Category: Things that make you say hmmm?

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Life is funny…

Just when I’ve decided to un-case my demonic wings and go back to being “that guy” I have a chance encounter, and a weird “Message?”

“That Guy” for those who haven’t known me for 30 years, is someone that I spent a great deal of effort putting in the ground in my consciousness. That was the “me” that lived for conflict, revenge, hostility, and chaos. That was the me that loved and got off on political games, and causing discord simply because I could.

The me of today might say stuff, but it’s usually in the context of joking.

The “Me” of years ago wouldn’t joke about it, he’d revel in it and feed the fires until someone quit or got fired and enjoy watching the fallout. About the time things settled down again, I’d start all over. Not for any reason other than it amused me, and so many people were so dumb that they didn’t realize they were being played.

It took a lot of effort and time to break myself of that habit. On balance, that effort was rewarded because I no longer had to carry the burden of guilt about the misery I’d had a hand in creating. I also slept better at night and came to like myself a lot more.

It is with a lot of conflicting emotions that I even consider letting that genie back out of his bottle. He’s an addiction, power corrupts, and manipulating people into dancing my dance a little, even for the right reasons can easily lead to manipulating people just for the fuck of it.

There’s an insight into why I react sooo very poorly when people try to manipulate me.

Just tell me what you want. I’ll either agree or not, and we’ll move on from there. Don’t try to engage me in your bullshit then try to ease into something that you already know I’m going to be opposed to. Just cut to the chase, make a reasoned case for why you want me to do something and thus opens the negotiation.

Anyhow, I’d just come to peace with letting “That Guy” out of his bottle. I was going to go into work and just start fomenting chaos and seeing if I could end a few careers. I’m not deluding myself, I wasn’t considering doing this for any greater good, or altruism.

This was about nothing more or less that revenge, hate, rage and feeling like I’d been betrayed.

If, as part of the collateral damage, some good came of the destruction, then so be it. Call me Shiva and make me a god.

So I’m sitting in a bar. I’d decided to have a whiskey before getting on the long drive back down to San Diego. The place wasn’t very busy, so I asked the bartender if he liked what he did.

He said, “Yes. This is the greatest job in the world.”

I thought to myself, “Interesting, what’s his angle? No Job is that good.”

He went on, “I used to be in the mortgage banking business. I made a shit ton of money but never had the time to enjoy it. I don’t make that kind of money here, but I make more than you’d think and I leave this place and go on with my life. I don’t think about work when I’m not at work.

I thought about it a minute and concluded that I’m looking for something like that.

The bartender went to go help a new arrival.

He came back and said you know we’re hiring. He said, “I can teach anyone to be a bartender, I can’t teach someone to have a personality. “

I chatted with the patron next to me for a minute.

The Bartender came back asking if he could close my tab out. He was going off shift. I said, “Sure and and asked for an application.”

Can’t hurt to ask…

I decided to wait for a couple weeks before letting “That Guy” out of the bottle. Maybe the universe was trying to tell me something, maybe I’m not as at peace with going back to who I was as I think I am. 

Either way, it’s another choice.

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So here’s a weird thought…

Oculus rift insideOne of my coworkers was showing me some stuff in augmented reality. This led to a discussion about virtual reality. 

We were watching a Microsoft demonstration video about VR and there was this person who’d entered a VR version of their own apartment. On it’s surface, cool but then as I was watching this person hang virtual pictures on a virtual wall this thought popped into my head.Virtual Reality Age

“What if VR becomes so much the norm, that people simply become unaware of their homes and apartments falling down around them. What happens when the VR construct is so lifelike and interactive that people no longer see the dirt or the broken windows? More and more of our written documents exist in digital format only, what happens when we become fully invested in a VR world? What would our civilization look like in 5 or 10 thousand years?” What would be remembered and how?

Puma punku ruinsThen I thought about all the ancient civilizations scattered around the world. Broken stones standing in mute testament to a people who were gone. Our archeologists trying to piece together a civilization from fragments left behind. What would they think of our civilization after it passed?

Excerpt from last Journal entry of Lin Jon, Archeologist of the Draco-Tang Consortium

These people appear to have made large monuments and dwellings, they had a written language but only seem to have used it to engrave names and dates on some of their most important buildings. In virtually all other cases this civilization did not use written language, we find little evidence of books, or libraries and those we have found appear to have been reserved for only the wealthiest of the population.

Each person carried a totem that had great significance. These totems are typically smooth rectangular wafers of varying sizes. Totems are always found within arms reach of their owner.

The totems all contain a complex array of delicate gold wires embossed on an unknown laminated material. The wire patterns fall into predictable patterns, however their meaning is as yet unknown.

We surmise these may have been significant of religious practice or religious sects. All the totems have a container of poisonous chemicals in a desiccated state, Perhaps at the end of an individual’s life they were expected to break the totem open and consume the chemicals?

We have found huge numbers of bodies. Many of them in repose inside what appear to be individual dwellings. We believe these were dwellings, not tombs. Our theory is grounded in the variety and quantity of serving & eating utensils with organic residue.

Legends of Puma Punku in TiahuanacoWhat we do not understand is why each dwelling has only one or two individuals. In many cases the individuals seem to have died at different times. We can deduce this because in some cases of two individuals being present, we have found that one of the individuals was encased in a large sack. Often the second individual was discovered in a reclining position in close proximity on a piece of furniture specifically built to maintain this Skyward looking pose. Our testing on the material of the various sacks, suggest that an intact sack would have been air and water tight.

We do not know what happened to this civilization, the first assessments that these civilizations were ravaged by some kind of disease are called into question by some of our findings. (See previous reports attached)

On the one hand these people appear to have been civilized and lived in a social hierarchy. On the other hand, they don’t have art, music, or literature, all of which are precursors to civilization. It is almost as if there was some other “ruling class” who suddenly left, and the remaining population, without guidance couldn’t take care of themselves anymore.

This new find on the Southwest coast of the continent is in a remarkable state of preservation. No doubt owing to the arid climate and little rainfall. This site will keep archeologists busy for decades as we try to understand what happened here.

Clearly, this may be one of the civilizations of legend. Let us hope we can find out what happened here so that we may avoid the same mistake.

Addendum: Send more fuel. Our explorations are taking us deeper into tunnels under the city and we’re using lanterns more than expected.

2nd Addendum: Dr. Gravo just brought three artifacts to me. One looks like a ceremonial mask but there is no way to see through it when wearing it. The other two artifacts are small curved domes of glasslike material. Dr. Gravo found these in the eyesockets of one of the bodies. He began rechecking and has since found each body has a set, always found in the eyes.

Dr. Gravo has suggested cleaning and sanitizing a set then trying them on to see what function they may have served. He surmises that these are corrective lenses of some kind.

We’re going to work through the night so we can allow the entire research team to try these little domes on.

I’m very excited to see the world as the ancients did, more tomorrow.

PinoutWhat if Atlantis was a High Technology Civilization surpassing our own? What if they actually did destroy themselves with that technology. What if the legends we have of magic are actually descriptions of technology that have been watered down through the ages?

What if we’re on a similar path?

Yeah, I sound like Ancient Aliens. But I have to say all of the stuff above crashed into my head in about 10 seconds. It’s not like I’m dwelling on it. 

It was just one of those weird trains of thought.

IurIt’s possible that artifacts in museums around the world are not what the arbitrary placards say they are. What if the oddball items are in fact technology that we don’t recognize as technology because it’s beyond our understanding.

After all would you recognize a memory chip if it was mounted in an amulet? Do you know what’s actually inside your TV, Phone, Computer, or Tablet? Would you know how to activate any of those components outside their user friendly boxes?

Pga pWithout a schematic or pin out description of a particular chip, I couldn’t even apply power to most of the chips used in our technology today. That’s coming from a guy who’s been working in technology for over 30 years.

Sure, I could figure it out with the right tools, but it’s not like those tools are just laying around and you’d have to understand that the tool… was a tool in the first place.

As I’ve said in the past… Be grateful that you don’t live in my head.

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It’s Official, I’ve become my Grandfather

A younger person was complaining about the Microwave ovens down in the lunch room. At first I thought it would be that they’re dirty or too busy or something.

What rebooted my brain was when she said they were too slow.

SLOW?!?!?!

IGen and Phone EtiquetteI guess it’s that I am really old, or that she was really young but I couldn’t help but laugh.

And I did! I laughed hard and loud.

The young lady couldn’t understand what I found so funny, so I explained that when I was growing up There were no microwave ovens and we actually had to do things like boiling water over a FLAME of all things…

One of my coworkers from Trinidad was laughing too. He said that growing up, he had to carry buckets of water for a shower 3 out of 7 days.

She couldn’t believe what we were saying. Her only response was “Ewwww!”

That made me laugh even harder!

One of the other older guys asked what was so funny, we repeated the original assertion about the slowness of the microwave. The other guy busted up laughing!

The young lady was sooo confused. She had absolutely no idea how we “olders” could have a common experience. After all us “olders” don’t even know how to use the internet to stalk each other. She doesn’t get it that we do know how… we just choose not to.

Later on another young colleague says, “I hope people are nice to me when I’m old.”

I said, “They won’t be!”

He looked at me dumbfounded.

“How do you know?”

I told him, “Look around, look at the pussy hat wearing hateful people protesting against everything and everyone. They’re your generation and as far as they’re concerned, everyone before is responsible for all the ills in the world. And they hate and blame everyone before them all the while fanning the flames of division, asserting they have all the answers. They look at us and hate us for just doing the best we could, and trying to live our lives.”

“That’s dark man.”

“And unfortunately true,” I replied.

He shook his head, then went back to work.

It got me to thinking about the snowflake mentality.

So many of these people have no concept of hardship. They have such an easy comfortable life and they freak out when things like the internet is down, or they can’t make a cell phone call.

Main qimg 94166faffa2120a9426974df45288d70 c 901x507They can’t imagine no running water, or the electricity being out. 

I had it a lot easier than my parents. I had it easy because they worked their asses off to make my life better than theirs. Much the same way their parents did for them. I don’t recall a time when the house I lived in didn’t have a telephone or electricity. I do recall that air conditioning wasn’t common except in theaters and business centers. 

I remember wanting to go to the grocery store with my parents during the summertime. Why? Because I could hang out in the frozen food section and it was cool instead of swelteringly hot and humid. 

Movie theaters had great attendance on hot summer nights. Everyone sat quietly in the dark watching a movie because it was better than being outside or at home trying to sleep when the temp was 90 and the humidity was 100%

I remember the novelty of a car with air conditioning. Prior to that, you rolled down the road with all the windows down praying that you made all the traffic lights and didn’t have to stop.

There were no calculators, there were adding machines. They were big, noisy, clunky mechanical things. Rotary telephones were the norm and if it was a multiline phone it was a big deal. Those phones actually used mechanical switches to move between lines.

The first house I recall living in had a party line. If you picked up the phone, you listened for dial tone, if there wasn’t a dial done you heard someone else talking. That was how a lot of the gossip got spread in the neighborhood.  It was impolite to listen in, but sometimes the conversation was just too juicy to ignore.

All of that is gone now, at least in this country. I remember letting the phone ring 10 times and if there was no answer, you called again later. Answering machines were amazing and being able to retrieve your messages remotely, was a big innovation.

I remember the power going off frequently and some people not having a television. It was a big deal when my family got a color TV, and even then lots of shows were only broadcast in black and white, and there were 2 and 1/2 channels depending on the day. Cable was life changing.

All these memories are of a time that the youngsters of today would call hardships. But even as I kid I knew that things were better in my life than they’d been in my parents childhoods. There was an Aunt who had a hand powered water pump built into her kitchen counter. I remember being fascinated with it as a little kid.

My Grandparents used to tell us that we were spoiled. Now that I’ve got a long string of notches on my belt, I see their point. I also begin to understand their dismay when I had trouble with simple things. “No silly, you have to prime the pump. You can’t just keep yanking on that handle and expect water to gush out.”

6a00d8341c630a53ef015435450707970c 640wiLife is change.

I suppose that my concern – and that of my grandparents, is that dashing headlong into a technological future that builds dependency on that technology always working, will lead to a very fragile future.

After all how many people know how to make a fire without a lighter? How many people know what’s actually happening when they spin that little wheel?

What happens when the cellular network goes offline? How many people have candles in their pantry? How will you get news or emergency information if everything is coming from the internet? Does anyone even have a working AM radio anymore?

If all the books are digital what happens when there is no power anymore? 

These are things I never really considered until I saw more and more people living with their faces glued to a cell phone screen, and libraries closing due to lack of use.

As I’ve interacted with more and more young people It’s become clear that they will be utterly lost if our fragile infrastructure is damaged or destroyed. Depending on where they are in the world or even our country, they may not be able to access written texts because there won’t be any. Will any of them be able to fix basic machines, or understand simple irrigation systems? 

5000 years in the future, archeologists may well conclude that we had no written language, or that we had limited written communication via a set of glyphs… what we now call emojis. Will Western Civilization enter the realm of legend like Atlantis?

All this makes me wonder about our species, in general. 

2 queensuniverWe know that asteroid impacts have wrought apocalyptic destruction on our world in the past. It’s reasonable to expect that it could happen again. Would humanity, if it survived, have to start over from the stone age?

I suppose these are some of the things that scientists and futurists ponder. Strip away the technology and what do you end up with? Desperate, scared, hungry humans? A group of animals that are a hairs breadth away from the jungle? 

I wonder if it keeps those scientists up at night?

I wonder if people like me, that know how to make things work would be revered as wise beneficial wizards, or simply put to death for practicing witchcraft.

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No Matter how many times I say it…

I’m ignored.

I’ve been maintaining a few Web sites for folks. It’s not a big deal, I have the tools necessary to do it. But it takes time…

Generally not a lot of time, and often I can tweak things on the fly from my iPad or even my phone. But I kinda need the data that folks want me to put into their website. I’m after all not a mind reader and with my work schedule, the people I deal with every day, and being pretty much exhausted all the time I have little patience for uncooperative people.

One of the folks whose site I maintain, has been planning a move, from one location to another. They sent out a notification to everyone on their mailing list in late September or early October. 

Fortunately, I was on their mailing list.

When I read the notice from them, I sent an email and said “You’re going to need to update the web site, send me all the information as soon as you can so that I can get ahead of your move and the website is up-to date”

I got a reply, “Yep, we’ll send you the info.” 

Then nothing…

UNTIL an email the day before Thanksgiving, again to the general mailing list that their shop would be closed Thanksgiving through Dec 1.

I sent another message, “OK I’ve got the new address from your email notification. I’ll update the basics Over the Thanksgiving holiday.” Silence…

I updated the website based on the information I had. I sent a link to my sandbox so they could verify the information is good. Still silence.

4PM on Black Friday, OH we want to add a whole new page can we do that?

I sent back a message, yes we can do that, what do you want the page to contain?

Silence.

Then, early in the week I get an email that has two JPEG images of their brochure. No other explanation, just a typing chore for me to transcribe the text from a photograph into something that I can even begin to incorporate into a web page.

Gee… THANKS!

It’s not like there’s only a small amount of text this brochure is so text dense that I was reminded of war & peace, or The Dead Sea Scrolls!

It would be nice to know what it most important and what could be left out. 

I’d haCbe68874ve run OCR on the photo, except that the copy they sent me had a bunch of marks on it making it look like a “Captcha”. This rendered OCR almost completely useless.

Again… THANKS!

I’ve finally got most everything into a usable format and now it’s about wrangling the text into some kind of organization and onto a page. Given that today is my one day off this week… I’m not a happy camper because this is not what I’d like to be doing today.

I’d like to be writing, and napping, having sex… Instead of sitting in front of a fucking computer doing someone else’s shit which is what I do all day long, every day at work.

This probably wouldn’t annoy me all that much except that these are “Friends” (Apparently I’m not on their Christmas list) and by the way THEY DON’T PAY ME. Taking advantage of your friends is the surest way to not have friends anymore.

Yep, This started out as a One-off to help them get their business running and now 3 – 4 years down the road I’m still doing it for nothing.

Grrrrr.

I guarantee that if they were paying me even 25 an hour, I’d have all sorts of pictures, and word files to put in their site. I also know exactly what they wanted and how they wanted it. Instead of working from something that is almost completely useless. 6 to 8 hours paid time would be “Too Expensive” I can hear the whining about the cost now.

Oh and I’d probably have had the time to do it in an organized way, instead of their usual method… PANIC MODE!

I’m thinking it’s time for me to put all their files on a thumb drive and mail it to them with a nice letter explaining how to transfer their domain to another location. Reminding them that failure to pay for their domain renewal will result in the loss of their website and rights to their domain.

Yeah, I’ve been handling the backend stuff for them too.

I think the time has come to cut my losses. Whatever happens after that it would be on them.

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Time for some “Old School” thinking

There’s been a ton of stuff said about the Refugees and their plight…

In my opinion, a large percentage of it is complete and utter bullshit.

Ever heard the saying “Man the lifeboats! Women and children first!”

Ever thought about what that actually says?

IF you think about it, that simple phrase is saying; “We value our future, we’re protecting it by making sure the women (who may be pregnant), and our sons and daughters (who are our future), and our culture, will survive.”

That’s historically been the stance of Men in shipwrecks, times of war, and disasters.

It does not mean the men thought their women inferior, it says; we recognize that while we may be bigger and stronger, you can do something we can’t, give birth. 

It says; women are strong enough to raise a new generation of our people and that our culture and people will survive if they do.

It says; that right now it’s our job to protect you from whatever disaster is befalling us so that you have better odds of surviving to raise our children.

So without hesitation, I’d accept refugees from war torn places who were in fact women and children.

That’s what you’re supposed to do, in fact it’s the exact opposite of racism, because instead of fostering genocide, accepting women and children refugees insures that a group of people who may be completely different from you will survive and presumably return to their homelands when whatever disaster they escaped is over.

The above is the Old School view, at least as I was taught by my father and grandfathers.

So within that framework, looking at a majority of male, young, able-bodied, men calling themselves refugees, simply doesn’t track.

I can’ see them as refugees, I can only see them as cowards, or worse.

They’ve left their wives, children, mothers, and sisters in countries devastated by war, and famine, to fend for themselves. These cowards have boarded boats to foreign countries to live in relative opulence where they often don’t work, have a stipend, food, and time to complain about housing, and internet access.

What the bloody hell?

These men are exactly the men who should have been waving to their wives and children from the shore.

After the boats carrying their future were safe, these men, (if they were men) should have grimly turned to meet their enemy, fueled by rage and sadness that they may never see their wives & children in this life again.

This is the philosophy I was raised with.

I was raised to be suspicious of large numbers of able bodied young men going anywhere. Typically, large groups of young men were an army.

I find myself wondering what the hell is going on and how we’ve come to this place where we don’t or can’t question the nature of refugees.

More concerning to these old eyes is that it’s apparently verboten to even ask questions about refugees, and their intentions.

When you look at Europe, who has accepted thousands of refugees and see the unrest, it becomes pretty obvious that something is wildly amiss. The violence in Paris & throughout Germany should at least give you momentary pause.

It’s not hatred to point out a problem. Understanding the problem is the first step to correcting it. Superficially, one could say the problem is these refugees are coming from war torn countries.

Ok I’ll buy that. But where are the women and children in all this? When refugee centers are overwhelmingly young and male doesn’t that speak to another issue?

Add to that the basic culture clash about women’s rights, what is considered appropriate attire, and behavior. Then throw in the more  relaxed religious beliefs of the west, boredom, a healthy dose of alienation due to language difficulties, or misunderstanding of how to live in a free society where everyone is supposed to be equal,  and you’ve got a powder keg waiting for a spark.

Isn’t that what we’ve been seeing?  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or Phd in Sociology to see what happens next. Any idiot should be able to predict the outcome.

It’s never rainbows and unicorns.

With that in mind, I’m all for vetting all refugees carefully. To do that, we have to have a plan and procedures that will ensure those claiming refugee status are in fact refugees.

We’ve done it in the past and there is nothing wrong with having a standard today.