Hardware vs. Software

I love working with hardware, but goddamnit, it is costly and more time consuming than software. They pretty much mutually exclusive things, but I can say that from purely a creators stand point, instant gratification with software is a plus. You can test your software without worrying if your computer will explode (aside from the occasional BSOD). You can rip parts of your program out, put it back together, make copies, etc...

Hardware... you need to be in fear of the smoke test or worse, the unexpected catch on fire and explode test. That is something I am not ever looking forward to for a few reasons:
A. It is dangerous, you can get hurt or seriously injured

B. It is goddamn expensive, because when you burn out a part you have that "Awww fuck" moment because chances are you don't have a replacement and sometimes the part cost like 50+ dollars.

C. When you wire things incorrectly either you are lucky it doesn't destroy itself and you can just rewire it; or you just fucked it all up by burning it all out or rewiring it will screw something up to the point of unusability. For example: cutting wires too short, burning components because of too much heat exposure during sodder jobs or making holes too big.

I am in the process of building an isolation transformer out of spare parts. I am afraid to blow a circuit while doing it, but I don't have a lot of options. Hardware is fun in the show off sense though, as in: look at what I built. Oh wow that's cool. Or hello world look at what I did - on youtube.

Negativity

I have been thinking about what it means to be negative exactly. In reality this term is used as a label for people who tell the truth. The truth that apparently optimists don't want to listen to. If you tell someone what will happen if they do "A" and they take offense to it, they will usually retort with: "You are so negative" or "You are being negative". Even if you have had previous experience with it; they don't like what they are hearing and they dismiss your cold hard experience and facts. Instead of listening to what you have to say, they just take personal offense to the idea of criticism or being wrong and deflect their short comings back on the messenger.

This is basically a form of projection. Using the same goddamn logic I can go ahead and start telling people "You are being too optimistic" or "You are being optimistic" and see how the other party likes it. I got really pissed off when someone told me I was being too negative and I countered with "I am being realistic" and they countered back with "That is what a negative person would say". Oh I see, so being realistic has no place in the Optimists world. The optimist is much like a stupid religious zealot who believes in unfounded and unsupported faith to get them through their ordeals. Therefore Optimists are being unrealistic. You can't prove what an optimist believes in when they don't want to look at facts.

Yet another conundrum of our society...

If people could just be honest with themselves and others there wouldn't be so many problems. Liars and dishonest people are the root of society's problems. I am not negative, I focus on the truth and facts. I want to be realistic at all serious times. I don't want to be realistic when I am having fun though, there is no place for it.

Stupid optimistic people suck.