Mood swings (1 Viewer)

nice to hear from someone who's been there since the DOS days

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Leo, my first database was something called "Datatrieve" made by Digital Equipment Corporation for the VAX/VMS environment (though it was in other environments before that). Pre-Windows, definitely. I've used Paradox, EasyTrieve (which was VERY limited), more than one SQL-ish setup including something called SmartStar which was SQL from before the ANSI-92 standard, 3GL via BASIC, and NoGL (their term for design-by-template, which is now familiar to any Access user as a "design grid.")

I did work on several O/S types including MS-DOS, and I used Windows 3.1 (when it was still an explicit layer over DOS). Before that came out, I used DEC TOPS-10, PDP-11 DOS, RSX-11M (and the S variant), and DEC VMS (which evolved to COMPAQ VMS and later HP OpenVMS). Oh, yes, and I started with Access 2.0 (before they started using the year suffix.) I've used AC97, AC03, AC10, and a couple of other flavors since that time.

The two O/S's I didn't use were Apple variants and UNIX variants. As I recall in the lawsuit, that "look and feel" issue between MS and Apple was ACTUALLY stolen by BOTH of them from a defunct branch of Xerox Data Systems or a subsidiary thereof. So to me that lawsuit was a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

As to mood swings... I'm perfectly normal. I.e. ALWAYS and CONSISTENTLY off my rocker, totally irreverent and irrelevant at the same time.

What do I use to soothe my ruffled feathers when they DO get ruffled? I go to a Chinese buffet a couple of miles from my house. For better or worse, my parents rewarded me with fancy food and so for me, "feel full = feel good." Doesn't help my waistline, but at least I don't put TOO many bad chemicals in me. Just some MSG and a lot of spicy peppers.

Doc, your in the Big Easy and your eating at a Chinese buffet??? I've got a friend down there.. gonna have to have her come yell at you for something like that!

Leave it to a total computer geek to be in a city known for fantastic food and they go eat at a Chinese buffet. Let me guess, you'd go to Tokyo and eat at KFC?

No, the Chinese buffet is comfort food for mood swings only.

The fried, broiled, or boiled shrimp and the grilled, baked, pecan-crusted, or fried fish are for normal days. I'm not so much into the boiled crawfish and crabs because they are just too damned hard to peel for only a small amount of gratification.

And then of course, there are fried oysters, alligator sauce piquante, and the occasional bucherie that ends up loading your plate with suckling roast pig.

Don't worry, I fully partake of the Cajun and Creole food around me. You can tell I do that based on my profile because my belt buckle precedes me into a room (by a small amount... honest!) But my escape to Chinese food is what I do when I want something different.

My dear wife IS a Cajun and knows a lot of great recipes. Her chicken and sausage gumbo is the second best I've ever had. (Her mom's was the best, but she doesn't cook any more. Guess where wifey got the recipe?)

But speaking of traveling and where one would eat, wife and I missed a chance to take a picture while we were sight-seeing our way through Quebec Province. We saw this sign in the distance, PFK, and couldn't figure it out until we were almost on top of it. Poulet Frite de Kentucky, complete with the Colonel's smiling bearded face. Probably wouldn't recognize the sign in Tokyo, but I'd love to go there just to see.

Well, I just had a mango. We eat well at home, myself and my housemate--he cooks an unbeatable devilled sausage, and his potato mash is superb.

Saw something in the paper that really triggered me: the young woman who put a restraining order on me for no f***ing reason except to hurt me. Front page, with a glass of wine and her dog beside her, ostensibly to guard against every other guy who happens to fall in love with her. Yes, that's pissed me off big time, and I don't really feel like doing any database work or foreign language study at the moment. Seething with jealousy and contempt. What a bitch. Talk about mood swings, mine just swung off the charts.

However, I'm enjoying everyone's input to this thread, and Doc-Man I was going to plug your reputation for those fascinating accounts of the beginning of the IT revolution but it happens that I have to spread the reputation boosts around before I can give you more props. Anyway, cheers dude. Don't you think you're overstimulating those taste buds with all that spicy fried foodstuffs? Still, it's less harmful than a pregabalin habit, that's for sure.

Alright guys, I'm out of here. See you all in a few hours or days or whatever. Take it easy--LC.

Don't you think you're overstimulating those taste buds with all that spicy fried foodstuffs?

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Leo, the spicy peppers do not bother me. What hurts me more these days is that with my gall bladder no longer a part of me, fried foods have to be extremely well drained because I am now fat-sensitive and oil-sensitive. (Trust me, you don't want to know the details.) So I have migrated to baked and broiled seafoods. Though there ARE two restaurants near me that do good seafood draining.

What hurts WORST from lacking a gall-bladder is that pizza typically is based on very oily meats and very oily cheeses. So it has been literally multiple-digit months since I've even TASTED a pizza. In college, that was my go-to source of carbs and protein. Now? Can't do it. Just - can't - do it!

accounts of the beginning of the IT revolution

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As to the beginning of the IT revolution, I can't claim to have been at the start. Back in my college days we talked about "waves" of development. My doctorate (the source of my screen name) is a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry. I cannot claim to be in the forefront, but I WAS where I could see what was happening.

In the late 1950s, folks were beginning to hook up computers to experiments. The IBM Journal of Research and Development carried TONS of wonderful articles but they weren't the only ones. That journal and its contemporaries described the first wave of connecting computers to the real world through something other that a teletype. (Yes, TELETYPE - the old KSR 33. Know it well.)

When my grad school years came around, the second wave had started, with mini-computers that you could literally roll into your lab and hook up inputs to your experiments. I used a lovely little DEC PDP-11/15 in "lab" configuration. Which meant it had special connections to the outside world. This one had 16 connection spots for incoming signals (single-bit), four knobs on the front for potentiometers read by analog-to-digital convertors, four connections for analog in, and (I think) four for analog out. Had a CRT with analog controls so you could draw curves on it rather than being limited strictly to text.

I was in that second wave, hooking up my doctoral research project to the computer to take data from an experiment in real time and then displaying the results almost immediately - with numeric interpretation and print-outs. I was getting data at a top rate of 200 microseconds per sample, which was pretty good considering that I was on a machine with a 1 microsecond memory cycle and a complex instruction set. Man, I was proud of the code that let me take samples at that rate reliably. And it had a paper tape punch so that I could dump data records that could be read by our DEC PDP-10 and turned into a data file.

My dissertation contains graphs created by the software that I wrote to preform scientific plotting (yes, a flat-bed plotter). Back then, we had some really neat equipment but you had to "roll your own" drivers or modules to get your data out to those devices. With that kind of background, it should be no surprise that my first "real" job was a specialist in measurement of readings for automating oil and gas pipelines. But that's another story for another time.

The_Doc_Man said:

Probably wouldn't recognize the sign in Tokyo, but I'd love to go there just to see.

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Actually, the KFCs in Tokyo have the same signs we do, complete with KFC letters. I almost ate there to see how different it was, but then I remembered I don't really care for them.

Same with Wendy's, Subway, McDonald's... the signs don't change much and typically have English letters and Japanese translations, when available.

The_Doc_Man said:

Leo, the spicy peppers do not bother me. What hurts me more these days is that with my gall bladder no longer a part of me, fried foods have to be extremely well drained because I am now fat-sensitive and oil-sensitive. (Trust me, you don't want to know the details.) So I have migrated to baked and broiled seafoods. Though there ARE two restaurants near me that do good seafood draining.

What hurts WORST from lacking a gall-bladder is that pizza typically is based on very oily meats and very oily cheeses. So it has been literally multiple-digit months since I've even TASTED a pizza. In college, that was my go-to source of carbs and protein. Now? Can't do it. Just - can't - do it!

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I completely understand, being a fellow gall bladder removal survivor. I've found that I can eat greasy things only if I have other foods as well.

Ah, Vassago, a kindred spirit. Do bile sequestrants help you any - or do you even take them?

Doc Man, my heart bleeds for you. No pizza? Pizza is one of those things that makes life worth living on this crummy planet full of intolerables!

Oops, there I go, I'm being negative again... my daily walk to the pharmacy put me in a real bastard of a mood today because of a) heat and humidity, and b) flies. Goddamn the flies! I hate 'em! What kind of a "merciful creator" would invent such torments for us innocents? (See religious discussion in Debates section ) Flies buzzing around my head constantly, landing on my ears, neck, hair... little fuckers! I make sure to kill as many as I can with my hands.

I am strongly gravitating towards the idea of buying a hat with a mesh screen around it, just to make my walks more bearable. Not a bad idea, actually.

Back to food, I think we'll be having a few tuna sandwiches this lunchtime. We had a real Aussie barbecue yesterday, with snags, cricket on TV (sorry England, we flogged you!), and top company. Nothing like an Aussie beef sausage in bread with barbecue sauce and onion... maaate!

The reason we have flies is because when we have an theist/atheist dispute with an argumentum ad populem we can use a great counter-argument.

When someone claims that "50 million people believe in x" I can counter with "50 BILLION flies eat crap but I don't see you joining in."

This is what I like about this site, you get science and philosophy in one place.

...and pharmacology in bits and pieces from my end, I guess that falls under the category of science.

I was going to leave these forums but I said to myself, "No, why should I? I have much to contribute, and these gents can take it or leave it at their leisure."

I'm startled at how much my Mood Swings interest people, or is it just that we've gotten so far off-topic that it's become genuinely interesting?

Leo_Coroneos said:

I was going to leave these forums but I said to myself, "No, why should I?

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But, mightn't this just be another mood swing?

MarkK said:

But, mightn't this just be another mood swing?

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Oooh! Could be! I think it has more to do with decisiveness, though.

I am decisively putting roots down in these forums, or rather planting seeds that can be harvested later when they reap results. Self-analysis is great, at least until it turns into narcissism. It's a nice thought, that this thread was and will always be about -ahem- the GREATEST MAN IN THE WORLD! (Me!)

TBH, my life wasn't much of a success story until I started studying again, but since then it's turned around into something awe-inspiring. There's a rich benefactor involved as well as a dangerous criminal, and the handsome, dashing youth is right in the centre of it. Some would say I overestimate my capacities, to which I would answer,

*Drum roll*
"Silence, fools! I've got work to do."

So yeah, it's back to the Access for me. I will come to grips with this program--help or no help--be assured of that, gentlemen!

Leo_Coroneos said:

I'm startled at how much my Mood Swings interest people...

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Caution: they might be damage voyeurs, like rubber-neckers at highwayside accident scenes.
hth
Mark

Leo_Coroneos said:

There's a rich benefactor involved...

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A sugar daddy? You nasty. I, for one, am shocked.

Leo, perhaps you begin to see why so many of us hang out here. The folks are all highly intelligent, often quite imaginative, and definitely opinionated. We come from geographically and culturally diverse origins. We have wildly different original careers. And we are unabashedly talkative (well, what would be the right word? Typeative?) when it comes to expressing ourselves. How much stimulation can you take.

is it just that we've gotten so far off-topic that it's become genuinely interesting?

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Around the watercooler, many things go off. Off-color, off-topic, off-the-top-of-your-head, and off in another world. All fair game, for as far back as I can remember. And I can remember a LOT.

The_Doc_Man said:

Typeative

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Nice One! .... . ... ... . .... . . .. .

Not sure which is more colourful, the Ausie or our Esse from Essex?

Mark_ said:

Not sure which is more colourful, the Ausie or our Esse from Essex?

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I am plotting a way to pit them against each other, Young Troll vs Old Troll. Pity he isn’t American; it would be too easy.