Writer’s Block: Meaningful Words

What is your favorite quote? And why?

Live Journals Writer’s Block

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother

This is one of my favorite quotes, I remember when Rand used to do training on [SAS] TG#1. He always tried to get it across to everyone that you always take care of your element. You wouldn’t want to finish the mission a couple of friends less if it was a real-op would you?

Be it virtual or real world, it is a concept worth taking heed of.

I remember some thing I read once about lend lease.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, eager to ensure public consent for this controversial plan, explained to the public and the press that his plan was comparable to one neighbor’s lending another a garden hose to put out a fire in his home. “What do I do in such a crisis?” the president asked at a press conference. “I don’t say… ‘Neighbor, my garden hose cost me $15; you have to pay me $15 for it’ â€ĶI don’t want $15 — I want my garden hose back after the fire is over.”

If your house is burning to the ground in front of them, you’ll either see your friends and neighborers helping or sitting around waiting on the fire department while you fry like bacon.

A bit more context to the original qoute:


Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian:’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

King Henry V, Act IV, Scene III, William Shakespeare

I do have a bit of a soft spot for Shakespeare’s plays, I usually find them utterly boring or very enjoyable :-). I remember I was once working on a poem and a good friend of mine pointed me towards Romeo and Juliet for inspiration. It didn’t help worth a darn but it was a fine play !

Any thing remotely classifiable as poetry from me, usually comes from very strong feelings… For better or worse as the case may be. I find it helps from time to time to use words in such a manor as what most people would probably consider as having a poetic or psalm like flair to them.. Some times committing it to file rather then leaving it in my mind is a great way to order my thoughts.

This particular bit of work I’m thinking of was like the blood flowing from the stone so to speak but love can do crazy things to a mans heart. I keep a copy of it stored in my home directories ~/Documents/Personal folder but it is still a one-issue’er, for none other to receive. Some day perhaps I’ll post it but not this morning, fuuy… been installing programs so long it’s after 5am :

Hmm… this brings back tender memories, I think if I had a word processor installed on PC-BSD yet I’d read it before I go to sleep.

A moment for truth

I’ve got the PC-BSD 1.4.x->1.5 patch pbi downloading, from the best (for me) US Mirror available at a snails pace (20-30kb/sec), so that means it is either time to power cycle ye’ol modem+router or things must be pretty busy. A nice power-cycle and spit upon the hardware and we’re back up to a more acceptable 75-150+ kb/sec according to kget but it still blows. I’ve noticed whenever it rains the internet connection gets even less stable here :

I’m not sure what state the update will leave my laptop in but I know that the *IMPORTANT* stuff is backed up. I trust FreeBSD and OpenBSDs update procedures waaayyy more then PC-BSDs… Today I give them one on trust.

Normally my test machine is patched first and examined for errors, this time I will skip that phase and we will see the results. I have stuff backed up to $VECTRA:/srv/smb/Backups/ which I use as a sort of cache, stuff goes here and gets gradually removed but it stays on one of SAL1600s cold storage partitions much longer.

Dixie-backup-2008-02-28.tar.gz          code-stuff.tar
Lexmark-Z12-lxm3200-tweaked.ppd docs-stuff.tar
MaxSec4E.tar.bz2 etc.tar
boot.tar

the *stuff.tar files hold the only things I’ve changed (and care if are lost) since my last backup, the boot and etc tarballs hold the only critical system files that may be changed since my last backup as well. So honestly the only casualties will be few if the upgrade goes badly — having to reinstall crap.

If the PC-BSD upgrade goes badly, there is a three disk set of FreeBSD 7.0-Release sitting on my desk and a list of programs I have been keeping which will soon be scp’d to my VECTRA for safe keeping hehe. The only things missing from the list are language bindings, namely that I need Python bindings for Qt3 for work on NPM.

# languages
gcc-4.3
# manual install needed for JDK/JRE
perl
python
ruby && rubygem-rtags && rubygem-rake
guile
scheme48

# libraries
qt4
gtk-2

# development tools
gmake
ctags
cscope && kscope
webcpp
subversion

# games
kdegames
xgalaga
prboom
doom-data
wesnoth

# graphics software
gimp
inkscape
xv
kdegraphics

# browsers
linux-flock
lynx

# e-mail and news
thunderbird && thunderbird-i18n
mutt

# kontact and related
kdepim


# chat
konversation
pidgin && pidgin-hotkeys
pidgin-guifications || pidgin-libnotify
pidgin-otr && pidgin-encryption
teamspeak_client


xemacs || emacs
mg
terminus-font

# multimedia
libdvdread
libdvdplay
libdvdnav
libdvdcss
cdrtools
mplayer # install codecs manually, more reliable
linux-mplayerplug-in
smplayer-qt4 && smplayer-themes
mencoder # not sure if there is a pkg
xmms
k3b

# documents
latex
gnumeric || koffice

# personal
zsh
windowmaker
docker
wmclock
rxvt-unicode || aterm

Vim is not on the list, because ever since one day I was setting up a FreeBSD install and the port was broken. I learned to install it from the sources on vim.org, so I continue to do so even now.

If all goes FUBAR with the 1.5 patch, well FreeBSD 7 here I come. It should only take a few hours to get the necessary software installed, a package add on xorg-7.3 alone should take awhile <_<. And a couple minutes to decide if I want XDM, KDM, or GDM (Xs, KDEs, or Gnomes) login manager while I’m waiting. I can also use the 7.0-Release kernel from my test machine hehe.

I expect as long as the 1.4 -> 1.5 update leaves my laptop in a bootable state that I shouldn’t have any problems. There is a limit to how much I’ll be willing to stand fixing myself of course. The last time I let it do any major upgrades it was so kind as to delete all files in /usr/local/* so I’m prepared to reinstall my software if necessary but not PC-BSD 😉

Let’s see the outcome.

Today si deffo a time for some rest, it’s becoem clear that my family will ensure nothing productive gets done during daylight any way…..

I think I have room clearing on my mind enough to be dreaming about it :. It was like a game of F.E.A.R. but being Element Leader instead of point man, sadly no one else survived once Alma showed up :

And then a subway full of replicas… hehe

pass the ammo.

day.log, I

I’e kept a generally log of the day, I intend to do so tomorrow as well if possible. Perhaps I can find a more optimal way of doing things that way.

vim: set et :

1337 -- awake
trash
walk dogs
1314 -- interrupted
1324 -- exercise
1327 -- interrupted during 'down time'
1328 -- resumed, moving to crunches
1330 -- interrupted on count 21 :-(
1340 -- shave
1410 -- shower
1434 -- make lunch
1440 -- E-Mail
1445 -- eat lunch !!!
1456 -- quick web surfing
1514 -- home work
found books in 'use' as a coat rack
# of interruptions: 4
1827 -- start rest time [read to bored to continue]
1950 -- return to edrudgery
# of interruptions: 4
2043 -- dinner
2056 -- family time
2325 -- R&R, net time ;-)
0045 -- more home work, by monitor light.
# of interruptions: 1
0207 -- the news feeds
0212 -- official down time.
Lassen mir Das programmieren beginnen // could be written better... lol
0402 -- bed time

The interruptions count is how many times I got interrupted in the middle of stuff. It’s good that for much of the afternoon I was the only one awake :-).

I’ve almost completed the last of the social civics, tomorrow it falls… Well pardoning that whether permitting my mother has good plans that I’ll end up back-up man on a grocery shopping trip this weekend :=/.

Oy’ I’m going to need a vacation from my vacation! I only have two modes of operation, like a big switch. Lazy Do Nothing — or — Work Till I Drop.

The problem is I only get a few days a month if any that I *can* take the time to work till I drop on any thing, without going to bed around 5 or 6 am…

EoR, End of Rest

Almost time to get back to school work 🙁

Bored to utter tears but with a little determination I should have an entire subject polished off by the time I’ve got to report back to work.

It’s not very challenging, don’t think I’ve been seriously academically challenged since I learned to read… But the faster this buffalo pucky gets done the faster I can get moving. To be honest, I’m tempted to write a program to do my math homework for me, maybe even try different methods just to piss off the teachers.

At least that way I might learn some thing in the process 🙂

My written English skills are derailed by speech’isms and keyboards. My writing tends to be a cross between how I speak and how I think, rather then the formalities (some friends wonder if I’ve ever heard of a ; lol). And my handwriting is hopeless from the years of keyboarding — after working on it to profection “under penalty of death” in the early years that pisses me off lol. Of all that I’ve done the few B’s and C’s I’ve seen over the years come from English-related subjects.

Heck, my motivation for learning to read as a child was because I wanted to read a book myself. The only part school played was in motivating people to help me along the way. The routine bit they had first tried to throw at me did nothing but annoy me, didn’t teach a darn thing.

The majority of my understandings of mathematics and the related didn’t come from school, learned 90% of things I know trying to solve problems that *interested me*. I remember when things like square and cubic measures were first introduced into my schooling years ago.

It bored the shit out of me!

I had already reverse engineered processes if you will — that is I figured it out by looking at a real problem in front of me. Using my brain cells and expirmentation to try and solve it until I got close enough for my tastes.

Back then I had spent a lot of my free time working on custom ‘Mech designs to the great est technical details I could think of: Calculating the amount of fuel that could fit in the storage space; figuring how much volume could be gained from storing it in some oddly shaped location (that was fun), the amount of force generated by the thrusters, thrust to mass ratios, acceleration rates (never was good at that), payloads without failing apart, etc.

That’s actually how I learned the Metric System, I was a kid that only was familiar with the US system of measure. Which oddly enough is defined in metric terms these days or so I’ve read xD. I had to learn to work with metric units because most things ‘Mech related are described in metrics. Before that my only encounter with meters/metres had been the Technical Manual to the NCC-1701D =/

The only limit to how far I could go was how much I could figure out between my head, a calculator, and scratch paper. And not a text book to be had ! It’s been years so I wonder how much has still stuck without any thing of interest to keep it fresh. I actually look forward to the more complex topics that you don’t get in high school, in the hopes it will be interesting for a change.

What good has school done me? Read, Write, Count and that is about it. The rest I’ve always learned because I have wanted to learn. For ****s sake most of the other subjects in high school, I’ve learned more by not listing to the text books. Most of my history tests had a –verbose switch added. I remember practically snoring through parts of the biology text book (it really was that bad). However, a little look for information on my own accord and it actually stuck. Psychology was actually fun buta tad useless at the HS level.

IMHO 75-85% of the stuff they make us do is busy work because between K and “Good bye and good riddens” people could learn a lot more in schools. tbh, I think I would rather have skipped it all and just went to the library every day instead — much more productive. For what remains, well…

Most of my back-log comes from letting it rot (as it deserves) and being to busy with work to do any of it. If I had just sat down and done it as it came, rather then working to pay for it… And devoting the rest of my time to learning things of interest I wouldn’t be in this situation now.

Thats why I want out and I’m taking it to bat — even if I’m bored stiff, it will give way before I do. 2008 is the year it falls and I get the heck out of it.

Because I do not surrender.

When surrounded and no way out but surrender, facing being ‘roasted alive’ at the hands of a tyrant.

I have no pride left in me. What I do, now I do for my people and for Camelot. And may they forgive me. This is my last act as your king. Do not be afraid. All things change. I am Arthur of Camelot, and I command you now… all… To fight! Fight like you’ve never fought before! Never surrender! Never Surrender! Fight as you never…

/* crossbow bolts strike him across the chest */

Camelot lives!

— First Knight, 1995.

As Arthur lay dying, the people and his knights resist Malagants men. Even the unarmed civilians engage the enemy as a fighting mass and repel the enemy from Camelot by sheer force of attrition.

Given the choice, to yield to tyranny or fight for ones freedom who could resist? As some of my country men once said when our nation faced the same decision: Give me Liberty, or give me Death!

I don’t think the idea will ever be allowed to die, while people hold breath.

You know, I actually forgot how much I hated PHP. C love it, C++ can take it, Python is great, Ruby is fun, Perl is handy, LISP just RTFM, Java is livable as long as CTS doesn’t set in. But PHP is just a pain in my neck.

Between the days volley’s and having to tinker with modules written in PHP, I think it’s time for some shut eye before I pass out lol. Now if the dog hadn’t stolen all of the covers already…

With luck I can finish the module tomorrow and get a start on my homework this weekend. A few days off should really help me if I don’t lose any marbles in the process.

I figure, exercise, shave, shower, and hit the books. Weekends actually about the one time of the week I have *room* in my own room to exercise with out being crowed out for storage :

2 Minutes on press ups, 2 minutes to catch a breath, then 2 Minutes on crunches works quite well. If it was possible without being hounded by dogs wanting to go and crazy Georgian drivers that would hit me, I’d add a few miles run to the mix but oh well…

Not fond of exercise by any means (especially crunches!) but its comforting to know my body will hold up to it. I could probably survive the calisthenics fair enough if I ever ended up in basic but BUD/S would be a killer… Physically fit bastards lol.

Would be great to find some way of getting running into the mix. When I used to be a couch potato I could run like a bat out of hell. When I had to do some thing outside ‘tween the commercial breaks; I’d be to the other end of the complex and back with the mail before one commercial had passed hehe. Since I stopped watching a lot of TV these past few years that endurance just isn’t there any more and I fade out after tens of metres with ankles that won’t cooperate :

Well, I suppose that would make a good set of goals for the year. Get back in running shape and be able to pass through my exercise routine with ease. It’s not really hard, not as hard as I used to think and it is easier without a girl sitting on your back lol.

And compared to what the Navy SEALs go through, that’s a bloody cake walk.

The dissolution begins or does it continue on?

My sister in law finally got the papers, her and my brother are now legally divorced after over 8 years of marriage.

Well, what can I say? He’s an asshole lol.

His say’s he doesn’t want to be miserable for the next twenty years, far enough… If you ask me they had enough years before hand for him to figure that one out. So after moving *both* of them into his best [also female] friends place he threw her out flat a month later. Which means Ma is stuck on the couch because they gave up the apartment first :.

I remember when we first heard they were moving in there, Ma threw them both out of the house instantly. Everyone knew it was going to be a bad idea but my Sister [in-law] was willing to try and make things work, my Brother OTOH wasn’t.

And now they are going to soon be three-way arguing over the photo album with my Mother leading the charge from the sounds of things. I know better then to get involved, even if my “neutral as Switzerland” approach to family wars is often disregarded by all participants… I do hope he gets to keep some of the pictures, for Pete’s sake. I doubt he should get much more then the car personally (it’s in her name, not his) but how could you argue over the photo album !?

What can I say.. My family is the kind that cuts deep, then sucks out the blood. That’s the world in which I live. A scene comes to mind, I saw the end of “From Dusk Till Dawn” last week when I was waiting for the next movie to start. In the end battle some one was being chewed on by about ten or twelve vampires… That is what comes to my mind.

I some times wonder what branch I came from because that is not my way. I only intentionally return in kind when I know nothing else will bring them to relent’ment. My ability for anger is limited to all of the about 10 seconds it takes for me to calm down. Unlike my family, I learned to control my temper quite well and to deal with it without hurting others. No wonder we’re known for loud mouths and hot heads so to speak lol.

It’s a shame but it’s his life, when the other woman bleeds him dry I guess he’ll learn better. I remember when I was a child, I used to count the periods of family in-fighting by ‘world war’ starting with IV, lost count many years back around IX or so.

Do we begin to dissolve bit by bit? Or is it just another fragment in a long war.

Some times I wonder if I honestly care any more.

I don’t think that GOD made people this way, we learned it on our own. As the world around us damages us bit by bit, they don’t know any better. So they cut the other deeply with the words, and suck dry the blood that flows.

I know if I ever get out of here, I pray to look back at it as a memory and nothing more. I don’t want to bring that mentality to a new generation… I’m not like the rest of my family but they are still my family, each of them and I love them.

*mutters*

finally some peace and quite..

all but barricaded here since the laundry racks full most of the room. But people have finally let me be, it’s nice to be able to hear myself think again. Possibly I think to much but it is about the only real freedom I have in life next to the right to have my own opinion.

When the house is so loud you can’t even hear the freaking radio without maxing out the volume you know you have a problem! And I normally wear headphones so as not to disturb people.

Humbug.. figures that the second I open my mouth they start again.

Oh what fun it would be to just get out and go to the beach, damn it I haven’t been to one in years.. I really miss Florida some days, not the heat but other things. It was home for half of my life, I still consider myself a [displaced] Floridian at heart.

Hmm, maybe with a little luck people will STFU in a few hours and I can concentrate on getting stuff done if this headache subsides. On a normal day I can here them from upwards of 10-15 metres outside.. So it’s still loud in my room. At this rate I’m going to have to sort out a very loud playlist soon and skip the radio :

A good nights sleep, no family-included headache, and a trip to the beach — my idea of vacation.

Hmm, todo list:

  1. Add compress level handling for gz/bz2’d tarballs to mak and a –pass-args switch
  2. Finish that doc for Gerard
  3. Finish converting/updating/rewriting SOPs for SAS
  4. Some work on NPM would be nice — overdue * 210
  5. Still need to port the next chapter of my book to TeX source

I wonder which will hit me first and what if any thing will actually get done in this rats-nest before the clock strikes 2300. Hell… Even if I enlisted at least I’d be waking up by 0430 for BCT rather then going to *bed* at 0530 for Pete’s sake!.

Can’t even get **** done in my own home… Unless I’m the only moron awake.

I’m now a GMail Convert

I’ve now mostly completed my transition to Google Mail, the issues I’ve been having with POP3 Fetch mail on Ippimail seem to be a bit derailing of late… So I’ve got every thing set up to the GMail account now including my primary address (ippimail). If it ever can be fixed I can always transition back over.

I rather like the Squirrel Mail software that is used at Ippimail because I’ve worked with it before and they have a very nice theme. But I’ve got to admit, GMail is quite nice… I do however miss the ease of opening like 3 or 4 E-Mails in different tabs simultaneously with Ippimail though but I love the labels system in GMails software.

The spam folder is also about 5 to 8 orders of magnitude more full then Ippimails!!! But so far the filtering system works excellently just like googles search engine. I’ve had nothing put there that wasn’t spam yet and I’ve yet to see any thing penetrate the standard filters. I remember years ago I once tried Hotmail and felt like it was being placed on the world wide spam r us list :. I guess that’s impossible to avoid with any common services (hotmail, aol, yahoo, gmail, mail.com, etc) but hotmail back then at least was totally ridicules. At least GMail is doing a good job with the filters hehe.

Now that my Webmail problem is sorted out I guess it’s just the instant messengering one to fix. It would be so awesome if I could get a decent multi-protocol instant messenger that I didn’t dislike; I consider Pidgin and Kopte both cases of “foo sucks less”.

I have an XFire, an M$N, an AIM, an YIM, an ICQ, and even LiveJournals Jabber/GTalk features but I’m usually unreachable via XFire on my laptop and normally only on the others on my laptop. It would be awesome to be able to use each ! All the better without having to run Windows XP in the process or hack up FreeBSD’s Linux ABI to much to run the software.

Kopete and Pidgin both suck horribly for IRC (Internet Relay Chat) as well and I’m usually on several channels off irc.freenode.net. Which is why I’ve got Konversation on my laptop and X-Chat on my XP machine… Most of my friends use either AIM, MSN, or both. Still running 2-3 programs (xfire, irc, rest) is a total pain in the butt. I suppose it beats the 7 I would need if it wasn’t for applications like Kopete….

Oh wellz, back to the code.