user since
Fri Feb 16 2001 at 17:00:09 (13.7 years ago )
last seen
Mon Nov 9 2009 at 14:07:01 (4.9 years ago )
number of write-ups
43 - View BlakJak's writeups (feed)
level / experience
1 (Novice) / 999
mission drive within everything
When E2 makes up its mind about its mission drive, I'll decide on mine
specialties
Quoting movies, creating software, abstraction and procrastination
motto
Don't propagate the error
most recent writeup
root
Send private message to BlakJak

Not propagating errors, for fun and profit

"Evil begets evil, Mr. President. Shooting will only make it stronger." -- Priest Vito Cornelius

I've listed my motto above as "Don't propagate the error". This is, in my own very geeky idiom, a way of summing up my deeply held belief and concern about the tendency of human beings to 'respond in kind', ultimately to their own detriment.

It's endemic to our cultures that we tend to emulate observed behaviours, whether we agree with them or not. Consequently, when someone wrongs us, often without realising it we will do the same wrong to others. Violence, cruelty, racial hatred and religious indoctrination are all social errors, and we are all, in our own small way, responsible for propagating them.

It's easy to let the error propagate. It is far harder, and more worthy, to make sure the error goes no further. Don't propagate the error. We now return you to your regularly scheduled homenode.


So Who Is This BJ Guy, Anyway?

Born in the small town of ...

Sorry about the scare. I'm not really going to treat you to a dull and plaintive autobiography. I'd much rather talk about some of the stuff that interests me, and that you might see me noding about.

I'm quite fond of some varieties of theoretical science, notably astrophysics, Chaos Theory, fractals and the like. I also enjoy a bit of a discussion on human nature and its many, many subtopics. I'm interested in theism and mythology of all kinds. I think it's fascinating to see how each culture has its own take on the supernatural. I love etymology and linguistics. I particularly like trying to guess where a certain word came from. Obviously I learning about the Latin and ancient Greek languages, as they prove invaluable in any kind of English etymology.

I like talking about programming and software design, 'cos it's what I do. And let's face it, once you've been in hack mode it becomes difficult to bother about anything else.

My political compass reading is:
Economic Left/Right: -2.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.77

Most of my interests and hobbies involve a singular focus on one task for long periods of time, and escaping from reality.

If you'd like to contact me for whatever reason, email direvus (a) gmail (.) com


"Unfortunately, no one can be told what the BlakJak is. You have to see it for yourself."
-- Morpheus

There's a picture of me (well, sort of) on wertperch's website gallery. Just in case you cared.


NodeSTAR!


I really enjoy proofreading and offering feedback on other noders' work.

Seriously. I find it highly satisfying to give people constructive criticism.

And it's not about being supercilious and making a fuss over other people's mistakes. It's about contributing. You create a writeup, some noders like it, others don't. Maybe you've contributed, maybe you haven't. Who's to say? It's all subjective. But when you correct someone's typo or grammatical error, you have made a categorical improvement to the quality of the database.

Such a thing is to be treasured.

If you'd like a vestigial writeup in your Scratch Pad reviewed, or want some opinions on a live one, just send me a /msg. I aspire to become an E2 Content Editor, but if you are lower than level 4, the powers that be don't even allow you to be a mentor. Such is life. So, until I can edit officially, I'm going freelance.


Nodes To Notice

Chef's Specialties
My personal favourites

Critically Acclaimed
Best writeups according to reputation, number of C! and ratio of upvotes to downvotes

The Wretched
These writeups are borderline -- I haven't yet decided whether I should have them deleted. If you have an opinion either way, let me know.


I decline XP from voting

Why? Well, I always wanted my XP to be an uncontaminated reflection of my writeups' quality. It doesn't take any skill or elegance to use up all your votes, and indeed, I believe the XP incentive encourages some noders to spend their votes somewhat flippantly. Nowadays, of course, we have the honor roll to reward noders based on writeup quality. But now that I've got "pure" XP, I don't want to mess it up.


--- BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK ---
version 3.12
GIT d-(++) s:- a-- C++$ UL+>++ P+>++ L++ E- W++$ N+ o? K? w O? M- V?
PS+ PE Y+ PGP++ t+@ 5? X+ R tv@ b++>+++ DI++ D+ G e h--- r++ y+++(*)
--- END GEEK CODE BLOCK ---

--- BEGIN NODE CODE BLOCK ---
version 0.1.2
NF/P l++ xp+>? n- C++ H++ c e+ # d D+ p+>++ g++ N
--- END NODE CODE BLOCK ---

Some things I like:

Some things I don't like

  • Commercial newsmedia, and all its works, and all its ways.
    I am so tired of being fed bullshit, and being surrounded by people who accept it as truth.
  • Braggarts.
    I endeavour not to be a braggart. If you catch me bragging, you are encouraged to open a can o' whoop ass.
  • Fundamentalism
    It's just a copout. Fundamentalism is being too lazy, or too stupid, to form your own system of values and beliefs.


Buff Quest

So you want to be a hero?

Tired of being a puny stick-figure of a human being, I've started doing rather a lot of exercises. Wish me luck!

Current repetitions per attempt (consistently):

Pushups (palm): 17
Pushups (knuckles): 15
Situps: 15
Chinups: 7

Theme

ekw_alinkcolor="#c0c0c0"; ekw_bgcolor="black"; ekw_headingfont="sans-serif"; ekw_linkcolor="#c0c0c0"; ekw_logoaccenttext="#ffff90"; ekw_logobackground="#303030"; ekw_logoborder="#000000"; ekw_logofont="sans-serif"; ekw_logofontsize="17pt"; ekw_logomaintext="#f0f0f0"; ekw_monofontsize="9pt"; ekw_oddrowcolor="#222222"; ekw_textcolor="white"; ekw_textfont="Verdana"; ekw_textfontsize="9pt"; ekw_vlinkcolor="#c0c0c0";

It's greyscale, with a black background, and the font's verdana.

On interfacing with e2

OR

"I don't daylog, I homenode"

2002.12.17
I find that the majority of my interests are interests classically associated with geeks, and have therefore already been noded to death (past death - possibly "noded to giblets" - in some cases). This leaves me with a choice of;

  1. Not adding content
  2. Noding what I don't know
  3. Adding superfluous nodeage to subjects already saturated
and so far I have gone with the first option, because I would rather add nothing than add crap. I believe this is an obstacle that many noders face.

2002.12.18
I finally found something that I could node properly ... Honda. There was minimal information about the company, and absolutely nothing about their Australian operation. Cool. I also added a poetry node, which is a dubious contribution, but hey. I was feeling creative.

2003.02.04
Have just been sitting here on 26 writeups slowly accumulating xp. Got 4 points today, that's unusually good. I have no inspiration to node, because if I go for a high quality factual node about something obscure, it will likely go unnoticed and unappreciated, sit at +10/-1 (because there's always some mindless bastard who'll downvote your wu for no good reason) for all time and be a complete waste of my hours of effort. Or I could create an insipid daylog, which people would vote on indiscriminately and actually cause me to feel worse.

There was a time when I was addicted to this place, in a frantic rush to fill the void with my ideas and passions. Then I found out that here, your eagerness and investment of time and effort will remain largely unknown, and very insignificant.

In Space, No One Can Hear You Node

2003.02.21
I am responsible for introducing Taliesin's Muse to e2. You people all owe me kudos big time. TM dispenses flaming wisdoms.

2003.04.26
Having got back into Railroad Tycoon II very recently, I thought I'd pop onto e2 and see what the nodegel had to say. No node! I could scarcely believe it. Railroad Tycoon (the first one) was just a nodeshell. I've never played it, so I don't feel qualified to fill that one in. So here was a golden opportunity to create a new node and do a decent job of it. I'm pretty pleased with the result, especially considering the time of day I wrote it (and this) in.

It's very encouraging to find the occasional gap in the database that I am able to resolve.

2003.04.30
To my casual downvoter,
What the hell is your problem? And I say your problem because when a writeup is at +25/-0 and 1 C!, that's a pretty safe indication that it's not my problem. However, some faulty aspect of your cognitive process has led you to downvote it. If you did this because you disagree with an opinion that I have expressed, then you are desperately lacking in intellectual integrity and do not deserve to be a part of this community. If you did this because you thought my writing was bad, then you should explain yourself. If you provide me with feedback as to why you felt my writeup was unworthy, then I will give your comments serious consideration. If you do not, you have accomplished nothing. I will be forced to disregard your vote as an anomaly - you will have made my day just a little bit less pleasant, and possibly taken away one of my hard-earned xp. What good have you done? I am here because I want to share my thoughts and ideas, and because I want to help improve the database. Why are you here? Unless the answer is "to offer inexplicable insult to strangers", you have behaved nonsensically. I hope that at some point you manage to learn a thing or two about honourable conduct.

Ah, yes, that feels much better.

2003.05.16
Many thanks to kthejoker for giving Gravitram the honour of being my first writeup to receive multiple C!s! This is extremely satisfying, and of all my writeups, I think this one is the most deserving.

2003.05.21
Queanbeyan, my first (place) writeup, has been very well received. Especially since I was expecting it to fade quietly into the background. Pod Party, something which I felt noders could really appreciate, is sitting on a reasonable reputation, but nothing I would call a roaring success.

2003.06.01

At 08:02 server time:

Merit         18.27
LF           0.5353

Merit mean   7.8232
Merit stddev 5.1874

2.01 standard deviations above the mean! Hell Yeah! A quiet, dignified sense of satisfaction ensues.

2003.06.24
Arthur Henderson was my first (person), and my contribution to KissThis' Nobel Quest. It received two C!s just after being posted, but in the space of a few hours recently, became my first writeup to be triple-chinged, and then my first quad!

My Merit continues to climb, hopefully I can peg 20 before too long. This is fun. Since I stopped worrying so much about votes, and starting just taking my time producing quality writeups, things have improved dramatically. This will of course come as no surprise to those veterans among us, but, I think I finally get it.

Australia's Funniest Home Catbox

  • <Trina> Evening all. Can anyone tell me where I can see a diagramme of a clitoris?
  • <Karl von Johnson> Instead of liking your women like you like your coffee can you like them like you like your pancakes? You know, stacked on top of each other covered in butter an syrup?
  • <loquacious> They don't call me quarry-crotch for nothing...
    (this was a mis-msg, and one of the more spectacular ones I've ever seen!)
  • <Halspal> I used to have some respect for Billy Corgan until I found out he schtuped Courtney Love. Courtney's so skanked out I wouldn't do her with Bon Jovi's member.
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