"IT" Is The Life

by guest author while(TRUE){life();}

This piece is dedicated to all the engineers, tech-savvies, and geeks out there. A timeline of progress, disappointment, anger management issues, and liberation! 

The Education 
HND in Computer Engineering
BEng in Computer Engineering
MSc in Data Communication

The Student Experience 
During my years at uni I got everything that anyone could ever imagine: made good friends, was taught how to think like an engineer, did fun projects, and spent countless hours in labs (even the pizza guy learned were the labs were and came knocking on the door to deliver the usual!). My knowledge of communication systems was growing exponentially on a daily basis and something inside me was always pushing me to go the extra mile, like changing the code of a software so we can file-share with friends.

The First Job 

Junior Network Engineer: new toys, new experience, and a lot more to learn. I was working on a production system an entire company was depending on with everything working like a Swiss watch. I wish I could say that was true for me at the beginning of my career! That something inside me kept me going and going, no stop for me until I got it right; playing with new toys is like a fat kid in a candy store for an engineer (ok, ok for the sake of political correctness let’s say overweight). Within a year I became the lead, the authority on everything and anything (in engineering terms the “in case s**t man”). I was learning fast and I was having fun and I was getting paid for it as well, the trifecta for any engineer out there. Light-bulb moments were coming in thick and fast.  

The Wake-up Call 
Then a change happened. I came across office politics. I do not like office politics, I do not do office gossip, and I hate back-stabbers (that’s right, you all shall burn in hell). That is not my game, I'm an engineer, genetically programmed to look at the cold hard facts and formulate an answer to a problem. But I soon realised... office politics do work. Knowledge-less people were moving up the ladder, playing with Facebook all day long (that’s right am part of the resistance) while others dealt with problems they caused. Well, I consider them f***ing parasites! That something inside me started to get really upset. I kept everything in check, kept true and worked smart and hard.

Career Take 2
Solutions Architect: new people, new opportunities, new systems to learn. I was part of a team that were the technical experts on any technology the company had to offer. It didn't took me long, six months down the line I became the team leader, I was performing training courses from the most advanced technologies to entry-level for everyone. For any difficulty that came along, I was the answer. The trifecta was back, learning new technologies, sharing knowledge and getting paid for it. Before the year coming to an end I was awarded as one of the top business' performers.

The Games
Funny how things change though, it took a year before I started noticing the office politics again. I locked horns with one of the sales directors; these guys really don't like us! The engineer in me prevailed. Keep true I said to myself, keep true. That evil thing inside me kept growing stronger and stronger by the day though.

The Realisation
Well after that fiasco and almost two years down the line I have seen some ugly truths and even more ugly people! The same pattern over and over again, knowledge-less idiots move along the line, just by using office politics. They steal your ideas present them as their own and get the credit for it. Well that is office politics for you people. Still, there are technology companies out there that have it right and that is why they are called pioneers of technology.

Moving On 

Now I have interviews lined up and it all looks good, but that thing inside me has grown into a full figure with black attire, an army of evil, and some respiratory problems. It’s getting harder and harder to keep IT in line (see what I did there?). But its voice is always there in the background whispering... 

WELCOME TO THE DARK SIDE, WE DO HAVE COOKIES!!!
(and gaming platforms, gadgets, and loose virtual women)

                                                                                                                                                                                                      

 while(TRUE){life();} has now got a job that he is temporarily happy with. He is so intelligent as to be considered a genius by his friends who expect him to make lots of money and share the wealth with his fanclub. He is a proud geek, gamer, and spectacle-wearer and does think that geeks rule [honestly]. He is also the only member of the Facebook Résistance and quite paranoid about his digital footprint and for these reasons only you cannot really follow him anywhere. Except in real life. But that would make you a stalker. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Image credits:

perspectives.3ds.com

www.wallforever.info

vi.sualize.us

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In Quest of a Cure to Pop Music Attraction

For a long time now, I've been torturing myself trying to figure out why people listen to and most importantly like pop music. You will now ask “Why bother?” and I will respond “Because it bothers me and the social scientist in me”! Although the selfish side of me wants to just ignore pop music and the people who choose it, it is almost impossible. I, too, have a number of friends of questionable intelligence (sorry!) that choose to listen to a genre that not only bothers me but also induces some feelings I don’t really like and that I don’t generally associate with my character (e.g. rage). Still, I have a small number of close friends who, although they would normally rank high on a questionable intelligence quotient scale and belong to an older age group, they insist on listening to pop music.

Through the years I tried to closely examine and understand the reasons behind such important music choices by the people around me. I present to you here, what I have come up with until now, with a conscious try to be as objective as I can possibly be and not bring in my Heavy Metal preference and background.

Instant gratification
It is widely accepted even by the music industry “experts” that pop music aims at making people happy. Now the term happy here does not necessarily indicate genuine happiness. Instead, it entails a momentary or instant experience of positive feelings. I would constantly ask people “why do you feel happy listening to a talentless humanoid singing about saturated subjects that other music genres present more gracefully?” No response [and no surprise there]. I soon realised, by further examining their characters, that these people are experiencing a regression to their childhood. It is a fact that most followers of popular music are youngsters, usually 16 years or younger. This, although not encouraging, is no surprise. At that age, people don’t want to have to think about the music they listen to, they just want to have fun. Hence, older listeners of pop music are just avoiding the real world and focusing on the high feelings a pointless music composition with light lyrics induces.

Lack of interest in deeper issues
Let’s face it, pop music is no rocket science! Observations of people who listen to pop music led me to believe that they like their lives to be carefree, simple, and only being able to handle the occasional heartbreak. By examining the lyrics and musical compositions of a number of songs (as many as my poor ears could handle at the time) I came to the conclusion that pop music makes things simple and straightforward for the listener. Although most music genres have a common selection of subject matters, the lyrics in pop music make it easy for even a person in a vegetate state to grasp their “meaning”. While other genres would use intelligent words or even intelligent combination of simple words the pop genre is full of overused and cliché lyrics. E.g. your stupid boyfriend cheated on you with your best –male – friend; you are therefore heartbroken; you can do the same to get revenge; but you choose to drink your sorrows away; hence, you become stronger [because what doesn't kill you make you stronger, right?]. No wonder people feel happy when listening to pop songs. While other people try to solve riddles and understand hidden messages, the pop fan can sing along without even evoking any conscious effort or brain activity for that matter.


Lack of interest in musicianship
The previous point leads to this observation. When people don’t care about the quality of the linguistic input to their ears, they wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about the sound input either. The pop fan wouldn’t normally care about the musical technique or even the talent behind the person playing an instrument. As the matter of fact they don’t even have to since most pop music is created on computers using a combination of stolen catchy tunes from previous hits. And why would they care anyway, right? Like most of us, it’s not like they have to be tested on their ability to distinguish between a C minor and a D major [I don’t know I’m just guessing here!]. Finally, who even realises that most pop and nearly all hit songs use the same four chords. These guys do and they present a pretty solid case! Unsurprisingly, some rock and reggae anthems are condemned too but in these you can notice a balance in artistic quality between lyrics and music.

Fancy exteriors
Last but not least, I could not help but notice an attraction to nice façades by my pop friends. Arguably, we all prefer nice-looking people who are kind to our eyes. But when it comes to what your ears can handle as opposed to what your eyes wish for, most people would risk some eye soreness instead of dangerous sounds that may potentially blow up their eardrums. Not the pop fans though. My observational experience showed me that people listening to pop consider looks as an important factor. Now, I would regularly argue against that by citing lady gaga as an example and how a creepy human-like....... thing (?) like that could be so loveable to millions of (obviously) blind people. But then I would immediately withdraw my argument realising that in this case one may notice the overcompensation in what they serve to the listeners as character and showmanship.

These are my initial vicarious observations about the psychosynthesis of the pop fan. I’m still not satisfied by these observations serving as explanations as to why people insist on supporting this genre and will continue my quest towards finding out the even deeper issues surrounding such questionable yet idiotic choices.
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Image Credits:

http://memegenerator.net/

http://graphjam.memebase.com

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Precious Rocks & Rare Heavy Metals: Chapter 1

The first of a series of fun articles aiming to explore the impact that Rock and Heavy Metal artists/bands had on the world and the impact the world had on them. This series will cover a number of artists so all favourites will be presented.

Please note: There is no specific reason (e.g. greatness, preference etc) for the order bands are presented!

AC/DC 

The only band refusing to put their songs to be sold separately on iTunes and yet they have the lowest rates of music piracy. Coincidence? Don’t think so; traditional values is what defined AC/DC in the first place. But not only do they attract millions of fans, the Rock N’ Roll giants have a strange effect on the great white shark as well. According to a tour operator that organises cruises in Australia, after many attempts, he managed to find the secret in attracting the sharks close to the ship. These remarkable mammals are specifically fond of songs like “You shook me all night long” and “If you want blood”. Experts attribute this phenomenon to the sensitivity of the specific species to low sound frequencies, a characteristic of most of AC/DC’s music!

It’s not that this conclusion derived from rigorous research, yet no one can deny AC/DC’s awesomeness, even the animal kingdom. I wonder how the great white would react to Lady Gaga but all I know is that I wouldn’t want to be there when it happens...
Full shark story here.

IRON MAIDEN

Probably the band responsible for not so much as incorporating but establishing the intelligence factor in Heavy Metal. It’s frontman, Dr. Bruce Dickinson a.k.a. “The Air Raid Siren”, is the definition of a renaissance person. His talents range from piloting, fencing, writing, broadcasting, script-writing, acting, marketing, and some more which I am sure he doesn’t care sharing. He has a history degree from Queen Mary, University of London (for those that don’t know already, one of the best in the UK and worldwide) and has recently been awarded an honorary doctorate of music from the same University. The University’s announcement can be found here.

In an ingorant society like ours where people consider Heavy Metal as the caveman’s music, bands like Iron Maiden step in to show us otherwise. It is a fact that lyrics as much as music in Heavy Metal do require a bit of homework if bands are to be taken seriously by fans. In addition, the once-thought uncultured genre, is now followed by more intelligent fans than any other. Although some good research still needs to be done on this subject here is an interesting outline of a study from Warwick University which found that gifted students prefer Heavy Metal.

BLACK SABBATH

Widely famous, not just for being the godfathers of Heavy Metal but for other oddities as well. We all know about their obsession with the occult and have heard a thing or two of Ozzy’s mischief. But the most distinctive characteristic that defined what Black Sabbath came to be during the past decades is Iommi’s re-invention of the “Devil’s chord” or the tritone. The tritone was also evident in Wagner’s compositions and represented evil (i.e. devil, sex, and lust), for which it was banned during the Middle Ages. When asked how he came up with it, Tony said that it simply felt right.

Imagine how differently Heavy Metal would have evolved if Iommi hadn’t “discovered” the specific musical interval. For those of you that do know a bit more about music here is a piece on how to play like Tony. I’d like to see you try!

AEROSMITH

Admittedly, the most remarkable thing about Aerosmith is Steven Tyler’s wide vocal range and technique. Steven featured in National Geographic’s documentary “The Incredible Human Machine”, where you can literally see his vocal chords vibrating at up to 170 times per second during his famous scream falsetto on “Dream On” whilst performing live! Some say he’s falling into the category of a low tenor. You can catch the clip from the documentary here.

There are very few vocalists that have amazing vocal abilities and it’s no surprise that many come from the Rock and Heavy Metal genre. I came across this interesting blog post where a voice teacher with no prior knowledge of them, analyses the vocals of 5 great Heavy Metal singers, amongst them, the great Rob Halford. Although the title is a bit patronising for its purpose, it is still worth a read. Read it here.   


Watch this space for the next chapter of this series.
Chapter 2 can now be found here.

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Image Credits:

http://morpheusefx.com

http://www.ironmaiden.com

http://www.metalhammer.gr
http://www.seacoastonline.com

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Black N' White World

WARNING: This post is not intended for people who get easily offended.

As you may have noticed by now, I get annoyed with many things in life but the one thing that works every time is human stupidity. Stupidity does not capture the full essence of what I mean here but feel free to substitute with your own preferences. Under stupidity I usually include the following amongst other:

•          Lack of self-awareness
•          Selective narrow-mindedness
•          Lack of intellectual properties/processes
•          Herd-like approaches to opinion
•          Lack of knowledge
•          Ignorance by choice
•          Self-righteousness
•          Hypocrisy

One such manifestation of human stupidity (who I have the good luck of not knowing personally) managed to make my blood boil and the veins in my forehead stick out. This being, which from now on I’ll refer to as the thing posted a picture capturing the various stages of (surgical) abortion. Then underneath that picture there comes the flock.

Opinions were unified under a general hateful theme:

“shame to those who do it”, “horrendous”, “disgusting”, “how can people do it”, “murderers”, “crime”, “I would never do such a thing”, “wrong”, “innocent soul”, “whores those who do it” and my personal favourites “religion says it’s wrong” & “babies are godsend gifts”!

If you are amongst people who have such opinions, then you might want to look away and not read any further. The thing that posted that picture claims to be an educated person and from a discipline where such black and white opinions are not encouraged or promoted. But anyway I will not focus on the stupidity of just one person, it would be rather unfair!

First of all, there are two types of people who see the world in black and white:

1. Genuinely narrow-minded: The type of person, who refuses any alternatives offered to them, despite the provision of good arguments.
   
           Example: “There is a god, and he is watching us. Darwin was just another nutter who sailed around the world and collected birds for a hobby."
2. Ignorant: This is the type of person, who refuses to use the few brain cells that kind Nature offered to them and prefers to go along with the flow or the masses.
   Example: “Religion and society teaches us that women are inferior to men; shame on those who go out there and follow their dreams.”

To be frank, I don’t know which is worse. But, I am shocked that 99% of the comments published under the picture that the thing posted came from women and from people that grew up in an era where issues of morality and ethics are relative. I am not getting into the whole abortion debate as we all know the arguments for and against, and really, that’s not the issue here. I will focus more on the stupidity involved in “thinking” of such sensitive subjects.

As I read through the comments I realised that I was more pissed off with not what they were writing per se, but the way all of them agreed with one another like they were members of some sort of secret society of grand virtue, intelligence, morality, and court-like standards. I wouldn’t be surprised if these people turned out to be the same ones that argue for the idea of an Aryan race, exhibit Hitler-like characteristics, believe that the Earth is only 2,000 years old, or believe that there is a white-bearded white man sitting on a cloud holding a lighting and waiting to strike someone that did something “wrong”.

On the other hand, these same (hypocritical) people may engage in morally questionable actions during their everyday lives. But who cares about all these when you have in front of you a “baby murderer” right? That is the ultimate sin, they say, because you choose to “kill”, or let a human being die. Well, I’ve got news for you: people die every day, in Africa 60 babies per day do so.

People, the world is not black and white. If it is, then you are probably a dog (that’s a myth by the way). As I argued before, we are all hypocritical in nature. But at least some of us have the ability to keep our mouths shut when appropriate, or at least try and express our opinion in a civilised, educated way.

Oh, and just to clarify, babies are not godsend; they come from a blind date between an eager sperm and a very popular egg.

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