Personal - Today

I've met Asaf and Shiran (the prodigies) whom I haven't seen for more than two years. I think they did not recognize me at first (our school days must feel like a previous life to them). They looked happy to be suffering the way they do.

Personal - A year ago

I have finished my advanced training and began OJT at my unit's base. Since then, I'm not the youngest anymore, though I still have a lot to learn. Yesterday, two girls from my class at school were discharged after doing their two years. It was also the anniversary of my future (planned) discharge, four years from now. I was a bit sad thinking about it (though not as sad as I suppose I'll be when the day I should've been discharged comes and goes and I'll still be in uniform, poor as a Weasley). I have willingly signed the contract and don't regret it for a moment, but this kind of angst is customary to people in my profession, so I indulge myself from time to time. In the following year I'll become more senior than most of the people I'll meet outside of the office, though I suspect nothing will really change. On a happier note, I've been spotting flashier smallarms on people in public transport during my daily commutes. Why should I care? Because when the cool guys upgrade I might get to use their cast offs. I might get a CAR-15 when I'm NCO! I hear you saying "boys" and I smile.

Personal - Update

• Have not done much progress on the web thingy.
• Have been working long hours on a special rather difficult project, trying to solve it cheaply using the "wrong" tools. It is not doing too well. Have had some help from one of our reserves - a very nice female data warehousing/mining specialist. Have concluded I prefer working with females, provided they tolerate me geeking out once in a while (read: all the time). And it has absolutely nothing to do with the effect water has on white cotton.
• Kokopelli has updated The Letters of Summer - Squee! *fanboys John*
• Have downloaded some Joe Dassin. I conclude I only like music that's older than I am.
• Reading referrer logs makes me laugh.
• Blogger's new WYSIWYG editor is nice (especially the HTML source editing!), I only wish it'd have worked in my firefox. :-(

Current Affairs - Iraq war intel. screwup report

Tim Bray has some strong words to day about politics and journalism. What an age we live in, that a government not only has to explain its actions to the public, but can't even doctor the documentation to look good afterwards. <Soviet> These peacenik attitudes will bring the extinction of western civilization, to be obsoleted by societies that allow their governments to lead the people in the struggle for dominance. The collapse of the eastern block does not mean all is well in the world, despite how appealing that idea is. But, since it appears people are disinclined to listen, I suggest you start practicing your Chinese. </Soviet>

Pop Culture - Eurovision 2004

I know I'm late, but I've just downloaded and watched the video for the "song" that won the Eurovision 2004 contest, after hearing the performer was from Ukraine. What was that bloody Hip-Hop doing on Eurovision? Who let that slut on stage?! How did she win??? I'm not angry anymore. Just sad.

Web Tech/Personal - UI

A lot has been written on the topic of developing web applications, some of it by A-list bloggers. I do not wish to rehash this beaten topic. But I have to vent. You see (or rather, you don’t see, because it’s not ready yet¹), I’m building a grid widget to display fic data. I want it to have some pretty nifty features. I also want it to work for as many users as possible, while degrading gracefully for people stuck with less sophisticated UAs (*coughoperacough*). And I also want to finish it before the next Harry Potter book comes out. If I were developing for the corporate WAN, I could’ve made assumptions that would’ve completely eliminated the need to do any work. I could’ve declared right from the start, that, for example²: the user has Windows 2000 with Explorer 5.5 or 6 on a brand-name PC bought in the last 48 months. The user has typical-to-LAN bandwidth to the server. The user has Microsoft Office installed. The user does not have any disabilities that would prevent him or her from normally using a browser, to the full extent of the audiovisual experience I choose to provide. The user will click “yes” if asked about trusting my domain to install third party software. The user is of legal age and literate. All kinds of stuff. Then, I would’ve loaded the data into an XML Data Island, opened Excel as an ActiveX control, told it to load the data into a spreadsheet, color it according to some rules and — voila! — instant data accessibility, do with it whatever your heart desires (e.g. pivot it and look for average word count per month per author grouped by preferred ship that would mean the slashers are more prolific than the canon thumpers — but of course finding supporting evidence for predetermined conclusions is a bit of bad science...). But I'm not, and I can’t. Because unlike on the nice clean corporate WAN, the people on the big scary internet have Camino on OS X on a G5, Netscape 3 on VMS/HPUX/SunOS/Tru64/AIX/IRIX/BSD/Win3.1, and Lynx/Links/W3M on an X-less Linux-based NAT firewall/router (with a 9” monitor, stuck in a utility closet). They speak many different languages, some are eight-year-olds, some are blind, and not many would install third-party untrusted software just to browse fanfic, or already conveniently have MS Office installed. So what can I do? Either give the user non-rich, static content, or reinvent the wheel. As you realize, I chose the later, because otherwise I wouldn’t be ranting about it. If I didn’t love doing this, I know I would've hated it. P.S. Every time I try to write more than one sentence, I realize how hard it is to write conformant documents in English. I mean, of course writing well is hard, as it’s an art that takes skill and talent, but just writing something that’s grammatically correct… Let’s just say I’m glad computer languages have much simpler rules. People, treasure your betas! 1 - Please leave a comment if you want a preview, wish to offer help beta testing it or wish to be included in random hallway usability tests. 2 - The described environment does not neccessarily represent the conditions at my workplace.

Personal - I'm alive

If anyone cares. I've been working on UI. I'll show you when it's done so you can tell me how eggheaded it is.

Tech - Rich vs. Web client

Software development and management guru Joel Spolsky has just expressed (wonderfully, as usual), everything I've been talking about in recent months to anyone who'd stand still long enough. I feel vindicated. Firefox, HTML, .NET as crap. I didn't even know WinForms wasn't compatible with Avalon, but that just made it obvious. Web Applications are not jus the future - they are the current best answer.

Commentary - Stating the obvious

Mark Pilgrim has read a dumb book and wonders whether people are really that stupid. Well, here's a newsflash: since he's smarter than average, he's bound to find stuff aimed at people on the opposite side of the IQ spectrum more than a little dull. We all know that, because we're all smarter than average. Depending on how often I venture outside my usual techy-highbrow circles, I often find myself momentarily shocked at how some of these people can successfully function in society. The important thing to remember is: the future of our genome is up to us.

HP Fandom - PoA movie

I've seen it. 1. I still don't like how Ron is constantly shown as a coward and inferior to Harry in every way. The way he's always in the infirmary while Harry is off groping Hermione in the woods - he might just become a Death Eater. Though she does touch his hand and cry on his shoulder... 2. I don't remember any of that H/H in the book. But I have to admit - jailbait!Emma is quite fetching. Also, all this "only the smartest witch of her time can be a match to wonderful super hero Harry, who is the most powerful wizard of his time" makes some twisted kind of sense. 3. Sirius/Remus is now canon. 4. I don't like this Dumbledore. Or the old one, for that matter. 5. The time theme is interesting, I don't know if it has a special meaning. 6. I don't mind most of what they've changed, but every time I noticed it hurt a little. 7. It is much too difficult to understand without prior knowledge of the book. The people who were with me in the audience didn't get it. 8. Is Sirius' speech about the people we love never leaving us, even when they die, a kind of forshadowing? 9. I need to watch it two or three more times. But I'll wait to see it at home. 10. It was so condensed. How can they fit the fourth or fifth book in a movie???

Personal - Life Assessment Quiz

via Mark Pilgrim. Since Blogger doesn't yet feature military grade security I'll just let you guess how bad it is.

This Blog - XFN friendly

XFN is semantic markup for social relations on XHTML. Or something like that. Anyway, my bookmarks (on the left) now use it. Since those links are dynamically created in the client, you can't spider this page for that data, but at least now my friends can get a special CSS rule. :-)

Cool - Movie: Revenge Of The Nerds

I laughed out loud at some of the scenes and lines while watching this flick. It's a classic, and I can't believe I've never seen it before. Some of the things I've actually heard/seen IRL.

What I don't understand is why it had to be pro-drugs, voyeurism, infidelity and premarital sex (though I honestly don't mind the later half as much as the first three). Also, it was too short, too cliché (for nowadays at least) and too predictable. The characters were underdeveloped "Made in China" cardboard cuts and the plot was too far fetched (not to sound trite, but "fiction, unlike real life, has to make sense").

To sum it up: Some of the lines are part of public consciousness, but don't feel compelled to waste 90 minutes of your life, unless you're a nerd and have nothing better to do.

Thanks for minding my well rounded education, Lou, but it didn’t make me feel better. :-(

Web Tech - Training IE

Dean Edwards is God. IE7 is the only way I can imagine ever using IE again. It is evil because it makes an excuse for not switching, but it is a still bloody brilliant piece of work. I’ve seen and mentioned (and even used) his work before, but this latest update is just “wow”. If I ever figure out how to use it on blogspot, this blog will be re-designed. And of course, the FFDB interface will heavily depend on it.

HP Fandom/Web Tech - PhoenixSong.net redesign

I'm a markup Nazi, I say that upfront. I obsessively view source. I abhor Office-html. Mismatched angle brackets make me cringe. I know users don't care. Because of Tag Soup and Explorer's lenity, all user agents render, more or less in the best way possible almost any content, even the foulest things mangled by not too smart regular _expressions (100 points to the house of the first person who spots the reference).

But looking at this new design, I want to cry. What is that panel on the right? Why must I increase the font size to be able to read John's excellent fic? Why can't I increase the font size in the most popular browser on the web (considering the probable number of geeky Mozilla or Opera users in fandom, close to 99.9% of readers are M$IE users)?

Edit: Ooh, "for print" version. Now I'm satisfied. :-)

HP fandom - new (Book 5) ships

I mean the ones that include the new characters from the Order (Any Prof. Toad ships out there?). Especially FifteenYO!Harry/Tonks. It's illegal, and immoral, but it works. It will never happen in canon, but I think it's IC, or at least can be made IC, in ways that H/H for example can't. Am I hallucinating? Edit: I'm not alone. The HMS Honks (for Harry/Tonks) has a LiveJournal community.

HP fandom/Web Tech - Unscheduled Chackmated downtime

What you get at Checkmated's Updates page: Error in query: SELECT DISTINCT storyid FROM stories WHERE updated > 1085739099 AND updated %lt; 1085825499 ORDER BY updated DESC. Can't open file: 'stories.MYI'. (errno: 145) I hope their mySQL database is just locked, and not trashed completely. And that they have backups. *cross fingers* Edit: contacted the person on their staff listed as web admin. Email addy wasn't as easy to find as should be for mission critical service personnel. Hell, our people carry a beeper on weekends... Final Edit: It was fixed. No indication on the site that anything was ever amiss. Never got a reply.

HP fandom - reccs

IIRC, I've read the first two chapters on GT.net, but have since completely forgotten about this fic. Had the FFDB existed already, I would've found it as something Kokopelli beta'd, but alas - no such luck. Anyway, Aibhinn's "Heal the Pain" ROX. Too bad the site itself is as bad as GT.net was; I hoped the next generation of H/G Queens would strive for more.

Cool - Quieter computer fans

A BYU professor (hear that, Emily?) and his students have built a moderatly successful active noise reduction system for computer fans. Link via /..

HP fandom - young heroes in love

This is an opportune moment to again mention my fixation with the possibility of a Harry Potter/Dune crossover. The scene just outside the hospital ward where Harry recuperates after the final battle in R.J. Anderson's “Endings and Beginnings” had immediately sprang the following paragraphs of Dune to my mind (though it has taken me quite a while to find the passage in the text):

Paul remembered he had rushed out to find Chani standing beneath the yellow globes of the corridor, clad in a brilliant blue wraparound robe with hood thrown back, a flush of exertion on her elfin features. She had been sheathing her crysknife. A huddled group had been hurrying away down the corridor with a burden.

And Paul remembered telling himself: You always know when they’re carrying a body.

Chani’s water rings, worn openly in sietch on a cord around her neck, tinkled as she turned toward him.

‘Chani, what is this?’ he asked.

‘I dispatched one who came to challenge you in single combat, Usul.’

‘You killed him?’

‘Yes. But perhaps I should've left him for Harah.’

(And Paul recalled how the faces of the people around them had showed appreciation for these words. Even Harah had laughed.)

‘But he came to challenge me!’

‘You trained me yourself in the weirding way, Usul.’

‘Certainly! But you shouldn't –’

‘I was born in the desert, Usul. I know how to use a crysknife.’

He suppressed his anger, tried to talk reasonably. ‘This may all be true, Chani, but –’

‘I am no longer a child hunting scorpions in the sietch by the light of a handglobe, Usul. I do not play games.’

Paul glared at her, caught by the odd ferocity beneath her casual attitude.

‘He was not worthy, Usul,’ Chani said. ‘I’d not disturb your meditations with the likes of him.’ She moved closer, looking at him out of the corners of her eyes, dropping her voice so that only he might hear. ‘And, beloved, when it’s learned that a challenger may face me and be brought to shameful death by Muad’Dib’s woman, there’ll be fewer challengers.’

Frank Herbert's Dune, ISBN 0-450-01184-4, p. 439-440