I Hate Friends

Since they're friends, it would almost seem implicit that i would not hate them. Guess what. I do.

It's not really thier fault. The problem is that knowing a person like me eventually makes a person realize that I am of use on occasion, so favors start to be asked. So, a person of utility like myself ends up helping out with these favors in order to make a buddy's life easier. Eventually, in a scenario like this, the only reason that a person calls you is because you're useful. You stop having conversations that don't involve solving a person-not-yourself's problems. You stop working on fucked up cars that aren't yours. You stop beating the fuck out of people that didn't directly threaten you.

You know the deal ... sometimes you find drunks sleeping on your couch that aren't you.

Me, I'm definitely part of the problem ... I don't act like a complete idiot around friends all of the time. If you fancy yourself as a jack-of-all-trades, don't let people in on it. Or, in the words of Jimmy (one of the few friends that hasn't managed to piss me off), "Don't do that, that's something I would do."

Ramblings

So, I'm sitting here bored again.

I just got home. I've been chatting with my mostly inebriated friend Chris. I tutored Chris (as well as most of the rest of the class) when he and I were in a couple of computer science courses together at the local college. In return, he'd provide me with a ride to and from school. Wasn't a bad trade ... it meant I only had to walk the three miles from work to his house instead of the twenty miles from work to school.

Anyways, I've not heard from Chris in a while. I quit school again halfway through last year. Turns out that the instructor that he and I studied under is having a shindig this weekend for his students, and Chris thinks that Doc Mabis will get a kick out of my showing up. I don't doubt it.

You see, when Mabis has me in a class, he's happy. It's not because I'm a terribly charming person or anything (hello ... been paying attention). It's because I'm about the only fucker that will talk in his classes. He's got a kinda different teaching style. That's not a bad thing necessarily, but it does tend to alienate his students a bit. The biggest problem is that he lets you know at the beginning of each term that he expects the material to be covered in class to have been read before the class. I've never actually done it (I've been coding for a long time ... not much trouble to be found in general CS courses), but I don't consider it to be an unreasonable request. The problem is that most students, myself included, are just terribly fucking lazy. They tend to think that every class is going to be a breeze. That's just not the case.

At any rate, I guess I'm going to go, so long as Chris does. I get to be his date!!!

I Hate Marvel

"But you can't hate Marvel Comics ... they make X-Men!!!!!!1!1!!11!!111one" Yeah, but they also turned some of the original badasses into straight-up pussies.

What badasses might I be talking about? The one whose pussification pisses me off the most is Thor. Thor, God of Thunder. Thor, Patron of All Vikings. Thor, Son of Odin. Thor, Blonde Douche That Says Shit Like "Verily, ye shall pay evil doer!"

They managed to somehow equate the hottest temper that any realm has seen to Ward fucking Cleaver. That is some most definite shit, and I'm just not having it.

What do I plan to do about it? I finally worked up the nerve to draw the Asgardians the way that I see them, with a story to fit. I don't expect that everybody will be pleased with my notion of the Asgardians, but I doubt that I can do much worse of a job than Marvel did.

Why do I think mine will be any better? Charcoal, if for no better reason. I do a good deal of computer imaging and whatnot, and I've come to the conclusion that no matter how good that junk looks, it will NEVER be able to replace good old get-your-hands-dirtier-than-shit charcoal drawings.

I don't know how long this project's going to take. It's going to be called Midgard. It's going to revolve mainly around Thor. It's going to be free to anybody that wants a copy (though I may ask for some help with the shipping). Leave a comment if you want me to remember you when printing the copies out.

What's Wrong With Sorcerer?

Several things.

While the sole coder that works on the package managment system for Sorcerer GNU/Linux is among the finest bash scripters that I've known, he tends to make RADICAL changes overnight that often result in every Sorcerer box aside from his own (the one that he tests on, that is to say) to completely take a shit. I don't mean a little two-floater. I mean a full-on six flushes and a jug-o-drano. So why is he the only coder, and why does development not happen as it does with most OSS projects?

The license. I don't care if this is the way that anybody else remembers things ... I know what I perceived as happening when the fit hit the shan. A while after Sorcerer experienced a rather substantial slashdotting, people started to become annoyed for much the same reasons that I am. Things were changing radically overnight, shit was breaking, fire and brimstone, cats sleeping with dogs, et cetera. Since everything was licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License at that point, some of those that were hollaring the loudest about the problems basically told the sole coder to fuck off ... they were going to fork the codebase and take off running with thier own distro. It was originally called Lunar Penguin, but it's been shortened to just Lunar nowadays. So what happened?

Aforementioned sole coder seemingly went batshit. Nuked any trace of SGL and put up a nasty note in its place that explained that anybody that ever forks a codebase should roughly fuck off and die. Where did this leave the folks that did not run off with the coder's code?

In the shitter. What happens when you find yourself neck deep in feces? You dig your way out. Thus, the community-driven Sorcerer GNU/Linux was born. Why did they keep the name?

Because it didn't look like the sole coder was ever going to work on a public project again (and they were right, to a degree). However, a few weeks later, the original Sorcerer website reappeared, except that the distro had been renamed to just Sorcerer. As a sign of respect for the original coder, the "new" SGL renamed itself ... it became Sourcemage GNU/Linux. What kind of response did that garner from the original coder?

He went batshit again. He didn't understand in the least why nobody would want to be involved with a project developed by a sole coder that has a tendency to throw temper tantrums, take his ball, and go the fuck home. Though I stuck around with the original coder, I really can't say that I blame them in the least. Why not?

They were Free. That is to say, the code that they were hacking on, though not the latest and greatest codebase, was released under a Free Software license (GPL) that allowed just about anybody that they saw fit to help out to do so in a fairly unencumbered way. What did those of us that stuck around out of principle get?

A concrete dildo, wrapped in barbed wire, straight up the ass. We got the SPL (I would post a link, except that there is no way to get a copy of the license, so far as I can tell, without actually downloading the software that it covers ... and there is NO mention of it on the Sorcerer website proper) (actually, I did stumble over it today ... which is the only way that one would find it, since there is no link to it ... there is on this page right here, though). This is a non-free software license that basically states that we can't do a fucking thing with the code that we're using. Not only that, but if we do actually write anything to improve the code in question, we MAY NOT distribute our changes as part of a full codebase ... only as patches. That's balls, it sucks, and it's certainly no way to treat the people that have proved loyal to you. So why am I so pissed?

I like Free software. I don't mean junk that I don't have to pay for ... sure, that helps, but it's not the kind of "free" that I'm referring to in this case. I enjoy having the freedom to fuck around with something as I see fit and give it away, much as it was given to me, as a means of expressive service. I get to express myself through the changes that I make, and I get to perform a service for anybody that thinks that my way of doing things in a particular situation might be the way to go. As it stands now, there is no chance of me making any alterations to the sorcery (the package management system for Sorcerer) code base, as I may eventually wish to write some Free software that fits the same purpose. Why would having worked on the code base be bad? Because then it would easily be assumed by the original coder that I drew some if not all of my ideas for my Free software from his non-free software. Thusly, I'd be bound to the terms of his license, the SPL, and that is complete balls. Feel free to comment if this doesn't make any fucking sense, as I'm fairly certain that it may not.

I'm not trying to advocate the forking of a code base, but stranger (and far harsher) things do happen. That is one of the prices that one must pay for decent code ... if you are not willing to accept that somebody might not like the way that you do things, you should seriously consider the viability of your project and its relationship to the close-knit community that you are going to derive (as you're never going to win over a large community with asspirate-like licensing terms).

Bet you're glad you read this.

POV RAY (One of the few things that I don't completely hate)

POV-RAY, for those that don't know, is just a good old-fashioned ray tracer. For those that don't know, a ray tracer is a simple form of what a lot of people call a "3D renderer." It simulates objects made of simulated materials and whatnot within a given perspective, and then simulates photons bouncing off of said objects in order to produce a photorealistic image of what these objects should look like.

For a quick example of what all that crap boils down to, take a look at the image in my profile. Sure, a normal hand should not be as shiny as all that, but I'm terrible with manipulating materials, so I fixed that quality of the image by slapping a name on it. Called it "Steel Sorcerer," as it is part of a background image that I made to give a little flair to the Sorcerer GNU/Linux distribution. Soon enough, I think I'm going to break my developmental ties with Sorcerer, but that's another can of worms for another verbose rant.

The great thing about pov, in my opinion, is its scene description language. This doesn't mean much to most non-coders, but the language is remarkably similar to C/C++ and other languages that follow the general ALGOL-60 syntax. It's bloody marvelous not only for its convenience to us codemonkeys, but for the fact that it allows you to create rather complex images without having to use a modeller (WINGs3D, Maya, Bryce 3D, Blender, et cetera). This is a good thing, because even the codemonkeys that can draw fairly well, in my experience, tend to have a bit of trouble dealing with 3-space manipulations. The use of drawing as an example is bad to begin with, because this sort of thing is much more similar to sculpture, except that it's incredibly less convenient than traditional sculpture ... you only really get one point of contact with the material that you're sculpting in a 3D modelling environment.

I'm one of those types. I can draw reasonably, though I hate to think of anything that I draw as art. I can sculpt when I'm forced to, which doesn't happen much nowadays. I cannot, however, use a modelling package to save my worthless fucking life. I can cook up some mean code on occasion, though. Nobody believes me about that much at the moment, but I could really give fuck all.

There are, of course, some downers in regards to povray. Though it's kind of trite for me to bitch about a free software package in this sense, I don't know that I care for the license for it. I have more complaints, but they're nothing that I can't get over. That's the foremost complaint that I have about a lot of the shit that I'm working with at the moment ... fucking non-FSF-friendly licensing. That's one of the several reasons that I don't think I'll be helping out with Sorcerer for long, for example. I'm really not anybody to judge, but who else is going to bitch about it?

As I tend to end all of my posts to the Sorcerer development list nowadays ...

Of course, what do I know?

All Alone In the Office

So I'm sitting here at work. It's 10:30 AM CST (which you could probably guess from looking at the date and time that this post was created). Not only am I sitting here, but I'm the ONLY one sitting here. Appears that everybody else decided to take a half-day (if not more).

I don't really mind, to tell the truth. I've been violating the office open-door policy for about two weeks now. I do that when I find myself recently single ... no matter how well I take it for the sake of not making somebody else feel like a complete twat, I tend to close myself off to everybody. Been about that long since I shaved, too. Figure I'll grow my beard back out and see if I can lose the Meatloaf thing a bit. Don't worry ... I still won't be a pretty boy by any means.

I've been running around the office for the past twenty minutes screaming bloody murder. I mean that, too. "BLOODY MURDER!!!" Of course, I've been thinking about the things that I'm supposed to accomplish the entire time. Doesn't change the fact that there isn't nearly enough bloody murder screaming going on nowadays.

So, it's about 11:00 now. I'm sitting here, talking to the ex a bit on the phone. It appears that she doesn't understand why nobody but unhandsome dudes are attracted to her. I know why, but what point is there in telling her? That would be cheating, and I got over cheating with Contra on the good old NES. The only thing that I've told her in the last couple of weeks is, "well, I hope ya don't get the clap or anything." Charming, no?

I Hate Philosophy, Too

So my buddy Patrick was in town most of the summer, and this is What I Did On My Summer Vacation.

It's a short tale. I didn't really do jack through most of the summer. Been getting used to my new job. Been driving around and chatting with Patrick a lot. Been left high and dry by just about the only woman on this rock that I don't detest. That's life.

So back to Patrick. In doing all this driving around the same 144 square miles of home turf all summer, we could either talk or listen to music. Since, as you can see if you look at my full profile, I have horrid taste in music, we did a lot of talking. One of the subjects that tended to come up a lot was general philosophy. I don't study philosophy currently, nor have I ever. Patrick has, so I didn't mind learning a bit. I still don't plan to ever study philosophy, but it's nice to talk to somebody that might know what they're talking about. That's a definite change from the norm.

At any rate, Patty's first night in town brought him to ask me why nobody leaves this godforsaken hole. I don't really know, but I know why I haven't (aside from the lack of means by which to do so). Constant misery is not a bad thing. It's consistent. It's a lot easier to be content in slavery than it is to make an attempt at freedom. As long as the misery is consistent, a person can get used to it. Once a person achieves happiness, on the other hand, said person must work constantly to maintain that happiness. So, a happy person's life becomes an ongoing trial of worrying about what might happen tomorrow that will cause the happiness to wane. That's no way to live.

Me, I'm confident that I'm going to be just as miserable tomorrow as I am today. I know that I'm not going to do anything that might lead to my being happy, because then I'm just setting myself up for disappointment. That would be equivalent to me jumping off of the Henderson bridge (the twin bridges that lead from southwest Indiana to northwest Kentucky, spanning the Ohio River) and thinking that I might not hit the water. It's complete ass, and it's certainly no way to live.

So, the next time you think to yourself that you could be happier if you did things differently, think about the consequences of being happy. I think you'll probably find yourself to be quite miserable, and not the good kind of miserable.

Insomnia's A Pain In The Ass

That's right ... no sleep for me.

Slept almost ten hours today ... didn't wake up until 6:30 PM CST. That is what I tend to average in a week, so I don't expect to sleep for a few days.

On the bright side, that will give me some time to pay attention to the window manager codebase that I've been mucking about with. In April, I started a fork of the flwm window manager (by Bill Spitzak). It hadn't been updated in three years, and that means that it no longer works with the gui toolkit that it was written to utilize, fltk.

Unfortunately, my fork is about to drop the fltk dependency as well. It's not that I don't like fltk ... it's just that the newer versions of fltk seem to be considerably more buggy than the older versions. For example, trying to pop up the system menu in awflwm will occasionally cause any window near the mouse cursor to be half-sized, which is complete balls. So, I've started writing a pure Xlib backend for awflwm. This is going to take a considerable amount of time, because I don't know the first thing about straight Xlib programming. I do have a couple of books on the subject ... just never got around to fucking with the concept. I thought about lifting some code from blackbox, but that seems like it would be as much (if not more) of a pain in the ass than just writing the new backend out right.

That's right ... I hate blogs.

So if I hate blogs, why have I created one? Why not? I can't help but stare at a train wreck. I can't help but place my hand on a burner. Seems that I can't help but to write my personal thoughts in a public forum.

I know full well that I don't have anything interesting to say ... I don't even have original thoughts anymore. A lot of my thoughts revolve around conversations that never happened and other such crap.

By all rights, I'd imagine that nobody will ever actually read anything that I post here, and that's probably for the better. Much like television, anything that I do have to say tends to rot the intellect. That's why I don't think about much of anything. When I'm forced to think about things, things go badly. That isn't for lack of the ability to think about things really, I'd just prefer not to, so I don't much. I've made an art of thinking about absolutely nothing ... figure that I can at least be completely honest when I respond to people that ask me what I'm thinking about when I look as if I'm pondering something.

Enough about me, though ... what about you?