Kevin's Watch

Matrixman wrote:And I agree about Windows Millenium: it was the Illearth OS.

The Ballmer Peak!

Hey, I just realized you could replace it with "Romero Peak" and Windows ME with "Daikatana" and the cartoon would still work.

Actually, I quite liked Windows ME. Gave me less issues than 98 ever did.

--A

Murrin wrote:

Matrixman wrote:And I agree about Windows Millenium: it was the Illearth OS.

This is actually quite funny and true. Some of the hardest problems I've run up against in programming are problems I have only been able to figure out while drunk. And then I can't even understand my own code that I wrote to solve the problem until I look at the assembly it translates into. (Not even then if it's doing something really, really complex.).

Of course, there's no 'peak' that I've found, except that there is a sudden crashing downards of programming ability that seems to coincide with a BAL of .40 or higher.

I am an excellent programmer while sober.

I am a master programmer while tanked.

Okay, Windows Vista is really driving me insane. I can't get Crossfire to work - games run slower when two video cards (ultra powerful at that) run in 'synchrony', DX10 also results in poor performance, and I cant get 5.1 sound. Add insult to injury, Silent Hunter III refuses to run (it must be Vista's Good Taste filter that won't allow games where you play as German U-Boat captains).

Emotional Leper wrote:
This is actually quite funny and true. Some of the hardest problems I've run up against in programming are problems I have only been able to figure out while drunk. And then I can't even understand my own code that I wrote to solve the problem until I look at the assembly it translates into. (Not even then if it's doing something really, really complex.).

Of course, there's no 'peak' that I've found, except that there is a sudden crashing downards of programming ability that seems to coincide with a BAL of .40 or higher.

I am an excellent programmer while sober.

I am a master programmer while tanked.

What is with that level of tipsiness that you can do no wrong? I've noticed that with bowling, pool, and archery as well. Well, okay, I've not tried archery. But there really is this magic amount that, if maintained, you are king of all endeavors. Any less, and it's like Frosty without his hat. Any more, and it's like Frosty in a warm climate.

That's it. I'm appealing for a grant now to study this phenomena. Anyone wanna help test in these experiments?

Cag, I've noticed that also. Specifically with pool and darts. No alcohol, I'm ok. 1 to 2 beers, I'm really good. Three beers, absolute crap. And it's not just subjective, my scores at darts really do improve. It probably has to something to do with loosening up and being just a little uninhibited. Of course, that's also usually the point where I develop the "if some is good, more must be better..." attitude, frequently with disasterous results.

I figured this out some time ago while singing Karaoke.

I'm a tolerable singer while sober. When I would go out to Karaoke, there seemed to be a certain threshold (three drinks drunk) where I sang better. I thought this was just me, until I asked a karaoke companion who didn't drink about it, and she said that I did sing better when slightly drunk. Upon further experimentation, I've come to the conclusion that the alcohol causes me to relax -- specifically, I don't tense up. I relax, I do things without worrying about how I'm going to look or whether I'm making an idiot out of myself. I put on a better stage act at Karaoke when drunk, too. I don't care about making a fool out of myself so much, so I get more into it -- throwing my fedora into the crowd when singing Zoot Suit Riot, humping things while singing Bowie, etc.

For programming, I try things that I don't think are going to work more often when drunk. When I was working on a very, very, very minimal implementation of the telnet protocols, I was stuck on writing an input buffer that could respond on the fly to someone switching between char by char input, line input, and between server and console-side tracking. I'd spent about 12 hours or so trying various different things (and all this was due to Microsoft's telnet not working the way the RFC said things should work -- Net- and Free-BSD telnets and some redhat linux telnet worked fine ), and finally I started drinking, and finally managed to get it to work, because I did the exact thing I didn't think would work, which involved alot more pointery things that I liked. In the morning, I literally did not understand why it worked, which was how I had to learn a little x86 assembly (ALPHA rules.)

So, in short, I think it's the lack of self-conciousness, plus the muscle relaxation provided by a certain dosage of alcohol, which causes one to not overcorrect one's movements (like in pool and darts.)

Intriguing. The idea that a moderate amount of alcohol is beneficial to one's health was known to me, but I never thought much about how it could also "optimize" one's motor skills. It does makes sense.

Of course, as Mortice points out, it's hard for many to know when to stop drinking once they've started.

So...should Lore have a couple of drinks to make himself feel better or should he be feeding Vista some alcoholic beverage to make it perform better?

Yes.

My first PC was a real sloppy drunk... prone to black-outs as soon as the vodka hit its CPU. And that darn coaster/CD tray spilled more than it held. Crappy technology !

dw

I knew there was another reason why I drank JD on stage other than to keep my harmonica ripped lips from bleeding!

You drink, you relax, you hit a certain point where you don't feel quite as self concious. If you're female, and you continue to drink, you wind up in a GGW video. If you're male, you usually end up trying to get girls to be in a GGW video.

Or talking to Ralph on the big white telephone.

I too have seen this phenomenon, with playing pinball. And yes, it's the alcohol relaxing me enough to just play the game.