Ten Points Random

So last Friday the Unix Epoch reached 1234567890!  This happened at 4:31 PM.

Of course, working in the programming department of a web development company, I was not the only person aware of this momentous occasion.  We managed to rife up enough excitement that, by the time the final countdown began, we have the time stamp up on the projected warboard on the wall, with everyone was standing up watching it.

When the final countdown commenced, everyone counted down together.  When we reached the sequential Epoch time, the time that has been printed on everyone’s keyboards for years past and to come, everyone cheered, my manager flashed the lights on and off, and I rang the gong a bunch.

This, coming from someone who slept through last New Years.

Let’s face it.  I’m a geek.

More on this later.

So I was working on trying to get the extra mouse buttons on my Logitech G5 to work under Linux and I realized, after I had laid the issue to rest for the night, that I am really rather much of a nerd. The backscroll on my shell window (or, rather, a command I had earlier typed) contained something to this effect:

[email protected]:/dev/input$ cat mice

And, after having typed it, I actually expected something useful to happen.  Not only did something happen, but it happened just as i expected it to – with the exception of a couple of my buttons that didn’t send any data.

Anyhow, I thought that was rather random: Telling my computer to hand “mouse” to “cat” actually is a valid thing to do.

(For those that don’t waste their life away in front of a green and black [my preferred colors] terminal screen like I do, “cat” is a program, short for “concatenate”, which allows you to see or write to the contents of file(s) directly with the screen/keyboard.  Also, on Linux, input/output devices have virtual “files” associated with them which, in essence, allow you to read and write directly to/from the device, such as a mouse.  Hence “cat mice” will dump all the input form all the mice on the computer to your screen in the form of all sorts of funny heart shapes and strange glyphs.)

You know, I did a Google search for “Jon’s Ramblings”, what I’ve been calling my blog up ’till now, and was utterly surprised at how may other doofuses like me call their own blogs by the same name.

Not acceptable.

Now, let’s rewind a few days.

I was sitting on my bed, reading into the late hours of the night (or early hours of the morning, as the case my be).  On the door to a self-like box I have on my wall, I have a picture of an LDS Temple (a concept render of the Draper Utah temple, in fact, which will open later this year).

As I finished my reading for the night and just as I closed my book, the picture, printed on glossy card stock and held in place with sticky-tack, happened to, at that very moment, relinquish its hold on the the surface, swing freely as it pivoted on upper-left corner, and fall on the ground.  To which I thought: +10 Points: Random.

And – seeing as how I needed a new name for my blog, decided to try and see but not if that would stick.

(Random: just finished the third Eragon book.)

When I was in school in English class, one the oddest things I remember being taught was how the story line in a book or movie was supposed to go.

It was something line this:

The teacher disclaimed, “It’s not always exactly like this, the hill can be steeper on the side and sometimes that’s more than one hill.”

I wasn’t all that much convinced, even at the time.

When I read a book or watch a movie, it’s usually very much unlike that.  Yeah, there are more exciting and more boring parts, and yeah, it sometimes starts and ends boring (not even close to always), but beyond that there are no real similarities.

THIS is a plot.  Twists, turns, and more than one “climax”.  If our school system was trying to foster the young minds toward the careful art of authorship, or to prime them in life to be able to readily recount anything more than a simple story, then they work working against heir goals.

Better question: Who the heck thinks this is important to even teach to kids?!?  I mean, seriously, if it was important, wouldn’t they figure it out themselves?  How about instead of assigning us those boring, gory, lewd excuses that the world tries to pass off as “classical literature,” they instead gave us some bestsellers and other good books to read instead? Wouldn’t a young mind, engaged by a book that fascinates them, be more likely to not only read the book (instead of using their good friend the internet to get cliff notes), but wouldn’t they be driven to gain a better understand the language of the author as well?  Isn’t the point of a grade-school education to teach the student how to use language?  And was I ever paying attention to semantics when I couldn’t hardly pay attention to the droll subject matter?

I decapitate this subject and make it it’s own point with a failure to include a proper close.