Real thing

It really looks like a video game. It creaps me out.

Sounds Useful

Instructional purposes only.

Boo!!

It is Halloween. We had a kid party. We invited a bunch of friends who had kids. A couple who didn't have kids showed up. Quintin and Jake showed up. So did the brother in laws. It was a blast.

I'm tired. We had 75 kids here. Well, 15 or so. They seemed like more.

Adam found the color hair spray. Most of the kids had technocolor hair walking out the door.

The adults liked the glow sticks. The kids liked playing with the ball in the back yard. Oh, they liked running around and screaming at the top of their lungs too.

It's funny. Most of the kids that showed up from Elle's school were brought by their nannies. Thanks to Bill and Ted, Elle is in a much better school than we could possibly afford. Thanks Bill and Ted.

I didn't take any pictures. I was busy eating chips and throwing things away that Nat kept handing me.

Gosh, I'm tired.

I forget how bad this neighborhood is until my friends come over. I live next to the hood.

We got three sets of trick-or-treaters. We handed out play-doe.

Gosh, I'm tired. I've got a nose cold too. I'm going to take a bunch of Nyquil and pass out.

We are going to take some things to Faire that are left over.

Thanks to everyone who contributed. You made it a great party. Any one want some left over pizza?

Gosh, I'm tired.

For the children

The opposite of pro is con. The opposite of progress is congress.

More Faire Notes

• Johnny pored out a bottle of alcohol that was nasty. Trust me, this is note worthy.
• Nat hocked fro GK. She climbed up in the second floor window and shouted "Armor and weapons. ..." The actions fulfilled a need to shout at people. I'm looking for a full time position for her.
• I need some ankle braces that fit under my Faire boots. That or I need to start working out my ankles somehow. Those boots have zero support. It isn't walking that tears them up. It is standing around. Walking helps.
• There was a shortage of chairs this weekend. Not that there were not enough chairs. There were not enough chairs set up. People are getting sick of loosing chairs so they keep them closer to home. We do the same thing.
  

Posting

I liked the post I made last night. It gave that sense of satisfaction that I get from blogging. We need things that make us feel good about ourselves. That post felt pretty good. I would have liked to have added some clickable picture4res on the post, but the google editor doesn't support that yet. Nor can you embed a YouTube video without editing the HTML in an editor. That kind of sucks. Then again, no one else really supports that stuff either.

Google docs also doesn't have good support for paragraphs. That is, you can't always tell when something has the <p>...</p> tags around it without looking at the code. That blows because it helps if your wrap all your text and objects in those tags. That way things have a consistent amount of space before and after. With google docs, all the text looks the same distance regardless of paragraph tags. So, google docs has a ways to go.

One of these days I'm going to figure out a way to take notes at Faire. One of the guys up there has a cool digital camera that takes two hours of video. The camera was only $200. I didn't catch what kind of memory it had, but I bet that was extra. It also didn't do zoom very well. It was little bitty, yet had a pop out screen on the side. It took 5 megapixel pictures too. The best thing, it was smaller than a pack of cigarettes. That's important to get those candid videos. It's good to know that kind of thing is out there. If it also did voice recording, it would be about the ultimate Faire recording device.

Faire

Where to begin.

Warrant

Friday, about three or so, I get a frantic call from Nat. "I'm getting arrested." I could hear Elle crying in the back seat. A few more frantic calls and $355 later, we are out from under the ticket. Apparently, one of Nat's old roommates used Nat's ID to get out of a ticket. We just got to pay the price. That is not including the time off work.

I really should have gone back after. It turns out I screwed something up at work. If I had gone back, I might have gotten things straightened out.

Nat had taken Elle to a ranch for a field trip out west of Houston. She joked that she was half way to Faire. When we were off paying the warrant, we were in prescient 4 which is half way to Faire. We had to come back to take care of Elle cloths for the weekend with my parents. So, the roommate should pay for gas too.

At Faire

We did make it to Faire thank goodness. We set up and started doing what we are there for. We hung out with our friends. There were burgers Friday night. Usually, every one is on their own Friday night. Most of the other folks had come out Thursday evening to set up.Now, those are the determined folks.

Three people brought wood for the fire. It was raging the whole weekend. Ken wasn't even out until Saturday evening I believe.  We not only went through all that wood, but ended up driving around collecting old pallets to burn. Pine burns hot and quick. No wonder houses go up like match heads.

Behind the Scenes

Saturday evening Nat and I walked to the car for our ride back to camp. I followed Nat out the back gate behind the shop she works. It was interesting to have a look behind the curtain. I think the magic of the experience of Faire is in tact.

Good Bye Nibble

Saturday evening, we were on our way out of Fare to the camp ground. We were pulling the usual bit about how we are going to take off any minute. Then an hour later, we are still standing around bullshitting with friends. Normal stuff.

Midge bit Rezen. Rezen wasn't putting up much of a fuss. As a matter of fact, she was making some rather provocative sounds that turned the normal's heads as they passed heading for the exit.

Well, Midge wasn't done. She was giving hugs as Midge will, and when it came to my turn, she bit me on the neck. Not a playful nibble. She bit me. Not bad. Before I could react, Midge had made her way to Nat and was biting her on the breast. Nat didn't seem to mind until she remembered something and said "Wait, I have to work tomorrow!" You can't have any exposed hickeys.
Where was I?

Monica

I spent some time hanging out with Monica Saturday. The first couple of weekends were stifling hot in the haunted house. I had a hard time standing there and talking with people.

We talked about family and friends. We mostly laughed at the people screaming their guts out in the darkness. They are only a couple of feet away, on the other side of a wall. I told her they should charge people to stand behind her while she works the contraptions and sound effects.
Monica is my mother in law.

Really Scary

I didn't go in Sunday. I wish I had.

Some guy nearly attacked Nat. Thank God she was near some good friends.Big friends. The hook was a paper rose. He gave it to Nat and said "worth the same as a kiss card?" or something like that. When Nat went to give him a nip on the cheek, he was all over her. She got a way and went to the GK shop. The fallowed her. She found Mongo, Michael, and Ron hanging around out front shooting the breeze. These three guys add up to about half a ton, without their wallets or keys.

Scary guy was suddenly gone. Ron walked her to the car. It is good to have friends. It is really good to have really big friends.

Drama

There wasn't that much drama this weekend. Tony had to take off to work out of town. Diz was devastated. Diz is strong and capable. She is also a woman and miss her man. Some tears were shed saying good bye.  That isn't drama. That's love and longing.

Jade got some bad news. He went in a tent and screamed for a couple of minutes. He is working through it. That isn't drama. That is lament.
What was missing were the girls and guys trying to make each other miserable by using words to hurt. I'm sure there was some. Maybe I'm just getting better at tuning it out. It was relaxing.

Trebuchet

There is one reason I like going to Faire. The people there are nuts.

It may take a while for the video to show up.

Doc built this thing out of spare parts laying around. He pulled a real McGiver this time. He plans on retro fitting his daughter's wagon with a slightly smaller version of this.

Aftermath

My face is so sunburned that I can feel the light from the monitor in my cheeks. My right ankle hurts and I had a dehydration headache this afternoon and I had plenty of water to drink. Just enough to let me know I had a great time. I need some time at work to recover from the weekend.

Pictures

Faire Weather

I was walking to the bus stop this morning and noticed it was beautiful outside. I wish I could capture the clean, cool, not overly air. There was a semi stuck at the corner of one of the streets. It appears that it was trying to take a left and dropped the transmission or something. There was a mechanic there with lights working on it. The ground is dry. The grass is shorter than normal on my walk.

This weekend is supposed to be more of the same. It is Halloween weekend at TRF. Halloween weekend is one of the big party weekends for camping. That is one of those weekends that is packed. Many people say they are only coming for a couple of weekends. Those are invariably first, last and Halloween weekends. It is the party weekend when all the drunks show up and the normal folks get toasted to stand it. People dress up in whole new costumes just for the heck of it. Jedi and Storm Troopers drink together. Jawa and Hobbits get along, and party.

I noticed something else this morning. It is a full moon. So, we have the big party weekend. The weather is going to be clear and cool. We have a full moon. My my, I predict craziness. I hope it is reined in and quiet after 02:00 or so. Well, let's just hope no one gets hurt.

Another pretty day

Somewhere in the Middle East there are people fighting over the rules of religion. Somewhere in my city people are dying for no good reason. People around me have problems.

It is so pretty outside. It is one of those rare days in Houston when the humidity is not so bad and the temp is around 70. It is wonderful just to walk in the sun and look off in the clear distance for a bit. I did so at lunch. I was on the roof of the parking garage talking to myself like normal. I complained about not having enough extra scratch to buy fast food for lunch. I couldn't stop looking around and taking in the horizon. The sky is blue. The haze is not so bad today. There is a breeze that is just right for the temperature. I wish I could have hung a hammock between pillars and taken a nap.

Ackmed the dead terrorist

Ha! Dead bob should take some notes.

Packaging

It is the same regardless of OS or platform. You have to just plane know how things need to work.

I'm doing a bunch of software packaging right now at work. Do I need file X? Where does it go during install? What are the rights? What is the ownership? How should I place it? What settings do I need to change while installing? What services do I need to start/stop? What are the prerequisites? What needs to be added to the README file? Where are the documents? Where do they go? What updates do they need? OK, now let's move on to file two of 1500 and ask all the same questions.

Once you get all that, then we start with the uninstall process. This process is harder and more destructive than the install process. It's maddening, but required.

Then comes testing. It is the most time consuming and depressing. All your hard work is torn apart by reality of boots on the ground. It hurts, but it is the most important step in the process.

Next, you get to start the whole process over again for the next project. Or, as it happened this last couple of weeks, the same project over and over. OOPS! Thee is another bug. No one will mind version 75.233.13A will they?

Micky Mouse in South Africa

Lucky Dube was shot to death while someone tried to steel his car In South Africa. I hear South Africa has a particularly difficult time with cars getting stolen.

Lucky was a Rugby player for a South African team. He was highly popular. A fan said something to the effect "Lucky was an icon. He fought for freedom in his own way. For him to be shot while some guy steels his car is pretty Micky Mouse to me."  It trips me out that the term "Micky Mouse" means the same thing in South Africa that it means in my neighborhood. It is on the level of "Chicken Shit", or possibly "flimsy".

Flash

Years ago I did some Macromedia Director work in Desktop Publishing school at HCC. I learned about time lines and library objects. I also learned about tweening (the legal kind). I had no idea those skills would make their way to my professional career. They did. I have some Flash animations up and running on a commercials page. They are nothing to write a new resume over, but they work.

If I can find a Linux solution that works even OK, the readers of this blog just might find some flash bits showing up. If you can view the YouTube and LiveLeak videos here, you already have everything you need to use Flash on your machine. Last time I checked, there is nothing that makes Flash on Linux. That might change any minute.

Precise drop

This is some amazing flying. These folks really are giving it their all to save neighborhoods. That is some amazing flying. There are dozens of videos of the fires in Calli.

These choppers look like huge bugs taking a drink. This maneuver looks easy, but it is not. The chopper is getting heaver as the water comes on board. The dangling hose makes things interesting too.

Close up of a plane from above. Pretty purple orange fire retardant back lit by the sun. Nice shot.

Google Documents

I tried Google Documents. It published my blog off a text I wrote using google docs. I've complained many times of no simple html editor available without installing a whole suite of applications. Well, here it is. Google Docs is great for throwing some simple text down and formatting it. You then click on the HTML tab and paste that in to your blog or forum field. So far so good. There is zero installation. It is all web based applications.

I ran smack in to one limitation. I tried to open a Word document that had an embedded excel sheet as a table. That didn't work at all. This was on a Linux box. That may have had something to do with it. I really hope not.

For simple things, it works well so far.

It says it will export as Word, Open Office, PDF and others. It supports links, pictures regular formatting, spell checking. Oh, and it lets you save your own custom spelling dictionary. That's nice. You can access your documents from anywhere. You can share them. You can share them and let others edit them. It does revisioning of a kind too, but I'm not sure how well that works.

I always thought Microsoft would be the first to come out with online document editing. I suppose I should have known better.  MS makes a bunch of money making you run their software on your own computer.

I predict it won't be long before you can edit spreadsheets and other documents on your phone using some kind of online software. That is not all. There are any number of applications that can run like this. Most office type programs would not take much to put in a form that would at least be usable on a PDA type platform. I've said many times that doing your taxes on your phone is the death nail for desktop computers.

I want a phone that will listen to online radio. Not satellite radio mind you, online radio. I want it to do a bunch of other stuff too.

Fact

The guy who invented Frito's was a vegetarian health nut. He only brought them home off the assembly line before they had salt added. That was rare.

Faire

Girl Drama

The problem is, I can't go in to details. What happens at Faire stays at Faire for the most part. There are details that I have to leave out. Well, there are whole situations I have to leave out. It all boils down to  Let's just say the exhibition  in the camp ground was far more entertaining than anything in Faire.

Sorry for being so vague in this post. I didn't take any pictures this weekend. I've noticed how boring it is in Faire without my camera.

There was some girl drama showed up Saturday night. I'll tell you haw impressed I was with all of it. I had to sop and think if it was Friday or Saturday night. I'm quite blessed with good family and friends. Nat has to explain a lot of it to me. I'm a guy through and through. I miss a bunch of stuff that goes on. My brain is just wired up that way.

The drama circled around a girl. She thought she should be in charge, or maybe, she thought she should get her way. I'm still fuzzy on the details. Let's just say she made a poor play for dominance. The females of the camp have an existing hierarchy. Modern dominance hierarchies among folks trying to survive for a weekend is damned interesting. I should start monitoring what goes on and write a book. There has got to be some money in it.

I'm still waiting for that drama free weekend. A couple years ago we had a lady come in to cam that nearly drove us all over the edge. I'm sure I blogged it already. Every weekend we have something else happen that makes people pissed at each other. She said this. He said that. Half of the songs and movies ever made are on that subject. It is important to existence I suppose. It keeps us from over populating the planet because we have wars and people don't want to bring children in to the mess.

The only reason said drama girl didn't get beat is because people got piled up trying to get out of the tent door all at the same time. Nat has some different reasons.

Real Drama

It just so happens that several cops and cops in training camp near us. Some guys were allegedly selling drugs. The cops on duty gave chase. The cops off duty gave some stand-off backup. (Basically, keep an eye on things so no one tries to do anything stupid while the on duty cops are distracted.) Bad things just kept happening from that point. It wasn't even a full moon.

A friend of ours had his staff stolen. He blows fire. His staff is unique so no one can show up to TRF with it.

After all the real drama started Saturday evening I took a walk up to the road and just listened to people walking by. Every camp site I walked past and every group of people walking by had problems. They were in the middle of being pissy to one another or they were out and out fighting. Every group had some kind of crap going on. That is just not like Faire. Most of the people have a good time.

Then, there were the druggies walking buy screaming obscenities and announcing that they were smoking weed. Some people are going to be dicks no matter what you do.

Drinking

I tried several flavors of loki this weekend. Apricot, chocolate mocha blah blah, cotton candy. There were a couple of others. A bunch of people out there make their loki. We have a selection of home brewers too. Some folks make their own wine and bring it for critique. I also bought a margarita inside. I never do that.

Money

My wonderful, thoughtful parents gave Nat and I $100 for Faire expenses.

• $10 for Taco Bell on the way to Faire.
• $30 for tickets (still have one)
• $10 for camping
• $12 for food and drinks inside Faire
• $40 for food on the way home.

I had to barrow two bucks from Nat. Half the money went to food outside Faire. Fast food is called that because paying for it adds up fast. Wait a minute. I missed the King's Nuts. That's another $5.  Not sure what happened there.

Faire would be a lot more fun if I had a grand extra burning a hole in my pocket every week. That is another think I would like a grant in order to study over the long term. Say, fifty years or so. I'll write up the thesis this evening.

Other stuff that happened

• I helped take down like five tents. More, I watched until an extra pare of hands was needed.
• Heath stepped in the same hole I've tripped over five times and hurt his ankle. We should bring a frigging shovel.
• The ants have started stacking the Amdro we put down on first weekend in neat little piles.
• I didn't quite make a suds party. Neither did any one else. Tony says they were short on Glycerin.

Friday thoughts

Bus This Morning

Friday 2007-10-18

The man who sat next to me was in his forties I'd say. He wore thick black frame glasses. He never looked down at the book in front of him that was open to a page covered in tables. His eyes were out the front window.

The lady in the seat to the front of me was a bleach blond. She appeared to be about my age I'd say. Another lady with bleach blond highlights, about the same age sat next to her. A couple of stops later, she got up and moved seats. I'm not sure why. When she got on, she and some guy exchanged glances.

A lady got on at one point that reminded me of Emma from my old job. I don't know why. She looked nothing like Emma.

I did not hear a single word that any one said. I listen to news on my morning commute. I've heard stories about people having friends on the bus. I used to have friends on the school bus.

I tend to bump in to a lot of people during my exit from the bus. I try to be kind and take the window seat so someone else can take the isle seat. I get on early and get off pretty early too. This means I have to get past the people in the seat in front of me and the person who usually just stood up to let me pass. With my back pack, I tend to bump in to people's heads on the way out.

Lately, I don't remember riding the bus. The trip does not entry my memory. I had to consciously think about remembering things this morning.

The walk was nice this morning. The weather is supposed to be cool and clear until Sunday. It would be a great weekend for camping at Faire.

Left vs right

Friday 2007-10-18

My prescription is pretty close in both my eyes. I wonder if Zenni put the right eye prescription in both eyes. My left eye is just a hair off. That may just be my prescription changing. I got the numbers off my contact box and guessed at the bifocal number. They seem to have worked. I like the result for the most part.

My left eye is was a bit fuzzy at distance. The last couple of days I've been closing my right eye at times when I can to work my left eye harder. I've done this kind of thing before. It takes about two days of consistency to get a result. The result is my left eye ends up seeing as well as my right. My left eye is nearly always better close up. Lefty is the one I read with for the most part.

When I shoot I try to use both eyes and both hands. I switched bowling hands from right to left many years ago because I hurt my right ring ginger in a door. The first mouse I ever used was left handed so now I use the mouse left handed. I used a PDA left handed. Sometimes I draw with my left hand. That just works sometimes.

I've read that ambidextrous people live longer, and left handed people loose like five or ten years to right handed people. I wonder if that makes any difference really. Left handed people probably suffer ill health from frustration.

It's amazing how often this subject comes up.

Thinking Range

Friday 2007-10-18

I was at lunch this afternoon when I started thinking about sniper rifles. Standing on the roof of a building effects me like that. I wasn't thinking anything innovative. I was just wondering how that guy who hit the bad guy at 3/4 of a mile felt just before and after the shot. I looked around for a land mark 3/4 of a mile away to get some prospective. I want a real range finder. You know just to play with off the top level of the parking garage.

A car caught on fire in the Whole Foods parking lot. I think that is where it was. The smoke was thick. It took the firefighters a minute to get set up and put the fire out. The people who's cars were right next to the one on fire were probably freaking out. That I saw from my office window. The news helicopter showed up. I suppose they see smoke and head that way.

Coming soon

I'm working on a weekend post. Give me a break. Very busy week.

My Broke-Ass Woes

• The Halloween party is coming up. Nat is all excited. I'm excited too. I don't know how we are going to afford the food and drinks. I don't get paid until the first. I'm not putting anything on the credit card <period>.
  
• We can't afford to camp this weekend. I don't have $10 for the camp fee. Nat will still be out there. She doesn't have to pay to camp in participant's camping. I don't get paid again until the beginning of the month so that is pretty much it until November.
  
• The car needs breaks and tires. We have to do that next month.
• The school taxes came in at $1600. I have no idea if our mortgage company pays them or not. If not, we are really screwed for Christmas. It's Alief school district. That makes the pill just the more bitter.
  
• Sam's Club came due too. That is another $65 or so. It saves us well more than that in the long run, but damn.
  
• Elle needs a hearing check at school and I just plane don't have the $35. We can do it at the doctor's office next month, but it will cost $40 co-pay and whatever the test costs on top of that. FUCK!!
  
• The back door still needs fixing. Even if my father or brother's in law do the work, it is still $105 plus tax.
  
• The credit card is still at a zero balance. An it is going to stay that way. This is not a matter of pride. This is a matter of life and death.
  

I get depressed when I'm broke. On top of being broke, I cannot go to Fair any more. Nat complains right off the bat that I'm hard to be around when I get like this. That helps let me tell you.

Am I supposed to be happy go lucky with my pockets turned inside out, stiff upper lip and all that? I need to stop dumping my depression on the family. That is something that is wrong. It is hard to distract one's self without even a quarter in one's pocket.

Things that piss me off

Things that piss me off

• There is an international movement to ban capitol punishment in all forms. China may be the worst offender, yet many focus on the United States. To join things like the European Union, you have to abolish the death penalty. There is talk to make it a prerequisite for the UN or any number of other bullshit international bitch-a-lot organizations. I really wish these organizations would respect the choices of our nation.
  
• The one thing about The BBC that pisses me off is the constant and consistent failure to say Houston properly. It is pronounced 'hewston' goddammit. not 'hooston'. It is bad enough that I have to go to the BBC to hear anything about Houston besides crime statistics or stories about Hurricane evacuees. Most of those are the same stories. The US media doesn't know Houston exists.
• Jake got ripped by his doctor. He paid his co-pay of $40. The doctor looked up his nose with a camera for like thirty seconds and charged Jake $230. It is not covered by our insurance because it is technically surgery. Jake is pretty hot. I understand. Frigging doctors should tell you how much you are about to be charged before they perform the procedure. I get an estimate before I let a plumber lays hands on my pipes. From now on the same goes for doctors.

Payback

Wade is a guy who does everything at work. He is the guy who knows it and can fix it. It's pretty cool. He is humble about it most of the time. He has that laid back southern guy feel about him too. He is a cool, knowledgeable, capable man. This can be a bad thing sometimes. Wade has to be on call a lot because he is so capable. As a matter of routine, he misses lunch and breaks. He has to stay late on projects. You know the story.

So, I'm walking though the lunch room yesterday on my way to the lab and there is Wade. He is sitting at his normal spot with his lunch in front of him. It is lunch time. I couldn't help but say "Wow, you get a lunch?" in a joking manor. I chuckle and walk on about six more steps. A page comes over the intercom "Wade blah blah blah..." calling Wade off to perform his magic. I slinked off and hid in a lab.

This morning I met Wade at the coffee machine and we joked about his revenge. He says he will take his time plotting. It might be years before I know I got, got. He was smiling when he said it, but that might be part of it. Sounds like I need to ad patient to that description of Wade above.

Well done

This devious trick is very well done. I didn't spot the trouble. I guess I just don/'t have a devious enough mind for spotting this sort of thing. The best criminals I've ever known were cops. They became cops because it is more challenging than being a criminal.

Sinus Solutions

This past Spring I had a really bad virus and a fever. That was the last time I was sick. The first weekend of Faire was awesome. I didn't have any of the sinus headaches or frightening drainage that I normally have at this time of year. I've been a good boy and taken my generic Claritin for the last several months. It seems to have helped.

Last night a front moved through our neck of the woods. I have not had the normal agony of sinus trouble that I normally get with the first blunt cold snap that comes though. I'm the picture of health. I've noticed my ears itching a bit. So far so good.

What is different? I stopped taking decongestants. I still take Claritin. I occasionally take Benadryl at bedtime if I need a kick in the nose. I stopped drinking so much soda. I drink more water.  I have a goatee that basically means I don't trim my nose hair as often. That's about it. Wouldn't it be funny if it is the nose hair thing?

I really hope there is no angle of smacking Kelly when he makes a claim he hasn't gotten sick in a while. I'm not trying to tempt fate. I just want it known that simple clean living seems to work better than medicine when it comes to health. Now, I need to give up sodas all together. I need to drop all forms of sweets. I need to eat a green bit every now and again. I need to get some good exorcise that involves endurance. There is a long way to go.

That, or I'm becoming acclimated to the jungle next door.

Fact

Jack Daniel's whiskey is made in a dry county.

The Tolstoys

Tolstoy is the guy who wrote War and Peace.

The Tolstoy married couple used their diaries to talk to one another. Nat and I use our blogs to take jabs at one another. We have something in common with a married couple who stayed married for forty eight years.

Why I like Faire

And, why I don't like Faire.

Nat took Elle to Faire this weekend. Nat drove up both days to work. She walks in parade for a store. I'll have to track down the web page. Anyway, Nat took Elle through Parade. Now Elle has walked (and been carried) in more Faire parades than I have.

Anyway, Nat asked me why I didn't like to go to Faire if we weren't camping. My answer kind of surprised me. I said that I would love going in to Faire if I had a stack of cash to blow. It is just like any other amusement park. Everything costs money. Camping costs money, but the amount of enjoyment makes up for it. All our friends hang out and get drunk. We shoot the shit and play with the fire. It is fun. I like that part.

It isn't just the $10 camp fee. We typically bring some kind of food when we go camp at Faire. Nat and I can spend $50 pretty quick on a weekend just for food and other perishables for camping. That is not including my $35 flashlight for this year. That is my new toy. It get real use out of it too, so it isn't just for fun.

By the time we walk in the place, I'm done spending money. If they ever take camping away from Faire, I'll stop going all together. Look at Scarborough Faire earlier this year. We got a hotel room and never made it to Faire. That costs us.

Basically, I sat at home and slept most of the weekend. I had already done the yard as best I could. I'll do the something again this week. That is, I'll do all my chores during the week in preponderating for a weekend at camp. I hope to make it back to camp soon.

Premature Consideration

I predict a time when a mechanism will be able to tell when people are highly raged at great distance. When a person becomes enraged, a call will be automatically made to authorities. Eventually, those authorities will have the right to enter residence and other private areas based solely on this information.

Not long after this detection becomes prevalent and is touted as saving lives, another power will be handed to authorities that has been around even longer than the detection. The ability to remotely stun people. At this point, people will get very angry and will simply convulse and drop to the floor before they can act upon the emotion.

There are tons of moral questions. If someone is scared for their life, they might drop to the floor and a psychopathic murder, who doesn't get upset or angry when they kill, to have their way without much effort before the authorities turned up.

If this ability exists, hoe many people would want it after their loved ones were slaughtered by some mad man with a two by four? "Won't someone think of the children?!" "My <insert relative>'s death could have been prevented ..."

From law enforcement point of view, this is a very touchy thought. Yet another way cops are damned if they do and damned if they don't. The whole thing sounds like Minority Report. Technology is pretty close to getting this one I bet. There is a want to tell what someone's intentions are before they commit an act these days. There are new products that are electric noses that will identify smells. I've read that people give off pheromones when they are in many different moods. I'm telling you it is all fitting together.

Tech Stuff

The latest in Tommy Guns.

This little beauty looks like the wave of the future. It is a sub machine gun that does not have much of a kick. That means you can empty a clip into your target without the gun trying to climb up your arm. You have seen the old Shows with gangsters. Tommy guns were one of the favorites. They had the round barrel magazines. You know the ones. They were heavy. They kicked. They were not known for accuracy.

This gun simply absorbs some of the shock of the recoil and redirects it downward. That means the muzzle does not jump straight up when the gun kicks. I've heard about mechanisms that took the kick out of small arms. This one seems to actually work. Not only work, but be useful in a combat situation.

So, what happened in Syria

I've read a bunch of speculation about what happened when the Israelis bombed some spot in Syria a couple of weeks ago. That was about all there was in the news. The Israelis flew straight through the modern Russian air defenses and took out the target they wished. Then flew back. Apparently, no one fired a shot at the Israeli jets.

This is not the only article that says the Syrian's had some information and or equipment from the Norks (North Koreans). This was a wake up call that tells the whole region that Israel is not dead yet.

I guess now I know why North Korea is so willing to shut down their nuclear research. Because they sold lock, stock, and barrel to the Syrians. I wonder if this is the retirement plan the crazy fucker that to this day holds North Korea under his blubbery thumb.

I like the thought of the air defenses that the whole Middle East has purchased from Russia was just plane missing in action on this trip. Millions of bucks worth of scrap metal. Useless. I like that thought a lot.

Old Shows

I'm watching a bunch of the old Twilight Zone episodes. I forgot how good these shows are. So many modern shows owe their plots to this old series. A whole generation of stars were in them too. There are a bunch of familiar faces in black and white.

Some of these shows are genuinely creepy. Some are quite apt for modern problems. The one that comes to mind is the episode where a couple aliens come down and isolate Elm Street. The people of Elm Street start attacking each other. The aliens know Earth will be easy pickings. This makes me think of the moder cultural invasion. People know that the US cannot be beaten in a conventional war so they attack us by turning us against ourselves. They use the media to start fights amongst Americans. It's easy in a world where any one can put videos on the internet and any one in the world can view it.

Many of the shows have moral endings. Several talk about following dreams. A couple talk about being lonely. They all seem to have twists. They are all at least interesting.

There is one on right now about a guy named Williams who is in advertising. The whole show he has a boss that is all about "Push push push Williams!!" It's all about ratings. It is all about country clubs and the Joneses. He takes meetings on speaker phones. I didn't know they used speaker phones in the fifties. Williams dreams about a small town named Willoughby where people are just happy to live and be free. There is no advertising or push push push. Williams asks the conductor where this town is. He needs to find his way there.

There is always some kind of twist. It is very interesting noticing the normal stuff that is just lying around. Rotary phones. Busy signals. Jet aircraft that leave huge filthy trails when they take off. Every one had cards to give out. Every one carried a pen. Men wore hats. Smart people read books.Cars were the size of a bus. No mobile phones. People had a hard time getting hold of each other.

Love potions are a $1, and over priced at that. Glove Cleaner (Unlove potion) is $1000. And worth it.

Several stories are about people selling their souls to the devil. That or paying too high a price for their dreams. Some people just don't find their dream. They might find a happy life if only the let themselves be happy where they are, when they are, who they are with.

There is a lot of time given over to death. People die and things happen to them to drive the morals home. The bad bad man who died and ended up getting everything he wanted. That is, he got everything except satisfaction. He thought he was in heaven, but it was hell. Nothing tasted sweet or gave him a thrill any more.

Sometimes people hang around after they die to learn some lesson. I'm not sure I get the benefit of that, but it seems to be entertaining. The saving angle plays a trumpet and has a goatee. Well, in one of the episodes anyway.

Video Game Culture

"By merging man with machine ..."

"The day of the universal soldier is here."

This kit will provide much better videos on YouTube.

Much better

I saw the original video of this. It was pretty boring. I like this one much better.

Now, that's walking around money

Honest Soldiers.

Aw, there is a loose hundred. It's torn. No one will miss it.

Wait a minute. Weren't there 39 boxes? Ya. =]

Weeeeee

If you have ever dreamed of flying, this is about as close as your are going to get today.

They do some really amazing things in this video. I would like it noted for the record that they have had huge amounts of practice and they have done their homework. This is not drunken hillbillies on a whim.

Where is my Prize?

Al Gore now has a Nobel Peace Prize. He won it for work to do with climate change. What the hell? Notice very closely that this particular prize has NOTHING to do with science. Neither does the debate on climate change.

We are never going to hear the end of this idiot now. Gore is full of crap in my opinion. I'm so glad I don't have to back that up with fact. I don't feel like I need to back it up with fact because Gore doesn't back anything he says with any concrete. Why should I?

Oh, there are plenty of numbers floating around. There are a bunch of people saying science backs their claims. The first attempt of researching the numbers shows the vast gap between perception and reality. The only thing we know is that we don't know why it is getting warmer. Oh, wait. It isn't really getting any warmer. The current temperature changes fit right in with century by century fluctuations. Or, maybe they don't. It depends on who you talk to.

I know one thing for sure. I'm not making money on the climate debate. Gore is. Gore has turned bitching about a problem no one can disprove into a career.

Carter has a peace prize. Carter actually does stuff that is related to people not killing each other. Dare I say Carter deserves his peace prize? I can't bring myself... no ... OK, maybe he dose. Ouch! Maybe Gore's prize just makes the concept of Nobel Prizes seem worth less. Or is it worthless? It sounds right either way.

Wrong angle

I remember someone my parent's hung out with had this happen to them. It came through the back window and nearly took the driver of the tow car's head off before it was done.

I may vote for Hillery

Maybe not.

The music server was dead and I forgot my news podcasts today, so I listened to liberal talk radio. A bunch of people think Clinton is a "war Democrat". They call in bitching that she is more aggressive than the Republicans. I agree.

Giuliani should be a Democrat. I'm not going to get in to why. He is on the wrong side of the fence.

Obama reminds me of Carter. Remember Carter? He was the guy who couldn't delegate his cup of coffee in the morning and it cost the country. Obama is charismatic, but I've seen nothing that tells me he is a leader.

I barely remember any of the names of the other Republicans because I think they are all a bunch of nobodies and should save their investor's money.

I'm a Texan. Hillery is the most blood thirsty lawyer in the bunch (Democrat or Republican). She has survived a lot. To put it in a prospective that I think most of my friends will understand, she has more balls than the other guys. When asked what she would do if US interests are attacked by Iran, she said "Retaliate" without missing a beat. She is for watching people before they commit a terrorist act. She has a bunch of stupid ideas about health care, but who has any good ideas about health care. She is pro abortion. I don't much care about that. She is for getting out of Iraq, but she says it will take a long time. That is Democrat-speak for open ended. She has some other liberal baggage too. I'm not that worried about it. I would rather have someone who is soulless in the Whitehorse as apposed to a coward.

I like her a hell of a lot better than her husband. He comes off to me like a used car salesman. Hillery just sounds mean to me. I like that in a president.

Hello!!! Life long Republican in Texas liking the leading Democrat here!!!

The GOP is about to get seriously smacked in the next election. They will not learn anything. They are just plane not listening. They will be voted out. I'm starting to be OK with that idea.

There is an old stereotype of "tax and spend Democrat" that still gets tossed around. Well, the Republicans spend just as much. It boils down to where they spend the money. The amount just isn't a factor any more. The US is going broke and no one will end up in jail when it is all over. I'm buying a book on learning Chinese personally.

I wish Hillery would announce that Nancy Pelosi is her running mate. That would send me running back to the Republican party in a heartbeat.

Oh, have I mentioned lately that Carter should just frigging die already. He is really annoying. He was a lousy president and is a bad de facto ambassador. Shut up and let the currently elected people do their job, you antisymmetric peanut-head.

Overtime

It happens quickly. Within a couple days of starting overtime I begin to feel the drag of too much thinking and too little sleeping. This bout of overtime was not too bad. The rest of my world has been accommodating. Natalie is understanding. Elle misses me a bit. It could be much worse. It so happens I missed a day of vacation last Friday, but I didn't have to work the first weekend of Faire. That would have sucked.

The work I've been doing is not fun. However, I do understand what I'm doing. I think I"m doing a pretty good job of it. Of course, the back log of tasks is building up. I'll have plenty to do the next couple of weeks. This will not stop more from poring in. Hey, that's why I'm here. I won't turn the money down either.

When I used to work in the printing industry, overtime was unpaid and involved long relentless trains of plots. Stacks of huge copies of vellum or mylar. Vellum will not stack properly even if you have many copies. They stick to each other and will not fall in to line. Mylar will cut your hand to the point of stitches. A couple of people at my old job could show you the scars of trying to organize mylar jobs. Not only would they cut you, but the static electricity would shock you and make the plots stick together like glue.

At my last office job with a huge company, overtime involved being there to fix problems while a bunch of other people tried to finish up a messed up job. I was in a support role, so I didn't get a whole lot of overtime. When I did it was because something was already wrong and people were already standing around waiting for it to get fixed before they could get their job done.

Those past experiences made me hate overtime with a passion. At this job at least the overtime comes as part of the projects. I'm part of something larger, a single goal. More than likely, others are working extra in tandem with me. That helps greatly with my moral. It is good to feel part of the greater goal. If I ever am in charge of people I must remember to make sure every one feels like they are part of the same solution regardless of their specific task.

Joke

When Insults Had Class.... "He has all the virtues I dislike, and none of the vices I admire." -- Winston Churchill "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." -- Clarence Darrow "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." -- William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway) "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." -- Groucho Marx "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." -- Mark Twain "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." -- Oscar Wilde George Bernard Shaw said to Winston Churchill: "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend... if you have one." Churchill's response: "Cannot possibly attend first night; will attend second, if there is one." "I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." -- Stephen Bishop "He is a self-made man, and worships his creator." -- John Bright "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." -- Irvin S Cobb "He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others." -- Samuel Johnson "He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." -- Paul Keating "He had delusions of adequacy." -- Walter Kerr "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" -- Mark Twain "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." -- Mae West "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." -- Oscar Wilde Lady Astor once remarked to Winston Churchill at a dinner party, "Winston, if you were my husband, I would poison your coffee!" Winston replied, "Madam if I were your husband, I would drink it

A friend of mine sent this email to me today. I have to say that I haven't had a good email joke in a while. Enjoy.

How Convenient

For the last several years, the construction industry has been going nuts. At the moment we in Houston anyway, have a glut of both office space and living space. There are too many apartments, and enough houses to go round. There is too much office space. I have no idea how the industrial space end of things is doing.

That said, Something else clicked in my head last night. I heard on the news that one third (I say closer to two thirds) of construction workers in Texas are illegal workers. Next month all businesses will have to report all social security numbers and any that do not match will eventually require that the employee be fired. There are some hefty teeth in this bill too.

Funny how that works out. Good timing. If I were the conspiracy kind, I would start spouting how The Man did something right for a change. Think about it. This took years to happen, coordination between several government agencies and industry leaders. All of the keeping their mouths shut. ... You know, the conspiracy sounds less and less likely the more I think about it.

I've got an idea about outsourced jobs too. Make companies pay the displaced income tax (the company's side any way) for displaced jobs now outsourced to other companies. Not based on what they are paying some upstanding graduate in a foreign land, but what an American would make doing the same job in the states. That is only fair. It douse sound like protectionism. That will never fly.

Please don't get me wrong. I have no interest in people getting put out of a job. That royally sucks. What I'm interested in is an even playing field. The Unions (from a previous post) want their members to have a leg up over every one else. Illegals rarely pay all their proper income taxes. Both of these are unfair competition in my book.

UAW vs Chrysler

Yawn. Gee, no one saw this coming. I half wish Chrysler, being a privet company, would move every plant lock, stock, and barrel to China or some place and put the union on the street. I don't like the idea of the jobs moving over seas. I don't like the idea of union workers getting twice the going rate for a job. Or, demanding extra people standing there for a one person job. There are bad things on both sides of the whole collective labor issue. We are a world market whether we like it or not. We have to remain competitive and people need jobs. It is a hard balance.

Very Local News

MagLite

I found a really cool chart that compared the light output of MagLites from Krypton bulbs to LED (2 through 4 cell). It was awesome. I really should have kept the link. I was just feeling lazy at that particular moment and didn't follow through. This kind of thing is killing me. I used to have a palm to take care of keeping this kind of info. One of these days I'll blog straight off my phone. Really all it would have taken is saving a shortcut or a quick jotting in my motes.

Yard

The yard is a bit ratty. I mowed in the dark Monday night. I haven't seen it in the daylight yet. I'm avoiding it. Nat needs to get to the weed-beds. The grass is browner in other yards. With the over time and Faire on the weekends, I'm mowing in the dark these days. One handed, because I hold the MagLite with the other. I have to shine it sideways to see the different level of the grass. It has to be a spectacle. I should video it and put it on YouTube. It should be interesting to weed eat in the dark.

Landscaping just isn't going to be that high a priority right now. There are an endless number of other things that out rank it. We need a new hose before we can weed-and-feed. The old one got run over, first by a car, then by a mower.

Sad

I heard a statistic on Sky News podcast. Many children in the UK think that being a victim of violence or a violent crime is just part of growing up. I've thought this way myself many times. It is still wrong. I've had guns pulled on me. I've had things stolen. I still consider the exception rather than the rule.

Today

Today is National Bring Your Teddy Bear to Work Day. Who knew?

More on Faire this past weekend

Did I mention it was hot? It makes me wonder if the whole armor debacle was due to the first weekend heat wave. Our wedding was on a late weekend, and was still quite worm.

Nat got me a new ax. I is pretty nifty. I don't really carry weapons into faire. The thought is appreciated. I think she wants my old ax. I may have given it to her already. Who remembers these things. We share everything any way.

For the first time in a long time Heath and I had a chance to sit down and shoot the breeze. That was over due. He is always busy at faire taking care of the kitchen or camp in general. We had a moment to sit and enjoy a lazy moment Sunday afternoon.

Inside faire, Saturday, we walked around. Nat got me some honey sticks. They were different flavors. They all taste of the same to me. I don't remember what happened to the bag of honey sticks.

Mostly it was hot, and sticky, and a lot of fun.

The end of the tazer

The device doing this is a microwave gun that caused the skin to feel like it is on fire. The natural reaction is to duck or leave the area as fast as possible. It will be no time at all before every cop has one of these on their belt. I can't wait.

This one is for Coy

Coy is a guy at work who listens to video game music all day. I don't know how he does it. I listen to day old news most of the time. He probably can't understand that.

Busy Day

I got up at 5:30 this morning. Went to work. I worked from 7:30 to 7:00 or so. I got home and mowed the yard in the dark with one hand. The other hand held a MagLite. Then I did the dishes. Then tucked Elle in. Then I blogged a bit. Hell didn't freeze over.

I have four hours of so to get some sleep to start all over again. Yay me.

Good news

Nat and I have one thing in common. We both have life long crushes on Stevie Nicks.

Fire in the .. OH SHIT! RUN!!

Watch closely closely where the grenade does not go. What did this guy's friends do to him after this?

Look before you turn

At least some of these were Houston, I'm sure if it.

Did I say Heat

We could have used this Fourth of July.

The title of this post was something like "A bunch of drunks start a fire with a jet engine." Well, who the hell else is going to start a fire with a jet engine? Come on.

Heat

A welcome winter comes this way. People died running for fun this weekend in New York. That isn't the only kind of heat I want to talk about in this blog entry.

I walked all around faire and the camp grounds. It is hard to move in this heat. it is difficult to get motivated. The air in the tent was stifling. Our tent has a gap between the tent and the rain cover. It does not help much. I've noticed no one up there uses the rain guard of the moder tent correctly. I don't feel so bad.

Faire was a ball. We still have some issues with specific people, but Nat and I are working on it. That is the other heat I was talking about, the emotional kind. It is bad enough that last night I didn't want to go back to faire next weekend or maybe the rest of the year. Of course, that has subsided. I think we (all parties) can and will come to a mutually beneficial pact of tolerance.

It is going to have to boil down to people respecting Nat and I the same. We are married and we intend to stay that way. People are going to have to accept us as a package deal. If they don't like one of us, then they don't like us.

Now, that sounds like a plan

(from Friday)

Friday I heard a story on NPR. Someone was interviewing an Iraqi man who had a plan for the future. He Shiia and had been shuffled around and had to flea areas. He was angry at many Sunni people, but not all Sunnis. He blamed al Quaeda in stead. He did have a plan though. He said he was going to take a second wife and raise many strong men to fight al Quaeda.

Just doing his bit.

MagLite: Better than advertised

(From Friday)

The MagLite is heavy. It is also effective when crossing the street. Have you ever watched a cop direct traffic at night with their flashlight? They use the point of light to direct people which way to go. I do the same thing while crossing the street. I will swipe the light beam down the white line of the crosswalk, back and forth. This not only makes me highly visible, but creates the illusion that I'm taking up the entire crosswalk. I think that is important because people have been subconsciously trained to think of objects as person sized, car sized and semi truck sized while behind the wheel.

I've never lost a MagLite to damage. I've lost them. Well, I've had them disappear. Well, I've lost them to exploding batteries. I've lost several flashlights to that. That is the fault of the batteries, not the light. One was in my pocket at the time. The hiss noise that tipped me off.

One complaint I've had about MagLites in the past has been the bulbs would get off center and the pinpoint of light would be lop sided. No amount of banging the light would make it center and thus make the pinpoint of light round again. That does not appear to be a problem with the LED bulb. It is very white and highly symmetrical. When adjusted to wide angle, the circles of light are properly concentric.

(added today)

Since I wrote this, I've used the light all through the weekend at faire, and to mow the back yard this evening.

Till the marrow

Faire starts this weekend. Poor Nat has gone crazy trying to get everything ready. I was supposed to help her tomorrow, but I cannot take the day off because of a project at work. I had the vacation day marked on the calendar. The OT will be nice. Well, the extra straight time.

Nat has all the stuff for Friday dinner. Rosen is going to make her fried rice. Normally, people just have to make due on Friday at the camp grounds. No one has time to cook with all the setup.

We got stuff out of the attic last night. Danial came over and dropped off his tent. He is going to fill our cooler up with ice from work. I'll ride with him after work tomorrow to the camp grounds.

Elle was supposed to go out with us,but it is first weekend. First weekend is typically a bit wild because every one is in the mood to party and they are happy to meet friends they have not spoken to in a year. There are always a bunch of new people who don't quite get the idea of friendly camping. Elle would not have enjoyed herself. No one else brings their kids the first weekend. We will ask around. Hopefully we can all agree on a specific kids weekend at Safe Haven.

This year is different that others. It really seems like the camp group that Nat and I hang out with is falling apart. I hope the feeling goes away after getting back out at the camp grounds and having some fun together.

Nat and I are hemorrhaging cash getting ready. This whole Faire thing is expensive. Nat got me a LED MagLite. I have been desperate for over a year. I wanted one last year. The obsession has gotten worse recently. Well, no more. I now own one. It is very bright. I hope it stays that way. For a very long time on every set of batteries.

I'm tired from work. I'm tired from Faire preparations. I'm  Nat is doing all the leg work. She has had to drive all over Houston getting crap ready today. It is a serious drain. There are some cloths that need to be washed. My kilt never got dry cleaned.  Yadda yadda. Such is Faire every year. It's worth it. Right?

Work Server

Normally I do not post about work stuff. However, we have one cutting edge, powerful server at work. It is beyond top of the line. Here are a couple of the juicier stats.

processor               : 8 (cores total)
processor model name    : AMD Opteron (tm) Processor 875
cpu MHz                 : 1997.408
MemTotal                : 63553232 kB (64 GB of RAM)

The drives are high speed SCSI. The OS is RedHat 64 bit. Nice. Let me tell you, man, this box is cherry.

The only software I would really love to try out on this ox of a computer is Cinelerra.

There are more powerful servers out there, but I've never had the chance to play with one this weighty. I can't wait to look back on this blog entry in five years and laugh at those numbers. "My phone can beat that." Let's hope anyway.

The only bad thing about this computer is that it is a loaner for testing. We have to give it back.

A couple videos for the heck of it

e

Close to home

I've mentioned before that a friend of mine has family in Iraq watching over the supply lines.

Tazzer from 100 ft

This had to happen. It was just a matter of time. Just in time too, because people are complaining that the cops taze people too often. Well, I suppose the cops could just beat the snot out of people or shoot them or something. That would make for less paperwork.

I'll never forget watching a TV cop show where some drunk nut was playing games with the cops. He drove erratically and jumped out of the car a couple of times to dance around and make rude gestures at the cops. Then, one of the cops shot him in the gut with a rubber bullet from a 12 gage. That sobered him up on the spot. He was done dancing for a bit.

V-8 Chainsaw, that going on the blog

This is straight out of the Home Improvement book of appliance mods. Watch to the end. Those guys slice a log the size of a sewer pipe in like a second and a half. Not only cool, but highly functional.

Left ... LEFT-<cough><cough>

So, there is a spinning rotter of death landing/crashing right in front of you behind an all concealing wall of blowing sand.

Picard (MusicBrainz)

I got it running. Well, I got it to work as far as the interface popping up and acting like it it working. I have not yet used Picard to organize my MP3 collection.

One of the guys at work warned me aoubt the dependancy trouble. Sure enough, it was a pain in the butt to get the wx stuff to show up. wxPython is already on my machine, but nothing can find it. You basically have to make a symbolic link to the wx folder under your working Python folder. Sometimes that works and some times it does not.

Then you have to go through every missing dependancy and track them down. Either you get them through yum, or you just have to hack them out one by one. Any one of wich could be some duct tape back-water pice of code that will never forgive the less than expert.

There really needs to be a better way to get software installed and working under Linux. I've wined about this enough on this blog. I'm putting one in the win collumn for the moment. I'm sure ifthe software blows up in my face you will hear about it.

Better than fiction

I've watched hundreds of crappy helicopter sequences in movies. This is better than 90% of fiction and it is the real thing. Just a guy flying a chopper and another guy aiming a camera out the window. Come on Hollywood.

Today's Prayers

Programmer's Prayer

Please God,
Help me to inject fewer bugs than I fix,
Fix the bugs I find,
Delegate the bugs I cannot fix,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Doesn't quite roll off the tung. Didn't someone already come up with this?

User's Prayer

Please God,
Help me to get my job done without having to call tech support,
Get someone who speaks English with half a brain when I call tech support,
And the patients to keep my cool for both.

I like that one better.

Boss's Prayer

Please God,
Help me delegate the right stuff to the right people,
Know when someone is pulling the wool over my eyes,
And do it my self only when need be.

That one rings true.

Other Prayers

I can't seem to write a Dragon's prayer without the words "eat virgins" popping up.

A Dog's prayer is all bout sniffing butts.

A Fish's prayer pretty much covers not getting eaten two minutes after you are born.

Cats ... Nothing comes to mind.

Linux Text Editor BS

In the beginning, there was VI (1976). And it was good, because it was small, and quick to load, and worked in a text based terminal with full functionality.

Then Came the GUI. And people liked playing with a mouse. VI was still used, but EMACS appeared with the intention to smite VI. EMACS required the GUI so when the GUI broke down, VI found it's niche.

Today, VI is under powered (don't write me to contest this point dammit) and is not as handy for quick edits when there is no GUI as nano. EMACS has become so bloated that it is not easy to use. EMACS tried to become a quick and easy way for programmers to wrap a GUI interface around their scripts. It is neither small nor easy in my opinion.

Gedit came about with Gnome interface as an alternative. It lacks some functionality, but that's OK. The idea is to keep it a simple default text editor that novices can master to get things done quickly. Kwrite is pretty much the same idea for KDE interface. I'm sure the other interfaces have something similar. I'm sure they are also there as examples for programmers to learn the Gnome and KDE interface languages.

Nedit is a nice balance between form and function. It's interface is no masterpiece, but it is highly configurable, yet not difficult to use. It acts like it was written by a programmer who knew what they wanted and didn't want.  It has one feature that I require. It does block select and allows you to use keystrokes to move the text back and forth. This is mandatory during programming because it is inevitable that some fuck-tard comes along and mess up the indention. The block select comes in handy to prevent people being burned at the stake to the chant "Four space tabs! Four space tabs!".

I do not feel loyalty to Nedit. I just use it until something better comes along. That said, it surprised me how upset I became when it didn't work correctly on my home machine. When I upgraded to Fedora 7, I noticed the keystrokes (control this and alt that) didn't work reliably. You couldn't get to the menus while editing text. That pissed me off.

Gedit had to take up the slack. As mentioned above, it has limitations and even though those limitations didn't really enter in to it at the house, it still pissed me off. Checking spelling works fine in Gedit, but has a whole new set of keystrokes to memorize. I already have nineteen sets of spell checker keystrokes memorized.

I tried to build the code for Nedit and it was a nightmare. I tried updating things through YUM. I tried a bunch of crap.  I didn't quite give up. This is how some folks fixed the exact same problem at work.

Then, Nedit just started working again. This tells me that something in the dependency tree for the install is not quite set properly. The library Nedit uses to capture magic keystrokes is out of whack with reality. So the solution to the problem is to go look for all the real dependencies for Nedit and make sure they are properly installed by hand. Screw that. That's what YUM is for for God's sake. Or, just keep installing stuff and eventually the right dependency will fall in to place.

That is a crappy solution. It worked for me.

This is an example of why open source software works for lazy people. If something doesn't work, some industrious nerd with no girlfriend will eventually get around to fixing it.

Now, if only that theory worked for Cinelerra.