Stuff from the Magazines
A brief overview of various things from magazines not in any way related to the blockchain.
Growing consumerism in China is going to profoundly affect the global economy, reshaping the landscape of brands and stuff, and one of the leading economists and philosophers have studied this phenomenon, observing that it has its roots in a sentiment of "collective consumption" from China's communist past. Plus the Chinese government and the Communist party sees growing consumption as a necessary condition for further China's development and stuff. So it's going to shape reality and stuff.
Something about the big collider and problems related to maintaining the security of the system that mostly uses Linux and some people are concerned about potential vulnerabilities and stuff. Although, all the information produced by the collider is publicly available on some site for anybody who can figure out, what to do with it.
Singapore is running a subsidized housing program for young people, especially if they are married and not gay. Which is kinda cool, but it raises concerns among those, who think that it's kinda paternalistic and encourages people to stick to some traditional ways of life, preserving consistently among generations, helping parents and stuff. But the housing thingy is kinda cool and really cheap. Although, for completely broke there is no solution, and there are some troubles with pension plans and stuff. Plus it's kinda unclear about the ownership of those apartments, like, it's a lifelong lease or something.
A popular philosopher argues that religion was an essential and important thing for the development of civilization and the formation of our human values and the way of life, especially regarding our sense of community and stuff. Like we don't need to take seriously whatever religion says about invisible beings and angels and things like that and focus instead on moral values, principles that contributed to the development of our societies and stuff.
There is a problem that presently we have very little time, and we work a lot, so some economists and sociologists took a look at this paradox. Because it might have been assumed that with automation, and technological gizmos and progress, we should've been able to work less, but it doesn't happen, which is kinda strange. So they came up with the conclusion that the problem is that since we got used to evaluating time in terms of how much money it can bring, we prefer to work more, and thus have less time for leisure. And even during leisure, we are concerned whether it's worth it, considering that the same amount of time spent working could bring more money. So this is the problem. Plus it's hard to get a job without an education, and overall market dynamics pressures people to work more and stuff.
Also, there's a problem of big corporations disrupting the lifestyle and well-being of poor rural communities in poor countries like Zimbabwe by taking over their land. So those people cannot sustain themselves anymore and are doomed to slide into depths of poverty. The problem is that there is no way to keep those corporations accountable because those are some shady companies, not related to any big brands, international investors, and stuff. So international organizations like the UN and others who usually try to get involved in such issues and fix things cannot do anything. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that those firms collude with corrupt governments that take share in their profits. (or they are directly related to companies' management or whatever) Plus the chieftains of those rural agricultural communities, who are supposed to protect their interests, often play along with big corps instead and rip off their compatriots. Also, there is no solid legal basis, regarding land ownership in Africa and other troubles.
There was a makeshift camp of refugees near Calais in France (until it was dismantled), which helped immigrants to survive through cooperation and mutual support, and to move further to the UK and Sweden. And also it represented a unique mix and alloy of cultures, traditions, and languages, and overall it was a cultural hub (and there are some poetic descriptions and stuff), and it wasn't cool that it was destroyed because it somewhat trampled the right of people to move around freely and stuff. In any case, it was a controversial place without any clear rules, riddled with crime, poverty, social unrest, so it disappeared, and it was kinda inevitable.
There is a palpable tension between mainland China and Taiwan, stretching to past historical events that caused this split. The situation is that both parties each consider themselves a "true China" and don't see each other as legitimate states. So it comes down to some precarious balance, subtle rhetoric and the growing risk of escalation of this controversy into a conflict, especially considering the volatile political situation in the world. China keeps enough artillery near the border with Taiwan to quickly wipe out whatever military forces the island has. Plus there is a growing dislike between mainland Chinese and Taiwanese and other scary shit. The only problem, it will be hard to organize a full-scale invasion because it's the island and stuff. Also, if it won't be quick, other countries can get into the fray, and it'll become complicated. But the Communist party considers unification and stuff, so it's supposed to be kinda scary.
Stuff from the Magazines 2
A brief weekly review of various stuff that is happening around the world.
Philosophers studying questions of ethics are concerned about self-driving cars. In particular, how self-driving cars are going to deal with the trolley dilemma. Like, if there's a choice between hitting some innocent pedestrian or swerving to avoid hitting a pedestrian but at the same time subjecting the passenger to danger. Philosophers say; it can be more complicated than it seems because there are many factors that have to be taken into account. Like, essentially, which decision is going to be the best in terms of doing less evil. For example, maybe it's a very old drug addict on the road who in any case doesn't have much of a life ahead of him. Or it's an unhappy teenager who has no life and wants to die anyway. So, for example, if the passenger is a cool gal with like, attributes, social life, and stuff, the decision should be made in her favor, or so I think. In any case, it's kinda complicated.
The leader of North Korea whose name I don't remember how to spell is traveling in a bulletproof train towards Chinese capital Beijing to meet the Chinese leader whose name I don't remember how to spell. The train is supplemented with a supply of food, wine, and hookers who can sing songs. To ensure the safety of North Korean leader the train is preceded by another train with security personnel and specially trained people. So, for example, if somebody plants a bomb somewhere along the route, the security train will discover the bomb by being blown up. Meanwhile, the train carrying the Korean leader would stay unscathed. This sudden visit by the North Korean chieftain to China raises a question if the American President, Donald Trump really scared the shit out of him.
Political commentators and human right activists are worried about Chinese special forces and Intelligence kidnapping various Chinese people around the world. Literally, if they consider somebody - living in Australia or America - Chinese and they think that he should return to the Motherland, and he owes Chinese government like, money or honors, they just drug him, put him in a boat and sail to China. Just like that. Or they like, threaten him, saying like " there are your relatives still in China, so either you return, or we cannot guarantee their safety and stuff." It worries me because like, how they decide who's Chinese and who is not. So, everybody's at risk, and we should watch out for this shit and stuff.
Scientists made the first attempts to teach AI creating nude paintings. The experiment was organized in the following way. One mechanical brain was painting what he thought were nude paintings, and another mechanical brain decided whether those paintings looked convincing enough or not. As a result, the team produced a collection of paintings. When that artwork had been demonstrated to human beings, they were somewhat horrified. Because what they saw mostly looked like piles of dismembered body parts, sewn together in the most abominable and terrifying manner. Also, it looked like all this shit was melting and stuff. The experiment raised a number of questions. Like, how certain can we be that AI can comprehend the concept of the naked human body correctly? Or should we allow AI to judge creative endeavors of another AI? Because in this experiment the smart machine, responsible for assessing the quality of "paintings," apparently okayed all that despicable stuff with dismembered bodies and decided that those were legit nude erotic paintings. Like, something that any decent medieval artist would produce. All in all, we need to beware of AI because eventually, it's going to massacre us and take our jobs.
A prominent philosopher brings up a question, like, can we consider various things in the outside world helping us to get along (like Wikipedia or Google Maps) being part of our own consciousness? Like, for example, a person, who has problems with remembering stuff, writes it down on a notepad, and the notepad is kinda part of his consciousness. So, maybe, nowadays, the Internet with all its information, we so heavily rely upon, is also part of our consciousness. This, in turn, somewhat raises a philosophical question whether our selves also include our environment, in which we normally function. Like, if we are suddenly yanked from our environment and thrown into the desert where there's no water, food, and Internet, our selves would suffer and lose their integrity. So, the bottom line is that all those gadgets, smartphones and shit we carry around with us all the time is an essential part of our consciousness and self. So we need to keep doing that. Otherwise, it would be like we'd lose a part of our brain or something. Also, the shit keeps escalating with augmented reality glasses, body implants, and other spooky stuff. So one day we will be like cyborgs; our flesh and gray matter working harmoniously with implanted silicon chips and machine gun prosthetics. Basically, we'll be like Terminators. Maybe, we'll be able to transfer our consciousness into a body made of liquid metal that would be able, like, change its form into anything. It would be really cool. So, the conclusion is that the future is upon us, and it's pretty much fucked up.
Another philosopher underwent a series of experiments with virtual reality and got concerned about the question: Is our reality really real? Or can it be also some kind of virtual reality we are unaware of? Like, it's also connected to out of body experience. Like, if our consciousness can exist outside of our body then maybe our body, as well as everything we experience around us, is an artificially created illusion. This hypothesis can be somewhat confirmed by the nature of how easily our minds get used to perceive virtual reality as something real. If we take somebody and submerge him or her into virtual reality for some more prolonged period, in the end, this person won't be able to distinguish between reality and illusion. Also, there's an interesting question of how much of what we perceive is actually coming from outside, and how much comes from what we expect to perceive. Like, a guy inside virtual reality touches a virtual object, and he feels like he touches something just because his brain expects it. It's somewhat of the phenomena of phantom sensations. So, the question is, how much of what we see, hear, or feel from the real world can, in fact, be those phantom feelings. Also, there's a cool analogy of our consciousness with an airplane cockpit. The cockpit is full of instruments and stuff, but there's no pilot there most of the time. Because we don't really control our consciousness, our flow of thoughts. It's almost an automatic process. So the conclusion is that we cannot say what's real and what's not. Maybe, we are hallucinating half of the time, who knows.
On Bitcoin Plunge (translation)
When you enter the market, you need to be calm and relaxed as the surface of an icy mountain lake. The lake, hidden high among the snowy peaks, protected from any calamities and worries. Its waters are still and pure, like my brain at the moment when I look at the chart with falling prices, and I don't feel pain or fear. I see an incredibly beautiful picture. I feel elated! I know this scenario, written many years ago, repeating itself again and again. It's as if Beethoven himself has written this mesmerizing music.
So I contemplate with a smile how Bitcoin is rapidly falling - proud and strong - like an eagle, seeing its unwary prey. Its fall is so graceful that - if to put aside all the worries and jitters - it's possible just to get enchanted by this picture.
Look, how it swoops, determined and forceful, breaking through all levels and crashing everything on its way. And seeing this, you realize that the Lemmings are screwed.
Lemmings cannot survive this clash of life and death. They come to this meadow when everything is green and blooming, and they hope to grab as much profit as possible. But Bitcoin sees all this from above and waits. It's waiting while the Lemmings fill their cheeks and stomachs with weedy Ripple and useless Throne, knowing that soon those greedy animals simply won't be able to move. So now they huddle together, holding each other's hands, and singing "To the Mooon." It means; it's time. So now it's the hour of reckoning. Like a thunderbolt from the blue, spurred by the disturbing news, Bitcoin is plunging down to hit those cowardly Lemmings right in the head.
This story is repeating year after year. This tragedy, which would make the Great Shakespear proud, is unfolding before our eyes.
It's the last day of Pompeii.
The Lemmings flee in panic, discarding everything they piled up for so long, selling with massive losses and running with the tails between their legs to the gray and filthy burrows, screaming of some "Bubble." Cowardly, greedy creatures.
And somewhere away from this pandemonium, away from the marketplaces and laptops, tired but experienced Holders have dug in, tending to their old wounds. They know that after performing this annihilating blow at Lemmings, shedding this useless ballast, this mighty and proud Eagle will spread its wings and rise to the new heights! It will fly proudly, ascending higher and higher, breathing the heady air of freedom. It knows that it'll eventually show the world its power and beauty, and nobody will be able to stop it. Because what it brings to the world is more precious than gold. It brings the world hope. (February 1, 2018)
On Feminism and appropriateness of touching strangers
It reminds me of a joke "There is nothing more heartwarming than a gentle neck kiss from behind. I wonder why people in the subway freak out so much."
On a serious note: I think, regarding the examples in this article, I would say touching strangers in public places is totally inappropriate and creepy, there's no question about that. Like, in social contexts it might vary, depending on the situation. In some community, it can be appropriate to hug people, for example, in some not. But the thing is, it's not really about that.
All this stuff about touching people and what's appropriate and what is not is not the most important thing here; there's an underlying context that is quite disturbing.
The context, in which this article had been brought up, was a conversation related to an alleged "borderline" case of sexual harassment. This conversation eventually turned into an argument about what exactly constitutes creepy behavior and sexual harassment. Naturally, there exists an even deeper emotional subtext: When women talk about creepy behavior and sexual harassment usually those subjects are deeply entangled in their minds with rape and violence. And there is this black and white picture, (or rather this impervious darkness) no shades of gray: Inappropriate hug left unchecked leads to sexual advances, harassment, and eventually to rape.
For some, it might sound over the top and paranoid, but I think we just look at it from the wrong point of view. As if we discuss some minor shoulder pain and how to treat it while in fact, this shoulder pain is caused by a developing lethal heart disease.
So speaking of this article, there's an elephant in the room. The underlying layer of this discussion about whether it's appropriate to touch people or not is an unspoken assumption that under such seemingly innocent gestures lie murky dungeons and sick imaginations of rapists and psychos, inundating our society. This is what I see both in this article and in the conversation that brought this article to light.
And it makes me simultaneously really sad and somewhat curious. Namely, how we managed to end up in this mess. What is this article good for? I mean does it really matter, what we consider appropriate or inappropriate in terms of touching people, looking at people, talking to people, when, in fact, we talk about rapists, creeps, and psychos, donning masks of chummy interlocutors and hiding their dark intentions under the guise of those innocent gestures? And if a woman allows a friendly hug from one of those wolves in sheep's clothing, it'll encourage the wolf to make the next move, then the next, leading eventually to rape, murder, all this horror story stuff.
Naturally, taking into consideration this underlying context, this all sounds very much like poultice recipes for shoulder pains caused by a lethal heart condition.
I know there are real reasons for such sentiments. This picture of wolves in sheep's clothing, creeps, maniacs, and rapists is something that reflects certain realities of our society. The impact of these disturbing realities is amplified by the paranoia associated with them. Women begin to suspect a lurking predator in each man, in each seemingly innocent gesture, stare, or an attempt at conversation.
And it's also understandable, I wouldn't even call it paranoia because, knowing how the things work, all those worries and vigilance are based on tangible reasons. How sick our society really is, if a woman communicating with a man has constantly to keep in mind that he might be a potential predator? And had it always been this way or there's something (or rather lack of something) in our culture, in our modernity, atheism, sexual liberation, etc., that has eventually led to this toxic atmosphere of paranoia and mistrust. Although maybe it's just the centuries-long problem of misogyny that took a new shape, adapting to a new social landscape.
In any case, this article isn't going to solve this problem, which it raises surreptitiously, but is too shy to talk about it directly, preferring instead to talk about this insignificant stuff, like, when it's appropriate to touch people, and when it's not. I wonder then, what can really be a solution, a possible way to the epiphany. If there is a solution. Or maybe roots of this problem lie so deeply in our instincts that it makes it intractable, leaving those dissatisfied with the natural order no other alternative than to lament all the pain and grief it causes. It's hard to tell.
Why don't we eat dead people?
"Why don't we eat dead people?" I've suddenly recalled some parenting essay, describing a situation when five years old came to his parent asking like, "Dad, why don't we eat dead people?"
The parent naturally was in shock and confusion, thinking, what kind of Hannibal Lector personality was growing in his homestead. So he asked the child, like, why this very thought came into his tiny head.
The child provided an explanation of the idea, like "There are grandpa and grandma, they are old; old people die; like, all the old people die. So why don't we eat their meat? Because it's a waste of meat, which is nutritious and all that. And we don't eat it, so it just gets expired and stuff."
So the parent started referring to the usual normal stuff, like our sentiments and morals. Like, how would we be able to eat that meat, knowing that it used to be grandpa and grandma? It would be really hard emotionally, and there would be palpitations of conscience and other stuff like that.
The child thought for a bit and came up with another idea. If it's emotionally hard to eat one's own dead relatives then why not to exchange relatives. Like, some people bring us their dead patriarchs and we send them ours. So we would eat somebody whom we never knew, and therefore there won't be any moral twitches, guilt-trips, and other onslaughts of sudden sadness and sentimentality. And other people would eat our relatives whom they never knew, so they wouldn't have any problem with that either.
So, then the parent thought about that a bit; because it really sounded rational, and I don't remember how this story ended, maybe the child had been sent to a therapist, like, given some drugs and rock-n-roll and stuff. The thing is, the parent realized that there was nothing intrinsical in his five-years-old child's brain that would make him feel that eating people was bad. Like, basically the child thought that he came up with a smart rational decision. So I thought about that and, Idk, I'm scared of children because they are psychos.
On Vengence and Justice (from a conversation on a feminist forum)
"I fully appreciate that your position is based on a strong sentiment. Knowing that rape, sexual harassment, and institutionalized gender discrimination are the real social evils and horrifying things for anybody who happened to experience it in reality.
Also, I always try to clearly see the line between Justice and Vengeance. Reacting to Evil, we can choose one or another. Like, if there are two villages, and somebody from the first village committed a murder in the second. So what would the reaction of villagers be? For example, they can go and massacre half of the people in the village from where the murderer came. It's Vengeance. Or they can bring this case to the trial, consider all the circumstances, and make a decision.
Vengeance is the simple answer. You won't get bogged in the details at least, trying to distinguish what really constitutes Evil, and what might seem similar but it isn't. Like, some men commit rape, therefore men are Evil, and let's add to this category also anybody who acts creepy. Or who acts stupid. Doesn't matter. They are all men, and the broad generalization is much simpler than trying to assess each situation fairly and be just.
But the problem is that applying Vengeance in response to Evil leads to the endless cycle of Evil because Vengeance itself is evil. So I can see it in reality as a backlash of all who were unfairly accused, included in the same category with rapists and murderers because they happened to have the same gender.
Justice, on the other hand, is complicated. It requires a thorough analysis of each particular situation before making a judgment, therefore people don't like it. People don't like complexities and being bogged down in the details. But Justice is the only way to truly fight Evil.
In other words, Justice is like a pendulum carefully brought into a stable position. It requires accuracy and precision. Vengeance is when the pendulum is swinging from side to side, never stopping, producing an endless cycle of violence.
So, in your position, I see you applying the principle of Vengeance. Certainly, you don't think of creepy and stupid behavior, you refer to rape and real sexual harassment, which is not the same. But it's easy to make this generalization and equalize creepy behavior with rape and sexual harassment, which in my opinion is erroneous. Because we need to judge each case and situation for what it is. This is the principle of Justice. Would this guy be prosecuted for his behavior? Probably not. Do you consider this is because the system of justice is flawed in some way? I would say, I don't think so. Because this is just how it works. It can find it as inappropriate and stupid behavior, but it's not the same as sexual harassment and rape. And it's necessary to make a distinction.
Otherwise, the Justice turns into a cudgel. It's convenient to crash people heads, but it's not going to defeat Evil, only make more of it."
Seven deadly sins as anime characters
I rode in the subway and without having much to do - while the train passed from station to station and crowds of strangers kept entering and leaving - I thought about biblical sins, their deep roots in human psychology and so on. Also, I thought about marketing. So eventually it occurred to me that I could find a time window between the assignments and compose a mini-essay about marketing application of seven deadly sins. It turned out to be a bit more complex than I initially thought, and - while I thought through various points and examples - I'd noticed that the very list had a tendency to slip from my memory. It was no good because the necessity of constantly recovering this list in my mind distracted me from those ideas related to the connection between sins and marketing I examined.
So I started ruminating about various technics of memorizing stuff I learned before and decided to invent something original that would solidify this list of seven deadly sins in my memory as a single picture. I pondered several ideas, and one struck me as the best suited for the task. So, I pictured this list as a bunch of kids, each of them embodying one particular human flaw. I split them into three groups, according to my perception of who was likely to hang out with whom based on their key personality traits. (Defined by, well, deadly sins XD) The first group included cool kids and consisted of two boys and two girls, representing respectively: pride, wrath, envy, and lust. The pride-guy in my imagination became an epitome of anime-style school-president-kendo-captain kind of character with long acid-raspberry-red hair, business-style suit, a shirt with open collar and no tie, no-bullshit expression in his eyes, something like that. A combination of reserved dignity and sex appeal. Probably carrying a katana on his hip as well, hell, why not. Thinking of Wrath, I immediately saw a stereotypical image of the "hair-trigger" guy with muscles and tattoos, wearing a kind of t-shirt, allowing to take a good look at all those muscles and tattoos. Ruffled hair, angry and petulant facial expression. Stuff like that. Wearing brass knuckles probably or steel rings, all that stuff. Ok, moving on, the concept of envy popped up in my head in the form of a blonde slightly bitchy girl, hell-bent on being as cool as possible. She follows all fashion trends, therefore her appearance is immaculately glitzy to the point of being intimidating. Probably she is wearing glasses, which gives her the air of intellectual superiority. Ok, Lust is the simple one: It's a kind of succubus with forms and curves and like, various attributes, suntan, revealing clothes, and that special expression in her eyes, triggering jitters and boners. Ok, that's the cool kids' group.
Another group consists of pretty lame personalities, like, a fat girl, sleepy girl, and a depressed girl. Representing respectively Gluttony, Sloth, and Ennui. Technically, those personality traits are so close and somewhat linked together that they could be embodied by a single person: fat, lazy, and depressed. But anyway. So they hang out together, watch tv, eat junk food, and endlessly bitch about life, and how shitty, depressing and unfair it is, and how people are shit and stuff. Things like that. In any case, it's easier to picture them as a group.
Ok, the last item, Greed, is represented by a group, consisting of one person. It's a shopaholic, discount-chasing girl. She's extravagant, tumultuous, a bit rowdy, constantly anxious to get better deals. She always can be found among shopping aisles with her cart filled with discounted extra-size items. Probably, she's a bit crazy in some way.
Ok, that sums it up. Now I have a mental picture I can refer to.
A message to aspiring authors
It's just occurred to me how important it is for aspiring authors to begin their stories with something that would irresistibly hook up the reader.
It might sound like a banal and well-known fact, but I want to emphasize that it's the thing especially important for the authors who are new, unknown, and yet to get any public recognition.
In other words, aspiring and unrecognized authors need to have much stronger and more striking/shocking/captivating beginnings than that J.K. Rowling or Stephen King might use for their stories.
The thing is, I know who J.K. Rowling and Stephen King are, and, opening their books, I know in advance that I'm about to read something more or less cool. It's different with new and aspiring authors. I don't know who they are, and what they are capable of. Plus, I know that statistically, ninety percent of the stuff written by ambitious amateurs is rubbish.
It means that, as opposed to Stephen King's books, when I start reading a story, written by an unknown author, I assume in advance that it's very likely rubbish. In fact, apart from the situations when I read something submitted for critique (In mutually supportive writing communities), I usually just skim over the first couple of sentences.
If those sentences don't totally captivate my attention right from the start I just decide that my initial assumption was correct and move on.
In other words, I, like most readers, have a natural bias toward writers I never heard of either from critical reviews or mentions in magazines or conversations. Because of that statistics and stuff.
This way I nearly missed a couple of things that turned out to be really cool in the end.
So my advice, if you consider yourself talented but don't have yet a general public acclaim and a bundle of raving critical reviews under your belt. Put a special creative effort into the beginning of your story, the first sentences. Make it as striking - and at the same time as clearly emphasizing what you are and what's your writing is all about - as possible.
For example, you can start with some small poem as a prologue or something. Once I did that for a piece of writing I submitted for critique. Before that this excerpt received precisely zero attention. After I added some verses at the beginning and resubmitted it, I received a lot of feedback. Some people said it was actually a really cool and strong piece. Which was really heartwarming and, at the same time, made me think.
And, once again, I want to emphasize, this hook of yours has to be much cooler and stronger, more arresting and captivating than those of J.K. Rowling and S. King. Well, because everybody already knows who they are and what to expect. They don't need to try too hard.
An episode from my previous job
For some reason, I recall an episode at one of my previous jobs. I'd been writing software that processed various Excel and plain text listings. In the process, it left a ton of garbage in the form of massive temporary files and logs in multiple directories within the software data sub-catalog. So when I noticed the diminishing disk space, I decided eventually to do something about it and quickly wrote a small program that recursively walked over all subdirectories in a given directory and wiped out all the garbage. I defined specific rules: For some directories, the program checked that the files had specific extensions like log or temp, and some - like those irredeemably obsolete software version archives - it just cleansed entirely without verifying file extensions or anything.
So I launched this program, and then, after a while, it occurred to me that it worked much longer than it was supposed to. Like, according to my calculations, it would have taken it less than a minute to traverse all the directories and clean the mess. Meanwhile, several minutes passed, and the hard drive kept busily growling, apparently, the program was still at work, deleting stuff.
Then it suddenly dawned on me. When you write a program and use commands working with directories you supply them with a directory name, something like, "tmp4464". The system looks for a given directory name in a catalog that it considers a current catalog. Normally, it's a catalog where the program itself is located. Knowing about that fact, I didn't worry because I placed this garbage cleaning utility inside a directory where there was nothing particularly valuable a priory. As well as in all its subdirectories. But here's a catch. There are two special directory names you can supply as arguments to the file processing command, and they have a special meaning. One is ".", which refers to the current directory. And another is "..", which refers to the parent directory. When you programmatically request the listing of subdirectories those two items are also present on the list.
So, after I had suddenly recalled that fact, I realized what exactly my program was doing at that moment. It was, in fact, wiping out my entire computer.
The thing was, my algorithm worked in the following way: It entered a directory, deleted what it considered the garbage, requested a list of all subdirectories, and recursively repeated the procedure for all of them. This way it processed the whole directory-tree below the specific directory, given as a starting point. At the same time, the program was confined only to the directories that presumably contained mostly garbage, so I didn't need to worry that it would delete something valuable. So I thought.
What I missed, though, I forgot about that ".." directory name. This special name refers to the parent directory, and when you include it into the path, the computer understands it as an instruction to go up to the parent directory and proceed from there. So, if I thought that my program's activity had been strictly confined to the garbage directory, I was gravely mistaken. In fact, at that point, it had already successfully broken out and kept wiping everything, starting from the root, in other words, the entire hard drive.
When I eventually stopped this process and assessed the damage, it turned out that among other things the program obliterated the two week's worth of code, written for an app I was working on. And there weren't any backups. There were other minor permanent losses, like smaller apps and utils, some documentation, and so on.
It was kinda sad, but at the same time, the whole situation struck me as incredibly absurd to the point of being amusing. So I was in that mood when I told about that my predicament to my colleague. And he was like, absolutely puzzled and perplexed by the fact that I was so calm, having fun and stuff. Like, from his perception of things, I should've been devastated, considering suicide or something. But, Ok, I told him that I didn't think any of that soft that gone forever was any good anyway. Like, maybe it was kind of a sign that it should've been re-written, maybe, using better approaches and techniques and all that. So, it was one of those episodes when I realized for myself how few things I actually give a fuck about. Good to know )
Scattering of marketing ideas
There is a psychological feature when people crave something hard-to-get and derive great satisfaction from achieving it. I think this quirk of our psychology is not sufficiently exploited, especially in the specific impulse-driven industries.
As it was correctly mentioned somewhere, people invest a lot of time and efforts in creating and curating their online presence, trying to nurture an image that would personally satisfy them. Here vanity and pride are at play. Also, I think, this psychological quality has a cool commercial potential that is hugely underutilized. For starters, I can offer a service of creating somebody's cool online presence and stuff. I mean I can't, but technically it's possible.
Thinking of book promotion. It's a well-known fact, that successful books drive sales of various stuff that immediately emerge in the ecosystem forming around the book. Like, souvenirs, video games, etc. Why not to turn this principle on its head and use sales of various stuff to promote a book? Also, book video-trailers.
Also, thinking of social networks. There's a huge role that FOMO plays in what we do, how we organize our lives, why we spend time on social networks in the first place, and so on. I sense there is a lot of uncovered marketing and commercial opportunities in exploiting FOMO, although, I cannot yet figure out the particulars. Got to think about that.
On Skype Chats
There is one thing I miss and remember with nostalgia. And at the same time, I feel that the circumstances freed me from some guilty pleasure that consumed a lot of time. When day after day, many hours were wasted leaving me with feelings of thrill and devastation. It's about the Skype chats.
One day I got a letter from a Nigerian prince and I was pondering whether I should've deleted it immediately or maybe I could write an answer and see what would come out of it. When I made a remark, pointing out that probably I could use it to practice English, my boss at the time parried that there were less extreme ways of finding partners.
And the idea stuck in my head. I tried to find somebody to talk to on Kik, and there were several people with whom I had exchanges that consisted of more than five phrases, which I considered an achievement. And there were numerous others who stayed silent or responded with the ubiquitous "asl" It became boring and unsatisfactory really quickly. Like, I spent much more efforts finding people than chatting with them so, at some point, I gave it up altogether.
After an episode with the Nigerian letter the idea of finding partners with whom I could chat and practice kept circling in my head with a new vigour until I decided to make some research in that direction and found a site "language something blah blah dot com," which contained a list of Skype accounts of people who signed up with the same intention of finding partners for practicing. Mostly from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, China.
So it started like that. And I started adding those contacts indiscriminately to my list, which at that moment contained about five contacts of people I knew irl.
It's a strange recollection. Because just a year later my account was overblown and had been blocked, and then I quickly accumulated about two thousand contacts and about two hundreds active chats on my second account. This is when my Skype finally went down and refused to start, which put an end to this era of the online insanity.
But when it started it was innocent enough. I added people, had chats with some. I even had voice conversations and stuff.
It was a strange experience. First of all, speaking a foreign language for the first time feels extremely weird. Like, I was asking myself what exactly I thought I was doing. And people reacting to my words, understanding, although rarely, what I was saying. It was a thrill, partly spoiled by a jumble of accents coupled with bad connections and limitations of my brain. I smoked one cigarette after another - those first attempts at conversations exhausted my brain like nothing else.
I could hold out for five minutes on average then I felt like my brains were squeezed dry like a lemon. I felt that I needed a cigarette and maybe a drink. And maybe, a period of relaxation and recuperation. It was that draining.
At the same time, I started meeting people whom I liked, people who intrigued me a big deal. There was also something thrilling in meeting anybody unrelated to anything I was accustomed to. Totally different. Located in a completely different part of the globe in a strange place in Africa, for example.
Then I realized that I was making friends. And once in a long time, I was in a company of people I enjoyed chatting with. It was one of those moments when I felt happy, although it wasn't like anything significant happened in my life. But it was significant. Like among many steps on the path of becoming a normal person I took another step and started communicating with people.
I didn't need to worry about wasted time since I was doing something useful, I was practicing, so I could just enjoy this thing that normal people take for granted - human interaction.
At some point, I found myself in some chats. It was one of them called "ChitChat in English," which became a remarkable milestone.
At this period everything that was happening had been cute and nice, devoid of the following later plunge into toxicity, emotional rollercoaster, and heartbreaks caused by my attempts to stay in touch with a thousand of people. Strange chats. Me, trying to accommodate total strangers and be likable. Trolls, and shady people, and my efforts to keep in mind all the recent friends. Especially, to remember those with whom our conversations crossed the boundaries of small talk and got more intimate.
With a thousand contacts somebody walks out on you every day; every day there is a breakup when somebody just decides that he or she has had enough and simply deletes you. And you realize it a month later because you suddenly recall a month later that you had such a good friend. Because it's impossible to keep in mind all whom you might at some moment consider a close friend because you just had a profound conversation. It's impossible when the number of people in the contact list exceeds thousand, and you talk to somebody you've just met every day, but the next day you move on, and there is only so much you can remember.
That's why I call it insanity. Also, it creates some feeling of being a superstar when so many people know you and a certain form of the sensitivity of a superstar when you take people's attention for granted.
But at the time of "ChitChat in English," everything was still nice and innocent, everything still was at its beginning. It had been like the sunshine in spring, something light and pleasant. Circle of friends. Few worries. No heartbreaks yet. Daily conversations - sometimes witty, sometimes deep and touching. It just felt good...
On Skype Chats 2
Still reminiscing about those crazy days I spent on Skype chats. And I wonder, maybe the source of my social anxiety lies there. It's that I just feel like I'm a loose razor blade or something. A sharp tongue and precise reflexes of a psycho verbal assassin. And my presence anywhere is dangerous by definition, even if I don't mean any harm. Because I cannot help it. I'm nervous about my moves, things I say. I need to carefully weigh everything I say. And I learned to control and calculate my moves, my words, pauses, and emotions I express. Which makes me always feel that I'm not really honest and sincere about who I am, like, I hide behind the mask of that nice and friendly person. While in fact, I'm probably kind of a monster or something. Just don't need to advertise that.
I was taught the art of conversation on Skype chats by trolls and toxic and sharp character assassins. Or rather I just plunged in that fray and realized how few vulnerable spots I had because I didn't really know what I was, neither did I care. Which made me perfectly fit for that environment. To perform character assassination one needs to know a person's weak spots, things on which all his ego and self-esteem are based. But I had nothing, like, I was like a drifting mist or tumbleweed or something, nothing to swagger, nothing valuable to protect, and still I always thought I was pretty cool without any reason, and this irrational conviction baffled people. And their perplexity gave me an opening to attack. So it was, kinda brutal and fun, but it's kinda hard to get rid of old habits now. So I always need to be careful.
One day I'll probably visit one of those places, kinda miss them a bit. And I won't need to worry about the blades and poison I carry. Cuz the trolls will def assault me, maybe thinking I'm an easy prey. Giving me a reason to unleash a full blast of my toxicity and cheery virulence and begin the slaughter.