Category: Monkeysphere

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Το ιστολόγιο του Panhas

Db01 Comment

Ένας συνεργάτης για λίγο καιρό όταν που δούλευα στον Φωκά, ο Παντελής, μετά απο μια μικρή μου παρότρυνση άνοιξε δικό του ιστολόγιο. Εκεί απ’οτι φαίνεται θα γράφει τις δικιές του οδηγίες και βοηθήματα με ότι έχει να κάνει με MS Windows.

Αρχικά ο Παντελής έστελνε τα κείμενα του μέσω email σε διάφορους (φαντάζομαι) γνωστούς του, συμπεριλαμβανομένου και του εαυτού μου. Δυστυχώς αυτός ο τρόπος είναι αρκετά περιοριστικός καθότι

  1. Δεν μπορείς να κάνεις πραγματική συζήτηση με όλα τα άτομα στην λίστα χωρις να αρχίσεις να ενοχλείς αυτούς που δεν ενδιαφέρονται
  2. Το αρχικό email μπορεί να μην είναι ενδιαφέρον σε όλου που το παίρνουν αλλά δεν έχεις τρόπο να το καταλάβεις αυτό χωρίς να στο πούνε.
  3. Μετά την αρχική αποστολή του μηνύματος, το έχεις χάσει. Κανείς άλλος δεν μπορεί να το βρεί έυκολα και δεν είναι αρχειοθετημένο πουθενά στο διαδίκτυο.
  4. Έχεις πολύ περιορισμένο formatting. Δεν γίνεται να βάλεις συνδέσμους μέσα στο κείμενο. Δεν μπορείς να έχεις rich text, κλπ.
  5. Δεν μπορείς να κάνεις διορθώσεις. Εαν συνηδειτοποιήσεις ότι αυτό που έγραψες είναι λάθος, πρέπει να στείλεις ένα email ακόμα με διορθώσεις.
  6. Εαν επιθυμείς να ακολουθείς τα γραπτά του, μπορείς απλά να χρησιμοποιήσεις κάποιο feed reader που κάνει την ίδια δουλειά με ένα email, απλά…καλύτερα.

Γι’αυτό τον λόγο χαίρομαι λοιπόν που έκανε αυτή την κίνηση και προτείνω ανεπιφύλακτα μια τουλάχιστον επίσκεψη σε όποιον δουλέβει σε οποιοδήποτε επίπεδο υποστήριξης σε περιβάλλον Windows. Ο Παντελής είναι πραγματικός γνώστης της πλατφόρμας της MS και αυτά που λέει έρχονται απο σημαντική εμπειρία. Όχι μόνο αυτό αλλα γράφει μόνος του τα κείμενα του σε δυο γλώσσες (Ελληνικά & Αγγλικά) για να διευκολύνει και αυτούς που δεν κατέχουν καλά τα αγγλικά αλλα και αυτούς που προτιμούν να διαβάζουν τα τεχνικά άρθρα στην γλωσσα του IT.

Τα καλά τα ρούχα

Db03 Comments

Το Σάββατο που πέρασε είχα μια αντιλογία με το αδέλφι μου για τα ρούχα που θα φορέσω στον γάμο της για να την “Παραδώσω”. Το πρόβλημα φυσικά είναι ότι αυτή με θέλει ντυμένο με κουστούμι ή κάτι παρόμοιο ενώ εγώ είμαι ορκισμένος εχθρός του συγκεκριμένου ντυσίματος. Η διαμάχη αυτή ολοκληρώθηκε με την αδελφή μου να με απειλεί οτί εαν δεν φορέσω καλο σακάκι και παντελόνι θα ζητήσει από τον θείο μας να την παραδώσει αντί για εμένα, και με εμένα να της λέω οτι μπορεί να κάνει ότι νομίζει.

Γενικά δεν ήταν μια πολύ ευχάριστη συζήτηση και για τις δυο πλευρές.

Τα επιχειρήματα της αδελφής μου για το συγκεκριμένο θέμα ήταν τα εξής

  1. Φοράω αυτά τα ρούχα καθημερινά για την δουλειά μου. Γιατί δεν μπορώ να τα φορέσω για λίγες ώρες στον γάμο;
  2. Δεν θέλει να φοράω τα ίδια ρούχα που έχω με τα φιλαράκια μου. Πρέπει να δείξω οτι αυτή η μέρα έιναι κάτι διαφορετικό.

Στα οποία, ο αντίλογος μου είναι ο εξής:

  1. Τα ρούχα της δουλειάς μου τα φοράω μόνο και μόνο γιατί δεν έχω άλλη επιλογή. Είμαι αναγκασμένος να το κάνω εαν θέλω να φάω τον επόμενο μήνα. Εκτώς απο αυτό, σιχαίνομαι κάθε λεπτό που πρέπει να τα έχω πάνω μουκαι έχω μπει σε μπελάδες πολές φορές γιατί βγήκα “εκτώς της περπατημένης”. Εκτώς απο αυτό, ακριβώς επειδή φοράω αυτά τα καταραμένα ρούχα καθημερινά για εμένα δεν συμβολίζει τίποτα ιδιαίτερο. Αντιθέτως είναι αυτή την στιγμή ρούχα ρουτίνας.
  2. Μπορώ να φορέσω κάτι άλλο εαν είναι να το κάνω μόνο και μόνο για να “δείξω” κάτι, δεν βλέπω τον λόγο. Ήδη κατεβαίνω στην Ελλάδα μόνο για αυτό το λόγο οπότε πιστευώ οτι ότι είναι να “δείξω” το δείχνω. Πέρα από αυτό, το επιχειρημά αυτό δεν μου κάθεται πολύ καλά. Γιατί δηλαδή πρέπει να φανεί σε τρίτους ότιδήποτε; Δεν είναι αρκετό να το νοιώθω;

Σε τελική ανάλυση, το πρόβλημα για μένα είναι καθαρά ιδεολογικό. Αρνούμαι πεισματικά να κάνω, στην προσωπική μου ζωή, κάτι τόσο ενδεικτικό της οδοστροσίας έκφρασης που συμβαίνει στον κόσμο. Αυτά τα ρούχα για εμένα αντιπροσωπεύουν μια ολοκληρωτική απαλοτρίωση χαρακτήρα και μου φαίνεται τελείως ξεφτίλα που μερικοί επιλέγουν να τα φοράνε καθημερινά. Αυτός είναι και ο λόγος για τον οποίο απεχθάνομαι την ιδέα του να κάνω έστω και μία μικρή εξαίρεση, ας είναι και η αδελφή μου. Είναι ο ίδιος λόγος για τον οποίο δεν θα δεχόμουν να ξυριστώ, να κουρευτώ ή να φορέσω σταυρουδάκι για αυτήν την περίσταση.

Αυτό που με στεναχωρεί περισσότερο είναι ότι η αδελφή μου δεν το συνηδειτοποιεί αυτό. Έλπιζα ότι τουλάχιστον με ξέρει αρκετά καλά ώστε να μην μου ζητήσει να κάνω κάτι τέτοιο. Δεν με ενοχλεί το γεγονός ότι δεν θα την “παραδώσω” στον γαμπρό (Άλλωστε αυτό είναι απλά μια γελοία χριστιανική μισογυνιστική παράδοση) αλλά το γεγονός ότι στεναχωριέται που δεν θα της κάνω το χατίρι. Δεν ξέρω πραγματικά πόσο άσχημα της έκατσε αλλά μου φαίνεται ότι θα αρχίσει να βγάζει συμπεράσματα που δεν θα είναι ορθά. Δυστυχώς για αυτό δεν μπορώ να κάνω πολλά όμως. Θεωρώ τον λόγο που στεναχωριέται ανάξιο λύπης.

Αυτό που με τσιγκλάει ακόμα είναι ότι μου ζήτησε να φορέσω τουλάχιστον κάτι διαφορετικό από αυτά που φοράω καθημερινά. Κάτι καλό.

Πρώτ’απ’όλα, μπορεί κάποιος να μου εξηγήσει γιατί τα “καλά τα ρούχα” πρέπει να είναι ακριβά ή/και συμβιβαστικά; Γιατί υπάρχει αυτή η ηλίθια παράδοση; Δεν βλέπω ποιος είναι ο σκοπός. Ίσως στις παλιές κοινωνίες που ο κόσμος είχε μόλις ένα καλό ζευγάρι ρούχα (λόγο κόστους) και το κρατούσε για τις ειδικές περιστάσεις να είχε κάποιο νόημα αλλά για εμένα δεν ισχύει αυτό. Τα ρούχα μου απλά δεν υπάρχουν για αυτό τον σκοπό.

Το να ορίσω σε κάποιον τι ρούχα θα φορέσει δεν είναι κάτι που θα ζητούσα από κανένα να κάνει (εαν ποτέ παντευτω δηλ) αλλά egal, εφόσον το ζητάει μπορώ να δοκιμάσω. Δεν ξέρω τι όμως…

Hey look at me, I'm Ian Anderson!

Db0

Ian WannabeHeh, well, not really 🙂
This was taken in Μανώλης’ place with a flute-like instrument.

Now that I mentioned this, yesterday was a day at his house, where I went shortly after fixing some partition problems on my system. While there I copied a heckload of movies and pr0n* and finally took my pr0n* T-shirt back! The bastard had it for almost a year!

On my part, I brought him two games and the firefly series which we tried in vain to copy.

Finally we tried to play some Empire Earth but failed miserably. Even though we were all using the same version, on computer kept thinking it had another…pretty strange!

Visits from the south

Db0

Τασος Ζαχαριάδης visited me this Weekend. He came to buy some machines for Tattoo and I kept him company while he was here. Saturday he slept at my place (after we came home from some late night drinking) and Sunday we hand around a bit while I wrote him a heckload of pr0n and then headed out for cofee.

We ended up at Navarinou Square drinking Ouzo with 3 girls, with one of which I had something going for a while at the Summer. She seemed very friendly once again.

After a glass or so, we decided to head out to the Silver Dollar where a friend of mine I met on the road notified me was a Rammstein night. Kewl!

There we met a hosts of people but the highlight of the night was one guy who I initially started talking because he thought Power Metal was retarded. Then after a while Τασος joined the conversation which gradually degraded from friendly talk about jazz to which instrument is better and if the Bouzouki is gtp. Now, I know I can be absolute and strong willed at times, but I am as agreeable as a girl scout in heat in front of Bon Jovi, compared to this dude. They talked for 3 hours on this subject and this guy followed us to the Souvlaki parlor in order to continue the conversation. I’ve never seen someone so obsessed on proving his point.

Yeah, ok dude, you’re an expert on guitar and can play popes, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of the instruments don’t have a reason to exist. Jeez!

The return of Kensha

Db0

Well, I’ll be damned, Kensha (Τάσος) has dropped by Thessaloníki and payed me a visit. Hell, I haven’t seen that soul for must have been at least 4 years.

Me and Kensha go way back to my Kali and Quake 2 times. Damn, just thinking about them makes them sound so long ago! Phew, how time has passed.
I still remember the Quake 2 training we had with one of us setting a dial-up server on his pc and the other connecting to it in order to play Quake 2 through lan. Or the times we played super intense Duke Nukem games using modems and a 4×4 stage 🙂

Good times

Anyway, It seems he came around for site seeing. Originally he called me at 3pm, waking me up in the process, and he didn’t expect me to recognize him. Of course, what he didn’t know was that I had kept his cell phone number all those years. I just didn’t really have any need to delete it and I though it could come in handy eventually.

After some communication problems, because my cell phone has crappy reception in my house, we set up a meeting at the Kamara which is a great Ark in the middle of the town. What I didn’t expect was him having brought his girlfriend along, I heard someone on the phone and I thought it was a friend of his, but it turns out it was her. She just has a bass voice.
We met in 20 minutes and after a short stroll we settled down at the Bolivar cafe.

tasos-kwstas-1.JPGMost of the time we talked either IT (he is a programmer and I am a sysadmin what did you expect) or made fun of powerfool. Powerfool (originally powerfull. Yes with the extra ‘l’) is a common friend that continuously gets into crazy schemes or develops plans to either score chicks or make money. This time he decided to perform a full body hair removal in order to play in music videos of μπουζουκοpop. This is obviously a scheme of the former category. This of course was just reason to start reciting his

older schemes 🙂

tasos-kwstas-2.JPG

Now that I think of it, I haven’t seen Powerfool for at least 4 years as well. I just talk to him now and then through ICQ.

After the, quite expensive, coffee we decided to head out to eat some souvlakia and then split up. They’ll go to a movie afaik and then meet me at the X club that has a birthday party.

Τζαμπέ

Db0

I met with Panos today after leaving work. He was at a Διαχρονικό having a cup of cofee with a friend of his. I had informed him earlier that I had his free PC ready as he was about to leave for his home town, Αγρίνιο but he decided to stay to set up a meeting in order to get the PC.

We worked out the logistic details but I got the impression that he wasn’t all that happy with the choice. The computer is one of the older ones we have for donations at my workplace and its graphics card and cpu power leave something to be desired. The important thing however, the thing that should make any such defect unimportant, is that the damn thing is completely free for him. I mean, FFS, I had to convince my supervisor on the worthiness of donating such a machine to a pennyless student and we had to lie and tell it was for my sister in order to approve it and I was waiting for more enthusiasm.
I did tell him that I may not be able to secure a monitor for him but, heck, a CRT 15” monitor can be found dirt cheap.
We also had the necessary talk about upgrades for DVD playback (Not easy) and gaming (where I mentioned that the new system would be linux equipped, heh) and the discussions went on to other matters.

After we left Panos kept pressuring me to go after a monitor as well. It was a bit irritating. I mean, come on, you get a P3 for free, keyboard/mouse and everything.

At least be a little more excited damnit! I had to call in favors (however small) for this shit.

Left out again

Db0

Yeah, OK, once more I get ignored by my so-called friends.

It seems the company had a welcoming party for Yo!Master’s return from the army, going out to eat and stuff and who wasn’t invited? Yeah you guessed it.

I found out they had something planned when I called Master’s house on Saturday to see what’s new, after getting his mail about coming home.
His grandmother told me he was staying at a common friend’s house and he was going to eat out that day with the rest of the crew. They had “forgotten” once more to tell me about it. I called Psymon to see what’s up and he validated it. They were going out that night.

So much for 6 years of friendship. As soon as you stop gaming you might as well not exist.

Screw that.

I'm not well…again.

Db0

Recent developments have dropped my self-esteem and my older friends seem to have abandoned me altogether. It becomes tiresome to find that someone that you used to hang out with very often does not even go into the trouble to call you or send you a instant message. Yeah, 6 years of friendship my ass!
Psymon and Yo!Master, if you happen read this, you SUCK! You haven’t called in ages even though I did try to contact you. Yeah, have a nice time going to the beach or playing games. I know when I’m not wanted, it would be nice to know why at least…

I’ve been working on my linux desktop for the last few days. I have been using KDE and superkaramba themes. It is still a work in progress and this is what I’ve managed ’till now I still need to get the thunderbird theme to work and find some more stuff to fill me screen with.
.

I have also been lurking on the Deviant Art for a while, checking things out. It would be nice to be able to contribute something there as well but alas my artistic abilities are limited to desktop configuration and game design. However I think my sister could benefit from it. If I could just get her to register.

I also found out about Folding @ Home. It is similar to Seti@Home but it is about helping find cures for diseases like alzheimer and cancer so I think it is a much better cause. Since I have a relative power over the company’s network where I work I have installed F@H to 125 PC and got them to work for the good of all mankind. Here’s an updating sample of my contributions so far

Speaking of my work, I have been asked to provide an Active Desktop configuration. I have already cooked something up with my limited HTML/CSS knowledge but I would welcome any hints from anyone who has invested on the subject.

Well, I'd never would've thunk it!

Db01 Comment

Well, it’s official. I’m a little stupid

The Stupid Quiz said I am

Heh, and I always thought myself as one of the smart ones. Leave it to the nerds to prove me wrong 🙂 Oh well

On other matters, the weekend passed uneventfully. We has would be barbecue on a friend’t house where I learned that one of our mutual friends has a grudge against me for not paying part of a tavern tab when all of us with the same name were supposed to pay. Problem is that something had come up the same day and I ended up coming to the tavern after everyone had finished eating and so I ended up eating just some leftover dish and some. Now he also knows that I’m not exactly rich and also that I gave away all the money I had on me at the time but still he feels offended. Well, I don’t give a shit in any case, if he has a problem he should tell it to me instead of talking behind my back (which incidentally is something I despise).

Now that I mentioned money, it seems my budget has hit an all-time low. It is the first time I ended up without cash to go out and I had to borrow from my sister…damn! Luckily I’m getting paid in a few days so that should be the end of it, although I fear what will happen with all the concerts I want to attend. I really need to start taking care of my money once again.

RP groups going live

Db0

So, the RP groups initiative is really starting to pick up steam. Already there a re 4 groups in the forming and mine is scheduled to play today. I’ve also started a new thread for reference to all of them.

I’ve started reading on this page these last few days and it really makes me think about the shit that goes on people’s thoughts. The most normal people to the outside can be one of the biggest emotional wrecks. The facade everyone puts up is simply amazing. It also made me feel better about myself, since I don’t think I’m like any of them. It also made me feel bad because I seem to have everything going for me, appearance, smarts, abilities, creativity, no traumas…I dunno, I guess I’m just incredibly lucky.

I played my Raziel deck on Monday as well, and it pretty much owned. My other decks didn’t do so well but that is the only one that matters. I really hope I can make it awesome…

Job is boring today, extremely boring. I just can’t stop checking on the [tag]WoW[/tag] forums. I’m afraid I’m going to be caught on of these days and lose my job. We are waiting for some outside company to make a review on us. I can’t listen to music 🙁

Yesterday some friends from the past appeared. Nuclear and Airness. Both old gaming friends from way back in ’96. The memories we had…
Both were adventure maniacs, like me and they both go to the same programming school and are hacking like mad. I wish I had the energy to do that. Nuclear said he could help me start. I hope my short attention span doesn’t get the better of me…again.

I haven’t seen my sister or her BF for a while but I know they are busy. I should phone them one of these days for a coffee or something.

I’m thinking of starting my own business. A NetCafe in a developing part of the town. However with no capital whatsoever and a job it will be rough. Still, I always wanted something like that and I want to turn it into a tabletop gaming store as well.