Sewing

... one's chevrons is a trickier business than getting them, I find out. To clarify: in the IDF, unlike any other military force I know of, rank is given by seniority, not by merit. After so-and-so months/years in one rank, you are automatically promoted. This makes for much fun in human resource planning, since each outfit must at all times have a precisely calculated number of people of each commissioned rank (enlisted men and women are a bit easier to juggle, though professionals are not: getting an extra coder is almost as hard as getting an extra lieutenant. Having an extra major is a catastrophe (you must either transfer or discharge one of the others). Thankfully, the insanity stops there: lieutenant-colonel and higher are merit-only ranks). This all means that I hadn't actually achieved anything but surviving long enough, and taking the fact that the most dangerous thing that ever happens in my office is a computer crash into consideration that isn't all that much. More trivia: they aren't exactly "chevrons" either, because they're straight straps. The V-shaped thingies are used for shoulder-worn insignia for NCO ranks, meaning I have about four more years till I get those (and they come with prettier uniforms).

One year

...down, more than four and a half years to go. Oh well, I signed it myself, can't blame anyone. And it's not like I can honestly say I'd prefer any other job (though it's nowhere near perfect). My manager asked me today, the third time since we've met, what I think about management (well, he asked about offer school, but it's implied). My answer gets more negative with each try. I guess they're probing so I won't be able to say later that I didn't have the chance to say I'd wanted to. Being taken seriously and given more autonomy, authority and credit, together with the chance to see the big picture and talk on the same level with the important people, being able to make some important decisions - I think I'd like that. But the price - the exponential growth in headache, the tiresome interpersonal stuff. Responsibility for a software project - I think that I can shoulder, but God, I don't want to be some poor soul's CO. Time does of course change people, so maybe two years from now I might think I'm ready to try (that's when these decisions are made), but somehow I think I'll always prefer the technical side. And being an NCO is not such a big stigma outside of the service, I hear (or is that just wishful thinking?). Ah well, I guess I should make a decent corporal before I'm thinking about trying for lieutenant. On a completely different topic: Babylon5 r0x.

GPF

So I wrote JavaScript to generate URLs for all the gifs and feed them directly to my download manager 'coz I can't afford the DT-edition (found here: 1, 2, 3 and at the usual places). I look at the time stamps and weep. I'm not only stereotypical, but also unoriginal, borderline passé. :-( But you've go to admit — they are really good. This one is just classic.

So

Does anybody know what A, Z and FireloX are up to? They said they wanted time to think after the book. It's been close to six months. Any news? the FA side of the fandom are in "business as usual", it seems.

LotR trilogy tickets ran out fast

.. in Tel Aviv. Bummer, as I really wanted to go and it fitted very nicely into my schedule. I'll just have to watch the first two movies at home before going to see the third, I guess. I'm still working on grasping our corporate culture. Also I'm doing a crash course in OS/390 and HR management policies. It's both intriguing and frustrating all at once. Does the comments system work? Do I have an audience besides my other personalities? Would you like to speed up the design editor's development? Do you think it will never be complete? Am I too reclusive? Are we all too tired to talk, or do we have nothing to talk about?

Lobotomy box

Me and my boss were comparing P2P queues today. Mine had Jennifer Garner, his - Jessica Alba. He also downloads Stargate SG-1 and Witchblade though he conceded to Babylon5 being far superior to Star Trek. Anyway, I was all in for defending Alias against Dark Angel and just now ran a google image search to gather some evidence to distribute to the jury tomorrow through abuse or corporate intranet. The next thing I did was tell myself "Self, 123966 geeks cannot be wrong" and promptly added the Season 1 Dark Angel DVD rip to the queue.

Even more.

What little I could see was very attractive, I thought. Not too thin. She squished well, bouncing off me.

Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign

Priceless.

More.

"It's a brute-force approach," Miles said apologetically. "And not, alas, quite as simple as a data match." "That," murmured Gibbs, "is why enlisted men were invented." They smiled at each other in pleased understanding.

Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

Oh man, our managers talk of their minions in exactly the same way. I think this "delegation" thing is taught in both business and officer schools.

Books. Life.

"Ah." Miles started to turn away, but then added absently, "Do you want a kitten?"

Ivan stared at him. "Why in God's name would I want a kitten?"

"It would brighten your bachelor digs, you know. A bit of life and movement, to keep you company on your long, lonely nights."

"Get stuffed, Lord Auditor Coz."

Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory

I vividly remember having an almost exactly the same conversation. She's very good.

fic

10/10.

Scary

Mom is aware of this page. She does not read it. She might, one day. Her written English is not bad. Thank God this is censured. And I have a relatively good relationship with my mom, who knows way too much about me already. One day, I'll have a secure blog. Maybe even before my first paycheck (scheduled July 2006).

being Justin Frankel must be good

At least on my last birthday. That's quite an effective ad!

Hardware problems

My trusty old ASUS V6800 Deluxe (nVidia GeForce DDR 32MB ViVo) is having issues. I'm afraid it's dying. :-(

fic

Rambaldi Institute: *cough*Alias*cough*RJ'sfault*cough* A smiley to the first person to name the fic. :)

Reading

Girl Fiction. That's what I read. Harry Potter fan fiction written by adult Laurie R. King, Dorothy L. Sayers and Lois McMaster Bujold fangirls. I feel as if no amount of male technocratic geekiness will ever balance it out (owing to its lack of violence. "A generation of men raised by women"). Nonetheless, I will try with three thousand pages of Neal Stephenson's prose (well, the first third, anyway). Also on my desk (this time, literally) is a small number by William Makepeace Thacheray I burrowed from a co-worker (A real paper book! Haven't seen one of these in ages). Not as hefty as Vanity Fair, but is enough for the purposes of improving one's vocabulary (the owner complained the book is difficult to read without a dictionary). This weekend I need to finish installing Gentoo (at least to bring it to a usable state), write down at least the design for the CSS editor and prepare a lecture (with examples) for the "visitor" design pattern (that's software engineering). Also I need some fresh air and sleep. In the longer term planning and dreaming, something must be done with the developing potbelly and complete lack of love life. Eventually. Some day.

Alias - Season 03 - Episode 05: Repercussions

It was nice. Season03!Marshal is quite a bit more believable geek. Living out his fantasy, spanking Sydney... :) Is Sydney/Eric Weiss at all possible?

Babylon5 - best Sci-Fi TV series ever!

Am watching Season 2 again, and am noticing all the stuff I've missed the first time (well, I've been 13 I think). The romance, of course. Am getting all fangirly about it too.

Should I be concerned? Should I take a blood test to measure my testosterone? Watch some kung-fu movies?

Alias S03E04 Transcript

The guy who does this is a hero.

Lori - HWTF08

Yay! A present from lorax523. :)

Getting a clue

I vouch for this story's credibility. With some people, it's not about the subtlety of the clue. It can be as subtle as a baseball bat. It still won't work. ROFL.

socially challenged?

Yesterday when I stayed on guard duty a friend of mine stayed for three hours on base to keep me company. We talked about the course and social life. Turns out I'm more oblivious than I thought - the reason for many students' falling asleep during class as if it was Binn's History of Magic was not because my CO's Operating Systems was so dull but because people were routinely spending their nights shagging. Naturally, it showed on their grades and most people who were sexually active on work nights have not successfully completed their training. But you know what? I've seen web cam screen captures (apparently this too doesn't only happen in teen flicks) and I'm a teen enough to admit I think it could've been worth it. Will see how the entire "oops completely forgot both your rank promotion and birthday" routine works tomorrow at work. If it's some kind of a surprise or something - I'm not even smiling. Hmmm. More about girls on my mind: What do you tell your parents when they start nagging you about getting a girlfriend? A bit ridiculous.

anime

This influenced a few fics, methinks.

Neal Stephenson - Spew

~ 1994, and he writes about VR and VR assisted data mining. With crypto. And Star Trek references. Damn, the man's a genius.

autograph

I apologize to the IE locked visitors, but I have no hosting so graphics must be embedded and that requires data: URI support. P.S. I�m a comment-whore. Leave comments or I have bouts of athazagoraphobia.

BlogSpot downtime

Annoying, but as they say: "beggars are not choosers".

"release early, release often"?

That is the motto of open source development (see: The Cathedral and The Bazaar, Eric S. Raymond) such as client side web scripting that, as all interpreted languages, has no compiled binary form and its users are thus forced to open source ethics and business models. Now, you are not coders, so I can't rely on you for debugging. But you are the user base, and will be forced to assist in testing. The question is: Do you want the thing early, but raw, or would you rather wait and get production quality code? You decide.

I know whom Peter Wiggin is going to marry!

And now I think of it, it is obvious. He was so surprised that the audience was surprised when he said it... The poor man had a tough time with the theme for the lection ("Leadership"), he had read it out as if it was a school assignment. But he managed to talk about the cool stuff too. I enjoyed it very much. Also, it probably sounds weird, but I enjoyed hearing live English. (he was a bit unsure of the audience�s prowess so he kept the language deliberately uncomplicated, I think).

movie review

I didn't like Terminator 3 all that much. I wasn't bad, but it wasn't that good either.

Local Geeks

I've read on /. about the Linux Counter Project celebrating its 10th anniversary, so I clicked. And then I found the per-country public listings. And oh boy, Geeks! I mean, major ones: Fictitious language linguistics, RPGs, Free Software, all kinds of intellectual games and arts. I feel outgeeked. And what's worse? I've met a few. I've visited others' homepages. When you get to the bottom of this, IL-Geekdom is pretty small.

movie review

Can someone more knowledgeable in cult cinema explain "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" to me? I don't get it. At all. Is there a point? Was it supposed to be funny? Edit: Thanks to Google, now I know the movie is large audience participation oriented. Hm.

WebDev

XPath on DOM3 is sweet. One can do really beautiful things with these new technologies.

Holiday

And to celebrate my week away from work, I'm going to the Israeli Sci-Fi/Fantasy Con Tuesday/Wednesday to see Orson Scott Card lecture about leadership and try to get my book signed. Go me!

Non-English Web

You know what sucks about the non-English web? It doesn't Google as well.

WebDev

There was some minor progress achieved on the CSS editing front. When I do a GUI for that stuff, you might see it here.

Alias Season 3

Yay! Nothing stands in the way of the Bristow family.

movie review

Whoa! The turtles, Dude! Totally sweet! Check it out, it's awesome! Yeah. Andrew Stanton (direction, story, screenplay, voice of Crush) reminded me a bit of Jay and Silent Bob. 10/10, despite the chauvinism (Why are all the female characters dumb? I resent that.) /me type like a blonde

Fic

So, do you people still read fic? If so, provide URLs. If not - provide reasoning. Edit: So it seems like everyone's engrossed in their own work and people are rather busy ATM. Well, I can relate.

WOW

Poor guy. Also, poor kitten, but I feel for the guy. Story, Followup.

Half Life 2 sources leaked

Shit. I'm not a gamer, but man, that sucks for Valve. Though it may be a good thing for lots of people to have access to the most advanced game engine (pretty demos!).

movie review

Watched Charlie's Angels - Full Throttle. It was great: WB cartoon plot with live chicks. Entertainment at its best!

Personality Types Revisited

So, I've been re-reading about INTPs. So true, so sad. I believe INTP babies should come with a manufacturer's warning about telling the kid of all the gotchas as soon as possible - the amount of grief that can be avoided is mind boggling.

Criminal Activity

The Blogger/Google banner adds non-standards conformant markup to my otherwise well-formed site. I resent that. I can�t remove the markup, but I can at least not look at it anymore.

Nice surprises

For a while now, I'm researching web-technologies people's blogs for template-design inspiration (read: sources to plagiarize). I find their blogs very interesting, even though I am not necessarily involved in or even understand many of the topics. Usually I don�t even know who the people are - I have to remind myself that these peeks into their lives are not voyeurism, since those are public blogs. Most of them are software people involved with web standards development and implementation. Most are more or less tech geeks � above average intellect, education, income. They have different hobbies, different lifestyles but usually it�s geeky Sci-Fi and Fantasy books and TV with avant-garde music. And then, you see a Harry Potter reference and you say: �Hey! HP is cool! I don�t have to hide my obsession!�.

Year 5764

This reminded me. Why would non-Jewish non-Israelis celebrate it? ::confused::

New layout

I am happy to see that although designed primarily with Gecko (i.e. Mozilla) browsers in mind, the new template doesn�t look too shabby in M$IE. I still encourage all Microsoft Internet Explorer users to download a free Mozilla-derived browser to fully enjoy my new template. And no, proprietary features are not what makes it a good browser. All of that stuff make it a good browser.

Geeks with too much time on their hands

Q. We've been getting hit with a lot of viruses and worms lately. What's your idea for ending the attacks?

A. When you have people who hook up these machines that weren't designed for the Internet, and they don't even want to know about all the intricacies of network security, what can you expect? We get what we have now: a system that can be brought down by a teenager with too much time on his hands. Should we blame the teenager? Sure, we can point the finger at him and say, ''Bad boy!'' and slap him for it. Will that actually fix anything? No. The next geeky kid frustrated about not getting a date on Saturday night will come along and do the same thing without really understanding the consequences. So either we should make it a law that all geeks have dates -- I'd have supported such a law when I was a teenager -- or the blame is really on the companies who sell and install the systems that are quite that fragile.

From an interview with Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux Operating System Kernel.

I have never linked sexual frustration with cyber-vandalism before, but it definitely makes sense.

Notice the closing sentence? That's confidence!

Beta software

Just crashed Apache2 using a caching PHP5 script. It seems to be reproducible. I'll see if it's my fault tomorrow. Maybe I've discovered a bug! :-)

Spelling

After reading this I thought Lou could stop worrying over being unreadable, but it seems the effect is not as omni-effective (there is a word for this, I know there is!) as believed.

UBC's Linguistics department shattered the dream:

"Anidroccg to crad cniyrrag lcitsiugnis planoissefors at an uemannd, utisreviny in Bsitirh Cibmuloa, and crartnoy to the duoibus cmials of the ueticnd rcraeseh, a slpmie, macinahcel ioisrevnn of ianretnl cretcarahs araepps sneiciffut to csufnoe the eadyrevy oekoolnr."

As demonstrated, a simple inversion of the internal characters results in a text which is relatively hard to decipher.

(Thanks to /.)

Technology

Cool! OotP in a single sheet of paper. I wonder if it bends.

GT.net

I understand, unless it�s a very early April Fools prank, The Queens have had a big catfight and decided to part ways? That�s a shame. Where will the twelve year old Lady Gryffindor wanna-be�s archive their verbiage now? Now, to be fair, there were a few good stories in there. I was addicted to several myself! But, since its first incarnation, from the web-design to proofing to the management, the site was amateurish at best. It was inevitable � fooling around in IM and message boards full of junior-high level innuendo is lots of fun, but is not the same as managing a big online community. Let�s face it � the K12 crowd is not in the same league as the administrative personnel of HP4GU / FA or the SQ. I guess the loss is not that great, for the really good stuff is located on the Professors� Bookshelf. But it is my main ship, and proof they are incapable of even maintaining a site hurts.

GT.net forums are down... amateurs. ;-)

movie review

Watched Black Hawk Down yesterday. Highly recommended for those who have the stomach for it. Very realistic, and probably very close to Gaza or Jenin.

P2P filesharing

I'm glad some people have sense.

My favorite movie

Addams Family Values. I can't explain it. I think I'm harboring some feelings for the thirteen year old Christina Ricci. But it's more than that - it's juts plain fun.

J. L. Matthews - Slytherin Rising Part Three: The Year of the Cat - Chapter Eight: Beware of Magical Creatures

w00t! JLM updated!

Enterprise - Season 03 - Episode 01: The Xindi

Am speechless. What the fuck were they thinking???!!! And the people holding the rights for the name "Star Trek" allow this to continue? The shame.

New Blogger Features

It's cool and all, but it broke Gecko compatibility and I have error in M$IE6SP1 too. I suggest more thorough testing procedures before the next release.

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?lastnode_id=1389985&node_id=1389985&displaytype=printable I didn't know. Wow.

http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3414326 BTW, I have a cousin, some friends and many colleagues on that base. The deathtoll is expected to rise (currently it's 6), but I'll sleep tonight, because I don't know any of them. And in Israel, we don't call it "near Tel-Aviv" - makes you realize how small the country is.

I rant non-stop about the average web site being stuck in 1999 technology-wise. Well, I'm stuck in 2000. I cannot believe how awesome client-side XSLT is. Also, I want Movable Type. All the cool people use it. I'd hack it to fit my needs.

Guarded with a bunch of female discens soon-to-be Certified Windows Reinstallation Specialists. For some odd reason, they have decided that smart males are cool (they probably don't realize the big money is in the discharged guys, not immunii perpetuus or even the sesquiplicarii). Was a fun weekend - met an interesting dude, ate pizza, got hit on by a cute (though a bit dim and very fragile) girl. Also spent Sunday there, chilling out with the people whom I've met while stationed there. Lucky SOBs take the best mess in the army for granted. Even the computer cravings weren't that bad. And yes, the Latin is a joke.

Off to guard the base for the weekend.

The Core was entertaining. Not a good movie, but fun. It your braindead enough while watching. 6/10.

Watched Daredevil. I want my bandwidth back. Its only saving point was Jennifer Garner.

1st day of school for the K-12 crowd. I can't believe how ickle they are. Well, except for the girls not old enough to know whether they like boys or girls who nevertheless dress in "fuck me" style - they are ickle-minded. I blame MTV. :P

Ties That Bind - 10/10.

The catfight to end all catfights. And the missing time thing. Awesome. And Season Three should be here soon! No more Enterprise! w00t!

What do you want to see on this page? Links, quotes, polls, template customization (color only? Layout? Full CSS2 editor?), what else?

Braces Free! YAY!

A question about sleepwear: what is usually worn under a "dressing gown"? How many layers are there to traditional (i.e. neither the wife beater nor the extremely minimalist approach) female nightwear architecture? What is appropriate on which occasion? How, if at all, is lingerie involved? I'm having a hard time deciding whether or not I support the relationship development described in a 6th year fic because I don't know what the "macking" involved. I do realize I have just used a slang term that is also loosely defined somewhere between extreme flirting and amateur pornography. I want to know where on this spectrum to put a scene the graphical details of which, for reasons of tact, tastefulness or rating, were left mostly for the readers' imagination.

Find a way to reply if you really want this place to look better.

The Internet is a great thing, but not even google can tell you what you're supposed to read and learn from this massive pile of shit. If I had read Neal Stephenson's "In the Beginning was the Command Line" three years ago, my life would probably have been different. Or maybe, I wasn't ready for it yet. BTW, being all sentimental about the SSHPF reminded me that the aforementioned essay confirms many claims I have clumsily made in several political/philosophical discussions (aka flames) on those boards. Of course I argued with unenlightened fools and do not have an award winning and bestselling gift with words, but never the less - I was right. Vindicated, at last. This amount of progress suggests that it is possible for me to become a whole person in a few years. On a different topic: Found a couple of fics archived at GT.net that were deemed worthy of my preciousss time. I believe a common characteristic of all shippers is self insertion, escapism and wishful thinking. In my early teens I have been a big noromo, and now I�m a complete shipper. I know why. Now I wonder what makes happily coupled people ship. Is it boredom?

"Named the #1 sexiest woman of 2001 by MAXIM men's magazine." You can add my vote.

Today is the Jewish equivalent of St. Valentine's Day, and that happens on the 15th of the month of Av, and the Hebrew calendar is Lunar, therefore the moon should be full tonight, which brings me to asking: Where is Lou? :-)

Top 12 things likely to be overheard if you had a Klingon Programmer

1. "Specifications are for the weak and timid!"
2. "This machine is a piece of GAGH! I need quad Alpha processors if I am to do battle with this code!"
3. "You cannot really appreciate Dilbert unless you've heard it read it in the original Klingon."
4. "Indentation?! - I will show you how to indent when I indent your skull!"
5. "What is this talk of 'release'? Klingons do not make software 'releases'. Our software 'escapes' leaving a bloody trail of designers and quality assurance people in its wake."
6. "Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' - they have 'arguments' - and they ALWAYS WIN THEM."
7. "Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak."
8. "I have challenged the entire quality assurance team to a Bat-Leth contest. They will not concern us again."
9. "A TRUE Klingon Warrior does not comment his code!"
10. "By filing this defect you have challenged the honor of my family. Prepare to die!"
11. "You question the worthiness of my code? I should kill you where you stand!"
12. "Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!"

This is what good web design should look like. Well, feature-wise, at least. I and a friend of mine decided to do a little coding project on the side, for free, to learn and to use the thing we'd build for our own needs and for boasting rights/resum� points. So we've invented a web technology based, not-so-thin-client (i.e. advanced browsers) oriented OLAP and also SOAP, CORBA and XSLT in order to implement it (Thank God, we were already aware of the existence of the Validating XML Parser itself, and of DOM. The wheel we have invented last week). Then I've decided to check on the internet for other people solving the same problems. Guess we're not the first, huh? ;-) Well, knowing when to use other peoples' code is a sign of maturity. Now I just need a year or two to learn the basics of all these technologies.

1. Lots of people from my department leave in October, so we'll be left to maintain a system none of us worked on when it was first designed, with too few experienced coders and managers. :-( 2. The nicest (and best looking, IMHO) female colleague is being let go too. :-( 3. While returning home have been staring at really cute girl (GW look-alike, of course) till got noticed by her boyfriend who gave me a Look. Totally understand him. LOL. ;-) 4. Have met the guy from my platoon in Basic Training who spilled some boiling tea on my hand (wow, that was a long time ago!). He serves in Gaza, going home every two weeks for an extended weekend. Talk about karma. (No hard feelings, really, I'm clumsy myself sometimes).

Have read Winterfair Gifts (in Russian. It leaked.). Niiicccceeee. Awesome fluff. And Carpe Diem. LMB R0X my world. Edit: Correction. LMB's Russian publisher printed it, it didn't leak. It's authorised. The stall of the original is the Yankee publisher's fault.

Wah. Looks like POA will look like a Breatney Spears clip. :#@

I have heard from a colleague that Orson Scott Card is scheduled to attend a con in our troubled country. Should that succeed, I shall find a way to attend.

Nope. Not same base. A special software department within Human Resources Planning located in HQ in Tel-Aviv. Few programmers located near the principal client, sometimes providing tech support in person rather than by phone. The people seem nice, the system is in C++ and sounds important, though very complex (and obviously imperfect, my military career is evidence to that). The base is crawling with brass and MPs - that will take some time getting used to.

Personnel Management Automation is widely rumored to suck. It seems I have five years to change that. The good news is that it�s on the same (relatively very nice) base.

Big day today. Very excited about assignment. *cross fingers* Pics from graduation might be available after the after-party.

Flames

I don't know if this was done by a real nutter or it's just a spoof, but LOL. The ficlet is of course v. funny as well.

Where I want to spend the next five years of my life

Step Seven is, for better or for worse, done. Now it�s only to wrap up Java and learn to parade. No, it�s not West Point, nothing as elaborate, but we have to show the parents something, and most won�t understand what it means that almost three years of software engineering was packed into six months.

Preferences

1. Matzov
2. Modiin
3. Mamram
4. Mamka
5. Avir
6. LamedAlef
7. Matnatz
8. Shob
9. Yam
10. Maam
11. Mamtal
12. Basmah
13. Mekarpar

This post was intentionally left unintelligible.

Thank Elizabeth for the link: Publishing - The IT way. It has been pointed out in recent discussions over the anti-P2P laws that they would make libraries illegal, but looking at it from this side it's even funnier. As an IT professional I'd like to remind everyone that it is not the techs who are evil, but the management we obey. </Nuremberg>

HP5 #3

What irks me most is how pointless it turned out to be. All that damage, for a synopsis of books 1-4. Who is going to be Harry's anchor now? He has no family, no girlfriend. Not even the memory of his once-perfect parents. An angry, bitter, powerful kid who has lost too much and knows he has a very bloody future (BTW Determinism? What the hell? Don't our actions determine our fate?) - what will keep him going on the right path? Not Dumbledore, who has lost credulity. He needs the teenage Valentine Wiggin. Or GT.net's Ginny. Or... *shudder* Lori's Hermione (*writes "Mary Sue" on canon!Hermione's forehead with a permanent marker and AKs her out of her misery*).

HP5 #2

I was afraid of saying that, but seeing I am not alone: "Too bad Hermione spent most of the book being an annoying, overperfect authorial insertion who was never wrong about ANYTHING. God, I wanted to hit her with a log." ((c) Cassie) I think the Ginny info-dump was for future use in H/G, but bloody hell I didn't like it. Ron... I need to re-read the book. The Cho thing - well, I'm glad it is now canonically pre-OotP only.

HP5

Well, that was really bloated. And not much better than the good fics. Though the Orwellian bits were a nice gimmick. Off to work now, my team is mad at me for sacrificing a full night for the book.

The Eye of the Snake

"insensitive wart... emotional range of a teaspoon" Oh man... this is better than Dawson's Creek.

Amazon.co.uk's delivery estimation was overly cautious. Air shipping only took 3 days. Of course, I was already up to chapter 17 by the time my folks picked it up from the mail. I'm not done reading yet, though. Have discovered the joy of Instrumental Metal. Is very pleased with self. Alias is definitely good, although I think I prefer the Nikita formula ("buttkixing + tehnobabble + politics/intrigue") over "buttkixing + drama/romance + politics/intrigue". Alias is better suited to appeal to the female audience though, so I am not surprised of it being more successful. Not so good for shipping though, as much of the good stuff is already in canon. When done with it will go read RJA's stuff.

Thank God for the Internet.

LOL

A&Z finally got the poor lad laid. And it only took them 3.5 MB of filtered html. ;-) It feels as if an epoch has come to an end and nothing will ever be quite the same again. Oh well - we'll see what becomes of the fandom once everything cools off in a few weeks.

"Delivery estimate: July 1 - July 4" Wah.

1x02 was not bad. The guy who plays the dad is quite good. I don�t think it�s wise to hold plutonium in your bare hands. I don't like the evolution of Q. Yes, the techie gadget-developer is a geek, but he's supposed to at least be able to function in society. Birkoff was a good rendition. This SD6 ubernerd though... yick.

Watched Alias 1x01. Not bad.

I think I'll elaborate on good web site design patterns. Today's sites must be dynamic and use CSS and a database driven content management system. That way, when adding content (chapters or stories, or (gasp) authors) there is no need to create a directory tree and index html files and all that paraphernalia - one should be able to do all that automatically with a few mouse clicks and info pasted into form fields. The data would be automatically parsed to clean up the horrible Office generated formatting, linked to a single style sheet definition file and validated for cross-browser compatibility (something you don't get with Micro$oft tools). Then all entries would be fed to the database and stored there (possibly including even the large textual data itself, so it could be easily updated, searched, compressed, etc.). Cross-referenced indexes (by author, story, latest update, etc.) would be automatically generated, so as soon as the data was entered it would be updated everywhere (in neat formatting), making tiresome repetitive maintenance (prone to human-factor related bugs) obsolete. The system would also allow vital statistics be gathered (and displayed using flash-based graphics!) and email updated be sent, all without any human supervision. The administration's day to day task would be reduced by an order of magnitude. The data would be displayed based on templates and style sheet information. No changes would be necessary on the backend to alter: font, color, background, and layout of every page on site, instantaneously. All that is required for such a redesign is tweaking of a single CSS file, or, provided the content management system is "smart" enough - the same, but in WYSIWYG mode. If you've wondered - the file would also contain paths to the graphics, so that too is easily changed globally. Even better, using smart client side scripting and caching the monthly traffic could be reduced (by half) by re-rendering indexes on the client side and making the textual data much smaller by intelligently compacting the (x)html. The savings in traffic and labor could greatly surpass the costs generated by the overhead created by the extra features (web application API, keyword and parameter searches, statistics (popularity, updates, word count), per-user customizations (bookmarks, favorites, reading list, email notification...), rdf syndicating, etc.), though you have to take the increase in hosting cost into account. Speaking of costs - the one time starting investment could also be prohibitive - developing such a system will not be cheap, and it does require real enterprise level hosting solutions (web server, DB server..), so for a site that cannot be a dot-com - it's a real problem, especially because few of the management or regular users of a Harry Potter Fan Fiction devoted site would be able to do some of the technical work themselves... I sure wouldn't want to develop that on ASP and VBScript though! *Sigh* </nerd>

What's the matter with GT.net? Are the QoHG on administrative leave?

So AtE is a LOTR crossover. Figures.