Once again, here I am, sitting here wondering who wrote that shit…. oh, it was me, and it’s all true, more or less. But, it isn’t anything like what I envisioned writing when I sat down to begin. As a matter of fact, the first five words were meant to push me off into one of my fantasy story openings, complete with witches, goats, three chandeliers, a devil, an angel, and a Peking Duck without sauce. Instead, I find myself at the end of a tidy little discussion that would most likely bore an accountant in tax season to desperate tears. (Aha, that reminds me…. do taxes!)  I can’t imagine what came over me; I seem to have misplaced my sense of whimsy, and can already see the ill effects of its absence…..

Ah well, the workaround for this particular problem is pretty straightforward…. ignore it and move on. That part of me that writes the boring stuff is easily miffed by such inattention, and will promptly stomp off in high dudgeon to find a quiet corner in which to sulk. So, we will now embark on our morning search for Pearls…. shall we begin?…. Aha, a fine specimen, practically jumped into the bag… we’ll give it primary billing, with no needed discussion….

“I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English — it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them — then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.” — Mark Twain

Good advice… let’s see how close we can come to following it….. Kowabunga!
___________________________________

:Shub-Internet: /shuhb’ in’t*r-net/ n.  [MUD: from H. P. Lovecraft’s evil fictional deity Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat with a Thousand Young] The harsh personification of the Internet: Beast of a Thousand Processes, Eater of Characters, Avatar of Line Noise, and Imp of Call Waiting; the hideous multi-tendriled entity formed of all the manifold connections of the net.  A sect of MUDders worships Shub-Internet, sacrificing objects and praying for good connections. To no avail — its purpose is malign and evil, and is the cause of all network slowdown.  Often heard as in “Freela casts a tac nuke at Shub-Internet for slowing her down.”  (A forged response often follows along the lines of: “Shub-Internet gulps down the tac nuke and burps happily.”)  Also cursed by users of the Web, {FTP} and {TELNET} when the system slows down. The dread name of Shub-Internet is seldom spoken aloud, as it is said that repeating it three times will cause the being
to wake, deep within its lair beneath the Pentagon.  Compare {Random Number God}. — from The on-line Hacker Jargon File V423

Every culture, and every sub-culture within that body, of which hacker culture is not an exception, spawns its own myths. These myths and legends are consistent with the principles of morality and beliefs that infuse the various elements in the group, composed of that culture’s deepest fears of the true unknown nature of the technology they employ. In hacker culture, their gods and demons take the shape and character of the antithesis of the wizards and demi-gods they admire, for their mastery of the nuances of the field of knowledge in which they all play and live; these unfortunate deities generally resemble the CEO of the company where they toil for pay.

I find hacker culture and mythology fascinating, as it is often based on concepts and ideas from science- and speculative-fiction, and fantasy, all blended together into such creatively conceived entities as Shub-Internet…. a creature both terrifying and playful….. Kind of like Lord Voldemort on laughing gas, but uglier, if you can picture that…. The highest form of humor to a hacker would be for Curly Joe to catch the Wolfman or Dracula with the old exploding cigar gag, in a movie where Curly is a programmer and Dracula is a management suit….. all after an elegant hack that saved the world, and the company, from evil bureaucrats from the Fast Food Dimension…..
___________________________________

“Even for a wizard there will often come times when someone close to you, perhaps even your spouse, criticizes your habits by comparing them to those of animals. This is distinctly unfair to the animals, who have far better habits than we in many areas. When, for example, have you seen a frog collecting taxes or a squirrel running for electoral office? Present arguments like these to those people who criticize you. If they still do not see the wisdom of your ways, you may then feel free to bite them.” — The Teachings of Ebenezum, Vol. IX

Now, this is a philosophical attitude I can really get behind. I cannot begin to count how many conversations just like this I have had over the course of my life, with those who don’t like, or more often, and more accurately, don’t understand me or what I say and do.  While I’ve been either fortunate enough, or nice enough to not have run across a great many folks who are actively upset by my admittedly unusual mannerisms and expressions, there have been many who, because of their own dissatisfaction with their own lives, find it hard to keep their noses out of mine, or anyone else’s for that matter….. A lot of them wear badges, or work in government bureaucracies, and are just smart enough to realize how badly they have screwed up their own lives, so they try to make themselves feel better by criticizing whatever other folks are up to….. it’s pathetic, really…. and well worth the hullabaloo that ensues after administering the evidence of our displeasure….
___________________________________

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne’er unroll;
Chill penury repress’d their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.
— Thomas Gray (1716-1771) — Elegy in a Country Churchyard, Stanza 13

It isn’t often that ignorance is made so plain, nor the exact feel of it so well portrayed as in this little gem……

To each his suff’rings; all are men,
Condemn’d alike to groan,–
The tender for another’s pain,
Th’ unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
‘T is folly to be wise.
— Thomas Gray (1716-1771) — On a Distant Prospect of Eton College, Stanza 10

Life is so simple when you don’t know what you’re talking about. — Smart Bee  (Isn’t that what Bush Jr., the Shrub, had printed around the edges of the national seal while he was in office? I think it was….or should have been…. I know it was printed on his cards….)
___________________________________