Gah, how the flub early am I waking up, if it's not even 1400 local yet :-S. It feels more like 1700-1800 than just moving itno the afternoon...

Til The Last Shots Fired

I was there in the winter of '64
When we camped in the ice
at Nashville's doors
Three hundred miles our trail had led
We barely had time to bury our dead
When the Yankees charged and the colors fell
Overton hill was a living hell
When we called retreat it was almost dark
I died with a grapeshot in my heart

Say a prayer for peace
For every fallen son
Set my spirit free
Let me lay down my gun
Sweet mother Mary I'm so tired
But I can't come home 'til
the last shot's fired

In June of 1944
I waited in the blood of Omaha's shores
Twenty-one and scared to death
My heart poundin' in my chest
I almost made the first seawall
When my friends turned and saw me fall
I still smell the smoke, I can taste the mud
As I lay there dying from a loss of blood

Say a prayer for peace
For every fallen son
Set my spirit free
Let me lay down my gun
Sweet mother Mary I'm so tired
But I can't come home 'til
the last shot's fired

I'm in the fields of Vietnam,
The mountains of Afghanistan
And I'm still hopin', waitin', prayin'
I did not die in vain

Say a prayer for peace
For every fallen son
Set our spirits free
Let us lay down our guns
Sweet mother Mary we're so tired
But we can't come home 'til
the last shot's fired
'Til the last shot's fired

[Choir:]
Say a prayer for peace (for peace)
For our daughters and our sons
Set our spirits free (set us free)
Let us lay down our guns

[Trace:]
Sweet mother Mary, we're so tired
But we can't come home (No
we can't come home)

[Choir:]
'Til the last shot's fired

—Trace Adkins

Gotta love getting out of bed after waking up for the second time, and feeling ready to slam your head into a wall because you're ride awake; only to notice the clock across the room reads 0139 :-(.

Why C++ is a failure

In reading through Scott Meyers book,  Effective C++, his expression that it should actually be viewed as a federation of languages, is actually a great way to look at it. He describes it in terms of C++ the C, Object-Oriented, Template, and STL groups (I would've skipped the STL) is fairly accurate.

The true gem however, I think is Item 19: Treat class design as type design. This IMHO, is more true in languages like C++, Java, and C#, than what some folks are accustomed to. You're playing with the type system, so act like it.

He points out 12 issues involved with developing a new type or 'class', I'll summarize them briefly:

1. How should objects of your new type be created & destroyed?
2. How should initialization differ from assignment?
3. How should passing-by-value work with your type?
4. What restrictions are their on legal values for your new type?
5. How does inheritance effect your new type?
6. What kind of type conversions should be allowed?
7. What operators and functions make sense on it?
8. What standard functions should be disallowed?
9. Who should have access to its members?
10. What kind of guarantees does it make?
11. How general is it?
12. Is a new type really what you need?

If anything, I would say rip out those pages of the book, and make it a required `check list`  of ground new programmers must cover before they are allowed to add a new type to the code base. The book gives excellent explanation of each point, so I won't offer much deep exposition here on them: I've just tried to condense them. (Buy or borrow the book lol.)

If you're going to be creating a new type; which you are effectively doing when creating a new class in C++, then these issues all apply to you. I would argue, that most of this applies to any language with user defined types and operator overloading; which is also most main stream language supporting OOP.

Points 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and to an extent 8, all make sense in the domain of creating a new 'type'. Personally, I tend to skip much of it unless for example, overloading certain operators offers serious savings on expressiveness, or the default copy constructor / assignment operators are insufficient. These points that the book outlines, really are the source of most complexity in developing C++ classes, perhaps because like C-strings and good ol' malloc(), it exposes a lower level picture of things to the programmer. Everyone can program in C, but not everyone should.


Points 1, 5, and 9, are more unique to designing a class than the others are, at first glance. Simply put you can't create a class without taking 1 and 5 into consideration, it's just required. Although admittedly you can skimp a little on 5 in some cases but probably shouldn't. If you know jack about OOP, let along designing software, you know the answer to 9 is the minimalist level of access required. I actually enjoy that Scott Meyers work demonstrates, that OOP goes a lot further than the class keyword! Abstraction, encapsulation, and modularity are an integral part of doing quality work, and object oriented programming is but a useful paradigm for modeling that, especially when polymorphic inheritance is applicable. Point 5 becomes a bit easier to live with as time goes on, although I still suggest favouring object composition over inheritance when a class hierarchy isn't the most appropriate thing for solving the problem at hand (and minimizing the ruddy singletons).

Points 10, 11, and 12 are true of most elements of composition within a program: from even for functions. Those kind issues get easier with experience, assuming you learned a slugs worth about software design in the first place. Some people never learn it, period.



Why based on those oh so true points, would I conclude that C++ is a failure? Because the "Average" slep is just not competent enough to deal with most of it as often as necessary. Heck, I still encounter code bases where the programmer can't tell the fucking difference between signed and unsigned integers when designing their interface. There are some truly brilliant programmers out there, and many of them do use C++ quite heavily, but in the wider majority, as with most majorities: you'll find more Homer J. Simpson's than Sir Isaac Newtons in the crowd. This goes for just about every thing on earth :'(. We could use some more clones of Newton and a few less Apple and Fig Newtons walking around. So long as the average is sufficiently uneducated, and still allowed to (ab)use the language, I think it's a failure; but hey, who ever said C++ was designed with the incompetent people in mind ;).


It is simply to much for the average Tom, Dick, and Harry to be able to consider it. Not that those proverbial average three bozos should be screwing with a complex system... half as often as they are found to be. Maybe I'm more inclined to make such statements, as I still know average adults who can't understand a + b = b + a; yet, and I have met a whole lotta stupid people: without even counting programmers.


disclaimer: I drew this conclusion ages ago after reading EC++s item 19, that "C++ is a failure", and was in a more stable state of mind at the time then the one used to finally type this out.

Fighting fur with furr

The Yorkshire Brigade is now officially barred from my room, and a large amount of cleaning almost completed—I may end up sleeping in my chair. I love all animals in general, and I get along very well with dogs, but do enough damage, and I'm erecting barricades >_>.

Willow and Coco at least, have the decency not to do tooo much damage. The worst they've ever done, has been destroying bed covers and ripping up carpets, that's pretty mild lol. Hahah, just as I was typing nice of her, Willow had to go claim my uncased pillow as her own, and didn't like having to yield it back 8=). Courtesy of the yorkies, everything is in the washing machine! I've set spare (crappy) monitor and a damaged one as an interim barricade. Willow can jump over, or babishly wait to be picked up, lol.

For some reason, my experiences with toys breeds tend to have been with dogs that are dumb as bricks. I actually proscribe Willows level of intellect, to whatever breed(s) she's mixed with lol. If anything, the only small breeds that I've seen that are smart, have been types of Terrier, like the Rat :-/.

Two yorkies and one obsessive-annoyance of a mother, have mostly deverstated the place \o/. I probably should've held off on cleaning for another month.. lol. Between the lot of them, it's difficult to go more than 15-20min without interupts, that's still life as usual; only double up on being cussed at. The only good thing is my driving hours are now in the 21.25-21.5 block, even if I've been totally shafted on getting any night driving. HRP can't stand the dark, so much for growing up after passing sixty.

I hate days that are largely the passing of time...

Is it just these dogs blood line, or are Yorksire Terriers IQs south of a bedroom slipper?

Buttons smashed

Her Royal Pain is good at smashing buttons. It is always assumed, irregardless of time of ay, that I am I awake, and doing sufficiently nothing, and usually that I can never have something to be doing, other than what she wants. She can move her fat arse across the hallway, walk into my room, and demand something. She can't make a left instead of a right, and carry back from the kitchen whatever she wanted. She  is someone who finds sitting to exhausting to even be helpful.

If I don't agree with being used, I either get pushed or I get guilted and pushed or I get threatened and pushed. She doesn't really give a shit, as long as she gets what she wants. No amount of manipulation or coercion is generally beyond application, if she wants it enough.

I do not think that way: I refuse to.


and I am stubborn enough to refuse to cooperate, based on principal.


So for my trouble, I get made miserable with stress levels going past the point of  a cartoon vein buldging out ones forehead. Is it any wonder that I hate my life?.

A humourous 100th

After throwing the covers off my head and looking over my laptops LCD, I noticed the sun was finally up. So i moved my laptop over to the table I've put up next to my desk... thinking I'll just put my bottle of water on the desk next to me.

Then I had to stop and think for a moment, seeing my Raven Shield disk sitting in that spot: do I really want to use this CD-ROM as a coaster?

Everythng short of beating my head into a wall.... and I'm still awake, and I was dreamng about code again :'(.

One of the best programming quotes EVER

"If the data structure can’t be explained on a beer coaster, it’s too complex." -- Felix von Leitner, Code Blau GmbH, in a paper on Source Code Optimization.

I knew there was a reason I liked algorithms and data structures that can be explained, in screen space, roughly the size of a beer coaster lol.

Managed to get out for a bit, on 'errands', but also visit the library. After helping ma find what she wanted to look up, I got to sit down and read in peace for a couple hours.

I was reading Prioritizing Web Usability, and went through sth like 250-300 pages in one sitting. Very good book and well typeset. Of course the way my mind is, I was reading it like web pages, I read very quickly, usually. Web pages I can parse twice as fast if it's not to dense (the book wasn't). The huge difference? Sitting in the library, at peace without being driven nuts, and having my mind sufficiently occupied, I was able to focus in and relax. The other night while reading on the couch, I had to read sentences like three or for times, to compensate for the squawking at and throbbing head \o/. Hey, I can multitask something fierce, I even can swim in regular development stress with a smile, but I'm at my best with peace and quite. The kind you can't get at home...

Maybe it is a weird thing but sitting and reading at a library, is my idea of relaxation lol. The downside of course is coming home again, but I guess, nothing is perfect..

Fell asleep in the middle of a conversation that just started: dreamt that I was an agent stowed away in an insane asylum in deep space,  and was setting off a nerve gas to distract local NBC troops guarding it. Woke up and checked the time stamps on the chat log and less than 12 minutes passed :-S.

Upside of having little to do in the morning: sometimes I doze off.
Downside: I naturally wake back up in a few minutes.

One thing I've noticed is I seem to be writing shorter sentences a bit more. Odd, my writing patterns usually follow my minds structures, in so far as you can put them into English. I've also noticed trying to concentrate, leading to a nice feeling along the lines of having ones head squeezed :-/.

It's also past 0900 UTC / 0500 local, and I've run out of things to keep me busy...

Resistence is futile: I can't sleep

Oh how I tried -/. Either I would dream of coding this super RoR app, something that's been on my mind of late; but I've evaded because I've not the focus left, to spend that much time in deep concentration. My mouth is watering just thinking about dreaming about coding. It's very rare that I have ever dreamt of coding, usually it comes when I code excessively or can't code for a stretch. This time of life is more a stretch.

Before I woke up to wide awake, I was dreaming that I was walking cover for my friend, who was on point. Like a SWAT team going through an office, the real thing: not a game.  Reminds me of just how much [SAS] waters down the art form, to an almost child like level; at least, that's the level I had to play at to keep within an acceptable margin of those infernal training standards. It was an exhilarating dream. We moved through as the tip of about a 4-6 man clearing team, I had an M4 and a M1911, decked out, M4 even had one of those illumenator/pointer thingys mounted that you would use with NVGs. I can't remember the name of it right now. Reminds me, supposed to get together for some RvS at some point, wonder if he's learned to shoot yet. It's easier to practice IRL, but I reckon a game is useful. I know more than average, because I take it from a realistic perspective, real buildings make better simulations to analyze then video games do.

Now I'm wide awake, tried going back to sleep for a bit, really tried.. but can't just hit my head into the wall. Probably a good idea, but I've to little brains left right now, to be able to afford to rattle them thusly. Sigh, I just have to dream of the things I can't have. At least this time for a big change, I didn't wake up sweated to the bone.

*Groan*

Trying to kill a headache...

Ahh, that is feeling better. I pushed the laptop off, and set it on the deck; so I could stretch out. I went by groupings of muscle and bone, shoulder/humerous, wrist/radius/ulna, joints near the hip, twistesquer angles from the knees, and especially around the talus or w/e it is near the ankle. That area around my ankles have always been a spot, especially the right one; I often stretch and "Crack" it at night when I'm really tired. Tensing, easing, tensing, easing; stretching and flexing; rubbing and massaging. Especially down the neck, like in between the shoulder blades, and to the edges.

I tried to combine what I could remember of PMR and T'ai Chi Ch'uan breathing principals, along with a little bit of lessons learned about military exercise. Including an old something that I took to doing many years ago for back/leg pain. Used to spend something like 3-4 hour shopping days being dragged across Wallmart, and the stop/go, stop/go movement of it used to leave me feeling like being run over and dragged. I guess you can blame my mothers shopping for why I pace so much when standing idle lol: I'd rather have aching feet than get my back going. It's a simple thing involving laying out on the bed, legs up to the wall and meshed with a stretching exercise, that has them coming forward again. As a friend just inadvertently reminded me, it resembles a pair of yoga techniques.

After a good twenty or so minutes of that kind of exercise, *a lot* of it, plus a bit of application to some facial pressure points, my headache started to subside for a bit. I rarely take anything unless my head is really throbbing away or something. With how my stomachs been taking the over-stress, I don't think I would be helping things with that kinda dose. So I guess old fashioned methods are all I've got to choose from :-/.


Now if I could find a way to reroute my stress back to /dev/null, maybe I could have more days without a headache... who am I kidding? *Sigh*

Ever have your forehead throbbing, and try rubbing it while rotating your head about your necks axis, while trying to relax those muscles? Well, it does help like you might think, but I suggest closing your eyes for most of the loop. Using two hands doesn't.

I find it positively unhinging, I can't stand being idle. My minds bounding like a rubber ball, only there's so much to bounce between. Not counting this weekends extra work, it's still a factor of ~14 weeks until I've the hours needed to apply for the license exam: 12 weeks if I'm lucky. 12/4 suggests that's roughly 3 months.. I'm going out of my skull. The only practical way to move forward, is dependent upon WORK, ya know, that little four lettered word that describes what most people do all day? Work that pays. Resorting to *foot travel*, has seen my stress levels being pushed up an order of magnitude. It's like take the most adaunt pain in the pass you've ever had to listen to, them multiple it by the number of hours of sharing the same roof... family, what is it good for? At least *normal* people, you can refile under /dev/null. There's only one simple fact: no license == contingency plans. The only solution past that, is DEFCON 0. I've spent at least two and a half years on the research issues alone, let along how much thought I've put into things, on how to move forward without being made worse of a slave here. I can't sit here much longer.

I've busted my back for years, and I have to be held back thus? Is it to much to expect someone, to get off their fucking ass every now and again? If I was in water, I would be drowning; while family smokes a cigarette and drinks a coke in delight. FML. I'm not a mercenary, I don't expect very much out of anyone, but for once in my life, it would be nice to have a little cotton picking help‽ I hardly ask for anything... not even a fucking sliver of food. What do I get? I'm going out of my freaking mind. I think I'm starting to remember what the word love looks like. Both in the sense that's how far you have to be willing to go, to actually love someone, and in the sense, that you can rest assured... your flesh and blood will eventually place you there.


How much time, can you spend trying to solve a problem, while being kept form even lifting a fucking finger towards it... and still hang on to your sanity?

I can honestly say... both eating real food, and eating junk food, nether helps the knots in my stomach :-(.

Between the headaches, the knots, and everything else, why doesn't someone just shoot me and be done with it...

So far, the only good thing I really can say about the month of May, is I'm stuck working part of this weekend. Means ma gets ~$50 in her coffers and I should get at least another 2 1/2 hours driving time this week.

What do I have to do, get out and push with a RPG?

I think I need a long vacation....

I muut say, whatever the human body releases under such physical exerciser certainly helps one string thoughts together again. All but staggering in the process, among other things, one of things I got done, was moving my desktop from the living room, into my room here. I've placed it near to the air vent, which seems to decrease the running temps a bit. Don't want to think what winter will loo like. I also forgot just how freaking heavy an old 19" CRT monitor weighs, especially when you're already exhausted. My rooms still a wreck but I'm to tired to car at this point.

The one good ting, I've slept 'til almost 0300, that's nearly two hours more than when I've been getting up lately... haven't been able to sleep worth a slug. Going nuts....


That reminds me, blasted PC is now right next to the router: but Windows now refuses to work with the Ethernet NIC, so I'm still stuck using the wireless lol. The Linux install will work with either... but hey, we're talking about 60% and regularly dropping out, up to 100% signal, now that the distance is about 1 foot.

Maybe I can play some Quake or sth this morning, that ought to hold my attention for an hour or two.... I hope.

Freaking tired, head spinning

My minds self checks are starting to question my remaining sanity, I'm not sure how to take that. As positive, that my head has self checks for it, or as a negative that I'm questioning my sanity :-S. What is sanity anyway, but a reality measure, of how far we've been pushed?

The last few weeks, it's like being inside of an egg beater, or being an egg thrown back and forth between ping-pong rackets, because I won't break apart. I've been trying to keep a log of things, today I can add bits of dizzy to it, fuck, remind me not to look out windows while cleaning them.

I'm going out of my skull. With the amount I'm sleeping, I'm spending more time thinking, hell it's almost as much as I used to spend training. What was it my time added up to back then, about 40-45 hours a week? That's a lot of stuffing to contain. Am I even making sense?

Driving felt like a piece of my brain missing, still the only higher order thoughts it demands is keeping things on the pavement and in the right lane. So many years in 'mech and air sims has most of it down to a level of breathing, that's how hard driving is, normally.

Heads going ape, I'm not stable. planning to rip things apart, down to rearranging furnature ffs. My intentions to work myself until i finally pass out.

In reply to CO Rouges comments about the NTF site move

Another major step for improving the service for our community in the long run, major!

So far, the NTF has passed several milestones in establishing a financially safe, steady, well organized and friendly community for both members and non-members. Ahead, I see several other milestones closing in, as the NTF soon pass its first six months.

-- source

My response would be (the thread is locked to admins attr), good: now all you have to do is teach your men  how to police your servers with that lovely server admin policy ;).

and I thought [SAS] servers could be a real zoo sometimes, lol.

Emergency Action Plan 2010 - FRAGO No.0

This being an update to a train of thought prepared earlier in the year, itself being intended for a DEFCON 0 ex-filtration from Georgia, that being a very short way from reaching DEFCON 1, which is calling it quits — my present family affairs being DEFCON 2, and not far from 1 if you allow decimal points.

1. Prep phase (1-3 days):
1. Maximize water intake over prep. phase.
2. Complete logistics:
1. Sort fallback points.
2. Print maps.
3. Note addresses.
4. Make ready affairs at end point / final destination.
3. Review packing list for any last minute "Oh crap, I forgot sth" evasions.
2. D-phase (0-1 days):
1. Up-hike water intake for the pre-trip cycle.
2. Put last minute affairs in order.
3. Pack essential kit:
• [withheld in case of information leak: must prevent seizing of my few resources]
4. Fill canteen for march.
5. Load up on water, maximum traveling load.
3. Execute (4-7 days)
1. Arrive at final destination by foot.
2. Rehydrate on site.
3. Finally eat sth.
4. Borrow phone.
5. Settle in and make ready for post-op (e.g. what is to follow).

The only thing I'll say of my EAP, for if things get any worse in this rotten hole, is it is a *very* long walk. Originally the EAP called for a launch within 24-hours, but logically a greater prep time is ideal, in terms of surviving things. Or as I said, I'm not the kind of person to die in the desert because he made a wrong turn.



If family matters finally come down to it, I will *_/not/_* be restrained any further... and I will go by Patrick Henry's axiom to the last breath if need be. Failure, is not an option in so far as my right to live is concerned.




Another chart for practical use:

         DEFCONs adapted to Family life here:

                5.) Life is at peace... no worries.
                4.) Stand to, people are making ready for war.
                3.) Active conflicts are in progress.
                2.) Threat level maximum / state of war exists, be ready to go nuclear.
                1.) Excommunication / severing of all ties -- officially at (all out) war.
                0.) Forced march and permanent Exfiltration from present residence.

Being a programmer, of course when I am involved, there is always a "Zero" at one end of a list... lol.

I wonder what you get when you combine a pseudo logarithmic stress graph with routine spurts of highly exponentiation "Stress jacking", and computation it across a life time...

Of software and family

Recently, I have been looking into Ruby on Rails, while I'm more then familiar with programming in Ruby, I've never really had much opportunity to play with RoR. Then again, the amount of time I've had to spend around Python for one reason or another, I haven't been using Ruby all that much in the past few years. Still, about all I need is API docs, and a language reference here and there for things I rarely need (e.g. the interpreters environment variables). I've also been parsing a copy of Effective C++ from the library, in the odd chance that I might learn something 'new'. I know enough about programming to be weary of the quad-barreled super shotgun constantly pointing at ones feet, but don't always physically have the time to deal with C++s minute details. It's the price of living here, productive use of time = death star sized more valuable then over thinking. Then again, most people would say that I over think >-<.


I've been thinking a bit about my note storage problem, as I don't use my journal for 'every' train of thought, although this months number of entries might suggest otherwise lol. Working on solving that problem of notes management, might be one way to pass some time, and try and reclaim some lost stack space, the question is whether or not I can actually work on something that complex right now...


For days I've been feeling in knots, living here is like having your head banged into a wall. Literally it feels like a cross between wanting to puke your guts out, and having your insides rung out like a wet towel; not comfortable! Dissatisfied with my war for freedom, my mother seeks to enlist help in constraining me, from even marching to the library—while simultaneously being the idiomatic stick in the mud, about my interest in getting a license and a separate job.


In short, she's trying to type cast me from an animal in a cage, to an animal chained inside a cage.


Never in my life, have I ever been afforded peace... it's been denied me, since birth. It's rare here, that I'm even treated like a human being deserving of life; whether or not I deserve to live, I'm the last person who can answer that question—but I am a human being. Is it such a horrible thing, to ask that life have some reason to get out of bed in the morning, some reason to draw breath? Arguably I would've been better off eliminating myself in the early 2000s, but *every* concept of improving the quality of existence, has generally been met with the up most hostile force, that my family can attempt to bring to bear.


What the fuck kind of family is this? I know I've considered it "Non functional", as a private notational level below dysfunctional, but somethings just make me fucking sick to my stomach. I can't take much more of this. DEFCON 0, begins to look all the more sharply on the horizon. I will not be caged! I've passed up opportunities in order to do whats right by family, but I will not be locked away...


Death or liberty, there is no third notion - and like John McClane, I die hard.

A fitting quote

In my reading of King Lear last week, I came across an segment of the text, that rather sums up an expression of how my mother often regards her children:

"But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter; or rather a disease that's in my flesh, which I must needs call mine."

-- King Lear, Act II Scene IV, Shakespeare's King Lear.

Only substitute son with daughter, in this families case. I think she rather missed the "Like mother, like daughter" implications of that statement, even though ma generally agreed with it. (That's a matter of internal history, predating me by at least 30 years.)

The cost of having green blooded

My mother asked if I had any preference on dinner, and I said I didn't care; she then had to ask why I often reply thus. I explained because the minor details of it, rarely matter, when prompted as to why 8=), I literally said:

Because they can often be expressed using the mathematical operator, approximately equal to (≅)

To which she became suitably annoyed, walking off and stating that she hopes that I never have her diabetic problem of not being able to eat whatever she wants.


For which my mind sees the following: that what one can have may be a distinctly separate thing from what one may want, and although a want may be a can, a can does not necessary have to be a want. And unfortunately if you are diabetic, that is more likely to be the case than not, in so far as diet is concerned... it's not my fault :-S. Like wise, I can't help if she is to preoccupied to handle anything rationally... or that my mind is heavily trained to carry a logical train of thought for long periods of time. (Hint: don't blame someone in hack mode, if they take things scientifically instead of like a crazy person!)


Oh, what trouble I get for not being born on the planet Vulcan—this entries title being a reference, that I prefer logic and reasoning over the inverse. Where as the others in my family, generally fall into the category of: seize on sth detail, raise your dander over it, and skip analyzing whatever you just judged until after Judgment Day. It's like they delay evaluation until after they've got pissed, or a ctor exception is raised before even evaluating an expression...


-> being a mega geek == a curse; // anyone know a private island for geeks only?

Defining Georgia Drivers: PEBSWAC

For "Problem Exists Between Steering Wheel And Chair", a variant on the popular tech support term. Just returned from HRPs errands, well reminded that Georgia has plenty ID10T errors on the road.

Coming up to a light in a neighboring town, I was closing the gap (~1/3m) between our stack and the cars just accelerating as the light turned from red to green—when some clown in a bronze Saturn zipped through the no-travel area between the lanes, passed at least one or two other cars (at the minimal) behind us, evaded the turn lane, and tried to cut me off right in traffic with waaay less than car length of space for him to move into. He ended up with his tail practically sticking into the left lane and no where to go, and he had to wait again because the light turned red by the time he got there, hahahahahahahaaaaaa!!!!

He broke at least four or five laws that are on the state books let along proving moronic, all to cut ahead in line, just to have to wait for another light, some how I can take sick pleasure in that knowledge xD. If I had been moving at a typical GA drivers pace, my mothers tempo would be missing its side view mirror but when stopping in traffic, I tend to move a bit more cautiously: just in case the moron behind is paying more attention to her SMSing then break pedal.


For bonus points, less than ten minutes down the road, some moron was trailing so DIA, if I had farted you would have a stain on his windshield. Finally after almost five minutes, he zoomed past just as we hit the no passing zone. Sorry whoever it was but I am not going to drive at 85 mph (~136km/h) in a 45 mph (~72 km/h) zone, it would become one hell of a speeding ticket 8=). Cheers!

Just returned home from my second library trip about 15-20 minutes ago. Left a little earlier, since ma has some errands to run, other wise I would've stayed for a bit more lol. The distance is a bit further than I had originally calculated but I can make very good time.

To be honest, I don't think I have done this much walking, since the last time I was at Miami Metrozoo as a kid lololololol.

A lot more so than normal, I've been dozing on/off this morning, often just long enough for a snap shot sequence in dreams.

It can remember fighting very vehemently with my mother over present, and some comment about slitting my throat but not putting the knives blade to use; something about an old toy junkbot unsuccessfully trying to help; then something to do with transformers and the autobots/decepticon war, as I got into deeper sleep. I remember collapsing in front of a bust of Christ, and it eventually taking on a life of it's own to respond, and noting something about a Ford focus zipping by in the street below; my room having changed considerably. I rather had a feeling that it was a person I know, but dressed in disguise. Then some instance involving a nurse and a family, and a small child (reminding me of Corky), and a growing wonder, if my room has become like an asylum, and whether or not I had become crazy and been locked away. Also I can remember something involving shopping in a super market and people shape shifting, and buying a large thing of meat, shuffling through the frozen isles for veggies, etc.. Something else, being home (but not like home), involving family, cooking the meat for a meal, and many birds caged (parakeets, white doves, finches, carnies, etc). Also, I remember playing with some software, looking for friends that use it, but instead, only finding enemies waiting :-/.

The more erratic my sleep becomes, the less often occurring, and more `distributed` my dreams become :-/. I can usually tell what I'm experiecing is a dream, because of the differences from reality, but am almost always a passive spectator.


Sometimes I really wonder, if I've cracked the crock, or been pushed to far over the hill....

Nuts, some days just pass so freaking slowly :-S. The local time is almost 1500, and it feels closer to 2100... I've largely been up since before 0400. As I commented to a friend about an hour and a half ago, it's like watching a snail go by on a flat tire, sigh.


On the upside, I've come up with a few interesting ideas, that remind me just how much I love the thrill of programming: and how much I need, a private notebook for collating my ideas in brewing. Particularly apt, would be something backed by a git repository, and an markup like Rst or Markdown lol. Actually, if I could afford a paid account on GitHub. Oh, ain't that just peachy: firefox just hung, then crashed. If memory serves, there is a personal wiki somewhere that uses a vcs as a backend, mm.

Something that bothers me, is how disparate my services have become: it kind of comes with choosing the best tools, and being pushed into a web oriented sphere \o/. There's just no way to win, really. To have my cake and eat it to, either I must munge together horrendous scripts, or bite a bullet, and move towards a direction, where my operating system provides most of the software I need, that I haven't written myself... which is a scary idea.


Why is it, that people like me, our doomed to think up solutions to problems, but never the time (or clones) to work on everything at once? Oi, somehow I am reminded of a comment about engineers, seeing the world as a set of suboptimal pieces... now if only there were some more optimal ones!!!!

In reading through Steve Yegge's old blog, I found a statement that perfectly summarises what selecting a programming language for a complex project is like:

So... the best way to compare programming languages is by analogy to cars. Lisp is a whole family of languages, and can be broken down approximately as follows:

• Scheme is an exotic sports car. Fast. Manual transmission. No radio.
• Emacs Lisp is a 1984 Subaru GL 4WD: "the car that's always in front of you."
• Common Lisp is Howl's Moving Castle.

This succinct yet completely accurate synopsis shows that all Lisps have their attractions, and yet each also has a niche. You can choose a Lisp for the busy person, a Lisp for someone without much time, or a Lisp for the dedicated hobbyist, and you'll find that no matter which one you choose, it's missing the library you need.

Except replace the lisp dialects with every language ever written, and factor in portability issues, and you now know what it's like to be a multi-lingual programmer xD.

+1 for updating my stable system

Wowsa, looks like the new bwn driver actually supports my laptops integrated broadcom wireless, 'tis good. At least I know if my faithful Atheros card dies, I won't have to buy a replacement lol.

Of course, assuming it actually works if I try to connect it to my WAP, hehe.

Sculptris v1.0

Sculptris v1.0:



Ok, maybe all the (more general purpose) modeling software I have ever used just royally sucks for such work, but that looks pretty darn impressive to me!

Now this is what a *real* web surfers experience looks like: What Firefoxs memory leak feature taught me about life


It also reminds me of an old photo of mine:

Having used Firefox since the 1.0.x days, I've also come to find it one of the single most annoying web browsers ever written. Then again, I am also a weirdo who thinks both Internet Explorer and Mozilla should rot in hell... for crimes against the Internet.

Morning Freako

Leftover home made Mac & Cheese for breakfast at 0630 - cheap.
Having slept late and still beat sunrise out by several hours - priceless.

A chuckle at NTFs expense

In glancing at their roster, I just noticed they have 8 officers to 7 Enlisted, and only just recently did they gain NCOs in that mixture, lol. Some how, I am reminded of something my Grandfather once said about officers...


That NTF has yet to grow past being made up of dissenters and tag alongs is understandable given their pace of movement (I observe about 1.5 x GCHQ speed on average), even if there structure suggests they provision for reaching more than double their present size. I guess none of their planners have heard of the bubble before, hahaha.

Fun idea, or just paranoid?

Tunneling basic services (web browsing, instant messaging, etc) over SSH through the file server (connected via Ethernet), as extra guard against the workstations own encrypted wifi eventually failing.

Nah, I am just nuts... lol.

Noticing Booone's Avatar on the [SAS] forums, I can't help but think their admins and moderators are collectively lazier than ever.

Just a stretch of the legs

After much protest and being threatened, I finally completed my trip to the library on foot. The outlook for potential execution days being Monday, Thursday, or Friday. During work Tuesday, I noted the possibility, but ma's errands were much to time consuming. My original pan for today, being to start out around 0830 or 0930 local time, and aim to be home cica lunch, but being prompted for more errands, it was already lunch time when I set out \o/.

I made quite good time, carrying about a load of about 7 to 7 1/2 lbs: my laptop and associated items, just in case. The computerized card catalog is virtually worthless in my experience, and it's simply easier to find books by hunting on shelves; much as finding good books with the old card catalog, usually was done by seeing what cards came up in flipping through to whatever you were looking for lol. So I made sure to setup an offline reference, to how the local library organises books. I really do not mind walking, so much as I mind Georgia's driver's. Only real thing I can complaine about, 10" to 15" brush can be a pain to go through at a rapid pace.

Aside from a few cars having a bit of a dual, basically driving in the left lane, and practically on the left side of the road,  things were fairly uneventful... should we say, I'm not easily squashed. The only real hiccup, was stepping on a screw along the last half kilometre: I could feel it pressing on the bottom of my foot, and ended up kneeling along side the road, trying to pull it out: in the end I had to use my wireless card to pry it out of the outsole. I think if I felt around on the inside, I'd probably find a pin sized hole in the insole to match lol. Not the first time something like that has happened to me over the years though. On the upside, if anything serious had happened, I was within limping distance of the hospital >-<.

While walking, I noticed that the ~200ml I had to drink before hand, wasn't enough, but it made up for the mornings driving about. Fortunately as I remembered, the library has a drinking fountain in the main entry hall ;). Still, I would fancy being able to carry my canteen along :-/. For starters after arriving, I decided to head towards literature: something to sooth my mind rather than put it through its paces. I'm more interested in the science and technical sections >_>.

I sat and read much of the first act of King Lear, before deciding to start heading home; less HRP get to worried 8=). I also checked out the copy of the book; judging by the texts notes, it looks like it airs on the side of the first folio with elements of the first quatro being merged. There's nothing special about the selection of King Lear, of the works on the shelf, it piqued my interest most; it's also been on my list of things to find time for, in some decade or other. Checked out the book, so I could continue reading it... and to see just how much annoyance I'll have to deal with in between marches.

The ability to read the classics, is minor: since I can do that from the comfort of my own computer; in fact, I have several stored for off line reading! However, being able to sit and read, in PEACE, is priceless! That's one of the reasons I love libraries, you can actually sit an read without being disturbed a whole lot; excellent place to study.



As for the return trip, it was fairly uneventful, it just reminded me that I'm still out of shape lol. I ran a few 40-60m stretches of the trip, after that, I started to get fatigued a bit. This is what I get for working in the family business all these years, instead of enlisting when I still had a good chance. When I got home, I prompted drained a good 500ml of water before sitting down.

If Vista is a dog, I'm a hairy monkey

I just got finished reading an article involving Steve Ballmer and Vista, and I can't help but find it patronizing lol.Windows Vista was a huge success: for Windows 7!

Microsoft did with Vista, something they *should* have done by XP Service pack 2, if not with XP itself. For eons developers have been doing *nasty* things with Windows, and either through compatibility requirements with 9x, or sheare developer incompetence, there has also been a lot of software that, should we say, is little evolved beyond Win32s or the MS-DOS style. Some of the commercial apps I've seen over the years, I am actually shocked will run under XP, let along Vista and 7—despite everyone's gripes, it's one of the things MS gets right.

Most of the more verbose complaints that I've heard about Vista, are not the OSes fault. More often it falls upon the realm of stupid application developers, flaky software, or stupid users. Microsoft has also been about as smart on handling the conversion of users, from a DOS model to a proper NT model, to a more modern NT model (read modern as in post 1960s), as the government is about spending  <_<. Most of the software issues have ironed out by brute force, there is just no choice, because Windows NT 6.1 (7) is not that far from NT 6.0 (Vista).



Considering that it had to happen eventually, either by a painstaking multi-generation (of users) process of evolution and education, and that the general brain damaged failure of Vista to win users hearts,  is almost the quintessential Microsoft recipe for success: a mixture of bait and switch with the old triple-E.



Windows 7 is not Vista, and it makes sufficient adjustments to make most people happy. After enough time of having to deal with Vista, everything but the stupid users (and bogoware) have largely caught up, plus you have the appeasing impact of Win7, mated to the users already knowing how to 'live' with Vista.



The positive aspects of what Vista has done for 7s success, could not have been more valuable, if Microsoft had planned it before the whole blackcomb/longhorn/vienna thing was even worked out. I wouldn't be surprised if it was planned.

Comic for May 20, 2010

Comic for May 20, 2010: "

"

Now this reminds me of ....

I've spent the last few hours, working on my tactics guide. I had decided to throw out what I did for my tactical compendium and start a new, as it would be much easier then stripping out the [SAS] parts. My tactical guide, is completely my own product, and a reflection of my operating experience.

So far out of about 2 1/2 days, there are about twenty pages covering stacking, breaching, entering, clearing, and searching rooms in great depth, as well as door handling, dealing with causalities, shot placement, securing contacts, and a lot more. Except for the P/L and comms sections, the material is already covers everything an seasoned NCO should know in their sleep. [SAS], eat your heart out....


Among my personal work, are over a dozen original illustrations that I've created to accompany the guides text. My favourite of which, serves to explain the strong/weak side thing:




I also sent that drawing to someone in [SAS], who was suitably and utterly confounded the ever loving hell out of on that particular issue. How he got so confused, was during the environment in [SAS] at the time, mostly created by the folks now holding officer ranks in NTF, or Sgts stripes in [SAS], and a rather sickening mess behind it. As to explaining the tactical matter: what's so damn hard about strong/weak side.... it's so simple that a child could understand it.

If having to pass time was an art form....

It's funny, how Willow and Corky wrestle, and I look at Coco, and just say, "Someday we've gotta retire to our own island", and she just stares at me, as if to say what the hell are you talking about lol.

Ok, so a toaster wasn't good enough for someone...

It's a computer built using a Microwave as the case lol

Fw: Cucumbers anyone?

This is part of an e-mail in my recent backlog, and thought I might note it here:

1. Cucumbers contain most of the vitamins you need every day, just one cucumber contains Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B3, Vitamin B5, Vitamin B6, Folic Acid, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Zinc.

2. Feeling tired in the afternoon, put down the caffeinated soda and pick up a cucumber.  Cucumbers are a good source of B Vitamins and Carbohydrates that can provide that quick pick-me-up that can last for hours.

3. Tired of your bathroom mirror fogging up after a shower?  Try rubbing a cucumber slice along the mirror, it will eliminate the fog and provide a soothing, spa-like fragrance.

4. Are grubs and slugs ruining your planting beds?  Place a few slices in a small pie tin and your garden will be free of pests all season long.  The chemicals in the cucumber react with the aluminum to give off a scent undetectable to humans but drive garden pests crazy and make them flee the area.

5. Looking for a fast and easy way to remove cellulite before going out or to the pool?  Try rubbing a slice or two of cucumbers along your problem area for a few minutes, the phytochemicals in the cucumber cause the collagen in your skin to tighten, firming up the outer layer and reducing the visibility of cellulite.  Works great on wrinkles too!!!

6. Want to avoid a hangover or terrible headache?  Eat a few cucumber slices before going to bed and wake up refreshed and headache free. Cucumbers contain enough sugar, B vitamins and electrolytes to replenish essential nutrients the body lost, keeping everything in equilibrium, avoiding both a hangover and headache!!

7. Looking to fight off that afternoon or evening snacking binge? Cucumbers have been used for centuries and often used by European trappers, traders and explores for quick meals to thwart off starvation.

8.. Have an important meeting or job interview and you realize that you don't have enough time to polish your shoes?  Rub a freshly cut cucumber over the shoe, its chemicals will provide a quick and durable shine that not only looks great but also repels water.

9. Out of WD 40 and need to fix a squeaky hinge?  Take a cucumber slice and rub it along the problematic hinge, and voila, the squeak is gone!

10. Stressed out and don't have time for massage, facial or visit to the spa?  Cut up an entire cucumber and place it in a boiling pot of water, the chemicals and nutrients from the cucumber with react with the boiling water and be released in the steam, creating a soothing, relaxing aroma that has been shown the reduce stress in new mothers and college students during final exams.

11. Just finish a business lunch and realize you don't have gum or mints?  Take a slice of cucumber and press it to the roof of your mouth with your tongue for 30 seconds to eliminate bad breath, the phytochemcials will kill the bacteria in your mouth responsible for causing bad breath.

12. Looking for a 'green' way to clean your faucets, sinks or stainless steel?  Take a slice of cucumber and rub it on the surface you want to clean, not only will it remove years of tarnish and bring back the shine, but is won't leave streaks and won't harm you fingers or fingernails while you clean.

13. Using a pen and made a mistake?  Take the outside of the cucumber and slowly use it to erase the pen writing, also works great on crayons and markers that the kids have used to decorate the walls!!

I wonder if the bit about the garden and hangover are true; someday, I've gotta try the stainless steel—it's always a megapain to clean stainless steel appliances! Although for many cleaning tasks, I have to admit that baking soda is a little miracle worker in many regards, hmm wonder how that would work on steel...

Thermal terror

Shortly after startup this afternoon, my desktop suddenly shutdown! After booting her, the panel sounded with a beep code that I'm unfamiliar with, and displayed a message about having overheated.

I've never monitored the system for more than GPU temps over the years, so I'm not familiar with the normal operating temp in this case. However, I've noticed the system has been more prone to unusually heavy impacts from loads it's used to. After doing a bit of web searching to see what the wintacular options are, since I'm more familiar with BSDs stuff, I installed a program called SpeedFan. The operating temperature being displayed was an average 48/49C CPU and 61 Core, with the system sitting otherwise 'at rest'.

After shutting down for a "Deep cleaning", the systems running at my equivalent of idle, has been running about 54C CPU/58C Core. According to Intel, my processor shouldn't be exceeding ~62.5C. The fans were impeccably clean, even though my last time at it was quite a while ago. Really the only bad thing, was the amount of grime near the frontal intake; but I've seen this system run with much worse build up there (plus a fan in need major clean up), so I know there's little impact possible. Running any games, brings the systems up to low to mid 60s in the CPU and Core readings, respectively.

So either make closer inspections of the fans, or be ready to deal with something rotten in sink land. I've sent my brother a message asking if he's any thermal grease laying around, just in case. I'm going to try putting the machine through its' paces a bit for now. My next experiment will likely be to  adjust the hookups and run her under an open case....


and I forgot just how nasty this machines case was to operate on \o/.

Something that has been resting on my mind for a while of late, for some reason; it's just a small piece of wood that a friend gave me many Christmases ago. I've never forgotten what she said, the note scribbled on the back is dated 2004. and I've hung on to this little thing all these years, keeping it close to my most personal stuff, ike my fathers dog tags. Maybe it's not worth a red cent to any thief, but I'm a sentimental cuss. Her words remind me, that as far short of the mark as we may fall, we can still make an impact for the better in peoples lives, and try to be better than we are.

Today, a different friend said something that brought that memory back to my mind. So I got up and fetched the memento out of my things, reading the back again, and the verse that is quoted on the front side. For some reason, I have never looked up the rest of the psalm that goes with that verse. Shameful really, when you consider that the book of psalms was one we had done in bible study together, lol. About ten or twenty minutes ago, I finally looked up the entire thing:

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust."

Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare and from the deadly pestilence.

He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day,

nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.

A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.

You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked.

If you make the Most High your dwelling—
even the LORD, who is my refuge-

then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent.

For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways;

they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

"Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.

With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation."

Psalm 91

I think that is something I needed to hear. Coincidence or mental automata driving it, I don't know, but it came at a rather precise moment.

Now this would be a rather handy solution, if my laptop had some more expendable key to re-purpose as a compose ey. The right alt keys closeness to the arrow cluster, makes it a very handy way to "Go back" in history using any program that behaves like a web browser. And I couldn't live without using my menu key to quickly access spelling corrections in pidgin >_>.

However if I could make xmodmap or something else to bind meta+menu into acting as a compose key, that would work.quite nicely.

At long last, [SAS] has finally dropped my data from the mighty page.

I've begun operational planning next courses of action, and have decided to accelerate and expand "Ravenclaw" in scope. Originally my intention was to kick off a round of increased physical / mental training after getting my license, as extra insurance against petrol resources being cut off before I can get a paying job.


It is so named Ravenclaw, because its attributes and impact resemble the positives of a raven and it's sharp effective claws, and at worst, I'll just end up food for ravens in the process. Walking any where here, tends to be dangerous outside of downtown: they're finally making plans to start building more sidewalks in the rest of this place. The main problem isn't so much that there is no safe place to walk near most areas, so much as you can't trust the cars not to flatten you. In some places here, it's almost suicidal. Given numbers to, value of travel * risk factor - value of life; should we say, the value of life increasingly becomes a smaller number in that expression, the more and more negative impact family has on my goals. I'll take my chances.


The first in the series of travel plans is fairly short: about 2.5km, covering two main roads and two side roads. The destination of course, being the sole refuge of sanity in this city: the library. I've said for years, I could practically 'live' there! That distance should take less than 45 minutes, even if some lousy driver forces me to practice evasive manoeuvres that I haven't done in many years. Probably will be a lot shorter, given my normal walking pace. At that range, even if I ran instead of walked, I also won't need to worry about bringing water. I'm like a human camel, between growing up in Florida and the working hours I've had to pull over the years. As necessary to achieve my aims, I'm more that willing to go well over 25km each way on foot if need be. The library being the closet target, makes it the best testing mark to begin clocking my general traveling pace, so I can expand the data set towards proper time estimates. Ops will likely begin next week, and begin scaling from there.


For me, the only practical limitation to my traveling distance by foot, is legality (e.g. some roads are closed to pedestrian traffic) and endurance factors. I wouldn't mind walking from here to Alaska if needed. When I fish out my old canteen, I think I'll calculate it's capacity. I also have an old militaresque bag designed to be slung, which makes transporting things easier: like carting my laptop with me or a coat for nastier weather. Carrying things over distance isn't a problem, so much as there's only so many places you can 'carry' it in with you. In Georgian weather on the other hand, I can cover plenty of ground at a walk, and not become overly dehydrated in the process, so I don't worry much.


If I'm going to be fought at every step, I'll damn well exercise what can't be taken for me. Having a entrance key, also makes sure I can't be locked out (so easily) in retaliation. As long as things are going this way, I'll take chances on foot... it beats the alternatives.


I consider life here, under flag of war - feuer frei!

A very personal train of thought:

Like an animal, I'm pacing a cage, trying to figure my way out of it forever more... Pattrick Henry's words resounding inside my skull. There must be liberty, or there must be death, there is no third option in this world of tyranny.

When I'm of use, I'm taken out and dusted off for a spell, then I'm thrown again into the darkness, like so much rubbish. I don't share my families mercenary ways, of going tit for tat, and so on. But after submitting my back to the lash for so many years, can't I even be cared for, this little? No, I'm bound and that is it: that's all anyone cares about here. I push to move forward, and all they can do, is tighten the chains about my neck in response. It's like having a hand grasping my throat, cutting off the air to my lungs. The status quo must change, yet everyone seeks to keep it in check, less their bubble of power collapse.

There's only been two things that I've desired in my life, and I've always been denied them. How often, have I argued that it will always be so? It's like having your guts scrapped out with an ice cream scoop: only without death so quick to follow. What point is there to any of this, if it must always be the same prison?

After such painful loyalty, is it to much to ask, to move ones arse a bit? I've worked myself raw, I've worked beyond the point of collapse and kept on going, just to be trodden upon for it. No one ever cares, nor tries to understand what they do, it's like staring into a brick wall: one without any ears to hear. At best just mentioning what this does to my soul, only makes me appear all the riper a whipping post. It's like living as an asset, like an animal in a pen. Am I such a beast, that I must be locked away from the suns rays? Now I can only dream of the light, and at this rate: someday even that will be taken away from me.

If you treat someone like an animal for long enough, what will he become?

To love, to be hated
To yield your best, to be given bitter wine
To slave, to be buried beneath the rock
To taste salvation, only to have it ripped away
To call for justice, only to be imprisoned
To live, only to die
It's been life in a nutshell.

-- Terry P[snip] 2010-05-14

The simple facts for those that can't see the path behind me:

• My family has shown me enough about what it means to hate, that I gave up my vindictiveness a long time ago. People mellowing with age doesn't change that.
• You don't know the meaning of 'work', unless you've hurt from head to toe, and still had to go hours more without ceasing. -- to be insulted and cussed at the entire time, than made to do it again once you get home!
• I have already been made to watch most positive parts of my world be pulled away, only to be converted into a solitary hermit: that may as well be kept under lock and key. That is as often as I may, and how often as I have the means to taste free air, and what the status quo has been kept at for years.
• You don't know what it means to serve, until you've done it 24/7/365 for years on end, only to be made utterly miserable the entire time. The only good thing I can say, is I've never had tomatoes thrown at me.
• Real depression looks like hells deepest pit.
• I have always been more concerned with why people decide to do things, rather than what things they decide to do. Cause is more important than effect.
• Just to be able to get the measly amount of practice time that I have been getting (~1.5h/week), I've had to be prepared to sever all family ties, period.
• Getting my family to do anything helpful when I need it, is like trying to carve Mount Rushmore with a toothpick.
• I will not stoop to the devils play book.

Is it any wonder that my moods of late, have been such anti-images of blissful happiness? I'm fighting for my very right to live—against those who only need stall for a enough years more, to give them victory over me. Having to put up with that 'why' to the actions family takes, doesn't go without cutting up a few scars along the way. Unlike my how my blood family tends to act, I don't and won't abuse people when my moods are horrible: it would violate my principals.

Putting a chipper smile on my face while I deal with such things, on the other hand is to much to ask.

It's been a somewhat productive day, but one that's had me ready to bounce off walls for much of it. With HRP out of my hair for just over an hour, I was able to to move without having to exposing anything to the usual family-de-railing events, that tend to occur whenever my mothers abreast of my plans.

Managed to take care of the enqueued phone calls on my list, including finding info a friend had requested in the same matter. About half a dozen phone calls, and four bits of intelligence to gather, all of which were solved, except for the sole fun one \o/. That will have to wait until another target of opportunity since the fishing hole is closed this time of week, but everything that was important got done. Having about 5 minutes to spare, before having to return to a rate of 3-5 interruptions a cycle + being cussed at all day, I also decided to proceed with a few other things that were supposed to wait until post-license.

The main problem, is still that damn license! Reaching the required mark of 40 hours, is proceeding at a rate of roughly 1 1/2 hours x 1 week = meaning 18 weeks more until I'll have enough hours to apply for a license. Since 5 more of the remaining 27 hours to go, have to be night driving, it'll probably take longer knowing my mother... I've got to find some way around this road block—and without lying about the amount of practice time I've had! Perhaps I might not be much good as a person, but when I say that I something, you can generally bet high that it'll be truthful.

Things found whilst cleaning ~

• Backups of my old RvS and SWAT 4 keybinds, in Englush and German.
• Old BF2  profile data backed up from 2009
• A collection of xfire chatlogs dating back to 2007-2008; usually I trim my logs every couple of years
• Copy of my bookmarks, left over from the original migration to ma.gnolia.
• A copy of the first chat I had with a friend, dated 2008-08-17.
• Various bits of TeX/LaTeX and troff/nroff documentation
• Bundle of old programs, including my first C++ projects and many old Ruby, Perl, and Sh scripts.
• An old document on backing up PC-BSD systems.
• Some old software manuals, MicroEMACS, NFS systems, Nail, PHP, Java 1.5, ex, etc.
• Old [SAS] Live Operation files: maps, opords, notes from testing various maps in SWAT 4.
• An old draft resignation from when Snipers first draft of the SOPs were sent to Rouge for revision.
• Birthdate of my desktop PC: 2006-02-11. Back than it was top of the line.
• An old mock up for a personal home page
• Draft of what hostage rescue on Raven Shields banking house mission, would look like in the near future.if done with real world tactics
• Plenty of old photos

From all the files either deleted, or moved into cold-backup, I think my home directory is also another fifty megs lighter lol

Always beware of dreaming about a mansion....

Just had a strange dream, but oddly one much more normal for me than what I've been having lately. Ended up investigating this large house in the dark as part of a pair, trying to find a way around. Eventually things ended up in day and a small party had formed, and we had gathered a small bit of ordinance, sawed off magnums (yeah baby), glocks, and colt autos.

While securing the mansions first floor, there was an odd situation at the basement, involving a pair of witch-like characters, that when forced into eye contact, caused them to go up in an aura of energy. Spider sense going bananas, of course I made sure the search party was ready for things to go nuts. Following up with plans to search the second floor, one of the party split off without orders and demonstrated quite a bit of mental instability, as well as being convinced at having been cryogenically frozen, and acting like an Alzheimer patent with a glock: not good.

This was however cut short, when groups of Zombies began amassing at the front doors  and breaking into the lobby, thus solving that little problem as a matter of their diet :-/. Ordering the party to fight a delaying action to the stairs, I took point up the stairs as zombies began all but coming out of the wood works! The plan was to get us to the roof before the cartridges ran out. Alternating between dual magnums, a 9mm glock, a .45 colt, and bundles of MKII fragmentation grenades, it was almost like watching Left For Dead with a night of the living dead style melee. Non of my hand to hand combat experience however, has involved a group of anythings trying to eat you..

In finally  fighting our way to the rafters of the roof, only to find zombies climbing the buildings side and busting through the windows and ammo low. A problem solved by sending some of our own through, to get to a chopper and bring it back for pickup of the rest. The only problem, being by the time we all got on the bird, there was only about  1 1/4 minutes fuel left :-D.


Crazy dream but in a way, more relaxing... and better than television.

Ahh nuts and bolts!

I can't believe I slept through The Picture of Dorian Gray, it's so rare I get to see it :'(.

Even worse than that I was only awoken by orders to make another ficken waffle >_>.

Hmm, one of these days I should really say the heck with it, and just make as much racket as needs to be done, and make myself breakfast around 0500-0600 local.... hey, I'm always getting woken up... why not?

Most of the times I'm hungry in the morning, I'm the only dipstick awake, so I wait. By the time it's safe to make racket, I'm usually not hungry any more :-/

You know, if I was actually smart, I wouldn't have skipped breakfast and lunch before going to work today \o/. I've been in such a disarray, I actually thought it was still Tuesday :-|. With the downshift in working hours, it's harder to remember the day of the week, when you're accustomed to remembering it based on where you're working the day away.

Wednesday is a lot more slaves work to get done than a Tuesday, but it's also a much longer driving time to and from. So today I managed to pass the 200 miles / 13 hours mark. Putting up with working in the family business, still doesn't generate any income towards moving forward, so much as it does in keeping my mother in grocery shopping (oi), but it's about the most road time I can get.

I'm hoping that solving the problem of Drivers License -> Paying Job, can generate enough income that I can get out of some of this stuff without it coming back to whack at the working schedule. The work I'm stuck doing isn't as bad as it once was, hell, when I saw Wild Hogs, I could sympathize with Martin Lawrence's comments about needing condoms on his shoes: and I've never been a plumber! Should the timing fall right it'll be easier to replace slaving away for my mother, with working for hire and giving her a kickback out of my wages. If I have to, I'll work two jobs, I'm already used to working until my face hurts, so the drain wouldn't be much of a dip for a good bit of years to go.



Right now, the majority of my focus is on solving that damn drivers license. Moving forward to me, is as vital as breathing right now, and the only way to move towards long term goals, is passing the first mile stones... or die trying.

Nausea (Latin nausea, from Greek ναυσίη, nausiē, "seasickness" "wamble" ^[1]), is a sensation of unease and discomfort in the upper stomach with an urge to vomit.^[2] An attack of nausea is known as a qualm.
The most common cause is gastroenteritis ( a stomach infection ) or food poisoning but nausea also frequently occurs as a medication side effect and in pregnancy. A number of medications exist that improve symptoms including: dimenhydrinate, metoclopramide, and ondansetron.

Well, I can rule out most of those...

Dropbox... interesting

The other day, whilst parsing webpages in my usual manor, I stumbled across a nifty service called dropbox. So far, it seems to offer all the perks of rolling ones own solution but with better OS integration, and a network server. I'm planning on putting it to the test for replacing my existing rsync based system.

What dropbox is capable of, is not far off from what one can do using rdiff-backup and your own server. Main difference I reckon is tone meshes well with SSH and the other relies upon SSL. The way dropbox claims to integrate with the OS however, would more than make up in time lost to configuration.

My main gripe of course, is that dropbox does not yet offer their desktop application for FreeBSD :-(. Which effectively limits how much I can use it until suitable builds become available for testing.


rdiff-backup can solve the problem just as well for me, since my home server is about as reliable as the rock of Gibraltar; the only problem being the software involved. The lowest common denominator among versions of rdiff-backup available for my platforms, are not compatible enough, 8=). Which is why my computers rely on a custom set of scripts built around rsync: rs-mgr rs-pull, rs-push, rs-touch, and rs-vars.

If dropbox became suitably available under FreeBSD, my life would be a heck of a lot easier, and vectra's roll could be reduced to backups rather than storage central.

Well, perhaps one upside of working off less than an hours sleep, if I don't pass out closer to late morning maybe I'll be ready for an afternoon nap later today. Lately I've been sleeping a bit later or a bit earlier, usually waking up closer to 0200 local/0600 gmt or some fractions of an hour before 0600 local/1000 gmt. So I haven't been napping during the late afternoons.

I never thought I'd enjoy a siesta like nap so much, lol.

Threads upon black moods

For the last several days, as my status message would indicate: I've been in a black mood. Except for xfire, where my names been set to `Spidey01 = status message`, because of issues with the software I use to login to xfire with.

Status messages like this, is generally meant to serve as a warning, like a rattle snakes sound, only much less dangerously. It is meant as a warning, of the nature: that you shouldn't expect to find me roundabout in a chipper mood. Unlike my family, who'll rip anything or anyone apart when in such a  mood: I don't take things out on people around me. So I'm more likely to be extra polite, rather than unnaturally snappy. I'm more snappy when I'm in a good mood lol. The closet I get to taking my blacker frames of mind on other people, is making it known that I'm not in a mood to talk (and thus think) further about it at the moment.


Within my small inner-circle, I rarely hide or conceal anything: I wouldn't be allowing friends much chance to know me, if I hid from them, now would I? My belief in that, is part of why most of my life is essentially an open book. I'm an easy person to get to know, just hard to stand being around lol. Although I generally trust people to respect my right of privacy (as I do theirs), or I wouldn't speak;  things of a truly private nature rarely stretch beyond me and GOD. Over the years, I would have to say the fact that I've never been struck by lighting, is proof that GOD is extremely patient (if you believe in the existence of such a divine power). My journal only sees entries I'm tolerable of being within public view: I have little to hide, beyond my computers login password.


Something running through my mind, among the thoughts being pushed aside on the way to sleep, was of a morbid nature. Along the lines that if I died, and everyone I know, both in person and digitally made aware of it, who would really notice my passing? While there's plenty who would be sad (yes, I know who y'all are), the only ones I believe would truly shed a tear at it, amounts to a sub set of my inner-circle, that I can count on less than one hand. This isn't a bad thing in my books, in fact one is arguably one of very few candidates I could honestly call the best friend I have in this world, still above the grave (don't worry, I've no plans to leave you that soon). The thing that hurt with that morbid collection of thoughts, wasn't that the majority of people who would be sad, are people that I have never physically met (although in one or two cases, that is likely to change in time), but instead that none of my own flesh and blood can be counted on that 'less than one hand' of people, who really would care that much.


For much of my life, I've just been 'here', I'm the reject, the asset, not something people can care for, just something they can use—that very much describes what my relationship with blood kin is like, and how they've damaged it over the course of things. In fact, I would say that it has been suitably fractured, that it is the source of certain equationals that I've often wrestled with GOD over; of which only 1 or 2 living souls know even a fraction of that. Undoubtedly, most of the people within my inner-cricle of connections know me better than my own flesh and blood relations; a price of how I've been treated.


Much of what, I describe as life having given me a fairly high pain threshold compared to most (people that I know), is also due to that. For some reason, I can remember the doctor cutting on my toe and sliding cardboard under my nail, and finding it remarkably low on the painometer: I also know the people I've got to thank for that (which remarkably is not far off from whoms responsible for how my toe ended up in that situation). I'm not sure if that's a positive or a negative train of thought.


For years, my family has generally stripped away the good parts of my life, and I've come to have an unhealthy level of sympathy for such plights, as  that of Edmond Dantès. The existence that's been imposed upon me, is not that far off from a prisoners, only the food here is better.


It's part of why the success of Operation Redeemer, is such a critical aspect of my life's goals. If I'm going to close my eyes on this world someday, I think that freedom is not to much to ask for. I've given family, a large percentage of my life-thus-far, and have generally been made utterly miserable for much of it. As someone who has essentially reached the half-way mark, in the time I expect to live for, leaves me little reason to dilly dally, and even less, as I hope to live twice that long. As I've said more than a handful of times over the years, because of my father an certain aspects of family medical history, I consider whatever time I have past my 30s and 40s, to be a gift: not something I'm entitled to.

My family cannot of had a more negative impact on my life, if more things were intentional, and I believe the chapter after redeeming my right to life, will likely be to solve that issue.



To barrow an axiom from a favourite film: time not important, only life important. It would be nice to have the latter, worth the former.

Shitsville

Around 22:00 I went to bed, thinking about recent mmods, when I managed to convince my brain, to push it aside and "Worry about that later". I fell sound asleep. At 22:45 her royal pain had to wake me up, in order to get me to make a waffle.

and now I can't get back to sleep short of being hit in the head with a mallet \o/

Somehow I think it's sad, responding to a butlers duty, having to deal with the apartment being almsot pitch black -> the only light source being the LEDs on the cable box. And I can almost see plane as day lol.

Shit, how many years did I spend hacking at stuff after nightfall....

Pouring gasoline on an open fire - FML.

Yesterday, well, relatively speaking; 3 hours sleep is enough for me to call it yesterday irregardless of hours passed, even if I've been up since 2am local lol. Beyond having to authorize my mother to deal with the issue (as she was the master mind), I was largely ear shotted into a phone conversation that came as little surprise.


Some years ago now (bah), the place that my high school course work was with, was getting pissy about the massive over times involved in getting it done. A lot of working hours (from 1 day a week, to 3 jobs per day per week) and a lot of self-studying else wheres on my own, tends to make for homework that's about as challenging as breathing, and thus makes for limited interest in getting it done promptly. Eventually I knuckled down on it between busy seasons, because a H.S. diploma or G.E.D. would be required to have any chance of moving forward later (now near future). Her Royal Pain however decided to change distance "Schools" after getting annoyed with the first companies policy on sending out text books. That lead to me having to go through a fresh reboot on another set of course work with a new company.

Which I gave up working on after a few cycles, because I knew there would be zilch chance of getting that glorified piece of paper, once my mother stopped paying the damn thing off: reaching the point of calling it a brush off! Plus knowing that any long term savings of my own, would likely end up towards paying off her debts rather than catching up with a GED later (which came to pass twice, as she acquired debt since then).


The principal issue of yesterdays call, was that the company wants their outstanding balance paid off; blood from a stone anyone? My mother managed to lie herself into a corner about it, by using her recent health issues as an excuse to cover cheating them out of the money years prior, and I do believe court was mentioned :-S. The real royal screw however, is since the mega bitch saw fit to run the bills for the course under my name instead of her own that time out, it'll likely be my arse if anything comes of it. I knew consenting to that stipulation, just for a chance to work towards finishing HS, was going to come back and haunt me someday... family is too good at fucking me over. If things were still as they were in Charles Dickens era, my mother would have become well familiar with debtors' prison over the years, and this affair would aqaint me with one. Luckily things have changed a lot since then. So much as anticipated, if there ever been any decency of credit associated with my name, it's well flushed: and that tends to cause trouble later on, in modern America \o/. As if I didn't have miserable enough a mood already.




The really ironic thing in this whole mess? High school and a loving heart is what made a slave of me in the first place. When I was something like 15~16 years old, ma decided to start her present business as a way to help pay off the coming course work, and to save up for when things were to get tighter; thus invalidating my employment plans. I was asked to 'help' out with the work, because part of it would be going towards paying for my schooling: and I've gone unpaid since. Sure enough in the end: no diploma to be reached, my mother wouldn't know how to save a dime if you beat her with one let along before the bottom dropped out, and I've spent the last 6 1/2 to 7 years of my life, being used and treated like a slave for it all. Arguably I would have been better off, taking the antifreeze cocktail out of here in the early 2000s, instead of discovering a reason to live for the rest of my life. Instead I've had to spend the last 4-5 years, all but imprisoned here.


To quote a friend: Fuck My Life.

In lyrics Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett helped make famous

Pour me somethin' tall an' strong,
Make it a "Hurricane" before I go insane.
It's only half-past twelve but I don't care.
It's five o'clock somewhere.

Joys of being home and in a dark mood

• Not being allowed to get anything done
• Not being respected enough that it may be assumed that you have anything to get done
• No one cares that you have anything to get done
• Mood is irrelevant at home as in the work place \o/
• Getting pissed on is still the norm.
• Yet another reminder that no body cares.

Need I go on?

Now this article by Paul Graham was one that I thoroughly enjoyed. Although it might not be obvious to outsiders, it's actually rather tastey for its wit ;).

In my web travels, I've just come across an interesting web-focused application and service, called Teambox. So far it seems to offer, a rather interesting stack of tools. Assuming it could be suitably extended into the neccessary work flow, by adding things such as SCM integration, code reviews, and issue tracking, it would be darn freaking useful.

Little old me, is used to projects where the best things in life are e-mail, XMPP, and Git, hahahaa!

My brother turned out to have a double agenda to showing up on Mother's Day, not surprisingly. To deliver a gift, and find an easy supper while his wife was out of town lol.

Our mother finally got what she has been wanting: one of their new puppies. He's a dark fawn coloured Chiahuahua, something like 8 weeks old, and so adorable it's gotta be illegal. It's her dog, but obviously means that I'll be the one to to get cussed at over its care. That means yours truly has to worry about cleaning up after it, feeding it, watching over it, and so on and so forth.... plus walking him when he gets older. I also have to hear about every minute detail twenty times, and be pushed for help in naming him \o/. Guess I'm the last slave who thinks people should look after their own responsibilities.

I've had to grown through hearing every dumb question imaginable, and as usual when my mother is involved, answer things by repeating myself 3-5 times! It's annoying as hell to start with, let alone when you consider that I may be the only asshole in this family, who doesn't deserve a hearing aid.

The only good thing I can say about trying to serve between land minds and war-bait, is we had stop off for my brother to pick up a pack of smokes and to take the puppy to see one of my mothers best friends. So I got to see their dog Nikita, which is a 100+ pound Boerboel; my brother was scared of her lol.

Fortunately dinner went well, only stressors being thrown about; my brother took over my computer to piss away the time playing FarmVile on Facebook, I gave him a temporary PC user account  named 'moron', in order to keep him out of my session. I can clear it off the linux box tomorrow.


If near future plans work out, I think my friend is right, we do need a drink stronger than water.

A chuckle in a bleak day

They just made a crack on the radio, that Toby Keith once set an alleyway on fire as a kid: and wasn't afraid of the police finding out, just that he knew he was gonna get it once his mom found out xD

Why I utterly hate sending cards...

They tend to take forever to find/create and to fill out for the occasion :-S. I rarely will send a card, unless there's some target meaning to it, some sense of exposition. Be it a goal to bring a smile to someones face when things are going rotten, or wish them a great holiday. A lot of thought goes into the process of me sending a card, trying to find something that is both appropriate, and can help express to the receiverwhat was intended.  In retrospect of the years, I reckon I should just be thankful for the practicality of e-mail; making something elaborate by hand and mail, takes even more effort, on top of the mental toll. Even worse before modern graphics software was invented lol.

Mother's Day, in particular is a pain. Both in the sense of trying to express emotion, bring something positive... and having to make a dance around, ones that are sadly just not usable, although I truly wish they were (with a straight face). Like wise, when my mother is concerned:, having to even more carefully study the matter before hand, in order minimize the potential points for blacklash over it. Which is a matter that stings in it's own right, let along the former. I'm well familiar with the painful consequences of failure.


The positive parts of my life, have thought me how to be thoughtful about the people I care about, the miserably parts have made me learn how to navigate a mine field without losing any limbs in the process. FML.