Love and hate?

They often say there's a fine line between love and hate... I would argue that isn't true. But a fine line between love and anger? Oh yes. In fact, the fine line tends to be nonexistent most of the time. Proof positive today. Love and hypocrisy also go together. As parents often prove. And yeah, that's all...

GMAIL!!!

That's right, I'm writing this from my GMail account. Unbelievable.
Un-flippin-believable. GMail behaves like an application on my
computer, its that damn fast. Did I mention unbelievable? Even better
than I could possibly have imagined. This is truly cooler than I could
have imagined it. All the little things are noticeable. For example,
when you want extended search options, you click the link for it, and
the page doesn't change. Instead, JavaScript is used to pop up the
options. Truly impressive. Rock on, Google. There is nothing that
stands in the way of their becoming by far the dominant free email
service in the market, except perhaps this privacy idiocy, which, if
people are worried about it, they deserve not using GMail. Whoo! I
love this :-)

Is it possible to be in love with your email?

GMail has changed my mind about the answer to that question. Just like Apple manages to make beautiful computers, Google always managese to make beautiful (in terms of functionality, speed, usability, and power) web solutions. Absolutely amazing. I've been using it for about a day and a half or so now, and it is simply tbe best email experience I have ever had. That includes Kontact, which is one of the most impressive applications I've used in a while (yes, substantially better than Outlook). Kudos again to Google. They really do rock.

Paying for GMail?

What is the attraction of GMail? That it is 1 Gig of free space, with Google's tools. Free. Paying 2 bucks for it on eBay is a bit ridiculous, especially when with a little patience you can get one for free. What is the point? Someone is making money off of people who are excited enough about GMail to go and actually buy an account like Google *doesn't* want to ask them to do. That someone has my congratulations though - actually, those some people do. They figured out that people were going to get caught up enough in the moment to actually perform that feat of rather lacking intelligence and buy an account. So to those who are making money - kudos. To those who are helping them - < sigh > Just think through it better next time...

GMAIL!!!!

That's right, I now have a GMail account. Unbelievable.
Un-flippin-believable. GMail behaves like an application on my
computer, its that damn fast. Did I mention unbelievable? Even better
than I could possibly have imagined. This is truly cooler than I could
have imagined it. All the little things are noticeable. For example,
when you want extended search options, you click the link for it, and
the page doesn't change. Instead, JavaScript is used to pop up the
options. Truly impressive. Rock on, Google. There is nothing that
stands in the way of their becoming by far the dominant free email
service in the market, except perhaps this privacy idiocy, which, if
people are worried about it, they deserve not using GMail. Whoo! I
love this :-)

QApacheConf

This project is going to be so amazing. There's going to be a name change at some point, but that's beside the point. For those few of you who actually read this, check out http://qapacheconf.sourceforge.net/wiki/ . The Planned Features list is already long and most likely going to get longer. Once this is done, it is going to be stunningly good, I think. Then again, it's my pet project, so maybe I"m just gushing over my baby ;)

There ARE geniuses in the world

Some people are just so damn smart. Check out this guy's resume: http://dynarch.com/mishoo/cv.epl
So much knowledge to be had... and the scariest part is, as much as this guy knows, there is at least five times as much still there in the world of software to be learned. My god I'm going into a daunting area...

Mozilla Firefox and the Redefinition of Speed

Oh my GOD. I thought Mozilla Firefox was fast. I really did. It's certainly way faster than anything IE could pull at rendering pages. I was still wrong.
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum21/8007.htm
THAT is where it's at. That's a link to a forum article that tells you five settings that will make Firefox not only fast, but BLAZING. We're talking slashdot pops up in a literal microsecond. Daaamn... As if Firefox wasn't good enough.

Qt and the Beauty of C++

So some people apparently think Java is better than C++. To those that do, I can say but one thing - program C++ with Qt. Oh, such a beauty... I love Qt. I'm getting through this book on actually using it better than I've been able to so far and it only gets BETTER!! And yes, I know I'm proving ultimate geekiness by actually reading a book on programming cover-to-cover (it's actually the first one I've ever done that on), but daamn this stuff is cool. So anyway, yeah. I can't wait to learn how to do 3d graphics via OpenGL and Networked applications and multithreading and other awesome stuff like that...

A Convert from Yon Window Comes

Muahaha... I have converted Marie... Only one in my vastly large conquests to come, I hope... lol. Anyway, http://alogicalode.blogspot.com/ . And I've turned her on the little anagram thingie, too. Yay! :-) By the way, Google has a store!! There are GOOGLE BOXERS!!! http://www.googlestore.com/

Apple Shines Again

So it might be a bad thing that I love Apple so much (although their agressive patenting technique is something I don't like one bit). But who cares. They constantly justify it.

The latest thing to come from them is this Airport Express. Which does basically what a PC connected to a wireless base station does. Except its the size of an Apple power brick. Which is roughly the LxW of an iPod but a bit thicker. Absolutely brilliant. USB jack for a printer, Ethernet jack for an internet connection, and an *audio out* for speakers. Which lets you use iTunes to stream music to said speakers. For 130$. They never stop impressing me, those Apple folks don't. So yeah. Apple rules. Again.

Ronald Reagan's Dead

And I care because.....? Not like he's done anything since he got out of office. As for when he was in there? Please... All he did was screw the economy.

But by far the funniest thing is how Americans have somehow gotten it into their brains that Reagan single-handedly took down the USSR and that his economic reforms somehow caused the boom five years after his presidency.

The first is easely the most amusing. The USSR did itself in. Gorbachev, with his reforms, was the one who brought the USSR to its knees, albeit unintentionally. Reagan did jack shit to help that, except encouraging Gorbachev in his reforms. Margaret Thatcher said recently something along the lines that millions are free today because of Reagan. Free? Because Russia is, of course, so free... Freer than China, perhaps, but certainly not free. As for attributing that to Reagan... puh-leeze....

And the economy, oh that's a fun one. Basically, the Republicans have subscribed to the delayed-reaction theory so that their candidates are always the ones who make the economy good. Nevermind how delayed the reaction of the economy is to Republican 'improvements', it's still them who make the economy good and the Democrats who make it bad. Brilliant. < sigh > Sometimes, conservatives are so amusingly idiotic. No offense to the intelligent ones, of course. But if you subscribe to either of the above ideas, you've gone one notch down on the intelligence scale in my eyes.

Jealousy and the Human Mind

Jealousy... What a disgusting emotion. Worse even than arrogance, I think. Which is a bad thing to think about when I catch a current of jealousy running through me. Especially when it's aimed at people I have known for too long and am too good friends with to experience this emotion with. But you know what? Recognizing that, I think, is better than it just not happening. Helps me on my quest to master all of my emotions. Except love.... unmasterable, that emotion is... Kinda sucks, too. Infatuation is lumped with it in the unmasterable section, which is even worse. Aaanyway... yeah.

Harry Potter and the Missing Book

So one does wonder, what do people think of as a movie adaptation. I won't deny that Alfonso Cuarón did an excellent job as far as making a *movie* was concerned. The thing is, he wasn't supposed to make just a movie. He was supposed to make a movie of the book. And that this movie was NOT. Three quarters of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is entirely absent from the movie. As for the part that is actually in there? Screwed up. Almost all of it is screwed up.

Once again, however, the casting was wonderful, although Trelawney could have been a bit more... insectlike. The vast majority of the school year was entirely absent in the movie. No finals. You would think they didn't even exist. The movie doesn't end where Harry is returning to the Dursleys' - a recurring image in the book that is quite important. There is no hint of the Quidditch World Cup that is to take place the next year, not to mention the fact that Quidditch is virtually nonexistent in the movie.

Also left out is the House Cup, as well as the final feast, as well as... Well, basically, school. We see a couple of classes (Lupin and Hagrid, the Defense Against the Dark Arts class where Snape substitutes, and none other). Basically, you have no idea that they are at a school, and there is no inkling of the fact that a year has passed. AT ALL.

Basically, this is a good movie. But if you want to go see a movie of the book, don't go see it. You will be severely disappointed. I certainly was.

Power supply evil

< sigh > So my power supply gave out. Entirely. On my birthday, no less. I got a wireless keyboard and mouse and haven't had a chance to try it on the computer that shall soon become my own, my precious. < grumbles > How fundamentally evil. Meanwhile, I'm just using my older brother's computer. Which is hilarious. The computer is ten times as fast, three times more memory, five times the hd space, and other measurements as well! However, since it runs SuSE, it runs SLOWER THAN MY 1.2GHz Athlon RUNNING GENTOO!!! Yay! :-) That's for those fools that think Gentoo isn't good. On an equally happy note, my older brother is installing Gentoo on this nice machine tomorrow. Which means some recovered speed and the recovery of the uber-wonderful emerge tool. Plus I can see if we can get this logitech cordless keyboard's multimedia keys working under Linux. Yay yay yay yay!!! :-) However, he staunchly refuses to install Windoze, which would be fine... except... Thief 3... dammit... need... new... processor... graphics... card... too... lazy... to... get... job... DAMMNNNNNNN!!!!!

Oh, and did I ever mention that I am dying from the need of GMail? I NEED GMAIL DAMMIT... And yeah. That's all... I'm out for now.