Never been one to let the carrier drop

I actually had a rather humerous incident at the airport (well, sadly, it probably wasn’t humerous for the airport employees, and sorry about scaring you guys.. really, it’s just a parking meter, I’m not a terrorist, and you should probably consider that if our country stopped hurting other countries, other countries wouldn’t be inclined to hurt us…)

Anyway, so, this might just be my rampant paranoia.. after all, we all know I have a little bit of that.. but..

First of all, I should reveal that I have been continuously in a obnoxiously.. Kayti might even say cloyingly.. good mood. So I walk into the airport radiantly happy. Now why this would make security nervious, I don’t know.. I’m kind and polite to everyone, I sign in for my flight at the workstation, walk through the airport security line – taking the parking meter out of the bag since I know it looks horrid on Xray.. and strangely, they don’t run a chemical scan on it which would seem like what I’d do.. they ask me about it, and I tell them it’s a parking meter.

Now, I’m wearing a DefCon shirt.. complete with a list of hotels that were blown up after DefCon, and then the Alexis Park, where they have been invited back. Mental note to go to DefCon this year and see what they’re up to.. I bet it’s some wicked cool stuff. I think 2005 may be one of the years where lots of cool robot things happen.. I mean, imagine hacking a PC interface to those robosapians! There’s a cool science project for ya, kids!

Oh dear, I’ve caught Skitch’s exclamation points. Oh well, I can live with that. As long as it’s not a permanent thing. Anyway, returning to my story.. I walk through the airport, sit down, start reading a book which showed up in the mail, ‘hackers and painters’. Talk to a guy who’s transferring numbers from one cell phone to another via manual data entry. (Poor guy. Someone should fix that. Someone should open source fix that. Maybe someone already has.)

Anyway, so, shortly thereafter I hear on the PA, ‘Alaska employees, please read page one, items eight through eleven’. (numbers may be incorrect, but it’s pretty obviously a idiot code. And then when I get on the plane, mysteriously I have one person wearing a wire (or just a handsfree phone adapter, one can take this paranoia thing way too far) and another really beefy security kind of guy. Naturally, security guy gets the outermost side. Now, lest you all should think I’m paranoid, a third passenger asks me if I should turn off the beeping thing in my bag. Now, obviously there’s nothing beeping in my bag, I know this, having packed my bag.. so I tell her I highly doubt this, then she says ‘no, sorry, blinking’. Okay, so passenger 3 either has X-ray vision, or also works for the federales. And I’m thinking, oh, good grief. They’re scared of a PARKING METER? The thing has slightly more CPU than your average pocket calculator. It generates less RFI than a old chopper-style tape walkman, I bet.

Or were they convinced it was a bomb? Anyway, I’m sure I left a interesting taste in their mouths with a long discussion about peace, love, respect, hackers, spirituality, christianity, virii.. well, basically, I was just myself. I enjoyed the conversation, too, and have been trading emails with the person. He frustrates me in that he’s stuck in a purely legalistic view of spirituality, and yet is using outdated laws/code.. (I have to look at laws and religious texts as both just the source code which holds society togeather.. or held it togeather.. or something)

In the meantime, imagination is power. And that was kind of fun, and if the government hasn’t yet figured out that I am not willing to hurt anyone in the name of any of my causes – at least in this stage of my development, and probably ever – they just aren’t paying enough attention. Might be willing to cause some mischief, eventually. But hurting people – even through just scaring them a whole bunch – is right out.

Although, as I should talk about sometime, I have to respect terrorists, for a number of reasons. First of all, Osama Bin Laden, from scanning his commentary, seemed to have reasonable reasons for what he did. I still can’t endorse blowing up buildings and killing people, but I also understand that we hurt him a lot. Of course, if you just keep hurting each other, back and forth, it just oscillates and gets worse and worse. As the man said, a eye for a eye leaves everybody blind.

On the other hand, colombine may have stopped some real and serious abuses that were hurting a lot of people. At least, I hope that it did.

Speaking of which, so far I’m only about 30 pages into Hackers and Painters, but it’s pretty good. And it promises to get better. That’s Hackers and Painters, by Paul Graham. And thanks to whoever sent it to me! (it just showed up in my mailbox. Perhaps the envalope said who sent it, but I’m still not clear on the details)

I think for me, to accept dogmatically someone else’s religion would be fundamentally flawed. It’s easy to see why the religions were what they were, but they’re out of date and they need improved. That’s my super-arrogant take on it. I’m happy for those of you who derive your comfort from religion.. like the other man said, “I believe in whatever gets you through the night, whether it’s Jack Danials or Jesus Christ” – but personally, while I intend to explore the spiritual plane further now that I realize there is one to explore, I’m not taking anyone else’s source as gospel. (har har). I’ll read through it, yes. But none of it is likely to strike me as the One True Truth. And I’ve decided I don’t really *want* to learn much more history.. because I flat out don’t believe that those who don’t learn history are doomed to repeat it. I think that’s a lie you just have to rise above. Learn good history. Learn when people got along, and how they did it. But learn about all the horrible things we’ve done to each other? Not at this stage in my development. Learn all the things that went wrong? Thanks, I’m already saddled with enough ‘I cannot do it’ of my own. And I think that there’s nothing that limits humanity, and maybe sentients in general, more than the belief that humanity and sentients are limited.

Anyway, I will continue to be Sheer just as hard as I can be. I apologize to any of you who feel I’m condecending. Perhaps I am. But I don’t want to be. I genuinely want to be friends..

(And, since this *is* my journal, I can say whatever I want. Which is a really nice feeling. Everyone needs one place where they can say whatever they want, eh?)

I realize that none of what I’m saying is probably that new.. I’m capable of doing new thinking in my own fields, but outside them I’m still far behind.. but that’s okay. They’re new thoughts to me. And it’s my bloody journal. Yeesh.

Sheer.us’s DNS doesn’t seem to want to resolve from comcast’s network, but evtech’s does. I’m not sure if this means I’ve done something wrong (likely) or comcast is censoring me for one of the many unpopular things I’ve said (unlikely but possible). Hopefully I can have my new sysadmin look into things. So far he hasn’t broken anything badly. Mental note to pay him.

Ah, the fun of having help! It’s really kind of nice, actually, to have a sysadmin. I still keep a hand in, looking at his work, understanding how things are going.

I think I need to upgrade the system disk on Gateway and put in a new OS. I’m somewhat leery of this because it sounds like a lot of work, but.. *smiles* what worth doing isn’t?

Hope you all are well. I’m taking a few hours a week to take a stab at looking at the spiritual plane, hacker-style. I spent a long time on the plane ride to Denver (which is where I currently am, need to tell P. so her and Lara can fetch anything out of my place they might feel is appropriate) talking to a christian who was trying to sell me on christianity and failing.

He was a bit of a pessimist.. claiming there was nothing new under the sun, glaring at me for glorifying technology.. yes, they’re just tools, but they’re good tools, and they’re getting better all the time. I have no use for people who think that the classics are all that matters and even less use for people who would infect their children with religion. Yes, we must teach them morality.. but as far as religion, they need to decide for themselves when they’re old enough to understand what they’re deciding. Of course, perhaps other people are instantly willing to think that voices inside their heads are god rather than just another attribute of themselves, and maybe.. I don’t know. Been thinking all kinds of crazy thoughts lately. But, must work. More later. Grr.. stupid laptop keyboard. want new, more powerful and more typing friendly laptop for development work.

Life is the opposite of entropy?

Comments appriciated.

We make a decision. Think or don’t think. Do or don’t do.

The more we think, the more we do, the stronger we get, the better we get, the better off the races of Terra are.

*hugs* Sorry I haven’t been reading journals lately.. I’ve been busy with other things.

Off to bank now. Thank you, Tony, for paying your debt in full!

we need a constitutional convention.. using open source techniques.

WHo’s with me?

I donated to Unicef. They seem to have their head in the right place, or so a quick scan would suggest.

I used to run down people for using macs.. ataris.. windows.. whatever platform I wasn’t using.

Since then, I’ve used all those things and found them good. I think whatever computer tool you’re using.. if it’s doing what you want it to, it’s a good one. If it’s limiting you, reach for a better tool.

I used to hate XP, because it checked in with microsoft. Now, I feel if you want to use XP, use it. If you understand the limits and dangers, and are willing to trust microsoft, feel free. I plan on getting a XP machine myself, to add to my stable.. I feel like I can’t be a good computer geek and not try out every platform/arch and every language and every OS as it comes my way.. and I feel like refusing to see/learn a new one is the path towards becoming old and obsolete.

Not learning new things.. that is my real enemy. Fear of new and unknown experiences is not good for me. Sheer wants to continue to dance not only on the dancefloor, but at the keyboard. (And in the bedroom! ;-))

So, I like to try new things, but I like to continue to use the old ones as well. Especially when they are good. ANd I want to meet new people.. but I want very much to keep touch with the many wonderful people I’ve already met.

Sooner or later I will run out of time. Until then, I will live.

I love you, Kayti! (just in case you’re reading)

My headaches seem to be mostly gone, or at least quite managable.. my back and neck seem to be 100% operational.. or at least, I was able to dance for a couple of hours tonight with no complaints. I think I’m nearly healed from car wreck, and everything is coming up functional. Hopefully is likewise healed. If not, I prescribe dancing. 😉

have been fought over God, and the nature thereof, than any other subject.

Why?

Comments appriciated.

I’ve been majorly confused of late. I’ll write more later.. and transcribe some very odd recordings that I’ve made on my PDA..

I’m okay. I think I’m okay. Um.

The world is a beautiful and complex place. I think I might be travelling across various worldlines. I haven’t learned to control it yet, and I’m afraid I’ll get lost.. but..

I am dating Kayti. Well, insofar as one can date from 1100 miles (or however far Seattle and Denver are..) away.