If the LiveJournal service and this blog in particular survive until the time I become a pensioner, I would like to think that the future me will find it interesting to re-read what I, young and youthful, was doing in general, and in particular what I considered worth putting in this blog.

So. Listen carefully, old fart and dear readers and friends. I am currently trying to read. Or rather, I am consuming information through audiobooks. The last thing I listened to was “The Peter Principle” — a decent little book about the science of “hierarchiology” invented by the author, and the principle according to which all workplaces will eventually be occupied by incompetent people. The book is interesting, has a sense of humor, but stirs up irritation at the incompetence around you that you hadn’t noticed before reading it.

My childhood was spent in a time and place where normal screws were a scarce commodity, and good-quality ones simply didn’t exist. Getting them out was a real ordeal — the vast majority had a slotted head that a screwdriver would chew up in no time.

At the same time, for some reason I was incredibly drawn to all these little screws, bolts, nuts, nails, screwdrivers, and pliers. I can’t say I’m some kind of all-around handyman — no. But alongside toy cars and Transformers, my favourite toy was my dad’s electric drill, which at the time was the only one on the whole street.

I want to set up some software at home (thinking about Nagios/MRTG) to collect statistics about internet availability. I suspect that during working hours, while I’m not home, there are constant lags with the internet connection. So I want to gather some stats and then talk to my ISP if the suspicion is confirmed. I just need to find the time and pick a tool — something as lightweight and easy to configure and use as possible.

I need a good software notebook. It has to work on several computers at the same time (and ideally across different operating systems, though Linux alone is enough for now). I want synchronization over the internet and a convenient interface. Don’t suggest Google Docs.

What do advanced folks use as a repository for information that is needed right now, was needed at some point in the past, or will be needed later? With grouping by contexts (or projects, or tags) and dates?

One question is bugging me: how much butter should you put in blini with red caviar, and what’s the right way to do it? I tried them at a café and loved them, but I can’t find a recipe online — everything I see recommends melted butter… bleh…

after all, the UNIX developers know better, don’t they?) http://vk.com/topic-12335760_22183370?offset=5

You’re citing your own words as proof of your own words? That’s ridiculous and absurd.

TCP/IP is a protocol/document/agreement/standard/blueprint. > you understand? everyone has their own implementation.

Exactly. And, as I wrote “TCP/IP stack” (I’ll repeat for those who read slowly — “TCP/IP STACK”) — that is the implementation of the protocol. Everyone has their own, and Microsoft’s was copied from Berkeley.

20 years ago, on April 5th, Bill Gates presented the Russian version of MS-DOS 4.01. And a year and 10 months later, the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

http://video.mail.ru/list/petrochenkov/1385/1386.html

Mint and Ubuntu do make people lazy after all. Installed Arch — and the fonts are off, Flash is missing, sound doesn’t work out of the box, and Wi-Fi is a pain… Looks like I’m an oscillator.

I’m going to install Arch. If I’m gone for a long time, consider me… whatever you like.

A news article popped up in my feed reader saying that “Microsoft Ukraine” is launching a site about licensing. To quote it directly:

« »

a portal about licensing, where visitors can learn what licensing is and what it means from a legal standpoint.

Since I deal with licensing questions at work, and the legal side of it is quite interesting (because it’s so contradictory), I decided to read more.

First of all, that pathetic news site I do the honor of reading their drivel on didn’t provide a link to the portal — I had to Google it. I found the Microsoft Ukraine website, but there’s nothing about the portal in the news section. Still, some article caught my eye, so I clicked through — and it turns out they have podcasts! I thought — great, I just finished listening to Radio-T, this will be something to entertain me on the road. I’ll listen to the latest news from the potential enemy’s camp. However, the treacherous Microsoft put me through an anal Vietnam a stern ordeal. First, the podcast page content wasn’t rendering because JavaScript was disabled via NoScript. When I allowed scripts, this wretched soul (the site, that is) reloaded — but instead of showing me what I wanted (as normal sites behave in such cases), it continued showing me the error page, while slapping a banner on top of it asking me to install some Internet Explorer. When I clicked the podcast link again, the page did open. JavaScript was required solely to display, at the top of the page, a picture of a dimwit leaning back in his chair and relaxing while Win98 installs on his computer As one might guess from this eloquent image, the topic at hand is RSS. Click on it — and voilà: we’re greeted by an article in the foreign language explaining what RSS is, and informing us that wherever on Microsoft’s wonderful site you, dear reader, see this icon — — you’ll be able to take full advantage of this technology. Mind-blowing. Yet the “podcasts” section doesn’t lead to a list of podcasts — it leads to a search! And there’s no RSS in that search. And when I gave up on downloading the podcasts the normal way and decided to try a couple manually, it turned out the damn thing also requires registration. Is it really that hard to do things properly? Microsoft being Microsoft. Everything through the back door, as always. Makes you want to swear and spit.