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World of New Genesis
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- Moloth – The Believer is Happy; the Skeptic is Wise
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More Vernacular from my office…
Coding by Braille: Making changes to logic or layout without being able to see the output.
Cowboy Coding: Coding like the rugged individuals did back in the oft-romanticized days of computer frontiers and lawlessness. No meetings, no committees, no bosses, just you and the vast, uncharted wilderness of a dev environment. Of course, in these ‘civilized’ times, Cowboy Coding is frowned upon at best and is a fire-able offense at worst.
Ninja Coding: Coding in a stealthy or hidden way. Specifically, making changes in a system in such a way as to not alert the users, owners or other developers of that system.
Pirate Coding: A mix of Cowboy and Ninja Coding with an added element of theft or plagiarism. Basically, how most ‘Fast Development’ happens.
Kraken Coding: the only thing that Pirates fear. A massive, system wide change that will have many known effects, but could also have countless, possibly horrific, UNknown effects as well. Named after the immense, multi-tentacled sea monster.ови услуги
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Wisely, it was after High School when one of my oldest friends came out.
I was visiting Chattanooga after being moved away for a few months due to my parents divorce and I was happy to be in the comfortable company of my peers, if even only for a long weekend… I was at his house, in his man/nerd cave of a basement playing video games, reading graphic novels and otherwise just enjoying the good life when he suggested we go out for Chinese. I offered to drive, knowing that he had only his family’s geriatric and temperamental minivan for transportation. He firmly, but quietly, replied “No, its okay. I’ll drive.” I remember thinking it a little strange, but not bizarre, and it quickly left my mind.
Looking back, I can see that he was nervous and preoccupied with something but, at the time, i was not nearly perceptive enough to even guess at what it could have been. Over a heaping plateful of Sweet n’ Sour Chicken, he suddenly blurted out “I’m gay.” I laughed, and being reminded of Nirvana lyrics, chuckled, “yeah, well, aren’t we all?”
Not satisfied with my reaction he tried again, “No, I mean, I’m gay.” With a wonderful amount of patience he looked me in the eye and awaited my further reaction.
“What?”
“I’m gay. Actually gay.”
I laughed again, nervously. I was accustomed to his sense of humor being more advanced than my own and i awaited the impending, if roundabout, punchline.
“Scott, i’m gay.”
It finally started to sunk in. I recall just staring at him, a slightly wary smile on my face. Even though the term didn’t exist at the time, i still was clinging to the notion that i was being Punk’d.
“Really? Like GAY, gay?”
“Yes. I’m really gay.”
It felt like i sat there in silence trying to process this new data for long, long time…. and it must have been, because his patience with my density began to falter, “Dude. Think about it. have i EVER talked about girls? have i EVER mentioned having or wanting a girlfriend?”
Of course, the answer was No. I thought back on the six or seven years i’d known him. Crap. I thought he was just nerdy, more nerdy than me. I suddenly felt like a very bad friend for not picking up on this sooner. As I gathered my thoughts the total picture came together and snapped into sharp focus. So many things suddenly made sense. So many little things… muttered comments, polite declinations of certain social interactions, strange, out-of-the-blue conversations… made sense now.
I met his eye and said, “I want you to know that this, in NO way, changes our friendship or our relationship. So what if you’re gay?”
He was relieved. I asked a few more questions. He told me that if i asked “Aren’t you afraid of getting AIDS and dying?!”, that he’d hit me. I believed him, but the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind.
The whole evening was something of a setup. Smartly, he had done his research. Getting books on gay lifestyle and handbooks titled ‘How to Come Out’, he had planned on who, when and how he’d come out. Not during High School… that woulda been suicide (if not just socially, especially in the South). No, he bode his time and waited until after graduation. He drove, just in case his confidant got upset and left him, stranded. He picked a public place, in order to lessen the possibility of outburst.
Having explained to me how he had planned out the night, i admitted that i was slightly hurt that he had thought that he had to take so many precautions with me… surely, he didnt think i would have reacted in any of those barbaric and insensitive ways. He was just playing it safe and i completely understood. Better safe than sorry The books had told him that people’s reactions are often unpredictable to hearing this revelation.
On the drive back from the restaurant, i was trying to consider all of the ramifications of this development. How will he find a boyfriend? How long had he known? How will his parents react (being old hippies, i’m sure they would be completely okay with it)? Did he come out to me, because he thought I’M gay? Oh, damn… am *I* gay? (after a few moments of self reflection, nope, guess not).
He must have been so lonely, to carry such a secret for so long… to feel that a natural part of he who he was had to be hidden lest people treat him poorly. What a shitty, terrible burden for ANYONE to have to carry. What a shitty world that we live in, that people actually had to worry about being persecuted just for being themselves, in a completely harmless way.
In a certain selfish way, i was proud that he chose me to be the first person to come out to. I felt like i had given the ‘right’ answer… because it was a true and heartfelt reaction. Still mulling over all of the consequences of the evening, i struggled to find some levity. Something finally occurred to me!
“Well, i guess i don’t ever have to worry about my best friend stealing my girl!”
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As they say, it gets better. It does. My friend now has a boyfriend of many years and they have a wonderful home together. I know that the ignorance and bigotry of the world still phases him (how could it not), but he has generally insulated himself from that sort of bullshit. Your real friend won’t care and will support you. Your family will love you no matter what, even if they don’t know how to handle the news. There are others out there that have gone, and are going, through what you are. You’re not alone.
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This is so true for me that its painful.
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I remember, when i was 9-ish, that i had asked my mother what happened to babies that died… She responded that they automatically went to Heaven… within a day, i had reasoned out that the most moral thing a parent could do was to kill their babies as soon as possible, in order to assure their place in eternal Heaven, rather that let them grow up and, possibly, do things that would make them go to Hell. It would be irresponsible of a loving parent to take that kind of gamble with their child’s eternity.
The logic is as sound to me today as it was when i was a kid when i first thought of it. Its no big wonder that i made the conscious decision to be an atheist not much longer after that.
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Guys… there’s, like, a 100% chance im going to move to Sacramento, California in 4 weeks.
My company, IDMI, has a “Policy Tracking System (PTS)” that insurance companies buy/lease from us. We track all of their data… quotes, policies, checks, incidents, claims, state reporting, all of that junk.
Most of the time, the insurance companies just pay is for basic support and the occasional enhancement to their system. other customers, however, are willing to pay extra to have an IDMI employee work exclusively on their system.
One of our customers in CA has two such employees working out there in Sacramento. They’re Cali-local guys that we basically moved to OUR payroll so that they can work on that companies version of our PTS. Well, when one of them was here, at the Warner Robins office, he mentioned how swamped they were with work and how badly they needed someone out there with more experience with the PTS. Someone like me, with my knowledge and my attitude.
I just got back from a 3 day visit out there for the interview, offer and to look for a place to live. All three were successful!
This is a dream come true for me. the timing is perfect. I’ve been dying to get out of Warner Vegas (and GA) for years. I had decided that, with the close of my apartment’s lease this Summer, that i would move… perhaps to ATL, maybe Knoxville, perhaps to North Carolina… hell, maybe even back to my beloved Chattanooga.
But this.. this is perfect: a massive, earth-shaking change. A huge personal and professional opportunity. To northern California (of all places). The guys I’ll be working with are great. They’re smart, hardworking and care about what they’re doing. I’ll be part of a four-man team that runs the entire IT department for a multi-company corporation. My only boss will be the CEO of the company. This is srs biznss. But, you know what? I can do it.
I’ve got a lot of work to do in the next few weeks. I need to pack, tie up loose ends, and spend some time with people that are important to me before I drive cross country, with my beautiful, smart girlfriend, to my new awesome job in Northern California.
Nobody pinch me… i don’t want to wake up.
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It is has been my firm belief,throughout my adult life, that no one really knows what the fuck they’re doing. The entirety of Western Civilization is built upon just keeping your head down and doing your job… there is no ‘uber kontoller’ who is either wisely or connivingly running the show from some mastermind’s vantage point. This is why i laugh at conspiracy theorists.
I know that in my personal and professional life, no one actual knows what they’re doing, yet we all manage to keep putting one foot in front of the other day after day.
In that vein, here is a wonderful article that articulates what it feels like to know that you dont know what the fuck you’re doing… and why thats actually not such a bad thing. http://jangosteve.com/post/380926251/no-one-knows-what-theyre-doing
To really understand how it is that no one knows what they’re doing, we need to understand the three fundamental categories of information.
There’s the shit you know, the shit you know you don’t know, and the shit you don’t know you don’t know.
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I try to not talk too much about WoW… yes, i play it, but i committed to NOT being one of those assholes that talks about it in a conversational way, unless every single person within earshot is as engaged with the subject matter as i am.
That said, the new LFG tool that was implemented a few days ago is a phenomenal system. it excels in function, form and utility. From anywhere in the game, i can queue up for a random Heroic dungeon and it will build a functional team (1 tank, 1 healer, 3 DPS) from people on my server AND ON OTHER SERVERS and, within literal SECONDS, teleport you and your group to the dungeon.
The loot is set to Need before Greed, so there is no debate or argument. Once you complete the dungeon, you get EXTRA badges (used to buy much better equipment) and gold, on TOP OF the regular rewards. Once you leave the dungeon, you’re teleported right back to where you were when you teleported to the dungeon. you can then, if you so choose, get right back into queue for another random run! Its extremely efficient to just chain run several random Heroics in a row now.
its incredibly fun, useful, rewarding and easy.
If anyone has a level 80 WoW character collecting dust and you want to jump back in and get some near immediate upgrades to your gear (which also look awesome) in old and new dungeons, i would HIGHLY recommend coming back for a bit and trying it out!
Remember, if you want to game with me, im on US servers:
Alliance: Shadow Council (Quinn, Gearlocke or Snitchy)
Horde: Hyjal (Orketta)
I’m normally on Ally side, so see ya there!
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You guys, T-Rex totally nails my personal philosophy in his very own comic! AGAIN.
Click here for the totally rad comic!
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Just a heads up… The first decade of the 21st century is almost over.
It’s almost the year 2010. Let that sink in for a moment. Two-thousand and ten. Twenty-ten. We should be diddling with black obelisks in orbit around Jupiter, but instead, we’re stilling trying to figure out if a modern, progressive, technologically advanced nation should be concerned with the health care and well-being of its own citizens.
We’re unlocking new vistas of science and human knowledge, literally blasting apart the very fabric of reality with the Large Hadron Collider. We also still have entire populations living in dirt huts, wasting away on treatable, curable diseases.
The same people voting against the rights of an oppressed minority were once themselves, a mere generation or two ago, oppressed and unable to vote or marry outside their ‘race’.
Obesity is an epidemic on side of the globe and starvation an epidemic on the other.
Does anyone else feel a weird sense of both pride and guilt when looking at the current state of the human condition? I’m incredibly proud of some of humanity’s accomplishments, yet i am still shocked at our failings. The fact that both can be seen right next to each other, in such a stark comparison, leads me to question the true value of all of our bleeding edge advancement. What good is a particle accelerator when there are still people starving in the world?
Yes, we each have our camps, our teams, nations, groups and tribes… and we’re all getting along as best we can with the cards that circumstance has dealt us, but shouldn’t we be more circumspect in our views? Will we ever see the Earth (or, at least our species) as a unique whole?
I mock the “Mega-Churches” in my Southern town… “wow, how many poor people could they have fed with the millions of dollars it took to build that monstrous alter to ego and ignorance?”. Whereas i do not believe the LHC to be an “alter of ego and ignorance” (quite the opposite, actually), i am still forced to apply the same scrutiny and examination. What other (better?) good could have 3 billion Euros done for the world? How many improvements to the infrastructure of our poorest, our most desolate? Before forging ahead, should we stop and help the others that are lagging behind catch up a bit? Which would be the greater good and will have a greater net effect on humanity, as a whole?
I guess i just expected that ALL of humanity could be as impressed with living in 2010 as I am. I understand that i am in a privileged few… barring some catastrophe, i will not starve to death, be killed violently or die due to a common disease. I have my own climate-controlled living space, internet access, video games, all the food i could ever want and unlimited clean water. Fuck, i have an iPhone.
Deep inside, it bothers me that my lifestyle is not really sustainable and that it is built upon the back of the environment and people lower on the socio-economic food chain than me. But what can i do? Play my part, enjoy what circumstance has given me? To deny that is to throw away a good thing, though, right?
I like to think that all of advancement is for the common good, that the end goal is that ALL of humanity can enjoy the cushy lifestyle that i am accustomed to. Maybe by 3010 EVERYONE can be impressed with the arbitrary number of the date as i am now, of 2010.
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I’ve GOT to stop reading the news… Seeing all of the hatred, violence, injustice and idiocy in the world actually drags me down. It really does destroy my faith in humanity.
But, what am i to do? I like to consider myself an informed individual.. because i really DO care about what is going on beyond my immediate observable universe. I am forced to wonder if that’s healthy, though. Perhaps my psyche is merely too fragile (or too able to more fully comprehend the consequences) to handle this stuff without being effected.
Would one be a coward or weak to ‘get away from it all’ by avoiding the horrors of the world (that dont effect one directly anyways)? I suppose its one thing if you’re an individual who can or does make a difference in the world. No one would miss a fry cook, but a scientist working on a cure for cancer or a philanthropist who organizes aid for African refugees might get a backlash if they suddenly abandoned their life and went to go while away the hours in a cabin in the Blue Ridge.
What does it matter if a low-level programmer were to stop caring about the world at large? What would the overall effect BE? There wouldn’t be much of one, i suppose. Perhaps my lack of FOX News would lower my blood pressure. Perhaps not ruminating on the selfishness and lack of respect for human life of corporations and governments would help me sleep better at night. Perhaps NOT getting Jon Stewart’s jokes, and the uncomfortable, dark-humored chuckle they elicit form me, would be something i could get used to.
After all, ignorance is bliss… right?
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The difference between the two is something i’ve dealt with since i was a teenager. Even then, seeing how ‘men’ acted, i decided that i never really wanted to become one. Too unthinking. Too sure. Too closed off to the world and what COULD be. The problem was, i never knew there was an alternative… until now.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/fashion/20love.html
Of course, no one totally fulfills a stereotype. Even my Dad, the man that he is, has his guy-ness. Its that guy-ness that i latch onto, that i connect with him with. His love of music, video games and sometimes gross, sometimes dark, always hilarious, sense of humor. Like my Dad, I ‘man-up’ when its needed. There are hard edifices to my personality and actions at times. I’ll guy-talk all day about philosophy, but i’ll grab a heavy, blunt object and go after some loser who has hurt someone i care for. Its what a man would (should?) do. Its in the job description of my chromosomal makeup and genitalia.
I’m concerned about not being enough of a man. Of course, thats a very guy thing to worry about, isnt it? Maybe if i didnt worry about that, i’d be more of a man and the problem would solve itself. Constant self-examination and self-awareness are key components to my personality, though. A lot of ‘me’ would go away if I were to stop being a ‘guy’.
I need to come to peace with being a mannish guy. Apparently, there are some women that want that.
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