Serdar Yegulalp's Blog, page 144
November 24, 2015
Unindifferent Dept.
It's not that all the madness just outside my window — a demagogue plutocrat running for president, knee-jerk reactionary behavior to terror, all the rest of it — has clubbed me into silence. Whenever times get crazy, I don't tend to do a lot of outwards flame-throwing, if only because so many other people do the job far better than me, I've found. I am not best suited to being the man on the soapbox when it comes to such issues. That doesn't mean I don't care about them.
November 21, 2015
I'll Tell Me What To Do Dept.
Work, programming, and writing duties have kept me away from blogging for the last couple of days, but some thoughts for you.
One of the issues I run into most often with other people who are learning programming is how many of them have an attitude of bewilderment about the whole thing. They know that it's a useful skill, lucrative too, but when it comes to actuallycreating something useful with software, they haven't the faintest idea how to go about it. Their experience and their mindset j...
November 16, 2015
This Thing You're Not Dept.
Angst-istentialism within, so feel free to walk on by, Isaac Hayes-style, if this does you no favors.
November 14, 2015
Fraternit�� Dept.
Heavy thoughts tonight, but I have no choice but to think them.
It's been said in multiple circles now that ISIS/ISIL/IS/Daesh's tactic is to incite hatred against itself and by proxy others easily confused with it — in short, to polarize.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was of the belief that loving one's enemies, not giving into the temptation to despise them, would have a transformative effect on both the enemy and the victim.
This is hard stuff to swallow today, when the enemy in question is hell...
November 9, 2015
Filth Pig (Ministry)
There's a curious arc that I take with some records: loathing, indifference, morbid fascination, paravritti,adoration.Paravritti is a Buddhist term for a kind of deep-seated turning-about of the soul, sometimes used as a synonym for enlightenment, the kind of total change of heart you couldn't ever see yourself having because you've transcended yourself in such a fundamental way. WhenFilth Pig first came out, I don't think I could have ever imagined a state of affairs where I liked the record...
November 2, 2015
Trevor Jackson Presents Science Fiction Dancehall Classics (Various Artists)
I will be blunt: The chief reason I ordered this two-disc collection culled from the bowels of the On-U Sound record archives was because of the presence of Tackhead. They were (still are, really) the funk-tronics collective that melded the backing band of the Sugar Hill Gang — as in, the actual members of the band — with an industrial-strength drum machine, the blaring vocal assault of On-U Sound leader Gary Clail, and the grimy studio malfunctions of Adrian Sherwood. Over the years, most of...
November 1, 2015
Slow Motion Dept.
Next week or two is likely to be dead here as I'll be having some family stuff going on, but I'll try to sneak in some interim blogging.
The rundown for what's going on right now:
October 26, 2015
The Man With The Plan Dept.
OK, everything'sfinallydisentangled on this end. I don't know what kind of mess I engendered by asking for Python 3 support, but as long as it's working and working consistently, that's all I care about. On to other matters.
October 23, 2015
Start Anywhere Dept.
Still sorting out some of the technical difficulties on this end; evidently I opened some kind of 55-gallon drum of engineering worms at my Web host. Anyway, I can still blog; I've just been paying attention to other things in the interim. So, today's subject: opening scenes.
October 20, 2015
Strange Days
There is a standing rule in movies that you do not unnecessarily date your film. Putting a specific future date on a story, without some historical pretex...
