First, I would remind myself to turn off javascript when javascript becomes available.
Then, I would tell myself not to click at http://superfun.30e.com(because javascript is worse than the goatsex thing).
Here's one that got all sorts of moderation but no replies. I think it's because (a) folks didn't get it and (b) folks thought it might be serious but weren't sure:
Now, I've not always considered myself and idiot, but lately I've come to believe that's the case. For example, I find myself monitoring the North Korean News Agency and actually expecting to find news. I did, however, find this:
Symatic Antivirus Policy Flailed
Pyongyang, February 14 (KCNA) -- The DPRK calls upon the Symantic "corporation" to behave itself. Unchecked viral aggression under the guise of helpful support is obvious to all but the US warmongers. The peace of all nations is it at stake, and it should be noted that the so-called "Slammer" worm was an effort by imperialists to stifle the peace-loving livelihoods of the DPRK.
Now that the guise is unmasked, no one but war mongers see the clear provocations. The DPRK reminds the US that such clear efforts to undermine stability on the peninsula by allowing servers to go "unplugged" and "unfixed" merely underscore the fragile nature of the current nuclear-war situation.
Rhodes wrote a fantastic sequel, too: "Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb."
Dark Sun is even more fascinating -- and more ominous. The idea seemed to be in the 50s and 60s to keep making bigger and bigger bombs. Some of the photographs of the test shots are amazing.
Also, if you're reading this stuff, by all means check out the play "Copenhagen" by Michael Frayn. It details a meeting between Bohr (a Dane) and Heisenberg (a German) in the middle of the war. The text is pretty engaging -- both for the questions it asks (Why did Heisenberg visit Bohr? Was he trying to figure out what Bohr new about the American atomic programs) and for the background it offers about the beginnings of atomic energy. Highly recommended.
This is off-topic, but I add it because I find it fascinating: but one of the topics touched upon in 'Copenhagen' is the fact that the Germans, apparently, had constructed a reactor in Germany and where literally days away from activating it (without any safety precautions or control mechanisms) when the Allies came crashing through and destroyed it. Why this incident hasn't been made into a film -- even a crappy Bruce Willis/Stallone film -- is beyond me. It's absolutely fascinating -- the idea that the Allies may or may not have know about the reactor but were lucky enough to catch it just before it went live. The reactor was constructed at the bottom of a mountain in a deep cave. It's amazing, actually. Frayn touches upon it in his play when Bohr reminds Heisenberg -- like something straight out of a Bruce Willis movie, in fact -- that had they successfully activated the reactor, there was no mechanism to slow or even control the reaction. It could have conceivably gotten completely out of control. Absolutely frightning.
Pyongyang, February 14 (KCNA) -- The hostile policy of the Microsoft "corporation" has been assailed. It is none other than Microsoft imperialists in the lunatic guise of US imperialists who flagrantly attempt to defend interests none other than there own.
Noting that this guise has been seen through, the DPRK urges Microsoft to behave itself. Meanwhile, Microsoft continues its flagrant "embrace" and "extend" operations to incorporate none other than Apple "Macintosh". It must be understood that such moves are obvious to all but the aggressors. Until a peace treaty is ratified by the US war mongers, the DPRK continues to step up its careful preparations for full scale nuclear war. This is but more proof of the agressors real intentions.
Anecdote about Kim Jong Il
Pyongyang, February 14 (KCNA) -- Kim Jong Il took a walk on the grounds of a military academy and saw that many of his people were without valentines. He stayed up for two nights straight in order to get valentines for his beloved people. He then called his friends in Montenegro to send over some sex slaves. When the slaves arrived, Kim Jong Il toasted them with Hennessy VSOP cognac and a lobster feast and then brought them over to the factory.
But when Kim Jong Il and sex slaves arrived, they saw that all the workers had perished due to the cold winter and lack of heat. Kim Jong Il toasted his beloved people with more Hennessey VSOP and had another lobster feast and then ordered the slaves back to the house for a party.
Pyongyang, February 12 (KCNA) -- The US conspiracy in criticizing 'Dragon's Lair 3D' clearly proves that the U.S. is making absurd pretexts for overtaking DPRK fun with nuclear force, if necessary. It is all the more ridiculous when beloved Dirk the Daring is used by US war-mongers to enhance negative feelings among the the world's gamers.
The US remains committed to "secret" plans to topple the DPRK and criticism of fun-loving video games is just but one transparent ploy in the war-mongers game of double-standards.
The US should "pull out" all troops from South Korea and engage in proper dialogue. Until the US video mongers offer DPRK a non-aggression treaty signed by all congress members, the so-called "nuclear issue" of "Dirk the Daring" will not be settled.
Anecdote about Kim Jong Il
Pyongyang, February 12 (KCNA) -- In 1988, General Secretary Kim Jong Il visited a factory where people were very cold and had little food. He saw that there were no video games and suggested that fifteen minutes of proper video gaming would strengthen deeply cherished feelings and love of the country.
Seeing no video games available, however, General Secretary Kim Jong Il stayed up for two straight nights in order to give his beloved workers proper fun. Finally, General Secretary Kim Jong Il called upon his Libyan friends to deliver three cases of counterfeit Mickey Mouse cups for the workers. Seeing the cups, the workers were very pleased and held a toast with empty cups to their dear leader with their new cups. General Secretary Kim Jong Il hoped that although the cups weren't video game they would understand the spirit of the video games and to be entertained and enlightened nonetheless.
Please explain how a 17-year-old who is limited by labor law from earning enough $$$ to buy CDs happens to have his own car.
Gift?
I mean, just because you disdain financial institutions doesn't mean you can't give groovy gifts to your kid.
Slightly, OT:
I'm impressed you're managing to live without financial institutions. But are you pulling a Tony Soprano and stashing cash around the house? In the compost bin? Up in the attic?
I mean, at some point, the volume of green must get a little overwhelming. (Unless you give a lot of gifts and don't let the green accumulate.)
Good review, but I'm curious: how do you give up an "education?"
I mean, you can decide not to continue with an education, but the theory is (I hope) that once you have it, education sorta -- more or less -- sticks.
Although this might not apply if you're an idiot.
Re:Prices are out of whack for 1991
on
The 1991 "X-Box"
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· Score: 5, Funny
And who adds "(c. 1991)" to their notes?
Yeah, whenever I jot something down, I'm always sure to add "c. 2003" -- just in case.
I'm surprised Slashdot got suckered in by this guy.
Well, no, I'm not surprised.
Hey, I had this idea for an on-line auction house after I read Thomas Pynchons 'Crying of Lot 49'. First I figured 'eLot' but then I though, nah, 'eBay' would be much more appropriate.
Playing the 'Sears' version of Atari on Saturday afternoons at the mall.
Space Invaders.
Combat.
Standing around in the back of the Sears by the lawnmowers and the garden supplies where they had the Atari set-up.
Get tired of playing, head on down to Aladdin's Castle to play Donkey Kong, Pac Man, and Tron.
Then off to Radio Shack to fiddle with the TRS-80's and the acoustically-coupled 300 baud modem. Meet some curly haired guy named 'Eberle' in the TRS-80 section who managed to have *every* TRS-80 game in existence -- Asylum I, Zork, Death Maze 5000, you name it.
Teach myself BASIC on the TRS-80 Model III.
Then off to Orange Julius.
Then bike ride home.
Play D&D in the evening. Talk about the new 'module' you're writing. Talk about getting some more modules. Talk about Grayhawk.
Childhood was so simple. Malls, computers, orange julius', and Gary Gygax.
Re:Crap failures...
on
F'd Companies
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Are you for real? WorldCom is an interesting failure? WorldCom and Enron are like every other failure. You have a bunch of dumn executives attempting to swindle the so-called "little" people. I'm not sure what's so interesting about that.
What's interesting to me, at least, is a spectacular flameout like WebVan -- the company that was drilled hard into the ground by a dumb CEO who managed to get himself a multi-million dollar pension for twenty years. Company goes out of business, but the CEO -- a dumb old guy -- is making millions. Now, maybe some folks consider him a "smart" guy if he's making millions, but whatever.
Still the dot-com stuff is fascinating -- how so many people can fuck up so much shit. It boggles the mind. I mean, it's like all the gold mines out west that went out of business. The gold was there -- or tiny bits of it, at least -- but they didn't have the money or the time or the smarts to be able to capitalize on it.
WorldCom and Enron? Give me a break. That's old school, old-white-guy swindling. It's the same corporate greed that's gone on for years. What, Mrs. Kenneth Lay goes on television and talks to a TV interviewer and says they have "nothing" and that they're broke? Please. I got nothing, I'm broke, but I live like I have nothing and am broke. I don't wear Versace suits or have a wife with Ferragamo pumps. I don't have six houses scattered throughout the country and can't interest any interviewer from ABC to come and sit with me in my living room to talk about how broke I am.
And why? Because my story about being broke is like every story about being broke. It's a tough world out there. Sob sob sob.
It's like Alec Baldwin in 'Glengarry Glen Ross' come from Mitch and Murray downtown to get the sales force motivated. First place, a nice new Cadillac. Second place? Steak knives. Third place? You're fired.
What does it take?
It takes these -- and Alec lets a pair of brass balls hang low -- click, click, baby. Brass fucking balls. Not Versace silk, homes in Aspen, or Swiss watches that cost more than you make in a year.
So give me a break about Enron and WoldCom being interesting. That's old school, with a bunch of dumb old guys in charge. More homes in Veil and Aspen. Big fucking deal. Kenneth Lay looks like Billy Bob Thornton with a haircut and is as slow and dimwitted as they come. Him and his Andrew "Fast Eddie" Fastow, the sleek looking accountant who probably tells all his secretaries that people often mistake him for Richard Gere.
Turn on something like Startup.com -- the film about Kozmo.com and the annoying guy that ran it -- and that's interesting. It's fascinating to see how people took hold of the cultural hot buttons and then attempted to cultify it in order to make money and gain leverage.
That's what the dot-com "boom" was -- one big cult, brainwashes free-of-charge, with a bunch of gullible young people grasping for straws in a world that was paying no attention to Bin Laden, loose nukes, and the silent, gathering anti-Americanism roiling up like a tsunami across the globe.
Enron and WorldCom are just a bunch of old-school, bad-luck, corporate nightmares with the same old-school, bad-luck lessons to be learned. What's interesting in that? That people gave a fuck?
Actually, the networks aren't afraid of copies. They're afraid of *perfect* copies.
Hence, the fear of digital.
Geriatric Jack "Maddog... Grrrr!" Valenti goes on and on about the danger of "perfect" copies. I've seen him speak twice -- a amazingly underwhelming experience -- and find him to be much to old to actually "get" what's going on.
He doesn't get what's going on. His staff does, but he's the spokesperson, and he's not a very good one. Valenti is much more interesting -- and actually engaging -- when he talks about his time in the Kennedy (that's right, JFK) White House.
But this digital stuff -- and the fear that Valenti loves to spread -- just doesn't resonate when Valenti is doing the talking. He's like some old guy talking about "The Pink Floyd" while watching a PF video and then pointing, saying, "Is that Pink? Is that guy Pink?"
He's the sort of guy that would do the much-maligned "Funky White Guy" dance -- squinting, sorta pursing his lips, lifting his hands, and trying to shake once or twice to the beat. It's not only not effective, but it's not funny. It's abymsal, in fact, and that's exactly the sort of aura that Valenti projects among the 20/30/early 40 crowd -- at least when he's doing his public speaking thing.
People look at him and have this: "Is this guy for fucking real?" look. We all clap politely but know nothing's gonna change until he takes his retirement, leases that new Lexus, and heads out to Tuscon or Phoenix or Palm Desert or wherever has-beens go to relax and prune-out.
The other issue -- at least when I saw him speak -- was the fact that Valenti was talking about digital copying as if it were a fate worse than terrorism. I mean, for fuck's sake, let's be real.
The neo-Islamo-fascist weapons trade is serious.
Kim "Look at my lofty bouffant hair-do" Il-Jung proliferating his plutonium and U-235 is serious.
Angry Chechen mobsters with lead-lined cannisters that are warm to the touch are serious.
But a copy of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" -- even if it's a perfect copy -- is not serious.
Yes, yes, I understand that a good portion of media America is concerned and worried about "proliferation" of perfect copies. But believe me, that same group of Italian-suit-wearing-hire-me-a-nice-young-intern-s o-I-have-something-to-fuck-on-weekends executives will be a helluva lot *more* worried if one day we wake up to see goofy Donald Rumsfield breaking into 'Days of Our Lives' to tell us that we've just stopped and boarded an unflagged North Korean tanker headed for an unspecified port with 100 kilograms of plutonium on board.
And the other issue with Valenti is that the word "compromise" is simply not in his vocabulary. Several folks asked him about whether or not he could find a "happpy medium" and his response was always, no, digital copies must be protected. Period.
So he didn't score any points -- at least not with me and booze-whores I hang out with.
Shouldn't this book be free? And where are all the photographs? Shouldn't they be free, too?
Two years I went to Burning Man and got violently ill. It was too fucking hot, and I ate too much roasted papaya. A doctor in nearby Ralston, Nevada made me wait for hours in a tiny waiting room. There were no windows, no white sheets of protective paper on the prep table, and only a single mason jar full of tongue dispensers. On the wall was a calendar from 1977.
Anyway, this doctor -- he was an old guy, maybe in his 70's -- took all kinds of blood tests, urine samples, you name it -- but said, finally, it was a bad papaya. He advised me to pack up my shit and head home.
And then, just as I was putting my clothes on -- I'm not kidding -- he launched into a speech about hippies in the 1960s and how his son fought in Vietnam and how when his son came home, nothing was ever right in his son's head. He claimed that these burning people -- that's what he called them 'burning people' -- were hippie wanna-be's too young to protest in Vietnam and too dumn to understand the thing they shoulda be protesting was Ho Chi Minh, not the US government. I asked him: did he vote for Nixon? He said, yeah, he sure did, and then I reminded him that Nixon was just this side of a wack-job.
The doctor didn't like that and ordered me to leave his waiting room. I grabbed my shirt and shoes and shorts and on the way out wondered if he was going to give me anything for my stomach.
"Give you what?" he yelled. "You fucking peacenik."
I said, wait a minute hoss, I'm no peacenik. I came here under the assumption that guys like you were bound by the oath of hippocrates to help out all the peaceniks and hippies and burning man washouts.
He said to hell with that and said he didn't want to see me in his office again. I brought shame to him and his son.
"My son," he yelled at me as I walking across the parking, "fought for hippies like you. He was in Marine and got a piece of NVA shrapnel in his arm which corroded and rusted and caused a rot that nearly ate off his whole arm."
I yelled back: Where's your son now, old man?
He said he's in a VA hospital in Galveston. His arm is shot, he smells bad, and he has a drinking problem.
"So much for Vietnam, then," I yelled, got in my car, and fishtailed out of the parking lot. I stopped at a drugstore down the street and picked up a bottle of Milk of Magnesia, and spent the night in a little motel in Henderson, Nevada. I puked a couple more times, but all was well the following morning.
I put a couple dollars worth of quarters into a couple of old slot machines, and won enough money to get me across the desert and into Idlewild -- another hippie-type community at the foot of the San Jacinto mountains. Last I heard, my father was supposed to live there, but when I went to the address I had for him, the house was occupied by a woman named Sylvia who threw pots and knitted sweaters. She invited me to stay for supper and told me that she knew my father but had no idea where he left when he moved out.
Anyway, I drove around the desert for a couple more days, then headed back east. I work at a tech company, so I was glad to get back home.
All in all, my own Burning Man experience was a disappointment. Months later, however, I got a bill from the doctor who treated me in Ralston. He charged my three hundred dollars for the office visit.
I wrote 'Fuck You' across the bill and sent it back.
>> No grip, we told her. Just us camera guys, the producer, and Ray Ray the director. "Then Ray Ray," she'd scream. "Let me fuck a man named Ray Ray."
This is off-topic, but why are the best comments -- the funniest -- oftentimes posted by Anonymous Cowards? This comment -- the whole thing about the grip and the bottled sweat -- is bizarre and disturbing. Isn't there some sort of "off-topic but interesting" mod option?
On-topic, my question: now that DRM is more ubiquitous, how do figure out whether or not the CD is at fault or the player? I mean, how do you know whether or not the Brookstone player you mention is actually bad?
I'm finding, actually, that while CDs are being mucked and fussed with, the quality of new CD players is actually going down. Components I bought years ago seem more rugged -- and able to play more CDs -- than recent stuff.
Besides, in some sick perverse way I feel vindicated. And I just had to share my joy. I love it when these slashdot topics come around. "Geeks bemoan the demise of XXXXX."
Thing is, the job market *is* in a lull, but if some folks woulda spent their college years just testing the waters instead of on-the-job-fingers-crossed-training some folks wouldn't be in such dire straits.
There's a guy who claims majoring in English is dumb. He's posting in this thread. He's the sort of guy I feel sorry for. But he's also the sort of guy, I think, my compsci teacher was talking about -- the guy who all he needs to do is check his ego a bit and realize that the world's a big place and you -- a human being with loads of potential -- don't need to limit yourself to simple math and science courses.
It's weird how when I look back at college, I find my best compsci teachers were, indeed, the most literate teachers. There was one guy who read all of Dickens every year. Another guy taught himself a new language every year. I remember I happened to be in one of his courses during the year he was learning Latin and had to put up with loads of these weird Latin quotations he'd put everywhere. Flash forward ten years and I'm stuck in a super-intense Latin 101 course for grad students who need to learn a foreign language pronto course, and I realized why my little bald compsci teacher was so gungho for conjugation and for quoting Virgil at every turn: you realize that in some weird -- perhaps even unconscious -- way everything that you force yourself to learn *outside* of your chosen "track" actually feeds *into* that track and makes you wild, creative, and utterly un-fucking-predictable. You scare yourself, scare your friends, and you realize, damn, dude, just chill. Cool it on the caffeine and espresso because if you get too juiced with the creative jazz -- if you make too many connections -- leaping from liberal arts shit to comp-sci shit to physics shit -- it's almost overwhelming. The more you learn, the more connections you can make -- and the more creative you become.
You're like one of those little Estes toy rockets on the launchpad when you press the switch but the double-D engine doesn't do anything but hiss. It's that moment where you're not certain what's going to happen. Is it a dud? Or are you gonna approach the pad and have this thing go off in your face? It's thrilling and dangerous and you suddenly realize the power of stuff that you took for granted. So you sorta wait it out. You press the button a few more times just to make sure you didn't maybe not press it right the first time. And it's that moment -- when you think you know what's going to happen but you can't guarantee it -- that's the thrilling moment of expectation and fear when all the connections suddenly vector themselves down to one, single, thrilling point.
I'd add this to my comment above about "dual tracks": I've noticed that I've gotten lots of tech jobs when the hiring manager/recruiter/bossman realizes that I have a life *outside* of computers and programming. I'm not one (usually) to honk my own horn, but I've learned that if you drop hints during an interview that (a) you're an avid reader, (b) an able writer, or (c) a combination of both -- and somehow indicate that your idea of a "good book" isn't simply PHP-Web-Development or WROX's latest.NET tome, the hiring folks seem to feel a lot more at-ease and your "hirability" goes up a few notches.
Often, I get a "you're kidding" comment in interviews:
"My god, you're the first person I've talked to who actually reads Don Delillo." (Insert any contemporary writer here that doesn't write sci-fi or fantasy.)
"My god, I've never interviewed anyone who likes Cormac McCarthy."
"Man, if there were more interviewees who spent time reading Shakespeare, we'd be in better shape."
(Strangely, most of my "you're kidding" comments revolve around reading.)
Now, don't get me wrong. Reading Faulkner or being able to talk up writers like Cormac McCarthy or the latest novel from Jonathan Franzen or DeLillo is no substitute for analytical ability or coding experience. But it indicates (or so I've been told) that you're able to balance a "technical/geeky" lifestyle with a literate lifestyle. People like this. Supervisors envy this. Even though they themselves might not read, they usually profess their admiration for folks that do. And more often than not, this admiration -- or respect -- manifests itself in a successful job interview and a very good chance at the snagging the job.
It's the little shit that matters. Experience is important, but there are a lot of little clues that folks sometimes overlook.
I received one tech writing assignment because I indicated -- through chit-chat before the formal interview -- that I was about to purchase a Leica camera. The interviewer was amazed I wasn't spending the 1200 bucks on a digital camera. "Nah," I explained, and before I knew it, he and I were sharing stories about Leicas and building darkrooms in our basements and the constant "geek worry" of digital-versus-film. The "formal interview" seemed much less important at that point (but was nonetheless pretty intense, as I recall.)
I didn't realize it then, but I think what happened was that interviewer sorta placed me in a distinct "class" of job-seekers -- the guy who might not be the smartest or the most experienced, but the guy who had something interesting to say, a neat background, and a pretty sensible and intelligent attitude about the boring ol' "non-geek" world.
Next day I got a call from the bossman and the job was mine.
Almost all of my jobs -- even one-off writing jobs -- have happened because the interviewer liked my non-work-related experience. He or she was interested in stuff I was doing, a story I was writing, a book I'd just read -- and the interview got way off track on account of the "boring" stuff: books that weren't written by Tolkien, films that didn't have to do with Hobbits and wizards, ideas that had nothing to do with anime, Microsoft, or Linux.:)
Well, as someone who actually thought a little bit about this potential problem *before* the dot-com bubble burst, I'll add my two cents and that students these days could do worse than to do what I did:
BA in English/Comp Sci MA in Comp Sci MFA in Fiction
The result? Lots of jobs. I switch between technical writing, article writing, and programming. I've published stories, am working on a novel, and just sold a one-act play to a regional theater. I code in ASP/CF/PHP and C#. And I love every bit of it -- coding, writing, and thinking. It all comes from the same place deep inside my brain, and I often tell folks that there's not much difference between writing a short story or coding a project under a deadline. The adrenaline flows, the creative energies get harnassed, and the subconscious does some wild and wacky shit.
And all of this came about because of an off-hand remark I once heard in a VAX assembly language language class by the prof: he assured us (eager college freshmen) that math and science students in particular should put their egos in check and their noses in books -- non-science books. Stuff like Plato and Milton and Dante -- the so-called "useless" stuff that most compsci students poopoo and claim they don't have time to read. Four years spent reading the "boring" stuff can lead to all sorts of minor and major personal epiphanies.
I'm not saying this is the answer, but it certainly is a solution. The coolest part about it is that people are actually impressed when you tell them you can code in C# and are writing short fiction as a "side project".
Everybody in the tech industry seems to want writers -- folks who can understand the technical side and then explain it simply and clearly. In fact, people go out of their way to express their admiration for this sort of talent.
Now, I'm not here to fan the flames and start another liberal arts versus sci-tech debate. But I will say that having my feet firmly planted in both sides has made things a *lot* easier. There is no shortage of jobs, people respect me, pay me well, and call upon me when the hardcore compsci folks can't get their brains out of "tunnel-vision" mode and their creative energies revved.
You know, all this "safe internet" shit really bothers me. I'm tired of "kids" movies. I'm tired of "kids" television. I'm tired of hearing everybody kow-towing (is that how that's spelled?) to kids.
All, right, yes, yes, yes: kids are important. I know that. I don't deny that. But for fuck's sake: I'm important, too. And while my idea of decent entertainment isn't hardcore porn 24/7, it's not the teletubbies either. It's not Blues Clues. And it's not all the shit that the networks pimp out during their "safe hours."
I watch the Sopranos because it's entertaining. I don't give a rat's ass if it's goddamn offensive, because life is fucking offensive. Sadaam Hussein is fucking offensive.
Fundamentalist religious idiots offend me. I'm offended by Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, all the right-wing religious zealots who appear on late-night cable and who have -- I'll say this now because it's been on my mind for years -- the weirdest fucking hair-dos I have ever seen.
What is it with these wacko Christian fudamentalists? What's with the hair? Why does all their hair -- men, women, it doesn't matter -- swoop and wave and look like Donald Trump on acid?
Speaking of which, Donald Trump offends me.
Bin Laden offends me.
All this terrorism shit offends me. And, no, one man's freedom fighter is not another man's terrorist. If you fucking kill civilians -- innocent men, women, and children -- you're a goddamn terrorist. And you offend me. I don't give a fuck if you think the civilians are paying taxes to the evil government. You don't go killing people who can't defend themselves. Period. If you wanna blow shit up, put on a goddamn uniform, grab your rusty-ass Kalishnikovs, and goddamn claim a fucking state to be your backer. But don't hide in the fucking shadows.
I'm tired of the Anti-Americanism. True, America is big and bad and loud. But we're not the *SOLE* cause of misery in the world. I'm tired of nations who just blame, blame, blame and don't accept even a modicum of responsiblity.
I'm offended by the local news. I'm offended by dippy newscasters who worry about whether or not their colleagues have given them a good "segue" to talk about the next story. Because (a) no one except dippy newscasters give a fuck about "segues" and (b) no one but dippy newscasters tease their fucking audience so much and after *every* fucking segment.
"But will this beautiful weather last? Tune in at 10!"
"But will the snow come? Tune in at 10!"
That offends me. Local news and the way they manipulate you. Not all media offends me. I like the New York Times. But the Chicago Tribune is a fucking joke. There's *nothing* to read in the Tribune. It's like some goddamn newspaper for fifth graders.
Bob Greene creeped me out. But he's gone now. I knew he was bad news years and years ago. I'm disappointed it took this long to toss his ass out of the cubicle and onto the pavement.
I miss Mike Royko. I like eating lunch at the Billy Goat Tavern. I like cheesburgers and Pepsi. So fucking sue me. I like the grease on the burgers.
And I like White Castle. Bring it on, motherfucker. I'll take that bag of fifteen sliders. Sure, I'll get sick after I eat it and shorten my lifespan, but I'd rather shorten my fucking lifespan in one moment of enjoyment than worry about it being prematurely shortened by the four tons of VX that Sadaam has hidden in some Libyan bunker that'll get wheeled out and shipped back to Iraq once the shooting starts.
My point? Life is offensive. Suck it up. I watched my share of Sesame Street and Electric Company and Mr. Rogers, but that's fine. Those shows were there for me. And I appreciated it. Just like Blues Clues and those fucking weird-ass teletubbies "Teletubby Bye Bye" are there, too. But give folks a break. Not everything has to be kid safe.
ANd now, on-topic:
The concept of an internet community is bullshit. AOL was never a goddamn community. It was dirty chat. Who here hasn't dirty chatted on AOL? No one.
And who here realized after you dirty chatting you were chatting to some legless freak that was just duping your sorry ass into thinking, well, maybe this dirty chat stuff isn't so bad after all?
Hell, I remember when AOL started and they charged by the hour. I ran up a goddamn huge ass bill on account of my pud-whacking chats to legless freaks of (most likely) both, neither, either, or sexes. God knows who I was talking to. But, the idea of a community is bullshit. It was just a place to talk dirty and hope for the best.
Cross your fingers, maybe this freak is the girl/guy/whatever of your dreams. But of course it wasn't, and you immediately knew it when, after pressing for more information, you received the IM that said, "Well, wait. Listen. There's something you should know."
Besides, if you want "safe" communities, there's the real world. Don't mistake virtual pudwhacking for real world social interaction. It never was, is, or will be. It's every man and women for themselves, god save the queen, hold your nose, because here I come, baby.
Everybody whacks their puds, lets be honest. But lets at least stand up and like that guy in Network say, "I'm mad as hell and not going to take it anymore." At least not in the virtual wastelands like AOL.
Which brings me to a slightly off-topic question (but not that far off-topic): won't it take just a single compomised DRM file on whatever platform to completely send the whole DRM concept -- at least the generation with the single compromised file -- down the toilet?
I mean, it would seem to me that Microsoft's DRM -- or DRM in general -- is based somewhat on "human" trust. Once that trust is abrogated -- just once -- the whole thing spirals into a "well, it's still pretty secure" type of situation -- and then sprials into "wait'll next generation's DRM. It'll be secure as hell."
I know no cryto scheme is 100% -- at least in theory -- but because the consumer/DRM stuff is being built up and hyped so much lately, it seems that its potential -- potential for complete security, potential for complete failure -- far outstrips the more practical, usability/crackability aspects.
And then I wonder: once this sort of consumer/DRM is launched mainstream, it'll become -- eventually -- embedded into the economic model for distribution. But once this DRM stuff is cracked or broken or whatever happens, the DRM itself will fall apart, as well the economic model. And companies who go balls-out to invest in this stuff -- and work hard to secure the "human" trust aspect of it -- will be in dire, dire straits -- economically, technologically, you name it.
DRM is like a massive WMD waiting to be let loose. It's failure -- assuming it fails at least once a generation -- will sink more companies than I think anyone realizes.
About two or three years ago, Hughes bought out Telocity and rebranded Telocity as DirecTV DSL.
It was about that same time that (IIRC) Rhythms went under. Anyway, I remember I had something like 30 days to find another DSL provider because Telocity (now DirecTV) would no longer run on my Rhythms line. Too bad -- because it was SDSL 1500/1500. Pretty nice speed actually.
Anyway, I ended up going to Speakeasy and haven't had a problem. I pay twice as much, though -- almost 100 bucks a month.
Nor do they realize that the advertisements I've found lately on my TIVO -- the recent stuff from BestBuy, the BMWFilms (http://www.bmwfilms.com), the James Bond 007 shorts -- are actually pretty good.
In fact, everytime I get an advertisement pumped down to my DirecTIVO, I actually watch it. And while I understand that, yes, they're advertisements -- they're pretty damn good.
A couple days ago we watched the BestBuy how-to spot -- how they made the little five second graphic at the end of the BB commercials -- and I found pretty interesting.
And of course the BMWfilms are awesome. Completely, utterly fantastic. The recent one -- the one shot by Tony Scott (brother of Ridley) with Gary Oldman and James Brown is fucking fantastic. It's the best damn eight minutes of film I've seen in about a year. Weird, chaotic, creepy -- and basically an extended advertisement for BMW, but damn -- the films (for the most part) are intelligent, cool, and fun to watch.
If the cable companies would realize -- especially if they're concerned with ad revenue -- that "intelligent, cool, and fun" are three keys to successful advertising, they'd be a lot less concerned about the smokescreen stuff like the "rise of the PVR."
The end of DRM will the following:
Microsoft, working in concert with the Big 5 record labels, will begin to deliver content in the form of stainless steel balls. Sort of like BBs, but bigger.
They will insist that these steel balls are, in fact, music. "Believe us," they'll say, "we thought long and hard about this one."
The steel balls will, however, confuse consumers. "I don't know," they'll say, "I can't hear anything."
But the labels will insist that the steel balls work fine. "They're music," Hilary Rosen will say, "but they're copy protected."
"It's foolproof," Jack Valenti will say, and then -- a few months later -- introduce his own version of the steel music balls: plastic video pyramids. Each pyramid will be about three inches high, black plastic, and weigh about three ounces.
"Microsoft helped us with the protection algorithm," he'll announce. "In fact, they're so secure not even Microsoft's new operating system can play the video. But trust us, these videos look great."
Confused consumers will be seen walking around with steel balls and plastic pyramids. "I don't know," they'll say, "I haven't seen anything yet, but I look forward to it."
Another music lover will admit to liking the way the steel balls feel. "They're so smooth and lovely. Perfect."
"The Register" will point out that the balls are not, in fact, perfectly spherical. "There are tiny, minute imprecise abrasions. But to the naked eye they'll look pretty nice."
Posters on Slashdot.com will claim that they've not yet cracked their steel balls and enabled the music. "It's in there," a Slashdot poster named Borg2Soon will say, "I've set up a Linux box to play the steel balls."
The plastic pyramids are a bit more diffucult since they take up more space and aren't as portable as the steel balls. "You can't carry as many pyramids around at one time," John C. Dvorak will say.
The Screensavers Patrick Norton will be dubious. "Well, I'm not sure why they made the music into steel balls. I liked the normal files."
The screensavers Yoshi will design a case-mod in which users can place up to one thousand balls and fifteen pyramids. "It's a wicked mod," Yoshi will say.
Thousands will build the mod. Millions will praise the balls. "But not the pyramids. I don't like the pyramids."
John C. Dvorak will wonder why they just couldn't have made the pyramids plastic balls instead of plastic pyramids. "Come on, Microsoft," Dvorak will chide, "not everyone has room for all these pyramids."
Microsoft's stock will skyrocket. Amazon will merge with Starbucks. They'll rename the new store 'Pequod.'
The White Whale will be spotted. "Balls!" Ahab will shout.
Slashdot Mirror
First, I would remind myself to turn off javascript when javascript becomes available. Then, I would tell myself not to click at http://superfun.30e.com(because javascript is worse than the goatsex thing).
First, the big one:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=48618&cid=4932 568
Here's one that got all sorts of moderation but no replies. I think it's because (a) folks didn't get it and (b) folks thought it might be serious but weren't sure:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=53775&cid=5297 126
And this one was just bizarre:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=47032&cid=4827 381
I have more examples. Feel free to use them. But please credit me.
Now, I've not always considered myself and idiot, but lately I've come to believe that's the case. For example, I find myself monitoring the North Korean News Agency and actually expecting to find news. I did, however, find this:
Symatic Antivirus Policy Flailed
Pyongyang, February 14 (KCNA) -- The DPRK calls upon the Symantic "corporation" to behave itself. Unchecked viral aggression under the guise of helpful support is obvious to all but the US warmongers. The peace of all nations is it at stake, and it should be noted that the so-called "Slammer" worm was an effort by imperialists to stifle the peace-loving livelihoods of the DPRK.
Now that the guise is unmasked, no one but war mongers see the clear provocations. The DPRK reminds the US that such clear efforts to undermine stability on the peninsula by allowing servers to go "unplugged" and "unfixed" merely underscore the fragile nature of the current nuclear-war situation.
Rhodes wrote a fantastic sequel, too: "Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb."
Dark Sun is even more fascinating -- and more ominous. The idea seemed to be in the 50s and 60s to keep making bigger and bigger bombs. Some of the photographs of the test shots are amazing.
Also, if you're reading this stuff, by all means check out the play "Copenhagen" by Michael Frayn. It details a meeting between Bohr (a Dane) and Heisenberg (a German) in the middle of the war. The text is pretty engaging -- both for the questions it asks (Why did Heisenberg visit Bohr? Was he trying to figure out what Bohr new about the American atomic programs) and for the background it offers about the beginnings of atomic energy. Highly recommended.
This is off-topic, but I add it because I find it fascinating: but one of the topics touched upon in 'Copenhagen' is the fact that the Germans, apparently, had constructed a reactor in Germany and where literally days away from activating it (without any safety precautions or control mechanisms) when the Allies came crashing through and destroyed it. Why this incident hasn't been made into a film -- even a crappy Bruce Willis/Stallone film -- is beyond me. It's absolutely fascinating -- the idea that the Allies may or may not have know about the reactor but were lucky enough to catch it just before it went live. The reactor was constructed at the bottom of a mountain in a deep cave. It's amazing, actually. Frayn touches upon it in his play when Bohr reminds Heisenberg -- like something straight out of a Bruce Willis movie, in fact -- that had they successfully activated the reactor, there was no mechanism to slow or even control the reaction. It could have conceivably gotten completely out of control. Absolutely frightning.
Hostile Microsoft Policy Flailed
Pyongyang, February 14 (KCNA) -- The hostile policy of the Microsoft "corporation" has been assailed. It is none other than Microsoft imperialists in the lunatic guise of US imperialists who flagrantly attempt to defend interests none other than there own.
Noting that this guise has been seen through, the DPRK urges Microsoft to behave itself. Meanwhile, Microsoft continues its flagrant "embrace" and "extend" operations to incorporate none other than Apple "Macintosh". It must be understood that such moves are obvious to all but the aggressors. Until a peace treaty is ratified by the US war mongers, the DPRK continues to step up its careful preparations for full scale nuclear war. This is but more proof of the agressors real intentions.
Anecdote about Kim Jong Il
Pyongyang, February 14 (KCNA) -- Kim Jong Il took a walk on the grounds of a military academy and saw that many of his people were without valentines. He stayed up for two nights straight in order to get valentines for his beloved people. He then called his friends in Montenegro to send over some sex slaves. When the slaves arrived, Kim Jong Il toasted them with Hennessy VSOP cognac and a lobster feast and then brought them over to the factory.
But when Kim Jong Il and sex slaves arrived, they saw that all the workers had perished due to the cold winter and lack of heat. Kim Jong Il toasted his beloved people with more Hennessey VSOP and had another lobster feast and then ordered the slaves back to the house for a party.
Dragon's Lair Neagativity Assailed
Pyongyang, February 12 (KCNA) -- The US conspiracy in criticizing 'Dragon's Lair 3D' clearly proves that the U.S. is making absurd pretexts for overtaking DPRK fun with nuclear force, if necessary. It is all the more ridiculous when beloved Dirk the Daring is used by US war-mongers to enhance negative feelings among the the world's gamers.
The US remains committed to "secret" plans to topple the DPRK and criticism of fun-loving video games is just but one transparent ploy in the war-mongers game of double-standards.
The US should "pull out" all troops from South Korea and engage in proper dialogue. Until the US video mongers offer DPRK a non-aggression treaty signed by all congress members, the so-called "nuclear issue" of "Dirk the Daring" will not be settled.
Anecdote about Kim Jong IlPyongyang, February 12 (KCNA) -- In 1988, General Secretary Kim Jong Il visited a factory where people were very cold and had little food. He saw that there were no video games and suggested that fifteen minutes of proper video gaming would strengthen deeply cherished feelings and love of the country.
Seeing no video games available, however, General Secretary Kim Jong Il stayed up for two straight nights in order to give his beloved workers proper fun. Finally, General Secretary Kim Jong Il called upon his Libyan friends to deliver three cases of counterfeit Mickey Mouse cups for the workers. Seeing the cups, the workers were very pleased and held a toast with empty cups to their dear leader with their new cups. General Secretary Kim Jong Il hoped that although the cups weren't video game they would understand the spirit of the video games and to be entertained and enlightened nonetheless.
Gift?
I mean, just because you disdain financial institutions doesn't mean you can't give groovy gifts to your kid.
Slightly, OT:
I'm impressed you're managing to live without financial institutions. But are you pulling a Tony Soprano and stashing cash around the house? In the compost bin? Up in the attic?
I mean, at some point, the volume of green must get a little overwhelming. (Unless you give a lot of gifts and don't let the green accumulate.)
Good review, but I'm curious: how do you give up an "education?" I mean, you can decide not to continue with an education, but the theory is (I hope) that once you have it, education sorta -- more or less -- sticks. Although this might not apply if you're an idiot.
And who adds "(c. 1991)" to their notes?
Yeah, whenever I jot something down, I'm always sure to add "c. 2003" -- just in case.
I'm surprised Slashdot got suckered in by this guy.
Well, no, I'm not surprised.
Hey, I had this idea for an on-line auction house after I read Thomas Pynchons 'Crying of Lot 49'. First I figured 'eLot' but then I though, nah, 'eBay' would be much more appropriate.
OMG!!!!
Childhood flashback.
Playing the 'Sears' version of Atari on Saturday afternoons at the mall.
Space Invaders.
Combat.
Standing around in the back of the Sears by the lawnmowers and the garden supplies where they had the Atari set-up.
Get tired of playing, head on down to Aladdin's Castle to play Donkey Kong, Pac Man, and Tron.
Then off to Radio Shack to fiddle with the TRS-80's and the acoustically-coupled 300 baud modem. Meet some curly haired guy named 'Eberle' in the TRS-80 section who managed to have *every* TRS-80 game in existence -- Asylum I, Zork, Death Maze 5000, you name it.
Teach myself BASIC on the TRS-80 Model III.
Then off to Orange Julius.
Then bike ride home.
Play D&D in the evening. Talk about the new 'module' you're writing. Talk about getting some more modules. Talk about Grayhawk.
Childhood was so simple. Malls, computers, orange julius', and Gary Gygax.
Are you for real? WorldCom is an interesting failure? WorldCom and Enron are like every other failure. You have a bunch of dumn executives attempting to swindle the so-called "little" people. I'm not sure what's so interesting about that.
What's interesting to me, at least, is a spectacular flameout like WebVan -- the company that was drilled hard into the ground by a dumb CEO who managed to get himself a multi-million dollar pension for twenty years. Company goes out of business, but the CEO -- a dumb old guy -- is making millions. Now, maybe some folks consider him a "smart" guy if he's making millions, but whatever.
Still the dot-com stuff is fascinating -- how so many people can fuck up so much shit. It boggles the mind. I mean, it's like all the gold mines out west that went out of business. The gold was there -- or tiny bits of it, at least -- but they didn't have the money or the time or the smarts to be able to capitalize on it.
WorldCom and Enron? Give me a break. That's old school, old-white-guy swindling. It's the same corporate greed that's gone on for years. What, Mrs. Kenneth Lay goes on television and talks to a TV interviewer and says they have "nothing" and that they're broke? Please. I got nothing, I'm broke, but I live like I have nothing and am broke. I don't wear Versace suits or have a wife with Ferragamo pumps. I don't have six houses scattered throughout the country and can't interest any interviewer from ABC to come and sit with me in my living room to talk about how broke I am.
And why? Because my story about being broke is like every story about being broke. It's a tough world out there. Sob sob sob.
It's like Alec Baldwin in 'Glengarry Glen Ross' come from Mitch and Murray downtown to get the sales force motivated. First place, a nice new Cadillac. Second place? Steak knives. Third place? You're fired.
What does it take?
It takes these -- and Alec lets a pair of brass balls hang low -- click, click, baby. Brass fucking balls. Not Versace silk, homes in Aspen, or Swiss watches that cost more than you make in a year.
So give me a break about Enron and WoldCom being interesting. That's old school, with a bunch of dumb old guys in charge. More homes in Veil and Aspen. Big fucking deal. Kenneth Lay looks like Billy Bob Thornton with a haircut and is as slow and dimwitted as they come. Him and his Andrew "Fast Eddie" Fastow, the sleek looking accountant who probably tells all his secretaries that people often mistake him for Richard Gere.
Turn on something like Startup.com -- the film about Kozmo.com and the annoying guy that ran it -- and that's interesting. It's fascinating to see how people took hold of the cultural hot buttons and then attempted to cultify it in order to make money and gain leverage.
That's what the dot-com "boom" was -- one big cult, brainwashes free-of-charge, with a bunch of gullible young people grasping for straws in a world that was paying no attention to Bin Laden, loose nukes, and the silent, gathering anti-Americanism roiling up like a tsunami across the globe.
Enron and WorldCom are just a bunch of old-school, bad-luck, corporate nightmares with the same old-school, bad-luck lessons to be learned. What's interesting in that? That people gave a fuck?
Please.
Actually, the networks aren't afraid of copies. They're afraid of *perfect* copies.
... Grrrr!" Valenti goes on and on about the danger of "perfect" copies. I've seen him speak twice -- a amazingly underwhelming experience -- and find him to be much to old to actually "get" what's going on.
s o-I-have-something-to-fuck-on-weekends executives will be a helluva lot *more* worried if one day we wake up to see goofy Donald Rumsfield breaking into 'Days of Our Lives' to tell us that we've just stopped and boarded an unflagged North Korean tanker headed for an unspecified port with 100 kilograms of plutonium on board.
Hence, the fear of digital.
Geriatric Jack "Maddog
He doesn't get what's going on. His staff does, but he's the spokesperson, and he's not a very good one. Valenti is much more interesting -- and actually engaging -- when he talks about his time in the Kennedy (that's right, JFK) White House.
But this digital stuff -- and the fear that Valenti loves to spread -- just doesn't resonate when Valenti is doing the talking. He's like some old guy talking about "The Pink Floyd" while watching a PF video and then pointing, saying, "Is that Pink? Is that guy Pink?"
He's the sort of guy that would do the much-maligned "Funky White Guy" dance -- squinting, sorta pursing his lips, lifting his hands, and trying to shake once or twice to the beat. It's not only not effective, but it's not funny. It's abymsal, in fact, and that's exactly the sort of aura that Valenti projects among the 20/30/early 40 crowd -- at least when he's doing his public speaking thing.
People look at him and have this: "Is this guy for fucking real?" look. We all clap politely but know nothing's gonna change until he takes his retirement, leases that new Lexus, and heads out to Tuscon or Phoenix or Palm Desert or wherever has-beens go to relax and prune-out.
The other issue -- at least when I saw him speak -- was the fact that Valenti was talking about digital copying as if it were a fate worse than terrorism. I mean, for fuck's sake, let's be real.
The neo-Islamo-fascist weapons trade is serious.
Kim "Look at my lofty bouffant hair-do" Il-Jung proliferating his plutonium and U-235 is serious.
Angry Chechen mobsters with lead-lined cannisters that are warm to the touch are serious.
But a copy of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" -- even if it's a perfect copy -- is not serious.
Yes, yes, I understand that a good portion of media America is concerned and worried about "proliferation" of perfect copies. But believe me, that same group of Italian-suit-wearing-hire-me-a-nice-young-intern-
And the other issue with Valenti is that the word "compromise" is simply not in his vocabulary. Several folks asked him about whether or not he could find a "happpy medium" and his response was always, no, digital copies must be protected. Period.
So he didn't score any points -- at least not with me and booze-whores I hang out with.
Shouldn't this book be free? And where are all the photographs? Shouldn't they be free, too?
Two years I went to Burning Man and got violently ill. It was too fucking hot, and I ate too much roasted papaya. A doctor in nearby Ralston, Nevada made me wait for hours in a tiny waiting room. There were no windows, no white sheets of protective paper on the prep table, and only a single mason jar full of tongue dispensers. On the wall was a calendar from 1977.
Anyway, this doctor -- he was an old guy, maybe in his 70's -- took all kinds of blood tests, urine samples, you name it -- but said, finally, it was a bad papaya. He advised me to pack up my shit and head home.
And then, just as I was putting my clothes on -- I'm not kidding -- he launched into a speech about hippies in the 1960s and how his son fought in Vietnam and how when his son came home, nothing was ever right in his son's head. He claimed that these burning people -- that's what he called them 'burning people' -- were hippie wanna-be's too young to protest in Vietnam and too dumn to understand the thing they shoulda be protesting was Ho Chi Minh, not the US government. I asked him: did he vote for Nixon? He said, yeah, he sure did, and then I reminded him that Nixon was just this side of a wack-job.
The doctor didn't like that and ordered me to leave his waiting room. I grabbed my shirt and shoes and shorts and on the way out wondered if he was going to give me anything for my stomach.
"Give you what?" he yelled. "You fucking peacenik."
I said, wait a minute hoss, I'm no peacenik. I came here under the assumption that guys like you were bound by the oath of hippocrates to help out all the peaceniks and hippies and burning man washouts.
He said to hell with that and said he didn't want to see me in his office again. I brought shame to him and his son.
"My son," he yelled at me as I walking across the parking, "fought for hippies like you. He was in Marine and got a piece of NVA shrapnel in his arm which corroded and rusted and caused a rot that nearly ate off his whole arm."
I yelled back: Where's your son now, old man?
He said he's in a VA hospital in Galveston. His arm is shot, he smells bad, and he has a drinking problem.
"So much for Vietnam, then," I yelled, got in my car, and fishtailed out of the parking lot. I stopped at a drugstore down the street and picked up a bottle of Milk of Magnesia, and spent the night in a little motel in Henderson, Nevada. I puked a couple more times, but all was well the following morning.
I put a couple dollars worth of quarters into a couple of old slot machines, and won enough money to get me across the desert and into Idlewild -- another hippie-type community at the foot of the San Jacinto mountains. Last I heard, my father was supposed to live there, but when I went to the address I had for him, the house was occupied by a woman named Sylvia who threw pots and knitted sweaters. She invited me to stay for supper and told me that she knew my father but had no idea where he left when he moved out.
Anyway, I drove around the desert for a couple more days, then headed back east. I work at a tech company, so I was glad to get back home.
All in all, my own Burning Man experience was a disappointment. Months later, however, I got a bill from the doctor who treated me in Ralston. He charged my three hundred dollars for the office visit.
I wrote 'Fuck You' across the bill and sent it back.
>> No grip, we told her. Just us camera guys, the producer, and Ray Ray the director. "Then Ray Ray," she'd scream. "Let me fuck a man named Ray Ray."
This is off-topic, but why are the best comments -- the funniest -- oftentimes posted by Anonymous Cowards? This comment -- the whole thing about the grip and the bottled sweat -- is bizarre and disturbing. Isn't there some sort of "off-topic but interesting" mod option?
On-topic, my question: now that DRM is more ubiquitous, how do figure out whether or not the CD is at fault or the player? I mean, how do you know whether or not the Brookstone player you mention is actually bad?
I'm finding, actually, that while CDs are being mucked and fussed with, the quality of new CD players is actually going down. Components I bought years ago seem more rugged -- and able to play more CDs -- than recent stuff.
Just this once? Pretty please?
Besides, in some sick perverse way I feel vindicated. And I just had to share my joy. I love it when these slashdot topics come around. "Geeks bemoan the demise of XXXXX."
Thing is, the job market *is* in a lull, but if some folks woulda spent their college years just testing the waters instead of on-the-job-fingers-crossed-training some folks wouldn't be in such dire straits.
There's a guy who claims majoring in English is dumb. He's posting in this thread. He's the sort of guy I feel sorry for. But he's also the sort of guy, I think, my compsci teacher was talking about -- the guy who all he needs to do is check his ego a bit and realize that the world's a big place and you -- a human being with loads of potential -- don't need to limit yourself to simple math and science courses.
It's weird how when I look back at college, I find my best compsci teachers were, indeed, the most literate teachers. There was one guy who read all of Dickens every year. Another guy taught himself a new language every year. I remember I happened to be in one of his courses during the year he was learning Latin and had to put up with loads of these weird Latin quotations he'd put everywhere. Flash forward ten years and I'm stuck in a super-intense Latin 101 course for grad students who need to learn a foreign language pronto course, and I realized why my little bald compsci teacher was so gungho for conjugation and for quoting Virgil at every turn: you realize that in some weird -- perhaps even unconscious -- way everything that you force yourself to learn *outside* of your chosen "track" actually feeds *into* that track and makes you wild, creative, and utterly un-fucking-predictable. You scare yourself, scare your friends, and you realize, damn, dude, just chill. Cool it on the caffeine and espresso because if you get too juiced with the creative jazz -- if you make too many connections -- leaping from liberal arts shit to comp-sci shit to physics shit -- it's almost overwhelming. The more you learn, the more connections you can make -- and the more creative you become.
You're like one of those little Estes toy rockets on the launchpad when you press the switch but the double-D engine doesn't do anything but hiss. It's that moment where you're not certain what's going to happen. Is it a dud? Or are you gonna approach the pad and have this thing go off in your face? It's thrilling and dangerous and you suddenly realize the power of stuff that you took for granted. So you sorta wait it out. You press the button a few more times just to make sure you didn't maybe not press it right the first time. And it's that moment -- when you think you know what's going to happen but you can't guarantee it -- that's the thrilling moment of expectation and fear when all the connections suddenly vector themselves down to one, single, thrilling point.
I'd add this to my comment above about "dual tracks": I've noticed that I've gotten lots of tech jobs when the hiring manager/recruiter/bossman realizes that I have a life *outside* of computers and programming. I'm not one (usually) to honk my own horn, but I've learned that if you drop hints during an interview that (a) you're an avid reader, (b) an able writer, or (c) a combination of both -- and somehow indicate that your idea of a "good book" isn't simply PHP-Web-Development or WROX's latest .NET tome, the hiring folks seem to feel a lot more at-ease and your "hirability" goes up a few notches.
:)
Often, I get a "you're kidding" comment in interviews:
"My god, you're the first person I've talked to who actually reads Don Delillo." (Insert any contemporary writer here that doesn't write sci-fi or fantasy.)
"My god, I've never interviewed anyone who likes Cormac McCarthy."
"Man, if there were more interviewees who spent time reading Shakespeare, we'd be in better shape."
(Strangely, most of my "you're kidding" comments revolve around reading.)
Now, don't get me wrong. Reading Faulkner or being able to talk up writers like Cormac McCarthy or the latest novel from Jonathan Franzen or DeLillo is no substitute for analytical ability or coding experience. But it indicates (or so I've been told) that you're able to balance a "technical/geeky" lifestyle with a literate lifestyle. People like this. Supervisors envy this. Even though they themselves might not read, they usually profess their admiration for folks that do. And more often than not, this admiration -- or respect -- manifests itself in a successful job interview and a very good chance at the snagging the job.
It's the little shit that matters. Experience is important, but there are a lot of little clues that folks sometimes overlook.
I received one tech writing assignment because I indicated -- through chit-chat before the formal interview -- that I was about to purchase a Leica camera. The interviewer was amazed I wasn't spending the 1200 bucks on a digital camera. "Nah," I explained, and before I knew it, he and I were sharing stories about Leicas and building darkrooms in our basements and the constant "geek worry" of digital-versus-film. The "formal interview" seemed much less important at that point (but was nonetheless pretty intense, as I recall.)
I didn't realize it then, but I think what happened was that interviewer sorta placed me in a distinct "class" of job-seekers -- the guy who might not be the smartest or the most experienced, but the guy who had something interesting to say, a neat background, and a pretty sensible and intelligent attitude about the boring ol' "non-geek" world.
Next day I got a call from the bossman and the job was mine.
Almost all of my jobs -- even one-off writing jobs -- have happened because the interviewer liked my non-work-related experience. He or she was interested in stuff I was doing, a story I was writing, a book I'd just read -- and the interview got way off track on account of the "boring" stuff: books that weren't written by Tolkien, films that didn't have to do with Hobbits and wizards, ideas that had nothing to do with anime, Microsoft, or Linux.
Well, as someone who actually thought a little bit about this potential problem *before* the dot-com bubble burst, I'll add my two cents and that students these days could do worse than to do what I did:
BA in English/Comp Sci
MA in Comp Sci
MFA in Fiction
The result? Lots of jobs. I switch between technical writing, article writing, and programming. I've published stories, am working on a novel, and just sold a one-act play to a regional theater. I code in ASP/CF/PHP and C#. And I love every bit of it -- coding, writing, and thinking. It all comes from the same place deep inside my brain, and I often tell folks that there's not much difference between writing a short story or coding a project under a deadline. The adrenaline flows, the creative energies get harnassed, and the subconscious does some wild and wacky shit.
And all of this came about because of an off-hand remark I once heard in a VAX assembly language language class by the prof: he assured us (eager college freshmen) that math and science students in particular should put their egos in check and their noses in books -- non-science books. Stuff like Plato and Milton and Dante -- the so-called "useless" stuff that most compsci students poopoo and claim they don't have time to read. Four years spent reading the "boring" stuff can lead to all sorts of minor and major personal epiphanies.
I'm not saying this is the answer, but it certainly is a solution. The coolest part about it is that people are actually impressed when you tell them you can code in C# and are writing short fiction as a "side project".
Everybody in the tech industry seems to want writers -- folks who can understand the technical side and then explain it simply and clearly. In fact, people go out of their way to express their admiration for this sort of talent.
Now, I'm not here to fan the flames and start another liberal arts versus sci-tech debate. But I will say that having my feet firmly planted in both sides has made things a *lot* easier. There is no shortage of jobs, people respect me, pay me well, and call upon me when the hardcore compsci folks can't get their brains out of "tunnel-vision" mode and their creative energies revved.
*shrug*
What exactly is the problem with 'gracious panty shots?'
Yes, you're right.
Thank you.
You know, all this "safe internet" shit really bothers me. I'm tired of "kids" movies. I'm tired of "kids" television. I'm tired of hearing everybody kow-towing (is that how that's spelled?) to kids.
All, right, yes, yes, yes: kids are important. I know that. I don't deny that. But for fuck's sake: I'm important, too. And while my idea of decent entertainment isn't hardcore porn 24/7, it's not the teletubbies either. It's not Blues Clues. And it's not all the shit that the networks pimp out during their "safe hours."
I watch the Sopranos because it's entertaining. I don't give a rat's ass if it's goddamn offensive, because life is fucking offensive. Sadaam Hussein is fucking offensive.
Fundamentalist religious idiots offend me. I'm offended by Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, all the right-wing religious zealots who appear on late-night cable and who have -- I'll say this now because it's been on my mind for years -- the weirdest fucking hair-dos I have ever seen.
What is it with these wacko Christian fudamentalists? What's with the hair? Why does all their hair -- men, women, it doesn't matter -- swoop and wave and look like Donald Trump on acid?
Speaking of which, Donald Trump offends me.
Bin Laden offends me.
All this terrorism shit offends me. And, no, one man's freedom fighter is not another man's terrorist. If you fucking kill civilians -- innocent men, women, and children -- you're a goddamn terrorist. And you offend me. I don't give a fuck if you think the civilians are paying taxes to the evil government. You don't go killing people who can't defend themselves. Period. If you wanna blow shit up, put on a goddamn uniform, grab your rusty-ass Kalishnikovs, and goddamn claim a fucking state to be your backer. But don't hide in the fucking shadows.
I'm tired of the Anti-Americanism. True, America is big and bad and loud. But we're not the *SOLE* cause of misery in the world. I'm tired of nations who just blame, blame, blame and don't accept even a modicum of responsiblity.
I'm offended by the local news. I'm offended by dippy newscasters who worry about whether or not their colleagues have given them a good "segue" to talk about the next story. Because (a) no one except dippy newscasters give a fuck about "segues" and (b) no one but dippy newscasters tease their fucking audience so much and after *every* fucking segment.
"But will this beautiful weather last? Tune in at 10!"
"But will the snow come? Tune in at 10!"
That offends me. Local news and the way they manipulate you. Not all media offends me. I like the New York Times. But the Chicago Tribune is a fucking joke. There's *nothing* to read in the Tribune. It's like some goddamn newspaper for fifth graders.
Bob Greene creeped me out. But he's gone now. I knew he was bad news years and years ago. I'm disappointed it took this long to toss his ass out of the cubicle and onto the pavement.
I miss Mike Royko. I like eating lunch at the Billy Goat Tavern. I like cheesburgers and Pepsi. So fucking sue me. I like the grease on the burgers.
And I like White Castle. Bring it on, motherfucker. I'll take that bag of fifteen sliders. Sure, I'll get sick after I eat it and shorten my lifespan, but I'd rather shorten my fucking lifespan in one moment of enjoyment than worry about it being prematurely shortened by the four tons of VX that Sadaam has hidden in some Libyan bunker that'll get wheeled out and shipped back to Iraq once the shooting starts.
My point? Life is offensive. Suck it up. I watched my share of Sesame Street and Electric Company and Mr. Rogers, but that's fine. Those shows were there for me. And I appreciated it. Just like Blues Clues and those fucking weird-ass teletubbies "Teletubby Bye Bye" are there, too. But give folks a break. Not everything has to be kid safe.
ANd now, on-topic:
The concept of an internet community is bullshit. AOL was never a goddamn community. It was dirty chat. Who here hasn't dirty chatted on AOL? No one.
And who here realized after you dirty chatting you were chatting to some legless freak that was just duping your sorry ass into thinking, well, maybe this dirty chat stuff isn't so bad after all?
Hell, I remember when AOL started and they charged by the hour. I ran up a goddamn huge ass bill on account of my pud-whacking chats to legless freaks of (most likely) both, neither, either, or sexes. God knows who I was talking to. But, the idea of a community is bullshit. It was just a place to talk dirty and hope for the best.
Cross your fingers, maybe this freak is the girl/guy/whatever of your dreams. But of course it wasn't, and you immediately knew it when, after pressing for more information, you received the IM that said, "Well, wait. Listen. There's something you should know."
Besides, if you want "safe" communities, there's the real world. Don't mistake virtual pudwhacking for real world social interaction. It never was, is, or will be. It's every man and women for themselves, god save the queen, hold your nose, because here I come, baby.
Everybody whacks their puds, lets be honest. But lets at least stand up and like that guy in Network say, "I'm mad as hell and not going to take it anymore." At least not in the virtual wastelands like AOL.
Which brings me to a slightly off-topic question (but not that far off-topic): won't it take just a single compomised DRM file on whatever platform to completely send the whole DRM concept -- at least the generation with the single compromised file -- down the toilet?
I mean, it would seem to me that Microsoft's DRM -- or DRM in general -- is based somewhat on "human" trust. Once that trust is abrogated -- just once -- the whole thing spirals into a "well, it's still pretty secure" type of situation -- and then sprials into "wait'll next generation's DRM. It'll be secure as hell."
I know no cryto scheme is 100% -- at least in theory -- but because the consumer/DRM stuff is being built up and hyped so much lately, it seems that its potential -- potential for complete security, potential for complete failure -- far outstrips the more practical, usability/crackability aspects.
And then I wonder: once this sort of consumer/DRM is launched mainstream, it'll become -- eventually -- embedded into the economic model for distribution. But once this DRM stuff is cracked or broken or whatever happens, the DRM itself will fall apart, as well the economic model. And companies who go balls-out to invest in this stuff -- and work hard to secure the "human" trust aspect of it -- will be in dire, dire straits -- economically, technologically, you name it.
DRM is like a massive WMD waiting to be let loose. It's failure -- assuming it fails at least once a generation -- will sink more companies than I think anyone realizes.
Just some thoughts.
About two or three years ago, Hughes bought out Telocity and rebranded Telocity as DirecTV DSL.
It was about that same time that (IIRC) Rhythms went under. Anyway, I remember I had something like 30 days to find another DSL provider because Telocity (now DirecTV) would no longer run on my Rhythms line. Too bad -- because it was SDSL 1500/1500. Pretty nice speed actually.
Anyway, I ended up going to Speakeasy and haven't had a problem. I pay twice as much, though -- almost 100 bucks a month.
*shrug*
So it goes.
Nor do they realize that the advertisements I've found lately on my TIVO -- the recent stuff from BestBuy, the BMWFilms (http://www.bmwfilms.com), the James Bond 007 shorts -- are actually pretty good.
In fact, everytime I get an advertisement pumped down to my DirecTIVO, I actually watch it. And while I understand that, yes, they're advertisements -- they're pretty damn good.
A couple days ago we watched the BestBuy how-to spot -- how they made the little five second graphic at the end of the BB commercials -- and I found pretty interesting.
And of course the BMWfilms are awesome. Completely, utterly fantastic. The recent one -- the one shot by Tony Scott (brother of Ridley) with Gary Oldman and James Brown is fucking fantastic. It's the best damn eight minutes of film I've seen in about a year. Weird, chaotic, creepy -- and basically an extended advertisement for BMW, but damn -- the films (for the most part) are intelligent, cool, and fun to watch.
If the cable companies would realize -- especially if they're concerned with ad revenue -- that "intelligent, cool, and fun" are three keys to successful advertising, they'd be a lot less concerned about the smokescreen stuff like the "rise of the PVR."
The end of DRM will the following: Microsoft, working in concert with the Big 5 record labels, will begin to deliver content in the form of stainless steel balls. Sort of like BBs, but bigger. They will insist that these steel balls are, in fact, music. "Believe us," they'll say, "we thought long and hard about this one." The steel balls will, however, confuse consumers. "I don't know," they'll say, "I can't hear anything." But the labels will insist that the steel balls work fine. "They're music," Hilary Rosen will say, "but they're copy protected." "It's foolproof," Jack Valenti will say, and then -- a few months later -- introduce his own version of the steel music balls: plastic video pyramids. Each pyramid will be about three inches high, black plastic, and weigh about three ounces. "Microsoft helped us with the protection algorithm," he'll announce. "In fact, they're so secure not even Microsoft's new operating system can play the video. But trust us, these videos look great." Confused consumers will be seen walking around with steel balls and plastic pyramids. "I don't know," they'll say, "I haven't seen anything yet, but I look forward to it." Another music lover will admit to liking the way the steel balls feel. "They're so smooth and lovely. Perfect." "The Register" will point out that the balls are not, in fact, perfectly spherical. "There are tiny, minute imprecise abrasions. But to the naked eye they'll look pretty nice." Posters on Slashdot.com will claim that they've not yet cracked their steel balls and enabled the music. "It's in there," a Slashdot poster named Borg2Soon will say, "I've set up a Linux box to play the steel balls." The plastic pyramids are a bit more diffucult since they take up more space and aren't as portable as the steel balls. "You can't carry as many pyramids around at one time," John C. Dvorak will say. The Screensavers Patrick Norton will be dubious. "Well, I'm not sure why they made the music into steel balls. I liked the normal files." The screensavers Yoshi will design a case-mod in which users can place up to one thousand balls and fifteen pyramids. "It's a wicked mod," Yoshi will say. Thousands will build the mod. Millions will praise the balls. "But not the pyramids. I don't like the pyramids." John C. Dvorak will wonder why they just couldn't have made the pyramids plastic balls instead of plastic pyramids. "Come on, Microsoft," Dvorak will chide, "not everyone has room for all these pyramids." Microsoft's stock will skyrocket. Amazon will merge with Starbucks. They'll rename the new store 'Pequod.' The White Whale will be spotted. "Balls!" Ahab will shout.
So what's the real gripe here, then?
That WalMart is pursuing litigation?
Or that WalMart is pursuing litigation under the DMCA?
And was the pricing information private, pilfered, and made public?
Or was the pricing already public?