The future is what we make for ourselves

The future hasn't been written yet, I can never accept anything else as fact. The future is only what I build of it...

I'm so tied of this place, so tied of being surrounded by fools. They are everything I reject: I refuse to be cruel, I can not hate, and I will not be like them.

For a better part of my years, I spent time learning to fight, to defend agaisnt whatever might come. Now I find myself, facing a new demon: one inside the head. The only way, to win the war is one battle at a time.

The future is what we make for ourselves.


There will be a day when I no longer hurt, when there is no more fear, and I am no longer alone. I will stand tall and plant my feet upon this rock, and I shall not be shaken from my path.


Sun May 31 03:44:23 UTC 2009

Probing the lost

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Step on my toe, and I'll scream...

Got to bed fairly early, it was only 04:30Q when I logged off; not sure when I fell asleep but at least the sun wasn't up yet.

Got up for work, and was annoyed that my shoes hadn't dried out yet! My old "Utilishoes" are to tight period, let along for working in; and my mains have a very short outsole, so the inside got pretty drenched yesterday at work lol. Tried cramming my foot into the shoe with socks on, that went over like hitting a lead wall... So no real choice except to put up wit hit. Yeah, battered foot and wet shoe, not a good mix.



Really what I would like is a good pair of jungle boots. There are three things every soldier deserves for equipment: a good pair boots, a decent weapon, and canteens that don't leak on the quick march. What better way for a civilian to find a decent set of boots? One reason why jungle boots interest me, by definition they more or less need a good balance between the heat and the soak lol. With so much need for desert boots over seas now're days, who knows, maybe surplus stores might even be in surplus of jungles... haha. They certainly can't be any worse then the kinds of shoes I've had to deal with over the past 20 years :-/

It's been a very long day

I was up to around 07:00Q, miserable when you've got to be up by 10:00Q :-/ Every night, it's getting worse... having trouble thinking clearly at night lately in so far as coding goes. Always tossing and turning with thoughts between my ears that have to wait, driving me nuts! To bad life is not like a cartoon, where you can just whack yourself in the head with something big and heavy, and take a nice nap xD.

Work today was probably best described, as "Dead'er then the horse I rode in on". With how much the toe was trobbing, instead of pacing during my busy...wait portion of things, I sat down... bad idea. Nearly ended up snoring, and when it was time to get up, my foot was so numbed (and sound asleep lol) that I nearly fell flat on my face... getting down 4 flights of stairs was not fun.


I was actually kind of happy though, it was raining. Plus it started getting worse when I had to be outside lollololol. I am kind of a strange person, I like being out in the rain for the most part: everyone I know, just loath's it. Eventually it got bad enough that I conceeded to using an umbrella, instead of walking around in a T-shirt: horizontal wind and rain is a good time for an umbrella. Really, if I had the proper kit and footware for it, I wouldn't mind walking in the rain, yeah... mad as a hatter.


Managed to get home and *eventually* tend to my foot. Ma's shouting at Coco, reminds me of why I don't take things out on other people... (I prefer to avoid such things, unless its in regard to someone directly causing the problems lol.) To top it all off, Willow ran over my bad toe, going about 15-20mph, sigh.


Today's work on the servers, also makes me seriously thing that Windows NT is ridicules in a network centric capacity...

Wow.... I politely ask the dog if I should have a spot on my own bed, and Willow looks at me, as if such a thing was a crime!

This calls for going "BEEP", until she moves lol.

troff and family, is there anything you can't do?

I've been thinking of writing an article on some of my tactical experiences for whatever value they may offer, and as such the obvious question would arise: what to write it in?

Anyone who says Microsoft Word or some variant of that light, you can go stand in the corner right now :-P


Most of my documents lately have been done in POD, since I've only been writing Plain Old software Documentation over the past couple months. Normally for regular documents, I just use LaTeX. I have also been contemplating learning more about the more 'black magic where few people care to thread' parts of LaTeX, really I'd like to dig up a few books on it as well, but hey, whose got that kind of cash? (I wonder if the local library has anything on mathematics worth a fart: typesetting in LaTeX with or without an air on the math side is not there either.) But I also have a soft spot for troff / nroff: I rarely use it, even for manual pages if it can be avoided. Yet I really like troff, even raw troff. It would be a perfect excuse to study the ms macro package and possibly even take the time to learn how to use pic!

The question I posed to myself, was how would I go about handling references in troff? I know it is possible, just couldn't remember how: so googled for

bibliography system for troff

. That lead me to a paper named 'Some Applications of Inverted Indexes on the UNIX System.', written by M. E. Lesk. So far that seems to be quite simple and would get the job done fairly easy.


The only thing I am used to, is working with Bibtex. So the whole refer thing is not too alien to me.



If it wasn't for technology like TeX/LaTeX, troff/nroff, POD, ReST, Texinfo, or various Docbook/SGML/XML type stuff — I would likely use plain text and [ab]use the C Pre Processor from my C compiler in order to implement simple textual macros xD. There is no 'perfect' system in my eyes but POD is my favorite... (Hmm, I really should look at MOD someday!)



Yeah, obviously I am not a fan of word processors: despite having used them heavily for years.

I've spent the last half hour or so, trying to keep a straight face lol. Friend tried to pull a prank on me, and I was trying to stall to compute the implications of pranking back, or just exacting a revenge... in various ways. He's so lucky I don't have a cruel nature. And if you are reading this, the thoughts I mentioned were only part of the possible retaliations that came to mind :-P



When you can look at something serious, and find about an 8-15% chance they're not trying to pull your leg, you know it is tempting... to not have a lot of sick fun with it at the pranksters expense. Some how, I think either I know some crazy people, or I'm just to kind hearted lol.

Icon, the programming language?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icon_(programming_language)

Geeze, it looks like a nifty language!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicon_programming_language suggests something exceptionally fun to work with as well...

Quote of the day: 2009-05-24

No man is an island unto himself, nor a pillar of stone or bust of marble to be adored for pureness sake: evil lurks in every mans heart, just as surely as goodness may lay nestled in thy bosom?

Writer's Block: Word for Word

How many (if any) songs do you know by heart? What are they?

Live Journals Writer's Block

I don't think I know any single song by heart, since I generally avoid singing outside of church lol. With how much silence life requires at home these days, I do sing 'inside my head' so to speak, since that is really the only place outside the internet where I have a free voice of any sort :@.

Generally it's the songs that I either feel a connection with, or end up hearing the most that start to stick. Most of Folsum Prison Blues, which is also arguably one song I would want to pick up: if I ever learned how to play the guitar lol. I believe it might also be the first or second tune I've ever heard from Johnny Cash. A number of Trace Adkins, Taylor Swift, and several Alan Jackson tunes also rattle around my brains every now and them. One song that I know fairly well, is the Cocaine Blues, because I've heard it played toooo many times! And like wise with major portions of Picture, it's mostly the sequencing that I need remembering.



I came here to live is probably the song I know by heart, if any song at all. Often at work, I sing it softly to myself I'm going up or down the stairs.

I grew up in a town where tough was a cigarette, and a souped up car on the county road. Nothing much to do back then so we'd make bets, on how much a drink a guy could hold, and I held my own. I learn'd to hold my own. Daddy worked some dead end job at the concrete plant, momma taught the Sunday bible class. For eighteen years I remember thinkin' there was more to life then that, so I ran the streets to beat the devil: goin' just as fast as I could fly. 'Cause I came here to live, I didn't come here to die... Momma used to wait for me with the porch light on, worry about her little boy 'til I got home. Daddy, he'd say "Listen son", but back then there wasn't much, that I didn't already know. I reckon I was doing close to eighty, when I felt the tiers slip out from underneath. And I never set out looking for Jesus, so I guess Jesus came looking for me, and found me upside down in a ditch. Smoke and gas in my eyes, HE said son, you came here to live: you didn't come here to die. Sunday morning I got up, and I went to church. That summer I got a job and I went t' work. I met a girl in town, put some money down... on a little place with a yard.. Our little boy was due in September, but he came early in July. For eighteen days all I remember, was sitting there at his side, saying son open up your eyes. Just open up your eyes, 'cause you came here to live. You didn't come here to die, son you came here to live.

Oy my rhythm is totally screwed up..... maybe now that I've got some time off work, maybe things can be rotated back into place, before I finally do pass out from lack of sleep.

fortune -aes

Yesterday is a memory,

Tomorrow is a vision,

Today is a bitch!

Ain't it the truth.

Operation Redeemer... green light or die.

For the past week or so, I have been plotting to free myself of this life: bit by bit, byte by byte, phase by phase...

To be honest, I've never really feared death, but then again, I have never counted on living very long either. I've always expected that I'll pop off somewhere in my 30s or 40s — but would rather live to a ripe old age and a half. Anything after that... well, I guess you could say it would be like a gift from GOD. Genetically, one thing i have going for me is most people in my family are long lived; going at least as far back as (linearly) distant relative in Italy, who is said to have passed 100 lol.

I've always looked at the future, planning is a part of me; I often fly by the seat of my pants but I know when things require the effort of planning, and when they don't.



Growing up, we survived on social security (a check for each kid), ma basically decided to milk it for all it was worth plus interest lol. Ironically, although no one actually had a job when I was a kid, I was raised that you get up, you go to work, no matter what. The standing thing was, the respective funds would run out when we reached the appointed age (16, plus way back when it continued into HS if you took long enough), so obviously it would be job time. Imagine, growing up with an impending doom hanging over your head: that someday your entire world would be tipped on its hinge, and all would fall to earth. Never being one to accept such bad omens; I largely disregarded thinking about it as a kid, and instead focused on growing up and decided that I would worry about that when it was time to cross the bridge. My agreement was to get a job when the time came, no problem, no challenge, just a simple fact of life... no problem, yeh? When I hit high school, her royal pain decided to start up this business as a way of making some extra money in preparation for the [i.e. my] last check running out. The cleaning would help pay off the high school course, and earn up some savings.... yeah, fat F'ing chance! Fast forward through the last 5-6 years of living: never saved a freakin' dime, her choice of starting this business ensured not only that I did not have to go and get a job (as ground into me since an early age lol), but that doing so became impossible... thanks a lot ma.


One positive if not perfect thing of it, that change of plans also allowed me to go further into my personal studies (technology, science, etc), I should be thankful in some sick way: because other wise, I might never have discovered coding with such vigor.


On the other hand, that same change in plans also cost me most of my studies! Math/physics died out for the longest time, aeronautics required way to much effort in computation, history couldn't fit into the day anymore, even my regular exercises and CQC practice all went out the window... and then proceeded to suck out every decent part of my life, that does not involve a fscking computer! So all in all... I ain't that thankful. I'm largely trapped here these days, ffs I don't even have the freedom to choose to walk to the damn blasted mail box; can it get much worse, I dunno, and I dun't want to know.


After some careful thought, I've decided to call the plot, "Operation Redeemer", which is in my honest opinion quite appropriate considering the meaning of the words redeem and redemption. Pretty soon, I'll be turning 21 years... a point where *no one*, not even my mother can contest that I have some measure of legal right to freedom.


I have, in my own opinion: both a meticulous and sincere nature. As the latter controls the former from doing harm, it is not always benitfious in a family like this. Lately I have been applying that meticulous attention to solving problems, the problems of how to get from where I am shackled — to where I want to be headed in life.


I wish I knew better and at an early age, what I wanted out of life: the last decade has passed fairly quickly, and the last 3-4 years almost like a blur of toils. I always figured growing up, getting a job at ~18 as expected would open the doors to moving on with life... despite the issues involved, I suppose it was worth looking forward to. I also figured by the early/mid 20s things would hopefully be at a good place in life, and to let nature take its course; with the hopes of eventually settling down around late 20s: and being free of the years of family-in-fighting.


So much for that 8=)


I divide Operation Redeemer into outlooks, objectives, and phases. Outlooks are the short term, mid term, and long term scope: objectives fit into the outlooks. The phases are the principals of the objectives. It is also somewhat a depressing series of mental-processing tasks....


short term — the next few years

drivers license.

Currently the only way I can cover the costs of maintaining one, is for H.R.P. to foot the bill, which she would do fine... the only problem being, of course why I currently don't have a license as is: http://sas-spidey01.livejournal.com/318927.html

petrol supply.

best way to get around the aforementioned issue set, is to GET IT IN F'ING RIGHTING!!! Or should we say.... a signed document stating that HRP covers the gas usage as composition, irrevocably or I 'revoke' my presence in this business... which would bring the hole life tumbling down period: however through applied positioning it would become Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). The goal would be to utilize her promises in order to move towards reclaiming my freedom: and when she forgets and threatens to pull the plug (on what would hopefully be a much freer form of living then I have now), have it in writing to remind her: along with the MAD clause ;). Of course, said document would likely have no legal value what so ever, it would just provide leverage over the "forgetful, opinionated, and automatically right" nature that so many people have.

freedom of motion

with that assured: it should actually be possible to GTFO out of here periodically. Having to put up with the limitations of a learners permit slows it down but hey... I've only had to watch most of the last sequence of years be squandered for the benefit of my family, I can afford to be patient. Once the times up... it will be time to make use of every avenue possible. One of my first intentions, is the library. It's an old saying of those who know me:
"He would live in the library if he could", and I would lol. It is also a nice, quite, comfortable place to BUG OUT of here, and be able to relax, read, maybe even bring my laptop and hack at some code while the battery lives. In point of insurance policy: by 22, I am sure no one on the face of the earth (who is still alive!) can deny I have a right to exercise free will, and go where I like, in a free country, subject to the law. As for car access.... that HRP has legal authority over; in the planned case however without it, I would simply adapt "or else". Because quite simply if I can't drive, I'll walk -- and take my chances getting run over. Actually, especially in the libraries case (2-3 miles) I would prefer to walk (exercise!!!). With the way GA drivers are, that threat might even work to my advantage if it became neccessary... lol.

mid term — intermediary

The means to actually make use of newfound freedom... that means pocket money. Actually one odd thought that popped into my head last night; a job with light enough work that I won't be freaking dead 24/7, yet with hours that could be squeezed in around existing business (since there is no escape from it). Ideal, would be working nights: just in time to come home around 5am and pass out before work, lol. With some measure of reliability to scheduling, even most weekdays could be open; since I'm generally off work from 15:00Q until 09:30~10:00Q the following morning. Heck, even if it was only 12 hours a week (which is ludicrous imho: barely worth the gasoline lol) and at minimum wage.... Let's say, its as much as $4 an hour after the compulsory government and business related skims. Even that level would be good... *if* it was all turned into profit, as opposed to say, family bleeding my dry for every penny they can dig. Then it would be possible to save up and still have a bit of pocket money for once. In considering whats around here, the only thing that seems like it would have a chance of working out for, would be working at a gas station; probably not likely to find that these days. Maybe it's some form of irony, that such a thing would come to mind: since my pa worked at a gas station when he was younger, and learned from the mechanics. Then again, full-service stations were probably the normal back then and I bet modern self-service stations were designed to cut man power costs!

Another thing I've thought about, is trying to scrounge up some decent web work, just shorties preferably. Something that could generate a bit of capitol to put towards continuing the effort. Funds permitting, it wouldn't be to hard to score a years web hosting, setting a site offering design / training, and try to make use of available media for advertising; you would be surprised how much you can do in this place, if you have the money to make money: and a fair measure of luck. All in all though (especially with the luck I've got in life), I doubt it would ever make enough income to be self sustaining, let along profitable for me, but alas, a spider can dream (and plot).

Find a solution to the gaping hole in my life... well that is easier said then done, but having the means to move in that direction would certainly help!!! Either way, a large part of this objective is in GODs hands...

long term — coming to the close of the next 10-15 years

Be saving and close to the point of being able to get my own wheels.

I've always planned to move out by 30, married or not. Personally, I would prefer to first option but could be happy enough with the means to do get out of here.

and that's as much, as I can stomach writing down for now...

Maybe it's the lack of sleep in the last ~72 hours
Maybe it's the war between fine and depressing
Maybe it's life sucking the energy out of me
Maybe it's the lack of peace in my life
Maybe it's always being pressed for time

but I feel like s***!!!

I dunno what is worse... that it is only 06:30Z, that I've been awake so long, or that there is nothing I can get done before work 2morrow that I actually feel like doing.... despite the fact that I can't sleep, lol


oy

Waking up to bullcrap

Not even taking the time to boot into X, writing this from a vtty for later posting; gotta start getting dressed for work in about 5 minute.

This morning, I was informed that H.R.P. and Prince Asshole (haha) are no longer talking, when told that if my brother wanted to talk to her, that I would have to be the relay.... I told ma *NO*, "I've had enough years of doing that, to last me a life time". I can still remember the years, I spent relaying their messages over the phone; that's part of while I've shunned phones for most communication purposes (the others being lack of privacy here, and that IMs lend itself better to abusing multi-tasking then phone conversations).

It seems they are moving nearly a decade back, as opposed to taking a foreword direction of travel... and doing it gladly on both sides! This time around: my neutrality will be suitably respected during their waring &mdash or to borrow H.R.P.s speech pattern, I'll 'excommunicate' them from the family!


I've had enough of this horse shit to last several dozen life times.




/* their 'alternative' forms of address are chosen in order to avoid proper names, and still be as "polite" as possible */

Delightfully enjoyed this article

http://freshmeat.net/articles/stop-the-autoconf-insanity-why-we-need-a-new-build-system

I can also sympathize with the fictitious Joe and Jane in the examples — I have no love for the GNU build system / autotools. I've also had to waddle though ugly auto* files and deported documentation on occasion ;). The only part of autotools I do like, is GNU Make: because it is the most portable make implementation available, short of limiting things to a subset of the standard syntax.

I don't quite understand the authors comments about m4, because it is a pretty simple tool. Heh, I still remember watching The One on TV one night, and interspersing it with learning the m4 macro processor. IMHO m4 is an incredibly useful tool: being a fairly generic (yet expressive) macro processor lends itself to virtually any tasks that can benefit from pre or post processing. Although to be fair, for what most (smart) people would use m4 for doing, I typically (ab)use the C Pre-Processor (cpp) into doing for me \(^_^)/. The main reason I avoid using m4, is because I can never seem to count on a *consistent* set of behaviours whereever m4 can be found/ported, the last time I required m4 for a project, I ended up in a "F it, I'll make a C||C++ compiler a dependency" like situation: because the platforms m4 would not behave IAW the norm. It is a shame really, GNU M4 adds some nifty features (and even more shamefully, it was a ported/tweaked version of GNU M4 that was the problem child in the aforementioned situation lol)


When it comes to building things of my own, I usually create a Makefile; exception being Qt based stuff, in which case I generate makefiles with qmake ;). I've also considered implementing a Perl script that automagically does the right thing (or should I say, the infering the right thing) through a quick bit of build rules written in XML — but why do that, when there is a tool like ant? I personally like makefiles and GNU Make; then again I'll put up with virtually any make with $() and documented inference rules... hehe


SCons has been something tha thas been increasingly interesting to me, but unfortunately time constrants mean writing custom makefiles is a more economical use of time then learning a new tool like SCons :-/. Like wise, the main reason I have never adapted the Boost libraries is no time to fiddle with their build tool, which also interests me.

I **really** need a fsckin' vacation!!!

I think, given the choice: I would just sail away, away from the things of man, and let everyone rot... since that's what they love to do the most.

*sigh*

Random thoughts on working with XML

It's no real secret that I love XML but truly hate working with XML parsers in general (^_^).


Xerces-C++ and libxml++ are not to bad but I have never met a parser that I love. The main reason I choice Xerces was the painless'ness of compiling and linking against the library; I really do not want to go through the bother of setting up libxml++ in MSVC. Especially when taking a look at the pkg-config output on my workstation:

FreeBSD$  pkg-config libxml++-2.6 --cflags --libs                      18:07
-I/usr/local/include/libxml++-2.6 -I/usr/local/include/libxml++-2.6/include 
-I/usr/local/include/libxml2 -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/local/include/glibmm-2.4 
-I/usr/local/lib/glibmm-2.4/include -I/usr/local/include/sigc++-2.0 
-I/usr/local/lib/sigc++-2.0/include -I/usr/local/include/glib-2.0 
-I/usr/local/lib/glib-2.0/include  -L/usr/local/lib -lxml++-2.6 -lxml2 -lglibmm-2.4
-lgobject-2.0 -lsigc-2.0 -lglib-2.0  

SAX, DOM, or whatever else, the parser style doesn't really matter to me that much: as long as it gets the job *done*. Although obviously, I am more familiar with DOMs (thank you JavaScript). I tend use XML for storing structured data without having to resort to a binary file/database, or a curmudgeon of files within a zip archive. So operations tend to be very straight forward using a couple of glue functions.


Personally, my idea of fun XML parsing is to take data this as input:

<rootnode>
  <child1 attr="val">string of text</child1>
  <child1>
    <child2>another string of text</child2>
  </child1>
</rootnode>

and to in turn receive a nested data structure like this as output:

# example in Perl
$structure = { 
    node       => 'rootnode',
    attributes => undef,
    data       => [
                      {
                          node => 'child1',
                          attributes => { attr => 'val' },
                          data => 'string of text'
                      },
                      {
                          node => 'child1',
                          attributes => undef,
                          data => [
                              {
                                  node        => 'child2',
                                  attributes  => undef,
                                  data        => 'another string of text'
                              }
                          ]
                      }
                  ]
};

Probably because that is how my brain sees the preceding XML xD.


Not to mention it makes writing something like a pretty printer easy as pi:

# for some reason, writing this subroutine was very relaxing...
sub pp_xml {

    my $xhr     = shift;
    my $depth   = shift;
    my $indent  = sub { "\t" x shift };
    my $node    = $xhr->{node}  or warn "XML node has no data!\n";

    if ($xhr->{attributes}) {
        while (my ($attr, $val) = each %{$xhr->{attributes}}) {
            $node .= " " . $attr . "='" . $val . "'";
        }
    }
    print $indent->($depth), '<', $node, '>', "\n";

    $xhr = $xhr->{data};
    if (ref $xhr eq 'ARRAY') {
        pp_xml($_, $depth+1) foreach @$xhr;
    } else {
        print $indent->($depth+1), $xhr, "\n";
    }
    print $indent->($depth), '</', $node, '>', "\n";
}

pp_xml($structure, 0);

Making it accept a callback ident function as a 3rd argument, is left as an exercise for others who are equally in need of R&R 8=).

Terry@dixie$ perl -Mstrict /tmp/xml.pl -Mwarnings                         21:57
<rootnode>
        <child1 attr='val'>
                string of text
        </child1 attr='val'>
        <child1>
                <child2>
                        another string of text
                </child2>
        </child1>
</rootnode>

I think I've had about 2~3 hours sleep... it was after 06:00Q when I logged off, guess fiddling with Xerces and G++ took longer then I expected; had planned to finish up, grab a bowl of cereal, and hit the hay before 04:30 lol.

No luck what so ever trying to sleep, 7 o'clock passed by like lighting as birds chirped outside, by 10:30Q I was woken up in order to be dragged out on a shopping expedition 8=). Managed to cram my flubbed up toe into an old shoe, and limp most of the way though... oi.


Due to a disagreement over my brothers (2nd) wedding, my mother has effectively decided to blackball the event and excommunicate him from the family — again. As usual, I avoid becoming involved in the conflict: it is none of my business, its his life, and she is not the planner. Unfortunately I still have to listen to the endless whining, I really need to learn how to "tune" people out someday! *sigh*. Courtesy of said arguing, Reese refused to pick up the stuff Ma asked him to get from the grocer, hence this mornings wake up call. A few weeks ago, they 'made up' over issues of ancient history (my family never forgets anything!), and have been on increasingly nice terms until this week: now they are back to pissing each other off. My private thoughts on the matter of them settling old wars, were along the lines, "He must want something", guess I was right. As normal, my family interacts with one another on a mercenary-like basis \o/.


The toe has managed to survive another outing, but now it is band aided with tape keeping the band aid in place: epoxy adhesives are not always useful! At least on the up side.... my life has given me higher then average pain-thresholds both emotionally and physically, for better or worse.

quick note to self

once tpshs implementation of shell script is more mature: transition the windows machine to running a shell script on init, rather then the \Startup\ system used by Windows NT, and compare performance.

I've fallen asleep 3 times, and I've had 3 crazy dreams.

The first, we were baby sitting in a very large house and the "worst storms in 20 years" are in bound. For some utterly stupid reason, we were retreating to the upstairs... when one I feel a tap on my shoulder, I look behind and see another baby levitating behind me! At that point, I was starting to wonder "Oy, not one of these crazy dreams" lol. Some time later when the storms were very bad, I found myself on my knees praying and suddenly the storms stopped. Looking outside, I heard someone below being sentenced by a judge (and losing), and thought of Homer J. Simpson (Having watched The Devil and Daniel Webster a few days ago is perhaps why lol). Later I was doing somethings outside, probably in preparation for leaving; when I heard a voice come to me in the wind, can't remember the exact words but it made me worry for some reason, it also mentioned that I would be meeting something with this silly name, sounded kind of like a twix bar. I remember thinking, voice of GOD or someone else...? Or am I just cracking up! Sure enough, I ran into a stray dog with the exact 3 words of the name on his collar. The last bit, I guess can be owed to having read Job a few days ago, before bed. The rest of the dream was fairly placid.

The second dream was more of a private nature, and somewhat different because I knew it was a dream and could control aspects of it. You could say, I made use of the situation in ways I would never do, having know it was a dream and nothing more.


The third, I had talked about the dream, and my family was shopping at a shopping mall, and me and my brother were arguing vehemently about the dream. I eventually one the argument, having thought of something about his past that would "close" the argument at the cost of hurting him, but passed up the avuneue of counter attack for one that settled for a non-painful stalemate. On the way out, it was discovered the I had left Ma's bag in the store, so I went back and got it. Not surprisingly security had to check me out, they bagged it. Then an officer stopped me, "Yeah, I figured you would have to check it out before they let me take it", he checked it and tossed it for someone to carry off, then went to leave. And I called back for him to wait a minute - S.O.B. even tried to pull the gum out of my mouth lol, when I asked for a receipt or something to go claim it later.

It was about this point when I was woken up.



Really, that is the most dreaming that I've had in a while now :-/

So freaking tired lately....

Been rebuilding / revising a bucket list I created long ago, and also applying some of my machine-like thinking to furthering those ends, along with what I desire in life; but all in all, I just find it a very depressing project. I am used to hammering though problems: suck up information, study the situation, plot a course of action, and conduct it subject to in flight adjustments. That's basically how my brain works, whether it takes five hundred milliseconds or five hundred hours to come to a viable conclusion.

There seems to be no way to dislodge the obstacles in my way, aside from turning my back on my own character... and that is much to high a price to pay. Perhaps further precise analyzation of things will prove other wise, but I am rather doubtful that it will :'(



*sigh*

Why commercial EULAs are stupid.

1. INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS.

a. Installation and Use. You may install and use any number of copies of the software on your devices.

....
4. BACKUP COPY. You may make one backup copy of the software. You may use it only to reinstall the software.


-- from Microsoft DirectX SDK (March 2009) EULA



Maybe it is because I don't deal in legalize daily, but I am still laughing :-D

Old but not dead, yet

Sometime during my SDL-related studies, I was interrupted and ended up in somewhat of a fire-arms quiz: it has really been a lustrum since I've followed developments, but I used to be quite knowledgeable for someone who doesn't spend their time on a shooting range lol.


Actually, I find it kind of curious when I look back over my "focal points" of study. Toys and games got me into the study of weapon and vehicle technology, it was a design/engineering interest in aeronautics and 'mechs that made me realize that math was useful, and it was computers that refined my analytical mind: training it beyond the obsessive-geek analyzation of Sci-Fi and technology, into what it is today. And it also seems, that computers are pulling me back into mathematics slowly bit by bit.


All in all, despite the time-loss: I was quite happy to see that while the study of firearms were largely displaced from my routine interests years ago, I am still not an ignoramus on the subject hehe :-)



^_^

The Simpler Direct-media Library (SDL) has proven more impressive then originally anticipated. I've downloaded the MinGW (GCC) and MSVC (V8.0/2005) development libraries along with the source code: much to my surprise, the Borland and Watcom compilers are also supported. While I'm using GCC for the unix side of things, I fully intend to make use of Microsofts compiler for the windows builds. My desktop system also has the OpenWatcom compilers installed on the Windows partition, never have used them, but they are available (I them installed ages ago, mainly out respect for the old watcom-c compiler). Since I need the DirectX SDK to compile SDL from source on Win32, and it is like a 512 meg download, it'll have to wait a while lol. The binaries available are from MSVC8, so I really woul dprefer compiling SDL from source: not to mention feel more comfortable using the combination for projects, knowing it built well.... hehe.


I've been taking the effort to study the Visual Studio-style build system in preparation, it will get the job done. My desktop has the Express Editions of Visual C++ (V9.0/2008), C#, and Basic installed; along with MinGW and OpenWatcom, but I avoid C/C++ development under Windows as much as possible -- just not a comfortable environment. If I ever opened a shop, I would probably nab a few copies of Visual Studio proper, and just use it for building stuff ^_^.


I'm accustomed to having an entire operating system as my integrated development environment, so I do not care much for traditional IDEs, they are just not my bag. Visual Studio (particularly the more professional oriented versions) however are one of the best as far as such things go; and perhaps the only Microsoft product that I have ever met, and did not *hate* eventually. The various Visual {lang} Express Editions are also sufficient for many things; I have them setup because it was the quick route of getting something that might come in handy later, and I have no need to buy VS Standard or Professional.


GCC for Unix and Visual C++ Express for Windows, will do fine for SDL, but I have yet to decide on an XML parser... The only XML parsing I've ever done in C++, has been done though the Qt toolkit. Normally, I would expect to use libxml++ for this, but using libxml under MSVC might be more annoying them I am willing to tolerate at compile/link time. Another option I reckon, would be to try out Xerces-C++.


All development is basically going to be done on a FreeBSD machine, as that *is* my concept of an IDE lol. The only interest I have in Visual C++, is to get the most 'bang' out of the Win32 builds. So with luck, I will never have to bugger with the S.O.B. beyond getting my project built, hehe.

2 Razor blades, 3 years? Oh my

For the first time in a long time, I've a sort of smile on my face. I think age has somewhat taken away my grin (the spitting image of pa's smile, mixed an even bigger shit eating grin lol), but it feels quite nice...


It's been 3 years since I've had a resupply on razor blades, with two cartridges that have passed their end of life marks a few times over, to say the least! I hope these fresh 4 won't have to last 6 years, but either way I am thankful. Haven't had this smooth a shave in a very, very long long time: not to mention the speed factor lol.



Thank you GOD, at long last fresh razor blades! And thank you ma, it is better late then never!

I really miss having a life.... instead of a todo list, lol

Mother's Day, past Zero hour

Just sorted Ma's ecard, if she doesn't check her email in the morning, well that's her problem lol.

It's always been a bit of a tradition of mine, to prep cards at the last minute: and usually hand made. Except the usual forced family card list for all the major holidays... lol.

In recent years, do to, you could say some rather unpleasant experiences, I have adapted ecards for my family. It has also been somewhat of a recent row, that I never gave her a card last Mother's day, nor wished her a happy one. (Or was it the year before last, honestly I don't keep track of all this shit!) There was a bit of a hateful argument involved, so I bugged out -- the you can vent all you want to the wall, but I ain't listening kind. It was my feeling, that such a sign of 'weakness' would be pounced upon and thrown back in my face, because really, that is the kind of family I've had to grow up in. We forget nothing, we are not capable of it; the question is what capacity is it maintained in...

As things are more docile this year, she gets both a card and a happy Mother's Day... assuming she checks her email lol.


In my experience, members of my branch of the family, generally are better at exhibiting cruelty, hatred, and the like, then any inverse emotion. Such is the hell, called family. One of the things that differentiates me and most of my family, I choose to not be that way... most of the time that is. Because while I do not believe in hurting people more then necessary, I also will "bite" when hurting someone else, prevents them from hurting me even worse....

Only my family, has ever really had the power to wound me, and they are generally good at it, whether or not they intend to; so I always take any positive action on my part, with a grain of salt -- in consideration of it invoking a backfire. That is one sad part of loving family, anyone you love, has infinite power over you: however they utilize it.




I honestly think, someday I will look upon most of my memories, as just another feeling to burn in the fire.

more tpsh: control flow stuff

I've been trying to find a way of hooking in proper shell control flow keywords into tpsh, without uglifing the existing code. At the moment, tpsh understands executing singular command sequences, scripts, and a queue of command sequences. It's fairly easy to modify the parsing/lexing portions to adjust the internal data structures IAW control flow keywords, the problem is how to handle execution phase.

Originally, I had in mind setting up nested data structures and doing a delayed execution: evaluate the control flow statement and modify the data, then execute the remaining commands (e.g. if CMD0; then CMD1; else CMD2; fi, would execute CMD when the statement needs to be evaluated at execution phase, then reshape the strucure so that only CMD1 or CMD2 remains, and then feed that back into the executor).

Last night, I had an interesting idea... on the case specific code generation.

Shell control flow basically amounts to very simple if, while, for, and case statements; and the more modern until and select statements. Normal execution patterns amount to using a single command sequence (e.g. cat f0 f1 f2 f3 | sort > f), or a queue of such command sequences. Why not replace that executor with a section of code, that understands how to handle those as well as control flow (etc), and then generate the desired code to execute the result.


Exempli gratia:

tpsh_cgen( ( [ 'if', 'test command' ],
             [ 'then', 'other commands' ],
             ....
             [ 'else', 'other other commands' ],
             ....
             [ 'fi' ] )
)

might return something like:

sub { 
    if (evaluate the 'test command' and test the exit status)
    {
        execute the 'other commands'
    }
    else {
        execute the 'other other commands'
    }
}

and so on and so forth; so that if we call the generated code ref, we have a set of code that will execute the correct commands, whatever they may be, and with quite a lot less fuss.

One way to tell I'm miserable, is when I stop coding...

I've effectively, not written a line of code since the third week of April or so... feeling a bit better now though, and the ideas have been cooking for the last 3 days... hehehehe :-D

Something I would do just for fun ;)

Build a modernized Galaga like game, that is simple, fun, highly addictive, and could be played for countless hours until you forget what day of the week it is -- without needing quarters xD. Most definitely one made for a fast pace and long-haul style of play, like old arcade games, hehe.


It would also be a fun way to learn a few libraries ^_^.

What I would do if I had 20 years to squander on a software project

Building a better Video game.


or, a game that is a lot of fun, but doesn't eventually piss me the heck off, due to lots of stupid bugs, that will probably still appear in the sequels sequel ^_^.


Of course, 3-5 clones would be helpful, along with 20 years of spare time lool.

My poor meatball

Todays lunch is leftover meatballs, potatos, and a smothering of gravy, as the old timers call it.


One of the meatballs went flying, if the laws of physics were different, it would've rolled out the door with the dog in hot pursuit looool.

Sometimes I hate dreams

I dreamt that we were hold up in a house, there was about 4 XL-sized automatics on a table with a bushel of magazines, and a head on the wall...

Like anyone stuck in an RE like nightmare, take two, load up, and try and secure a parameter; bad idea. After a bit of a zombie filled encounter, it's down to the last room... Stick my head in, looks clear; but 4 corner hole problem: move in and risk getting ambushed from 1-3 sides. Handed my brother one of the autos and told him to cover the remaining sectors. Spider sense tingling, but area secured without ambush... good. On the way back to the front of the building, we were ambushed by a strange 'fusion' of a Model 101, T-1001, and a Vampire like Zombie; put the thing down with a few mags of ammo. Then a 2nd one showed up, having expanded everything on the first, it was necessary to retreat and take the other set of automatics; ejecting the mags, dropping them on the table, "Slap in a fresh mag, and pull the slide back", taking the other automatics and moving to head off the mutated terminator.... several retreats for reload and shouting "LOAD", and no help what so ever lol.


Somehow this reminds me of a strange dream some years ago, about Aliens taking over a school; and ending up in a knife fight with an Alien Queen trying to break down the door; no help from anyone lol.


Somehow I wonder, if ever up a creek without a paddle, would anyone lift a darn finger to help?

bored...

src: http://www.heuse.com/cphumor.htm


Interviewer: "Is studying computer science the best way to prepare to be a programmer?"

Bill Gates: "No, the best way to prepare is to write programs, and to study great
programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to
the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished
out listings of their operating system."


There are 10 types of people in this world.
Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

DEBUGGING : Removing the needles from the haystack.

Endless Loop: n., see Loop, Endless.
Loop, Endless: n., see Endless Loop.
- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary

"It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure
to BASIC; as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."
-Dijkstra

"The three most dangerous things in the world are a programmer with a
soldering iron, a hardware type with a program patch and a user with an idea."
- _The Wizardry Compiled_ by Rick Cook

"The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; instead of
referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable PI can be given
that value with a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant.
This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change."
- FORTRAN manual for Xerox computers

"C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it
harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg."
- Bjarne Stroustrup

"Programming graphics in X is like finding sqrt(pi) using Roman numerals."
- Henry Spencer

"Never put off until run time what you can do at compile time."
- David Gries, in "Compiler Construction for Digital Computers", circa 1969.

BASIC programmers never die, they GOSUB and don't RETURN.

Real programmers are surprised when the odometers in their cars don't turn from 99,999 to 99,99A.

FORTRAN is not a language. It's a way of turning a multi-million
dollar mainframe into a $50 programmable scientific calculator.

C is almost a real language. Even the name sounds like it's gone through
an optimizing compiler. Get rid of all of those stupid brackets and we'll talk.

Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.

Programming is 10% science, 25% ingenuity and 65% getting the ingenuity to work with the science.

Science is to computer science as hydrodynamics is to plumbing.

We don't really understand it, so we'll give it to the programmers.

COBOL programmers understand why women hate periods.

Computer interfaces and user interfaces are as different as night and 1.

The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten 10% of its
capacity, the rest is overhead for the operating system.

A computer scientist is someone who fixes things that aren't broken.

The computer is mightier than the pen, the sword, and usually the programmer.

Programming is an art form that fights back.

After a number of decimal places, who cares?

"Virtual" means never knowing where your next byte is coming from.

If at first you don't succeed, you must be a programmer.

"It's 5:50 a.m., Do you know where your stack pointer is?"

If God had intended humans to program, we would be born with serial I/O ports.

There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.

You never finish a program, you just stop working on it.

Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow.

PL/1, "the fatal disease", belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of APL, I shall fear
no evil, for I can string six primitive monadic and dyadic operators together.

Programming is a lot like sex. One mistake and you could have to support it the rest of your life.

Another Glitch in the Call
(Sung to the tune of a Pink Floyd song)
-
We don't need no indirection
We don't need no flow control
No data typing or declarations
Did you leave the lists alone?
-
Hey! Hacker! Leave those lists alone!
-
Chorus:
All in all, it was, just a pure-LISP function call.
All in all, it was, just a pure-LISP function call.

You can't make a program without broken egos.

What I really need is aerobic exercise, and a way to [re]build [lost] endurance but that is kind of a major problem lol. If I actually had something to work with in terms of raw materials, I could at least build a primitive exercise bike or a treadmill, or something... I used to love running.


As good as no space, virtually no money (that reminds me, family hasn't paid back most of my life savings yet!!!!), and essentially no freedom to go anywhere, or do anything outside the rats nest of a home, without 'business' to attend too. So, basically I am totally screwed anyway you slice it. Light strength training is about the only option, and even doing that here is like pulling teeth. I have enough physical strength to do most things I've ever had to do; only failure I ever had was trying to move a UPS, that likely weighed more then I did at the time lol.


It feels like living in a freaking prison, but one with decent food... and not much else.

Rats and Bats

my room: ~112 square feet on a wall to wall basis, but effectively 100 square feet due to the design cutting down on the *habitable* volume of the room

my free space: 4 square feet of open carpet


I.e. my room is basically a square, but when you take in to account what passes as furniture and all of the crap I'm stuck living with; that gives me a 4 1/2 by 6 1/2 foot area, whenever I am not sitting on the bed.


Last night I was watching a movie called Carbine Williams, about the genius; after looking at the scenes of the "hole" he was thrown in, really made me glad that I at least get to stretch my legs. Unfortunately, my life at home is just as good as dead, for all practical intentions...

oy.

Writer's Block: How'd You Get Here?

There are many roads to LiveJournal—how did you first hear about LJ?

Live Journals Writer's Block

Although I am sure the page has changed a lot since August/September 2006, my first knowledge of Live Journal likely came through Wikipedia's "Blog" page. I spent at least a month or so researching blogging, in order to see how it might be useful for replacing my hodge-podge of log files and scripts. Wikipedia and a bit of Googling The Fine Web allowed researching various blogging sites.

I rarely stick my neck out into something without first doing reconnaissance in depth. I guess when it comes to things I perceive as a big deal: I have inherited more of my parents collective meticulousness then dads spontaneity.


After completing recon and general thinkin' and plannin' operations, Live Journal appeared to be the most favorable site at the time; never have regretted the choice either. Much to my joy, Live Journal has managed to kill off the incalculable log files on various hard drives.


Memory: Day one, followed by the inevitable first task ten minutes later. Him, that was around the time I was struggling to apply C in my after-hours time. Wasn't very smart at the time, just persistent lol.

Feeling old, angry, and depressed

dang gum it.... charting ones television viewing history just has to lead to those, "Oh **** was that really that far back?" moments, doesn't it? I really am starting to remember just how old I am, and how much I've been through over the years.

I stopped charting when I hit '97, oy. I more or less 'gave up' on TV around 2003 or so: got to tired of never getting to watch anything worth watching without so many countless interruptions, that it became more stressful then 'relaxing' to just watch TV.


Funny, in all the years that I was a couch potato (cica 1992-2003), I was always in good shape -- ran everywhere like a bat out of hell; didn't want to miss a thing. Since giving up on that life, I stopped running, and ended up working more -- end result is that I lost all of my running endurance. I used to be able to run long, hard, and fast for as long as my body physically could stand it. Haha, I still remember a foot race from many years ago, everyone thought I didn't stand a chance because I was the short kid in the group but I was on the long legged pack-leaders ass all the way; while everyone else was choking on our dust so to speak ^_^. (That, and [ab]using a rudimentary knowledge of physics to optimize my route for acceleration rate, hehehehe).

I also spent a lot of my time every day practicing: kept myself nimble and thinkin' on my toes. That also disappeared soon after because I was working "all the time", it really started to get hellish. If you could imagine working to be burning fuel, life moved past afterburning, and becoming equally a burned out, shit for brains dead on arrival as the entails: or as I usually state it more politely, "I have known everything from working 1 day a week, to working multiple shifts, with only 3 days off in a month". Actually having exercise, and being able to *enjoy it* got replaced with be hammered into the mud and made miserable every day of my existence.


I used to be a couch potato, first class with honours; in recent years TV has just been so much background noise rather then an interest. More recently, I get a few hours of pleasurable programming every couple months or so but still not a lot of real TV watching, no where near what it used to be.



By looking back over the programming I used to watch, and framing it in perspective with their times in history: it also helps me recall what life was like 'back then', in more a progressive way. So.... what has really changed that differentiates life between then and now? Less interest in TV in general, less freedom to go/do as I please, less going out *period* (****!), less of family infighting making trouble, less of 'ducking' the waring factions schemes^, less time for... hmm, let's just say I got retired early from some things.


WTF man, I think I actually had a better life as a couch potato: at least back then, I actually got to go out, and leave this hell hole, outside of working hours......



Life right now, makes me feel like living in prison: only without the guards and even fewer good points. I'm still miserable most days of my life, but hey.... at least as an up side, fairly often I get 2-3 days off a week.

most of which get spent trapped here, or being monopolized by self-serving family. I also fin dit somewhat depressing, when it becomes realtivly easy to equate peoples actions tot he scope of getting what they want; FML

Teasing the dog?

Willow was trying to push me off the bed, and ended up basically sitting on my stomach and table, with her paws at the laptop, so I said...


"Are you going to write code for the computer Willow? Can I train you to program?"

She looked at me as if to say: what the F are you talking about, I'm just here for the attention xD xD xD

Honestly, in terms of expressing complex information: if mathematics was compared to programming languages, I can't help but wonder: would it be the most expressive or just the most (lovingly) terse language?

What I have leanred today

Some programs really have no bloody idea what the hell they are doing when it comes to paths.

Applying the oft' used idea that once a disk is mounted, you can NOT unmount it without explicitly saying so, would actually be a nice option in Windows.

That The "Internet Options" in control centre (I got bored, so I took a look in CP lol), actually has *nothing* to do with the Internet what so ever, unless you believe that the entire Internet is Microsoft Internet Explorer ^_^.



Really, I don't know what annoys me more, how often Microsoft's attempts to "Integrate" shit seems to demonstrate pure stupidity, or just all the comedic prerequisite for a god complex!


Some times, I really wonder who thinks of all this crap: and what they were smoking at the time.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8027664.stm

Any monster, who would dare inflict such pain and sufferung upon the innocent: deserves nothing better then a bullet in the head.


It's one thing to fight against a foreign army or a local regime, I can even understand cross fire and confusion, but deliberatly choosing to harm civilians is beyond my definition. Honestly, I don't think even the word terrorist is strong enough to describe some of the things that have been done to civilians and service men over there. Our own hands are certainly not clean, the fighting has gone on much to long; the difference? We didn't go to Iraq to butcher the people, we went because of the butchers.

Not so long ago, someone I know was a part of a convoy that was attacked, one of the vehicles ahead got hit, but he came though in one piece; that is the nature of war. When the enemy choses to detonate bombs in markets or murder anyone who will stand on their own accord -- that is no longer war.



This very much reminds me, of a story I once heard about the second world war. I heard, that Generals Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley toured the camp at Ohrdruf... to sights that made even the tough as nails Patton ill. And I've heard, that American G.I.s were told to see the camp, because if they didn't know what we were fighting for - they would soon see what we were fighting to prevent.


When things started gearing up for another conflict in the gulf, I was fairly skeptical at first; why should we finish the last decades affair, when there is so much else that needs doing? It is however my nature, if our troops are deployed, that is what you support, because they will be the ones in the thick of it all. Personally, I think if some of those who have opposed the war over the years, could walk and see the people in the hospitals, and see some of the horrors our men and the people there have been made to endure -- they wouldn't bitch, they would start fighting.

The 'new' organizational pattern

Much like LiveJournal replaced my multitude of log files (and occasional scripts) back in 2006, I have been trying to refit my entire organizational pattern; which is much overdue for an overhaul anyway.


Originally I kept 3 systems of logging: general system log, specific task logs, and my personal logs. With the exception of parts of ~/Documents/Personal/Emotions; most have been migrated to my Live Journal, along with occasional post-it notes. I've generally come to like keeping a journal of things, and LJ offers a suitable access control system. The only downside, is the times when I wish to update my journal, but by the time I have enough time available to, to much other crap to get done lol. Friends have attempted to get me on things like myspace, twitter, and facebook for years; and all have largely failed, simply put if it is something I really don't want to do, you would have to hold a gun to my head and pull the trigger :-P. Live Journal was actually my decision, and as I became interested in this "blogging" stuff: as a way to replace my personal logs, and to be able to share notes/logs of my computer explorations easily. I did like anything else I leap into -- deep recon and methodical study, then committing to the desired action. For someone like me, who has largely had parts of their personally sent to the bit bucket, I find LJ often relaxing - as opposed to the repression I often feel at home. My journal is largely public, for anyone who knows me well enough to find the link (thus excluding most of my family, oddly lol). And quite frankly, I write whats in me, and don't worry to much; anything I don't want people to read, gets the access level toggled to a suitable level of privacy (I also maintain more then a suitable level of confidentiality on [SAS] matters).



I've had E-Mail since the middle of the 1990s, and it has kind of exploded since the mid 2000s. Running a local MUA became a bit of a drag once I got to using multiple computers; after Outlook Express gave way to Thunderbird, likewise Firefox and Thunderbird gave way to the Seamonkey suites navigator and mail & newsgroups programs, with a USB stick to share the data. After the USB stick broke, I setup Vectra to fetch my mail periodically, and setup to use mutt as my MUA over SSH; the only problem was a certain viking always sending me HTML and most friends prone to e-mailing images along too. So that idea went under after a month or so, and I went on the hunt for suitable webmail as an interm solution. The end result was my account with the ISP became the spambox, and Ippimail my primary. My clan address also took over 'affairs of team business' so to speak. Eventually I migrated most things to Googles 'gmail' facility, due to issues with Ippimails mail system and my [SAS] stuffs. So gmail became my lead, and my Ippimail basically replaced my bellsouth address as the sign up for stuff address; as I have refused the order of creating myself an e-mail account with our new ISP. I however am very, very, very sorry to see such a good project like Ippimail forced to shut its doors :-(. Although my mail is still backed up to beat the bands, gmail has become an integer part of my way of getting things done.


Thanks to getting the GFire plugin setup on FreeBSD, I now have total access to my commu capabilities across systems. Personally, I like PSI: a very simple and to the point XMPP client. Unfortunately something like Kopete or Pidgin is more applicable to the problem, and Pidgin does what I need with less fuss. Weechat takes care of all my IRC needs, since I would rather pull teeth then us Pidgin for that lol. Really, my favorite ways to stay in contact with people is via XMPP or AIM, but I use whatever friends prefer to work with, as long as I don't need to run an extra client ;-). To put it mildly, almost no one can call me... both because I'm more or less a recluse from phones (for my own reasons), and my mother is suitably hounded by her creditors, that its amazing whenever someone does get a valid call in lol. So needless to say, anyone who wants to talk to me, generally has to get me via IM -- hell, my life here is very 'mute' as it is, because I've all to often been limited to expressing myself though my hands, rather then being permitted to do so through my voice.


Todo lists have often been scattered about, for a long time digital sticky-notes were a major part of the system; used to keep a virtual desktop cluttered with them. I've always had a set of notes lingering around for one reason or another, most of which end up on my LJ. Attempting to organize things neatly in ~/stuff and work it through via a priority driven queue proved, ineffective in the long run... So bye bye list of open loops; hello scattered notes files *again*. Recently, I've taken to using an Calendaring webapp to manage my time. I have experienced with numerous Personal Information Manager (PIM) packages over the years, and was always let down in the wider scope of things. This app on the other hand, despite its fairly basic nature, I have actually found it quote nice: all of the ease of sticky notes, without having to sync data between computers. It is not my idea of an effective task management system, no more then I actually like working with a paper calendar; but hey, it's starting to work for me quite well.


Text editing is done via Vi IMproved almost 99.9% of the time, I invested a fair deal of time in learning to use the editor, and have grown in it immensely since day 1. If the computer doesn't run VIM or at least a decent vi, I hate editing text on it! To me, people who edit text like notepad offers, are hopelessly stupid, or don't know what it is like to have to edit LOTS of text - vim rewards my learning it, with allowing me to be more effective in my text editing, which yields more time to do *other* things. As much as I hate Mozilla, the vimperator extension provides a handy way to integrate text-areas with vim; and I have not been unknown to use gvim to compose big messages before copy/pasting into chrome either. Needless to say, vi style editing is here to stay for as long as the world wide web ;-). Much of my client side software is also fairly standardized, to the point that I can automate the installation of most things, alongside having the checklist!


Most of the news I hear, comes from friends or family; I love taking a look at RSS feeds, but hate fiddling with RSS readers. I've considered making a nail style rss reader in perl, but have never really found the time (I'm also not fond of working with XML parsers). In the past, I used to use a simple unix program called snownews. Tonight, I finally set up Google Reader; since a web based solution solves the file sync problem. Because its a google thing, it will also obviously work well with chrome/chromium, hence the choice lol.


I think at the moment, what I am missing most is a newsgroups client; most people tell me to use Google Groups, and it appears to be decent enough, but simply put - for what I desire, a more 'traditional' interface to USENET is helpful. If and hopefully when GG gains all of the abilities of an active NNTP server, I might actually make use of it, but in the mean time a usenet server fits the bill. The main problem is, lack of a news reader, and no real desire to sync data across computers; nor have to rely on my server to avoid the interoperability problems of sharing data across clients. The only news client that I have ever cared for, is knode; although I have no problem with using a console based app either. In the end, it all boils down to an issue of data storage...


Since the general death of ma.gnolia, my bookmarks have more or less become a short batch of stuff I use 'often', most of which are either in chromes MOU-like page or have keywords in Fx. I actually like it that way, but do miss the tags for things I can't remember how to locate off hand.


so far, things are going pretty good at re-taking my overloaded hit lists of things to do, etc. Nothing really helps with the depression aspects of it, anymore then anything helps with the can't be in more then one place at one time, doing two hundred things at once problem.




In a large way, my ways of doing things have been becoming internet focused; kind of odd really, in a strange way that maybe only I can understand.

I've found myself doing a lot of working lately, more long stretches then I've had to pull for a while, and also quite a lot of thinking... thinking until my brain is sick of it's own trains. One of the horrible things about my line of work, it does not occupy my brain in the least, so not only do I oft' get my best ideas there, I also get to mull over all the crap too.

Now I find myself, in the probability of having a nice stretch of time off work... maybe 5 days worth in a row. Normally I would consider that productive, but honestly, I'm just not in the mood to do anything about most of my enqueued projects; to damn tired to focus on them.

I'm tired of living in this misery, and very much sick of life here

Tonight brought new meaning to "Now I've seen it all"

Since I'm off for a few days, I figured why not have a little fun; so I joined the new Proving Ground EU for a couple.

Oh boy, did that give knew meaning to the expression, "Now I've seen everything". I was clearing the first building on parade line up, when all of a sudden I hear a tango behind me.... spin 'round and hose'em. The funny thing? It looked as if he had jumped on my helmet and fell off, lol. The real jaw dropper on the other hand...

Last man standin' and almost finished with the map, one of those moments where it pays to bet on the human.... I was moving up to the roof via the 'bad door', warpy old bastared zipping between pistol shots, looks clear over the left ledge; so I tossed a bang far and RAN for the nearest cover, slid around and popped the terrorist leader... continued on and died with a crazy look


There was a terrorist inverted, laying on the /\ shaped window frames and 'dancing' as if he was a spiderman crawling on the wall.... even worse, he was shooting downwards into the glass, when he took off my head lol.



I wish JB had a screen shot of that tango, it was a !@%!%!^%^)U^!)U(^)! shocking moment, but of course, I didn't say that in server ^_^