Assorted things that bug me/freak me out as a geek

[azurelunatic]

Regular excess grooming. I'm clean and so are my clothes. I am wearing clothes. Clothing is often a valid life choice. The clothing has been selected to generally look at least vaguely like a trained professional and a grown-up, and not scrape, poke, or pinch any part of me. Unless something really epic is happening, this is about it. I don't generally care either way if someone else picks extra grooming above and beyond on a daily basis as one of their hobbies, I mean, some people juggle geese, but it's not one of mine because it's annoying.

People who don't want to learn. Learning things (even just passively) is a joy and basically my reason to exist. People who don't want to learn give me the screaming heebie-jeebies. (My ex River and I had an amazing row over the phrase "ignorance is bliss" until we figured out that his position on it was that learning is bliss and you can't have a learning state without having an ignorance to learn better from, and therefore ignorance is bliss because hey, more things to learn!)

Security by obscurity. This one is a religious issue with me. Since learning is so vital, and the people of my tribe learn recreationally (give me a juicy technical manual, a comfortable chair, and a relaxing beverage, and I am set for a few hours), it is never a safe bet to say that no one will stumble upon the thing you hope to keep obscure. One of the first principles of defense is that it helps to know what you are defending against. Security by obscurity leaves innocents unarmed against nefarious fuckbags. I have preached loudly about this on public transit, to the point of having complete strangers tell me to can it. Religious, I tell you.

Comments

[gchick]

#2 oh god OH GOD. I mean, #1 is a choice other people can make without any bother to me. And #3 usually turns out to be a matter of education. But the people who don't like to learn? Like, in itself? Not remotely saying they have to like learning the kinds of things I like learning? WHAT PLANET ARE THEY FROM?

[azurelunatic]

#1 can sometimes be a "you must look like you spend at least this long grooming to be admitted to Womanhood" factor, to which I alternately say "You! Out of my gender!" and "Fine! I'm taking my uterus and GOING HOME!"

[krait]

Yep. I only object to other people's grooming habits when they're being held up as a "norm" that I must meet or be deemed inferior/a failure. (The scandalised reaction to the fact that I don't shave my bikini line, offered by my fellow Girl Scouts, remains one of my more retroactively-ragemaking life moments.)

[azurelunatic]

Oh god. Ingrown hairs on the bikini line, right where they'll get the maximum chafing from undergarments. NO THANKS.

I also get ragefaced over other people's grooming habits when it's a case where they are not doing it because it makes them feel happy and pampered and special, or because they will have adverse health consequences if they do not do it (at least one friend has the sort of keretosis pilaris where leaving hairs in place leads to irritation and all sorts of woe, as opposed to me, where if I take *out* hairs, it's going to be all woe and sadness) -- but where they don't really like doing it, they would not have any physical ill effects if they did not do it, but they would suffer from peer pressure or they've internalized the norms of the beauty-industrial complex to the point where they feel ugly and/or disgusting if they don't. Bonus points if it adversely affects their health and they do it anyway. RAGEFACE.

[cleverthylacine]

IDK. Does grooming generally make people feel happy and pampered and special? I feel happy and special and pampered when I go to a spa, get my nails done, have my hair done at a salon (which I can rarely afford because of how often it needs to be done) or take a long relaxing bath.

That doesn't mean I feel I'm hurting myself when I have to take a rushed shower at 5 AM or swearing because I got hair dye all over the wall again. If I could afford to pay to be pampered all the time, I so would, but I'm not going to go grey because I can't afford the salon or smell because I don't have time for a bath before work.

But I don't feel that I've internalised anyone else's norms because I do tedious things to improve my appearance on account of not being wealthy enough to pay someone else. I enjoy presenting myself in an artistic fashion very much, so just as I tolerate workouts in order to be a good dancer and vocabulary drills to build language skills, I do things that enable me to make that happen. I wouldn't want you to rageface about that, though of course I can't control that.

What makes me rageface is that people are treated badly, or just ignored, because they choose to present in a non-standard way or not to present at all.

At the same time...one of the things that I think goes into all this is how neurotypical you are and what senses are the most sensitive.

I can't stand getting the seam of a pair of socks under my toes, tuneless humming, the noise some fluorescent lights make that hardly anyone else hears...and badly matched colours.

I sometimes experience non-insignificant discomfort when I look at things that are the visual equivalent of someone who can't carry a tune trying to sing. :( Yellow walls actually make my eyes sting; I can only stand to look at yellow if it's harmonised with other colours. I sometimes have the same feeling looking at loose threads on clothing, or blacks and/or whites that don't quite match up, that I do when I see a painting hung askew.

You are actually fairly decent at matching or at least harmonising your blacks, largely because you have an innate colour sense that I value and trust--sometimes I am overwhelmed by my mad love of a beautiful colour to the point where I don't really notice how much it doesn't suit me until I try to WEAR it, at which point it's already bought and paid for and I may have lost all the tags. Sometimes I lust after colours, especially bright, clear, pale or jewel-like colours. I love them. I want them. I want to own them. But I should never wear them because I will hurt my brain if I do when I look at myself in a mirror!

I try to keep it to myself because it's really not my place to tell people how they should dress unless I am throwing a formal event, but if somebody asks me what I think I'm going to tell them. But there are times when the desire to fix someone else's outfit is just maddening because I can't look at them or I get static in my head. And I feel a little like that when my hair is black shading to brown and grey and my face is blotchy and red and even if my clothes match each other I can't get anything to match or harmonise with me. I really don't think that's societal programming.

[krait]

That doesn't mean I feel I'm hurting myself when I have to take a rushed shower at 5 AM or swearing because I got hair dye all over the wall again.

I think by "happy" the people saying it here (at least me) meant not so much "my mood is notably elevated" but rather "I am satisfied, comfortable, or not in discomfort" -- I'm happier after a rushed early-morning shower than I am if I skip it, so that's enough to count for me. :D

The thing about colours is really interesting to me, because aside from loathing any shade warmer than light yellow I am pretty much indifferent to them. I wear shirts and jeans till they fall apart, mix jeans-with-holes with fancy shirts (it makes me laugh when I see my reflection!) and just in general would live in t-shirts and jeans and sandals year-round if I could.

Part of the reason I hate warm tones so much, though, is because they make my face look pink/red, so there's a bit of the disharmony thing involved as well as just generally disliking those colours. (I try to ignore the existence of my hair; I am never happy with it.)

[cleverthylacine]

Jeans with holes and a fancy shirt is not something I would do, and is something I would have judged as a teenager, but as an adult, I actually think it can be done in an awesome, ironic way that works perfectly well.

I don't think many people care about colours as much as I do. I say this based on the fact that I sometimes bring in my own office supplies because if a company only orders asparagus-piss yellow post-its and army green hanging folders in order to save money, I do not want to have to look at that shit on my desk for 8 hours a day. (Also my big boss does not steal my notepads when they are purple or pink.)

[krait]

Yep, it's the whole "I do it because I must", where 'must' is defined by someone selling a product rather than your own health and comfort, that gets my rageface going.

I shave my legs because if I don't, the hair catches painfully in denim (which I wear, oh, 95% of my waking hours); underarms because it makes applying deodorant easier. Beyond that, other people can suck it up and deal with what I was born with, or chip in the money to get me gene therapy. :D

Job interviews are the only place where I cave and pretend that I care about beauty standards; for those I will wear non-sports bras and put on makeup. (The lesson in all this: if you are NOT directly in charge of my financial future, you have no influence in my grooming decisions!)

[ephemera]

ignorance is bliss because hey, more things to learn! - that's the only possible interpretation of the phrase, surely?

[azurelunatic]

*wishes very hard*

[cleverthylacine]

Mmmm, when I think of "ignorance is bliss" I think of the many times I've been perfectly happy not knowing Unpleasant Fact X about Person Y.

Unpleasant Fact X usually is some piece of personal history or deeply held opinion that I actually am better off knowing than not, but losing a friend is still stressful and painful and generally gross.

[azurelunatic]

It is true that I was a much happier reader when I had never read Orson Scott Card's blog. I liked Ender's Game, but I don't think I'll be able to re-read it, knowing what I do.

[cleverthylacine]

I once liked some of John C Wright's books but after I tangled with him on LJ I sold them all.

It is also unpleasant and awkward when you agree to hold something in confidence without having already guessed what it is, and it turns out to be something rage-inducing, nauseating, legally actionable or just completely unethical. I think one of the reasons I so deeply loathe a certain person in my past is that I am STILL keeping many of her secrets because to expose her would mean getting back in her life and probably not being believed by the parties who ought to know.

[krait]

Yep. I liked it too (and Ender's Shadow!), but even then I was just sort of... pretending I hadn't read certain sentences. If I ever listened to the man unload all his issues, I'd probably lose what remaining affection I have for it.

[azurelunatic]

Never, ever, ever, under any circumstances, read his blog. He is in no fashion LGBTQ*-friendly, though I gather that he might have fewer problems with asexuals, because at least *they* aren't having icky gay sex.

[krait]

That is good to know, I guess.

Since his books left me with the feeling that he's not even female-friendly, I think we'll just mark him Right Off The List of people whose blogs FDL should peruse should she have a boring hour to fill.

[azurelunatic]

Yes.

[siliconshaman]

Yeah, I'm from the English branch of your tribe for certain.

Although security though obscurity can work... as a first layer of defence. But only to stop n00bs tripping over the other layers. Plus it's harder to hit a target if you don't know were it is to start with.

[azurelunatic]

There was once a thing which was kept like it was because of some sort of compatibility thing, and it was limited in scope, and linked to a "well, don't do that then." Except for the "that", the only way to make sure that the users didn't do "that", would be to tell them what "that" was so they would not do it.

I discovered it, I was annoyed and scared, I wanted it stopped or documented soonest, and I was denied on both fronts. I promptly became loud and angry. I was admonished for being loud and angry. I consider it poetic justice that the internal lack of knowledge of the thing later opened up a god-help-you-all-if-someone-exploits-this three+ factor corner case. Which I deduced, tested, and reported in sheer terror. (The god-help-you-all hole was closed. The original one was left open.)

I can actually sometimes laugh over this as a cute little anecdote about my spicy spicy brains in job interviews, now. It did take about a year before I stopped spitting and swearing every time I spoke of it.

[pineapplechild]

I suspect I agree, but could you clarify what you mean by #3?

[vlion]

Don't tell people about thing X so that no one accesses it. This usually makes people laugh who like to figure things out... cause they find out about X and merrily use it. Better security is to actually have authentication.

[azurelunatic]

Sometimes it involves deliberately not telling folks how to protect themselves from accidental/deliberate exploitation of a security hole, because educating them would also mean educating potential attackers about the hole.

You can imagine how thrilled I am at the prospect.

[cleverthylacine]

Oh okay. I was one of the other readers who were looking at this going WHAT?

[azurelunatic]

Three words that should strike a chill into the very marrow of your bones: "HTML Comment Notifications."

[cleverthylacine]

Euuuurgh.

[cleverthylacine]

I actually got in trouble at one job for trying to fix something like that that unbeknownst to me they had decided not to fix because it was too much trouble.

[azurelunatic]

And to carry on from what vlion said, there is in fact a time and a place for knowing about a security hole and not telling people about it. That time and place is after discovering it, after telling the people responsible for fixing it about it, and before they fix it.

Notice how "fix it" is in this timeline.

The other thing is when those responsible for fixing it decide that a good fix is "Okay, so long as nobody knows about it, nobody will exploit it, right?" THIS IS NOT A GOOD FIX. THIS IS A VERY BAD FIX.

[pineapplechild]

What you and vlion say makes sense! I think I was mis-parsing it to say more about online pseudonyms then was intended, and I got confused.

[azurelunatic]

Ahhh. I suppose a pseudonym-equivalent would be:

"Hi, example. I have discovered that you are Jane Smith of the San Francisco Smiths, and you work for the Borg. I know this because of my learnings and also because you posted like fifteen links to your Amazon wishlist where it says that right there in public."

"HOSHIT DON'T TELL ANYONE OK!!?!?" *leaves it there* as opposed to "Oh. Shit. Thank you for pointing that out, and I appreciate you telling me and not spreading it around." *cleans up journal, cleans up Amazon account*

[pineapplechild]

Ahahahaha, yeah.

[krait]

You're not alone, anyway. My brain kept trying to parse it as some kind of "geek and proud"/"don't hide your fannishness" thing, and was a bit boggled at the idea that there existed a bus where this could come up as a topic! :D (I wanna ride that bus! We will call it the Meta Bus.)

[azurelunatic]

See, john was visiting San Francisco, and he is fannish, geeky, and knows the system of which I was speaking of oooooold.

[fiddlingfrog.livejournal.com]

I've wondered for a while if you'd appreciate my logged-out error page style hack [http://fiddlingfrog.livejournal.com/207523.html]. I know you don't like Security through Obscurity, and neither do I, but I've seen enough requests for this that I wondered how hard it would be to do with the existing code.

[azurelunatic]

That's kind of cute. Have you seen kunzite1's journal lately?

[fiddlingfrog.livejournal.com]

Back in the day, that fooled me so convincingly that I submitted a Support request about it.