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filling the void

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Boredom

Well, nothing much happening today, it would seem.
I've spent some time looking at my pictures in picasa, and I must say, I'm impressed.
ACDSee Classic (and the versions before it) has always been my image viewing tool of choice, but now I might have to revise that. Picasa has an UI smoothness over it that's just unrivaled. I head people say that iPhoto is nice, but I don't have a mac, so it's really of very little interest to me.
The one and only online community that I'm a member of finally came back online today, after what seems like 3 weeks of downtime, based on the dates of the posts I was responding to.
It's good. It helps me keep track of likeminded individuals, and also what parties are happening around where I live.
I've always been a vocal adversary of "the community people", a.k.a the lunarstormers, that jumped on the bandvaggon some 5 or so years ago, when communities were all the rage (they apparently still are). I found it bad in almost every sense. Most communities I hear about (I have a sister who's 16, guess where I get the info from) are little more than glorified dating services and gossip boards. I really have no idea where I'm going with this, only that I have previously found these online communities (not to be confused with communities who are online) to be stuff that those of lesser minds dabbled in. I have, however, been sucked in by the lure of getting new friends in a new city. I chose carefully, and I'm now a member of a community that atleast bases it's existence on something I like, namely electronic music, and its followers, or listeners or producers. People I suppose. mom and dad will tell you to "get off the computer", for they fear that what you're interacting with is highly artificial, and that you should go out an be with friends, and meet real people and whatnot. What mom and dad (moms and dads from all over the world, I might add) don't get, is that the interaction online is by and with very real people, just on the other side of their computer screens. I suppose the downside is you don't get as much fresh air as riding around the 'hood with your friends, but then again, mom doesn't have to clean the grass stains from your clothes, and dad doesn't have to come bail you out after you get in a fight, or break into a house, out of sheer boredom.

People have always had visions about the future. Flying cars, computers that talk back, robots that do the household chores. I don't think, however, that anyone quite expected the internet revolution, as it came to be. Enslaving the youth and whatnot *insert diabolical laughter here*.

I'm sitting down with a pile of C++ tutorials. I'm hoping to produce some software with one of the worlds most widely used languages. I have written c and c++ before, but lately, I've concentrated nearly exclusively on Java and C#, two very wonderful languages (even though C# has some flaws, and is missing a proper SSL library). We'll see where that takes me I guess. Hopefully to a piece of working software, but you never know. I have thus far only put one project on ice, but I might resume that at a later date.

I would never have had the idea to sit down and write this piece of software, or the others that I have written, nor would I have had as ample opportunity to learn the skills that I needed to write software, had I not been a child of the internet revolution. Ofcourse, the older people will claim that the revolution started much sooner, and I suppose they would be right. I mean the internet has been around for ages, but in it's current form, I'd like to say that it's only been around for roughly 10 years, give or take. My point is, I'm I would not live the life I have now, had it not been for the advent of computers, and the need for people who know how to handle them outside writing letters to their grand children in Word.

I don't know if this makes much sense, but due to the lack of anything with real content to write, I took the path of starting one sentence, and letting the rest just flow out of me. It's great way to fill pages with what sometimes comes out as pure nonsense, but it's also a way to hone your writing skills, your grasp of the language, and ofcourse, with my new keyboard, how to write while keeping your eyes on the screen.

I have no plans of becoming an author, but I still love to write. I think that might be why I started this blog in the first place. Just to have a place to collect my thought, and an outlet, other than notepad.exe to put my thoughts.

It's getting close to dinner time. I figure today should be a nice day to take some pictures, so I might just grab a bite to eat and then go out to the beautifully landscaped cemetery on the other side of the highway. Solemn places always make for good introspection. If they are also beautiful, it soothes the soul. I'm not religious in any way, and for all I care, that cemetery could have been a nice flower garden, but since it's not, I'll just take what I'll get.
Stay tuned for the possibility of some pictures showing up. I love taking pictures. I wish I was a better photographer though, and that I had a "real" SLR camera. Ofcourse, real photographers know that it's not the camera that makes the picture (other than in an actual, physical sense), but the photographer, and his/her eye for how light works and what to take pictures of. That's why I will not spend a buttload of money on that nice new Nikon D50 or D70s, because I can neither afford it, nor justify it, as I would have to become a better photographer first, and as we know by know, it's the photographer that takes the pictures, not the camera.
This, I can tell you, doesn't sit well with being a gadget freak, but since I'm a fairly poor freak, I'll make do.

So, I'm waiting for the light...
Markus

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