Writer’s Block: Last Night’s Dreams

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What did you dream about last night?

Live Journals Writer’s Block

Oddly enough a subject on my mind lol, dreams :

At first, the pilot of a ‘Mech on some sort of commando run. Like a cross between the RX-78-2 Gundam and a VF-1 Valkyrie. I remember I ended up walking into an ambush, knocked out half of the enemies flight pods but trying to retreat back to cover. Resulted in a pair of Gundam Sandrock like ‘Mechs piloted by famous magicians trying to make minced metal of my ‘Mech, each with dual heat-sickle swords in hand.

Closed in and took them down point blank with Hyper Bazkooka, Shield, and Beam Sabre.. What an odd way to deal with the threat lol. Get close and get “in your face” with a bigger weapon <_<
After that it changed to a DOOM like setting in FPS mode. I remember coming to the end of a corridor over looking an area with several small structures with zombies, deamons, and imps in infantry formations on guard. I remember jumping and doing the walking in/out of sight trick to pick off enemies using the Super Shotgun (double barreled), the trusty chain gun and plasma rifle.

Strangely I find myself often dreaming about games. Especially stuff in the light of SOCOM, Syphon Filter, and Raven Shield / GRAW / SWAT. The Doom, Quake II/IV, Aliens, and various others of course making the rounds too.

I must admit though, I find the issue of programming and the graphical work involved (code wise) for such games quite fascinating. But sadly to complex and time intensive for me to study on my own :

A classic

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Just watched Red Dawn on TV tonight, first time I’ve ever seen it actually.

Needless to say, you don’t fuck with the Americans: We’ll put a cap in your ass.

The movie lays out a real nightmare scenario, a political shift in Germany pushing NATO into collapse, Russia in a massive enconmic disaster and the USA a land ripe for the plucking so they thought… The “Wolverines” proved for then an annoyance to the occupation forces. Supposedly as World War III kicked off most of Europe sat our their duffs watching the Russians and the Americans slug it out. While the British remain the only loyal friend on the US side.. much to the comment “they won’t last long”, I’m sure some one thought that during world war II hehe. And that China ended up getting involved on the American side, based on the drop from a Billion to 600 million or so “screaming Chinamen” mentioned it’s probable that the the tactical nukes were’t limited to the invasion :

The beginning of the movie is down right unnearving. The kids sit in class listing to a lecture about Atilia the Hun as Soviet paratroopers land outside. Shooting the (unarmed) teacher as he approaches and firing RPG’s into the school.. War is one thhing but slaughter is another.

A small band high schoolers flee into the hills and resist. When townspeople are executed in retaliation for the Wolverines actions they launch a counter attack killing the a group of executioners and wreaking havoc on the enemies rear lines. Going so far as to dar to bomb an HQ under the noise of the guards.. The passing of coded messages over the radio, one heard in the Longest Day in point of fact does suggest they were not the only ones giving them a run for their invasion money.

An interesting tid bit from the IMDb’s trivia section:

“The film’s replica Russian T-72 tank was so precise that when it was transported to the studio, two CIA agents followed and wanted to know where it had come from.”

Hahahaha !!!

Restructure and Refeeding

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Well, got some work done.

Completed the change over (mostly) from a single hard-coded dialog for handling the output of processes to being a subclass of a display builder like parent class. Python doesn’t support abstract classes as far as I know or even private members for that matter (but has a nifty name mangling like thing for a making a naming __convention).

The original reason I wanted to do this is I figured that A.) The class was cluttered with code common to any ol’dialog window and B.) The rest of it was just specialized for the task of running a process and nabbing it’s output.

So I moved the common code into the NPM_AbstractDisplayDialog class and wrote a NPM_ProcessDisplayDialog subclass of it to replace the original NPM_DisplayDialog which also will allow me to use a similar dialog for other tasks without having to duplicate the code they would share if I was to implement another like-wise class in parallel. Because for example the NPM_DisplayDialog class was setup to ensure the process was neutralized before completing it’s termination I setup NPM_AbstractDisplayDialog::aboutToDie() as a signal to connect a slot from my subclass(es) to be called to do clean up, basically an advisory destructor you could say. And I connected it to the button to call QWidget::close() to this slot so aboutToDie() is sent when the dialog is about ready to be terminated.

I also found a fixed a small error in the pkg_info parsing, things like that is some thing that most concerns me.. lol.

Now the remaining problem is I’m starving and it’s 0746 Zulu (that’s 0246 local morning)… Must find food, then I guess I should get some sleep :

Days coding

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The current stage of things for the settings menu. As can be seen I still have a few things to do with the layouts, I think a grid would be better personally. At the moment it also doesn’t actually set the settings it front ends for yet. I still need to test out the QSettings class first to see if I want to replace the custom system I’ve done with Pythons build in INI parser or not. I also need to cook up some icons and finish the portsnap entry. Right now it is purely a Qt3 program but if PC-BSD has finally fixed the ‘ugly’ theme settings for root under KDE I might consider a conversion to KDE modules before Qt4/KDE4. At least since what ever version I used to install on my Laptop the default Qt3 themes for Root are even worse…

Another thing I want to do is look at Pythons ability to handle manipulation of UID, it would be kind of nice to prompt for roots password and only elevate permissions when necessary. I aim for things to be the best they can be but paranoia never hurt in programming… hehe. Some day I would also like to expand this beyond explicitly using portupgrade/pkg_*/portsnap/csup/cvsup/psearch in the background but I don’t have time right now. I could get more done if I had a peaceful working environment…. any way here are some screen shots

click to enlarge images

ports settings
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logging settings
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network settings
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I think this is pretty good considering I rewrite most of what I already had today and most of this was done in about 6 hours of work, between chores, dog walking, lunch, interruptions, and phone answering ! Plus another hour or so of minor changes and additions so far tonight. I wish my strength could hold out for another 5 hours worth of work so I could get done some of the other things on my list for the night…. Hopefully I can get at least some of the other work done before I pass out. because I do need to get some shuteye if I’m ever going to make it to work in the tomorrow on time.

*SIGH*

thinking ? crazy : sane;

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The one thing my room lacks, a comfortable working area..

Problem list

  1. furniture is expensive !
  2. my room is “used” for storage… with and without my permission
  3. no raw materials
  4. raw materials are costly too

Now on the other hand, I do have an old book shelf that has been a pain in the neck for years.. I don’t think I could make a worse desk of it then it already is as a miserable book shelf !(^_^)!

A simple pedestal desk like design comes to mind but without the drawers, to complicated and time consuming to build without either spending $$$ I don’t have or finding some thing else to cannibalize for parts. I figure, cut the main vertical boards in half’ish from the book shelf.. Mount them side by side on top of a set of boards (legs/pedestals). And use one of those old project board things from school as a backing to lend stability to it. Much the same trick used by whoever designed the computer desk that I bought lol.

The question of it being free standing or making a bottom board for it to rest on the desk with is a variable factor. It would be simple enough to duplicate the top piece, in effect making the desk usable upside down if necessary haha! But for the primitive building knowledge I have which is basically common sense. And the limited resources, namely what ever I have “inherited” which hopefully still includes one of my Dads saws!

I’m not exactly a handy man but one could always hope for a little Genetic potential… My father was quite skilled and so was my mothers father. My logical ability however out weights my operational experience, needless to say common sense + few resources = all I got if I try it. If I actually had enough money to buy material (or newer tools) I could probably afford to buy a bloody desk and assemble it myself <_<.

Because what I’d be dealing with here is using a bookshelf for wood and mostly being limited to a hammer, nails, and sandpaper for putting it together lol. Crude by most peoples standards of the job but effective when you’ve got nothing better to work with I must admit. Hmm, I wonder if I could actually pull it off… The only real problem is where to put the darn crap from the shelf, since other people have already filled my last free space.

It really would be nice if I could get away with it and a big plus, I could cut it to just the right height to sit at it and use my laptop 😉

brooding

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I think if I thought it would do any better then either breaking my knuckles or cracking the air vents I’d give my PC a reverse punch…

Oh how fun it would be to exact some revenge from this GeForce 8400GS…. worthless piece of micro-shit !!!!!

NPM Settings Menu

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Photobucket

Work begins on a settings GUI for NPM. I have a QIconView standing in for the list of config topics, I expect in the end it will probably be some form of widget stack or some thing like that. The changes I’ve committed to the trunk tonight are purely cosmetic, there is no link to the exsisting settings code that revolves around an RC file yet. I’m actually interresting in moving to using QSettings instead, tests will show the direction to be taken.

At the moment it has the majority of important options. I want the logging section to allow the user to set the logging level and files e.t.c. one thing that I think would be cool is to save the result files from portupgrade with a proper time-stamp appended to the file name. Although it would only take a minute to check the script to see if it would truncate the log file if reused.

There also needs to be a small network section whether separate or added to the others that can handle setting the portsnap/sup servers to use. And I would like it to be able to have a list of servers to query set. So that if it can’t reach one it tries the next (pardoning the retry options set).

Between a Rock and a Hard Case.

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Finally a stroke of luck some thing decent on. Got to see most of The Rock on TV. I flipped channels to it just as Hummles men were taking over the island. I was also reminded why I originally gave up on watching TV at all in the first place.

Never nothing good on

and if there is, I usually don’t get to see it

At least tonight I actually got to see most of it <_<. And the Money Pit is on next, not quite as good as Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House but the same basic concept. Man and his Wife buy an old house and have the worlds worst time rebuilding it hehe.

One thing I find fun about The Rock, is they make references to Mason being old. Heck after going through what the guys in the Special Air Service go through he could probably be 90 years old and still whip some bodies ass lol.

A few memorable quotes hehe

Stanley Goodspeed: I love pressure. I eat it for breakfast.

Agent Paxton: Now you tell me I’m on a need-to-know basis. And I’m telling you right now, I need to who the fuck John Mason is, right now sir!
Womack: You want to know? Okay. 1962: J. Edgar Hoover is the head of the FBI, some say the country. It’s no secret that he kept secret files on prominent Americans and Europeans. De Gaulle, British members of Parliament, even the Prime Minister. I mean, this guy had dirt on everybody in the world.
Agent Paxton: Yeah, I know all of the cloak and dagger stories. Where does Mason fit in?
Womack: Mason was the British operative who stole the files, but our Bureau agents caught him at the Canadian border. Of course, the British claimed that they never heard of him. So we held him without trial until he gave up the microfilm. But he never did.
Agent Paxton: Well, I’m surprised Hoover didn’t use his daughter as leverage.
Womack: Hoover was dead in ’72, she wasn’t born yet. Today… it’s a different Bureau.
Agent Paxton: So, you held this guy without trial his whole life. No wonder he’s pissed.
Womack: This man knows our most intimate secrets from the last half century! The alien landing at Roswell, the truth behind the J.F.K. assassination. Mason’s angry, he’s lethal, he’s a trained killer… and he is the only hope that we have got.

Kid On Motorcycle: Hey man, you just fucked up your Ferrari.
Stanley Goodspeed: It’s not mine.
[steals bike]
Stanley Goodspeed: And neither is this

Stanley Goodspeed: Hi, I’m an agent with the federal… FBI… Well, my, I’m Stanley Goodspeed.
John Mason: But of course you are.
Agent Paxton: Well, at least he got his name right.
Stanley Goodspeed: Of course I am.
John Mason: And you have an emergency.
Stanley Goodspeed: Right.
John Mason: And you need my help.
Stanley Goodspeed: Exactly right.
John Mason: Coffee.
Stanley Goodspeed: No, I’m fine, thank you.
John Mason: Offer me coffee.

John Mason: Are you sure you’re ready for this?
Stanley Goodspeed: I’ll do my best.
John Mason: Your “best”! Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen.
Stanley Goodspeed: Carla was the prom queen.
John Mason: Really?
Stanley Goodspeed: [cocks his gun] Yeah.

John Mason: I’m sure all this will make a great bed time story to tell your kid.
Stanley Goodspeed: You’re insane, Mason. The kid’ll have nightmares. I’ll spend all my money on shrinks.

John Mason: I’m fed up saving your ass. I’m amazed you made it past puberty.

Kill’n time

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Found an interesting time paser, GNU Robots. Quite interesting really you write program in scheme and it uses GNU Guile to run the robot off the scheme program you supply.

It’s also a good excuse to learn more about Scheme hehe. I also found an interesting program called gnubg, I want to take a look at it’s windows port to see how well behaved it is. I might know some one that might have use for it 😉

I also need to start writing my todo list for what to do next with NPM and to get NPM_PortConfig operational.