Psychophant's Rants
28.1.05
Writing
My work requires quite a lot of writing, whether it is reports, articles, or briefings. As well, several of my hobbies benefit from writing, and I tend to go around with one or several notebooks. And yet, the notebooks are mostly bare except for several cryptical notes, my writing is almost always of the "spur of the moment" variety, and I have kept the same defects for ten years (and they are worse in Spanish, except for a lack of typos).
Mainly, it is because systematic writing is boring. And I am so bored of writing at work, that unless I quickly warm up to a subject, I just prefer to do something else. I just build such an elaborate construction in my mind, I am satisfied with it, so there is no need to consign to paper, except maybe as a mnemotecnic reminder, or some hard data to avoid mistakes.
And yet, or maybe that is the explanation, I have found that when I consign it to written form, mistakes become apparent, terrible holes in the mind's construct gape open, and although better than the original in practical terms, I end up with an imperfect, unsatisfying piece.
Which is also behind the absolute ban of editing in this blog. If I edit a sintactical mistake, soon I will be drawn to clarify a semantical doubt and in a few days I will either delete it whole or stop writing. So I just let them go. After all, who besides me will reread them?
When going fully public, I have not that luxury of understanding, silent readers. So that requires a series of revisions after revisions. I am very unsatisfied with my contribution to a RPG book because I charged a friend with sending the second draft of my chapters to the editor, with a note indicating that I was still working on them, and probably would add some further information. Meanwhile I moved to France, and things were a bit busy for a while. I found out he had sent the first draft (that I have passed him for comments and corrections) instead of the second one. And just when I finished the third draft, I got a check from the publisher for the remaining agreed payment, and their thanks. So, to my shame every time I open that book, the first draft got published.
Of course, when uncontrolled I may require the year that I needed to write my Ph. D. thesis, when three months should have been enough. One year of work in one 31/2 floppy, Word 1.0 for Finder. I got up to thesis version 2.3.2.
So now I prefer not to start revising.
¶ 7:37 PM 0 comments
My work requires quite a lot of writing, whether it is reports, articles, or briefings. As well, several of my hobbies benefit from writing, and I tend to go around with one or several notebooks. And yet, the notebooks are mostly bare except for several cryptical notes, my writing is almost always of the "spur of the moment" variety, and I have kept the same defects for ten years (and they are worse in Spanish, except for a lack of typos).
Mainly, it is because systematic writing is boring. And I am so bored of writing at work, that unless I quickly warm up to a subject, I just prefer to do something else. I just build such an elaborate construction in my mind, I am satisfied with it, so there is no need to consign to paper, except maybe as a mnemotecnic reminder, or some hard data to avoid mistakes.
And yet, or maybe that is the explanation, I have found that when I consign it to written form, mistakes become apparent, terrible holes in the mind's construct gape open, and although better than the original in practical terms, I end up with an imperfect, unsatisfying piece.
Which is also behind the absolute ban of editing in this blog. If I edit a sintactical mistake, soon I will be drawn to clarify a semantical doubt and in a few days I will either delete it whole or stop writing. So I just let them go. After all, who besides me will reread them?
When going fully public, I have not that luxury of understanding, silent readers. So that requires a series of revisions after revisions. I am very unsatisfied with my contribution to a RPG book because I charged a friend with sending the second draft of my chapters to the editor, with a note indicating that I was still working on them, and probably would add some further information. Meanwhile I moved to France, and things were a bit busy for a while. I found out he had sent the first draft (that I have passed him for comments and corrections) instead of the second one. And just when I finished the third draft, I got a check from the publisher for the remaining agreed payment, and their thanks. So, to my shame every time I open that book, the first draft got published.
Of course, when uncontrolled I may require the year that I needed to write my Ph. D. thesis, when three months should have been enough. One year of work in one 31/2 floppy, Word 1.0 for Finder. I got up to thesis version 2.3.2.
So now I prefer not to start revising.
¶ 7:37 PM 0 comments
27.1.05
Touching
Maybe due to shyness, I have never followed the Mediterranean cliche of lots of physical contact in normal conversation. Indeed, I am very restrained in the presence of strangers, even with loved ones.
Thanks to practise I can handle formal kisses (in variable numbers) and handshakes without hesitation, something that is bad form. But there are a lot of things that I must know before I feel comfortable with someone to touch them deliberately outside of socially sanctioned occasions. And I will be surprised if someone I do not touch touches me.
And yet, when someone becomes touchable, at times I may be all over them, especially embracing, as I have a particular weakness for full body embraces. I had a liaison with awoman where we mostly just embraced, sometimes for fifteen minutes or more. No kisses or groping (not to say we did not do that, on occasion), just holding the other and feeling how your life becomes centered.
But to reach that state I need to have seen the person move, reaction to touches, caresses, embraces... Not fully, but just an idea to test later. But only when I am confident on my companion's reaction will I dare to try the feeling of that friend.
But now I have a problem. I am meeting internet friends, usually people with who I already have a high level of trust and may have talked deeply. So here I have someone I trust implicitly and knows all my dirty secrets, that receives a cold shoulder and empty words. So now I am getting used to embracing them when we meet or when we part.
But it is a torture, to feel the impulse to take an arm, or to pat someone, and to stop because you may know when that person had his heart broken, but you do not know if he will appreciate me passing a hand by his shoulder. The fact that most of my compatriots would not care and just do it just stresses me more, when strangers do to me as I do not do to friends.
It feels wonderful, however, when you get to know the people, even if geeks are not usually very tactile people in public. There is so much meaning that you cannot pass in any other way... Which is why at least I hug them. Because that shows that no matter the hesitations, the faux-pas or the misunderstandings, we are already friends. And some get to be really close.
¶ 12:56 AM 0 comments
Maybe due to shyness, I have never followed the Mediterranean cliche of lots of physical contact in normal conversation. Indeed, I am very restrained in the presence of strangers, even with loved ones.
Thanks to practise I can handle formal kisses (in variable numbers) and handshakes without hesitation, something that is bad form. But there are a lot of things that I must know before I feel comfortable with someone to touch them deliberately outside of socially sanctioned occasions. And I will be surprised if someone I do not touch touches me.
And yet, when someone becomes touchable, at times I may be all over them, especially embracing, as I have a particular weakness for full body embraces. I had a liaison with awoman where we mostly just embraced, sometimes for fifteen minutes or more. No kisses or groping (not to say we did not do that, on occasion), just holding the other and feeling how your life becomes centered.
But to reach that state I need to have seen the person move, reaction to touches, caresses, embraces... Not fully, but just an idea to test later. But only when I am confident on my companion's reaction will I dare to try the feeling of that friend.
But now I have a problem. I am meeting internet friends, usually people with who I already have a high level of trust and may have talked deeply. So here I have someone I trust implicitly and knows all my dirty secrets, that receives a cold shoulder and empty words. So now I am getting used to embracing them when we meet or when we part.
But it is a torture, to feel the impulse to take an arm, or to pat someone, and to stop because you may know when that person had his heart broken, but you do not know if he will appreciate me passing a hand by his shoulder. The fact that most of my compatriots would not care and just do it just stresses me more, when strangers do to me as I do not do to friends.
It feels wonderful, however, when you get to know the people, even if geeks are not usually very tactile people in public. There is so much meaning that you cannot pass in any other way... Which is why at least I hug them. Because that shows that no matter the hesitations, the faux-pas or the misunderstandings, we are already friends. And some get to be really close.
¶ 12:56 AM 0 comments
26.1.05
Security
Airports have become a new playground for security measures. And yet it is worrysome how uneven the measures are. Some places check the shoes, some check the belt, some do not check anything. All will take out your little nail file (if they spot it). None of them block you from entering with a cask strength whisky, which besides being a much more dangerous weapon that that nail file, whole or broken, is quite flammable. Supposing that you do not go the effort of replacing the content with something more "exciting". There are exceptions (as always, Israel, for instance, where security is real and oppressing), but most just go through the motions.
I am well aware that most of the security craze around airflight is PR, combined with insurance premiums, not a real interest in security. Why there are not the same controls in other mass transit systems, who are as vulnerable or more (remembering the penchant of suicide bombers for buses)? Just because the public still does not feel insecure in them?
Meanwhile there is a booming industry of fear. I suppose the executives that sold defective gas masks in the US market are breathing now more easily that there was no need to use them. They probably even feel vindicated. "We do not sell a product, we sell reassurance!"
So safety is a new product we are being sold. But to sell safety there must be fear in the society, to create a demand. I do not intend to just follow M. Moore, but capitalism is great at creating needs, or spotting them, and then filling them.
In Spain the culture of fear existed, with some credible reasons, but out of proportion of its real influence. And now that the menace is lower than ever, still many politicians are playing up the fears of separatism and the foreigner. As in the airports, people will trade comfort for perceived safety, and instead of wondering what purpose the nail file ban serves (to keep people tense already when packing), they just approve when they make you take your shoes off while passing through the scanner a block of rubber with a mobile phone taped to it, resembling a plastic bomb with mobile phone detonator (yes I wanted them to open my attache case, and it looked innocuous. I had a long time till the connecting flight).
But I could not show them off. Because although I do not share their view, I still prefer the subdued crowds now. To feel it is something special to take a plane, that you are something more than others, by taking risks, bearing indignities, being a traveller snob.
So we help keep the charade up. Because it helps to feel there is something more to travel.
¶ 8:58 AM 0 comments
Airports have become a new playground for security measures. And yet it is worrysome how uneven the measures are. Some places check the shoes, some check the belt, some do not check anything. All will take out your little nail file (if they spot it). None of them block you from entering with a cask strength whisky, which besides being a much more dangerous weapon that that nail file, whole or broken, is quite flammable. Supposing that you do not go the effort of replacing the content with something more "exciting". There are exceptions (as always, Israel, for instance, where security is real and oppressing), but most just go through the motions.
I am well aware that most of the security craze around airflight is PR, combined with insurance premiums, not a real interest in security. Why there are not the same controls in other mass transit systems, who are as vulnerable or more (remembering the penchant of suicide bombers for buses)? Just because the public still does not feel insecure in them?
Meanwhile there is a booming industry of fear. I suppose the executives that sold defective gas masks in the US market are breathing now more easily that there was no need to use them. They probably even feel vindicated. "We do not sell a product, we sell reassurance!"
So safety is a new product we are being sold. But to sell safety there must be fear in the society, to create a demand. I do not intend to just follow M. Moore, but capitalism is great at creating needs, or spotting them, and then filling them.
In Spain the culture of fear existed, with some credible reasons, but out of proportion of its real influence. And now that the menace is lower than ever, still many politicians are playing up the fears of separatism and the foreigner. As in the airports, people will trade comfort for perceived safety, and instead of wondering what purpose the nail file ban serves (to keep people tense already when packing), they just approve when they make you take your shoes off while passing through the scanner a block of rubber with a mobile phone taped to it, resembling a plastic bomb with mobile phone detonator (yes I wanted them to open my attache case, and it looked innocuous. I had a long time till the connecting flight).
But I could not show them off. Because although I do not share their view, I still prefer the subdued crowds now. To feel it is something special to take a plane, that you are something more than others, by taking risks, bearing indignities, being a traveller snob.
So we help keep the charade up. Because it helps to feel there is something more to travel.
¶ 8:58 AM 0 comments
19.1.05
Interstitial Friendships
This is a dear subject to me, and it is partially based in my interest in Gibson. It is also something I have expounded at length to some interstitial friends.
I consider that most relationships without face to face components are interstitial. That means that they are based on the small interstices, or big, in some cases, that normal living leaves you for the long distance relationship. That does not mean they are less important, or less critical to the well being of people. Just that by its own nature it is not interrelated with the rest of your life, just existing on its own or with other instertices.
By its nature it is easier to put them on hold, waiting for an adequate hole to house them, and at the same time are easier to retake and make alive, requiring less build up and emotional investment.
The new communication possibilities make at the same time possible to have these kind of relationships with many more people with less effort. As well, you are usually one among many also for the other participant, so again it is less stressing in the first steps, minimizing the negative effect of rejection or personal attack.
Some people try to leave the interstices, and integrate it into normal life. However, unless willing to change your life, or being very close geographically, even meeting this friend (easier in this easy travel days of supposed post-geography) does not change the instertitial nature, as it will still constitute a minor part of your total life. It is then when we realize geography is still not post. But even then, a strong interstice may well help you change your life, even if the interstitial relationship does not change. It is just one more ingredient to the mix, easy to start, easy to forget, hard to develop, hard to dismiss.
As an instertitial friend once wrote: "Now I can choose friends from all around the world, and instead of one good fit and three mediochre ones, I can try for several perfect fits, for the different me.
That insterstice may well be the one that helps us get up in the morning, or get over an obstacle. Insterstices are not only the holes among the bricks in your life, it can well be the adhesive that keeps them together.
All my friends here are interstitial, and I hope to fill some of their interstices as well.
¶ 3:53 PM 0 comments
This is a dear subject to me, and it is partially based in my interest in Gibson. It is also something I have expounded at length to some interstitial friends.
I consider that most relationships without face to face components are interstitial. That means that they are based on the small interstices, or big, in some cases, that normal living leaves you for the long distance relationship. That does not mean they are less important, or less critical to the well being of people. Just that by its own nature it is not interrelated with the rest of your life, just existing on its own or with other instertices.
By its nature it is easier to put them on hold, waiting for an adequate hole to house them, and at the same time are easier to retake and make alive, requiring less build up and emotional investment.
The new communication possibilities make at the same time possible to have these kind of relationships with many more people with less effort. As well, you are usually one among many also for the other participant, so again it is less stressing in the first steps, minimizing the negative effect of rejection or personal attack.
Some people try to leave the interstices, and integrate it into normal life. However, unless willing to change your life, or being very close geographically, even meeting this friend (easier in this easy travel days of supposed post-geography) does not change the instertitial nature, as it will still constitute a minor part of your total life. It is then when we realize geography is still not post. But even then, a strong interstice may well help you change your life, even if the interstitial relationship does not change. It is just one more ingredient to the mix, easy to start, easy to forget, hard to develop, hard to dismiss.
As an instertitial friend once wrote: "Now I can choose friends from all around the world, and instead of one good fit and three mediochre ones, I can try for several perfect fits, for the different me.
That insterstice may well be the one that helps us get up in the morning, or get over an obstacle. Insterstices are not only the holes among the bricks in your life, it can well be the adhesive that keeps them together.
All my friends here are interstitial, and I hope to fill some of their interstices as well.
¶ 3:53 PM 0 comments
18.1.05
Mind Gap
There are several reasons for the recent gap in posts. I will try to explore them, to see if the blog is doomed or if it will still serve a purpose.
¶ 8:25 PM 0 comments
There are several reasons for the recent gap in posts. I will try to explore them, to see if the blog is doomed or if it will still serve a purpose.
- I got a lot of notebooks this Christmas. I know this seems unlikely as the first factor, but I am too lazy to pass the reflections from notebook to digital, specially as I note mostly in Spanish. So the main function of the blog, introspection, is filled in a different way.
- One of my main stress causes, the future of our marriage, is well under control, as the main friction point is being smoothed over. That may well reveal other potholes, but meanwhile that is an important drain of time and emotional energy.
- I am corresponding privately with more people than usual, and as some of them are what I would consider the "readers", I feel I cannot repeat what I just poured in a private e-mail.
- A couple of addictive game and book experiences, as well as limited access to the internet connected computer.
So, will this continue? Probably, as I feel the time constraints being seriously reduced, and now that I reflect on the notes, a few of them are rant material, or just reflection material. And the honeymoon will not last long.
However I may profit from the deliberate lack of feedback to explore some controversial or even morally dubious ideas. As well as some rehashings of debates I have had with some of my readers (understanding the plural as more than one, rather than a multitude of individuals).
¶ 8:25 PM 0 comments
4.1.05
Branding the Che
As the general purpose brainy person in my company, I find myself charged with all kinds of strange chores. One I get to do every two weeks is checking the new trade mark proposals to see if any of them could conflict with our existing trademarks, to oppose anyone who resembles too much ours.
As anything that involves lawyers, it is an expensive business, so besides the general comment from our law company (willing to oppose almost anything with three syllabes) it was decided someone with a modicum of sense should check the names to decide what names we should oppose, which ones were not worth it (a not very similar name from a big multinational corporation) and which ones were ridiculous.
In general you find three kinds of trade marks. The monthly crop of meaningless but nice sounding names from big corps, just making sure they have new names for new products, and many similar sounding names for derivatives, or to deny such to competitors (I found interesting Vioxx was accepted for worldwide usage last month, now that the product is dead in the water). The small and medium companies protecting that hard earned logo or slogan, or the product name, usually quite descriptive (it is expensive, so while big corps register also the packaging, containers and fonts, small companies usually just register the words and hope for the best). And the entrepeneur, looking for a big brand unregistered in certain country, or for certain application (such as registering Adidas for food products) or to see if a similar name slips by undetected (Adibas and Abibas are real examples). They usually just hope to be able to sell the trade mark at a profit, although in some cases (a famous case in Spain concerning Puma and its logo) they sell similar products using the brand.
Which brings me to the reason of this rant. In this December print-out, among the thousands of names to check cursorily, I saw a Turkish name (individual) registering Che Guevara. A quick glance to application shows that it is for Washing, Cleaning and Cosmetic products.
I do not know what incenses me more, the individual who is planning to sell Che's detergent, Guevara'a hair and beard tonic or Che Guevara's blood removing paste, or the people at the registering office that did not challenge the name. Or maybe it is a big brand name in Cuba and I am just showing my obsolescence.
But when "so in love" can be a registered trade mark, while a company like Bristol-Myers-Squibb seems to have a monkey generating their new brands on a typewriter (presented in October 2004 worldwide: IXCYBEP, IXBEPIC, IXEMPRYA, IXPERTIQ, IXEMPRAH, IXUNIPRA (The IX family, I suppose) for pharmaceutical purposes, this becomes a dangerous activity. At least for my mind stability.
¶ 2:15 PM 0 comments
As the general purpose brainy person in my company, I find myself charged with all kinds of strange chores. One I get to do every two weeks is checking the new trade mark proposals to see if any of them could conflict with our existing trademarks, to oppose anyone who resembles too much ours.
As anything that involves lawyers, it is an expensive business, so besides the general comment from our law company (willing to oppose almost anything with three syllabes) it was decided someone with a modicum of sense should check the names to decide what names we should oppose, which ones were not worth it (a not very similar name from a big multinational corporation) and which ones were ridiculous.
In general you find three kinds of trade marks. The monthly crop of meaningless but nice sounding names from big corps, just making sure they have new names for new products, and many similar sounding names for derivatives, or to deny such to competitors (I found interesting Vioxx was accepted for worldwide usage last month, now that the product is dead in the water). The small and medium companies protecting that hard earned logo or slogan, or the product name, usually quite descriptive (it is expensive, so while big corps register also the packaging, containers and fonts, small companies usually just register the words and hope for the best). And the entrepeneur, looking for a big brand unregistered in certain country, or for certain application (such as registering Adidas for food products) or to see if a similar name slips by undetected (Adibas and Abibas are real examples). They usually just hope to be able to sell the trade mark at a profit, although in some cases (a famous case in Spain concerning Puma and its logo) they sell similar products using the brand.
Which brings me to the reason of this rant. In this December print-out, among the thousands of names to check cursorily, I saw a Turkish name (individual) registering Che Guevara. A quick glance to application shows that it is for Washing, Cleaning and Cosmetic products.
I do not know what incenses me more, the individual who is planning to sell Che's detergent, Guevara'a hair and beard tonic or Che Guevara's blood removing paste, or the people at the registering office that did not challenge the name. Or maybe it is a big brand name in Cuba and I am just showing my obsolescence.
But when "so in love" can be a registered trade mark, while a company like Bristol-Myers-Squibb seems to have a monkey generating their new brands on a typewriter (presented in October 2004 worldwide: IXCYBEP, IXBEPIC, IXEMPRYA, IXPERTIQ, IXEMPRAH, IXUNIPRA (The IX family, I suppose) for pharmaceutical purposes, this becomes a dangerous activity. At least for my mind stability.
¶ 2:15 PM 0 comments
