Life - Updates

I've found out (thanks to T.S.) that the military has accepted a plea we (mostly D.Z. and N.K.) filed two years ago about our signing for extra six months of enlisted service being illegal (though they never bothered to tell us). It means I'll be discharged in January '08 instead of July '08, and more importantly I'll get my first real paycheck in January '06. It will be minimum wage I think, but that's ten times more than what I get now!

I got tired of my trusty old Nokia 5120 and replaced it with a Motorola C650. I like Nokia better, but this one had a camera. I'm still learning to use it. It's so bloody children-oriented and the interface is so flashy. It looks unprofessional!
I don't believe I'm typing this, what am I, forty?

I've downloaded episodes of West Wing. It's not bad at all.

My boss' boss' boss and her boss were replaced today/tomorrow (scheduled, not sudden). We'll see how we like the new people.

Today, very suddenly, a new guy was added to my team. He's fresh out of training and we don't know yet how good is he or whether he likes computers/software.

HP Fandom - Wahlee's "This Moment" H/G fluff

I consider Emily a friend, and I loved her previous writing and completely agreed with her in all those shipping wars I didn't really participate in, and I find nothing wrong with the story (except the typography, which I'm sure is not her fault and will be promptly fixed). But after HBP I just want to say Ginny-Sue is, if not strictly OOC, plain dull. Jo didn't tell us, even through the eyes the worst narrator ever, what Ginny is like, except that she appears to be Fred and George's female third twin and is probably good at snogging. We don't really know if her feelings for Harry are any deeper than her celebrity crush from years past. We don't know what she and Harry talk about during their lake-side excursions (if at all). We don't know she loves him and anticipates his idiotic behavior, or why she does something so atypical and quietly accepts it. All we know is that Harry was physically attracted to her and appreciated her unsophisticated sense of humor, and later was happy dating her. So what? Maybe Harry, being depraved of human touch the way he is (thanks to his loving family), needed the kind of relationship Ron had with Lavender, got exactly that from Ginny, and unlike Ron, was deliriously happy about it? Maybe they just talk Quidditch all the time. Maybe the first thing he did was checking whether she's a real redhead. Maybe I'm being stupid and need to go to sleep.

Overanalyzing - How it all began

Or, at least, my best guess is Walt Disney cartoons are partly to blame. When I was six, I used to watch the Sunday morning cartoons with my parents on our new (well… new to us, it being bought from friends who have emigrated to the US) color TV and I remember my favorite show for a while had been Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers and my favorite character was (of course) Gadget Hackwrench.

For those who don't remember: link #1, link #2.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Management

In accordance with Ariel Sharon's plan to leave settlements in Gaza and the West Bank (what a stupid name! But I guess "Judea and Samariya" reveal it to be Jewish land and that's an inconvenient truth these days), the armed forces are in "emergency mode". Thus, some IT systems have been deemed "critical" and cannot go down, ever.
There's an underground war-room-style damage control center with walls covered by big screen maps of communication networks and traffic-light colored status boards. The room is manned around the clock by nervous, sleepy officers (some running on pure caffeine, some are in their third trimester) who are in charge of making sure nothing breaks or fix it before any one notices it broke and then make sure it never breaks again.

In a dimly lighted corner of the room, very important to the story but completely disregarded by everyone else, slacks a well camouflaged software developer turned cheap yet unreliable phone answering machine sitting a twelve hour shift, unmoving, waiting for a phone call that will never come, announcing something important broke and several room-fulls of monitoring equipment never noticed. Blended into his environment, his presence goes completely unnoticed by the war-room's proper inhabitants who forget to act like responsible officers completely on top of the situation and revert to the developers and techs they were a decade ago, not-quite-adults with baby sitters to arrange and chicken-and-egg logistical problems to solve.

Here's a good example of crisis in IT-land: Person A must have item B to be able to leave place C, which he must do to be effective. Item B is located in Place D, some four hours drive from place C and cannot be taken out until it is properly signed off by said Person A, who cannot reach it because he needs it to be able to leave place C. Something must give for the situation to be resolved, namely a set of orders or policy, but that becomes a point of pride for the brass issuing those orders, for if your orders can be waived in favor of someone else's orders, you are obviously less important.

As I watched wise old men with many years of experience in the field (meaning they know shit about current systems) mediate and judge deeply technical issues guided by very little factual knowledge, uncertain advice, caution gained by experience and rules of thumb gleaned from mistranslations of the US military and IT press, I've thought how much I don't want to get promoted to a position where I won't have time to get into the technical details and have to rely on video-conferences with "a boy"* to get a guesstimate on time to reboot a network appliance or help with pivoting some data from SQL Server using Excel. Instead I wished I could be that boy - the one they know is reliable and knows his stuff.

* - they mean "kid", but Semitic languages are chauvinistic. The proper word, "G.I" or "rating", is treated as derogatory.

I have for two years been contemplating a filk tentatively titled "I am the very model of a modern Project Manager", but alas, my rhymes leave much to be desired. I hoped this latest experience would provide inspiration, but my hopes have been shattered to bits upon my active vocabulary's rocky shore.

Life - My God! Genius! Interest improves quality!

I have been talking to anyone who would listen, trying to phrase my ideas about how the world is so fucked up because people don't do what they like. That because people are unmotivated by what they do for money they do it badly. I see it all the time and it looks like the cause of so much grief, and I'm not the only one because all the smart people I talk to agree with me (and not just to get me to shut up), and it's not just in the military or just in Israel, it's everywhere. It's nothing new, Pirsig talks about it, but just catching up on Paul Graham's latest essay I cried out "you've read my mind!". The question is: How can I make a difference? And I'm not ready to start a startup now, nor will I able to for the next three years. Damn.

Found on The Web - Bad Writing

It's so bad, it's good. Better than reading FFN! The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, 2005 Results.

Pop Culture - Serenity

Ooh, I've seen the trailer for Serenity (a.k.a "Firefly - The Movie"). I wanna go see it!

Coding - Topological Sort and Depth-First Search

So, I've actually stumbled into some code at work where I need to implement a topological sort for dependencies. And I've read about DFS and stuff, googled a bit and even opened a real comp-sci textbook we have at the office. While all I really needed was Wikipedia! And I'm prototyping in JavaScript like some microsoftie instead of in Python like real l33t h4x0rz! Oh, the shame!

Anyway, this is what I've come up so far:

Array.prototype.shuffle = function(p_nTimes) {
    if (isNaN(p_nTimes) || (p_nTimes <= 0) || (this.length < 2)) return;
    while (p_nTimes--) {
        var i = Math.floor(Math.random() * this.length);
        var j = Math.floor(Math.random() * this.length);
        var t = this[i];
        this[i] = this[j];
        this[j] = t;
    }
};

function item(p_strName, p_arrDeps) {
    this.Name = p_strName;
    this.arrDeps = p_arrDeps;
    this.bIsInStack = false;
    this.bHasBeenVisited = false;
};

function create_deps(p, k) {
    var deps = {};
    for (var i = 0; i < p; i++) {
        var curr = new item(i, []);
        for (var j = 0; j < i; j++)
            if (Math.floor(Math.random() * 100) % k == 0)
                curr.arrDeps.push(j);
        curr.arrDeps.shuffle(p);
        deps[curr.Name] = curr;
    }
    return deps;
};

function print_deps(deps) {
    for (var i in deps) {
        document.write(deps[i].Name + ': ');
        for (var j = 0; j < deps[i].arrDeps.length; j++)
            document.write(deps[i].arrDeps[j] + ', ');
        document.write('<br/>\n');
    }
    document.write('<br/>\n');
};

function topo_sort_dfs_short_circuit_on_cycle(o) {
    var list = [];
    var cycle = null;

    for (var i in o) {
        (function(p) {
            if (p.bIsInStack) cycle = p.Name;
            if (cycle != null) return;
            p.bIsInStack = true;
            if (!p.bHasBeenVisited) {
                p.bHasBeenVisited = true;
                for (var idxDep = 0; idxDep < p.arrDeps.length; idxDep++)
                    arguments.callee(o[p.arrDeps[idxDep]]);
                list.push(p.Name);
            }
            p.bIsInStack = false;
        })(o[i]);
        if (cycle != null) break;
    }

    return [cycle, list];
};

Next step is trying to see whether a non-recursive implementation is faster (yes, I benchmark JavaScript) and then STL. C# I'll do on company time (haven't installed mono yet).

HP Fandom - HBP

Warning: Spoilers ahead. Obviously.

So. Canon. At last. Again. It was kind of a disappointment, how "in character" everything was. Dumbledore is a secretive, overbearing, scheming old fool. Snape, no matter what his true motives are, is a right bastard with a flare for hating incompetence. Hermione is big-headed, Ron is a five year-old, Ginny is a smaller, though by no means less dangerous, version of Gred & Forge, and Harry is Conan The Barbarian in training. Oh, and Voldemort is Koschei the Immortal (if Jo hasn't read some Slavic mythology or folk tales, I'll eat my hat).

Compared to the good fic I've read, it was positively dull. Harry getting together with Ginny? Boring. Harry wants to split with Ginny? Boring. New Minister for Magic is a politician? Boring. The tiny magical community is unashamedly nepotistic? Boring. Most teenage girls, like most teenage boys, are stupid? Boring.
The only marginally interesting character in the whole bunch was Draco Malfoy, and seeing him only through Harry's twisted perception of the universe we don't know anything (good for fanfic, I guess). I'm willing to buy RJA's theory, but in any case I've lost my sympathies for the main characters.
Oh, self appointed Champions-Of-JKR: Tonks r0x, Lupin r0x, and together they snog, not fall asleep! BTW, I still wish for Honks as it makes for more interesting stories.

ETA: Seeing as this is the only negative review I've read, I feel I must say I don't think the book was bad, just that the anticipation was better than the thing itself, which is a known effect. Also, I probably wasn't in the best mood when reading it (on guard duty), so I'll re-read it and see how I feel then. I can only remember two times I've laughed (though not why, in either case), does it seem right?

Personal - Reading

Here I'll write what I thought about "A Mote In God's Eye".

Thanks to wikipedia I've found out I'm a straight-edge (the abstinence, not the music) slacker. Isn't being an over-educated underachieving web surfer fun?

Personal - Beat [adj. informal]

I've had a difficult few days (and nights) at work (my fault, but still) and friday I had a checkup with my orthodontist. Anyway, while reading a book I had this "I'm too tired to follow what's going on" feeling, turned off the PC and went to sleep. I don't usually turn off the PC, but sometimes when it's not doing anything I want silence at nights. I woke up at 15:02, looked at the watch and thought "No wonder I was so tired, I probably stayed up till morning…" and then "No way! The light was still up in the living room!" so this is from /var/log/messages:

Jul 15 23:56:50 tux syslog-ng[8579]: syslog-ng version 1.6.8 going down
Jul 16 15:09:56 tux syslog-ng[8820]: syslog-ng version 1.6.8 starting

Personal - On and Off line

Items dispatched on 15 Jul 2005:
Delivery estimate: 22 Jul 2005

    * 1 of: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter 6) [Children's Edition]

It's going to be a busy week at work, so I might just survive being offline and spoiler-free. I wasn't really nervous about the book at all, up until today. Now I can't wait. Brushing up on classic SF instead.

Personal/Tech - Developer vs. Secretary mode

The first thing I do when I sit in front of (or connect remotely to) a Windows box with intention to accomplish some work, I:

1. Disable intrusive themes, sounds, animated mouse cursors, heavy wallpapers.
2. Enable showing folder path in title and statusbar, showing file extensions, showing hidden and system files, and managing html files and associated folders independently of each other.
3. Set file name and folder name completion key to tab (9) in command processor settings in the registry, so I can use the command line interface.
4. Disable all shortcut keys to accessibility options.

Only then can I get to getting things done. If I happen to be logged as someone else, I usually take care to make sure the person knows what I've done and can reverse it (if they so choose). But sometimes, I just say I refuse to work for free on such a hideously misconfigured computer.
For some reason, people who've observed me doing it (and heard what I had to say about the machine's users while I was doing it) think I'm not just condescending but weird.

Why do I call a cutesy configured computer, optimized for avoiding work "secretary mode"? To explain that, I'll have to go into the realities of universal conscription. That will wait for a later date, but be sure I'm not a chauvinist - it's just life's harsh realities.

Personal - General Update

• Got a very much overdue haircut at the new local barber (he couldn't believe I was in the military, my hair got so long). I gather the haircutting business is very competitive here and now because he treats his customers very well, looking to score recommendations. Very reasonably priced, too. This should get my chain of command off my back for a couple of months. BTW, don't worry - I won't be blogging about shopping for underwear.

• Have been reading John Cowan's blog (recommended by Tim Bray). I envy his linguistics skills (I know more people who are gifted like that, namely Eli Bar-Yahalom). The entire xml-dev crowd seems fascinating, from where I stand.

  I have added some of his signatures to the sig DB I use at work. It's some Outlook VBA code that appends a random sig from an Access file upon sending an email. I've found it's a great conversation starter to draw the attention of geeks, because the people who can understand and comment my sigs are the ones I want to talk to. Also, I feel the need to show off.

• I haven't yet blogged about attending Adi Gigi's graduation ceremony on June 23d. We were, for a few months, together in programming training when she passed the "gibush" for naval officer training and was forced to choose (it's not cost-effective to let people do two costly voluntary training programs when they'll only serve in one post). She wisely chose the harder one and now, two years later, she's an officer on a Israel Navy ship.

  BTW, Israeli naval ranks are exactly the same as for the land services, so although it's called second lieutenant, actually she's an ensign.

  Letting women into the elite combat officer training programs is quite new - she's like the 10th (give or take) female to successfully complete the training, the first with her specialty, the only in her class (and with no females in the recent flight school batch at all, situation is not that good for women in combat).

  I have to mention the enlisted and commissioned crowd at the ceremony (Dani himself arrived to give them their insignia and ranks) was from a very different IDF than the one I serve in. The people I know from "the army" are IT types: analysts, application designers and coders, DBAs, systems people, tech support of various types, comms techs, etc. while the people there were boat crews, harbor defense, infantry, search and rescue, field intelligence, etc. Very little in common, except for the age and uniform (and not even that, with the navy). I felt like the geek that I am.

World News - London Bombings

I, my family, and I'm sure most of Israel's thoughts are with the victims' families and other Londoners and tourists. My country knows this pain. I hope this will not scare the British people off of the fight against terror caused by radical Islam, like it did in Spain (they have forgotten how they fought off the Moors…).

Context: Wikinews article "Four bombs rock London".

Book Review - David Weber - Honor Harrington series

So, a friend recommended this sci-fi series. He said it was good space opera and technology and tactics were not only self-consistent but even ground in actual physics (read: pretentiously "hard" military sci-fi). He also said the first two (out of at least ten) books are fully and freely available from the publisher's website. The following is what I have to say about "On Basilisk Station" & "The Honor of the Queen".

It's not given away for free because it's so addicting you'll immediately go and buy the rest of the books from Amazon. It's given away for free because of fierce competition from FFN. Seriously.

The only criticism I had for Lois McMaster Bujold's excellent Vorkosigan Saga was that it was too soft to be read by the hard core sci-fi audience (read: boys). That's how I explain it being so unknown among the sci-fi readers I talk to — it's treated like romance fiction, sometimes legitimately and justifiably so. Lois only mentions how spaceships, weapons, propulsion systems, communications, etc. work when necessary. And now I'm sure she's doing the right thing, too: Weber spews (besides too many characters' names and titles) accelerations, orbits, vectors, relative velocities, ranges and all kind of numbers and units all the time, but I'm not going to sit down with Mathematica and my high school physics textbook to run his numbers. It's dull, and it's the only thing he has working for him. The rest of the stuff that make up a good book, like: plot, characters, dialogue, subtlety, style - he has none of those.

The books have a girl-power feeling to them, which is forced and thus counter-productive. The heroine is not Cordelia Naismith by a long shot. In fact, and I ask to forgive my slight here, I think the future Admiral Lady Dame Duchess Honor Harrington is a butch. Also, she enjoys eating the cake and having it too a bit too often: She has forty-five years of experience, but she looks like a college student. She is from a high-gravity planet making her very strong, but she's also tall and graceful. She is self-consciously not pretty, but she possesses a unique beauty that makes her attractive to interesting men. She's bad at math, but is a gifted 3D tactician who can plot intricate trajectories by instinct.

The author's excuse for Regency-era social and political structure in a well-into-the-future galactic empire (which has never had a Time Of Isolation) is as plausible as any other, and the introduction of a six-legged empathic killer cat of plot-device a reasonably original twist (though she appears to love her kitty more than people), but I don't even know what to think of the heroine's naval career closely resembling Admiral Nelson's (I noticed that by myself).

Had it been published as a fanfic, I'd have said "nice try" and "props for having it proofread", but really, it feels like the bad Hollywood-movie version of some good books I've read. Don't waste your time.

HP Fandom - Elsha's D* Theo/Anne series

I don't know if there's an epilogue, but this is the last chapter. Good for Elsha, finishing it before HBP. It is a story about the girl next door and the Death Eater's son, but though this description makes it sound very kitschy, it's actually very good.

ETA: That wasn't the last chapter. That only closed the plot for Harry & Co. The next chapter is closure for the fic's main characters, and an epilogue is promised. Also, she's fixed the character encoding problem.

Personal - "School" Trip

The people at my workplace have a tradition to go on a trip together. It's good for building teams etc. Anyway, since the Golan Heights is a beautiful place and we're never sure whether it will still be in Israel next year (Assad being who he is, it looks like it will, but you never know…) we chose it again. This time we've covered Brehat HaMeshushim and Nahal El-Al. Pics will be added when available.

It was a nice two day trip, sleeping on the beach of the Sea of Galilee (21°C at night, no tent/sleeping bag needed). It was a bit too hot (35°C in the shade, with no shade during most of the ~4 hour hike) and the planning committee have miscalculated the logistics somewhat (too much meat), but everyone has enjoyed it (or so it seems). Seeing one's team lead (or, if you prefer, commanding officer) pissed drunk hitting on girls is a positive experience.

I've come to realize someday soon I'm going to be very angry at myself for completely missing the opportunity while being practically surrounded by reasonably clever very good looking teen girls, the same way I'm angry at myself for basically missing the whole high school experience. It seems a motif in my life, discovering late how I've missed out on something or other. Reminds me of this great quote:

"You don't appreciate a lot of stuff in school until you get older. Little things like being spanked every day by a middle aged woman: Stuff you pay good money for in later life." — Emo Philips

HP Fandom - Harry/Snape in iambic pentameter

Really. Here. Am speechless.

Hacking - Java

Now, I don't know Java. I have zero work experience with it and have never read a book about it (that's not what I'll write in my c.v. of course). I have seen some J2EE code in my life and were able to deduce how it supposedly works, but I really should reserve judgment till I know more. I do work with C# on a regular basis, and though I haven't actually learned it "properly" (i.e. methodically) either I can usually fake it.

Reading smart people's blogs about programming language design (they're usually quite academic types, buy Python is real) I keep feeling their derision of Java coming through very strongly, as the COBOL of our times. Comparing it to readable dynamic languages (meaning those which are not Perl) I tend to agree.

One of my email sigs at work is a quote I can't locate now that (completely paraphrased) says "When in the first example I saw cout left-shifted "Hello World" times, I despaired of learning C++". Another is Marx's "History repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce". Well, I ask, how come the situation described in Tim Bray's recent rant on Java 1.5 is better than C++? And I hear C# 2.0 will be like that too…

Personal - This week

I've attended DBA3 (free training provided by the employer) with my future team lead M. He didn't know I'm in his future team till the last day when I told him over launch. Was a bit funny - I told him a bit about the project, the organizational chart, the team members etc. Of course he'll get proper introduction (and a lots of links to stuff he has to read) by my boss' boss when it gets closer to his transfer. He seems okay, considering I kind of demanded a geek for my next boss (since I've been completely spoilt by my current boss). No, I'm not one of those superstar people who interview their own boss, I'm just (unfortunately) the most seasoned programmer on staff who hasn't been pushed into a management role (yet, anyway) and the boss' boss decided to tell me who they chose.

Another funny thing that happened is my mom asking what was the strange new belt I have and then showing me the weapon strap when I looked puzzled. I usually keep it in the backpack so she just didn't recognize it or something. And it looks kind of like a belt (except for the fastenings) and is an unmarked olive green model that doesn't scream "guns! death!". Strange, my service is.

Oh well, off to study pirated OCP 1Z0-033 exam kits for the test next week. I'm thinking of actually spending the money on certification when I'm discharged, although I don't really want to be a full-time DBA…

ETA: today I've found out I got 94% on that test. For some inexplicable reason, I feel more confident with my SQL skills since I've done it.

TV - Alias Season 4 Finale

Wah. This guy is right. Such a waste of bandwidth. I might try Lost now, but it will probably be ruined too after a season or two, like every other thing that got popular and didn't have an ending already written (like Babylon 5 and Harry Potter). Is 24 any good?

In other news, a girl talked to me today, of her own free will and for free I might add. Yes, this is a joke.

TV - Alias 4x04 Ice

I sure hope the episodes improve in this season, but I just had to say I love Kelly Macdonald's accent (or was it only Kiera MacLaine/Meghan Keene's accent? I can't really tell how much of it was real).

ETA: 4x13 has a spork!!!

Web Tech - Markup

Blogger doesn't feature any built-in privacy. You can't mark posts as being private or "friends-only". The FAQ apologetically suggests you publish to your own server via FTP and manage security there (why would you use Blogger if you pay for hosting I have no idea. It's not like the wysiwyg editor or the template system are that good…).

LiveJournal is much more of a social software than Blogger's "push-button publishing for the people". Userpics, f-lists, communities, privacy, FOAF etc. make it very clear. Heck, the Harry Potter Fandom practically lives on LJ!

Personally, I can live without that, but I must be in control of my posts, at the lowest technical level. I want to be able to submit pre-arranged xhtml pieces to post. I want to be able to include any tags I wish (even scripts!) and know my markup won't be tampered with by the editor or the spell checker. And I must be able to just type up some stuff and let it generate sane markup for it, not force me to write my own <p>'s when I don't want to! Why in the name of Marshall McLuhan is the "convert line breaks" setting global???

ETA: So yeah, the point was that now I'll have to add markup to some of my posts and that would make them appear to be updated, although I won't change anything. Sorry for the inconvenience (It should only affect syndication users, though).

Work/Personal - Developers' Attitude, Inspiration, Competence

A recent thread on JOS forums is so apropos it's scary.

I'm a very "Person B" type of guy, having issues with time management and juggling more than a few tasks. I'm also frequently under-motivated because my superiors are unable to control my work environment enough to help me be more productive or even reward me properly. I'm getting increasingly frustrated with some aspects of working slaving for the government and feel like a pat on the back is not enough for me to work like I'd do in a startup. The classic "the reward for good work is more work" approach might work (for me) when one's work saves lives. Mine can only save money, money I see wasted all around me while I wait literally years for upgrades to my workstation I need to be able to do my job.

We've all read Peopleware, and we all know the issues, but it seems like the constraints of obligatory military service are too hard to mitigate. Like in Communism, you are expected to do your best but everyone with the same job description gets essentially the same treatment (and don't get me started on the secretaries). You can play on people's pride and ambition, but I guess I'm just a whiny quitter who calls everyone fake and doesn't want to play their games.

I care deeply about my country, and I care personally for my clients' work, for which my products are crucial, and I take pride in my craft, but next month it'll be two years in this position and I feel disillusioned.

A big head and a low self esteem are a really nasty combination.

This Blog - Bookmarks

A significant part of my Firefox bookmarks has been added to the sidebar in a hopefully manageable way. It should be noted the bookmarks are a mess. Please report problems with navigation, validation, dead links, uselessness, etc. here.

The hefty (30k) thing was not compressed so it would be accessible from non-typical UAs such as lynx (verified!).

Various - Update

• Yesterday on the bus ride home I've seen two girls from Oketz (they are very distinctive by their male uniform, lack of shoulder unit insignia and a Colt Commando). It made me even prouder in my uniform, thinking of the training these girls went through to get into an elite combat unit and how nice they still look and sound. Oketz appear to choose well from Nahal's girl battalion "Karakal".
• I've listened to some Bond (Born, Shine and Classified). It's too world-music and has too much electronic and other interference so you can barely hear the string quartet itself. Few tracks are interesting beyond the first in every album. If I compile a list I'll post it. Also, undressed publicity photos (as well as dance/hip-hop/whatever remixes) cheapen the classical act so it cuts down on the people who came to listen to four classically trained performers while doesn't gain too much of the Britney Spears audience since they don't cut it as pop icons.
• A friend suggested going playing war games* for his birthday. It was very cool (not cheap though), but now I hurt all over: bruises on both thighs, an arm, a shoulder, palm and a bit on the back (only torso and head are well protected during games, so arms and legs get hit a bit). Also, I got splashes of paint in the face some of which is in my hair. Some of those bruises look like they'll stay for a week or so. But hey, it's as close to military action a non-combatant like me is ever likely to get. Was lots of fun.
  Personnel are Russian speakers and were a bit miffed we had two non-Russian speakers in a group of eight so they had to give the instructions in Hebrew. A common problem in modern Israel are those weird people who live here for more than twenty years and still didn't learn Russian…
  * - English site is all "under construction", but a picture is worth a thousand words.

Personal - Social Circle Meme

A variation of the thing from Rebecca:

Why are you on my referrer logs?
Comment and tell me. Then post this in your blog/journal.

Music - Sampling

No, this is not about the process of digitizing an analog signal (though it is well worth your while to find out what "digital" actually means, even of you're not a technophile like me, at least so you know when advertisers clearly lie).

"Sampling" as in tasting a little bit of everything in a buffet or listening to a bit of various unfamiliar musical styles/performers to find out if you're missing out on something good. Like radio is supposed to be. Unfortunately, since all I get at work is commercial (remember payola?) brainwashing courtesy of local recording companies / RIAA franchises, I steal music from the net to find out what I like (Schoolgirl will be glad to hear I don't listen to much Yanni any more...).

So, if, perhaps by accident, you've discovered a large file with a "rar" extension and perhaps the words "ape" or "cue" in its name on your computer and decided you're not afraid of communism and would like to give it a try, here's some advice.

First of all, congrats on choosing the cd image instead of the mp3s. It means you value the quality of your music, and won't let some ripper's poor choice of encoding software to alter your perception and possible appreciation of the artist's work. Having an actual CD image, possibly compressed by some lossless compression method, enables you to recreate a bit-identical copy of the audio CD, so you'll know what you get when you buy it (well, that and the inlay, but that too is often provided as high resolution scans).

What you need to do then is extract the archive using unrar (free from rarlabs.com):

$unrar x foo.rar

Now you can either play it, if your player supports cuesheets and decodes Monkey's Audio (plugins are available for popular media players), burn it to CD (again, plugins are available for popular burning software), or convert it to mp3s (for use in portable players or some such). For that, you need the proper decoder (in this case, mac), cuetools, shntool and of course lame (all free software). When you have the latest versions installed, just:

$cuebreakpoints CDImage.cue | shnsplit -n "band-album-" -o cust ext=mp3 { lame --preset standard - %f } CDImage.ape

and (after a while) - voila!

I have yet to find a way to specify certain tracks to split so you'd be able to do less work to get a single track or even fork off multiple instances to use that SMP machine you might have properly. But at least you don't need to create temporary files.

Shell out for albums you like - the artists do get a little of that money!

Personal - Book meme

I was named by Lou, so now that I have time I shall do her bidding.

1. Total number of books I've owned: I've counted 50 on the shelves. I have no idea how many more are still packed in boxes (no shelf space in the rented place). I don't count the pirated eBooks, or my parents' library.
2. The last book I bought: a preorder of HBP, actually.
3. The last book I read: see last post.
4. Five books that mean a lot to me:
   1. The Potter books, obviously. For all I've lost and gained in Fandom.
   2. Dune
   3. LMB's Vorkosigan books
   4. A book in Hebrew I received as a gift in 4th grade about a Jewish boy who survives alone in a ghetto in Poland during WWII. Being a children's book, it had a happy ending.
   5. I loved Robinson Crusoe as a child. And consequently had a rather mad wish to build a tree house for the longest time.
   It's interesting to note that what I liked most about those books is how the hero manages on his own. The rest are… supporting characters. Damn, that's sad.
5. Tag five people and have them fill this out:
   1. Teri
   2. Emily
   3. Rebecca
   4. Leslie
   5. acemyth

Books - Shadow Of The Giant

So I've just finished the book. It took me three evenings (I'm a very slow reader). Yesterday I thought Orson Scott Card was just publishing more stuff to make money, the way I feel about what has been done to Dune, but today I've changed my mind.

No, it doesn't say anything new, per se, and it was kind of tying up loose ends, exactly as he promised two years ago (he left just a small bit for developing into plots of future books, if he ever needs the money, but then, the afterword in the acknowledgments section feels like it's the last book of the series...). The psychology was a bit simplistic, though it might be just realistic, but the geo-politics sounds about right (again, I don't know what I'm talking about). The last chapter was very touching. Actually, most of his ending are very good (contrast with Neal Stephenson for example). It really is a good book. I don't know about the non-preaching moralism, and how all that stuff gets along with the author's personal beliefs, and when (if at all) are characters speaking for him, but the whole settle-down-and-have-kids as the proper goal for sane people's ambition resonates very well with me.

BTW, the whole marrying the best female of the generation who is not your sister reminded me of themes in HP fandom. I think I read too much fanfic. (go Capt. Obvious!)

Fandom - Congrats Melissa!

I remember in her first few posts on the now happily defunct HP message board, she was in the process of graduating from college... Anyway, hard work does pay off, and you've earned it! Now, anymore Firelox fic? ;-)

Found on The Web - Gangsta CS

I've known for a while there are some hard-core comp-sci geeks on LJ, not just liberal arts and poli-sci _______, but somehow I've never read anything of Brad's before. Anyway, he has a lot of cool stuff, among which I've found the funniest link 3v4r: So Much Drama in the PhD, by Monzi.

ETA: Apparently, there is a genre for this stuff.

Private - Musical taste

I recently loaned a friend a bunch of CDs I had lying around the office for a weekend. He said the music is depressive but it does appear to be conductive to a programmer's productivity. My music, depressive? It's not like I listen to Air's Virgin Suicides soundtrack on repeat or something! (A decent one if that's what you like, though I'd advise a visit to a therapist).

Here's the list. What do you think?

• Mike Oldfield - Voyager
• Epica - The Phantom Agony
• Enya
  • Watermark
  • Shepherd Moons
  • The Celts
  • The Memory of Trees
  • A Day Without Rain
  • Paint the Sky with Stars: The Best of Enya
• Era
  • Era
  • Era, Vol. 2
  • The Mass

Private - This week

The 5th was the Israeli Day of The Holocaust, the 9th was 60 years since the end of The Great Patriotic War (my grandparents are veterans), today is the Israeli Memorial Day and tomorrow Israel will celebrate its 57th birthday. Personally I think it's too close together. It's symbolic of course, but you have to separate the days a bit more to let it sink in.

This time it was a bit more personal for me, a bit less abstract. I wish future years won't add more specific faces to the image I have in my mind's eye during the minute of silence.

News - Maccabi Tel-Aviv won the Euroleague

No news links yet, but I've seen it on TV. Yeah! :-)

Maccabi, Euroleague.

Tech - QEMU

So, as I said earlier, I've installed the latest release of windows for home users in qemu (also latest release, 0.7.0) to test my dhtml (not ajax) in m$ie. It works, but:

• official documentation is sparse and unofficial is not up to date and user-friendliness is of the sort that gives open source its bad reputation.
• Performance is nowhere near "good" (even with kqemu), but can be made tolerable by keeping tabs on the swapping (or having lots of RAM). I had to decrease memory allocation for the guest in order for it to be responsive while I have Firefox open on the host. Also I switched from KDE to Fluxbox, applied a patch enabling dma on the winnt guest and switched to raw rather than sparse disk image file format.
• Installing and configuring Samba for file-exchange between guest and host isn't terribly user-friendly as well, BTW.

I've browsed the developers' mailing list archives and they do have many good ideas, so I believe the future is bright for emulation (running OS X on an Athlon 64 is in the roadmap, and that is close to the holy grail for me). Basically, computer-savvy users only for now, unless you wan to pay for Virtual PC or VMWare (and that can't run an architecture different from the host's).

It turned out my blog's CSS editing doesn't work in m$ie. Have not debugged it yet, but it being deployed for a while now and nobody saying anything is kind of depressing (since I know for a fact not all of my hits are made with Firefox).

Obligatory pic.

Personal - Hmmm

I went with my parents to a family friend's 50th birthday party. Despite being a classic civil engineer (exasperatingly pedantic) working for the national telco he's a good guy. I was prepared for a rather dull evening, but party games for tispy 45 to 55 y/o ex-Soviet engineers and their wives turned out to be funnier to observe than I'd imagined (and I didn't even know anyone present!).

I got cornered by the birthday-boy's elderly uncle (who I later found out was a physics professor or something) with the "I've been told you're good with computers, could you please help me out with this small problem I have" line I know so well (I briefly regretted not wearing this shirt). He introduced himself as a total dummy, but as he was explaining his problem in bits and pieces, it turned out he wasn't clueless at all - he was editing his registry and he'd switched to Firefox etc. I honestly believe he was proving himself or something by "testing" me. Way more cool than my grandparents, anyway.

Web Tech - JavaScript/DOM performance

I've done some extremely unscientific and informal comparison of Firefox 1.0.3, Opera 8.0 and Konqueror 3.4 running my dynamic table script on 100K of data and I have to say I'm very impressed with Opera. It feels like the code is JIT-compiled while KHTML feels like it's running in an emulator (I'm talking about being 50 times(!) slower while crawling DOM etc.). There are things where Konq. actually does better than dear old Gecko, though compatibility is definitely not one of them (I had to code around many KHTML issues). Opera's choice of when to actually reflow the DOM changes is a bit weird, but it might be doing the right thing performance-wise.

I'm working on getting the browser from Redmond to work in QEMU, will update here when I have more info.

ETA: It's working, but I can't really do any performance comparisons.

ETA #2: KHTML 3.4.1 bugfixes should allow me to remove a few lines of code. It's my policy to only support the (near) latest version of each browser engine. There's no good reason to still use IE 5.5, pre-1.0 Mozilla (or even pre-1.0 Firefox, which is Mozilla 1.7), Opera 6, etc. I expect the UA to either have full support of the W3C DOM and CSS DOM and things like Array.push (so no IE 5.0) or be treated like Lynx, but I won't use Mozilla 1.8b2's proprietary Array.ForEach (although it's brilliant!). For the people stuck with the version of KDE/Mozilla they have on their binary distro: too bad, you probably don't use Konq as your primary web browser anyway. :-)

HP Fandom - update

Since there is no FFDB (yet), I'll keep posting updates.

• Caitlyn updated Letters From Home. Definitely the cutest OFC in Fandom and a long time personal favourite, despite continuous markup issues (for me that's saying a lot).
• Anneth Lagamo has posted cool new stuff on her artwork site: Edgeworlds. Highly recommended, though I'm sure I don't have to introduce a talent like her.
• J.L. Matthews updated Slytherin Rising: Year Of The Cat. For years I've kept coming back for more Slyth Four while I let Lorific get stale in my inbox. That's praise.

Web Tech - marketing gimmick of the year?

After the SpreadFirefox counters (never had one of those buttons myself, but I did tell everyone I know to use it ever since I switched to Phoenix 0.4) and other Firefox publicity, and the imminent release of IE 7 looming overhead, the Opera people probably decided to have a splash of their own. Literally. I think it's a bit much, but drastic measures are probably the answer if you want to continue to compete (successfully!) with both Microsoft and the Free/Open community.

Personal - Update

1. Last week my team got a replacement for the member we stand to lose in a few months. Training a newbie (the guy was literally two days out of basic training when we got him) takes years when he's not a self-trained computer geek (we weren't that lucky) and I suspect it's going to be partially my job. He spent more time reading Asimov than the C# book we gave him, but that might turn out ok too.

   "Mother," said Miles, "calls it my great gift. Tests are a gift, she says, and great tests are a great gift. Of course," he added thoughtfully, "it's widely agreed my mother is a bit strange…"

   The Warrior's Apprentice, Lois McMaster Bujold.

2. The weather is stifling. You constantly feel as if you'd just exercised hard and had not yet have the chance to catch up your breath. It gets better only after 8PM. Being cooped up in a hermetically sealed room breathing air conditioner air is not much fun either, as it appears to have a lower oxygen level than the real thing.

3. Ate a lot of really delicious food in two get-togethers on the same day. I was afraid I'd be sick I ate so much. Then I walked for more than an hour on the way home.

4. The "new" officer arranged for us to do some target practice on the laser trainer (because of bureaucracy, we're not supposed to be using it). Stationary targets feel the same since the mechanics are preserved (or rather simulated), all except for the recoil (but you barely notice it anyway), meaning the barrel moves up when you cock the trigger etc. (it can even simulate jams!), but the best part is there's moving targets mode. It's probably as close as I'll ever get to the real thing though for obvious reasons it feels more like a really cool game with the mouse replaced by what feels like standard issue firearms than actual life threatening situation (which is the only situation you're allowed to use weapons). Surprisingly, I'm better with an Uzi than with an M16A1. At least at close range, anyway.

5. While we watched the building's lobby being cleaned up after an enormous soap bubble spill (a huge ankle thick puddle of white foam, reminded me of Gred & Forge's escapades in OoTP. It looked like the stuff used to control fire but people said it was just soap) a crowd began gathering on the other side. Turns out a guy wanted to jump off the roof of the mall across the street. Police and firefighters took two hours to get him off the roof, while a huge crowd gathered to watch, impeding traffic. People are odd about other people jumping off buildings: Some watch fascinated, some cry, others offer suggestions and critique his choice of location. The various reactions are not clear cut between the sexes.
   Reminds me I wanted to post a few pics so you'll get to see my new (temporary) office…

6. Have been thinking more about FFDB. Who here wants to help gathering a bit of info on fics you like?

Evils of LJ - N.S.F.W.

So, I was scrolling down my friends page and my mother comes into the room (the door was ajar, can't blame anyone but myself). The post visible on the screen was (Don't click it!) this, by jwz. How do you explain the non-selective nature of LJ Friends Pages to your technophobic and rather Victorian mother? I think I'll email this to a guy from work who might enjoy it, though...

Cinema - "Don't judge a book by its movie"

This review of the new Hitchhiker's Guide film by Douglas Adams' biographer reminds me of Alec's raving about Peter Jackson's Orcish ancestry after watching LoTR:FoTR for the first time. Let's hope it's just that, or it will be very sad.

Hardware Shopping - NF4 and low exch. rate!

Continuing the recurring theme of shopping for PC hardware (with other people's money, of course), we take the availability of nVidia's newest chipset (actually, it's a single-chip solution for mainboard logic, but anyway) and the drop in USD to ISL exchange rate into account to produce the following budget-oriented (but fully-featured!) setup:

Hardware	Recommended Component	US Price	ISL exchange rate	US price in ISL	IL price inc. 17% VAT	ripoff rate
Processor	AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 512K 1.8GHz 90nm for 939	$142	4.33	615	860	39.8%
Motherboard	MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (s939, nForce4 Ultra)	$140		606	860	41.9%
Memory	Brand 512MB PC-3200 CL3 x2	$100		433	640	47.8%
Video Card	Pine XFX 6600GT PCIe 128MB GDDR3	$172		745	1060	42.8%
Hard Drive	Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 160GB SATA w/ NCQ	$100		433	600	38.5%
sum:		$654		2,832	4,020	41.9%

Again, it's not a full computer, it's not necessarily the best offer in any way, the prices are from an unspecified vendor (including shipping but not assembling) and I take no responsibility for anything you do with this information I do not even guarantee is true.

1. The entry-level CPU was chosen because the 5%-10% advantage offered by the next step up isn't worth the money.
2. A non-SLI motherboard was chosen because buying a second video card is not a real option (notice it's the priciest item!).
3. CAS-3 memory was chosen because of the price premium for CAS-2.5 (not to mention CAS-2!), and hearsay stating it often works in CAS-2.5 timings just as well.
4. The 6600GT is the current sweet-spot (overly drawn discussion of reasons why isn't worth typing up). Because the motherboard is of the newer PCI-Express varienty (instead of the dying-out AGP), we take the PCIe version.
5. The 7200.7 NCQ has the best performance and warranty conditions (3 years full + 2 years limited warranty). The newer 7200.8 behemoth is slower, the Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 and 10 have a really crappy warranty by the Israeli importer and the Western Digital is outperformed (hasn't happened in years!). Just take care to get an NCQ part - the same model exists without NCQ, which is a vital feature for heavy multitasking performance, as recently shown by Anand Lal Shimpi.

Of the 42% difference between US and IL prices, 17% goes to the government. The other 25% is for shipping and someone's kids' college.

HP Fandom - Amor Vincit Omnia?

Theowyn's "Harry Potter and the Enemy Within", Chapter 18: Hogsmeade, wherein Harry and Snape's great and t00by love has successfully overcome their first major fight, all thanks to Harry's infinite capacity to love everyone, even those who'd wronged him (aka "the power Voldemort knows not"). And on the H/G front? As usual:

he spent most of this time with Ginny, either flying or taking walks. Ron had given them a curious look one afternoon as they left the common room together, but ... Harry hadn't given it another thought.

Barely a mention, and it still seems Ginny is "one of the guys". Sigh.

Nerdery - metanerdery

As a kid, I used to browse encyclopedias and watch the local channel 8 (Science/Art/History/Culture). Now, I can easily spend a whole night on c2, E2 or wikipedia. My other time-wasting hobby obsession is Harry Potter fan fiction. I never combine the two, but seriously discussing Shipping and using metasyntactic variables when describing ship naming conventions is just so über-geeky I can't resist blogging about it! Apparently, the fandom is better documented than I guessed: Cassie is now part of history. Anyone else?

Found on the web - Virtual Tourism

Via jwz, a very cool blog with satellite photos of interesting places in North America as found in Google Maps.

Linux - I'm such a n00b

Do you have any idea how long it takes to build the Ximianized version of OpenOffice.org on a P!!!-733? I don't either (because I can't be bothered to check the logs), but it's a long time. So how did I feel when I found out after a whole night of crunching, an error message saying emerge failed because of an IO error on a copy operation? Confused. Dismayed. Angry. And finally, curios. df -h showed I had 1MB left free on the root partition. du -hx --max-depth=1 on / and then on /root showed I've been neglecting some housekeeping business since the last time I logged in as root to recover from my tinkering. A few judicious rm -r's later, I had enough room to try again. I really have to repartition...

Personal - Up & Down

The previous post was down. This is up.

I've had a perfectly good time this past weekend. Got to talk at length with a guy I had known for two years whom I've never taken the time to really talk to before. He turned out to be the kind of fellow I can pleasantly disagree with. He's a religious nationalist, a rather rare thing in military high-tech. Talking to him made me more conscious of the needs of the observant minority in service (with whom I sympathize) and of my own beliefs (which today I can formulate at best as "I'm pro separation of morality from religion"). We've agreed to continue the conversation through the mail.

The most recent batch of IT-girls, or at least the sample I got to talk to, was really sub-par. I got a very strong feeling of channeling Prof. Snape. Extreme mediocrity, incompetence and professed complete lack of interest in the subject matter is infuriating. How am I expected to work with those? Sure hope for some responsibility from the people handling their assignments.

Last week got stressed out because of some "legacy" blunder at work. Legacy systems/code/support is a terrible thing and I fully intend to do everything in my power to modernize the things and ditch the ball and chain, ASAP (meaning "in the next three years"). Thankfully, I have my CO's complete support.

Have been working on an unusual skunkworks project. This time it's educational, and most of the work-hours went into a PowerPoint presentation (a first for me). It's highly technical and is intended to get my colleagues to think about certain technicalities I believe code monkeys should be aware of, but was astonished to find out nearly none are. I tried to make it less boring by appealing to their competitive spirit. I hope to find out this week if I succeeded. The general theme is "contemporary microprocessor and compiler technologies", and full disclosure will follow presentation at work.

Personal - Jerk

I am the absolute worst person I know at keeping in touch. I do not speak with any of the people who used to be my friends at various points in time. Good, true friends too, not just friendly acquaintances.

I cannot prioritize to save my life.

I am as empathic as a doorknob.

For someone so introverted, I sure talk way too much.

Also, according to some people, my personal hygiene needs more attention and my sexual deprivation is showing. There might be some truth in that.

Finally, I'm about to spend a very depressed (and extended) April Fools weekend alone with an Uzi.

This Blog - Style Editing

I've implemented a very basic CSS editor. If you know CSS - it works (in Gecko; should also work in IE6 but never tested. Doesn't work in KHTML). Saving is in cookies and which was last chosen is not saved so on subsequent loads the same one is chosen again as if you didn't save anything. No validation is performed - write invalid CSS, get no template. If you feel you need more hand-holding with syntax, I might be persuaded to build more UI (list of valid properties, color picker, more validation) but you have to ask. Obviously, pretty designs (copy and mail me) will get added to the site for everyone to see (and the prettiest will replace the default). Bug reports are welcome. Especially from Windows and Mac users.

Web Tech - nifty

zipdecode. link via jwz.

Web Tech - "new" technologies

Opera developer Ian Hickson says the new names for old web technologies confuse the people who build those technologies, so people should please stop making up new names for HTTP, HTML, XML, CSS and MumbleScript. I agree.

Fandom - push technology meets plugs

I got this in the mail a few days ago (to my soon to be abandoned hotmail address, which is clogged with penis enlargement ads. Consider it - M$ gives you only 2MB storage while average spam item is 136K!).

Dear Friends,

My new Harry Potter fanfic has begun to be posted at the Sugar Quill. It's called "[snip]" and you can access my author page there at the address [snip].

You are on this mailing list because you made a positive comment about one of my previous stories ([snip], [snip] or [snip]). I will remove your name from the list on request.

Best regards,

[snip]

So, is this spam payback for being a good reader and leaving a signed review? Or is this a legitimate service I should be thankful for? Personally, I like to subscribe to updates myself, and many authors use Yahoo! Groups exactly for this purpose.

This Blog - Redesign

I'm doing massive re-write of the template. The site might be broken in the interim.

People who got here Googling for "A script from … was denied UniversalBrowserRead privileges": This has to do with Gecko's (the engine for Mozilla/Firefox/Netscape/etc. browsers) security policy. Scripts on webpages are prevented from doing certain things (like violating the user's privacy) unless the user concedes first to allow them. To establish this trust, the user must be sure the script is written by the author she trusts rather than for example by disreputable clients of the author's banner-ad provider. So it was decided the script's URL is not enough to establish its credentials, and the user should be guarded from trusting scripts based solely on their location. And thus the option to trust scripts was disabled by default. The only way the browser is even going to bother the user with "Do you really want to allow this bloke from perverts.de to virtually feel you up?" is if the script is electronically signed (this way you can be reasonably sure the script is written by whoever it says its author is). But my scripts aren't signed, so when they try to do something (I swear does not violate your privacy in any way, but of course I'd say that anyway) Gecko just slaps them on the wrist without consulting you and informs you as an afterthought ("that guy was so checking out your butt!").

If you want to tell Gecko you're a grownup and would like to choose your companions yourself, type "about:config" into your address bar, there filter for "signed.applets.codebase_principal_support" and change its value to "true" by double clicking it. This tells Gecko to ask you whether you let a scripts reach into your personal space or not, every time it tries.

More details from the horse's mouth are available here.

EDIT: A later template edit removed the client-side AJAX-based feedreader. It was a pioneering work, but it caused firefox to crash too much.

Found On The Web - Teh Funnay!

Just when the show finally got better (or even "good", some say), Enterprise has been canceled. Angry Trekkers worldwide, who dissed if for years now suddenly fight to keep it alive (even funding it themselves!).
Anyway, this cartoon is just funny. "Australian cartoonist John Cook" draws Sev-Space "a parody of the sci-fi/fantasy genres including Star Trek & Lord of the Rings" (and lots more, though the HP ones are not as good). I loved this one for Alias. Notice the names.

ETA: bandwidth costs drove him to a subscription program. A pity, but inevitable when you think about it.

Personal - Fashion

Sometimes I stumble upon a fic with… character. One such mentioned t-shirts with cool slogans and a link to a real shop you can buy similar items from. I especially liked this one, but they have many more inconsiderate designs for all occasions. I can totally picture a guy from work wearing many of those.

Personal - TODO

So, there are a number of things I would've liked to do had I been less lazy. I'll list them here.

1. Design and implement a pessimistic soft locking thingy for work.
2. Redesign the blog with a side panel, redoing the bookmarks/feedreader. Add calendar, memories, more easily maintainable code.
3. Talk to a doctor about my RSI before it gets much worse. Make necessary alterations to work environment at work and at home.
4. Refactor the hell out of the HTML grid widget experiment to make it usable. It was really neat, and really ugly too…
   1. Before XForms (or whatever the replaces XHTML) makes it obsolete…
5. Profile a major MFC app at work to at least find the performance bottleneck(s). It's suspiciously slow, even on state of the art hardware. I bet it's the UI, but it could be anything (dynamic memory allocation, too much copying, not using parallelism, etc.)
6. Compile list of hackers I admire for inspiration at work (and to use as excuse for not shaving).
7. Write the self-challenging short-story plot bunny I had.
8. Design a prototype eXtensible Fanfic Description Format.
   1. with strong validation and performance oriented characteristics, but language and fandom independent.
   2. With diff's embeddable in Atom feeds.
9. Design a normalized ERD to store XFDF documents.
   1. In as much an implementation-independent way as possible, leaning to postgresql (there are good reasons, but not personal experience yet).
10. Implement two-way conversion between data represented in the two previous forms.
    1. mod_python for Apache2. I speak out of hype, not experience, here.
11. Design XSLT (or something) to represent XFDF documents on the web, search for them in a database etc.
    1. As in, a site.
12. exercize.
13. read less fic.
14. Consider writing my own fractal thingy.
    1. Probably playing with a real one will satisfy me.
15. Build the 3D project I fantasize about.
    1. Well, it's a portable OpenGL Rubik's Cube. With "scramble" and "solve" buttons, of course. Google turned up a few projects, but none of which I'm entirely happy with.

This is roughly in order of most likely to be completed first. Note: Everything is subject to change.

Fandom - demographics

A bold statement by Kokopelli. At the risk of being strung up on the next lamppost, I agree. BTW here's a link to his collaboration work with Mr. Intel - a (gasp!) H/Hr story titled "The Phoenix Reborn".

Personal - Scriptures

Today, my unit was merged (well, it was more of a hostile takeover) with another one, changing my boss'-boss'-boss'-boss' boss (I counted twice). It does not influence me even slightly, but we had to stand on parade for an hour and listen to boring speeches. I understand similar things happen in the real world, but this was with attention! and at-ease! each time the speaker changed. Urgh. Anyway, what the merger did change is the unit's name. Now instead of a cryptic acronym we have an appropriately biblical name (it all has to do with the brass' political views). It's a gemstone that appears on the high priest's breastplate. I have tried to identify it, but failed. This is what I have turned up (using links from a wikipedia article). Any suggestions? Edit: This and this reach the same conclusion: nobody knows what it was, but it was probably sparkly.

Fandom - uncommon fic for archive

I know of several weird things that happened at SQ.net, but this fic really surprises me. Expecting the usual R/H & H/G I keep getting an increasingly stronger Snape/Harry feeling from a Theowyn's work-in-progress "Harry Potter and the Enemy Within", where Harry keeps missing chances to hook up with Ginny. If this turns into actual explicit Slash, it would be a first for me. Well, actually I've followed and fangirl'd (this verb doesn't have a male counterpart, does it?) one ambiguously-gay fic in the past, but I've stopped reading it when it seemed to turn Slash.

Misc - Update

• Via someone on the AnandTech forums (I'm a much less frequent visitor there than I used to be. It feels stale, but maybe it's just me.) - ThinkGeek's April Fools products for 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. LOL
• When we've read "All My Sons" in school, I assumed the author was long gone (Usually I'm less prone than my peers to cast everything before my time to a single time period, but it happens). Then I hear about Arthur Miller's passing and it rings a bell. At least now I've read the obituary.
• I discovered gerbils are completely unknown to my parents. You must understand my parents know everything (unless it was censored by the Soviet propaganda machine or happened after I was born so they had no free time to keep up), and finding they have never heard of the little critters was strange (they are not mentioned in the Soviet encyclopedia. Why would the existence of gerbils be hushed up in the KGB?). I learned about them in primary school, because they are a very common form of wildlife in sandy Ashdod.
• A programming idiom I've never heard before, but have frequently used: RAII. I'll have to make a little informal report at work, to stir up some thinking about a standard way to handle this in our projects, since I've already seen some less-than-perfect code.
• Have been learning ANTLR for work. Found myself reading about the halting problem for fun. Eek.
• Orson Scott Card's new book "Shadow of the Giant" will be out soon. First three chapters are available on his site. w00t!
• Latest episodes of "Enterprise" are actually better. I've been watching them as 0-day bittorrent releases for a while, and I'm almost sorry it's been cancelled.

Tech History - spreadsheets

It's not-so-common knowledge these days (among my generation, at least) that the killer-application for personal computers (circa 1979) was VisiCalc - the first electronic spreadsheet. Its creator, Dan Bricklin, has a web page (he's a real pioneer blogger, in fact) on which he has a history section. It's very interesting, and it includes a reference manual and working version 1 software. Yes, actual working spreadsheet application for the IBM PC from 1981 (27K download), reportedly works out of the box on Windows. I confirm it does work on my machine (using dosemu) and I guess it should work in dosbox (if you're not on a PC-compatible).

Tech - Groupware

Via Tim Bray, Jamie Zawinski's excellent post on the topic of open source groupware.

Groupware being one of the top reasons I started screaming and shouting every time they cautiously raised the topic of commission*, I completely agree with jwz - it's just not sexy enough to succeed as open source.
Even our managers, who need their link to our Exchange** server more than oxygen, hate Outlook** and all it represents, and although all developers/designers need some collaboration software, to the point where I think it's the #1 most important CASE*** tool beyond the standard issue whiteboard, I too feel more comfortable with wiki, IM and plain email (my "employer"'s approach to VPN is a bit more drastic than Sun's though…).

Apropos software that can get a twenty-something laid:
I've been thinking about reviving the FFDB project as a "for personal use" thing and developing it informally, since I didn't get enough support in an attempt of actual case study or just requirements analysis.

* - didn't happen lately, I think I've made my point clear.
** - it's no secret we're all-Microsoft on the desktop at work.
*** - Rational and Mercury - take a hint. Actually, forget it. I don't care about shelfware anyway.

Nerds - I <3 /.

Self-ridicule is bad for self-esteem, but it is funny.

Fandom - reccs

I'll post here reccs I got while commuting to work today. I do not necessarily endorse those myself, but that's just because I haven't read them yet.

• Kate's fanart on SQ. Pretty darn good!
• Seldes Katne's In the Presence of Angels. See my review here - it's #113596 (silly SQ webdesigner didn't make anchor tags for reviews, no to mention the horrible URLs…)
• Thing1. A long running Lupin-centric series.
• Rabbit's Yet Another Snape Meets the Dursleys Story.
• FernWithy's Shifts. If (you haven't read it yet) {   read it now! (Warning: WIP) } else {   why in the devil's name haven't you told me to read it? }

I'll R/R, and update here. Also, should write down observations about living on less than four hours of sleep per day for weeks. Executive summary: don't do it.

Programming - Perl, in Latin

Those who think Perl looks like cartoon characters swearing and hate the worship at the altar of terseness that plagues the Perl hacking culture, should consider this: you can write Perl in Latin, and yes it will work, without much loss of language features or performance. That is easily the best way I've seen to write unmaintainable code to ensure continued employment. As the saying goes: Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur. I'm dying to show this to our IT staff... :-)

Fandom - Kokopelli writes more!

He posted a follow up to his excellent summer-after-5th-year story "The Letters Of Summer". I already said I prefer fic written by men, and John does it just right.

Commerce - Ripoff, take 2

Following my previous rant on the topic of hardware prices in Israel, AnandTech published a new mid-range guide so I've made another spreadsheet. Again: this does not describe a full PC, this isn't the best combination of parts (not even price/performance wise) for every task, and you should really talk with someone knowledgeable who isn't getting any of your money before buying anything. Prices include shipping (either in US or in IL, appropriately).

Hardware	Recommended Component	US Price	US price in ISL	IL price	ripoff rate
Processor	AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 512K 2.0GHz 90nm for 939 (Retail)	200	974	1300	25.08%
Motherboard	MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum (NF3 250Gb)	146	711.02	1010	29.60%
Memory	Corsair Value Select 512MB DDR PC-3200 CL2.5 x 2	120	584.4	1400	58.25%
Video Card	6600GT AGP 128MB GDDR3	210	1022.7	1100	7.03%
Hard Drive	Seagate 160GB SATA w/ NCQ	105	511.35	670	23.68%
	exchange rate:	4.87

Finding an AGP video card in Israel is near impossible, and the prices for RAM are really excessive. Also, vendors don't really publish (or know themselves, I kid you not) the correct full specs (or at least the correct SKU) for products, so it's anyone's guess e.g. whether that DIMM is CAS-2.5 or CAS-3. Zap still has problems following the hardware industry, or it seems like their analyst is really lazy - their list or models and features is always out of date, and they don't sort out parts into models all that well (meaning they let vendors lie). This time, the ripoff-rate is the markup for living here, instead of the proportion of local prices to US prices. Oh, and I have to say I'm impressed with the Mac Mini. Not enough to buy one, but still - If it had a G5, a gig of RAM, a 7200rpm hard drive and 6-channel audio (for double the price, let's say) - I'd be all over it.

Leisure Time - Fantasy

I'm a technical person, more specifically a computer geek. I'm good at it, and when I'm not depressed I like it a lot. I used to be hard sci-fi fan. For me, "hard sci-fi" is when the author makes efforts to explain faster-than-light travel, communications, weaponry etc. rather than just assume it all works the way to readership expects it to work and then carry on with the plot. In an imperfect world, the quality of an average product behaves by the rules of zero-sum economy: when you raise the mark on one parameter inevitably you lower it on another, e.g. in a tech-centric book the character development, dialogue and even plot will suffer. I didn't mind. And then I'd read Dune, and Hyperion, and Bujold's saga. So then I figured out, if I can not just stomach but enjoy a romance novel (I mean A Civil Campaign, and I'm sorry if I hurt anyone) - it doesn't matter if it's sci-fi. So now I'm half way through Dragons Of Winter Night. I'm not terribly impressed, but I'll save my review for when I'm done at least with the first trilogy (won't be too long I think). I now have two requests from my own (rather limited) readership:

• Do any of you know of a decent official or fan artwork of Tika Waylan? (say it with me: duh)
• What can you tell me (from personal experience, mind!) about not computerized RPGs, D&D style?

I'd really like to get some feedback. If anyone feels I'm neglecting to read & review on one's blog - it's true I've been slacking, but I do read, even if I don't comment.

Personal - regrets

Some people decide to live their lives with no regrets, sometimes because they believe "everything happens for a reason". I am not one of those people. I'm reading Paul Graham's latest essay, "What You'll Wish You'd Known", meant to be given as a speech to high school grads. My eyes are watery and I'm hitting the chair's armrest. The tragic thing is, even if it had been published six years ago and I was given it to read, I'm afraid it wouldn't have made any difference, because I'm not sure I was ready to "get it" then.

TV - Star Dreck

Enterprise-3x15-Harbinger. So, they finally undressed T'Pol. Ick.

Personal - observations

Maybe because I'm a geek, maybe because I'm an INTJ, or because I'm socially inept and thus a perpetual outsider, but I often find myself taking an anthropologist's stance with regard to my peers. It's elitist and lonely and kind of sad, but it's the way it is. Anyway, it's a well known fact that females travel in packs to the bathroom. Numerous explanations for this behavior have been suggested over the years, including but not limited to security and opportunity to gossip. Personally I believe the real reason is a combination of a number of them (you're invited to share your $.02). What I have noticed is something else peculiar about girls and the girls' rooms - they believe, on an unconscious level, that the grith they enjoy in restrooms and bathrooms applies to sound waves, as if the door is a portal to another dimension where only females exist, and no physical phenomena travel between the two worlds by means other than the door. I don't know how universal that is, but at work male and female bathrooms and restrooms often share the wet wall, and although the doors may be in opposite sides and far apart, the facilities themselves are in fact very close together, allowing for excellent sound transmission. Men are aware of this, but they don't treat bathrooms as absolutely private – either because it's an unwritten rule of men or maybe because the residual hunter instincts (part of the reason for stalking and voyeurism) caution them. So for the last two years I've unwittingly heard girls I don't know talk about their boyfriends, periods and all kinds of private things. During my last weekend on base I've also endured a horrible rendition of No Doubt's “Don't Speak” in the showers, which led to this post. Now, am I the only one to notice this?

Politics - Economic Freedom etc.

I'll have to think long and hard to formulate and express my beliefs on copyright, intellectual property, business, society and freedom but I'm too lazy to actually do it well and because I'm a perfectionist I won't publish anything that's not done "well" (a pretty high standard to live up to, since the net allows me to compare my work with the best and not just the neighborhood), like for example the three themes(1,2,3) of Tim Bray's OnGoing. So the same way I can't write the perfect fic myself but keep looking for it on archive sites, I can't express my beliefs but I can provide links. As you might know, I use Gentoo and Firefox (exclusively, at last!), and my blog is CC licensed (because I believe in the cluetrain and unprofessional journalism). I've reread Frederik Pohl's "The Space Merchants" and "The Merchants' War" twice, and each time was horrified to find it much closer to reality than fiction than I think it was when written (or maybe I'm just romanticizing). I don't particularly like RMS' very strong style and generally seem to prefer ESR's philosophy as more practical (as in my ability to make a living off the thing I love) but he has been proven right a few too many times, and The Right to Read has touched me. I deeply despise "lock-in" as a business strategy (a free iPod anyone?). Microsoft's and Big Media's attempts in recent years to become Big Brother unsurprisingly lead to P2P pirates becoming "cool" and denying the RIAA and MPAA their money seem almost noble. An ex-pirate myself, today I break copyright law only to watch already-aired episodes of TV series, but I sure do understand the motivation for resisting DRM and other things that make you not the boss of stuff you paid your hard earned money for. Various repeated anti-competitive behavior and aggressive FUD marketing campaigns as well as the revival of McCarthyism only strengthen people's willingness to support Google's "Don't Be Evil".