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With my laptops updates finished last night, I’m finally ready to go green on setting up Fedora 12 on my desktop. Although I could always wait ~two weeks, I’d rather see how the system tkes the upgrade to Fedora 13. I’m also interested, to see how SWAT 4 and Raven Shield play with it, both in the client and server role.

The main thing that concerns me, is doing the install of Fedora ver the network. Generally speaking, I have had much better hardware support from modern BSDs then I have Linux distributions. On the other hand however, Fedora tends to be more ‘cutting edge’ and bloated to kingdom come, where as most distributions that I favour, tend to be more focused on stability and share my view points on minimalism. So hopefully, Fedora will take well to it.

In waiting for Dixie to sort the compiling, I spent much of it reading up on more of the finer details of Common Lisp, including CLTL. While I knew that modern lisp was a rather huge beast, I am now convinced that it must dwarf C++, in which case you have to take the C++ standard (and occasionally Cs) into sequence, along with Boost and numerous issues of developmental expertise. Most of which, I reckon, are rather learned by living with classy C++ code, or having to put up with shitty code when you know there’s better.

Now where did I store my CD-Rs… lololololol

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Generally, [SAS] is riding on rather thin ice with me: my patience although sometimes compared to a saints, is shall we say, far from unlimited. Perhaps I don’t show it, but I generally agree with what friends in my inner-circle have said about my exit from [SAS]. There’s just somethings I need to put in order over the course of time (i.e. the rear burner), like my memoirs ;). I’m moving forward with my life one way or the other, and I have much more meaningful things to deal with then suffering collections of fools, or cursing at bugs.

One thing I have enjoyed about becoming a ronin, is the chance to confound elements of [SAS] and NTF. It’s the price for anyone, who cannot or will not accept my word for truth. As I’ve often said, I have little care what others think, but when I know what they must be thinking, sometimes it does give me a massive cackle! For what side of that coin, that I’ve had to deal with from the [SAS] side (everyone can guess from who), I take it less offensively than I normally would, as my position in [SAS] afforded me sufficient view to comprehend it better than most can; much as I cut certain people outside of that clan a similar amount of ‘slack’, before I’ll pull the trigger in hostility. Also, I am naturally more passive than most; there are but few things that leave ‘lasting marks’, so to speak.

While I would consider a return to [SAS] someday, the things that would have to happen to allow that to be possible, should we say, that I wouldn’t hold my breath over that, if you paid me. I’m not happy about my mighty entry being retained, as is simply put: I am out, and Random and Wiz have ensured it that way. While all things considered with that, I can’t help but wonder if my former CO, has even noticed that he no longer has me to annoy. If anyone decides to Veterize me without my permission, by holding to a differing interpretation of the regulatory code than I and [SAS] in general do, then I’ll simply create my own clan “On paper” [sic], thus null-an-voiding any possibility of that. You can’t be made a Vet in [SAS], if you’re in another clan. Either I am in or I am out, and ‘in’ has not been left as a choice in my opinion. Which is the one that matters most.

Heh, if I had to go that far clanwise, I could publish my masters guide on tactics under my own brand, instead of just my own name lol. Honestly, I’m just happy that I can revise it and publish it in the future, now that I no longer have to give a damn about it’s impact on [SAS] members, nor making GCHQ look like asswholes in the process. As I’ve often said, it’s not a time consuming thing to write! My private files already blew the ‘current’ [SAS] SOPs out of the water before updated material was drafted, and I’m not even going to remark about he the ‘first committee’ from ages back.

I have generally tried to grant a fairly peaceful envelope to both clans: the [SAS] and the NATO Task Force. I feel the latter has accepted that understanding, sufficiently enough; where as I can not say the same about my former superiors. They will however, respect my peaceful-coexistencal desires, or face the blockers wall.

The virtue of being a free agent: is just that, freedom.
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Well, this is a wee bit of progress on my task list: July 2009 is finally imported from Live Journal to Blogger. I’ve only got August, (most of) September, and October left to go, and then my Jounral will have completed the transition!!! I’ve over 1500 entries from the LJ days, plus out of the ~1460 entries here on Blogger, this would be about the 142nd entry for 2010 alone.

I’ve noticed that I tend to average, around 40 entries a month, and 20 during ‘slow’ seasons. Hmm, just think how many log files I’ve saved on these past four years…

An interesting day…

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Decided to take my chances with dream land, and tried sleeping in this morning: virtue of working late on Wednesdays lol. Only logged in for a bit, in order to catch up with a friend on a personal matter. Managed to to that, but couldn’t finish our convo, will have to link up later.

While I was online, I took the liberty of sorting a few other things.

After thinking over my decision last night, to grant access to my private TS3 server to [SAS] members and server regulars – as I’ve no assurance, that I’ll ever be given access to their comms server again. I had decided that I would open mine up, because I know Ezbassr and JB rarely type, and it might be useful someday. This morning, I had decided that I would further extend that access in the name of peace, granting access privilege to NTFs membership: as I’ve no real clue or care what their comms policy is, but would rather be more inclined to play when Noer is present. Who also doesn’t type much lol.

This TS3 server, is something I setup a while ago. The main reason was something private between Cara, Escrt, and myself; which eventually lead to me putting the host in place, to furnish my semi-regular GR outings with voice chat. Escrts been the only one to join me out of the original game plan, but MB and Nick eventually caught a fancy to it, making the comms server a good time investment on my part. I had setup the TS3 server on my desktop, so I could play GR and not have to invite friends outside of [SAS], onto the clans private comms server. Finding myself a free agent after recent business… well, it’s my server, so I’ll use it as I damn well please.

In posting the clan wide invitations on each NTF and [SAS] forums, I noticed that the server blocks on www.sasclan.org were reporting an ‘SAS_Sgt_RASA’ playing in the [SAS] Proving Grounds. That is actually what’s responsible for the time delay between posts. Remembering some problem we had with a “Stalker slash impersonator” on the servers over the past few years, I felt apt in reporting this to [SAS]_Maj_WIZ. Because I know, that even for sake of a joke, the odds of that being the real Rasa, were pretty damn slim lol. If I had been an [SAS] member, I would’ve investigated personally.

Yesterday, Noer had asked me about my name still being on The Mighty page, which was a bit of a surprise, as it should have been removed by now! Took the opportunity to prompt Wiz on it while I was online, only to hear he was waiting to to see if would ask for Vet status. I find that somewhat superfluous: as I met the criteria (>1 year out of the SC) for automatic Vet, by a very wide margin… indeed. To which, I made note that ‘(14:37:11) Spidey01: and I turned in the WO1, because I couldn’t both be a member and ‘shut up’ about the v46/on it thing’ -> as I only have two modes, in or out, and Vet isn’t one of them. If I had wanted Vet, I would’ve stated it explicitly… and I do not feel that even that choice was left me. My original post-draft (trp or vet) was mostly, made insufficient by the COs continued lax handling of the matter, combined with constant prodding from the Major.

Despite the morning ‘irks’ about getting to work, my mother finally brought a smile to my face; very rare these years, I’m afraid, and even rarer that ma would be the cause. What made me smile, was when she commented on my driving, as resembling ‘an old pro’. Today gives me less than 10 hours road time, but I’m already doing better than a lot of the things I have, eh, ‘seen’, in my many years as a passenger. Enjoyable, was watching 3 dickweavels creating hazardous situations, all of which I fully anticipated and was able to mitigate. Rule #0 of my life, has always been to expect the other sap will likely fuck it up, until they prove otherwise. It’s allowed me to survive a few things, lol, and I expect it’ll serve just as well in driving. Count yourself lucky in Georgia, if people remember RED light means STOP instead of FLOOR IT!

Always makes up for the amount of ma cursing at me, that I’ve had to deal with lately lol.

Tonight, after finishing up with my laptops updates, I decided to take in a little RvS. Finding the home page blocks reporting the [SAS] servers empty :-(, so I decided to login and pay the NTF servers a visit. First time I’ve played there since leaving [SAS]. Seeing their other public server offline, I joined NATO TASK FORCE 3, and played alone for a bit on (MP) Training. Cocked my MP5A4 and took at the map with around 77-84% accuracy on average, not to shabby for an old fart. After a while, a player named Tarantula joined server… demonstrating total nubness and smoke spam. His MO would’ve made me check his ID, if I had been an admin.  A few other pubs joined in shortly after, so I rather resigned myself to the fact -> I’m getting out of this smoke abusing server soon.

After everyone else on the server ‘died’, I went on to finish it off using my M4A1 to polish off the slidering tangos, and decided to get a drink once the next map (peaks) had loaded up. In a few seconds, I was already being told to ready up, in a quality of English that almost begs questioning of the persons identity. As I needed at least a good 3 seconds to grab my kit, I told mr ants in his pants to wait a moment. In the time it takes to scroll the mouse wheel ~three notches, I was already being insulted by the pubs in server quite proficiently. If that had happened on [SAS]’s servers when I was an admin, the entire server would’ve been banned.

Since NTF doesn’t have a published Server Incident Report (SIR) system or policy that I know of, like [SAS] does, and the screen shots I took were to profane to post on the NTF forum publicly, I paged the nearest NTF member. Only to find the other party acting like an assclown or a unconcerned incompetent, and therefore, as I’ve no regiment for my actions to reflect upon (even in private), being regarded as such in my choice of demeanour. Finding myself under “Vote kick” for taking the time to notify an NTF member of the rampet bout of offensiveness and morose behaviour on his clans server, I of course was summary kicked out by the pubs.

Being placed in that boat, I simply sent a few NTF officers an e-mail with the screen shot as a SIR, and called it a night. In [SAS] unruly crowd control was always taken seriously, and made the job of every member based on the totem poll system. Maybe I truly was, the only dickbrain who served virtually on 24/7 admin call…. lol. Oh well, that is other folks loss, as I now consider myself Ronin.

And on top of that, I had to put up with taking flak from a certain [SAS] officer about my TS3 offer being open to both clans 8=). Private property does has it’s perks, particularly when I own it.

Clear mailboxes ftw!

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You know, after so many years of watching space usage rise, it’s so odd to be down to ~150MB of email, coming from well over 2GB lol.

I am currently using 148 MB (1%) of my 7451 MB.

First time driving through the rain

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Seems that the rain and thunder finally made it’s way down here, mostly on time. As I was telling Timbo this morning, it was raining cats and dogs outside. Luckly while I was catching a couple quick Z’s, the radio stream I had running told ma that the roads we’d be traveling had not been to flooded… so I didn’t loose the opportunity to drive. Weather has never bothered me in any way really, especially not the rain: and I need the experience of being on the slickened roads. However fast I’ve been mastering the car compared to ‘normal’ people, it’s probably not advisable to let a noob out in such conditions, but the only way that you can learn such a skill is by live fire exercise; and with my mother, only GOD knows how many chances there are going to be in order to do it in time :-S. I left a message with a friend, in case of any major accident.

The first leg of things went fairly smooth: except for having to be ordered about like a moron. My mothers continual insistence that I `improperly` stop at stop signs by coming to a halt before the edge, is also annoying me enough that it’s going on my todo list, to check the state law on the ficken matter. I might not be a rocket scientist, but I know how to read English correctly. Edit: just emailed her the proof that I am correct! IAW Georgia state law, you bring her to a full stop before crossing the stop line or cross walk, other wise you can move up if needed; and either way, the laws for entering a road way require you to stop again if need be, befor entering if there are any cars to close‐whether or not you stopped at a stop sign already.

Maybe my educational background combined with my computer presence, has damaged the quality of my composition skills, but I can read this cracked up language with machine-like proficiency! Perhaps that is much to the annoyance of everyone else outside more ‘technical’ circles xD.

Although we arrived with time to spare at the Community Medical Centre, as usual the clinic also took a good half hour past the scheduled appointment time to accept her for the checkup >_>. So I passed the time reading a text book on electronics and EE, before powering up Dixie. Spent most of it brushing up on my CLisp, until the battery started to run low… then I got stuck twiddling my thumbs for another hour and a half. Managed to convince H.R.P. to get her prescriptions filled today in order to extend the driving time, and save her a later trip after work. By the time we left Krogers, some  9-10 hours after the storms started, it was almost free and clear out.

So far, I’ve had two good bits of practice today: stretches of highway where the speed limit is much higher than the rest of our area, and driving in enough rain that you wouldn’t want to stick your head out the window xD. I tend to drive more cautiously than most people, because, eh, shall we say, the local drivers are a trifle psychotic at times. Life has also taught me that when death, injury or serious property damage is likely to result it is usually best to assume that the other schmuck will fuck up, and B/P to cope with it happening.

Some how, I am reminded of a story my mother once told me, form when she was learning to drive, and made grandpa’s hair stand on end after a very, very near miss! Well, I’m to darn paranoid to put my mother through that lol. Threatening to gag, or strap her to the roof of the car when she is being too bossy on the other hand, is a different story. Or should we say, where I come from, the asshole in the drivers saddle calls the ball.