February 2012
2 posts
1 tag
Geek Rant
Arguments between die-hard “conservatives” and die-hard “liberals” remind me of arguments between Star Wars geeks and Star Trek geeks, in that both involve people whole-heartedly invested in the merits of a universe not based in reality that bores the hell out of the mainstream.
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49.) Ditch Starbucks and work at the library.
January 2012
8 posts
1 tag
Geek Rant
Amazon suggests books I’d like. Pandora tells me what music I’d like. Netflix tells me what movies I’d like. What the hell, grocery store? Why is the one place I spend the most money each week not offering me any suggestions?
48.) Listening too long to someone you agree with is the most dangerous thing in the world. Seek out new ideas and fresh perspectives. If what you believe is true, not only will opposition not sway you, it will hone your reasoning and strengthen your argument. See confirmation bias.
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Geek Rant
The toaster I use for two minutes each weekend has a removable crumb tray for convenient cleaning. Meanwhile, the keyboard I sit at for ten hours each day requires a five dollar can of compressed air to clean, and the word “clean” is being used here very loosely. A team of engineers needs to get on this A.S.A.P.
47.) The quality of a person’s argument will often tell you far more about their trustworthiness than the actual facts of their argument. Learn more about How to Disagree intelligently from Paul Graham.
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Geek Rant
I ask Google all the questions I’m too embarrassed to ask other people. Google has officially played more of a role in my sex education than my school teachers, my parents, and my first three girlfriends combined. I find that extremely frightening, because it’s not what you’d call “the normals” who write in-depth articles on exotically named sex positions.
46.) If you are really interested in the truth, don’t settle for refuting arguments, correct your opposition’s arguments.
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Geek Rant
It makes me extremely nervous when an application asks me as I exit if I want to save any changes to a document that I could swear I didn’t alter. Some programmer needs to get on this issue.
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Geek Rant
I don’t know what people did before GPS navigation systems. I honestly don’t. I just wish that whoever wrote the software behind those systems would develop an “Avoid this Neighborhood” routing feature that would automatically guide me around the neighborhoods that make re- re- lock my doors.
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Geek Rant
If Thomas Jefferson were alive today, I’m pretty sure he’d be a pissed-off blogger.
2 tags
Geek Rant
Remember, nothing reveals more about your emotional stability than your feelings about your ex …
even if that bitch does deserve to get stabbed in the face.
2 tags
Geek Rant
At thirty, I still love to build forts in my living room. At this point in my life, I’m no longer certain whether this is youthful exuberance or honest-to-god mental illness. Luckily, I’m sure that the men in white lab coats will never penetrate my deviously elaborate couch-cushion lair.
1 tag
Geek Rant
A lot gets made about the stupidity of the things people say online. From time to time, some dumb S.O.B. will even go so far as to cast imprecations on the First Amendment that allows people to fill the web with hateful things in the first place. I, however, think that we’re blessed to live at a point in history where, for the first time ever, the words we’ve spoken are frozen...
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45.) Secret dreams have a way of staying secret.
It’s the people brave enough to speak their dreams out loud who end up achieving them, even if they end up feeling like complete schmucks every step of the way.
Geek Rant
Quitting Facebook is the new, adult version of running away from home. We all know you’re doing it for attention, and we all know that you’ll be back.
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44.) Make a new start in life as often as possible. To the generations that has grown up identifying itself to the world with an avatar and a web handle, perhaps this bit of advice comes as a bit redundant, but it deserves saying. One of the saddest fates in life is to look back and realize that you’ve only ever been one thing.
43.) Spend money on experiences, not possessions. Source: “We Don’t Buy Stuff. Except When We Do.” by Stephen Kreider Yoder and Isaac S. Yoder, June 7, 2009.
May 2011
3 posts
1 tag
Geek Rant
Cultural traditions are built around life’s hardships in much the same way Oysters grow pearls around grains of sand. The worse the hardship, the more significant the tradition. Nobody celebrates convenience. It’s the harvest, which once came at the cost of weeks of back-breaking labor, that we celebrate, not the advent of supermarkets the sell three varieties of fresh apples in the...
1 tag
Geek Rant
It’s the twenty-first century. It’s time to put a keypad on alarm clocks. There’s no excuse for having to hold down a “minute” button while setting the time or for having to check twice to make sure that the tiny “AM/PM” switch on the back of the clock didn’t get toggled.
1 tag
Geek Rant
It makes me extremely nervous when an application asks me as I exit if I want to save any changes to a document that I could swear I didn’t alter. Some programmer needs to get on this issue.
April 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Geek Rant
It used to be that putting a person’s phone number into your speed dial was a compliment. Now, I mostly put people’s numbers into my phone just so I know not to answer when they call. Consequently, when someone asks for my number, I no longer know how to take it.
1 tag
Geek Rant
I love the fact that my generation has no inhibitions about wearing costumes in public. I love going to a comic shop on new comic day or to movie theater on opening night and seeing people my age standing in line in costumes. As hard as I try, I can’t imagine my father or one of my grandfathers wearing wizard robes at my age, and I think that may be their loss. Of course, there a lot...
March 2011
12 posts
1 tag
Geek Rant
I firmly believe that facial tattoos are the single greatest invention in the history of mankind. They let you know in a single glance that there’s something not right with a person, so you don’t have to waste time that could have been spent distancing yourself from them wondering.
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Geek Rant
Sometimes, I’ll look at my watch three or even four times in under a minute and still not know what time it is. Watch glancing just isn’t a sign of impatience anymore. The rest of the world needs to accept this.
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Geek Rant
Now that even my refrigerator has a keypad, can we all agree to stop using cursive? At about age forty, it becomes completely indecipherable to everyone else.
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42.) Disconnection is the new counterculture. Source: “Exodus” by Nicholas Carr, April 8, 2010.
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41.) Freely teach other people what you know. People, most especially coworkers, resent those who are stingy with what their knowledge, but they respect teachers, even after they’ve surpassed them. This goes double for people in the technology sector.
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40.) Always acknowledge your sources and inspirations.
No one will think less of you for having built on the shoulders of other men. In fact, most people will think better of you for the acknowledgment.
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Geek Rant
We need to established a universal method for signaling sarcasm online. Maybe a font?
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39.) Bad things happen quickly; it’s the good things that take time.
For some reason, people always expect life to work the other way around, but it never does.
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38.) If you cheat in engineering classes, you will kill people later.
For your own sake and everyone else, either quit or learn the material.
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Geek Rant
A decade into Web 2.0, I’ve realized that ninety percent of users who actually take the time to post reviews of products and services online are polarized into people pissed over a single bad experience and the type of people who over-tip pizza deliver boys out of misplaced guilt over being offered service in an age where McDonaldization has become the norm. Both sets of opinions are...
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36.) If you aren’t comfortable placing the same information on a sign in your front yard, don’t put it online.
Your online life is more public than you think. Always.
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37.) Want to be a leader? Wash the Dishes When Nobody Else Will.
Source: “Wash the Dishes When Nobody Else Will” by Sash Catanzanzarite, February 8, 2011.
February 2011
9 posts
1 tag
Geek Rant
One of the worst unintended consequences of modern technology is that you can no longer tell whether or not people talking to themselves are crazy, thanks to cellphones and Bluetooth headsets. I personally find this deeply unsettling, particularly when I find myself forced to use public transit.
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Rant
Right about the year my grandmother got her own cellphone, I realized that, in today’s world, when someone is difficult to reach, it’s by choice. Now, I’m just waiting for everyone else to make that realization. “I didn’t get your message,” “My machine is broken,” and “I meant to call you back,” are all euphemisms for “I...
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35.) You will attract who you deserve. If you don’t like who you are getting, change yourself. If you can’t change yourself, get a reality check.
Sort of a Tough Love version of “you have to love yourself before you can love someone else.”
Source: “Advice for women turning 30” by Penelope Trunk, February 17th, 2011.
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34.) Life doesn’t amount to much without someone to spend it with.
…and it helps if you get to spend it with your best friend.
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Rant
It’s time someone had the balls to say it publicly: the only people who think that teenage boys should go to prison for possessing nude pics of their teenage girlfriends are the fathers of the girls stupid enough to take the photos in the first place. Yes, sexting is a serious problem, but in comparison with the drug use and teen pregnancy that has plagued recent generations, it’s a...
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33.) Old movies are worth watching, too.
Written with old B-movies in mind, but especially relevant to Valentine’s weekend. After all, everyone knows all of the best romance movies are in black and white.
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Rant
Can we all just agree that when a person dies, their computers should immediately and irretrievably be destroy without being examined? No one wants their family browsing their browser history or hidden folders after they’re dead. Hell, they don’t even really want their family to clean out those boxes under their bed, but that one’s unavoidable.
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Rant
I seriously think that the world is better place since the invention of the MP3 player. Everyone is just so mellow when their life has a soundtrack.
January 2011
2 posts
2 tags
“Ones and zeroes in the clean environment of a computer chip can be controlled...”
– Response from Eliezer on Hacker News.
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“Programmers are the Gods of their tiny worlds. They create something out of...”
– “Programmers are Tiny Gods” by Derek Powazek, January 15, 2009.
32.) Computer programming is omnipotence without omniscience.
The flow of data in the universe of the computer chip can be controlled absolutely. Everything that goes right and everything that goes wrong is entirely the programmer’s doing. Programming is microcosmic godhood. It’s just too bad that all that power doesn’t come with the requisite wisdom to use it.
31.) Be wary of consistency. It’s the surest sign of a lie. Even if it’s a lie you’re telling yourself.
1 tag
Geek Rant
It’s time to stop releasing new video formats. The industry thinks that it’s tricking us into re-purchasing our collections, but all it’s actually doing is burning out video collectors, destroying our last reason to buy rather than rent, and frustrating us. I had hundreds of VHS tapes, many of which I bought in high school, before cable was available in our town. In college, I...