0/
1/
3/
4/
6/
7/
10/
11/
You know, life would really be sweet.... If I could get paid to use my brain, instead of saving it all for my off-work hours lol. No if I new any companies in this burg that hire and train self-educating-geeks :\
Friday, September 12, 2008
Plan of Attack -- tongiht through the weekend+monday
In no specific order:
0/Train Ez, Spawn, possibly Ghost/Medic as well -- operation marshal
1/Write new interface for the 'custom' library on sas <---- implemented, remaining code is 'features', need to test it and place under revision control, along with other changes to the lib.
2/ Build mock-ups for GCHQ of the new docs
3/Implement the install code for 'that project' I'm doing with a few guys from forums.pcbsd.org
4/Test pythonic bindings to libxml2 (I may need this __soon__) <---- lxml interface to libxml2 accepted
5/ Evaluate gtkmm and py-gtk (I don't think I like the wxWidgets api after spending so much time with Qt3/Qt4) -- run tests under Winsucks, because linking against gtkmm and friends will be the big pain.
6/look up the api docs for interfacing C/C++ code with Python :-)
7/eventually get around to placing my .vimrc, .exrc, .Terry_shrc, and various .site_shrc files under CVS (or other scm) on Vectra. <---- vimrc and Terry_shrc imported, other files being less portable, some name convention needs to be worked out.
9/ try to complete social studies homework before [SAS] SOP Prototype Due Date.
10/eventually catch up with posting more on my LJ then todo snippets
11/download Wiz's latest mix and let'er blast <--- it rocks
12/ Implement my admin scripts
13/ Update cougars settings
14/ Implement my 'lister' PHP script <--- done, just need to write the password locker.
You know, life would really be sweet.... If I could get paid to use my brain, instead of saving it all for my off-work hours lol. No if I new any companies in this burg that hire and train self-educating-geeks :\
0/
1/
3/
4/
6/
7/
10/
11/
You know, life would really be sweet.... If I could get paid to use my brain, instead of saving it all for my off-work hours lol. No if I new any companies in this burg that hire and train self-educating-geeks :\
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Japanese beaver or Blackwidow spider?
Well I've taken care of most of the stuff in need of doing, realising that I couldn't take care of the paper work until I hear from Valroe, saved time lol.
Since I've been unable to find anything suitable, I'll probably end up creating a new library of code for the website.... One that obey's a policy of not shooting the next coder in the foot, like the bastard taking pot shots at me through years old code >_>. The sad thing? I thought about the ideal implementation for hours at work (my job leaves me with my brain free 90% of the time). Yet, between various business.... It is approx 15 hours later....... I've still not had the freedom to work on it!!!
Yet implementing it,a nd making code on the website would improve a heck of a lot. Especially debug times, and probably save me more time in the long run. Which reminds me, looking at the code I'm charged with maintaining/fixing:
But what do you do, if the WTF's are rapid enough to be measured in seconds?
Since I've been unable to find anything suitable, I'll probably end up creating a new library of code for the website.... One that obey's a policy of not shooting the next coder in the foot, like the bastard taking pot shots at me through years old code >_>. The sad thing? I thought about the ideal implementation for hours at work (my job leaves me with my brain free 90% of the time). Yet, between various business.... It is approx 15 hours later....... I've still not had the freedom to work on it!!!
Yet implementing it,a nd making code on the website would improve a heck of a lot. Especially debug times, and probably save me more time in the long run. Which reminds me, looking at the code I'm charged with maintaining/fixing:
But what do you do, if the WTF's are rapid enough to be measured in seconds?
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Muttering about my task list
I managed to fix the issue quite easy, I still can't believe it was that simple... I wonder though, if this is what will hit me in the next fix-it task to come up:\. I'd also love to punch people that don't check errorous return codes in the face!
I remember the 6th commandment of C Programmers,
Especially since I'm the one being punished for anothers dickheadedness!
I really wish PHP had exception handling, WAIT !!! (a quick google of the reference manual later), PHP 5 added them, YKYMF! I smell a few additions to my utility library... unless what I need has already been universally implemented by someone hehe.
And in likewise reflection upon The 10 Commandments of C Programmers:
Some people just don't know how true that is!
Thumbing through the annotated edition, I can't help but chuckle at this... And hope such a thing befalls the bastard that did this to me lol.
Ok, so maybe I am a jerk sometimes ^_^
Anyway, I got a little bit of time before bed. I'll use that to take care of a few odds and ends, and I'll finish the other work I need to do tomorrow night.
I remember the 6th commandment of C Programmers,
If a function be advertised to return an error code in the event of difficulties, thou shalt check for that code, yea, even though the checks triple the size of thy code and produce aches in thy typing fingers, for if thou thinkest ``it cannot happen to me'', the gods shall surely punish thee for thy arrogance.
Especially since I'm the one being punished for anothers dickheadedness!
I really wish PHP had exception handling, WAIT !!! (a quick google of the reference manual later), PHP 5 added them, YKYMF! I smell a few additions to my utility library... unless what I need has already been universally implemented by someone hehe.
And in likewise reflection upon The 10 Commandments of C Programmers:
Thou shalt check the array bounds of all strings (indeed, all arrays), for surely where thou typest ``foo'' someone someday shall type ``supercalifragilisticexpialidocious''.
Some people just don't know how true that is!
Thumbing through the annotated edition, I can't help but chuckle at this... And hope such a thing befalls the bastard that did this to me lol.
verily there be many, many ancient systems in the world, and it is the decree of the dreaded god Murphy that thy next employment just might be on one. While thou sleepest, he plotteth against thee. Awake and take care.
Ok, so maybe I am a jerk sometimes ^_^
Anyway, I got a little bit of time before bed. I'll use that to take care of a few odds and ends, and I'll finish the other work I need to do tomorrow night.
GIGO, How to debug and fix code the hard way
THAT SON OF A BISCUIT BAKING PIECE OF HOG CRAP OF A MODULE !!!!!
I've finally found the problem that, i spent 3 hours trying to prove was broken. Only to find out, the 'contract' behavior it expected from it's environment at fault. And the rest of the module, is such a hopeless pile of shit, that I didn't realize it, until I found the simple fact.
Garbage In, Garbage Out, but no Error message.
I never checked the data stream output, because the interface test failed. But it actually did do exactly what it was supposed to do, just with garbage values, which through off the rest of the code... That ignores errors rather then handling them.
If I h ave got to kick the bitch in the teeth twice a day to do it, this website will furfil the [SAS]'s needs.Or it will get ripped apart bit by bit and rebuilt as something that will serve them well!
I've finally found the problem that, i spent 3 hours trying to prove was broken. Only to find out, the 'contract' behavior it expected from it's environment at fault. And the rest of the module, is such a hopeless pile of shit, that I didn't realize it, until I found the simple fact.
Garbage In, Garbage Out, but no Error message.
I never checked the data stream output, because the interface test failed. But it actually did do exactly what it was supposed to do, just with garbage values, which through off the rest of the code... That ignores errors rather then handling them.
If I h ave got to kick the bitch in the teeth twice a day to do it, this website will furfil the [SAS]'s needs.Or it will get ripped apart bit by bit and rebuilt as something that will serve them well!
Monday, September 8, 2008
Song of the day: 2008-09-08 / Highwayman
[Willie Nelson]
I was a highwayman. Along the coach roads I did ride.
With sword and pistol by my side.
Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade.
Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade.
The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five.
But I am still alive.
[Kris Kristofferson]
I was a sailor. I was born upon the tide.
And with the sea I did abide.
I sailed a schooner round the Horn to Mexico.
I went aloft and furled the mainsail in a blow.
And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed.
But I am living still.
[Waylon Jennings]
I was a dam builder across the river deep and wide.
Where steel and water did collide.
A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado.
I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below.
They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound.
But I am still around.
[in unison]
I'll always be around, and around, and around, and around, and around.
[Johnny Cash]
I fly a starship across the Universe divide.
And when I reach the other side,
I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can.
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again.
Or I may simply be a single drop of rain.
But I will remain.
And I'll be back
[in unison]
again, and again, and again, and again, and again.
-- title: Highwayman; written by: Jimmy Webb; performed by: Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash & Kris Kristofferson, "The Highwaymen"
And this appears to be the old music video, mmmm:
Of languages, libraries, and tools
I have been contemplating my standard language/library issue with care, although I've yet to finish most of the tests.... Courtesy of work, laziness, and to much work on the website lol.
So far, it seems to me that language wise my best thoughts:
Python, I don't really 'like' python but I can do a tremendous amount of work in it compared to other languages, time wise. And it's fairly easy to implement and test stuff -- worst thing I can say about it is it's interpreted and the regular expression support is done via a standard library module. Although jython (compile to byte code, but compares to a smaller version of an old CPython release) and ironpython (python for .net clr) should help the former, and the api for regex ain't that bad, but sucks compared to Perl lol (like most languages seem to, that don't steal Perls syntax or likewise make it a core element of the language syntax). Python also can handle interfacing with other languages well enough between the CPython, Jython, and IronPyhon implementations.
Java, great syntax and fairly logical. The byte code is portable enough between Sun JVMs and it even has the portable Swing GUI toolkit, although I'd probably end up using SWT or the WxWidgets bindings. The bad things about Java, although you can compile to native machine code, ya need to get the GNU Compiler for Java (GCJ) working first. Regular expressions are done via it's libraries rather then syntax, and. Well the only _nice_ way of saying it, most of the tools with the JDK eventually piss me off, but I like the language aside from that. The only major con is it is as OOP-centric as I've ever seen, and it's that way by design.
C++, lower level then any of the others and offering the best level of interface to C code of any of them around ;-). I personally prefer Java's syntax over that of C++ but it still gets the job done. It's just a question of how often you want to press Shift while typing... One of the best things, the STL is quite nice and well enough supported now to be worth using. Although, in my experience when working around C interfaces, the STLs value can go out the window, but maybe that's just how long I went before using the STL. One plus, unlike Java or Python, you get a more traditional pointer, not to mention a few interesting things in the std::namespace and boost libraries. Not sure what shape exceptions support is like under various system compilers, but I don't think that I've ever seen C++ code using exceptions outside of examples or perhaps the FAQ :\.
Useful points of interest:
WxWidgets for the GUI -- portable to target platforms of most interest and in all three of the above languages (and a few more too).
libxml2 for XML -- portable to target platforms, but seems to only have C++ and Pyhon bindings easily available, libxmlj (for java) I think would need compiling and I haven't tried that under FreeBSD or Windows yet.
Semi-Native Regular Expressions -- Boost libraries for C++, Pythons own regular expression module, and ditto for Java (not that I like them).
std::string, str, and String classes -- basic string handling in C++, Python, and Java. Boost and WxWidges also provides wxString.
MySQL bindings -- database operations; quickly available for C++, Python, and Java (JDBC based). Using SQLite in C++/Python is also easy enough but I'm a bit leerly of Java-related connections for SQLite3.
As to the other stuff that was on my list:
C++ and Python provide suitable IPC systems, never have looked at Java in that light. Most of the stuff I need, is basically provided by the C libraries under POSIX systems and Windos, Python has a suitable interface to it, so I'm happy hehe.
Python has good enough built in support for common compression and archive formats. Whatever can't be done via java.util.zip hopefully could be done via JZlib, I'm not familiar with anyhing ZLib under C++, but there is always the traditional interface ^_^.
I haven't considered the network side that much. Although I sometimes find it a bit lengthly, I don't really mind working with the C-style sockets library I've used here, using the windows sockets library shouldn't be to far off from the ones used on *BSD and GNU for my needs (aside from headers/linking). Python has support for a number of protocols (and pwns Ruby on documenting the classes for most protocols IMHO), Java well enough out of the box, and both Python and Java provide usable interface to TCP/UDP. WxWidgets also has a few things as well but more limited, that might be worth looking at, since I'd rather like to use a similar interface in each language, while still leaving code that can be read.
As to the ease of use and deployment, that is always a tough question. Under FreeBSD and Debian at least, they are all 'easy enough'. Windows of course, always has to be the pain in the ass. But for total portability this is an AoR where Python excels. When it comes to deploying stuff, it gets tricker. Windows lacks a package manager and you eventually have to draw a line between what you're stuck bundling and what your stuck making a dependency. One of these days I need to look at py2exe and see how it would work out for what I've a mind to setup.
Big pluses:
Qt4 for C++ and (generally) Python is great and works on all my systems, QtJambi I've never tried on FreeBSD yet, but would be interesting if it works. The only thing I hate about Qt, the commercial license costs an arm and a leg :-(, but most of my needs fit within the (free) Open Source Editions license terms with a smile.
WxWidgets seems to be less painful then GTK+ under Windows while still supporting many languages, although GTK+ would probably be more fun to learn in my case. It also has nifty things, including string/regex classes.
MySQL and SQLite are generally portable and have bindings to other languages quick & easy enough. I've never used SQLite on a project, since I run MySQL on one of my own systems to service all my SQL-related needs ;-)
When it is all said and done, I really think Pyhon is the best choice... I dunno why or how, but it seems that way! Hmm, to re-dive into using Python for most tasks, or to get C++ crazy... Or live with using both side by side? For my own sake, I think I should sake fuck Java! But it is a great language in it's own right.
Oh well, maybe in a few months I'll have figured out which path to take. I can always make use of other languages and tools, but I very much need to find a "primary" set to work with!
So far, it seems to me that language wise my best thoughts:
Python, I don't really 'like' python but I can do a tremendous amount of work in it compared to other languages, time wise. And it's fairly easy to implement and test stuff -- worst thing I can say about it is it's interpreted and the regular expression support is done via a standard library module. Although jython (compile to byte code, but compares to a smaller version of an old CPython release) and ironpython (python for .net clr) should help the former, and the api for regex ain't that bad, but sucks compared to Perl lol (like most languages seem to, that don't steal Perls syntax or likewise make it a core element of the language syntax). Python also can handle interfacing with other languages well enough between the CPython, Jython, and IronPyhon implementations.
Java, great syntax and fairly logical. The byte code is portable enough between Sun JVMs and it even has the portable Swing GUI toolkit, although I'd probably end up using SWT or the WxWidgets bindings. The bad things about Java, although you can compile to native machine code, ya need to get the GNU Compiler for Java (GCJ) working first. Regular expressions are done via it's libraries rather then syntax, and. Well the only _nice_ way of saying it, most of the tools with the JDK eventually piss me off, but I like the language aside from that. The only major con is it is as OOP-centric as I've ever seen, and it's that way by design.
C++, lower level then any of the others and offering the best level of interface to C code of any of them around ;-). I personally prefer Java's syntax over that of C++ but it still gets the job done. It's just a question of how often you want to press Shift while typing... One of the best things, the STL is quite nice and well enough supported now to be worth using. Although, in my experience when working around C interfaces, the STLs value can go out the window, but maybe that's just how long I went before using the STL. One plus, unlike Java or Python, you get a more traditional pointer, not to mention a few interesting things in the std::namespace and boost libraries. Not sure what shape exceptions support is like under various system compilers, but I don't think that I've ever seen C++ code using exceptions outside of examples or perhaps the FAQ :\.
Useful points of interest:
WxWidgets for the GUI -- portable to target platforms of most interest and in all three of the above languages (and a few more too).
libxml2 for XML -- portable to target platforms, but seems to only have C++ and Pyhon bindings easily available, libxmlj (for java) I think would need compiling and I haven't tried that under FreeBSD or Windows yet.
Semi-Native Regular Expressions -- Boost libraries for C++, Pythons own regular expression module, and ditto for Java (not that I like them).
std::string, str, and String classes -- basic string handling in C++, Python, and Java. Boost and WxWidges also provides wxString.
MySQL bindings -- database operations; quickly available for C++, Python, and Java (JDBC based). Using SQLite in C++/Python is also easy enough but I'm a bit leerly of Java-related connections for SQLite3.
As to the other stuff that was on my list:
C++ and Python provide suitable IPC systems, never have looked at Java in that light. Most of the stuff I need, is basically provided by the C libraries under POSIX systems and Windos, Python has a suitable interface to it, so I'm happy hehe.
Python has good enough built in support for common compression and archive formats. Whatever can't be done via java.util.zip hopefully could be done via JZlib, I'm not familiar with anyhing ZLib under C++, but there is always the traditional interface ^_^.
I haven't considered the network side that much. Although I sometimes find it a bit lengthly, I don't really mind working with the C-style sockets library I've used here, using the windows sockets library shouldn't be to far off from the ones used on *BSD and GNU for my needs (aside from headers/linking). Python has support for a number of protocols (and pwns Ruby on documenting the classes for most protocols IMHO), Java well enough out of the box, and both Python and Java provide usable interface to TCP/UDP. WxWidgets also has a few things as well but more limited, that might be worth looking at, since I'd rather like to use a similar interface in each language, while still leaving code that can be read.
As to the ease of use and deployment, that is always a tough question. Under FreeBSD and Debian at least, they are all 'easy enough'. Windows of course, always has to be the pain in the ass. But for total portability this is an AoR where Python excels. When it comes to deploying stuff, it gets tricker. Windows lacks a package manager and you eventually have to draw a line between what you're stuck bundling and what your stuck making a dependency. One of these days I need to look at py2exe and see how it would work out for what I've a mind to setup.
Big pluses:
Qt4 for C++ and (generally) Python is great and works on all my systems, QtJambi I've never tried on FreeBSD yet, but would be interesting if it works. The only thing I hate about Qt, the commercial license costs an arm and a leg :-(, but most of my needs fit within the (free) Open Source Editions license terms with a smile.
WxWidgets seems to be less painful then GTK+ under Windows while still supporting many languages, although GTK+ would probably be more fun to learn in my case. It also has nifty things, including string/regex classes.
MySQL and SQLite are generally portable and have bindings to other languages quick & easy enough. I've never used SQLite on a project, since I run MySQL on one of my own systems to service all my SQL-related needs ;-)
When it is all said and done, I really think Pyhon is the best choice... I dunno why or how, but it seems that way! Hmm, to re-dive into using Python for most tasks, or to get C++ crazy... Or live with using both side by side? For my own sake, I think I should sake fuck Java! But it is a great language in it's own right.
Oh well, maybe in a few months I'll have figured out which path to take. I can always make use of other languages and tools, but I very much need to find a "primary" set to work with!
think:
switch(choice) {
case PYTHON_ONLY:
// Python becomes my primary language
break;
case CPP_ONLY:
// C++ becomes my primary language
break;
case PYTHON_AND_CPP:
// use both side by side
break;
default:
goto think;
}
Sunday, September 7, 2008
My laugh of the day, 2008-09-08
“To bring a MicroVAX to its knees, try twenty users running vi — or four running EMACS."
I just couldn't help but smile, nod, and laugh lol. Vi is a fairly light weight program in todays world, and was designed in a time when just moving your text editors cursor was probably slow as watching paint drying. Emacs on the other hand, tends to be rather hefty in most good implementations, I think it was once a cottage indrusty to make light-weight emacsen.
And to this day in the form of GNU and X Emacs is, one small operating system, but a huge text editor compared to the nimble Vi. I don't go much in for the Vi Vs. Emacs stuff and vice versa, because I use the Vim which is the only thing better then Vi ;-)
I just couldn't help but smile, nod, and laugh lol. Vi is a fairly light weight program in todays world, and was designed in a time when just moving your text editors cursor was probably slow as watching paint drying. Emacs on the other hand, tends to be rather hefty in most good implementations, I think it was once a cottage indrusty to make light-weight emacsen.
And to this day in the form of GNU and X Emacs is, one small operating system, but a huge text editor compared to the nimble Vi. I don't go much in for the Vi Vs. Emacs stuff and vice versa, because I use the Vim which is the only thing better then Vi ;-)
The days woes
I think if I have to look upon another line of code on the website tonight, I'll go mental! Maybe it's lucky for me, that tomorrow is such of a hell of a long job, that I've got to go to bed early to survive it lol.
The best way to describe old code on the site, is a scripting language with many globals, almost no regard for scope, rarely any indentation, extremely long lines, and compounded with (often shitty)HTML embedded in multiple layers, and designed in such a way. That if you so much as add a comment somewhere you'll probably break something lol*. It's an exaggeration of course, but it is essentially _that_ bad to work with. Much worse when you consider that system upgrades can often make subtle changes that only an asshole would've assumed never would change. I'm tired of having to think up band aids around shit that shouldn't have been written in the first place. I'm no brilliant programmer, but for the love of HAL, at least try to do a decent job!
[SAS] has had one very negative impact on my life, I can't stand assholes that do things half-assed, whether it's running around like a headless chicken, or making toxic waste look pretty.
In a lot of ways, I wish I could just rip the website part... Build it anew, as Operation Excalibur was meant to experiment with locally. But people would likely not like that idea, because all they get to see is the 'outside' of the site, not the innards. *SIGH*, I don't like rewriting stuff from scratch, but I don't like being forced into bubble-gum solutions with bubble gum on the bubble gum either. I know Wiz isn't a code monkey, tbh he would have a good excuse to write putrid code, but the sad thing? The jackasses who wrote the code we're working on, were supposed to be an educated man. I really hope, if that person ever gets a job that involves computers and programming or webwork, they stick a cattle prod up their ass at the sight of the work being done. At least Wiz makes an effort, that's more then I can say of the person that hashed out most of the websites less-nice modules.
I still need to fix one module used in the selection course, and after having spent more then 3 hours reading, thinking, and testing. I still can't find the reason why it stopped working lol. The S.O.B. in question doesn't even have anything to do with our recent changes, but no... It's gotta be a prick and break, without reason, without word. To be honest, I never knew how much I would miss exception handling before I had to live without it, even if I never really used exceptions in most of my code lol.
Tis the nature of my sort, I think, to be pissed off and frustrated with such crocks. Including the kind that I wouldn't even wish on a machine let along a programmer. One thing I do know, it'll have to wait until at least Wednesday to get fixed, because I'm going to be working like a dog tomorrow and Tuesday. Oh man, what I would do if I had a week or two of nothing else to do but wage code-warfare upon building a more robust website.
* For those that don't know, a comment is a section of code that is totally ignored when running it, e.g. int foo = /* comment */ 1; is treated as if /* comment */ was never there.
Even a spider needs sleep eventually
The best way to describe old code on the site, is a scripting language with many globals, almost no regard for scope, rarely any indentation, extremely long lines, and compounded with (often shitty)HTML embedded in multiple layers, and designed in such a way. That if you so much as add a comment somewhere you'll probably break something lol*. It's an exaggeration of course, but it is essentially _that_ bad to work with. Much worse when you consider that system upgrades can often make subtle changes that only an asshole would've assumed never would change. I'm tired of having to think up band aids around shit that shouldn't have been written in the first place. I'm no brilliant programmer, but for the love of HAL, at least try to do a decent job!
[SAS] has had one very negative impact on my life, I can't stand assholes that do things half-assed, whether it's running around like a headless chicken, or making toxic waste look pretty.
In a lot of ways, I wish I could just rip the website part... Build it anew, as Operation Excalibur was meant to experiment with locally. But people would likely not like that idea, because all they get to see is the 'outside' of the site, not the innards. *SIGH*, I don't like rewriting stuff from scratch, but I don't like being forced into bubble-gum solutions with bubble gum on the bubble gum either. I know Wiz isn't a code monkey, tbh he would have a good excuse to write putrid code, but the sad thing? The jackasses who wrote the code we're working on, were supposed to be an educated man. I really hope, if that person ever gets a job that involves computers and programming or webwork, they stick a cattle prod up their ass at the sight of the work being done. At least Wiz makes an effort, that's more then I can say of the person that hashed out most of the websites less-nice modules.
I still need to fix one module used in the selection course, and after having spent more then 3 hours reading, thinking, and testing. I still can't find the reason why it stopped working lol. The S.O.B. in question doesn't even have anything to do with our recent changes, but no... It's gotta be a prick and break, without reason, without word. To be honest, I never knew how much I would miss exception handling before I had to live without it, even if I never really used exceptions in most of my code lol.
Tis the nature of my sort, I think, to be pissed off and frustrated with such crocks. Including the kind that I wouldn't even wish on a machine let along a programmer. One thing I do know, it'll have to wait until at least Wednesday to get fixed, because I'm going to be working like a dog tomorrow and Tuesday. Oh man, what I would do if I had a week or two of nothing else to do but wage code-warfare upon building a more robust website.
* For those that don't know, a comment is a section of code that is totally ignored when running it, e.g. int foo = /* comment */ 1; is treated as if /* comment */ was never there.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Applying CSS to this theme
Well, hopefully it is an improvement. I've tried to take the default font sizes in px, and tune them in using pt's, I also enlarged a few things. All of which are improvements, except for the entry text with I enlarged a bit higher then I wanted, in the hopes that a change from 1280x800 on a 15.4" widescreen running FreeBSD + X.Org to a 1600x1200 on a 19" conventional running Windows XP at 144dpi over normal, will hopefully still be legible in Google Chrome >_>.
Ok, so I'm getty cooky, but I like that little web browser loool. If the font size isn't to hard to read on my desktop, I'll probably lower it to ~11pt or so. I know, courtesy of the Windows / Mac OS / X11 differences, that working in points isn't very good, but I prefer it, and it's my LJ to post on after all. I think though, it's a bit nicer then using pixels all over.
At the time of this LJ post, my theme is 'Under Fire Smooth Sailing by Michael Raffoul', being allowed to add some of my own Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) code in the customize theme menu, I've effected these changes with the following:
Ahh, I love CSS at times.
Ok, so I'm getty cooky, but I like that little web browser loool. If the font size isn't to hard to read on my desktop, I'll probably lower it to ~11pt or so. I know, courtesy of the Windows / Mac OS / X11 differences, that working in points isn't very good, but I prefer it, and it's my LJ to post on after all. I think though, it's a bit nicer then using pixels all over.
At the time of this LJ post, my theme is 'Under Fire Smooth Sailing by Michael Raffoul', being allowed to add some of my own Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) code in the customize theme menu, I've effected these changes with the following:
/* the header title, basically my user name */
div.header-title {
font-size: 23pt;
}
/* the sub title, what reads 'captains log' at this time of writing */
div.header-subtitle {
font-size: 18pt;
}
/* the nav menu above the header */
div.header-menu {
font-size: 9pt;
}
/* the thing that currently says 'recent entries' above the first entry */
div.body-title {
font-size: 14pt;
}
/* all of the sidebox titles use this class */
div.sideboxTitle {
font-size: 9pt;
}
/* posts summery list links and calendar numerals */
div.summeryList a, div.latestmonth-inactive, div.latestmonth-active {
font-size: 7.5pt;
}
/* my links list on the side bar,
*
* XXX I wanted this a little larger
*/
div.sideboxContent#systemlinks > div.listitem a {
font-size: 9pt;
}
/* entry header, e.g. date/time - subject */
div.entryHeader {
font-size: 11pt; /* XXX slightly larger */
}
/* the text of the actual entry -- larger text !*/
div.entryText, div.entryText a {
font-size: 12pt;
}
div.entryLinkbar ul > li > a {
font-size: 10pt;
}
Ahh, I love CSS at times.
Microsoft Kicthen -- I've never been so scared of the future
Food Networks programming for tonight was examining the kitchen of tomorrow concept, from a time when blenders, ice makers, and dish washers were new gizmo's... all the way to work in the present day. Ranging from some ideas that folks at MIT are 'cooking up', all the way down to a spoon that can taste :\
But the one that really got me, was the Microsoft Kitchen. A quick look at the lock, and the person was let in -- always wanted one of those retinal scanners, just like on TV! (or as my Mom put it, just like in Back To The Future II). A cook top that displays cooking advice... Recipes, even a flibbing stencil to help you cook, and a voice to give you instructions.
If you don't know how to cook and the computer tells you to chop your fingers off, will you do it?
There was a Networked Microwave, you just scan a can of soup, and it fetches the instructions off the internet and warms it up for you. Oh, for crying out loud... Why the heck would I want a network attached Microwave? Unless I could program it in Java ? I can just imagine it, go scan a can of soup, some prankster has broken into your microwave, and it fetches instructions that makes it blow up in your face >_>
In the memory of Dr. Ian Malcom, These people must be so preoccupied with whether or they they could, that they don't stop tot think if they _should_.
It also showed that every thing in the cabinets had a little radio tag that a computer tracked, letting you know how much Chili you had and stuff, great idea! Although I reckon any one with sufficient DIY skills could cook that up during a spell of unemployment lol. I wonder if the system is encrypted, or you neighborers can know how many bags of cookies you gnosh on before going to Weight Watchers haha. Another thing that Microsofts Kitchen had, was a computer telling you advice, put an appliance on the counter top, and it started giving you ideas to go with it.
Well hell, they can't even create a decent search engine, so I can only hope it uses some kind of most recently used algorithm.
Not to mention a computer to provide medical advice on how much and what to take. Oy vey, I can just see that one going sour.... I dunno what is worse, having Clippy in your medicine cabinet or the probability that it will either Blue Screen of Death or suffer from a (lethal to stupid you) malware infection when someone asks a question +S
I know, having used Microsoft software for almost my entire computing life... The idea of just Microsoft reaching a cars multimedia system was scary, but this kitchen of the future, is just fucking
Ya know, I generally consider myself borderline on technophilia at times... But in all honesty. I think if you just ditched the stupid sales jingles and stuff, I would much rather have the far from digital "kitchen of tomorrow" from the 1950s, or better yet fast forward to the Jetsons, with a automated food preparation system and a robot maid lol.
But then again, if the ultimate invention ever occurred inmy life time, I'd probably worry about the dang thing trying to poison me for a few decades before they became common place enough to trust <_<. But by then, they would probably be network attached without any security devices lmao.
Why do I feel old? Probably because I still have need of the ol'microwave more then Microsofts networked one hehe.
But the one that really got me, was the Microsoft Kitchen. A quick look at the lock, and the person was let in -- always wanted one of those retinal scanners, just like on TV! (or as my Mom put it, just like in Back To The Future II). A cook top that displays cooking advice... Recipes, even a flibbing stencil to help you cook, and a voice to give you instructions.
If you don't know how to cook and the computer tells you to chop your fingers off, will you do it?
There was a Networked Microwave, you just scan a can of soup, and it fetches the instructions off the internet and warms it up for you. Oh, for crying out loud... Why the heck would I want a network attached Microwave? Unless I could program it in Java ? I can just imagine it, go scan a can of soup, some prankster has broken into your microwave, and it fetches instructions that makes it blow up in your face >_>
In the memory of Dr. Ian Malcom, These people must be so preoccupied with whether or they they could, that they don't stop tot think if they _should_.
It also showed that every thing in the cabinets had a little radio tag that a computer tracked, letting you know how much Chili you had and stuff, great idea! Although I reckon any one with sufficient DIY skills could cook that up during a spell of unemployment lol. I wonder if the system is encrypted, or you neighborers can know how many bags of cookies you gnosh on before going to Weight Watchers haha. Another thing that Microsofts Kitchen had, was a computer telling you advice, put an appliance on the counter top, and it started giving you ideas to go with it.
Well hell, they can't even create a decent search engine, so I can only hope it uses some kind of most recently used algorithm.
Not to mention a computer to provide medical advice on how much and what to take. Oy vey, I can just see that one going sour.... I dunno what is worse, having Clippy in your medicine cabinet or the probability that it will either Blue Screen of Death or suffer from a (lethal to stupid you) malware infection when someone asks a question +S
I know, having used Microsoft software for almost my entire computing life... The idea of just Microsoft reaching a cars multimedia system was scary, but this kitchen of the future, is just fucking
__S_C_A_R_Y__
.Ya know, I generally consider myself borderline on technophilia at times... But in all honesty. I think if you just ditched the stupid sales jingles and stuff, I would much rather have the far from digital "kitchen of tomorrow" from the 1950s, or better yet fast forward to the Jetsons, with a automated food preparation system and a robot maid lol.
But then again, if the ultimate invention ever occurred inmy life time, I'd probably worry about the dang thing trying to poison me for a few decades before they became common place enough to trust <_<. But by then, they would probably be network attached without any security devices lmao.
Why do I feel old? Probably because I still have need of the ol'microwave more then Microsofts networked one hehe.
Font sizes
Now this is pissing me off.... Almost every website I use, seems to set the font size in Pixels.
sasclan.org -- 10px (for crying out loud)
pcbsd.org -- 12px
daemonforums.org -- 13px
sas-spidey01.livejournal.com -- The Under Fire theme I'm used has a selectable but sets it in 'px' :-(
At least though, It's not a total wash out. Live Journal itself does decent by fonts in it's main theme. Wikipedia respects the browser, and my LJ's theme is very configurable hehe. I think, if I ever had tons of cash to spare, a paid account + working on themes here would be a fun time killer lol.
sasclan.org -- 10px (for crying out loud)
pcbsd.org -- 12px
daemonforums.org -- 13px
sas-spidey01.livejournal.com -- The Under Fire theme I'm used has a selectable but sets it in 'px' :-(
At least though, It's not a total wash out. Live Journal itself does decent by fonts in it's main theme. Wikipedia respects the browser, and my LJ's theme is very configurable hehe. I think, if I ever had tons of cash to spare, a paid account + working on themes here would be a fun time killer lol.
I managed to fix it fairly quick, wlel have way. I fixed it for [SAS] but broke it for non [SAS] lol. I've still got to wrap my head around that bowl of soup before I can be sure it'll work right along side the new code.
I would've had it done much faster, if it wasn't for the stupidest of typo's... I really wish the difference between
Was an error (or at least a warning) about an undefined variable on our setup, rather then creating a new one called $foo_bar. Maybe, I've just been using statically typed languages to much lately :\.
More work to do today, but I did managed to install SWAT 4 and TSS without problem. It's very good to return to the Proving Grounds, but I still miss some of the old gang... Alas, that's the way things are and there still is work that remains to be done in the department.
I would've had it done much faster, if it wasn't for the stupidest of typo's... I really wish the difference between
$foobar = some value;
if ($foo_bar) {
... do something;
}
Was an error (or at least a warning) about an undefined variable on our setup, rather then creating a new one called $foo_bar. Maybe, I've just been using statically typed languages to much lately :\.
More work to do today, but I did managed to install SWAT 4 and TSS without problem. It's very good to return to the Proving Grounds, but I still miss some of the old gang... Alas, that's the way things are and there still is work that remains to be done in the department.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Oy what a week...
I can't wait for next weekend!!! By then, I'll be off work.. bu at least, this weekend I' m only working lightly.
Tonights primary objective is to work on the website, for me at least. It is a very tiring subject, I like the languages involved of course, but I'd rather be hit by a truck then write code like what we've inherited lol.
I'm no brilliant programmer, but hell, at least I try to write robust code. Not stuff that'll make the next poor sap to maintain it, want to fly over and kick ya ass. Hmm, oh man, what I would do if I could >_>
Tonights primary objective is to work on the website, for me at least. It is a very tiring subject, I like the languages involved of course, but I'd rather be hit by a truck then write code like what we've inherited lol.
I'm no brilliant programmer, but hell, at least I try to write robust code. Not stuff that'll make the next poor sap to maintain it, want to fly over and kick ya ass. Hmm, oh man, what I would do if I could >_>
Omni-tasker bound by honesty
Oh why, did I have to promise one of my friends I'd put myself on equal priority?
I could just go straight thought and finish (most of) this tonight, skip sleeping for then a half hour, and go to work without trouble. Haha, just kidding, I'm not that crazy ^_^. I'll need sleep to get up on time, but thankfully tomorrows just more time consuming then stressful. So my plan is to:
Make like a Spider now, get done what I can, then hack like a son of a bitch at it tomorrow... Until the project falls, and with luck! A project over 3 and a half years in the making, will be complete soon !!!!!!
I could just go straight thought and finish (most of) this tonight, skip sleeping for then a half hour, and go to work without trouble. Haha, just kidding, I'm not that crazy ^_^. I'll need sleep to get up on time, but thankfully tomorrows just more time consuming then stressful. So my plan is to:
Make like a Spider now, get done what I can, then hack like a son of a bitch at it tomorrow... Until the project falls, and with luck! A project over 3 and a half years in the making, will be complete soon !!!!!!
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
My poor baby...
Installed Netbeans on my laptop to give it a test drive, and between top and the massive change in performance in flock, I can't help but think that my system is in pain as it fights with flock for system resources :\
The fact that I've got flash7 running in one tab and only a small set of 5 tabs open in flock, ain't that bad I guess. It seems that my system has almost adapted to this load, because the stats in top have gotten even worse but FreeBSD has gotten almost as responsive as normal when running these programs.
I love my darlin' Dixie ;-)
last pid: 2235; load averages: 2.04, 1.50, 1.00 up 0+01:08:22 03:52:09 86 processes: 4 running, 81 sleeping, 1 stopped CPU: 83.8% user, 0.0% nice, 16.2% system, 0.0% interrupt, 0.0% idle Mem: 298M Active, 18M Inact, 96M Wired, 12M Cache, 53M Buf, 1888K Free Swap: 860M Total, 100M Used, 760M Free, 11% Inuse PID USERNAME THR PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE TIME WCPU COMMAND 2195 Terry 30 44 0 387M 137M ucond 0:00 77.25% java 1498 Terry 1 99 0 715M 139M RUN 25:43 13.87% flock-bin 1358 root 1 44 0 119M 63776K select 1:56 0.00% Xorg 1403 Terry 1 45 0 18616K 4796K select 0:51 0.00% gkrellm 1504 Terry 1 0 0 715M 139M linuxf 0:19 0.00% flock-bin 1500 Terry 1 0 0 715M 139M linuxf 0:04 0.00% flock-bin 1499 Terry 1 44 0 715M 139M select 0:03 0.00% flock-bin 1477 Terry 1 44 0 30940K 6832K select 0:03 0.00% Terminal 1887 Terry 1 44 0 34752K 8020K select 0:02 0.00% xchat 1174 root 1 44 0 3264K 564K select 0:02 0.00% moused 1404 Terry 1 44 0 45900K 2944K select 0:01 0.00% pidgin 1402 Terry 1 44 0 14280K 2256K select 0:00 0.00% fbpanel 1509 Terry 1 0 0 715M 139M linuxf 0:00 0.00% flock-bin 1405 Terry 1 44 0 9080K 1340K select 0:00 0.00% blackbox 1515 Terry 1 0 0 715M 139M linuxf 0:00 0.00% flock-bin 1481 Terry 1 20 0 4640K 0K pause 0:00 0.00%1399 Terry 1 44 0 8172K 724K select 0:00 0.00% bbkeys
The fact that I've got flash7 running in one tab and only a small set of 5 tabs open in flock, ain't that bad I guess. It seems that my system has almost adapted to this load, because the stats in top have gotten even worse but FreeBSD has gotten almost as responsive as normal when running these programs.
I love my darlin' Dixie ;-)
Busy of late and more to come!
oy, what a time the past week has been!
I've managed to fix several issues on the website, create a few more,a nd fix them lol. One was a typo, the other was a logic error that slipped by me. In the latter case, it wouldn't have happened if I wasn't more worried about *breaking* old code that predates my membership then beign wide awake >_>. I also had to fix a really, really, really old line of code today. That seems to have been broken by one of the site upgrades yesterday.
I've been screwing with Services For UNIX, The Korn Shell (various implementations, ranging from SFU to the official ksh93). Shoe horning Windows into a usable system, and trying to keep a steady presence on the RvS servers... but I'm still longing for SWAT !!! It's been so long since I've had a solid game with my teammates (other then in RvS). I've also had to update my vimrc file while I was at it, I've vastly improve it but still thinkit it could be better. I also tested a few plugins and colo's as well, the only headache is making sure it works on all of my systems lol. SFU, however seems to be the cause of most problems!
Tomorrow will probably be another monster of a work day, I'm not looking forward to it... There will however be a *lot* of stuff to deal with when I get home, I'm sure of it. At least though, we seem to be moving into a very positive direction for the future (long term). I can't say that I am happy with some of the things I suspect may have to be done, but I pray it goes well... For the sake of all. I can't say the same for everyone else in the world, but for me, I only know one thing about myself:
LOYAL TO THE END
I've managed to fix several issues on the website, create a few more,a nd fix them lol. One was a typo, the other was a logic error that slipped by me. In the latter case, it wouldn't have happened if I wasn't more worried about *breaking* old code that predates my membership then beign wide awake >_>. I also had to fix a really, really, really old line of code today. That seems to have been broken by one of the site upgrades yesterday.
I've been screwing with Services For UNIX, The Korn Shell (various implementations, ranging from SFU to the official ksh93). Shoe horning Windows into a usable system, and trying to keep a steady presence on the RvS servers... but I'm still longing for SWAT !!! It's been so long since I've had a solid game with my teammates (other then in RvS). I've also had to update my vimrc file while I was at it, I've vastly improve it but still thinkit it could be better. I also tested a few plugins and colo's as well, the only headache is making sure it works on all of my systems lol. SFU, however seems to be the cause of most problems!
Tomorrow will probably be another monster of a work day, I'm not looking forward to it... There will however be a *lot* of stuff to deal with when I get home, I'm sure of it. At least though, we seem to be moving into a very positive direction for the future (long term). I can't say that I am happy with some of the things I suspect may have to be done, but I pray it goes well... For the sake of all. I can't say the same for everyone else in the world, but for me, I only know one thing about myself:
LOYAL TO THE END
Monday, September 1, 2008
The long and tiring road
I've been very weary of late,
Perhaps even more so now that I've been off work for a bit. I don't think I go back to work until Wednesday, hope it's not tomorrow lool. The only time I generally know what day it is, is when I'm at work. What I really need is something like Lothlórien. When the Fellowship of the Ring stopped in the beautiful Lothlórien, they were able to find a time of great rest before continuing on with their quest (after just losing Gandalf the gray in the mines of Moria and a long march to flee from the orcs).
I've been very busy, little sleep, no real R&R,and it's almost time to go back to work :-(. I really need a dang gum vacation !!! It seems that no matter what I do, the things I seek are always on the edge, just beyond my grasp.
I Always did like that Poem
Perhaps even more so now that I've been off work for a bit. I don't think I go back to work until Wednesday, hope it's not tomorrow lool. The only time I generally know what day it is, is when I'm at work. What I really need is something like Lothlórien. When the Fellowship of the Ring stopped in the beautiful Lothlórien, they were able to find a time of great rest before continuing on with their quest (after just losing Gandalf the gray in the mines of Moria and a long march to flee from the orcs).
I've been very busy, little sleep, no real R&R,and it's almost time to go back to work :-(. I really need a dang gum vacation !!! It seems that no matter what I do, the things I seek are always on the edge, just beyond my grasp.
Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.
But he grew old,
This knight so bold,
And o'er his heart a shadow,
Fell as he found,
No spot of ground,
That looked like Eldorado.
And, as his strength,
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow;
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be,
This land of Eldorado?"
"Over the mountains
Of the moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied,
"If you seek for Eldorado!"
-- Eldorado, Edgar Allan Poe, 1849.
I Always did like that Poem
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Chronicling the Failures of DRM
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/218559/the-online-music-ripoff.html
All I can say is, "Burn, baby burn !!!"
I wouldn't call MP3 an open format by any chance, but the article is interesting. DRM in my humble opinion is just a load of crap. Because anyone it is meant to actually stop, is more then smart enough (or equipped to) circumvent it one way or the other. That's actually one reason why I rarely buy music, my opinion that the companies making the most money off of it. Won't be happy until they've eventually figured out a way to charge someone four times for the same thing, then work on the next big thing, PayPerPlay hahah !!
I generally preer to have music on CD, because it lasts longer. Heh, I'd probably prefer vinyl if it was practical, but that's a different story ^_^. Generally when I listen to music, it's always on the computer. And I'm much to lazy to flick Audio CD's around all day >_>
Take yourself back to the days when everyone bought only CDs. Imagine what you'd have thought of a store that sold discs that might work on your CD player now, but weren't guaranteed to work on next year's models. Imagine that some required you to phone the music store on a regular basis to reassure them that you were the legitimate owner, and were that store to go under, all the CDs you bought from it would one day cease playing. And once you started buying music from this store, you found yourself locked into a system that discouraged you from buying from a rival store down the street. Why, you might think, would you have bought anything from a place like that? Well, if you're like millions of people in the UK, there's a strong chance you already have.
All I can say is, "Burn, baby burn !!!"
I wouldn't call MP3 an open format by any chance, but the article is interesting. DRM in my humble opinion is just a load of crap. Because anyone it is meant to actually stop, is more then smart enough (or equipped to) circumvent it one way or the other. That's actually one reason why I rarely buy music, my opinion that the companies making the most money off of it. Won't be happy until they've eventually figured out a way to charge someone four times for the same thing, then work on the next big thing, PayPerPlay hahah !!
I generally preer to have music on CD, because it lasts longer. Heh, I'd probably prefer vinyl if it was practical, but that's a different story ^_^. Generally when I listen to music, it's always on the computer. And I'm much to lazy to flick Audio CD's around all day >_>
Yippie-Kay-Yay Micro$oft SFU !!!
Test one: I wonder if Console is a decent replacement for cmd.exe 's terminal emulator --- It is
Test two: I wonder if the SFU pdksh can do completion? --- It can, just had to find the 'bind' commands for it
Test three: I wonder if SFU's pdksh will work with my %PATH% --- it did
Problem one: SFU pdksh seems to require the formal name, e.g. 'foo.exe' for programs outside of it's regular path and runwin32's search path --- That's ok, I don't mind much and can alias out stuff like flock.
Problem two: Because SFU follows the unix-style of open it, see if there is a she-bang line (e.g. #!/bin/sh) saying what to run it with, else pass it on to the shell.... It feeds .bat files into it's pdksh unless they are manually executed, e.g. 'runwin32 cmd /C foo.bat' --- that is bad, several programs I use wrap themselves in 'batch' files on Windows and 'shell' scripts on Unix.
Problem three: My universal bourne-based shrc (~/.${USER}_shrc) sets itself to the current Bourne-style shell (e.g. sh, bash, ksh-family, zsh) and Operating System (e.g. BSD, Linux, generic Unix) needs to inspect the $SHELL environment variable to determin what shell to set stuff for. --- For some odd reason the SFU pdksh doesn't seem to set SHELL !!!! To top it off, $USER is not set, but at least the Windows var: %USERNAME% is converted to $USERNAME.
Fix for problem one:
Fix for problem two:
Launch a new session of cmd.exe through windows (e.g. not via SFU; use the run dialog, start menu, or desktop /or quicklaunch icon).
Return to SFU korn shell (pdksh):
The wrapper scripts this creates look like this:
it's neccessary to set the Windows %PATH% before launch, so it can execute the program --- using the path from the invocation environment won't work, e.g. /dev/fs/P/Devel/Langauges/Ruby/bin/irb in SFU Shells but this woudl translate to CurrentDriveLetter:\dev/fs/P/Devel/Langauges/Ruby/bin/irb which won't work. Note, the program must be executed as P:\Devel\Languages\Ruby\bin\irb.bat in Windows cmd shell, as that is where it is located on my system.
Fix for problem three:
I modified my ~/.profile from OpenBSD to take care of the $USER and $SHELL issues, which is also nice enough to load my custom initialization file.
I set the path to the physical rather then the /bin/ksh 'shorty' in SFU, so that if I later find any compatibility issues, I can always work around it 'specifically' if necessary.
I'm not sure if it is a problem with the Console2-Devel build I've installed or with how SFU's korn shell expects to run. But a few seconds after startup the prompt disappears as if from a 'clear', giving any I/O that results in a line being drawn causes a fix. Since I haven't figured this part out yet, I've just 'side stepped' the problem. It takes roughly the amount of time to sleep and echo the message before I am returned to my prompt. A quick parse of my $ENV and we're ready to rock and all the output on the Console tab is from my ${USER}_shrc file.
I copied an old version of initialization file and made a quick edit. In the file I check for the systems unix name and use it to record the operating system type. The Services For UNIX subsystem still identifies itself as 'Interix' even though it's been under Microsoft's thumb for a bit.
I want to make a few changes to my shrc, but I don't think they will work *properly* with SFU. My shrc file also pulls in a local 'extension' of itself, called ~/.site_shrc that makes things specific to the current system, for example adding the TexLive binaries to my $PATH on FreeBSD and noting the IP address or doing things that won't work in the shells/v7sh that I use for testing. It looks like I'm going to have to write a site_shrc for Windows hahaha !!!
There's more then one way to skin a cat, and this bloody hoge-podge of an operating system ain't gonna best me !!! I will have a decent CLI interface if I've got to invoke a hex editor...
Test two: I wonder if the SFU pdksh can do completion? --- It can, just had to find the 'bind' commands for it
Test three: I wonder if SFU's pdksh will work with my %PATH% --- it did
Problem one: SFU pdksh seems to require the formal name, e.g. 'foo.exe' for programs outside of it's regular path and runwin32's search path --- That's ok, I don't mind much and can alias out stuff like flock.
Problem two: Because SFU follows the unix-style of open it, see if there is a she-bang line (e.g. #!/bin/sh) saying what to run it with, else pass it on to the shell.... It feeds .bat files into it's pdksh unless they are manually executed, e.g. 'runwin32 cmd /C foo.bat' --- that is bad, several programs I use wrap themselves in 'batch' files on Windows and 'shell' scripts on Unix.
Problem three: My universal bourne-based shrc (~/.${USER}_shrc) sets itself to the current Bourne-style shell (e.g. sh, bash, ksh-family, zsh) and Operating System (e.g. BSD, Linux, generic Unix) needs to inspect the $SHELL environment variable to determin what shell to set stuff for. --- For some odd reason the SFU pdksh doesn't seem to set SHELL !!!! To top it off, $USER is not set, but at least the Windows var: %USERNAME% is converted to $USERNAME.
Fix for problem one:
$ mkdir /dev/fs/P/bin # creates P:\bin
$ touch binmaker.sh && chmod +x binmaker.sh
$ vi binmaker.sh
#!/bin/sh
BINDIR=/dev/fs/P/bin
for CMD in `echo $PATH | sed 's/:/ /g' | awk '{ print $0 }'`
do
for EXE in `ls $CMD`; do
echo $EXE | grep -E '.*\.exe$' > /dev/null && \
ln -s ${CMD}/${EXE} ${BINDIR}/`echo $EXE | sed 's/\.exe$//g'` && echo "made link for: ${CMD}/$EXE"
done
done
$ ./binmaker.sh
.... # symlinks all foo.exe in $PATH to /dev/fs/P/bin/foo
Fix for problem two:
Launch a new session of cmd.exe through windows (e.g. not via SFU; use the run dialog, start menu, or desktop /or quicklaunch icon).
U:\Terry> echo %PATH% > mypath.win
Return to SFU korn shell (pdksh):
$ touch batmaker.sh && chmod +x batmaker.sh
$ vi batmaker.sh
#!/bin/sh
BINDIR=/dev/fs/P/bin
make_wrapper() {
[ -e $2 ] && return # file exists, no wrapper needed
local MYFILE=`basename $2`
cd $BINDIR && [ ! -e $MYFILE ] && touch $MYFILE
echo '#/bin/sh' >> $MYFILE
echo 'exec cmd /C "set PATH=`cat ~/mypath.win` && `basename $0`"' >> $MYFILE
echo "${BINDIR}/$MYFILE created"
}
for CMD in `echo $PATH | sed 's/:/ /g' | awk '{ print $0 }'`
do
for EXE in `ls $CMD`; do
echo $EXE | grep -E '.*\.bat$' > /dev/null && \
make_wrapper ${CMD}/${EXE} "${BINDIR}/`echo $EXE | sed 's/\.bat$//g'`"
done
done
$ ./batmaker.sh
... makes wrapper shell scripts in /dev/fs/P/bin/ for all foo.bat in $PATH
The wrapper scripts this creates look like this:
Terry@SAL1600-$ cat bin/irb #/bin/sh exec cmd /C "set PATH=`cat ~/mypath.win` && `basename $0`" Terry@SAL1600-$
it's neccessary to set the Windows %PATH% before launch, so it can execute the program --- using the path from the invocation environment won't work, e.g. /dev/fs/P/Devel/Langauges/Ruby/bin/irb in SFU Shells but this woudl translate to CurrentDriveLetter:\dev/fs/P/Devel/Langauges/Ruby/bin/irb which won't work. Note, the program must be executed as P:\Devel\Languages\Ruby\bin\irb.bat in Windows cmd shell, as that is where it is located on my system.
Fix for problem three:
I modified my ~/.profile from OpenBSD to take care of the $USER and $SHELL issues, which is also nice enough to load my custom initialization file.
$ vi .profile
export TERM HOME
USER=$USERNAME; export USER
SHELL="/dev/fs/P/Utilities/Services_For_UNIX/bin/ksh"; export SHELL
echo "Waiting for screen repaint...."
sleep 2
echo 'Korn power !!!'
ENV=${HOME}/.${USER}_shrc
I set the path to the physical rather then the /bin/ksh 'shorty' in SFU, so that if I later find any compatibility issues, I can always work around it 'specifically' if necessary.
I'm not sure if it is a problem with the Console2-Devel build I've installed or with how SFU's korn shell expects to run. But a few seconds after startup the prompt disappears as if from a 'clear', giving any I/O that results in a line being drawn causes a fix. Since I haven't figured this part out yet, I've just 'side stepped' the problem. It takes roughly the amount of time to sleep and echo the message before I am returned to my prompt. A quick parse of my $ENV and we're ready to rock and all the output on the Console tab is from my ${USER}_shrc file.
I copied an old version of initialization file and made a quick edit. In the file I check for the systems unix name and use it to record the operating system type. The Services For UNIX subsystem still identifies itself as 'Interix' even though it's been under Microsoft's thumb for a bit.
case `uname -s` in
'FreeBSD') isFreeBSD=1
LSCOLORS='CxGxxxxxBxexExcxdx'; export LSCOLORS
;; # FreeBSD
'OpenBSD') isOpenBSD=1;;
'NetBSD') isNetBSD=1;;
'Linux') isLinux=1;;
'Unix') isUnix=1;;
'Interix') isUnix=1;isSFU=1;;
esac
I want to make a few changes to my shrc, but I don't think they will work *properly* with SFU. My shrc file also pulls in a local 'extension' of itself, called ~/.site_shrc that makes things specific to the current system, for example adding the TexLive binaries to my $PATH on FreeBSD and noting the IP address or doing things that won't work in the shells/v7sh that I use for testing. It looks like I'm going to have to write a site_shrc for Windows hahaha !!!
There's more then one way to skin a cat, and this bloody hoge-podge of an operating system ain't gonna best me !!! I will have a decent CLI interface if I've got to invoke a hex editor...
You know, the more I try to give IDEs a fair chance, the more I find. That in the end, THEY ALL SUCK !!! Either that, or it has proven impossible to find something with even so much as a decent editor that's worth more then notepad or /bin/ed, is it really to much to ask; a decent editor?
Even on Windows XP, where cmd.exe has proven to be the worst damn CLI I've used, *my way* still seems to beat any IDE I've tried, and that is pretty damn sad lol. And so far I have found nothing that bests my personal combo of term+zsh+vim+tools, and tending to the more 'IDE like' features myself >_>. The only bad thing about cmd.exe, is it doesn't have emacs based line editing out of box lol, that and the tab completion works like a kinder garden program compared to bash/tcsh/zsh/pdksh.
Even on Windows XP, where cmd.exe has proven to be the worst damn CLI I've used, *my way* still seems to beat any IDE I've tried, and that is pretty damn sad lol. And so far I have found nothing that bests my personal combo of term+zsh+vim+tools, and tending to the more 'IDE like' features myself >_>. The only bad thing about cmd.exe, is it doesn't have emacs based line editing out of box lol, that and the tab completion works like a kinder garden program compared to bash/tcsh/zsh/pdksh.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Writer's Block: Your Online Hot Spots
Where do you spend most of your time on the web?
Live Journals Writer's Block
I maintain what some might consider a near omni-presence around [SAS], the PC-BSD support forum, and when time permits visit DaemonForums, but over there I very much prefer to read rather then comment.
I have almost non-stop music running on my PC, sometimes I use my local collection. But many of the times I stream radio. 94.9 The Bull is one that I've listened to a lot, but lately I've spent most of my time on pandora.com thanks to hearing about it. I've set up a station that gives me a nice mixture of the kind of music I like, typically country and rock. Some times I listen to BBC Radio 1, I like some of the stuff they put on but not all of it.
Wikipedia makes up a large amount of my daily web intake. Most often articles related to technology or computer science. I'm really horrible when it comes to Wikipedia, I remember once during research for a history exam. I was looking up something from the 19ths century, I forget what -- but the text book wasn't good enough. By the end of it, I wound up reading about the country of Vietnam lol. The hyperlinks and search ability removes what I hate about book-based encyclopedias, it's easy to find interesting stuff without jumping between many volumes!
When I'm interested in News, I usually check my RSS feeds. Along side my online-stored bookmarks, Flock lists RSS headlines in the my world page. I skim BBC's international edition, because I find it superior to CNNs various offerings. And also to Slash dot, because I can usually find interesting sci-technical tibbits there that I other wise wouldn't hear about.
xkcd.com often makes a pass through my web surfing habits, thanks to friends sending me links over AIM lol.
I often use various resources depending on what I'm dong and Google is my search engine, because the results are just better. And unlike other crap (Yahoo, Live search) there is less of a "Is your search engine really this bad, or did most of these results paid to be here?" feeling. Google just works!!! For resources, it ranges from programmer documentation, English-German and English dictionaries, and various software related sites (FBSD ports, sourceforge, etc).
When time permits and I have something to say, I'll usually try to update my LiveJournal. What good is a LJ unless you actually use it? I'd like to update every day or two, but my life's not that interesting. In fact, if I did update it that often, it would be rather depressing lol. The one big problem I have on spending time on the web, is keeping up with my E-Mail lol. I've got over 130mb of largely unread mail piled up, and that is just in my primary box.
Aside from that stuff, I'm usually logged into 5-7 instant messenger accounts and occasionally either a VoIP or IRC based system to boot. Hmm, considering how little HTML I typically use in posts, I wonder if I could cram any more hyperlinks into this post loool.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Writer's Block: The Meaning of Love
What does love mean to you, and why? Have you always felt this way?
Submitted By rynanne
Live Journals Writer's Block
Hmm, a question I've somewhat been pondering since I noticed the entry in the WB/QOTD-block. Mm, what does love mean to me?
I would rather watch the flesh melt off my bones then be without that person.
Perhaps a tad morbid, but particularly apt to the strength required to describe such a thing. In a way, maybe it is that simple as well, for me at least. Because that is generally how I feel. I'm not heroic, I'm not suicidal, but my heart can outweigh good sense -- the people I care for have to make it through whether I do or not, because I wouldn't be able to go on alone.
Any ways:
Love is forgiveness, if you really love someone, can't you bring yourself to leave wrongs aside?
Love is endless, I believe if you truly do love someone; you never stop loving them. At least, if there is a way to stop, I've never found it lol.
Love is blind, each can see the blackest moments of the others life, yet love them just as much. I'm not proud of every moment of my life, nor those of everyone I love, but I still love them. If anyone can't love me in tern, despite such things. Well, unfuck'em lol.
Love goes in both directions. Hmm, I have no idea but for a strange reason, the film Now, Voyager comes to mind. In my opinion, things have to work both ways... Haha, the Dining Philosophers problem comes to mind, I really think I need to get out more >_>.
Love isn't a bed of roses. If you expect to ever get along perfectly with someone in this life, you're positively nuts or dreaming IMHO. Love doesn't just dwell in special moments, but throughout the relationship. From spending time together, to picking up something on the way home, to the most intimate moments, why have any of it unless you loved them? To quote myself, "If I didn't love you, I'd tell you to go fuck off instead"
Love takes many forms, we each love different people in different ways. For example, it would be a bit abnormal to feel the same way about ones best friend as ones spouse, unless they are the same person lol.
When it comes to a more personal point, as in "as I do". Generally, if I love someone, I'll do just about anything within the terms of the law. In some cases, willing to stretch that a bit... Although that's never been necessary (thankfully). Also I'm usually more willing to 'bend' my schedule when needed, at least when it's not consistently a one-way affair. Although I almost never ask such things of others (hell, I don't even ask people to fetch me a drink 99% of times lol), I just don't like being 'monopolized' and won't do it to others. Or as I have told my family on a number of occasions. Only GOD has a right to control my life without my permission, and you're not GOD and you certainly don't have my permission !!!
Mm, one thing that comes to my mind is my parents. As fate would have it, after they got engaged, there was about 20 years difference and 3 marriages between them before they finally got married. Before my father died, they were only together for a few years, but during that time they were very much together. One thing I somewhat regret, is that I never really got to see how they both interacted with one another. Although, odds are if I did, I would've spent the first decade of my life rolling my eyes every day >_>. I very much like spending time with people that I care about when I can. Odds are, if I didn't, I could actually get more done. But that would be a bit selfish. In general, I do generally consider myself self-centered at times. But I do care very deeply about others, I'm just not an extrovert lol. Hanging out with friends and doing something == usually fun, finding a party just for it's own sake != fun (by comparison).
On the more, hmm I guess the romantic side of the coin. To me sharing life is a very important thing in that regard.
My train of thought arguably wonders as far south as any other mans but that's not what I truly desire in life. There is a very big difference between sex and making love, and in this day and age the former is easy to come by compared to the latter. I sometimes warn friends when they get to, uhh 'zealous', too think closer at what they desire. A 'good time' or something lasting -- my definition of a lover goes beyond sex.
I suppose, to put it to words beyond the obvious points ^^, if I ever got married there would have to be a lot more in the relationship then just the physical aspects. I have a very active mind, and life has made me, shall we say, devoid of an intellectual counter part for much of my life. Or as I like to think of it, if bra size exceeds brain size times heart capacity; I'm not prone to being involved for long, I already have to deal with enough stupid people.
My mind comes with me, just the same as my heart and everything else does, and what future would there be unless one could share both?
Although I would say one of my favorite songs among what I would classify as 'love songs', paints a rather optimistic view of things (imho). I really do think of things a bit differently. I guess you could say, it's the difference between a song you'd love to dance to with the woman of your dreams, and what you expect out of the rest of life together ^_^. All in all, I expect I'll probably be single for my entire life; unless GOD has something else in store.... But I guess that's just life. Still, I think that my idea of a 'perfect' moment. Would be to have the love of my life and our children in my arms... That would just be sublime, but I'm to rational a person to count on it happening in my life time.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Todo: Toolkit and Library madness
Examine for portability the following toolkits under these OSes: Windows NT, Mac OSX*, Unix-like.
*I sadly don't have a Mac, although I would really love one. So a OSX binary of some form will have to pass.
GTK+ -- C, C++, Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP, C#.NET (Java bindings also avail but seem to be gnome-centric)
Qt4 -- C++, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java (C#.NET and PHP bindings seem to be questionable and only C++/Python and possibly Java bindings can be depended on).
WxWidgets -- C++, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java, C#.NET
Swing and SWT would be considered if they were available under more languages !!!
Evaluate portable standard/add-on libraries to each language for the following capabilities:
String handling (they all do well in the language standard)
Regular Expressions (Only Perl and Ruby get this great imho)
XML Processing
Network programming -- both sockets based API and protocol support (IMAP, POP, HTTP/S, FTP)
Database handling -- must support MySQL, SQLite, and some form of flat file.
Basic compression and archive format support (e.g. tar; zip; gz; bz2; lzma)\
Inter-Process Communication (IPC) methods and related process control (e.g. fork(), exec(), signal(), kill() type routine-families).
Ease of use and deployment
Goals:
Build up a standard frame work of toolkits/libraries/etc that are portable across both my general operating environment and the various languages I use
Attempt to standardize myself on few languages rather then rubber banding between various programming languages + sh/awk/sed/friends
Ensure full development environments are available to me under FreeBSD 7 and Windows NT 5.1 (e.g. I can code from either machine and not change tools)
At least one language for scripting/prototyping and one for more efficient execution when implemented in that language (e.g. 1 interpreted + 1 compiled)
and try to stay sane along the way without writing a few libraries in the process >_>
*I sadly don't have a Mac, although I would really love one. So a OSX binary of some form will have to pass.
GTK+ -- C, C++, Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP, C#.NET (Java bindings also avail but seem to be gnome-centric)
Qt4 -- C++, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java (C#.NET and PHP bindings seem to be questionable and only C++/Python and possibly Java bindings can be depended on).
WxWidgets -- C++, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java, C#.NET
Swing and SWT would be considered if they were available under more languages !!!
Evaluate portable standard/add-on libraries to each language for the following capabilities:
String handling (they all do well in the language standard)
Regular Expressions (Only Perl and Ruby get this great imho)
XML Processing
Network programming -- both sockets based API and protocol support (IMAP, POP, HTTP/S, FTP)
Database handling -- must support MySQL, SQLite, and some form of flat file.
Basic compression and archive format support (e.g. tar; zip; gz; bz2; lzma)\
Inter-Process Communication (IPC) methods and related process control (e.g. fork(), exec(), signal(), kill() type routine-families).
Ease of use and deployment
Goals:
Build up a standard frame work of toolkits/libraries/etc that are portable across both my general operating environment and the various languages I use
Attempt to standardize myself on few languages rather then rubber banding between various programming languages + sh/awk/sed/friends
Ensure full development environments are available to me under FreeBSD 7 and Windows NT 5.1 (e.g. I can code from either machine and not change tools)
At least one language for scripting/prototyping and one for more efficient execution when implemented in that language (e.g. 1 interpreted + 1 compiled)
and try to stay sane along the way without writing a few libraries in the process >_>
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
*SIGH* watching my wireless connection flubber-band between 6mb/s and 24mb/s at a distance of ~2.5m, I think it's time to go to bed, and download a few api references in the morning....
Grrr...
EDIT:
Even worse stroke of luck, took a break and loaded up XGalaga (a nice Galaga based game), got a powerup of tripple-missle launcher in the first wave, only to lose it seconds later when I took my eyes half off the display lol --> just long enough to zig when I should've zagged ^_^
That's it, I'm going to bed.
Grrr...
EDIT:
Even worse stroke of luck, took a break and loaded up XGalaga (a nice Galaga based game), got a powerup of tripple-missle launcher in the first wave, only to lose it seconds later when I took my eyes half off the display lol --> just long enough to zig when I should've zagged ^_^
That's it, I'm going to bed.
Monday, August 25, 2008
A busy day
I was busy trying to catch up a bit with GTK+, I set out to begin making tests of the various language bindings, starting with C++ and Windows; since I know they all work fine under FreeBSD and GNU/Linux. The first thing I did, was download the GTK Development Environment, which proved to be a disaster.
In allowing the installer to "Register Environment Variables", the installed nuked my systems %PATH%. So I've had to reset it, one bit at time. To 'shield' it from any future assaults, I've split it up into other system environment variables that get sucked in. That should at least eep me from having to backup the registry... Once if ever, I actually manage to get the XP machine up to snuff again, I'll need to take a proper backup of the system.
Spent a lot of my time today in training with Jonsi and Caern. First doing training with Jonsi, then dealing with Caern after tending to family business.
I'm omni tasking to the point, that I don't even get to finish LJ Posts loool
In allowing the installer to "Register Environment Variables", the installed nuked my systems %PATH%. So I've had to reset it, one bit at time. To 'shield' it from any future assaults, I've split it up into other system environment variables that get sucked in. That should at least eep me from having to backup the registry... Once if ever, I actually manage to get the XP machine up to snuff again, I'll need to take a proper backup of the system.
Spent a lot of my time today in training with Jonsi and Caern. First doing training with Jonsi, then dealing with Caern after tending to family business.
I'm omni tasking to the point, that I don't even get to finish LJ Posts loool
Sunday, August 24, 2008
No win situation
Almost to the time where I should be able to code in peace. I'm to damn tired to work alnight, my family is going to make sure I'm not going to be able to code for another several hours, and guess what?
I'm already to damn tired to work at all.
I'm already to damn tired to work at all.
resistance is futile
It's no rat fuckin' use in this place. This morning, I as trying to get ready a few tests to see how GCJ3/4 compared to the compiler J2SE 5.0 in compatilbiity.... Only to facing a living hell from my family. Tonight I tried to sit down and tried to read Programming with gtkmm... Alas, the same problem !!!
Maybe I should just give up learning, programming, computers, [SAS], work, and living life in general: and sit in a corner somewhere, and hope the mother fuckers starve to death before I do... No wait, I'd go first, I get stuck doing to many odds and ends to do otherwise lol. --> I have a strange sense of humour don't I?
I NEED A FUCKING VACATION !!!
The expression I'm feeling, is not one I'm familiar with in English. When translated from Italian to English, it roughly means "Damn the misery" for most intents and purposes; or as some parts of my family would prefer to say it: "mannaggia la miseria!" I however, have no idea how to appropriately express it in English by any other means lol.
Something that has been on my mind of late
DRAFT POST
I very much need to start standardizing myself on a smaller set of tools. Maybe tools is not the best choice of ord, o much as it is a question of languages and libraries. It's actually kind of ironic, I really would like to learn several more languages (Ada, Fortran, C#, Erlang, and I never did wrap my head around Scheme).
C++
Pro's:
can do low level stuff
can interface well with C code and libraries
Qt is natively C++ and supports everything I need it to run on (in Qt4 OSE hehe)
Fairly portable and standardized (at least much of the 1998 standard...) with several compilers available.
Mainly toolkits and frame works available, both native and from C.
Widely used and my first language
Con's:
having to dig into lower level interfaces is very error prone when doing it with a headache the size of California.
Often not my first choice for building a prototype *quickly* but good for final implementation.
Java
Pro's:
Inheritable portable between JVMs of the same implementation (e.g. Sun JVM for Win and Sun VM for Mac can run same code).
Simpler OOP syntax then C++, imho
The Swing GUI toolkit is fairly portable and SWT sufficiently supports the platforms I want to avoid skipping.
I like the way it handles exceptions, and usually like checked exceptions -- when a class is designed appropriately.
It's well defined if not perfectly standardized and compliant implementations are fairly common enough (Sun's)
Wildly used and my third language.
Well documented (if a bit boring)
Con's:
Everything is OOP....
I prefer native code to waiting on java to load
Requires a suitable runtime
Conventions expected by some tools can occasionally be irksome (to me)
C# (C Sharp)
Pro's:
It's not Java
It's similar to Java/C++
Core elements are standardized
Less resistance to shooting oneself in the foot / doing stupid things then Java but not as much as C++.
Gtk#, the binding of GTK+ to C# is available on the platforms I care about.
Con's:
Most C# applications are probably tied to Microsoft Windows implementation via .NET or through Gnome related interfaces
Requires a runtime (e.g. .NET, Mono, or Dot GNU)
Requires just enough learning of it's differences from Java, for me to use it.
PHP5
Pro's:
Portable and interpreted
Widely used across the WWW for server side scripting.
GTK+ bindings to PHP available and portable'ish
Simple language and member of the CBF.
The OOP increasingly resembles Java syntax and is just "enough" syntax to be useful without cramming.
Well documented
Con's:
Local php.ini files can cause problems (how much can you assume?)
Needs a run time (php) of the right version (5)
php4/php5 is less common off web servers or developers systems
Python
Pro's:
Great for writing prototypes
Several toolkits available that are fairly portable
Easy to work with and quit portable (and issues of portability well noted in the docs)
Large standard library
Implementations for the Java Virtual Machine and Microsoft .NET framework are available (if not as current as CPython) as well as the standard (C)Python implementation.
Con's:
Requires a run time
I *hate* it's handling of regular expressions after being so used to Perl...
It's slower then native code
Interfacing with C /or C++ code can, uhh... Get interesting, from a portability perspective.
The program is the source
Ruby
Pro's:
Handy pure OOP language
Great handling of regular expressions within the language itself, as opposed through importing an object oriented interface (i.e. as in Python/Java/C++)
Usually very "comfortable" to write.
Large standard library
Con's:
It requires a run time and alternative compilers (e.g. xruby, ironpython) may be lacking in reliability or cause some features to be unavailable
The program is the source
Wishing Ruby 2 would come sooner....
Documentation can be irksome at times
It's slower then native code and even slower then Python (Ruby 1.8.x)
So far, I think I've been existing largly on salt today lol. Breakfast was Cashews and Peanut Butter toast. Lucnh, heh... A ton of potato chips :\
I managed to hit PG#1 fairly early today, I think the poor recruits were ready to pass out by the time, that we should have been starting training. I spent most of the time either making like a maniac on roller blades with a TMP. Or tagging along with Ez,Nick, and Caern in an element. It's been a rather dynamic day lool.
I managed to hit PG#1 fairly early today, I think the poor recruits were ready to pass out by the time, that we should have been starting training. I spent most of the time either making like a maniac on roller blades with a TMP. Or tagging along with Ez,Nick, and Caern in an element. It's been a rather dynamic day lool.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Spiders on a roll
Finally some time to catch up on my LJ, if I can keep my family at bay long enough to type anything meaningful >_>
Got off to a semi-early start, last night I was fairly wasted from the days ops and dropped off to sleep very quickly, all concepts of work largely forgotten until morning. Had to stop off today, Ma decided to upgrade cell phones, her new Motoorola W490 is quite nice. I don't particularly care much for cell phone though.
So far SAL1600 is 90% of fully operational, I've only had minor problems. One, my mic doesn't work and the sound drivers are pretty shitty, but on the upside seem to be much more stable then the older ones. Maybe my jokes were right after all, WHQL just means it's certified to suck and help crash your system. I was warned when installing the newest ones from the manufactor, that they weren't WHQL certified or what not, no biggy for me, because I know what kinda horse shit the company usually passes off for audio drivers lol. I really wish there was something like the Open Sound System for Windows, alas Windows sound technology is probably a good system. The only problem is, drivers!
Another issue is my Flock profile, I think it's probably a paths issue. On the old box Flock was installed into it's standard path of %ProgramFiles%\Flock (e.g. C:\Program Files\Flock) and my profile in %AppData%\Flock\Browser\Profiles\... where %AppData% was formally "C:Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data". On my new install, everything is installed into a 'category' folder in P:\, e.g. P:\Games\RavenShield, P:\Network\Browsers\Flock. And likewise my use profile is in U:\Terry\. It's been somewhat problematic getting Windows to agree with me on such, especially the brain dead idea of it trying to copy a huge DVD sized ISO in U:\Terry\Desktop to C:\Documents and Settings\Terry\Desktop\ and bloating my C drive out. Maybe it is just my not knowing the management programs in Windows as well as UNIX or Windows XP is just totally brain damaged by design, I hope the latter but expect it is the former...
The software is willing but Windows is not so cooperative ^_^
The system has however been quite stable of late, pardoning IE7 crashing and a few other paths issues with my profile. I've also taken to having a cmd.exe window open on my second monitor most of th day. I find the DOS-inherited commands to be very child like and overly clumsy compared to any BSD or GNU/Linux based system I've used. The whole ruckus between copy, xcopy, and robocopy commands/programs on Windows is a nuts, I'll never understand it... Not after having lived with /bin/cp so long.
I managed to get into TG#1 for some games today, training with Nick, Caern, and Ez. It seems that I've taken care of a fair bot of training arrangements lately, all part of an evil plan of course.... Muahuahauah !!! Who knows, maybe this aging war horse will get to see more action soon ;-)
Got off to a semi-early start, last night I was fairly wasted from the days ops and dropped off to sleep very quickly, all concepts of work largely forgotten until morning. Had to stop off today, Ma decided to upgrade cell phones, her new Motoorola W490 is quite nice. I don't particularly care much for cell phone though.
So far SAL1600 is 90% of fully operational, I've only had minor problems. One, my mic doesn't work and the sound drivers are pretty shitty, but on the upside seem to be much more stable then the older ones. Maybe my jokes were right after all, WHQL just means it's certified to suck and help crash your system. I was warned when installing the newest ones from the manufactor, that they weren't WHQL certified or what not, no biggy for me, because I know what kinda horse shit the company usually passes off for audio drivers lol. I really wish there was something like the Open Sound System for Windows, alas Windows sound technology is probably a good system. The only problem is, drivers!
Another issue is my Flock profile, I think it's probably a paths issue. On the old box Flock was installed into it's standard path of %ProgramFiles%\Flock (e.g. C:\Program Files\Flock) and my profile in %AppData%\Flock\Browser\Profiles\... where %AppData% was formally "C:Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data". On my new install, everything is installed into a 'category' folder in P:\, e.g. P:\Games\RavenShield, P:\Network\Browsers\Flock. And likewise my use profile is in U:\Terry\. It's been somewhat problematic getting Windows to agree with me on such, especially the brain dead idea of it trying to copy a huge DVD sized ISO in U:\Terry\Desktop to C:\Documents and Settings\Terry\Desktop\ and bloating my C drive out. Maybe it is just my not knowing the management programs in Windows as well as UNIX or Windows XP is just totally brain damaged by design, I hope the latter but expect it is the former...
The software is willing but Windows is not so cooperative ^_^
The system has however been quite stable of late, pardoning IE7 crashing and a few other paths issues with my profile. I've also taken to having a cmd.exe window open on my second monitor most of th day. I find the DOS-inherited commands to be very child like and overly clumsy compared to any BSD or GNU/Linux based system I've used. The whole ruckus between copy, xcopy, and robocopy commands/programs on Windows is a nuts, I'll never understand it... Not after having lived with /bin/cp so long.
I managed to get into TG#1 for some games today, training with Nick, Caern, and Ez. It seems that I've taken care of a fair bot of training arrangements lately, all part of an evil plan of course.... Muahuahauah !!! Who knows, maybe this aging war horse will get to see more action soon ;-)
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Abort, Retry, Ignore -- not !!!
Windows XP is about 5% and still going strong on the game machine. Really, if I didn't need RvS and SWAT 4, I wouldn't even have XP on that machine lol.... My only dependency on Micro$oft is an OS that supports games --> I generally dislike console games.
0/ My current plan of action is to conduct the reformat/reinstall of XP.
1/ Verify that the S.O.B. boots... Install core drivers (GPU, Wifi)
2/ Strip her naked -- remove the "pre-installed" software and trial-ware, e.t.c.
3/ Boot into Knoppix Linux (LiveCD) and sort the partitions according to plan
4/ Install FreeBSD 7.0-Release and boot into it
5/ NFS mount the setup data from the file server (Vectra) and copy it to a shared FAT32 partition on SAL1600 (games machine).
6/ Boot into Windows XP MCE and install SP3
7/ Reboot and configure core system elements (e.g. get her on the network, behind a firewall, and setup the environment)
8/ Install software in the predefined order into the predefined locations, making adjustments as needed.
10/ Restore data from backups
11/ Customize her to the hilt: full command line environment; development tools, dual-monitors, desktop layout, etc.
XP is almost up to 40% already,so hopefully I can get started on the real work soon. Reinstall is easy, getting a working PC is a diff'rent story. So far everything is going smooth, and is probably planned out as good as a NASA mission ;-). Hehe, I've even got many of the firewall settings already prepaired. Hmm, I guess it is just fun to rip stuff apart and put it back together a better way at times.
I hope to have SAL1600 back online before morning, and with luck time to post a advance notice of training ops on TG#1... I'd like to reserve the server for a change if I can lol.
0/ My current plan of action is to conduct the reformat/reinstall of XP.
1/ Verify that the S.O.B. boots... Install core drivers (GPU, Wifi)
2/ Strip her naked -- remove the "pre-installed" software and trial-ware, e.t.c.
3/ Boot into Knoppix Linux (LiveCD) and sort the partitions according to plan
4/ Install FreeBSD 7.0-Release and boot into it
5/ NFS mount the setup data from the file server (Vectra) and copy it to a shared FAT32 partition on SAL1600 (games machine).
6/ Boot into Windows XP MCE and install SP3
7/ Reboot and configure core system elements (e.g. get her on the network, behind a firewall, and setup the environment)
8/ Install software in the predefined order into the predefined locations, making adjustments as needed.
10/ Restore data from backups
11/ Customize her to the hilt: full command line environment; development tools, dual-monitors, desktop layout, etc.
XP is almost up to 40% already,so hopefully I can get started on the real work soon. Reinstall is easy, getting a working PC is a diff'rent story. So far everything is going smooth, and is probably planned out as good as a NASA mission ;-). Hehe, I've even got many of the firewall settings already prepaired. Hmm, I guess it is just fun to rip stuff apart and put it back together a better way at times.
I hope to have SAL1600 back online before morning, and with luck time to post a advance notice of training ops on TG#1... I'd like to reserve the server for a change if I can lol.
Stricken
Hmm, haven't heard this song in awhile, but somehow I find it oddly appropriate of late...
You walk on like a woman in suffering
Won't even bother now to tell me why
You come alone, letting all of us savor the moment
Leaving me broken another time
You come on like a bloodstained hurricane
Leave me alone, let me be this time
You carry on like a holy man pushing redemption
I don't want to mention, the reason I know
That I am stricken and can't let you go
When the heart is cold, there's no hope, and we know
That I am crippled by all that you've done
Into the abyss will I run
You don't know what your power has done to me
I want to know if I'll heal inside
I can't go on with a holocaust about to happen
Seeing you laughing another time
You'll never know why your face has haunted me
My very soul has to bleed this time
Another hole in the wall of my inner defenses
Leaving me breathless, the reason I know
That I am stricken and can't let you go
When the heart is cold, there's no hope, and we know
That I am crippled by all that you've done
Into the abyss will I run
Into the abyss will I run
You walk on like a woman in suffering
Won't even bother now to tell me why
You come alone, letting all of us savor the moment
Leaving me broken another time
You come on like a bloodstained hurricane
Leave me alone, let me be this time
You carry on like a holy man pushing redemption
I don't want to mention, the reason I know
That I am stricken and can't let you go
When the heart is cold, there's no hope, and we know
That I am crippled by all that you've done
Into the abyss will I run
Into the abyss will I run
I can't let you go
Yes I am stricken and can't let you go
-- Stricken, Disturbed
I've been prepping my destop for a reformat, including taking backups and prepairing software for reinstallation.
After presenting the choice of, A/ either I finish this or B/ I'm not going to work tomorrow until _after_ it is done; has finally cut the "!@#$%ing go to bed" shoutings to a more subdued amount. I can't stand being told when to go to bed, not by someone that does not know my body the way I do, and has such disregard for the amount of shit I need to get done, plus:
If you're going to help make my life hell, I'm not gonna be obligated to listen too a damn thing you say.
I've got almost 5gb of files; mostly installers, on the way to my file server. Basically everything from Abiword to zip.exe is laid out and ready for installation. So with luck, I can reformat the piece of shit... Setup a quick dual boot, mount the backups and copy them over to a FAT32 partition; install my drivers, install SP3, install my software, and setup the system. I've also taken the liberty of making a few change: more development tools and TeX Live 2007 for the type setting environment. I usually try to avoid compiling anything from source under Windows, like the plague. In my opinion, it really is that much of a pain in the ass... I do however like the toolchains around for my own use.
Under unix based systems, I don't mind compiling from source as long as I'm given something *decent* to work with. Like something that actually builds on a standard system without mucking with it, rather then a piece of crap that is only easy to build on the developers Foo Linux machine lol.
I need to fetch my XP disks, mouse driver disk, and wifi driver disk. But all in all, it shouldn't be to bad to carry this out. Just that it will probably take 6-8 hours and over a dozen reboots.... Oh man, how I love FreeBSD -- a reboot typically means a new kernel to boot from. Much less then that, and I've never had to reboot my systems (with the exception of one sound driver that needs to be in loader.conf)
Tomorrow is likely to be another day of ... Hmm, I can't actually think of a word for it, that doesn't stretch into multi-word profanities. But at least I *should* get off work at a decent hour. Today, I ended up leaving around ~1600Q or so. I can't stand my life, but there isn't a lot I can do to change it.
Since I'm not about to keel over and die, and resulting to quite drastic measures is further then I'm willing to go.
After presenting the choice of, A/ either I finish this or B/ I'm not going to work tomorrow until _after_ it is done; has finally cut the "!@#$%ing go to bed" shoutings to a more subdued amount. I can't stand being told when to go to bed, not by someone that does not know my body the way I do, and has such disregard for the amount of shit I need to get done, plus:
If you're going to help make my life hell, I'm not gonna be obligated to listen too a damn thing you say.
I've got almost 5gb of files; mostly installers, on the way to my file server. Basically everything from Abiword to zip.exe is laid out and ready for installation. So with luck, I can reformat the piece of shit... Setup a quick dual boot, mount the backups and copy them over to a FAT32 partition; install my drivers, install SP3, install my software, and setup the system. I've also taken the liberty of making a few change: more development tools and TeX Live 2007 for the type setting environment. I usually try to avoid compiling anything from source under Windows, like the plague. In my opinion, it really is that much of a pain in the ass... I do however like the toolchains around for my own use.
Under unix based systems, I don't mind compiling from source as long as I'm given something *decent* to work with. Like something that actually builds on a standard system without mucking with it, rather then a piece of crap that is only easy to build on the developers Foo Linux machine lol.
I need to fetch my XP disks, mouse driver disk, and wifi driver disk. But all in all, it shouldn't be to bad to carry this out. Just that it will probably take 6-8 hours and over a dozen reboots.... Oh man, how I love FreeBSD -- a reboot typically means a new kernel to boot from. Much less then that, and I've never had to reboot my systems (with the exception of one sound driver that needs to be in loader.conf)
Tomorrow is likely to be another day of ... Hmm, I can't actually think of a word for it, that doesn't stretch into multi-word profanities. But at least I *should* get off work at a decent hour. Today, I ended up leaving around ~1600Q or so. I can't stand my life, but there isn't a lot I can do to change it.
Since I'm not about to keel over and die, and resulting to quite drastic measures is further then I'm willing to go.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
I'd love to murderlize them..... Rend'em limb from limb as they do my mind. Or in the immortal words of the Robot, 'Crush, Kill, Destroy!' But I can't bring my self to it... I know it's wrong...
*joke* Now if only I could find a hit man to do it for me. *joke*
Sometimes, I really wish I could let myself be cruel.... And threat people as they deserve without pity or remorse, destroy them bit by bit and let them rest in a hell of there own making.
My only relief from this hell hole, will be getting dragged out to work, and pushed into another hell on earth, until returning to this one.
*joke* Now if only I could find a hit man to do it for me. *joke*
Sometimes, I really wish I could let myself be cruel.... And threat people as they deserve without pity or remorse, destroy them bit by bit and let them rest in a hell of there own making.
My only relief from this hell hole, will be getting dragged out to work, and pushed into another hell on earth, until returning to this one.
the story of my life.... in 7 lines of code
while work to do:
Sit and work --> all hell breaks loose
destroy(progress)
Sit and do nothing --> everyone stops going nuts
work to do += 1
;; loop forever in hell.
end
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Nights writings...
It's become so painfully clear that I'm not going to get anything done today. In more ways then one, let us say.... I have managed however to end up on my laptop, on battery power, and in one hell of an uncomfortable typing position! Like normal, when I'm on battery power;I operate in text mode.
I don't care much for it's forms handling on this scale in Lynx, but I quite like that LiveJournal really is Lynx friendly!
I've been writing in Vim as usual, my ~/Documents/Personal/ folder grows day by day, the only semblence of order being YYYY-MM-DD.txt appended to file names. Often when I'm miserable or have very strong feelings, I'll sit and write if I can (unobserved). It is more relaxing then sitting quietly and letting my mind rage about in silence. In away, I blame it on my time in Bible Study. When I was 'free' enough of schedule to attend it, I did quite enjoy being apart of one of the local groups. During most of the 2~3 years I was around, the focus often rested on a King of Israel with the ability for expression. I remember we covered much of the time of David.
I really miss that, but my life just doesn't have the free time for it. It as always a bit of a hassle to complete each cycle, and at times pushed my abilities to refrain from nervisness; it was also a lot of fun. Hmmm, maybe someday I'll live to see it again.
As to my own writings, while it is far from being so wonderfuly composed. It does however, express what _I_ feel more clearly then anything else. If it didn't, I wouldn't bother adding another file to my home directory. In a lot of ways, I find English a poor language for such a purpose. English is well suited for precision of description in my opinion, but sorely lacking in many other regards.... Mmm, not really looking forward to tomorrow, anyway you slice it, it's rather likely to be a day I would rather forget about. At least *hopefully* I'll have the weekend free; my mind wonders so much as I sit here, brain a drift with only my nimble fingers as its output. Hmm, why does everything seem to be I/O bound, even in the 21st century >_>
I don't care much for it's forms handling on this scale in Lynx, but I quite like that LiveJournal really is Lynx friendly!
I've been writing in Vim as usual, my ~/Documents/Personal/ folder grows day by day, the only semblence of order being YYYY-MM-DD.txt appended to file names. Often when I'm miserable or have very strong feelings, I'll sit and write if I can (unobserved). It is more relaxing then sitting quietly and letting my mind rage about in silence. In away, I blame it on my time in Bible Study. When I was 'free' enough of schedule to attend it, I did quite enjoy being apart of one of the local groups. During most of the 2~3 years I was around, the focus often rested on a King of Israel with the ability for expression. I remember we covered much of the time of David.
I really miss that, but my life just doesn't have the free time for it. It as always a bit of a hassle to complete each cycle, and at times pushed my abilities to refrain from nervisness; it was also a lot of fun. Hmmm, maybe someday I'll live to see it again.
As to my own writings, while it is far from being so wonderfuly composed. It does however, express what _I_ feel more clearly then anything else. If it didn't, I wouldn't bother adding another file to my home directory. In a lot of ways, I find English a poor language for such a purpose. English is well suited for precision of description in my opinion, but sorely lacking in many other regards.... Mmm, not really looking forward to tomorrow, anyway you slice it, it's rather likely to be a day I would rather forget about. At least *hopefully* I'll have the weekend free; my mind wonders so much as I sit here, brain a drift with only my nimble fingers as its output. Hmm, why does everything seem to be I/O bound, even in the 21st century >_>
Training Afterdark
A tad annoyed, been doing some of my private training in RvS. My times are almost a minute longer then my best, while that's still quite quick (I set the time marker for 5min; and completed it in less then 3:45) it's still very slow... I've always chose that map because of the extreme CQB. Did a couple good runs and even got time to bring out a variety of weapons: MP5/10A2, MP5A4, TMP, P90, Mac 9/11, and the MTAR-21. But I'm still very far from satisfied with my performance. I fear, that I am starting to get old :\
Two things that really pissed me off, the P90 and my faithful P228 pistol. It's like, you fire off a burst into an area the size of a mouth, the target is chest sized, so close that if it was real life, you could almost extend your arms and bayonet the S.O.B. But in RvS, it's still possible to fire in bursts, watching the count of rounds fired increase: 2..4..7.. and guess what? Magically all of the bullets strike the wall behind the X-Ray, but none actually hit them... Leaving you with 44 rounds in a P90 and a dead body, that is not the enemy!!!
It's total bullshit. Although, I must admit in RvS, the game has always given me a feeling that the rear sights are on target, while the front sights are aimed at your toes instead... Tonight was an unbelievably bad display on RvS's part, I've never considered the games P90 to be deead on balls accurate but this was just a joke. I've picked off head-shots at range with the games Mac 9/11, and the P90 is dozens of times more accurate in that game.
The second thing to piss me off, is I shot an X-Ray square in the chest with a P228, 9x19mm Jacket Hollow Point round... Round penetrated and exploded the barrel behind him. While the JHP are still capable of penetrating tangos. I can't help but wonder, why a 9x19mm JHP round from a P228 will do the trick, when a FMJ 9x19mm round from my MP5A4 wouldn't.
What irks me even more so, for "training games" we used to round people up, go find explosive barrels, and take turns shooting them. Walk up to the barrel, fire a round (or two), and run off before the next Rct tries it. Often we use the 5.7mm AP Army (FN Five-Seven) because RvS gives it less stopping power then some SPITBALL from Romania! We've also tested with 5.56x45mm weapons and various 9x19mm pistols using full metal jacket rounds.
The concept that a P228 firing 9x19mm JHP can be more dentimental to a (thick skinned!) explosive barrels contents then the G36K's 5.56x45mm round, just begs for a physicist to explain these ballistics >_>
Geeze, why can't they ever make a *decent* tactical game that is realistic?
Two things that really pissed me off, the P90 and my faithful P228 pistol. It's like, you fire off a burst into an area the size of a mouth, the target is chest sized, so close that if it was real life, you could almost extend your arms and bayonet the S.O.B. But in RvS, it's still possible to fire in bursts, watching the count of rounds fired increase: 2..4..7.. and guess what? Magically all of the bullets strike the wall behind the X-Ray, but none actually hit them... Leaving you with 44 rounds in a P90 and a dead body, that is not the enemy!!!
It's total bullshit. Although, I must admit in RvS, the game has always given me a feeling that the rear sights are on target, while the front sights are aimed at your toes instead... Tonight was an unbelievably bad display on RvS's part, I've never considered the games P90 to be deead on balls accurate but this was just a joke. I've picked off head-shots at range with the games Mac 9/11, and the P90 is dozens of times more accurate in that game.
The second thing to piss me off, is I shot an X-Ray square in the chest with a P228, 9x19mm Jacket Hollow Point round... Round penetrated and exploded the barrel behind him. While the JHP are still capable of penetrating tangos. I can't help but wonder, why a 9x19mm JHP round from a P228 will do the trick, when a FMJ 9x19mm round from my MP5A4 wouldn't.
What irks me even more so, for "training games" we used to round people up, go find explosive barrels, and take turns shooting them. Walk up to the barrel, fire a round (or two), and run off before the next Rct tries it. Often we use the 5.7mm AP Army (FN Five-Seven) because RvS gives it less stopping power then some SPITBALL from Romania! We've also tested with 5.56x45mm weapons and various 9x19mm pistols using full metal jacket rounds.
The concept that a P228 firing 9x19mm JHP can be more dentimental to a (thick skinned!) explosive barrels contents then the G36K's 5.56x45mm round, just begs for a physicist to explain these ballistics >_>
Geeze, why can't they ever make a *decent* tactical game that is realistic?
HOme from work at least and some good news, I only have to work 2 jobs tomorrow instead of 3... One of our clients had her baby today, so there is more important stuff to worry about ;-). Both mother and child doing well as to everyones prayers.
For me this is doubly good news.... If work was a river, I would be drowning in it, and my family would be pushing my head under.
I didn't really mind having 3 jobs planned for tomorrow, I usually only have to deal with one. What does piss me off, is when I got into this business... It was to help pay for my high school and save some cash for later. Fast forward several years, I could be almost out of college by now instead of still in HS, and she ain't saved a cotton pickin' dime along the way. And the only way I'll likely ever get out of this business, is my life turned up side down, in ways I don't want lol.
For me this is doubly good news.... If work was a river, I would be drowning in it, and my family would be pushing my head under.
I didn't really mind having 3 jobs planned for tomorrow, I usually only have to deal with one. What does piss me off, is when I got into this business... It was to help pay for my high school and save some cash for later. Fast forward several years, I could be almost out of college by now instead of still in HS, and she ain't saved a cotton pickin' dime along the way. And the only way I'll likely ever get out of this business, is my life turned up side down, in ways I don't want lol.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Managed to catch the last half of Crimson Tide. I haven't seen the movie in ages, was nice to actually get to see something though... Once everyone else is asleep, it's actually possible to get stuff done, so I rarely watch TV lol.
One thing I do know, I can't stand the idea of serving on a submarine. At least if a service ship goes down, you might have get off the ship in one piece, deal with the undertow trying to suck you under, and not freeze to death before CSAR arrives... But at least you've got some chance. ON a sub, if something happens hundreds of feet below, ya a tad bit fucked.
One thing I do know, I can't stand the idea of serving on a submarine. At least if a service ship goes down, you might have get off the ship in one piece, deal with the undertow trying to suck you under, and not freeze to death before CSAR arrives... But at least you've got some chance. ON a sub, if something happens hundreds of feet below, ya a tad bit fucked.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Finally.... I managed to get shaved, not like there is much else I can get done. One nice thing, there are two or three things I can do under almost any condition, as long as I can keep my eyes on what I'm doing that is. With luck, maybe my family will settle down for awhile, so I can actually get something DONE.
I almost never shave, because I just don't have the damn time. In this case, it's been so long since I last found the time to shave. That I was starting to resemble King Leonidas in 300, only much shorter and less muscle bound lol. Willow was staring at me as if to say, "wtf happened to you?". Heck, I barely recognize myself now... It's been that long lol. I don't usually look like a short-haired ookie out of desire, but out of necessity. There is only so much shit that you can cram into a small stretch of time and still be ready to rumble in the morning.
Especially in this place !!!!
Nearly an hour later with razor, scissors, and electric razor, it's finally done. People always try to pawn off electric razors on me but I'd rather use something that works after the first week. With how long it is before the problem of 'need to' and 'have time to' coincide, an old time straight razor would actually be most convenient
Hit the DVD Collection for something to watch, I'll probably end up watching them each 3 times before Monday.... Because I'd actually like to see the 'entire' movie when I start watching one. To be honest, the reason I largely gave up on watching TV. Is because whenever something decent was on, I never got to watch the frigging thing!!! ---> Gotta love family, especially family that thinks you're a servant.
I almost never shave, because I just don't have the damn time. In this case, it's been so long since I last found the time to shave. That I was starting to resemble King Leonidas in 300, only much shorter and less muscle bound lol. Willow was staring at me as if to say, "wtf happened to you?". Heck, I barely recognize myself now... It's been that long lol. I don't usually look like a short-haired ookie out of desire, but out of necessity. There is only so much shit that you can cram into a small stretch of time and still be ready to rumble in the morning.
Especially in this place !!!!
Nearly an hour later with razor, scissors, and electric razor, it's finally done. People always try to pawn off electric razors on me but I'd rather use something that works after the first week. With how long it is before the problem of 'need to' and 'have time to' coincide, an old time straight razor would actually be most convenient
Hit the DVD Collection for something to watch, I'll probably end up watching them each 3 times before Monday.... Because I'd actually like to see the 'entire' movie when I start watching one. To be honest, the reason I largely gave up on watching TV. Is because whenever something decent was on, I never got to watch the frigging thing!!! ---> Gotta love family, especially family that thinks you're a servant.
Frustration factor := (3.14159265 ^ 2)*(1024^64)
Since it seems to be to much to ask, too be able to work on things in peace in this hell hole. I've closed my terminal for the time being.
What the hell do I have to do, in order to get work done? Buy a rat fucking shotgun and take hostages?! No wait, that wouldn't work, my family doesn't give a flying fuck about anyone else. I sat through a five and a half hour project meeting... and despite the insane length of the meeting. I should have had the first milestone completed the day after the meeting, instead fast forward almost two weeks.... The first phase of the damn thing isn't even complete yet.
If I actually had decent conditions to work in, things would be COMPLETE by now. But no, my family can't leave be alone to work in peace.
I think if I as about five years old again, I would wait for my family to be doing something.... Go take out a large pot from the kitchenand a pair of equally large wooden spoons. Then take a belt and make a sling for the pot (for ease of marching). And then walk back and forth across the room, banging the spoons on the pot while shouting
"Now whose working, now whose working".
As absolutely childish as doing that would be, I think that is about the only thing my family would understand.... Without having to take very drastic measures to get the point across... (e.g. using pepper spray, a TASER, or even deadly force e.t.c.),
I fear, one day I'll look back upon my memories of this place and cry, "Just another picture to burn".
What the hell do I have to do, in order to get work done? Buy a rat fucking shotgun and take hostages?! No wait, that wouldn't work, my family doesn't give a flying fuck about anyone else. I sat through a five and a half hour project meeting... and despite the insane length of the meeting. I should have had the first milestone completed the day after the meeting, instead fast forward almost two weeks.... The first phase of the damn thing isn't even complete yet.
If I actually had decent conditions to work in, things would be COMPLETE by now. But no, my family can't leave be alone to work in peace.
I think if I as about five years old again, I would wait for my family to be doing something.... Go take out a large pot from the kitchenand a pair of equally large wooden spoons. Then take a belt and make a sling for the pot (for ease of marching). And then walk back and forth across the room, banging the spoons on the pot while shouting
"Now whose working, now whose working".
As absolutely childish as doing that would be, I think that is about the only thing my family would understand.... Without having to take very drastic measures to get the point across... (e.g. using pepper spray, a TASER, or even deadly force e.t.c.),
I fear, one day I'll look back upon my memories of this place and cry, "Just another picture to burn".
distracting music
Hmm... You know, the radio can be rather distracting when coding lol
Well, Becky was a beauty from south Alabama.
Her Daddy had a heart like a nine pound hammer.
Think he even did a little time in the slammer.
What was I thinkin'?
She snuck out one night an' met me by the front gate,
Her Daddy came out a-wavin' that 12-guage
We tore out the drive, he peppered my tailgate.
What was I thinkin'?
Oh, I knew there'd be hell to pay.
But that crossed my mind a little too late.
'Cause I was thinkin' 'bout a little white tank top,
Sittin' right there in the middle by me.
An' I was thinkin' 'bout a long kiss,
Man, just gotta get goin', where the night might lead.
I know what I was feelin',
But what was I thinkin'?
What was I thinkin'?
By the County line, the cops were nippin' on our heels,
Pulled off the road an' kicked it in four-wheel.
Shut off the lights an' tore through a cornfield.
What was I thinkin'?
At the other side, she was hollerin': "Faster."
Took a dirt road, had the radio blastin'.
Hit the honky-tonk for a little close dancin'.
What was I thinkin'?
Oh, I knew there'd be hell to pay.
But that crossed my mind a little too late.
'Cause I was thinkin' 'bout a little white tank top,
Sittin' right there in the middle by me.
An' I was thinkin' 'bout a long kiss,
Man, just gotta get goin', where the night might lead.
I know what I was feelin',
But what was I thinkin'?
What was I thinkin'?
When a mountain of a man with a "Born To Kill" tattoo,
Tried to cut in, I knocked out his front tooth.
We ran outside, hood slidin' like Bo Duke.
What was I thinkin'?
I finally got her home at a half past two, later.
Daddy's in a long chair sittin' on the driveway,
Put it in park as he started my way.
What was I thinkin'?
Oh, what was I thinkin'?
Oh, what was I thinkin'?
Then she gave a "Come an' get me grin."
An' like a bullet, we were gone again.
'Cause I was thinkin' 'bout a little white tank top,
Sittin' right there in the middle by me.
An' I was thinkin' 'bout a long kiss,
Man, just gotta get goin' where the night might lead.
I know what I was feelin',
But what was I thinkin'?
What was I thinkin'?
I know what I was feelin', but what was I thinkin'?
-- Dierks Bentley - What Was I Thinkin' (Brett Beavers/Dierks Bentley/Deric Ruttan)
Writer's Block: A Fruity Synthesis
If you could create a hybrid of any two fruits in the world, what would they be and why? Describe this new fruit (its name, taste, color, ect.)
Submitted By mangostarrr
Live Journals Writer's Block
Actually someone already has done it for me, it's called a Clementine.
Why I would go for that instead of something else? I don't think you could actually cross anything with a Pineapple and still have it taste as good as the original... let along still be worth eating stand alone;-)
Friday, August 15, 2008
Before another round of Wesnoth...
It's been abit since I've updated my LJ, haven't really had much time for it :\
The past two weeks I've largely been workin' my ass off either on various projects, at work (grrr!), or training the days away in the servers. At least the training ops are both fun and effective uses of time, the rest... Well let's just say I hate my job lol. The number of projects I've been butter-flying across is getting a bit out of hand, mainly because of the amount of time I can afford to spend on them during the day.
I may end up changing "schools" so to speak, in the near future. I'm not really looking forward to it, because although it should speed this shit up quite a lot. I've still got the same problems as always --- a family to butt in and working most of the week. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a vacation lol, I would probably end up catching up on homework +S.
In the mean time I've been playing a lot of Wesnoth. A few years ago, on one of my 'few' vacations... I was lucky enough to spend my time split between working, learning another programming language, and a new (to me) game called the Battle for Wesnoth. It's a great game, a bit J. R. R. Tolkien inspired in my humble opinion, but a very fun Turn-Based Strategy game. I recently picked it up again, for lack of a better time passing... The games quite omni-platform but I've only got it installed on my FreeBSD powered laptop. I've been looking through the info and working on a custom campaign for it. Although a bit out of place for Wesnoth, it's an original plot, well at least original in the sense that I've never followed that kind of High Fantasy in the first place >_>
I'm quite a bit more of a "Sci Fi Guy", I prefer fiction and have the book-inhaling habits to prove it hehe. Most of the times I read, I usually go through 50~120 pages a day easily. Dune took a few days but I read enormous amount of it per sitting. That's one thing I really miss, getting to sit down and READ a book. Most of the time I read these days, it's either on the web or if lucky enough to have a real book in hand. It's usually a book on something technical, e.g. TCP/IP. I love books, reading beats TV watching for me, because there can be much greater depth to it. Not to mention that 300~500 pages of novel, spanning 3 or more books (a trilogy) gives one a bit more leeway for time. As much as I love TV and Movies, I really dislike some of the hack-jobs that people have done... Just look at the movie ALIENS, the "classic" version that we've watched for years. And the *proper* version with so many deleted scenes and cut-out footage restored. The rat bastards practically destroyed the entire story!!! Although, I admit the classic cut they've released so often is still a good movie. But the special edition is a great movie!
Hmm, some days I wish I could win the lotto or something. It would be certainly nice, instant shopping spree for what books I've missed over the past decade lol. Dang dogs been chewing on my copy of Vision of the Future, luckily not to much damage... Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy is one of my favorite set of Star Wars novels, the Hand of Thrawn duology (that it is apart of) also being quite nice. If I recall correctly, Vision of the Future is the one where Luke Skywalker finally purposed to Mara Jade.
After who knows how long people were waiting to see if that would ever happen, it finally did lol.
The past two weeks I've largely been workin' my ass off either on various projects, at work (grrr!), or training the days away in the servers. At least the training ops are both fun and effective uses of time, the rest... Well let's just say I hate my job lol. The number of projects I've been butter-flying across is getting a bit out of hand, mainly because of the amount of time I can afford to spend on them during the day.
I may end up changing "schools" so to speak, in the near future. I'm not really looking forward to it, because although it should speed this shit up quite a lot. I've still got the same problems as always --- a family to butt in and working most of the week. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a vacation lol, I would probably end up catching up on homework +S.
In the mean time I've been playing a lot of Wesnoth. A few years ago, on one of my 'few' vacations... I was lucky enough to spend my time split between working, learning another programming language, and a new (to me) game called the Battle for Wesnoth. It's a great game, a bit J. R. R. Tolkien inspired in my humble opinion, but a very fun Turn-Based Strategy game. I recently picked it up again, for lack of a better time passing... The games quite omni-platform but I've only got it installed on my FreeBSD powered laptop. I've been looking through the info and working on a custom campaign for it. Although a bit out of place for Wesnoth, it's an original plot, well at least original in the sense that I've never followed that kind of High Fantasy in the first place >_>
I'm quite a bit more of a "Sci Fi Guy", I prefer fiction and have the book-inhaling habits to prove it hehe. Most of the times I read, I usually go through 50~120 pages a day easily. Dune took a few days but I read enormous amount of it per sitting. That's one thing I really miss, getting to sit down and READ a book. Most of the time I read these days, it's either on the web or if lucky enough to have a real book in hand. It's usually a book on something technical, e.g. TCP/IP. I love books, reading beats TV watching for me, because there can be much greater depth to it. Not to mention that 300~500 pages of novel, spanning 3 or more books (a trilogy) gives one a bit more leeway for time. As much as I love TV and Movies, I really dislike some of the hack-jobs that people have done... Just look at the movie ALIENS, the "classic" version that we've watched for years. And the *proper* version with so many deleted scenes and cut-out footage restored. The rat bastards practically destroyed the entire story!!! Although, I admit the classic cut they've released so often is still a good movie. But the special edition is a great movie!
Hmm, some days I wish I could win the lotto or something. It would be certainly nice, instant shopping spree for what books I've missed over the past decade lol. Dang dogs been chewing on my copy of Vision of the Future, luckily not to much damage... Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy is one of my favorite set of Star Wars novels, the Hand of Thrawn duology (that it is apart of) also being quite nice. If I recall correctly, Vision of the Future is the one where Luke Skywalker finally purposed to Mara Jade.
After who knows how long people were waiting to see if that would ever happen, it finally did lol.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Incredibly tired
I've had a lot on my mind lately... At least for me it's somewhat hard not to realize how far I am from my objectives. Working into the ground, on all flanks, with no sign of relief in view. No matter what I do, there never seems to be any headway made :\
I think I'll play a bit of Wesnoth for tonight. It's not like I'm going to get to doing anything meaningful tonight, I'll be lucky to get to sleep in peace......
I think I'll play a bit of Wesnoth for tonight. It's not like I'm going to get to doing anything meaningful tonight, I'll be lucky to get to sleep in peace......
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Not exactly a movie that I would choose on my own, but so fucking funny it was worth cooperation lol. Ok, these two couples are shopping... The pregnant mothers on one end of the store and the fathers on the other side. While the guys are going buy, there is a dude in a "Arnie" Dinosaur suite pitching a sale to some kids -- making fun of Barny the Dinosaur of doom. When the two guys walk buy, he tries to sell them the video:
And the two guys end up diving at him, three way brawl with "Arnie" cussing them out through the whole thing, until the women come over and find the "children" fighting. hilarious !
Marty: I'm not gonna buy your damn video!
Arnie: But the kids will love it...
Marty: My kids will hate it because they think your show sucks!
Arnie: [after a long pause] Oh.
Samuel Faulkner: Thanks anyway.
Arnie: Oh sure, no hard feelings okay?
Marty: Alright.
[He and Samuel walk away]
Arnie: Ah, ya cheap shit.
Marty: What did you say?
Arnie: Oh gee, I didn't say nothing mister, you must be hearing things. Bye bye, Arnie loves you. Ya penis-head.
Marty: Now I heard that!
Arnie: Heard what?
Marty: I heard what you said!
Arnie: I didn't say nothing... Ya fat ass pussy.
And the two guys end up diving at him, three way brawl with "Arnie" cussing them out through the whole thing, until the women come over and find the "children" fighting. hilarious !
Internet Whiteboards
http://www.twiddla.com/ --> no java
http://www.scriblink.com/ --> java but nice ui
Special thanks to [SAS]_Sgt_Medic.
I think I can use these for a few meetings in the future lol.
http://www.scriblink.com/ --> java but nice ui
Special thanks to [SAS]_Sgt_Medic.
I think I can use these for a few meetings in the future lol.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Days log
I think I ended up walking around the grocery store more then coding... As soon as I was found wide awake. That generally proved to be a wash out, at lest I got some of the menial work done on the current module. Why on earth I'm working through things in the same order as the flow chart, I dunno... Maybe because it saves the easy work for the end lol.
Managed to *eventually* make it into Training Grounds #1 to work with Jonsi. Pardoning 3 r 4 people and a website to deal with, training chatter with the NCOs, making like an omni-present on 3 forums, and the like. Once we finally got ready op for the training, we got delayed by more people joining, and NCOs out to do some synchronization, to the point that Jonsi was only there for about 10 minute lol. Several hours later of drillin' with NCO/Rct/CO I'm like, "I stopped N hours ago but no one noticed" haha. We did have some good training though.
I also managed to feed my interest in computers, inhaling some information about the old ENIAC or Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer, the German Z3, and the British code breaking Colossus computers. As well as wishing that I could visit the Deutsches Museum, because a replica of the Z3 is supposed to be there in München :-).
What can I say, I love computers lol.
Managed to *eventually* make it into Training Grounds #1 to work with Jonsi. Pardoning 3 r 4 people and a website to deal with, training chatter with the NCOs, making like an omni-present on 3 forums, and the like. Once we finally got ready op for the training, we got delayed by more people joining, and NCOs out to do some synchronization, to the point that Jonsi was only there for about 10 minute lol. Several hours later of drillin' with NCO/Rct/CO I'm like, "I stopped N hours ago but no one noticed" haha. We did have some good training though.
I also managed to feed my interest in computers, inhaling some information about the old ENIAC or Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer, the German Z3, and the British code breaking Colossus computers. As well as wishing that I could visit the Deutsches Museum, because a replica of the Z3 is supposed to be there in München :-).
What can I say, I love computers lol.
One eye open, then two eyes online.
Was to darn tired to get coding, so I went to bed and figured I'd get up later around 0100-0200 and start after a short nap. Fell straight a sleep to dream land. Woke up a quarter after six. I've been on "power up" cycle since then. Haha, just moved from my desk to sitting in bed with the laptop, now Willow is pissed at me. But I think my lower back muscles will be more pissed at me later. Anyway, laid back down and tried to get my brain back online.
Ironically I eventually fell asleep and got up several more times, >_> all short cat-naps but that's normal; all the way to dreaming about reaching my LJ and starting the day off. It's generally nice that most of my dreams were fairly normal, as far as normal goes for me lol. I finally got up and out of bed a little after 0800.
No one has any idea how badly I would've liked to see the sunrise but alas, impossible to break stealth for it.
Dang it, Willow just took off barking... Probably some poor schlep on their way to work. *mutters* Thanks a lot Willow, wake up the whole house when I try to get up early and code before they do. I guess this is what I get for not letting her have the entire bed ^_^.
Dogs !!!
With any luck the factual and honest answer that I've went to bed, woke up around 0615, 0730, and 0800, then hit the code will be believed -- this time I have not coded the whole night through lol.... Thank GOD it's been awhile since my last ~2300-0700 run, they are killers on actually getting any sleep!
Ironically I eventually fell asleep and got up several more times, >_> all short cat-naps but that's normal; all the way to dreaming about reaching my LJ and starting the day off. It's generally nice that most of my dreams were fairly normal, as far as normal goes for me lol. I finally got up and out of bed a little after 0800.
No one has any idea how badly I would've liked to see the sunrise but alas, impossible to break stealth for it.
Dang it, Willow just took off barking... Probably some poor schlep on their way to work. *mutters* Thanks a lot Willow, wake up the whole house when I try to get up early and code before they do. I guess this is what I get for not letting her have the entire bed ^_^.
Dogs !!!
With any luck the factual and honest answer that I've went to bed, woke up around 0615, 0730, and 0800, then hit the code will be believed -- this time I have not coded the whole night through lol.... Thank GOD it's been awhile since my last ~2300-0700 run, they are killers on actually getting any sleep!
Sunday, August 10, 2008
WWWeb nightmare from hell pages
I've just been through a waking semi-nightmare.
With the ISP change, my mothers had to deal with updating e-mail address across a number of accounts. It's been weeks and the scheduling as finally sorted out for me to help deal with the various mailing lists and accounts from companies (adverts, news, sales papers, blah blah). All the time with me muttering how easy it should be for anyone to change such things, well guess what? I was blood wrong !!!!
Half of the mailing lists had to be unsubscribed and resubscribed, if there was a way to update it, the only practical means of doing so would be to e-mail the mailer program a 'help' message and see if it responds. Fluttering across the messages and the associated websites (where findable or Googlable) ranged from useless, to down right worthless. Some where actually pretty good, like the anti-virus data, figures they would make it simple ^_^. While others, it was just pitiful.... Hell on one -- belonging to a fairly well known company in it's category in fact. When submitting the form information, it through up an unhanded null pointer exception popup. Complete with a fucking stack trace and some paths data, for crying out fucking loud.... Showing any Joe blow submitting form data on the website, a bleeding stack trace!!!!
I've gone across numerics websites, ranging from looking nice to rather bloated. Aside from a bit of masturbation with JavaScript, the pages source code was the only decent thing about many of the websites I saw... Overall website usability was totally awful, like trying to back a tracker-trailer out of an outhouse without harming anything.
I know it takes a lot of work to make an attractive website, but geeze. How about actually making it a website worth visiting while ya at it fellas?
With the ISP change, my mothers had to deal with updating e-mail address across a number of accounts. It's been weeks and the scheduling as finally sorted out for me to help deal with the various mailing lists and accounts from companies (adverts, news, sales papers, blah blah). All the time with me muttering how easy it should be for anyone to change such things, well guess what? I was blood wrong !!!!
Half of the mailing lists had to be unsubscribed and resubscribed, if there was a way to update it, the only practical means of doing so would be to e-mail the mailer program a 'help' message and see if it responds. Fluttering across the messages and the associated websites (where findable or Googlable) ranged from useless, to down right worthless. Some where actually pretty good, like the anti-virus data, figures they would make it simple ^_^. While others, it was just pitiful.... Hell on one -- belonging to a fairly well known company in it's category in fact. When submitting the form information, it through up an unhanded null pointer exception popup. Complete with a fucking stack trace and some paths data, for crying out fucking loud.... Showing any Joe blow submitting form data on the website, a bleeding stack trace!!!!
I've gone across numerics websites, ranging from looking nice to rather bloated. Aside from a bit of masturbation with JavaScript, the pages source code was the only decent thing about many of the websites I saw... Overall website usability was totally awful, like trying to back a tracker-trailer out of an outhouse without harming anything.
I know it takes a lot of work to make an attractive website, but geeze. How about actually making it a website worth visiting while ya at it fellas?
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Ended up as good as passed out cold... No work done, but I finally got some sleep lol.
Managed to catch the end of The Matrix. I like the end game, although I must admit the gun fights are pretty tame compared to Equilibrium (a real must see!)
finish later.
Managed to catch the end of The Matrix. I like the end game, although I must admit the gun fights are pretty tame compared to Equilibrium (a real must see!)
finish later.
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