Learn less, do more

I don't really have an idea for this post. I suppose this time of the year it should be about evaluating the year, pondering good and bad things that happened.

I made a lot of progress with my work. Not the amount I would consider ideal, though - I've procrastinated an awful lot this year. I'm also running late with my dissertation - I should have it almost complete by now if I had really begun writing it several months ago, like I was telling myself over and over.

I also made a lot of mistakes. I do not complain about them, though, because I tend to see mistakes as opportunities to learn and grow. But I really wish I could "learn" a bit less in 2008...

I failed (again) to begin some serious running. I also failed to get my driver's license.

However, despite this year's less than satisfying progress, I am satisfied with other things I accomplished this year. The first and foremost is swimming. I finally overcame years and years of apathy and learned how to swim with a minimal level of decency.

All in all, I don't think 2007 has been too kind to me. I had a LOT of problems with banks. I procrastinated too much. I failed to exercise my discipline.

Looking at the bright side, when I look back there's a lot of good results to gather, and it actually looks like I've been produtive this year. I just wish I were more efficient.

For 2008, there's a lot to be done. For starters, my dissertation and defense, which I want to happen before April. I need to get a PhD going, after that. I want to get my driver's license. I also want to be able to show my friends how much I appreciate them.

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Serious people are rare around here.

Today's distance: 0 meters.
Yesterday's distance: 0 meters.

Yesterday the heavens fell apart, and it rained all the day. It wasn't even nearly possible to swim, so I didn't go.

Today, with an awful lot of stuff to do, I didn't go either. Although I'm thinking about going later, since my work for the day is done, I'll post 0 meters now since I have the tendency to postpone everything.

A piece of advice to you kids: never depend on people you don't trust if you want to work near the holidays. Especially around here, where everyone goes to incredible lengths to avoid working. I was supposed to still have a lot of work to do today, but I'll have to do it tomorrow because someone decided it was a good moment to party.

Parties are strange things around here. With all the bickering that goes on between the six departments on the Institute, each one traditionally decides to make its own end-of-the-year party - the direction of the institute, of course, obliviously arranges for a general party as well. As a result, everyone attends two parties: one on each department and another for the whole Institute.

The serious people keep working. But, I'm sad to say, they are few.

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Following Dory's advice

Today's distance: 1500 meters.

I decided several days ago to write here the distance I swam in the day. Obviously, I failed to do that until now.

Also, I am aware that this may not be the perfect time to begin doing this, since I'm only going to be able to swim until next friday - after that, I leave for the holidays and come back only in january. Still, it's better to begin at all than continue to endlessly postpone this.

I'm still convinced that this will also help me maintain a higher frequency of posts here, even if they are not very enlightening.

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VT8233 on Linux - making S/PDIF work

I'm making this post hoping it might be useful in case someone googles for something related.

A long time ago when I bought the parts for my current desktop at home I chose Asus' excellent A7V600-X motherboard. It comes with a fancy S/PDIF output RCA jack, and I thought to myself, 'sometime I should get this thing working'. I never got around to it because I didn't have access to a decoder which would be able to process the signal.

Recently Daniel brought the old home theater from his home, and so I get the opportunity. I bought the cables today and set out to the task.

The good thing is that the chipset which comes onboard is supported by Debian GNU/Linux out-of-the-box. I suppose that remains true for other distributions, since it's really a matter of ALSA and kernel compatibility, which is reasonably homogeneous.

Anyway, after a lot of searching (and very few useful answers from almost everywhere, including Alsa's own wiki), I found out that all you have to do is (assuming you run GNOME):

1. In Volume Control, under Edit/Preferences, check 'IEC958 Output' and 'IEC958 Playback AC97-SPSA'.
2. In the Switches tab, check 'IEC958 Output'
3. Back in the Playback tab, set the slider for 'IEC958 Playback AC97-SPSA' to ZERO.
4. That's it, you're done.

This is actually quite strange, since I don't have any kind of control over S/PDIF's volume output this way; anything different than zero simply kills any sound coming from the home theater set.

I hope this helps anyone who happens to stumble with this post.

Next step: to make my FX 5200's S-Video output talk to the television set.

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Stairway to Heaven

Had I been there yesterday, I don't know what could have happened. One thing is certain: there were no other place I'd rather be.

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Contradiction or hyprocrisy?

Interesting thing I saw on the way home: some guy to whom a mohawk is not enough. He decided to make dreadlocks on it, too. What can I say? He was the ugliest thing I've seen these days. I do not argue with taste, though. With 6 billion people in the planet, there's a taste for every thing - and bad taste for even more.

He didn't stop there, though. What really caught my eye was his t-shirt: "No more torture - boycott to everything from animal exploration". So far, so good. That's the guy's point of view, and I respect that. And then I saw his wallet, which was visible in the pocket of his pants. A leather wallet...

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Briefly brief briefing.

This is not going to be a real update. This is going to be a shamelessly brief account of what happened in the last 43 days.

I'm doing good in swimming. Although there are a lot of ways I can improve, things are going ok; 2000 meters and counting. Maybe I'll begin to post here how long I swim every day.

My advisor got promoted. I'm not sure what's the english word for it, but she's now a titular professor in my department.

I'm beginning to get paranoid with my dissertation. It's about time, since I have to admit I'm far (too far) from finishing it.

Christmas is getting close - OMG it's that time of the year already?!?!

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Update.

This is not really an update, but a manifestation of my acknowledgement of the fact that it's been 43 days since my last post.

So many things have happened during this time that is seems a lot longer. Hopefully later this weekend I'll manage to write something about it.

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Spooky

My advisor has just scared the shit out of me. She sent me an email asking me to write an abstract for a meeting I didn't remember about. 

The good thing is, I did know about it and I did make my registration. And I did send my abstract - exactly the one my advisor asked me to write. Actually, I'm not sure why my advisor asked me to do that, I think she's probably under some stress and didn't remember us submitting it more than a month ago. Actually, it was even a troublesome submission. 

I sent her my answer, telling her that we have already made the registration and submitted the abstract. This actually makes me feel a bit odd, since usually it's me who doesn't remember stuff.

Actually, I've been feeling a lot more confident about my work. In part, it's because my advisor has been praising my work recently. But it's also because I'm much more self-assured about things I have to know and do. I am feeling a bit guilty, however, mostly because I haven't done a lot of productive work in the past few weeks. I do have to work on my dissertation - I have been claiming to be writing for some time now. It's time I make it true.

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Where are you from?

So I was checking traffic statistics for this blog and a few curious facts came to my attention.

The first of them is that the major source of traffic is not Brazil, but the United States. Brazil is second and the UK comes third.

The second curious thing I found out that the major referrer site is not other than phdcomics's forum. This is really surprising, since I've been away from the phorums for some time (not by choice, mind you).

I'm glad this thing has so many visitors from other countries (like Germany, the UK, Canada, Argentina, even Philippines and New Zealand!), despite the nauseating lack of worthy content. I wish I could be able to write more interesting posts so your visits wouldn't be a total waste of time.

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Sound Juicer Sucks

Sound Juicer looks like a pretty good application for encoding audio tracks. To bad it doesn't work the way it should.

I have never had problems with it before, because I always used its default profiles. When I friend came by and saw a CD he liked and asked for a copy, I said ok. The problem is, he wanted it to be in the mp3 format.

After sometime trying to make it understand that I wanted if to encode mp3 files, I finally gave up. Apparently, there are no workarounds to make Sound Juicer to use custom made profiles.

I guess I'll stick with abcde, or maybe grip. Both of them never failed me before.

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I hate banks. Apparently, the feeling in mutual.

So banks hate me. Or, at least, Santander does. For some obscure reason I'm not aware of, every single time I need something out of the ordinary from them, it's excruciatingly painful to get it. Somehow they find a way to keep annoying me with endless, random problems.

For the last whole month I've been trying to get myself a cheque-book to pay for my driving lessons and overdue rent. I ordered in through netbanking, that little thingy that supposedly makes life easier for everyone. However, after the 5 weekdays it asked for delivery, it still hadn't arrived. I went to the ATM terminal (here in Brazil, due to overall high usage of cheque for almost everything, they are quite common), and it refused to give me some single cheque forms. Then, I went to the manager, in order to ask why this problem was occurring. She answered that, for some reason, there were two books that were ordered that went to the postal service's limbo - four years ago. Assuming that this was the issue, she cancelled those and told me she would order another one the next day, so I wouldn't have to worry about anything, and in 6 weekdays I would receive the book at home.

Approximately twenty days later (that's today), I went again to the ATM to try and get some single cheque forms, which I needed desperately for today - no room for any more delays. However, as expected, the ATM refused to print them. Rage began to accumulate inside. I went straight to the manager, asked what the hell was wrong and demanded five cheque forms today - no discussion.

After several minutes, a crash in the computer (which runs Windoze), and two more people from the neighboring tables helping out, she finally discovered that, due to a R$ 2,70 (about US$ 1,35) tax that SOMEHOW wasn't paid - BACK IN 2003. FOUR years ago! FOUR. YEARS.

The real catch is, their "system" only allows for "negotiation" of values above R$ 10,00 (about US$ 5,00) - which means that, since it wasn't paid, and wasn't enough for "negotiation", it went nowhere else than the limbo. Until, after three managers digging thoroughly the records in their "system", it finally arose to haunt me.

This was the last time I cut them some slack for their incompetence. I finally lost my patience with this crappy hell-hole they claim to be a bank, As soon as I get my stipend for this month (which is tomorrow) I'll pay the goddamn money and close the account.

And to think that they've IMPROVED after privatization.

P.S.: I wish I could swear better in english. Since I can't, I'll do it in portuguese anyway.

Malditos filhos da puta, cuspidos do rabo de uma porca fedida no pântano do Rio Tietê! Incompetentes do caralho, como esses animais de teta conseguiram aprender a usar um computador?? COMO esses débeis mentais aprenderam a FALAR?? Façam um favor ao mundo e se matem.

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The bright side

Now, for some good news. At least, there are some.

I'm finally free from M$ Windows. The last bastion has fallen - Microcal Origin now runs on my Debian GNU/Linux. Last night I removed the NTFS partition from my computer and relocated my root partition there, creating a huge home directory. I don't even have any M$ partitions on my hard disk any more. 

In other news, I'll begin swimming next monday. Already spoken to who I had to speak to, and now everything is set. I've been looking for something like this for some time. I need some discipline for doing some exercise - I've been too much sedentary recently, and I'm beginning to get fat. I will do my best to make this work - I need a change of habits. Hopefully, this will help me get more focused on my work.

In still other news, I'll begin to attend the undergrad classes on Solid State Physics. This has a twice-folded purpose - helping out a friend who needs to really crack it down and learning a few things that went right through me when I did this course in my last semester as an undergrad.

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I don't have bad luck, bad luck has me.

I'll write it down in  one sentence: I haven't done almost any productive work in the last two weeks, because I wasn't motivated or because I was sick - sometimes both.

That said, I came to the conclusion (once again!) that I'm the elemental of bad luck. I just can't believe how things can go so wrong sometimes. In the last weeks I've had serious problems with the TWO banks where I have accounts - incompetent managers, lazy clerks, stupid strikes. One of the problems is actually secondary - I needed something from one of the banks so I could pay for my driver license. But, since I do not own a car, that's not really a big deal.

The other problem, however, was a bit more serious. I needed to set up an account to receive the salary from my T.A. activites during this semester. When I finally had it all solved - after numerous problems and a LOT of stress - I found out that, due to some ridiculous university regulation, I cannot receive the salary. The bastards waited until OCTOBER to say that. Obviously, they couldn't have said that when my application form went to them for their approval. 

I'm still not sure what I'm going to do. I had been counting on that money for various things I had pending. Now, it seems, I'll have to pass without it.

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Deathly Hallows

I've finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last night (there are spoilers in this post; select the text to see them).

I dare say that it's the best of the seven books in the series. J. K. Rowling was able to fit everything together in a nice way and, most importantly, adding new elements only when necessary - mostly everything that solved the mystery was already in the previous books. It was also pretty good to see Dumbledore as a human being, who has made a lot of mistakes in life (like the friendship with Grindelwald and his search of the Deathly Hallows), as opposed to the perfect picture everyone had of him before.

It's a dark, captivating story. I could barely stop reading at all from the moment I started. I believe these characteristics of the book emanate primarily from the sensation of constant pursuit - there's hardly a moment of peace for Harry, Hermione and Ron. Also, the many deaths of well known characters make the reader want to keep going to see what's the outcome. The deaths of Mad-Eye Moody in the beginning and of Fred, Lupin and Tonks near the end are particularly shocking. Also, when a friend told me that Voldemort killed Harry and then Harry killed Voldemort, I was curious - I expected the fact to have something to do with that mirror from the first book and with that portal thing Sirius fell into, but the way it happens is way better - it seems the kind of stuff I'd come up with.

Anyway, I'm not particularly good at writing book reviews, so I'll stop here. There's only one more thing I'd like to say, and it's that I liked very much the outcome of the story. Mostly it's because it's pretty much what I would have done - J. K. Rowling's style pleased me very much because it's very similar to my own. I like to use several elements already present in the story to build the end - it's the best way to do it, because I see a story as a group of such elements whose purpose it just that: build the end of the story. The end of a story is the purpose of the whole thing, because it is what carries its true meaning.

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Finally!

I finally convinced compiz that is would be a good idea if it worked here. Now it's doing great. There are a few more tweaks I want to make, like changing gdm's theme, adding a graphical interface to grub and a graphical progress bar for the boot, but the basics are covered.

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A lot done.

Work. Work-work-work. A bit more of work.

That's what it took for me to get a decent desktop running. After a lot of things I had to go through, including a fresh install, a huge amount of bizarre errors, a reinstall, an upgrade to lenny, a driver compilation and lots and lots and lots of installed packages, I finally have a minimally decent desktop.

The best part is, it's Debian. This may seem a completely moot point, but I actually missed all the stuff I had to go through to get things begin to work the way I want them too.

It's not finished, yet. For example, I still wasn't able to make compiz work here. And I still haven't got my gnome configurations how they should be. But gnome settings are the last thing I'm worrying about right now; first I want everything just working. When I get that I'll worry about how I want everything to be.

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Back to origins.

I've been using Ubuntu for some time, now. And, I must say, it is a good distribution. Works well, is easy to use, and all that.

But some things keep bugging me. For example, despite its big user base, it's not easy at all to get some answers sometimes. The usual things are very straightforward, like getting gstreamer codecs for proprietary formats, but others simply seem to be unanswerable. There are problems which do not seem to have solutions. And this is what really annoys me.

Originally I chose Ubuntu because it needed little or no effort to make things work. But I can't live with it anymore.

I'm moving back to Debian.

It was the first Linux distribution I used and experimented with - so there's an emotional side to this decision, too. I see this as a bit of a comeback - one I'm looking forward to.

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365

Tomorrow we complete one year together.

It passed so quickly I almost didn't realize it. Almost.

Thinking back to one year ago, and remembering everything - the good and the bad - that I've been through since then, I'm truly happy to say I'm probably in one of the happiest moments I ever lived.

I guess there's little more I can say here. What really matters is to be said only to her.

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Theo Jansen - Kinetic Sculptor

"The walls between engineering and art exist only in our minds"

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