The Robot's Thoughts

Here's a story about a woman with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer and how it changed her life.

MSNBC is re-publishing this from CondeNast, the publisher behind Wired Magazine. I admire this woman's ability to talk about how being diagnosed -- being told face to face that the clock is ticking and time is running out -- filled her with a hunger for life. And a hunger for love.

I'm going to end with this quote, because it just feels relevant to how i'm feeling these days:

"You can wake up pissed off or you can focus on everything you’re grateful for."

Tomorrow I could die in a fiery car wreck. Or earn myself a Darwin Award (we all know how I love four wheelers and ramps). No point in stressing over System.OutOfMemory exceptions and bills that are a day late, or dinner plans undone. Sometimes just reading/hearing a quote like this, I can literally feel a mountain of stress just melt off my back, and whatever black tendrils of angst coiled around my heart relax just a little bit. So I thought I'd share.

Labels: links, quotables

Talking Points Memo has "Exit Poll" data from the Clinton campaign, supposedly. Obviously, this is one of those "written by an Obama supporter as a joke" things, but at the same time, it hilariously sums it up the primary in WV today.



FTA:

"West Virginia voters fit squarely with the Clinton demographic; hard working, white voters whose deep seated racism and superstition makes them believe the most outlandish and bizarre lies that they've heard", said Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson . He continued, "I don't want to generalize because there are some college students and unlucky, miserable smart people who are desperate to move to someplace - any place - better before their souls are ground down. Other than that, we're solid, though."

Once again, here's the link

Labels: free expression is vital to the growth of every human being, politics, quotables, ramblings, WV

I said that "Patriotism" is a way of saying "Women and children first." And that no one can force a man to feel this way. Instead he must embrace it freely. I want to tell about one such man. He wore no uniform and no one knows his name, or where he came from; all we know is what he did.

In my home town sixty years ago when I was a child, my mother and father used to take me and my brothers and sisters out to Swope Park on Sunday afternoons. It was a wonderful place for kids, with picnic grounds and lakes and a zoo. But a railroad line cut straight through it.

One Sunday afternoon a young married couple were crossing these tracks. She apparently did not watch her step, for she managed to catch her foot in the frog of a switch to a siding and could not pull it free. Her husband stopped to help her.

But try as they might they could not get her foot loose. While they were working at it, a tramp showed up, walking the ties. He joined the husband in trying to pull the young woman's foot loose. No luck —

Out of sight around the curve a train whistled. Perhaps there would have been time to run and flag it down, perhaps not. In any case both men went right ahead trying to pull her free... and the train hit them.

The wife was killed, the husband was mortally injured and died later, the tramp was killed — and testimony showed that neither man made the slightest effort to save himself.

The husband's behavior was heroic... but what we expect of a husband toward his wife: his right, and his proud privilege, to die for his woman. But what of this nameless stranger? Up to the very last second he could have jumped clear. He did not. He was still trying to save this woman he had never seen before in his life, right up to the very instant the train killed him. And that's all we'll ever know about him.

This is how a man dies.

This is how a man... lives!

Labels: late night thoughts, quotables, ramblings, Robert A. Heinlein, thoughts

(10:56:44 AM) redrobot5050: and considering how bad paris hilton's sex tape was
(10:56:49 AM) redrobot5050: and how famous she is now
(10:56:54 AM) redrobot5050: if yours is even WORSE
(10:57:02 AM) redrobot5050: just imagine how INFAMOUS you'll be
(10:58:11 AM) valaXXXX: yeah, negative famous
(10:58:14 AM) valaXXXX: if that is possible
(10:58:18 AM) valaXXXX: like, ur own parents forget who u are

Now we what to call it when you've done something so bad you're disowned: Negative Famous.

Labels: IM conversations, me trying to be funny, pop culture, quotables, thoughts

This is another post where I put up links from Reddit.com.


Here's some favorite quotes from Chuck Palahniuk -- the author of Fight Club, Survivor, Invisible Monsters, and Rant (and many more!)


Learning By Example: How Bad Code Proprogates. This talks about how some tech books have incredibly poorly written code samples (and even worse when it comes to editing, formatting, etc) and while a good/great programmer might be able to grasp what the author was hinting at and build a top notch implementation, the average or poor programmer will re-use the bad example code without understanding.

The Republicans are on the wrong side of history. This is a commentary article on the GOP Primary "debates", and how not a single candidate would support gays in the military. The commentator goes on to compare "seperate but equal" the phrase of segregation to "don't ask, don't tell", which is our current policy. Its well worth a read. If anything, you'll find yourself agreeing that there's a huge lack of leadership and vision on both camps.

Reactance is the psychological principal where one does the opposite of what one is persuading them to do. Such as teens drinking because alcohol is prohibited. Or kids rebelling because of the rules being too strict.

Pictures of Iraq, as seen through soldiers' eyes. I found this to be pretty moving. Some people took pictures of spots where comrades had fallen. Others just declared their love for their girlfriend Kelly on the side of their tank.

Crod Porn: A photographer on flickr.com took pictures of people's faces in a mosh pit waiting for the Red Hot Chili Peppers to come on stage. Everyone was stripped down to minimal clothing, hot, sweaty, and with a look of anguish on their face. It looks like an orgy (but isn't) -- and not the good kind. (Links are safe for work).

Labels: AJAX, links, pictures, politics, pop culture, quotables, ramblings, Reddit, thoughts

"Love is when you will let your woman make you a sandwich that you will eat while watching the Superbowl."
--My friend Chuck

Labels: love, me trying to be funny, quotables, ramblings, thoughts