Linux/Unix class got slightly more interesting today, as we did learn how to do a few things beyond simply navigating within directories and getting it to bring up a calendar.
Still, it did continue to be demonstrative of the whole nerd way of thinking, which is often counter-intuitive and just plain silly.
I can understand the reasoning behind why things might have been done a certain way 20+ years ago, but the fact of the matter is that, for example, we no longer use punch cards on computers, so there’s really no need for us to continue to interact with them as if we do.
In other words, update this nonsense. There’s no reason I should have to learn how to do things in some archaic fashion that didn’t take into account that we might one day have keyboards with function keys and numeric keypads and whatever the hell else they didn’t have back then.
If you’re a total nerd, you may think that it provides you some sort of cachet to have memorized a series of arcane keystrokes that allow you to do something that could be done with a right click, but it doesn’t. Nothing is going to make you cool, Poindexter, and nobody cares that you can whiz around your terminal emulation screen using the H, J, K, and L keys faster than I can with the mouse or those newfangled arrow keys.
You want to show us that you’re really cool and down with the old school? Start interacting directly with the hardware without any kind of OS. I’m talking direct hardware manipulation. Start flipping switches and swapping out vacuum tubes and maybe then I’ll be impressed.
But probably not.
The real thing that annoys me about this class, though, is that I’m taking it with an eye towards possibly moving onto another desk at work, but I suspect that if I ever do make the move there will only be a handful of specific commands that I’ll ever need to run and that knowing all of the rest of this crap will be totally unnecessary.
I could be wrong on that score, but somehow I doubt it.
But I can’t complain too much, as it is going to be a lot of OT.
On another topic, last night I went to see V for Vendetta after class.
I found that I enjoyed it much more than I expected to and that the parts that bothered me bothered me a lot less than I expected them to.
Basically, the way they handled one particular part – one of the most pivotal parts of the story – made up for any missteps they might have made in the rest of the movie (and they did make several).
While they did throw in some references to current events, I really don’t see it as being a specific attack on the current administration, and anyone who feels that it’s an indictment of conservatives in general is being way too sensitive.
The book was written during the Thatcher years in England and was very much an indictment of that administration, but much more than that it was intended to serve as an inquiry into the nature of freedom, oppression, intolerance, and paranoia, and it asked questions rather than trying to provide the answers.
The title character, V, is a terrorist. There can be no question of that. But given that the government he’s fighting against is corrupt and evil in an equally unquestionable fashion makes it clear that V is also a freedom fighter and that in many ways his actions are noble.
At the same time, his motivation can be called into question, as he’s not solely motivated by a noble desire to shake off the chains of oppression for his fellow citizens, he is primarily motivated, as is indicated by the rest of the title, by revenge.
Yet, given what was done to him – and so many others like him – by his own government, who can blame him for wanting revenge?
V is a complex character. He’s charming, witty, funny, and brilliant, but he’s also brutal, vicious, and monstrous. He’s capable of acts of incredible kindness and acts of jaw-dropping callousness. Is he a hero? Is he a villain?
This is what makes V – the movie and the character – so maddening. Nothing is simple and there are no easy answers.
That’s what infuriates me so much about the knee-jerk reactions of so many people who have seen it – and the many others who haven’t – as they claim that it’s a simple attack on W and America, because, despite it’s many flaws, the movie is decidedly not that simple.
There is much left out from the source material that only adds to the confusion. For example, one sub-plot in the book follows the descent o the widow of one of V’s victim’s as she finds her safe and comfortable world utterly shattered.
But yes, there are definite digs at W et. al, but they primarily serve to set the context of the story.
After all, when Moore started writing V in the early 1980s he set it in the “unimaginably distant” future time of 1997.
Obviously things had to be moved ahead a little, which changed the context considerably.
After all, in the 80s, for those of you too young to remember, we lived in a world in which there was a very real possibility that the Cold War could escalate into a full-on nuclear exchange.
Now we live in fear of terrorist attacks with bio-weapons as the War on Terror burns hot.
This fact can’t not change the way a story like V is re-told. Rather than having an England caught in the crossfire between America and Russia, we find an England caught in the crossfire between America and the Islamic world.
A conservative might see this movie and see a typical liberal overreaction to current administrative policies and say, “There they go again, calling us fascists.”
No, the movie is calling fascists fascists.
Where it draws parallels with the current administration it’s saying, “Look, this is what we’re worried about. We’re not saying that you’re like this, we’re saying that this seems like the path you’re walking, and we hope that you can agree that this is not a destination we should be setting out for.”
That’s my take on it at least.
As for the movie itself, visually it was pretty amazing. While it wasn’t quite at the level of Sin City in terms of bringing pages to life on the screen, there were some moments that were amazing. For example, in the scene in which we first see V sitting at his vanity and getting ready for a night on the town, I actually gasped. It looked just like the same image from the book.
Of course, much of that is due to how well-made the mask was, as it was identical to the one in the book.
As for the mask, through the use of clever lighting techniques they managed to make it amazingly expressive, and I was glad to see that, unlike pretty much every other movie in which a masked character is featured, it never comes off.
(In one bit, though, V wears a different mask, a mask which – I’m assuming this was intentional and done as sort of an in-joke – he looks very much like Alan Moore. Alan actually had his name removed from the credits entirely, so it said, “Based on the graphic novel illustrated by David Lloyd.”)
Natalie Portman played her part very well, making up for her wooden performances in the last three Star Wars movies, and while she did a passable (to American ears) job with the accent, I still think Keira Knightley would have been a better choice for the part.
Still, I have to say that even with her head shaved she looked pretty hot.
Actually, that brings me to the thing that bothered me the most about the movie.
In one scene, in which she’s helping V get to a corrupt Bishop who has very particular taste when it comes to female companionship, she appears dressed up to look like a little girl.
As much as I hate to admit it, she looked extremely hot at that point, and even though I still looked on her as a grown woman in her 20s, it made me feel like a total perv.
(Honestly, it was just the extremely short skirt and the stockings that did it; the pig tails were kind of off-putting.)
In any case, I enjoyed the movie.
So much so, in fact, that when I got home I downloaded a crappy cam grab of it so that I could catch the sequence I missed when I finally lost the war I’d been waging with my bladder for an hour and a half.
So my apologies to Alan, but I have to say that I liked it.
When I got to the theater it was lousy with teenagers (I mean literally louse-y – I look at the presence of teenagers as being an infestations similar to having lice), though one of them did nearly make me laugh out loud.
I was standing in line at the concession stand and this kid and his girlfriend were behind me. The kid said, in that stuffed-up, vaguely retarded teenage boy voice, “All of my friends who used to work here quit.”
The girlfriend, not missing a beat, said, “Why, because you keep coming here?”
I thought it would be poor form to laugh out loud, as the kid didn’t think it was very funny, so I managed to restrain myself
After sitting through pretty much every one I’d already seen at Ultraviolet, I was beginning to think that the previews were never going to stop.
What made it especially irritating was that, with the exception of X-Men 3, I had no interest in seeing any of them.
I got my usual Sprite to drink, but as I was about to head in to the theater I took a sip of it and discovered that it was pure carbonated water. Rather than wait for them to change the syrup I opted to go with a root beer instead.
And that was my exciting night at the movies.
I’d had lunch with Kathleen yesterday afternoon, but that wasn’t an option today, as her Tuesdays are too busy for her to take a break to meet me. Tomorrow I’ll most likely have lunch with Scott who will also be at HQ for some Linux training, though it’s a different class from mine.
I mentioned that yesterday that I saw a tremendously hot chick at lunch. It bears mentioning again. I haven’t seen anyone that hot in a long, long time. I tried, and failed, to not openly stare at her, and I have to confess that while she was in my field of view I was totally oblivious to whatever Kathleen was saying to me.
*Sigh*
Devoid of any lunch companions today, I opted to grab a quick slice of default pizza from the tiny cafeteria in the building I was in rather than walking over to one of the buildings with a larger cafeteria, and called my mom.
In any case, though not in any sort of linear format, that pretty much brings us up to date.
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