#ROW80 – WEDNESDAY CHECK IN - POST 16 – TECHNOLOGY SURPASSES MORALITY AND PRINCIPLES

One of the things I did in college was write a bit. Not a whole lot, because I was either studying the viola like mad and then some 20 years later boning up (boning up, hell, I was learning it for the first time; I slept through it in high school) on mathematics and computer science. But, I did some dabbling in writing. Enough to win awards for my rhetorical writing; fiction was never really my bag and if I ever tried to express anything that required imagination, it would be stupid, to say the least.

I'm not naive when I say THIS is the America I believe in. The one where I am free to dissent. The one where I am free to worship as I choose. The one I am so proud to be a part of. The one that holds it's hands out to new immigrants and that cares for all.

The kinds of things I wrote about and the articles with which I had my biggest successes were based on intangibles, if you will, although there is nothing tangential or intangible about them. We certainly should, if we are adults, or not, as this is not magically awarded to anyone at the age of 18, but is built over a lifetime I guess, possess good character. Character or morality of a sort that bestows upon us the ability to choose right from wrong and adhere to principles, that we, as a society have agreed upon to be fair, just and own some measure of equality.

To be honest, these are not principles we ourselves chose and wrote into a charter, but they are ideas that set the framework of the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights. The Constitution itself cannot be changed, but the Bill of Rights can be amended and it's framework, like that of the Constitution, is deliberately porous, so as to meet any contingency that would follow after its passage and after the deaths of the authors and signers.

We, as Americans, must take the time and care to understand what this all means. It means that we must understand how government works and what these documents mean and what they can and cannot do. It takes time to read and study all of that, but we must, if we are to remain free. We must also understand something else. There are people in our government who are foursquare for us. I know of many Senators who guard their constituencies and truly care about them. Iowa, and Senator Robert Krause. I've been amazed; well, lurking in his wake, watching how he drums up support for various fund raisers; very much a grass roots leader. I really admire that. I am going to follow his run for the Governorship. I plan on learning plenty; I started reading his charts on the economy and the reasons why it hasn't bounced back.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, we have the Governor of my state of Florida, who the less said about, the better. Senator Bill Nelson is around, and is right now trying to get catastrophic aid for Hurricane victims passed; always a tough battle. If I drop him a line, he answers. Senator Krause answers me too. The fact that these busy people have time for people who are or aren't their constituents amazes me.

These are the people who get things done, and we need our Senators and Congressmen and women. They are earnestly holding up the principles outlined by the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

But, right now, we have this whole other thing going on and this is not a good thing. I mentioned the Patriot Act yesterday. Back in 2001, six months before planes hit the WTC (which I had actually flown over the previous Wednesday, out of Logan, at sunset, after teaching a software class at Bell Labs, on September 6, 2001) a TV show called “The Lone Gunmen” aired a pilot that hinged upon a thwarting of a plot to fly a passenger jet into one of the towers. It aired March, 2001.

I am not going into conspiracy mode; I mention it as a casual aside. I am in civil liberties mode. How much of our information is controlled? Not only how much is taken from us, but how much is let out? After the trauma of 9/11, people were willing to sign anything. We were also willing to go haring off to Iraq, when there really was no evidence of WMD, or that the Iraqis were involved. It was found out rather early on that the hijackers were Saudis, yet they were already hand in glove with the Bush family. All air traffic had been halted, yet a plane filled with members of the bin Laden family were let out secretly.

The Patriot Act was signed and there were loopholes and codicils all over the place. Homeland Security with Tom Ridge was pretty much a non-starter. He disappeared into thin air, but the Patriot Act lived on and with that, dragon's teeth were sown. Now, we have the NSA actively seeking “information” via phone records from Verizon, and At&T. They've been trying to get in through back doors at Twitter and Facebook. I would be willing to bet the FBI has already done so.

Martin Niemöller was a prominent Protestant pastor during the 3rd Reich. Quote from him upon his release from one of several concentration camps: "First they came for the Socialists and I did not speak out --- because I was not a Socialist.  Then they came for the Trade Unionists and I did not speak out --- because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out --- because I am not a Jew. Then they came for me --- and there was no one left to speak for me.

The trip I was coming home from? Bell Labs? I worked for Verizon. We had 7 people on the roof of WTC1 that day. I worked in the Mainframe and PC deployment/training group, going after rogue servers at the time, I did catchall stuff. I didn't have a formal job title. Those people's computers continued to transmit “handshake” codes for weeks after the towers fell, until their batteries finally died.

Understand, the NSA or whoever, are going through formalities. They're already watching and listening. They have been for years. Being caught with their hands in the cookie jar is only making them go through the sham of begging permission. We gave up that right to privacy when the original act was signed in 2001. “Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels,” and “Any society who gives up its freedom for security is neither free nor secure.” Neither of those are mine, but they both apply here. We should have raised holy Hell years ago; it's too late now. 

BLOGGING FROM A TO Z APRIL 2013 – LETTER “H”

HALF-ASSED

I was racking my brain for an “H” word today. In my usual fashion, none of the words I chose and put in a list have been used. As a matter of fact, I can't even remember the title of the list and have lost it somewhere in the wilderness of my of my hard drive. I can't remember what I chose, but it was probably something really Serious and Meaningful. The hell with it.

The bigger it gets, the worse it gets. Its own peripherals hate each other. Links die and go nowhere, except to Existential Land, maybe. Twitter Support is lame-o. "Let us help pick your new PC!" they gush. I tweeted, "4MB RAM, 33MB processor." "Great! Windows 8 is for you!" "Really? I thought Atari might do!" I tweeted back. Idiots.

While I was trying to work up a froth of “H” inspiration, I noticed, wayyy up in the left-hand corner, a new folder icon, where earlier today, my Recycle Bin icon had been. I haven't touched it, I haven't deleted anything today; I haven't accidentally deleted my Recycle Bin, which I have done in the past. I have Windows Vista. I used to work at IBM and I was an OS/2 Engineer. I worked in 3^rd level support and I loved the operating system. It's robust and hard to louse up, unlike Windows, which is nothing but a thriving, self-replicating bug patch.

Vista is probably one of the less intrusive operating systems versions of Windows. We've had the Win95, 98, 2000, XP and I guess 7, which I have no experience with and 8, which ditto. Frankly they all suck. Apple sucks, too and you need to have Java loaded to run their garbage. I got rid of all of that when I got some of their more lethal viruses. I had to reload one of my computers back in 2008, when I downloaded a Java update. I chased a trojan around on my old Gateway system for 3 days and finally gave up and reloaded the system.

I play Runescape; this is the MOST important thing I use my computer for. SETI@home, Math arrays and writing/blogging and fixing the world run a distant 2nd to this! ViolaFury and Linus on their way to the coal mines.

In February, I got pneumonia and had to go to the ER. When I got home, my computer nagged me to download an update to RealPlayer, which is an Apple product and I did but didn't scan it before I installed it and got a smitty_fraud Trojan worm. I caught it before it's 3^rd iteration. I then got rid of all of my Apple products. I had already uninstalled Java. For good measure, I uninstalled all of my MS Office and am running Open Office.org. I'm happy and my computer is happy, too! There is so much nasty stuff running around out there and Microsoft is sloppy. All big software publishers are getting sloppy with their security, and their half-assed approach to security is more apparent all the time. I bought a 2-year license for AVG security and I run Spybot on every piece of software that a program tells me to update. I have all updates set to “ask first before downloading.” It's worth it to avoid the absolute frustration of having to reload your system. I did this sort of work for 15 years. Half-assed doesn't cut it, and the big companies don't care.

I'm half-assed myself; here it is 8:48 pm, just getting to my post. I think the "G" is for Golf was probably funnier. This is new you can use. Let's call it edu-tainment. Tomorrow should be for I is for Idiot. Naaa, too obvious. Ouch.

#ROW 80 1st QTR – POST 26 – WHAT AND WHO DEFINE US AND SHOULD WE CARE?

Short answer; hell, no. But as with everything else, it's a lot more complicated. It gets even more complex when you start throwing in an ex-husband or 3, some interesting careers and times and some health issues that in another century would have landed me in an asylum (well, I've been there, sort of) or a Freak show.

The cool thing about getting up into your young-middle-age, or whatever the hell they call it these days, is I can say anything I please, and not give a good Goddamned about any of it. I used to care. I really did. Now I save my care for stuff that really matters. Like Bingo or Runescape. No, I save it for people who are too weak to defend themselves and there are loads of those. I care about writing and creating a good product and hanging around people who have the same standards. The usual stuff.

I'm not unique, but I am finding the world to become more and more slip-shod in quality. Maybe it's just old fart-ism setting in. I've just spent the day fighting with my HP printer, which seems fine, MS Office which is a giant zone of suck and it's little brother MS Works Suite, which managed to suck up any of the suck MS Office left behind. Another, not 1, but 2, count 'em! Microsoft products down the drain!

Don't forget Service Pack 4! New Bugs for all your .dll files!

I found a perfectly good little Office Suite online and put it through it's paces, databases; relational with pivot tables, spread sheets with formulae, and some kind of Power Pointy type thing, which I'll never use. Price? Free. It also doesn't take up 80 gazillion gigs and needs no java, which needs to be banned from the universe, anyway.

I told JC, I was taking all of my Microsoft shit and putting it on Nebraska Ave and let the hot rods run it over 8 or 10 times. He said, “Well, from all the bitching and hollering, it'll probably work just as well.” But that's what I mean by quality products. We had idiots at Verizon who were becoming MS Certified Engineers, who would format the C drives. If you can do that and be an MS Engineer, I don't want to do that. It's kinda like Mark Twain says, “I am no member of an organized political party. I am a Democrat.” A left-landed compliment if ever there was.

And of course my music and my viola! It's always been all viola, all the time. My folks must have just shaken their heads. They could not understand the obsession, but it's been lifelong. I'm a violist; was born one, and I shall die one. All this is sort of leading up to this whole “Parkinson's Disease, not-Parkinson's Disease, that is the question.” I got some really good advice from a Twitter buddy, when I cracked wise about the drooling. 

@dbsDad said, “Don't let yourself be defined by the disease. You take control.” (dbsdad is a very wise, cool and fun guy; I suggest following him!)

I know it's 3:30 in the fucking a.m., Ma! I have to play this stupid "Scratch Frantically at Solo Ensemble tomorrow!

Damned good advice. I'm still drooling; it took me 25 fucking minutes to type this stupid title, but so what. This is not who I am. I am someone who was not a very good girl child; a better boy than a girl. I love music, computers, mathematics and I'm a gamer. I'm trying to be a writer. I'm a friend.

ROW 80 4th QUARTER POST 8 – TECHNO FUSIONS

I suppose it wouldn’t be overstating the situation if I were to mention that my life is a tad, er, unscheduled. By this, I mean, my life’s great arc, whatever that was, has since been forgotten in the fog of history; much like Churchill, not that I presume to compare my life to be anything like his. Other than the fact that we share the red hair and blue eyes, he hailed from south of the Scottish border and had an American mother, whereas my parents held no fealty to Britain or America. I also didn't get the brilliance with the English language, both written and oral adroitness, the Admiralty, or to be friends with FDR. On the plus side, I didn't get Gallipoli, the Exchequer mess, or Uncle Joe to try and keep out of Central Europe after WW II, either.

No, by this time, I had planned to be playing out my “golden years” in some middling symphony or scratching around in some orchestra or another, probably dueling it out for 12^th chair viola, with some hack kid or another. Gah! Instead, I had a rather, um, glorious 2 careers, albeit, kind of ad-hoc, thrown together, symphonic at times; big roaring orchestras, interspersed with smaller chamber orchestras, lots of quartet work, and patched together a living. Because I didn’t graduate from Curtis or Julliard, and never won a top-drawer spot in an orchestra, as the musical cultural landscape in America and Europe changed, even a very, very good section player was finding it hard to make a living doing, while I was young. But, I was damned if I was going to teach music in public schools; I didn’t even get my certificate in college, I so didn’t want to teach. If I couldn’t play, I’d starve.

I hate the philosophy. It’s not inspiring. It’s about numbers. Teachers don’t teach; they ceased to do that back when I was in high school. The last really good high school music teacher I had was a Percussionist from the San Francisco Symphony named Michael Wells. He taught us Orchestra and Music Theory, with a healthy dose of passion. He used to tell me, “You don’t know how great you are as a musician. Just get off your duff. Practice!” He’d get so frustrated. He died at the age of 37, in 1980. The public music program had dwindled to the point where he was forced to teach history and he hated it. Enough. This post is not about that.

I’m jumping tracks right here, right now and I apologize; I know it’s jarring. This is my blog and anyone who has read me knows that I married another violist whom I met on a JOB who thought that The  Magic Viola Fairy would come along after we wed and turn me into the Magic Flautist and we would Live Happily Ever After, because he couldn’t stand the competition. Imagine his surprise and the conflict in the house when that routine operation didn’t take place? Yeah, me too.

Anyway, I went back to school and majored in the closest thing possible to Viola Performance, so I could get another degree and get the fuck away from this fucktard ASAP; Computer Science. Yeah, I’ve always been known for my A to B thinking. Imagine my surprise when I started taking those stupid Algebra and Calculus and Trigonometry classes and enjoyed them. I loved the logic and the structure of the computer systems. At last! Something I really could make sense out of. Cool, neat stuff. It’s either on, or it’s off. Frightening, that! None of this it’s kind of this, it’s sort of that.

One thing I’ve always been baffled by, is how people negotiate in relationships; it’s taken me a long, long time to get that right. I mean that sincerely. I’ve had over 50 years to try and figure that out. I was always the nerdy kid who just couldn’t get it right. I tried everything. I always thought I was geeky and I am, but people tell me I’m pretty and I could trade on that. It’s not nearly enough; it never gets to the heart of anything. It’s not me; it’s not you. It really is just a shell. I’m not a shell. You’re not just a simulacrum. We’re solid beings, even on the screen. That’s where the virtual becomes real for me. That’s the beautiful intersection between math, sound, music, flesh and blood for me.

This didn’t start out to be serious; what I was going to tell you about was the stupid, silly stuff I do. Even after I worked at IBM and Verizon and did all the playing and tearing around and lived and had glorious times, I’m still having fun and meeting wonderful people. I write and live by the seat of my pants. My idiocies seem to all involve computer-related gaffes now. The latest? I bought 2 of The World 4 Realz Gangnam posters and I don’t care. What happened was this: I have Amazon Prime. In an attempt to save money, I tried to cancel 1 purchase because it charged for shipping and ended up with a 2^nd, so now I have 2 galloping blue guys. Yeah, I know. Ms. wanna-be Chloe O’Brian (complete with the lovely personality,) who adores Techno-Porn and EMP Hoo Ha. One of my own very favorite scenes in "24" is in Season 4, if I remember right, but involves the melt-down of every single system and screen in CTU. 

In actuality? Not so fun, when networks crash and pissed-off engineers and secretaries are hollering and the call queue is escalating. It was about that time, I decided my services were better used in Imaginary Think-Land and Development on the road, before playing gigs. I had bosses who believed my bullshit and gave me their blessings and sent me on my happy way. I'm pretty adroit with operating systems and networking but seem to suck with buttons and software that changes curtains and furniture every 5 minutes. Now, I have 2 of these blue posters sitting here… And?

I. Don’t. Care.

Neither. Does. JC. We have a 2^nd galloping blue guy for a present for the "Silly Dad Names Blog Now With Added Moms." Cool.

According to a statistic, since "Gangnam Style" has been out, less than 1/2 a year, we've listened to more than 2,100 years of it. Jesus has been dead longer. Think about that for a moment. I think I’ll sit here and listen for a bit. Gangnam Style… 

GAGNAM STYLE?