Linux: Finding the Crazies at the Asylum

A friend of mine who went to West Point told me that the ones who went bonkers were the ones who tried to justify everything. After many years, I've come to the conclusion that Linux serves the same purpose in the context of computer geeks.

So imagine you are running some school that churns out people that have the unhappy job of sending lots of young people off to be killed in horrible ways and you are trying to find all the ones who are completely bonkers out of this group. You don't want to completely remove such people, I mean as long as they get the job done you leave em alone, but you want to know who they are so that, at least most of the time, you don't leave them in charge of everything.

You're sitting there working on a migraine and are just about to reach for the bottle of spot remover when you remember cadet what's-his-name. He's the one that doesn't have a problem with the sort of insane discipline that this place arbitrarily flings at everyone, he wants more of it.

He doesn't feel that it's wrong at all. He thinks everything's just fine. Where many of the cadets might, for example, be biting their nails and wondering when the hell they can get out of this place, he's looking around with the face that says "This is it! I've found my home!"

The really interesting thing that I've found is that most of the people I've met who have been through places like West Point are nice, well balanced, caring people. Perhaps it's sort of like "now that I've gotten all that out of my system, I think I'll be sane for the rest of my life."

At any rate, I've noticed a similiarity with computer people.

There's one group of people who, having seen the total hell and insanity that is Linux, have decided that, you know, they really don't need any more of that crap in their lives. They are the ones that realizes that while computers can be interesting, at the end of the day they are tools created to help make things easier, not some sort of goal in and of themselves.

The other group are the ones with the crazy light in their eyes. They don't think that some weird, command-line approach to using a system is too difficult! It all makes sense! It's what real men use. What do you mean that some cryptic blather like

semanage fcontext -a -t samba_share_t "/var/eng(/.*)?"

Doesn't make sense? The only problem with Linux is that it's not complex enough!

In the mad, "conspiracy everywhere" part of my mind, I see these two things and say "Hmmm...maybe that's what Linux is for!" You expose a group of people to sheer perversity and madness that only technical people can create and weed out the really crazy ones because they actually like it. Once this is done, you keep them away from everything else so that there is some tiny chance that it will actually work.

The true beauty of it all is that you don't have to do anything to keep them away: you just keep them working on making it worse! One generation of nuts helps you find the next generation of whack-jobs...what could be better?

This, my friends, is what I think has happended with Linux.

What may have started as a means to create a free and high quality operating system has degenerated through cannibalism and madness to create a sort of crazy person proving ground. Those who enter the realm of Linux and come out, gibbering and scared, are to be embraced and fostered: they are the sane ones.

Those that stay in the labryinth, however, grinning madly and gesturing for the others to come back, they are the crazy ones. Keep them away. Let them play in their asylum, capering about to the cheers of their fellows. Let them occasionally flight their detritus, in the form of books with strange, vaguely disturbing pictures of animals on their covers at the rest of us. It is a small price to pay.

And it is every generation's duty to send the next generation through those crooked halls so that we will know which people we can trust, and which ones were lost before they ever set foot in the place.

Image "asylum for insane" by kwazar@flickr.com

VYSW: Nukewrap

Vent Your Spleen Wednesday

The thing that really ticks me off is traffic and those damn drivers who...oh...I already blogged about that.

Alrighty, what drives me nuts are those stupid stat-counters that inevitably fail when you...fooie, did that one too.

Nothing can match the feeling when I turn on the radio only to find...sigh.

Nukewrap! I haven't blogged about that yet!

OK, you know that hard, plastic wrapping around some computer stuff like headphones that you have to practically take a hack-saw to in order to open? I hate that stuff. Not only is it ridiculously hard to remove, not only do I often times cut myself on an edge, but when I finally do get the thing open, it always renders the item in "non-salable condition" so that I can't return it.

I'm sure there's some smug SOB, sitting in a lab somewhere, being very pleased with himself over having had invented the stuff. I just want this guy to be put in a box made of the stuff. I'd want the cell to have some air holes of course. Wouldn't want him to suffocate, oh no! I'd want him to be in there a long, long time...

VYSW: Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves!

Vent Your Spleen Wednesday

Many companies think that they can improve matters by making their employees afraid; specifically by firing people and then pointing out that there are still more people left that they can remove.

This does not make a whole lot of sense to me because I cannot stay scared indefinitely. When I'm scared, my heart beats, I sweat, etc. but only for a little bit. The more I'm exposed to the cause of the fear, the less scary it gets. When it comes in the form of a company's constant attempts at intimidation, it ends up fading into the background for me. In my experience, the people around me rarely stay scared either.

I've also seen fear sabotage productivity. When I personally feel threatened, I am less inclined to help people around me. At one place I saw a group that was relatively productive systematically destroyed by its less productive brethren. I've heard coworkers remark that you always want a bit of "deadwood" in your group so that, when the yearly "Christmas Bonus" comes around, you have someone that is more likely to get the axe then you are.

Trying to scare people into working harder doesn't strike me as a very good idea. But as the creator of the Dilbert comic strip remarked, if nature ran on the same principals as business, you'd see a bunch of mountain gorillas being led by an "alpha" squirrel. And mind you, it wouldn't be the most skilled squirrel…it would be the one that nobody else wanted to hang with.

VYSW: Aggressive Drivers

Vent Your Spleen Wednesday

A major factor in the stress of driving for me are those drivers who seem to pounce on any opportunity to get cut in front of me. And what does this idiot get? 1 car length. Often times even that gain is erased since the other guy ends up at the next stop light or slow-down anyways.

The worst of the worst are the ones who seem to be racing someone else. It always seems like there are at least two of these clowns, dodging in and out of traffic.

If these fools were only risking their own lives it would be bad enough, but they're risking my life too.

Runaway Story

I try to be short and to the point, I really do, but this story is getting away from me. Currently, I'm looking at 16 to 30 pages plus 8 to 16 more that I haven't edited and there's still a lot of stuff I need to write. My goal is to keep the story below 30 pages.

It's times like this that I look back fondly on the days when I had writer's block.

I would sit there, literally all night, write out a sentence, decided it sucked, throw it away, and start over again. If I was lucky, I managed to write one page, but usually I ended up with nothing.

These days I plop down in the chair and force myself to write about a page, and then reward myself with some quality time on World of Warcraft. I realize that it still probably stinks, but hey, I still get to play WoW. After about a month and a half of this I have 30 to 45 pages to work with.

Then the dreaded editing process starts.

The goal is to shrink the story down 30 pages or less. Cut out all the fluff and drivel (well most of it anyways), so that what's left is just the essentials.

At least that's the theory.

The reality is that I'm faced with 30 to 45 pages of drivel that I can try to splice together into something comprehensible. This prospect alone is enough to get me to shuffle off and spend lots of quality time with WoW in order to avoid it.

So, the good news is that I don't have anywhere near the problem with writer's block that I used to. The bad news is that now I have editor's block.

Black Monday

One thing I find disappointing about myself is that I created a site called "Blather n' Rants" and then I don't post any rants. More specifically, I don't post about the negative aspects of my life or the things around me. Personally, I think this is a shame.

The thing is I'm not a happy camper. I spend a lot of my time being not very happy™ and not writing about it seems dishonest to me – like I'm trying to put a façade over a grim situation.

There is a difference, however, between acknowledging the aspects of yourself that you aren't proud of and fostering them. Saying "OK, I'm not perfect" is one thing. Celebrating what you consider wrong and trying to show how you emblemize them is another.

I also feel inhibited by the venue. One problem is that I have a few friends online and offline who know that I am the author for this site. I'm afraid that if I post something they object to, I could lose their friendship.

And mind you, we are talking about both of my friends.

So here I am back at the start – can't post something negative. Or at least really negative.

At least I posted a rant.