WHERE ARE THEY?

[Gustavo]

Hello, Dan ...

I must admit that being a soldier freak I usually post at Garden Wargames ...

Makes sense to me ...

It actually makes sense to me ... If I were a soldier freak I think I'd spend more time there too.

But I'm not a soldier freak. Actually all you soldier freaks are freaks! ...

We usually are where it's more according to what we are, need and think. If you get more civillian Playmobil, I guarantee you will be here more often ...

It's interesting, anyway, that people seem to follow the news, in general. Not always do anyone find anything to say.

I have too little experience in forums to say. This was the first I went in. And it's hardly two months! Guess I'm becoming a forum freak. I went into Playmoboard, and another one ... Then I decided to hold me' temper. I didn't "activate" my membership in the third forum yet (i.e., I didn't present myself ...). I like to be at Playmoboard, but I admit that I'm more often here ... Don't know why. / Somehow, I do find it here more easy to handle.

I was thinking about getting out of the third one. (Is it possible?? ) I haven't stop to figure it out from in there yet.

The fact is that I've been in two, and it's already more than enough.

I visit a lot GardenWargaming-Playclicks, since Richard showed the works by Ralf Gemein on Napoleonic Egypt  but I realized that it wasn't necessary to join. As well as, I think, I shouldn't. For the time being, I'm not interested in wars on my table. (Well, then again, I still have two klicky and a ... 2 1/2s.) (... Other eight on their way, and another some more hooked, waiting for next month to be bought ) Anyway, I don't make plans. I like civillian life, and, to me, wars won't be welcome, even in the Playmoworld.

Give me adventure!: I intend to make a lot of them ...

But seriously:
As for vanishing members of forums:
It's a slim possibility that a few of the non-responders have... died.  In today's world, we ought to include in our wills what e-friends should be informed in the event of untimely demise...

-Tim

What I thought about it was that it is possible, but probably unefficient. Future generations will know that a Gustavo back in 2008 in Playmofriends will probably have died about the mid XXIth century, so, in 2100, it will be little probable that this forum will hear from me ...

Which makes me think how, I wander, will these things renew? I'm always a bit worried about, for example, my Yahoogroups. Always thinking in having other members as owners too, for, in case I die, the group can go on ... It's a bit crazy to think about it, but it's ... part of the thoughs of someone who thinks too much about many things ... Maybe.

[Gustavo]

I think that that's putting it too easy. I've had some very good friendships. But if you're both living on different continents, then that's already putting a strain on things. And sometimes, they just drop out/ off - never to be heard from again. You just don't know what happened.
I've had had a very good relationship with Stacey for a long time. And she's just suddenly disappeared. I tried to re-instate the contact; but there's just nothing. I don't know what happened. But stating that "she didn't make friends" does hurt then.

In the end they're all individual cases with individual reasons and individual situations. You can't just go about picking up a broom and sweep them all unto a single heap...

as to Kaethe: some of the older sites have been up and running for a long time. If I remember correctly, Playmoboard was founded in 2001 and as far as I know - there was nothing before that. I joined in in 2004 so I'm afraid I can't tell you anything of what went on before that.

Bogro

I was wandering too, Count Bogro ...

WHY must this be that some people vanished? Especially people who became friends. Did they loose their interest in Playmobil completely? Maybe even so, having become friends, they'd keep in touch, answer to calls ...

Maybe one or another may have had serious problems in life, such as a son who suffered an accident, or something horrible like this.

Martin mentioned it, in a kind of a ... particularly English humour (in a way, I didn't read that as something as serious as I should, but it is a bit funny to think about putting in the will "make contact with my friends in the internet that I died"), maybe someone may be dead ...

(I kept thinking about my father, for example ... I don't have the slightest idea of all the friends &/or communities he may have or make part in the internet ... &, Maybe, the better way of dealing with it would be (him) to make his friends to know that he has a son, and give them ways of finding me, for, if someday, he stops mailing or participating, so that his more friendly friends may search for me, and ask me about him. Maybe this would be the best way to deal with such situation.)

How to deal with the feelings that grows, concerning this matter, is, I think, the most difficult thing.

It seems to be more difficult in what concern forums (?), I think. In mailing-lists, everything seems to be a bit shallower ... (Well, I never had significant relationships in mailing-lists, although I do have ... (at least) one mailing-list where I'd never be for the mailing-list subjects in themselves, but that I never left -- and don't intend to -- because of the people that became ... somehow too important to me that I would simply leave that place.

I say so because few places there were like this, where I felt so welcome. (Ty received me well, in the YahooPlaymoGroup, and there's another Yahoogroup on other subject, too, where I feel at home, though I've been a bit away from there, lately ... Which will probably change, for the next week, once I'm just realizing this fact! ) I realize by these thoughts that I feel at home in places where the subject please me, and at friends' home where I'm in because of the people; & that I like to be at friends' homes. Anyway ... Some other thoughts.

There's also some other completely different perspective concerning this matter that, though, I should put some other time, 'cause it's getting a bit long it here

G.

[Timotheos]

Btw, Tim, you have knowledge on Portuguese, and Latin, do you? ... What do you do for living? ... Or is it only a hobby?

G.--
 

I studied Latin for three years in highschool.  My Portuguese is courtesy of Babel-Fish, but I recognize some of the words thanks to Latin and French.

My occupation is software engineer.

An occupation I advise nobody to enter.

The US is complaining about a decline in the number of engineers, but that only re-emphasizes what a hard field this is.

1) We have plenty of engineers.  Just not enough engineers lucky enough to be fast engineers, who are also good salesmen, and who spend their off-hours having visions of technology road maps.  So, when Microsoft CEO complains about shortages, he really means a shortage of "the best".

2) Our salaries start medium-high and stop medium-high.  We're a highly educated manual laborer, down to the carpal tunnel and other physical problems (our salaries place us at the upper end of lower middle-class, by American economic standards).

3) The best of us only makes slightly more than the worst of us, at least in a big corporation.  Yet that doesn't make anybody nicer or less ambitious, except for the beat-dead 40+'ers who've stopped fighting, or the green 20-somethings who are too naive to realize they are ruining their careers by not behaving like a Roman during their years of best opportunity (once you turn 30, if you haven't made the "high-potential" list, you're by definition: "low-potential".

Worse, it's actually a fun job, if only one didn't have to deal with the people.

[Richard]

Hello, Timmy ...

2) Our salaries start medium-high and stop medium-high.  We're a highly educated manual laborer, down to the carpal tunnel and other physical problems (our salaries place us at the upper end of lower middle-class, by American economic standards).

Interesting comment, Timmy ...

We were never able to find a really good software engineer (back in the early '90s) who was entrepreneurial enough to want a healthy percentage of the product. This required the software engineer to take the risk necessary to potentially become a multi-millionaire. So, we finally ended up finding and then paying an academician the going rate to do the job.

Fortunately, this became a very financially successful ongoing product with a great future. Unfortunately, there were many other products with equal potential, whose time has come and gone for the want of a few entrepreneurial software engineers.

Timmy, I'm, therefore, not at all surprised by the picture that you paint of most software engineers.

All the best,
Richard

[Gustavo]

I studied Latin for three years in highschool.  My Portuguese is courtesy of Babel-Fish, but I recognize some of the words thanks to Latin and French.

My occupation is software engineer.

Amazing what that "Babel Fish" can do ... I though you could speak some Portuguese.

I didn't know that. (The Babel Fish program ...) A few days ago, I saw the lass who works with me (behind the counter) to use it, and found out what that was ... I am very tough to allow a machine to teach me. I even have problems with allowing a dictionary to teach me. I hope someday I'll know better, but it's my way, 'can't run from it.

An occupation I advise nobody to enter.

(...)

Worse, it's actually a fun job, if only one didn't have to deal with the people.

Thanks for the advice.

Am ... What's the problem with people?

I'm kidding here too!

I had a friend, back in highschool days, who played about making computing stuff ... Along with another one, who was more into it, and chose this for career. Later on, the first one who had gone into other kind of Engeneering, turned to your side, too. But it seems that he never liked it too much, and I don't know if he still does it anymore ... 'Lost contact with them, anyway.

You kind of make me remember that guy ... Although he didn't like much Playmobil. They both prefered Lego. (And their best hobby was to make scenaries to a computer game called "Descent" which we used to play in four, back then ... It was a nice hobby they had, and friends had great profit in that ... we had a lot of fun together with it! )

And the other guy's hobby was to collect The Simpson's episodes, which he recorded in video. Last I heard of him he was inclined to go into Astronomy ...

I have some sort of contact only with the fourth friend who played "Descent" with us. He went to Medicine School.



... I think the only "Playmofriend" I ever had was a cousin of mine, who, though, lives in another town, and I have no more friendship with him

Although I know where he is ...

I hope I still manage to tell him about this place. Even though he doesn't collect playmobil anymore, but, well, nor did I, until a couple of months ago. And I'm in my third order, and today, I think, I just "had an epiphany"* (or a klickyphany) the combination of what will possibly be my avatar, in a not distant future!


G.



*I'm quoting a movie: Reign of Fire. 'Like that movie.

[Timotheos]

We were never able to find a really good software engineer (back in the early '90s) who was entrepreneurial enough to want a healthy percentage of the product. This required the software engineer to take the risk necessary to potentially become a multi-millionaire. So, we finally ended up finding and then paying an academician the going rate to do the job.

I'm ready to take that risk, now!

But, seriously: the Dot-Com era threw thousands of engineers into Silicon Valley serfdom, working long hours for little pay in hopes of their stock-options skyrocketing.

I started my career at the tail end of that.  My experience was that the temp firm I worked for (aka "Consulting Firm") in Chicago was doing prototype web design for a start-up grocery home-delivery company.

What the home-delivery company founder's true strategy was: build enough of a potential threat (a functional website) to get bought out by his rivals (and shut down).  He succeeded.  His staff got the pink slips within a month, I presume.  I think my temp firm got paid.

But, I see the point you are making.

A problem may be that we engineers have had to much mathematical training--technically, a $1,000,000 opportunity with only a 10% chance of success is worth $100,000. (10% * $1 million + 90% * $0 = $100,000.

The math is faulty, but that may be how we think. 

[Timotheos]

I didn't know that. (The Babel Fish program ...) A few days ago, I saw the lass who works with me (behind the counter) to use it, and found out what that was ... I am very tough to allow a machine to teach me. I even have problems with allowing a dictionary to teach me. I hope someday I'll know better, but it's my way, 'can't run from it.

With babelfish, you have to have some basic knowledge to verify that the result isn't garbage.
I tried to post regularly to Klickywelt using babelfish and my limited German.  Very labor intensive. 

As for lost friends:
A couple of my old high school friends tracked me down a few years back but it was sort of a mixed bag.  One is struggling along at a $6 / hr job, and though really nice and mild mannered, keeps getting on the wrongside of his supervisors.  The other is an entrepreneur running one of those investing websites that will probably make him rich soon.  But he has the strange air of a mafioso searching for henchmen.  The $6 / hr guy usually brings us together but we separate as soon as he's gone. 

[Gustavo]

The $6 / hr guy usually brings us together but we separate as soon as he's gone. 

Hm ... Maybe so. (I'm usually the guy who brings friends together. But, in my friends' case, they quite enjoyed it. But I couldn't do it forever; there was a time when I couldn't any longer ...)

I think it's like this, all right ... Friends simply come and go, throughout life.


But this is talking about friends "in town". What about friends in the internet? Has anyone here ever made a friend in the internet that lasted?

(What's a friend that lasted? ... Maybe, say ... ten years? 2008, 1998: there was internet already!)


G.

[Martin Milner]

Has anyone here ever made a friend in the internet that lasted?

(What's a friend that lasted? ... Maybe, say ... ten years? 2008, 1998: there was internet already!)
G.

I met my wife through the internet, we first encountered each other about 7 years ago, and NOT on  a dating site. Does that count?

I've only been using the internet regularly for about 7 years, so I don't think I can claim an internet friendship older than that, though I did have a private email address with a company called comupserve before that, which I used mainly for playing "postal" games, but on the internet.

Besides my wife, I'm still regularly in touch with many internet friends with shared interests from the last 7 years.

One group of us set up our own private forum called "The House" where we go to hang out and let off steam when other forums get too intense. We even have a separate bathrooms for the men and women. My wife tells me the women discuss relationships and medical stuff, while we men mostly crack fart jokes.

[Richard]

... Has anyone here ever made a friend on the internet that lasted?

Yes!