I was checking the links on this site, trying to get going on blogging a bit, again, knowing past experience suggests I won't pursue, but one never knows, maybe this will be the time I finally get going and write well enough, and often enough, to pick up a few readers, or to at least feel good about my efforts. One of the links was to StumbleUpon, an old site, that I never used a lot, but a long time ago, I did use it a little, and I did enjoy what tiny use I made of it. This was many years ago. When I clicked on it, I got a dialog box offering to let me join in a beta test of a new layout.
Ecstasy is just what I don't feel about being given the chance to participate in a beta test of a site I don't use much. "Dread", though a bit strong, is certainly the closer of the two feelings the angel's word filled Cecil with.. For a beta tests of a site I use a lot dread might be not be way too strong, while a chance to test a new version of a site I haven't used for a while gives me the illusion of false hope, which will most likely resolve to, if not dread, something negative.
They are so many good words for bad emotions that come to mind when writing about new versions of software, or changes in product design, or the inevitable new war, or escalation of an old war, or news like I saw yesterday that China - the country Apple picked to make high quality devices at super low prices - has these wonderful lethal autonomous aerial vehicles, great military grade murder bots, now at low, low prices, and they're selling like hotcakes, lethal, kill at a distance, hey we're really sorry about your wedding or your hospital, whirling Frisbees of flying death.
The StumbleUpon this beta replaces is already several versions older than the one I remember. That's common, I guess, for an old person on the web, to remember, vaguely, when something first out, or when it first seemed to appear to them, which is not always when it first appeared, as one is often reminded by people who got online earlier, who can remember pre-internet bulletin boards, and they can't let you express your feelings of having old memories, because theirs are older, and better, and your memories suck compared to theirs, and they young people don't want to hear your memories either, so you end up just being quiet, and when people ask how you are, or what you've been up to, you don't know what to say.
Several hours have elapsed since I wrote the last paragraph. I got distracted by what the "s" in theirs is for, why it can't have an apostrophe, yet needs to be there. So, to finish this post, I have to read the above, and see if I can figure out what, if any, point I had. There might not have been much of one.
Ok, after reading and editing a bit, I think I see some points
I'm old or jaundiced enough that "new version!" doesn't give me hope, it makes me expect things will be worse.
I don't feel like people are much interested in what I have to say, also a common feeling for old people.
We humans spend a lot of effort on things of relatively little importance, but relatively little harm, like new versions of StumbleUpon, but that's a lot better than some of what we spend resources on, like lower priced killing machines.
That's it, I'm through with this post. Going to learn some Esperanto, practice learning the names of countries and I think I'll add learning the capitals of all the counties in the world. I am trying to be able to write all the country names from scratch, no map or other help. I can find most of them on a map, given a list of names. I haven't found a game that actually has all 196 or so, the best I've found is about 160 on a quiz game. I'm also going to see if I can find a game to locate the all the elements on a blank periodic table.
