YouTube - Bunnies don't milk cows

If you ever get a chance to try a Wii, you HAVE to try this game:
Rayman Raving rabbits

It's very funny... and make very good use of the Wii-mote...

New MMO in dev...

I see things like this and I have to pinch myself to see if I'm dreaming...

Fallout is one of my favorite RPG of all time (Chrono Trigger is another) and to hear a new MMO and that a new game is coming out in november of next year I feel like I'm dreaming...

Of course, it's still a years off, but since the original was release in 1997 and the last sequel in 1998, I've already waited more than 7 years for this game... so a year or two doesn't sound all that bad...

Wii have a winner!

I've always liked gaming, but consoles have always been a sort of 'nope' for me. I never felt that the consoles where an irreplaceable thing, that you couldn't have has much fun with a good computer game. And it was mostly true. Simcity, Civilisation, Starcraft and the recent MMORPG are just a couple of title off of my head that I find more enjoyable on a computer than on a console (if they are even available).

Well... What I experienced monday changed all that...

I got to try the new Nintendo Wii.

I have heard of it and was intrigued, so when I had the opportunity to try one, I took it... I have to admit, I was surprised... very surprised.

30 sec was all it took me to understand the basic of the tennis in Wii Sports. I lost, but it was fun... a lot of clean simple fun...

The Wii-mote change the entire relation you have with the machine itself. The idea of movement instead of buttons tend to make the game feel more natural. You don't have to think about which button to hit, you act, and the character on screen follows you. It's a big step up the learning curve. A First Person shooter is the perfect example for this: you don't to explain the controls, you just point the Wii-mote at the screen, and shot!

It's so simple, my mother actually liked trying the thing this morning...And she never played any video game before...

I'm not sure I'm going to actually buy one, but I am sure to keep an eye on it...

Sick

I've been sick for the past couple of days. It's this bizarre condition where I dizzy spells several times per day, yet I'm still able to stand on my 2 feet. I mostly feel OK throughout the day, but it's really annoying..

The doctor wasn't even sure exactly what I had...

Anyway, I feel a lot better now that I did the 'ultimate natural treatment':
-Lots of sleep
-Eat well, at least one orange or apple or banana a day
-Cut back coffee to minimum dose (Small instead of Large)
-Multivitamins every morning
-Tylenol and more sleep when things go ugly.
-Workout when able to..
-NO alcohol (well, not sure if it helped a lot, but I did it anyway)

I know it's mostly all common sense, but we, as human being, tend to be too lazy to actually do all those things...

But that i've tried it for a week, I feel great... I think I'll try and keep that treatment all winter, to try to prevent the flu. Or at least keep the symptoms to a minimum.

Anyway, I know It's superficial information but I challenge you to try it for a week... It's not easy, But I think it's worth it..

Security Absurdity.com > Security Absurdity; The Complete, Unquestionable, And Total Failure of Information Security.

Take the time to read the The Complete, Unquestionable, And Total Failure of Information Security. It's a worthy read. Then, read part 2: the comments from the security community, The good, the bad and the Ugly.

Product (RED)

Living in Montreal, I had never heard of Product (RED) before. I think it's a simply, yet impressive idea.

Since it doesn't ask people to change their habits, it might actually work pretty well, especially in this holiday time.

So how about a (RED) shirt? Perfect for the holiday season!

Hacking Democracy

I have watched this video and I am shocked. Of all the databases they could use, Diebold use Ms Access to tally the votes! It's a joke! Ms Access was never design with the necessary security in mind required for an election. It's a small application to drive development for small database uses. I can only guess what the other companies uses but I hope it's better than that.

I am so glad that my own government choose to ban these machines. These machines are the worst thing that could happen to a democracy of any kind: They do things in secret. They can easily fail. It's hard to prove they haven't been tempered with. It's impossible to guaranty the results.

Yet they were used in 80% of the polls in the US. Why?

Because they are the only one-stop-shop systems that satisfies all the requirements in the HAVA (Help America Vote Act). They also represents millions of dollars in contract for the private industries that supplies them. There is no economic incentive to produce a really good voting machine, and there is little political pressure to ensure that these machines worked as advertised.

They are only there to give the people the illusion of democracy. But there is no conspiracy. It's not malice that gave America those machines. It's a combination of tough requirements lobbied in by the manufacturers of those machines and a general "I don't care" attitude by the elected official as long as the public opinion doesn't change much (no scandals).

As long as people don't care about this issue, big corporation will continue to get multi-million dollar contract to build less-than-adequate voting that fails to protect the will of the people. Someone in the US really new to crack those machines on the night of the election. It may be a federal crime to do so, but if it is the only way to prove democracy is dead, it may be a worthy sacrifice.

"Le Patron" Writing Assistant

I found this really nice French grammatical assistant from the university of Alberta:
"Le Patron" Writing Assistant

It is free to use, and I found it ironic that it's coming from an English university (as opposed to one in Quebec)

Depression, My own little explanation

I get to this subject at least once a year, and it's one topic where I can easily lose my own temper, so I'll try to write a complete explanation of the concept of depression. I'm not talking about a passing condition, a sort of "I don't feel well today", but of real clinical depression. But before any sort of explanation, there is a very nice article on Wikipedia on the subject:
Clinical depression

But the article in Wikipedia doesn't address the common misconceptions on depression (It's not the purpose of a encyclopedia) so I'll try to debunk a couple of those...

First of all, it's not something which can be easily 'fought out' or 'overturned'. It's a condition that slowly drain all the motivation or energy of someone, the very thing required to 'fight' the condition. It's like trying to run with chains attached to both feet. So someone depressive is not like that because he is too lazy, he instead lose any interest in why he should do anything.

Second, a depressed person can be really difficult to understand. Irritability is one of the symptoms and it can make someone very unpredictable. They will get angry or upset for the most irrelevant things, and wonder why they got angry 2 minutes later. Some will have a "I just don't care attitude" which can be a real pain. Others will simply pretend everything is all right, while still acting strange (The "Everything is fine, leave me alone" attitude).

Third, depression may not be because of a particular event, but be rather a large accumulation of smaller more insignificant reasons, or sometime for no particular reasons at all. Stress, strain, loss of sleep, diminution of daylight, etc.: a lot of factors can contribute to a depression, and they are not always visible at first. It is also important to note that it's not the nature of the events, but rather the perceptions of these same event that count.

Last but not least, don't treat a depressed individual like it's their fault. The "It's all in your head" or "Just cheer up" remarks only help to make the depressed one guilty about his own condition, which in turn, doesn't help at all. Social stigma is the worse thing anyone can give to any individual suffering from any form of mental illness.

Of course, this is all from my own experiences over the years... I'm pretty sure there are others I'm simply missing, but I think it's a good start.

If you would like more information on the subject of depression and metal illness in general, see the Mental illness foundation's website

Warcraft Doesn't Have To Wreck Lives... but it does...

And in opposition to the posting I did yesterday, come this one:
Slashdot | How Warcraft Doesn't Have To Wreck Lives

Online gaming is now part of our internet lives. And whatever you do, people will always critic your work. But these dicussions seems to lose sight of the real question that should come out the oppisition of these ideas:

Why are some people wrecking theirs lives in a MMORPG while others don't?

To get a full answer to this question, we need to go back a bit, stand way back and examine the problem from a more historical perspective.

These MMORPG, when you come down to it, are simple games. A pretending game with a set of rules in a fictionnal universe. Just like D&D, or Warhammer 40000 from a couple of year ago. People have wreck their own live with theses games also, but on a smaller scale. Technology brought better immersion into the game, as well as lowered the bar for the rules of the game. Thus, with online gaming (in the form of MMORPG), every problem that has existed in the past in the form of a table-top game, becomes much worse.

Even worse, most of theses onlines games are made to give the player easy and tangible rewards. While, it does tend to make the game more fun, it does keep players hooked ("just one more... ").

But the biggest problem, table-top, real live, or online is that the responsability of playing responsably falls in the hand of the player. If the game is engineered, by choise or by chance, to keep the player hooked, it can become like a form a addiction.

A good life, is a well balanced life. Everthing can become an addiction or a obsession, but when taken with a responsible mind, it's all good.

Soul Kerfuffle: The View From the Top

This got posted on slashdot (and Digged also), but I still think it's a worthy read:
Soul Kerfuffle: The View From the Top

It's basicly a story how an MMORPG can ruin lives...

But I think, if you spend this much time in a game, you problem have a problem with priorities or are trying to compansate for a bigger problem.

It's an addiction not quite unlike gambling. Except in this case, you don't get the same kind of reward. But, as with gambling, you cannot 'win' the game...

You have to kept in the mind, that it is just a game, and only a game... nothing more...

Defective by Design's Day Against DRM

From Micheal Geist's Blog:

Defective by Design's Day Against DRM: "October 3rd is Defective by Design's Day Against DRM . The group has compiled a list of hundreds of things that people can do to address the issue. There are several Canadian activities planned. At the conclusion of my 30 Days of DRM series, I provided a list of 30 things that people can do about the threat of DRM and anti-circumvention legislation."

I don't support the idea of DRM, because it simply doesn't work. I can easily understand why the content distributers want this sort of protection on the content, but it simply puts limits on material than real criminal will find ways to circumvent.

DRM is sort of like the idea of Crypto, but the problem is that the recipient of the content is also the same one you are trying to protect the content from. Like protecting a candy jar from a kid. The end result, is that you have to design a system based on the activity of the recipient, and thus, you wind up stopping legitimate activities because they are, from the perspective of the DRM system, indiscernible from bad activities.

The end result, is a set of arbitrary restrictions, based on the best interest of the content distributer, not the consumer nor the content creator.

If you don't believe me, you can read it directly from the artists mouth, from the Canadian Music Creators Coalition's 'what we stand for' page...

Apple Estate pictures

We went to an apple estate this weekend, just south of the city. And while we forgot to bring a camera, I found a couple of old pictures from 2003. This one is the view from up in mountain in the back of the estate. I'll try to bring a camera next time and post more pictures. 

This morning

This is an eerie fog this morning. It's quite rare this see a fog in these parts. And after wednesday's shooting, it does make a strange coincidence.

I had a couple of posting about security I wrote while taking the bus to work this week. I have them right beside me, but i'm not in the mood. The events on wednesday killed my all my intentions.

To see my hometown live on every major TV network in North America live for 4 hours and for a school shooting was quite disheartening.

Here almost everyone had the same reaction it's Polytechnique all over again.

By the time this will be posted, the fog will be gone. Just like the shock from the event will eventually fade away. Life will carry on. But we will never forget.

Changed the title

There!

I changed the title because I received comments about how it was a bit confusing, and I think the new one is bit better.

If I kept things static, life would be boring anyway.

The victim-counselor unwritten contract

To the ones dear to me who are in past, present or future pain,

So you are a victim. Life is hard for you. Things are bringing you down. You wake up every morning thinking how this day is the worst day in the life, even before it has even started. You feel a growing pain that doesnt go away. You feel lost and everywhere you look there is a feeling of darkness, emptiness and fear.

I know, I have been there.

Don't be afraid. You can always come to me.

I will always try to do my best to help you out. And while I cannot take the pain myself I have walk the same road, and can show you the way. I can help you find the ressources to help yourself:

If you are hungry I will teach you to fish.

If you are lost, I will teach you how to find your way.

If you are in the dark, I will teach you how to find light.

If you don't want to learn, I cannot teach you. But I am willing to help you find the great ressource of all, the one you doubt this very instant: you own strenth.

If you are willing to listening, or if you need to talk. I'll be here. Just call...

26 years

Last week was my birthday and it gave me lots to think about. Think about how things have changed since I was young. And I'm not talking about big changes, but the little subtle one that you get accustom to.

Things like Computers, the Internet, cell phones, mp3 players, etc...

Thus it is my habits that have changed the most over the years..

For one, I don't watch television anymore. I used to watch a lot of it but I don't feel the need anymore. And I don't think modern day kids watch television as much as they play video games.

I also feel like things are moving faster than I can keep up. But I have a feeling than it is more a because I have a better understanding of the world I live in, and have a better idea of the level of complexity.

Younger, I knew.
Now I know I don't.

Things are changing, as they always have. The question is: it is for better or for worse?

Free Software, Open Source and Microsoft

With a daily 2h commute, I have become an avid listener of podcasts. I mostly listen to those from the Twit network but I also like to listen to Lugradio, the U-turn cafe, BSD talk, etc...

I was just listening to the season 3 episode 23 of Lugradio, and the 4 guys talked about how they were surprised about their experience at Microsoft and how they had a hard time explaining the whole Open Source Idea to them. (Even though they seem to get the difference between Free Software and Open Source)

In my mind, it is very clear why they don't get it. Microsoft has a hard time understand Open Source (and an even harder time understanding Free Software) because they only think in terms of money, price, or value. They view software as a product, like a physical product, that you build and sell. And since they built not just a single product but an entire platform, they have a hard time understanding things outside of that model.

The FLOSS approach (especially Free Software) see software as information. Information wants to be free, thus it easier to simply accept that fact and distribute the source. And once it's out there, it's hard to make it disappear. Information them to see censoring as damage and tends to route around it. And the more popular the information is the faster and further it will travel.
It doesn't mean it cannot be sold: we buy books don't we? Aren't those simply information? What we actually pay for is the service, the easy access to a very portable and reliable form.

So explaining that to Microsoft, is like trying to explain to a book store owner what is library and how it works . He might never get it, and might even try to competition the library thinking it is his primary competition.

Microsoft cannot kill, or buy, or destroy in any way an open source project as long as there is still source available somewhere. Maybe, someday they will understand and start cooperating instead or trying to stop it...

HTPC / PVR

I found for a solution for my 'MAME arcade tv box' when I realized that MythTV hd an arcade plug-in.

For those who don't know what MythTV is, it is an application that runs on Linux and turns a computer into a PVR or HTPC. IT also include plug-ins for news, wheather, Image viewing, CD ripping, mp3 management, DVD management, even a phone plugin for SIP.

I searched the web for info, and found a couple of guides, as well as forums on the topic. From complete reviews to simple technical guide for Ubuntu, to a LiveCD, I can't wait to try and set it up... If I can find the time that is... or a spare box...

moving in

First of all: my new apartment is almost ready : Painting done, appliances delivered, Internet, phone and cable Working, Ikea Furniture built... Only my bed is missing and I can start to move in...

A big thanks to my friends and family! I was able to take the day off Sunday, and enjoy a couple of hours rollerblading. (While everyone else was watching the 2006 Mundial)

I'll be sure the reward the hard work...

Cool hardware projets to do this summer

I wish I had more time.

I have a growing list of personal projects which I can't find time to do...

I have a friend who built a mame arcade cabinet. While I find this very cool, I don't have the space for such a big cabinet. It still gave me an interesting idea: a complete home entertainment box, kind of like an Xbox or Playstation, but on the oldies side with MAME, NES or SNES Emulator (with hard-to-find legal roms) along with DVD and MP3 playback capability. While it's possible on the technical side of things, I really doubt I could easily decrypt DVD for playback... Still a Mame/Nesticle emulator on a tv set might be cool...

The second project I'm thinking of building is an Asterisk box. While it may not be very useful, have separate mailbox for each house occupant is very appealing.It might also be very interesting to combine this box with qpage and send a message to my phone each time the home network has problems. (or via Email-to-SMS bridge)

of course I have other ideas like:

• the traditionnal linksys wifi router hack to add QoS


• an all purpose listening post using special radio hardware and Gnu radio


• an open wifi mapper using a laptop, Ubuntu, a GPS and Google Maps/Google Earth


• even modify my motherboard ans install my own linux based BIOS

And thus I wish I had time...

What is Dating these days?

Dating, in my opinion, is not what is used to be...

Dating, in my mind, represent the method by which one can find a life partner. The basic idea is to meet people to find the perfect match. Thus, to meet as many people as possible maximizes the possibilities of finding the right person.

Before there was community gathering, bars, clubs, friends of friends, etc. Concepts relying on random chance or on shared interests.

But that all changed with the Internet. And cellphones. And an ever changing society.

Since don't have time anymore, we can't be bothered by the old way anymore. We also can't just leave it to chance anymore.

With the Internet came easier access to communication. With Cellphones came convenience of anywhere, anytime, as well as proximity.

The famous pickup lines was all about ice breaking, about establishing a communication medium. It was about creating a context into which you were not a stranger anymore. The new technologies are the pickup lines. The new medium by which communication is established is the change of context. You don't have to break the ice anymore, the system does it for you. It also changes the dynamics of meetings, as it creates a medium where women are more confident and contact men as often as men contact women.

are things getting better or worse? or just different?

MMORPGs, the list

I am searching. Searching for a good game I could play online with friends. We can always play the usual UT2004, or Freelancer, or Starcraft, or whatever, but it's a sort of repetitive experience.

I want to find something persistent... Some universe we can go back to... Some form of building up with competition and cooperation that never really ends...

I'm thinking of getting my own Baren Realms Elite game server! (Ha! the good old times...) But since the new craze is all about MMORPGs, I decided to have a quick look at those, and here is a list of what I found interesting (sources here and here:

• Shattered Galaxy - This is an older one in my mind because it's one of the first I played (back in 2002). Still a good game, and a rare breed of MMORPG with RTS (in other words, MMORTS). This game is free, but non-paying character suffer penalties.


• Guild Wars, another free-to-play game. You only pay the initial price of acquiring the game. I might try this one has it seems to be casual-gamer-friendly.


• Planeshift yet another free game, but this only is still in beta. This one is special, as the game engine is GPL, meaning you only will pay for things like artistic content and server access (once the game is finished)... Interesting title to say the least.


• MapleStory - Free 2D anime-like cartoon game. No comments.


• EVE Online - I could be considered a fan of this game. I played the 14 day trial, and liked it very much, but saw little incentive to pay for the game (considering I was unemployed at the time). I liked the huge skill tree that permit one to survive mostly on trading, or on mining, or fighting, etc. I also liked how you could, in theory, be a more casual gamer and only play a couple of minutes each day. (of course it always turned into an hour or two, but on some occasions, I only logged in, changed skill, and logged out.) The big downside to this game, is the fact that you aren't the pilot, the computer is: you tell it what to do, but it's more homeworld-like than space-sim, in that regard.


• Jumpgate - an older Space-based MMO. The graphic looked dated by todays standard, but I don't know about the gameplay.


• Rise - I could find little information on this game, but it seems a bit like Planetside, in which you have to fight for a planet.


• Darkspace - Space-based MMORTS.


• Vendetta Online - now this one seems interesting. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks promising. A real space sim with the story somewhere between EVE and freelancer.


• Infinity - Now there's a very interesting game. Problem is, it's not out yet... not for at least another year.

Interesting articles and thoughts

Here is a couple of random thoughts for today.

it's been a long week since I last posted, and I wanted to give a idea, kind of a roundup, of what i've been thinking all week.

First of all, there is a couple of interesting thought provoking articles that exist on the Internet, and I stumbled across one today. It's a speech from 2 years ago, on why DRM is bad. Bottom line: DRM can never be designed to be uncrackable, and it's not what consumers want. Corporation should try to find new markets instead of trying to fight the new technologies.

And while we are on the subject of thought provoking articles, here is a small list of those I found interesting enough to keep:

• Microsoft Research DRM talk by Cory Doctorow, the article I just mentioned


• "Free Culture" by Lawrence Lessig - An electronic book about the reasoning of copyright law, and how the idea behind it is loss to the modern world.


• "Cargo Cult Science" by Richard Feynman - A critic of modern scientific integrity by a well known Nobel prize American physicist.


• Space Shuttle Challenger Accident Report, Appendix F - Personal observations on the reliability of the Shuttle, again, by Richard Feynman. "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled."


• "The Mathematics of Monkeys and Shakespeare" - A Short look at the classic problem behind making Hamlet with an infinite numbers of monkey.


• The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security - Title says it all...


• Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments - An ignobel winner , tell why some individuals are incompetent and will stay that way because they can't see that they are wrong.


• The Problem With Music a small article by Steve Albini about how music bands don't get much from signing deals (while the record company got a lot of revenue).


• Why Are There So Few Female Computer Scientists? a 1991 text that tries to explain why there are so few female in the tech field.


• MIT's OpenCourseWare - a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners around the world.

I'll post more went I remember them.

Second 'topic' I gave lots of thought about is dating. I'm presently single, and in the I.T. Field, it's not easy to meet women (even harder my age). I'm preparing a complete post on this topic, so i'll just leave it at that for now.

Third concept that occupied my thought this past week is a concept i've seen in ethics. I don't know the exact term in english but it can be roughly translated to 'forbidden to think'. It is a process by which you tell people what to think instead of giving them the tolls to come to proper conclusions by themselves. I have also prepare a simple post, and I need a picture to complete the post, so more on that later.

finally the topic of MMO. I have talked with a friend of mine yesterday about the economies and the principles that makes MMO fun. One thing stuck out: for us, at least, it has to be casual, not power leveling. Thus I ask for advice from a friend who followed this industry closer than I do, and I might try out Guild Wars. The no monthly fee is a very interesting aspect, to say the least. In any rate, i'll keep you posted...

Explaining technology to the commoner

Theories or hypothesis are never of real value until you test them in the Real World(Tm). And sometimes they fail miserably.

Well, this is exactly what happened to me this week. I had this very well thought-out theory on how to teach technology to the common men. The basic idea is that while you can get by only how things work, you can never really master technology until you learn why things are the way they are. You can only go so far only learning everything by heart. I have already touch that part of the subject and I won't reproduce the entire argument here...

And so with this idea in mind I sought out to find the perfect way to teach someone how to use technology better, and how to teach those around me enough knowledge about computers and security to make them efficient and safe. With a solid base on how computer works, it's much easier to understand why you should or should not do something. It's also easier to see anything that might be problematic, like a phishing scam or a scrupulous website. I Truly believe that with a solid foundation, one can be good enough to be self-sufficient. I also think that everyone should follow some sort of computer training in order to insure the overall safety of the entire network. But then, I compared notes with a friend and found out that I forgot something important:

People are lazy. People are stupid. They don't want to learn.

When was the last time you opened a manual of any device you used? If you actually read the manual (like I tend to do), ask around. You might find that you representing a small minority. We, North-Americans, tend to think about ourselves and give as little attention as possible to things that don't seems useful. Can't learn to use it in 5 second? it's useless. Can't be explained a new notion in less than 5 min.? don't want to hear it. We just don't care.

Teaching a notion to someone who isn't intended on mastering it can be a real pain.

But there is still hope for those you want to learn. Because computers and technology will be in every aspect of ours lives soon enough. Learning it will no longer be a simple requirement, it will be impossible to do live a normal live without it. And thoses who will lack the basic computer knowledge will become second class citizens (or un-netizens): unable to communicate or participate on the community, to socialize with friends, or to meet anyone. It is similiar to the phone system from years ago, you don't hear this anymore: "You don't have a phone number? But how am I going to reach you?". But very soon, people without Cell phone, e-mail adresse, Blog or any new communication technology deemed necessary for communication will be left out.

So why not start today? Learn something new today. Take a simple step forward. Before you know it, you will have walked a mile, or 10000, and will have joined up with the information revolution.

Value your time

In most of my post, I tried to be insightful... To show something usefull to someone. But i'll try something different this time. Since I have a little trouble with organizing my time, i'll share a simple test I did.

Take a sheet of paper. Divide it in four. On the top write 'Urgent' and 'Not Urgent' at the top of each of the collums. Write 'Important' and 'Not Important' in each of the row.

Done? ok

Now, try to place things you do in a day, projects you have, things that should be done, daily chores, etc. in an appropriate place. Think carefully before you place anything.Take your time.

Done?

Now look back at the sheet, but don't change anything. Is everything placed right? Is it really urgent? It is really important? is it both?

This exercise is supposed to show you want you fill you time with. We tend to fill our time with things that are urgent, but not neccessarily important, and neglect the important thing, until they become urgent. Yet, when you stop and think about it, it should be the opposite, we should be doing important things first...

It is mostly a problem of priority, but also one of perception. We don't think before we do things. We don't stop, and think: 'it is urgent? Should I be really doing this?'. I know I already talked about this butI want to really explain the idea behind it.

I give the example of the telephone. It rings. It is urgent? Of course! If you don't answer you will miss the call. But is really important? What will happen if you miss the call? It is really worth stoping what you are curently doing? Can't you just call back and say: 'Sorry I could not come to the phone'? It's even worst when you think that cellular phones are everywhere. I made a conscious decision and told my friends, that unless i'm not occupied, I might not answer the phone. If it is really urgent, they can send me an SMS. It takes me 5 sec to read it and I think it's more important that what I'm doing, I will call back. I do the same for them.

Another example is the all news channel. It is presented as if every bit of news was important, and we tend to sit there watching the news slowly develop minute by minute, hour by hour. But what do we learn that we would'n have learn simply watching the evening news? There is a certain limit to witch we can absord information. beyong that point, we suffer from something called 'information overload' where you see so much information, that you have trouble remember most of it. The north american sosciety is so obsessed with time and information that this sort of reflection is never done. We react to the what the world throws at us, but we don't priotize what we do.

I had one friend who could not cope with the idea of not seeing a movie in a cinema. He was so used the movie theater experience that he could not accept less. Now the theater experience is quite nice, I'll say that much, but it really that important? What is going to happen if you don't see that movie? I, on the other hand, don't watch much tv these days, much less go to a theater. I moved to a dorm on the campus 6 years ago, in a room with not access to cable or satelitte tv. At first, it felt like I was missing something, but I got used to watch nothing much than the evening news. I don't feel like I missed something important. No I didn't watch 'Lost' or '24'. I'm sure it's pretty good, but It's not called 'the entertainement industry' for nothing. I just didn't felt like I needed to be entertained. I can occupy my time with something else.

We have to learn to say 'NO'. Why? Because it's not important. Nobody will die. Nothing will explode. The world will still turn. The sun will still burn.

Value your time. Value your energy. You have a limited supply of both.

A closed mind?

I'm pretty sure you all have seen, at one point, things like this post. While I think it's a nice example of free speech, I don't think the writter understand the issues at all. Comments like this one gives a clue as to why: "And I would never go to Europe. What is there to see?"...

If you check the terms and conditions at the bottoms, you can read:

The web site is designed to be funny. We hope it made some of you laugh.

I won't give my opinion on the topics, but the fact that the (fictional) writter doesn't want to face the rest of the world, reminds me of some coworkers I had who didn't want to discuss the reasons why they beleived in some political party: because it was, to them, the only truth.

Well, if it was the absolute truth, why didn't everybody embrase it yet?

A closed mind is the worse thing anyone can have. The strength of one ideals of faith is not mesure by your devotion, or the number of things you do: it is mesured by going deep into hell and coming back unscared, by facing the demons themselves and comming back victorious. And I'm not speaking about a test of might, but more of a test of ideas. If your faith is perfect, and you know that you have the absolute truth, why are you afraid to test it? If you never tryied anything else, if you never been anywhere, if you never did anything, how can you be sure that your choises are the best ones? If truth was as crystal clear, why is there someone else to oppose you?

I talked about the fact that history repeats itself, and this is a classic example of the Allegory of the Cave, a concept describe by Plato in 'The republic', some 2000 years ago. In his exemple, a group of people was living inside a cave, and had never seen the outside. A single individual was taken from this group, and shown the outside: the sun, the plants, the trees, etc... But if he could never go back to the cave, not after seeing the outside world, and if he did, the individuals inside would simply never believe him. They would probably exile him because he is now an excentric in their eyes. But we all know he is not... Since people don't like to change and don't like to be wrong, they can sometime do very unlogical things, and not see that they are wrong...

Admiting that you might be wrong is, for some, the single most hardest thing they could ever do. That is why we have so many religion, so many political party, etc. because we hate to admit that we might be wrong, and prefer to stick to our ideas even if they are wrong.

Your house stays up because the ideas behind it, the works of the engineers that approved it, was tested over and over again, until they knew why this part or this part was wrong. Houses, bridges and the likes don't fall anymore because we have been perfecting the engineering expertise behind them from before ancient Roman times.

Brigdes occassional fall (Tacoma narrow bridge come to mind), and ideas are sometimes wrong, but if we don't want to change and to learn, we will never know what was wrong...

Everything important has already been said

We always think, as a new generation, that we invented something new... But when you think about it, we really didn't.
Take Remixes for example: Young ones think they are seeing or hearing something new, when actually, they are simply served an old lukewarm song.

it's not always a bad thing: it gives old ideas new life. Look at the idea behind The Matrix: It's basically Descartes' writings adapted to appeal to the masses... But, while the movie doesn't make that claim, it still gives the illusion of a new idea or a new concept for the uninitiated.

Knowledge is power, and history is full of knowledge. What we learn in school is built upon generations. It's information distilled from sources around the world, from millions of people working on problems, from the works of greater men that have spent their entire lives on a single subject.

For this very reason, I do not pretend to know the absolute truth or have the solution. The biggest repository of human knowledge (The Library of Congress), something around 17 to 20TB of text. I do not know that much, and I don't think nobody will... This blog simply represent my thoughts at the time. But if I can be the eye opener for the uninitiated, the post will have serve its purpose...

That and tell my friends what are my thoughts for the day.

I will end this post with a juicy quote:

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

ATTRIBUTION: Attributed to SOCRATES by Plato, according to William L.
Patty and Louise S. Johnson, Personality and Adjustment, p. 277
(1953)."

Or this one:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
-- George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905

Present and Future of Windows Vista

I just read an interesting article that I linked from OSNews. It's a very interesting read about Vista from someone who own a Microsoft Review site. Quote:

"The company itself [Microsoft] has turned into that thing it most hated (read: IBM), an endlessly complex hierarchy of semi-autonomous middle managers and vice presidents of various levels and titles, many of whom can't seem to make even the smallest of decisions. The company is too big and too slow to ship updates to its biggest products. It's collapsing under its own weight. "

And I think he hits the nail on the head about why I dislike (not actualy hate) Microsoft for the same reason that I dislike the old IBM: It's an 800 pound gorilla that can't move because of its own weight. The right hand doesn't talk to the left hand because that can't see each other.

I certainly hope that the past 5 years eXPerience with security and the long delays around Vista will change the company for the better.

Where is the problem?

I take the bus and/or the subway to work everyday, and I see a lot of people. Most of the time, other passengers just wait silently for the correct stop. And since most of them now have some sort of music player, so it's a smooth and quiet ride. But the behavior of some really bothers me. And it's not just on the bus, but also at work, and everywhere I go: People act really stupid and blame others for it.

I witnessed a perfect example this morning. Usually, you get on the bus by entering the front door, and getting out the back door (so you don't bother those comming in). For a couple of years now, the new bus have motions detectors to open these door, and it's written on the door "Motion detector". I see all sort of behavior on 'how to open the door'. Some of the individuals who can't open the door simply try to push it, and by pushing hard enough eventually the motion detector see motions and opens the door. Others try to put their hand on the door, as if it had a 'hand is on the door' detector. Others think that the bus driver is supposed to open theses door and just wait in front of them. Of course, if they can't manage to open the door in time, they then proceed to shout when the bus tries to live without them getting out, and finally blame the bus driver for their own inability to open a door.

I see this everyday at least once and I am always reminded of a study that proved that being ignorant usually meant that you lacked not only the skilled themsleves, but also the habilities to see that you lacked these skills, and thus never improved. People assume they have the right idea, that they are right. A sort of misplaced confidence. (original paper here )

We see that a lot on the internet, where everyone can simply claim that their are an expert on any subject. I could aloborate, but i'll keep this for a future post.

But on the idea of the bus door, where exactly is the problem? Is it really because the individuals can't be bothered to read what's in front of them and come up with a logical reasoning on how to open an advance door? Or is it because the door is well designed? So who is to blame?

Both.

Think about it. You shouldn't have to think about it. After all, isnt it just a door? But since people can't see that their are doing wrong they are also partialy to blame...

The solution: There is none. There is a saying that goes:

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning"

And it applied on the bus example. You just have to design so that most people can use your product/application/door/whatever and to have to think about it. There will always be one idiot who can't use it. Let the rest enjoy it.

And i'm sure I am to blame on some subject... I just can't see which one... A sort of misplaced confidence...

MMORPGs

I have always looked away from MMORPG. While I do find them interesting on a sociological and/or academics aspect, they are almost always presented on the same level as addictive drugs.

But then, if they are so bad, why are they so popular? What drives people to play these games?

From a developer stand point, it makes a lot of sense:

• It's a constant revenue stream. You don't provide a 'product' anymore but a 'service': access to the virtual world.
• You don't have to spend much time on A.I. : you can simply make players competes against each others.
• The world is dynamic by itself: you don't have to 'pretend' a lot of traffic, exchange, price fluctuation ,etc.
• Etc.

And so, I decided to try one for myself... I decided to go with EVE Online: There is a free 14 days trial, It's space-based (more of my type) and it's one of the biggest universe of all the MMO I can think of. But what surprised me the most is that It's a 4 year old game and people are still playing it after 4 years!

At first, the game felt odd. The controls aren't direct. This is not Elite, Wing Commander Privateer or Freelancer. It is not even close to Allegiance. It resembles more Homeworld, but with one ship: yours.

This game is different from WOW or EverQuest in that, skill aren't gained with XP but with time and training. You must buy books, and your character learns or perfects the skill even when offline. In theory, this systems sounds nice, but it only replace length of play with frequency of play. While you can just choose a 10h-to-train skill, you have to log on to switch skill since you can't queue the next skill. I found myself checking the game every 2 or 3h to make sure I wasn't losing training time. Annoying. Especially when you have to go to work or sleep. Or if you want to have a life.

Since I have never played any MMO before, one things struck me: The social aspect is the most important part of the game. I know It may sound like common sense, but really, it is the most interesting aspect. You can't do much alone. To really enjoy the game, you have to work with others, organize in groups and split the work. Even if the game didn't provide the basic methods to form groups, people would.... With just chat, people can organize clans, raiding parties or even start a pirate group. Just like in real life: Cooperation and Competition drives the game...

It made sense in Ultima Online in 1997, and it makes a lot more sense with any modern MMO. It gives those games a depth that can hardly be achieved with a single player experience. For example, in EvE, I found the market quite developed. Since almost any object can be user-built, there is a whole virtual economy around ore, refined materials, and manufactured products. And since skills determines the amount of Ore used or obtained, you could, like I did, buy raw ores, refine them better then the original seller could and then sell back the refined ores for a profit.

But, as I found out, this depth of experience comes with a price. As one user wrote in a in-game chat "Patience! Loyalty! Dedication! Three things required to really play this game"... You have to invest time (and monthly fee) to really enjoy the game. And at the end of the day, it's just a game.

And it should stay that way.

Fear and Emotions

People sometimes act stricly on emotions. I do, and when I was deep in depression, I used to left my emotions guide me entirely. It can be a way to live, but there is something fundamentaly wrong in this...

Emotions are not absolutes. Emotions are not a perfect guide. Emotions are a VERY personnal thing.

People often confuse an emotion, with the object, or the reason, of that emotion. Take fearfor exemple. A spider (or whatever object you fear the most), is not the fear itself. Fear comes from within you. Think about it. Why do you fear? What drive you to have that emotion? The spider is not actually dangerous, so why do you fear it? Of course, in the case of spiders, it's easy to answer... It's a because spiders (or insect in general) might be dangerous... But it might not be the case with everything...

Some emotions might even send you the wrong signal. Being shy, for one, sends a signal... a message.... But the object of the shyness, an attractive person perhaps, is not the emotion itself... That person might be the reason for the emotion, but it is not the source...

Since theses emotions comes from inside, analyzing them can be a big insight on oneself. They are a reflexion of your view on the world... A sort of shadow of the subconcious...

And it's for the same reason that these emotions can be controlled. Fear can be almost eliminated. Anxiety can be reduced. Self-confidence can be grown...

Be these emotions can only be chnaged if you have the will... if you really want to...

What are you waiting? Are you afraid?

Some problems with my generation

As a generation, we oppose certains trends of the generation before, and oppose others. It is a natural thing to do and the consequences, on a large scale, tend to shape to way for the next generation. A natural process, repeated for generation, over and over again.

Some of these changes are fascinating. Like how the cell phones has changed the way we do things. Or how the Internet changed how we interact globaly.

Some changes are more subtle, but have more deep consequences:

The youth of this generation wait a couple of years more, on average the the last one before leaving the family nest. They also wait longer before marrying. While my great-grandfather was married around the age of 18, and my grand-parents in the early 20s, my parents married much older, and it seems that this trends is not about to be reversed.

Just as the generation before me was raised by television, my generation was raised by a screen. It may well be the television, it may be a computer, but it could also be video games. A growing part of the population is now is what is generaly known as a 'gamer': Someone who plays video games a lot. They are part of a large growing group of 'Geeks' of all trades: people who are generaly very enthusiastic about a certains subjet like computer, role-playing games, anime, fantasy, security, social engineering, etc...

We also have, in north america and in east asia, people obsesed with work. In japan, they even invented a term for 'death by too much work': Karoshi.

With women's emancipation, womens too, became obsessed with their career. And with a career they have little or no time for childrens. Or even for a husband. Or a boyfriend.

Most of the friends I have are single. It's kind of ironic: we have more way of communication, yet we are more isolated. Communication is so easy now that we don't learn to spend time together: we all communicate on 1-on-1 channels all around without never really seeing each other face to face. We stay 'in touch', and have more friends, but we don't really so things together, except maybe virtually.

We, as a generation, are a like time-bomb... We are fueling a society of individualism, where we all complain that we feel alone and consume products or virtual envirronnements to forget ours real problems... I hate to see us all waking up at 40-something and realizing that life is really not a product, that life is not a virtual world, that life is not just working....

Of course, this is all from personnal experience, and I hope that I am completely wrong here. I really hope that these trends are not, and that all I see are isolated cases. I still have faith in my own generation, as we will find ways around problems and move on...

Only time will tell. We'll just have to wait and see...

Divisions on the net

With traditionals groups, interest, as well as location is important in forming a group. A sport group with players from city that are afar is hard to organise.

With the advent of the internet, and even before that with buletin board systems, the distance becomes non existant. The exchange of information is independant of the actual location of each individual, but only dependant on the tools used.

So a british-based group could have americans members, an american news website could be used by australians to get international news, and a canadian support group could help british citizens with little effort. That is the global village that media talks about.

But there isn't only one 'global village'.

The only real barrier to communication online is the written language. Each language get a very different view of 'what is the internet'. A french-speaking person does not use the same ressources as someone from an English speaking country.

The Internet is a really different place for someone who can't speak english. Think about it for a second. Think about each ressources you use online. Which one exist in more than just english?

It is as if anyone not english-speaking is simply forgotten in cyberspace, as if the rest of the world didn't matter.

It's like the tourist scenario in Quebec: Tourist from the rest of north america come in Quebec, and (rightfully) expect to be served in english. Yet french speaking people can't go anywhere else in north america (with some noted exceptions) and not have to learn english simply to get around. The same is true of tourism in Mexico.

If you had to learn spanish, japanese, mandarin, german, italian or french to use the internet, would you?

What's important and what's not

I just listened to a podcast (inside the net) where they interviewed the author of 43folders. The interview was really interesting and kind of reminded me of my old spychology courses.

Specificly, about the trouble a lot of people have of organising their time, their task, and thier priorite. We have to remember that, as humans, this is our life: we do what we want with the limited time we have. Think about what you are doing right now (obviously reading this). Why do you do it? Because it enteirtains you? Because you feel it's important? Whatever the reason, you probably didn't think about it very long before doing it. It felt like the next logical or natural thing to do. You chose (or maybe did not) to read this. You decided that reading this was more important, and more urgent, than doing something else.

A lot of people have trouble differencing between what's urgent and what's important.

The telephone ringing is urgent, but is it really that important? What will happen if you don't answer? What are the consequence? Wouldn't it be the same as if you were out of reach?

Paying your bills is important but is it really that urgent? What will happen if you wait 24h? 48h? Will someone die?

Shouldn't we all be outside right now, enjoying the sun? Why aren't you? What's holding you? It is important?

The world will still turn if we aren't there, so why not enjoy ourselves?

I'm going for a walk. It's a beautiful day.

technology working for you, not against you

Technology is a field completely invented and controlled by humans. It is the science of better and better tools. Tools that are supposed to help ours lives.

Yet sometimes technology works against us, instead of for us. Tools themselves are not natural. We have to take time (or money) to learn to use the tool. A tool becomes perverted went we invest more time learning it, then it using it, or when it saves use less time then we had to invest to learn it in the first place.

This is why interfaces are so important. We use computers, cellphones, printers, micorwaves or even lower-tech tools like cars, with interfaces to the underlying technology. When you think about it, for all theses devices, someone somewhere decided that putting things this way or that way might be a good idea. Modern devices, cars included, have a lot more functions, and all these need to be accessible by the same, or a better interface. Which almost always means having to learn something new each time. Which also means that someone had to think about how to implement it.

Yet compagnies don't spend that much time on interfaces. Products are designed by engineers more interested in functionnality than design. Marketing is often more interested in functionnality than design, because functionnality are better selling point than design. Corporate buyers are interested in fucntionnality because it easily correlate to Return-on-investement. And simple buyers always ask 'what does it do' and not, 'how does it works?', some functionnality than to sell well.

Of course, if you don't want your product returned to the store, it has to be at a minimum functional. But as I get more and more frustrated with computer, I tend to think, maybe, just maybe there could be a better way to design an interface with computer.

Than I see things like this Ok / Cancel Comic strip and I see that things could be FAR worse. We have come a long way since Eniac and the Havard Mark I.

Not to be confuse with AJAX, Ajax is located in the GTA. With so many meanings of the word Ajax, I still wonder which one they refered to in 1955. 

Web 2.0

Studying and working in technology is very exciting. It's a field that is always moving, always changing. Years ago, being online meant having a simple web site. Static and never moving, but you had a web precence. It was dull, but it ghad information on it, and this content was usefull. When we update the school association with all the old exams from past sessions, the students stopped comming to pick them up in dead-tree editions and where able to get them all online. Content was king, and the value of a page was all about content.

Nowadays, content is still king, but it is not the only criteria in deciding how important or usefull a page is. That's because pages are not static anymore. I think the Tim O'Reilly article about Web 2.0 is a good introduction on the past and future trends of the web. The web is comming from static, content-and-layout oriented pages to interactives, layout yourself and socially-produced-content. Among the list of existing Web 2.0 sites, there are 2 trend that I, personnaly, find interesting:

User (social) collaboration
Sites like Digg are good exemples. I think this trend is the reason behind most yahoo purchases: Sites like Flickr, del.icio.us and Upcomming. Social sites which requires inputs from the users to have any type of content. And in the case of Yahoo, they even release the api of a couple of theses sites to encourages more user-driven content and tools.

Of course, for social collaboration, let's not forget the kings of them all: Wikipedia.

Web tools
Think about your basic application. Now think Web. Now think both. And you get web-apps. Sites like Google Maps or Yahoo Maps, but also sites like Meebo which is an IM client. Or complete Word processor like Writely, Zohowriter, Writeboard and Thinkfree office. Or little tools like voo2do, Ta-da list orBack Pack...

Anyway, time will tell if any of this will change the way we do things, but the web is never gonna be the same....

Update: Just as I had finished writing this post, slashdot posted this

Beer in Montreal

While Montréal is not in Belgium, we do have a strong-and-growing beer culture. Montréal has a strong nightlife for such a 'small' city and It seems it has its roots deep in the local culture. The province was the last to pass a prohibition law in 1919, and the first to repel it in 1920. This city (and Quebec city to a lesser degree) was THE legal big city to drink in (until 1933). Even today, the legal drinking age is still 3 years lower than in the US and we get american tourists than come here just to drink.

Since around 1980, there seems to be an international interest to revive Brewpubs and Montréal is no exception. I found a nice website, that details brewpubs in Montréal and a couple of good bars. I personnaly plan on trying them all, if I can. Here is a quick list of the ones I went to and had a good experience:

• Les 3 brasseurs
• Sergeant recruteur
• Dieu du ciel

And I got to try:

• Le Réservoir
• Le cheval Blanc
• L'Amere à boire
• Brutopia
• Bière et Compagnie
• Vice et Versa
• Le petit moulinsart

Garçon! Une bière S'il-vous-plait!

Wikipedia

Every once in a while, I see articles on how Wikipedia is potentially bad because everyone can change it. I have to say that I like Wikipedia and use it almost every day. But while I can understand their logic and agree with most of the arguments, I don't think the authors understood how Wikipedia, even with the vandalism, is relevant.

Think about a real world object, like, for example, the bus stop shelter outside my house. This object is also subject to vandalism. Once or twice a year, someone comes, break a windows or put a tag on a wall. Then someone notices it, call the transport authority and they send a cleaning crew to get the thing back in the original form. Now, as citizens and users of the transit system, we don't stop using the shelter because it's been vandalised, we are just annoyed that the thing doesn't do the job well. So, as society, we put up with some form of vandalism because it's a fact of life. We can't afford to have people at every bus stop watching the installation. It would be too costly and unpractical.

Wikipedia is kind of the same. In order to have the same quantity of the article, you have to give a bit of responsibility. For the same reason why ours streets are not covered in trash and graffiti, we like a clean environment and condemn someone is see as a nuisance. The system attempt to auto-heal itself. Giving a bit of responsibilities to the citizens make sense in some case and it makes a lot of sense in the case of Wikipedia. It's basically a tradeoff. As netizens, we get more rights, but more responsibility at the same time. The result is much faster growth than a closed system, but it will almost always be an imperfect one because you can't control everything.

But it was never meant to be a perfect system. It was meant to be a quick reference with open access to anyone. It is not a reference to be quoted in papers. It is a more a reference that points to where to search for one.

I just think it is a very impressive example of what people can do when they work together

Our image

It's in times of crisis that you see one's true habilities. No matter how small the actual matter, it's how we perceive it that govern our reactions. One's inhability to properly react to the matter at hand show how secure we feel in our habilities and in ourselves. Panicking never helped anyone and usually causes more trouble than helping anything.

But if panic is very unhelpfull, why do we do it?

Panic is a very humane reaction. Panic comme from the notion that the situation seems too big, a change too rapid in the situation. It is a rapid evaluation on ours own habilities in contrast to ours immediate envirronnement. Panic comes from the impression that we aren't ready and aren't capable of dealing with the crisis. Panic does not come from the crisis, but from ourselves. It's not what the situation itself, but more what we think we can do that defines how we react.

I know it's a bit oversimplified a bit, but it's still a good thing to remember.

It's the same thing with almost everything we encounter in everyday life. I see this everyday with people and computers. Some people panic at the first sign of an error message. This reaction comes from a complete lack of understanding how the machine works. An irrational reaction, sometimes without even reading the error message. Problem is, These are also the same people who "can't learn the how to use the computer" because they think it's too complicated. The computer is not the problem. It's their reaction that is. If they simply learned not to panic and take things little by little, they might make more progress. The computer might stay a complicated thing, but at least they would have learn not to panic.

And they would be one step closer to understanding...

Gaim plugins Testing.

After playing around with this gaim plugin, I find it quite usefull. It doesn't seem to support tittles on posts, but it'll probaly find out how to get around this sooner or later.

I think i'm all set to kept this blog at leat partialy alive :)

Picasa test

Snow in Montréal. I'm suprised how Picasa seems to integrate nicely in Blogger. It's a pity that I don't have a personnal camera to make full use of it...

Start of it all...

I suppose I could start by saying why I started blogging...

First of all, this is actually not my first blog. I had (and still have) an online diary before where I wrote, not the current or passing tought, but my darkess feeling and emotions. It was like a liberation from the problems that were controling my life. That era is gone now. I have gone trough depression and emerged, scarred, but victorious. I am trying to put a distance between this part of my life and now, so a change of blog looked like a good start.

At the same time, why not start using a new blogging tool? Blogger seemed a good choise because or various posting or blogging tools.

As for why I choose this title and this web link... Simply because I wanted something unique, something that reflected me while at the same time being something people can relate to, or at least understand.

VE2DMN. Victor Echo 2 Delta Mike November. These are my callsign as licenced Amateur radio operator. While i'm not an active member of the community, I think the callsign is a good 'unique' trait and, for the initiated, show that I probably know something about radio or electronic devices. (My knowledge is VERY limited)

'Living I.T. on the fence' is more a indication of how I fell living in Montréal, in multiple cultures and dealing daily with the limits of both. When you live in a monoculture, you cannot comprehend the hardship that one has to go trought to teach someone who doesn't speak a single word in english how to use a computer. Especially when all the tools avaible are made for an english-speaking audience. Of course living in a dual-speaking envirronnement has it share of advantages and disavantages. I can communicate and understand jokes in two language but I can't write neither without making mistakes. I can choose between a large number of books or manuals, but nobody ever understand my own notes because of the bilangual syntax I use. I can read error messages in multiple languages but I can translate theirs meanings to anyone. I don't want to go into the whole Quebec language debate, but things being has they are, I have to live with it.

Anyway, we'll see if I can post often enough to be interesting... :)