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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

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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 !

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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…

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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

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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.

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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).

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*SIGH* It seems like every time I want to sit down and type some thing for my blog. I always end up AFK =/

Being the healthest sick person in the house, I guess thats to be expected…. That or I just need to learn how to build my self a sound proof bunker lol.

*sighs*….

Being Busy yet still not getting any thing done sucks. At least I did get ONE thing useful done today, sent GCHQ a new recruit checklist to nit pick. With about 30-40 items on it hehe.

Not to mention I need to get up for work and out the door around 0700 every day til Tuesday (when I get to sleep in till almost 0830). And hopefully a Day off come September 28th. If I’m lucky, maybe the 6th and 7th of October. I’d like to try and put together a Live Op for SWAT4 around then, because all the ones I have been setting up have been for RvS. The problem, it’s hard to get a decent map for a Live Op in SWAT4. And to make it worse without a Mic I can’t even play test the map…

Usually when I do a Live Op, I play it a little in Custom Mission mode (RvS) and will use the ghost cam to take some screen shots for Intel, likethe 8 I did for Saving The Prince. And during the Live Op itself, I usually try to serve as an Operator at the Tactical Operations Centre, providing support via the Radio. In SWAT4, I can’t take any intel photo’s like that (Fuuy) and if I play test the map. Because theres no real spectator mode thats worth a damn. I would have to probably communicate only via XFire with the Element as they clear the map — because I can’t talk on without a Mic!. And If I’m in the server but not playing the map, that robs some one a slot who could be in the Op. Not to mention, if I don’t play test the map before using it for the Live Op, I have no way of knowing what situation the guys will walk into. And therefore no way to provide any briefing…. Which kind’ve takes the point out of it. Since a Live Op is supposed to be as close to the real thing as we can get.

Raged Spiders

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Well, the live op was a master scaled disaster.

The planning started in March, the Live Op was to be marvelous. The map was huge, 5 levels worth and three huge buildings plus larger areas connecting them. Plus a bell tower with a sniper. Two hostages and a Bomb !

The scenario was pretty simple, HRH Prince Charles of Wales got kidnapped and was tracked down. At the direction of MI5, Armed Police kicked in the door on a house where the Residents were suspected of being terrorists. After a heck of a fight, they link up with lots of others and take over U.W.A. A big university in south Wales. Two strike choppers of the Royal Protection Squad taken out of the sky in a quick rescue attempt gone bad.

I stayed up all night to make the Intel doc’s we used for this simulation. 8 Photo’s with detailed comments so people could plan the map, about the only aid that we got lol. I even saved a last photo for an ‘in mission update’ showing the primary hostage, complete with bomb.

The [SAS] Element was to enter the fortress sized building, overcome the enemy, locate the royal hostage, optionally an injured pilot (from the RPS rescue attempt). And extract. I’d clear the roof area and get the tech squad to destroy the SAM sites on the roofs so we can get a Helicopter extraction. Then redeploy, go dynamic and frag every hostile on the map (reloaded to a tango hunt).

So, what went wrong?

Before the Live Op started, every one was supposed to be briefed, the last Intel was posted a day or two before the deadline.

There should’ve been a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in command ready before the mission took place and a special Dynamic aslt plan prepared (the Immediate Action Plan) in place the Live Op had to launch early (Shots fired, hostage in danger, GO GO GO!).

It took forever for them to read the Intel -> but they did very good with the 15min time limit to plan the op.

Several people mis-installed the map because I didn’t have time to make a Click Team installer for it, just a batch file to install the files to the default paths for those who had it. Rest had to do it manually. Map was like 68MB, zipped down to 17.7MB.

During this time I was arguing with my mom, she used the phone and it caused my (aDSL/Ethernet) network connection to drop (A little problem we have here). So I had to storm out and devliever AJ (my nephew). They were nice enough to wait for me… Unforutintly Pittman couldn’t hang around it took to long.

Every one f@#king died

Leaving a bunch of Old School [SAS] in Royal Protection Squad Uniforms to come out of my imagination and save the day.

I’ve worked hard for months (March-September) setting up this live op. I wanted it to be some thing special for the guys, a real good live op. But it was hell on wheels from where I sat.

To top it all off, my family has all but tried to sabotage the freaking live op most of the afternoon. When I’ve gone through the trouble of arranging FOUR MONTHS in advance to have ONE DAY to spend on the computer. Gone through the hoopla of getting 7 people organised into for a single advent, planned down to the polish on the boots.

I freaking expect to be there with the time I scheduled to be rightfully mine to try & use!

Only GOD has a right to control my life without my permission.

The day before, when we scheduled to have me cart my nephew (my sisters bird) over there. I specified BEFORE 2 or in the Evening after the live op. We had every thing arranged like clock work the day before,, perfect I would be able to do what they wanted + get to hold the Live Op.

What happens? She’s not ready of bed by 3pm. My mother is going ape because she wants the loud mouth bird out of hear so she can work (his bird cage was in the way). So I’ve got to hold up the dang live op. It could have been easily done after the live op, simple. But no, they can’t wait for some thing planned months before there plans were even on the to do list.

All because two people can’t follow a schedule. They can’t do what they’ve agreed, they can’t deal with “Your late, then you wait”, well frag’em. Hell, I can’t even have a conversation with some one without my family interfering.

//— Start Rant —//
Not fit for human consumption
//— End Ran —//

Most of the time I ever do get to play games with my friends, it’s because my family is driving me too crazy to get stuff done. Or I’m not physically and mentally up to the task, so I send a few rounds with my friends then drop to get back to work. Most of the other times, it’s because some one asked me to Join them for a few games. I’m thankful for it.

I’ve had enough, if my family won’t respect me as I respect them. Then they can suck off before I show them the behavior I prefer to. They want to be bastards, then I should be a Monster. An Iron Fist. But I’m not that kind of person…. Unlike the rest of my family (IMHO), I think controlling your self before you allow yourself to hurt some one you care for is a thing that we should try.. I don’t like to hurt people, it’s not who I am. I like to be ‘me’, I like to be free. But not to the extent that I rip up other people.

I think if I ever get married, I would have more to apologize to my wife for then be thankful for of what place my experiences in Family life have had an effect on me. After nearly 20 years of being around people, they rub off on you…. Even things you try to avoid. Needless to say, much of whats gone on in my Family…. Is not what I want a future generation to ever know what it’s like.

The result? Some times I’m like a monster… Like I’ve seen them, at least in the same spirit of. The difference? I don’t want to be… I see it for what it is, wrong. I don’t like to be ‘mean’, it’s just not who I am on the inside. But it’s the rage they bring out in me. The rage I’ve learned from being around my family…

*sigh*.

No matter what I do, they always hurt me…. but I don’t want to hurt them back, even if I feel I should at times. And even thinking that way for a few minutes (to inflict on them what they inflict on me) is some thing I’m sorrowful about when I calm down.

One of the reasons why I work to try and serve the [SAS] and it’s Membership, is because it’s not like my family. It’s a good place, one where I would be honored to see my Children become involved in it; if I ever live to have any.

Of my travel through live, the best things to happen to me…

Finding GOD

My time with the SAS

Learning to read

And learning every thing I can about the things that interest me.

The miserable part? My family has had very little positive involvement or influence in any of it, other then learning to read… =S While other people have…

Dewookification

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As much trouble as an hour of shaving is… It’s nice to finally be rid of that beard. Even if it took having to work Saturday for me to actually do it haha.

One of these days I’d love to get a straight razor (basically the old fashion kind)… Might cost a little (lot) more then the common safety razors used these days. But I think having to care for the blade would be cheaper and more effective then buying replacement cartridges every now and then (yes I am a cheap bastard).

The minor of issue of having to learn to use it would also be no problem (hopefully). The cost is the problem =/

Hmm, hopefully I’ll get at least 15 min before work to catch up on my reading for the day. I left off some where around Page 19’ish a couple months back and never found the time to continue.

*Sighs*, wouldn’t it be nice to have a nice long vacation with lots of reading time… hehe.