Ordinary Nothing

One-Line Bio

Avid reader and computer programmer, who tends to have a somewhat overcynical outlook on life

Biography

Name, rank, serial number, contact address?
I’m called Yaron Davidson.
We’ll skip the rank and serial number, as customary as they may be, since they’re not really relevant.
If you need an email, though, try sending to yaron_dav , in the yahoo.com domain. I do have quite a few more email addresses, but this one gives you the best chance of being noticed in a timely manner.

Anything we should know about you?
Read the One-Line Bio. Should contain about everything important, I think. Isn’t it clear enough?
Oh, heck, I’ll answer some more questions…

Why starting a blog? What do you intend to write about?
Haven’t quite decided yet.
I figured I’ll find myself drifting into some focus or specific subject areas, but it doesn’t seem to be happening so far. I’m in no hurry to get anywhere, though.

Isn’t it generally considered a good idea to have a specific theme or direction to a blog?
Yes, it is.
If I find out I settle into one, I’ll stick with it. If not, well, it’s not as if I force anyone to read. Having a public blog with an effectively private audience can work.
I can live with it being just me and those people that give strange subjects to their search engines to find

Where are you from?
I live in Israel.
If it bothers someone, or vice-versa, don’t. I’m not particularly representative of the population here on the cultural front, nor am I representing (or often even in agreement of) either government policy, or opposition policy.
I may occasionally post about politics, international affairs, and such, but I’m only extreme in my refusal to accept extreme attitude.
That should make most everyone else unhappy due to me not agreeing with their clear-cut and obvious opinions. I’m quite fine with that.
If I post anything political, I’ll just point to why so and so are obviously acting like idiots. I’ll try and keep ideology out, and won’t stick to a side just because it’s a certain side.

I got the politics bit, but what was it about not particularly representative of the population ?
Hmmm… How can I best put it… Being twenty something years old, It’s always very amusing to enter a classical concert, or an opera, often even just a theater play. If you calculate the age distribution, I’m way way way down beyond the standard deviation.
And I tend to do strange and uncommon things. like turn off my cellular phone before the performance starts. A very odd behaviour, unfortunately. (There’s one specific incident that comes to mind, I’ll post about it later.)

You sound quite disrespectful about the culture in your country
Only in the sense in which I’m disrespectful about unicorns and dragons in my country.
Don’t get me wrong. There are good and cultured people here. A nice quantity of them, even.
Just statistically insignificant.
Altough I do believe most of the world, apart from some European countries on some days, won’t get much better reviews from me overall, so it isn’t that focused a criticism. Let’s just say I do believe in the potential of humanity, but I don’t see much proof we’re even nearly there yet.
Yes, I like being a loud snob when it doesn’t involve individual persons. Sometime even when it does, but then it’s personal and not attitude.

So your music preferences are classical?
If you mean whether I like classical music, operas, and so on, or not… Then yes.
If you mean if that’s all I hear, then it’s an emphatic no. I think only about 10-20 percent of my CD collection leans towards classical.
Overall I can listen to anything that doesn’t yell at me (with a few special exceptions, for some specific moods), and that actually can be called music (That means no hip-hop or rap).
What I actually prefer… Hard to say, actually. Too many genres. Mostly musicals, Jazz, Country and Rock (Yep, that must have narrowed it down to… what? roughly 70% of the music scene? Not very helpful, I guess).

Books?
Yes! Thank you!
Oh, you mean what kinds of?
Mostly either SF&F, or thrillers. Historical novels go as well. As does scientific material in several fields.
For fun, mostly Science Fiction, Fantasy, and the various detective/spy/police/adventure ones.
Further distinction is more author-based, and listing them all here doesn’t strike me as too practical or bright.
I will occasionally post book reviews, if I’ll find the time to write them, and these of course will say about my taste almost as much as they say about the books. Maybe.

What about your computer and programming experience?
Mostly C++ programming, in the last few years.
Got to dabble to some level in various other languages, including a lot of assembly (x86), some Pascal/Delphi, various generations of Basic (brrr), and some other stranger languages.
Also, due to either working at a large organization and sticking my head where it doesn’t belong, or working at a small organization that doesn’t have enough specialized people for everything, I got to do some DBA work, mainly, but not only, with Oracle. And I got to do support/installation/admin for not only personal workstations, but servers running Win2k/NT4, various Unix flavours, and even an OpenVMS installation once. (Then there was the time when I almost deleted a whole… something… on an MVS mainframe just to show the admin I could do that first try without knowing it beforehand and without any explanations. The look on her whitening face was priceless.)
Yep, it’s been varied. But nowadays it’s almost exclusively C++, and Win2k/XP.

You are quite cynical on the majority of your posts. Are you really like that, or is that on purpose?
I am like that in real life, but to a smaller extent than I show here. Most of it is on purpose. It’s much more fun to write this way. It would, unfortunatly, tend to scare away the more mature and civilized readers, but if I can’t have fun then what’s the point?

Anything else you’d like to add?
Only that I fully reserve the right to edit and change this page whenever I feel like it. Won’t make any ground breaking modifications, since there aren’t any outright lies, but focus and details can vary.
After all, there’s more to me than can be captured on one static page. Or at least I want to pretend there is.

Oh, yes, and the usual disclaimer bits.
The views and opinions I present here do not necessarily represent those of my boss, friends, or family. They should, though, at least IMNSHO.

Interests

Music (incomplete, and in no particular order):
Loreena McKennit, Dianna Krall, Aimee Mann, Chris Connor, Suzanne Vega, Meat Loaf, The Beautiful South, Natalie Merchant, a-ha, Rachael Sage, The Corrs, Shania Twain, Andrea Bocelli, Nightwish, Sarah Brightman, Lisa Gianikos, Sobe, Faith Hill, Karen Matheson, Martina McBride, Laura Powers, Princessa, Sissel Kyrkjebo, Gary Stadler, Melissa McClain.

Writers (incomplete, and in no particular order):
Peter F. Hamilton, Larry Niven, Dave Duncan, Sherri S. Tepper, Barbara Hambly, Orson Scott Card, Dan Simmons, Robert L. Forward, R. A. MacAvoy, David Morrell, James Blish, Julie E. Czerneda, Elmore Leonard, John Lescroart, Lindsey Davis, Murray Smith, Iain M. Banks, Lawrence Block, George R. R. Martin, Susan R. Matthews, James Patterson.