Usually, I don’t cross-link posts from one blog to another, but I believe this one is related to some subjects (no, not atheism or religion 
) discussed here in the past.
So, without further ado… Why I’m not a Sysadmin anymore.
I’ll welcome any opinions, comments, etc., over there, of course.
(Note: I don’t have that kind of job — or indeed, any kind — since last August. That post is a collection of thoughts about a decade or so of a particular kind of work, not about my current situation — as the post itself says, near the end.)
This one is a bit offtopic on this site, but… Firefox 1.5 is out.
Since this isn’t a technical blog, I’ll explain: Firefox is a web browser, much like Internet Explorer (IE), which comes with Windows systems… only it’s much better, faster, more stable and more secure. When you get used to it (including features such as tabbed browsing, a decent popup blocker, and others), you’ll discover that browsing the web can really be a pleasure - and you’ll feel crippled when you have to use a friend’s computer and he or she only has IE. Of course, in such a case, Firefox is always a (small) download away…
Try it out, it’s free… just get it from here.
We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.
Great post on The Martian Anthropologist, which links to a Wired article. Both are excellent - I especially like the Martian’s comments at the end:
He’s right — we should not replace actual physical contact with various electronic messaging. But — and I hate to sound harsh — I live in a place where there are a lot of close-minded people that perhaps pick up a book once a year. And my next-door neighbor is an asshole. I don’t want to talk to him over the back fence about anything.
I feel exactly the same way and have tried, mostly without success, to explain it to friends: human contact is good and all that, but when most people around you don’t have anything in common with you (they don’t read books, they like the “music” that’s on the radio, and they think computer games are a childish waste of time - unlike soccer, which to them is the most important thing in the world), thank the heavens for the Internet and its “inhuman, unfeeling” methods of communication. Without it, I’d almost never be able to have a decent conversation.
This isn’t the main point of the article, however. The rest is something I also agree with - indeed, I’ve linked to a post from the Martian about the same, some time ago. Just because you can produce 10 times as much as someone 50 years ago, it doesn’t mean that it becomes our duty to do so, nor does it mean that we’re “lazy” if we don’t. We’re not in this world in order to work, produce and consume, but to live, and to enjoy life.
Science of Identity Foundation | “Money Can’t Buy Happiness” by Jagad Guru Chris Butler
Why do some “former” computer geeks tend, at some time, to blame their “geekness” (and computers in particular) for any perceived lack of social success - also known, in this case, as “having no life”?
It’s a strange phenomenon that I have observed several times in my life - there comes a time when, suddenly, a person “decides” that computers, and their interest in them, are to blame for having few friends, for not having a girl/boyfriend, for not being popular - in short, for not being “normal”, and socially successful.
So, they try to cut all ties to computers. Some sell or give away their PC(s), and afterwards boast to people about not having one at home (“I have a life, you know…”). If they have a computer-related job, they either change jobs, if possible, or, if that can’t be done, they begin to hate their jobs, they lose all drive to learn anything new about the subject - only the minimum required to be efficient at their job, and nothing more.
But, after doing that, do they become happier? Not according to what I see.
Continue reading ‘Computers and “real life”’
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