I've got a more serious blog post in the pipelines. However, right now, I just want to take a moment and complain about a mess I came across.
So, it's been a while since I have last programmed in C or C++. In fact, I have never done any real C programming and it's been over half a decade since I was serious about a C++ project. I have recently done some Arduino work, but there you don't really have to worry about the compiler yourself, so it's not relevant here. And because the compiler is what I am talking about here, so C++ and C can be thrown on the same pile, as I use the GNU Compiler Collection (gcc) for both.
Man, the gcc for windows situation is a mess...
So, there has always been MinGW and Cygwin. Cygwin is a whole POSIX emulation stack. Programs had to be compiled specifically for running in the Cygwin environment, but it was easy to do this for any linux program. Such programs would always need at least the Cygwin compatibility layer dll to run. Many people also just use Cygwin for a linux-like environment (since the GNU tools provide what many people consider "linux-likeness") on Windows without using the compiler. I've always used some version of msys for this, but I'll get to what that is in a moment.
The other option was MinGW. Rather than a full compatibility layer, it just aims to provide a compiler that can compile things natively for Windows. You will need to talk to the Windows APIs just like you would when using a different c----ompiler like Visual C++. It's just a way to get gcc to compile for Windows.
However, MinGW was married to MSYS. MSYS was forked from Cygwin at some point, but it did away with its compatibility layer. Instead, it used MinGW to compile some of the core GNU utils for native windows. This also gives you sort of a linux-like system on Windows. This was necessary to run mingw and meant that msys was a part of the mingw project. However, you could also use mingw to cross-compile from linux to windows, in which case you didn't need msys.
Unfortunately, mingw only supported 32 bit applications. When I say around the time when this started being an issue, I mean during the days of Windows XP x64 and Windows Vista and 7, which had had 32 bit and 64 bit versions which were both used (yes, a lot has changed since then). So around that time, there was a company that developed a mingw version for 64 bit application in house. At some point, it donated this code to open source and it was tried to merge it with the mingw project. However, this project suspected there were some licensing issues and a rift occurred. A second project started, called mingw-w64. It also had its own msys version (I think) and if I remember correctly it could actually compile for 32 bit and 64 bit applications.
During this time, mingw had a bit of an installer problem. The person who had been maintaining the installer left the project and basically nobody wanted to work with the same installer building tool. This led to the installer version they provided to be horribly out of date. You had to mess around with packages to get a more recent version. They were rather hostile to help offered by volunteers from outside the project, demanding that such help would be maintained by the same person indefinitely. There was some work on a new system inspired by the apt-get interface, but there was no temporary solution in the mean time. This system got done eventually, but by then the project had suffered greatly already.
Enter git. Git is not a compiler. However, it relies on GNU tools to do its job, so it needed some of them to be able to run on Windows. So, they created their own version of msys (msysgit) which makes them relevant to this story. At some point I switched from mingw's msys to msysgit for my "proper command line" needs and since then I haven't really kept up with the mingw project.
That is, until now. I want to make a utility that uses I2C on linux and my best bet seems to be C. So, I went to look for a compiler. What I really need is a cross-compiler from Windows to ARM linux, or perhaps an ARM compiler on the device itself or maybe even a cross-compiler from x64 linux to ARM linux to run from a (virtual or other) linux installation, but I ended up looking at mingw first. I had a very old version installed as part of the haskell project (oh joy!) and a slightly more recent version from my C++ development days. So, I started looking into the mingw situation.
The mingw project seems to have bled to death. Their site is still online, but nothing seems to have happened for them in over three years. In a way, this is logical. They were already struggling in those days and today you don't really have to bother with 32 bit applications anymore as 64 bit is commonplace enough. mingw-w64 is still alive and kicking and it seams to be the way to go. However, there's also msys2.
The project page describes them as a rewrite of msys and they mention the reason for their existence is the fact that the original msys wasn't able to keep up with Cygwin. However, what I think is one of their main accomplishments is that they divorced from mingw. Don't get me wrong, they are still seeing each other, just not living together anymore. The tools are still built with a mingw version (I think the w64 version) and it is still an important way to run mingw, providing support for both (the outdated) mingw and mingw-w64 out of the box. However, they are just not the same project anymore, so the coupling is not as tight anymore (i.e. they are not wearing rings and they are allowed to see other people).
The new msys2 also does away with the apt-get inspired installer in favor of a new port of Arch's package manager, pacman. Oh, and they apparently don't play well with msysgit or the original msys. Things never get simple, do they.
Confused yet? I definitely am!
Edit: It seems there still was an important bit I missed. The more recent version of git for windows (incidentally, called Git for Windows rather than msysgit as the older versions were called) don't actually use their own msysgit anymore. Instead, they are already packaging msys2, which means that I have already been using it for quite some time...
Showing posts with label diary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label diary. Show all posts
Saturday, February 11, 2017
Saturday, February 4, 2012
A Word About a Tribe
I have written about tv series on here before. However, I don't think I ever wrote about The Tribe. That's mostly because I watched it before I got this blog. I'd probably still list it as one of my favorite series.
Today I was watching - of all shows - Degrassi The Next Generation. Well, I was also zapping to other things so I missed large part and as such I didn't really understand the plot. Or know many of the characters. I don't know what they were doing, but it seemed they were doing something special with their episode. Well, that's besides the point anyway. What is not besides the point is that as I was watching it, for a moment, the show felt like The Tribe.
I have some ideas about how that came to be, but before I get in to that, let me first give you something of an idea what the scene was about. A group of kids had been making a road trip with a school bus (or so it seemed, I don't know exactly) and now they were stuck in the middle of nowhere. People were angry with the one responsible for the bus getting stolen, but though there was this conflict, they couldn't get stuck on it. Even though not all of them were able to get along quite as well as one would hope, they were completely dependent on one another.
And that's what I believe set the scene for making it feel like it was like The Tribe. The Tribe had this same thing. We were seeing a seemingly randomly assembled group of kids, united by the fact that they were refusing to join one of the gangs - or "tribes" - and thus they formed a Tribe. They ended up in a relatively isolated situation in which they are fully dependent on one another, even if they do not like each other.
I could go into discussing why I might like a series with a premise like that, but let's not. I don't want this to be too much about me. Instead, I am going to talk about me in a different way. I am going to talk about why I think this reminded me of the Tribe in specific. It may well be that the abandoned grass field which was the setting for a scene that could well have taken place on The Tribe. I do remember a similar scene when The Tribe was about to fall apart, though that was only two people (I believe) rather than an entire group. I think there is more to it.
The Tribe wasn't exactly the sole series with a premise like that. One of my other favorite examples of a series like that would be "Transformers: Beast Wars". This was about a group of robots (that could turn into animals) that lived on a planet with nobody to keep them company but the opposing group. Though this was more based around the conflict (where the Tribe was more about problem solving and internal conflict, with the threat of external conflict lying around the corner) it has the same principles of a group working together not by choice but by necessity. Interestingly enough, it also shared a lot of other things with the Tribe like the way the main group was composed (my favorite comparison has to be Dinobot/Lex).
Then why didn't the scene feel like Beast Wars instead? Well, we have had the scenery already, which could have been plucked straight out of a The Tribe episode and there is also the very obvious fact that Beast Wars is an animated series, while the Tribe, like Degrassi, is acted. However, while it may have played a big role, I don't think that's the crux of it.
I think the crux of it is that The Tribe is the series I identify the "genre" (the genre of the group of people working together not by choice) with. And that is only possible because I have seen extremely little else in the genre lately. Perhaps it's just not a liked genre in Hollywood?
(I should add that, the series I mentioned and others I can think of right now aren't Hollywood series. Nevertheless, I don't know everything, so I may just be off on that. Also, the premise of Lost suggests that it may be in this genre as well, but the "ensemble cast" idea that I have heard so much about in connection to the show would allow it to break out of the genre as well. However, I haven't watched the show, so I can't say much about it.)
Today I was watching - of all shows - Degrassi The Next Generation. Well, I was also zapping to other things so I missed large part and as such I didn't really understand the plot. Or know many of the characters. I don't know what they were doing, but it seemed they were doing something special with their episode. Well, that's besides the point anyway. What is not besides the point is that as I was watching it, for a moment, the show felt like The Tribe.
I have some ideas about how that came to be, but before I get in to that, let me first give you something of an idea what the scene was about. A group of kids had been making a road trip with a school bus (or so it seemed, I don't know exactly) and now they were stuck in the middle of nowhere. People were angry with the one responsible for the bus getting stolen, but though there was this conflict, they couldn't get stuck on it. Even though not all of them were able to get along quite as well as one would hope, they were completely dependent on one another.
And that's what I believe set the scene for making it feel like it was like The Tribe. The Tribe had this same thing. We were seeing a seemingly randomly assembled group of kids, united by the fact that they were refusing to join one of the gangs - or "tribes" - and thus they formed a Tribe. They ended up in a relatively isolated situation in which they are fully dependent on one another, even if they do not like each other.
I could go into discussing why I might like a series with a premise like that, but let's not. I don't want this to be too much about me. Instead, I am going to talk about me in a different way. I am going to talk about why I think this reminded me of the Tribe in specific. It may well be that the abandoned grass field which was the setting for a scene that could well have taken place on The Tribe. I do remember a similar scene when The Tribe was about to fall apart, though that was only two people (I believe) rather than an entire group. I think there is more to it.
The Tribe wasn't exactly the sole series with a premise like that. One of my other favorite examples of a series like that would be "Transformers: Beast Wars". This was about a group of robots (that could turn into animals) that lived on a planet with nobody to keep them company but the opposing group. Though this was more based around the conflict (where the Tribe was more about problem solving and internal conflict, with the threat of external conflict lying around the corner) it has the same principles of a group working together not by choice but by necessity. Interestingly enough, it also shared a lot of other things with the Tribe like the way the main group was composed (my favorite comparison has to be Dinobot/Lex).
Then why didn't the scene feel like Beast Wars instead? Well, we have had the scenery already, which could have been plucked straight out of a The Tribe episode and there is also the very obvious fact that Beast Wars is an animated series, while the Tribe, like Degrassi, is acted. However, while it may have played a big role, I don't think that's the crux of it.
I think the crux of it is that The Tribe is the series I identify the "genre" (the genre of the group of people working together not by choice) with. And that is only possible because I have seen extremely little else in the genre lately. Perhaps it's just not a liked genre in Hollywood?
(I should add that, the series I mentioned and others I can think of right now aren't Hollywood series. Nevertheless, I don't know everything, so I may just be off on that. Also, the premise of Lost suggests that it may be in this genre as well, but the "ensemble cast" idea that I have heard so much about in connection to the show would allow it to break out of the genre as well. However, I haven't watched the show, so I can't say much about it.)
Thursday, December 8, 2011
The Reviewer's Eye
I haven't written for a while now, so I am going to give you an extra long post in return for that. Brace yourselves!
About a week ago I was watching a movie. Now, that in itself isn't worth a story, but something happened that is worth that story. Something changed inside of me. Suddenly something clicked and I was watching from a completely diffferent perspective. One that I found really interesting.
Have you ever read a review of a movie - or an episode of a series, or whatever - in which the writer seems to be ignoring the merit of the story itself, and very mechanically talking about the quality of the special effects and other minutiae?
I have. And it annoyed me. A lot. At least, it used to annoy me. It might still annoy me, I haven't read another one of those since this event. Nevertheless, I think I understand it now.
Basically, I was watching the movie and suddenly I was thinking about the origin of the movie. I realized that though this was all very much about rural england, but it was still a very hollywood show.
That meant that I knew that the main character was going to be the hero. There wasn't a doubt about it that he was going to end up on top. At the time it seemed like he was going insane, but that was no longer an option in my mind. The suspense was gone.
All of a sudden, I wasn't so much watching an interesting movie with interesting characters, I was watching a sequence of plot twists, action sequences and the inevitable thrust towards the good conclusion.
It was then that they had a plot twist that was sooner than I had expected. That was interesting for a second or two. After that, it was annoying how contrived that plot twist was. Small details that were unlikely started bothering me and I was not wondering whether the second most important character was going to join the main character, but when and how it was going to happen - in a very mechanical way.
I could ramble on about how it makes little sense that with barely any evidence, a whole group of people just takes up arms against people they have known all their lives (and follow someone they have known less than a year), but that's not what this is about.
I am not here to write such a review as I was talking about before (or write any review at all). I am here to tell the story how I now understand how such reviews come into existence.
I think I used to think that it was all about rationalizing. And I don't doubt that there are cases in which that is what happens in a review. However, I have experienced a new thing - actually being annoyed by things like that during the movie. I don't know whether it was a change in how I look at movies (I haven't watched any since) or that it was just the moment or that it was this particular movie, but I wasn't enjoying the movie for the movie itself, I was actually paying attention to the details and as such, I was annoyed by them.
Glad to see you stayed here to read my entire ramble! (And yeah, I realize it didn't get as long as I though it would when I started typing. Still, I don't feel like removing that message at the top.)
About a week ago I was watching a movie. Now, that in itself isn't worth a story, but something happened that is worth that story. Something changed inside of me. Suddenly something clicked and I was watching from a completely diffferent perspective. One that I found really interesting.
Have you ever read a review of a movie - or an episode of a series, or whatever - in which the writer seems to be ignoring the merit of the story itself, and very mechanically talking about the quality of the special effects and other minutiae?
I have. And it annoyed me. A lot. At least, it used to annoy me. It might still annoy me, I haven't read another one of those since this event. Nevertheless, I think I understand it now.
Basically, I was watching the movie and suddenly I was thinking about the origin of the movie. I realized that though this was all very much about rural england, but it was still a very hollywood show.
That meant that I knew that the main character was going to be the hero. There wasn't a doubt about it that he was going to end up on top. At the time it seemed like he was going insane, but that was no longer an option in my mind. The suspense was gone.
All of a sudden, I wasn't so much watching an interesting movie with interesting characters, I was watching a sequence of plot twists, action sequences and the inevitable thrust towards the good conclusion.
It was then that they had a plot twist that was sooner than I had expected. That was interesting for a second or two. After that, it was annoying how contrived that plot twist was. Small details that were unlikely started bothering me and I was not wondering whether the second most important character was going to join the main character, but when and how it was going to happen - in a very mechanical way.
I could ramble on about how it makes little sense that with barely any evidence, a whole group of people just takes up arms against people they have known all their lives (and follow someone they have known less than a year), but that's not what this is about.
I am not here to write such a review as I was talking about before (or write any review at all). I am here to tell the story how I now understand how such reviews come into existence.
I think I used to think that it was all about rationalizing. And I don't doubt that there are cases in which that is what happens in a review. However, I have experienced a new thing - actually being annoyed by things like that during the movie. I don't know whether it was a change in how I look at movies (I haven't watched any since) or that it was just the moment or that it was this particular movie, but I wasn't enjoying the movie for the movie itself, I was actually paying attention to the details and as such, I was annoyed by them.
Glad to see you stayed here to read my entire ramble! (And yeah, I realize it didn't get as long as I though it would when I started typing. Still, I don't feel like removing that message at the top.)
Thursday, December 1, 2011
I made it / I didn't make it
So, I promised a post that would wrap my results from my NaNoWriMo after the last day. However, the title basically says it all.
What? You don't understand the title? Well, the point is that you can say that I made if you like, but you can also say that I didn't.
I did make it to 50,000.
NaNoWriMo.org validated that and also says I won.
However, that was through cheating by abusing the time zone setting.
Basically, I needed 1,500 more words by the moment time was technically over.
However, the time was over here and not all over the world.
And besides, one can still call today today if it's one hour past midnight and you're still up even though it is not technically seen.
So yes, I needed one extra hour. I suppose that in the end, I didn't make it in time. I did make it, though. I wrote 50,000. And I wrote 13,000 words today. And I also kept writing on my blog every once in a while. And in the mean time, I have also been writing on 750words.com (today is one of the only days I missed this month) and that was besides what I wrote for my novel. All in all, I'm somewhat happy with what I accomplished, even though I had put the bar much higher for myself originally.
And that's my story.
What? You don't understand the title? Well, the point is that you can say that I made if you like, but you can also say that I didn't.
I did make it to 50,000.
NaNoWriMo.org validated that and also says I won.
However, that was through cheating by abusing the time zone setting.
Basically, I needed 1,500 more words by the moment time was technically over.
However, the time was over here and not all over the world.
And besides, one can still call today today if it's one hour past midnight and you're still up even though it is not technically seen.
So yes, I needed one extra hour. I suppose that in the end, I didn't make it in time. I did make it, though. I wrote 50,000. And I wrote 13,000 words today. And I also kept writing on my blog every once in a while. And in the mean time, I have also been writing on 750words.com (today is one of the only days I missed this month) and that was besides what I wrote for my novel. All in all, I'm somewhat happy with what I accomplished, even though I had put the bar much higher for myself originally.
And that's my story.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
The Last Day
It's the last day of NaNoWriMo. You see, I have a slight bit over 24 hours left to write my book. Unfortunately, despite the fact that I intended to write 150,000 words originally, I fell behind on my schedule to write even the normal 50,000 words in time.
That's why I am keeping this post short and just mentioning that quickly. Now, I will be able to go and write. I'll just have to make the fifty thousand by the end of the day. It's that simple.
I do promise that I'll post something on my results near the end of tomorrow. It's quite likely that it'll be after midnight, though.
That's why I am keeping this post short and just mentioning that quickly. Now, I will be able to go and write. I'll just have to make the fifty thousand by the end of the day. It's that simple.
I do promise that I'll post something on my results near the end of tomorrow. It's quite likely that it'll be after midnight, though.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Chuck: Going Strong
Big news: here in the Netherlands we are way behind when it comes to series being broadcasted on tv. Well, not too much new, but anyway. It's a changing thing, as the executives hands' are being forced by the fact that downloading series and watching them long before the come out here is becoming more main stream. Personally, I think Comedy Central NL is also playing a big movement setting some of the new frontiers, but it is working on a rather limited budget so it's also doing some pretty old shows.
Anyway, I don't watch all my series on my computer. I do that when I really like a series and it's somewhat older, but in general, I do that to series that have finished already and that I really want to watch. I usually do not do that to series that are on tv here.
Well, most importantly I don't do it with things like sitcoms or other series which have episodes that can easily be viewed in a vacuum like South Park. This way, I can still turn on the tc and watch an episode without the chance that I have seen it already being too big (it's still pretty big as I do watch a lot of tv and because the broadcasters that have some of the series I like more are on a limited budget so doing the same (very good) series every once in a while.
However, I do also do the same thing for other series. For example, a while back Comedy Central started broadcasting Buffy episodes. Pretty Awesome. I don't see where the comedy is in that, but never mind that, it's just a good series and that's always welcome. I suppose they ran out of the episodes they had or something and then some executive decided they wouldn't buy more because it wasn't comedy, though, as it is no longer on.
Another of those series is Chuck. So, I'm quite a bit behind and I don't even know where the series it right now or if it is even still running. And either way, I don't care all that much. I don't need to know. I am enjoying the series right now and that's enough for me.
Anyway, so I just saw the bit with the transformation to the intersect 2.0. Well, not just, it's been a while and I have seen a few episodes since. But anyway, that change made me wonder where the series was headed, considering they had done so far. Though I spent quite some time doign this introduction, that is really what I wanted to write a bit about, where the series is now headed.
And the thing is that I am quite surprised about that. In a positive way. At the time, I had felt that the writers had done a pretty constricting job of writing themselves into an impossible corner.
However, it turns out that is not the case at all. Instead, they are taking a lot of risks and doing some and most of them are paying off pretty well. They are doing some pretty good stuff. The issue of Chuck and Sarah is also neatly handled as they actually made everything a lot more awkward than it had been before. And you know what, this time their relationship is actually more relatable. At least, that's my opinion.
However, I do feel there are some problems with the series. They mostly lie in the way that only seeing parts of the series has become a lot more troublesome and missing an episode is more of a problem than ever now. Most of it is to be expected when taking so many risks, but I do think I there are some things they didn't do exactly right. The thing is, though, that these things are inspiring me as well. They are part of my inspiration to be working on tv series theory as I did in yesterday's article. I want to be able to quantify what I feel they did wrong and find out how I think they could have done nearly the same thing, but do it a lot better by making some small changes here and there.
I'm looking forward to more of this series. It's been really good lately.
Anyway, I don't watch all my series on my computer. I do that when I really like a series and it's somewhat older, but in general, I do that to series that have finished already and that I really want to watch. I usually do not do that to series that are on tv here.
Well, most importantly I don't do it with things like sitcoms or other series which have episodes that can easily be viewed in a vacuum like South Park. This way, I can still turn on the tc and watch an episode without the chance that I have seen it already being too big (it's still pretty big as I do watch a lot of tv and because the broadcasters that have some of the series I like more are on a limited budget so doing the same (very good) series every once in a while.
However, I do also do the same thing for other series. For example, a while back Comedy Central started broadcasting Buffy episodes. Pretty Awesome. I don't see where the comedy is in that, but never mind that, it's just a good series and that's always welcome. I suppose they ran out of the episodes they had or something and then some executive decided they wouldn't buy more because it wasn't comedy, though, as it is no longer on.
Another of those series is Chuck. So, I'm quite a bit behind and I don't even know where the series it right now or if it is even still running. And either way, I don't care all that much. I don't need to know. I am enjoying the series right now and that's enough for me.
Anyway, so I just saw the bit with the transformation to the intersect 2.0. Well, not just, it's been a while and I have seen a few episodes since. But anyway, that change made me wonder where the series was headed, considering they had done so far. Though I spent quite some time doign this introduction, that is really what I wanted to write a bit about, where the series is now headed.
And the thing is that I am quite surprised about that. In a positive way. At the time, I had felt that the writers had done a pretty constricting job of writing themselves into an impossible corner.
However, it turns out that is not the case at all. Instead, they are taking a lot of risks and doing some and most of them are paying off pretty well. They are doing some pretty good stuff. The issue of Chuck and Sarah is also neatly handled as they actually made everything a lot more awkward than it had been before. And you know what, this time their relationship is actually more relatable. At least, that's my opinion.
However, I do feel there are some problems with the series. They mostly lie in the way that only seeing parts of the series has become a lot more troublesome and missing an episode is more of a problem than ever now. Most of it is to be expected when taking so many risks, but I do think I there are some things they didn't do exactly right. The thing is, though, that these things are inspiring me as well. They are part of my inspiration to be working on tv series theory as I did in yesterday's article. I want to be able to quantify what I feel they did wrong and find out how I think they could have done nearly the same thing, but do it a lot better by making some small changes here and there.
I'm looking forward to more of this series. It's been really good lately.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
NaNoWriMo troubles
This month I am doing NaNoWriMo. The idea is that lots of people all over the world are each writing a novel in a month time. There is nothing shared except the the hardship we are putting ourselves through. It's a nice thing and I am participating for the fourth time. I think I also wrote about it once or twice in the past.
However, there is a twist to this story. As there should be a twist to every story, of course. The twist is that I am not aiming for the goal that NaNoWriMo sets. After doing 100,000 words instead of 50,000 last year, I decided to draw the trend line and go for 150,000 this time around. I suppose I wanted to keep in the challenge.
The thing is, I'm not on schedule. I'm far behind. I'm not on schedule... for 50,000. I have a lot of words to catch up. And I don't know how I can possibly do that just yet, but I am not giving up hope just yet. It's like something I was talking about last night: "The only time there are no options is when you have given in to one of them."
Considering that I haven't written a single word yet today, it makes little sense that I am here writing on my blog instead of on my novel. Why then am I doing this? I suppose it has something to do with the fact that I might be doing better on writing on my blog regularly (every day in this case) than I have ever been and that's worth something to me too. I'll go write on my novel right away. I promise.
However, there is a twist to this story. As there should be a twist to every story, of course. The twist is that I am not aiming for the goal that NaNoWriMo sets. After doing 100,000 words instead of 50,000 last year, I decided to draw the trend line and go for 150,000 this time around. I suppose I wanted to keep in the challenge.
The thing is, I'm not on schedule. I'm far behind. I'm not on schedule... for 50,000. I have a lot of words to catch up. And I don't know how I can possibly do that just yet, but I am not giving up hope just yet. It's like something I was talking about last night: "The only time there are no options is when you have given in to one of them."
Considering that I haven't written a single word yet today, it makes little sense that I am here writing on my blog instead of on my novel. Why then am I doing this? I suppose it has something to do with the fact that I might be doing better on writing on my blog regularly (every day in this case) than I have ever been and that's worth something to me too. I'll go write on my novel right away. I promise.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Honorable Mention: ComboFix
Yesterday, I had a run-in with a virus. The very first popup which said something was wrong already had the looks of not being legitimate to me, but then everything became very obvious as the virus started to get in my way whenever it could and tried to keep me from doing just about anything on my pc.
I'm good with computers and good with Windows (well, XP anyway, and that's what I'm running), so I managed to find the one way they had left open and knew how to get just about anything done from that little window I had.
I found that my files where being hidden and that it set my settings not to display any hidden files every few minutes for as long as the virus was running. I had to jump through quite a few hooks, but finally I managed to tell my updated firewall/antivirus (I used the combined term, as I was actually using a third tool: the active defense) software to terminate the virus's process and ban it from starting up again.
I fixed a few things that I the virus had left in a bad state, ran a full virus scan over my entire computer and used sfc /scannow to have Windows recover any damage to core files done by the virus. (I am pretty sure it did stuff with ping.exe somewhere along the road...)
I was still leaved with an incomplete system: my all programs menu in the start menu was wrecked and it had also been messing around with the shortcuts on my desktop and in quick start. Additionally, my virus scanner appeared not to have found the virus, so it was still there even though it was being blocked from running.
I looked for something to fix the missing shortcuts. I found a note somewhere that ComboFix did things like that.
ComboFix far surpassed my expectations. Seriously, it mentioned a few things it was going to have to remove, but moreover I found in the logs that it had removed both executables I had identified as malicious myself. Additionally, it removed shortcuts to its "cover-up" the System Fix program the virus was saying I had to purchase the full version of.
However, it did also fix Quick Start, All Programs and my desktop. I don't know how it did that - is the information which enough to rebuild those stored in the registry or something? That would explain why some applications didn't return properly (I was already assuming that they were the ones not doing things properly rather than ComboFix). It would be a bit redundant, but right now, I'm not second-guessing the situation. Everything is fixed. All because of ComboFix!
Thanks, ComboFix!
I'm good with computers and good with Windows (well, XP anyway, and that's what I'm running), so I managed to find the one way they had left open and knew how to get just about anything done from that little window I had.
I found that my files where being hidden and that it set my settings not to display any hidden files every few minutes for as long as the virus was running. I had to jump through quite a few hooks, but finally I managed to tell my updated firewall/antivirus (I used the combined term, as I was actually using a third tool: the active defense) software to terminate the virus's process and ban it from starting up again.
I fixed a few things that I the virus had left in a bad state, ran a full virus scan over my entire computer and used sfc /scannow to have Windows recover any damage to core files done by the virus. (I am pretty sure it did stuff with ping.exe somewhere along the road...)
I was still leaved with an incomplete system: my all programs menu in the start menu was wrecked and it had also been messing around with the shortcuts on my desktop and in quick start. Additionally, my virus scanner appeared not to have found the virus, so it was still there even though it was being blocked from running.
I looked for something to fix the missing shortcuts. I found a note somewhere that ComboFix did things like that.
ComboFix far surpassed my expectations. Seriously, it mentioned a few things it was going to have to remove, but moreover I found in the logs that it had removed both executables I had identified as malicious myself. Additionally, it removed shortcuts to its "cover-up" the System Fix program the virus was saying I had to purchase the full version of.
However, it did also fix Quick Start, All Programs and my desktop. I don't know how it did that - is the information which enough to rebuild those stored in the registry or something? That would explain why some applications didn't return properly (I was already assuming that they were the ones not doing things properly rather than ComboFix). It would be a bit redundant, but right now, I'm not second-guessing the situation. Everything is fixed. All because of ComboFix!
Thanks, ComboFix!
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Battlestar Actors on Other Shows
While I took a bit of a hiatus from writing here, I watched Battlestar Gallactica. And man, is that a series. Truly, it's brilliant. Great writing and great acting, they take a lot of risks and manage to pull each and every one of them off favorably. I am getting sidetracked, though. I will write about how awesome this series is and how you should watch it some other time.
Now though, I want to focus on a story that played the past week for me. It all started when I saw my first episode of Hawaii Five Oh. Or rather, a tiny bit of it, it was just on as I was in the kitchen, and I actually was just about to leave. In the very first scene in which she appeared, I recognized Sharon from Battlestar! At first she was in the background and I wasn't sure about it, but it soon turned out that it was indeed her and that she actually played a main character of the series.
Zap forward to tonight. This time I watched my first ever episode of Law & Order UK. It's an interesting series, but that's not really what this is about. They have Lee Adama!
I think it's really interesting how being on this show means so much for your career. I mean, both shows were started recently and are quite big. And two Battlestar Gallactica actors actually got major parts in them, very possibly because of their achievements on Battlestar. If anything, I really say it says something about the (acting) quality on Battlestar. (Go watch it!)
PS. For this show I tried to translate a word that just doesn't translate very well. I didn't know this, so I typed a sentence in google translate to see what English phrase it would use (I ended up just rewriting it, but just have a look at this):
Now, the important part is in Dutch, but it's translating to English, so you can see what it is about. Now take a look at that suggestion. It is suggesting I change "zij" into "hij". Or in English, it's suggesting that I change "she" into "he"...
What's up with that Google? Some problems with emancipation?
Now though, I want to focus on a story that played the past week for me. It all started when I saw my first episode of Hawaii Five Oh. Or rather, a tiny bit of it, it was just on as I was in the kitchen, and I actually was just about to leave. In the very first scene in which she appeared, I recognized Sharon from Battlestar! At first she was in the background and I wasn't sure about it, but it soon turned out that it was indeed her and that she actually played a main character of the series.
Zap forward to tonight. This time I watched my first ever episode of Law & Order UK. It's an interesting series, but that's not really what this is about. They have Lee Adama!
I think it's really interesting how being on this show means so much for your career. I mean, both shows were started recently and are quite big. And two Battlestar Gallactica actors actually got major parts in them, very possibly because of their achievements on Battlestar. If anything, I really say it says something about the (acting) quality on Battlestar. (Go watch it!)
PS. For this show I tried to translate a word that just doesn't translate very well. I didn't know this, so I typed a sentence in google translate to see what English phrase it would use (I ended up just rewriting it, but just have a look at this):
Now, the important part is in Dutch, but it's translating to English, so you can see what it is about. Now take a look at that suggestion. It is suggesting I change "zij" into "hij". Or in English, it's suggesting that I change "she" into "he"...
What's up with that Google? Some problems with emancipation?
Monday, December 13, 2010
Requiescat In Pace
Today my bike died. Living in The Netherlands where bikes are everywhere (there are more bicycles here than there are people) and not being able to stand the public transportation (mostly it's unreliable and limited here, I don't like being dependent on a system like that), I really can't live without a bike...
I'll just have to see how this story will continue and I will update this post when I know.
Update: so here's what we're at right now: some plans have formulated. One housemate of mine suggested that her father might have a new (secondhand) bike for me, so she's looking into that. Also, I borrowed the bike of another housemate of mine yesterday night, and because he has broken his leg, he decided that the bike could temporarily become a "house bike". At the very least that will alleviate some of the trouble.
Basically, I just can't stand the immobility of not having a bike.
I'll just have to see how this story will continue and I will update this post when I know.
Update: so here's what we're at right now: some plans have formulated. One housemate of mine suggested that her father might have a new (secondhand) bike for me, so she's looking into that. Also, I borrowed the bike of another housemate of mine yesterday night, and because he has broken his leg, he decided that the bike could temporarily become a "house bike". At the very least that will alleviate some of the trouble.
Basically, I just can't stand the immobility of not having a bike.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
The pen is on the paper
I wrote today.
I wrote some 1900 words today. Sure, that's not the 3333 words I was doing every day for half of November (or the 4000 words I did the last few days, or the 10000 words I did in the very first day), but still it's a milestone for me. That's because these 1900 words mark the very first time I worked on a NaNoWriMo piece of mine after the month was done.
In 2008, I didn't make the 50,000 and I didn't finish my book. Nevertheless, after November 2008 I have never touched the text again. It's still not done. It's gathering virtual dust.
By the way, this is the one story I wrote that I don't like. In rewriting, it would need drastic changes. The dialogue has become way too repetitive - basically all that's in the present sucks. In the mean time, the real story - which is what they are talking about in the now, but happened in the past - is decent at best.
In 2009, I fared better. I was ahead a day or so when I fell prey to the Mexican flue. Luckily, I didn't get too ill and I was on my feet after only two days, even though I was still not feeling too great and just so happened to be off for a weekend together with my parents. So basically, I had two days in which I didn't write a single word and then two more days in which I only wrote a couple hundred each. Afterwards I calculated my new daily targets and even finished a few days early. On top of that, just about as I reached the 50,000, my story was all done.
I am quite satisfied about what I have written in 2009, but that of course doesn't mean that there is no need for editing. So, it hasn't been as long as it has been for my 2008 novel, but nevertheless, this complete draft has been gathering virtual dust, even though it just needs the editing.
This year, things went a lot better. As I felt too confident about making the 50,000 words-goal set out by NaNoWriMo, I stepped up the pace and set myself a number of other goals. As I mentioned them earlier, I am not going to repeat them (if you're interested, use the tag feature of this blog to take a look at past NaNoWriMo posts), but it ended in me writing the double the amount of words and still finishing with a day to spare. However, this time my story wasn't done yet. On the contrary, after some 95,000 words, my main character finally told the reader his real name.
However, I just broke that curse that said I cannot work on my novels once November is through. I may not be at the editing phase just yet, but right now I am working on finishing my story. It's only the first 1900 words, but it's a virtual boundary that's been broken.
I wrote some 1900 words today. Sure, that's not the 3333 words I was doing every day for half of November (or the 4000 words I did the last few days, or the 10000 words I did in the very first day), but still it's a milestone for me. That's because these 1900 words mark the very first time I worked on a NaNoWriMo piece of mine after the month was done.
In 2008, I didn't make the 50,000 and I didn't finish my book. Nevertheless, after November 2008 I have never touched the text again. It's still not done. It's gathering virtual dust.
By the way, this is the one story I wrote that I don't like. In rewriting, it would need drastic changes. The dialogue has become way too repetitive - basically all that's in the present sucks. In the mean time, the real story - which is what they are talking about in the now, but happened in the past - is decent at best.
In 2009, I fared better. I was ahead a day or so when I fell prey to the Mexican flue. Luckily, I didn't get too ill and I was on my feet after only two days, even though I was still not feeling too great and just so happened to be off for a weekend together with my parents. So basically, I had two days in which I didn't write a single word and then two more days in which I only wrote a couple hundred each. Afterwards I calculated my new daily targets and even finished a few days early. On top of that, just about as I reached the 50,000, my story was all done.
I am quite satisfied about what I have written in 2009, but that of course doesn't mean that there is no need for editing. So, it hasn't been as long as it has been for my 2008 novel, but nevertheless, this complete draft has been gathering virtual dust, even though it just needs the editing.
This year, things went a lot better. As I felt too confident about making the 50,000 words-goal set out by NaNoWriMo, I stepped up the pace and set myself a number of other goals. As I mentioned them earlier, I am not going to repeat them (if you're interested, use the tag feature of this blog to take a look at past NaNoWriMo posts), but it ended in me writing the double the amount of words and still finishing with a day to spare. However, this time my story wasn't done yet. On the contrary, after some 95,000 words, my main character finally told the reader his real name.
However, I just broke that curse that said I cannot work on my novels once November is through. I may not be at the editing phase just yet, but right now I am working on finishing my story. It's only the first 1900 words, but it's a virtual boundary that's been broken.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
NaNoWriMo is over!
Last month was amazing. It was tough and left me with little time to boot. I participated in the annual event called NaNoWriMo - or (Inter)National Novel Writing Month. The idea is that you- and over 150,000 other with you- write a book in a month. The goal is set at churning out some 50,000 words of your first draft.
Something got into my head, though, and I wrote 100,000 words instead. It was a ride, but what a ride...
Finally, it's over now. November has passed. Finally, I'll have time again. Finally, I can return to all those projects I abandoned in favor of writing a book.
My story isn't done yet. I'm 100,000 words into the story and it's far from done. It only happened somewhere in the last couple thousand words that my lead character revealed his name to the reader. He has some more traveling to do.
Both previous times I participated in the event I didn't touch my book after November had ended. Will this time be any different?
This time, there's at least one thing that's different. This time, I'm not sick of writing after hitting my target. I'm glad I don't have to write every day anymore, but I'm not through with writing.
On the contrary, I can't stop writing. It all started yesterday (red. this post was written a few days before it was published - on December 1). Yesterday, it was still November, but I had made my target a day before that and as such I was done. However, in class, I took my pen and paper and wrote a real personal (yet fictional) story. Originally, the idea was to put it up here, but it got too long and too personal for that. Maybe I will still publish it some day, but not right now.
Today, I'm in class again and again I was feeling the urge to write. So here I am. Don't get me wrong, though, I'm still paying just enough attention to my class (today, that is, it's not true for yesterday).
Does this perhaps mean that my blog is finally really going to live?
Who knows... who knows...
Something got into my head, though, and I wrote 100,000 words instead. It was a ride, but what a ride...
Finally, it's over now. November has passed. Finally, I'll have time again. Finally, I can return to all those projects I abandoned in favor of writing a book.
My story isn't done yet. I'm 100,000 words into the story and it's far from done. It only happened somewhere in the last couple thousand words that my lead character revealed his name to the reader. He has some more traveling to do.
Both previous times I participated in the event I didn't touch my book after November had ended. Will this time be any different?
This time, there's at least one thing that's different. This time, I'm not sick of writing after hitting my target. I'm glad I don't have to write every day anymore, but I'm not through with writing.
On the contrary, I can't stop writing. It all started yesterday (red. this post was written a few days before it was published - on December 1). Yesterday, it was still November, but I had made my target a day before that and as such I was done. However, in class, I took my pen and paper and wrote a real personal (yet fictional) story. Originally, the idea was to put it up here, but it got too long and too personal for that. Maybe I will still publish it some day, but not right now.
Today, I'm in class again and again I was feeling the urge to write. So here I am. Don't get me wrong, though, I'm still paying just enough attention to my class (today, that is, it's not true for yesterday).
Does this perhaps mean that my blog is finally really going to live?
Who knows... who knows...
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Holidays
Holidays.
The time to work your ass off on your projects - so you can finally make some decent progress on them. At least that's what it is for me right now. Oh, mind you, I am in the mean time getting more than enough relation, so don't worry.
However, I am currently working on YuGiOh Rebirth, but I have a lot of other projects going through my mind as well, projects that want to get out, that want to get worked on. The Website Project I mentioned last post is one of them and so is Prism. The website project really wants to get its first version online, even though a lot of work needs to be done before that is a possibility. Prism knows it won't be done any time soon, but it is begging for some attention, seeing that hasn't been worked on. In the mean time, a very crude idea for a story I have had for a while suddenly evolved itself into a really good and original series outline. My ideas for a Star Trek series (oh, I didn't mention, I had one? Well, I do.) have been laying low for the last few days, but all the same, they have been going from a series outline to an actual series draft in my head, and I haven't written any of it down yet. At the same time, the one world that I made up through (as always, involuntary, it just happens in my head) world building instead of just seeing the adventures of the world needs a some restoration, since I realized that the name I spontaneously came up with was probably unconsciously stolen from a tv series (which I started really watching since I made up that name) and the name was actually worked deeply into the ideas from there, so it's not just a simple matter of renaming it. All the work lying around, spooking through my head. So much to do...
Holidays, oh boy, do I love these times
The time to work your ass off on your projects - so you can finally make some decent progress on them. At least that's what it is for me right now. Oh, mind you, I am in the mean time getting more than enough relation, so don't worry.
However, I am currently working on YuGiOh Rebirth, but I have a lot of other projects going through my mind as well, projects that want to get out, that want to get worked on. The Website Project I mentioned last post is one of them and so is Prism. The website project really wants to get its first version online, even though a lot of work needs to be done before that is a possibility. Prism knows it won't be done any time soon, but it is begging for some attention, seeing that hasn't been worked on. In the mean time, a very crude idea for a story I have had for a while suddenly evolved itself into a really good and original series outline. My ideas for a Star Trek series (oh, I didn't mention, I had one? Well, I do.) have been laying low for the last few days, but all the same, they have been going from a series outline to an actual series draft in my head, and I haven't written any of it down yet. At the same time, the one world that I made up through (as always, involuntary, it just happens in my head) world building instead of just seeing the adventures of the world needs a some restoration, since I realized that the name I spontaneously came up with was probably unconsciously stolen from a tv series (which I started really watching since I made up that name) and the name was actually worked deeply into the ideas from there, so it's not just a simple matter of renaming it. All the work lying around, spooking through my head. So much to do...
Holidays, oh boy, do I love these times
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
First Content Made
Hi All!
How are you guys doing?
I just wanted to let you know I have just started making some content for one of my next big projects. I won't tell much about it, so I will just dub it the "website project" for now. I can't even tell you the name of the project yet as I don't have a domain name yet. I have an eye on one, but that one has an owner, so I hope I can get it without paying too much (it is kind of for sale).
I haven't really been working on the system yet, but I have been working on the Good Suit, which I intend to build the website on top of. However, what I am currently been making is something different entirely: it is the content for the website. The stuff that anyone should be able to provide, not just me. However, for now, it just resides in text files on my hard drive, ready to be submitted when I create the website. Once I get around to it, I bet that it's going to be a hit!
How are you guys doing?
I just wanted to let you know I have just started making some content for one of my next big projects. I won't tell much about it, so I will just dub it the "website project" for now. I can't even tell you the name of the project yet as I don't have a domain name yet. I have an eye on one, but that one has an owner, so I hope I can get it without paying too much (it is kind of for sale).
I haven't really been working on the system yet, but I have been working on the Good Suit, which I intend to build the website on top of. However, what I am currently been making is something different entirely: it is the content for the website. The stuff that anyone should be able to provide, not just me. However, for now, it just resides in text files on my hard drive, ready to be submitted when I create the website. Once I get around to it, I bet that it's going to be a hit!
Monday, July 12, 2010
Lost the finals, lost my faith
For any readers who don't know - I am Dutch. For the readers who read this at a time that does not match the one at which I wrote this The Netherlands just lost the finals of the FIFA Worldcup 2010 to Spain. Let me recap: nothing interesting (but a ton of yellow cards) in the first 90 minutes and then in the second extra period, a second yellow card given to a Dutch player as a Spanish players falls after not having been touched by the Dutch player. Alright, referees can make mistakes. It's ten vs eleven now, but if we con keep the score level for a few more minutes we will be on equal footing again in the penalty shootout. The penalty shootout never came - within those few more minutes the Spanish scored from an offside position. Alright, the final pass wasn't from an offside position, but the intercepted pass that lead to that pass was to a player that was offside by meters.
So alright, I am ticked off by the fact that we lost. But more so, I have lost my faith in the FIFA. Yeah, I am not objective, nobody is. However, many of the English have probably lost their faith the 28th of June, and so have many Mexicans. Actually, that day had the events that do make the objective spectators lose their faith in the FIFA. That day held the two blunders of the referees, but that wasn't the worst of it.
The worst of it came next: the FIFA almost denying the mistakes. The FIFA removed the English goal from the official summary of the game, the FIFA stopped showing offside lines when they were afraid that the referee made a wrong call, the FIFA continued giving press conferences with but a few changes - they lead into those press conference by saying they weren't going to answer questions about anything but their chosen subject and the majority of the question just ignored this subject and were about mistakes made by the referees anyway. But the worst came just now, after I had already decided to write this rant (well, I intend to actually go somewhere, so if you want you can classify this a little more positively). I was taking a look at what team was the one in the one at the short end of the offside-goal by Argentina my results included a youtube video and a few pages that included youtube videos, however, instead of getting shown the videos I was shown a message that the FIFA had taken down the video on copyright claims (Google deserves credit for telling us why these videos were removed). Nothing else was removed, just the wrong referee calls. Really, I can't understand it.
I am starting to believe the stories that call the FIFA the maFIFA, the FIFA that truly is a mafia. That's possibly just the patriot in me speaking that has just lost the finals. However, these guys dare to demand the presence of a 92 year old living legend that has had a grand child die less than two weeks ago (with the friend of another daughter being to blame for the lethal car accident). Let's just assume they are clean; there's still quite a few things that just aren't acceptable. Things need to change.
There is but one way to bring about these changes: another worldwide football organization. They would organize their own world cup - the details still elude me, but it would probably need to be at a time that does not conflict with any major football event right now in order to be successful. A possibility would be to take the free years between a world cup and a European cup, but it's easy to make a case for running in the same year as well - we would need to find a proper moment, though.
Now there is a lot of changes that this organization would incorporate, which coincide with the reasons for this new organizations:
Now it may seem like I want to run the FIFA out of business, but I don't. Competition is all that's needed. Competition is healthy and the current situation is brought on by the monopoly the FIFA currently has. If they run the risk of getting competed out of business, than they will change, and if it isn't for the better they will still run out of business. I want an organization that is able to start running equipment that makes it easier to be a good referee, and thus convince the world that that is the correct path to take, and eventually force the FIFA to follow suit. Revolutionize the market and counter stagnation by introducing a competing player - it's worked before. Simply look at the improvements Microsoft made to Internet Explorer in the past few years - from the terrible IE6 we went to decent IE8 in way less years than IE6 was the newest version of the browser. And all of that was instigated by them losing a large part of their market share.
It's probable that I am not only missing the funds for this plan but some other essential ingredients as well, but this is my idea:
Get an organization competing with the FIFA into big bussiness. An alternative organization that does things right instead of wrong. I call for the NAF (New Age Footall).
Edit: just after I wrote this I realized I had forgotten to mention something. Spain earned their victory. They were the better playing team. And a single attacker against only a the goalkeeper should never result in anything but a goal, yet it did (in an attack of Robben), showing that Orange (that's what we call out national team) wasn't all that tough here. However, the referee giving unjustly awarding a goal to Spain just isn't the way things should be. And even if we have a bad history on penalty shootouts (though our most recent and thus team most like that one was positive) that is the way a game without (legitimate) goals is decided according to the rules, so don't have them decided in some other strange way! And yes, I am willing to beat a better playing team through a penalty shootout - that's nothing but the rules.
So alright, I am ticked off by the fact that we lost. But more so, I have lost my faith in the FIFA. Yeah, I am not objective, nobody is. However, many of the English have probably lost their faith the 28th of June, and so have many Mexicans. Actually, that day had the events that do make the objective spectators lose their faith in the FIFA. That day held the two blunders of the referees, but that wasn't the worst of it.
The worst of it came next: the FIFA almost denying the mistakes. The FIFA removed the English goal from the official summary of the game, the FIFA stopped showing offside lines when they were afraid that the referee made a wrong call, the FIFA continued giving press conferences with but a few changes - they lead into those press conference by saying they weren't going to answer questions about anything but their chosen subject and the majority of the question just ignored this subject and were about mistakes made by the referees anyway. But the worst came just now, after I had already decided to write this rant (well, I intend to actually go somewhere, so if you want you can classify this a little more positively). I was taking a look at what team was the one in the one at the short end of the offside-goal by Argentina my results included a youtube video and a few pages that included youtube videos, however, instead of getting shown the videos I was shown a message that the FIFA had taken down the video on copyright claims (Google deserves credit for telling us why these videos were removed). Nothing else was removed, just the wrong referee calls. Really, I can't understand it.
I am starting to believe the stories that call the FIFA the maFIFA, the FIFA that truly is a mafia. That's possibly just the patriot in me speaking that has just lost the finals. However, these guys dare to demand the presence of a 92 year old living legend that has had a grand child die less than two weeks ago (with the friend of another daughter being to blame for the lethal car accident). Let's just assume they are clean; there's still quite a few things that just aren't acceptable. Things need to change.
There is but one way to bring about these changes: another worldwide football organization. They would organize their own world cup - the details still elude me, but it would probably need to be at a time that does not conflict with any major football event right now in order to be successful. A possibility would be to take the free years between a world cup and a European cup, but it's easy to make a case for running in the same year as well - we would need to find a proper moment, though.
Now there is a lot of changes that this organization would incorporate, which coincide with the reasons for this new organizations:
- A clean image
- Being focused on the future, instead of on conservatism
- Able to make their decisions on their own
- A better structure that makes the employees care about fair games rather than getting higher up in the hierarchy
- No embezzling evidence of mistakes - admitting them instead
- Giving up any copyright claims to the video material (after all, this organization will have no need to manipulate it)
- Willingness to make change
- No claiming of judicial powers in hosting countries
Now it may seem like I want to run the FIFA out of business, but I don't. Competition is all that's needed. Competition is healthy and the current situation is brought on by the monopoly the FIFA currently has. If they run the risk of getting competed out of business, than they will change, and if it isn't for the better they will still run out of business. I want an organization that is able to start running equipment that makes it easier to be a good referee, and thus convince the world that that is the correct path to take, and eventually force the FIFA to follow suit. Revolutionize the market and counter stagnation by introducing a competing player - it's worked before. Simply look at the improvements Microsoft made to Internet Explorer in the past few years - from the terrible IE6 we went to decent IE8 in way less years than IE6 was the newest version of the browser. And all of that was instigated by them losing a large part of their market share.
It's probable that I am not only missing the funds for this plan but some other essential ingredients as well, but this is my idea:
Get an organization competing with the FIFA into big bussiness. An alternative organization that does things right instead of wrong. I call for the NAF (New Age Footall).
Edit: just after I wrote this I realized I had forgotten to mention something. Spain earned their victory. They were the better playing team. And a single attacker against only a the goalkeeper should never result in anything but a goal, yet it did (in an attack of Robben), showing that Orange (that's what we call out national team) wasn't all that tough here. However, the referee giving unjustly awarding a goal to Spain just isn't the way things should be. And even if we have a bad history on penalty shootouts (though our most recent and thus team most like that one was positive) that is the way a game without (legitimate) goals is decided according to the rules, so don't have them decided in some other strange way! And yes, I am willing to beat a better playing team through a penalty shootout - that's nothing but the rules.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
When the chapter finally closes
Sometimes dreams do come true.
However, your dreams may turn out to be something quite different from what you thought it to be.
As Mark Rosewatter once wrote: "infatuation is an important rite of adolescence". Now, by no means do I claim I am an adolescent as I write this - nor do I claim that how things happened to me is in any way similar to how they happen to most people, but this is a story about an infatuation.
It's been quite a while since I got to the stage where I was "over" the girl in question. That is, the point where I could honestly say I wasn't in love with her any longer. But that was not where it ended, that was not where this chapter closed.
Oh, believe me, I am not talking about a period in which I was lovesick or even thought about her. No that had indeed passed. However, I still saw the girl from time to time and also from time to time there was some tension - or at least there was tension from my point of view, this really doesn't mean it was also there from hers. I knew I was on thin ice. Saying that I carried a torch for her pretty much covered it.
One day, when I was thinking about how this chapter just had not closed yet for me, I realized when it would be closed. It would be closed when the time came that she asked me how I felt about her and I could tell her that some things best remain a mystery (or something less cheesy and obvious in the same vain). It was a stupid thing to think that such a conversation would come to pass - after all, that's just not how conversations work.
Sometimes dreams do come true.
And indeed no such conversation was ever held. Nevertheless, I recently had an encounter with the girl which makes me believe this chapter has finally closed. I saw her as an attractive girl - an attractive girl and no more than that. And we may not have had an explicit conversation about this, but I acted like that as well. And I knew this was no lie.
However, your dreams may turn out to be something quite different from what you thought it to be.
I knew this because inside of me there was absolutely no difference between her and another attractive girl that was there at the moment. It took a while before I realized, but this was the "conversation" I had dreamed about. The chapter had finally closed.
When you are a straight boy and someone else is an attractive girl there is a chance that something happens. I would consider this extremely unlikely to be the way things turn out. But I can have the peace of mind that if the universe pulls a joke on me and that is the way all of this turns out, it will be in a new chapter, not in the closing act of this one; that closing act has passed already.
However, your dreams may turn out to be something quite different from what you thought it to be.
As Mark Rosewatter once wrote: "infatuation is an important rite of adolescence". Now, by no means do I claim I am an adolescent as I write this - nor do I claim that how things happened to me is in any way similar to how they happen to most people, but this is a story about an infatuation.
It's been quite a while since I got to the stage where I was "over" the girl in question. That is, the point where I could honestly say I wasn't in love with her any longer. But that was not where it ended, that was not where this chapter closed.
Oh, believe me, I am not talking about a period in which I was lovesick or even thought about her. No that had indeed passed. However, I still saw the girl from time to time and also from time to time there was some tension - or at least there was tension from my point of view, this really doesn't mean it was also there from hers. I knew I was on thin ice. Saying that I carried a torch for her pretty much covered it.
One day, when I was thinking about how this chapter just had not closed yet for me, I realized when it would be closed. It would be closed when the time came that she asked me how I felt about her and I could tell her that some things best remain a mystery (or something less cheesy and obvious in the same vain). It was a stupid thing to think that such a conversation would come to pass - after all, that's just not how conversations work.
Sometimes dreams do come true.
And indeed no such conversation was ever held. Nevertheless, I recently had an encounter with the girl which makes me believe this chapter has finally closed. I saw her as an attractive girl - an attractive girl and no more than that. And we may not have had an explicit conversation about this, but I acted like that as well. And I knew this was no lie.
However, your dreams may turn out to be something quite different from what you thought it to be.
I knew this because inside of me there was absolutely no difference between her and another attractive girl that was there at the moment. It took a while before I realized, but this was the "conversation" I had dreamed about. The chapter had finally closed.
When you are a straight boy and someone else is an attractive girl there is a chance that something happens. I would consider this extremely unlikely to be the way things turn out. But I can have the peace of mind that if the universe pulls a joke on me and that is the way all of this turns out, it will be in a new chapter, not in the closing act of this one; that closing act has passed already.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Kinderdorp 2009
For the past week, I have been working (on voluntary basis) at Kinderdorp (translated: Children's Village). The main activity of building huts. A good amount of space and wood is reserved for this. However, there's a lot more to it. The tents also take a good amount of the space. There's a podium, a 'crea' tent, the KD bar, a dancing tent, a face paint tent, and a lot more. I was in the crea tent, where the childeren could play with clay, saw nice shapes in thin wooden plancks, paint or make just about anything with all the materials lying around.
We had a reasonable year with over 1600 kids most of the days. And believe me, with no more than 143 volunteers (and quite a few of them only part-timers) that meant some hard working. And man, you're glad when, at 4 o'clock, the children leave. Anyway, some 1700 people had a good five days and I was one of them.
We had a reasonable year with over 1600 kids most of the days. And believe me, with no more than 143 volunteers (and quite a few of them only part-timers) that meant some hard working. And man, you're glad when, at 4 o'clock, the children leave. Anyway, some 1700 people had a good five days and I was one of them.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Long time no see
Hi again.
Would anybody care to tell me when I last wrote an article in which I did not say "I have not used this blog too often in the past period, but I plan on doing so in the coming period"? Consider this one of the posts in which I did say it (even though I am not going to write it out again). Man, my whole world has changed since I last posted here, there's most definately enough to tell about.
I was dropping as I was looking for someone to listen to me ranting about the minor change I have made to my very own chat. The chat is still very crappy, but now a log of all that is posted is kept in my database. Nope, for a user there is no change, but this means that in that very one cornercase in which my chat would actually be a good solution to a problem in communications, I can actualy use it without losing the conversation. As of yet, there is no script yet that exports the chat log from the sabase to a text file, but hey, I have got full database access, so for me it does not matter.
Would anybody care to tell me when I last wrote an article in which I did not say "I have not used this blog too often in the past period, but I plan on doing so in the coming period"? Consider this one of the posts in which I did say it (even though I am not going to write it out again). Man, my whole world has changed since I last posted here, there's most definately enough to tell about.
I was dropping as I was looking for someone to listen to me ranting about the minor change I have made to my very own chat. The chat is still very crappy, but now a log of all that is posted is kept in my database. Nope, for a user there is no change, but this means that in that very one cornercase in which my chat would actually be a good solution to a problem in communications, I can actualy use it without losing the conversation. As of yet, there is no script yet that exports the chat log from the sabase to a text file, but hey, I have got full database access, so for me it does not matter.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Some of these days...
You all know them, you all have them: some of these days you just do not get anywhere. You do what you can all day, but you simply do not succeed at ending anywhere but where you started. This morning was taken from such a day.
There was one slight twist to the story, though, me not getting anywhere was a literal thing. I overslept and arrived at work one hour late. They don't make a fuss out of this at all, though they would like to know you are having some problem so they want you to call them. This was not the problem, as did call five times, but the phone was not answered each of those times.
The problem was that the whole system was down and no calling could be done. This was the reason that they were giving a training to everybody, but I had already missed half of it, so there was no point in joining them. This just meant there was nothing for me to do, so I went home again - having spent an hour and twenty minutes taking bus rides and ending up right where I started.
However, I will not let this complete day turn into one of those days - a single morning is more than enough.
There was one slight twist to the story, though, me not getting anywhere was a literal thing. I overslept and arrived at work one hour late. They don't make a fuss out of this at all, though they would like to know you are having some problem so they want you to call them. This was not the problem, as did call five times, but the phone was not answered each of those times.
The problem was that the whole system was down and no calling could be done. This was the reason that they were giving a training to everybody, but I had already missed half of it, so there was no point in joining them. This just meant there was nothing for me to do, so I went home again - having spent an hour and twenty minutes taking bus rides and ending up right where I started.
However, I will not let this complete day turn into one of those days - a single morning is more than enough.
Laptop
I have bought a laptop yesterday. I had received some money for it from my parents, some from both of my grandmothers, and I had some money left to spend from my birthday. Still I had to pay some myself, but in the end I ended up buying a laptop for 600 euros.
I bought a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pi 2550 (I am too lazy to add a link right now, so google it yourself if you want to know). It has a core 2 duo at 2 times 1,66 GHz, 3 GB RAM, a ATI HD 2400 graphics card and a hard disk capacity of 250 GB. All in all, not too bad for that price. (more details: batterylife of 2.5 hours, weighs 3 kg, built-in 1.3 Megapixel webcam).
What I was aiming for was a laptop that I can use next year as I am starting my study at university, but I would want to be able to run some games on it. That said, gaming is most definately my highest priority.
Still, you can have no computer that has reasonable specs without having tried out Crysis on it (shame I haven't even tried it on this one yet... then again, the only reasonable spec on this computer is the graphics card), so I downloaded the crysis demo today and tried it out. It ran just fine at low settings, at higher settings it became quite jaggy. Still, that's a result I can be quite satisfied with. The thing that grabbed my attention most was the very nice physics engine that is featured in the game (unlike the GTA4 engine it does not focus on things that only bother you and are still not too realistic (falling through the front window of your car), but on things that are cool and that may matter, such as trees that break realistically right at the point you are shooting at - possibly breaking a second, third or even fourth time if you keep shooting in different places). What annoyed me was the touch pad - don't get me wrong, though, I like this one more than most other touch pads I have ever used, it's just that touch pads and gaming don't mix very well. I should buy a mouse sometime, but I was planning to do so anyway.
Anyway, I have a nice notebook computer, and I like it - that's basically all that I am telling.
I bought a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pi 2550 (I am too lazy to add a link right now, so google it yourself if you want to know). It has a core 2 duo at 2 times 1,66 GHz, 3 GB RAM, a ATI HD 2400 graphics card and a hard disk capacity of 250 GB. All in all, not too bad for that price. (more details: batterylife of 2.5 hours, weighs 3 kg, built-in 1.3 Megapixel webcam).
What I was aiming for was a laptop that I can use next year as I am starting my study at university, but I would want to be able to run some games on it. That said, gaming is most definately my highest priority.
Still, you can have no computer that has reasonable specs without having tried out Crysis on it (shame I haven't even tried it on this one yet... then again, the only reasonable spec on this computer is the graphics card), so I downloaded the crysis demo today and tried it out. It ran just fine at low settings, at higher settings it became quite jaggy. Still, that's a result I can be quite satisfied with. The thing that grabbed my attention most was the very nice physics engine that is featured in the game (unlike the GTA4 engine it does not focus on things that only bother you and are still not too realistic (falling through the front window of your car), but on things that are cool and that may matter, such as trees that break realistically right at the point you are shooting at - possibly breaking a second, third or even fourth time if you keep shooting in different places). What annoyed me was the touch pad - don't get me wrong, though, I like this one more than most other touch pads I have ever used, it's just that touch pads and gaming don't mix very well. I should buy a mouse sometime, but I was planning to do so anyway.
Anyway, I have a nice notebook computer, and I like it - that's basically all that I am telling.
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