A little blog for a restless mind

Making Tea, Office Style

2011-12-25T15:19:00.004+01:00

I've been kind of hyper-busy the past 80 weeks or so, so I needed something to zap my brain to be able to handle mounting work. A good black tea would do the job, and the best tea always comes directly from the source. So I waited for Dav to send me some...

The package with the tea arrived in a week. Not too shabby. Look at all the stamps. Dav really made the effort to deliver the tea ASAP.

I unpacked it right away. Nice tea. I love it already. Let's make some tea!

You'll need a tea cup. Don't mind the dogs. They're there to keep watch on me. If I stray away from my work, they give me some tea to bring me back in line. Kind of like those big wooly alpine rescue dogs with a small barrel of schnapps attached. But schnapps works only on lost mountain climbers, I require tea.

And a tea strainer that we'll use as a tea infuser.

And some milk. You cannot have a proper black tea without some milk.

And the tea, of course. This package opens at the side pictured.

Opening the outer cardboard reveals the inner bag. Nice packaging.

You have to unwrap the bag.

There's some fine Broken Orange Pekoe inside.

Fill the tea cup with water, but not exactly to the brim, leave some space for the milk that we'll add later. Basically, just drown the dog's feet in the water, but not the whole dog. Now put the cup with water in a microwave and engage it at the highest setting for about 2 minutes. It should make the water boil. Black tea is brewed at a higher temperature than green tea.

In the mean time sip some tea in the strainer. Not much, make it two teaspoons for some quite strong zapping tea.

Here, a closeup. I'm not sure whether this is two teaspoons, perhaps a little less. Two teaspoons is really a lot for one tea cup. But then again, I don't know what size tea spoons you have.

Start brewing the tea by putting the tea strainer with tea into the tea cup.

Here is a close-up. Leave it like this for 3 minutes, not a minute more.

And then pull the strainer, that we used as an infuser, from the tea cup.

Now we have the pure freshly brewed tea. But that's not ready for consumption yet!

Pour the milk into the tea cup, just enough so you drown the whole dog.

And the tea is done.

Don't forget to send a Thank You note to Dav, so you get more tea from him.

Visiting Puppies

2010-02-10T08:35:00.002+01:00

Me and my girlfriend went for a visit this past weekend to see puppies at my mom's place. We took the train, so first a few pictures of landscapes. I'd have published more of them, but the train was fast and as a result most of the pictures are blurry.

A small house on a hill.

A creek in the middle.

A fancy house on a hillside.

A curvy road through the land.

Going over a snowy road.

Now that we finally arrived, a wondering cat met us.

Also, a few ducks were in attention.

We found the puppies! Scrupulous beasts at eating their lunch.

And their mother beast watching over them.

Uh-oh, a puppy heard me.

Now he's sad.

He's asking me to apologize. OK. I'm sorry. It was the devil speaking through me!

The puppies were satisfied with my apology and went on with the feast, and the big Nero playfully joined them.

Ducks weren't impressed.

A closer look revealed they were completely untouched by any of it.

Coming inside I found a dead cat.

It shook its head. Oh, no! It's a zombie cat!

A Parked Cloud

2009-09-01T08:40:00.004+02:00

A cloud must have felt heavy this morning, so it decided to park itself in front of my balcony.

Summer Panting

2009-07-21T15:34:00.002+02:00

Whoa, passed three exams already this year! Just got the result of the latest exam. Okay, I officially passed two exams, but because one double-semester subject got divided into two one-semester subjects per the new programme, I had to take two exams for that subject. Yay for me! Two more exams remaining... And a diploma. I hope to pass both remaining exams this year or at least till February, and then start working on a diploma. And then this big chunk of my disgrace will have finally fallen off of me. C'mon, studying for 15+ years isn't exactly what I had in mind when I enrolled.
I had to invest my summer vacation time and a chunk of overtime work into having a month off to study, and I think I can muster at most 3 more weeks off this year. I hope it'll suffice at least for one more exam this year. But then again, I must not stop now... Full speed ahead!

Seasopause

2009-06-25T21:11:00.002+02:00

The latest weather extremes are just that - extreme. One day 33°C, the next day 13°C. Hot burning sun to cold rain. Up'n'down'n'up'n'down. I even caught a cold. I don't know what to wear anymore! Oh, and I saw this guy a couple of days ago, who was wearing a winter coat! Considering that I was freezing at the time, it wasn't a bad idea. Only, it's officially summer! It used to be quite hot at this time of year. But now, a week of rain, with floods in some places. Oh c'mon! It's just like... seasons stopped! Were put on hold! Pause! And now we're having hot and cold flashes. Wait. Oh no! The weather is having a seasopause!

I'll Be Back!

2009-05-20T13:55:00.003+02:00

Whoa, I almost forgot I had a blog. The usual busy excuse applies. Hey, did you know that now I can handle Java, JBoss, HTML, SVG, CSS, JavaScript, C, Delphi, Python, XUL, SQL, XML, Debian, XPCOM, COM and Bob knows what else...? (Well, I just don't want to enter even more links.)
Have you ever tried to implement a simple videoconference-like thingy using Firefox/XULRunner, VLC plugin and a webcam? Well, I have, and it's a biggy. I'm down to researching how to decrease latencies... 2 second roundtrip is not something we can call interactive, and noone believes me it's because electrons are exhausted and slow so we should try to change electrical company to get electricity of a different, more lively, aroma.
While at the subject of webcams, did you know that Theora is going the way of the Dodo, to be replaced by Thusnelda (no, not that Roman woman)? The latest project update shows it to be quite promising, rivaling the famous H.264.
And now, back to my meager existence, which I'm trying to improve by finishing my degree. 4 exams to go, 2 of which I plan to take this June. And I have until the next June to complete my degree, after that the course I enrolled in becomes... expired. Like milk, sour, and after a while, yoghurt. No, wait, that's what I'll become if I don't finish it.

Not Time Travel - Time Inflation!

2008-02-10T18:24:00.000+01:00

People think that just by inventing time travel, all their problems would be solved. Yea, right. For every solved problem they'd just make two more problems. I thought time travel would be an amazing ability to have, too. But then I thought about the reasons for wanting time travel. And they all mainly reduced to: having more time! You know, work for 10 hours at the office, then zap back in time and have a nice cocktail at a beach, and perhaps a vodka-martini later while playing pool, all at the same time I worked at the office. Maybe zap back the third time just to update myself at the office of new thoughts I had while having a smashing time. And zap back in time once more to play tennis with a friend, since we both experienced a fantastic weather during the day, and, well, you never know what the weather will be like tomorrow, so why not having will-had played tennis the past day? See? Only new problems. We'd even have to invent a new tense or two.
Instead of time travel I propose something different, something that would have the same effect of being able to do much more in a day: time inflation. That's right: simply inflate the time. Hey, if it's possible with money, then time should be no different. Time is money, right? We should just apply the same economical mechanisms to time, raise the inflation, I don't know, to 10%? That should increase the time's interest rates and result in a general time saving instead of time spending. And after you've saved enough of time, you could afford yourself a nice cocktail at a nice beach party. Splendid idea, isn't it? Only, it's not new. I invented hot water, again.
Another approach would be to invent a device that would change the physical space-time continuum in such a way that time would become inflated. In essence a second would feel a lot longer, although all measurements would tell otherwise. Having an eight-minute instead of an eight-hour workday, because you could do all the usual work in eight minutes instead of eight hours. Well, yes, but dealing with time in an economical sense is stupifyingly easier. But hey - if you have an idea on how to change physical properties of the universe, I'm your man!

Life is Work, But What is Leisure Then?

2008-02-03T20:44:00.000+01:00

Wow, It's been more than half a year since I posted my last entry to the blog. I probably don't have any readers anymore. I'll write more frequently from now on, honest! (But I'm careful enough to not make it a promise.)
A lot has happened. I passed an exam in September, yaaay! 6 more to go. I have time till October 2009 to graduate, after that I'd have to ask for a study programme conversion. I'm in the first generation that studied by the new computer ingeneering programme, but you see, it's not new anymore, it's old, this year the last generation has finished classes in the final, ninth, semester. If I'll have any luck, I won't only be among the first to enroll this study programme, I'll also be one of the last to finish it. Some luck, ha. And I'm so tired of even thinking about studying for exams. I'm suffering from a chronic lack of study motivation. I'll have to start fighting it again real soon - first next exam is on February 18th, and the next one is on March 28th. If I hadn't have a job - piece a cake. But now - I'll have to find a sleep suppressant.
The company I work in bought me a laptop. My first laptop, yay! A neat Dell Latitude D830. A big 1920x1200 screen, but shitty nonetheless. I guess I can't expect PVA or MVA panels in laptops, IPS panels being a mere dream. Damn TN panels should be prohibited for anything but gaming. I have an old nice big 1600x1200 LCD monitor with an S-IPS panel at home (a Dell 2001FP) that has wonderful colours and an excellent viewing angle. If I put the laptop next to it, it's like comparing a cheap indian car to a BMW. So I'm considering to buy a new monitor, a 24" one that has something else than a TN panel, to connect it to the laptop when at home. I'm waiting for the Dell 2408WFP to come out and be tested by someone, and then I'll decide. Perhaps I'll buy an LG L245WP. And I'm seriously entertaining the idea of ordering it from abroad - within EU of course. The prices of monitors in Slovenia are strangely quite a bit above the European average. So much so that if I order the latter monitor from UK, shipping included, I'll save from 100 to 150 Euro, depending on to which Slovenian shop you compare it to. But perhaps I won't buy a monitor at all, I haven't yet firmly decided on this.
The government is suffering from a nasty case of diarrhea - I don't think I've ever seen so much dreck. The shit hit the fan a long time ago, only some people are not aware of this yet. Well, after another increase in prices of food that is being forecast by all major store chains for this and next month, I think everyone will be aware of it. Coupled with what will result from the last catastrophy, when syndicates and employers had a "difference of interpretation" of the result of negotiations between syndicates and employers (effectively destroying all the efforst up to now, making everyone furius), I think the dreck will start stinking real strong real fast.
Ah, I got an internet connection, at last. 10 days before the new year. 20/20 FTTH. Heaven. Signed up for 12 months, got first 4 months for free. Only I got the first bill already in January. Heck, this wasn't the deal, so I went and complained. I filled out a complaint form and was promised a response within 15 days. I got a response after almost two weeks alright, and it said they were notifying me that the resolution of the complaint will take significantly longer. Sheesh, in the contract it clearly states I have the first four months for free, what's so difficult to resolve? Then I got a debit note from a Slovenian online computer store from where I ordered a few fans for my computer the last year. And for an order I never ordered. It made me furius, quite mad in fact, and if their phones weren't busy for a whole hour before I gave up, I'd have screamed and insulted like there's no tomorrow. You see, the note also said I should either pay or fax them the certificate of payment. But since I paid to the postman upon receiving the package I don't have any receipt - if I hadn't paid I wouldn't get the package in the first place. After I sent them a diplomatically composed e-mail (I calmed down by then), they apologised and said they'll put it up with the post office instead. Gee, I got a note from the post office this Friday I should call them tomorrow because of a package. It seems this will be a year of errors. And I'll be the focal point.
Anyway, enough for now. It took me more than an hour to type all of this. The next time I probably won't have that much time. Assuming I'll post before than after half a year.

Hard Drive Woes

2007-06-11T19:40:00.000+02:00

And this past weekend one of my hard drives went berserk. At first I didn't know what was wrong as I just upgraded Ubuntu. The linux kernel was also upgraded, and after reboot it halted at disk identification. For some reason the 80G Western Digital disk caused problems. Some DMA timeouts and it all seemingly locked up. Well, only seemingly, as I found out later, the kernel needs about 3 minutes to give up on it. I found this unacceptable, so I disconnected the disk and rebooted. And now I had a ghost disk in the same place, albeit 300G Seagate, giving me the same error. It just somehow duplicated there. Okay, I switched off the onboard controller in the BIOS on which the now disconnected disk was hooked on. The same error yet again. Only, now I also had a ghost controller. G'damn, I go boot Knoppix, and everything is well. Hm! I go boot the previous Ubuntu kernel, and everything is well. Bloody hell, they messed up something, again. Last year they did it with XFree -- I couldn't work for a day in graphics mode. This time they did it with kernel. Only now there's no forum overflowing with spits over Ubuntu; it seems only I'm affected. Well, I really don't have the time for this. They patched something around IRQs, and I bet this is where my errors come from.
And the story continues... I mounted the disk into another computer and ran a SMART long selftest, just for the heck of it. The disk went working and after 10 minutes it switched itself off and went playing with the busy light. Oh I really wanted to just throw it out the balcony. My divine W800JB Western Digital disk, with 8MB cache and what not, from 2002. Bloody hell. I switched off and on the machine 5 times and the disk finally seemed to work. I wanted to check the SMART selftest log and the disk again spun down (as in switched off) and started the lightshow. 5 another power cycles and there it is, seemingly working. I wondered if this need for power cycling 5 times was arising out of the fact that I may have interrupted the SMART selftest, because according to standards drives should resume with selftest if interrupted. So I issued the SMART command for cancelling the selftest. Again the drive spun down, only now there was no lightshow, now the busy light was on constantly. And no 5, 10 or 20 power cycles helped, so I turned the computer off and went for some denervousiation.
And this morning, well, I couldn't help it but turn the computer on and see what's with the disk. Wow, it seemingly worked. Oh, no more SMART shit! I checked the filesystem, it passed. It's readable. So I turned it off and went to work. I'll turn it on again when I'll have a new disk onto which to copy the contents of the old one. And then I'll boot it out the window.

...zzzZZZzzz...

2007-05-28T11:30:00.000+02:00

Well, enough of winter hibernation.
Okay, so I was busy. I'm sorry. But work is really only increasing. I kept saying to myself, "Ugh, I'm too tired, I'll post something the next day. Or the next week. Hm. Month?"
All this thing about not having enough time made me suspect something big yet misteriously intangible, undescribable or unthinkable, could be happening. It's like a time compression, or as Art Bell stated, a quickening.
Then I came upon Terence McKenna who was, in my view, a genious. Among other things, he devised the Novelty Theory based on ancient Chinese I-Ching. The Time Wave, which is the essence of the Novelty Theory, shows that the novelty has a tendency to increase with time. In other words, novelty is taking over the world. This time wave is also fractal in nature, which means chaotic and self-similar.
As far as I can tell, according to this time wave, the pattern of novelty is repeating (self-similarity) over time, with every next occurence taking much less time and thus having more novelty. It's like focusing on a certain spot on a border of the Mandelbrot Bug and looking at it through a greater and greater magnification. The rate of this, should I say, novelty compression looks like it is exponential. Thus the feeling of time compression - a feeling there is more and more things occuring in a unit of time as time goes forward.
What bugs me is that according to the novelty theory the time wave ends on 21st of December 2012. The same date as the Mayan calendar ends. And the first wasn't based on the second, so it's rather a curious coincidence.

Non-homogenized Milk at last

2006-11-08T15:35:00.000+01:00

I stopped drinking milk right after I read about effects of homogenization about 6 years ago. A bit late, since by then a lot of damage could have been done already, but at least I'm certain I first encountered homogenized milk somewhere in nineties so it shouldn't be that big damage. Technological inferiority, by many theories a result of the communist past, had the effect that homogenization came very late to our country. Something good, who would have thought.
And a few days ago, I accidently stumbled upon a non-homogenized milk! It said so right on the label, as if the producer was proud of it. A bold move, considering that among the general populace homogenization still seems to be something that adds quality to milk. And here it is.

Busy as a Bee

2006-10-31T08:01:00.000+01:00

Hey, I've got this thing, a blog! Right on! Quite a hit of the last couple of years in Slovenia, this blogging. Except with the politicians. If you were to say to one of them: "Hey, minister of Moneymaking and Citizens Abuse, I have a blog!" I'm quite sure the response would be: "Oh, I'm so sorry... Why don't you go to a hospital?"
Yes, this government is going from bad to worse with each hour, not just each day. A week ago the new law about media taxation became effective. Every CD, DVD, hard disk, floppy, RAM of any kind, device working with the before mentioned type of media is taxed as follows: 8 SIT for every first gigabyte but not more than 4000 SIT per media or device. That's 0.0333973449 Euro for every first gigabyte per media but not more than 16.69867245 Euro. So I don't get stack of 25 Verbatim DVD+R for 2500 SIT anymore, now I get them for 3500 SIT. 1000 SIT goes to the Association of Scrupolous Artists. Which makes me a pirate by definition. Even if I only buy a camera to take some nice photos of the landscape in autumn. You see, that was the excuse for the law: a big, overwhelmingly huge, super-duper piracy which makes artists poor. I won't even go into details and explain every aspect of wrongness and lack of any rightness, as there's already plenty of that all over the web and no government cares about it. The only other European country I know that has a similar law is Spain; they got it somewhere in the first half of this year. And today I hear the European Union Commission published an opinion stating governments should not adopt general taxes on media and should instead solve the royalty payment in some other way. I guess there is still some hope.
I ask myself when are they going to tax paper? I mean, there's a lot of photocopying of books, Xerox machines all over the place. Aren't the bloody artists going to ask for some money from each piece of paper sold? And don't forget to tax newspapers and publications in general! I can still scribble something on it, thus copying a piece of a book...
And now I should apologise for not contributing to my blog for so long. The usual excuse applies: no time. I took a couple of credits for 30 years as banks in Slovenia still don't offer mortgages and bought a small flat. I still don't have a broadband connection because the telco is screwing me like I'm a miss of the world bimbo with a liver where brains should be, and the cable is too expensive for my current financial state. I still work a lot, perhaps a bit more than before, because I don't meddle with blogs anymore. I should probably be renamed to Guru Workalot.
I decided to build my own custom book shelves. I'd design them, take the dimensions for boards to a local hobby shop and wait for them to be delivered. The assembly shouldn't be difficult. And then I'd have perfect-fit shelves. Chipboard should be the cheapest, but I hear it causes cancer, so I probably shouldn't choose that material for shelves. Anyway, it's been a month since I decided this and I still haven't even designed them. Well, at least I decided on the design tool: QCad.

President's Spirituality

2006-05-28T16:05:00.000+02:00

The president of Slovenia Janez Drnovšek published a book this Friday, Thoughts on Life and Awareness. Yesterday in a shopping mall I had the occasion to briefly list through the book. It's a book with not much contents, although it may seem otherwise. That's because it's printed on a thick paper (and a low-quality paper at that, like those daily newspapers), there's a thick margin on pages, and a big font with large letterspacing was used. I'm saying all that because it costs astounding 4990 SIT (20.79 EUR). For that money you get thoughts of 64 days, on average 2 pages a day. From my brief listing through the book I'd say that's about 10 sentences a day at most.
As I mentioned, the president writes about his thoughts of the day. The focus is on life's philosophy and spirituality. A fews sentences I sampled were like rewritten rants to fit into the class of spirituality with a philosophical remark here and there. His recent discovery and fondness of buddhism is not something you can easilly miss here, either. Though some thoughts are a bit naive at times in this regard.
I should also mention that 100 SIT (less than half of Euro) out of every sold book is donated to some hospital for children, I forgot the exact name. That in itself could be considered a noble deed, but if you think about it it's only 2% of the price. Considering this it suddenly doesn't sound as noble anymore, more as an advertising for uneducated and gullible people, which this book seems to be targetting and of which there seems to be no shortage in sight in this country.
All in all I think the book has very good chances to be a hit and that the president has good chances to earn good money out of it. It is targetting the largest segment of the population, it is easy and short to read, the facts are mostly hard to check for the targetted population (meaning: who don't even know where a library is), there is no one story going through the whole book, deductions are easy to grasp even by an uneducated peasant, and the price is at the top of the range common folks are usually prepared to give out for a book of this (or any) sort and they are even encouraged to do so because then they could brag around how they helped a hospital for children, or shut your critique off because surely there couldn't be anything bad about it, because the sale is helping some hospital.
I think I'll donate 1000 SIT (like buying 10 copies, but still would get only a fifth of a copy for that) directly to this hospital just to cleanly cut off anyone throwing those sorts of remarks at me.
To me the president with this book seems like a freshman that hasn't even yet passed the first grade of buddhism, yet already wants to teach (preach to) everyone what is right and what is wrong. As a side point, I've heard he even wants to convince the Dalai Lama to become a vegetarian, because that's the purest form of being, or something.
A reviewer (Marcel Štefančič, jr) at the Mladina newspaper gave it 3 out of 5 points. Quoting some stuff out of the book, and with the remark at the end: "Thoughts on Life and Awareness are mixing facts and fiction -- like The Da Vinci Code. And like The Da Vinci Code they'll become the favourite book of those that don't read." Note that the reviewer probably had less than half a day to read the book and write the review. The book came out on Friday, the newspaper the next day, on Saturday. I tell you, with some effort you can read the entire book in less than two hours. To me it certainly isn't worth the price. But okay, I've read various works of Dalai Lama, Osho, Donald Neal Walsch, and others, so my expectations are probably quite high in this regard.

How Not to Live on the Brink of Poverty in Slovenia

2006-04-25T14:16:00.000+02:00

First, it pays off to have children late in your life. Remember, two things: have them, and have them late.
To have them because soon this fact could directly affect the amount of pension: the government thinks about introducing a special tax on pension for those without children. You see, there is currently a shortage of 260,000 children in Slovenia in order to just maintain the current percentage of the working population. So the government thinks that, well, if you don't appreciate everything this country is doing for you, and raise a kid (or, in Minister Drobnič's own words: breed a taxpayer) or (at least) two, then you should be punished. When you're old and grumpy and without the power to do anything about it.
To have them late in your life just because it's the most profitable way. First you have to take care of yourself, and that takes time. The country will support your kids only with some change that doesn't even pay for a couple of shoes a year. The only exception are tax benefits, but this is not really a good way to do it: those with most children are typically those with lowest income and so can't do shit with tax benefits because they can't apply them in whole (the tax benefits are greater than their whole income). Therefore you have to attain a high position in a company to have a great salary and only then can you actually afford to have a kid. If you don't, well, tough luck. Go abroad. I fancy Scandinavian countries.
So we come to the second point. Be successful in company wellbeing sense, but don't be too successful in business sense. Success is a giant magnet for tax inspectors. If you or your company is so successful that you or the company win various prizes, then that means only trouble. For tax inspectors this is like shit to flies. They literally dive their noses in it. And once it is known you or the company is having tax inspectors going through the papers, the reputation plummets. And they will always find something, even if something super-micro small, made by mistake or in (your) wrong belief. They have to, they are the tax inspectors, they are paid to do it!
Don't have a salary of more than 400,000.00 SIT gross. It costs too much. Beyond that the personal income tax reaches 50%. Plus there are additional taxes, for you and the company, like the tax on wages.
Form a company in Switzerland. You don't have to be alone - find some friends and do it together. The more the merrier (= less costly for everyone). Funnel your earnings through that company. Let it be seen as if this Swiss company did services for the company you work in. The key is for the most of the money to remain in this Swiss company and you getting only some smallish amount not worth debating over. Be careful, it has to be some reasonable minimum amount for the work you're doing or again you could get some tax inspectors behind your neck. And I already explained how unreasonably awful they are. Even if you did everything legal. They can just invent some arbitrary amounts of what anything is worth and there's nothing you can do about it. Then you have to pay taxes of their perception of what you made, not of what you actually made.
Use your Swiss company to buy you everything you need. Well, not literally everything, like food, just big things: a house, a car (licenced in Switzerland, of course), furniture (except for bed, the law says you have to buy that one yourself), etc.
Also use Cayman islands (and other tax havens) for transactions. The more indirections, the merrier and legal.
Don't count on pension. Chances are that when you're retired the amount will be so small you won't be able to pay for a chewing gum. Invest. Or have your Swiss company to do it. Company pension plan comes to mind.
And forget about Slovenia. You paid enough taxes already to cover all its expenses with your youth, as it likes to blabber about. ("It's not fair! This country paid an awful lot to raise you, and now you're avoiding your taxes. This is effectively an act of treason!"). Slovenia is simply so damn expensive that you just have to work around it in order to live in prosperity.
Remember, the state is just like a company with exceptional privileges, effectively a monopoly. That makes it your enemy. It was never, it is never, and never will be your friend. It requires you to survive, not the other way around. There is yet to be invented a system where a state and an individual can live in symbiosis.

Hungry Like the Cat

2006-04-24T17:23:00.000+02:00

I met a very patient cat yesterday after lunch at a chinese restaurant.

It was probably waiting for a pigeon to walk straight into its mouth.
Anyway, it was quite cloudy, and soon it started to rain.

And I still have plenty of work. Damn. Always there's someone with urgent needs.

Linux Firewall HOWTO

2006-03-27T10:58:00.000+02:00

I stumbled upon a Brief Introduction to Firewalls that aims to help newbies at making their first steps in the linuxland building a firewall. Well, all right. I do recommend this for all of you that want to set up a linux box and (also) use it as a firewall. With a note. This author obviously thinks all services in existence use both, TCP and UDP, connections. Not so: HTTP (ports 80 and 443) only runs over TCP, SSH (port 22) only runs through TCP, and so on for TCP, POP, FTP, ... In contrast, NTP runs only through UDP. And for DHCP you also need to permit access for raw ethernet frames, not just for UDP packets.
Of course in theory anything running over TCP can be made to run over UDP, and the other way around, but it's not always practical and so in practise does not.
But that doesn't stop IANA to assign the ports for both, TCP and UDP, to services. So, basically, the author is correct in providing such examples. But I would never, for example, permit a port 80 UDP access, as there is nowhere a web browser or server that does UDP connections, as far as I know.

Linux Kernel 2.6.16 and ISDN FRITZ!Card PCI

2006-03-24T14:09:00.000+01:00

In case anyone out there owns an ISDN FRITZ!Card PCI and wants to install the Linux kernel 2.6.16: you're in a bit of a trouble. The official CAPI driver will not compile. I threw an eye at it and came up with a simple patch that solves it:


--- fritz/src/tools.h   2005-07-07 00:00:00.000000000 +0200
+++ fritz-kernel-2.6/src/tools.h        2006-03-21 16:13:32.000000000 +0100
@@ -71,12 +71,14 @@

 /*---------------------------------------------------------------------------* \*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
+#ifndef atomic_xchg
 static inline unsigned long atomic_xchg (
        volatile atomic_t *     v,
        unsigned                value
 ) {
        return __xchg (value, &v->counter, sizeof (unsigned));
 } /* atomic_xchg */
+#endif

 /*---------------------------------------------------------------------------* \*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*/

Still here, still here!

2006-03-24T12:57:00.000+01:00

Yes yes yes, I should be seriously barked at for leaving this blog rot for a while. And for virtually disappearing from everyone's life. The excuse is, as always, work. But now it's eased up a bit, so I have the time to write something here.
The player project is finished, only one elusive bug remains that I just can't put my fingers on, but it seems more and more it's LinuxThreads' fault. Damn servers run the ancient Debian Woody distro. Perhaps I'll convert it to pseudo-threading, but it's not a critical bug so it's more probable the time will come when the servers will be upgraded to at least Debian Sarge (which runs the player nicely in all of my tests, with the NPTL (New POSIX Threads Library) that came with the linux kernel branch 2.6), before I'd delve into the beauties of pseudo-threading.
I also implemented a reporting facility for Windows. It's a Delphi module that uses Word via OLE automation. You write a reporting template (which is just normal text with field names (not to be confused with native Word fields) and commands placed between two # characters) and define database queries and manual input edit boxes and the modules does all the rest. It's designed this way because the customer wanted it this way, but I think it would have been wiser if I used OpenOffice, which is free and also supports OLE automation.
I also developed a love-hate relationship with the Debian GNU/Linux distribution. It's a wonderfully designed distro, as wonderful for casual windows-like users as for power-hungry sysadmins, with a plethora of distribution-specific utilities for everything, from simple installation and maintenance, to complex package (re)building and development, and the stable branch is really, well, stable. And tends to become old. As was the case with Woody. What, three years without a major software update? Only the last-year released Sarge brought the loooong awaited updates of essentials, like support for kernel branch 2.6, NPTL support, glibc 2.3.2, gcc 3.3, and so on. And when you get a server with Woody installed and are requested to install, say, a more recent php 4.3 (which isn't even the latest) and enable the Oracle 10.1 support, then you really start to hate the damn distro. I just pulled the source from the Sarge branch and thought to rebuild it for Woody. Forget it. The build dependencies resolve to about a zillion packages to be rebuilt. It came even down to the gcc and X window having to be rebuilt. Of course, php doesn't need X libraries to run, or the latest gcc to be built and installed, but packages with tools it needs to compile with or libraries it needs to link with eventually resolve down to it. I'd be finished way and way and way sooner if I'd upgrade the server to Sarge, but the contracting company doesn't allow for it, because it all runs nicely as it is and they don't want to touch it. That's, uhm... troubling, at least from the security standpoint as there won't be any official security updates anymore past the May of this year (May or April, something like that).
And I've designated the state as my enemy. I didn't much trouble myself in the past with what exactly to think of the state and the government and how to relate to it, but the debacles and idiotisms of the current right-wing government just make me want to shoot them all and be done with it. Me, a reasonably non-offending and hard-to-offend person, that tends not to care if you're a masterpiece of an idiotic nincompoop, is seriously becoming furiously allergic to the current government. They've developed the art of perverted self-righteous aristocratic governing to such a marvelous level I tend to get sick about twice a week, when I read about it in the newspapers. It curiously starts to resemble the way the Church operates.

I Want To Replace A Lot Of Heads

2006-02-08T21:03:00.000+01:00

I install a VPN client and suddenly, while installing, all connections are reset. Consequently, all remote applications close and all unsaved data is lost. And as if that doesn't suffice, the installer requests a windows reboot. Seriously, if the programmer writing this crap would have had been standing by me, I'd have had his head replaced. After rebooting I discover that if I activate the damn VPN connection, ALL traffic is routed through it. HEY! AT LEAST I WANT TO ACCESS COMPUTERS ON MY LAN, YOU STUPID GIT! What a bunch of idiots, conceiving this piece of shit. Yeah, I'm outrageously pissed of, thanks to Cisco. Sure, I can customize settings so I can access my LAN, but it's astoundingly hard. Where the heck did their logic go? Only traffic to the LAN on the other end of the VPN connection should be routed through the VPN connection by default! Or at least there should be some easy questions about this issue when setting up a VPN, if security is such an issue.
My boss has some weird problems, too. The virus checker on his computer demands a reboot after every automatic update of virus definitions. Imagine: you come in the office, turn on the computer, after the login the virus checker loads up and does its automatic tasks, and then a request for reboot pops up. OK, reboot, and login again, and then you may start working.
And don't think Debian (a GNU/Linux distro) is without issues, too. After a wasted day of debugging I found out that debconf scripts don't set close-on-exec flag, so any programs forked into background (daemons) inherit all open file descriptors. And debconf is such a stupid piece of shit: for anything that is to be executed it creates a pipe, then it forks itself and the child sets up the pipe descriptors in a weird way before execing the thing. The weird way is this: the input pipe becomes descriptor 0 (stdin, that's ok) and the output pipe becomes descriptor 3 (say, what?), while descriptors 1 and 2 remain connected to whatever the parent was connected. Oh, wait, there's more. The parent debconf process remains in a read/write loop while any pipe descriptor remains open. It doesn't detect the zombie child. How could it be there is still something open even after the child dies, you ask? Because the child exec'd a startup script, which runs a daemon, that forks into background, and has no way of knowing, what descriptors are open, beyond standard 0, 1, and 2! Of course, if someone set up close-on-exec process flag before running the daemon, it would all be okay. And the solution? My daemon has to try to close all possible descriptors when run. Debconf scripts return correctly now. Idiots. I was about to report a bug when I read that it's surely an issue with the daemon and I should use db_stop in my setup scripts for misbehaving daemons. Really, if I'd have been given the chance, I'd have had replaced a lot of heads this week already. Oh, and there is even more. What I described up until now happens if an (initial) package configuration takes place. If you want to reconfigure the package, then the daemon misteriously gets another couple of pipes on descriptors 10 and 12. Oh well, I gave up and just wrote that loop that tries to close every possible descriptor. Because I have this addiction to portability and didn't want to use the /proc/<pid>/fd list.

All About Linux

2006-01-30T15:34:00.000+01:00

In my quest to linuxify everyone around me I forgot to mention a blog that's here on the blogger: All about Linux. It's quite a good blog, regularly updated, full of interesting articles. The author seems quite knowledgable (though nowhere near as much as me, you know) in things Linux. Only sometimes his personal preferences get a bit in the way, I'd say. But hey, I'm trying to convert all of you to Linux, so who am I to judge, right? ;)

Bathroom Renovation My Way

2006-01-27T14:48:00.000+01:00

Yes yes, I'm sorry it's been so late since my last post. I'm busy working and having fun. And cleaning up behind those nasty plumbers from the last post. Do you want to know how I do bathroom stuff? Right.
Somewhere around 10 months ago my mom complained her electricity bill was unusually high and she thought it was all boiler's fault since it was over 30 years old. Even she didn't know the exact age because it's been there since she can remember.

So then, I bought a new boiler. But that wasn't enough. The old boiler had to be taken down and the new one mounted. I decided to do it while mom's working so I could be free from all the criticism while working.
Since the old boiler was so old, all the pipes leading in and out from it coroded so heavilly I couldn't disconnect it in any sane way. So I got the help of my crazy sister to disconnect it in an insane way. Saw it off!

Yeah baby, go wild on the pipes!

After I disconnected the old boiler I used some of that ol' WD40 to unscrew the nuts holding the boiler on the wall, took it down, and threw it out. But there remained two couples of screws protruding from the wall, one couple used to hold the boiler in the upper part, and the other couple of bolts used to hold the boiler in the lower part. My sister was all for sawing off those protrusions, too. But I'm more for quality work, so I wanted to get them out of the wall. I chiseled around one of the upper bolts to see a bit more.

And then it occured to me: the holes for bolts were drilled straight through the wall and bolts inserted and fastened from the other side of the wall! The other side being the living room. So I went into the living room and instructed my sister to hit a bit on the bolts and I'll try to see where exactly they'd come out. Well, a light stroke caused the wall to bulge a bit, so I said to her to just go crazy and hit it through the wall. Ahm, I didn't anticipate it would cause that much of wall to come off. This is the upper part.

This is the lower part.

And this is what remained on the floor. You can see two couples of bolts, each couple attached to a piece of metal that held them in place.

Oh, and this is the chiseled part.

Since it was getting late I had to fix those huge holes fast. My mom was coming home soon. Well then, to the shop, buy some mortar and plaster! First, I put on a layer of mortar.

But while I was working, I heard some nerve wrecking shouting.

It was my mom, who came home, saw the state of the bathroom, and got angry. I wonder why.

She even threatened me to better fix everything or else...

So I resumed fixing the walls, in a rather fast pace. This is how the living room came out.

And this is the bathroom part. You can see that there was no paint behind the boiler. The old boiler was indeed probably there since the house was built. Somewhere in the 1960s, I believe.

Oh, those two holes in the upper part are already holes where the new boiler was going to be attached. Yes, I was thinking of everything. Anyway, after mortar and before paint there usually comes a thin layer of plaster. You see, mortar is coarse, but you need something fine to stick paint onto. This is how the living room looked like after being done with plastering.

After plastering the living room and the bathroom, I and sister painted the bathroom and the small patch in the living room, mounted the new boiler and I connected it to the pipes and electricity. This is how it looks like now.

The new boiler in operation.

So... If you've got a bathroom to repair, want a bit of fun, and pay good, you know who to turn to. ;) Forget those plumbers. They're yucky, wasteful, and take a lot of time.

Bathroom Woes

2006-01-13T14:27:00.000+01:00

I am genuinely pissed off. A plumber was supposed to fix the drainage leak in the bathroom. If I were the owner of the flat I'd have kicked his butt a few days ago already. On Monday late evening, when he was already gone, after 5 days of work, this is what I've found when I entered the flat.

After making a step through the front door. Right is the bathroom (not seen), ahead is the studio room.

A look into the bathroom.

Something scribbled on the wall where a mirror is supposed to be.

A look from the bathroom.

Yesterday I checked it again and the tiles were on and the bathroom was painted. It took them 3 freakin' days for that. Seriously, if I were to do all this, it would take me 4 days tops. And yes, I have a fair deal of knowledge about doing this stuff, so nobody will tell me how long it takes to do quality work.
As of this morning, I couldn't even take a dump properly. The toilet bowl was just mounted on the drain pipe, it wasn't even fixed to the floor or connected to the tank. No faucet, no basin, no shower.

Linux Chix0rs

2006-01-10T10:46:00.000+01:00

Linux and women is not something you often hear in the same sentence. That's why some chix wrote a HOWTO document: HOWTO Encourage Women in Linux. Otherwise, HOWTOs are meant to be comprehensively written guides describing a certain operation of Linux, short descriptions of how to do something. Well, I guess this is something that pertains to Linux and is badly in need of a good guide... But wait, there's more! There's LinuxChix, a community for women who like Linux! So, women, ahem... Let's Linux!

Linux for Newbies

2006-01-09T15:08:00.000+01:00

There's this Linux Guide for Windows Users that attempts, well, to introduce Windows users to Linux world. It's a good attempt, but very unfinished. For slovene readers I recommend the chapter about Linux I wrote for the book Nevladni kako. Otherwise, here are a few short additions to that guide.

The politically correct term for this operating system is GNU/Linux.
ISO stands for International Standards Organization. The ISO image for CDs is a (usually) big file that conforms to the ISO 9660 standard that defines a filesystem for CD media.
The kernel is actually what the name Linux stands for. In the strictest sense, when you talk about Linux, you talk about the kernel. If you have the operating system in mind, then you talk about GNU/Linux. You see, the folks at GNU started writing a free operating system way back in 1980s. In 1991 Linus came along and wrote the kernel, the only piece that was missing in the GNU system. Today there are also GNU Hurd and GNU Mach that implement things a kernel does.
Distributions, or distros for short. You can get a list and descriptions of distros at DistroWatch.com. You can download ISO images of a few popular distros from LinuxISO.
There's a lot of free literature about Linux at The Linux Documentation Project.

Still Alive

2006-01-04T19:27:00.000+01:00

Yes, yes, I'm still alive. Only I had plenty of work to do. Among other things, I've been coding a player for a local chain of shops (Tuš) which is mostly finished (basic functionality working) only I have to tweak it a bit more and I want it to be configured with autotools (autoconf and automake). Simply put, the player will be like a radio: playing mp3 music with a commercial here and there. Some other guy (company even) is building the management web interface. And who had to write all the detailed specs? Right. At least now I know where and which „quotes“ to put for quoting in Slovene language.
Anyway, I wasn't only behind the keyboard the previous month. Or put the other way around, as many coders like to do it, the keyboard wasn't only in front of me the previous month. It's been in front of sweet jammy jams jamming the jammed space bar, so I had to disassemble it, wash everything, and then wonder if it's wise to put it all together again.

The jammer had a striking similarity to my girlfriend. I don't even want to infer further, seeing this nice smile.

As you can probably think, seeing the upper photo, we were out making photos. If you probably can't think then go work for Micro$oft. The alternative is you end up like this shopping trolley. All under the ice.

I hate winter. Seriously, whoever invented it must have been very bored. Probably didn't get accepted to a position at Micro$oft. Just look at what trees must suffer because of this bad idea.

The only nice thing about the winter is that it's all nicely decorated. Shiny colourful lights all over the place.

But even that is because new year happens during winter. Just think of poor Australians. Having no similar thing during their winter. Okay, okay, poor Tasmanians. I don't think even they have such a snowwy winter. Err, summer. Oh, whatever.

Paranoid Landlady

2005-11-24T00:11:00.000+01:00

I rent a flat. My girlfriend lives with me. The landlady knew that my girlfriend would live with me when we signed the contract. In accordance with the law every person must file his/her (temporary or permanent) residence to the local authorities or face a penalty between 10000 and 50000 SIT ($49 and $244 respectively). I obtained the necessary forms, filled them out, and gave them to the landlady for I need her signature which attests her consent that I and my girlfriend can live in the flat. For some reason she refuses to sign the form for my girlfriend. She doesn't want to say why. But she doesn't object to my girlfriend living with me. And consider this: she even proposed to give me in writing her signed statement that she'd pay any penalties arising out of the fact that she wouldn't sign that damn form. Now go figure. I'm so moving out, just that I must find a new flat first.
I can't be bothered by paranoid people who prefer to make me vulnerable or make me suffer or any other damage, than to say what's on their mind, what bothers them, so we could continue with the debate and come to some agreement. There is no way I will ever take a groundless excuse or no excuse for an answer and I will not tolerate people that are not prepared to talk things over but instead prefer making big fuss, not telling me any reasons, and just expect something from me which I have no way of knowing WHAT! Fuck such people. I don't need them. I'll find another landlord or landlady. It's not as if there's shortage of them.

Positive thinking

2005-11-07T12:26:00.000+01:00

According to my horoscope for this week I should try a week of non-negative thinking about people. Well then, let me try.
I have this one customer that is so expert at causing beautiful synapse overloads inside my brain, I can't help but to turn off my cell phone lest it would cause cells in my ear to start dividing and growing uncontrollably out of sheer luck from being hit by the radiance of all the simple and humorous talking. I'm so fond of this person I don't charge interest of late payment even for bills issued 5 months ago. You see, he has taught me how to make money even when having customers with no sense of long term or at least medium term planning and work-flow organisation. Who would've thought accounting professionals are capable of such simple and easy-going life, although they have to work 14 hours a day because of this. I admire this customer's perseverance at maintaining his life- and workstyle all the way to retirement. If I had tried to match his enthusiasm, I'd probably be dead by now from being accidently overrun with a large truck by a subcontractor. Really, I can't even begin to describe how lucky I am to have such a customer. What a man!

The Reason For Naming Storms After Women

2005-10-24T10:03:00.000+02:00

This just in, fresh from Slashdot:

They name storms and hurricanes after women because when they come, they're loud and wet, and when they leave, they take your house and car.

Public Transport Stinks

2005-10-19T12:13:00.000+02:00

I had some trouble with one of my accounts receiving e-mails and after some administrative work I fixed the problem. So I opened the Delo newspaper web page in search for electronic versions of some pages to catch up with things I didn't receive. And then I stumbled upon its blogs. Wow, they have blogs! One post title received my attention immediately. About the smell on city buses. Especially the route 7. I use the same route to get to work. A lot of old people on it in the morning, and all till the noon. Oooooold people. Smelly people. The sort of people that goes to cemetery very early every morning.
Seriously.
What is wrong with these people? Every damn day, very early, to the cemetery and back home to lunch. I mean, they don't have a job anymore, why do they have to get up so damn early? Last I heard nobody escaped from cemetery yet. And what kind of life is that, socialising in the cemetery?
I may have to start a petition for route 7 to no longer include the city cemetery. Let them use route 2 or something.

Being A Tough Boss

2005-10-05T13:20:00.000+02:00

So then, I got fed up with doing manial boring tasks and hired a poor student for peanuts. He doesn't like wasting time on buses to come to work, so he works at home. We chat on irc to iron out details of tasks. And then at one time I just got fed up with him, too. I mean, what good is he to me, if I have to explain everything, virtually doing all the thinking for him? I may as well do the damn thing, too. And it will even be faster.
<bacek> [Fatal Error] MapoCore.dpk(67): Unit MapoUtils was compiled with a different version of msgdlg_Unit.MsgDlg_Form <[AlesS]> well, deal with it <bacek> doesnt make any sense <[AlesS]> it's you who is supposed to make sense <bacek> don't jump to conclusions just like that <[AlesS]> know what jumping to conclusions is? that all you're good for is doing 10-liner programs in basic

Money Money Money

2005-09-21T15:52:00.000+02:00

The upper banknote is 500 Euros, the lower is 5000 Tolars. What do you think, how many of the lower banknotes do I need to get one upper?

Well, plenty. 24 and some small change.
And this much I need for two months of rent:

Babies Named Unknown

2005-09-21T11:25:00.000+02:00

I've been playing a bit with the Baby Name Wizard to see what odd names those crazy Americans are having. And yes, according to that thing there are a few babies named Unknown.

Moving My Old Bones

2005-09-19T22:59:00.000+02:00

Yay! I'm moving! I won't have to endure the lack of intelligence in one of my flatmates any longer! The other flatmate is moving out, too. Gee, I wonder why... My gf and I have found a neat flat, 32 m². I mean, wow! I'll have my gf as the only flatmate. Bingo, I say! And there already is cable internet, I just move over and won't even know the difference. Oh, pardon me, I will see the difference. My flatmate won't saturate the line any longer! Damn he and his edonkey or whatever. Once I told him I noticed he's downloading all the time. "Yeah," he said, "but the upload speed is shitty." Hmmmm.... "Wait a minute," I say, "why do you need good upload, if all you need is download?" "Beats me." I mean. COME ON! A guy that's soon to finish undergraduate study at the faculty of computer engineering. I'm SO going away and letting him live in his own tiny world of utter ignorance. He doesn't even know what's that computer in the hall for. Yes, a firewall of some kind, so he can't get infected by those nasty viruses. He has no clue about masquerading, routing, traffic shaping; hell, he hasn't even touched linux in his life!
But damn, living in the capital is expensive, from a tenant's point of view. My soon-to-be-ex flatmate got a bigger flat in his home town for 210 EUR per month and we got this smallish flat for 280 EUR per month. Expenses not included. And they even say this price is fair!

Me a Doodyhead?

2005-09-19T14:32:00.000+02:00

But seriously now. Since when is suggesting to find three differences in two pictures a cause to flame me? I was even called a doodyhead. Just like Bush in an essay. But I'm nowhere near as odd as Bush. Seriously. I can pronounce the word "nuclear" correctly!

Evil or Capable?

2005-08-31T13:51:00.000+02:00

I was fetching my traditional breakfast at the vending machine (coffee with loads of sugar) and as I was waiting for the buzzing machine to finish mixing all the poisons, a dispatcher was carrying a rather big and hefty box upstairs. He was a smallish, perhaps 1.7 m tall guy, and it was obvious the box was a bit heavy as he was panting and walking all bent backwards, trying not to lose the balance. When I returned to the office I told my coworker and the nearby secretary I sure wouldn't like to be a courier, and explained in a quite picturesque way what I saw. The secretary remarked I was quite heartless, laughing at the poor guy. I told her sure I'm laughing, I have a better job! I'm supposed to be laughing, we live in a dominator culture! Then she said she hopes I'll never be a president or anything, and I was just appalled! What?! Who'd like their president to be a sissy anyway? It's a dominator culture! That's what hierarchy means! Vote for anarchy if you don't like it, baby!

Forget Einstein

2005-08-19T15:00:00.000+02:00

Einstein was wrong! Autodynamics is correct, not relativity theory.

There are thousands of physicists, mathematicians, and scientists who know Einstein's theory is wrong. From the GPS satellites that do not use SR, to particle accelerators themselves that treat mass increase as "non-real", SR, the big bang, and black holes are under attack. In their stead, there is no time dilation, the universe is eternal, and black holes are simply dense objects. No wormholes, no neutrinos, no imaginary objects or particles.
There is a conspicuous absence of support for Einstein's Special theory of Relativity. Groups such as the Natural Philosophy Alliance and the SAA are systematically refuting "proof" for Special Relativity and many aspects of General Relativity.
The infamous atomic clock experiment has been refuted and the data is bogus. In a swarm meeting of the AAAS in Flagstaff Arizona in 1996, Dr. Domina Spencer, physics mathematician from the University of Connecticut, presented a talk "Analysis of the Hafele-Keating Experiment". She received the raw data from one of the authors of the original experiment and concluded that the data published was "completely and utterly fabricated". See http://www.ebicom.net/~rsf1/npa/flag96.htm

Sweet

2005-08-18T12:42:00.000+02:00

My sweety was displeased about me paying for her coffee, so she bought me some sweets.

But I don't think only this much will suffice. I want plenty more! Wouldn't you agree? ;)

Irresistible

2005-08-17T14:42:00.000+02:00

Yay! Just the other day I was out on a coffee and some hot chocolate, when this hot seductive smile came into existence.

I shot it with my new Nokia 6230i. Well, actually the company's new phone, not mine, I just use it. ;)
But seriously, I date the most wonderful woman.

A Case of a Bad Book

2005-08-08T22:35:00.000+02:00

I'm reading the book Before the Beginning: Our Universe and Others. I recommend that you avoid it at all cost. I'm two thirds through it and this just does it. I've had it. It's a bad book. Baaaaaad book. The writer should go sit in a corner. For a decade. Just for an example, I'm just through reading about the radiation of black holes. First he mentions that Stephen Hawking theorised that black holes radiate (not directly, but you shouldn't know that at this time). Then he deviates into describing when and where Hawking first mentioned this theory. At the end he added the word "quantum". Quantum radiation of black holes. Nice. Now I know a lot more. He even mentions evaporation of black holes in the next sentence! Wow! And then he goes on describing mini black holes, the size of an atom and the mass of a million tonnes. Then from somewhere he suddenly pulls the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. And couples if with vacuum just like that, telling you that matter-antimatter pairs of particles spontaneously pop into existence for very short time intervals all over the space. They are called virtual pairs of particles. And only then he says that if that happens at the proper distance from a black hole so that one particle gets eaten by the black holes and the other one doesn't (because it's just the right tiny bit away so the black hole doesn't exort enough gravity anymore), then we see that as a sort of faint radiation. Virtual particles become real particles. The black hole diminishes in size slightly because of that. You see, it gains negative mass. So it's disappearing ever so slightly.
I didn't have any trouble reading it, because I know the whole theory already. But I can just imagine a clueless person reading through it collecting a heap of unknown terms to be explained later. That is no way of writing a book on physics. And who cares that Einstein had a son with schizophrenia! There is so much of irrelevant data about when who published what and on what terms they were with other scientists, some tidbits of Einstein's life like I were reading some tabloid, etc. Horrible.
It has a foreword written by Stephen Hawking who wrote about the book in a positive way. That's why I bought it. Hawking writes great books. But now I see I shouldn't blindly believe the foreword. Next time I'll try to read a paragraph first.
Anyway, if you want to read about the stuff in this book, and about a lot more of the interesting stuff, then I recommend The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking. And if you're a heavy thinker and want to delve deep into the string theory, explaining multiple dimensions, quantum physics and black holes, check out The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory by Brian Greene. An extraordinary book. And a bit hard to understand, especially the last few chapters; you really have to focus on what you read and think about it all the time, it's no light reading.

ThinkGeek T-Shirts

2005-08-08T16:56:00.000+02:00

Wheee! I became a proud owner of two ThinkGeek T-shirts! But wow, what a fast delivery. I ordered them on Thursday, then they sent me an e-mail requesting me to fax or scan and email them something official so they can verify the billing address. I did that on Friday after which they sent me the T-shirts. And today they were delivered. Fast, I say.
But seriously, noone else ever requested of me to give them something with which to prove my billing address is the correct one. Read this.

Unfortunately, our authorization company is not able to run an address verification check on your billing address, therefore, we will need you to fax (703-293-6292), or scan and email us something official to verify this address. A phone bill or credit card statement would be great. If these are not available, a copy of the credit card with the last four digits visible and a photo ID would also be sufficient.

Summer Temperatures Deviation

2005-08-08T11:51:00.000+02:00

Go from summer to autumn in just one week! From 37°C highs to 22°C highs in 7 days! Do you want to wake up at 20°C for two days and then gradually lower it to 10°C? No problem! It just takes 7 days and a bit of global warming to confuse the weather.
But seriously. I'll never get rid of my cold in such a weather. If this continues I'll start prefering winter to summer. Oh the horror!
I wonder if sinuses can be removed.

Selling Everything

2005-07-29T12:26:00.000+02:00

On eBay there is someone selling everything he owns. 10% of the sale price will be donated to autism research. The guy wrote he realised material things don't matter and he wants to live a simpler life from now on. I think he'd be a good blog material.
But since there's a guy who sells everything I wondered if there's also someone who sells nothing. What do you know... There is! An American tried to sell absolutely nothing but ended bidding before any bids were placed. Then I found out that probably the first guy who started it all was an Englishman selling absolutely nothing and all the others were just copycats. And he was doing okay, too: at the time eBay pulled the auction the highest bid was at £12,000. Here's a snapshot of the page.

The Meaning

2005-07-18T16:44:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I had a couple of comics in my knapsack during my evening stroll through the park. I found a nice bench in a shadow. It was quite hot, something like 30°C. So I sat down and started reading those couple of Alan Ford comic books. After a while an elderly man in his seventies with a walking stick sat down on the same bench. Still panting as a race horse he first enquired whether I had a girlfriend. I wasn't quite into explaining what comic I was reading so I just said: "yes" to his: "ah, the [something ancient] comic?" He decided he still wouldn't stop bothering me, so after a short silent while he started talking to me about children. They are the meaning of life and everything else is just transient and ultimately not important. I really should marry, it's easier as a couple. She should have at least three children. The old man has three children, too. It's something about woman's health. It's been scientifically proven women should have at least three children because they need the pregnancy every so often to revitalize their body, or something. The old man knows it's true because every woman he knows that has only one kid got molested with maladies at an early age. He enjoyed having kids. I should, too, he said.
And I thought the purpose of life is to read comics under a shadow on a park bench during a hot summer. I'm really out of luck.

Back From Vacation

2005-07-16T11:04:00.000+02:00

I've been on vacation! Ha!

And now back to work... Yeuch!

On Vacation

2005-06-30T02:24:00.000+02:00

Well then, my bus leaves in 45 minutes. I'm going on vacation! Ta ta! See you after 2 weeks. ;)

The Longest Day

2005-06-21T12:29:00.000+02:00

Happy longest day of the year!
And for those on the "wrong" hemisphere, happy shortest day of the year! I guess you'll have Christmas in 4 days. :]
As for me, 9 days until my vacations.

Woman Remote

2005-06-15T14:49:00.000+02:00

I found a very handy remote, the Woman Remote.
I bet this man would find it very useful.

World Naked Bike Ride

2005-06-10T17:52:00.000+02:00

Tomorrow in over 50 cities over the world people will express their protest against the dependence on oil (and other forms of unrenewable energy) by cycling naked. Somehow I doubt this will cause anything more than a day's sensation.

IE Stopper XHTML Code

2005-06-03T17:38:00.000+02:00

I've just stumbled upon a piece of XHTML code in a discussion I've been reading that causes Internet Explorer not to show the page, but it's correctly rendered in Mozilla, for example. Thus, the code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
  <head>
    <title>I won't run on IE. I'm amazing :)</title>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="application/xhtml+xml; charset=iso-8859-1" />
    <script src="randomfoobar.js" type="text/javascript" />
    <!--The magic bit is the XML-compliant ending on the <script> tag. IE dies when it encounters this...-->
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>You cannot see this using IE.</h1>
    <hr />
    So if you're reading this, then you must be smart.
  </body>
</html>

I've tested it and it doesn't show in IE on my Windows XP computer, but it does work with Mozilla.
I'm thinking about "decorating" the template of my blog with this trick, muahahahaaaaa...

The Worth of Money

2005-06-02T10:58:00.000+02:00

I came across an article that sums it up nicely what the global economic trend is. The worthless dollar, declining quality of living, media junk, and so on. And how it will all just implode one day. You might want to read at least the last two paragraphs.
There is also mention of fiat money in the article. For those that don't know it is the money made up from thin air, with no backing whatsoever, usually by central banks or government decrees. It has no intrinsic value (no effort has gone into making it, it doesn't represent anything, it has no backing). It always eventually becomes worthless.

You Have To Be Nuts To Smoke

2005-06-01T10:07:00.000+02:00

I found results of a study that shows that nearly half of the smokers in the USA have a mental illness. Doing drugs and alcohol has also been counted as mental illnesses so perhaps it's not as severe as it sounds.

A Guy That Summons UFOs

2005-05-31T09:53:00.000+02:00

No, really! A TV reporter chose the time and place for this guy to summon a UFO and it happened. Check it out. And he's doing it with a prayer. I wonder what he says in the prayer that causes the UFOs to appear.

What Star Wars Species Would You Be?

2005-05-30T12:15:00.000+02:00

I'm a Droid!

Famous fellow members of my species:
R2-D2, C-3PO

My species' special abilities:
Memory holding, programmability, ability to use various tools and perform an incredible variety of tasks

My species' general role:
Assisting carbon-based lifeforms

Movies my species is in:
Episodes I-VI

What Star Wars species would you be?

Poisoned

2005-05-26T14:07:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I ate one of those prepared meals you get to buy in a shop and then heat it up in a microwave. A chicken curry with rice (piščančji curry z rižem). About 3 hours afterwards I started feeling very tired, 4 hours afterwards I was feeling sick, and 5 hours afterwards I felt like throwing up, only my stomache seems to have forwarded the contents already. Then I made a few visits to the lavatory, fell on my bed and felt quite dizzy. A couple of hours onwards I felt like burning and then I measured my body temperature: 38.3°C. Yes, I ate something terrible. So I went to my doctor this morning. She told me they don't prescribe anything special in such cases and the symptoms should go away in two or three days. I was only advised to take paracetamol to beat the temperature. And so here I am typing this and waiting for my bowels to return to the normal state.

Nigerian Spam

2005-05-25T14:52:00.000+02:00

I received an email from Suha Arafat, the wife of recently deceased Yasser Arafat. She wants me to take care of 20 million dollars. This email is just so special I have to put it online, although I'm asked in the email not to. It's just that until now I haven't received an email from anyone I actually know from the media. Only some wifes and children of deceased generals and dictators.

From: suha arafat <suarfsuha@eresmas.com>
To: suarfsuha@eresmas.com
Reply-To: georbel@excite.com
Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 08:29:04 GMT
Subject: Dear Friend

Dear Friend,

This mail may not be surprising to you if you have been following current events in the international media with reference to the Middle East and Palestine in particular. I am Mrs.SUHA ARAFAT, the wife of YASSER ARAFAT, the Palestinian leader who died recently in Paris.
Since his death and even prior to the announcement, I have been thrown into a state of antagonism, confusion,humiliation, frustration and hopelessness by the present leadership of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the new Prime Minister. I have even been subjected to physical and psychological torture. As a widow that is so traumatized, I have lost confidence with everybody in the country at the moment.
You must have heard over the media reports and the Internet on the discovery of some fund in my husband secret bank account and companies and the allegations of some huge sums of money deposited by my husband in my name of which I have refuses to disclose or give up to the corrupt Palestine Government. In fact the total sum allegedly discovered by the Government so far is in the tune of about $6.5 Billion Dollars. And they are not relenting on their effort to make me poor for life. As you know, the Moslem community has no regards for woman, hence my desire for a foreign assistance.
I have deposited the sum of 20 million dollars with a security firm abroad whose name is withheld for now until we open communication. I shall be grateful if you could receive this fund into your bank account for safe keeping and any Investment opportunity. This arrangement is known to you and my personal Attorney. He might be dealing with you directly for security reasons as the case may be. In view of the above, if you are willing to assist for our mutual benefits, we will have to negotiate on your Percentage share of the $20,000,000 that will be kept in your position for a while and invested in your name for my trust pending when my Daughter, Zahwa, will come off age and take full responsibility of her Family Estate/inheritance.
Please note that this is a golden opportunity that comes once in life time and more so, if you are hornet, I am going to entrust more funds in your care as this is one of the legacy we keep for our children. In case you don't accept please do not let me out to the security and international media as I am giving you this information in total trust and confidence I will greatly appreciate if you accept my proposal in good faith. Please expedite action.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs.Suha Arafat
______________________________________________________________
The above confidential message was sent to you from my office by my secretary seeking for your assistance regarding my clients fund transfer. This Office will be handling anything regarding this fund transfer and all the documents are here in our custody.

All response regarding the above proposal will be address to the below contact information's for immediate processing and transfer after due legal process.

GEOFFREY BELL & ASSOCIATES
(Solicitor & Advocate)
260 Brixton Hill,
London SW2 1HP (UK)
Email:georbel@excite.com

Mss. Anne Frank
Secretary to:
Barrister Geoffrey Bell.

Perseverance

2005-05-24T17:50:00.000+02:00

This Saturday I have convinced myself to go jogging on the nearby hill. There I made one circle and was just about thinking I had enough of it, when suddenly a man went past me and asked me if I'm up to for one more lap. I think I overtook him twice before that, and so did he: we didn't rest at the same times, you see. Well, I took the challenge and made two more laps with him. Then I agreed with this man, Igor, to go running once more on Sunday morning, 9 am. I made 3 laps before my left knee went on strike. But this Igor sure is persistent: he said he'll go jogging once more at 6 pm. He started jogging in October and has since been running regularly. He takes pride in every metre he makes, because he's trying to give up smoking, and running makes him feel very good.
Hm, metre has an interesting definition: the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum in the time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second.

Need for Speed

2005-05-11T16:14:00.000+02:00

Boy, do I have some soul-killing tasks at work. So boring I'm writing this as an excuse not to be working on one such task. The tasks are fairly easy, what makes them boring is the sheer amount of work. Almost repetetive. In the core of things it actually is repetetive, what changes are a few variables. I'm growing tired of coding Windows GUIs. 90% of things I do is just assembling user interfaces. Actual business logic is only about 10%. This is job for informatics guys. I like system programming, low level things, like coding protocols, complicated multithreaded asynchronous things, not damn inventory statistics that can frighten small children. But this shall change, with a bit of luck. Boss already put out an ad for a part-time job. Hopefuly a Computer Science student will show up and take some work away from me. Boss already told me to write a test for candidates so we'll see who best fits the job.
I can hardly wait for vacations. Sunny beach, cold beer, and beautiful gf. ;)

Upload

2005-05-10T12:52:00.000+02:00

Wouldn't it be nice to upload yourself to a computer? No more restrictions of the body. Just a big enough computer and an unlimited electricity supply would do the trick. And a net connection so you can travel a bit. No more sleepyness, sickness, and other weaknesses of the body. You could construct whatever world you'd like. In fact, are you sure you're not a part of such a world already? ;)
Some philosophers would have you believe everything exists because of you and that you are the single most important reason for the existence of what you percieve as reality. In other words, everything that happens is because you wanted it that way. Oh well...

Everything is True

2005-05-06T19:07:00.000+02:00

After reading about John Titor I concluded there is a timeline where I always win at the lottery. Now I know why everything out there is called universe. Because of the unspoken constraint to the single timeline we live in. Perhaps you don't know this, but according to some theory the universe branches at every decision point. In other words, all possible choices are taken in parallel, each in its own universe. Parallel universes. Yes, everyone wins at the lottery. Every one in his/her own universe. I only hope I live in the universe where I win the lottery this weekend. Um. No. That sentence shows a misperception. The correct statement would be: I hope that upon the lottery drawing I'll branch into the universe where I'll win the lottery. Um. No again. Misperception. Of course I'll branch into it. And into all others, too. Damn, now I don't know what to wish for. There will always be one or more of me who will win the lottery. Wishing for me to win the lottery has no meaning, because I will. Until the event is over I'm in the correct timeline(s). And here's where probabilities come into play. It's possible, but highly improbable, that I'll win the lottery in one single universe. It's also 100% probable I'll win the lottery in the multiverse. Yes. I'll become rich the next week. Well, somewhere out there anyway.

Ingenuity

2005-04-29T21:17:00.000+02:00

I wait at a bus station for the miracleous coming of the bus. A guy steps closer and tells me he's collecting cash for a bus ticket so he can get home. He seems familiar. I think I've met him before. A week or two ago. He used the same phrases and the same amount, "1300 SIT for the ticket to go home." Anyway, I empty my pockets and give him some change, about 60 SIT. He waits a moment more and I tell him what's remaining are only the big bills. But that didn't represent an obstacle for him. He told me if I give him a 1000 SIT bill, he'll give me 800 SIT in return. What a nerve!!

* SIT is the Slovenian currency, Slovenian Tolar.

Summer Vacations Planning

2005-04-29T15:15:00.000+02:00

Yipee! I'll spend my summer vacations in the city Hvar on the island Hvar in central Dalmatia in the neighbouring Croatia! Hotel Bodul will have to tolerate my demanding personality from 30.6. to 14.7.! Yay!
And when I'm rich perhaps I'll check out Greece. Or spend a fortune for a return ticket to Malaysia and set up a tent in davin's fridge.

Countermeasures

2005-04-28T11:59:00.000+02:00

After seeing today's Garfield cartoon I've decided to be just like him. Eat a lot and wear carrots in my ears.

A Pope from Hell

2005-04-25T17:02:00.000+02:00

Christians around the world got their new pope. Some of them don't like him. Some are rather appalled by the choice of the conclave. There's a debate going on around the internet about the Pope being a Nazi, outright against any modernism, highly against whatever church is traditionally against already but people do it anyway, like birth control, etc. Well yes, you can even buy a T-shirt featuring Pope Benedict XVI Antichrist Superstar. Europe is continually losing Christians, and now they do this. Whatever did they think when choosing a new pope? "Don't leave the church or you'll be condemned to darkest tribulations of hell! We chose the new Pope especially to make certain of it!"

Busy

2005-04-21T14:18:00.000+02:00

Damn, if I'd have known how much work programming would be, I'd have studied some social or humanistic sciences or something. I was found to have a knack for languages anyway. Only I steered just slightly too much into computer waters and now I became well acquainted with computer languages. Damn.
I didn't even finish my computer science study. I'm making some first steps into preparing for the seven exams I still have to pass. Only time will tell if I'm to ever finish this study. I need some strong motivation. If nothing else, my obituary would feature a fancy title after my name. I doubt they put such titles on tombstones.

Who Owns The Future?

2005-04-06T22:25:00.000+02:00

I've been reading Crossing the Rubicon a bit. A damn heavy book. Lots of facts. Lots and lots and lots. Mindshaking facts. Like the fact that Americans had already a few decades ago a piece of software called PROMIS or Prosecutor's Management Information System. A spying system based on artificial intelligence would be a short description. You see, PROMIS has a backdoor (for the clueless: a means of accessing the program by a third party without the consent or knowing of the owner). From page 153: "It was able to simultaneously read and integrate any number of different computer programs or databases simultaneously, regardless of the language in which the original programs had been written or the operating system or platforms on which that database was then currently installed." From the same page: "In the mid 1970s, at least as far as computer programs were concerned, the 'universal translator' of Star Trek had become a reality."
Just consider the following couple of paragraphs from the page 166.

On August 28 the phone rang and it was a collect call from Tyree. "Get a tape recorder and turn it on," he said. Over the course of the next half an hour Tyree, obviously reading from detailed and copious notes, named individuals and companies dealing with PROMIS software and its progeny. The tape was specific down to naming specific engineers in military and private corporations doing PROMIS research. Tyree described specific Congressional committees that had been infiltrated with "enhanced" PROMIS. Tyree described how PROMIS progeny, having inspired four new computer languages, had made possible the positioning of satellites so far out in space that they were untouchable. At the same time the progeny had improved video quality to the point where the same satellite could focus on a single human hair. The ultimate big picture.

PROMIS progeny had also evolved to the point where neural pads could be attached to plugs in the back of the human head and thought could be translated into electrical impulses that would be equally capable of flying a plane or wire transferring money. Names like Sandia, Cal-Tech, Micron, Tech University of Graz, Oded Leventer, and Massimo Grimaldi rolled from his lips as he tore through the pages of notes. Data, such as satellite reconnaissance, could also now be downloaded from a satellite directly into a human brain. The evolution of the artificial intelligence had progressed to a point where animal behavior and thought were being decoded. Mechanical humans were being tested. Animals were being controlled by computer.

There's also a mention of chips that can work even when the computer is unpowered so the data can be transmitted even when you think that's impossible. There is also mention of the e-book The Last Circle describing CIA drug trafficking, as far as I know. Too much stuff everywhere; looks like the USA government has some damn ugly dirty hands. So ugly the dirt is popping out through the sieves of the gloves. Isn't it odd this machinery is still active?

Sitting Ducks

2005-04-06T20:46:00.000+02:00

A couple of sitting ducks

and one racing from them

a suspiciously looking cat

blue flowers

a yellow flower

bushes still blooming

and again daisies for the end.

What You Fear Is What You Get

2005-04-01T14:54:00.000+02:00

I'm lacking some sleep so I'm kind of nervous and grim and shall do some lamenting before I proceed with my mind-dazzling work.
Seriously, why bother? Why work all days and get paid so you can't save enough even in 20 years to buy yourself an appartment? And that even while being rigorous with saving, not even having a car and using public transport, etc. Why put up with stupid people the whole life? Why should I care about world affairs when it's obvious the affairs don't care about me? And don't even start babbling about my vote and elections because I'll throw something big and heavy in your direction. Why should I do anything? Where's sense in having a job, a family, and vacations every now and then? No, I don't fancy being a hermit. And stop mumbling about happiness. Existence and happiness don't go together. One is restricted, the other is meaningless if not eternal. Why should I choose anything? Choice in its essence is irrelevant. It doesn't matter because nothing it involves is eternal. So I have a problem with process, whereas not with state of things. Perhaps because I lack some sleep and don't want to take part in any process until I sleep out my state of sleepyness.
I can't get no sleep.

How to Shoot Photos

2005-03-29T18:22:00.000+02:00

I took a walk and noticed some flowers.

Nice! The springtime is finally here.

There was a suspicious looking guy searching for something.

Very suspicious.

I made a fast glance at the nearby castle. Nice sight.

I found another kind of flowers.

They weren't alone.

And a big tree.

With a lot of those violet flowers underneath.

Just look at them!

Even bushes were blooming!

A bee noticed that.

But look at this guy. He keeps staring at me.

Another bush and another bee.

Just this flower and I'm gone.

The Art of Life

2005-03-27T21:12:00.000+02:00

What is it all about? Don't you just hate it? There is no reason, no purpose, and above all, nothing counts. Anything with an end is irrelevant to eternity. Perhaps this is why I enjoy sunsets. The end.

To most of the people endings are something fearful, they are afraid to even think about them. To me an ending means release. This is why it's quite hard to scare me or to make me panic. But that is also why I'm prone to depression.

But there are a few endings people usually look forward to. Like, diseases. So, how to reach this end, umm? Well, with pills, of course!

Internyet and a Camera

2005-03-09T12:34:00.000+01:00

Internot. That #$%&@$% [ insert a lot of lengthy curses and other offending words here ] $@&~#$ ISP is making fun of me and my flatmates. Internet is not working. Okay, maybe it works 10 minutes a day. If I reset the modem at least 10 times. But now we've had it and we are already considering one other ISP.
In other news, I bought a camera yesterday! I already took a few pictures. I included my self-portrait in the blogger. And below are two pictures taken from my balcony.

A view from my balcony

And with a 10x zoom

Star Trek XI

2005-03-02T18:52:00.000+01:00

Star Trek XI is in the early stages of development!¨Yay!

Misteries of Human Construction

2005-02-25T15:04:00.000+01:00

Wheeee, internet is back and that techie didn't bother to pick up the modem he left for me to test with it. Now I've got two modems. Perhaps I could sell one, if it weren't an outdated phased-out technology. Everyone is handling or is planning to handle internet according to the DOCSIS standard.
Not always does everything play out according to plans. Like the human DNA. It was estimated that it contains more than 100.000 genes, but they found out it contains only 34.000 genes. Not enough even to map all the proteins in the human body. There is a possible explanation for it. Remember, think positive and everything will play out just fine. ;)

CMS = Cable Modem Shit

2005-02-23T14:29:00.000+01:00

Actually, CMS means Content Management System. This blogger is a type of CMS.
First you have to know that there are cable companies and there are Internet Service Providers (ISP) that work with cable companies to bring the internet to my computer. Kind of like telcos and ISPs, if you know what ADSL is. An ISP is a separate entity from cable company. And somehow, perhaps because of this division, ISPs and cable companies don't tend to like each other. Except for where there exists a cable company's favourite ISP. Today a technician came from the ISP I'm subscribed to. He brought with himself 3 modems of the same model as I have, only with different firmware revisions. He was an hour late. He spent an hour fiddling with all the modems. And making phone calls. One was exceptionally tedious, as if he would talk with a man that still visits kindergarten. I bet his child quite often tells him in the morning: "Father, now I'll play here, but you must get to work. Don't forget to pick me up in 8 hours." I got a good impression of the technician though, he seems like a man that knows his stuff, and is quite friendly. Now, on to the problem. The ISP supports only one type of modems with the cable company I'm connected to. Yes, that Israeli shit. He also told me they use other technologies elsewhere, but here it may take some time before they introduce technology that's actually a standard, not some bizarre proprietary crap that's not compatible with anything else. To cut the story short, it seems that the cable company didn't correctly adjust the signal levels for this type of modem. Cable modems use two TV channels for their operation; considering modem's self-diagnostics it appears that the downstream is doing well, but the upstream signal doesn't reach the hub. Bugger. A job for the cable company. And tomorrow the technician will come again. Hopefully then he'll get something done. I STILL DON'T HAVE INTERNET#"$^"$%!@~^#$

[Dis]service

2005-02-21T13:39:00.000+01:00

The electric company is bullshitting me again. On the night from 16th to 17th February, that's the night between Wednesday and Thursday in the previous week, they didn't have the cheap tariff. And that remained so all nights since. Even the whole weekend! It is supposed to be the cheap tariff the whole weekend!
And I won't even start talking about my Internet provider. They're playing with my patience. If even tomorrow I won't have internet access restored, then it will be the whole 2 weeks without access to the internet from home, the exception beeing two afternoons. One was Thursday two weeks ago, one was Tuesday the previous week. Today they were just repeating the excuse that they were having extensive problems with my type of modem. Not all of them can connect. Crappy Israeli technology. They should have bought cheap Taiwanese shit, not a bloody expensive piece of joke. Sure enough, a year from when I bought the damn modem, they've changed the technology. They're not all that stupid, but sufficiently stupid for me to always get into some kind of trouble! That Israeli work of art cost me the same as five Taiwanese plastic boxes would have. There's always been some transient problems with this modem. On average once a week in late evening it wouldn't connect anymore. You had to wait until the morning, and then it worked again. I didn't even bother to report those problems. Tomorrow I'll ask them for how long would they have me wait before I switch to another provider. I'm very interested in what the reply will be.
I hate dilettants. At times like this I am sorry I chose civil service instead of army service. Now I'm barred from ever having a gun.

Health and Society

2005-02-18T11:51:00.000+01:00

Statistics show that the primary causes of death are coronary diseases and cancer. When professionals delve into that kind of data they all start saying how we don't live well, how we should improve our way of living with more physical activity and better diet. Jogging, cycling, raw vegetables and fruit! Yeah. They all say how it should be, there's never any analisys on why it isn't so already. Until I see those reasons exposed I'm calling them all a bunch of dilettants.
People should want to exercise and eat plants. If after those health litanies I still see a person enjoying his/her existing way of life then there's something fundamentally wrong in trying to convince people to enjoy a "better life". Just placing ads telling us to eat fruit and vegetables five times a day won't have any significant impact. If you're targeting the society then you have to change the society, not individuals. One simple way of doing this is to drop taxes on healthy food, and to somehow motivate people to exercise. By changing the mindset do you change the opinion on what joy means. Invite, not suggest. I've observed that people around here like to take suggestions as a mild form of an attack, a judgement or a critique. The more "drastic" and personal suggestions are, the more of a feeling of repression they get. Just do a simple invitation. Drop taxes. Implement some kind of a financial stimulans for persons that decide to exercise. I don't know, finance some minimum number of hours in a sport club for exercising. Lower life insurance rates. Give people an incentive by properly changing the society.

Don't Invest in USA

2005-02-17T00:50:00.000+01:00

They have a crazy law that a crazy president just might use. Here's an excerpt.

During the time of war, the President may, through any agency that he may designate, and under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe, by means of instructions, licenses, or otherwise
1. investigate, regulate, or prohibit, any transactions in foreign exchange, transfers of credit or payments between, by, through, or to any banking institution, and the importing, exporting, hoarding, melting, or earmarking of gold or silver coin or bullion, currency or securities, and
2. investigate, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit, any acquisition holding, withholding, use, transfer, withdrawal, transportation, importation or exportation of, or dealing in, or exercising any right, power, or privilege with respect to, or transactions involving, any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest, [...]

So: when can you say it is the time of war, when can you say someone is hoarding something, etc.? Big ambiguities when the President is doing something he calls the War on Terror, and having a weak dollar. Dollar appears to be sligthly regaining strength lately only because Europian and Asian countries cannot afford it to become any weaker. Not until they have freed themselves of (most of) the dependency on dollar. When they will have converted their dollar reserves, one can only imagine what will become of dollar. Nothing rosy, that's for certain. And when dollar sinks, everything else goes up. If I were a crazy president with a dollar that isn't worth anything, I'd declare a war on, say, Iran and seize all foreign capital.
But if you're a speculative person and have the nerve, you may get rich trading in gold. That is, if you're not an American and don't plan to store your assets there, or you believe the above-mentioned law won't get into effect. You see, the value of gold is still pegged to dollar. Hint, hint, wink, wink? ;)

The Season Is About to Change Therefore I Must Be Ill.

2005-02-15T16:11:00.000+01:00

Yes, I think I finally got it how I get ill. I must get ill before spring weather can show up. No sneezing, no spring. I've got a sore throat and my right ear aches. Actually, there's something wrong with the whole right part of my head. It's one of those weird colds I tend to catch.
Actually I'm in a mockingly funny mood and have typed a post already, and then decided it's more suitable for The Dregs of I.T. So no more typing for me. I have to implement a transaction server anyway. Not a very easy job. At last something interesting. ;)
Oh, and I'm doing documentation using LaTeX! Yay! Too bad it's a trade secret. I could really enjoy some gloating by putting it up here and showing the world how these things are done.

Sinking Dollar

2005-01-31T12:07:00.000+01:00

If you're planning to buy something big in or from USA, then wait just one more year.
World Economic Forum opened on Wednesday the previous week in Davos, Switzerland. And what are they all worried about? The teetering dollar, USD. There are already reports that Asian countries are considering dumping dollars in favour of other more stable currencies. Malaysia may be the first one. And China seems to consider it, too. But there's a catch. If you have a small bit of dollars, no big deal: sell them and buy some other currency. But if you have a significant portion of dollars, like China and Japan combined ($906 billion), then you risk losing a big chunk of your fortunes. It's the same problem Saudis are facing. Saudi Arabia has somewhere between $700 and $750 billion (estimated, exact figures are a secret) invested in the USA economy. If they pull the plug and sell their bonds, shares, etc., the dollar will sink rapidly and they'll get out less than it was originally worth, thus it's not a simple matter of converting from one currency to the other. This was already experienced a few years ago, when families of those deceased in the 9/11 attack started a lawsuit against some Saudis, the Saudi Binladin group, a few banks and Muslim charities, and maybe some more entities I've forgotten. Saudis pulled $200 billion out of USA in a matter of days and that had an immense impact on dollar. Well, who can blame them, they feared that the court would freeze their assets. The lawsuit is no small one, if I remember correctly the families are demanding $116 trillion. [There's also something to be said about the high costs of the USA legal system.]
Now that dollar is weak, now that USA has a record budget deficit, and with no clear strategy to at least stop sinking, the depression seems more and more inevitable. But although the world would like to get rid of the rotting currency, it can't do that, or the rotting spreads. A magical circle, only prolonging the frustration. Well, at least Americans can't say they didn't have a chance and they weren't given the time to do something about it. Because of this vicious circle they are guaranteed to get all the time the world can muster, and then some.

Continuous Earthquakes

2005-01-30T12:36:00.000+01:00

The Andaman and Nicobar islands are experiencing earthquakes of magnitudes between 5 and 6 for several days now. Would those still be aftershocks, or is there something big cooking underneath the Bay of Bengal?

And If I Receive This Crap Again...

2005-01-27T18:29:00.000+01:00

... I'm going to cut some balls! For some odd reason people like to lose the touch with reality and email me requests to forward requests to identify a couple of tsunami victims. In zillionplicates! Do those morons really think that in more than a month after the disaster no relative is going to react to the fact that their dears are missing? Okay, so you cannot be 100% sure. But why forward it only because you cannot be sure they already found their family? Sheesh! Try to get sure, and only if you fail, click that damn itchy "forward" button! You only have to feed a part of the text into Google to receive results clearly stating you don't have to bombard other people's mailboxes with some shit to identify a boy or a girl anymore!

Geeks as a Romantic Bunch

2005-01-27T18:17:00.000+01:00

ThinkGeek came out with an assortment for the Valentine's Day. What a poetic T-shirt! ;-)

The End Of Hydrocarbon Energy... and World Sanity

2005-01-26T13:45:00.000+01:00

Yes! The Peak Oil is estimated at 2007 or 2008. No car for me! With heightening demand for oil from China, and a bit from India, and increasing energy spending in developed countries already being a problem (mostly because of pollution, but that's only a fancy excuse for you not to go digging deeper), I can only assume the gasoline prices to skyrocket as soon as in 2006 already. You know, the USA grabbing what they can etc., I can see no other solution for a poor Slovenian but to go back to those weird coal-fueled trucks. Well I say no, me, I'm going to cycle! I'd be insane to buy a car now. The taxes and insurance are already high, the new road-traffic law is insane (you can be fined if your car is dirty, if you don't have a shovel in your car, if you drank any alcohol at all, etc., and the fines are high), and to add to that high fuel prices, I'd give a third (okay, less if I really watched over my spending and didn't trot around with the car unnecesarilly, but still a fifth minimally) of my salary per month away. Currently I pay about 5% of my salary for public transport.
Reminds me of a verse from a piece by The Doors, The End, that plays in Apocalypse Now while a nighmarish scene of war is shown: This is the end / Beautiful friend / This is the end / My only friend, the end. A great movie otherwise! I've seen some footage from Iraq that resembles the state of things as shown in that movie quite aptly, if you don't mind the absence of a jungle. I'm sure you've seen some of it. Or you're going to. Abu Ghraib, for example.
But I'm smart. I'm going to buy a couple of stoves powered by solid fuel, like coal and wood. My family owns a smallish wood. Not exactly a forest, but from what I can tell it's sufficient to keep one house warm through winters endlessly if some reforesting is applied continuously.
It's time to rejoice! Soon our overlords will lose the foothold in our lives that is the oil. Economies will crash and we'll all enjoy the beauty of a bicycle. And conspiracy theories! I'll have to go into publishing business. I bet then the newspapers with conspiracy theories will sell very well.
Hm. I can't get that thing with a shovel in the car out of my mind. Why do they suddenly insist on having a shovel? To burry the bodies? [Of animals, of course! You animal!]

Will I Get My Own Flat Before World Ends?

2005-01-23T19:12:00.000+01:00

According to a site that quotes some Mayan and other prophecies the world ends in 2012. Suddenly I understand why USA didn't sign the Kyoto deal to limit the pollution. If the world is going to end... I mean: let's fuck up the planet before someone else does it! It's fun!
I found out that some shares I inherited are slowly nearing the last year's peak. Time to sell! I'll try to arrange it in the coming week and put the money into a mutual investment fund. Not much money, like a salary with a hefty bonus. I wonder if I'll save up enough money to afford myself at least a trashcan with its own mailbox before the world ends.

World's No. 1 Mental Disorder

2005-01-17T11:02:00.000+01:00

A quote from Depression Learning Path:
Clinical, or major depression is the world's No. 1 mental disorder, the 2nd most disabling condition in the world behind heart disease. And it's growing at an alarming rate.
Be careful then.

Nerve Jamming

2005-01-11T14:22:00.000+01:00

One lady behind me on the bus. She was just loud and audible enough that I couldn't but overhear how she was abusing her cell phone.

"...and your car?"
"Oh, really?"
"So, you didn't?"
"Really?"
"Your brother didn't mind?"
"Oh, really?"
...
"Oh, really?"
...
"OH, REALLY?"
...
...
"Oh, really?"
"No, really?"
...
"Really?"

Her cell phone must be one of the later models. It seems to be killing her too slowly.

Your Cellular is a WMD!

2005-01-07T11:08:00.000+01:00

I've just read a disturbing article about Risk Evaluation of potential environmental hazards from low energy electromagnetic field exposure using sensitive in vitro methods (REFLEX). There is also a lengthy review of the data on the effects of electromagnetic field exposure on biological systems pertinent to the evaluation of human health risks.
In short: your cell phone is killing you softly.

More McKenna

2005-01-05T14:21:00.000+01:00

I've found a repository of audio files featuring Terence McKenna, the man on the field of psychedelic plants, shamanism and spiritual transformation, with a huge bibliography. And a page full of material about him.
Not to be mistaken with Paul McKenna. Actually, I've ordered a book from Amazon by Paul McKenna, Change Your Life in Seven Days. Yes, you'll all say it's hogwash etc. But! I decided not to believe people that are not saying that from experience, but only expressing their preconceptions. At least when I'm through this book I can say with a strong confidence that it's crap. Or the opposite. Since I've been diagnosed with depression and a week on pills seems to have pulled me out enough for my ego to somewhat reassert itself, I'm out seeking for any and all artillery that will kill this beast. At least now I know I have a problem and I know what is the problem.
And I've ordered a couple of other books also. For some reason amazon decided to deliver three books to me in two deliveries. I'm not paying anything extra for an extra delivery, so, whatever. I'll turn them in at the local green party for excess usage of packaging. Interesting though, when I ordered the Paul McKenna book yesterday its availability was 24 hours, now it's 7 to 10 days. I'll see if it's really as good as it sells.

Plants are the Saviours

2005-01-05T12:06:00.000+01:00

I've been reading Terence McKenna a bit. Anyone knows where I could get a psychedelic plant or two? ;]
He died of a brain cancer. Hmmm... I'm having second thoughts all of a sudden.

The Big Cycle

2005-01-04T14:28:00.000+01:00

I only pressed once on the "NEXT BLOG" link in the upper right corner! I swear! Anyway, a lengthy comment came out of it, it could be a post by itself. But I won't paste it here. Read it there if you want.

Containment

2005-01-04T00:08:00.000+01:00

Some lamer(z) tried throughout the last week to hack into a computer I administer. At first I was denying access to subnets with the attacking hosts. But today I got fed up. I locked out everyone except for a few Slovenian subnets. 0wn0rz th4t, h4xx0rz!
Today I'm experiencing an adrenaline rush. Walked over the local Rožnik hill. Yes, over it. In a bit less than half an hour. I took the steepest way uphill. Was up in less than 5 minutes. And cursed two thirds of the world population on the way. They have to die in the next 50 years or so anyway, if Earth is to remain the only planet sustaining humans.
I must burn the adrenaline by hightened activity. Otherwise it would get stored in fat. Which I haven't got. So, I'm afraid I have to beat up all of you. I might explode once or twice in the process. But don't worry. Nothing personal.

Frustration

2004-12-23T00:45:00.000+01:00

I think I'm overworked. Three difficult years with no vacations. No rest. The only break being a couple of sick leaves.
Perhaps I shall have to ask people to give me a week. To digest all the backlog. To send to hell everything I don't need anymore. To rest. To calm down. Fill the batteries.
Shit. I don't even have the time to clean up my place anymore.
Perhaps I'll take longer vacations. And disappear for a while. Perhaps.

Reproduction Too Common

2004-12-20T13:06:00.000+01:00

Our and a partner company organised a dinner this Saturday to celebrate the end of this year. I didn't like it. Not very much. Actually, I didn't like the last few hours. They were too long. Perhaps because everyone wanted to see me dancing. Yea, right. I'd rather eat a moon. Deimos. Phobos. Europa. Io. Ganymede. Callisto. Titania. Oberon. Whichever. I'll have to come up with a very good excuse for the next year. So they won't use a damn mike for the whole joint to hear them inviting me to dance. Next time they do this I'm sending them invoice for my deteriorating psychological condition.
Otherwise, here is another one of those things that make you laugh. So you won't die from my ranting. Caution: included on the page is a 5 MB video.
Yes, too many have been given the opportunity to reproduce. I don't think I like this fact. But I must. Otherwise I'd be out of job. Everyone as smart as me, or even smarter... naaah. I'd hate that even more.

Books Are Here

2004-12-14T14:07:00.000+01:00

Got the first package from Amazon containing all the books and a CD I ordered back in October. I grew fed up with them and set my delivery preferences to dispatch items as they become available. So during this week I'll receive one more package with one CD, and then perhaps in January the last package with one more CD.
One of the books is also Crossing the Rubicon. It's thick. And printed on acid-free paper that is 100% old growth forest-free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free, and printed with vegetable based, low VOC inks. Whatever. It says so inside the book. I think I'll need a month or four to read it. After glancing at a few pages I find it written in an interesting way. And I also found a diagram of events on 9/11 with a lot of "unexplained xx minute delay" labels all over it. Just turn to the page 319. Lots and lots of interesting material. And I thought history is boring. ;)

A Bit of Windows Security

2004-12-11T10:12:00.000+01:00

While waiting for my hair to dry I've been surfing the Slashdot forums and stumbled upon a few links with freeware security utilities for Windows. The first thing a clueless windows user should install is an antivirus program. There's a free version of AVG antivirus program for personal home use. There's Spybot Search & Destroy to remove all of your spyware. There are three simple utilities at Gibson Research Corporation: UnPlug n'Pray to shut down the Windows UPnP service (an oddity that scans the network for some sort of auto-configuring devices), DCOMbombulator that shuts down the DCOM system which cares for remote program execution, and Shoot The Messenger which has NOTHING to do with the MSN Messenger, but instead shuts down a completely different messenger service that is there to receive SMB messages (the "net send" command, if that rings any bells).
And now I go shopping. :]

Blogs

2004-12-10T18:26:00.000+01:00

Since there's nothing interesting to put into my blog, I've put it into The dregs of I.T. blog. That post has been cooking in my head for the past three weeks. Lately there's just not that much time left for blogging. ;)
Domen from The L Files blog discovered online tests. Good. Perhaps his keyboard shall suffer less now. That guy has a tremendous lot of posts per day. ;) Anyway, that famous leader test seemed interesting so I took it myself. The variant with 45 questions.

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Happy December

2004-12-07T17:38:00.000+01:00

I spent this year's company bonus on an LCD monitor. 20". Dell 2001FP. With the 1600x1200 resolution. That's like a small TV. I have to be at least one meter away to see everything. It's great! 16 ms response time, no dead pixels I could find, sharp bright picture... I mean, wow! It can pivot between landscape and portrait positions. Programming in portrait mode... Yay, I can finally see procedures in their entirety. VGA, DVI, S-Video and composite inputs. I can hook up some video equipment. And last but not least: the viewing angle is damn large! 88 degrees in every direction, they say, and I can only confirm that. No more CRT for me!
And today I bought a computer for my sister. A second-hand desktop computer with Pentium 3 866 MHz processor, 256 MB RAM and 20G disk, with on-board sound, graphics and network adapter, for only 28900 SIT (that's about $160 at today's exchange rate). It also has a DVD drive. A bargain, I'd say. I'll add my old monitor and let my sister have it. So she can finally write her reports and see the learning material for her study. And the landlord told her he'll subscribe to an ADSL internet service if she'll have a computer. Perhaps I'll finally get back the key for my appartment. ;)
And I still have a LOT of work.

Funny Ad

2004-11-30T11:01:00.000+01:00

Got something to lighten up your mood. If you can afford to transfer about 5 MB of an MPEG video, then check out this commercial. A few moles lost in underground tunnels searching for the right path to a rave party. The end is hilarious.

Resting Brains

2004-11-29T23:42:00.000+01:00

I'm not dead. I'm just on mental vacations. Too much work, too much of everything, I just didn't have the energy for blogging. I'm not sure you're interested in lamenting over corrupt databases because server rebooted in the middle of a heavy database fill, cursing the winter weather, or annoying blabbering about how I'm exhausted.
I've been talked into signing up with MSN Messenger, so I did it today. In the process I had to verify my e-mail address. Or, better said, MSN had to verify it. So I received an e-mail with the "Welcome to Microsoft .NET Passport!" subject. Okay, but there was nothing about confirming this is the correct e-mail address, just a load of instructions on how to become a M$ certified life-form. After a while I was annoyed there was still "e-mail address not verified" label beside my nickname, so I repeated the verification procedure, but nothing. Eh, I decided to just forget about it. And now, while I was checking if anything interesting fell into the spam area of my e-mail inbox, it was just it: the link with which to verify my e-mail address. Argh.

Combining Orders at Amazon

2004-11-19T14:25:00.000+01:00

Suddenly, Crossing the Rubicon became available at Amazon.co.uk. It was actually published in September, then briefly appeared at Amazon, got some reviews, and was shortly thereafter labeled as not yet published with all the comments/reviews removed. Then the American elections happenned and now it's available again. A bit odd, but whatever. The author has something more to say about it. What was interesting to me was the fact, that the UK Amazon had the book listed as a hard-to-get item, and you had to pay an additional surcharge, and the availability was 1-2 weeks, when the US Amazon had it as not yet released.
Since the book looks quite interesting to me and is in high demand, I ordered it. Since I already had one order at Amazon waiting to be dispatched, I combined the two orders. The original order had one hard-to-get item with the availability of 4-6 weeks. After I combined them, the dispatch estimate didn't stay at the end of November, it got moved on to the end of December. So much on combining orders.

The Most Annoying Stupidity

2004-11-15T21:59:00.000+01:00

Slashdot is having a poll on biggest work annoyance. I'm having a hard time deciding between stupid customers and stupid co-workers. I think I'll sleep over this.
I like this quote: Stupidity accomplishes things that the most brilliant evil genius cannot even conceive of.
Hey, want to know a stupid thing that happened today? I got an e-mail at 6:11 am telling me to log in to some computer and see what could be wrong. An application running there would break if you wanted to see what's on stock. But it worked, if you ran the exactly same application on some other computer. I logged in ummm... somewhere at 9:45 am (I didn't even wake up until 7-and-something) and the first thing I checked was which database it was connected to. Yes, it was connected to some old backup that was used for testing a long time ago. They failed to check this simple thing in all days since Friday. They were issuing hand-written bills instead. I won't even tell you what they've tried. Heck, I even don't fully know it. I even don't want to. But... I just checked it, it was the first thing I checked, and I found the mistake. Now. Am I über-smart, or is everyone else just stupid?
Why was their first assumption that the application had a bug? An inconsistent one at that, since it worked flawlessly on other computers. Why did they reinstall almost everything and didn't even check the friggin' configuration? Even after it was obvious the application was correctly (re)installed and set up? What's wrong with those people? And most important: who and why changed the database connection?