Utterly bored :p

Death to the menus! At last!

2012-01-26T15:11:00.005-05:00

Yes, it's an IT post.

Unless you lived under a rock for the last 20 years, most computer user interfaces involve interacting with a menu. Problem I always had with that is that I hate menus. I actually hate the mouse, as it means "being visual" while I'm kynestesic.

So HUD, developped by the people at Ubuntu, is something I'm very, very fond of. Because instead of having to mess with a menu structure some engineer thought would be logical, you just begin to type what you want and the program gives you the options based on what you typed. No nasty nested menu that take forever to dig out. No nothing. And me being allowed to use a keyboard to actually do something of use, hitting the same zone with the mouse instead of doing continuous eye-hand coordination for no added value...?

Nirvana. *sigh* another small something that makes me happy.

Maths Quantiques ou Bobbi sort de la douche

2012-01-20T11:56:00.004-05:00

Eh bien oui, j'étais à faire du rien chez moi quand l'idée de génie a frappé. En effet, comment expliquer la mathématique quantique à l'illetré que je suis. Je me rappelais de l'analogie qui m'avait été donné à l'origine:

Si vous voulez comparer la mathématique quantique à la mathématique ordinaire voici un cas de figure. Vous mettez un chat dans une boîte. En maths ordinaires, le chat ne peut qu'avoir deux états: mort ou vivant. L'état est contrôlé en ouvrant la boîte. En maths quantiques, le chat est mort et vivant et cet état de dualité paradoxale cesse dès que vous ouvrez la boîte.

Charmant, n'est-ce pas?

Que comprendre de tout ce charabia? Simple: Bobbi sort de la douche.

Erm QUOI?

Bon,voici l'explication courte:

Dans la bonne vieille série "Dallas", un moment donné le réalisateur se tanne de payer Bobbi et donc le tue dans la série, liquidant ainsi un salaire. Donc Sue Helen braille, il y a des funérailles et JR étant JR fout le bordel dans la succession, bref la pagaille totale pendant 7 ou 8 épisodes.

Cependant, les plaintes commencent à pleuvoir au poste de télé commandant la série et donc le réalisateur est pogné à réengager Bobbi et lui redonner son rôle. Mais là, comment faire revenir Bobbi? Il est quand-même mort il a 9 semaines! On ne fera tout-de-même pas 30 semaines de flashback et les résurections, même pour la droite chrétienne Américaine... pas yable comme script.

Donc, à l'épisode 9, Sue Helen se lève en pleurs (Bobbi est mort après tout) mais là, coup de théâtre, Bobbi sort de la douche. "Tu n'est pas mort?!" "Bien non ma chérie, ce n'était qu'un rêve!"

Donc maintenant, comment cette exemple de script tiré par les cheveux peut bien expliquer la mathématique quantique?!

Simple: Pendant 8 semaines, il n'y avait aucun doute dans l'esprit des téléspectateurs que Bobbi était mort. Right? Or, pendant le temps où Sue Helen rêvait que son chérie était mort, il était bien présent à ronfler à côté d'elle.

De plus, l'espace de temps entre les deux réalités, irréfutables aux yeux des téléspectateurs, étaient on ne peut plus inégaux (quelques heures dans la réalité Bobbi sort de la douche vs quelques semaines dans la réalité Bobbi est mort). Or, les deux espaces-temps débutent et se terminent en même temps, quel que soit la ligne de temps que vous preniez.

Et pendant ce temps, Bobbi est effectivement mort et vivant simultanément et la chose se termine dès que Bobbi sort de sa douche. Donc pour revenir à notre chat, effectivement il est mort et vivant (deux états opposés et pourtant simultanés) et cet état cesse dès qu'on ouvre la boîte.

Est-ce que c'est plus clair? Probablement pas. Mais au moins, vous pouvez comprendre car l'exemple n'a au moins pas une seule ligne sans explication, cette fois.

Where has this guy been?!

2011-12-12T00:21:00.005-05:00

//WARNING: Oui Carl on haït ça les posts Facebook mais à la quantité de parenté sur mon facebook, j'irai pas mettre ça là. :P

Hmm. Well I can say that physically I've been where I usually are: between work and home (mainly work of late but I'll address that soon). But in a sense, I've begun a journey. The person I was 6 months ago is no more. Or rather, it morphed into something rather different.

I kind of realized it last Friday at the weekly office get-together, as a colleague was discussing how "we should bring Hitler back to life to kill him again and again to make him pay". Previously the thought wouldn't have irked me. But three days ago it did.

Because I feel to invest that much energy into destructive will and wishes is a waste. Life is short, and should be vested into deeds that makes one grow.

This is also partly why "the normal people's party" posts have stopped too. I won't lie, the public field doesn't interest me much at the moment. I might continue posting for the sheer will to finish what I've started but definitely won't go forward and incarnate it in any official way. For the same reason: to whine about what is wrong in politics never made a government fall.

The reality is, I have dedicated myself to a cause but it's a personal one. A very time-consuming, energy-intensive one at that. But from which I draw immense pride and happiness. Every single split second of my life is now a function of it.

Thus in January I'll try something that has been on my mind for a while. Not because it's fun. Not because it's easy. Because I'm stuck and I need a bit of help. My friend tried what I'll attempt out of curiosity and went on depression for a year as he was shaken to the core. I might be shaken as well but I need it. What I want won't let me unaltered anyway. (now that's stating the obvious?!)

So it is with a certain serenity for the first time for a month of December in years that I post here. Don't be too worried, I'm not endangering myself recklessly. Nothing bad will happen. Well, depending of your definition of "bad" anyway. But nothing has ever been achieved by keeping status quo ante on a problem. I hate sitting on my hands when I realize I could do better.

And while what was set in motion redefines who and what I am, what I truly want in/ as a life and has a scope that encompasses my present and future lives, I'll stay very down to earth in person, knowing that most people freak out just thinking of their own final hour and the day after. And that aside, it's something simply too intimate to share.

For most, I'll stay the David they always knew: smirking and cracking jokes, dedicated workhorse, absent-minded husband that tries his best, a man of his word even in his direst disadvantage (yes Mastercard I'm talking about you *laughs*).

But the insecure, cold, fatalist, grouch-type and broken David that existed deep down is no more. Mind, I wil still lapse from time to time but... I'm out of it now as I've found happiness, love and contentment. I've accepted it and it's flowing freely now. And while parts of me will take a longer time to heal, it's not a matter of if but when now.

The incarnation of such a blessing I'll keep for myself. But I can safely say it makes this life worth living, above all other reasons I might have. I wish you find such a thing but I must warn you it's usually where you expect it the less, it turn your life upside down and takes a level of commitment few are willing to engage into. Oh and did I mention it requires faith both in the said soul and yours?

Ok, now that I got you all scratching your head, you can return to your mundane life, I'll keep entertaining you with stuff that comes around (vssadmin list writers = écurie anyone?). Or at least I'll try. But you now know why I'm so irregular posting.

Normal People's party - Part 7

2011-09-28T07:37:00.005-04:00

//Enter typical delirium

Transportation

Conventional wisdom would have it that in order for a country to be prosperous as one can be, free flow of people, goods and energy is vital. We totally conccur.

On a typical road though, you have different components. Those who build the road. Those who use the road. Those who try to freeload on those who use the road and those who try to collect/ extract money from everyone involved.

Those roles seem pretty obvious to the commoner. But there's more there that meet the eyes.

For instance, trucks. Now this topic is taboo in transportation and we sure won't make new friends by stating it. But a loaded truck makes the damage of 2000 cars on the road. However it doesn't burn 2000 times the amount of fuel a car does. So in effect, cars are subsidizing the trucking industry quite generously.

So, you're fed up with fuel tax? Use railways to ship that pallet of iron will you? Because no, the Normal People's party won't do anything to help your plight. We need the money to get the roads fixed you see. What we can do however is to make darn sure the money goes to road repair and not some obscure circle of friends.

Because at the moment we have no friends. Obviously.

And if we're elected? As we intend to rule to make sure you don't want of us ever again, to "make friends" with such organization makes no sense.

If we ever have a viable chance of making it, we will develop a full-fledged transportation policy and not just a manifesto like this one. But it all boil down to this:

We have a big surface to cover
We have low population density
We have aging infrastructure
Some industries have been shielded from their inefficiencies for way too long
Some circles of influence love government money.

So it'd be our job to make sure those points are adressed.

The Normal People's party Part 6 - AKA more typical boring stuff.

2011-09-26T22:14:00.008-04:00

//Enter... more typical delirium

Social order

This one is a difficult one. Because it touches feelings of so many people. We can see bias and injustice everywhere. Where there's human beings, there's humanity. But we also see another thing: the legislative power being biased into voting laws making living impossible.

We're proposing an approach seated on two basic principles:

The reduction of the lex corpus
The stricter observance of what's left of it.

We indeed believe that there are too, as in way too many laws in this land. It's as if lawmakers were only interested into making justice too complicated for the commoner to defend himself while making sure the magistrates of the law fill their pockets.

At the same time, police officers need to priorize which law to apply due to time constraint, which makes the rule of law shaky. We don't want that.

A plain example: while car motorist get speeding tickets and arrested for burning red lights, cyclists don't. Why? Because it doesn't pay enough to fine cyclists. As simple as that.

In that regard, our view is that the government isn't there to make money but to make things right. Therefore under a Normal People Party's government, the State would end up shedding a lot of useless or overly complicated laws only serving a few and make sure the penal pilar of power gets the ressources it needs to make _all_ remaining laws observed.

And we know it won't be easy, but it's necessary: the law can't be capricious or else the faith of the people in its institutions will crumbe.

//End boring delirium

What if this hour was your last, strikes two

2011-09-23T18:40:00.007-04:00

I'm sitting here tonight, around 18 month since this post. Water has flown under the bridges (yah we have two here) since then, but I expect I couldn't have written the current post last week.

Because everything changed. And I mean it.

The rage and sorrow that was seated in me previously was vaporized. I understood a lot of things of late. A simple truth, «you should not be ashamed of being happy the way you are nor be afraid of what you truly wish and are», was revealed to me. And I discovered that by hurting myself denying it I was hurting someone else that means so much to me.

So here and now I acknowledge it. I won't be ashamed to be happy, in whatever incarnation of it, anymore. It makes no sense to be sour grapes because one doesn't see onself as worthy.

Especially since... I am. Blame me for big ego, it's one of the first and last time you will be able to. But I'm shielded by someone else, so be prepared for a fight. Cos that person will give you hell for your buck, you can be certain of it.

I feel silly to write all these, but all the same for once it's not a message that «we are so oppressed we ought to do something» but of «I'm empowered and shall be heard» instead.

From the perception of being insignificant, I've shifted to be center of some's universe. And I know I am now. With great power comes great responsibility, but that's called to manage nice problems.

So no, I'm not sorry. I've discovered something no money in this world can grant. Scratch your head and wonder as I won't tell you what it is. And it feels good no mistake.

It's not always your turn to listen...

2011-09-16T21:18:00.002-04:00

//Yet another emo post; bear with me as it shouldn't become a habit, but...

I passed the test, I'll diminish and will remain Galadriel
-The Lord of the Ring

Yah, talking to you today made me realize one thing... To give advice and to be credible, one must be able to also receive advice and turn his mind around to give it a frank look and take it as one's own if it makes sense...

So yah, I'll take your request to heart. There's no harm in it and will make you feel so much better... It ain't about wish or desire anymore... It's about truthfulness...

//Now is this one cryptic enough? :} Sorry for everyone except for one that reads this, you must be facepaling at the moment. But no, this blog isn't always about angry nagging at politics.

Normal People's party, part 6... later.

2011-09-10T13:41:00.004-04:00

//Ok less about me and more about boring politics :}

Problem is... I'm in complete lack of inspiration for bickering, which is rather necessary to build a political prospectus. Stay tuned for more, sorry for the wait.

Lightning in a blue sky

2011-09-07T00:44:00.002-04:00

//Oh no, an emo post. And not just any emo post, a CRYPTIC emo post. Skip that one if you don't feel philosophically enclined. :}

It's just plain weird at times how things can turn out... I suppose every day is unique, but none left the kind of impression I have today in years. That's what rewards the daring.

You see, the human being is often prisonner of a very peculiar place: its own mind. Mind that nags the soul and the heart with reasonings which, once looked in the light of reality, made no sense at all. Fear and low self-esteem usually finish a work long started of self-destructiveness.

Depending on one's upbringing, the «I'm not worthy» syndrom can install itself quite silently. And once one realize it's there, the circular reasoning of «why should I address it since anyway nobody cares much and if I slowly erase myself from peoples' life nobody will see me suffer, which is all good» turning into «since nobody cares, why should I?» prevent any sort of remedy.

In such circumstances, one becomes devoid of hope, dreams and urges become laced with regrets, sorrow, pain and guilt. Temper flares as no easing is possible: since one isn't worthy, whatever one wants is to be denied, right? Or granted by accident or by Fate, which regulates everything, right?

Well, I don't think so, especially today.

Because I dared to say how I felt. Because I dared to be myself. And instead of wearing the standard of self-righteousness and the shield of self-inflicted pain to dull rejection, derision or plain fatality, I listened to my heart and soul. And let go of everything «rightful» to get «what life is really meant to be lived for».

I vanquished my mind today. A protracted war, full of shadows and mirrors, half-truth and deficient perceptions that lasted years; the fighting came to a grinding halt. I thus rediscovered the warmth of belonging and the freedom that happiness gives. I won't talk about love. It's more akin to worship you see. In a strange way of course, me being well... me. :}

Because to give to others, you have to possess something. Hence if you care for others, you need to have a reserve of self-care. And whenever people feel for you, as difficult or peculiar it might seem at first, to move towards it and embrace it is the only sane way to live...

And once one does, it becomes obvious that one is way more than originally thought of and that for so many people. And the glows it provides deep inside can't lie either. Once one steps on stigmas, social order and other nonsense and spouse both what these people feel and what echoes in one heart.

One then become self-empowered and all artifices of the mind become clear as plain day. One last dose of courage to accept this singular truth is necessary. Those who have seen Pink Floyd's «The Wall» know at least metaphorically of what I speak. For the others, the best description I could give you is : a leap of faith into the unkown which was reputedly perceived as final destruction except for a silver lining or as they put in «the Return of the King» : "a fool's hope".

It all dawned on me at the same moment. Seeing someone I care for so fiercely to struggle finally set me off. Biblical folks would call it an epiphany. The word and the lexical field doesn't matter to me today. I blew it. My mind went devoid of any scheming capability and was barely able to function as the rest of me finally took its rightful place.

When I clocked out of work today, I knew I could help and support my wife as I never knew possible and would look at the kid with kind eyes despite being dead tired... Because I was myself, renewed in what I've lost the taste of: in your face truth that felt good. The loss of fear and the renewal of spring in my heart. A long thought lost soul returning where it belongs or rather realizing it never left but just forgot to open its eyes.

Life isn't always about safety I guess... At time blind faith and trust works wonders. And it did today.

I'm empowered, and eternally grateful now. And it's the kind of debt I love to have and will pay back again and again. And I swear to you I will. It may never end.

Normal People's party - Part 5

2011-08-29T21:44:00.005-04:00

//Enter delirium

Public debt management

Who controls the money controls policy and sets the agenda

With that in mind, we consider the public debt as a national security issue. This is after all how foreign interests (as benign they may be) end up messing up internal policies. It would therefore be of prime importance for us to reduce the ratio of external debt vs total debt, relying instead on internal debt (bonds and obligations detained by the citizen of our province).

That way, all the pressure groups, foreign banks and other forms of lobbying will be short-circuited. Some love to claim for independence; in our view it begins by stop being cash addicts acting like the confederation expensive whore that has nothing much to offer anymore in terms of productivity and work output, let alone self-sustenance. And loves to complain like the bitch it is.

True, you might not have expected such harsh wording in a political party prospectus. But reality is worse. And the perception of the province's partners(!) is as much.

On the matter of "Providence State", while we as a provincial government must make sure that our population flourish and continue to grow in a stimulating and safe environment, it might look easy to "make things" appear.

Indeed, some would suggest that government should intervene more in the economy in one way or another. But by doing so, we are (unfairly) competing with private businesses that could (and currently are) paying taxes to see their competitors subsidized. It is therefore in our opinion that all subsidies should be cut. Not "for certain sectors": it should be cut, period.

Besides, we are not in a fiscal context that allows executive power much leeway anyway. We cannot save face and become to Canada what Greece is to the EU. Either we make by ourselves the difficult choice of walking the road New Zealand walked in the 80s and give our finance some degree of dignity or we go down the drain.

If you opt for the later, please don't vote for us.

//End delirium. I somehow feel better now, I wonder why. :}

Normal People's party... will continue after this announcement.

2011-08-22T23:10:00.007-04:00

On a more serious note than usual, I use to say that a honest politician is a dead politician. Today of all days, I never so wished to be wrong. Not about the honest part but for the dead part.

Jack Layton (of the New Democratic Party) died today following a uphill battle against cancer. I take the time it takes today to salute the tenacity of the guy and wish his loved ones and all who cared (and still care) for him my most sincere sympaties.

For his political supporters I say : you now have 102 MPs in the lower house, i.e. more than you ever had. Don't make his ultimate sacrifice be in vain and work your hardest to make him proud, even if he's no more.

To all Canadians I say: Layton has probably ruined his health defending his ideals (and in his view Canada itself) while he could have passed the bucket way earlier during the dark days when NDP was but a farce for most political analysts. Today, Canada lost a great leader. Be you in any part of the political spectrum, remove you hat and remember Jack Layton.

As in most good things: we only realize the magnitude of it... Once it's lost without remedy.

Anima eius et animae omnium fidelium defunctorum per Dei misericordiam requiescant in pace

Normal People's party, part 4

2011-08-16T17:33:00.003-04:00

//Begin delirium and be warned, this one is rather tough.

Monetary / Fiscal policies
Yah, you read correctly. Monetary.

We wholeheartly recognize minting money as a federal jurisdiction.

However, most of the money in circulation in Canada (and therefore in Québec) is created by banks by a mechanism known as bank multiple expansion which is explained bellow:

Debtor A goes to the bank to borrow say 1000$. Of course, debtor A will put the said 1000$ in a bank account and use it as needed.
Bank of Debtor A will set aside say 10% of it and send it to Bank of Canada for insurance purposes (the 60 000$ that cannot vanish thing) and then has 900$ available to...?
Debtor B goes to the bank of Debtor A and borrow 900$. As much as Debtor A, Debtor B open a bank account and deposits the said 900$ for future use.
Bank of Debtor B will then set aside 90$ of the said 900$ and will also send it to the Bank of Canada. So it also has now 810$ available for Debtor C, and the wheel goes on until there's no more money.

Of course, all the banks make money charging interests on the money they provide their customers. And making money is a good thing. However, while the fiduciary model of money printing didn't completely go bankrupt, it leaves the government vulnerable to the whims of those banks that more or less control any aspect of their policies.

What makes a government live and die? Ultimately, it's money. If the government doesn't control the money, it doesn't control its destiny. While in Canada the Bank of Canada ultimately respond to the Queen, it's unlikely She will intervene if needs be as it would set a dangerous precedent... Or so the banks tell us.

So back to provincial level of political levering: buy solid assets. Not titles on those assets: assets. Not speculative assets: assets. Petrol and gold. Steel and copper. Put them under the lock and guard them well. If worse comes to worse, you won't be lacking ressources (as we have some raw ones here) nor you will lack comodities to pay your people if need rises. One can't eat money. But with gold, things are a bit easier.

Now for the less arcane stuff (almost): fiscality.
Of course, we all hate to pay taxes. We work hard for our money and it seems than less and less of it makes it (and stays) in our bank account. Well, there's different reasons for that:

A .lot. of people don't pay taxes;
The fiscal system is so fraught with exceptions and exemptions that is you're clever (or rich enough to hire fiscalists) you can get away with paying a way lighter burden of taxes that us, the people
We feel shortchanged by substandard services and infrastructures, let alone political wrangling (wait 10 years to know .where. a hospital will be built?!?)
The taxes on businesses are overly competitive (Hydro-Quebec paying more taxes to the government that .all the other moral entities operating in the province put together)
Next to no charge per ton of natural ressource is demanded from ore companies (and no they won't walk away with the mine if you begin collecting some)
A lot of work goes on without being taxed.

That said, what can the government do to create a fiscal climate that is both sane and simple for people to understand?

We already announced that we would draft 20K$ per person over 18 years old that is citizen (Sorry for those who are PR, you need citizenship) that lives in Quebec (sorry for the snowbirds too). Now we would abolish taxes on revenues.

You read correctly: we would abolish taxes on revenues.

Instead, we would tax consumption. I hear the doomsayers stating that it would be the end of the economy as we know it. To that we agree. What it means in reality is : "as long you don't spend your money, it ain't taxed". Do you then need programs to sensibilize people to the importance of savings? Do you still need a publicly managed pension plan?

The fact is that you can now scrap EERP schemes, CELI schemes, Study saving schemes... The list appears endless.

So increased savings and a cut in spending on short-term. In short, a recession. Created by policy. Nobody said it would be easy, and it isn't our claim either. But it's necessary for various reasons:

The increasing reliance on credit
Next to no pension planning for those in the private sector
Government sponsored programs for those "in need", in fact perpetuating poverty (as those managing the cases don't want to lose their job either), defeating the very purpose of their job and their mission.

Knowing that tax revenues would fall sharply for the government as well (you saw that one coming right), a restructuration of the current service offering would be mandatory. We indeed cannot preach financial prudence while spending over our revenue source indefinetly.

//End delirium, and I didn't talk about the debt yet... More to come.

Normal People's party - part 3

2011-08-14T23:09:00.006-04:00

//Delirium resumes

Welfare / manpower policies

Ok this one is thorny because let's face it: besides the socialistic view that "the State should provide for everyone", we basically provide for the poor to prevent riotting. But as in everything in Québec, commitment is nowhere to be found as usual.

This is one of the reason why we have both a leftish and a rightish approach to welfare and take a few pages from the creditists (!) book:

Write a cheque to every citizen of the province aged 18 or older of about ~20K$ a year and make it tax-free. If the citizen wants more, he will have to work and that part will be taxed.
When a business or enterprise replace people by machinery, the said machinery should pay the taxes the employees were paying. We don't mind unions losing their membership fees and the safety board won't receive what it used to receive, but at least the government won't be starved to death by "productivity gains".

Now you will tell me that this encourages sloppiness and discourages working. In our view however, it send a very powerful message:

Everyone is equal
We won't come and inspect where this 20K$ comes from
Every has reasonable solvency.

Another clear advantage is that you can scrap zillions of programmes, from the welfare for those able to work to the incapacitated ones to senior citizen programmes to the (in)famous parental insurance to 7$ daycare that isn't universal (and failing in many places) anyway. Of course you can have targetted campains to induce work, but at least nobody can claim not to have money.

We're aware that's in an ideal world.

But for now, we have to do with the system as it is. Now the next section will sound mean (and really it is) because we will target a segment of welfare clientele: those able to work.

We hear from here the lobbyists whine about dignity and human rights. To receive free money isn't a right. You want dignity: go work.

Therefore, and in order not to have Ste-Catherine Ave. on fire every now and then as these very occupied people will seek a way of revenge, we propose this:

Every welfare client able to work are to report to the nearest (emptied for the occasion) government building from 9am to 5pm, with 2 15 minutes breaks and a half a hour for lunch, and that Monday through Friday. Every no-show means 1/10 of your paycheque being cut.
Your job description is to sit at a cubicle and do absolutely nothing. The reason why you're not allowed to do anything is that the civil servant unions will rightfully complain they steal their members' work.
Your only way out is to consult the job attendant of your floor and get a job. Oh and don't even think about making a tantrum.

Now what makes us propose such a thing you might wonder. Simple: try to work undeclared if you're assigned to a desk during daytime. Drastic, yes. Efficient, we hope so. Plus it makes good use of goodness knows how many building that are collecting dust (and burning electricity). And as said earlier, no problem with the unions.

And since welfare users are no more, we will also cut subsidies to those whom "to whine about social injustice" is their institutionalized job.

//End delirium

Oh no! Another IT post

2011-08-14T20:12:00.004-04:00

//This is follow the evillll plan I had to solve my problems, with other problems surfacing.

Well guess what: every evil plan has its pitfalls.

Namely in this case: upon host reboot, the iSCSI target lose its USB connection to the drive, and can thus not be used unless I manually redeclare it and then redeclare the target in VMware.

-> I can't safely reboot this box unattended, manual intervention is always required.

But still, it's better than nothing.

Next thing I could do would be to get a Micro-ATX motherboard (or a cheap laptop), load a linux kernel on it and use _that_ as a iSCSI target... Wait, I have a few of those already, but except for a Dell XPS Gen2 (which I'm not yet willing to commit to that cause), all the others have 100Mbps network uplink, making them unusable for this kind of dweomer.

Oh no, an IT post!

2011-08-11T14:34:00.005-04:00

//If you're not into IT or computing in general, skip this one unless you want to get a headache.

Some time ago to accomodate one of our customers I decided to let go of my own server (a ML350 G5 from HP). The company I worked for therefore provided me with a new server: a DL360 G5 (with more RAM and more hostpower).

All was well and good but then I hit a snag: I have one of my VMware volume (bigboy) which is a 750Gb SATA drive. While it fitted just nice in a ML350 chassis (it's a tower after all), the 1U form factor of the DL360 made it impossible to fit in. The pair of 2.5" SAS drives I previously owned were no problem though.

After looking right and left for a PCIe SATA HBA that would be recognized by VMware (and looking at their price tags), the bottomline was: unless I get creative, my large VMFS volume would be unusable. Because you see, you can't exactly use USB devices as VMFS in ESXi.

Unless you make it forget it's USB, that is.

So here came my evillll plan: install a linux distro, declare the USB device as its own in the VM's properties and turn the said VM into an iSCSI target. Slow as hell, but it works and the setup would be rather painless. Or so I thought.

Thinking that most recent was better, I grabbed my OpenSUSE 11.4 ISO DVD and installed the VM. No rocket science there. I then declared the USB drive as attached to the VM. Yay, I now had a /dev/sdb.

I then proceeded to configure the iSCSI target subsystem (iSCSI Enterprise packages had been installed through YaST as usual) to hit this bug which made it impossible for VMware to see anything. In fact, if it did, it would have corrupted my volume. Charming, really.

I thus proceeded to install OpenSuSE 11.3 x64 instead (with no update whatsoever). Lo and behold: my volume is back from the dead!

I now can happily start my Windows 2000 (!) Advanced server and other things (like Windows 7 ulimate that was sitting on a dead laptop (it's a boxed version I bought, not a OEM mind)) and XP home (another boxed one). Useless stuff unless you are in the field and you need a remote-controllable desktop from afar. Which is often my case.

What was the name of this political party again?

2011-08-06T23:50:00.006-04:00

/*Delirum continues

Healthcare policies

Ok this one is rather... tough. Because you see, Canada's Health Act is very specific about what can and cannot be done in a province in order to get subsidies from Ottawa.

Sadly, when the healthcare system was implemented in Quebec, it was migrating a system where nurses were nuns and where the fanciest interventions were hearth attacks. As the coverage of what healthcare in this system expended, so did the expenses.

As our party promotes liberty (i.e. freedom to choose linked to the burden of assuming those choices), we don't expect major change to the system as it is in the immediate future. However, as we also promote self-awareness and self-control, we will introduce a very simple check to insure you, the citizen, are covered.

If you did everything to get sick, you won't be covered.

If you smoked for 30 years and you come in for lung cancer, or if you drank like a Hummer for a decade and you then complain your liver is dead, you're NOT COVERED. And don't think the medical community can't tell the difference.

That includes people on welfare that are apt to work.

As for the spiralling costs of the service, an evaluation of the workforce that isn't directly providing services to the customers (no, not beneficiaries) will be performed and some of it will probably be let go.

// Will probably think of some other stuff later.
/* //End delirium

Ok probably more than boring if you're out of Québec, let alone out of Canada. But hey, bear with me. Those are the joys of staying up late by default.

Ok... What to talk about when one isn't working...

2011-08-05T21:40:00.005-04:00

And that is, of course, absolutely nonproductive and divisive? Politics of course!

So let's, since I'm rather bored tonight.

I was thinking of a new political party and prospectus for a little while. So I'll expose some of the ideas I have, feel free to scream / flame / whine / thumb up if you want. :}

/*Delirium, part 1.

Name : Normal People's party (very boring name, as it must)

Short description

This party call a cat a cat, not "something that has four legs, is independant and meows". We look at hard data and not perceptions (nor TVA) and we acts on problems instead of sitting on them for 4 years. We don't expect to be re-elected, and we even think the median population will vote us out invariably. Yah, one of those "will be painful" party that would act on instead of contemplating.

We also recognize that statemanship means to do evil for the better good. So the position won't be held by a goodie two-shoes. That begins with MP selection: if you want to submit your candidacy, the only mandatory form we will require is a valid police certificate stating you have no criminal record. And as soon you have one, you're out. Oh and don't think we won't check, it might hurt.

Another director principle of the party is to acknowledge what those same goodie two-shoes normally tend to forget: life can be a bitch and is a dangerous business. So while not promoting chaos, our party would probably work against the "let's drive our car at 50mph maximum and for the sake of our children let's all wear helmets while the car moves" trend of these days.

Another particularity of the party is that it will promote true democracy: in an ideal world, all citizens would vote the laws instead of electing representatives that are bound to be sooner or later bought / corrupted / disconnected from their base. The technology is there for such feat to actually happen.

Of course I expect the state would still need some apparatus to represent executive power in face of other entities (provinces / countries / corporations / lobbies) but its role would be to enact the will of the people and not the other way around as it's often the case with our wonderful Westminster-type parlimentary system.

//What else...

Oh and the Quebec / Canada debate doesn't exist in our party. Do you hear? It DOESN'T EXIST. One word on it and you're out. As for the left-right issue: if you want to dig clouds, go to another party. We works problems out, we don't debate unnecessarily.

/* //Delirium ends for now.

On further posts, I'll enunciate policies for the primary sphere of influence in which I see the government as having a legitimate say.

//

La traduction suivra éventuellement.

Ok I should still be able to drive.

2011-06-08T04:40:00.003-04:00

It's 4:38a now here and I'm done for the night, the rest of the report should be a breeze now that most SKUs are in. Ok I'll have to fight to get a SAN quotation from Dell (usual: "What's our erm I mean your customer's name?") and a few pieces of equipments are not the way I'd like them to be, but the big mama analysis and the visio galore is done (except for one).

One day do do all that should be more than enough. What can go wrong, right? :}

Another small itch gone

2011-06-08T01:20:00.002-04:00

Nothing much to report at this hour (all brain cells coalessed on this IT director planning I'm currently writing) except for the fact that now in Word you can write a canadian figure (3 000$) without having the 3 on the end on the line and the 000$ on the next one by pressing ctrl+shift+space. Wow, I knew how in WordPerfect 5.1 and now I also know it in Winword 2010.

Pfew. I'll sleep happier tonight(?).

While waiting for exchange 2010 to finish...

2011-06-03T19:35:00.001-04:00

I'm still at work at the moment finalizing the dummy domain for our office 365 testing,

I'm turning my chair so you can see the kind of thing I read while I'm bored (and the kind of items I keep at work too):

Ok what's outstanding in this picture:

-The USB pet rock
-The 50 years old dictionary
-The holy bible masking the chartreuse and grand marinier spirit bottles
-'IBM and the holocaust' book by Edwin Black
-4 sorts of teas

... Ok that should do it for now :}

Location:Boulevard Pierre-Bertrand,Quebec,Canada

...Or maybe not

2011-06-02T20:59:00.001-04:00

Why not some Mexican food while at it! :}

Ok don't go there for the decor, but the food is good. Or at least satisfying.

Location:Rue Saint Hubert,Montreal,Canada

Montreal as a tourist, for the last time this week

2011-06-02T19:10:00.001-04:00

Today for something rather different than your usual restaurant / museum / pub / stripper club visit, my wife had a pretty original idea: a bathroom.

No, wait! :} This place was rather unusual! The bath was filled with 1500kg (roughly 3300 pounds) of salt.

So I, that usually floats as much as a rock, was able to safely lie on my back with no fear whatsoever, quite an alien experience to me.

So basically one hour of peace before the 3 hour drive home to Quebec City.

Recommended.

Location:Avenue de Chateaubriand,Montreal,Canada

3$ pour un passage de métro?

2011-06-01T08:32:00.001-04:00

La dernière fois que je l'ai pris, c'était 1.29et1/8$? Ca doit être l'inflation je vous dit!

Location:Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest,Montreal,Canada

Powershell: when IT managers begin to program

2011-05-31T14:56:00.004-04:00

It isn't a new idea: admins have done scripting forever in the Unix world. But what begins to get on my nerves is that Powershell asks of us to interact with .NET classes. Which are RING3 equivalents in Win32/64 world of what was INT 21h in DOS assembly language was: invocation of system (and now application) services, instantiation and destruction of objects added.

Linux scripting invokes commands of course, but they are just that: commands. They are not signaling or... INT 0x80ing? Ok bad exemple as this interrupt requests kernel-level services in linux (wrong cpu ring :p). I guess C-shell is equivalent (as it remains in userland) and I'm just annoyed to be force-fed .net in order to manage things.

On the other hand, "don't work on your server console" network operating systems (Vines, Netware come to mind) were ridiculed as being cumbersome to administer back in the 90s. Now guess what: the Windows world is turning its back to what has originally been its key selling point.

Funny.

At one point in my carreer I didn't mind that much to invest weeks of study into those arcane commands. But I came to realize one thing:

I'm not a programmer. I don't have the capacity to create new things using machine code. I can bang code until it does what I want it to do but it must be written by someone else first and then I'll customize it to my use.

Maybe I'm just getting old and grumpy, but I find it alarming to have to create a certificate request in Exchange using command line only because. l33t much?

Location:Drummond St,Montreal,Canada

On est demain!

2011-05-31T00:22:00.001-04:00

Après avoir parcouru 250km pour atteindre Montréal, je suis finalement en train de... Souper.

J'ai mangé un tian en entrée (je n'avais jamais vu le mot avant) et ensuite une assiette de saucisse. Les frites étaient bonnes, la saucisse un peu salée. Mais pour 25$, très abordable pour ce type de resto (Leméac sur Laurier ouest)

La suite une fois que j'aurai réussi à dormir.

Location:Avenue Durocher,Outremont,Canada

Happy Victoria Day... again :}

2011-05-23T10:40:00.003-04:00

In order to make everyone cringe, I propose a picture of an artifact of yore, when separatists in Canada were petitioning for an independant... Canada. :}

A simple question about Bin Laden's death

2011-05-03T18:29:00.005-04:00

Me being me, I won't treat the news as everyone else did. You've followed this blog (?) long enough to know it's not my type to follow the parade.

The fact that USA has struck without Pakistani knowledge nor prior conscent is one thing. But it underlines that USA lack something that Pakistan executive level of power has: faith in the government of Pakistan's capacity to manage and keep its military and intelligence folks under control.

The real question is: is the government of Pakistan right in harbouring this view of their world? Because if the answer is yes, violation of a sovereign country airspace for a military sortie is an act of war and as such a state of war with the USA is their only option.

But if the answer is no, it means that we have a military power out of civilian control with nukes. A rogue military establishment. So the said "war of terror" might get yet another and rather ugly shift now. Oh and what will India think of this?

Make no mistake, I genuinely hope to be wrong and that Pakistani government didn't declare war only because they are in a position of ridicule and a campain isn't an option for them in their mind. Because if I'm right...? Oh dear.

Location:Boulevard Champlain,Quebec,Canada

Could someone help me here?

2011-04-21T15:24:00.004-04:00

I'm trying to dispose of one of my pet peeves here, without much hope though:

And no, I don't want to allow. It's my computer, and I don't want any of this shit.

Short of installing Lotus Notes of course, is there a way to fool Outlook 2010 into thinking it's talking to whatever it wants to talk to without actually allowing it?

State of Canada // L'état du Canada

2011-04-20T20:59:00.001-04:00

The most striking image portraying the state of the State in this spring federal election season: beaten up, in disrepairs, defaced by people who don't give a damn about its future while those in charge sit on their hands.

/*

*/

L'image la plus parfaite de l'état de l'État dans la saison printanière électorale : usé à la corde, écrianché (pour les cousins Français, imaginez-vous une étable dont les murs sont d'un côté à 80 degrés et le mur opposé au premier est à 100 degrés; c'est ça, "écrianché") et défigurés par des personnes qui n'en ont rien à cirer de son futur pendant que les gens pouvant changer les choses restent sagement assied sur leur mains.

Location:Saint-Romuald, Québec, Canada

You know you've been in computing for too long when...

2011-03-31T22:31:00.006-04:00

1701 for you means a hard drive failure

You still have the reflex to think of interleaving your hard drive before partitionning it

AND that the command to achieve that is to type g=c800:5 in debug (yah, I know, it's :7 for Western digital controllers already)

You know that the dos_version system call returns 20.something when you're running OS/2 and that the same call returning 10.x means you run NT

You know what IOPL CPU ring is for

You defragged a 5¼" floppy at least once

You know what produced Central Point Software, Samna, Editexte, Quaterdeck and Worldstar;

Your first multitasking OS was PC/MOS-386

You remember fondly your 3 pages config.sys in OS/2

You remember that Shift+F7, 4 shows the print spooler in Wordperfect 5.1

You know the meaning of OLD CS1, LOAD $,8,1 or CATALOG V1,D1

SCOAdmin is for wusses

You remember how to compile your IPX network drivers for Netware 2.15 DOS requesters

Banyan Vines rules the world of X.500 for you

DSrepair is a novelty

long.nam should have remained os2.nam for vrepair

MODE CON CP has no secret for you (ya my codepage was 863, 850 is for nobodies :p)

You know what ctty stands for in a batch file;

Your first drawing program was koala illustrator

You still have a microcode disk 81 to initialize your IBM 5250

You still have your commodore fastload and it still works

You remember how to set a BLASTER environment variable

You remember how to show a prompt in colour in DOS using escape codes

Your first floppy had 8 sectors per tracks, 40 tracks and one face

You used a drill to transform your 720kb 3½"floppy into 1.44Mb ones

You know what lantastic is

You still have that Asanté SCSI network card in the basement

You know what Ontrack disk manager overlay is for

You copied at least one floppy using Copywrit.exe

You know what pinball.sys was used for in NT

And for that matter, you remember the "NT is a registered trademark of Northen Telecom" notice on Windows NT boxes

ATS11=55&C1&D2&K3 is more than a string of characters to you

You can lock a modem at 300bps by whistling at it over the phone while it answers you

Ok, if you think of anything else, post it in comments.

Who do you think you're kidding?!?

2011-03-16T20:09:00.005-04:00

First of all, sorry for the lack of update of late. Instead of inventing some silly excuse, I'll put it plainly: I've been out of inspiration.

I want to post today to offer my deepest support to people in Japan. The natural disaster that struck them could not be avoided so let's honour the glorious dead and help those who survived.

Now on normal tone: could someone tell the management at the nuclear power plant to just shut their mouth up if they can't stop spitting lies around?

If the lack of coolant means that the moderation rods can't shut down your reactors kind sirs, then you have positive void coefficient design, which is one of the design flaw that broke open Chernobyl 4.

For those of you that wonder «what the hell is he talking about again?» here is, in a nutshell what this means:

A nuclear reactor is normally controlled by control rods which regulates the level of nuclear fission within the fuel rods.
Deuterium or another H2O isotope is injected to generate steam which is makes a turbine rotate. This liquid is then cooled down and is usually in closed circuit because it is itself radioactive (although at a lesser level than the fuel obviously).
A positive void-coefficient reactor means that if this liquid is removed or its ability to cool down is degraded, the thermonuclear reaction increases. In short, the liquid used to generate power negates the reaction.
Under the right circumstances (not enough control rods inserted coupled with an unstable core running <>

And that, ladies and gentlemen is one of the design flaws (or the risk factor depending of your point of view) Chernobyl was afflicted with.

Now I'm not even remotely suggesting that plants in Japan are as bad as USSR power plants in the 80s. But to suggest that there's no comparisons possible is a flat lie. Especially in the management spin department.

And no I'm not nagging. I'm actually very concerned. Because you know what? ALL CANDU REACTORS HAVE THAT FLAW (read: most Canadian reactors). They will tell you that the factor is minimal. They will sing the advantages of not having to enrich uranium, the fact those reactors can even run with depleted plutonium.

HECK!

Chalk River was spitting deuterium 3 years ago. Here's a 50+ years old reactor that the central atomic authority in Canada closed down because of a cooling pump problem (sounds vaguely familiar, eh?) that our highly honourable idiot in second (Yah that's you Mr Harper) ordered recommissionned.

So the political class didn't know what they were doing in Ukraine in 2006. I can't exactly claim we'd do better because for the last 50 years, we didn't.

Oh and for those of you who love to spit at our southern neighbour, know this:

It is forbidden by federal law to build a positive void-coefficient reactor in the United State of America.

Chew on that for a while, would you now?

On a final note, if you have one hour and a half to spare, I'd suggest you watch all parts of the following video. Where the real disaster... isn't the disaster.

Oh and I almost forgot / Oh et j'allais oublier

2011-02-11T06:17:00.002-05:00

//Le message français suivra

According to the calendar, today's the worst day of the year to do anything. So just don't start anything out of the ordinary. Be careful and sit tight ok? :)

/*
*/

Aujourd'hui selon le calendrier est le pire jour de l'année. Ne commencez donc pas de tâches compliquées ou exceptionelles; soyez prudent ok? ;)

A Canadian in Singapore... strikes again. :}

2011-02-11T02:09:00.004-05:00

Yup ladies and gentlemen, this lul in blog post is brought to you by Air Canada and American Airline. :}

I've touched down in SIN (Changi Airport) around midnight in the night between Jan 27th and 28th. And yah it was rainy.

But compared to the -19C I had a week before back in my beloved freezer aka Quebec City, that was a nice change of venue. I don't mind the rain, and when I'm on vacation I even enjoy it. And it makes sleeping very easy too.

Two days ago we went to Sentosa (I know already, tourist trap yah) but it costed only 1SG$ to enter, quite cheap for the size of the park. We didn't enter the obvious tourist trap (Universal Studio) and since I saw the Merlion already, I didn't felt like going there.

Took some shots of the flower exhibit there, which coincided with the chinese new year.

Also to the menu was the movie "It's a great Great World" e went to watch at Golden Village. The movie depict a bygone amusement park and how various characters relate to it. While not rocket science, the script was nice enough to entice a non-SGean to watch.

Sure there was hokkien, cantonese and other dialects involved but for me it made little difference: read subtitles as none of this conversation makes sense otherwise. Blame me for only speaking english and french. :}

More to follow when I'll be less lazy.

Another diplomatic leak?

2011-01-24T00:02:00.002-05:00

Ok this post won't be your usual "I clip a news site article and comment" because it's all over the place. You can go BBC, CBC, CBS, CNN, wherever you want for basic knowledge of the exposed «evidence».

I'm refering to the fact negociation documents between the Palestinian Authority and the state of Israel have been leaked.

Now I told you already that as long both antagonists would continue commiting war crimes I wouldn't bother about their conflict and I'll stand by my word.

This post is about the act of making sensitive documents public for maximum effect. Although my readership is not expected to be journalists, I'd recommend to process news using the following pointers:

Where is it coming from;
Is it reliable;
Who is publishing it;
What is the probable outcome of this information going in the wild;
Who are the probable winner of such outcome;
What is there to gain for them.

In our example news, «Al-Jazira» Is the publisher. Now who told that news agency? Unknown source? Then comes the second question: is it reliable? With no source citing, tough to know if the documents were forged or not.

Of course if they are classified they by their nature won't ever be authenticated unless another party has special interest into making them authentic, which begs the question: what does this party has to gain from using their own credentials to vet such document. That may give you some clue about who has something to win from the leak.

Now what are the outcome of such a leak?

The Palestinian Authority will lose focus by doing damage control;
The said Authority will lose credence, prestige and honour;
The Palestinian people will be led to mistrust their elected leaders;
The Israelis, especially the radical ortodox jews, will be comforted that their agenda has backing;
The state of Israel will lose credibility in the eyes of the world by looking intransigeant... Again.

Those are nice and tight, but on the ground, the effects are:

Death dealers (the war industry) will continue selling weapons and logistics as peaceful negociation are yet again stalled;
Influence peddlers will have yet another round of self-indulging celebrity;
War-mongerers have a tight grip of their different factions, turning bloodlines into swiss cheese;
More civilians suffer from land seizure, starvation and water-deprivation.

Now I might sound a bit paranoid about what carries a news, I prefer to ask myself those questions first. Indeed, while it takes a bit more time to hunt information around to make sure this not spin or downright disinformation, it makes me feel better to know I have forged my opinion on something I know the value of. So I won't argue forever if I know my sources to be flimsy for instance.

But make no mistake: information is power. Those elites watching over us want nothing to do with empowering the masses. So do your homeworks. At least if you see that a news has next to no vetting or credence, you can still accept it while knowing it to be flimsy. And change opinion as matters progress.

Geez, what a rant!

Politician prank / Une farce de politicien

2011-01-21T13:43:00.004-05:00

// English message will follow

Après plus d'un an à jouer au chat et à la souris, voici notre très honorable premier ministre qui tente, nous exhorte et espère que nous passions finalement à un autre appel et abandonions notre envie que la soue à cochons qu'est la politique provinciale, avec son atmosphère de corruption dans plus d'une des sphères économiques au Québec, soit nettoyée une fois pour toute..

La suggestion du premier: qu'on parle d'économie, bien entendu!

Le problème avec cette approche, cependant, est que la dernière fois que le gouvernement libéral a parlé sérieusement d'économie était au dernier budget. Où son ministre des finances nous disait sans broncher que la finalité souhaitable était que la population soit heureuse et non de balancer le budget!

Oh et à moins que vous ne restiez pas au Québec, vous ne pouvez pas avoir manqué la série "Le Québec dans le rouge", retraçant toutes les dépenses (souvent surprenantes) du gouvernement nous ayant pourtant fait la promesse "de faire attention" et s'étant fait élire sur la promesse d'effectuer "la réingénierie de l'État" en 2003.

Eh oui, Mr Charest, on s'en rappèle.

After a hell of a year playing cat and mouse, here comes our beloved highly honorable premier minister which try, exhort us and hope that we will forego our will to see the pighouse that provincial politics which its corruption undertone in various economy sectors, be cleansed once and for all.

The premier's suggestion towards that goal: let's talk about the economy, of course.

The problem with that of course is that last time this liberal government entertained us with economics was at the submission of last year's budget. Where its finance minister declared that the finality should be that Quebecers are happy and not to balance the budget!

Oh and unless you don't leave in Quebec, you cannot have missed this "Quebec in the red" serie in french-written Journal de Montréal (ok you might have since it's in French but anyway), tracking down each week every grants our government made despite promising to "be careful with spendings this year" and has been elected in 2003 on the promise to re-engineer the state (to basically cut costs).

Yah Mr. Charest, we remember.

So surprising // Tellement surprenant

2011-01-19T12:27:00.006-05:00

// Le message français suivra

Now I'm sure you couldn't see that one coming. Indeed, federal government earlier this week decided to effectively reduce house loan maximum payback period from 35 to 30 years. Just to make sure Canadians don't sink too deep in debts they cannot repay.

So what's up today? The morgage industry is complaining that the new regulation was unecessary. While this charming lobby is entitled its opinion, I'd like to point out that we last saw the banking sector deregulation being showcased in what happened in the morgage industry... Two years ago in the US. And I hope everyone remembers where it led to... Right?

Je suis certain que vous ne les avez pas vu venir! En effet, au début de la semaine, le gouvernement fédéral établissait que normalement une hypothèque devrait maximalement être remboursée en dedans de 30 ans. La règle a été mis en place afin que nous Canadiens ne nous étranglions pas avec la corde qu'est le crédit.

Que voyons-nous donc poindre aujourd'hui? L'industrie des prêteurs hypotécaires qui se pleint que la nouvelle règles n'était pas nécessaire! Je suis pour la liberté d'expression et concède volontier que ce groupe de pression ait le droit de s'exprimer. Je tiens cependant à souligner que la dernière "démonstration" de ce à quoi peut ressembler une industrie bancaire dé-règlementée est le contexte bancaire prévalant aux États-Unis il y a 2 ans... Et j'ôse croire que vous vous rappelez où ça nous a mené... Right?

Wishes // vœux

2011-01-07T17:34:00.002-05:00

//English message will follow

Bonne et heureuse année à tous! Santé, amour, joie et prospérité; le reste, je vous laisse le souhaiter. :)

Eh bien non, pas de politique, pas de drame et pas d'idées noires aujourd'hui. Pas que les événements manquent mais je ne suis pas dans l'état d'esprit nécessaire pour le traiter.

Mes pensées vont à ceux que j'aime (vous vous connaissez et si vous avez des doutes, oui vous êtes inclus), puisse cette année être extraordinaire pour vous.

//

Happy new year to everybody! Health, love, joy and prosperity is what I wish you; for the rest, I'll leave you to your attention. :)

And no, no politics, no drama and no dark tough today. Not that there's nothing of the sort hanging in the air, but I'm not in the mindset to care about such thing.

My thoughts go to everybody I love (you know who you are and if you have doubt, you're included), may be this year be your best yet to come.

The table is evil?!?

2010-12-27T18:52:00.001-05:00

Ok, that came as a surprise. Indeed, what on that table could make you suspect it was under a dark influence?

If you say "alcohol" I'd reply the answer came before it was served.

"Now what's this delirium again?" will you interject. You see, we happened to have an unlikely pendulum:

Indeed my friend was toying with it and it so happens that tried 4 times to induce clockwise movement but in the end it always ended up circling anticlockwise, thus confirming its harmful nature.

Tough luck. :}

Don't read this.

2010-12-22T23:34:00.003-05:00

About this time of year last year I was pointing to a video describing the worst mass suicide in human history. Today I'm watching documentaries about Чорнобиль (Chernobyl).

I decided to spare you the gory (if there's such a word) details this year. But it begs the question: why does Christmas leads me to this sort of mood? Indeed, even as hubis, misplaced pride, namecalling, hypocrisy and plain ignorance rule the fate of many and can be catastrophic, it is so all year 'roud. So why now?

Maybe it's the accumulation of everything horrifying I've witnessed which my conscious mind tries to keep tame that is finally blurping over...

Maybe it's schedule pressure... Maybe it's financial pressure... Coupled with more introspection time...

It's in moments like this that I sortof know my very soul to cry and scream in what seems to be a silent void... To mourn for the dead of the just, to be unsure of the future, to give up all hope of making any sense of it and trying to make the best out of the present... Is painful at best.

The fact I miss some people very dear to me with only dim hope of seeing them is a factor too, at least on the emotional side of things. But hey, who lives a perfect life? Doesn't make it less painful sadly.

*takes a deep breath*
Enough negativism for this year, I'm sick of it.

My own control rods don't have graphite tips so I shouldn't blow up anytime soon. :}

So be merry and enjoy your holiday, merry Xmas for those who are christian and for the others enjoy the free days off.

Oh the irony

2010-12-07T20:41:00.004-05:00

//For those of you that ain't technologically enclined, you can skip this one

I had (and still have) to reconfigure a Fortigate 100A in order to get iPhone IPSec running (since the capacity was ruined in FortiOS MR2 P2). Since I didn't have the password of the box, I proceeded into formatting the boot flash and start anew.

But when I then tried to boot firmware from TFTP, of course images were _always_ corrupted. No matter which one I tried, it would never proceed. I tried downloading the firmwares from 2 computers to no avail: the FG100A was now an expensive brick.

Rather annoyed, I brought the box home. Why? Because at work we have a rather undersized FG60B which has the annoying habit of breaking binary transfers of some size. Reaching home, I downloaded the same firmware as what was previously installed (FGT_100A-v400-build0209-FORTINET.out for those who really want to know) and uploaded it through tftp. Lo and behold, it worked this time.

Difference? The router I have at home is... Cisco PIX 501: another rachetic router but at least the binary blob got in unhindered.

So the bottomline is: if you download a fortigate firmware, make sure... you're not behind a fortigate.

Oh and did I tell you that the fortigate serial port cable died on me so I had to use (and I ain't kidding you) my Cisco blue cable?

Message d'intérêt public

2010-12-06T12:54:00.003-05:00

À tous les médias:

Arrêtez de dire qu'une averse de neige est une tempête.

Je vais le répéter: Arrêtez de dire qu'une averse de neige est une tempête.

Pourquoi? Parce que quand il y aura une vrai tempête, nous ne vous croirons pas. Comme la fois où la "3è tempête du siècle" de l'année faisait rage... Sauf que cette fois-là c'était vrai et que je me suis ramassé à faire un U-Turn sur l'overpass de charny pour emprumpter une route fermée (la 132) pour me rendre chez moi.

Donc si vous criez aux loups continuellement, vous vous ferez ignorer. Est-ce vraiment ce que vous voulez?

Billet Facebook-esque

2010-11-24T19:53:00.005-05:00

//This is mainly personal stuff that isn't really interesting to begin with so I doubt I'll translate it. If everything fails there's always google translate or babelfish.

Oui je sais Carl que c'est pas intéressant mais je promets de ne pas parler de mon sapin de Noël... Parce que je n'en ai pas. :}

Bon, par où commencer...

La semaine a été constitué de revers et pourtant une sérénité m'habite ce soir. Car contrairement à mon habitude de m'en tenir à la loi de Murphy, j'ai décidé de donner à la vie sa chance de me montrer de quoi elle était faite.

Mercredi dernier, je décide d'aller (comme d'accoutumé) au Future Shop de Place Laurier afin de changer mon téléphone... Pour apprendre que maintenant que Rogers a un semblant d'inventaire, la promotion de mise à jour à frais réduits... est évidemment terminée depuis le 5 novembre. Arg!!!... not.

Je voulais un iPhone 4 blanc depuis le début. Je vais donc patiemment attendre qu'il sorte l'an prochain. Yay, je viens de sauver 250$.

Ensuite quoi... Je prend mon rendez-vous pour mes pneus et j'obtiens un rendez-vous... le jeudi 25 novembre à 10h15. Argggg!!! Y'annoncent de la neige le lundi! Ouain... Et puis? Ô mon dieu, j'ai conduit moins vite. Résultat: j'ai jamais eu autant d'essence dans mon véhicule en presque 6 mois rendu à ce moment-ci de la semaine.

Quoi d'autre... Lundi justement: je traîne mon ML350 G5 pour faire un test chez un client. Branche le courant dedans: plus de son, plus d'image. En ouvrant le panneau, deux condensateurs noircies sur la carte mère. Bon, ça y est: un motherboard de 1300$ à changer. Bah, on va respirer par le nez, peut-être que c'est le câble ou je ne sais quoi. Eh bien non, ce n'était pas le câble. Mais pas grave: respirons par le nez, de pogner les nerfs ne m'aidera pas pour mon appel®.

Oh et est-ce que j'ai mentionné que j'ai oublié mon portable chez le client, tant qu'à être?

Eh bien aujourd'hui j'ai emprumpté un bloc d'alimentation du bureau pour ladite boîte à beurre de serveur: lo and behold! La pièce de 1300$ à remplacer s'est transformée en une de ~200$ et si ça se trouve, elle est garantie. Est-ce que ça valait donc la peine de paniquer?

Et il est digne de mention que le portable est automagiquement revenu au bureau grâce au concours d'un de mes collègues.

La vie m'a donc enseigné beaucoup en peu de temps. Mais la chose importante à retenir est la suivante:

Même si ça n'apparaît pas immédiatement, souvent les événements dans une vie sont mieux que ce que l'on pourrait le vouloir; ou comme le dit ci bien l'adage anglophone: be mindful of what you wish for, as you might very well get it.

C'était mon édito faithful in Gaia, Karma et al de l'année; la suite traitera probablement de politique ou autre immodice d'actualité. :}

2 onces de génie au Saint Siège... Enfin!

2010-11-20T23:48:00.005-05:00

Je lisais tout bonnement les nouvelles avant d'aller me coucher lorsqu'une de celle-ci s'apparentait plus à une éclair dans un ciel bleu tellement elle est surprenante:

Si nous étions au premier avril, je trouverais ce poisson de très mauvais goût car beaucoup de souffrance a été engendrée par la politique précédente que le Saint Siège maintenant.

Les puristes dirons que la boîte de Pandore est maintenant ouverte, mais ceux qui veulent d'une religion plus accessible ont finalement été entendu. Reste à savoir si ça ramènera les ouailles à l'église; je ne retiendrai pas mon souffle là-dessus.

Ryuichi Sakamoto Montreal's performance

2010-11-02T20:28:00.011-04:00

"Fly! Fly About with your ship and fly! Row, row, row for your
lives away from this accursed shore."
"Compose yourself," said Reepicheep, "and tell us what the danger is.
We are not used to flying."
The stranger started horribly at the voice of the Mouse, which he had not
noticed before.
"Nevertheless you will fly from here," he gasped. "This is the Island
where Dreams come true."
"That's the island I've been looking for this long time," said on of the
sailors, "I reckoned I'd find I was married to Nancy if we landed here."
"And I'd find Tome alive again," said another.
"Fools!" said the man, stamping his foot with rage. "That is the sort
of talk that brought me here, and I'd better have been drowned or never
born. Do you hear what I say? This is where dreams - dreams, do you
understand - come to life, come real. Not daydreams: dreams."
There was about half a minute's silence and then, whith a great clatter of
armour, the whole crew were tumbling down the main hatch as quick as they could
and flinging themselves on the oars to row as they had never rowed before; and
Drinian was swinging round the tiller, and the boatswain was giving out the
quickest stroke that had ever been heard at sea. For it had taken everyone just
that half -minute to remember certain dreams they had had - dream that make you
afraid of going to sleep again - and to realize what it would mean to land on a
country where dreams come true.
C.S. Lewis
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,
The Dark Island

While I went to Montreal partly to see the show, I didn't have any expectation as I barely knew this artist. I'm not usually into this kind of music as it requires a certain mind state in order to get its "higher path" and thus truly appreciate it. Now considering I was already worn (in a good sense mind) by Muse the day before, my attention span was quite short, sadly.

The show thus began with an ecologist message. I refrained from getting angry, reasoning that this particular artist might very possibly have espoused this particular cause and makes a point of reminding his audience of it. However I usually listen to music with closed eyes so the point was moot.

So I began listening to the music, trying to make sense of what seemed at first to have none. Indeed, as a violin player for 9 years, I felt there was absolutely no point of reference to "typical" music. No regular tempo, no harmonics, no nothing. I was at loss.

But not for long.

Because as I closed my eyes while the show was running, the tiredness of the day seized me and my mind began to wander before comming back to my senses rather brutally with the sudden realization that I've discovered what it all meant:

His most cryptic pieces are made of dream stuff.

But not daydreams: dreams.

This work of art isn't for the faint of heart. If you still can accept that the beauty of nature also resides in its brutality and gore, if you come to terms that not all dreams are wonderful but also terrifying and you can see beauty in both on top of being able to shake your brain off its analytical wiring for a while then you might fully appreciate what's going on there.

I salute this artist who has the wit and the talent to make me rediscover something so simple I almost managed to forget it. For which I'll be grateful for a long time.

Another bites the dust / un autre qui mord la poussière

2010-10-25T21:15:00.004-04:00

Eh oui, en ce vingt-cinquième jour d'octobre, 5 jours avant le mois des morts, a cessé à jamais la production du Walkman de Sony.

Il laisse derrière lui des montagnes de batteries AA, des casettes à moitiées mâchouillées et bien des souvenirs d'une jenesse qui semble si lointaine.

Requiscat in pace, puisse les i[whatever] prendre vaillament votre relève.

Yup, in this twenty fifth day of October, 5 days before the month of the Dead, production has forthwith ceased of the Sony Walkman.

It will leave behind mountains of AA-type batteries, half chewn cassettes and twilight memories of a youth seeming so distant now.

Requiscat in pace, may the i[whatever] valliantly continue moving forward.

Un bogue linguistique signé Microsoft

2010-10-15T19:19:00.009-04:00

Vous devez comprendre l'anglais pour piger le sens du bogue exposé ici */

Eh bien oui, aujourd'hui j'ai réglé beaucoup de problèmes de BackupExec. Normalement, quand celui-ci colle à prendre une sauvegarde d'un (excusez le franglais) «system state», la première chose à faire est de tapper la commande :

vssadmin list writers

Comme j'étais sur un Windows 2003 Français, la réponse était donc en français... malheureusement: (Et oui Jérome, on va voir pour qui je travaille :})

... État : [1] Écurie... Écu... QUOI?

Je n'ai vraiment pas fait le lien au début, mais vraiment pas.

Donc, afin de réussir mon check de sanité, j'ai ouvert une console anglaise et roulé la même commande:

Stable... Écurie! Ah ben ciboire là! ÉCU-FUCKING-RIE! Et en passant, pour l'idiot qui a fait de la traduction litéral dans vssadmin, une stable, c'est pas une étable?

Anyway ce bug est confirmé dans les versions françaises de 2003 et 2008, mais pas dans R2 (ça écrit "stable" comme dans... le contraire de instable). :p

Merci Microsoft pour ce qui a vraiment fait ma journée. Entre des terminateurs pas mis sur des librairies aux drivers de tapes datant de 3 ans. :}

Completely out-of-band point of view

2010-09-30T20:35:00.004-04:00

//Le message français ne suivra pas, le documentaire référé est en espaniol avec des sous-titres anglais.

Every once and then, we see Hugo Chavez appear in news, almost always portrayed as a lunatic / dangerous / despotic figure. While we can agree or disagree on both his character and his policies as the head of state of Venezuela, when every news outlets are drawing the same portrait, it's difficult to see the counterbalance (and the effort to seek any).

Some time ago I've stumbled onto the documentary "The revolution will not be televised" basically telling us "what really happened" on April 11th, 2002 when Chavez was deposed. While it has sparked some controversy, it's probably the only piece that doesn't paint Chavez as a the scarecrow he usually appear to be in most media outlets you can come across.

Be warnd though: this documentary is 75 minutes long so it doesn't fit into "instant gratification" type of entertainment. Also, as far as I know, the rights for this document's broadcast have been cleared by the Venezuelan's Government, which explains why it appears here.

I'm not giving any opinion here whereas who's right, but I can definitively say it gives a different spin to the guy.

Tirez le messager! / fire that messenger!

2010-09-26T21:23:00.002-04:00

//English message will follow

Bon, il parraît qu'un méchant journaliste anglais a encore tiré une roche dans la marre de notre petit égo sensible. Et pauvre Bonhomme Carnaval. Si c'est pas honteux de dire que nous sommes la province la plus corrompue! Eh puis quoi encore?

Je vais vous demander, mesdames et messieurs, un petit exercice de mémoire. Pour ceux d'entre vous qui sont mes aînés, y'a-t-il l'un d'entre vous qui n'avez pas entendu parler des choses suivantes:

- Les bennes de ciments qui quittaient le chantier du state olympique aussi pleines que lorsqu'elles ont entrées;
- Une frégate qui a pris 18 mois de plus que la première parce que les employés avaient peur de perdre leur job à la MIL Davy;
- Saint Lucien qui impose le gel des salaires dans la fonction publique mais permet aux centrales syndicales d'affilier les garderies en échange;
- Les réseaux de prostitutions juvéniles sans client à Montréal (connaîssez-vous des entreprises sans client qui continuent d'opérer?)
- Au moins un juge qui après avoir été reconnu coupable de conduite avec facultées affaiblies garde son emploi de juge;
- Un certain premier ministre aurait fauché un badeau pendant qu'il conduisait ivre au volant mais n'a jamais été inquiété par la police.

Tout ceci est bien beau me direz-vous, des exemples épars de choses pas nécessairement illégales. Certes mais pas sans conséquences.

Mais jouons à un autre jeu voulez-vous: vrai ou faux.

1) Il est définitivement plus facile d'entrer dans le système de santé ou d'obtenir un rendez-vous si on a un infirmier / médecin dans la famille;
2) Il est absolument impossible de divorcer et que l'un des conjoint parte travailler dans une autre province pendant que la personne restante réclame du BS;
3) Il est absolument impossible d'obtenir plus d'un chèque de BS par mois;
4) Il est absolument impossible d'être payé en options d'achat d'actions et donc d'être taxé à 50% de son revenu (gain en capital) par rapport à un chèque de paie qui lui est taxé à 100%;
5) Il est facile d'obtenir des cigarettes sans avoir à payer les taxes.

Mon but n'est pas d'indisposer mon lectorat, mais l'heure est au constat: nous sommes tous plus ou moins conscient qu'il se trouve des "trucs" plus ou moins kosher pour arriver à ses fins.

Maintenant, ceci dit, je vous inviterais à lire l'article écrit par le supôt de Satan que l'on doit détester à tout prix sans quoi nous devrons nettoyer notre dépotoir de province.

NOTE: Ceci est une traduction utilisant un engin automatique. Ne hurlez pas sur les horreurs grammaticales, le texte de l'auteur en est exempt.
L'article de Maclean's (google translation)

//

Allright, it seems that an evil English journalist has yet again thrown a rock on our so sensitive collective ego. And Bonhomme Carnaval, the poor thing! What a shame, us the most corrupt province? Want fries with that?

I'll ask you, ladies and gentlemen, a little memory game. For those of you which are older, is there any of the following that you didn't hear about before today (if you've followed Canadian politics for the last 40 years, that is):

- Cement trucks getting off Montreal's Olympic Statium construction site as loaded as they were when they checked in;
- A frigate which took 18 more month to build than the first because employees were afraid of losing their job at MIL Davy;
- His Holiness Lucien [Bouchard] gaining a wages freeze in the public sector after unions gains the right to unionize child daycare;
- Child prostitution rings in Montreal can operate without customers (it's magic I tell you);
- At least one judge got caught drunk behind the wheel... And is still on the bench;
- A certain premiere whould have killed a drunk bystander being himself drunk behind the wheel but never got prosecuted.

"All well said" will you reply, "but those are just examples of things while questionable not necessarily illegal". True but not without consequences.

But let's put that aside for a moment and play another game: True or false.

1) It's definitively easier to get a place in a hospital or a simple appointment if there's a nurse / doctor in the family;
2) It's absolutely impossible to divorce and get one party in another province working and mailing money back while the party staying here claims wellfare;
3) It's absolutely impossible to get more than one wellfare payment per month;
4) It's absolutely impossible to partly get paid with share buy options instead of standard salary and thus have this part taxed on 50% of its value instead of 100% like the rest of us;
5) It is easy to get cigarettes on which accise taxes are not cleared.

My goal here is not to indispose my readers but it's time to ring the alarm: we are all more or less conscious of those "tricks" that are not exactly koshers for those that strive to get the job done.

Now that all this has been said, I'd invite you to actually read the article written by the satanist-which-we-must-hate-at-all-costs-or-else-we-will-be-forced-to-clean-this-mess-of-a-province.

The article from Maclean's

A politician vouching for privacy... Right...

2010-09-03T12:48:00.004-04:00

I was poised to write about this yesterday but here it is:

While I'm not surprised the UN resent that evil citizens have devices that permits them to converse without being eavesdropped, to publicly whine about it pushes the envelope a bit too far to my taste.

And don't give me the "terrorist" bullshit. You know what? Terrorists will continue to use encrypted emails, truecrypt and tor to communicate while we'd give a license to corrupt officials to read our life in clear text. Which mean that the protection mantra is rotten to begin with.

So FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) won't be considered as an argument. And Reasearch in Motion being a technology shop, they sure know what FUD is. Governments can whine their ass out in the sand if they so wish, they will just become twilight zones / second class countries if they want to block RIM traffic.

Middle eastern "roadmap" all over again

2010-09-01T23:58:00.005-04:00

Yes ladies and gentlement, since nothing seems to be impossible for US president Obama (he got health care and bank legislations out of the door after all), all seems set to stage the great waltz of the last 40 years: the Israel / Palestine conflict resolution.

Cynical minds will question the place foreign policy takes on the agenda while US of A's economy is still in tatters though. Indeed, as USSR president Горбачёв (Gorbachev) learnt with his glasnost, popularity worldwide doesn't mean being re-elected at home. Which could be critical to a president who tries to keep his majorities in various institutions.

But then again, president Obama succeeds where a lot of people fail. For instance, while I don't expect legislation regarding the banking sector he passed undo the damage Wilson did, it's definitively improvement.

I definitively can't be too demanding, especially since I don't reside in USA. In fact, as a world citizen I applaud this latest initiative. Where is Canada in this conflict resolution? Of course nowhere to be found.

Yet as good as foreign policy stuff is, at the end of the day what does matter? Guess what: it's how we will manage to pay the bills, let alone the zillion taxes. So while it makes good headlines on CNN, this kind of stuff doesn't put bread on the table nor a roof over our heads.

Foreign policy is a sport for the rich. Is the occident still that rich?

Fumisterie

2010-08-30T23:24:00.004-04:00

Lorsqu'on vit en démocratie, plusieurs éléments doivent être présents pour qu'elle puisse fonctionner. En gros, ça prend:

Un pilier exécutif généralement au dessus de tout soupçon et ayant l'intérêt public à coeur (ou à tout le moins celui de la Couronne);
Un pilier législatif qui vote des lois qui sont applicables et que ça ne prend pas 12 ans de post-doctorat à comprendre;
Un pilier judiciaire impartial et juste;
Un pilier journalistique relativement objectif et critique de l'exécutif afin de les garder en échec en cas de délire;
Un pilier pénal qui gardent les prisonniers en prison quand ils n'ont pas d'affaire à en sortir ET
Une population relativement active et politiquement impliqué.

Cependant, dans la vraie vie, nous avons:

Un pilier exécutif qui vote des lois qui l'exhonère de dommages quand il est négligent, s'ingère dans la nomination des juges (pas besoin de commission d'enquête pour savoir qu'une bonne partie des juges de la cour supérieure ont été nommés par Jean Pelletier qui ne pourra pas me poursuivre parce qu'il est mort, life is tough!) et use de tactiques parlementaires des plus basses pour enrayer / empêcher le système parlementaire de fonctionner correctement;
Un pilier législatif sclérosé, embourbé dans les agendas des hauts fonctionnaires au provincial et dans le "red tape" au fédéral et qui se fait tuer ses bills au feuilleton quand le pilier exécutif décide que ledit texte de loi ne fait pas son affaire, au diable l'intérêt public;
Un pilier judiciaire pris avec des contextes légaux tout aussi délirants les uns que les autres (tuez un caribou hors saison et perdez 25K$, votre gun et votre voiture mais si vous tuez le garde-chasse en prime, vous garderez et votre gibier et votre argent), quand ce n'est pas l'image de la magistrature elle-même qui est souillée par des décisions simplement sotes (Juge .23 Alain, le gars qui a échoué l'alcotest de manière magistrale mais qui est toujours juge en banc);
Un pilier journalistique concentré dans les mains de Power Corporation, Radio-Canada et Quebecor... Allô la diversité journalistique;
Un pilier pénal qui relâche les prisonniers au tiers de leur peines, quand ils laissent entrer les prisonniers faute d'espace dans les prisons;
Une population oisive, mal (ou dés)informée et cynique.

Maintenant, la question est: y a-t-il encore quelque chose à sauver de notre merveilleux "modèle Québécois"? Ou la question plus cruelle encore: veut-on sauver le modèle Québécois?

Le problème ici, c'est que nous n'avons pas le courage de nos ambitions: demain matin Québec nationalise 100% des mines sur son territoire et accorde des permis d'exploitation taxé à la tonne (lire ici x$/t), qu'est-ce que les minières vont faire? Partir? Est-ce qu'elles vont apporter les mines avec elles? Oops, le raisonnement ne fonctionne pas, drat.

La même chose pour l'eau, mais il ne faut surtout pas chatouiller ces messieurs!

Je ne suis pas en train de virer à gauche, ne vous en faites pas. Mais pensez-y deux secondes: il y a 50 ans, l'homme rammenait la seul pitance de la famille (de 12 enfants) et ladite famille avait un toit et de la bouffe. Aujour'hui les deux travaillent et personne arrive. Trouvez l'erreur?

Ce genre de truc demande réflexion, de penser et discuter n'a jamais tué personne (en démocratie bien entendu). Je sais que les tenants du système à tout prix sont généralement dogmatiques (discours manuquéen: croit ou meurt), mais on peut se permettre d'espérer qu'il s'en trouve des modérés sans quoi tout est effectivement perdu.

Thanks Mathieu for the bday gift :)

2010-08-14T16:45:00.001-04:00

Yup, a coworker of mine gave me a SAQ (liquor chain in Quebec) voucher. So I headed to SAQ signature branch (where you can buy 2k$ bottles) to get something unusual.

I therefore opted for a Canadian Club Wiskey. Here's the bottle :

Oh and I also wanted to thank you for introducing (!) us to your plushtoy collection, it gave us all a good laugh (and confirmed we really can be silly at times.

OpenSuSE 11.3 x64 woes with VMware ESXi 4

2010-08-11T21:47:00.006-04:00

//If you don't feel technologically enclined, skip this post

I've been fighting with quirks of the new OpenSuSE 11.3 installation process the whole day. Which was surprising me as I never had such issues before.

First, the ugly one: upon starting up after installation, swap partition was declared unusable and thus th VM failed to start. First I thought the hardware was at fault and re-installed everything (to reach the same result).

Same hardware you will tell me. Oh wait: the memory of this box has been tested for 72 hours and the motherboard for 24 (as is running memtest86+ for 3 days and smartstart unattended full diagnostic for one). So no, it wasn't the hardware.

I managed to get the VM I lost 1 hour rebuilding back from the dead by booting on the CD in "recovery mode", deleting the swap partition on /dev/sda (incidentally, fdisk complained that it wasn't cylinder-aligned?), recreating it, mkswap-ing it and rebooting. Tada!

But wait there's more!

Then the VMware tools wouldn't install! Normal trouble for this distro, but this time with a twist: I actually installed the kernel sources, so it should have been working. I was sooo wrong.

First, autoconf.h was missing. As if it wasn't enough, it was (once the autoconf issue was solved) complaining while running vmware-config.pl that "the kernel wasn't configured" or something. Great. Found out here the hack (with my directory structure) I needed to make sure the darn thing works.

The two important things are:

linux/autoconf.h must be where it's expected
you must rename your version.h to something else, copy utsrelease.h as version.h AND do a cat old_version.h >> version.h

Then and only then will most of the modules compile. After 3 hours of digging around and messing with source tree. Yah, I want my memory deduplication feature enabled that badly.

Nolstalgia attack / pointe de nolstalgie

2010-08-09T22:48:00.004-04:00

//English message will follow

Vous voulez prendre un coup de vieux? Voici un palmares d'une grande sélection de consoles de jeux ayant fait leur apparition (et leur disparition) au cours des 30 dernières années. J'ai personellement utilisé le TI/99-4A (non-montré, cousin de la fesse gauche du TI/99-4), le colecovision, le Apple ][e, le NES, le Amiga 500, le Amstrad 1640 (ugh), le PS1 et certaines (qui ne m'appartenaient pas, genre chez des amis)

Merci à Jean pour le lien et à Elder-Geek pour le montage (il faut bien citer ses sources)

/*

The Insane Console History Video 2.0 from Elder-Geek on Vimeo.

*/
You want to feel old? Here's a lineup of a broad selection of gaming consoles that appeared (and disappeared) in the last 30 years. I personally used: TI/99-4A (inbred relative of the shown TI/99-4), Colecovision, Apple ][e, NES, Amiga 500, Amstrad 1640 (ugh), PS1 and others (which weren't mine, at friends place).

Thanks Jean for the link and thanks Elder-Geek.com for making such epic lineup (and I love the music ^^)

MS Response / Réponse de Microsoft

2010-08-02T21:49:00.005-04:00

//English message will follow.

Je présume que Microsoft n'était pas trop content de s'être fait damer le pion par Sophos pour l'émission d'un correctif critique. Étrange tout-de-même que la nouvelle de cette vulnérabilité ne sorte au grand jour qu'après que Microsoft soit prêt. C'est purement coincidental, je vous le dis!

/*

I expect Microsoft wasn't so amused when Sophos managed to do its job of fixing such a critical vulnerability before it did. It's also odd that mainstram media coverage began after MS was ready. It's purely coincidental I'm sure.

Windows advisory // Recommandation Windows

2010-08-01T09:52:00.002-04:00

// Le message français suivra.

I usually don't like causing a panic so while I've learned on Security Now that a vulnerability was found in the icon rendering code of Windows dating back to NT4 last week (podcast 167 was it) allowed arbitrary code execution, since no solution was usable without crippling the interface, I delayed my advisory.

But now that I learnt (by podcast 168 released yesterday) that Sophos has released a hack allowing shortcut icons to be benign again, I'm publishing it:

**WARNING**
ANY SHORTCUT ICON ON YOUR COMPUTER, PERSONNALIZED ICONS OF USB STICKS OR PREFERED ICON OF ANY WEBSITE SHOWN IN IE (this little icon beside the url) HAS THE POTENTIAL TO RUN MALICIOUS CODE THROUGH MALFORMED ICON IMAGES.

SOPHOS HAS RELEASED A PATCH THAT MITIGATE THIS RISK, BUT REQUIRES WINDOWS XP AS A MINIMUM.

IF YOU STILL RUN W2K (as I do) OR NT4, PLEASE UPGRADE / MIGRATE TO ANOTHER ARCHITECTURE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
**END OF ADVISORY*

The Sophos patch can be obtained here . I have no way of knowing if NT3.51 SP5 with the shellnew extension is affected as well. I would expect OS/2 not to be affected (although ODINized apps might) nor would NT3.51 with its "program manager" (default) shell as it has no idea how to process .lnk files. WINE is another matter althogether, I got no report about it.

//

Comme je n'aimes pas hurler aux loups et causer de paniques, même si j'ai apris sur le podcast Security Now que le code responsable de l'affichage des icônes (qui date probablement de NT4) était capable d'exécuter du code de manière arbitraire, comme aucune solution n'était possible sans rendre l'interface hideuse (aucun icône rendu!), j'avais décidé à ce moment-là de ne rien publier.

Mais maintenant que la société Sophos a rendu un correctif disponible pour corriger le problème de manière à rendre les icônes inoffencifs à nouveau, voici donc la recommandation :

*ATTENTION**
N'IMPORTE QUEL ICÔNE SUR VOTRE ORDINATEUR, LES ICÔNES PERSONNALISÉES DE CLEFS USB AINSI QUE LES ICÔNES DE SITE WEBS AFFICHÉS DANS INTERNET EXPLORER (l'icône à gauche de l'URL) ONT LE POTENTIEL DE ROULER DU CODE MALICIEUX EN ENVOYANT UN ICÔNE DÉFORMÉ À CETTE FIN

SOHPOS A RENDU GRATUITEMENT UN CORRECTIF EMPÊCHANT CETTE BRÈCHE MAIS IL REQUIERT WINDOWS XP MINIMUM.

SI VOUS ROULEZ ENCORE DES ORDINATEURS WINDOWS 2000 (comme moi) OU NT4, SVP METTEZ À NIVEAU VOTRE ORDINATEUR OU CHANGEZ DE PLATE-FORME LE PLUS TÔT POSSIBLE.
**FIN DE L'AVIS*

Le correctif de Sophos peut être obtenu gratuitement ici (anglais) . Je n'ai pas de manière de vérifier si NT3.51 SP5 avec l'extention shellnew a également le problème (principalement parce que je n'ai plus l'exécutable qui installe cette extention). Je ne crois pas qu'OS/2 sera affecté (mais des applications portées avec les librairies ODIN pourraient l'être) ni NT 3.51 avec son interface "Program Manager" car elle a aucune idée quoi faire avec des ".LNK". WINE par contre est un autre cas, je n'en ai pas eu vent à date.

Losing 1F every 5 minutes

2010-07-08T20:23:00.001-04:00

I've finally resolved myself and installed the second (read: the 104 pound) aircon tonight; meaning I might sleep decently tonight, instead of melting over the bedsheets.

And ironically, it makes less noise per cubic foot of air (I know, weird measurement unit: dB/foot^3). My point is: I don't hear the compressor of the one sitting next to me much while distinctively hearing the smaller one in the comp room.

Yah I know, not really political today, except for the "I need the electricity so I consume it instead of paying any heed to the greedy utility that wants me to steam in order to sell electricity outside the province thus making more money" stance expressed by having not one but _two_ aircons running.

A fish always begins to rot by the head

2010-07-02T12:17:00.009-04:00

Will you be surprised to hear that ex-INTERPOL's president has been indicted on corruption charges?

Well I must admit I was. Stereotypes aside, I was expecting such big entity to choose their president more carefully. Indeed, this guy was its president from 2004 to 2008. Oops.

Now the question that begs attention is: how much more of it is actually corrupt? Because if he was corrupt in South Africa, what tells me that his moral fibre was of a higher nature at INTERPOL? And since corruption usually spreads, how much of it got infected?

The other questions that beg for answers regard the vetting process of those entering its ranks, especially for high-ranking figures. The fact the guy got indicted is one thing, but I also want to see those who crawl in the shadow, influence peddlers and lax security officers that didn't do their job properly and allowed M. Selebi to pass through the vetting process cleared.

It will be interesting to see if anyone comes to the fore with such information, or if the journalistic community addresses that issue. I won't hold my breath however. Call me pessimistic but those big outfits usually think of themselves as "outside the law".

Another place where the sun never shines and that smells funny, what else can be said.

Happy Canada Day! HST with that?

2010-07-01T11:44:00.003-04:00

While Canada Day is meant to be a day to rejoice and celebrate what our country is and stands for, politicians seem adamant to mar everything. Indeed, today Ontario (with a shrug) and BC (with rather noisier protesting) are rolling out their harmonized sales taxes.

Or course, "it's for our own good". I'm not affected mind you, as I'm not residing in either of these provinces, but to see provincial governments abdicating their jurisdiction to Ottawa always kind of makes me cringe. Because yes, taxation was an exclusive provincial jurisdiction in 1867.

Legislatures will then whine that Ottawa keeps the money for itself: duh? Do you know of a single government keen to share the cookie jar?

For those who don't want a tentacular federal government (oh boy, mental image of bad hentai with tentacles, Steven Harper and al, ugh), a simple repel of the Borden law implementing "temporary tax powers" would do the trick.

So now, instead of having Ottawa making itself all important, every province would contribute to its expenses. And believe me, they would scrutinize what they are paying for.

*shakes head*

What the hell, it's Canada Day today. Go out and have fun, come back for more delirium later; today is to be a day of joy. So be merry and don't think too much, we have the rest of the year for that. :)

USA to regulate their banking sector... again.

2010-06-30T22:38:00.006-04:00

While I'm glad that politicians south of our border have realized what a "unregulated market" in the banking sector means when worse comes to worse, it leaves me with a rather sour taste in the mouth.

Why?

After all, I'm a Canadian and our banking industry survived. Sure it has been placated by (and noisily wailing about) procedural red tape for a loooong time. Indeed for a long time our government stood fast and refused any merger of the "big" banks (Royal Bank, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Toront0-Dominion & co).

Problem is, red tape is exactly what saved those banks. So I expect we won't hear them whine for a while. Which is good. But what worries me is that once upon a time, that red tape also prevailed in USA.

Then something happened: politicians decided that in order to make a quick buck, it would be advisable to unbolt all this regulatory structure. I'm not talking about corruption of course, but let's face it: a lot of people on the relevant senatorial commitees were generously paid by bank lobbyists. All of this is public and open for anyone to analyze.

We all know what happened next. So how do we, the People, make sure we don't get betrayed by our leaders?

That's the root cause of my uneasiness. Because while our neighbours can impeech their president, here we have very few options: convince the Queen to sack the government, forment revolt against the said government or withdraw all our money and buy gold, thus crashing the banking sector for good.

All of which is either impratical or downright treasonous (if such a word exist). And while I wish there was other avenues, I'm afraid we're stuck with that at the moment. Of course if you think of something else you're welcome to comment.

One billion later, what's the result?

2010-06-29T18:56:00.004-04:00

Ok ladies and gentlemen, we got all those people gathering in downtown Toronto to have a little 3 day chat. And a pond.

We also got a police force that blatantly miscarried their duty as helped themselves in gross violation of everyone's constitutional rights venting their humor on protesters sitting in their designated area (heck there even was a cavalry charge!).

Oh and of course the same said police force is to conduct an investigation... into their own behaviour! I'm so damn sure they will find a pletora of things to correct... Not.

Now before we get into the "But you saw what those black block guys did", let me ask you this: at 1 billion dollars, most of which paid for security, what was the rationale for letting those thugs do what they did and not picking them up in the act? The answer to that is simple: by doing so, you lose your "reason" to get back at protesters, which was obviously not what those officers had in mind.

To plead that "constitutional rights" have to give way under the "security" pretense might work elsewhere, but I do hope it doesn't prevail here. Life is dangerous and if this "security" is to cost me my rights as a citizen, I bid those wellwishers who suggest such a trade goodbye and wish them never to come back. Or in a less polite way: go die.

Sorry but for me only one thing can cut it to restore my confidence in the penal pilar of power: bring the MPs (as in military police and definitely not members of parliment) and conduct a military review of the OPP/Sureté du Québec/RCMPs after having put all three under tutelage... immediately.

Of course military personnel have no jurisdiction over any Canadian citizens in the current law context. And let's say it would be... inconvenient to decreet martial law while the Queen of Canada is present!

So we're done for. Yay. Canadian utter nonsense at its finest.

Pfew, I feel better somehow.

For those who might be wonder where I went

2010-06-15T21:31:00.003-04:00

Let's just say I've been pondering recent events of local and international stupidity. And for those who really want to know on what I'm refering to, no it's not about Greece. It's not even about North Korean playing pinups again.

Or maybe it is.

Just today on CBC I've suggested sending EMP bombs over North Korea just to keep them barking stating that "my only concern would be their nuclear reactor as nobody want another Чорнобиль (Chernobyl) in their backyard... Or elsewhere)".

What I was refering to was human stupidity, or more exactly how pride, fear and hubis can kill thousands. And maybe it highlights how I used to defuse some stress I've been living in the workplace: "if I flip the wrong switch, I can't kill anybody." But get what: those people could. And actually did. I grieve for the sacrifice of those who put their life on the line even if it wasn't in vain in the great scheme of things.

Here's a link to a documentary that might edify you. A bit of warning though: if you think all is nice and dandy out there, don't click on the link as the "at this point all choices are bad ones" and "human stupidity knows no equal" concepts might hurt you. Hard. Although you're reading the blog of someone who put a documentary on the world's most ominous mass suicide on xmas eve. You should know better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyHvDhILYl8

FINAL WARNING: if you abide to FCC rules (meaning "shit" doesn't exist), don't click. You have been (legally) warned.

Watching Jobs presentation

2010-06-10T22:08:00.000-04:00

I know the pic is crappy but bear with me as my own phone is a rather ancient iPhone 3G :}

The political diatrib will have to wait for later.

Israël ô Israël

2010-06-02T21:58:00.003-04:00

Yay, let's force a blocus line!
-Famous last words

I'm rather puzzled about what's happening to our medias. Is the West so afraid of flexing muscles they must absolutely chastize anybody that does?

Yes Israël did prevent those ships from reaching Gaza. Guess what: it's what they always intended to do. And it's also what they said they would do. You don't want them to fire at people? Next time they will sink the suckers instead. Happy now?

When an armed force tells you to yeld, you do or fight. If they open fire, don't complain as you definitively brought it upon yourself. And the poor palestinian people...? Who elected Hamas again? Was the election rigged? No? Then they should suck it and swallow. I won't be bothered with whinings.

I'm not saying that Israël is right, paradoxally. Has Israël the legitimacy to hold this blocus? I have no clue whatsoever. I'm not even remotely competent in international maritime laws to know such thing.

On thing I know though is this: one side have guns, the other side has clubs. Who will win you think? Then if you go to war unprepared, don't complain when you lose. No matter if there's 15 arab leaders wailing in unison or in chorus and Israël being alone singing its own song, the fact will remain:

THERE IS A MARITIME BLOCUS. GET IT?

Credit card lost - what's the card number?

2010-06-02T21:40:00.003-04:00

Ok something lucridous happened to me today: I was to cancel my credit card having misplaced it yesterday. Of course, I called the number you're supposed to remember (logging on the national bank of canada's «my account» page had the info) to report it lost.

Guess what: I was then asked the credit card number. Doh! No wait, I must have one of those zillion bills I brought to work in order to pay them during the day. Yay, 16 digit credit card number and 3 security questions later, the card was cancelled. :}

Blame me and my messy way of doing business, but once again my "organized mess" saved me a lot of hassle (and possibly credit card fraud). That card was expiring in less than 6 months anyway, so they were bound to send another one.

In the business as usual department: Solved a problem where a SQL server had a 2Gb database... and a 25Gb logfile. SQL Simple model recovery, anyone? Oh and of course drowning in paperwork of late, but then again it's necessary to prevent projects going nowhere or where we don't want them to go. :}

In the more personal department: I'm supposed to receive a letter from CIC but they don't seem that in a hurry to have it reach here, as it doesn't usually take Queen's mail 3 days to deliver a letter from Mississauga to Saint-Romuald-d'Etchemin. Let's cross our fingers that it will reach here this week. :)

What else... I had to turn the aircon on again as it was getting stuffy in here. Never too good. Oh and I have the project of rolling two new services on my network: integria (the latest version) and the newest version of... SugarCRM. I hear some of you scream from a distance but my choice is very easy to understand:

I'm 1 person
I speak english
I'm stingy
I won't run away if I see a Linux console

As for Integria, I'll try the newest version, hopefully this one can understand what a "remote database" means. Would be nice. :}

Casandra, oui il est ici sti!

2010-06-01T19:19:00.000-04:00

FAIL collection

2010-05-31T21:52:00.008-04:00

Over the years, I've collected quite a few FAIL pictures. Usually taken during my travels.

Let's beginning by the most recent:

Yuppa, Berlin's tram. :} Oops

Here comes what the tour guide in Berlin affectionnately called "the Dishwasher":

For me it's more like a landomat but who am I to contest a native of the place. :}

Next on my palmares... Let's see...

We got this one: a nice and tight duty-free store:

Mainly selling chairs, obviously. Top quality though due to lack of use. :}

Ok let's talk about a cranky TV set in Chicago then:

At that time some polititian was resigning because he was having an affair. Now so what else is new.

Ok that should be enough for now, I'll have to scout my own vault to find some more.

BP conjures ancien wisdom...

2010-05-30T15:16:00.005-04:00

Only after the last tree has been cut down...
The last river has been
poisoned...
The last fish caught...
Only then will you find that money
cannot be eaten.

'Nuf said.

Oh and of course, here's the "been there, done that" department catchup:

Puisque je suis mécréant, encore!

2010-05-27T22:22:00.012-04:00

Eh oui, encore de la politique. Mais cette fois ça fait peur pour les bonnes raisons.

J'ai trouvé ce soir le discours qui tue. Il date supposément de 1936. Son authenticité me semble assuré par le fait qu'on voit un figurant fumer, chose peu commune dans des documentaires depuis la fin des années 80.

Faites un exercice: ne faites que l'écouter, n'essayez pas de le voir. Si la plupart des doélances lancées par cette dame vous évoque la situation politique actuelle, il n'y a pas de hasard. Si le document est authentique, nous en sommes politiquement au même point... Qu'avant la deuxième guerre mondiale, la très sainte église catholique en moins.

Définitivement pas rassurant.

Une fois que vous l'aurez écouté, cliquez dans la zone au dessus de la barre de contrôle pour voir d'où ça vient. Ou mettez-le en plein écran. Et pleurez.

Je ne veux pas te relancer Carl mais...

2010-05-27T11:47:00.003-04:00

Pour les James Bond du dimanche, je dédis cette réalité bien présente: les NTFS alternate streams. À quoi ça sert? Voici une démonstration:

Pour la plupars des lecteurs qui vont rarement "dans le noir!", voici ce qui se passe dans cet écran:

Je crée un fichier texte contenant "Bonjour (vieille annonce de Bell?)".
Je liste le fichier pour en démontrer la taille
Je le fait afficher à l'écran pour bien valider que la phrase est bien ce que j'ai écrit.
Je créer un apendice invisible contenant le terrible secret du cousin germain du clown des jours M de métro.
Je liste le fichier: la taille n'a pas grossie
Je liste le contenu du fichier de nouveau: Le nouveau contenu n'apparaît pas
Je liste le contenu du fichier avec une commande obscure et en spécifiant explicitement la section cachée et là j'obtiens le terrible secret.

Ces "flux alternatifs" sont utilisés par:

Les virus
Les antivirus
Internet Explorer pour déterminer la provenance du fichier que vous tentez d'exécuter
Les bloggeurs gonflables qui essaient de voguer sur une vague cool d'un de leurs collègues

En passant, j'ai fait la démonstration en mode caractères mais ne vous en faites surtout pas: à moins d'aller chercher des outils spécialisés, vous ne trouverez jamais le terrible secret en mode graphique non-plus.

Oops. :}

Apprenez à sacrer tout en vous amusant!

2010-05-26T22:04:00.003-04:00

Eh bien oui mesdames et messieurs, ce soir je travaille. À transférer une machine virtuelle d'unité de disques physique. Mais bien entendu, pour que notre Hyper-V national ne rotte pas, il faut que la nouvelle unitée soit à la même lettre de lecteur que l'ancienne!

Mais lo and behold, l'ancienne lettre de lecteur est prise par rien mais elle est là par exemple!
Je vais donc devoir rebooter un host hyper-v qui roule une dizaine de machine virtuelle... pour une erreur vraiment chiante.

Oh well. Au moins, là le data se transfert sans me dire que la drive est read-only.

Y'a des soirs vraiment...

C'était d'actualité... il y a 40 ans?

2010-05-25T01:29:00.003-04:00

Vous pensez que le débat sur l'endettement du Québec est un sujet récent? Je vous propose ce petit retour en arrière. Le discours ci-bas a été prononcé par... Camille Sanson il y a 40 ans. Et même à cette époque, il était évident qu'on s'en allait droit dans le mur.

C'était des fous les Créditistes, hein? Y'ont jamais rien compris à rien eux, hein? Écoutez-le et revenez m'en reparler, pour voir.

Emergency A/C installation and rollout

2010-05-25T01:19:00.001-04:00

The black stuff beside the aircon is actually dustbin bags taped to prevent flies from coming in as the pieces that came with it to fill up the gap were never large enough. :p

And I have yet to hear from hydro-Quebec whining about me being bad using all this electricity they could sell at higher prices to our American neighbours as they usually do.

To which I usually respond by installing _another_ and _even more powerful_ aircon on top of the first one.

My point: we didn't nationalize electricity to hear them whine. Period.

Et puisque je suis un Québécois mécréant / And since I'm a miscreant Quebecer

2010-05-24T15:44:00.003-04:00

In this Victoria Day, it's high time I make some blue-tainted Quebecers cringe. :}

/*

*/

En cette Fête de la Reine (Victoria), il est l'heure que je fasse grincer des dents nos souverainistes bien-aimés.

Chaud et collant - Oui Carl je vais conter ma vie! :}

2010-05-24T14:21:00.004-04:00

Eh bien oui mesdames et messieurs, je sors de mon hybernation pour vous parler d'une platitude: la chaleur.

Nonobstant le fait que je sois quelques peu habitué à la chaleur et que j'ai vécu pire (eh oui, le bikram yoga, c'est chaud en ciboire), j'admettrai qu'il est grand temps que j'installe mon air climatisé. Histoire que le serveur que j'ai à la maison n'explose pas non-plus (c'est sensible à la chaleur ces p'tites bêtes-là).

Je suis allé marcher sur la rive nord du fleuve hier avec des copains pour constater de visu comment mes impôts ont été dépensé. Et étant du côté piétonier de l'équation pour une fois, je peux rendre le jugement non-biaisé suivant:

VOUS POUVEZ REMETTRE LE BOULEVARD À 80km/h SVP?

Il n'y a aucun danger pour les piétons s'ils ne font pas de jaywalking. Qu'ils attendent aux lumières comme tous le monde et tous le monde sera heureux. (Et ça arrêtera de prendre 30 minutes pour se rendre dans le vieux Québec avec des limites de vitesses ridiculement basses).

Hormis cette poussée éditoriale, c'était fort sympatique de se promener dehors hier. Aujourd'hui c'est comme plus collant comme température, quoique sur le bord du fleuve ça ne doit pas être si terrible.

Hectic life / Vie de fou

2010-05-07T21:39:00.004-04:00

Le message français suivra

J'ai découvert ce studio sur un site affilié au flatuleur (leflatuleur.blogspot.com). Le vidéo présenté originalement n'est pas celui que je présente, mais c'est du même auteur.

Merci Grokav pour la découverte, même si tu ne me connais pas. :)

/*

*/

I've discovered this studio while surfing a refered site of the farter (leflatuleur.blogspot.com) and while the presented video isn't this one, it was funny.

Thanks Grokav for the discovery (even if you don't know me) :)

On fait du pas de vie ici à soir

2010-05-06T21:28:00.002-04:00

Ben oui, une bonne vieille game de scion le jeudi soir, histoire de détendre les nerfs.

Mon personnage, dr Woe, fils de Isis et de pas important, est du genre posterboy de médecins sans frontières.

Yaot'l, fils de Huitzilopochtli et d'encore moins important euh j'veux dire tochtli, on le sais pas encore, il viens d'arriver. Normalement un super fighter.

Rocco, fils de Freyr, est le porn star que tous les mâles connaissent sans vraiment avoir le droit de reconnaître.

Jessie elle est notre acrobate de cirque de service... Amourachée d'un vendeur de cellulaire de New York. :}

Et après avoir reçu un protès par le gars qui la joue, il parraît que c'est le gars qui s'est amouraché d'elle. L'imporant est qu'elle a peut-être une vie de plus et avancera moins vite maintenant.

Quoi faire avec la Grèce

2010-05-05T22:29:00.006-04:00

Puisque là, la panique semble pognée en Grèce avec des pôvre ti-coeurs qui sont trop occupés à manifester pour aller travailler comme le reste des gens ordinaires qui ne se doivent pas le derrière (lire: les Allemands), j'aurais un message tout spécial à leur adresser:

N'attendez donc pas que l'Union Européenne ne vous jettent à la rue comme les fumiers que vous êtes. Vous avez violé toutes les règles du livre. Nonon, pas votre gouvernement, vous. Oui vous, assied sur la chaise qui lisez ceci. Ou qui vous le fait traduire par Google.

Vous souriez lorsque vos voisins ne paient pas leurs impôts? C'était drôle, hein? Vous connaissez la fable de la Fontaine "La cigale et la fournis"? Si j'étais Allemand aujourd'hui, vous pouvez être certain que je dirais Eh bien dancez maintenant.

Vous voulez protéger votre "way of life" de freeloaders? Pas de trouble, plus d'euro pour vous. C'est terminé. Réinventez-vous une monnaie et bon débarras. En passant, bonne chance pour enprumpter, ce n'est plus le problème de vos voisins.

Oh et l'Espagne et l'Italie? Vous savez quoi? L'Allemagne va vraiment se tanner de se faire cocufier tout le temps. Qu'arrivera-t-il quand elle arrêtera de payer pour vos sotises? Et que dire de la France et de son agriculture subventionnée à quatre étages?

Même l'Angleterre est rendue à l'heure du ménage, mais elle a sa propre monnaie et n'importune personne avec ses problèmes. Un défunt empire qui n'a pas oublié sa rigueur de naguerre, elle.

PS: Pourquoi ce sujet? Parce qu'il est facile donc ne me demande pas trop de traitement (la vrai raison étant parce que je suis en train d'analyser le traité de libre-échange EU-Canada qui a été coulé sur l'Internet et qu'à date, ce n'est pas rose du tout en plus d'être horriblement aride à lire)

Québec = Greece?

2010-05-02T20:03:00.005-04:00

Ok I've not posted something serious for a while, so before you get bewildered by Trololo too much, here's a rather nasty piece I need to vent. I've been thinking about it for quite some time and truth be told I'm a bit scared. But good things usually comes from courage, so I'll bring it to bear.

Abstract: Quebec is to Canada what is Greece to the EU.

What makes me utter such a statement:

Quebecers love to evade taxes - So does Greek people.
Quebecers love to work less for the same salary - So does the Greek people.
Quebec has a minority english enclave in a swarm of french speakers - Greece has a turkish enclave in Cyprus.
Quebec government love inventive ways to write the books - So does the greek government.
Quebec talk big but depend on the money of Alberta and Ontario - Greece is technically bankrupt and sucking at Deutschland's breast for whatever can come down its throat.
Quebec is ripe with corruption - So is Greece. Need proofs of that? Oh come ON.
Quebec love social programs that it has no money to pay for - So does Greece.

I shall stop there as the similitudes are self-explanatory to me. It would indeed appear that "Lower Canada" has lost all pride of being an independant dominion somewhere before the idiotic "patriotes" tried to annex it to USA in 1838.

For all of those who dream of a country bearing the blue and white flag, heed my warning: if nothing is done, Quebec will become a failed state even before achieving statehood. Because we came as close as being one and it ended in 1838.

I live and was born in Quebec. To say such crude things doesn't make me happy, far from it. But lucidity, while harsh, is better than the magic thought that everything's ok. Because it ain't. To see my province as a spoilt brat that only need a slap behind the head isn't nice.

To see a finance minister tell us that "to balance the budget isn't a finality but people's happiness is" is downright revolting. Oh and where are those budget compressions again?

I'm tired to pay for unions. You will object that I'm not paying any? Well not on my paycheque directly but last time I wrote a tax filling (that's 2 days ago), I clearly saw a tax deduction for union fees. So guess what: I'm subsidizing those terrorists. Erm I mean unions.

I'm also tired to pay for a health ministry in Ottawa, especially since health is an exclusive provincial jurisdiction. On the other hand, what are those "maisons du Québec" again? I pay for federal embassies, I don't need provincial ones as well (on top of it being exclusive federal jurisdiction, of course).

So if those brilliants brains need ideas where to cut: begin by respecting your jurisdictions first and cut what's illegal to have. Then in health ministry cut 85% of what doesn't provide care (those tie guys). Do the same in education (sorry but I have no more money to spend for yet another reform, bring back spelling and calculus in classes and everyone involved will feel better). Oh and while at it, give the money to the students and not the schools when children are schooling. This way bad schools will die. Life is tough. No union in the world will be able to save them. *sob sob... not.*

*pfew* I feel better somehow.

What else... Moratorium on subsidies of private sector companies? Sorry we don't sponsor your oil lamp or wooden luge factories anymore: adapt or die. Life is tough.

What else... I could go as far as "your enterprise replace 1000 employees by a machine? Fine, but this machine ought to pay the taxes the 1000 employees were paying". It won't make you competitive? Guess what: the country is 600 billion $ in the red. Life is tough.

A reform of taxes could also be nice: everyone over 18 receive say 20K$ free of taxes a year. You want more? You work and pay taxes. Advantages: you can remove wellfare, pensions and work insurance plans. -100'000 civil servants at the very least.

No, not water, I'm melting!!!
-Evil witch of the west (thanks wikipedia, I never really remember which cardinal direction she's from).

With these simple (but hellishly unpopular) measures, we could believe in a brighter future. But at the moment, if I see a light at the end of the tunnel, I'll definitively assume it's the train coming this way.

One angry taxpayer.

Pensés lubriques en URSS / Horny thoughts in USSR

2010-04-28T22:40:00.012-04:00

// Le message français suivra.

From what I've gathered, the song performed down south (!) was originally about a comrade coming happily back from work and in mood for some overtime with his wife. However, happiness (and sex) in USSR not being exactly in vogue as song themes at that time (1975), the end song was nerfed into the song embedded in this post.

Yah, you can all start laughing.

//

Bon, selon ce que je sais, la chanson présentée plus bas (!) était originalement à propos d'un camarade revenant joyeusement du travail et en inspiration pour "s'occuper" avec sa concubine. Cependant, comme le bonheur (et le sexe) étaient genre tabou à cette époque, les paroles ont été "nerfées" pour donner la chanson intégré à cet article.

Oui, vous pouvez partir à rire. :}

Source: http://trololololololololololo.com/

Si ça vous le prend avec des sous-titres // If you need subtitles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z4m4lnjxkY&feature=related

//EDIT: CHANGED YOUTUBE FEED DUE TO VIDEO/AUDIO LOSS OF SYNC + TYPOS + Subtitled reference :}

Nouvelle perspective

2010-04-26T07:32:00.001-04:00

Rien de bien sérieux: j'ai juste changé de bureau:

Ce qui me donne maintenant une perspective différente du bureau:

Je suis plus loins de la fenêtre mais j'en vois plus grand. Et mon bureau est moins tassé aussi.

Autre fait intéressant: il n'y a pas de téléphone. Mais ça, ça risque de se faire régler rapidement, malheureusement. :}

Billetech = une disgrâce

2010-04-24T12:13:00.005-04:00

Je veux aller voir un show une fois par mort de pape, donc bien entendu il fait que le réseau de la compagnie qui vend les billets explose pour 2 heures de temps. :p

Bon. Il est midi et 3 et ça vient de replanter.

Hey M. Labeaume! Vous voulez VRAIMENT donner la billeterie du nouveau Colisée à billetech?

Vive les réseaux pas stables!

// UPDATE:
Ils ont changé ça de date et histoire de rendre ça drôle, ça va maintenant être un vendredi, comme si j'avais juste ça à faire moi aller chercher des billets!

En frais de pensée marketing, on repassera.

Adobe vs Apple

2010-04-14T21:15:00.003-04:00

// Le message français suivra.

Those of you that have been wondering about the seemingly harsh stance Apple is taking towards Adobe, I'd refer you to the following URL. It's funny to read and factually correct. A bit of insight into the history of those two companies.

/*
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2010/04/14/chronicles-of-conflict-the-history-of-adobe-vs-apple/
*/

Ceux qui se demande d'où sort la guerre à finir entre Apple et Adobe (concernant Flash, entre autre), allez (si vous parlez l'anglais) sur le lien ci-haut. Sympatique comme lecture et factuellement exact. Ça vous donnera un peu de background sur l'histoire de ces deux companies.

The end of government

2010-04-13T20:02:00.005-04:00

Truth be told, I don't feel like blogging at the moment. On an usual day, I'd rant about this "looking like corrupt" provincial government that tries to survive. Or the budget that's an insult to my intelligence. Or a 50K people gathering in Quebec City that won't change a dime.

But no... I'm quiet at the moment. I don't feel like ranting. I'm at a loss, a bit depressed about the state of the economy, of the statemanship of this country, of this province.

What to do? Repeat what happened to Montréal parliment in 1852? I won't even remotely suggest that as I don't want to end up behind bars. However, since Duplessis did away with the provincial senate, what sorts of checks and balances do we have here? The lieutenant-governor? Give me a break, I stopped believing in Santa.

I'm tempted to suggest something radical and legal (which is rather surprising in the same sentence): do away with parliment.

WHAT?

Simple: we elect proxies on the premice we technically can't represent ourself and vote for the future of the nation.

Guess what: Internet now exists.

Buy 9 million terminals and wire them in every home. So everyone entitled to vote for a bill actually does. Close the lower house and appoint a upper house to write the laws. Now THAT's logical.

And you just sent the lobbies to hell as there's no way they can buy 5 million people. Oops.

But hey, talk about a dream. :}

My landomat has stopped dancing!

2010-04-06T21:31:00.003-04:00

Ok, with a tool costing ~4$, I managed to make my landomat to stop dancing in the kitchen while spinning clothes. For the first time in ages I left the spinning to regular mode without having a disaster (and long minutes of work reseating it on it's 2x4 wooden blocks).

Why sit a landomat on 2x4 blocks? Because it's leaking of course! And I need space for the cookie plates under it!

Charming machine I tell you. Once I change it, I'll kind of miss all those mishaps... Not.

Hail the glorious dead! / Salut au mort valeureux!

2010-04-02T23:06:00.005-04:00

//English message will follow

Hier s'est éteint le Docteur Henry Edward Roberts à l'âge de soixante-huit ans. Qui est M. Robert? En plus des gens qu'il a soigné jusqu'à récemment depuis les années 90, il est l'inventeur de l'Altair 8800, grément à l'origine de la vague des ordinateurs personnels.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Dur à croire que ceci est un ordinateur de maison n'est-ce pas? Mais si vous avez un poste de travail à la maison aujourd'hui, c'est grâce à la vision de M. Roberts.

C'est la raison pour laquelle je lui rend un dernier hommage.

source: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/01/us/AP-US-Obit-Computer-Designer.html?_r=2

Yesterday passed away Dr Henry Edward Roberts after sixty-eight years. Who is Mr. Robert? On top of someone who cured countless people since the 1990s, he's the inventor of Altair 8800 personnal computer.

Yah this wooden box looks anything but a computer, I know. But believe me, you have your personal computer at home today because he had the vision to provide us average joe with a computer... in 1975.

This is the reason why I pay tribute to him today.

I've lost faith in politicians

2010-03-31T22:15:00.012-04:00

I'll do as one of my coworker would and will write a letter. I doubt it will be read by the intended recipient (and would be absolutely dazed if it was!) but at least it will convey my wish of a better Canada, giving justice to the "new" stamp on Canada's coat of arms.

*ahem*

The Head of State, Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, Canada and Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith

Your Majesty,

I humbly address this plea to Your Lordship as the hour grows dire here in Canada. Indeed, Ottawa now features a government that openly shows contempt of the Lower House which attempts to determine if the privy council knew of our military violating the Geneva Convention while operating in Afganistan and failed to act according to protocol, thus making our army's Commander-in-Chief potentially liable under international law.

Furthermore, my conscience requires of me to inform Thou of the fact that in both Ottawa and Quebec, the province in which I reside, both governments are currently plundering Your treasury with impunity, spending frivolously and without due dilligence.

As such, I beseech and adjure Your Majesty to immediately order Your truely loyal opposition in Ottawa to form a coalition government and to dissolve Quebec's majority government at once using Your discretionary power as provisioned by Canada's constitution.

Humbly yours,
David Pelletier

God save the Queen!

Yah, I know, you can all laugh, then go read the British North American Act (especially §9 and §15) and tell me I'm wrong. And don't even try to tell me it's rescinded because it ain't. Oops. Or maybe you got a better idea!

Erm why me?!?

2010-03-29T22:20:00.003-04:00

//Le message français suivra

I've received the most singular invitation in my mailbox today: I'm invited to a fashion show! Who? Me?

If you were to tell me even last year that I'd be ever invited to such a show, I wouldn't have believed you. Obviously

//

Je viens de recevoir l'invitation la plus étrange dans mon courrier aujourd'hui: à une parade de haute couture! Ben oui, moi! xD

Si vous m'aviez dit ne serait-ce que l'an passé que je serais invité à une présentation de la sorte, je ne vous aurais pas cru. Duh.

The last hour

2010-03-24T23:47:00.003-04:00

// Le message français ne suivra pas, trop compliqué à traduire (et il se fait tard).

Note to friends, family and colleagues: DO NOT PANIC

At this late hour, a thought came to me... How would I feel if I was to learn that this hour was to be my last. At the moment, I think it would be filled with regret and rage... Odd you'll tell me for a newly wed; actually the whole exercise might seem a bit weird.

But you see, I use to say that I can be dead the next day so such thought isn't exactly foreign to my mind. This is how I can sleep at night on a mountain of debts without breaking a sweat as I'm worth more dead than alive (the joys of life insurances).

But that doesn't absolve me of the moral debt I have for more than one people... As my feelings for them range from "I'm sorry to leave you behind" to "I should have told you I love you so much more often" to "I'll wait for you before going on"... Yah I'm deeply concerned with people I care for, "to various degrees" as you can see...

Why am I thinking about this at the moment... Because it's the eleventh hour here? Probably not. I'm not passing cryptic messages on this blog anymore, but it doesn't mean my soul doesn't crave for some things... And that will never really change I guess.

I ought to be forgotten by some; that's both my deepest fear and what has to come to pass it seems. But does my feelings in these matters matter? Only those who will remember me can answer...

But that nonwithstanding and by leaving my rambling behind I can say: I was useful for some, instrumental for other's very survival and may yet still be of some use in the future so I could look back and say that overall my life wasn't so bad and was definitively worth living.

And I repeat: Do not panic!

The last hour just expired, it's 9 past midnight here. Guess what: dispatcher won't scream because I'm missing today. Parents, wife and relative won't cry all their soul out nor will friends or soul mate: I'm still alive. And kicking at the moment. As for colleagues, they will still won't be able to bum my office. :}

Smile everyone, it's the rise of a new day, be merry and know that you're esteemed at various level by at least this cranky blogger.

Les pires réseaux / the worst networks

2010-03-23T11:11:00.002-04:00

// English message will follow.

J'ai découvert un site web qui site les fournisseurs de service Internet d'où origine le plus d'attaques / trojan / malware. Bref, super sympatique. En plus d'une carte qui pointe les emplacement d'origine d'incidents relié à des attaques.

/*
http://maliciousnetworks.org/index.php
*/

While surfing I stumbled on a website that allow its visitor to see the top 20 networks from which attacks / trojan / malware come from. Nice I tell you. On top of it there's a detailed map which pinpoint the said attack vectors.

Firefox = danger?

2010-03-22T18:25:00.002-04:00

// Le message français suivra.

Yah yah, we're all aware that most products have their security whoes from time to time, but for once, pundits are not wailing about IE. Nooo, oh lost virginity: FIREFOX has been tagged by the Deutsche government as "insecure" due to a dire security flaw.

Permit me a smile. So must be smiling opera fans. :}

Ben oui, nous sommes tous conscient qu'à peu près tous les produits peuvent avoir des failles de sécurité de temps en temps, mais pour une fois les masses ne hurlent pas de torpeur à propos d'Internet Explorer. Oh virginitée perdue: FIREFOX a été déclaré "insécure" par le gouvernement Allemand dû à une faille de sécurité sévère.

Permettez-moi de sourire. Comme probablement tous les amateurs de Opera.

The art of governance / L'art de gouverner

2010-03-21T23:13:00.003-04:00

// English version follows.

À chaque fois qu'une décision importante est prise par notre élite, les questions de l'éthique, du bien commun et de la vision devraient toujours être ce qui prime. Or, il nous est souvent impossible d'ignorer la nature humaine dont le jupon dépasse toujours un peu de l'homme ou de la femme d'État.

En tant que peuple ayant notre point de vue, nous craignons toujours que les lobbys qui jappent toujours plus fort que nous dévie la trajectoire et redéfinitissent le "bien commun" en "leur" bien commun. Du reste, dans "La belle province", c'est presqu'invariablement la perception que nous en avons.

Mais avons-nous raison? N'élisons-nous pas des dirigeants pour diriger? Sommes-nous devenu cynique au point de croire que chaque décision est prise sur la base de combien d'argent les contracteurs d'un métier donné ont contribué à la caisse électorale du parti au pouvoir?

Malheureusement, du moins ici, les apparences sont accablantes: voici un parti au pouvoir sur lequel du sucre est cassé depuis au moins un an, qui refuse obstinément que des enquêtes publiques soient ouvertes (tant sur le secteur de la construction que les garderies gouvernementales à... combien déjà?) et qui a le culot de croire que je ne m'en rappèlerai pas au prochaines élections!

Il serait cependant hypocrite de prétende (du moins de ce que j'observe) que nous avons pas l'élite que nous méritons: qui a jeté Joe Clark et Kim Cambell dehors à grand coup de pieds dans le postérieur? Eh oui: c'est nous, l'électorat. Nous avons préféré nous mettre la tête dans le sable et croire Trudeau et Chrétien. Donc qui blâmer?

C'est dur, la réalité parfois...

En terminant, disons que j'envie nos voisins du sud qui se sont dotté d'un vrai chef d'État. On aura beau dire que les Démocrates, c'est un paquet de troubles pour le Canada. Force est d'admettre que quand lui a une idée, il ne l'a pas dans ses doigts de pieds.

/*

Every time an important decision is taken by our elite, questions pertaining to ethics, common good, sustainability and vision should be those who come first. However, it's usually imposible to see from which lobby or low interest is driving our statemen.

We as the people (that already has a point of view) are always worried that lobbies that are always barking louder than us and thus deviate "common good" into "their" common good. Anyway here in the "Belle Province", it's almost always what we perceive.
But are we right? Ain't we electing statemen to govern? Are we now so cynical that every decision our governments take are analyzed under the scope of how much a certain group of contractors contributed to the cashflow of the party in power?

Sadly, at least here, it definitively looks ugly: here's a party in power has been badmouthed for more than a year now and yet squarely refuses any public enquiry (construction sector and child daycare come to mind) and has the balls to think I won't remember it next time we go to the poll!

However, it would definitively be hypocrite to claim that we don't deserve what we got as far as an elite goes. Indeed, who kicked Joe Clark and Kim Cambell out of parliment? That's right: us the electorate. We so prefered to keep our head in the sand and be (grossly) lied to by Trudeau and Chrétien. So who's to blame?
Yup, life is indeed tough...

Anyway, let's just say I'm a bit jealous of our southern neighbours as they put in place a true stateman. We can always whail that a Democrat is just a carload of trouble for us Canadian, but we have to admit that when he has an idea, he don't just sit on it (even if it's controvertial).

Inauguration d'un barbecue

2010-03-18T21:31:00.001-04:00

Avec promesse de publier ;)

Après:

Avant:

Encore emballé :

Image indécente (avec le lube et le toy) :

J'veux pas relancer Carl mais...

2010-03-09T03:01:00.006-05:00

//English message will follow.

À part me promener en autobus, je suis allé à Bali la semaine dernière pendant deux jours afin de célébrer un événement assez unique. Pour savoir lequel, regardez l'image ci-bas.

/*

Bus rides nonwithstanding, I've been to Bali last week for two days in order to celebrate a rather unique event. to know what it's all about, look at image up this comment.

At Tampines

2010-02-17T05:44:00.000-05:00

Roaring lions / lions rugissants

This one is for Mike: I found something for you to keep your eternal lifesaver happy:

Another typical day under the sun

2010-02-15T22:06:00.002-05:00

// Le message français suivra.

In this third day of lunar new year, the family I live with are receiving relatives for typical lunch. I worked from 10p to 6a this night (was late :p) as agreed with the company I work with as they need the guy who works with the monitoring system to do other things. Yet I managed to sleep 4 hours, so I'm ok for the day.

For those who are used my incisive blog posts about politics and news, I appologize but on that regard I'm on vacation. Await my return to Canada for more of that. ;)

//

C'est le troisième jour du nouvel an lunaire aujourd'hui. La famille avec laquelle je reste reçoit des membres de la famille pour un dîner. De mon côté, j'ai travaillé de 22h à 6h (j'étais en retard :p) comme convenue avec mon employeur car ils ont besoin du gars qui s'occupe de la surveillance pour faire autre chose. J'ai quand-même réussi à dormir 4 heures, je suis donc comme neuf pour affronter la journée.

Et pour ceux qui sont habitué à entendre des commentaires incisifs sur ce blog à propos de l'actualité ou de politique, je suis désolé mais pour le moment je suis en vacance de ça. Attendez mon retour au Canada pour un retour aux vieilles habitudes. ;)

Photos

2010-02-13T20:59:00.000-05:00

Today it will mainly be pictures // aujourd'hui je me conterai de poster des images (avec commentaires).

Fortune god / Dieu de la bonne fortune.

On our way to Chinatown. There was monster traffic there (according to SG standards anyway). The picture is clear because the car wasn't moving. / Pendant notre trajet to Chinatown. Il y avait un trafic monstre (selon les standards Singapouriens anyway). La photo est clair car la voiture était arrêtée.

Another view of the same street / Un autre point de vue de la même rue.

The big mama temple in Chinatown. The place is brand-new, so new that when I came in 2006 it was only a big hole. In 2007 it was completed but I didn't got in. / Le grand temple du Chinatown. L'endroit est flambant neuf; à vrai dire, quand j'y suis allé en 2006 l'endroit était encore un cratère. En 2007 il était construit mais je n'y suis jamais allé.

Very nice place to pray I reckon. We were inside when midnight struck. / Un endroit où il fait bon prier. Nous étions à l'intérieur lorsque minuit a sonné.

Panoramic view of the temple's frontent (HDB builing to the left an extra) / Vue panorique du temple (avec en prime à gauche un complexe résidentiel HDB)

Lunar new year eve

2010-02-13T08:36:00.001-05:00

Bon, voici un plat traditionnel mangé pour invoquer la prospérité, de ce que j'ai compris du moins.

/*

*/
Ok here is a traditionnal CNY dish to bring prosperity to the household or at least that's what I figured out.

Now in Singapore

2010-02-12T21:15:00.001-05:00

Reached there around midnight, no time to post from the airport. Checking in was surprisingly easy, not a single question from the custom officer.

The joys of arriving at midnight (and going there for a third time). :}

Embarquement / boarding

2010-02-11T11:25:00.000-05:00

Ok the boarding has begun, the big mama 16 hours flight is about to begin.

//

Bon l'embarquement pour Narita est commencé, le long vol de 16 heures est à la veille de commencer.