Just woke up, at nearly 2 in the afternoon, or 14, I guess some
folks might say, listening to an endless loop of all the Night Vale
episodes on a old, offline Windows XP computer, the episode where
Cecil gets a call from an angel, the existence of which sort of
being is not approved, though it appears in fact they do, and
in that episode, Cecil says the angel gave him a terse,
mysterious answer to a question, "And it filled me with
ecstasy and
dread."
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.
