When is it too much?

For the past week or so I've noticed my G+ feed acting a little strange compare to what I was used to. And I found out why.

Back when i started the stream was cronologic, meaning that a post made at 10 would preceded a post made at 11 O'clock. This has changed.

Back in January when i still spend a bit of time going through my facebook wall, I noticed the same behavior, and i used quite a while to consistently sort the stream from "most relevant" to "by time". In the beginning I accepted it a a new feature and the fact that the setting back to relevant was based on bugs and behaviour shaping. After all Facebook is a business and they hae interest in making me consider something relevant according to their sales rather then my personal preferences. Knowing this it was irritations and fueled further my detachment from facebook, and spawned yet another good arguments as why facebook was the evil of this world.
By the time I left I've grown completely detached to my stream and didn't bother sorting it anymore, knowingly scrolling down the list to find the post i had interest with or simply ignoring it.


For those not knowing where this idea comes from, it was made public knowledge a few years back when Mark Zuckenberg (the FB founder), proclaimed that in today's world it was often the case that a squirrel dying in your backyard was more important news to you, then the fact that the danish social security numbers database has been hacked and is now public knowledge. Even if your danish this statement holds true.
Eli Fennell did a very nice TED talk about it, he's on G+ look him up.


Now for those that won't bother with TED, here's the effect of what's going on: All content provided to you is filtered in some way. The main motif is of course first off attention, second off it's earnings. These are mechanisms we're familiar with, just look for bill boards, or other add in your surroundings.


So what's my problem?
My problem is that something is being filtered away from my perspective, and I need to make a concerted effort for finding it. In a rush i most likely won't see it and it'll disappear in the masses. Then again what would i be missing out on?
Well everything that I have special or geeky interest in. everything that isn't mainstream, so frankly everything I actually want to know.
on the other hand what I gain is that everything I have an interest in that is mainstream will be smeared my my face until I'm ready to puke.
My opinion of things will be shaped to conform.

I miss my G+ stream freedom. If anyone can tell me how to get it back I'd be very happy, but this philosophy of the dead squirrel will not go away soon, and I don't think the masses will reject it as only a select few understands what going on. It saddens me this is the way things are heading.

Frustration

I've been encouraged to write more often and shorter posts, here's one:

Yep I've stolen it, but atleast I'm leaving the captation  on it :)

So I ended up spending the better part of my nigth doing what nerds do: Develop.

This is nothing new, I tend to end up sitting in front of a screen, spending way too much time doing something that seems really simple, but for some reason I don't understand it, and I'm doing something wrong.
It's usually ends up being hours on hours on hours figuring out what a specific parameter of some program is doing, and what the effects are.

So after 5 hours of researching, tinkering I got the conclusion I started with (I was right).
What did I get from all that brainexploding? Confirmation!?!

5 hours constantly in the same state as the kitty there, no new retained usefull knowledge, no newly learned skill, no nothing, except confirmation.

How do I stop looking like a kitty?
I reside, retire, accept the state of things.
Would you?

Being insecure.

So this entry is actually inspired by a Co Blogger, that made an entry much like this.
At first i figured I'd just throw her a comment, but the more I started thinking about what to put in writing, and reading the other comments. The less I wanted to add directly to it.
If you're fine with Danish: Linky, otherwise try the translator.

So being insecure, doubting ones worth. Does that sound familiar to you personally?
It's a fact that most people feel insecure once in a while, trouble is when you feel insecure all the time.

We're a few people that tick this way, quite a few actually. When someone tells me that I'm good at something,  my mental process kicks in trying to figure out what the frag I'm done so wrong the other guy feels shamed to point it out, and needs to find something random to divert attention from whatever I've done.

Growing up being told your stupid, when you're not. Being told you're ugly when you're not, and so on.
A bit back i saw a YouTube link to a video of a little girl telling the camera how she was worth nothing and the like. I didn't watch the movie myself, once I via the comments saw what it was, I didn't need to. I've lived that life. I AM the most stupid person on the planet, I AM not most annoying person that ever lived.
I know this as I know breathing under water is difficult at least. (under special conditions that statement is false).

Much like the TV series "Lie to me", I tend to read and evaluate every little signal people sends out. The fact I don't understand their meaning, yet still I try to figure it out, makes my conclusions extreme. Experience have told me the safe bet is going with negative but that gives a rather dark and pessimistic world. Not taking it serious on the other hand often leads me into naive blind choices.
I don't read their signals, body language, in fact peoples body language most often confuses me, and people trying to read mine are often more confused than I, as all I ever really say is the words I use, to which I'm very very aware.

This makes me insecure, I don't know how to handle people. I don't have a natural flow of what to do when interacting with people. Quite often makes people interacting with me insecure also, as I take little interest in what is used for smalltalk.

In the end it's not something I'll ever get rid of, I'll always a tad weird, but I'll never stop trying to understand how it all works, be that for the better or worse, I don't care anymore. I'm here for the journey.

What to do?

So yesterday I spend the evening finalizing the TV show Lexx and I now have that in my backage. I could have done without it, and invested the time more wisely but it's a classic and thus I felt a need to experience it.
During the evening my host and I went on taking about gaming in general. We tend to share ideas when it comes to what's good and what's not, and age plays and important role, as we're both old enough to know the classics.

A bit back I explained how I've got this huge backlog of classics that I want to "complete". For those of you not playing computergames the concept is still easy to grasp: When I start a Title I intent to fully explorer and immerse myself into the package. As an example Diablo which I've given up on and replaced with Diablo 2. I need to run through the campaign on hell I guess, atleast on easy and see the full story before I can put it aside. It's something about ePeens. That's also why I like Steam for instance as you accumulate "trophies" for doing certain stuff.

The very nature of steam is infact poisonous to my approach on life. An example would be Popcaps Plants vs. Zombies, a funny and entertaining little game with loads of humor. It's simple and you quickly get bored of it. Then they introduce achivements, like Grow the Tree of Life, and suddenly there's a goal to it and I have to do it, as I have a problem witht he less then 100% completion.
I do encounter achivements that I simply just discard and from the start know I can't do and therefore accept them as uncompletable (without cheating). Most of these are Multiplay achivements like get 1000 wins ect. and frankly I'm that good. I'm not bad, but I'm really only good in the small pond.

Easy, I know I'm lossing track, but not quite...

Rigth those knowing me would recognize my facination and stubborn vigilance towards the game Eve-Online. I rarely discuess it as most people playing it have a very diffrent and more hostile approach to the system. And few understand why I skilltrain the way I do.
For those not familiar with Eve's skilltraining, it's based on real time, you set a skill to train and it will keep training untill it's done whether you're logged into the game or not, so age matters. And thusly patience becomes important. A fully trained skillset would escalate to 23 years of constant training soo.

I know: get to the point.. I'm close, be patient.

During our talks yesterday we went over various MMO's and games in general and why we both feel Eve is failing, and the fact that we both were looking for other stuff. Personally I've created an Planet Calypso account, and I kinda like that games for it's 2nd. Life approach. Also we went over Star citizen, which from my perspective looks very interresting, yet what drags me to the flame is what draged me to Eve. I've already invested loads of time in Eve, it would be stupid to reset and start over.

Here's the punchline:
I'm already going about blogging in a diary form about Eve-Online (I know I've been silent since i started mining). Thinking about the torrents of information of games already out there, should I rebuild the Maxx Loproc blog into a more general games oriented gaming blog?
Would YOU get anything from reading my experiences and achievements in various games?

It would seem i've already made up my mind, so rather what would you preffer published there?
What would make you return?
Would you help in building it?

The willpower to succeed.

So I've kinda had a rather hectic week as usual.
One of my major issues this week have been the fact I was essentially starting to smoke again.

Don't get me wrong i want to smoke, but not in a continuously habit basis. I'm fine with taking a small pack or so during a party. Trouble is most of this week have been prelude to the parties during the weekend so I've kinda been smoking all week. To put in reference I stopped from one minute to the next some 2 month ago and I was doing fine.

So now I basically started again and I hate it. i makes me dependant on something that I really don't need, yet is plays tricks on my "wants". And after the party I didn't smoke yesterday, so why did I pick up a pack on the way to work?

Have you ever had the "lose/lose" scenario?
No matter how I'd flip it I'd lose today. if I didn't go smoking I'd be a furious hell storm of anger towards everybody, which would effect the quality of the work i need to perform today.
The other option which I picked I'd give in to my urges and smoke even though I don't really want to.

And I hate me self for not having enough willpower to stay the course.
I'll get around to it, but not today.

What I need to do it stand my ground towards my own desires and simply not acquire new smokes, this way I'll run out and without any to restart and refraining from getting new ones, I'll detoxified in a few weeks and I'll be back in routine of not smoking. During this time I'll have to fight my own urges and counter any scheme my mind will play on me. The way to do it is quite simple: Just say NO. It's just so bloody hard to say no to yourself.

For those of you that figures this is unique, consider if you haven't had these battles with yourself before.
Did you fall for your own schemes and deceptions or did you stand your ground long enough to get into a routine, where willpower stops to be the focusing factor?

It's been awhile.

So it's been quite awhile since I've been writting here.
It's not the first time I run into break when I'm doing this. And you migth ask why did I return now?

1. Project Cykelklovnen has completed. (4500 kms bike riding done, wrote the blog, got the T-Shirt).
2. I therefore started closure of my Facebook account.
3. I've aquired way too many old classical PC games.
4. I've been invited to a Bloggers meet up.

I'll run over these one by one, so feel free to skip sections of me you don't align with.

1: Project Cykelklovnen has completed. (4.500 kms bike riding done, wrote the blog, got the T-Shirt).

Cryptically as usual, I've written a blog about this whole thing (in danish), I've gotten a good load of sponsored clothings and so on. As said, wrote a blog, go read that for details.
For the summary: During this spring and summer I was challenged to ride a bicycle from Aarhus to Paris which is roughly 1350 kms. That's not something you just do, so I've been training for it riding some 3.000 kms during spring and summer. Most surpricingly I've got some kind of bodyhealth back so now I can actually move arround again and still breathe. I've kinda stopped smoking on a daily basic, and reserve that as party thing in line with drinking. No, I don't drink a bottle of red wine everyday to get a little buzzed.

In my world it's not that big a thing. It's note worthy. It's taken some work. Some sacrifies have been made. I've reached a body state I'm more content with then I've had for 2 decades. I'll need more training to perform even better. As said: It's not a big thing and it's in the past anyhow.

As for those reading the blog... Yep: I managed to provide some purple to the team, fitting in is for the uninspired.

2: I started closure of my Facebook account.

Yep, facebook have been a torn in my eyes for quite awhile now. Last year I gave it some 6 months to shape up or GTFO.

Needless to say facebook didn't shape up, infact they'd gotten way worse. The issue of overwriting you contact information with their data back in february didn't even shock me.

I've been hating all this since I noticed Iphones where tracking your geolocations for the advertizing databases behind your back, and wouldn't admit to it. Here in June facebook was hacked and according to law they had to disclose what information was accessed and exposed... Of course they tried to downplay that they had not legitimite rigth to the information that was hacked, and hide from public what data was exposed.... Of course the hackers then made their data public, and another FB scandal was born.

The great fun in this (not fun as in ha ha) is that very few even noticed. Maybe that was contributed the fact the Facebook share price went up... Thus Wallstreet got paid, nevermind that average joe once again was molsted to a degree he doesn't even understand.

It's all about trust these days. Everything is freely obtainable, there are few or no secrets left for those with resources to aquire them.

And as I've proberbly mentioned before. I use G+ for 1 single reason: It's the only place you tick things off, everywere else you have to remove ticks you don't want. I use G+ because of that mindset. 

Let me choose what I want want, not what I don't want to pay...

Basicly: I've just today deleted my facebook account and I'm not going back. Got a couple of gaming accounts I migth use, both to have a look and to do that Facebook gaming.... Maybe... maybe not, what facebook game is really worth my time now I think about it...... Well, I need to have the occational look to maintain the knowledge of where they are. I suppose...

3: I've aquired way too many old classical PC games.

For a while now I've grown tired of my Eve-Online. The crowd have left, the subscribtion fee is takng it's toll, well sure I pay using ingame currency, but it takes me 20-30 hours pr week to gather that. Not smoking grants me real money to simply just pay up, and then why even log in as I don't really have a goal. Well I've got plenty goals, but I'm very much alone in there these days and I haven't had the energy to change that.

Also I've had way many classic games I've never got further with. Plus Good Old Games have had some unfair sales lately. Now I've got Diablo 2, Dawn of War 2, Baldurs gate and stuff, Fallout 1 & 2, Civilization IV, Settlers 2, Neverwinter Night 1 & 2, and the minecraft servers, Don't starve (I know).

For frag sake I need a couple of life times to deal with all that. Some are biblophiles, maybe i've gamophile :)

If anyone have intrest I can workout some more game oriented posts and place them else where, maybe in the project pages, create a new blog and so on. Could be fun, but I'm not going to do it for me, myself and I.

4: I've been invited to a Bloggers meet up.

It's not visible, but I've been on the blogging thing since before it was invented. I'm doing it wrong, sure. And frankly I'm not sure what to make of this blog, nor most of the others.

The Cykelklovnen blog I was somewhat happy with, It could use a loving hand in the design department and so on (all my blogs need that), but it had a clear purpose. the thread I'm frequently accussed of missing. Most often I do have a thread or red line, but it's buried so deep in hidden contextual matter and references only I know (or people that knows me very very well, better then the wife) that nobody notices it.

This blog for instance is mostly some form of diary or journal of my existance, my eveblog os some form of diary or journal of that characters life/exitance. My project blog is some form of diary or journal of that projects life/existance... do we have a common theme here? Cykelklovnen was to provide documentation and exposure of a project (not my project), still it takes the form of a diary or journal. That's becoming rather tedious now. At anyrate I've been invited to attent a bloggers meet up and I intent to join, even got a few I want to inite myself. I've never tried it, but i suspect an exchange of experience and ideas in this field. I have made a bucket of choises to land here. I see other making the same choices, but different answers. one example could be adSense. I don't use it as I don't want to advertise or generate revenue with this. Well i suppose anything is up for discuession, and I don't have the traffic to be interrestig so easy answer for me, harder for others. Another thing that is rather popular in the blogoshere is having the author review something.. Again that's something you won't see here. The idea is you get something and then you write a review. Hmmm, again. I'm being idealistic but if Google gave me a Glass, would I accept it? Would I accept it on terms that I needed to write a review.... Would I accept it on terms that I needed to write a positive review: NO!

Would my review be positive: Most likely.

Would I aquire and review a pair on my own: Sure (if i had the resources).

Well interresting things to flip with participents plus I've got a few to invite myself if they have the time.

5: Now what?

Rigth so breaks over. Now what? I don't have a clear plan, and I don't think I'll write each and every day again. Maybe I should try for that weekly update thing. have an open post I'll be working on all week. post it on Sunday....

PS. The title comes from an audio in my mind, where the words are spoken by Deckard Cain from Diablo, and his voice is very similar to Warrics and reminds me of something Star Trekish, maybe Patrick Stewart  Yes some of my text actually have a sound and/or reference. Maybe I should make an effort in fleshing them out once in a while.