_ _
_ __ | |__ | | ___ __ _
| '_ \| '_ \| |/ _ \ / _` |
| |_) | | | | | (_) | (_| |
| .__/|_| |_|_|\___/ \__, |
|_| ...2017-02-12 |___/
Played Factorio the whole day, this game is a real time-sink! We're having a lot
of fun on the multiplayer server. There's something intriguing about setting up
a small system that works, to discover how it can scale and how it can't. We
were joined by a very knowledgeable player who setup robotics for us, and we're
still not sure how half the stuff works. It'll be fun to figure out that myself.
I should definitely try to do something else for tomorrow.
Almost through the second 3in1 book, it's really great!
That's about it for now.
What a nice time to write more. I'd just mention my twist on the "post factual
society", as far as I've understood, that is the idea that society has moved
beyond facts, to something else, and while I agree with that observation, I
think a more entertaining interpretation of it would be that of "a society that
seeks out the facts after they've made a decision". For example, the British
interest in the EU surged only _after_ they'd decided to cancel membership.
That is post-fact, the facts are sought out after the decision has been made.
The US starts reading Orwells 1984 and starts worrying about the dangers of
nationalism _after_ deciding to put Trump in charge (and I speculate that a few
are also now starting to seek out the facts about Trump), again, facts post
decision. That's what a post-factual society does, seek out facts post decision.
The Danes voted a right-wing nationalist party with several members already
convicted for racism, but they've not yet messed up so royally as to seek out
facts, there's a more extreme party on the horizon, and it might be only with
this new level of intolerant nationalist ignorance, and only after they've taken
the decision to lead them to power, that they'll start seeking the facts. That,
I think, is when also the Danes will become a pots-factual society.
Software developers are living in a time of privilege, one that certainly won't
last, as education and new technologies catch up. But for now, right now, being
even a mediocre programmer like myself equals great opportunities in advancing
ones career. This is of course a luxury problem, but being regularly head-hunted
comes with the price of being constantly reminded to evaluate and examine ones
current situation. It begs many questions, about ones past choices, ones current
situation, ones plans for the future and not least, ones confidence in what one
can do. I'm satisfied with what I do now, and it is my impression that I'm doing
an acceptable job. But will that change? Would switching to work for one of the
giants mean an advance in career for me, or the sudden end as I discover that
I'm not good enough to handle the job? I'm not about to find out, because I am
indeed satisfied with what I'm currently doing, and I'm starting a life here,
but the nagging thought of what could and will be is always looming in the back.
I'll do it! But not today -_- I've decided that since the task involves not only
moving the contigrator software, but also configuring an image that can build
all of the weird stuff I want it to, this is a two-stage rocket, and I'll start
by writing a compatible program in node, and then I will make the image.
A lot of stuff is required, toolchains for Windows, PSP, Wiz, and Linux 32 bit,
libraries for Qt, SDL1/2, OpenGL for all of those platforms, I think the task of
finding and adding toolchains and libs is larger than rewriting the software.
I remember browsing fazed.net on a regular basis, it was a sort of news site,
featuring mostly obscure or amazing things found elsewhere on the net. It was in
the days before social media had really broken through, WWW users communicated
via forums on topic specific sites (more or less) and most of us were connected
to one or more IRC servers where we would lurk on multiple channel topics. I am
still connected to Quakenet, Freenod and lately, Twitch via IRC, it's superior
to any other form of text-based communications protocol in every way, and I'm
left wondering why not everyone is using it. Fazed closed down a long time ago.
Thanks for the good years Fazed, you are fondly remembered this Sunday, as I let
the weekend heal me, though it is, indeed, too short a weekend, only just enough
that the sweet taste of freedom and renewed energy betrayingly enters our minds.
There's an interesting PDF file release on WWW, apparently CIA had a document of
anti-Soviet jokes written down, and they declassified and published it. I'd
seeing the old Soviet counterpart, if they exist (I'm sure they at least did).
The jokes can be found here:
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP89G00720R000800040003-6.pdf