I went to Borders tonight and had a mildly profound experience...

I was sitting and enjoying Diane Arbus' Monograph. To my right, a group of kids--high schoolers, I think, but they may have been college students--were sitting playing Dungeons and Dragons. Over in the cafe, some (not-so-hot) musician was performing. Occasionally I overheard ripples of applause after he finished a song. A couple was walking through the store, hand-in-hand.

While I'm generally a loner, or at least a rather independent and independently-minded person, I realized how essential cultural bonds are, and how important it is to maintain relationships with other people. Here I was, looking at beautiful photographs of a lesser-known side of humanity, longing for it, and here, all around me, is everything that I need. In some ways, I think this evening may have been life-changing, strange as that sounds. I have never really thought about the bonds between individuals, or the bonds between groups, or how important it is to develop and maintain those bonds. Consequently, I've never made any effort: I've always had the "people come, people go" mentality, and I maintain relationships only as long as necessary and sometimes not even that long. I've got a bit of thinking ahead of me.

I heard that someone was proposing a law that would make telemarketing illegal. Now, I hate telemarketers as much as most people, but I'm not a big fan of this idea. Beyond the fact that telemarketing is an important source of revenue for a number of legitimate companies, I just see a law like that causing too many side effects: just like drugs, any law has a number of side effects that are completely separate from the original intention of the law. What I do support, though, is regulations on when telemarketers can call. I don't think they should be allowed to call on weekends or after, say, 7pm in the evening. I do support the idea of a centralized no-call list. I don't think it would break into revenue too much: the people who would opt into the list are not the people who would stay on the line and purchase whatever the seller was selling. In fact, I think a centralized no-call list would increase telemarketer revenue, because they wouldn't have to waste time (i.e. money) calling all of those millions of people who aren't interested in any sort of telemarketing: they'd be focusing their calls mostly on those people who are interested. I dunno. Just my $.02

Here's a great little piece of commentary by Mikel Jolet called "Identity Crisis." It's about how even those of us who think we go against the crowd are really going with the crowd, at least, with some crowd. [RealAudio Format]

The animosity our culture projects towards environmentalists is ludicrous. Environmentalists perpetually extoll the necessity of maintaining our natural resources, but sometimes at the expense of our convenience. For this reason, our fast-food, push-button, I-need-it-yesterday culture tends to harbor a great deal of resentment towards these people. However, one of the side effects of this faster-than-before culture that we live in is that we tend never to look further than our noses: just as we don't want to wait until tomorrow for things, we seem not to feel any concern for tomorrow's consequences of today's actions. But tomorrow there will be consequences, and they will be grave.

Environmentalists realize this, and they are trying desperately to divert our collision course with disaster. Unfortunately, this is at the expense of things that we would like to have, and so most of us are unwilling to acknowledge the importance of the sacrifice, and, because it is easier to project the blame to environmentalists than it is to admit to ourselves that we're wrong, they are continually pushed to the side and dismissed as crazies.

Unfortunately, when tomorrow comes and we have to live with our consequences, it will be too late, and, if history teaches us any lessons--and I believe it does--we will be blaming the exact people who were trying to help us.

So the Save the Children fund, or something akin to that, decided that they'd "help" us out by going ahead and sending us a bill for the "pledge" that we made. So we decided to get back at them by donating to the Eat the Children's fund: I hear they accept PayPal!

"Well, they're all wrong!" Generally, that's true. If everyone in Alabama decided that pi was equal to three, they'd all be wrong. If everyone claimed that you needed a semicolon after #include in ANSI C++, they'd all be wrong. If everyone claimed that Elvis was still alive, they'd all be wrong. But if everyone claimed that "wrong" was spelled "rong," they'd all be right. Because language is nothing more than a protocol for communication. The majority rules, no matter what is traditionally correct. If this weren't the case, we'd all still be speaking some ancient, dead language. But language evolved. People changed their minds about grammar, about spelling, about semantics. The whole field of etymology is dedicated to this fact. Therefore, if the majority decides that wrong is hereafter spelled rong, then it is, because we have to conform the protocol in order to be understood, in order to communicate, because without understanding, communication is futile, and what other purpose does language serve?

This is how I feel. Too bad I'm too inconsistent with my own beliefs to actually follow them. ::rolls his eyes at himself in disgust and mutters "hypocrite" under his breath::

I heard a story on NPR today about H2K2, the second convention of HOPE (Hackers on Planet Earth). The commentator mentioned that the hackers were holding panels on topics that people wouldn't normally expect hackers to be concerned about: human rights and civil liberties. This initially shocked me, but then I came to a sad realization, one that my subconscious has realized all along but was loath to divulge to my conscious mind. The media has forever portrayed hackers in such a sensationalist, stereotypical, and inaccurate light that people can't help but think of hackers as a group of social outcasts who have nothing better to do than terrorize corporations and release viruses to plague the internet.

While every group (::cough, cough:: Christians) has its bad apples, hackers on the whole are simply people with a deep interest in the inner workings of computers and a passion for security. The majority of hackers, when they do break into systems, do so only for bragging rights, and don't destroy any data: in fact, they often leave tips for the sysadmins to warn them of the security problems. Most of the time, they are concerned with their own security and developing software pertaining to security. Really, the fact that you can make a purchase over the internet with your credit card with any peace of mind at all is because hackers understand the intricacies of computer systems and know how and where to patch up holes before they are exploited by others. These "others" I'm referring to are known by hackers as "crackers," and they're the ones that get all of the media coverage. Unfortunately for everyone else, they are mislabeled "hackers," and thus the rampant, unfounded fear propagates.

Not being a hacker myself, I don't have as much information on the subject as many other people, so check out "2600: The Hacker's Quarterly" and other sites to learn a bit more. But regardless, please realize that hackers are really just security experts and crackers are the ones who like to make life tough for you.

There's something wrong with working 40 hours a week for a month doing advanced software engineering and only earning $500.

Today was entirely too strange... When I woke up this morning it was raining. Not an exciting downpour or an insignificant drizzle, just that slow, steady rain that means you should just stay in bed. It being Sunday, I was required--if you recall from a previous post--to go to church for the first time in about a year or so. That in and of itself could have made the day strange. So I drag myself out of bed and somehow end up at church. Strange thing is, despite my atheism, I was mildly excited about it. I can't explain why; my only theory is that I was going to a pretty-damn-cool-for-a-church church that I hadn't visited in a while and where I could potentially see a number of people I hadn't seen in a while. Well, the church service itself, of course, successfully manages to squash every bit of enthusiasm and I was left feeling quite drained and frustrated by Christianity in general. (Totally random, insignificant tidbit, though: the preacher was invited to give the opening prayer for Pres. Bush's visit to Greensboro in a few weeks. Unfortunately, because "God" is so kind and rewards those who serve him well, the preacher is going to be in Greece. For a mission trip.) Anyway, I get home, eat a Home Run Inn Pizza and then totally randomly run to Panera for a loaf of their French Bread. Then I proceed to spend the entire day staring at inane things on the internet while simultaneously attempting to gather my summer to-do list in order to facilitate greater productivity and to ensure that I finish everything before it's too late. I make only half of the list because I'm so listless I can't even think of the things I should be doing, let alone get them done. Suddenly it's late evening, I've been sitting on my ass, wasting my time, eating bread, and doing absolutely nothing worthwhile and I feel like shit. I hate being unproductive, but I can't manage to find the energy to get anything done (so yeah, I'm screwed). And then, in order to feel better about myself, I post something on my blog. But looking over it, what the hell is the point of this? Yeah, so there isn't one.

I feel like shit.

By the way, go rent Time Code.