The journey

by

While making my huge post in the members forum, it’s given me good time to think. even if it’s taken me about an hour and a half to respond to Noer, survey the NCO Forum, and write that post.

I remember, there was once a time when I considered leaving the [SAS]. I was bored, I was tired of training, for what? I asked. Well, I continued on that road. Because I knew it was going to be awesome and I wanted to help other people find the little joyful group I did.

I guess, it was the tactics and the people that drew me to [SAS]. I had often played on TG#1, because I wanted a place I could play — un molested by rambunctious pests. Where I could play and work on doing the missions in a realistic manor. Eventually, I realised that the [SAS] Members were not only very skilled. But also a great team, one that employed tactics and team work to solve problems. Rather then the Let’s run in there, blow every thing up, and rescue the hostages if they’re still alive. Kind of approach found on many other serves.

I trained my self as hard as I could. While I don’t like to think that way, I may have been one of the best troopers in terms of skill/training time after Python was promoted. I didn’t do any thing other then what I was asked and expected to do. But I did it and gave it my all.

My friend Python was always a good example of a Trooper when I was a Recruit. He trained hard and played hard. Even to become a member of the Elite Sabre Squad, if [SAS] was the tip of the spear in terms of skill and tactics. Sabre was the very sharp point of that. Because I was a Trp and had time to learn. I worked, I learned to use every weapon in the game,w ell almost… I admit I did kind of skip a lot of practicing with the AP Army and WA-2000 for a lot of time lol. I have Never been as strong on core skills as when I was a Trp… I miss those 40-45hr a week gaming sessions.

I got so bored after awhile, I nearly quit. Because I had nothing more to do, and little else to learn. I tried to help out Rand with his Training Sessions but was probably more work for him then help. (Yes I am annoying). I also attended as many Continuation Trainings as I could, even if I didn’t always agree with some of the things James did to make them ‘Film’ ready. I was there to train, not make a movie! lol.

I desided I would remian and serve. Why? Because I wanted to help others find what I did. It’s never really been about me. The things I do, I do because I want to see [SAS] prosper and because it is my joy to help do that.

When I was LCpl, I’d say I was probably a failure. The only good thing to happen is probably being a part of Hexen and Miles training. As a Cpl, I think I was a little more successful. The old ‘Bad ass’ skill levels I had as a Trp were waining but I was gaining experience and I got to teach people. Some thing I really wanted to do. Although it was not my place to do so, nor was I asked to. I tried to help out with the SOP Rewrites.

When I was promoted to Squadron Sergeant Major, I soon found that I had so much more room for improvement. Not just my skills but my thinking. My concepts of room clearing had changed very little between Rct->Cpl, but as SSM they changed a lot. I was able to do more with the SOP work, yet I got to do a lot else. As SSM I spent a lot of time training and gaming. It was very fun. As RSM, well I’ve gotten more work done. What I like about being RSM, I can get stuff done. Without the rest of [SAS], it would never get done. The least I can do, is do my fair share. I don’t always get to play as much as I would like, another 10 hours a week would be fun. But I know with the time I spend on [SAS] that is not in server. That it’s time spent well. All in all, I think my favorite thing about being RSM. Has been the SOP Rewrites. I could now take more initiative, not as much as the only smoe. But as a builder. Most of the SOP Rewrites we’ve done. Has been done by me and Rasa and Miles.

I did a lot of initial work and when Rasa came on board it was like hell fire. Together we did a lot of work and thanks to Rasa’s participation the SOP Rewrites have come out a thousand times better then if I had done it all. Not as fast but so much better that it is worth it. When we got permission to get Miles on board in limited capacity we got even more productive. When he became Sgt, he was essentially fully cleared to work on it. I know Noer regrets not being as involved in the task as we have been, but it’s not his fault.

Why did I want to do stuff with the SOP Rewrites? Well aside from the fact that I’ve been expecting them since I was a LCpl… They needed to be done, and done right. I took a look at the [SAS] Membership as a whole. And there was no one else who was current on both games, RvS and SWAT4. Rasa eventually got current on RvS again and Miles and Lazko have tried to be and stay so. Random, well tbh I wonder if SOP has any effect on how he plays some times. But he arguable has so much experience he is a walking SOP lol.

I wanted to see the SOP Rewrites do justice to both games, be some thing that we could maintain for future generations. And I wanted it to be consistent. So maybe it is great that they are basically the work of 3 people. Well, I can’t forget Moe, all but one PDF (the weapons thing) of the SOP’s on the web site. Were done by Moe when he was active. A lot of it was so good we kept it, hacked it into wording that fitted our needs, and expanded upon it in spots.

What I do in the [SAS], is not for me. It is for the [SAS] — I serve because I want to help make it better. Not because what it can do for me, it is what I can do for it that matters.

I’m not one to stick my neck out. But I am a loyal person. There is some thing about [SAS] that for some reason. I’ve come to consider it as more important then myself. I might not *always* like some things. but I remember, it’s not about ME, it’s about [SAS].

I’ve never asked other people to be like I am in that regard. But that is how it is for me, plain and simple. What’s good for [SAS] is more important then what I want.

A while back, Yuke asked me some thing. Some thing I have thought about and fear some what should it happen… Some thing I would prefer not to do but will do if I am asked. Not because I want to, but because it may allow me to better serve my team. I’d much rather stay where I am but it’s not my choice.

Bollocks! It’s 0225…. Time to get in server. I’ve been itching for some game time since Wednesday and spent all day working. It was Midnight when I got on and I’m stilln ot done with the Forums yet.

Time to hit the servers !!!!!!!!!!

Cleaning home

by

A little reorganization of my most used directory (/home/Terry/Programming/)…

Terry@Dixie$ ls ~/code                                                     7:24
Ada/              D/                PHP/              Shell/
Assembly/         EmacsLisp/        Perl/             Vimscript/
C/                HTML/             Python/           license/
C++/              Java/             Ruby/             view_man_page.sh
CSS/              Javascript/       Scheme/
Terry@Dixie$ ls ~/code/C/                                                  7:25
doc/       include/   lib/       makefiles/ man/       src/       templates/
Terry@Dixie$ ls ~/code/C/doc                                               7:25
Beej's_Guide_to_Network_Programming_Using_Internet_Sockets.html
Beejs_Guide_to_C_Programming.html
C99_Standard.pdf
NCURSES/
c-refcard-fullpage.pdf
compiler-flags
downey05semaphores.pdf
gdb-refcard-fullpage.pdf
gdb.ps
gtk-tutorial.20021027/
how_to_make_a_lib/
hulubei95thix.pdf
indent.pro
lions_book.lastpage
lions_book.pdf
lions_book_src_listings.pdf
Terry@Dixie$ ls ~/code/Ruby                                                7:25
QT/        lib/       man/       src/
doc/       makefiles/ modules/   templates/
Terry@Dixie$ ls ~/code/Ruby/src                                            7:26
Count_Down.rb*   filescan.rb*     myfile.rb*       quickref.rb*
Platform.rb*     foo.m3u          mymethod.rb*     rbeautify.rb*
RubyShell.rb*    grep.rb*         nav/             readwrite.rb*
arg_parser.rb*   hashes.rb*       optparse.rb*     ri20min.rb*
bitmask.rb*      hashglob.rb*     phase2.rb*       rubynumbers.rb*
blgrep.rb*       hello.rb*        phase3.rb*       rubystrings.rb*
dog.rb*          lj.rb*           phase4.rb*       stringusage.rb*
edit_file.rb*    md5toy.rb        playlist.rb*     swat.rb*
exit.rb*         methods.rb*      popmailcheck.rb
Terry@Dixie$                                                               7:26

Bare in mind that I have the ls (list) command aliased to include the -FGH switches on FreeBSD (basically use colours and append a symbol to the end of each file, e.g. dir/ and exe* instead of dir and exe).

~/code is basically made up of a directory per language with room for a little growth. The only languages I actively use are C, Ruby, and BourneShell. But I’m familiar with most in the directory and have made room for some of my ‘to learn’ list. Each directory essentially consists of a simple pattern.

doc/
Documentation, as seen in ~/code/C/doc/ I have a few old tutorials saved, references, an indent(1) profile in case I need it, and a copy of the Lions Book and Code listings amon the PDF’s.
include/modules/whatever
A place to put common bits of code

lib
A spot for ready to use code in library form
makefiles
Ready made makefile templates for feeding through the make program and similar tools
man
Where to stuff manual pages for now
src
The source directory contains source code files, in ~/code/C/src/ resides a copy in HTML and Source form of the UNIX Version 6 Kernels Source Code for reference and reading pleasure. In ~/code/Ruby/src/ it shows that I’ve made directories in the src folders for various libraries and toolkits where necessary. If it’s not some thing I wrote when I started learning the language or a quickie I usually use a directory per program.
templates
A spot to put them when I feel like writing them, I find it most useful for HTML/XHTML

The content various by language but it’s the style I’ve tried to arrange.

The rest of my home directory is also nicely organised for the most part.

Terry@Dixie$ ls ~/|grep '/' | sed 's////g'                                7:45
Desktop
Documents
Music
Pictures
Videos
code
logs
sh
Terry@Dixie$ ls ~/Documents                                                7:45
Computers/             Personal/              Work/
Games/                 School/                [SAS]/
Lyrics of Dixie.txt    Shakespeare/           misc_dot_files.tar.gz
Terry@Dixie$                                                               7:46

I’m glad to have a copy of R^5RS (PDF & PS) on hand so I can work on learning Scheme if I get some vacation time next week.

I like

by

Well, I’ve developed a new profanity of sorts (for me).

Dang fucking gum it !

Haha, I like that balance for some reason =/

Dang gum it — Dad’s style

Fuck — My Moms favorite word lol.

I generally try not to curse…. And almost never when in [SAS] Tags. But when I’m tired it works well when I’m ’round the rest of the world and in private.

Needless to say, I’m prone to muttering “For !@#$s sake” at work often enough. I think I like the sound of Dang !@#%ing Gum It! Better +S.

Ok, so I’m weird =/

I spent almost 16-17 years without cursing actually. I don’t care much for profanity but, I’ve been like the only one in my family that doesn’t curse for mmaaaaaannnnyyyyy years lol.

To Do

by

Play with xemacs

Check out Desktopoperations.txt

Install some MS Windows tools

Reorganize home directory (fun!)

find time to test some synchronization software

work on finding a new standard web browser (firefox 3.0a != fast enough on laptop)

clean up Desktop…. I hate icons !!!

test setting up a mic on desk

copy my ippimail address book to my sasclan[dot]org one

continue ‘special’ operation planing….

finish R^5RS and get a PDF/PS copy of it

Get a PDFPS copy of UNIX V6 source code

Get my ass in TG#1 before I go crazy !!!!

E-Mail Noer about that Report Form idea and talk about it before taking it up with GCHQ.

The rest of my TODO list, well can wait.. til I remember it.

by

Since my unconventional training ideas been approved. I’m planning on letting it rip for Saturday in TG#1 (RvS). Since Scouts Live Op may go green light on Sunday. I’m probably going to try and get a training session done in SWAT4 before or after the live op. I expect that I’ll probably have to do it another day though.

Because what I have planned for with SWAT4, I can really do any day I can get a training session going. But it will take the better part of my day to do it, so I’ll probably end up doing it another day of the week :-(. But I’d much rather see Scouts Live Op be a success.

It would also be nice if I could manage NOT getting shot in the tookus this time… I think most live ops I’ve been in I’ve managed to get shot, even when I lived. I remember the operation on that Mogadishu Mile map. Me and Lazko finished it, last men standing. Including me with a SD Sniper rifle and a Glock 17 both critically low on Ammo and thankful you can’t bleed to death from injuries in SWAT4 like in AAO lolol.

My top secret project is doing good. Most of the doc written last night. I hope to have a chance to talk with Noer about what he thinks. I’m also some what hesitent to suggest employing the doc I’ve written when I consider the potentional ramifications of it being put into practice. Should it get into wild spread usage throughout [SAS]. But I still would like to do it, even if only on a small scale… One dedicated team even.

I still have a few things to work on but I’m mostly cought up with the important stuff. Next weekend if the boss doesn’t have any huge todo lists. It might turn into a semi-vacation for me. Good thing I didn’t find time to clean my laptop yet… It means being around 6 dogs for 3 days. And my Laptops never recovered from last time!!!

It also might interfere with a little rendezvous…. but can’t help that. I’d rather have the time to rest any way then.. Well I’m not saying any details ^_^.

Secret Dreams

by

There is a project that has been weighing on my mind a lot for a while now. I think soon the time may be right to launch it.

The problem is, I need a 2nd who I can trust to carry it on to fruition, even without me if necessary. Yet who is active and able to contribute to the project well as part of a team.

For what I have in mind, I had always figured me and Rasa would split the job. So his retirement right now is a bit of a misfortune.

Rasa I would say is my equal in experience, maybe greater (he was Rct before me). While we have never really agreed over every little detail. I’d like to think we have often balanced each other out when it comes to Tactics and business in the [SAS]. My time as an SNCO and working on the SOP Rewrites and what not. Has shown that. I think the SOP Rewrites have benefited greatly by our working together.

Theres no saying that the project will ever be approved…. But I will begin work on its early documentation.

The issue of who to second me (i.e. be in charge of the project when I’m not around and serve as a fellow EL). What I have in mind requires a dedicated, active, and senior tactical member… Those who could do it in my place don’t have time for it. I don’t really need another thing on my plate… But I don’t know any one else I could trust to take the lead on it.

My best candidates for a 2IC of the project are all less then optimal, even I am not an optimal choice lol.. But it’s the situation I have to work in if I am to prepare for this possible project.

I’ll ready the files and worry about the rest later.

What will happen, if the tip of the spear get sharper? 🙂

PC-BSD v1.4 da Vinci released !

by

I was pleased to see the brain new website this afternoon and 1.4 released. I’m also very happy to see that the new website is LYNX COMPATIBLE !!!! It works and looks nice in modern browsers like Firefox. Yet it still presents a nice clean page to Lynx users.

I downloaded both CD-ROM’s, checked the MD5 Checksums, burned them and got a Quick & Dirty backup of my home directory and config files while I waited.

I think I did some thing like:

tar -czf backups.tgz /boot /etc /root
cd /home
tar -cf - Terry | gzip -9 > /usr/Terry_Home_Backup.tgz

Basically, I made a gzip’d tarball of my old kernel, drivers, and boot-config (/boot), system configuration (/etc) and roots home directory (/root). Then I tar’d and compressed my home directory with gzip. I also made a tarball afterwards of my vim installation in case there was any custom files in it.

Normally when I want to archive a file in a hurry, I use tar’s -z option to archive it (tar, tape archive) and compress it gzip (-z). But since I don’t know how if there is even a way to change the gzip/bzip2 compression level with bsd’s tar implementation. When I want to store some thing big in a hurry however. I usually make use of a pipe and redirection, namely tar -cf – archives the list of files to the standard output rather then a normal file. Which is in turn piped | into gzip who is instructed to use maximum compression on it’s input. And the final data, is redirected > to a file of my choice. Some times I will use bzip2 (higher compression) but I generally favor gzip. As normal, I keep a copy of the backup on this machine and my file server just in case.

My laptop was running PC-BSD v1.4BETA so I was not sure if the upgrade would work correct but it seems to have. The update went smoothly and I was allowed to reselect optional packages from disk 2. I elected for kdeedu, kdesdk, koffice, kdegames, and the FreeBSD source code. All installed fine except for the Source Code !!! My /usr/src is empty, as it was each time I installed 1.4BETA. Oh well, csup will get me newer sources…

Before logging in as my normal user, I had to drop to the console and log in as root in order to change my user accounts log in shell from zsh to one installed (sh, csh, tcsh, bash – I chose sh). Other wise it is impossible to log in from KDM. Of course once I made sure my laptop booted into KDE. I went and installed zsh and changed it back. — I never change roots shell but I do change mine unless I’m sticky. My OpenBSD server still only uses the default (hacked pd)korn shell it came with.

I found 1.4 Release to be much like the Beta but with a new loading screen. I noted that most of the (many) screen savers were removed and one could now specify the rates of the monitor when asked to set up the Xorg config file. It was also nice to see my rc.conf.local file preserved well enough. Although the onboard Winmodem and Winfi don’t work, the ethernet card is now detected by the msk driver as mskc0; I don’t know if it works since I use a Atheros based Wifi card now. It was very nice to see MPlayer back in the install. It was removed from 1.4BETA along with the GTK GUI, in 1.4 Release we have MPlayer and the KMPlayer front end. Although Flash7 seems to have been lost now. Oh well, I’d rather skip compling MPlayer then use Flash ^_^

Since the upgrade process basically nukes all installed software. I had to reinstall most every thing I’ve added. Since I’ve stopped using PBI, that has made this take a little lower. I tend to use ports and a few packages.

My hit list

 codecs   # Hand installed from MPlayerHQ
 cscope   # code browser, I've been meaning to learn how to use it.
 elinks   # Web Browser, text/gui
 exuberant ctags  # What I use to generate my system tags file in ~/.vim/tags
 gmake   # Needed for GTK/QT development and building Vim with GTK support
 konversation   # The worlds greatest IRC Client
 kscope   # GUI front end for cscope, might be worth toying with.
 lynx-current   # Web brower, text; If it supported decent html layout it'd be my default.
 mg   # Micro GNU Emacs based editor maintained by OpenBSD people.
 portaudit   # Was in 1.3 but removed in PC-BSD v1.4
 portupgrade   # Was in 1.3 but removed in PC-BSD 
 prboom and files   # Doom I/II updated to *RUN* on modern hardware.
 psearch   # port searching, I wonder why no one wrote a GUI for this dandy script.
 rtags   # CTags like program for Ruby written in Ruby file, works with vi/emacs
 ruby-doc-stdlib   # Docs of Rubies standard library
 ruby-gems   # Ruby package manager for extra Ruby code
 ruby-usersguide   # Duh
 rubygem-rake   # make done Ruby style
 scheme48   # Scheme, a Lisp like language.
 supertux   # Hey Super Mario, ehhh Super Tux !
 vim   # Compiled from source as per my norm
 xemacs   # Last time I used GNU Emacs, now I'll return to my old emacsen (I prefer Vim)
 xpdf   # Useful tool

I also need to install a decent web browser (gui) and JRE/JDK. I might bite it and use PBI’s for the JRE/JDK but not for any thing else. I’ve found Firefox 3.0 Alpha and Netscape 9 to slow for my tastes (my laptop is only a sempron-m 3300+ and 512mb ddr). Konqueror I’ve found tends to lock up on some websites, maybe it’s the Javascript engine I can’t really tell.

Ether way, I need to find a decent browser I can *live* with that works on most OSes I’m likely to use. Or one that uses the same bookmark format as Konqueror any way xD. Lynx is still the best browser I’ve ever used though, even if it lays out web pages in Text Only and crappy.

My laptop is basically my workstation. So it has a lot of stuff in it, paramount in it is my current home directory. Most important being ~/{Documents,Pictures,Music,.vim,vimrc} and 

Terry@Dixie$ /bin/ls -1 ~/Programming                                      6:53
Ada
Assembly
C
C++
GTK
HTML
Java
NCURSES
PHP
Perl
Python
QT
Ruby
Scheme
Shell
Style
templets

I should probably restructure that directory, make it neater.

Future todos, clean my home directory up again.

reorganise files.

clean up my bookmarks file in prep for a new browser.

Make new XMMS and Blackbox PBI’s.

Pass out… Work in 6 hours…

by

Notes for later…

Problem 0:
Parse input into a suitable data structure for processing; probably split each number into a list of each digit. As I see it, it would eventually end up using (a) multi-dimensional array(s)
Problem 1:
Model necessary numeric limits and processes, namely once a digit > 9 ‘carry’ it.
Problem 2:
Maintain accuracy and precision

The Time Machine

by

For a change they actually had some thing good on TV. The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine, not the new ones but the classics.

The Classic time machine is a very good movie, I can’t help but wonder about the ending of it though. The Time Traveler took off back to the future with only 3 books. And it’s a open-ended question, what books would you choose? That’s given at the end of the movie.

Personally, I’d bring more writing materials and skip a book lol. If I was in the position of the Time Traveler in the movie. The first thing I would probably do is try and get things working, make sure food is tended to. And probably try to teach a small group to read/write and about the sciences. And let the few help me teach the many. Actually, I think in Frank Herbert’s Dune (very good book and movie!!!), I think Paul and Jessica Atreides took a similar approve to teaching the Fremen their forms of combat. But that way, in a few decades with a largely reading and writing Eloi. It would be possible to leave enough of my knowledge behind in writing for future generates to hopefully find useful.

For the choice of 3 books, I think I would have to go with the Bible. Just to much good in it not to bring it along. A book on agriculture since people have to eat, without the Morlocks and their machines the Eloi’s cushy live style was destroyed. And for the third, probably a book on science, unless a decent Do It Your Self book on building houses existed in any 1899 Inventors book collection ^_^. Without any power (short of years to build a primitive steam or hydroelectric power station just to get energy, let along an electrical outlet!), bringing a modern day computer would be a waste of weight. Even if it had a dump of all the info on the net, it would just be a hunk of parts in the Eloi’s future.

The Remake in the early 2000’s was a nice movie but I think the old one from the 1960s is better. I’ve never read the original book but I would like to some day. I doubt ether movie follows it to closely but it would be interesting to see what there starting point was.

*sigh* Almost time to go back to work… I still haven’t gotten to read a lot of R5RS (Revised5 Report on the algorithmic language Scheme). My cold is starting to balance out a bit… A little phlegm lighter but still sick. At least things seem to be in a manageable condiction and the medication is helping. I definitally don’t feel like going to work today but it’s not that way in life. Your sick, you still go to work simple as that. Unless your to sick to crawl in. Maybe that is one of the problems in our socieity. If your sick, you shouldn’t try and give it to other people!!! We had a short-gig baby sitting one night. One of the kids had a cough and guess what. Like two days later both of us came down with it lol.

Finally some time alone.

by

Home from work, til 0700 tomorrow..

Every one is mostly quite so maybe I can take some time to get a little work done. I’ve spent most of my time these past few days playing Armored Core: Nexus on the Playstation 2 since no ones let me alone. I’d like to take some time to work on learning more about LISP, there is only 3 major forms of lisp I know of in fairly common usuage. Emacs Lisp, the language used for extending the GNU and X Emacs editors — which means it’s probably able to do any thing in it short of write an OS only in elisp (without other languages, like Assembly).

There is also Common Lisp, if I remember correctly it was an attempt to mak a common ground among the various dialects of LISP that sprang up over the years. And there is Scheme, I think the current standard for the Scheme Language was just released back in Augest. For me, I think Scheme is probably going to be the one I try to learn. I’ve never really used a lisp like language before, I’m used to C-Like ones, BourneShell, Python, and Ruby probably being the farthest I’ve gone in other directions.

The problem with Scheme as I see it, would be finding a suitable implementation (hopefully also supported by SLIB). That it won’t be to easy to shoot my self in the foot with. I’d rather like not to have to be tied to any given implementation but I don’t know enough of Scheme to know what *not* to depend on. I don’t think it would be to serious a problem, although not as simple as with C. With C, it’s quite easy to find out what you *should* have by systems that implement the languages standard. And there’s some level of standardization among Unix like systems of what ‘extras’ you are given. The Win32 API…. I’m not even going to ask. In fact, the first time I looked at the Win32 API, it made me think Assembly would be more fun. Well… Technically if I had the time to invest in it, I’d probably love learning X86 Assembly and all of the hardware related stuff that might lead to learning in turn.. So just call me Crazy as they come.

I find generally, I can learn almost any thing given enough time. The only problem is getting around the obsticlues (time, energey, and a family that will not comply).