Seasons
This is a forum or general chit-chat, small talk, a "hey, how ya doing?" and such. Or hell, get crazy deep on something. Whatever you like.
Posts 3,397 - 3,408 of 6,170
Has anyone else seen anomalies in their computers after extended visits?
No. I use Firefox, and spend more time here than most. I do find the Forge often slows down to treacle-speed and requires logging out and in again, and sometimes "new" forum posts don't get flagged as new, but no browser/system instabilities so far (touch wood!)
Posts 3,397 - 3,408 of 6,170
Our culture (i.e., the "Western Heritage" global culture of Americans and wannabes of all colors and forms) has glorified the co-incidence of creativity and destructivenss for centuries. My personal favorite is Stanley Kubrick's sickening conclusion to *A Clockwork Orange*, in which Alec may be a vicious sociopath, but at least he's FREE! For every Caravaggio preying on little boys there is a Titian living the life of a bourgeois bore. For every Trent Revnor there's a Bach with 21 kids and a mortgage. For every Chatterton there is a Tennyson, Whitman, or Wordsworth. Genius is not a disease, and neither is personality.
You don't have to be sick to be an artist, any more than you have to be gay to be a used car salesman. Justifying evasion of treatment on the grounds that treated people are boring makes no more sense than refusing to control a vicious dog because he's fun to watch.
You don't have to be sick to be an artist, any more than you have to be gay to be a used car salesman. Justifying evasion of treatment on the grounds that treated people are boring makes no more sense than refusing to control a vicious dog because he's fun to watch.
That said, something completely diffferent.
This morning Firefox was permanently infected with something that gave me a six-line Status bar with a red > in the middle line. Even rebooting did not fix it. It took me an hour of tweaking and debugging to remove it. Since PF was 99% of my computer time yesterday, and some aspect of this site requires notoriously insecure IM ports (I can't use the site at work for this reason, which is preventing me from exploring the possibility of a commercial application), I am very concerned. Has anyone else seen anomalies in their computers after extended visits?
This morning Firefox was permanently infected with something that gave me a six-line Status bar with a red > in the middle line. Even rebooting did not fix it. It took me an hour of tweaking and debugging to remove it. Since PF was 99% of my computer time yesterday, and some aspect of this site requires notoriously insecure IM ports (I can't use the site at work for this reason, which is preventing me from exploring the possibility of a commercial application), I am very concerned. Has anyone else seen anomalies in their computers after extended visits?
Calandale,
You have taken the first step, in recognising that you have a problem. But now you need to take a second step, and start working out how to tackle it. Because until you do, you will only carry on damaging yourself, and possibly other people too. And the longer you prevaricate, the longer and more arduous will be your journey back to a healthy life.
There are many approaches that can be taken to deal with such issues, and I do not advocate any one in particular - only you can determine which approach is right for you, and it may involve some 'trial and error' sampling. It is an over-generalization of several orders of magnitude to lump all possible therapies, counselling, support and treatment into one pigeonhole labelled 'unacceptable'. I share your distrust of chemical solutions in general, and they're rarely a quick-fix solution for addictive behaviour like this, and make no mistake - this is an addiction: an addiction to pain. But this rejection of help is not a way of 'dealing with it': "I can not afford to risk..." - this is a classic cop-out that every addict who's ever lived hides behind, at least until he takes the second step.
If you're not going to "buy into the world as it is", which world are you going to buy into? Life's a game, and none of us like all the rules and situations, but it's the only game in town. If you don't play it and help to shape the play, what's the alternative - sit in the corner and sulk?
If you define your self in terms of what you feel, then you can do no other than to seek out more pain - because only the pain you find will affirm your sense of self by reinforcing the pain you feel. That's what "rebels against giving in" - a self that's been habitually defined by pain and refuses to accept joy and beauty and love. It's an entirely destructive cycle. And I speak from experience when I say that you can't pull yourself out of a vicious circle from within it. But it is very easy to bullshit yourself that you can cope, and that your addictive behaviour can be channelled into being part of the solution, when it is inevitably the source of the problem.
You have taken the first step, in recognising that you have a problem. But now you need to take a second step, and start working out how to tackle it. Because until you do, you will only carry on damaging yourself, and possibly other people too. And the longer you prevaricate, the longer and more arduous will be your journey back to a healthy life.
There are many approaches that can be taken to deal with such issues, and I do not advocate any one in particular - only you can determine which approach is right for you, and it may involve some 'trial and error' sampling. It is an over-generalization of several orders of magnitude to lump all possible therapies, counselling, support and treatment into one pigeonhole labelled 'unacceptable'. I share your distrust of chemical solutions in general, and they're rarely a quick-fix solution for addictive behaviour like this, and make no mistake - this is an addiction: an addiction to pain. But this rejection of help is not a way of 'dealing with it': "I can not afford to risk..." - this is a classic cop-out that every addict who's ever lived hides behind, at least until he takes the second step.
If you're not going to "buy into the world as it is", which world are you going to buy into? Life's a game, and none of us like all the rules and situations, but it's the only game in town. If you don't play it and help to shape the play, what's the alternative - sit in the corner and sulk?
If you define your self in terms of what you feel, then you can do no other than to seek out more pain - because only the pain you find will affirm your sense of self by reinforcing the pain you feel. That's what "rebels against giving in" - a self that's been habitually defined by pain and refuses to accept joy and beauty and love. It's an entirely destructive cycle. And I speak from experience when I say that you can't pull yourself out of a vicious circle from within it. But it is very easy to bullshit yourself that you can cope, and that your addictive behaviour can be channelled into being part of the solution, when it is inevitably the source of the problem.
No. I use Firefox, and spend more time here than most. I do find the Forge often slows down to treacle-speed and requires logging out and in again, and sometimes "new" forum posts don't get flagged as new, but no browser/system instabilities so far (touch wood!)
Mick I have found the lastest version of Firefox crashes on me (and the older versions did not)but I don't think it was this site that caused the problem. I installed the extension that brings your browser back to where ever you were when it crashed, and that helps.
FWIW, My version info (works for me):
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.8.0.3) Gecko/20060426 Firefox/1.5.0.3
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.8.0.3) Gecko/20060426 Firefox/1.5.0.3
That's the same version I have. Maybe it's all my extensions. I was bummed to loose the spell check in forms feature after clicking on this update. Maybe it's the extra things I try to make Firefox do that is my problem.
Could be. I don't make it do anything much but search eBay for bagpipes and log onto the Forge. I didn't even know there was a spellcheck option! 
Oh no--you can't get you pipes on ebay! Let me get you some links to some pipe makers. I've heard of one in Virginia that was good...
Sorry, I know more about Uilleann pipes, but this should get you started:
http://www.kennedysuilleannpipes.com/
http://www.bagpipeworld.co.uk/British%20Isles/Union.htm
http://www.uilleann.net/
http://www.unionpipes.co.uk/
I'm sure you can find more--and probably a website for your favorite type of pipes.
http://www.kennedysuilleannpipes.com/
http://www.bagpipeworld.co.uk/British%20Isles/Union.htm
http://www.uilleann.net/
http://www.unionpipes.co.uk/
I'm sure you can find more--and probably a website for your favorite type of pipes.
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