When in Doubt, Post Song Lyrics.

I'll make this quick, since I'm in a hurry.

Heaven bent to take my hand
And lead me through the fire
Be the long awaited answer
To a long and painful fight

Truth be told I've tried my best
But somewhere along the way
I got caught up in all there was to offer
And the cost was so much more than I could bear

Though I've tried, I've fallen
I have sunk so low
I'm messed up
Better I should know
So don't come round here
And tell me I told you so

We all begin with good intent
Love was raw and young
We believed that we could change ourselves
The past can be undone
But we carry on our backs the burden
Time always reveals
In the lonely light of morning
In the wound that would not heal
It's the bitter taste of losing everything
That I've held so dear

I've fallen
I have sunk so low
I'm messed up
Better I should know
So don't come round here
And tell me I told you so, [no..]

Heaven bent to take my hand
I have nowhere left to turn
I've lost to those I thought were friends
To everyone I know
Oh they turned their heads embarrassed
Pretend that they don't see
But it's one missed step
You'll slip before you know it
And there doesn't seem a way to be redeemed

Though I've tried, I've fallen
I have sunk so low
I'm messed up
Better I should know
So don't come round here
And tell me I told you so, [no..]
I'm messed up
Better I should know
But don't come round here
And tell me I told you so.

— Sarah McLachlan — Fallen.

Sums up how I've been feeling, at least.

Take care of yourselves, you filthy sons of camels.

Of Real Compassion.

From Jeff's post.

There are times when I want to cry. There are times when I want to scream in anger and hate. There are times when I don't just not want to play the game any more, but to also smash the board.

I've heard, over the years, about how compassionate and charitable our nation is. We've all heard the slogans and seen the striving — the talk about how helping others is a noble, kind, thing, and that charity and compassion separates us from animals richer nations.

But, apart from the expansive and magnamonious gestures we make in terms of charity donations and hunger-fests, I don't see a whole lot of compassion in ourselves. Not even in me.

We can blather on about how children in Darfur and our poor need our help and kindness, and yet we can ignore this until it was too late? And then, just after she's gone through this hell, we want to punish her some more?

Why? She's suffered pain and shame. She was so afraid, she hid the facts from everyone around her. You know why she hid from you — she knew what you'd do to her if you found out. She knew you wouldn't offer any help in making this all right again, or repairing what harm that's been done. She knew that if she confessed to what she had done, you'd beat her and deride her for being ‘immoral’.

She's given fucking birth. Alone. With no one to hold her hand, to support her, to lead her through a difficult, painful and terrible ordeal. So, after all this, you're going to punish her by expelling her from university, in what would curse her into a position where she would not be able to support her baby?

I know you. I've known you all my life.

Why not go all the way? Why not take away her child, give it to the Welfare Department? Why not ostracize her, publish her name in public, parade her face for all to see, shame her as an example for others? Why not put her in jail?

Why don't you just be merciful and kill her instead?

It'd save you the damn money and effort.

Thinking About the Geek Code.

I've encountered two websites discussing the Geek Code recently, which was rather fashionable in geek circles during the nineties:

• One was in MENJ's blog, in which he showed his particular Blogger Code snippet. The Blogger Code is essentially a fork of the original Geek Code. It also tells me that the last thing he'd want to have sex with is a blogger. Can't say I blame him.
• The other was in the Y!PP Forums, in which they were discussing an addition to the Geek Code, specifically one that was Y!PP-related.

The Geek Code's nice and esoteric and stuff, but there are several things about the whole thing that rubs me the wrong way:

• It's a centralized development effort, and the developer hasn't budged off his butt to work on it for years now. Presumably he's too busy with real life, which is understandable. Thing is, I think people have approached the creator to actually continue the whole thing, but apparently he doesn't like that. So, bwah.
• As a result of the lack of updating, the Geek Code website is so outdated. I mean, really. This was way before IMs and P2P, and what with all the fandoms the Geek Code doesn't really represent everyone on the Internet any more. Not even the geeks, a category which has expanded.
• Single developer, single point of updating, centralized decision-making… man, that just so sucks. The Code should really be extensible and linkable, with the abilty for Geeks to define their own symbols and ranges.

So it got me to thinking. What's stopping me from making a similar Geek Code system? Well, apart from pissing off the originator. I don't know, but here's what the new (proposed) code should do:

• It should be compact — I mean, we could do it in XML, but XML development, from what I can see, is like a whole troop of maddened kittens thrown into a tar pit.
• Plus, XML is remarkably elephantine for what should be a nice, clean code, which can be mildly comprehensible to anyone with an arbitrarily large number of neurons with active, healthy synapses.
• And then there's the issue of it being extensible. I don't think anyone should be in control of the Geek Code definitions. I mean, if you're gonna do it, you might as well link a definition file to the code block to some remote file.
• Again, brevity should win over completeness, though the link might be better off being a URI — everyone knows what a URI is. Well, you know 'em as URLs. Web addresses.
• What we should define, however, is the code conventions themselves, and how to define the Geek Code definition files. You'd need to talk about what each symbol means, and how you'd define symbols and stuff like that…
• It's too fucking late to talk about something so fucking trivial like this. Geez. But I'm obsessive this way.
• Anyway, geez, I don't know.

So. Basically, Geek Code could do with being modular, Geek Code defs should be left to The People (get a central clearing-house for Geek Code defs if you're worried about malformed definitions, and get a reputation of being reliable, instead hogging all developmental rights to yourself), XML is too fat for the Geek Code, and the new Geek Code should go as far as describing the conventions and the format for definition files and no more. And I should sleep earlier, and not do this sort of thing at 1 am in the goddamned morning.

So, anyway. Rambling. Ah heh.