While I’ve internalized selections from The Jargon File (well, sections thereof, from particular versions) I have to admit that the stuff in the new programming jargon collection run recently at Stack Overflow is all new to me. I don’t see myself using many of them heavily, but I think I can see drug/shrug/smug report all making their way into my lexicon.
Tag: geeks
Book wear
Yeah, there are a few shirts at Out Of Print that I would totally wear… but there’s only one Immediate Must Buy. I wish it were black, or at least something dark, but there is no denying the power of Bulgarkov and his book. And hey, good cause. Read more →
Aside
Yes, I would buy a generic metal album, if the vocals (and narration?) were done by Christopher Lee. I find it quite warming to see yet another affirmation that (and I mean this in the most inclusive and positive sense possible) Lee is just a big ol’ geek.
I am so glad I’m out of the dating scene…
And now for something outside my usual range… As I talk to more and more single people who are roughly my age, it becomes apparent to me that the Internet dating scene has become both gigantic and socially acceptable in the time I’ve been off the market–whatever stigma there once was to dating services has apparently completely vanished in the… Read more →
Aside
“We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done”
I was pretty pleased last week to see the British PM get around to issuing an apology for their government’s treatment of Alan Turing. Being a computer geek, and a bit of a crypto amateur, the things done at Bletchley Park generally, and by Turing specifically (and not just during the war), are things of interest to me. Being a,… Read more →
Aside
I found a place–or rather was referred to one–on Saturday that would happily sell me a replacement 1TB SATA2 drive for my RAID array, and at a decent price. (Yes, you can read that as “Future Shop can bite my shiny metal ass.”) The array worked perfectly, and none of my roughly 2TB of data in that array was lost due to the drive failure. I wish I could report the same level of success with Intrepid Ibex and wireless–I did finally get the wireless “working”, but it disconnects every 15 minutes or so, and I am becoming very familiar with the term “kernel panic”.
Aside
There should always be a 24-hour computer parts store, so that when one of the drives in your RAID array craps out, you can immediately go and buy a replacement for it, rather than having to spend the night in the knowledge that if another one of the drives happens to fail right now, you’re toast.
Aside
Speaking of a geek hierarchy…
Sunday Night Gallimaufry
You know the drill, this is the miscellaneous tab closing ceremony. Since I’m tired of politics today, there will be none in this list. I have had several discussions about this recent article on a particular form of elective surgery. All that I can conclude from these discussions is that I have different aesthetic than many of the people I’ve… Read more →
Well, this should solve a few problems.
The KGB Raffle winners are up. It appears I have won a wormhole. Could this, combined with my recently acquired Mad Scientist goggles, be the beginning of my career as a supervillain? Or, alternately, the beginning of a mildly comic adventure through time and space? Read more →
Geek Family
Apparently my daughter is now old enough that when I’m away on business we send each other emailsI have a suspicion that her mother may play a secretarial role here, since Sarah probably wouldn’t punctuate.. In order to illustrate for some people at my office why it was that I no longer was interested in my business travel being any… Read more →
Explanation
I spent some time last week at a professional conference. For the most part it was a relatively valuable use of my time, but there were significant portions of time where I was stuck sitting in a room with lots of people while a particularly boring speaker was presenting. I was without a computer–the conference expressly frowned on bringing one… Read more →
A Small Challenge
Answer, and explanatory story, to follow. On the off chance that someone comments with the plaintext before I get around to telling the story, I will send them a $20 Amazon gift certificate or something like that. Read more →
Confounding the nerd/Asperger’s stereotype
I’ve seen results from the Asperger’s quiz posted by lots of people I know, and I just want to point out something about these results. I know “me and my friends” is the essence of an anecdotal sample, and not a useful one, but still… The stereotype is that people who are particularly apt at programming (and similar nerd activities)… Read more →
