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I read up on jQuery yesterday and today. I'd like to write a real program, but purely as an exercise. Reading tutorials makes my eyes glaze over.

I contemplated a dead-simple message board, but even that is a little more complex than I want to deal with at first. I'd like to do something about as complex as the pure-JavaScript Conway's Life that I did at http://www.warplife.com/life/mumble/

jQuery looks quite cool, but I trip up on many of the tutorials' practice exercises. I need to write a real program.

Discuss. (25 marks)

Kanye West wants $1 billion from Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg

He’s “this generation’s Disney” and technology leaders like Mark Zuckerberg would be doing the world a favor by investing a cool $1 billion in his musical ambitions.

That was the gist of an early Monday tweetstorm by rapper Kanye West, hours after he raised questions about his personal finances with this tweet that hinted he has $53 million worth of debt:

I write this to you my brothers while still 53 million dollars in personal debt... Please pray we overcome... This is my true heart...
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 14, 2016

In a fresh crop of posts, West made direct pleas to Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook Inc., and Larry Page, Alphabet Inc.’s CEO and the co-founder of Google, asking that they funnel some cash into his ideas:

Mark Zuckerberg invest 1 billion dollars into Kanye West ideas
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 14, 2016

Mark Zuckerberg I know it’s your bday but can you please call me by 2mrw…
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 15, 2016

World, please tweet, FaceTime, Facebook, instagram, whatever you gotta do to get Mark to support me…
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 15, 2016

Mark, I am publicly asking you for help…
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 15, 2016

hey Larry Page I’m down for your help too …
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 15, 2016

West insinuated that Silicon Valley was full of hypocrites — executives who want to look cool listening to rap, yet never did anything to further growth in the music industry:

All you dudes in San Fran play rap music in your homes but never help the real artists…
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 15, 2016

The rapper made a thinly veiled reference to Zuckerberg’s education philanthropy — he is part of an investment group that aims to bring cheap, private education to millions of children across Africa and Asia. Frankly, said West, the money could be better spent helping him with his creative efforts, as he claimed to be the “Jordan and Steph Curry of music, meaning I’m the best of 2 generations”

The raving, foaming-at-the-mouth, ideologically-driven Conservatives, having all but ruined the state education system, virtually rendered social housing impotent, all but made access to lawyers impossible for everyone except the rich, gone back on their environmental commitments, gerrymandering the electoral constituencies (in their favour), ridden roughshod over the House of Lords, sent sick and dying people to work for large, rich corporations for free, are now about to eviscerate the National Health Service.

Stewart Lee has a very insightful column in the Guardian.

He gets in the Noam Chomsky one, "Defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.

Why should money be used to do good for people? Money should only ever be used to make more money!

If the sick needed treating, the Market would see to their treatment. This is just the Market's way of ridding decent, honest, hard-working people of the dead wood who are just holding us back!

Is that clear?

Give him a blast. Make that hair fly.

Today I started learning Javascript. This isn't the first time I've tried but I think I'll do it for real this time. Previously I only learned as much as I needed to plug in someone else's script. I also tried to read O'Reilly's "Learning Javascript" but got bored with it. It's an informative book but the writing isn't compelling.

I met a fellow consultant today who said he'd give my contact info to a friend of his who is getting more work than he can handle. He also said that with my existing experience, I should get into DevOps. I'd had the impression that that was more for junior developers but he asserted it was for senior people like me.

My existing website Portland Software Development and Consulting is quite spartan. I had the idea that the simple "design" would associate me with the experts, but an older, wiser colleague says that I should make it more attractive. I plan to use my Javascript to implement responsive design, that is, to make the same pages work well on mobile devices, desktops and laptops.

Just now I added "DevOps" to my list of services, and "JavaScript" to my list of languages. I also moved Python closer to the head of the list. I don't really know JS or DevOps yet but expect I will by the time they show up in the search engines.

I learn best by doing; today someone recommended I learn just a little bit of JS from the tutorials, then Google for everything else I need to do. To that end I am writing Conway's Game of Life in Javascript. It's not online yet, not until I get it actually doing something, but what little I've done so far has taught me a few things.

The consultant I spoke to today took me very seriously. That felt good, real good - though I didn't tell him I was homeless. I don't really look homeless, I try to keep my appearance professional. I don't always succeed but that's what I aim for.

Last night I met a lovely woman for drinks after work. We had great conversation, she was cute, and I think that both of us felt that spark. She took the bus downtown to work, so I offered to drive her home. Anyways, long story short she doesn't think that she is interested in dating a poly guy. I think that be being married was the final straw for her.

I don't really understand now why she went on the date in the first place. Maybe just a curiosity thing. It's pretty sad. Having a spark on the first date is pretty rare, so It's disappointing that it didn't work out. I understand and respect her position though. It sucks though.

On another topic, I started reading a new book called 'Open'. It was recommended to me by Kobo, and I thought I'd try it out. It's a story about a woman and her journey to an open marriage. I don't know if I can finish it though. It makes me feel sick to my stomach.

The book is written from a female perspective. It's basically about her sex life from teenager age onwards. Reading it makes be feel extreme envy. The thing I can't handle is how she is desired. I'm only 3 chapters in, and this woman has been hit on by 2 other women and countless men.

In my entire life, I've had two experiences where I have been 'hit' on my women. The first, was when I was maybe 16. It was at a party, and this girl literally fell into my lap and started making out with me. The shocking thing is that she wasn't drunk. I admire the courage that it must have took for her to do that. It was one of the best moments of my life.

The second time was at work, riding the elevator. Some girl said I was hot. Twice. I wasn't attracted to her, but I'll be damned if it didn't make me feel great.

Reading the book reminded me how little attention I actually get. I rarely/never catch girls checking me out. I certainly never get cat-called. I never really get the feeling that some random girl is flirting with me (although I am really dense when it comes to that stuff).

Women seem to be inundated with sexual attention, while men almost never get any sort of attention. I read somewhere that women rate 80% of men below average attractiveness. A woman can put on a low cut top and a short skirt and have men drooling all over her. Men (or at least I) don't have that ability. I can't go get some 'sexy' clothes and get attention from the opposite sex.

When I think about that imbalance, it makes me feel like shit. It makes me feel (even more) unsexy. Why am I not worth the attention of the other sex? Am I unattractive? Sometimes (frequently) I just feel invisible to the opposite sex.

Since this site has a primarily male readership, I'm curious to hear how others here feel? Do you ever feel sexy or desired? Is it just me that feels this way?

_{[Not a big news story but one that set me off ("I've been writing a lot today but all I got was this lousy journal entry"). My own thoughts on velvet revolutions maybe could have made a journal entry but meh the stuff I've got is too obvious. There's other stuff too (the US transsexual the cops murdered (white btw, some ppl must be wearing very strong sunglasses), China reverting to full-on communist dystopia, "Problems of Democracy" (named as a nod to the old US DoD/CIA publication "Problems of Communism"), and something titled "Sinking the Ocean") but all are too complicated and/or unfinished; been hammering away instead of doing sensible things (like checking the 9 SN notifications and 60 or so unread stories, and I'm beat now).]}

Quoting the RT news item (might be good to read it all) quoting Varoufakis:

“The European Union is disintegrating, and it is doing so quite fast,” he [Varoufakis] said. “The process of depoliticizing decision making at the heart of Europe, at our core European institutions” has been ongoing for decades, he said, adding that the EU’s “bureaucratic, technocratic decision-making process” has amounted to “authoritarianism.”

I've realized (some time after writing the following but before posting it) that Varoufakis more than likely knows all of this —he's a smart guy afaik— and maybe he thinks he can do better or add a touch to it or promulgate the core of it more widely into the left. Good for him (and maybe everybody else too), not so much in the quote but in the rest of the linked article he gets the main points right and I'm not going to stand in his way but I'll still say what I say (and I think others would too but that's an assumption although a fairly secure one).

The movement Varoufakis is asking for in the article already exists, it's called the alternative right (or new right) and he's more than welcome to join (I know he partially has of sorts with the Syriza & ANEL combo thing) but he has to leave behind his fear of walls because proper walls would and should keep the roof up above our heads :)

I know he wouldn't be the first.

I know of a person who at least claims to be communist/marxist who votes for the same alternative right party as me (a light™ version though, but decidedly not anything like an old-school conservative party and not particularly ideological). The communist is only voting for them because of their stance against immigration. There should be a lot more like him by now. In fact many of the alternative right parties are very much centrist or even leftist on some issues, much more so than one would think from eating the garbage served by MSM as well as all the competing non-alt-right parties.

The simple general summary of alt-right politics is: "people want to keep what they had and which they and those before them fought for, thank you very much".

That might sound conservative but the "conservatives" (in Europe as in the US) are rotting away what should be preserved (the puns are illustrative as well as true so I'll leave them there). Issues like "immigration", and/or welfare, and/or tuition fees, and/or international treaties all point back to the central issue of sovereignty which in turn is tightly coupled with freedom and actual democracy: rule by the people (which is what Varoufakis is asking for).

Also note that the "conservatives" (Republicans, Tories, whatever) are doing the damage together with their "supposed enemies" the social democrats (or still worse: "christian" democrats) and labor movements, even Corbin (and maybe not Yaroufakis either) doesn't seem to get exactly what is going on yet —that's ideology for you.

When you realize they're all operating way past their sell-by date (and they don't keep) you vote alternative. Sucks for those in the US, they've got none but have to make do with weird ones be it Green ("yuck") or Libertarian ("need more meds") or maybe Trump as a King Kong Godzilla hybrid.

_{[feel free to skip over these personal tidbits]
While I've never been voting to the left myself I've long long ago voted for a socially and partially financially libertarian party before I figured out they (locally, but later on the same happened in Britain) were predominantly idiots and liars pandering to the powers-that-be.}

_{Sure I was a better person back then, perhaps. And I was an even better person when I was a four year old. That's what experience, knowledge, and insight should do to people if you ask me; they should wise up. The fact they don't always do is quite depressing for the rest of us but oh boy must they live charmed lives or be incredibly dense. Sorry to any insulted septuagenarians (I know at least one which should be deeply insulted and rightfully so) but it's true :P
[personal stuff done with]}

Anyway the EU in the form as it exists will not, can not, and should not continue to exist. It is more broken that functional and it has created bigger problems than it solved. It has much more in common with nazism and international/soviet communism and their shared feverish and quite deranged dreams of "unity" (under their boot) than anything remotely democratic. The sensible things can be done without them on a completely voluntary opt-in basis. Forced "cooperation" isn't, and neither is forced "charity".

_{Alternative Internet Archive link. I notice that some people are doing various things to attempt to secure documentation and others again are talking openly about lists of people and actions. A single particularly offensive incident but there are tens of thousands more "hidden" away (even if Rotherham should be unique which is kind of a wild assumption).}

The EU is the failure of the totalitarians (authoritarians is too weak a description for them) no matter what political color and ideology they hide behind. We got there quicker than the US that's all.

Now if only more actual nazis, few as they are, could realize that the powers they imagine fighting themselves against are the marriage of the descendants of the old nazis and and the old commies, and if they (as well as the far left) could in such a manner realize their own folly then we would be even better off here in the alt-right camp.

The door is still open for now.

Sort of off topic: if anyone has any particularly insightful to say (or link to) regarding the velvet revolutions at the fall of the Soviet empire then I'm all ears, especially if it's anything non-obvious. Living through it in western Europe (as well as as before it) only goes so far and a few years later I moved elsewhere out of Europe for some years before returning so there might even be things in the aftermath that I've completely missed (although I don't think so).

The situation in Europe is already violent (still mostly from the "refugees") so it won't be exactly the same but there are some similarities, maybe, if the governments know what's good for them.

P.s. fuck Turkey & pipsqueak "Adolf" Erdogan ("Hitler in falsetto"), I hope Russia nukes him (I know they won't, and yes I'm exaggerating) :)

I'll have "some word" in a day or two about my housing. My mental health clinic has six slots, I'm #1 on the clinic's list, but some entirely different agency is determining whether I qualify.

However I don't even remember how many times I've been in the psych hospital in the last five years. In October 2010 I totalled my beloved Chevy Prizm in a 100 MPH suicide attempt. I'm also not real sure how many times I've been in jail.

Washington is starting to follow Utah's "Housing First" strategy which is predicated on that it is far cheaper to house the homeless than to put us in jail.

If I get housing, my understanding is that it will be in Vancouver's Lincoln Place, which is a brand-new, five million dollar apartment building. Housing just me all by my lonesome has already set the government back $120,000.

Really I would be completely cool to continue living in a tent, were it not that someone slashed up my tent with a knife, then tried to steal my new guitar.

WHILE I WAS SLEEPING IN THE TENT.

I grabbed what I could carry with me then split the scene completely.

I stashed that stuff at a friend's house, and will go back tomorrow in hopes that the other stuff is still there; mostly clothes, also a pair of running shoes. My leather Clark's have a two-inch tear where the upper of my right shoe meets the sole; Dorian's Shoe Repair says they can fix it for fifteen bucks, mom will cover the cost but I'll need some other shoes to wear until I get the Clark's back.

If my other shoes have been ripped off, I have a really nice pair of work boots in my storage locker.

Someone from Social Security called my mother regarding my SSI claim, but wanted to know my phone number. Mom wouldn't give it to them but she emailed me the clerk's number. I'm puzzled they didn't already have it, but maybe they tried to call me a month ago when my phone was out of minutes.

SSI takes "60 to 90 days" to approve; 90 days would be Real Soon Now. If I get it, that would be a little over $700 per month; $210 of it - 30% - would be paid for my housing, but I only have to pay if I actually have income.

As far as I know my consulting contract will still happen, but it's been delayed while their other coders figure out some manner of problem. The client and I have been exchanging occasional emails, as they ask technical questions and I answer them.

They all strike me as good people, but I'm concerned that the problem their other coders face could be insurmountable. In that case not just I but my client would be SOL.

I'm sorry I can't give any details as I am under NDA. I expect I can tell you that I'd be writing a driver that has to do with storage.

Wait, what?

Alex Jones: Banning order for fan who tweeted he loved presenter

A fan who bombarded the BBC's Alex Jones with tweets declaring he was in love with her has been banned from any contact with the Welsh TV presenter.

Shane Goldsmith sent the 38-year-old One Show star a string of messages for 17 months and waited outside the BBC's headquarters to tell her he loved her.

A judge imposed a restraining order which also bars him from the BBC's New Broadcasting House in central London.

Mr Goldsmith, 44, was formally cleared of a single charge of harassment.