Why? Why were we chosen? Why?

[iolaire]

So... does every discussion end up being about computer programming languages from the 70's and 80's? I'm just wondering...!

Gee, I hope not.  Nothing more boring and OT (and I'm even a computer professional) than reliving your relationship to Linux, mainframes, et al.

Ok then, let's get with the modern times.

I've recently been whiling away the time while I dialyze by learning Python - a language that didn't exist back then.   It's fairly easy to learn, but I still have to get familiar with the rather extensive standard library and shore up my understanding of dictionary argument packing and unpacking.    I've been approached by one company that may have an opportunity for me to do some machine automation using Python to drive an Arduino.

I sure hope you have investigated the jupyter notebook ui for Python, that's truly an innovation in learning and playing with code.  We are doing a Python book club at work and it gives a great UI to go over team member led sessions and share code with each other.

[Xplantdad]

I think I am going to start re-learning COBOL and FORTRAN...and relive my high school days (or was it daze? )  

[PrimeTimer]

I don't know if I have missed something but this thread has become like a runaway train. I thought StarryNight16 was being serious when asking if any of us ever ask ourselves "Why me?". If that's about computers I'll move along then because I really know nothing about computers.   

[MooseMom]

I suppose that since there is no real answer to the original question, posters got their nerd on.

[PrimeTimer]

Well I hope StarryNight16 has a sense of humor. Being that my husband has ESRD I know what it's like to feel overwhelmed by fear, stress and even anger and have often found myself asking the "Why me, why us" question. After reading StarryNght16's post, I thought he may be at that point. Wanted him to know it's okay to feel that way and that it's understandable to ask the "why me, why us" question. I brought his post up with my husband and asked him if HE ever asks himself "Why me?" and his reply was "Why NOT me?". His response blew me away. He isn't bitter whatsoever about having ESRD, altho I know he's been depressed over it. You'd never really know it tho. He goes about his life as usual. And he says dialysis isn't so bad or in his words, not so bad as some people make it out to be. He always surprises me like that. Then again, I've always known him to be strong and super positive so his attitude isn't so surprising but where he gets this strength....Anyways, I hope things get better/easier for StarryNight16 and his wife. It takes time. And maybe getting your nerd on can help, too.

[Charlie B53]

................ I really know nothing about computers. 

I still have my pocket protector somewhere in a box in one of the closets.

I know how to turn on my computers.  I just had to go around the house and turn on a lot of things.  Big storm rolled over us and the power winked off just long enough to reset everything.

If I would not be such a cheep SOB I wouuld buy new batteries for the back-up power rig I have on this desktop.  I've tossed the old gel cells many years ago when they died.  Too cheep to buy those spendy batteries I put two new car batteries in marine battery boxes alongside it.  I could run all this stuff for DAYS.  Not any longer, their toast.

[MooseMom]

Prime Timer, just to be clear, I agree with you that this thread has perhaps been hijacked.  And I agree with you that it is certainly understandable...and normal...to want to know "why us".  Your husband seem to be much more sanguine than I could ever possibly be.  Kudos to him.

I've been accused by some IHDers as being something of a know-it-all, but I declare that's not true because I know nothing about computers, either.  But I DO know what it feels like to be to depressed and even angry about having ESRD.  And you, as a caregiver, PrimeTimer, know about this, too.

[Michael Murphy]

I apologize for starting the nerd out.  However yes it’s a serious question and we all have had to deal with it.  My answer is it’s not the quantity of the days you have but the quality of those days.  I suffer from significant cardiac disease, bad knees, and obviously ESRD.  Occasionally I get angry at the doctors telling me what I can’t do, for example I currently have a tooth ache. Since last October I have been trying to get a dentist to treat it, I need a root canal, my nephrologist keeps sending letters to my dentist that since I am on Coumadin I need to be hospitalized for the dental work. I can’t find a dentist to work on me.  Sooner or later I am going to go nuts and fly to Mexico to find a dentist.  The best was 2 months after the heart attack I cleared the snow off of my driveway with a 14 HP snowblower the medical people went nuts.  The only one who thought it was okay was my cardiologist.  And as for dialysis I have a bunch of tee shirts that have dialysis quotes on them. 

[MooseMom]

Michael Murphy, we've all seen topics veer off course!

Your answer is a good one, one that I have to really work to live up to.  It's easy to get overwhelmed and miss the good stuff of life while trying to answer the "why" question.

I hope you find a dentist soon.

Which quotes do your tee shirts have on them?  Has anyone ever asked you any questions while you were wearing one?

[Michael Murphy]

My favorite is Dialysis: Damned if you do, Dead if you don’t..  5 kilos it was a hell of a weekend.  Dialysis is draining. Dialysis is complicated (with a Fresinius machine drawn with labels like red button or Whitley thing). What happens in dialysis stays in dialysis.
Bunch more but these are the ones I remember.  The 5 kilo one is the tee that gets the most comments, however it quickly ids the people who have some understanding of the process.  Generally I buy them on Amazon.

[kristina]

I apologize for starting the nerd out.  However yes it’s a serious question and we all have had to deal with it.  My answer is it’s not the quantity of the days you have but the quality of those days.  I suffer from significant cardiac disease, bad knees, and obviously ESRD.  Occasionally I get angry at the doctors telling me what I can’t do, for example I currently have a tooth ache. Since last October I have been trying to get a dentist to treat it, I need a root canal, my nephrologist keeps sending letters to my dentist that since I am on Coumadin I need to be hospitalized for the dental work. I can’t find a dentist to work on me.  Sooner or later I am going to go nuts and fly to Mexico to find a dentist.  The best was 2 months after the heart attack I cleared the snow off of my driveway with a 14 HP snowblower the medical people went nuts.  The only one who thought it was okay was my cardiologist.  And as for dialysis I have a bunch of tee shirts that have dialysis quotes on them.

Hello Michael,
I feel very sorry that you have tried to find a dentist since last October (!!!) ... and you are suffering from tooth ache as well ... I am so sorry and I do hope you'll be rewarded for your patience and find a good dentist as soon as possible and please take great care.
Keeping my fingers crossed for you and hopefully it gets sorted as soon as possible and I send you my best good-luck-wishes from Kristina.

[StarryNight16]

Hello, StarryNight16 here. To respond to PrimeTime, I was indeed feeling discouraged when I posted (both posts) and I'm still not sure about the answers. Why did this happen to us, and how do we keep going? I guess that there isn't any kind of decent answer, and that we just keep on going because that is simply what we do. And sometimes we end up chatting about Python and Cobol, and that's OK too.

I'm old enough to remember my mother bringing home unused punch cards from her Cobol and Fortran programming runs at work, and us kids used them to draw pictures and make paper airplanes. Good times, good times.

[PrimeTimer]

Sounds like your spirits have been lifted, StarryNight16. That is always a good thing!    Gotta keep on keeping on. 

[Xplantdad]

Hello, StarryNight16 here. To respond to PrimeTime, I was indeed feeling discouraged when I posted (both posts) and I'm still not sure about the answers. Why did this happen to us, and how do we keep going? I guess that there isn't any kind of decent answer, and that we just keep on going because that is simply what we do. And sometimes we end up chatting about Python and Cobol, and that's OK too.

I'm old enough to remember my mother bringing home unused punch cards from her Cobol and Fortran programming runs at work, and us kids used them to draw pictures and make paper airplanes. Good times, good times.

Glad to see you have good memories about COBOL...

As far as your question, you are right, there's no real answer. For our daughter and all that's happened to her in her 28 years on this earth...I have taken one big thing away from it.

We enjoy every minute of every day-and try to not let the bad things get us down-as worrying about them doesn't do anything.  None of us know when our time is up-so live life

[StarryNight16]

Thanks, Xplantdad. Every good word definitely helps.

Anyways, enough about COBOL and Python... my goal for this summer is to learn R using RStudio!

[Jean]

Starry, Hello,

This is such an interesting post and I wish I  had read it earlier. I am not on dialysis yet, but can only imagine what is worse. But I do know that the saying" God only gives you what you can handle" Is so very true. I am not here to preach to you, your relationship with God is your business. I hope it gets better for you and so many of the posters here say it is just a part of life.
Good Luck to you
Jean

[Michael Murphy]

I love cobol,  I spent years chasing performance issues on UNIX boxes.  The problem I found is great programmers write phenomenal C programs almost every one else write average or bad code.  The most common error that made me nuts was lazy people using system call to run a shell command ls to find directory content.  The right way is to use the c subroutine to open the directory and load the contents into a header file.  The amount of processing power used in the system call was staggering.  On one system I had 59% of the code rewritten I certainly was not popular there.  Unix cobol would have fixed the issue.

[Paul]

So... does every discussion end up being about computer programming languages from the 70's and 80's? I'm just wondering...!

Maybe start a Geeky thread for the oldies? Like now?

There is another web forum I visit from time to time that is only for people who think any computer that can run Windows (any version) is too modern. You occasionally see MS Dos machines talked about, but mostly older stuff than that (1980s and 1970s computers). It started as an Amiga forum and expanded to include all pre-Windows machines. Just before I went into hospital I got a "Wonder Swan" through the board, which is an old Japanese hand held games system (like Game Boy) that was never marketed outside Japan (as well as the chat boards, the forum also has a buy/sell board).

[Michael Murphy]

Actually my OSX 10.13 systems are actually running a BSD UNIX variant.  Several times over the years I have taken over the box and ran low level UNIX system commands at the Genius Bar to get my system fixed.  They had usb boot drives it was easier to visit a Apple store which has current boot drives than go to the trouble to make them my self.  So UNIX is not dead it is running on macs, suns, most super computers, some main frames, my iPad, and a rewritten version is know as Linux.  In fact most of the financial world runs some form of UNIX.

[Charlie B53]

I never finished a project back in school that was written in DOS.  Too many data banks and run sequences it too SOOOOO long to run.  Processor speeds then absolutely sucked.

This Win 10 machine running at 2.8 G should spit it outwith a quickness IF it still had the DOS option like Win 98 had.

Also, I never did go back and finish that project. I might think about doing just that since I am retired.

But I have learned one thing since retiring, and that is that if there is anything you want to get done, you better do it before the WIFE knows you are retired as she will have you doing every little thing and you won't have time to do anything you want done.