(no subject)

Below is a corny spam email, but I like it. I sometimes feel like I have a foot in two camps without fully belonging to either. Among the camp in LJ- and board-land, I know almost nothing but I watch, read, click, and try to learn, and I have. But among the majority of my RL friends, I am considered a computer whiz for really basic things. I have an LJ, not that I talk to them about it; if I want to look something up, I have a good idea where to look for info starting with google, imdb, amazon, wikipedia - except for google & amazon, hardly any of my RL friends know what the others are. I email RL friends things like my Skink in the Stove story and include a link to photo of a skink. In turn, I get 5 or 6 emails back saying, do you mean a skunk? Not one has clicked on the link. It's exasperating!

I had an argument with someone this spring about posting a link on a message board. Despite my saying many times, from November to March or April, I don't think she got that I 100% did not know how to post a link to a document that I'd written. Apparently, one can save something in, say, yahoo and then post a link to it. Who knew! I haven't tried it yet; one of these days... She got very, very hostile/angry at me and finally in March or April posted a link to something that answered my first question from November that, swear to god, cross my heart and hope to die, I had never, ever seen before. It was pretty awful, trying to stand up for myself in the face of such anger and hatred. From my perspective, all I did was ask a question. I was left shruggling with wondering why she didn't answer the question to start with. All the back and forth was me trying to get an answer to a technical problem the solution of which I did not know and that perhaps she thought was so obvious that it didn't bear answering. This isn't me resurrecting the discussion, but I am using it to illustrate a personal blow-up that occurred because of a gap in technical knowledge, one in which I ended up having reflected to me that I was a stupid and obnoxious shit, for asking a question and persisting with the question until I had an answer. I was the recipient in this case.

I guess I can understand the hostility in the sense that I did get mad at a couple of the friends who wouldn't click the damn skink link. I was the giver of hostility in that case. I guess sometimes it's a leap or a click that a person just hasn't gotten to yet or can't make for some reason.

I want to not be a hostile, angry person, well, except maybe sometimes when the adrenaline rush of anger is kind of fun, kind of a high. I need to remember to give people a break for what they don't know, especially if I ever hope that people will cut me some slack sometimes. Golden Rule? Does that still exist? Does it work? Is it worth trying to live by?

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Please be cautious, this virus strikes without warning. I thought you would want to know about this e-mail virus. Even the most advanced programs from Norton or McAfee cannot take care of this
one. It appears to affect those who were born prior to 1960. (For those of you who were born after 1960 --- your day will come.)

Symptoms:

1. Causes you to send the same e-mail twice.
2. Causes you to send a blank e-mail.
3. Causes you to send e-mail to the wrong person.
4. Causes you to send it back to the person who sent it to you.
5. Causes you to forget to attach the attachment.
6. Causes you to hit "SEND" before you've finished.
7. Causes you to hit "DELETE" instead of "SEND."
8. Causes you to hit "SEND" when you should "DELETE."
IT IS CALLED THE "C"-NILE VIRUS