production and quality control ... sort of

About the Most Important Question

A zen master told his student: If you ask the most important question, I will give you a completely truthful answer.
The student asked: Master, what is the most important question?
The master said: This one. And this answer is completely truthful.

So ... what is the most important question?

chillout

No Comment

C

D playing cards

Going Through the Photography Backlog

I came home two hours ago and I don't feel like sleeping. Thus, I am using this occasion to go over my photography backlog and process some pictures:

Antwerpen Station

This is cheesy.

And funny.

It reminded me of the Frozen Grand Central by improveverywhere.



I understand it may be a commercial to something.

A Study on the Effect of Reiki on Cells

I found a post on The Reiki Digest that Gloria A. Gronowicz performed a vigorously designed three-year study on applying Reiki treatments to test-tube cells. The study was designed so the application of Reiki did not involve touching the tubes, heating them, or manipulating them phisicaly in any way.

The results showed (against her expectations) that Reiki had no effect on cancer cells, "but that the process improved bone cell growth by a statistically significant percent. Skin and tendon cells also grew under the Reiki regimen.".

The study was performed by the University of Connecticut Health Center and financed by the US National Institutes of Health Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and apparently* published in the Journal of Orthopedic Research.

---

*) "apparently" means that I could't find or access the study dirrectly (but then again, I didn't want to pay for access on the CCAM website).

---

Later Edit: Following a discussion on reddit, It seems there are some points of this study that were contested as part of peer review (as I said in the discussion, the statistics part is a bit above my statistics-fu and I'm not willing to put in the effort to understand the issue, so I'll take the affirmations in the critique at face-value). Please take the conclusions of the study with a grain of salt though.

A Disaster ,,,

Is this a comedy?

duckling

A duckling I shot last week in Josaphat Park.

I Didn't Come to See You Naked

An elderly man in Texas had owned a large farm for several years. He had a beautiful large pond at the back of the property next to the road, and he’d fixed it up real nice with picnic tables, horseshoe pits, and he’d planted some nice flowers and fruit trees next to the pond. One evening the old farmer decided to go down to the pond to look it over, as he hadn’t been down there for a while. He grabbed a five-gallon bucket to bring back some fruit. As he neared the pond, he heard splashing and female voices shouting and laughing with glee. As he came closer he saw that 5 young women had parked their car at the side of the road, climbed the fence and were skinny-dipping in his pond. He made the women aware of his presence and they all went hurriedly splashing to the deep end.

One of the women shouted to him, “We’re naked and we’re not coming out until you leave!” The old man frowned and yelled back, “I didn’t come down here to watch you ladies swim naked or make you get out of the pond.” Holding the bucket up he said, “I’m just here to feed the alligator.”

(taken from twitfall)

biking / beer outing

R&G


A. on the phone

Please Rephrase

Removing the hostiles
collateral damage
remove the target
hit a target
remove the threat
... and I'm tired of the bullshit.

If you happen to channel-surf over Discovery Channel (and some others) while documentaries on weapons are playing, you are bound to hear one or more of the expressions above.

These shows try to show you how cool new weapons are, how advanced their technology, and how they are superior, while glossing over a simple truth: they are perfected for killing people.

All of the euphemisms above mean the exact same thing: killing people. The problem we have here is "killing people" doesn't sound cool, and it's more difficult to have a show on how cool the weapons are, if we actually put on the table that they are better tools for killing people. Instead, it's "we protect our country" [that usually means the US, since the guys in the shows I've seen are American].

I'm not arguing here that these weapons are not helping in the protection of your country (whatever that may be). I'm sure they help, but cut the bullshit! They are killing instruments.

It's not cool that you have them, it's sad that you may need them.

A Letter from Bill Gates

BoycottNovell has a posting on a letter on strategy, written by Bill Gates. The spin they put on the story is on how Bill Gates is afraid of linux, but I want to focus on something else: is it interesting?

First, a small paranthesis: Is the letter authentic?

I'd say yes, for the following reasons:
1. I'm not very familiar with BoycottNovell and their sources of information, but from what I've read of the letter (provided in it's entirety in the article) I would say that it's either authentic, or whoever made it is very insightfull and has lots of "vision".

2. If they published a fake letter, they be very open to attacks (which would only serve them in the short run - publicity stunt/shock value/whatever).

The letter talks (among other things) about linux and java being Windows' largest competitors and the need to preventing commodization by linux (you may be too late on that) about taking good ideas for improvement from a variety of sources, about a major overhaul of the file/storage system (the points being made there sounded to me both revolutionary and obvious at the same time), about a need (stated explicitely) to improve system monitoring enough to be better than on linux, difficulty of setting up windows for a speciffic purpose, unifying the application platform technologies to win back Java and J2EE developers, improving Windows boot time and improving asynchronous communication (email, Gmail, CRM, scheduling, etc) - maybe they should take a look at Google Wave.

All in all it's an interesting letter, and if they manage to achieve all that, it will make for interesting times.

Sunset from the Kitchen Window

ducks

The ducks! The come from the trucks!

evening at home

rabbit

A rabbit I shot today in Park Josaphat

A Recipe I Tried Today

This is a recipe that I kind of stole, by watching while it was made, in La Bocca restaurant, in Limassol:

What you need (for two persons):

• pasta
• 200 grams of sour creme
• 50 grams of smoked salmon
• olive oil
• one egg
• a spoon-full of dill (preferably fresh)

First, the pasta is boiled separately, then dried.

For the sauce, use a big pan(preferably a wok).

First, dice the salmon into smaller pieces, and the dill into small pieces. Then heat the pan, pour the oil inside and drop the salmon in oil, to fry (it tends to stick to the pan, so you apparently need to stir it somewhat).

Once it's fried, drop the sour creme, then the dill, add a bit of salt and stir. Once it's homogeneous, you can leave it unattended for a few seconds, so it's a good time to separate the egg yoke, add it, and stir again.

About ten seconds after mixing in the egg yoke, add the pasta (that's why you needed a big pan :) ), stir, then turn off the heat and serve immediately.

I'm sure the recipe is not new or anything, but it's the first time I made it and it was great, so I thought I'd share.

Total time required: time to boil the pasta, plus two extra minutes.

Going to the Park

Today we went to the park ... kind of.

D&R came home around six, and we decided we'd go to the park: they, to check out their mountain-bikes, me to check my brother's motorbike.

We got to the parking lot, mounted the MTBs on the car, I got the motorbike out, then we exited the parking lot and the rain started. We turned around, parked again, got the MTBs off the car and ran through the rain, back home.

D's comment: Welcome to Belgium!

In Blegium

I am in Belgium. I arrived yesterday after a tiring flight, and was half zombie for the whole day.

Things are a bit different here, but it's welcome change and I was looking forward to it:

The closest shop is a Carrefour. It's bigger than I was used to, and the product quality and range differs greatly. I am not one to spend my days in Carrefour or anything, but it was familiar and strange at the same time ... Also, food kiosks and non-stop shops are non-existent here (to the degree I was able to determine) as people buy food in bulk around here (cheaper to do so). As I said, it's welcome change.

When we landed, I was lucky to have packed a rain jacket with my cabin luggage, otherwise I'd have frozen. Now it's sunny outside, but not warm (I had forgotten this combination), and it's been raining for a while yesterday, for a while last night, and for a while today.

Otherwise, it's all good. I got a local simcard and I'm posting stuff on the net.

One last thing: Hoegaarden rocks!

An Interesting Drugs Report

It seems that a while ago, the World Health Organization performed a study on cocaine use (the source said it was the largest ever indepth study). Then, the results got dimissed and the report was never published, as it didn't conform with the myths propagated by the US anti-drug campaigns and political interests.

The report touched on unjustified stigmatization/vilification of cocaine users, exaggerations of the health damages cocaine produces and the fact that current approaches to stopping the use of cocaine are naive at best (among other things).

The US apparently threatened to withdraw funding from the WHO if the report was published (in the end it seems it was leaked[PDF], not published).

Disclaimer: This post is in no way an endorsement for the use of cocaine (or any other drugs for that matter). I am more interested in writing about the conclusions and the supression of the report, than drugs in general. Besides, IANAD.

Chopin and ... Djembe drums

I was just talking to a friend about playing Chopin on a Djembe drum.

We figured that, if we were to manage it, Chopin would be spinning in his grave to such a degree that if you were to put a magnet in his mouth and wrap the coffin in copper wire, you'd solve the energy needs of the whole of Europe for the next fifty years.

On Moving, and the 90-90 Rule

My blog is in danger of becoming stale, as I haven't taken the time to post in a while. Here are some highlights:

• I'm moving to Belgium

So, there!

Also, here are some ramblings on changing country: When moving your stuff from Cyprus, you can choose between plane and cargo.
I opted for cargo, because I absolutely hate going through airports with everything but the kitchen sink.
Even so, I couldn't get everything through cargo. It's the 90-90 rule:

When moving house, after you gather 90% of your crap lying around, you only have to gather the remaining 90%!

After I shipped my cargo with orbit I had the feeling I had an empty room. Once I started actually packing everything that was left (the small stuff), I couldn't believe how much I had left (the remaining 90%).

The good part is I should be in Belgium by the end of the week.

"Miles per gallon" to "litres per 100 km" conversion

I'm tired of reading(or watching) mpg comparisions, when they don't give me a frame of reference. As such, I'd decided to write my own online convertor for it.

This is the algorithm (in python):

def mpg2lpckm(mpg):
    one_mile=1.609344
    one_gallon=3.78541178
    kmpg = mpg * one_mile # km/gallon
    kmpl = kmpg / one_gallon # km / l
    lpkm = 1. / kmpl # l / km
    return lpkm * 100.

and here is the online conversion:

two more pictures from Kaunertal

on mindfulness

For a while now, I've told people that "I don't really meditate, but I practice mindfulness". It sounds good, which makes it the perfect excuse.

I realized this while I was reading Being and Mindfulness, by Judith Warner. She says:

It has dawned on me lately, meditating on the Metro, thoughts silenced so completely that I can hear every page being turned by passengers up and down the car (I am above reading — I am present to myself) that being fully in the moment, all senses turned on, feeling your hands in your lap and the ground under your feet, is a very good way of not being there at all.

That there was my mistake also: in my rush to be present, I ran off after "presence", after "being present" and "practicing mindfulness". In that rush, I lost what I was actually running after (and ended up taking myself too seriously).

Maybe I need to meditate more.

Happy StarWars Day!

May the 4^th be with you!

Playing for Change

I found this via reddit - via inspirationlounge - via movingpicturesmagazine. The site is playingforchange.

Mark Johnson describes how he was inspired to create it, while listening on a singing street performance by two monks, ten years ago.

In the videos, various people from around the world listen to the music (negative?) and contribute to it in various ways.

Stand by Me

Original lyrics:

When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we'll see
No I won't be afraid, no I won't be afraid
Just as long as you stand, stand by me

And darlin', darlin', stand by me, oh now now stand by me
Stand by me, stand by me

If the sky that we look upon
Should tumble and fall
And the mountains should crumble to the sea
I won't cry, I won't cry, no I won't shed a tear
Just as long as you stand, stand by me

And darlin', darlin', stand by me, oh stand by me
Stand by me, stand by me, stand by me-e, yeah

Whenever you're in trouble won't you stand by me, oh now now stand by me
Oh stand by me, stand by me, stand by me

Darlin', darlin', stand by me-e, stand by me
Oh stand by me, stand by me, stand by me

No More Trouble

Original lyrics:

Until the philosophy which holds one race
Superior and another inferior
Is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned
Everywhere is war, me say war

That until there is no longer first class
And second class citizens of any nation
Until the colour of a man's skin
Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes
Me say war

That until the basic human rights are equally
Guaranteed to all, without regard to race
Dis a war

That until that day
The dream of lasting peace, world citizenship
Rule of international morality
Will remain in but a fleeting illusion
To be pursued, but never attained
Now everywhere is war, war

And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes
That hold our brothers in Angola, in Mozambique,
South Africa sub-human bondage
Have been toppled, utterly destroyed
Well, everywhere is war, me say war

War in the east, war in the west
War up north, war down south
War, war, rumours of war

And until that day, the African continent
Will not know peace, we Africans will fight
We find it necessary and we know we shall win
As we are confident in the victory

Of good over evil, good over evil, good over evil
Good over evil, good over evil, good over evil

back in office

I'm back in office, dizzy and dreaming of snow.

Anyway, I started processing pictures from the trip.






Edit: Three more:

In Kaunertal

I'm in Kaunertal. It is a small town in the middle of nowhere, 30 minutes by car from some nice slopes, on top of a permanent glacier, near Innsbruck, Austria.

We are staying at FeichtnerHof, a pretty impressive 4 star hotel, and the food is to die for.

Other impressions ... let's see:
The ski slopes are good, except their color coding is wrong: there is one black slope which should be red, a couple of blue ones that should be red also, and no slopes that should be black at all.

The snow started melting on the lower slopes, but each night it freezes again, each day it snows and the guys there take great care, so the upper slopes are good every morning.

I got mysself a pair of skis (atomics). The ones I had been using were crap (vibrating like crazy once I got any amount of speed to speak of).

The Alps are great to see, great to drive through and great to capture in pictures (I'll post some once I get home and make the time to process them).

My brother is a maniac behind the steering wheel (though luckily he seems to generally know what he's doing).

I haven't fallen yet on the skis and my favorite slope is the black one. I've had a few close calls though.

Weissbier (usually Edelweiss) is great to have at the restaurant on the slope, but it tends to rouin skiing afterwards).

Sonya

I don't usually laugh at "cute animal" movies but this takes the cake.


And now... at last - Sonya!!!!(slow loris) from Dmitry Sergeyev on Vimeo.

Pancakes anyone?

From time to time, I do all kinds of things to get back in touch with my spirituality. Today I figured something out:

I am always in touch with my spirituality in various forms, but I only recognize this in certain specific forms.

Pancakes anyone?

Blind, blind.

Selling Bike for Peanuts

I'll be selling my bike these days. It's an orange 1996 Yamaha DragStar, at 400cc. Since I only have two weeks to get rid of it, it will go for peanuts.

Here are some (older) pictures:










So ... if you have anyone who has a brother who has a neighbour who's cousin wants the bike, tell them to drop me a message, or leave a comment with some contact information.

dan.barbus resides at gmail.com.

Extreme Sheep LED Art

quote

When you bow deeply to the universe, it bows back; when you call out the name of God, it echoes inside you.

The Art of Peace
Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido.

Daniel Hannan MEP: The devalued Prime Minister of a devalued Government

I have nothing against the British Prime Minister. Still, this is an eloquent discourse/accusation with powerful arguments*.

The again, who am I kidding?

Yeah! Bring him to task!



M., thanks for the link. I hope it gets a wider distribution.

* - And the British accent thing is cool also.

One Year

At a police unit advancement exam, there were three candidates. To test their detective skills, the first one was presented with a profile picture of a suspect and asked to state what he noticed, immediately after.

He said "The suspect has only one year." Of course, the examiners got angry and he was disqualified from the exam.

The second candidate was presented the same picture and he said "The suspect has one year." The examiners got even angrier and he was disqualified also.

The third candidate looked at the picture and he said "The suspect wears contact lenses." The examiners looked at each other, then one of them ran to the desk, got the suspect's file and looked through it. Then, he turned to the candidate and said:

"That was amazing! You were able to deduct from a small, unclear lateral picture of the suspect that he wears contacts. How did you do that?!"

"Well, it was easy." said the candidate. "The suspect can't wear glasses because he only has one year."

poppy

almost boycoting experts-exchange (rant)

I have started a personal movement of (almost) boycotting experts-exchange.com.

Here's why: Let's say I have a technical problem and am looking for a solution.

I hit a Google search, find a description of my problem within the first page of results, then open it, only to have to scroll down and get a screen like this:


Here's what's wrong with this err ... picture:

First, I don't want to have to create create an account to view the solution.
Second, I don't want to create an account that will expire in seven days, unless I pay for it.
Third, I don't want to pay for it.

Due to this, I just wasted time (and bandwidth) opening a link, to read again the description of my problem, and get a message that basically said a solution to your problem exists.

experts-exchange, stop wasting my time!

So, what will I do with this?

Nothing much.

I will delete all experts-exchange results from my google search results. To the degree google adapts the search results to user modifications, I will either stop seeing them altogether, or see them less often, or (maybe even) cause others to see them less often.

If I have the time, I will also create a grease-monkey script that does that "automagically".

poppy

straw pattern

Victor Borge, on Phonetic Pronunciation

Mr. I, waiting for the rain to pass

just a flower

In-camera IR processing experiment.

Haiku

Silent balcony.
Through the branches,
Slow Moon gliding.

Religion

I found this funny. Apparently it was censored by youtube ...

Religion - watch more funny videos

About the Triangle of Disempowerment

This article is mainly about victims; Victims of destiny, victims of life, victims of circumstance, victims of serendipity or victims of their fellows.

When we see an abusive situation, we immediately split it between a perceived VICTIM and a perceived PERPETRATOR. In this, we have a binary situation (bad guy vs. victim) that is easy to see. The perpetrator may be intangible, something that nothing can be done about, like god/devil, destiny, whatever, or tangible, like an abusive relative or a violent person. It doesn't matter for my little article.

Looking from this point of view (bad guy vs. victim), there is one escape for the victim: become stronger than the aggressor (turning ultimately into another aggressor) and many times, the two change roles (unfortunately, victims of abuse often do this).

Many times though, becomming stronger than the perceived aggressor is impossible (as in, "It is my destiny to suffer for this" - who can go against that?!)

---

To widen the bad guy vs. victim model, let's introduce a new element, the good guy, the RESCUER. Our model now turns into a triangle, with the victim having three choices: suffer, become a bad guy, or become a good guy (and ultimately help others deal with abuse).

I am not smart enough (or thoughtful enough) to have come up with this model by myself. This model is called "Low Drama", or the "Triangle of Disempowerment" and people play it (more or less) whenever they interact with ... well anything really.

It looks like this:
I hope you can appreciate my great MS Paint skills.

Basically, this is a cycle we go through, with no apparent escape from it.

Here are the roles, in detail:

The Victim

"I'm not OK, both the Perpetrator and the Rescuer are OK."

The victims try to escape their roles by becomming either a Rescuer or a Perpetrator, usually at different levels (in different triangles, with other players, they will play different roles).
They blame the Perpetrators (direct abuser/life/destiny/partner/friends/relatives/whoever is available), and in extremis, everything bad that ever happens, happens to them.
As the perfect example of a victim, see the definition of a Drama Queen.

Ironically, the victim is the most powerful player of the game: a skilled victim can turn a Rescuer into a Perpetrator ("It's your fault for not getting me out of my situation"), it can turn an innocent bystander into a Perpetrator ("I can't believe you're doing this to me"), and it can even stop the whole triangle completely, by becoming aware of the triangle/pattern.

The Perpetrator

"I'm OK, you're not OK, so I'm justified in hurting you".

Usually somebody who is a victim for others and has a need to prove his strength will become a perpetrator. At a certain level, the internal need to be a perpetrator is perceived weakness and the need to compensate for that. From this point of view, a perpetrator is a distorted victim.

As the perfect example of a perpetrator, take your pick, as we are all full of them; just take your pet peeve and see who's doing it to you (yes, you are practicing your low drama also). I do not mean necessarily, that you are a drama queen, merely that there's no escaping the game, and it's a good thing to acknowledge that we actually do it).

The Rescuer

"I'm OK, the victim is OK, the Perpetrator is not OK".

On a first impression, there is nothing wrong with the Rescuer, he is the good guy, something to aspire to.
Except it's not. Sooner or later, splitting a situation in victim/perpetrator/rescuer makes you part of the game, propagates the problem further. The rescuer is all about getting into the problem, not about empowering the victim.

You can probably think of people you've seen getting out of an abusive situation, only to get into another one (I know I did).

Saving the victim (actually saving the victim) would mean breaking the low drama completely, helping the victim become aware of the triangle, and the first step in doing that is not to play the game, as tempting to help as that may be.

If this sounds like I'm saying not to help the victim, that's true, with a catch: Only help the victim if the victim asks for help. Mind your own business, or consider that you're actually joining the game. If the victim asks for help, you can provide help without participating in the triangle ... maybe :)

When they don't ask for help, you're just participating in the victim's play and you'll end up suffering for it sooner or later. The way not to suffer for it, is to see clearly that it doesn't involve you, it has no relationship to you, and any involvement you put into that is voluntary.

That was my insight into the dis-empowerment triangle. I hope you had your fun reading it.

Edit: A friend of mine gave me a perfect example of not being engaged in my drama, a few weeks ago.

I had had a quarrel with somebody and needed a way to vent.

I ended up meeting with my friend and as I was ready to begin ranting on what's been done to me and how my chosen perpetrator (yes, she was my chosen perpetrator) had the gall to do all that, my friend interrupted me and told me she refused to listen to me painting the other person with a "bad" brush, as my perpetrator was also her friend (in the end, that meant she refused to sit and listen to me being a victim).

In this case I was lucky: that was enough for me to realize my victim role and acknowledge that the "perpetrator" had just reacted to avoid being hurt (i. e. not to do all that to me as I had been telling myself). My victim role was just me being hurt myself (I guess on a level we hurt each other) and blaming someone else.

Sometimes though, when people don't want to participate in our drama we get angry, as the sympathy we get for playing a victim can be a strong emotional reward (that the listener denies us) and for a ... skilled victim that's just another way to become a stronger victim (they refuse to listen and show sympathy? Do they have no compassion? How can they do this to me?!?).

Bobby Mcferrin improvisation with Richard Bona

A., thanks for the link :)

sqrt(day)

Happy Square Root Day everybody!

Video Games Preparing Children For the Apocalypse

The Onion strikes again:

Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?


Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?

Credit Crisis, Explained

I found this on Ţarălungă.ro.


The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Face of the Moon

Lucky Charm

Reddit Reddux

Don't Wake Up the Programmer! is an interesting read for programmers, and (especially) for non-programmers.

The real cause of the financial crisis, and the real solution - An MIT Blackjack Team Perspective.

The Pauli Effect is the (mystical?) effect of borking things up by your mere presence, and it was named after Wolfgang Pauli.

Apparently Female hysteria was once a common diagnostic, that even lead to the development of the sexual toys (?); Either way, it's an interesting read.

That's it for now ... more to come later.

EA rant ... redirected...

Well ... it seems an apology is in order, for my post regarding Mirror's Edge: it turns out that the many many problems I've had with the game came not from EA's developers, neither testing nor bad karma, but from Windows Vista.
The game should not have had BETA plastered over it, just a disclaimer:

"This game is only partially working with Windows Vista. Use at your own risk."

I installed XP (details to come in a future post) and finished the game through the weekend. It was nice (though a bit shorter than I expected).

Don't talk to the police

... at least if you're in the States ...

Statue in Vienna

genius

Monique Marvez is a genius ...



... and funny.

karma, or why am I dressed in gray and black today

I am dressed in gray and black today, because they're the last clean clothes I have left, so I have no choice in the matter.

This is logical, and it cannot be argued against (I really have no other clean clothes, I need to be clean and so on).

I can safely say I have little choice in the matter.

On the other way, the situation as it is is the reflection of my choices past. I could have made a different choice yesterday (perhaps), or the day before that would allow me different choices now.

This is karma.

People usually thinking of karma though, say I don't believe in karma. or I believe in karma. In that context, karma is predestination, the fact that some things "just happen to you", that you're a victim of circumstance destiny. If you put it that way, I don't believe in karma either.

In my context though, karma is just another word for responsibility: the fact that you can do whatever you want, but you will probably have to face the consequences of that sooner or later, in one form or another. It is not a matter of clearing your karma, getting a good or bad karma (though I think you may call it that if you really want) or having to pay for bad karma. It's just the fact that you 'lay your own bed' so to speak.

Maybe it's an invitation to pay attention.

Mirror's Edge A.K.A. Caveat Emptor ... for software

As the Good Google teaches us, "Beta" is the new "Release".

Nowhere is this clearer than in the new EA release, Mirror's Edge.

It works like this: you buy the game (for a mere 50EUR :(), wait for it to download and after a day and a half of waiting, it doesn't start.

You have to browse the forums (Google search: Mirror's Edge stuck at splash screen, Mirror's Edge crashes, etc.), then start playing with your settings:

• update drivers a couple of times
• read the forums again
• try a couple of hacks (rename a DLL, set the antialiasing manually in some config files to a low value, etc)

The game finally takes of and it's all good.

Except it's not.

It's crashed twice on me, and at some difficult parts in the game (usually where you are most immersed in the game) it started crawling, drawing the frames at one-two frames per second, and mainly became unusable.

Come on guys!

I know you had a deadline to keep, but what you did here is BETA QUALITY.

The game-play is great and looks polished-enough, but all that can't be enjoyed if you have to fight it to play it.

These are the kind of problems that should have gone away after beta testing, so it's either a problem with the testing, or with the bug-fixing, or it's a problem with management sticking their tails where they don't belong and forcing the deadlines.

I hope I don't offend anyone when I say that the only way I'll buy another EA game is if I download it first from torrents, and decide it's streamlined enough to be worth the money (as this one definitely wasn't).

For other potential buyers: if you want to buy the game, wait a few months until they get some patches out (if they do at all). Otherwise, only buy the game if you don't mind a few hours making it run.

Edit: It seems the game actually works after all. Just, not for Windows Vista.

History of the Internet

some more pictures

The weekend is over. I arrived back from Moldova on Friday night, and spend most of Saturday outside. Today I got my rest.

I don't have anything interesting to say right now, except that I finally took the time to process four more holidays pictures.

Enjoy:

11:23 in Chisinau Airport

I'm a busy bunny today - places to go and (no) people to see.

I'll be flying out of here by 12:25, to Istanbul. Then, I'll be on my way to Athens, then from Athens to Larnaca. I could have taken a more direct flight, but where's the fun in that?

Actually the "more direct flight" would have made miss the weekend, but fun sounds ... well ... funnier.

Instead, I'll be flying for close to twelve hours today (not really, but the breaks will be spent in airports, so there's no difference really).

I think I'll have enough fun today to get stuffed with it.

Moldova is ...

.. a bit of a culture shock, and familiar at the same time.

I've been here since Monday, so here are a few minute impressions:

• the food is great(like the good Romanian food I've been missing, though there are differences).


• Grigore Vieru (respected poet) died, and there was a national mourning day, declared by the president. It was a huge event and everybody kept talking about it for a few days.


• the hotel is nice (I remembered that since last visit, but that doesn't make it less nice)

That's it for now (or were you expecting something meaningful?).

about rebirth

I was reading a Buddhist discussion on rebirth (How do Buddhists deal with the idea of rebirth?) and found a comment I really liked (not quoting):
You don't survive death because the "you" that you think you are doesn't really exist. Why would a construct in your mind survive death?

Another good point in the discussion: the "rebirth" concept is mainly metaphoric - to really live every moment, you have to die every moment, and be reborn.

Icicles in the Sun, Red Mountain, Romania

Palinkopf Peak, Ischgl, Austria

lone tree, red mountain forrest trail, Romania

Back on Earth

I'm back in office, working.

We arrived at five in the morning and it was a pleasant change to walk outside in temperatures over the freezing point.

I'm in office now, muscles still aching from the skiing, tired and busy.
I'll post some pictures over the week, and try to answer my mail backlog.

back to work ...

in .ro

I'm in Bucharest.

I arrived two hours ago and just has something to eat.

Highlights from the trip:
1. Discussion with the stewardess:
"Excuse me, can I take pictures on the plane?"
"No" (smile) " ... but I might not see you."
I didn't take pictures on the plane though :(

2. Upon arriving I got reminded why I visit Romania so seldom: the luggage conveyor belt was very small (Baneasa Airport) and the first forty people (or so) to pass customs gathered all around it; they didn't let anyone else get close to the conveyor belt because they were in a hurry; still, their luggage wasn't on the belt, as the belt was full with other luggage, mainly from the people not willing to push into the crowd. People near the coneyor belt had nothing to take but were unwilling to leave their places, and people far from the conveyor belt were unable to approach at all. It was a stalemate that degenerated into shouting and cursing pretty fast.

All in all I found it funny ... in a sad kind of way.

Welcome to Romania!
Good night.

S.

angel

ornamental flower

50 mm

I received today the 50mm lens I got from eBay, and as far as first impressions go, it seems rock-solid.

I'm already impressed with the sharpness and bokeh (I'll probably post some pictures in a couple of days, once I've had the time to take it through it's paces).

Weekend

I had a full weekend.

I tried Osho's Kundalini meditation for the first time, with a group in Nicosia, lead by one of Osho's students. It was an interesting session and I learned a lot. I'm actually looking forward to my next one.

I also did some work on a soul retrieval with a friend and started clarifying some of my goals.

My schedule is starting to look busy.

meditation and parradox

Empty-handed I go; and behold, the spade is in my hands;
I walk on foot, and yet on the back of an ox I am riding;
When I pass over the bridge,
Lo, the water floweth not, but the bridge doth flow.

This is the gatha of Jenye, as found in An Introduction to Zen Buddhism by Daisetz Teitarō Suzuki. It is followed by an explanation into the illogical nature of Zen, that I don't care to remember right now.

What's important for me: after I understood these words, the nature of my meditation changed.

In a completely unrelated subject:
You can be happy at any time you like, but you might have to work at it.

magic

Usually, it's just light, annoyingly reaching your monitor and you can't see the screen properly.
At my current location it's easy to completely forget it though, as it doesn't even reach my screen.

Still, if you take a moment and go outside right before sunset, you see that everything is bathed by it, surrounded in beauty.

A moment of magic.

Nikon D90 on the L train

Nikon D90 on the L train from Mike Kobal on Vimeo.

Alice in Wonderland ... and zen

I enjoyed reading this today (because it's a perfectly good example of the rational way we make distinctions):

Zen master John Daido Loori of the Zen Mountain Monastery uses this in his teaching:

The caterpillar said, "One side will make you grow bigger and the other side will make you grow smaller"
"One side of what? The other side of what?" thought Alice to herself.
"Of the mushroom," said the caterpillar.
Alice looked at the mushroom, trying to make out which were the two sides of it, as it was perfectly round.

(taken from the wikipedia page on koans).

The Free Reiki sessions at the Body, Mind and Spirit Exhibition

We did it.

Through the weekend there was the Body, Mind and Spirit Exhibition in Nicosia.

On Saturday, we had a room for three hours, giving people free Reiki. We had chairs and people would come in and sit on them and wait.
When we finished with one person, we would move on to the next, asking a few questions, explaining what we are doing, then having a short Reiki session with them. In the end, we would talk about the experience, answer some questions, and give them some written material on what Reiki is.

At the end, I felt very tired (I think the others were too) but the sense of accomplishment was there.

I don't know how to describe it really.

My pleasure, my sense of fulfillment is usually a simple thing (do something, get satisfaction).

In comparison, this was amazing.

Five minutes before we started, somebody came and asked if they were in the right place to find out about Reiki ... and I thought 'Hey, somebody might be interested in this ... '; but the room was always full, so full that after three hours with six Reiki masters, we didn't have the time to finish with everybody.

Then, there was the fact that we had something to offer, something people wanted to receive, sometimes so much that they came back for more.

There was answering the questions, the dialogues that came out of it, the sense of accomplishment.

There was the smiles of the people receiving this, and the people not wanting it to end.

Maybe it was all of those, or something else.

Maybe it was simply Reiki.

Whatever it was though, I think it will bring a smile on my face for quite some time now.

Whatever it was, in the end, we did it.

DoTheTest strikes again

See here for more details.

randomness on the tubes

The most important thing I read yesterday was a small piece called Zen is Boring (spirituality).

L sent me a very interesting piece on regular expressions engine implementations (technical, with code in classic C).
Thanks L!

I also found a story on paying a bill with a spider drawing (funny).

Nike has some googles expanding the field of vision, called hindsight (weird).

Also, here's an article on improving your charisma (interesting).

And in completely unrelated news, I just found this comment in our code today:

        case WAIT_OBJECT_0:     // look ma' no brakes :-)

The Matrix Has You ... in Windows

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

M., thanks for the link :)

eeebuntu on Asus EEE PC 1000H

I received my eee late last evening and installed eeebuntu today. The process was relatively straightforward, once I had all the pieces.

The pieces:
- eeepc iso image (torrent)
- UNetbootin: A windows application for turning a Linux distro CD image into an installable setup to be used with a flash drive.
- A 1/2Gb USB flash drive. I used a U3 Cruzer Micro, so in order to get a bootable USB drive I had to remove the U3 smart application from it. I did that with the U3 Launchpad Remover.
- The alternate kernel image (a kernel having the eee drivers compiled within. You can get those from here, but if you download them separately (like I did), follow the instructions from here
- The software configuration. This is a script doing it's magic, after the HW support has been set. The script can be found here.

Installation:
1. Get the ISO for the eeebuntu system.
2. Download UNetbootin. Within the application, choose the second option (Diskimage), load the ISO, then plug in the USB device and click OK.
2.a. In my case, I was using a Cruzer Micro USB drive. The device is seen as a read-only CD, and it mounts an extra partition for random access. To disable this, I used the U3 Launchpad Remover from U3.com.
3. Plug the USB device into the eee PC and restart (keep pressing F2 for the boot menu), follow the ubuntu setup.

At this step, you should have a functional linux installation, that unfortunately doesn't do that much.
Congratulations!

4. Copy the specialized kernel image to the USB device and install them. This only takes a few minutes, and the instructions to do so are here. You should make sure the laptop is wired to the network for the second part (Setup the Repository). Wireless network should not yet be functional.

5. Install the SW settings. The instructions for doing so can be found here.

6. Reboot.

7. There is no step 7.

The instructions were put together based on the eeeuser forum.

zen story

A student went to his meditation teacher and said, "My meditation is horrible! I feel so distracted, or my legs ache, or I'm constantly falling asleep. It's just horrible!"

"It will pass," the teacher said matter-of-factly.

A week later, the student came back to his teacher. "My meditation is wonderful! I feel so aware, so peaceful, so alive! It's just wonderful!'

"It will pass," the teacher replied matter-of-factly.

(taken from here)

a new favorite word

I wrote about favorite words before (see cruft and Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia).

The new word of the day is Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. Wikipedia claims it to be the longest word in the English language, and it apparently means a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very fine silica dust causing inflammation in the lungs.

So ... can anyone make a phrase that contains this word three times?

The US Elections Are Over a.k.a. Pedros

In a bar in Mexico, there was a Mexican drinking Tequila (of course!). All of a sudden, he heard someone yelling from outside:

Pedros, Pedros, somebody is stealing your horse!

He dashed outside, then suddenly stopped and realized:
Hey, I don't have a horse! He went back inside and got a new glass of Tequila.

Ten minutes later, he heard another voice yelling outside:

Pedros, Pedros, somebody is robing your house!

He dashed outside again, then suddenly stopped and realized:
Hey, I don't have a house! He went back inside and got a new glass of Tequila.

Ten minutes later, he heard another voice yelling outside:

Pedros, Pedros, somebody is kidnapping your wife!

He dashed outside again, then suddenly stopped and realized:
Hey, I'm not Pedros!

So ... what does that have to do with the US elections? Nothing much ...

... except that I knew very strongly who I was going to vote for ... and I'm not American.

Damn media! :-(

Good thing it's over though.

More Chameleonic Than a Chameleon

(found via reddit, via ovablastic)