Life

I suppose I'd better put this down so it'll be on record for when I'm reading back through years from now.

These past few days have been rough on me. Not sure what all of the triggers have been, but I've been feeling very bleh, and have been thinking how easy it might be to die.

I'm conditioned against examining the feelings while I'm feeling them; any attempt to dive deeper into them, in words or actions, when I'm there, triggers a crying fit and immobility and a mad dash for the nearest means of communication to someone who will keep me onplanet. boojum kept me here the last bad time. Before that, it was River, in 1999. It's an old reflex, and it's served me well. Someday it may well be obsolete.

Kid friends (or not)

Looks like the apartment where Tommy and Angelica used to live is empty and cleaned-out now.

Maybe they did move like they said they were going to. I haven't seen them around here for a while. It's been very nice and peaceful.

Cat Bondage

Got eris_raven a harness a while ago. She's not particularly fond of it, but it's safer than a collar. Harder to strangle her, if it's not just around her neck, and loose enough.

Today I got a leash.

She hasn't taken particularly well to walking on a leash. We'll see what happens. Co wasn't good at it either, so I'm not expecting much.

Right now, she's curled up on the back of the couch, using my clean laundry as a pillow. She's still wearing the harness.

I really do want to make her a tag. Come to think of it, there are several collar tags I want to make, only some of them for cats.

Baaa: Fic recs from amberfox: HP

http://www.livejournal.com/users/amberfox/291724.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/amberfox/292287.html

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

How the fuck do I purge the DNS resolver cache on a fucking Windows XP piece of shit? Also, how do I disable a fucking network connection that's not working when it says that I don't 0wn it?

I suspect that deleting the Administrator account may have had something to do with this.

For the record: it's not my computer, and I am network admin, not computer 0wner.

'Net missing person

daffyd is friends with elynne, which is how I get the news.

Daffyd has a Missing Person, from California, named Andrea Keith. Details in his entry here.

News article

Using my powers for awesome. Hope she gets found by those who love her.

Fixed.

So, apparently the user accounts that were supposed to have administrative rights were not part of the group "Administrators", and they couldn't be made administrators until the server service was started.

Then, and only then, could the goddamn turtle-fucking cellphone-driving DNS resolver cache be cleared.

Fuck onna stick.

witchofrock, this link on how to write smut is for you.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/callie_chan/165522.html

stormraven23, this is the place I was talking about.

http://www.squidge.org/~minotaur/classic/eroc.html

Slash writers' sex tips. I misremembered it; he's actually a gay guy writing this for the explicit purpose of helping out slash writers.

I especially like this bit. Man's a genius.

Kids paying attention: conditioning

Conditioning Little Fayoumis to respond to his name immediately, with positive reinforcement. I say his name, he responds, "What?" and he gets a "Yayyyyy!" and applause.

This is directly on the heels of him not listening to marxdarx, of course. I heard the entire exchange.

"Little Fayoumis.
"Little Fayoumis, hello?
"Little Fayoumis, are you there?
"Are you listening?
"Little Fayoumis. Since you can't listen to me, leave the room. Now."
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!

From marxdarx's report, this is a common exchange.

I asked him to move it to the couch and think about listening to marxdarx. After he calmed down, I was able to ascertain that he'd heard marxdarx talking to him, he'd just been singing, and hadn't been answering.

So, we worked on getting to answer to his name the first time.

"Little Fayoumis?"
"What?"
"Yaaaaaaay!!!" [applause]

"Little Fayoumis?"
"What?"
"Yaaaaaaay!" [applause]

So, that'll add to the list of things that we work on. He's doing better with Marx right now; he's responding to his name the first time.

Of course, when he's focusing on something, he's not quite so reactive.
"Little Fayoumis!"
No answer. Looking at fingers or something.
"Little Fayoumis!!" [wave my hand in his field of vision]
"What?"
"Since you didn't answer the first time, no 'yay'."

Vocabulary, geek.

I've been coming to say "0wn" instead of "own" when we're talking about computers.

"Own", the traditional English spelling, is for possessing the legal rights to something. I bought this candy bar with my money; I own it. I own mineral rights on this large tract of land.

"0wn", with the zero instead of the 'o', is for possessing the most advanced administrative rights over something electronic. Anna owns her computer, but Betty has cracked in and now 0wns it. Also spelled "0wnz0r".

It's very odd, walking in several worlds. I walk in mundanespace. I walk in magic(k)space. I walk with geeks. I walk with grammar nazis. My grammar nazi position on various bits of l33t is that they are jargon, and may be used in the field, but should not be used in places where more formal speech is called for. You may greet someone with "Hey, bro!" all you want informally, but where "Hello" is called for, one should not use elite computer jargon either.

Geek terminology, pissy

"DNS dissolver cache" was my latest Freudian slip. A bunch of very strong base or very strong acid, yes... yes, I would like to add that to the DNS resolver cache...

It's almost up, but we still can't purge the DNS resolver cache.

Sales tactics, obnoxious

I dislike sales tactics that presuppose that what they're selling, I want or need.

I mean, when advertisements are mass-distributed, such as TV commercials, yes, it's one thing, if it's a broad enough market. Everybody needs food. Everybody needs clothing. Everybody does not need a computer. It's what drives the consumer culture, instilling a false sense of need for the product in the consumer, but I don't care for it; it's the antithesis of what I was raised on. But it's tolerable.

What personally offends me is the one-on-one sales pitches, directed by a human specifically to me, that presupposes that I use the kinds of goods and/or services that they are talking about, and thus it's only their job to convince me that theirs is better than all the rest, or that I simply can't live without it being done in the fashion that they, and only they, can do things.

There was that magazine salesguy. He was trying to convince me that I needed a magazine, because he had a magazine, somewhere, that would cater to my interests, fill a need that was not being met. In fact, that was not the case. I already had a computer magazine, and I follow the news online. I read books from libraries; I don't read magazines about reading. I own a cat, and I don't read magazines about cats; I'm interested in my little fuzzy purry and those of people I know, not really cats in the aggregate. I like computers, and own several. I am an IEEE member, and get their computer magazine already, which is more suited to me and my reading style than some other computer magazines I've seen. I furthermore did not have room in the budget for a magazine, being a broke college student with sufficient income of my own to pay on credit card and get assorted food, and my roommates were similarly broke. I wasn't working on a 'I work at McDonald's" budget -- I don't even have that much of a job. My credit card payment is $25 a month. I get checks from the survey place equalling maybe $10 a month if I'm lucky.

I think I broke his brain. Good.

The kind of advertising that I like doesn't try to make people who have no earthly use for something get it. It tries to find a product that will suit the existing needs or desires, without trying to push unneeded features. Educate people on the extras, fine. Convince them that they can't live without it? Nope.

Then, I'm a consumer misfit even for Alaska. I want all sorts of things that the average consumer may never have heard about, but I don't mind duct-taping my purse to keep it from falling apart.

Oooh, a shiny version of the earlier missing persons thing.

[Edit 2003-12-08: she's been found: yay!]

Missing Person

( Error: Irreparable invalid markup in entry. Raw contents behind the cut. )

Deadly support combinations

marxdarx is a computer user, not a computer g33k.
marxdarx is also our resident expert on Windows XP, which his box is running.

'za

Had to go to the store to pick up things for pizza. Shredded cheese, more cardboard pizzas. Yay, me.

Did not get stopped by panhandlers. Yay, me.

Only minor moment of cognitive dissonance between panhandlers = people asking for spare change / panhandlers = people living in the panhandle of Alaska. Yay, me.

Rules for Portable HTML Bits

Either specify both the background color AND the font color, or specify neither of them.

Specifying one and assuming that everyone is going to have a light background and a dark text, or assuming that everyone is going to have a dark background and a light text may work in some environments where that is true, but won't work well on LJ.

What I Put Up With

( Slight peevishness, aimed at users. )