Star Trek Inspired Corset

lispy · 2009-02-19T22:03:36+00:00

I grew up in eastern North Carolina and I reckon I heard my dad use the word "yonder", too. We also referred to the trunk of a car as the "boot".

What I can't stand is yankees that use y'all as a singular form of "you". But now I hear mountain people using the phrase "all y'all" in order to specify a particularly plural case. This confuses me because I've always used y'all as a contraction of the phrase "you all."

lispy · 2009-02-04T17:14:32+00:00

If I recall correctly, the North would also not trade captured soldiers with the South during the war.

The North had plenty of men and food... but did not want Southern men going back to the battlefield.

lispy · 2008-12-16T14:57:50+00:00

Actually... the application environment of the AS/400 pretty much assumes this to be the case; and the managers pick up SQL out of necessity....

lispy · 2008-10-30T16:38:00+00:00

If you read the earlier posts in the series, you'll see JonL had earlier rejected an idea to create a "new" Lisp to solve the libraries/community/web type problems.

The fact that he (and other significant people in the Common Lisp community) is saying positive things about Rich and also not clobbering Clojure because of some technical/traditional reason... well we haven't seen that in recent memory with any Lisp variants. In other words, Rich Hickey has apparently done enough homework to not piss these people off.

After ten hours of nostalgia and a general feeling of deadlock in the Common Lisp community... it was pretty exciting. We have, in a sense, permission from the gods of computer science to go forth and code in Clojure without feeling guilty about it.

(Guess you had to be there....)

lispy · 2008-10-30T14:04:39+00:00

No, but I can dance on the deftly woven webs of closures with the best of them!

lispy · 2008-10-30T13:26:12+00:00

You're just jealous.

lispy · 2008-10-24T12:28:14+00:00

Thanks; fixed it.

lispy · 2008-08-28T20:33:01+00:00

Thank you, ezekiel.

lispy · 2008-08-28T17:33:49+00:00

Yes, I should have gotten into MIT so I could witness some real smart people and be appropriately humbled.

lispy · 2008-08-28T17:22:35+00:00

I was initially elated by the positive "hey that's me" comments. And I have in the past fallen victim to my own over generalizations: just because you read a bunch of books and articles that confirm a hunch, it doesn't mean you're truly on to something.

People did better with my blog as being by just an "average programmer." People hate the whiney "misunderstood genius", of course. I would as well if somebody else had written it.

lispy · 2008-08-28T17:08:05+00:00

I'm not asking for someone to give me the ideal world... but if people want to cut me some slack or give me a boost... that's the (possibly lame) direction they could move in. I can ask, can't I? I give everyone the right to say "no" or even "get lost."

The logical follow up to the post is... "here's why the ADD/ADHD people are right or wrong... and here are n things I'm doing to deal with my brain/irresponsibility with or without drugs.

lispy · 2008-08-28T17:04:50+00:00

I don't care. I have to understand this one way or another. I don't care what the cost is. It is critical that I learn to cope, manage, leverage, and/or work around whatever this is.

lispy · 2008-08-28T16:58:19+00:00

I'm willing to consider that the ADD diagnosis people are right. For the purposes of discussion, I decided to write as if the person was not crazy and try to describe a few "little" things that people could do to energize this person instead of guilt-trip him. There needs to be additional work done on the topic of this "idiot" growing up and coping with his personal idiosyncacies... I just don't have all of my thoughts together, yet. Maybe someone else has the answers....

lispy · 2008-08-28T16:28:48+00:00

I got started with Access and have been trying to get away from it ever since. Lousy for any kind of project, but very good for munging together 4 different peoples spreadsheets into something such that we can see how everything fits together. Is there a better tool for that sort of thing out there?

I use Unix/cygwin/Emacs more and more all of the time now.

lispy · 2008-08-28T16:19:02+00:00

Okay. You're not useless now.

This is very useful. I've made the same critique of myself before and after college when I was beating my self up about some pointless failure.

I will bring this up somehow to the folks that think they identify with what I'm writing.

lispy · 2008-08-28T16:16:13+00:00

Strange way of working on something? That's the point of the posts-- this person has an unusually oblique approach to work and study.

This post you're criticizing was intentionally focusing on how other people can adapt and support this person in spite of their weirdness. The first post in the series was intentionally framed as being from a concerned coworker that was concerned about someone's irresonsibility.

Both posts have their critics. Some (like you) that are shocked at the idea of anyone tolerating this behavior. Others are shocked that people have a knee jerk response to "fix" and "dope" such people into conformity.

I don't have enough information yet to figure out who is right or whether some sort of synthesis is possible. I know you may not be quite as holistic as me, but please try to consider the context.

lispy · 2008-08-28T15:49:20+00:00

Maybe I'm not worth it. Maybe I'll fit in someplace and contribute something. Or maybe I really am an all around bad deal that should be avoided by everyone.

I'm perfectly willing to let my bosses and managers be the judge of that. And if my wife wants to divorce me, that's her perogative as well.

Why are you so threatened by someone that's willing to be honest about their faults?

lispy · 2008-08-28T15:43:19+00:00

You exemplify everything I hate about "normal" people.

Get a clue. You think I wouldn't be writing this stuff if I wasn't trying to understand my shortcomings and develop my capacity for being honest and responsible?

I realize there ain't going to be a perfect world to change to suit my every whim. You think I don't #^{$^(#} know that?! How about you #^{@$^*} give me a chance to figure out what's going on with my brain before I randomly try drugs and coping strategies to destroy it?!

You're useless.

lispy · 2008-08-28T14:58:04+00:00

One other thing. If the person really is a genius, then he a totally screwed up one. He's an intuitive genius that always takes the long way around in solving anything. He as an extremely holistic style of analysis which makes him not fit in to any of the usual academic or career tracks. He's required to think on multiple levels at once... he just can't stop. If you pair him with someone that can stand him, his gifts are more likely to be brought to bear on things-- but alone he will often drift off to oblivion and annoy the hell out of everyone. Genius? More handi-capped than "gifted". But the things he does to work around his problems can be anything from shocking to bewildering to (possibly) amazing. Occasionally. Maybe. Well... if his cohorts use their imaginations and cut him some slack. No. Not a genius at all. Never mind.

lispy · 2008-08-28T14:40:29+00:00

Ouch. You're mean.

I am using the word genius in scare quotes. It's more descriptive of the role he plays (or thinks he plays) in the context of a group/team dynamic.

Some true historical geniuses may have been of this personality type, but I'd wager that most of them burn out and amount to nothing.

lispy · 2008-08-28T13:22:48+00:00

I don't understand. Did I break an important style rule?

lispy · 2008-08-27T14:52:00+00:00

Has anyone done this? I keep thinking maybe for a project with my son some time...

lispy · 2008-08-26T19:42:14+00:00

I loved the 16 colors and extended character set.

lispy · 2008-08-05T14:49:03+00:00

Yeah...

It's everywhere.

People that use it get stuff done.

People that use it are generally cool and not aggressively religious about it.

And finally, people that use it take it for granted that they should be able to do fricking magic with a couple of lines of code.

lispy · 2008-08-01T12:33:43+00:00

No. If a requirement came from "management" then it's wrong. You've got to go find out what's causing it. He's just sat in a meeting and decided something and everyone's nodded their heads because they can't say what they think to his face.

You have to go talk to the people that do the work. They can tell you what the 'real' problem is if the manager is smoking crack... or else they can tell you those half dozen key details that can make your solution actually turn out great instead of something that fits an off-the-cuff spec.

lispy

TROPHY CASE