Synaptic Thought

Have keyboard, will ramble!

Yeah, I’m Dumb

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Wow…almost made it to twelve hours till. So, to catch up:  continue reading…

What to Think?

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This week is shaping up to be pretty interesting. I honestly thought it was going to be one of those weeks that was going to drag by and be eventfully uneventful. I think I’m becoming fond of phrases that counteract each other. Anyway, with the COBA poll this week, I’ve basically been chained to my desk all day, then stuck here for most of the night working to make sure students actually call people to annoy instead of make up data. It’s really difficult to do research with false data. What’s funny is when you are making something up you think you’re being really clever and giving answers that seem legit, but over a consistent period of time we can totally tell if data is false. Let’s be frank, people just aren’t that interesting to come up with some of the responses that are made up. But the COBA poll isn’t the highlight of this week, oh no.  continue reading…

So in one of my IS classes many years ago we were discussing the implementation of new systems. You may be asking, what do you mean new system? Well, a new system is typically some new way of doing something that we’ve done in the past, or are going to start doing. For example, when Facebook changes the way stuff works, that’s a new system. New systems are born out of necessity and innovation. Typically a need is noticed or a problem arises and a system is designed to help fulfill the need or solve the problem. New systems aren’t, despite what may be popular to believe, developed to make your life harder. They may cause some type of irritation to your current system of doing things, but they are designed to handle something. Not to focus you out of a crowd and make your life harder.  continue reading…

Take a Half Day

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The first part of today was amazingly productive. When I get in a pretty good rhythm at work I can get a lot done and the time seems to fly by pretty quickly. However, I made the mistake of stopping to eat lunch. Once that happened, I pretty much lost all steam to move forward. Days like these are the worst. I want to get stuff done, but I can’t really bring myself to make an effort. Even as I sit here and type this, I don’t really feel motivated to do anything. It doesn’t help that I’m typing it on my work computer, with a screen so large that it feels like I haven’t typed more than a line or two.  continue reading…

You know, sometimes I sit and wonder if I am in the wrong industry. Then I realize that most of my life revolves around computers. And right now most of that life is being annoyed by computers! I currently have a $2,000 paperweight at home. My best efforts have not only not discovered the original problem, but now my processor is running massively hot. Beyond hot. So now I have to wait on some thermal grease to come in the mail so I can fix that problem (hopefully). It’s very depressing when something doesn’t work, especially when I can’t figure out the problem. I’m soon going to have to resort to randomly replacing parts until the problem is fixed. That tends to be an expensive process, however. continue reading…

The Wall

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There are some days that you just have to stare at the wall all day. I’m not really sure why this is a thing that has to happen, but it feels like it could be good for the soul. Now I know what you are thinking, that it helps because you can stare at the wall and think about all of the things going on and sort them out and just get life in order. But no, I don’t mean that at all. I mean just literally stare at the wall and do nothing. Don’t think, don’t try to fix things, don’t try to be creative. Just stare at the wall. continue reading…

So You Think You Know?

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As I sit and eat my turkey salad sandwich for lunch I have had a realization. First, I just spelled sandwich incorrectly and that makes me a little sad, you won’t see it, because I am intelligent enough to proofread my work before I submit it. Secondly, and my actual point, is that as people we tend to lay a significant portion of our being on identifying and labeling things. For instance, the Paleozoic era was, by our estimation, millions of years ago and host to all kind of exciting and irrelevant events. Irrelevant, why? Because in the grand scheme of the world it affects us so very little that knowing it isn’t all that important. Except to us it is important. continue reading…

He sat staring at the empty coffee cup. For how long he had been in that same spot, he was not aware. His awareness was limited to just that cup of coffee, the one that had been full an hour ago? Maybe two? It had been full, once, but seemed like forever ago. Another life, another time, another person. The vividness of the cup appealed to him, the way the hardened paper felt smooth against his fingers, the printing was slightly raised so it created a topography of feeling against the tips of his digits. Each one felt something different, relayed that information to him in a different way, and recalled in his mind the vision of his wife standing in the snow with snow-covered mountains as a backdrop.  continue reading…

Oh, Hai

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As my girlfriend is keen on saying, Oh, Hai internet. I forgot about you for a while. Well, not really the internet, more my presence on the internet. I’m only dropping by for a brief visit. In fact, it is actually for work, since I needed to know how something on WordPress worked for a job I am doing. Yeah, you should feel used, and I am sorry about that, but you had to know this was coming. One day, when I’m not so busy, I’ll give you some proper attention.

Corporate Bologna

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So I’ve been busting hump over the last few weeks trying to get stuff setup for a new webpage for work. This is my job, I get it, it’s what I should be doing and I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is the phone call I get basically saying that all the work I have been doing must be taken down and “approved” by the marketing people. Okay, I even get that, and I can see that you have to make sure that everything is hunky dory on that end. So no problem, until you tell me that I have operational guidelines that I have to work under and that is why things are going the way they are. continue reading…