Friday, April 29

this is what it's all about ...

i finally managed to dive the zenobia.


and this is what it's all about .. i mean ... you go through phone calls, and waiting for the guys to pick you up, and then wait some more on the bus, then wait some more on the boat, then you go in.


it's not that you stop at some point (say 10 minutes in the dive, or 15 meters under), and say wow! ... no ... not at all;


the first dive went smoothly ... and then was waiting again on the boat, then the second dive; and that went smother than the first;

actually i coudn't pinpoint the exact thing that impressed me at all ...

it's more of a combination of many many small things ... like the packs of fish above you; or looking through the wreck and seing the blue light; or thinking that on that row somebody waited in the caffeteria once; or just the everything-covered-by-the-algae look of the wreck;


but enough of my ramblings and on with some pictures:

getting ready to go in:



and going in:


at one of the propellers:


and part of the deck ...


and an ... antenna?



here's what you see when you look up:


here's the caffetteria (i think):


and through a window:


... one of the locals ...


and our instructor for the dive:


here's a picture taken accross the deck (or bridge or ... whatever :))... the stairwais are still intact ...


... and a lifeboat:



this is what it's all about.

Thursday, April 28

plans taking shape

hey, i'm going to the Zen tomorrow :D


i just confirmed it with the guys from cydive.

i guess that means spending some quality time recharging my batterries for the camera ... and waiting ...

undecided

hey, for tomorrow, monday and tuesday, i'm free.


that is: i just received my salary plus a little bonus, i have five free days, and i have no idea where to go



damn!



i spoke to some guys in agia napa to go diving;
then i spoke to the guys around here for the same;
i spoke to S for going to kurium by bike;

but i have no definite plans.


why is it so hard? (except "because i'm lazy" ... that doesn't count! ;) )



decisions ... decisions ... decisions ...

zazen

falling dude

this is completely stupid;

and funny;

and with sound.

Wednesday, April 27

undefined ... something

this site has something i can't put my finger on. maybe it's personality;


    maybe it's art.

the power of free t-shirts

hey, i just received a gift in the form of a handsfree lips-moving gizmo for my office desk (and a nice, unexpected bonus too!) for the contribution to our current release.

as a wise mouse once said:
Pinky, never underestimate the power of free T-shirts!
the brain (from Pinky and the Brain)

random blog

"...she's a flight risk." - this weblog has links to much of the stuff i find interesting myself.

rant on my work

for the last three weeks (or something) it's been going smooth. it's working.


i no longer have defects opened due to bad configuration problems, no longer am blocked (well ... not at the moment), and only received positive feedback (because no news is good news ;))


probably some of you would ask themselves at this point: does this mean the world is going to end?


well ... it's a definite "maybe".



but honestly?

no.
it won't last; in a month the project is over; we have a new release around may.


but then again, that doesn't mean jack schitt:

the next version will start right after it.



well, you know what they say:
no rest for the wicked

Tuesday, April 26

random facts

Albert Einstein never knew how to drive a car.

(it seems i'm following in his steps :) )

Romanian firefighters could not get their trucks close enough to a burning building, so they put out the fire by throwing snowballs at it.

hey, at least the're inventive if nothing else ...

Only 5 percent of the ocean floor has been mapped in as much detail as the surface of Mars.

(give us a break, we're working on it)

Microsoft threatened 17 year old Mike Rowe with a lawsuit after the young man launched a website named MikeRoweSoft.com.

hey, i allready knew this :)

The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as a substitute for blood plasma.

so what?! so can vodka!

According to Genesis 1:20-22 the chicken came before the egg.

so stop with the bloody asking!

Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.

even if you cut your finger off? (hmmmm)


more to be found here

postsecret

today i stumbled upon PostSecret.

it fascinates me (as does every website and test and text and picture that offers any insight into us, strange humans).

Monday, April 25

all the car(or not) gizmos

gizmag has articles on all kinds of gizmos that i could not imagine existing.

like:
the wheely machine (Segway's Concept Centaur - four wheel concept vehicle)

and
snowboarding on the street

another graceful monday mrning

i find myself in the office again after a weekend of complete innactivity.


i arived in office 15 minutes ago, and i'm strangely awake (due to the wonders of having a bike).


it's funny: i realized this morning - while under the shower - that all my profound conclusions, all my inspiration comes to me when i'm either under the shower or on my bike (or wherever else i am in some place when i cannot put my thought on paper ... errr ... i mean on the web.


so i read fanfiction all weekend, did some shopping, and got some rest (not that i needed it badly).


short plan for this week:
- finalize my vacation plans;
- figure out what to do for easter;
- finalize my xml parser;
- f ... i don't know what to add here starting with f;
- fun; have some fun;



anyway!


here are some C declarations, like:
auto accident;
double trouble;
const ipated;
case closed:


and here is an icons site.



hey everybody, a good week to all of us!

Friday, April 22

random update

it's friday and the fun part is that i have no idea when the week passed. (it's like going from weekend to weekend).


i fixed my bike for good (that was the day before yesterday) so now i have shimano pedal system (not the actual pedals, just all in between them :|).


i finished the algorithm for my xml-parser-using-std::istream-implementation (which is good). i still have to work out some quirks, and maybe template it, then i'll post a copy somewhere (i'm still convinced the world needs to know every time i write a line of code :|).


and, hey, we've got some new coleagues: there are three new guys on the floor and they're just getting their systems set up.


anyway, it started raining, which is bad, since i'm on bike, and i'll probably get mud all over me if it doesn't stop soon.

but on the other hand, tomorrow is weekend, so it's not all bad-news.


i also considered going diving this weekend again but that would leave me with no money for the whole of next week, so it's a bad idea. as it is, i have no definite weekend plans (except some shopping) but ... no worries.


anyway, life is good.


i'll post again, once i have anything half-inteligent to say ( or maybe sooner, since i want to post again sometimes ;) ).

Tuesday, April 19

humanitarian request

i am posting this for a friend

5 months old girl needs a liver transplant to live.

Donations:
- RO62 RNCB 1600 0001 3506 0004 in ROL
- RO35 RNBC 1600 0001 3506 0005 in EUR
- RO08 RNBC 1600 0001 3506 0006 in USD

Contact:
+40 (741) 179 604
+40 (263) 232 030

details here[ro] and here[en].

Monday, April 18

#!/usr/bin/girl [v.5]

#!/usr/bin/girl [v.5] :: [punctuation remix!] :: (a girl and her browser in seattle!)


she has lots of links to cool stuff ... (like the zoomquilt or the evil doll from hell)


yeah ... and a very nice picture ;)

for the mintrubber in all of us

i have found a random word search:

wasting your time more efficiently

monday update

hey! it's monday morning!

i know ... i know ... it happened last week also ... and two weeks ago ... and five years ago also, and three days before i was born ... so no big deal!


but that's not the interesting fact about today. what's interesting, is that today i don't feel half dead, and i don't feel like killing someone.

so, that's good ... i think.




yesterday i stayed at home the whole day, except getting out for ten minutes to get something to eat.

i guess i'm a slow learner: in limassol everything's closed on sundays; well ... almost;

i found an open ZOPΠAΣ (that's bakery ... methinks) so i got something against starving.


guess i'll have to do some shopping this afternoon.

Sunday, April 17

random quote

"there's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes"

(ruskbyte on fanfiction.net)

random update

it's saturday night, and i did a lot of things today.



let us take them in order:
first, in the morning i went to paphos for a karting ride. i found out i'm not as good a driver as i thought i was, since i got out of the track twice :(


also, i spoiled my right kidney again:
centrifugal force on the cart, combined with vibrations of the same damn kart (and probably the alignment of the planets has also something to do with it) ... whatever the cause, my right kidney hurts a few days every time i go karting :(

but that was a minor annoyance.



when we came back from paphos, i had a nice nap in the car (how predictable!), then went to trodos for a picknick for D's birthday.


we ended up playing for about two hours with a frisbee. that was kinda fun ... :)




then we came back, went to Z&M's place and saw the ring (part two).

what a senseless waste of harddrive space!


it's the perfect candidate for reenacting with bunnies. what i remember from the film:
"she can't hear you when you sleep"
(said by the kid)
"dead never sleep"
(said by the mum of the evil/come-back-from-the-dead enemy, who ofcourse cannot save the day since she's in a mental institution)
"i never sleep"
(said by the kid, when he's posessed by the evil enemy)


there you go! i just told you the whole movie.


anyway, it was fun (i had two beers and some popcorn to go with the movie).

Friday, April 15

The Daily WTF

the daily wtf discusses strange things you see in code that make you think wtf?!?

samurai vs. ninja

samurai vs. ninja - a great scripting game for the long, boring (and ... did i mention boring?) office hours :)

easter eggs

the easter egg archive is an impressive archive of easter eggs (well ... were we expecting anything else? :D).

from the website (software section, mozilla)
he Book of Mozilla actually continues. If you are using Mozilla FireFox (re-branded from FireBird), you may find a continuation of the story mentioned in the easter egg in Mozilla.
1. Open up Mozilla FireBird
2. Into the Address field, type "about:mozilla" without the quotes and press Enter.

Auschwitz/Birkenau - Photographs by Alan Jacobs

Auschwitz/Birkenau - Photographs by Alan Jacobs


no comment

darwinistic elitism is idiotic

Darwinistic Elitism is Idiotic

from the article:
No one has an IQ
You do not have an IQ. No one does. What you have is a score obtained from a test attempting to measure something called "intelligence." Further, the IQ (intelligent quotient) you receive is not your actual score. It is a number assigned to you based on how you compare to the group of people used to provide the test norms.

on oxymorons

this site has a long list of oxymorons.

like:
Objective Opinion
Old Boy
Peace Force
Preliminary Conclusion


it's funny: i thought that happily married should be the top one.

guess i was wrong ...

the patch atitude

there is a measure one can use to determine the civilization degree of a group of people.


that measure is based on what they choose to patch:

some choose their cars;
some, their houses;
or their clothes;
some, their emotions;
or entire lives.



i belive that the more someone is trying to patch things, the more desperate he/she is. that ultimately, patching is a measure of desperation.


for example, the civilized ('civilized' used here instead of less desperate) peoples, like the germans, canadians, and so on, do NOT consider patching at all (well ... not in most cases).

they don't fix a broken car: instead they consider buying a new one;
and they don't patch clothes (that would be a measure of poverty); and besides, clothes are so ... affordable - why patch them when you can get new ones?


in poorer corners of the world (like the arab world, or eastern european worlds), you will see patches on virtually everything:

in romania there's this concept: if you have a man in the house, then you will never need a plumber, nor an electrician, nor an auto-mechanic nor ... an anything else. when i was small this was driving me nuts (aunt coming into our house and telling our grandmother
what do you mean 'call a plumber'? you have two boys right here! put them to work.

the fact that we were males, either automatically qualified us for everything technical, or made us completely useless (because ofcourse there wasn't a need for proffessional work; a patching job would allways do!)

and another example: before romania became a democratic country (well ... more or less democratic as it is), it was a custom for many male citizens (that had cars), to open them up and start working on the engine every saturday or sunday. if you got out on a saturday evening, you were bound to see one or two mr. fix-it with their clothes full of motor-oil, fixing and patching their engines.

and that's not all; if you felt bored and felt like having a nice talk with your neighbours, you went outside, opened your car engine, and waited for ten minutes. within that time, some local neighbourhood expert was definitely going to stop, look inside the engine with you, then ask what was wrong with it, and help you fix it.



so now (since i came here) i find myself in the position of not needing to patch. i went home in september and i had a big problem telling my friends what exactly was depressing me.


i mean: how the hell do you tell your friends
"hey guys, you're living in a pathetic place"?
(i mean, how do you say that without sounding stuck-up).



in cluj, i saw a second-hand clothes store near the trainstation; and above it was written in big, bold letters:

second hand clothes
imported from the netherlands


the wrighting style lead you to belive they were selling some save-the-world product; something that would solve all your problems. and people were buying.

that sight depressed me; a lot!; and for a while i couldn't even put my finger on it (i just got depressed without realizing why)


after i came back it took me near a month to get back to my joyfull self.


maybe that's why i enjoy cyprus so much; and i think that's why i don't want to go back.

well, that and scuba; (and friends; and sunny summer; and the sea; and ... but i'm disgressing, so i'll stop here)

Wednesday, April 13

osho

osho's website

osho on zen:
Zen is a kind of uneducation. Zen is a kind of unlearning. It teaches you how to drop that which you have learned, how to become unskillful again, how to become a child again, how to start existing without mind again, how to be here without any mind.


Zen says that unless you drop the mind you can never be in tune with existence, you cannot pulsate with the pulse of the universe. If you don't drop the mind you go on living in a private world of your own creation; you don't live in the real world, you remain idiotic.

That is the meaning of the word idiot. Idiot means living in a private world. The idiot lives in a private world; he has a private idiom. He has his own way. He confines himself in his own way. He never follows the universal, the existential. He goes on projecting his own ideas. The mind is the idiot... howsoever clever, remember. The idiot can be very clever, can be a great expert, can accumulate much knowledge, can have many many degrees, Ph.D.s, and so on -- but the idiot remains the idiot. The idiot only becomes more dangerous.

Tuesday, April 12

enneagram

i have just taken the enneagram test. last time i did that (i was in highschool) i ranked as an individualist/helper (almost equal).


now i am better described as the peacemaker.

Enneagram Type 9 - The Peacemaker

Keeping peace and harmony

People of this personality type essentially feel a need for peace and harmony. They tend to avoid conflict at all costs, whether it be internal or interpersonal. As the potential for conflict in life is virtually ubiquitous, the Nine's desire to avoid it generally results in some degree of withdrawal from life, and many Nines are, in fact, introverted. Other Nines lead more active, social lives, but nevertheless remain to some to degree 'checked out,' or not fully involved, as if to insulate themselves from threats to their peace of mind. Most Nines are fairly easy going; they adopt a strategy of 'going with the flow.' They are generally reliable, sturdy, self-effacing, tolerant and likable individuals.

Nines tend to adopt an optimistic approach to life; they are, for the most part, trusting people who see the best in others; they frequently have a deep seated faith that things will somehow work out. They desire to feel connected, both to other people and to the world at large. They frequently feel most at home in nature and generally make warm and attentive parents.

The Nine's inability to tolerate conflict sometimes translates into an overall conservative approach to change. Change can provoke unpleasant feelings and disrupt the Nine's desire for comfort. Less healthy Nines seem incapable of motivating themselves to move into action and bring about effective change. When change does come however, as it generally will, Nines find that they are usually well able to adapt. They tend to be more resilient than they give themselves credit for. In fact, Nines tend not to give themselves enough credit in general, and their self-effacing attitude often seems to invite others to take them for granted or to overlook their often significant contribut"

i am almost tempted by this

how to convert your webcam to infrared webcam

Free Patents Online Database

here is a list of crazy registered pattents.

step-by-step to world domiation

So You've Decided to be Evil


my generated evil plan:


Evil Plan (tm)!


Your objective is simple: World Domination.
Your motive is a little bit more complex: Power

Stage One



To begin your plan, you must first kidnap a wall street executive. This will cause the world to sit up and take notice, stunned by your arrival. Who is this criminal mastermind? Where did they come from? And why do they look so good in classic black?

Stage Two



Next, you must seize control of the White House. This will all be done from a medieval castle, a mysterious place of unrivaled dark glory. Upon seeing this, the world will scream, as countless hordes of classic thugs hasten to do your every bidding.

Stage Three



Finally, you must reveal to the world your thermonuclear missiles, bringing about the apocalypse. Your name shall become synonymous with fear, and no man will ever again dare cross you. Everyone will bow before your supreme might, and the world will have no choice but to elect you dictator for life.

The Tao Of Programming

The Tao Of Programming

from the book:
"Thus spake the master programmer:

``After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless.''"

random interesting fact

this image is mind-bogling!

Google Press Center: Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist displayes most looked after keywords in various domains(top 10 gaining and declining queries, news, celebrities and so on) through google search engine.

Monday, April 11

Weird TV

Weird TV

Color Psychology

Color Psychology

Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams

Freud's *The Interpretation of Dreams* Chapter 1, Section D

The Graphing Calculator Story

link to the story

this is about a software project that never existed officially, yet it was a huge success.


from the article
People around the Apple campus saw us all the time and assumed we belonged. Few asked who we were or what we were doing.When someone did ask me, I never lied, but relied on the power of corporate apathy. The conversations usually went like this:

Q: Do you work here?
A: No.
Q: You mean you're a contractor?
A: Actually, no.
Q: But then who's paying you?
A: No one.
Q: How do you live?
A: I live simply.
Q: (Incredulously) What are you doing here?!

and:
We finished in January 1994. Graphing Calculator has been part of the Macintosh ever since. Teachers around the world use it as an animated blackboard to illustrate abstract concepts visually. It shipped on more than twenty million machines. It never officially existed.

Sunday, April 10

therapy

therapy

follow the white rabbit

i had a great weekend.


yesterday i went scuba-diving, which was great (i had forgotten how going diving once a week can brighten my whole week), and today i went for a picknick in trodos.


we played sort-of voleyball, and i played a little backgamon.


now i'm tired but ... full ... accomplished ... complete.

Saturday, April 9


along the wall

anchor line

above the wreck of the Vera K.


above the wreck of the Vera K.

sea-bottom

what are you looking at?

underwater tunnel

sea-bottom

sea-shell

marine monster

buoy

inside the wreck

buddy entering water through giant stride (i had missed him by half a second)

clear water


open water (depth between 5 and 10 m)

cydiver III - the boat we went on

human statue


found this guy in Paphos on the sea-front; for a whole 10 seconds, i didn't realize he was alive;


is this a form of art?

Friday, April 8

YaGoohoo!gle

this one cracked me up.


pure genius!

my scuba gear

my scuba gear:

gloves, fins, uw photo-casing, bag, bcd (Orion), mask, weight-belt and bcd weight pockets.

my bike


so, finally, here it is, in all it's ... bikishness ... i think

random animation

well ... this is embarassing!

about about:

here's a semi-technical description of about:config address while using mozilla engine.


the article also said two words on about:cache, which i didn't know about.


these are only more arguments on mozilla/firefox as a platform.

random update

yesterday i had some rest.


and fixed my shiny new mountainbike.



i gor myself battery-powered lights, right-side mirror, metal pedals, and vertical (more like oblique) hand-handles.



and i still didn't make the time to put up a picture of my shiny new bike.



shame on me!

finding a win-win situation

divernews.com posted an article on a project to explore the "Amazon Abyss".


that in itself is not that interesting to me.


what impressed me is that this is the typical case of a win-win situation: Simrad Ltd promote their latest equipment, BBC gets a nice documentary, and the "team of expert divers and scientists" get their research done.


nice

Wednesday, April 6

working US national security ... NOT!

AK posted an article on How to find nuclear power plants in the US.


From his log:

Et voila, we have a nice overview over the area of the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant. And when I’m able to do that within an hour, what keeps terrorists off from doing the same type of research?

A dissertation got censored because of similar type of information which “might help terrorists”, and not even pilots get this kind of information even while they’re forbidden to fly over nuclear power plants (and Oyster Creek is explicitly on that list, although I lost the link to it…).

random musing

yesterday it happened again:

i was preparing something to eat for myself and i started moving things slowly, with utter calm. (laying plate on the table slowly, taking my time with getting the bread out, and so on)


that was the second time i got overcome by completeness and calm while laying my dinner table, since i moved in with B and F.



and it happened today after lunch too: i was walking by the sea-side, trying to just listen to the sound of the sea, some birds, my own footsteps and the wind. and the calm was there again.



so, does this mean god exists?
well ... no!

because it's nothing special ...

just my neurons actually waking up for a moment maybe ...

just me paying attention every once in a while.




but i wish i could be into this feeling more. yet f i was, i'd try looking for something else. such are the imperfections of my perfect personality.

random link [7] (one or more photoblogs)

The scratches of a dark night | The rashes of foresight | And I wanted you..

policromia

random update

bless me father for i have sinned; it's been two days since my last confession


hehe! allways wanted to say that!






anyway, here's the random update:

wow has suspended my account since M didn't have enough money on his net card to pay my subscription (or whatever else happened) ... and since i didn't have any money yesterday either (since bank of cyprus decided to double-charge all my withdrawals in the last two days) we ended up taxing B's card for the account ... so now i'm playing again.



yesterday (or should i say today) i stayed till 3 am to read in the morning so i'm half-zombie by now (again), and it kind of feels like that when i'm pedaling on my new bike.


and i made a phone call to San Jose at 10 pm in the evening; and i made some soup;



so that's it. (were you expecting something profound?)

Monday, April 4

css Zen Garden: The Beauty in CSS Design

while reading one of Joel's posts, i stumbled upon a link to the css Zen Garden.


it's spectacular

mountain bike

this morning i got myself a MTB.


it has front suspension, aluminium frame, front disk brakes and shimano gear systems.


i'll post a picture this evening ... probably.

no diving

this weekend i went diving ... or so i thought; the waves were somewhere over a meter high, strong wind ... etc.


ofcourse we didn't go ...


it's starting to look like a damn conspiracy ;o(


well ... i'll try next week ( and this time i'll call in advance: saturday i went in paphos for nothing :( )

Friday, April 1

Cenqua: The Commentator

i don't know if this is for real, but it's damn funny



and, on a personal note, i'm going diving tomorrow :)