So, (e:jim) recently wrote about how I am learning to program. Oh god, why, o why!

Last weekend Jim took me a long to a programmers conference. Looking around it was an awesome sight.

Guys. Around my age. With Beards sparse and thick. With mops of hair unstyled and uncut. bellies small and bulging. Facial piercing. Tattoos. Drinking problems they openly joked about.

But above all. Each of these people seemed like they could do porn and not fear losing their real job.

This is my secret criteria for my second job. The job I get after I am fired from teaching.

I have no actual desire to do porn. Ya, I like a good penis, but not one with more screen time than Orson Wells. But I crave the freedom to do it. As if someone would approach me with an offer to do a scene or two and I, drink in hand, would say 'what the heck'. Shrugging off the non-existent consequences.

The other day when I was doing observations at a school I had the opportunity to sit in on a middle school health class, adolescent sex ed. There were a few things said I really didn't like. Notable a binary gender model and an attitude of compulsory heterosexuality. After, I asked the teacher about these things. She told me that she has no free hand in the content, it is decided by the community. Even in the high school they are not allowed to use words like 'gay' or 'condom'. And really, if you need to cover any two topics in sex it is 'everyone is unique' and 'don't get the Clap' would be them.

Would they ever let a porn star teach kids anything? Do real people actually teach, or are they just charecters in a moral allegory? Programmers though...

"Hey Bill, what did you do this weekend?"
"Oh you know Janice, got doubly penetrated in that jail bate film"

How awesome is that?

Hi,

Jim took me on a romantic get away last weekend. We went to a computer programming conference in Charlotte, NC or SC. It was right by the border and I wasn't sure what state we were in.

The weekend went like this. Jim went to talks and schmoozed with people, building his contacts and what not. I am really glad he went, great opportunity for him. I, however, had a strange weekend.

Trapped in a hotel is odd. There is nothing to do. You have to travel around to find anything to do. And so that is what I did.

Of corse, Charlotte is a very bad town to do this in. You see, it has two downtowns: the historic downtown and the new downtown. We were staying in the new downtown, and I couldn't get to the historic downtown; the roads in between either turned into eight lane highways or became frightening to walk down alone and unarmed.

The new downtown must have been built in the last 20 years. It was full of massive towers housing hotels and banking corporations. There was a network of a dozen of these towers connected by skybridges. On the level with those bridges was endless shopping and restaurants. I thought that was really cool, accept nothing was opened on the weekend. Venturing out of that complex to the streets there were two things open 1) a fried chicken fast-food place and 2) Mert's: the god damned best soul food place ever. EVER! Seriously, I learned why people willingly eat okra.

Anyway, in my wanderings downtown I thought it would be good to find an ATM. Charlotte is a banking city, they told me. There were Watchovia and Bank of America ATM's all over the place. Every street corner practically. But I could not find the World's Bank, HSBC anywhere. So, I find this little sandwich joint and walk in to get breakfast/lunch/holy-cap-you-cannot-even-get-coffee-on-a-saturday-in-this-town.

I ask "Say, can you help me find an ATM? From an HSBC bank?"
The clerk "A what bank?
"HSBC"
She scratches her head "What does that stand for"
I smile, loving the name of my bank "The Hong Kong, Shanghai Banking Corporation"
Her eyes bug out of her head, she turns to the kitchen behind her and yells, in the most unpleasant mountain yokel voice I have ever heard "Hey Earl! Do we have any of dem Hong Kong, ShimSham banks?"

seriously, Hong King, ShimSham. I nearly shat myself it was so funny.

anyway, you kids have a good day.

Holy shit.

I was just in the middle of the biggest collective nerd orgasm and I feel like a long shower.

Hi,

Stephen Fry has a delightful blog of no particular subject, but the man loves to chat about his gizmo obsession. In his latest piece he references Umberto Eco's little ditty on Mac's vs. MS-DOS (think proto-windows) and how both are like Catholics and Protestants.

I would send you to read it, but here it is in its entirty.

The fact is that the world is divided between users of the Macintosh computer and users of MS-DOS compatible computers. I am firmly of the opinion that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant. Indeed, the Macintosh is counterreformist and has been influenced by the "ratio studiorum" of the Jesuits. It is cheerful, friendly, conciliatory, it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach - if not the Kingdom of Heaven - the moment in which their document is printed. It is catechistic: the essence of revelation is dealt with via simple formulae and sumptuous icons. Everyone has a right to salvation.

DOS is Protestant, or even Calvinistic. It allows free interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can reach salvation. To make the system work you need to interpret the program yourself: a long way from the baroque community of revelers, the user is closed within the loneliness of his own inner torment.

You may object that, with the passage to Windows, the DOS universe has come to resemble more closely the counterreformist tolerance of the Macintosh. It's true: Windows represents an Anglican-style schism, big ceremonies in the cathedral, but there is always the possibility of a return to DOS to change things in accordance with bizarre decisions.....

And machine code, which lies beneath both systems (or environments, if you prefer)? Ah, that is to do with the Old Testament, and is Talmudic and cabalistic.




And it struck me that this seems a little out dated. Windows does not have a likeness to the Anglican Church. And certainly much less likeness to a John Hodgman character.

You nerdy-nerds can pick that apart if you like. The rest can have fun reading Fry's blog.

What happened to Barack Obama?

The 2004 superstar, who had commentators calling for a presidential campaign just as he was elected a senator, is now limp and useless. Like other superstars, Menundo, Men at Work, Leif Garret, the Obama campaign has drunkenly crashed into a disappointing post-career of candidacy.

I liked Barack at first. He was everything Chriss Dodd wasn't. He was no washington insider, he did not seem partisan, and he took hope out of the pre-9/11 world and put it where it belongs in the future. But now...

Obama has had a confusing record with Iran, not bothering to show up to vote whether or not the Revolutionary Guard was a terrorist group. He sort of waited it out to test the waters of public opinion.

Then this whole South Carolina thing...

You may have heard a bit of controversy over anti-gay gospel singer Donnie McClurkin making a performance at an Obama rally. McClurkin has also become a member of the SC Obama team.

SC is a critical state for Obama who is trailing in Iowa and New Hampshire. If he can't get SC Obama is a non-entity. SC has a giant black population. In essence, to win SC is to win the black vote. McClurkin is supposed to supposed to be the feel good American Idol to win over the black vote.

So, the gospel singer had a little concert. Instead of diffusing the situation or simply not talking about it McClurking stopped the concert mid-way to slam homosexuals... and not in the hot way. Way to use someone else's forum to spread the love.

Well, this did not go over well with Obama supporters or sensible people. There have been protestors. Obama has been trying to have it both ways, saying he absolutely supports gay rights while having a very anti-gay person as a very visible member of his campaign. Just like Obama has been trying to have it both ways, saying marriage inequality needs to end but not supporting gay marriage. Is Obama giving a wink and a nod to the more socially conservative SC voter saying "don't worry, I really don't support gays"?

Maybe I would like to see him in eight more years, but right now Chriss Dodd sounds better and better as the candidate with both integrity and a set of balls.