| July 10 ,1997 | |||||||||||||||
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| End of game | |
10:30 pm
The gates of hell are open for you! 
Tomorrow is my last day at GST. Sark will be turned down. Vertigo will be turned down. The web cams won't be there anymore.
I'd complain about my guestbook, but it was on Spam, and Spam is one dead little computer. So is the stats program I wrote for
tech support. Sark was sure a multitalented little box. Realaudio server, web server, X server, FTP server, irc server, Xpilot
server, RC5 cracker, mail host, packet snooper, network monitoring... Not bad for something that shipped with Windows NT 3.5 installed.
I guess I should remove linux and Xwindows and all my cool stuff :( (emoticon quota for month reached)
Also, Nerve is almost paid for! My home computer, Nerve is a P166 with big honkin storage and big honkin memory. One of the only computers that I've seen Photoshop 4 run quickly on is Nerve. Well, you know what it means when your computer is paid for, right? It's obsolete! Time to get some kind of PPro 200 for at home. You've probably heard of the Pentium 2. Well, if you're the sort of person who cares, they forgot(decided not) to put in a 32 bit SIMD multiplier on the chip, so it's not really that terrific for everything. I'd take a PPro over a P2 anyday. Ha ha! Look at the geek get all attached to his machinery! Hey, it's easy to accidentally bond with your computers when you give them names. Am I silly? Well, my stuff seems to WANT to run correctly. How about your stuff? Heh heh. Imagine a routing guru patting a Cisco 7500 reassuringly and talking to it as he works. Imagine another worker cursing the box with every breath. Which one of these technicians would you want working on your stuff? Seems like Number 1's routers would live longer happier lives, doesn't it? Even if they're just complicated silicon lacework. So there. Go talk to your car or something. later that day: "Nice VCR...lets record that show at 7:30 tonight okay? Good VCR!" | |
| The Germans are mad at me! | |
|
Uh...looks like 2100 is really 9 o clock and not 7 o clock as I keep wanting to think. Where have I been that
has 28 hour days, anyway? Flying around like a maniac, that's where. Which is what I'll be doing again soon. Except that I
won't be. (Andrew?) I'll actually be busing back up to Portland. (ANDREW.) Although I'm not sure how I'm going to move my remaining
chunks of furniture up there on the bus. (AAAANDREWWW!!) Have I ever discussed how much I like furniture? (ABORT THREAD.)
Wha? Oh hi. The last sysadmins will help me move the house crap that is left in Portland to some sort of storage facility, until I can return to pick it up and transport it to wherever I live by that time. (Big furniture, stuff I left behind = house crap) They told me this as I sat at work trying to finish a 3 week programming job in 2 days. Now I've been instructed to document everything well so that a replacement can pick it up without too much difficulty. Oh, I document things. I don't just comment my code. I comment the HELL out of it. (Typical comment: '/* This is a comment. I love comments. */') Sometimes I have long, rambling discussions with myself in my code. Does that help document it? I dunno man, I'm a strange guy. What it might do is provide a snapshot of my mind at the time of writing. Anyone who has programmed any significant amount of code knows that you hold a great deal of relevant information about the program you're working on in your head, and you need to keep ALL that stuff in mind while you work on this part, or that part, or the whole thing. I have a hard time working on something I thought I was done with. And I have not written anything relatively big or arcane. | |
| Attention span flux waning! | |
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Pop-thought time! People sometimes worry about things like their job defining their life, or their children
defining their life, or not being what they want to be. Well, you really define yourself. There's no official
looking man wearing a suit & tie with a badge on it who's going to write your name down and say "Okay, you're officially
being defined by your job." or "You're an official Real Hacker now." If you want to do something, you had better do it.
No one has to give you permission. (No one will, probably.) You just go and do it. The big, awful, spirit-withering worst
possible consequences are usually: You'll look stupid in front of people you're trying to impress. Whooo. I guess that's sort of bad. Better that than being
remembered for your unfailing mediocrity. (Note: subjective. Unfailing mediocrity may be some peoples' big dream.) So, Andrew, next time you
start worrying that you aren't REALLY READY for something (like, say, playing guitar in front of jaded evil Seattlites), remember to
stop worrying. Do your own goddamn thing. Crush those that oppose you. Remember your foolproof master plan.
(All schemers need a Foolproof Master Plan) |
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