Night of the living Labythan
admin
I am a 23 year old nerd who has too much to think about and too much to do but just doesn't have enough time to do it all.
Homepage: http://labythan.com
AIM: labythan
Posts by admin
Cultural Divide
Aug 24th
I started a new job – technically, it’s at a company I worked at once before, but since I left, the company has grown in size and complexity, and similarly my programming skill has matured as well. In any case, the important part is I worked here before, and I have a nearly friend level relationship with the owner.
The other day, I suggested we go get some soup for Lunch. I ate way more than I needed (I bought a bottomless bowl). During the meal, my boss had a phonecall from his wife – she wanted to know what he thought about what school to send their preschool daughter too.
My boss has a very logical and empathetic mind. The guy had a conversation earlier about how a successful workplace is made by every worker feeling that the workplace is successful solely because of his/her accomplishments. He broke it down into example – he said “Brian, when you left the company last time, wouldn’t you say that the software package was your baby, and the way it is made is solely a result of your hard work and creativity?” Well, yes, it was, the product kicked ass and my hands were all over it. But he makes the point that every other developer feels the same way about the project. And that makes a strong workplace.
So, the guy can easily pierce through the hidden meaning behind the surface level of behavior and call someone out on it. His wife was arguing for a particular school and to commit to it because of an emotional fear of another school being lackluster. My boss, being the cool levelheaded guy he is, suggested that additional private schools get researched that capitalize on his daughters above average intelligence based on a criterion of what courses are taught and how they work into accelerated classical learning (he’s read an army on the subject in books). When the wife refused to see his point of view (because she already made her own up based on a non exhaustive search) he called her out on making an emotionally biased decision on the matter, rather than systematically researching for and finding the optimum outcome.
I’m suppressed they are debating what school a kindergartner needs to go to.
I’ve been learning how narrow my view of the world has been while growing up over the last few years. The way that the Anoka suburbs behave is totally different from how midtown Minneapolis behaves. I never thought to think that left wing hippies have kids which then are raised from day one as left wing hippies. I also never thought about life working on a different level of expectations from my own. But here I am, acting sort of as a social shapeshifter blending into different scenes, and I see just how many different ways people live life around me.
While we may not think at first we live in a class based society (sort of like, say, Pakistan, where the working class stays working class) there are many cultural divides that keep us all apart. These divides are based on expectations of our peers in opinions to hold. If you disagree with how someone acts, or opinions someone holds, then you get all these separations of people who just don’t interact with each other. For example, lefties vs righties, educated vs working class, poor vs wealthy, urban people vs suburban people vs small-town people.
I suppose some of this is also based on fear and the unknown. For example, people I know in Anoka would have no problem being out at midnight around here, yet are scared shitless of being out at night in Minneapolis. Interestingly enough, hipsters I know from Minneapolis are scared of visiting the suburbs. This puts up another boundary to people socializing.
Now, as I have found out, I grew up in an area with less ‘culture’ than Minneapolis, therefore I should interact with people from Minneapolis and get some ‘culture’. What I think these people don’t realize is that just because they are at the cutting edge of new culture, they don’t apply themselves to understanding other local cultures (suburbanites, for example). Without trying on new hats, the social elite ends up restricting themselves to a vary narrow view of the world.
But hey, I have been spending some time hanging out with people who live an hour away or so in a trailer park. And they are fun people. It’s a different world.
Clearly, we are a product of our environment. But does that mean our environment is superior or the only one that is important? And who are we cutting out of our life by restricting yourself to our environment? Why can’t we all be friends, and learn from each other?
Who are you?
Defcon and stuff
Aug 9th
Nothing too thought provoking here. Just where my life is.
Defcon came and went again. This year, we drove a van with Kyla, Tyler, Annah, Josh, Alex and myself to Defcon. It was a fun weekend, but not necessarily the most fun I’ve ever had on a vacation – having alot of people with is alot of stress in itself, as it turns out. Or maybe I just don’t remember large chunks of it because I was drunk half the trip. But in any case, we hit up alot of new fast food joints (Which Wich rocks!!!!), I successfully dyed my hair radient blue, and at some point I even got a mohawk. Pictures are all up on facebook.
First off, van rental was super easy. It cost about $600, $200 of which was covered by my parents (thanks!). The van itself was pretty cool. I’d defiantly get a Town and Country if I ever needed to get a Minivan.
This year marks the last year of Defcon at the Rivierra Casino. The Rivierra went bankrupt this year, and Defcon itself has very clearly outgrown its venue space. Next year it will be at the Rio Casino, which I am very excited for.
Next year, I plan on flying in and wasting my money on a Suite to host the Phonelosers and any of Craig’s friends at. The plan is to be much more social next year. Maybe next year I will even earn a Ninja badge – I failed this year by apparently ‘trying too hard’. Nobody likes the guy that sucks up to authority – that guy seems weak, and you don’t want him around. You want equals.
Las Vegas (and in 2008 Hope) for the last few years has always marked my peak of the summer. Past this point its preparation for the slow downhill slope that leads into winter. This means prep work and tying up loose ends. It is sort of my end of ‘lounging around’. I have alot to do – and I think I want to make a project management tool for both my job and myself to get it all done.
Did I mention I have a new job, by the way? I work for Asim again at the place that spearheaded my career back in 2005. This place has so much energy, it makes it exciting and fun to work again. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be doing Unix administration as part of my job.
So anyway, I have to set up a theater room (I want a giant TV), clean up the house, clean up the backyard, finish Starcraft II (which rocks), catch up on all bills, loose 10 more pounds (while I can still bike while it is warm enough too), learn Actionscript, and a few other things.
I’ve been working on setting up a space for a monthly LAN party in a non residential location. I got a tour of a garage off west from the metro, and it was great, but it was too far out of the way. Defcon inspired me to start a hacker space to do this, because last I checked there were no hacker spaces in minneapolis, but after talking to DC612 (the local defcon group) it seems that there was one founded in January called the Twin Cities Maker (I think?). Anyway, they have meetings every Wednesday – I am going to check it out, get a membership, and see if I can’t convince them to raise money for their dues through LAN parties once monthly. If that doesn’t work, I’ve also considered renting out a 24 hour access jam space to accomplish this goal.
Anne Daemon (I doubt that is her last name) has been hosting board game nights via facebook’s ‘unstranger’ group that she made. She’s pretty awesome for getting new people together. We’ve played settlers of catan a few times (kyla always comes with) and a few rounds of munchkin. I finally got a chance to try out my Munchkin quest game. We’ve played at Chatterbox and Bob’s coffee shop a few times, but by far it seems the best place for this sort of thing has been “The Bad Waitress” which is in Midtown near Kyla’s place.
I’m rave deprived (haven’t been for a few weeks) I want to make a glow suit like this guy. I also want to make a Duff man costume for halloween.
You should see my calendar for the next few weeks. Busy every night. Last friday, Shawns. Saturday, getting colleen and niki drunk (man, did she ever get drunk). Sunday, Inception (which rocked), today tacos and karaoke, tuesday fixing computers, wednesday shawns for movies, thursday python user group at sierra bravo, friday dinner and movie with patricks friends in minneapolis, saturday starcraft II lan, sunday trueblood with shawn and his gf (and kyla?).
Inception rocked. See it.
Also, my friend group is shifting again. I spend most of my time hanging out with Kyla, and am starting to hang out with Shawn and Colleen some more.
The state of the union
Jul 22nd
I have a new job starting tomorrow working for the employer who helped launch my career back in 2006. I’m super excited. I needed to get a new computer for the job, so he financed me a Macbook Pro. I was going to go with the Core 2 13 inch (which sounds like an incredible buy to me), but he talked me up to getting the high resolution 15 inch glossy model. It may cost 1k more, but it is worth it I think. This thing looks like it popped right out of a good dream. I set it up right this time too – new IDE (Netbeans), xdebug, macports rather than fink, Windows 7 on alternate partition.
In other nerdy news, I’m very proud of my multiple raid 5 setup on my server. The setup lets me treat all the various sized hard drives as one giant drive, while allowing any one drive to die and still retaining the data. It’s nice to finally have the nuts and time to jump that gun.
Pretty much all that has been happening in my life otherwise lately is biding and planning for the trip to Defcon 18, which we depart for next Tuesday Night. We have rented a van for the trip. Attending will be Tyler, Josh, Annah, Kyla, and Alex. Will rock!!! I even dyed my hair for it. I like the blond I have right now.
Starcraft II comes out the same day. I’m going to buy it because I’m a fan, but I’m not super pumped for it like I am for some other things. Maybe I am getting old. My little cousin (who is 10) wired up a new gizmo onto his WII the other day – if he would have asked me to do it, I would have no idea what I was doing. I’ve used a WII for like 3 hours of my life. And it’s been around for about 4 years now. I’m out of touch and crotchety with tech lately, but I’ve started to ramp up interest on new languages again – I think I will start up learning Actionscript very shortly!
I’m doing my best to plan for a public Lan Party space, to bring the fun of the Glencoe lan closer to home. And to throw occasional personal parties in. This is going to be a lengthy endeavor.
Anyway, VEGAS VEGAS VEGAS
Another tech post
Jul 16th
When I figure out how to get some of the hardware I have working, I have to make a post here recording what methods work for getting my crap to work. Earlier I jotted down how to make tethering work on my palm pixi, and that post has been invaluable for me. This one is going to be Ubuntu 10.04 on my Acer Aspire One ZA3.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport/Machines/Netbooks
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportComponentsVideoCardsPoulsbo
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gma500/ppa && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install poulsbo-driver-2d poulsbo-driver-3d poulsbo-config
On Acer 751h to fix battery status add to session startup:
cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/info
Hibernate: Add to last match in /usr/share/hal/fdi/information/10freedesktop/20-video-quirk-pm-acer.fdi
<match key=”system.hardware.product” string=”AO751h”>
<merge key=”power_management.quirk.dpms_on” type=”bool”>true</merge>
<merge key=”power_management.quirk.vbemode_restore” type=”bool”>true</merge>
<merge key=”power_management.quirk.vbestate_restore” type=”bool”>true</merge>
</match>
No password on resume: start gconf-editor, gnome-power-manager section, uncheck checkboxes
Lets take a trip down memory lane
Jun 29th
This summer, thusfar, has been excellent. I’ve spent at least every other day out doing something. I try to do it all by bike and bus. This has paid off in massive weight loss (25 pounds last I checked) which has improved my health and mood a ton. I actually enjoy heat now!
This past weekend was PRIDE. The massive GLBT festival held in Loring Park. This year I managed to see the PRIDE parade go down Hennepin Avenue, which while not as large as the Mayday parade, defiantly shows diversity in action, and the support that the diversity has garnered. The overall festival drew out 100,000 people – many of which were gay couples or general gay people (I’d say 1 in 3 were some flavor of gay?)
Now, I’m not gay, but I am supportive of alternative lifestyles. Moreso, it showed me that a lot of people are supportive of alternative lifestyles. They say 1 in 10 people are gay, and I’d bet that while maybe a large percentage of local GLBT culture attended pride, a very small percentage of ’straight’ culture attended, and the place was still packed.
Of those people, how many people did I know? Lets say everyone I know that would possibly want to attend did attend PRIDE. 10 people?
I don’t know many people. I don’t spend much time hanging out with friends, because I don’t have as many as I used too – everyone is in relationships or raising kids, or a total social recluse. It didn’t used to be this way.
I remember when I was part of 4-H, worked at K-Mart, and was involved with clubs at school. I had people to involve with my life. Maybe not close friends, out friends I could network through and have a good time. I wouldn’t know anyone I know today if it wasn’t for that network. Those were good times.
Maybe I should start planning community events. Lan parties, good deeds meetups, DND clubs, Athiest clubs. Or something.
I always tell people who are jobless, do what it takes to make money. You aren’t doing anything with your time, so try something, no matter how crazy or lame it sounds, it is better than what you are doing right now. Make tye dye thirst and sell them or something. Maybe it’s time for me to take my own advice and make some friends.
The best game of my life
Jun 14th
I apologize if this is a little hazy. I am writing this while simultaneously watching a talk on data visualization at flashbelt. But it’s been on my mind for some time.
There is a theory that all play (gaming, sports, contests) is all an exercise used to prepare you for your adult life. In animals, predators play doing predatory like activities to prepare them to be an actual predator when they are older. Interestingly enough, the play we participate in as young kids helps define the roles we will play while older. If we participate in a particular activity (playing kitchen) and get better at it (playing with an easy bake oven) we may end up to be an expert cook.
Of course, the professions and activities that us people participate in are much more diverse and complicated than to define into simple categories like ‘playing cook will turn you into a cook’. There is also communication skills, sexual creativity, problem solving ability, hobbies, physical fitness, and outgoingness that are all important qualities on how people behave.
If you have been raised a particular way, it seems very hard to break out of your bubble on how you expect life to be – you’ve learned and adapted to a particular way of life. Within my childhood home, adult life seemed to consist of going to work, returning home, doing interesting activities on the weekend, and tending to your household. So, naturally I mirrored that.
But life clearly could be much more exciting. It could be a world I could participate in. I mean, look at adventures that characters take in Fictional Media, for example Aurthur Dent (Hitchhikers Guide), or Jim Kirk (Star Trek) – they don’t just sit at home. They are completely unanchored from home in every way, and this gives them the freedom to do and see so much more than the average person could ever do.
Every single day, I drove my Prius home, then did some simple activity to kill the evening before I went to bed in the same place. Even with Katy, it was the same. Work, home, food, sleep. There’s got to be more to life.
I one day got World of Warcraft, and hated it. I knew that the game was super addicting (it ate my friend Andy’s life), and I didn’t understand why. I was expecting some kind of epic strategy game sort of like Battlezone where you can make lasting permanent changes to the world. But that wasn’t the case. You were only made of what items were on your character (and your characters stats) and you could move around in and interact with the world, but not make any permanent change to it. What a crappy game.
I played it for a month and quit. I played for a few more months when Annah became pregnant and needed some kind of Social expenditure. Eventually, I got good at it.
Then, I lost my Prius. I had to get around by public transportation + bike. You know what? I’ve done this before.
Flightmaster = Bus / Train (public transportation). Mount = Bike. Towns in WoW = Business clusters. Guild = Facebook and twitter friends. Private messaging = text messaging. Level, Professions and Abilities = personal fitness, learned social and trade skills. Quests = activities in foursquare, meetup, and facebook. Quest log = Google Calendar. Classes = Social Stereotypes (hipsters, etc). Rerolling = changing social groups and clique. Minimap / World map = Google Maps.
You see where I am going. World of Warcraft models a way to explore and be part of the real world much more dynamically and directly than anything I had learned yet. I knew there were ways to get out and see the world, I just wasn’t good at it. And WoW comes around and presents a game which I can easily learn for a way to interact with the world. Now that I am good at it, it makes much more sense.
But WoW costs money, and is much less satisfying than real relationships. Video games have been ruined for me by having a taste of real life. So I throw WoW (and my puny Level 55 Warlock) away, and treat the world as a game. I just treat public transportation as a network of interesting points connected together, and I get out there and play the game.
It’s been a year of playing Minneapolis as if it was World of Warcraft, and I have seen and done so much. I’ve never been more healthy and I’ve never been this connected to the community. My life has never been better.
Ya’ll wanna do a raid? Er, I mean, a bikeride around lake Calhoun and go to the bar.