Monday, October 31, 2005

chapter 36

The sky is overcast. There's a mild drizzle. Mild enough not to obscure my vision. I can sense the sun shining just behind the dark clouds. No matter. I love overcast skies and mild drizzles. It reminds me of calm lazy days. Days very different from this one.
    I have located myself behind a window, in a building that sat beside a road. My comrades of arms are scattered around the buildings overlooking the road. Our objective for today is to ambush a resupply convoy coming to refit the outpost our small band are harassing. My location provides me with good view of the road that runs between the building, our ambush site.
    After about an hour of waiting, I started to feel a rumble from the ground. The rumble grows louder and louder, like a distant storm that is coming towards us. The rumbling continued to grow until i could feel that it is coming from the entry road that leads to the ambush site. I can see that my comrades are also aware of the loud rumbling and everybody was looking at the entryway. Anticipating. Anticipating what? We are expecting a resupply convoy. Trucks and infantrymens at most. This rumbles feels more like a main battle tank. And like a wish gone wrong, an Abrams main battle tank cornered into the road. My heart raced. The convoy was not supposed to include tanks.
    As the tank moves nearer, i can see that my mates are getting restless. There's a growing confusion amongst the men. Everybody was glancing around at each other, trying to get assurance that nobody was capable of giving. Then, just a surprising as the appearnce of the tank, a room in the building opposite of me erupts in an explosion. Rifle shots can be heard coming from inside of the building. Then a couple of my mates exited the building next to it, into the open road. They ran, but alas they didn't get far, for the ground around them started to erupt with dust and pebbles. They are beind cut down by the main battle tank's anti personnel guns. One by one dropped down like ragged dolls.
    Looking at my mates's cowardice, i wondered, why are they stupid enough to run away from their posts? We could've taken the tanks with RPG's. Then my question was answered when i caught a glimpse of infantrymen storming into the opposite building's rooms. And it dawned on me, we are being ambushed.
    Sitting there helpless, i could only look at my mates being killed one by one. It's either death by the infantry's rifle or the tank's guns. There's is nothing more to be done here, i thought to myself. It it better to run now and fight another day, then dying here in a senseless massacre. As i was turning around to leave my own hiding place, the door behind me burst open, revealing an infantryman wielding M16s. With a sneer and a bemused grin on his face, he said 'Die Infidel' and let loose a barrage onto me. I was thrown back and out of my hideout's window.
    An amusing fact about M16 is that, it was not designed to kill the enemy. Rather, It was design to inflict a decapitating wound. Enough a wound that would make you useless in combat, but not lethal enough to kill you. The rationale of this design was so that wounded soldiers will slow down his company. Furthermore, wounded soldiers could be used to gain intelligence.
    So there i was, laying on the road, looking at the overcast sky with mild drizzle falling softly on my face. In times like these, you want to have people you love close to you. Your mother, if it is possible, your family at the very least. Then, if no family is around, your friends. And so, I reached out my weak arm and pulled my SVD closer, clutching it close to me. I think to myself 'everybody is dead now, it's just you and me now'.
    With my last dying breath, i mumbled "yertzak~ gahh". With that, my mind sputtered its very last comment "Yertzak~ gahh? That's a waste of breath. And a final one at that!"

Sunday, October 30, 2005

attention whores

My friend tamin introduced that term to me a couple of days back. Today i looked at www.fotopages.com 's new browse feature. It lists photo pages based on country. Guess what? There are 15103 of malaysian photo pages! The closest is brazil, at 7122 and US at 5688. Even japan, a country parodied to have lots of shutter bugs, lists just about 540.
    Are malaysian attention whores?

Thursday, October 27, 2005

some people

Some people are born to be leaders. Most people, followers. And then, there's that tiny number of people that are not meant to be.
    And this is their stroy. Jeng jeng jeng the main movie theme starts. The camera pans, zoom in, out, dolly around a mass of humanity. Every single one of them looks different, red dress, armani suits, mohawks, combat boots and tartan pants, black spiked biker jacket, bling blings, all in multitude of shape, colors and sizes and yet, in that chaotic mass of individuality, they all form a muddied image. A great mass of anonymity. A picture of television static. Hissing with white noise. Unintelligible. Meaningless and mundane.
    The camera zooms out out and out, showing the mass of humanity to look like speckles of fearie dust. Beautiful in numbers, but lingering in the briefest of moments, only to dissipate into the aether.
    Then the camera pans to the right and zooms in in in and in, from the sky, to a city, to a block to a neighbourhood, to a home and into a darkened bedroom, where a boy, no older than 16, sitting in front of a monitor, was jerking off to japanese porn. The chosen ones. They who'll inherit the earth. In darkness and bloodied hands.

hanged

while i was blissfully doing my job. My windows XP froze. It was a first time. It was unthinkable. A strudy system like windows XP could belly up and freeze. What went wrong? I wonder. My wonderment cease when I recall something i quote a couple while back. Indifference to errors. Yes. In light of my recent textual exclaimation, i beg to differ. It wasn't the kind of act to preceive the masculinity of the insipid neanderthals. We strife for our own peace of mind but we forget that what the mind thinks is not really the reality. It is only the by product of chemical imbalance, tring to reach equilibrim in biological sense. We see not what is real. We see only what our body wants us to see. Wait, i've said that a couple of while back. Or did i? maybe i was not. Maybe it was a dream. Was it? Or maybe dream is real and life is the dream of dreams. Where will nightmare fit in then? But of course a nightmare is a bad dream. It is one and the same. But if it so, then why the different names? It suggest a seperate and distinct entity. It is a spatial inconsistency of the neuron cells. The. In conclusion, the questioning phrases suggest an undefined persona of the soliloquist. Undefined or missunderstood of ephemeral in behavioral sense. Contra retrospectly, the dictating dictatee will henceforth mentally oratorate private reckonings in sans quaesitum. Ergo.

perly gates

it is somewhat an eye opener to know that the technology we so rely on are built on shakey grounds. No matter, the internet have taught us to be indifferent to errors. So sayeth some dude. Maybe it's joel. I think not. But i'm sure he's got to do with O'Reilly's perl books.
    Talking about perl. Why perl?

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Miss Chief

Dear Miss Suffwind,
lately i've been finding stuff inside my root folder that i can't recall
putting. It's either i'm suffering from mild amnesia, or there's a
dwarf/gnome/hobbit/fairies tinkering with my box when i'm fast asleep or
hard at work.
What should i do? I love my boxes, all three of them, and i hate to lose
them. Especially Mr.F, he's so flexible. And Ms.S she's the epitome of
sturdyness. But last and not least, my D. Oh, the fun we had together. Don't
tell me that someone else have taken them away from me. Please help me, what
should i do? i'm so distressed.
Worried and distressed,
luser_663521

tung tung chiang, tung tung chiang

The thing about working in a chinese company is that, we don't spin raya songs. But is it a sad thing? or a good thing?
Back in my old company, heron the accountant cum dj would've spin the songs. Or maybe that-dude-which-i-can't-recall-his-name. The one that's very good with artsy stuff. Damn. Being forgetfull sucks. I can remember his face, but damn i can't put a name to that face. Something. It's not even a year since i last worked with him.

woe is the forgetfull programmer

I've done it countless times before, but yet, i can't remember the syntax when i'm doing it again.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

oh my God!

It's been quite some time since i updated my blog! It's a sign that i'm leading a mundane, quiet life! ahhhh... total nirvana.
A happy man is a man that do not have anything to complain.
 
...
 
Well, i think i need a new chair. The kind that's totally adjustable. I find that i slouch when resting my arms on the armrests. It is too low.
It is always like that. There are numerous things in life that is too low for me, and i ended up lowering myself to fit it.
Maybe that's why a lot of short people are aggressive and successful. They always try to stand taller, sit straighter to fit their small frame to the world. And in the end, the world have to slouch for them. Like napoleon for instance. He's a short man.
But then again. Maybe it's just coincidence. Or that phenomenon that i can't recall the name. That thing when you tend to see patterns when the fact is that there is no pattern, just that you see what you wanted to see.
Did you know that the indians (red indians) could not see columbus's ships when it first reach america? I don't mean that the ship is hidden or anything. Rather, it is said that the indians, having never seen a sea vessel before, could not comprehend the ships and thus their brain kinda dismiss it. Until after this one medicine dude, relizes that something is amiss when he saw the waves are different, like something is messing with it. So he gazed, gazed and gazed towards the sea, untill he finally managed to see the ships. Amazing isn't it. If that is true, think about all the stuff that we unconciosly dismiss. There might be something standing right next to you now, but he is so incomprehensible, that you dismiss his presence. Your own invisible buddy.
Oh and then the medicine dude told his tribe about the ships, and everybody came to gape. Then columbus's men landed to the new world. Bringing horses with them. The red indians call horses 'big dogs' because there's no horse on the american continent and thus they don't have a word to describe it. Fast forward about four hundred years later, we have cowboys and marlboro advertistments, with horses in it, peddling cigaretts 'the american way'. I really thought that horses are indegineous to america. alien nation indeed. Everything in america are imported. The people, the culture, the statue of liberty.

Friday, October 21, 2005

The Man

The Man wasn't a fake afterall

no wonder stevie wonder

I was reading up on disassembly and discovered that a lot of the tools related to cracking are on windows platform. That makes me wonder, why don't crackers prefer linux platform when doing cracking.
Then it hit me. Of course crackers use windows, what is there to crack on linux? most linux stuff comes with source codes.
But I might be wrong though. What do you think? Do crackers crack on linux? It seemed silly though. How'd they observe the apps at run-time if they're cracking it on linux?
Or maybe they've mastered the super duper kewl ability of running software simulation in their own mind by reading hex codes. That's so kewl. But what'll happen if the software hangs? Blue mind of death?

Monday, October 17, 2005

capitalist code, socialist monkeys

did you know that it was Bill Gates that introduces the idea of commercial software?
before personal computers, software are freely shared among users. Most softwares comes free with the hardware. Well, at that time, most hardwares are pretty expensive and are only affordable by big companies. So after forking huge sum of money for hardwares, the vendors are not going to tell the buyers that they'd have to fork some more cash to get the softwares that'll run the big machines rite?
So then in came personal computers. And the buying power is shifted from big companies to the consumers. So then Bill Gates dude convinced the community of developers (most are either working with big ass companies on their big ass machine or are administrating university mainframes and such) that there will be a demand for softwares.
Some of these developers agreed with Bill Gates, and joined the borgish mind cluster we call Micrsoft. The others, they continued to develop codes and share it with the rest of the community, living on the edges of the technological frontier, like scums of the earth. Barely alive, yet not really dead.
Fast forward to the present day. The tables have turned. The conflicts in the frontier have made these frontier code rogues stronger than the assimilated borg beings (living in the center of the technological world, protected and pampered). Now we are seeing cells of these techno rebels are causing mush distress in the borg world.
And the borg beings are realizing that, in the years to come, there might not be anybody else to assimilate. Users are getting savvy enough to write their own codes. The software market as we know it will disintegrate as more and more people are turning to live in the frontier, where adventure abounds.
What the fuck am i talking about here?

Sunday, October 16, 2005

life thinggy

I installed Slackware without removing unused/unnecessary components. And
that box started to spew qoutes and advices whenever i log in.

For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in
despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the
implacable grandeur of this life.
-- Albert Camus

Here's one that caught my attention (well most quotes makes me pause a
moment or two, but this one, i don't really get.. or maybe i get it, but am
not sure if that's what its the meaning).

What do you think it meant?

Saturday, October 15, 2005

dream

i had a dream just now, it was kinda pleasant. well actually, it was more like scenes in a dream. i think it was from my childhood.
 
one scene was me looking at a mural drawn on a pedestrian walkway bridge thinggy. The other was me using a rustic kampung toilet.
 
The mural drawn on the pedestrian walk was of the kuala lumpur train station. Or maybe part of the building. The parapets and domes. It was drawn in a dark manner so as to make it look like the building at night. And looking at that mural. I recalled the times when I sat at the back of my family car, when we were travelling to the train station. To send off our nanny. It was always at night and I remeber kl back then in a gothic kind of way. Kinda like gotham city. With bats and swallows flying in and out of the street lamps lights.
 
In the toilet scene, i was trying to use a kampung toilet. The toilet's inner wall are covered in mold and cracks and the bowl are overflowing. I felt icky and i remember that when i was little, i often felt icky when using kampung toilets.
 
ahh.. nostalgia.
 
Maybe the dream was due to the anticipation of Aidilfitri. My parents send my nanny home prior to hari raya. And the toilets, is something i had to endure when in the kampung.
 
Selamat Hari Raya people. Its kinda early to wish it though.

Friday, October 14, 2005

its friday

I am happy now. ahhh.. the prospects
 
feels like being rich with cash. cash that you're free to do away as you please.
i'm hungry

the devil's lament

Have you ever listen to eric claption's classical guitar number? well i'm not sure if its eric clapton. but its in classical. Somehow when listening to that, i can't help but imagine a devil strumming the guitar while looking rather melancholy.
 
maybe its because of that tenacious D video clip with dave ghrol acting as a devil.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

same shit different day

My boss said that i am his security guru. The marketing guy said that
i am the security guard. I'm feeling insecure

Thursday, October 06, 2005

missed a turn

Yesterday and this morning, i had to go to Sony bangi to do a software installation. I am not familiar with the software, it is an inhouse developed software. Hence everything is non-standard.
That is not the only thing i'm not familiar with. I've never drive alone to Sony bangi. The only time i've been there was with a collegue.
Those are a good recipie for disaster. And a disaster, it was. I got lost when on the way to bangi, missed turns here and there and took the wrong highway. In the end, i arrived one hour late for the first day. This morning was an improvement, but only by 30 minutes. I got lost again.

There something about uncertainties that makes me jittery. And the jitters tend to turn everything to disaster.
did i tell you all that my hands and face was sunburnt? The skin on my hands are peeling, and the shade aren't even. It looks pretty ugly. So while i was on my way back to the office from sony, I looked at my hands and realized that I was never good at learning and heeding advice. (You see, my colleague told me to wear sunblock before the fishing trip.) Well, maybe I could learn, but I learn through mistakes. Like being lost on my way to bangi and getting sunburnt.

That makes me wonder, am I worth it? Do having me in your company, with me always making mistakes, will benifit you in the long run? or i will be the person that'll waste resource and cause unnecessary losses?

I will never know. But what I know is, this weekend, I'm going to get myself a thick copy of Klang Valley map. And the next time I'm going fishing, I'll wear sunblock.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

waste

Its a waste, when I think about how I have a live broadband connection right in my bedroom, yet I not doing wonderous things with it.