I've coded for about 6 hours straight today for my "Software Engineering Capstone Project", and I wanted to see how good I'll be at writing a journal entry in this kind of "brainless" situation.

So I should get a 10GB iPod for my birthday. Before you say "Are you nuts? Have you read the rumors?", I'll reply that I don't really care. I want the damn iPod, and I'm already paying for half of it (it's a bit to expensive for a birthday gift, anyways).

Oh, and I've just been silently "rejected" by my group of friends, err... "friends", at the university. You know, the team for the project I worked on for over 7 hours today.

Yes, I'm weird, different, and ranging from awfully funny to awfully depressed in the matter of hours (Look, two hints in a row! 2 + 2 = ...). But somehow this is enough to be doomed to a life of solitude. That wouldn't be a big problem if didn't care that much about others (often more then I care about myself), but hey after so many years I start to accept this situation.

I really should taint my hair green. No, not the Mozart-pink, but the Beaudelaire-dark-green. I'm in my dark-green period anyways (after 5 years of the "blue period"; the "dark-green period" started last summer). I'll wait to get a job first anyways: Those HR people seem to be a bit more intolerant than others...

- Benad

I just got my "Iron Ring" (reminder of engineers' concerns about quality and ethics, blah blah blah) 2 hours ago. And instead of partying my ass off the results of 4 years of study, I'm sitting in front of a computer typing this and listening to music ("Javelin", obviously).

To quote Futurama Season 2 DVD's commentary track: "When there's a hint, we'll say 'Ding'...... DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING!!!!! ...... Ding!"

- Benad

Install postfix. Really. That damn sendmail bug updated the sendmail version just enough to ignore (screw) my settings on Mac OS X, based on a very thorough HOWTO. Nice. I just want to setup a closed relay with my ISP's SMTP server... I even have a nice domain name mapped to my dynamic IP address, ready to be used...

Enter postfix. One line is enough. By default, your whole subnet is allowed to connect, which fits perfectly with my subnet behind my router (through NAT, obviously). No messing around, no "trial-and-error" dozen of times, no shit.

Because, you know what? I'm not a masochist. I just want it to work. I don't want to care about nonsense concepts specific to the "sendmail world", nor its security holes. I don't prefer Macs for nothing...

After working for 3 hours to make sendmail work, and that for the fourth time since I have Mac OS X, I drew the line. sendmail, adieu.

On a totally non-geek note...

I had the crazy idea to go see "Die Zauberflöte" (the magic flute) by Mozart. Yes, the opera. While the ticket price and "suggested clothing" is not a problem for me (we're still talking about Die Zauberflöte here...), I have a problem: I can't see that alone.

"Would you like to go to the opera?", "Huh? I never saw an opera before...", "Me neither! It's going to be fun!", "I don't know... And it's expensive, no?", "Don't worry, I'll pay.", "I don't want to force you... It's going to be around 200$...".

You get the idea.

Oh, and about "The Drew Carey Show":

The Drew Carey Show will get a summer re-launch on June 25 when it moves to 9:00 p.m. on its original day, Wednesday. The series will kick off its summer run with its historic 200th episode.

That throws away this whole "Drew will get married on May 24th" plot...

And I'm sick. Another crap week, I guess...

- Benad

That's the size of the "The Javelin" CD (you know...). It's better that I could have ever imagined. The musicality of the 72-minutes song (that is, excluding the bonus track) is exceptional. And compared to the original, no MP3 of any bitrate lower than 256kbps will do any justice to the quality of the sound. Those guys (L. Softley and J. Reid) spent a lot of time making this CD, and it shows.

Last week I was surprised to get 20KB/s downloads from Freenet, but I guess from what I read on some "freesites" from other Freenet users is that this is the average. Freenet is really "high latency, high bandwidth". It takes in average 15 to 200 seconds to start any download, but the bandwidth is between 10KB/s and 30KB/s, even more in some cases. Leeching never felt that good...

I really want to make a new résumé and update my home page, but I want so much to make it perfect that it will take a while before it becomes public. I expect them to be finished in about 2-3 months, with, you know, all these exams, projects and work...

- Benad

Well, that wasn't my week.

This is supposed to be my spring break, but I spent most of my time working on my engineering "capstone project". But my brain REALLY wanted to take a break. So I worked on it, but in an 8-hour day I was really productive in only 2. So 4 days means only one.

At work, the snow storm in Boston caused several problems with our servers, servers that I need for my work even though I'm in Montreal. Result? I wasn't productive anyways, "brain dead" or not.

I tried ordering "The Javelin" CD by "Blue Amazon" on HMV.com, but that failed after 15 days of back-order. So I tried on mymusic.com, which is a much nicer site, but with a single exception: you can't know if something is out of stock until you order it. Really nice integration with the inventory system! (I was sarcastic here...)
I've ordered it from an individual, through Amazon.com's "buy used and new" feature, but it is ground mail, from the US, with no package tracking whatsoever. "3-6 weeks"... if you're lucky...

Also, I tested that FEC stuff (otherwise known as "splitfile inserts") in Freenet by trying to download a ~250MB file. But I learned that you need 3 times the disk space of that file to get it, you need to put the temp directory outside your datastore otherwise it is counted in the datastore size (really!), re-inserting chunks in the network is likely to put your download in an infinite idle state, and you must use a Netscape or Mozilla browser.
Well, once you know all that, the "leeching" speed is quite good, especially compared to any Carracho you may find...

BUT,

The temperature outside is around 0C (32F), so compared to the usual -20C (-4F) of the past two months, it feels like spring... I can take my time to walk outside again...

And people were, oddly enough, very nice to me this week...

So maybe this aftertaste is due only by yesterday's "sushi orgy" (don't ask)...

It was a good week, after all...
Hapiness is such a strange thing...

- Benad

Quickly, three things.

CUSEC photos are up. Here's the official ones (look at the bottom of the page), and here's my personal album. Obviously, I prefer my album. And yes, that's the first time you'll be able to see me in a picture on the internet...

Also, I just noticed that the CD "Music For The Jilted Generation" by The Prodigy was made in 1994! There were raves in that time?

Finally, I shouldn't run my freenet node using Apple's Java 1.4.1 Developer Preview 10... Hmmm... Random kernel crashes (WHY???)...

- Benad

"...wo-oh wo-oh wo-oh bot wash, yeah..."

I just switched to using Futurama for "video compression" tests, specifically the first chapter of "My Three Suns" (season one). This is compared to the first chapter of the "Yellow Submarine" animated movie. The Futurama clip is thougher to compress, yet is funnier... Enough to justify any compression time...

I could use something from season 2, but that's just teasing the people still waiting for season 1 to come to region 1... OK, wasted enough time installing Mac OS X 10.2.4... Got to go...

- Benad

This week has been, again, crazy. But in the "pauses" between those days, I sumbled upon the updated versions of mplayer and mencoder.

The GUI of those are not great, but the command-line programs that handle the "real" work are the same as on Linux. I repeat, the same. Yes, I can play MP4s, DivX, and all those crazy AVI files. At last. And rip in one step a DVD to a DivX/MP3 AVI file.

I'm still playing with the photos from CUSEC (see my Jan. 20 entry). They'll be up soon.

- Benad

I can't believe I almost started a flame war on VersionTracker.

I was trying to use Haxial TextEdit, when I realized it had an UI so bad it wasn't worth learning. Yes, learning an UI for something functionally equivalent to Windows' Notepad.

So, from 1 to 5 stars rating, I rated it 2:

Terrible UI. If you're going to waste your time learning a non-standard UI, you're better off doing so with Emacs. At least Emacs is worth the steep learning curve.

Well, that was a bit harsh. But I come to think about it, I was saying "make your software worth learning". Like Emacs.

Just for fun, here's what I found in about 5 minutes. I'm talking about version 1.3.

UI problems (no reference whatsoever to any standard or OS):

• There's this weird menu on the title bar that doesn't make any sense.
• No visual feedback when you save.
• No visual feedback when you start modifying the file.
• File->Close is missing (!).
• "Save As..." starts always at the "root" (/Volumes), instead of the directory where the file you're saving is.
• No way to "cancel" the action of the maximize button of a window.
• Window widgets are activated on mouse down, instead of mouse up, unlike all other buttons.
• The minization is useless; can't close or save a minimized window without maximizing it again, so you're better off keeping the window "normal".

Missing features (compared to Notepad!!!):

• Can't deactivate "soft line breaks"; you can't have horizontal scroll bars.
• Can't print.
• Can't copy paste!!!!

Got it? Bad. Really bad. Now look at the replies here. You'll be surprised. Oh well...

- Benad

I was about to write about the CLI tools that I use to browse the web, get emails, log in to a Jabber server and chat on IIP, when I realized it was both too geeky and that I was thinking about other things. (I may do it on a later day, though.)

One of those things is to get the "Javelin" album by "Blue Amazon". No you don't know what this is. But I got it from massinova, and the track "And Then The Rain Falls" is just amazing. True it's not techno, far less trance, light-years away from classical music, but I still like that "progressive house" stuff...

So, I'm about to import this and this from the USA. Damn... by music tastes are too broad... I wish it was like this with girls...

And no, don't ask me what the ending of Metroid Prime at 100% means. I'll wait for the movie and/or the sequel.

- Benad

Man, that was... weird...

You know, CUSEC, the "Canadian Undergraduate Software Engineering Conference".

Kent Beck was the funniest. You know, the guy that made "Extreme Programming". He almost made an a** of himself at the party Friday night. I say "almost" because I left soon, and I only have rumors for now. But someone took photos... (more on this well I'll get them)
Well, at least I know that I'm better than him at Super Smash Brothers Melee.

Otherwise, I'm just tired. Really tired. While I'm reading this, I'm waiting for my Co-op report to go up in the print queue, and I'm replying at an email I received from work.

BTW, w3m is pretty nice. It is editing this text with emacs, so I have a spell check. All that in a SSH connection.

I'll have to go back waiting for my print queue. Shit... a 12MB print job...

Edit: But the only problem with w3m is that previewing italic tags is useless...

- Benad

It is with great sadness, well, some sadness that I close the ANet project. Follow the link if you want to understand a bit what this project is about.

Why? It is too "revolutionary" for the amount of time I'm willing to spend on it, and no one else is willing to help.

Instead, I prefer spending more time helping a little other projects. In a way, I prefer helping projects that already exist than becoming a new "competitor".

Yes, Freenet and Gnutella are not perfect, but instead of whining and doing something from scratch, incrementally increasing the quality of these might be a better use of my, and everyone's, time.

While I find Gnutella too cahotic for my taste, Freenet seems better. True, there is no defined "standard" yet, so making a C version of the Freenet daemon (daemon, not deamon...) is out of the question. But "anonymously" helping Freenet is many subtle ways is easier, and I like that.

So, yes, you may find me on FMB from time to time (not Frost, I hate it). And I may set up a "freesite" soon. But my work with ANet is now done.

You can reply here if you have any question about this.

- Benad

First a correction of the previous entry: "I found out Massinova by accident while looking at some Sherlock 3 channels here". I forgot the link for "here".

I'm starting my last semester at the university, and I'm really busy. My "todo" list is getting quite big.

And then this. Please, not today...

- Benad

First off, you may have noticed that I don't do as many postings as before. Well, somehow, I got really busy these holidays. For example, I took on the crazy/courageous step of trying out Freenet, and playing Metroid 1 without a walkthrough, and finishing all 3 paths of Eternal Darkness, and 7+ hours worth of Futurama Season 2...
So while, no , I won't do one post a day from now on, I should post something between one or two posts per week.

And on another unrelated note, I already have a "freak"! Don't ask me why, though. I might have done "Karma Whoring" by accident, I don't know...

OK, on the subject. I used to listen to the Philosomatika MP3 radio station from time to time, but didn't do it too much since it ate my Internet bandwidth (160 kbps). Also, the "good song / crappy song" ratio was a bit too high for my tastes, around 5 bad ones for a good one. It seems that while I love "psychedelic trance", I still have very specific tastes.

I found out Massinova by accident while looking at some Sherlock 3 channels here. While this radio station is closer to Techno and/or Dance than Philosomatika, it is still much better. Good sound, even with the very small bitrate (64 kbps), so I can listen to it all the time without it sounding like crap or causing me bandwidth problems. The "good/bad" ratio is around 1 to 1, which is exceptional given that this is electronic music (I'm going to get flamed for this...). This is surely due to having a request-based queue, which is actually smart and fair (unlike StreamingSoundtracks.com, which I tend to dislike simply because its request system is terrible). Finally, its "integration" in Mac OS X is exceptional. Yes, an MP3 radio station with a Sherlock 3 channel and its own menu bar...

But looking at the Top 10 chart of Massinova, I discovered that I simply have picky, "only the best of the best" tastes in electronic music... "Halcyon+On+On" is there... Some from "The Prodigy" are there... And "The Thrillseekers"...
So I'm not the only one to think that the music in Hackers was the only good thing in this movie...

Anyways, enough for today. You have enough links to click on in this post to make you wait until next time!

Oh... And happy new year to everyone using the Gregorian calandar!

- Benad

Everyone has "I wish I had this" wishes for Christmas (well, even if you don't celebrate Christmas). Some are impossible to have ("peace on Earth"...), while others are too simple to have ("I want a new pair of <insert something cheap here>").

But some defy categorisation. Like my geeky Christmas wishes, about technologies 99.9% couldn't care less about, for well justified reasons.

So, here's my list:

• A full-featured Jabber client for Mac OS X. Psi is pretty close, but it's now very well with Mac OS X (being a Qt program), and you still can't browse conference rooms in a server. I have my hopes on Nitro, but the project has just started. I might be able to help Dave Smith in a month or two.
• The fight about Gnutella2 should stop. Really. Take an example on Jabber.
• Finally, anything close to some ideas I had in ANet about having distributed, P2P browseable file listing uploaded à la NNTP each file being a key* in a Freenet. And not in Java. Is it really that difficult? It could almost be coded in Perl...
  * Well, each file could be broken up into 256KB blocks to avoid abuse of uploading montruously large files that would put the network in a crawl. So each file is a list of key indexes.

Well, that wasn't a big list...

OK, I'll add another item for next year's resolutions: "Make my Geeky Christmas Wish List bigger"...

- Benad