Pleasantly Surprised > Horribly Disappointed

Tagged as: Life, Software May 22

Expectations. We have them about all kinds of things. Sometimes we base them on our experiences, but more often we seem to base them on our hopes and dreams. We can have them about things like birthdays, get-togethers, and other events. In our mind’s eye we see people being caring and loving, friendly and jolly. It’s not always so, is it?

But besides that, we can even have expectations about much more concrete matters. When we sit in the chair, we have that dreamy expectation that the chair will hold up our weight. If that expectation isn’t met, we sure aren’t too happy! And so it goes moment by moment with all sorts of things that we encounter.

More recently I’ve noticed how much people do this with things that they don’t understand. Or rather, I’ve noticed how this comes into play when people are dealing with those things that most of us do not fully understand. Things like televisions, computer programs, and automobiles will all sorely disappoint us when we expect them to work and they do not. But when we don’t know what to expect, and things work how happy are we?

When we try out a shortcut key and find that some programmer has made sure that shortcut key works aren’t we pleasantly surprised? Or when we go to a website, make a guess at what to do, aren’t we glad for whoever made it work just so?

I emphasize the computer software, but it’s obviously more.

Group Friendship

Tagged as: Life, Relationships May 15

When I think of friendship, I initially think of a relationship between one person and another. They can be all sorts of combination of guys and girls (okay so really there are only 4 combinations if there are 2 people involved). But have you noticed how different everything is when a group is involved?

Imagine, if you will, going into a situation where you’re trying to get in with a whole group of people. Individually you are able to interact pretty well with them. Conversation is pretty easy, common ground is found, life is good.

But as a whole when you’re with them things are not well. You are left standing there thinking, “What am I doing here?” You don’t follow their inside jokes. And you definitely haven’t known them for as long as they have known each other.

Why the difference? It seems strange to me to be able to be friends with them individually but have trouble with them when they are all a group. But it happens. Related to mob mentality? Who knows, you got me.

Ninjas, Not Pirates

Tagged as: Internet, Life, Music, Rant, Software Apr 23

Alright so I don’t actually know any ninjas. Pirates, though? Perhaps.

Not the pirates that say, “Arggh me matey” or have a peg leg or even have a parrot on their shoulder. That would be cool, but I actually only know pirates in the modern day sense. You know the ones that illegally consume things like music, videos, software, pictures, or any of a whole range of things. Haha I can hear the groans already.

The digital age has made it infinitely more easy to exactly duplicate other content (which is related to why digital things are superior in quality to analog). With this, people have degenerated to outright stealing while not even understanding what they’re doing. Well I hate to break it to you, but wrongs committed unintentionally are still wrong.

While I have written that I think that Music Piracy Makes People Stupid, this issue is far larger than just music. Music is the best known, probably because it’s the area that’s most often violated. It is so much more widespread, though. So let’s get down to the real issue.

Breaking Down Piracy

1. Someone creates something for a purpose
2. Somehow it’s made available to other people (whether stolen, hacked, copied, or what) outside of the realm of the original purpose
3. You (or a “friend” of yours) gets a copy of said good and utilize it

Is that pretty much how it breaks down? Seems to me like the real issue is that the creator/writer/actor/musician/whatever did not intend for those in step 3 to make use of their creation. If I were a computer programmer and wrote a program to sell. And then if someone had illegally hacked my program that I worked to create to sell and gave it away for free, I’d be piping mad. If you were a photographer and had taken a picture for someone, but someone else had taken it and used it for a totally different purpose, you’d be up in arms. If you provided services (law, medicine, therapy, teaching, what have you) and someone took your service without providing payment, you’d see that something was immediately wrong.

So basically, since the creator didn’t want it (and who hopefully created a bulletproof license or end user agreement), you’re undermining what they’re doing. It doesn’t matter that you could create a digital copy of their song without paying for it and they’ll be none the wiser. Because in actuality, it does affect them. You should have paid them for that song. And you are now a pirate. But you don’t have to be!

Dealing With This New Ninja World

Is all lost? Far from it. Once you understand what it’s like to be the one being defrauded, you’ll see that something needs to change. And there is a solution! There are all kinds of answers! Maybe watch things that are actually released by the studios (try out Hulu), actually buy music (if you’re listening to music you can probably afford to pay for it) or try Amie Street for the whole indie scene, and possibly even catch up on some of my Favorite Open Source Apps.

Or you could just become a real ninja and then you’d care about arrows, ninja stars, and ninjato rather than swiping versions of old TV shows, Adobe Photoshop, and/or the remix version of Justin Timberlake’s latest single.

The Most Obvious Place

Tagged as: Life, Poetry Apr 01

A touch
And…ah relief
But where did the precious item go?
It’s probably at my feet

It’s not there
I heard a tinkle, a sound of hard items contacting
But it’s not there
Not where I’d expect it

I’m on my knees
Begging, hoping, almost praying
When will I know?

Now I’m searching far and wide
In the depths of despair
Amidst the trash and the disgusting
Nobody should need to look at this stuff, let alone touch it
But it’s worth it

Who will accept it?
When will I be satisfied?
When will I know the secrets that I want to know?
Ah this is so much trouble
I want to rest
I give up

Oh.
There it is right under my nose!
Well, not quite right under
More like a little to the right…

Profanity Without Using Curse Words

Tagged as: Christianity, Life Feb 26

Profanity is often used in society in order to express discontent. From mild, momentary displeasure to extreme fury, humans make use of a seemingly defined set of off-limit words to express their emotions. Often these words reference things which would generally be considered better left unspoken of.

What is profanity really? Apparently there are 5 types of swearing (according to Steven Pinker’s The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature which I found a reference to in the Wikipedia article on profanity):

1. Dysphemistic - Opposite of euphemism. Force listener to think about negative thing
2. Abusive - Abuse, intimidate, or insult others
3. Idiomatic - Refer to (but do not explicitly mention) something in order to arouse interest, be macho/cool, or express to peers that the setting is informal.
4. Emphatic - Emphasize what is being said (pretty self-explanatory)
5. Cathartic - Rid oneself of negative feelings by outwardly expressing it

I can see how all of these are accurate descriptions for how profanity is used. It’s very interesting to study profanity and how it comes about. How it is sociological in a sense because profanity in our language is different from profanity in other languages (even taking into account translation). That’s not the issue.

The issue is that profanity comes out of your mouth much more than you’d like to admit. I feel your pain, it comes out of mine more than I’d like to admit, too.

In fact, I’ve told people before that I do not cuss. And I’m absolutely correct in a strict sense of the term. I don’t use those words that society has impressed upon me as being profane. In fact, I don’t feel like I need to use profanity in order to express myself. I do feel the same emotions that my cursing brothers feel. (Okay I don’t actually have blood brothers, but I mean it in the mankind term.) And yet I don’t see that it’s too necessary. Am I aghast when I hear it? Not extremely so. Well I’m not with those from whom I expect nothing better. Some people are held to a higher standard, but I digress.

So I don’t cuss. But the thing is that I’ll cuss in spirit. I’ll use nice versions like “darn”, “crap”, and “shoot” instead of the usual fare. But does that make it any better? No, I’m beginning to think that it does not matter much at all. Even though the words are different and less offensive to the ear according to society, the usage shows that my mouth is still overflowing with what is in my heart. And I can see that all is not right in that region of my chest. I’m not as loving or as good as I profess.

Ah if only the distance between my head and my heart weren’t so far.