Tuesday, June 30, 2009

So far experiments continue with SWAT 4 performance issues. Deeper testing has shown that it is no longer connected to graphical issues, not when running on my current hardware/driver config; nice to be able to max out the graphics online *and* in single player.

What happens is periodically when moving through an area, I get a stutter-lag-warp like motion: as if the whole game stopped spinning and then suddenly unlocked. The only consistency I've noticed is it happens when entering a region of the map that I have not been in previously—or have not been in for a while. One thought is that perhaps it occurs when the cache must be updated with stuff that has already been moved out of the games memory cache. My machine has RAM to burn so I have been testing the game with various cache sizes, but don't honestly expect any positive result. On modern machines, cache size shouldn't matter to much with the Unreal Engine 2.x lol.

Atm I'm defragging a few disks, maybe that might help a little. I don't know if it is just the much greater frequency of crashes with Windows XP, or that NTFS really sucks that much worse then FreeBSDs UFS2 system. But for one reason or another, my windows file systems always end up very highly fragmented. Although on the upside, unlike Win32: FreeBSD does kind of encourage you to fsck afterwards hehe.




Hopefully my experiments will yield some fruit, and I can stop warping all over the place lol.

Goodbye toe, hello pancake!

Ok, so far my toe has been slammed into a couch and healed... then slammed into a step at work, and healed improperly. Last week I showed it to an acquaintance who is a nurse, and she came to the same conclusion I had - time to see a doctor (and have the dead tissue removed).

This morning when getting ready to leave for work, 12 hard cover books fell off the table and landed on the same damn toe lol. I'm lucky they weren't novels 350-450pg thick, or there wouldn't be a foot left let along a toe! No serious damage added, if there is actually anything more to damage... just a bit of blood flow. Cleaned it up and threw a bandaid on it before heading out the door, it likely stopped bleeding by the time we got to work.


In some ways, I think I now will look at Spaceballs with an extra chuckle: whenever Barfs foot gets crushed under a Yogurts statue...

Writer's Block: Childhood Firsts

What was your first word?
Live Journals Writer's Block


My first word ironically was "No!".


I reckon all parents go through the usual "Say daddy" or "Say mommy" kind of thing when their kids are young, mine did, and I told them NO! hahaha!!! I guess I was just born stubborn as a mule xD
Haven't been updating my LJ much this week, as usual that means either I am highly depressed or extremely busy, and often both lol.


This week that has started also promises to be a very hard and busy one as well :-(.


The upside is Operation Redeemer may be moving ahead soon......

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Rcent business

As much as I hate to not be working, I am kind of happy about this recent turn of events.

Yesterday the after work down-time was interrupted with a job interview: one that I've had apprehensive thoughts about, in regard to Operation Redeemer. We didn't get it and apparently, my remarks about "32 hours" and needing 12 people to do the job, "Queered it" as H.R.P. put it. I also reminded my mother that she should be careful what she wishes for, since she had asked me to speak up! For better or worse, I prefer to speak honestly and don't like to mince words. Also on the flip side, we got something else (and less painful).


Thursday was supposed to be a trial-run, in which I have wondered just how much stuff could be done in 6 hours of labour. The place is so big, to clear it from a SWAT point of view, would take 20 men and at least 5 minutes. Cleaning the place as a 2-schmuck team would take all week! It is just to freaking BIG.




As I often say, things always balance out in the end. The 2 jobs that virtually evaporated have also come back online in force, and after yesterdays interview, H.R.P. is most certainly less inclined to whine about them lol. For me, work is work; that's roughly all there is to it. Although that being said, I would love to have a career that I can wake up in the morning and actually want to do the job :-/. (Ok, so a crazy spider can dream...)


The positive side is that
In sleeping on it and having a job, that frankly leaves my mind free: I've come up with an idea for the tpsh problem.


The tokenizer is beautiful, the only problem is it does the expansions through a table of call backs. Now if I was to modify that so that it instead attaches meta-data to each token instead, those expansions could be delayed until later without major redesign. It will be necessary to redactor the lexer in order to handle the change in data structure. The code generator can then be tasked with completing any expansions during generation, by expanding lexemes to corrisponding code as it goes. After wards, re do the code generate into something more elegant and voila.... we have what it should've been in the first place!


A good nights sleep always helps the code[r]

A small shoot yourself in the foot, coders moment.

Being bored and lacking further ops I can get done before bed, I picked up on tpsh again. In look for a quick challenge, I noted that the git repo was still on the 'codegen' branch. Basically, a branch to test the idea of generating the execution code on the fly per command sequence.

As a quickie of interest, I picked up the generation phase for the for-loop. Then I hit a road block. Since my shell expands variables, globs, and aliases quickly during tokenization. The reason being, the input field separator ($IFS) and quoting rules determine how this shell splits text into 'words' or tokens for the execution mechanisms—you could say it's "On the way there", thus deals with it as it comes. Currently tpsh handles environment variables by fouling around with the programs own idea of the referenced environment variables (%ENV) without any distinction between exported and unexported variables. My intentions have been to use a more controllable interface for shell variables at a later date, since it is kind of a low-yield concern at this stage of development.


I see several choices:


a/ redesign how things work (obviously this is the whole story, lol), saving the issue until later when other components have matured to match.

b/ leave expanding environment variables (etc) until the last minute, I don't like this idea.

c/ have some way of retaining things that can not be confirmed until later, with an indicator to strip out or expand the remainders at the last minute (this gives me visions of ugly code)

d/ incorporate the code generator closer into the process, so that things get expanded only after they have been confirmed, but generated as soon as possible (a more multiple pass focused design comes to mind).

a is basically a worry-later, and see if other things that needs doing either fix or exacerbate the problem (this is a two edged flaming sword). b is possible but would take a lot of reworking crap, and IMHO result in an ugly LA phase and become prone to introducing bugs into the final results. c sounds simple enough at first glance but I do not see a method that I'm willing to live with. I worry about how easy d would could confuse readers, and what danger a slip up on it could do the results.


For now, I intend to not worry about the minor issue, until after variable handling matures. Because I really love how expand_quotes() works, and that is the best part of the whole program IMHO. Needless to say, tpsh has poor handling of shell/environment variables and has had it throughout its development, since growing the code can wait longer then the other parts.


Not to mention the fact that tpsh has mostly been developed under sleep deprivation in the first place.... lol



edit


In the time it took to submit the entry, type 'shutdown -p now', put away the computer, and take a quick leak: I came up with another solution. Give the code that expands variables an understanding of how they are defined, rather then only how they are referenced. Not only would checking if a referenced variable was just defined in the same set of input work with 'for X' and 'for X in ...' like constructs, it could also be used to implement the 'VAR=... ... command ...' syntax at a later stage :-)

The way expand_quotes() invokes the other expand_* procedures, we would need adjustment before the syntax of prefixing commands with variable settings could work, yet implementing the for-loop in it would be trivial, since anything that would cause the statement to get broken into an unusable token set before defining said variable and attempting variable expansion on it, would also be a usage that gets around for's keyword status!


Problem solved with less fuss, maybe? It is amazing what you can think of while taking a piss!

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

More [SAS] Dept. of Agriculture

My work on the '[SAS] Dept. of Agriculture' is nearly done, I have only 3 rooms left to do major work on, plus the "special" insertions hehe.


The goal is to be able to use the fire escapes outside the records room to gain entrance, replacing one of the spawn points. I may also modify the front-entrance spawn, so that the team spawns "outside" in a armoury room rather then the reception area. The building is supposed to be a mock-up for a hostage rescue after all, not purely a traditional map: so it wouldn't be a big realism problem :-P.


Alcomplishing those aims appears to be easier then I expected. The real challenge at the moment, is I very much would like to erect breachable "Barricades", that will have to be shoved out of the way. Getting that working so far has been of no real luck.
Today I woke up feeling like microwaved crap and a headache to match; you have a pulse, you report for work—that's the way it is.

The thing that really cheered me up today, was my roughly annual periodic weigh in. Last year it was like 180~182 lbs (~82kg), today the scale read 160 lbs (~72.575kg) which is a much more comfortable range for me... lol. I've never wanted to go much past 180, and for much of the last decade, have been gaining around 10lbs (4.5kg) a year.

What's changed between today and the last time I set foot on a scale? Not a whole lot really, the real food in my diet is likely worse on calories then ever before; but I have largely cut out junk food and snacks. When I do snack, it is usually something healthy like a bowl of Special-K or a banana. That being said, I only eat about 2 meals a day lol.


For virtually my entire life I've only had soda as my staple drink, usually about 1 litre a day. In 2008, I basically switched totally to drinking water at roughly 1 1/4 to 1 2/3 litres a day.



When it comes to exercise, I basically get none outside of work and walking the dog. The last several years have had my room used for storage and laundry racks, resulting in a bogus amount of space—being cooped up in this hellhole doesn't help either. Who knows, maybe misery and depression are a better form of weight loss then diet and exercise... :-/. If this toe ever gets back to a suitable point, that I can accomplish reverse lunges without stumbling, I can start exercising. Moving things around and systematically pushing crap out, has helped double my effective free-space in my room.... and a major goal of Operation Redeemer is the freedom to GTFO of here periodically.


Normally I carry Willow out to where we walk, and occasionally let her walk the way home: if she will cooperate. Today, I told Willow that "You probably need the exercise more then I do", and let her jog there. When it was time to come home, she looked at me with a nasty glint and decided we would jog home—and pooped out along the way! Hahahaha!


Who knows maybe Operation Redeemer would be good for my health, if family doesn't chuck a spanner down its neck.....
Recently I have been thinking about 2 items on my bucket list. More specficially, the two most integer goals...

My thoughts on it haunt me, and the probability of ever seeing those core desires realized is an especially depressing thought. Those that know me fairly well, could likely hazard a few guesses at what those desires are, and hopefully get at least one right lol. I am wondering, even if I ever see them realized, will there be enough left of me, to furfil them? Alas, only time will tell that tale.

Time, such a precious commodity, like a grain of sand slipping through the neck of an hour glass Oh how I wish I could see my goals bear fruit...

[SAS] Dept. of Agriculture, continues

I've been working on the map some more tonight and have made some decent progresses. The thing that annoys me the most is how many times the rat bastard of an Unreal Ed likes to crash! I have often cursed about hex editing programs into the Nth level of DooM—if the editor for Unreal Engine 3 games is as bad as all the Unreal 2 games I've used it with, I will start cursing about hex editing the editors development team into all levels of the DooM II megawad: Hell Revealed.


I don't really wish to comment on the specific changes here, mostly because I want the map to be usable as a Live Operation during its unveiling :-D. Needless to say, it is still the same map but it will not be the same. As long as I can get the stuff rigged up for the fire escape spawn point, I think people will enjoy the map hehe.

Monday, June 22, 2009

What dreams came

Around 09:39 or so, I was woken up because the car cover came off the car, and had to be put on. When that was done, I just went back to bed... oy what a set of dreams!

I dreamt that it was raining cats and dogs and Ma went out the door to check the car cover; Willow almost ran out the door before I could catch her. In real life, Willow always runs and sits near the door, as ma says, "She knows where her bread is buttered", but of course I'm paranoid about peoples safety lol. Then to make it worse after I caught her and ma came back in, I explained and turned around.... and see the parakeet Mikey sitting on my table, and creep over to scope him up before he can fly away—and end up dog food.


Then I woke up and fell back asleep a little while later. It was raining cats and dogs and I explained what I had just dreamt. Then it hit the fan, the bird got out and I managed to catch him before the dog. When I tried to put him back in the cage, so I could fix his enclosure... I found that the cage had come apart! It had just began to unravel and decompose without reason, which is a big problem. So here I am standing with the bird in my hands, rapidly losing weight and feathers—in real life Mike is a fat and pampered parakeet lol. As often seems to be the case in my dreams, my family ends up just being totally freaking worthless whenever I need help :-/.


It's only when I dream of something normal, and not purely fantasy, that I generally get concerned....

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Theme Song





What a thrill
With Darkness and silence through the night
What a thrill
I'm searching and I'll melt into you
What a fear in my heart
But you're so supreme!

I give my life
Not for honor, but for you snake eater
In my time, there'll be no one else
Crime, it's the way I fly to you
I'm still in a dream of the snake eater

Someday you go through the rain,
Someday you feed on a tree frog,
It's ordeal, the trial to survive
For the day we see new light

I give my life
Not for honor, but for you
In my time, there'll be no one else
Crime, it's the way I fly to you
I'm still in a dream of the snake eater

Writer's Block: I Can Relate

What fictional character do you most identify with?
Live Journals Writer's Block


One fictional character that I can strongly identify with, is the Jack aka Big Boss from Metal Gear Solid 3.


Obvious spoilers warning




Tom: There's one more person I want to introduce you to, Snake.

Snake: ?

Tom: Speaking of snakes, you remember The Boss, don't you? A legendary soldier and your mentor. Actually, it was The Boss that got the DCI's authorization in the first place. She's going to be serving as FOX's mission advisor.

Snake: The Boss is?

Tom: She also helped me plan this mission. She and I were at SAS together.

Boss: Jack, is that you? How many years has it been?

Snake: Boss??

Boss: That's right, it's me.

Snake: ...

Boss: Talk to me. Let me hear your voice.

Snake: It's been 5 years, 72 days, and 18 hours.

Boss: You've lost weight.

Snake: You can tell just by the sound of my voice?

Boss: Of course I can. I know all about you.

Snake: Really. Well, I don't know anything about you.

Boss: What's that supposed to mean?

Snake: ...Why'd you disappear on me all of a sudden?

Boss: I was on a top-secret mission.

Snake: ...

Boss: You didn't need me anymore.

Snake: But there were still so many things I wanted you to teach me.

Boss: No. I taught you everything you needed to know about fighting techniques. I taught you all I could. The rest you needed to learn on your own.

Snake: Techniques, sure. But what about how to think like a soldier?

Boss: How to think like a soldier? I can't teach you that. A soldier needs to be strong in spirit, body, and technique - and the only thing you can learn from someone else is technique. In fact, technique doesn't even matter. What's most important is spirit. Spirit and body are like two sides of a single coin. They're the same thing. I can't teach you how to think. You'll just have to figure it out for yourself. Listen to me, Jack. Just because soldiers are on the same side right now doesn't mean they always will be. Having personal feelings about your comrades is one the worst sins you can commit. Politics determine who you face on the battlefield. And politics are a living thing. They change along with the times. Yesterday's good might be tomorrow's evil.

Snake: Is that why you abandoned me?

Boss: No. It had nothing to do with you. I already told you, Jack. I was on a top-secret mission. A soldier has to follow whatever orders he's given. It's not his place to question why. But you're looking for a reason to fight. You're a natural born fighter, but you're not quite a soldier. A solider is a political tool, nothing more. That's doubly true if he's a career soldier. Right and wrong have no place in his mission. He has no enemies and no friends. Only the mission. You follow the orders you're given. That's what being a soldier is all about.

Snake: I do whatever I have to do to get the job done. I don't think about politics.

Boss: That's not the same thing. Sooner or later, your conscience is going to bother you. In the end, you have to choose whether you're going to live as a soldier, or just another man with a gun. There's a saying in the Orient; "Loyalty to the end." Do you know what it means?

Snake: Being... Patriotic?

Boss: It means devoting yourself to your country.

Snake: I follow the President and the top brass. I'm ready to die for them if necessary.

Boss: The President and the top brass won't be there forever. Once their terms are up, others will take their place.

Snake: I follow the will of the leader, no matter who's in charge.

Boss: People aren't the ones who dictate the missions.

Snake: Then who does?

Boss: The times. People's values change over time. And so do the leaders of a country. So there's no such thing as an enemy in absolute terms. The enemies we fight are only in relative terms, constantly changing with the times.

Snake: ...

Boss: As long as we have "loyalty to the end," there's no point in believing in anything... even in those we love.

Snake: And that's the way a soldier is supposed to think?

Boss: The only thing we can believe in with absolute certainty is the mission, Jack.

Snake: All right. But do me a favor.

Boss: What is it?

Snake: Call me Snake.

Boss: Snake? Oh, right, your codename is Snake. It suits you well.

Tom: That's right. The legendary unit that The Boss put together during World War II was a snake. The Cobra Unit... a group of heroes that brought the war to an end and saved the world. As long as you've got a legendary hero backing you up, you'll be fine. Isn't that right, Snake?

Snake: Yeah, I can't think of anyone else I'd rather have with me. Oh, and one more thing, Boss...

Boss: Yes?

Snake: It's good to hear your voice again.

The young Big Boss very much symbolizes to me, someone who has yet to find their own path through the jungle. In Metal Gear Solid 3, we see Jacks entry into the Virtuous Mission: the hunt for Sokolov. The Boss warns him of the very true nature of their world: todays enemies can be tomorrows friends, todays friends can be tomorrows enemies. The game continually questions what Jack is fighting for: country, mission, and so on. With the Bosses 'defection' at the end of the virtuous mission leaving Jack wounded and disillusioned, Operation Snake Eater again sends him into the wilderness, yet this time with the explicit goal of neutralizing the Boss. During Snake Eater, Jack is taken prisoner by the Soviets. After beating him into a bloody pulp, Col. Volgin demands that the Boss prove her loyalty: "Cut out his eyes! I don't like those blue eyes of his. There is nothing more important to a soldier than his eyes. You made him a soldier and now you will unmake him!". When Eve under cover as Tatyana objects, Ocelot commences his juggling act. It ends with Jack trading his right eye to protect Eva.

I think playing through MGS3 is the only real definition of what Big Boss goes through; my best description would be a torture of life.


Surviving Snake Eater with the Bosses blood on his hands, as Eva's betrayal reveals: the Boss had been endlessly shit on by her country (to put it lightly), yet remained loyal to the end. The boss lived in shadow and died in shadow, giving every ounce of life along the way: until even that was demanded of her service. in the end, Operation Snake Eater was all about cold hard cash, nothing else. And for that, ones such as the Boss and Big Boss were subjected to such misery! By the time Metal Gear Solid 3 ends, Jack has been awarded the title of "Big Boss", for he has bested even the Boss. Jack lost his innocence a long the way to becoming Big Boss.

Throughout the game, Jack focuses on his missionm‐and is constantly reminded that he must kill the Boss in order to succeed. I feel that in the end, he must ask himself, "What am I fighting for?", and search to see if this is really the path he will chart in life.



Because my feelings for my family and of my times with www.sasclan.org I have come to sympathize with Big Bosses fate. MGS3 is my favorite of the solid trilogy because it tells his story, of his coming of age. Having seen the whole thing through, I don't think anyone who has played MGS3 could fail to understand the actions Big Boss would later take in life, be they as they appeared or much deaper; MGS4 (the only reason I would like a PS3 haha!) further explores the reasons behind the snake. In a similiar light, I ask of my self:

Are you loyal to the end?

Friday, June 19, 2009

Got what's left of this toe in a scolding hot foot-bath with some Epsom salt; I think it is healed enough that I can eercise on it but I don't think it has been healing properly... nothing I can do about that though. On the upside, hey at least I've still got the nail lol. I've never lost an entire toenail before but I know it takes a long time for them to grow back.


At the moment I am finishing watching Midnight Run, I love the part when the three schmucks are being chased by the mobsters helicopter—and Mardukas (Charles Grodin) is shouting, "You two are the dumbest bounty hunters I have ever seen! You couldn't even deliver a bottle of milk!", it just tickles my funny bone xD.


Spent most of the day playing SWAT 4 as seems to be the usual for right now. During the early phase I basically had to get a bunch of inexperienced people under control, but hey - I like orderly tactics. And when I am Element Leader, people get in line or they get taken offline ;). I organized them into a basic strike, secure, cover group. 1 and 2 man would be responsible for clearing the room, 3 and 4 man for securing contacts and weapons, while 5, 6, and when present 7 man stayed in the corridor to watch our backs. Very simple clearing techniques. I found it particularly well suited for dealing with a large amount of untrained people, while trying to avoid the usual massive conga-line-of-sloppiness and massive headless chicken problems of such a situation. People soon got the idea, and within a few maps I was able to transition to using RED / BLUE team call signs for the two groups; culminating in a simultaneous take down of 3 sectors at once by a 7-man assault force (of which I was basically the only seasoned idiot). Later on after our element had shrunk back to a more manageable size (4-5 instead of 6-7), I soon was able to take a break when [SAS]_Trp_COT showed up and started his EL practice for the day.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Sunshine

Just finished watching a film called Sunshine, a bleak future where our sun is dying and Earth being subjected to the deep freeze. Our last hope is a starship named the Icarus II, on a go for broke mission to drop a "stellar bomb" made with all the Earths remaining fissionable mass, into the sun with hopes that the detonation may jump start the sun and spare humanity from its cold grave.


I'm not really a big student of Greek mythology, let along mythology in general (never had the chance) but I do know of Icarus - who flew to close to the sun, and died as his wings melted away from the heat. I can't think who in their bloody right mind would dare name a ship Icarus in such a dreadful scenario lol (no offense). As far as I know, it is thought that our sun should last billions of years pardoning anything truly catastrophic! And thus, only an immortal might have to worry about its eventual death: the rest of us mortals can just be worried about a planet killer sized asteroid or alien invasion obliterating our world before we manage to annihilate ourselves... be it fast or slow in coming. (I hope man lives to see GOD putting an end to our world, not our own stupidity being the cause)


Sunshine is a very interesting movie, and the stressful-confined-get-me-the-hell-out-of-here feel of some of the scenes remind me of the old Alien. I'm not even going to think about the probability of surviving the oh-shit-it's-come-to-this emergency method of transferring 3 men with 1 suit from the derelict Icarus I back to the moribund Icarus II. I must admit however, that the Pinbacker mystery also leaves some interesting questions for my mind; but I don't believe such a thing feasible. It almost reminded me of David Bowman from 2001: A Space Odyssey but not quite on par with the Starchild.


The thing I find the hardest to comprehend is how witihn ~50 years, could man kind possibly develop technology that could get *that close* to the sun? I compared the Icarus's troubles with that of Doctor Reinhardts efforts in The Black Hole, id est so freaking big a problem only sci-fi could plausibly pull it off in our lifetime. Between intense heat and the amount of gravity that must surround such a beast, I just can't fathom mans technology alcomplishing that so soon - I would be suspicious if we could even get a bomb close enough to be of science-fictional interest let along that close. That is, without advancing the stories focal point from ~2057 into some point so far in the future, that it becomes a date on the Gregorian calendar, more reflective of the numbers seen in Dunes universe—which spans some 15,000 years and leaves our calendars in the dust. I would reckon that in even seven or eight thousand years from now, the technology of the future would be to us, a satisifcation of Clarke's third law. But by then I would expect a Death Star or something, not the Icarus II.



In some strange way it also makes me wish I had the ability and attitude to study Astrophysics :-/. Then again if I did, I would probably find watching such films to be more on par with watching an 80's action flick lol.
Woke up feeling like someone was taking the hands around my head and just squeezing it, plus a mild toothache on the larboard side. The work schedule has been turned up on it's ear, and it's coming into that time of year when business starts to evaporate... which does not hold very well for Operation Redeemers goals :-/.


If I wasn't owed money, I would actually have a chance to supercharge this part of the operation, instead of being S.O.L. All things considered, if I wasn't owed, I would be being asked for a loan, as far the current state of my families finances goes lol.
Strange dreams.... I was dreaming that we were attending church services; we haven't been there in years :'(. While I'm generally not superstistous but I think in my family that may be taken as a bad omen, don't know. I've never really placed much on the interpretation of dreams nor any meaning on them for 99.99999% of the dreams I've had in my life; can't say the same about the rest of my family lol.


When I woke up I said a prayer (my most often used) and rolled back over to get a little more sleep. Then I had a dream that really surprised me: I was dreaming of coming home and there was my father, making himself a sandwich or something. In over 20 years, I think this is the 2nd or 3rd time I've ever dreamed of him. Growing up, I always wanted to dream about meeting my father... since I was very small when he died. We spent some time together and there was something going on, because more and more family (equally both dead and living lol) started showing up in good cloths, towards the end Ma finally got home.

After that my dreams turned to more private nature then I'll post here, I'll just describe it as more stressful but less strange, including me making a verbal reference to a place I've often dreamed of traveling through. Kind of strange actually since certain places, events, scenarios, etc. I often will dream about repeatedly over the years but rarely are they ever the same thing twice.


To me dreams are more so something interesting and occasionally better then TV :-/. What most people would call nightmares I call a sense of adventure missing from life. The only time my dreams have ever worried me is whenever I have a *serious* dream, rather then something absurd...

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

What is it about certain songs that can touch a piece of us? That special something that lets you build a rapport with our listening ears? My view is that it is the music that connects with a part of who we are, where we've been, and what we've been through; much like the subject of the last song-lyrics I posted goes on about.


Most people that I know, there tastes in music in some way reflect their lives. For me and one friend in particular, I've noted songs that we enjoy tend to be of a more 'pleasurable-painful' nature. Music that can make you remember the old hurts and the old joys gone by, and in some odd way let you touch base with that emotion and feel better for still being able to feel anything that all: or perhaps its just the parts of our existence just plain suck lol.


The songs that I love the most, tend not to be "happy" in nature, but more of a long sad tune. If it's hit my playlist countless times or I take time to stop and listen to it over the radio, odds are it invokes a strong emotion somewhere.


Someday I think it would be cool to read a systematic survey that tries to map peoples experiences to their musical tastes, but such a thing would be rather tricky to get any meaningful result IMHO.

Songs about me

I met a guy on the red eye
He spotted my guitar
and said what do you do?
I said, I sing for a living,
Country music mixed with
a little rock and a little blues
He said I'm sorry
but I've never been crazy
'bout that twang and trains and hillbilly thing
What ever made you want to sing stuff like that?
I just looked at him and laughed and said

cause it's songs about me
and who I am
songs about loving and living
and good hearted women and family and God
yeah they're all just
songs about me
songs about me

So I offered him tickets
I said you'll see what I mean
if you show up tonight
he said I doubt you'll change my opinion
I'll be kind of busy, but hey man, I'll try

Then later on when we finished our songs
about scars and cars and broken hearts
I saw him, he was standing there
right next to the stage
and he shouted
man you were right
it was like you sang those

songs about me
and who I am
songs about loving and living
and good hearted women and family and God
yeah they're all just
songs about me
songs about me

So I'll just keep on singing
'til I hear the whole world singing those

songs about me
and who I am
songs about loving and living
and good hearted women and family and God
yeah they're all just
songs about me
songs about me
-- Songs About Me, Trace Adkins

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Yesterday was a reaal cork popper! I have seen and heard a lot of crap over the years but I have never been so disgusted and angry in my entire life (thus far). It just took the cake and a half man... new record levels. And I've even seen a door breached and ripped apart practically by hand lol. That being said, the incident yesterday did not involve my blood kin in any way.


Maybe it is as the numeral unno says, just a week where everyone gets under each others skin... all in all though I am glad that I can be utterly pissed the F' off and still be able to think clearly. I really had to learn at an early age how to deal with intense anger, my family is *that good* at pushing peoples buttons, mine included lol. The closet door still bears holes and knuckle prints from my hot tempered youth. We're a lot of hot headed, loud mouthed, stubborn mules: and whether genetically or environmentally, have even worse then both my parents in that regard (That's like saying you're descended from lava and hydrofluoric acid).

One of the things that separates me from my family and many other people on this earth, is I can control my temper before it gets the best of me.


I just tried fitting my knuckles into the dents in the closet door, and I am kind of proud how far I've come since then... both in stature and control. I don't go nova, I'm not a violent person by nature: despite having developed a put two in the head and move on philosophy of logical problem solving lol. I am the single most rational person I know, and strongly value c;ear thinking over lashing out at others (but can't say the same about the rest of my family).


Perhaps this is one time, that I should be thankful for my family.....
Well on the upside, I've been managing to get to bed fairly early (0200-0300) and waking up near (0830~0845) the final target mark (0700~0730), and all without having to invoke the alarm clock lol.


The problem is getting used to getting UP that early when I don't got to go to work. I think I've woken up and fallen asleep at least 4 or 5 times before rolling out around 1151 :-/. Practice makes perfect and eventually that should be dealt with, hehe.


I've also been playing so much SWAT 4 and mucking with the Department of Agriculture map—I'm starting to dream about playing it!

Monday, June 15, 2009

[SAS] Dept. of Agriculture map

Last night I started working on a customized version of the department of agriculture map (SWAT4: TSS). Basically I want to make some 'interesting' changes but still keep it recognizable as the same building. My biggest interest of course, is in rigging a spawn point from outside and trying to use the fire escape outside the records room as a possible point of entry :-)


I will also likely adjust the enemy spawn points and things and roll down the number of suspects so it is harder to figure out where you will make enemy contacts - and make it more realistic. The big question of course, unveil it as a training map or should the first unveiling be a Live Operation? Hehehe. I guess we will just have to see how much reimaging I have time to do.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

I've been working through SWAT 4 more lately then RvS, and when I am Element leader, more often setting the advanced plan of action — the [SAS] style plan of action.

My thoughts is to expose the younger members to more of these fluid, embedding, and flowing assault plans: and let them learn from it by sight and sound. I hope it will eventually trigger an evolution of their thinking, because my demostrations are in the direction they will be heading in a few months.


I rarely care for the "Immediate Action Plans" that some of my peers will occasionally employ; little more then a liquid element full of flashbangs with orders to neutralize everything that moves. It's too simple and while it may reflect a common infantry problem of advancing into the unknown or opertional boondocks, however it does not reflect most of our SWAT 4 or Raven Shield environments significantly. 95% of the time we have intelligence enough to form a suitable Deliberate Action Plan and more then enough time to get it put together. Just assigning a liquid element IMHO is best done when any element formation (period) is unnecessary, or the effort of creating one far outweighs the value obtained from organization. Just doing it without the on the spot corrections or routine training sessions, is also not going to teach anyone how to better utilize their time in a liquid element. Most of the time I look at it as a stroke of laziness.


A fixed element has some advantages:

  1. It helps build that discipline you only seem to get with rigorous close order drills
  2. It is very simple, that's why it is what Recruits are trained in
  3. That simplicity allows less experienced members to optimize their brains thinking around the static structure of the formation and how they will be able to perceive the environment around them

While a simple rigidness is its greatest asset—it can also become slow and unwieldy on tight contested grounds.

Having to drone on through overly verbose loadouts and duty assignments (usually >5min) are the finest sign of either of two things: the Element Leader is still in the learning stage or the plan is overly complicated. In my experience the former is understandable (Rct/Trp/LCpl are still mastering it) and the latter is doomed to failure (effective now is better then perfect later). Not the side effects of a fixed element, only the institutionalization of young minds around them. Fixed elements are very effective and require the least level of experience to employ them optimally; yet this still leaves much to be desired in many situations.


Liquid elements can be highly useful:

  1. It offloads most responsibility from leaders to subordinates
  2. It can quickly adapt to changes in the environment
  3. And it can be very smooth and effective when utilized by seasoned members who have trained long together

It is also like a tidal wave, liquid elements may crash down hard and obliterate all in its path—but it may just as easily wash away under its own weight.


Because it offloads so much down the chain of individual intelligence and experience, it creates a lot more mental over head for those who have yet to adjust fully to the ebb and flow of an element in a close quarters engagement. Everything that was static and rigidly unchanging is now dynamic and flexing every second of play; using it with newbies or the young in general, often results in watching newbies at work. I can only compare a liquid element formation to taking a section of fresh Privates and making them all commanders of Stoßtruppen units, then expecting success.... not gonna happen without the training and the experience. When the element members are up to the task it is highly effective but requires a driving will to keep the tidal wave always striking, and never fading in the wrong direction. To often I have seen liquid elements lead to "sloppy" actions, because of the inclusion of inexerpeicned members in the liquid formation or just a lack of directive!


An assault element must be both fixed in nature and free as a liquid—it must flow through the cracks like a fluid and overwhelm the enemy.


Fluid elements combine all of the mental-optimizational attributes of a fixed formations static nature, but frees operators minds to further-optimize their collective actions, much as they must do (or die) in a liquid element. Often times when working in a fixed formation, I've had those "Uh, this is so F'ing stupid, but I'll do as the young one expects" moments that makes me cringe. It is generally the sign of one who is still learning being in the EL slot, one one whose brain was institutionalized at that level, and has failed to grow beyond it. Elements must have fluidity - that freedom to optimize things on the run that fixed elements drop on ELs alone, and lead to overly intricate plans (Yes, if you are reading this I and wondering if your included, I mean YOU). Professionals should have no need a rigidness or "liquid" way of doing things: instead a simply fluidness of action that comes with experience.



I find describing my point very difficult, beyond a simply exposing it to light through action. It keeps the circle jerking to a minimal.
Was having an odd but light dream. I dreamed something about having a German Shepard dog named Pip. I remember something about a car and a parking lot, and we ended up running home together on foot with no need for a leash. Eventually there was other people and the ground got rougher until finally Pip ended up injured along side; and a woman with near angelic qualities and a healing touch stepped in. Before Willow and Coco, I always thought if I ever got a dog of my own in the future, it would likely be along the lines of a German Shepard; and I've always considered myself more of a cat person anyway lol. But of course, I wouldn't trade these knucklehead chihuahuas for anything!

When I woke up it was about on par with when I want to be getting up but I went to bed late last night, so I just rolled back over lol. Then I started dreaming about investigating a star-tanker that had picked up a Xenomorph, and only had few survivors left. The whole thing was kind of reminiscent of Will Smiths character in I am Legend but I know always keep the dang rifle handy ;).


The good thing? I've managed to not over sleep so badly today... haha!
Ended up putting my head down for a few minutes and what do ya know, next thing I know it's a quarter after zero instead of a quarter after twenty two lol, Sat down to soak the toe, and flipped on Night of the Living Dead with about an hour left to go; I've never seen the original or the remake before actually. Not much of a fan of zombie movies but it wasn't to bad I guess :-/. Despite the remarkable danger of it, it was actually refreshing to see someone tackle zombies unarmed—but I wouldn't reccomend it tactically lol.When it comes to horror movies, I actually consider a zombie horde more threatening then a vampire invasion; it's kind of hard to find both minigun emplacements with nearly limitless ammunition and a good defensible position at the same time! In looking through some of the notes on the web, it looks like Night of the Living Dead is also where the expression "They're coming to get you, Barbra!" comes from, never knew that. Ok, so I've probably been living under a rock for the last century, so sue me.


After that was a movie I wanted to see but never had the chance: Hellboy II: The Golden Army. I very much enjoyed what I got to see of the first film, you could say I have a soft spot for movies with a sense of humour ;). The scene when Hellboy and Abe are getting drunk is also worth while, and Yohann Krauss makes for an interesting addition. (Telling Manning to suck his ectoplasmic schwanzstucker was also a nice touch.) Interestingly, it seems that the comics on Hellboy were published by Dark Horse, always a big plus in my book.I can still remember as a kid, it was always Dark Horse that kept Aliens and Aliens Vs Predator on the shelves hehe. Ironically, 'Before Hellboy was published independently at Dark Horse Comics, the concept was initially pitched to a board of directors for DC Comics, who loved it but didn't like the idea of it involving "hell."' which sounds just like DC!


There hasn't been much on nor much to do lately, so it was actually kind of refreshing to watch TV instead of spend the entire night on the computer....

Friday, June 12, 2009

A liquid element is like water, it may thunder down upon an enemy but wash away under its own weight
A fixed elements ridigidness may become unweildly on contested ground
A fluid element seeps through the cracks and overwhelms the enemy
I've a haiku-inspired thought in my head, that applies to fixed / liquid / fluid elements... todo write it when I have a clear'er mind

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Today has been a fairly good day. Dreams not to bad and I only over slept by an hour... lol. Spent most of the day conducting training for our newest recruit. Personally, I find the long winded chatter of some of the trainings I do quite boring; so I always try to keep sessions MOVING, try to keep people focused and moving forward. Recruits learn better when they are focused and not just trying to stay awake \o/. That's also one of the reasons I try to do a lot of training that's more hands on stick and throttle these days. Most of the time I do training, I usually think of a class room'ish and hands on sector, yet try to avoid breaking it up as such. The older I get at teaching CQB tactics the easier it gets.

The recruits very good to work with, and perhaps more dedicated then most I've seen enter the selection course over the years. Heh, it also makes me think back to the days when most of our senior NCOs were going through the selection course: they could be a bunch of rowdy pains in our neck but eventually learned xD. Since 2005 I have seen and done much in [SAS], but getting to teach I think is still one of my very most favorite parts of this team.


After the prolonged session (thanks to all the live fire, hehe) I also got to spend time with Walker. I gave it him the mission in a way he is not likely to be used to yet: I gave it to him [SAS] style, pro all the way. The kinda raids us members conduct periodically and love doing. Where it is nether set in stone nor left to chance, but sublimely tactical in nature.

I am quite happy with all of our Recruits at the moment, I haven't spent most of the last couple months with my eyes focused on our senior RvS recruit for nothing hehe. I always tend to rotate and slide myself into where ever I can lend a hand in [SAS], to me that's just how a team works. I also have always liked it, when I have the chance to become useful in many trades. Through my path, my teammates cover me and I cover them, and we all get it done sooner or later.


I don't drink, but cheers to that b||b
Sheesh, I think it's gonna take this crappy-printer longer to print my lesson plan, then it took to write it lol.

I used restructured text and fed it through rst2html, then generated a PostScript file using Mozilla Firefox; it's only about 3 pages long...

It took about 7 minutes per page... and it's all plain text :-/


* printer is a Deskjet D1455 supported by GS/HPIJS/Foomatic and hooked up to the LPD/Line Printer Daemon.

Miserable night....

My family does nothing but make the things missing in my life that much more apparent.

Reese's monitors FUBAR so he came over to pik up his spare; so I had to put up with my mother and my brothers usual pissing contests. After listening to essentially the same set of conversations repeated at least 15 times, I started laughing and offered an analogy. "If two and two is equal to two and two, and two and three is equal to three and two,m and so on, do we really have to walk through the entire set of real numbers, which just happens to be pretty darn infinite?". Combined with my comments on having to hear the same damn convo again and again and AGAIN! They eventually got the point and changed their broken record to another! 20-30 minutes later I said screw it, and sat down on the computer.


Family is excellent at using you, making you feel miserable,


One of the people we work for was having a computer issue and of course offered to help, in reply to her reply, I explained: there is being used and there is being useful, and I like to be useful; I left out that my immediate family only knows my name when they want something 8=).


Tonight I've also been badgered over my eyes which are not as good as they used to be; being cooped up at home so much with nothing else to do but sit in front of a computer, what do you expect? And that I obviously will need glasses (or contacts, not that I was asked which in their debate 8-) before I'll be able to get a license. (Duh, I'm not a dumb ass!) And the list just goes on - I'm tired of putting up. I love my family dearly but I honestly wonder why I have bothered to speak to any of them, since at least 1995~1994; the year reference is because by 1995~1996 I already knew things were headed for the shits, and had already been so miserable for a good while....


I really don't want to have much to do with my immediate family. I think if I ever moved out, I'd probably call them each once a cycle and leave it at that for the most part, lol. It's just less painful to avoid unnecessary involvement. In my general opinion, I think they really ceased to "know me" years and years ago: when me and a few friends were essentially swapping how well do you know me type quizes, in writing mine, I had a sinking feeling at what my family would do if given it (I don't dare lol).



All in all the more I am around them the worse I feel, and ever more so do I long for what I seek in life: and wonder if I shall ever find it. It is the hope of finding what I seek, that keeps me moving, and I refuse to be shaken.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

You know... I am basically living on about 1 1/4 to 1 2/3 litres of water a day, and since I've mostly given up on snacking/junk food, basically 2 meals a day on average lol.

I'm not quite sure if that is good or bad \o/.

Another reminder of my life in darkness

I was sitting on near the foot of the bed with the laptop, puttering about on IRC and hashing out some stuff in vim, etc. When I see something black with 6 legs scurry along the edge of the bed to my right - a cockroach. Despite having a prior "inmate" in it from this morning, I managed to get it into the bug catcher without much problem.


The things that bother me?


I saw it in my peripherally vision well enough to identify it, as well as gauge threat level.

Leaning over, I could see it in great detail

I managed to get off the bed and begin the capture procedure without alerting it (vibrational)


Turning on the lights wasn't necessary to improve my vision... it was plain as day without them.

and I was more alert then the dog :-/. Maybe it's a good thing I don't have a cat, lol.


What can I say, I've been forced into the dark for so many years.... my eyes and brain practically work like light amplification goggles -> I'm not even going to comment about how it feels to ride in a car on an unlit road at night, lol. Even worse, I have yet to lose my mastery of stealth. I can still maneuvre and creep with remarkable ease for a civi; learned out of necessity. In my reading of the Count of Monte Cristo, when it mentioned Edmond's vision in the dark, I couldn't help but feel, "Dang, it's not just me then". But alas, to late now.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Right now the only positive aspects of life, are the animals and the computers... that's the most joyous thing I can think of, outside continuing to breath in and out. The realization of my goals through Operational Redeemer are imperative at this point, for the sake of my spirits survival.

In a way I think I have become greedy due tomy time on the Internet; being treated like a human being rather then an animal, can really spoil ones stomach for life in this family. I am tired of being treated like an asset, like a machine (actually, I treat my machines better then my family treats me lol). Most of the time, I feel like the only time anyone knows my name is when they want something; and that is about it. Capping it all off, I am virtually stuck here with subjugation not far away. Today only further ratifies my POV that they nether care nor listen; it is time to go for broke, and plod on with these aims.


It will be years in realizing my goals of being free again, and I fear in some ways the pace of movement is much to rapid for maintaining stealth. Betraying the presence of any concerted efforts would be dentimental to Operation Redeemer. In order to have the best odds of success, I very much want everyone to be like a frog in cool water; my liberation must be like slowly raising the heat until it is to late to be actively opposed by anyone. I've always considered myself to be calm, cool, and calculated in whatever actions I plan out throughly ahead of time: but this is at uncharted depths. I've yielded more then a decade to this misery, only to watch the shackles bind me ever more closely. I grow weary of crawling through darkness in search of a light, so tired, so very tired... Some day I will leave this place behind and GOD as my witness, I will never have to suffer like this again. My patience is renown here (as my family is as patient as a gold fish out of water), but this operation will stretch its timbres to the breaking point. but will be well worth it... or so I pray.


Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
-- Patrick Henry, 1775-03-23

reStructured Text, intersting...

Hmm, reStructedText / rst is looking to be very interesting the closer I look at it — maybe the next best thing to Plain Old Documentation / POD.

I could see this stuff possibly displacing a major chunk of my use for LaTeX and troff, since I have little need for typesetting mathematics or other complex stuffs (think troff p*-processors), it could be quite valuable! Of course, I would have to mate it with the m4 macro processor (or roll my own, or just abuse and filter the C Pre Processor hehe) to get exactly what I would want, but hey, it would work pretty nice!

It would have one chief advantage over LaTeX, not even the people I have to share documents with on occasion, could foul it up toooo badly... lol.

Monday, June 8, 2009

You know, SWAT 4: TSS is really starting to spoil me :-/.


You might have to shoot the stupid prick 6 or 9 times to take him down, but you can be sure the bullets are hitting where the gun is firing ^_^.


Since I tend to follow up with head shots in S4 more readily, it is even more comfortable lol.

A short rumble on RvS weapons design

I think arguably one of my biggest beefs with Raven Shield is the aiming fundamentals.

In real life the muzzle represents where the bullet comes from, obviously; however in Raven Shield it is closer to the eyes or eyebrows, despite the animations — its the top of the head that must be "clear" of an object in order to shoot around or above or under it.

The level of accuracy you have has nothing to do with reticles or scopes, it is all about magifnication. If you fitted a snipers scope to an H&K MP5A4 you would be incredibly accurate compared to firing zoomed without scope from the same weapon. In real life, well obviously you would have a pretty darn good scope in such a scenario — but you would not be able to exceed the precision your weapon is mechanically capable of offering. Raven Shields precision is a factor of accuracy rate and magnification. In my experience the accuracy rate only reflects how much you must "feel" your point of impact, more so then what the weapons can do. Fit a sniper scope on a Mac 9/11, and you basically create a 9mm clip fed light machine gun xD. I should know, when I was in my skills "prime" as an [SAS] Trooper, I was able to score headshots at 30-50m using our double tapping training and a Mac 9/11+SD. I also wonder how Raven Shields accuracy is effected by changes in screen resolution; all of my game play has been done on 800x600 and 1024x768 resolutions, running respectively on 15" and 19" CRT displays.



Whether through game design of latency in the online game play (most of which in my experience does not have to much to do with PING time), often it is as if bullets never go where they are physically required to be going. Imagine looking down your rear sight, with your front sight not even within view... that's what I sometimes feel; often times I make remarks about firing a potato gun. That is because what you are shooting at has no real connection to what you are hitting; I have even seen bullets land BEHIND where the tango was standing, only to be killed by said tango. Also just recently I enjoyed the experience of firing down a scoped M1 shotgun zoomed on the tangos upper chest (full run, straight at target) only to have the shotgun shells entire payload (buckshot) land 1/3 a metre to the targets right crus; effectively the lower right hand corner of the screen. While I reckon this is possible in real life, it doesn't connect with the reticles in game; as I have often held the theory, the reticle spread does not actually reflect where you bullets can go — only where you are aiming. That's also why I can use an H&K MP5A4 without attachments and no reticles, just using the on screen gun and reflexive shooting in RvS.

Raven Shields model of penetration, damage, and general ballistics is also screwed. Normally I fire 2-3 round bursts on fully automatic, but when having to shoot through a window I've developed the 1-2 punch. Use an initial trigger pull to shatter the window and the follow up (full) burst to drop the target. The initial bullet may or may not penetrate the glass and do meaningful damage to the threat, so it can not be relied upon. Using a 3-round burst can also be suicidal in some cases. Use of Jacketed Hollow Point ammunition especially exacerbate this problem. The only good thing(tm) about it, it only takes 1 bullet to completely break the glass; if the tango fires just after your first shot, well you are dead. I have often wondered why there seems to be so much bullshit surrounding the use of Sniper Rifles up close, being able to do more damage with a P228 pistol (9x19mm Para) round then a suppressed WA-2000 (7.62x67mm Magnum) round; at a range of less then 3 metres. Where in, damage is defined as the number of times my pistol has killed the tango in 1 hit, but the sniper rifle has required 2 hits. After some time, I have concluded that the FMJ/JHP problem in SWAT 4, which has to do with muzzle velocity, mass, range, and force needed to penetrate, appears to be the cause. Weapons like the M82A1 fire at such a high MV, that the bullet over penetrates the target without doing enough damage. After many weapon tests using both JHP/FMJ loads with and without a sound suppressor in Raven Shield, I have come to believe this is the case. I have also begun to think this may also explain why the FN P90/Five-Seven, after all we are talking about a muzzle velocity in real life that is nearly double an MP5s... lol.


And needless to say, when you have a weapon designed to deal a killing shot from over 800m away, having to hit them twice at 3m is kind of retarded if you are packing a gun big enough to kick the fucker on his ass, even if it doesn't kill him \(^_^)/.



I suppose I should just count myself lucky that RvS doesn't screw up FMJ/JHP loadings as bad as SWAT 4 does.
*sigh* after smashing my toe into a step on Saturday (The joys of working on your day off!), I think the nail dug into the side of the toe... which was almost properly healed: now everything is even more fuxor then it was previously! Just finished soaking it, this is beginning to piss me off, the only good thing I can say is that I ain't lost the nail _yet_.

It's probably a good thing that I wasn't energetic enough for exercising this afternoon. I can't really do anything that needs to put pressure on my larboard big toe, which rules out a lot without walking in sandals lol,


Spent most of the day in SWAT 4 playing with COT, Walker, Cara, and a few others. As long as I am on the EU proving grounds, I don't seem to get to much bad lags in SWAT, kind of ironic when you consider that I am an American \(^_^)/. I very much try to keep myself current in all fields of SAS gameplay, among others hehe. The onyl time I've saw fit to lax that, is during my tenor as SSM, in which I took care of RvS as my fellow SSM Rasa oversaw SWAT4, all the while with RSM Rouge being our direct superior. When I became RSM, the only thing I welcomed with the position was being able to return to equal-attention between both games.


I've always preferred SWAT 4 since SWAT 3 became historical interest, yet "back in the day", it was more economical on time for me to complete the selection course though RvS, SWAT 4s had not even been developed yet lol. I think SSM Noer was our second recruit through SWAT, and the first of many Mighty Troopers.


I also have a habbit of being where ever the best recruitable material can be found ;).

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Oh give me a project ....

Oh, give me a project, where the perls roam,
Where the join() and the split() play,
Where seldom is heard a discouraging error,
And the Makefiles are not cloudy all day.

Project, project on the web
Where the map() and the grep() play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging warning
And the lusers are not cloudy all day

How often at night when the heavens are bright
With the light from the glittering stars
Have I stood there amazed and asked as I gazed
If their glory exceeds that of ours

Project, project on the web
Where the push() and the pop() play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging error
And the Makefiles are not cloudy all day

Where the code is so pure, the expressions so free
The operators so balmy and light
That I would not exchange my project on the web
For all of the jobs so bright

Project, project on the web
Where the reverse() and the sort() play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging error
And the warnings are not cloudy all day

Oh, I love those wild regex'rs in this dear land of ours
The lusers, I love to hear scream
And I love the white $scalars and the @list flocks
That defref on the mountaintops green

Project, project on the web
Where the substr() and the eval{} play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging die $!
And the warnings are not cloudy all day

-- missing my favorite language

GCC spitting error: stray '\1' in program (etc)

Ok, so I am wondering why the bloody heck I'm getting messages like main.o:x:y: error: stray '\1' in program and related errors * near infinity whilst nitting object files into an executable .

Note to self: never allow your Makefile to say g++ -x c++ foo.o ... -o program !!!!


I don't know what is worse....


(EDIT: actually this reminds me, a friend said it sounded like an encoding error; and in retrospec it looks like GCC was interpreting main.o as a C++ file because of the -x flag lol)

Friday, June 5, 2009

Since it has become quite obvious that it will never get thrown away.... I've moved the old dresser from in front of the closet (i.e. next to the bed) to the other side of the room in the corner, and rotated the cubby-half turned night stand from there to whence the dresser came. The effect of this is such, that my general space in the middle of the room is massively increased. The immediate benefit of this is clear: more room to walk about. On the other hand, this also means more room to exercise, even when being crowded out by the cloths racks that always push me out of the damn room every laundry day!


I've also rigged it up with one of the drawers so I can safely balance the laptop on it, and work fairly comfortably whilst *standing*. This is probably better then shifting side to side on the bed, competing for space with the dog whenever I'm on the laptop lol. It also gains me a more effective arrangement of storage in my room, hehe.


I am not so sure how well this will work out for my neck, but it is fine on my eyes. Another off-bit, it decreases the privacy of my screen somewhat, but I'm not in the habit of surfing porn so it really doesn't matter lol. The point under which I am most often concerned about the privacy of my monitor on the other hand: is preventing anyone from reading my conversations (or jorunal) over my shoulder ;).


Let's see how this works out, if it doesn't well it is easy enough to just re-route the cable and sit on the bed as normal.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

An awakened hash-table of a memory

Just finished watching Awakenings, which I have not seen in a few years. Towards the end one of the scenes with Robert De Niro's "ticks" and the robe, it made me think of one of the residents at the nursing home where my grand mother stayed. My word, that place was horrible. My brother wouldn't even go, and I never wanted to stay very long, but hey... she was our grand mother and I love her, so I went a long whenever Ma went to visit, which was regularly. It's been maybe 13 or 14 years, but I can vaguely remember the layout of the building even. I can remember around Christmas when we brought her a little miniature tree and everything for her room; we still have it some where. I can even remember one of her birthday parties (would've been late 80s or early 90s, I think it was 89); it was probably the biggest event to touch that place (everyone there was invited). I still remember after ma had finally gotten to sick of the place, Nanny came back to live with her (My brother couldn't pronounce "Granny" properly as a child, so "Nanny" stuck, and that's what we all called my grand mother).


When the Alzheimer's had started to get worse, Nanny had come to live with us: always fine by me. Worsening Alzheimer's, diabetes, and a broken hip eventually accelerated things towards the end game. I still remember getting up one morning to find out that ma had found her sprawled out on the floor from a stroke; I remember sitting in the hospital waiting with my brother. And I remember the day before she died, ma and I had gone down to visit her; I wasn't allowed in because I was still fairly young and they didn't want kids runnin' around. After a while though, given the situation, a nurse took me back and I got to see Nanny. It was about the next morning that we learned, she had passed away in her sleep during the night; a quick Google via site: shows me the when it happened. Watching Awakenings and that one scene, has made me think of a lot of things in greater detail.


I haven't really thought about the home that much, was glad when she came back to stay with us for a while. But in the end, do I ever truly forget anything? Heh, I can still remember back to the day we moved into our last apartment: I remember it well because it was raining cats, dogs, and alligators down in Florida, and I was forgotten over the commotion, and left in the car for a while lol


Memory is an interesting thing.

What I would do if I had steady pay with limited expense...

Organizational concept (untried, would be wonderful to test some day and expand in the future)

Divide pay into

good deeds | petrol | operations | savings

funds

about 10% where viable to a "good deed" fund: cash to be used for positive and unselfish aims, as well as a margin :-/. You could say, my concept of a tithe when such is able to fit into the bottom line.

At least $20 off a weeks wage for fuel, so Her Royal Pain wouldn't have to foot the entire bill.

and crack apart the remainder into operations and savings: where operations represents available funds for the current cycle and savings gets saved, for what it's worth lol. And hopefully if there's anything left from operations at the end of cycle, dump it into savings or petrol.


Without any bills atm, getting steady pay would allow me to *_S_A_V_E_* some money for a change. The hard part of course would be keeping as much of the details in secrecy, otherwise if my family ever found out viable data, they would F'ing bleed me dry in no time... statistically proven.


The concept that interests me most is a working at a gas station: simple work and light enough that I won't be dead as a door nail between it *and* having to suffer through current the working schedule, or should I say any deader then I already am in that regard lol. I would probably give H.R.P. $10 off each pay cycle for gas/use of the car, since if everything goes according to plan: it won't cost H.R.P. anything for it, that she won't already have to put up with in motherly fashion; plus it would (theoretically) enable me to cover my own fuel costs! Simply put, if she's not entailing any large expense on my behalf... fuck her. Ma can put up with her own boat and let me take advantage of the situation — since I can do it less painfully then the way she has taken advantage of my existence on this damn planet! Don't get me wrong, whenever I've had money I have almost always used it wisely: and often generously. But I am not a bank, and I am tired of paying for other peoples life decisions, at the expense of having MY LIFE sucked out into the vacuum of space.... I might not be able to fix that problem, but I sure don't have to part with anything green as an reward for hurting my life either.


With some luck, I might someday be able to afford a car and then find a way to get out of this hell hole, for once and for all.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Dreams, exercise, math, and spiders

Oy! What a night.

I didn't even wake up to turn off the alarm clock this morning, I was dead to the world.... crazy dreams. Ironically though: I was thinking, "Oh crap, I'm oversleeping!" and then woke up xD. Did some stretching and light exercises, felt good. The only down side is most of it has to be completable with a 13 pound chihuahua sitting on my chest \(^_^)/ but other wise things went fairly well. Because of my toe I excluded push ups and anything else that might put to much strain on it. The only problem I had was reverse lunges, couldn't get the balance right on that side lol.

Curiously, I've learned that their is a dojo teaching karate and aikido, located down town. That might be worth looking into in a few years; both are martial arts I would love to learn some day. In the mean time I'm mainly interested in "getting back into shape" so to speak. The last 3 years have only had working beyond exhaustion for PT, so yeah it's time to make a run for it! My upper body strength is no worse and actually those muscles are might be the only things that has gotten enough exercise :-/. My focus right now is lower body muscles and legs - I also long to include running. I've also begun incorporating combative elements: it's been so long that I've forgetting many things. Most of the guards and footwork has drifted off into mental history, but hey... my last fight was at 16~17 or so, and I avoid unnecessary engagements lol.


Got a couple games of SWAT 4 and had a short chat, but otherwise it was a pretty uneventful day. I also started working through the maths books after dinner, when I went to bed I figured that I would restart. Guess what? I'm standing there in front of the dresser with the book & book light — and something black comes running out from it! The Spider drops the the deck and begins movcing, I whacked it down flat with the book light and put my water bottle on top, so I could get a paper towel (squish!) and bug catcher. Pulled the book light off and of course, it "popped" itself back up and tried to scurry away; nabbed it with a crunch with the paper towel. When I laxed my grip to see if it was dead, the bastardo dropped back to the ground and ran. Lost track of it as it was going up the side of the dresser, close to the drawer sides. After much looking and drawer slamming and inspecting, and no luck finding it: I decided to pull the empty drawers out and look around on the inside of the dresser. I found a black mark on the same side and draw-height I had last seen it... took a look and it looked vaguely arachnid like. Fetched a nutpick (~5 inch metal rode /w awl) to use as a probe, confirmed... dead or the best possum of a bug I've seen in 2 decades. Pushed it out onto the paper towel for an inspection. No real telling how old the corpse was but it is certainly the same kind of spider. To me it looked more like the abdomen had been smashed then punctured - and it was fairly empty. Cutting it apart with the nutpick, I found it slightly gooy inside and what passes for leg muscle still "working" when flexed. So I doubt if it was sucked dry by another spider, but still didn't rule out the possibility of cannibalism. In inspecting the side of the dresser inside, I noticed no signs of guts beyond a leg that fell off. Checking the side of the drawer, I noticed a black mark (as if part of the spiders skin) and further away in a fairly suitable spot, what looked like something had been "mushed" onto it... so I assume the poor S.O.B. got mashed by the drawer whilst trying to escape.


Why am I starting to think of Star Trek 6?

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Ahh, tomorrow I have totally off work... just got off 4 days of light work+extra stress, and Thursday/Friday will be heavy work+extra stress.. but Sat-Mon are at least off, hehe.


In cleaning out and shuffling around some old things, I found two things of interest. One was a short story (18~20 pages) I came up with in school. Sometime I think I will sit down and read it, and perhaps enter it into a computer or update it just for the heck of it. I've always been a person with ideas, but not always with the means to chase after them :'(. Although I have never considered myself as much talent for writing (let along English), it has always been among my many varied interests. The other thing I found was a folder full of old designs I did in my early-mid teens, the days when I was always found walking around with a pen/pencil, a pad, and a calculator, and occasionally walking into things.... haha!

And also for what it is worth, a time before being relegated to a computer, turned my handwriting into chicken scratch lol.

A rant from behind the shell

Earth 2100 is perhaps one of the most alarming scenarios I have ever seen or heard in my life. It paints a bleak picture of what failure to change could mean for the human race. It makes me think back to watching Captain Planet and the Planeteers has a child. I remember very well, an episode where Wheeler changed history: preempting the creation of the planeteers: leading to a future world where nature had been pommeled into devastation. Which obviously, isn't diddly compared to what earth2100 models.

Heh, just think what effect 15 years can have?


For anyone with kids or wanting to have children in the future, I think you will be wondering soberly just what kind of world we will leave our future to deal with, after seeing earth2100. For me, it has very much a reaffirmed my beliefs that man can't afford to stand individually against the challenges that plague our world. It can't be American technology, it can't be Russian technology, it can't be Chinese technology, and it can't be Indian technology: it must be human technology. All the politics, all the petty differences, all of the endless bullshit: it all just sucks peoples attention from doing things that matter. What if there was no fear among neighbors? What if even 10% or 15% of every powerful nation devoted a year of their life to doing some good in this fouled up world?


Remove politics as usual and all of the social cruft from the equation and the globe could be painted anew within a few centuries time. Hunger, famine, it could all be washed away into the history books, if only the human race would stand together as one race: not white, not black, not Chinese, not French, but human!. United towards a set of common goals, my word it could be a paradise by the year 3000 — even Star Trek could be within our reach.


I generally avoid politics, since a global democracy would be more to my tastes then national governments. It'll never happen, if it ever did happen we would fuck it up royally. One of the reasons I have always loved Battletech is because its histories display human nature. Above all, the tale of the push into space, of the Star League and the golden era, and mans fall into dark age.... it displays our nature to destroy ourselves, ever more so when we do finally have "a good thing" going, does that nature manifest itself in full. We are the greatest plague of locusts ever created — the human race.



In my own life time, I know the things I would like to see.

More and more data centers turning green inside and out. Hardware and software are getting to the point that we will be able to squeeze the machines for all the are worth in a few years. Power and cooling of a large data center is an immense task, imagine if data centers could supply their own power indefinitely for as long as wind blows and sun continues to move across the sky? Throw in the hookups to existing power resources used across data centers, and the obvious on and off site insurance policies against a "Oh shit, the power is out" kind of moment, can you really lose? IMHO it would be in line with the core rule of being in business: to remain in business!

What of technology? Just about everyone in this country has an iPod. (Except me, I prefer laptops haha!) What if by 2011 every iPod produced by Apple was powered by solar energy and only used its rechargeable batteries as a back up? Just think if that same technology was applied to every cell phone in the world! What if laptops could be made that charge themselves off a solar collective skin, rather then relying on AC adapters and batteries you eventually have to replace? What if by 2020 the sale and manufacturer of fossil fuel burning automobiles was banned in the United States, and replaced with an everlasting source of power? Heck these days even high end tactical watches are made with solar power + battery reserves, I've even heard the U.S. Navy SEAL teams have begun making use of them - you can't afford a dead battery in combat! Why can't we have the same on cell phones, ipods, laptops, etc? It would be much less headache and landfill, if the battery companies would find a new business model \(^_^)/



It is innovation and a will to stand together that can bring about CHANGE in this world. And it is the piss-ant scum bags who will do nothing but maintain their status quo, who I curse, and prey that they see their business ripped apart by those businesses who will innovate the market place. Innovation and hard work helped make America the fat country it is today, its what brought man from sticks and stones to rocket ships and iPods — and what most so seriously be protected. And it what could bring us into a golden age...... if only we faught for it, if only we could do it.... and not fuck up more then we succeed! lol.

Operation Redeemer: immediate goals

goals - 5 year scope


decent pair of boots
decent sunglasses
learners permit -> drivers license
cell phone


Thoughts?
 Boots?  -> 3mo~1yr
 Sunglasses  ->  ~6mo
 Learners permit -> ~1mo
 cell phone -> ?

Monday, June 1, 2009

Writer's Block: Rabbit Rabbit!

It's the first day of the month. If you could have one wish come true this month, what would it be?
Live Journals Writer's Block

If wishing for more wishes wasn't a valid wish, haha!

I would wish for the gaping hole I feel, to finally be filled...

Fun night on PG US (RvS)

Had IE2-M and a bunch of noobers, had to kick two of them before they would settle down.

I put up with them blowing the mission for a while.
I tried giving them a hand in the part most find 'sticky'

Then when everyone else died, while I was forcing the obj. to remain secure: I gritted my teeth to an 'oy' and went about clearing the entire map....


It was worth being patient, just to show that an [SAS] man can kick some ass ;)