15 Megs of Fame




Diaryland is da bomb I just *have* to tell you how much this all sucks. Who're these other people he's writing about? Who's the freak writing this, anyway? What's gone before. What's going on right now? Where do *you* visit on the web? What're you building right now?


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Another smart-assed remark from Mike
Three snippets, loosely interwoven into a life lesson
18:00:00 on 2003-11-05

Right now we have a contractor in at work trying to get our SMS setup working properly. It's been acting up for some time, and while we still use it, it's not collecting the information we need, it's not updating things properly, and our infrastructure is terrible. Anyway, he's been borged by Microsoft big-time; everything Microsoft is the One True Way.

The guy keeps trying to bait me 'cause he knows I'm an open-source kind of guy.

"What did you think of the story about Red Hat the other day?" he asks, referring to the fact that Red Hat is trying to get rid of their consumer product and go only to enterprise users. It's a sad day, but hardly the end of Linux. Shoot, I'm a Gentoo user - maybe it will pick up more users and get more development.

"It's not a big deal," I say. "Maybe we'll get rid of .RPMs and all the complaints about them finally."

"I think without that, you wouldn't have as many users who could just install something and have it work," he said.

"Maybe those aren't the users that Linux needs," I said, staring into my monitor - I was busy and I'm not into this sort of argument, it's pointless.

"I think Linux wouldn't have gotten as far as it has without those users." I ignored him, because obviously he has no idea that free software existed before Linux, there are umpteen flavors of *nix, and he's just a Microsoft drone anyway.

Later I heard him talking to another coworker about things, and the contractor saying the "good old days" for him were using MS-DOS and running a BBS.

After that, he wonders why I don't respect his opinion? He goes around trying to act like he has the biggest dick on the block when starting with a DOS box is his good old days? I pull far more rank on you, buddy. I started when I was in the single digits on a teletype, several years before the IBM PC existed; I've worked on a lot of hardware, including mainframes and minicomputers; and by the way, I too ran a BBS, but I wrote my own software for one on the Commodore 64 and 128, talking to my users for the 25-40 minute compiles using Blitz! so that it ran with any speed whatsoever.

You're just another Microsoft loser who wants to help the Evil Empire have total control over computing because you don't know any other way. It gets tiring.


The other day we got on the topic of supporting relatives, too.

I ranted. I talked about how people call me all the time, expecting that I support them. "I support things at work - why do they think I want to do it when I get home?"

The Microsoft contractor says, "well, I look at it this way - I was given a gift, so I should share it." Shut the fuck up.

It drains my energy to fix problems other people cause. They break their system, and I'm supposed to swoop in and fix it. Fortunately, making images of their machines helps - hope y'all have some good backups.

It didn't help that a friend of mine asked, "when will you have PD done?" "PD" was a program I was supposed to write for him that would help his gaming clan out a bit with setting up a different map file. I've been dragging my feet, but to tell you the truth, I haven't felt like doing it. I keep putting it off, and putting it off.

Why do I help people, when I won't help myself?


Marilynn and I went to a psychic fair Sunday. When we got there, it was in an old house; this boded ill for me, and it was borne out when we went in and everyone was giving us a hard sell for their new-age wares.

As we were leaving, we gave in and left twenty dollars so we could each get a brief handwriting analysis. The guy said one thing about me that's really made me think - I plan, plan and plan some more, procrastinate, and in the end I have to rush to get anything done. I always do this.


I am going to turn it around. I have to. I am going to clear "PD" off my plate. I'm not doing relative support anymore. I need to spend time and write my code.

I want the weblog to be something like a wiki, but also be blog-like. I've said that for years now. I've got a small plan in my head - just start writing. Do a little functionality. See what comes out. Augment. Update. Improve.

I need to stop looking at it and saying, "how can I ever implement all that?" and just do it. It's a personal thing - have something that works, a work of beauty, even, that is all mine. I want that.

People tell me I'm doing the wrong thing, but they're just haters like the Microsoft loser. The act of creation is divine; I hack code, so this is my realm of creation. It's what I am supposed to do.

restlessmind


Ancient history:
2013-03-01"You'll be stone dead in a moment!"
2007-08-07I covet fuck you money
2007-07-16My own long, dark tea-time of the soul
2007-07-11My internet experience is lacking
2007-07-10Coincidence



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