Dear Google,

Sorry, but you never really knew me as well as you thought.  I know I'm not the same man I was when you asked and I clicked "I Accept".  I warned you that I would change and grow, but I guess you're used to hearing that and it not actually happening.  We don't have to stop seeing each other, but I'd like it if you stopped trying to pigeon-hole me all the time.

If you really knew me, you wouldn't be giving me basic object oriented programming tutorials when I ask for "writing methods".  You'd know by now from my recent activity that what I really want is methods and approaches to creative writing, and you'd also know how much I loathe Java.  You would if you were paying attention, anyway, instead of just thinking you already have me figured out.

You've disappointed me, Google.  I had thought we had something real, I had hoped someone finally understood me, I...
Well.  I think maybe we should take a break.  Hopefully not a permanent break, but I need some time to get over this, and I need you to stop assuming you know me entirely and keep learning with me.  Life is a journey, and I can't be with someone who has stopped traveling that path with me.  I'm sorry it has come to this.  Goodbye, but not forever I hope.

I don't want to quit you,
-- Andy

Revamp

After letting this place rot for several years, I'm giving it a revamp and reboot.

I've recently taken to writing with some frequency, and found I enjoy it quite a bit more than I have in the past.  I used to think it was all about the content.  Now I find putting pen to paper (or type to platen) is more about giving me a chance to say things to myself and order my own thoughts.  I feel it benefits my mind in much the same way exercise benefits my body.  I've actually gone so far as to sign up for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) this year, which I've never even considered before.

So I've decided to retool and restart this dusty old thing, for those occasions when I have something I'm willing to self-publish openly.  It won't be a journal, it won't just be for bragging of interesting exploits, and it won't just be essays, bad poetry, or personal news either.

Whatever it ends up being, I hope you enjoy it, or at least find it vaguely interesting on occasion.  I also hope the new typewriter inspired theme works out.

Here's to what comes next,
-- Andy

First Post

I thought it would be wise to make an initial test post to check some capabilities.

Aside from that, Welcome to the King of the Earth Blog. I'm S Andrew Monson, and I'll be posting to you here whenever I feel like it, live, 24 hours a day, seven days a week (if I feel like it)!

A bit about this blog. I'm graduating at the end of summer, with a degree in Software Engineering from Auburn University. I figured I'd want a place to rant to the world, and maybe keep in touch with friends, since I'm looking for a job and am willing to move anywhere in the US (except California, because I prefer not to have reasonable freedoms, such as smoking and owning firearms and ferrets, restricted because they aren't popular; and I hope I don't have to eat these words later) and Canada to work on video games. Speaking of which, I expect that potential employers might end up looking at this, so my friends better keep this in mind. I wanted a blog because I fear and loathe MySpace and FaceBook.

I'm also hoping to share some useful and/or interesting knowledge with the world in general, particularly about programming and development topics, and about the open source world in general. I've been running Linux for quite some time (since Mandrake was popular, whenever that was (maybe early to mid 90s?)) and I thought this could be a way to show off and help people at the same time. (Unfortunately I'm stuck in Mac land now, having hosed the MBR on my Ubuntu partition. Not that Mac is that bad... but more on that in another post) Also, I need a new forum in which to complain about Java, Eclipse, etc., and try to give away (because selling FLOSS is not real bight) vim, AutoTools, git, etc., because my co-workers are getting sick of it.

Well, I hope you can put up with my odd love of parenthetical phrasing (and yes, sometimes nested tangents) enough to enjoy this blog. I'll be happy for comments, and I'll try to take requests when I can.

>echo 'Bye!' && logout
Bye!
Logging out...

FLOSS (The Open Source Kind) vs Video Games

I'm a hug fan of open sourced software.
I also hope to get a job, and later maybe even start a company, developing video games.

I don't really think these two thing conflict much.

I view video games less as software, which does better in an open and sharing environment, and more as art, which the creator of definitely has the moral right to sell, as it is his/hers/their creative work. I will grant that the same argument could be made for most software, but most software has some utilitarian purpose, which generally results in most software being essentially a tool. Now, one does expect to buy tools, but one also expects to be able to examine a tool to discover how it works at will. Very few people want to examine art in this way, which is my rationalization for closed source video games being acceptable.

Just image buying a hammer with the disclaimer that you can't try to figure out how it functions, by any means that you can come up with.
In contrast, would dissecting a painting really tell you why it is so evocative?