Oh! I'm in such inner conflict and turmoil! Oh!

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Poll

Votes: 8

Oh! I'm in such inner conflict and turmoil! Oh!

Author:

elenchos

Topic:

Diaries

Posted:

Jul 12, 2001

Comments:

I'm kind of pissed off to learn that anyone could think that Henry V was even close to being right for rejecting Falstaff. The scheming lizard would have had no trouble pretending to send him away, preserving his precious image. But he still needed to have Falstaff there to tell him the truth when no one else would, and so should have kept company with him in secret.

You know, in 1 Henry IV, when Falstaff is playing King Henry IV, he argues for Falstaff's virtue by saying you shall know them by their fruit -- that is, the virtue of Hal is a reflection of his surrogate father, Falstaff. This is the only time until Hal saves the king that anyone recognizes any good in Hal. As always, Falstaff is the one who sees the truth.

This is what Shakespeare is saying is missing in a nation that rejects the life-affirming, pagan and undecieved Falstaff in favor of their grand illusions about honor and duty and piety. The great national hero has made a grave mistake.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about today.

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I really dispair of finding any work in the computer industry. It is so full of fuckheads, and I have a hell of a time working with them. You have to handle them, humor them, all the time. Which is fine if you take pleasure in profiting by exploiting niave idiot savants. But not if you insist on being honest with people. What I really hope for is to work in a minimally geeky programming shop: I'm guessing a financial institution, rather than some fucked up software company. Academia is a possibility, but I think government and defense are out... maybe Boeing. It seems like they sort of have a grip on reality, unlike the fanatic kult kooks that work at Microsoft and its competitors, like the Church of Apple or the Open Source Sect. Or the total loonies at some startup.

If I were 22 that might be fun for a couple years, but not now.

	Where are you, one of the coasts? (none / 0) (#1)
	by typical geek on Thu Jul 12th, 2001 at 01:02:43 PM PST

	Get inside America's heartland to find people who are a little more down to earth. I work in a large, well known company that is becoming a software company, just because every product ships with a few million lines of code. Idiot savant geeks are tolerated, but not worshipped, and there are a lot of technically skilled people working here that would never consider programming for fun outside of work. They work with Solaris, etc, but aren't consumed by it. gcc is to software freedom as guns are to personal freedom.

	In Spokane, headed for Seattle. (none / 0) (#2)
	by elenchos on Thu Jul 12th, 2001 at 01:58:55 PM PST

	You're probably right that I'm in a place that cuts geeks way too much slack. But man: Middle America? My family is from Iowa, and I know what that's like. I don't know if I could deal with it. Maybe New York...? I really like Seattle though, except for the way the job prospects are looking at the moment. I do, I do, I do --Bikini Kill

	I'm in Rochester, NY (none / 0) (#3)
	by typical geek on Fri Jul 13th, 2001 at 07:10:14 AM PST

	which is a nice, mellow family town. I imagine a skilled geek could find nice employment without the prima donna hangups in any number of secondary cities, ala Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Baltimore, Nashville. gcc is to software freedom as guns are to personal freedom.

	*Hey...waitasecond...I'm in Spokane!* (none / 0) (#4)
	by elenchos on Fri Jul 13th, 2001 at 04:27:18 PM PST

	And I don't actually like it here. For a secondary city, commuting is a nightmare. For example, if I wanted to work at HP's "Spokane facility" it would mean driving thirty miles from Spokane itself every day. Here that is considered an acceptable commute. There aren't a wide choice of tech jobs here beyond that: there are a few small companies, and so I suppose one could make a go of it, with some effort. The biggest thing that I dislike about Spokane, after the commuting problems, is the homogenization. The inner core of the town has some individual character, but the vast donut of suburbia that surrounds it is mile after mile of bland strip malls and regional/national stores and restauraunts. So all I'm really looking for is an older neighborhood to live in that is physically close enough to a business and shopping and academic area that I don't have to own a car. I'm sort of creating my own dilemma, because those kinds of areas -- the Bay Area, Seattle, Boston -- are exactly the techy-utopias that get on my nerves so much. Spokane does have some hope, if only they would stop tearing down the old buildings and laying out subdivisions 30 to 50 miles from downtown. I do, I do, I do --Bikini Kill

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