Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

internet_addict, responding to an article about how porn drives technology: "I personally don't have a problem with vice driving technology. It's better than the traditional tech booster: WAR." (copied from a locked entry in someone else's journal, used with permission)

Awake, mostly alert, hoping to maintain this state (or time naps appropriately) to get to Bowie, College Park, and Arlington tonight in that order. A bit cooler today; wondering to what extent the heat was adding to my discombobulation.

Editing my quote-of-the-day queue (currently filled through the end of January, though I may have to shuffle some quotes to insert a bit from McCain's speech last night before then), and wanted to include a quote that had spoilers in it. And my instinct was to <lj-cut> the spoilers despite the book in question not being recent. Now I'm wondering: should I spoiler-cut a quote from a book published a century ago (literally -- it's from 1904)? I'm also trying to decide whether to just hide the entire quote behind a spoiler warning or to chop it up with a sprinkling of cut-tags to obscure who is speaking to whom. Oh, a probably-relevant detail: it's one of the sequels to The Wisard of Oz.

Hope to start catching up on comments and email later, but managing my spoons to make tonight work is a higher priority.

([Edit] I remain amused by the fact that the verb "spoiler" and the noun "spoiler" mean opposite things (that is, that to "spoiler" something means to de-fang (well, attempt to make avoidable) the "spoilers" in it). I am, of course, similarly amused by the relationship between "spoil" and "spoiler". Though I've seen some folks get impressively confused when encountering "spoiler" as a verb for the first time, alas.)

Once upon a time, I was special. I had a special talent and resources that others found startling and useful.

There was a time, when I was much shorter than I am now, when I was one of the people who seemed to know a lot of odd, eclectic stuff. Not amazingly so most of the time, though my father and one of his friends were impressed that whenever their conversations in my presence turned to new developments in science or technology, I would run off to my bedroom and reappear seconds later holding an issue of Popular Science open to an article on whatever interesting thing they'd been talking about. But that wasn't as amazing as it seemed, and soon my collection of back issues outstripped my ability to remember dates and page numbers.

Later, in middle school and high school, I still had a rather odd assortment of sometimes-obscure facts in my head, but wasn't so unusual compared to my friends. (Admittedly, we were all a bit unusual, but I didn't stand out in that regard.)

No, what made me special was a little later, when for many years I was the person to ask random questions to, not because I knew all the answers, but because I always knew somebody else who did. I'd accumulated such a diverse, and diversely educated (and diversely hobbied) collection of friends and acquaintances, and knew enough of their interests and skills, that I really could, for forty-nine out of fifty obscure-seeming questions asked of me, phone or email someone I knew who would either know the answer or know where to look it up. People were frequently quite impressed.

My specialness started to fade sometime after a lot of my friends wound up on the same mailing list. I got lazy; for a lot of questions I could just "ask the list". (For some reason this worked better than than on Usenet.) So could anybody else who knew about the mailing list. So I only seemed special to friends who didn't know a lot of people on that mailing list. (Note that the same list remains useful in the same way a couple of decades later (give or take a few years).)

Then came Archie. Archie (and Veronica, but I mostly just used Archie) made it easier to find certain kinds of things if you were a geek or sufficiently geeklike. And I became a little less special still.

Then came the web. A curiosity at first, then "gee this would be a really neat research tool if only more of what I was looking for had already been put on it", then "wow, useful but still has huge holes in it, but how do you find anything?" It was still useful to know people who'd have the information I wanted bookmarked, but I was a lot less special than I had been.

And then came search engines. And I was no longer special at all. In fact, while I am decently skilled in the use of search engines, I know several people who are able to use them much more effectively than I do. Yeah, there are people who don't think to "SFTW" right away, or who just aren't as good at (or as comfortable with, even if they're otherwise clueful) using search engines. And newbies to be taught. And the occasional person around whom heisenbugs seem to like to collect, resulting in glitchitude that none of their friends experience, so they ask others for help. But that just makes me "one of the millions of people who can help with this", not special at all.

There are subjects I can teach better than a lot of other people can, but lots of people are expert in something, so that's not unusual. (I don't know whether the number of subjects I can teach is unusual or not.) Sometimes I do my part to contribute to the new order by writing a web page on something I know about. When I meet someone who doesn't know the power of the web, I can't maintain an artificial aura of specialness, because my instinct is to teach them how to fish, not to hand them a fish. So for the most part I'm back to just being somebody with an odd collection of data in my skull, who gets asked, "How/why do you know that?" every so often.

It was fun being special. The world is better off this way, where so many more people can find answers themselves, but once in a while I think back. And I remember what it was like to be the one who knew where to find the answers. I don't need that, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it while it lasted.

(This is not a "woe is me" essay or fishing for egoboo, though it's admittedly deliberately melodramatic. I do know I've got other gifts, some of which are more significant than what I've described here. It's just a musing on how things change and how one's role can be changed as a result, and a reflection on one thing that seemed like such a big deal once upon a time.)

Lost momentum. Brain and body started moving more and more slowly, starting 16-ish or maybe 1630 and becoming really noticeable by 17 o'clock. Rearranging my plans. Might try to get to Bowie anyhow even though at this point that'll mean getting to rehearsal late; if I don't go today I'll really want to get there tomorrow. Arlington similarly looking less certain because I'm not yet organized, and because of the likelihood of trying to go to Bowie tomorrow. (Miss my cat; she's still at anniemal's house 'cause I haven't felt well enough to get down there to pick her up.) Tried for short nap to recharge, but failed to get to sleep; shutting my eyes for a spell helped a little but not as much as sleeping would have. Oh well, 'twas nice to feel perky while it lasted. Prioritizing getting to 3LF; shuffling everything else around that; hoping to feel alert enough to drive after a shower.

Chocolate helps. Ran out days ago. Last night I did manage to be active long enough to fetch some (along with milk and bread, which I'd also been out of for a few days). Chocolate isn't enough, but it does help. I'll go eat some now.

Listening to news, feeling terribly annoyed at Republicans ... some of it's deserved, some of it is me being in a bad mood or being accustomed to being annoyed at them by now. Trying to fix that, but not trying very hard while I'm still sleepy. Would rather concentrate on what they're actually doing wrong and not fall too far into partisan mindset.

Heard references to MD governor saying something inflammatory but haven't gotten around to looking up details yet.