archvortex is back

[archvortex]

What a fantastic surprise to find on my return to the internet a year later after a horrific motorcycle accident broke most of the major bones in my body and left me bedridden until now! Fast, fast, fast (reminding me of the Accept song, 'Fast as a Shark')!! Thanks for continuing to put out awesome low to no bloat releases. RAM is idling at about 65 MB on my 9 year old Compaq Presario with a 1.73GHz Core 2 processor and 1 GB RAM. It's an f'ing beautiful thing to behold!!

[dkeg]

^uh, wow ... I think I speak for all of us here ... do tell the story. Glad you're back to health again.

[simgin]

^^ Holy shit, archvortex. Good to have you back!

cheers
simon

[machinebacon]

archvortex, I was really wondering wtf happened that you just disappeared, I knew this must be somewhat serious, but a motorcycle accident sounds fucking serious! Glad you are alive :) My best wishes to you for 2016, share your story please!

[franksinistra]

@Archvortex: Whoa! good to have you back. Did they catch the fucker?

[archvortex]

Thanks guys! I need to have both knees replaced and I can't walk until I get the knee replacement surgeries. I was finally able to drag my carcass outside the other day to breathe in fresh air and get some sun. I will start teaching on-line in about a month to get back to work as I can't do a normal job.

So many retarded drivers in Indonesia that have no skill or discipline but drive like they're Valentino Rossi. They don't care whether they live or die. Typical in a third world country (not a developing nation). Rules are poorly enforced here and you rarely see police do anything except enforce rules when they want to make money. We have many people riding with no helmets and many underage drivers with balls the size of coconuts and brains the size of a flea, especially here in Bali and Java. An oncoming bus had to swerve to miss 4 junior high school students on a scooter overtaking on the wrong side of the road and ended up smacking me. I don't remember what happened after that. I woke up in the hospital, the driver kept on driving because I was unconscious on the side of the road and he probably thought I was dead and didn't want to get in trouble with the police. By the grace of God I am still alive and by all rights should be dead after that collision. Glad to be alive and glad to be back at the grill. I have high speed internet now (at least high speed for me - real speed of just over 1Mbps) so downloads and upgrades are quick compared to what I had before.

Getting back on topic, the install was quicker than I remember and the quickest I've done in a long time. No fancy bells and whistles, just quick, to the point and easy. What more could you ask for?

[simgin]

Jesus christ a story o.O
Glad that you survived mate.

[machinebacon]

God fucking damn, what a story :o

Here in the PRC I have pulled around 10 people out from wrecks and from under cars (while the chinks were just staring), seriously, Asians should be forbidden to ride anything faster than a monocycle.

[archvortex]

Singapore, Malaysia, HK, Macau, Brunei, Taiwan and Japan are fine for driving for me but Indonesia, India, Vietnam and most parts of China are fucked up. I used to get slightly hit at least twice a week by motorcyclists when I lived in Jakarta. I am 6'7" and was the size of an offensive lineman. How can you not see me when I'm walking in the zebra crossing at a crossroads/intersection? And I can't count the number of times people have crashed their motorcycles while looking at me riding my bike instead of concentrating on the road and traffic. Shitty drivers with no concept of defensive driving.

[franksinistra]

Vietnam Thailand and Indonesia.... Those are the top 3. Anyway, as bad as it sounds the motorcyclists outside of Java and Bali are even worse. I once saw a balls-for-brain boy on a motorbike hit a pedestrian near Pare Pare ( Sulawesi). The locals burned the pedestrian to death, while they brought the biker to a hospital. Pretty retarded right?

Anyway should this be moved to another thread?

[machinebacon]

Above posts were split from another topic, thanks frank!

[sPacE gàN]

Gawd, I have to be the dick in the room and say I'm a little upset by the word 'Chink'. My wife is ethnic Chinese (racially she's native Taiwanese and old-school Chinese mix). In England Chink is on par with Paki, Wog and Nigger. It's a word used to cause offence, it can be used 'innocently' by people that have inherited its use from a time when racial antagonism towards minorities wasn't criticized. But that's not really an excuse right?

This could become a 'political correctness' dispute, but the fact is some language artifacts have a legacy of abuse, and if the group in question are upset or intimidated by certain words maybe we should be sensitive about their use. I don't think language is purely contextual, it has a potency that is independent of the speaker.

[darry1966]

In NZ Asian drivers are causing havoc here too. Even the wrong way down a one way street. Anyway welcome back Archvortex.

[archvortex]

I grew up in a multicultural neighbourhood in Vancouver, Canada with a lot of first generation families from Europe, Asia and South America. The parents used to joke that our neighbourhood was like the United Nations. I didn't know what racism was (besides watching watching All in the Family on TV) until I lived in Singapore when I was 10 and then experienced it again in Los Angeles when I went to USC. Moving to Japan was the real eye-opener as I knew, understood, and participated in Japanese culture besides speaking fluent Japanese. People speak their minds freely around you because they don't think you speak or understand their language. I'm sure machinebacon has experienced this in PRC. I surely did as well as everywhere I have travelled or lived in Asia. Europe was bad as well but more so towards others of different EU countries. It doesn't matter how polite, respectful or culturally understanding you are, you will experience racism/prejudice in any country. Unfortunately, I am used to being called fucking dirty dog, pig, cow, infidel, white devil, etc. It seems that Asians have no problem using racist terms against westerners (probably has something to do with unresolved anger from the past over colonization and exploitation which is understandable) but cry racism when westerners use racist terms. For many Asians, the terms they use for westerners are not viewed as racist, just as the terms westerners use for other races/ethnic groups may not be viewed as racist by the user. The truth is, every ethnic/racial or religious group labels others who are not the same as themselves as this is not going to go away anytime soon as much as the Yanks, Canucks and Pomes try to clean it up with political correctness.

[machinebacon]

Gawd, I have to be the dick in the room and say I'm a little upset by the word 'Chink'. My wife is ethnic Chinese (racially she's native Taiwanese and old-school Chinese mix). In England Chink is on par with Paki, Wog and Nigger. It's a word used to cause offence, it can be used 'innocently' by people that have inherited its use from a time when racial antagonism towards minorities wasn't criticized. But that's not really an excuse right?

那你好像还不认识我哦，放松放松 你来我们中国看看，然后你也会懂我的意思 -- I clearly said that CHINKS shouldn't drive the car, I never said Chinese people are bad in any way. And yes: my wife is Chinese too. Old-school Chinese, and not some "mix", as you call it (in my opinion with racial undertone, but YMMV). And guess what: she calls *me* a chink, and I call her 鬼佬 (ask your wife what this means). Before you accuse me of racism, check your way of thinking. If you assume, you make an ASS of U and ME.

@archvortex, I hear you ;)

[sPacE gàN]

It's my 9th year living in Taiwan (the disputed PRC) as an Englishman abroad and yes while living as a racial minority yourself does give you a certain advantage on the subject, it doesn't make you an authority. If I'm treated with discrimination I never see it a justification to use it myself, instead I point it out like I did here. Racism isn't subjective and down to the views of the user, if anything it's down to the views of the recipient but even then as I suggested in my other post; language has a tendency towards autonomy and is the end product of all the accumulated cultural baggage it carries.

There is a qualitative difference between being called a Pom or Limey and being called a Nigger or Gook, it's the socio-historic attachments.

@machinebacon haha I'm not going to comment on my wife's racial purity, but I'll just say it wasn't what you said about the Chinese that bothered me it was the name you used for them.

[machinebacon]

You are not the recipient of the term Chink so don't behave like one ;)

And no: I didn't use the term Chink for 'THEM', I used it for the Chinks! I call Peter Peter, and not John.

[sPacE gàN]

Didn't mean to cause a stink. I really like linuxbbq, it's the most computer fun I've had... ever. But I needed to address something I objected to :)

[vic]

Welcome back archvortex, hope you will continue your recovery in a good way.

[wuxmedia]

yeah, welcome back archvortex, happy 2016!