An orange in an apple orchard
Happy Chinese New Year! The Year of the Ox starts today. What is your Chinese zodiac animal? Do you think you fit the description of the sign?
Live Journals Writer’s Block
http://www.chinesezodiac.com/dragon.php
Hmm, an earth dragon. I don’t believe in Astrology, but I must admit it is generally intriguing to parse.
Well, with nothing to do, no inclination left to me for sleep… and quite far from in the mood to get any more work done (Dang it!) for the night, I figured I’d play a little bit of DooM. After sorting a little issue of loading the right IWAD, I noticed something interesting in ports: the Hell Revealed MegaWad for Doom II 🙂
So I installed the doom-freedoom Free Software IWAD for DooM II, and the doom-hr ports on my laptop. I haven’t tried UV, but from the soun do it, I wonder if after all these years, if I’d even get past the first room on UV, lol. I’ve played the shareware version of DooM from Id some time ago, and wished that I had a copy of the full version handy afterwards (very fun game). The thing that surprised me about revisiting classic DooM, was not only were the levels much like I remembered them, there was still a good “Oh !@#$, it’s a trap!” factor keeping you on ya toes for hosing down some baddies — applying [SAS] movement and room clearing techniques actually helped clear it, haha! Playing through HR, might be agood time paser for awhile :. It’s a very well known megawad, but it’s still my first encounter ;-).
DooM is like _t_h_e_ classic FPS shooter. I was never into it very much as a child, and usually just watched my brother play the various console ports. But in later years, I’ve come to regard it as a great way to relieve stress — switch brain off, and let the shells fly.
http://issaris.blogspot.com/2005/11/cvs-to-git-and-back.html
hmm, might be useful.
Somethings I’d like to work on, are using git, cvs, or svn. My own system here runs CVS, since that’s what OpenBSD comes with, but I’m more used to workign with Subversion. Git and Bazaar-ng are two programs I really should evaluate, since git is likely a program I would love using, and bzr is one I may find more useful in the wider world.
It also pays to know svn/cvs, hehe.
It seems, whenever I try to get some sleep during my ‘down’ hours, there is always something or someone to jar me awake… By the time I’m able to get back to sleep again, my brain is usually to “online” with being awake and thinking again, rather then being obediant to the rest of good sense that demands going back to sleep. If I actually do get back to sleep, I always end up with even less work done, and little time left to myself :
How many freaking years, do I have to go with a minimal of sleep….
Strange set of dreams tonight. In one realm, it involved work, gee what fun… day off in the morning, and dreaming about working my as off & being threated like dirt :. Like the last thing I want to think about, is going back to that, eh? In another phase there was a rather sudden, but interesting entanglement with an attractive woman to say the least, in retrospect I wonder who was trying to seduce who lol. But for better or worse, not enough privacy for much to come of it >_<. Hmm, almost thought I had forgoten how to kiss a girl like that... guess there are a few things, that ya never forget. And in the third cycle of dreams, having to out-think a few drunks to extricate myself from a sticky situation, an incident involving a big ass truck and its occupents had an intent for some viloence (Hmm, maybe she was married? lol). Had no luck in avoiding a fight, but not being one for like a six vs one fight (and maybe 2:0 or 3:0 guns), I managed to exploit their drunkeiness in order to take them suitably 'prisioner' until backup could arrive; join joined the arresting officers in a good hard laugh at how I tricked them into surrendering ^_^.
I have some crazy dreams, eh? In real life, I almost never end up in trouble… but in dreamland, it finds me lol.
I’m wondering for an hour, why the frig I’m getting missmatched checksums…. then it hit me, and I feel like punching myself in the head lol.
I tried this:
sub checksum {
my $file = shift || return;
my $md5 = Digest->new("MD5");
my $sha = Digest->new("SHA-256");
open my $fh, $file or die "Can't checksum file: $!";
binmode($fh);
return ( MD5 => $md5->addfile($fh)->hexdigest();
SHA256 => $sha->addfile($fh)->hexdigest();
);
}
and then compared the output agaisnt checksums generated by FreeBSDs md5/sha256 utilities (they are actually the same program). The MD5 matched perfectly, but the SHA256 were different.
After much thinking, I figured it out….
sub checksum {
my $file = shift || return;
my $md5 = Digest->new("MD5");
my $sha = Digest->new("SHA-256");
open my $fh, $file or die "Can't checksum file: $!";
binmode($fh);
my $mh = $md5->addfile($fh)->hexdigest();
seek($fh, 0, 0); # <----- you've got to rewind it to the start of the file before the next I/O
my $sh = $sha->addfile($fh)->hexdigest();
return ( MD5 => $mh,
SHA256 => $sh,
);
}
The thing that really irks me, I was wondering if the Digest:: classes would be so nice, as to rewind the file handle when they were done, but I think that idea occured to me about 4 hours ago, lool. Actually, if I’ve got to rewind the fscking handle between objects, I may as well just walk the file and append the data to each as we go… then get the digests.
I really need more sleep….
EDIT: Take III
=pod internal
checksum FILENAME
Open filename, and return a hash containing ALGORITHM => check sum
key/value pairs, for each algorithm supported. Both MD5 and SHA256 will
always be supported.
=cut
sub checksum($) {
my $file = shift || return;
my $md5 = Digest->new("MD5");
my $sha = Digest->new("SHA-256");
open my $fh, $file or die "Can't checksum file: $!";
binmode($fh);
# suck the file, and Digest::add it. We would have to parse
# the entire file per object, and seek to 0,0 between calls other wise.
while (my $ln = <$fh>) {
$md5->add($ln);
$sha->add($ln);
}
close $fh;
return ( MD5 => $md5->hexdigest(),
SHA256 => $sha->hexdigest(),
);
}
instead of writing the file path, and using tab completion to view a file listed in a programs output: you pipe the programs output into a command to get the desired line, pipe then pipe that into AWK, so you can pipe that into xargs ….
or maybe it’s just being lazy….
Terry@dixie$ perl script-name project --debug | head -n 1 | awk '{ print $2 }' | xargs cat
This is a consequence rather than a goal. I abhor a system designed for the “user”, if that word is a coded pejorative meaning “stupid and unsophisticated”.
— Ken Thompson
Hmm, some how this makes me laugh when I think of ed and notepad (ed is like the most basic editor I’ve ever met, but it’s still 1000 times better then notepad)
Joined TG#1 today, PG#1 was mostly full and I didn’t want to take a slot from
the SAS friends there. Managed to get a bit of a warm up, then Carter joined
and I had to shift my brain from skills-focused training mode to team-focused
mode :. We finally hit the end of our launch envelope, just before 2230Z came
around. I think, I forgot just how much stress it is on the server admins and
live op conductor…. hehe. But it was a great Live Operation.
We had some problems with the first map, so Medic pulls out his plan B. When I
saw the map name, I started shouting “where the hell did you find that map!”,
for a moment I thought he found my secret storage place… *sigh*, now I need a
new map one for LO: Vengeance #1 — Vipers Edge. It was good though,m to
finally set foot on that map again, and see it in Live Op action! We finally
got everyone in the server, organized swiftly into to combat teams by JB, and
ready to rock. I was a bit disappointed by the insertion, but I expected it
because I know the maps spawn point lol. It is the kind of map, you have to
cover 360′ degrees at all times or you get screwed up bad. And even then, you
risk getting rolled hard from several angels at once — most of the map is like
a staircse, a 3-Dimenisional death trap! The problem we had at spawn, it’s
mostly a psychological thing IMHO. People tend to bog down and become confused
in those kind of insertions, the old “Where are they”, “What am I doing”, “What
is expected of me”, “What am I doing here”, et cetera. Once everyone
got past their initial confusion, and made a coheisive response — we lit up
the enemies world like hellfire.
We managed to put down the enemy threat and freak’em out. Once we got the team
moving out of the area, we secured safer ground and sprang out along the
paraemter streets — cutting down snipers (Headshot!) and X-Rays along the way.
Then we made it into the subway without further incident, and ended up forking
into 2 scout-assault groups.
The EL took our main body right, I was on point-cover to our left with a backup
man (MB & his SAW). I usually try and makes use of our radio commu to ease the
confusion, so we don’t get lulls where people are waiting for instructions:
when I can I try and reduce the Element Leaders workload, so he doesn’t have to
be reading over my shoulder in order to keep me in line with his plan of attack
lol. Once my scouting order came through, me and MB headed up and got the
clearence to take the high ground above. I figured, getting up here will
probably do nothing more then get my ass shot…. but it was a great spot.
Well protected, about the only place on the map that you can put a
sharpshooter, without making him a sitting duck lol. We didn’t expect to see
any threats from there, but I was hopeful that I’d be able to provide JB enough
intel and overwatch, that the elements main body could clear out their AoR
without getting overwelemd by a QRF.
Later on, I’m like, “I think I can see Ghost from over here”, so I lower my
gun, and you could say gave the proverbial wave in my minds eye lol. JB
summery turned around, and shot me twice in the head on reflex, seeing nothing
but a head (in our teams camo) looking at him from the roof top. Never mind the
fact, that we were feeding them the positional information to avoid that kind
of incident…. Intentions completed (support the teams efforts), but got shot
by a confused teammate in the process lol. The team then went on to secure the
last threats; we took about 30% casualties at the insertion, one down during
the street to street fighting, and JB took off my avatars head by mistake >_<. Maybe next time, I should use Smoke. I didn't want to puff one on the roof, because it would've just gotten any remaining snipers looking at us; and I expected to get shot on the way up anyway lol. If I had puffed a smoke grenade on our roof, when the other team was closer, and called it over TS to mark it.... Rather then telling them WHERE we were (the maps big, but not really that big lol), mayhbe it would've eased the confusion... And drawn more enemy fire our way.
Once people got it sorted at the insert, everything went pretty well. It’s a
mission that is some what, close to our problem domain but also far enough from
most peoples general training, that the unexpected can hit them hard. What was
really needed, I feel, is for Element Leaders to anticpate such a situation and
be snap to it [faster]; directing people where they need to be, in order to cut
down the confusion and get people responding to the situation again. Enlist
their 2nd in commands to assist would help to, especially when (like in this
Live Op) there are/were multiple teams involved.
You’ve got to get things organized so no one gets cut off in the corners alone,
or bunched up waiting for spec fire to grind their ass. People need to have the
initiative to react FAST, and deal with things without direction. The problem
is, when people hit a situation like the one we spawned into on that map; most
people expect direction from EL, and naturally become mentally “slow” until
they get past the initial shock of the engagement, or you pop’em over the head
with an idea (any idea) and get them back into the action. Like wise, most seasoned ELs tend to know better then try to micromanage people that know how to cover their sectors; but dealing with team confusion :.
That’s been my experience after 3 years of Element Leader, dealing with
everything from noobs screwing up our plans, to live ops with deep recon of the
enemy. I actually had it drilled into me during ops training to respond this
way to bad situations: take control of the situation QUICKLY or people
die.
Hmm, I still remember one Live Op I did when I was a young trooper. The Lance
Corporal took Element Lead, since he was the highest head on the totem poll and
we were still just a few months out of the Selection Course. We went through
each phase of the mission smoothly, our CQB training combined with the ELs much
greater green field experience got us through it like clock work. But when we
got the VIP to the car, surprise! A third map loads, the escape car as been
sabotaged, and every tom, dick, and harry with an AK47 was out for blood. The
element was quickly overwhelmed and destroyed, leaving the VIP to the opposing
force; mission failed, after such a successful run lol. Like our Sergeant
drilled into us all after that — don’t bog down, take control. If LCpl Rand
had come out of the surprise faster, and shouted at us young Troopers into a
proper response, we
might’ve survived that Live Op; we had a perfect position to use our Tactical
Aids and man power to slow down, evade, and flank the enemy from our own
ground. Most members present that day (~3 years ago) chalked it up as a
critical lesson learned. That’s also when contact drills entered our young
minds, hehe.
I’m the kind of person, shit happens, deal with it now, panic later. Only way I
know to be lol. Every member of Elite Virtual
Regiment is extremly skilled within the scope of our games. But most
people, haven’t been exposed to enough hard action in game or in real life, to
deal with a nasty fire fight like that outright: the team spawned into the
game in such a way, we almost had a man shot before anyone could phyiscally
pull a trigger: such was the map deesign of todays live op. Whenever I can, if
I see people loosing the initiative to DO, rather then have the EL hold their
hand; I try to get the people around me working and reduce the Element Leaders
thought-load, so he can focus on getting us the heck out of the there lool.
A keen battlespace awareness is crictical! But it’s something that has to be both educated into people, and drilled sensely into them. Hey wait, that’s what we do…. hehe :-). It’s jsut it takes longer to work on it in game, then it does in live combat.
