I Will Always Be Treated Badly

draft

Recent events have convinced me that, with one or two very important exceptions, people will always treat me badly.  Without these exceptions, I would be homeless or dead, so I am very grateful, believe me.

But everyone wants to be liked. Everyone wants to think that they are seen as valuable.  No one wants to be an impoverished outcast. 

It seems it does not matter how much I help, how nice I am, what I have contributed, what I might contribute, nothing.  People will treat me like shit.

I will try to help people understand things they clearly do not understand, and be as honest and as well meaning as I can be.  No doubt this will earn me another kick in the head.

If not for one or two people I would be homeless today.  I do not deserve being treated this way.

What It Means When People Treat You Like Garbage

draft

There is nothing like being in a position where people think that you can not help them, or that they do not have to be nice to you because they might want something from you.  Because under those circumstances you may find out what people actually think of you, or maybe you will learn something even more nasty: that many of your friends were shallow scum who get off on abusing people when they think they can get away with it.

And there is something about the last six months that has really brought out some of the most outrageous behavior.  But I think you will be OK.  I doubt I will ever get back into a position of success such that you might regret your actions.

But I am sorry to have to learn how arrogant and how self-entitled so many people I know turn out to be.  Yes, I am a little trusting but this is beyond that.  This is really an indication of how fucked up our society is.

This makes me sad.

Good luck to you guys and gals.

Windows 10 and Why I Hate Microsoft

draft

I am trying to install Windows 10 Home Edition on a USB drive.  I am installing from a USB flash drive.

The install program claims it will not install on a USB drive.  This is just fucking bug nuts by the way.  Linux has been able to install to a USB drive since soon after USB was invented.  I mean, what the fuck?

I called MS Support and "chatted" with two very nice people of the Indian subcontinent who really did try to help.  But the situation was way too far outside their comfort zone so no progress was made. MS Support thinks that if I partition the USB drive that it might work.  I cant imagine why and I have no particular way to do that here that would give me any confidence that I would do what it is that they need.

So my questions are:

1. Is there a way to install Windows 10 Home Edition on an unformatted USB drive.  2. Would another edition of Windows 10 be able to do this?  3. If I install Windows 10 on this drive as a SATA drive, take it out and put it in a USB enclosure, will Windows 10 be able to boot successfully from it?  (BTW, this has nothing to do with the BIOS/UEFI so far as I know).

I am going to try a few experiments tomorrow and then I am going to give up on it, because I really dont need to run stupid software.

The Unitarian Resistance Movement

draft

As mentioned below, when my local Congressman's office had no idea why I would be concerned about the collapse of democracy in America, or why I would bother them, my elected representative with the issue, they sent me off to the Unitarians.  Go to the Unitarians, they said, maybe they can help you.

Well, it turns out that I live two blocks away from the Unitarian Church in town and they had a nice office with someone working and she thought the story was funny.  Well, she said, we do have a mailing list of people who are interested in doing things politically, and I can put you on that list if you like.

For those who like their history American, the Unitarians have pretty much always been a hotbed of progressive political activity in this country.

Natron: The Open Source Compositor

draft

I asked around for an open source compositor and no one knew of anything.  So much for my friends in the motion picture industry.

I looked on the Internet and found one.  It is called Natron.

Now the good news and the bad news:

1. Good news is that it seems to be very complete.

2. Good news is that it is easy to install on Centos.

3. Bad news is that the documentation sucks.  My guess is that there is a forum somewhere you are supposed to use, good luck finding it and using it.

4. My feeling, before much use, is that this is a very annoying but interesting tool and we are lucky to have it.  I recommend you download the source and keep it around because god only knows how long it will be around and "supported".

5. I am not going to add a link here because it will probably be out of date within nanoseconds.  Look it up yourself and good luck.

My Local Congressman

draft

Just for fun, I go to my local Congressman's office. As you can see, the notice on the door indicates that the door is locked at all times. So I knock and talk to a very confused woman who did not understand why I would be bothering them about this supreme court thing. We have nothing to do with that, she explained, as if to an idiot. I said I was concerned, she said, so? I wondered if they were organizing any protests. Now I could tell she was really worried. For all she knew, I would become violent at any moment. She redirected me to local Unitarian church, I guess her attitude was that it was stupid to approach one's congressman. I guess they were just too busy to worry about what a constituent thought about their government.

Gainful Employment, Society is At Fault

draft

Fragment of a larger essay.

I had the misfortune of working at RAND as a college drop out and being part of the early ARPA community, and that set expectations for the workplace which have not been met. Symbolics (an MIT AI Lab spinoff was part of this enlightened conspiracy, so was the MIT Media Lab in its earlier Architecture Machine form). I blame society because I was treated so well to begin with.

No Single Cause of the Disaster

draft

Every month or so since November 2016 I have read an analysis of why Trump (did not) win the election and each time someone says that "this is the true and only reason".  But it is almost certainly the case that no one reason can be identified for the simple reasons that (a) Trump won on a technical having lost the popular vote by a lot and (b) there were so many anomalies.

I maintain that nothing is clear, there was no single cause of this disaster. A failed constitution, right-wing voter fraud, independent and democratic voter indifference, a condidate who utterly failed to connect to an important part of the democratic base, the destructive influence of social media, russian intelligence disruption of the civic discourse, and of course collusion between the criminal right wing candidate with the foreign intelligence services all conspired to create a situation where a flawed constitution could be used to install a right wing thug as president. It was not one thing.

Gainful Employment, The Backstory

draft

Several friends have expressed concern about my lack of traditonal employment (or non-traditional employment) and have offered to help.  I appreciate their offer very much.  Its just that the situation is complicated and there are many things, boring things, that they do not or may not know.

But I want to thank everyone for thinking of me.  Yes, its important.  Yes, pretty much all my friends and certainly those who have volunteered to give me advice have probably done better than I in so many ways.

So lets go over some of these issues.

1. I made choices that resulted in taking risks.  Those risks did not pan out, and combined with unexpected health related issues, means that there are non-traditional gaps on my resume. The generic job opening can not accomodate this without special pleading.  Applying over the internet in some anonymous fashion will not work.

2. In fact, applying for a random job over the internet has never worked.

3. I generally have to think about a job before I apply for it.  Its important to me to feel as though, were I to get the job, that I would do well at it. But this approach does not match the "internet clusterfuck apply in quantity and pray" strategy.  That is right, it doesn't.

4. For better or worse, there are health considerations and not every job can accomodate these things.

5. Money has never been important.  What has been important has been the people I work with and the organization I work for.  Think RAND Corporation, Symbolics (MIT AI spinoff), MASS ILLUSION or the American Museum of Natural History. It can be hard to predict these things I admit.  I had a wonderful time consulting to Viacom in various guises, but that had to do with special circumstances and special people.

6. Its hard to be quanititative about this, but quite a few of my work experiences have involved being abused by management or my fellow workers.  But that would never happen in an elite place like RAND.  So it behooves me to work in such a place and avoid places where management does not protect its people.

7. You can learn technology all you want on your own, but being employable in a field means full time dedication and resources to learn and keep up with that specific field.  So you are not just going to be a web developer, you are going to dedicate your life to web development if you want a job in it. I dont want a job in it.

8. Regarding entrepreneurial activity.  I decided I did not want to try that again with out money.  Now that I have learned that getting a job is impossible, I may as well have abused myself through stupid attempts to be entrepreneurial without money.  It would have been more fun.  Live and learn, I guess.

I could go on, but there is no point.  If you want to help, the best way to do so is to introduce me to someone who might have some project or position where there might be a fit.  A few friends have tried this and it has almost worked, or worked for short periods.  But sadly it has not worked in the long run.

I appreciate your time very much.

Further Thoughts on the Google / DOD / AI Controversy

draft

On further reflection, I am taking back my criticism about the whole Google/US Military kerflop (if thats a word).  I thought it was odd for employees of Google to refuse to do an AI military project given the role of the US Military (aka DARPA) in inventing and supporting AI and in particular computer science at Stanford.  But now I think they have a very reasonable point to make, or might be making, since after all, I dont really know what people at Google think, since what I know comes from the news media and has not gone into much depth.

Several people who know at least as much as I do about the history of AI and post war computer science dispute my assertion(s) about the role of the military elite in the creation of those fields, and the fact is that all I have are my impressions, not the result of serious research into the details of what I think I know on the subject.  So often in the past my impressions have been entertaining but by no means the whole story.

But even if I have a minor point to make about the history of science and technology, other considerations far outweigh this.

These considerations include (a) Our military has been voluntary since Vietnam, so it should certainly be the case that wherever original funding may have come from, people should be able to choose whether or not they work on a military project.  (b) When they chose Google there was absolutely no reason to think that they would be involved in such a project (directly at least, indirectly is another kettle of fish), (c) Google is an international company and their reputation and success may depend on not being perceived as being directly involved with the military, any military, given the bad reputation such militaries have, (d) Other companies that work for the federal government directly (e.g. by taking contracts with the IRS or the DOD) generally set up a separate company or division to deal with such things.  Thus their employees can make the conscious choice to work with such a company or division or not.  I am sure that not all such choices may be entirely voluntary (e.g. we have a project for you over here, you can take the project or be unemployed) but even so, it gives people fair warning about what is up.  And last, but not least, (e) As much as I respect our military, it is the tool  of our political elite, and our elite has been involved in questionable military adventure after adventure in my lifetime.  However much I may respect various aspects of our military, which is iteslef a long discussion, there can be no argument that they are often put to the most appalling use and it is completely reasonable to try and live ones' life without out being involved in such things, at least as much as is possible given that we must all swim in the same ocean.

Finally, and last but not least, to the best of my knowlege, Google has been very open about their work and research, and there is nothing preventing another company from doing this sort of work.  In fact, since working with the US Government is such a complicated thing to do, it is likely that this other company (whether new or existing) might do more of what the DOD really needs.

In other words, even if I maintain (provisionally) my point about the history of technology, there are plenty of other reasons for Google to abstain from this work if their employees so request.

This post is just a work in progress and its very clear to me I dont know the whole story.