knowledge of what a girl really wants...;)
It is not necessarily a power thing that interests all of us. Some of us want a guy with similar interests to our own, so that if we get married (an arcane institution, but never mind that right now..) we will be able to do stuffs together and hopefully not get too bored... Some of us want guys who know our interests and instead of buying us perfume (blech!) or flowers, they will buy us more RAM or the newest version of Quake or Myst!!
What I mean is this: the guys I know have spent practically their whole lives with comps. They have no idea what is going on when we hit on them and try to be subtle about it... They have no idea how hot they are.. So along come a couple of well endowed popular girls who decided for a joke to pretend their interested.. And the guys believed them! So now they have a thing for that type and totally ignore, us, the geek girl contingent. It's not that we are ugly or anything, they just think of us 'some of the guys'...:(
Girls are not necessarily more sociable... Not all of us anyway. It's a mind set more than anything else that leads (or pushes away) us toward technology.
I mean, I am a girl and when I was little (i.e. as soon as I could sit by myself and *not* put food in the keyboard, so about 2.5 years old), I used to upset my mother cause I didn't like barbies and spent all day playing on our Atari. Meanwhile, my brother hated computers.
Some of us girls are interested in social-deprivation, just not all of us readily express it. We have had stuff shoved down our throats all our lives that we are supposed to be soft and nice and caring... But not all of us are. My best friend and I finally figured out this year that CS is where we want to go.. The guidance department at our school was ecstatic when she joined the Cisco Networking course, which I was already in, they were like, Yah another girl!
Some of us just don't care anymore whether or not we are sociable.. I am painfully shy in person, but was trying to conform to what the majority of people at school thought I should be. They made fun of me when instead of an essay I would hand in an video on cd and other crazy things... I finally figured it out this spring that no matter what I do, they are always going to think that I am a closet geek, so I might as well express myself and not be miserable...
There were also a couple of other factors that pushed me and my friend to unleashing our geekiness upon the school... Perhaps the fact that some of the guys on our IT staff our pretty hot;)
Slashdot Mirror
indeed these days and in the future children will be rotten little buggers. When i was a year and a half, my parents bought an Atari (have no clue what model, with the cartridge putting in part in the keyboard and cassette tape drive). Soon afterward they taught me to play pacman, spent much of childhood doing such.. Later I advanced to Zork and Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy and loved it :) When I was 5ish, I began playing dungeons and dragons with my cousin (he was like 11 or so) over a bbs we had to phone into 400 km away, and we loved it. The slowness, or the fact that it was text only didn't bother us, we were excercising our minds and talking to other ppl who actually liked what they were doing as well and that was why we loved it.
Unlike today. Icq used to be a communications utility, now it is just pap with thousands (dare I say millions) of stupid, sheep such as jocks and ditzes who use AOL thinking its the best thing since sliced bread, just msging -anyone- looking for some cyber. The internet is being ruined by the sheep who have never known the coolness of being the only comp-interested person you know to have a computer of some sort that is -not- a mac, or being beaten up by classmates for being the only one who did assignments on a computer with spell checker, or played any of the classic games. Instead, their minds are feed the pap and do not even know how things used to, how things should be. Instead, they just go on flooding irc channels with "asl, wanna c ma pic?" and play their stupid games with none of the stimuli of those of yesteryear, such as the Sims and Black and White (granted there might be games out there which are mentally stimulating, I have been told to play Baldur's Gate, just haven't found a copy yet). Guided games (either in its nature or throw possible actions to take) ruin ppl's minds in their simplicity. Oh for Pandora Directive or Crystal Caves!
~me
It is frightening how much different schools think that they can suppress the student populance.. Our school had an "incident with an explosive device" right after returning from Christmas holidays and a scapegoat was cast as the perpetrator could not be found.. This year, censoring of our true selves abounds.. I was told I could not have ink green hair, even though it had nothing to do with "being a rebel" or anythign such, I just happened to like the colour green and was protesting all the trees I had seen murdered over the summer.. I have also been told that I am not to wear my trench to school. Wearing my trench has nothing to do with what the administrators and parents seem to think it represents, to me it is merely a security blanket of sorts, keeping me warm when the heat does not work in the classroom or when I need something reassuring to enswath me. If it were not for my bf, I would have dropped out of school this year.. But my friends pushed me to write to my lonnngg time crush and reveal such feelings and we have now been going out for a month. But before this, when I came home from school, I found myself wishing that everyone at school except a select few would just die.. Even now somedays I wish that.. The jocks abound. You think I would be able to ignore them by now, but resistance has not been built up against their petty, callous words and threats.. I hate school with a passion now, the only part of it that I am now liking is time spent in our school's IT office, safe from crowds who forever seem to be mocking me (I know they really are not always, but that is how it seems some days). I have been told I am heading for a nervous breakdown by several different people and my reaction is "duh. can you help me find help?" But there seems to be a lack of people willing to help treat a high school girl with an assortment of mental and physical problems. For guys, help almost comes out of the woodwork. But mention that I spend most of my life around comps and they are reluctant to try to help. I would like to talk to one or two of my teachers specifically, but our province's education system is going through a rather tulmutuous time and the teachers are very stressed out and worn thin and I do not want to place excess stress upon them. The education systems really need to be reformed; people must realize it is not a school is not a business, there is not money to be made, but rather lessons to be learned. But in order for this to happen, so many aspects of North American society would have to change and I fear this would be impossible, given the importance of monetary value and physical property in such society. So little credit is given to those who stray from the path and go off and do their own thing.. Only those who follow the rules ever succeed in the eyes of others.. Do you ever find yourself wishing you had a "time machine" and could go back to educate people of the folly of their ways before they get so into that pattern that they will not give it up..? I have actually heard people say that they should start manufacturing people and choising traits and eliminating mental illness, non-conformity and handicaps. A race of perfect people, much as Hitler wanted.. I find it so sad that everyone wants perfection, is not what is natural and beautiful good enough? ~me
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy! :)
*me sighs deeply remembering the fun she had playing it on an ATARI when she was like 4* i had been reading for a year and yet I was playing the game.. does anyone know of a Windows playable format? the 5" floppy drive on the ATARI is broken and I had this craving the other day to play it
~me
Yes, but some lives do matter...
Who are we to decide who should live and who shouldn't?? I mean, say if something terrible happens to a famous-but-really-annoying-and-not-good-person-at- all and an innocent-unknown-of-and-wonderful-person and they both need the same organ transplant, who do you think would be given first consideration for the organ? Just a small thought. In western society, it seems that we much more value money and status then quality of character and goodness of soul. I find this very shameful and I wish that people could somehow change themselves and their views so that maybe we would all apreciate what really matters in life.
Recently, my grandmother passed away. I have been talking to my relatives and her various friends, and I was amazed by the effect she had on those around her. She guided us through dark times and helped us to see the better side of nasty situations.. I had never realized before how much of an impact she had on our lifes... We all pretty much took her for granted. We always thought, "Oh, well, I can talk to her next weekend.. I'll find that patern and enlarge it for you next time I'm here.." We just never thought...
One of the things that was really striking in contrast to her mental strength was her physical frailty.. My grandmother had been in a wheelchair as long as I have been on this earth, but none of us thought of her as disabled. Many people upon first meeting her thought that she was the type of person-who-stays-at-home-and-whiles-away-their-old -age-by-staring-at-a-wall.. When they got to know her, they were usually shocked at how active she was and her quality of life.
My point is this.. If a really-famous-but-annoying-and-not-good-person and a person such as a grandmother both arrived at the hospital needing the same organ for transplant and there was only one available organ, and you had to make the call, who would you choose to get the transplant: The famous person who you probably think is annoying or The person who you really know nothing about...?
Just some things to think about... You have the power to give death, but you don't have the power to bring back life.. Think twice before causing the end of a life, as afterward you might discover things and deeply regret it...
Think of the stories read to you as a little kid or your reader at school: the girl stayed home, played with dolls or made a cake, while the guy went out saved the day, or fixed a car... The only kids books I remember not conforming to that were the original Nancy Drew stories...
Also, it is in part our teachers and parents. I began using computers at the age of two, but when I arrived in kindergarden, the (male) computer lab person told me I was not allowed to used the computers... meanwhile, one of the little boys in my class was allowed to go and play games to his heart's content... :(
Even as I have grown older, this still is. I got in trouble in elementary school for using the networked computers for non-classwork... The guy the next row over was downloading pr0n, but the teacher didn't say anything until I set up a cam and feed it through to the principal's office ;) Most recently, I tried to get into the Cisco networking course at my school last year but was not allowed to enroll.. I was in tenth grade, was the excuse I was given... Meanwhile, the year before, two of the guys who are now head of i.t. at our school, were allowed in (they were in tenth grade).. In the fall, a few tenth grade students (male) are being allowed in... Does anyone else see the wrongness here??
~me
I tried that... didn't work.
The thing that annoys me almost as much as them having girlfriends and me no boyfriend is that they don't believe what I do.. They think that it is just some fluke when I fix the comps in the one lab at school or that I get other people to do work for me... :(
Perhaps you are right about the good geek guys hiding, but I can't find any :(
~me
so what is an abnormal geek then?
what about people who join the school's trivia team? or make digital video stuffs for fun? or hangs out at school after school to work on the yearbook?
i am geek of above, and math and science... or perhaps nerd... i do not know.
~meIn regards to female CEO's, the newly formed Hydro One has a female CEO, Eleanor R. Clitheroe. My dad has had to deal with her and she's pretty decent. I also read some where that more small businesses are managed by women than men...
~me
Sudbury, Ontario ~me
If I might say something to your statement of what turns us off...
You are correct, at least from my point of view as a once-just-a-shy-chick-now-an-altena-girl-geek-of-s orts. Girls who are not fully geekified, or who care about what the rest of society thinks, are embarassed by guys who rant in public about the virtues of Linux over all other os (although we probably agree :) or how much so-and-so sucked at UT at the last LAN party...
If we are not already a geek, you are probably going to have to live with it... If you want to convert them, go slowly.. Introduce them to Quake, but don't whip their @ss the first time.. Show them cool sites, such as slashdot (i worshipped the guy for like a month after he showed me this site in ninth grade). Don't make fun of them if they don;t understand and don't be too too critical of their efforts (there is no worse turn off than having your just-learned-and-wanted-to-try-it-myself code shot down and totally dissed by some guy). Encourage them and if there is a spark of geek in them, perhaps it might catch!
Some chicas want a geek guy... The guy just has to be able to handle the fact that they probably think very alike... and he will be faced with a reminder of work at home... Most chicas can handle it, how about you?
just my cdn 2 cents
~meI have a curious question to pose:
Where I live, the geek guys have girlfriends out of their fantasies, the geek girls do not any boyfriends... Why is this? Are we repulsive or something? It is so frustrating to go to school and into the server room and hear them gloating to each other about what she did for him this weekend and be miserable 'cause you want that particular guy so bad.... :(
And also, when any of them do ask you out, they just want sex... I have no problem with f***ing, but I would like for it to be a meaningful relationship, not just the-ditz-left-me-in-the-middle-of-the-theatre-and- i-am-really-horny type relationship... Is there something wrong with them, because I so do not understand: they want meaningful relationship with hoochie who just wants sex and they just want sex with girl who wants meaningful relationship... URGH!!
~me
Some of us appreciate you guys... We just are not always noticable.. Where I live, the 'geek guys' tend to go after the easy ditzes (sp?) and ignore anyone with smarts as they figure we're too hard to get. That's not true though. I think it's more a matter of their lack of knowledge of what a girl really wants... ;)
It is not necessarily a power thing that interests all of us. Some of us want a guy with similar interests to our own, so that if we get married (an arcane institution, but never mind that right now..) we will be able to do stuffs together and hopefully not get too bored... Some of us want guys who know our interests and instead of buying us perfume (blech!) or flowers, they will buy us more RAM or the newest version of Quake or Myst!!
What I mean is this: the guys I know have spent practically their whole lives with comps. They have no idea what is going on when we hit on them and try to be subtle about it... They have no idea how hot they are.. So along come a couple of well endowed popular girls who decided for a joke to pretend their interested.. And the guys believed them! So now they have a thing for that type and totally ignore, us, the geek girl contingent. It's not that we are ugly or anything, they just think of us 'some of the guys'... :(
~me
not all of us go for the jocks... some of go after the 'geeks'..
Girls are not necessarily more sociable... Not all of us anyway. It's a mind set more than anything else that leads (or pushes away) us toward technology.
I mean, I am a girl and when I was little (i.e. as soon as I could sit by myself and *not* put food in the keyboard, so about 2.5 years old), I used to upset my mother cause I didn't like barbies and spent all day playing on our Atari. Meanwhile, my brother hated computers.
Some of us girls are interested in social-deprivation, just not all of us readily express it. We have had stuff shoved down our throats all our lives that we are supposed to be soft and nice and caring... But not all of us are. My best friend and I finally figured out this year that CS is where we want to go.. The guidance department at our school was ecstatic when she joined the Cisco Networking course, which I was already in, they were like, Yah another girl!
Some of us just don't care anymore whether or not we are sociable.. I am painfully shy in person, but was trying to conform to what the majority of people at school thought I should be. They made fun of me when instead of an essay I would hand in an video on cd and other crazy things... I finally figured it out this spring that no matter what I do, they are always going to think that I am a closet geek, so I might as well express myself and not be miserable...
There were also a couple of other factors that pushed me and my friend to unleashing our geekiness upon the school... Perhaps the fact that some of the guys on our IT staff our pretty hot ;)
~me