Aleks' Domain

I’m too devastated for words. Yesterday, on June 22nd, George Carlin had a heart attack that ended his life. I can hardly believe it. This has been one of the more influential people in my life, and he will be greatly missed by me. And many people around the world, I can assure you that. No one said it better than Mr. Carlin. He wasn’t afraid of the truth, and most importantly, he wasn’t afraid of sharing that truth with all of us. He was hilarious. A great philosopher. And one of my heroes. I’ve got nothing else to say. Rest in peace, George.

Today, a new brand-spanking version of Firefox is out. They are trying to set a world record by having the most downloads in one day. It has been dubbed “Download Day”. Not too creative, but that doesn’t matter. If you use Firefox (and everyone should), all you need to do is go and participate by downloading it. So what are you waiting for? Go download it!

All righty. So, a lot has actually happened since I’ve last posted. Both on this website and in my life. I’ll try to keep this post as short as possible, though. We’ll start with the website first. Take a look around. Everything is organized now! I feel extremely pleased with myself…maybe for the first time since I started running my own site.

The biggest change has been to the blog categories. If you take a look to the right, you’ll notice that I’m not using a drop down box to maintain categories anymore. Instead, it’s an expandable menu now. Currently, there are 32 categories, including parent categories, and many more to be added as I increase the breadth of my postings. With that came a complete tagging of all my posts, and an updating of how titles were handled. So yes, from now on, everything will be much more organized.

Along with that update, a minor error was also fixed. When clicking “view previous posts” or something to that effect, a 404 was thrown. I have updated permalinks and changed around some of the page code so that it works like a charm now.

The next and final website update is the addition of random quotes! They’re right under the title. Currently there are 4 witty quotes from pretty famous people. The best part of all the quotes is that they make you think. Because, in my opinion if a quote doesn’t make you think, it’s a pretty useless quote. If you refresh the page a little, you’ll no doubt encounter them all.

All righty. Now onto my life. The biggest change, and the only one really, is that I’ve finally devoted myself to a martial art. I will be starting aikido in a few weeks. Currently, I’m strength training, and running a lot to get in better shape. I haven’t even started aikido yet, and my life has already taken a turn for the better. I have a daily routine now, and I feel great. I find that doing all of your training in the morning is a lot better than doing it later in the day. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the getting-it-over mentality I have while doing. Maybe. But I don’t do it because I think I have to. I do it because I enjoy it, and I really think it’s having a good impact on my life.

I wasn’t lying. That was the only update to my life. But I’d like to further digress on why I chose aikido over another martial art. I think the explanation is pretty interesting from my standpoint, but that’s just me. Ever since I was very little, I’ve always wanted to do something like karate. So this ambition to do some sort of martial art has been manifested in me since I was very small. But why aikido now? Well, almost like any Japanese martial art, there isn’t just a physical component, there is also a mental component. The mental aspect of aikido strongly appeals to me.

From wikipedia: Aikido is a Japanese martial art developed by Morihei Ueshiba as a synthesis of his martial studies, philosophy, and religious beliefs. The religious beliefs don’t apply to me, being an atheist and all. Not that O’Sensei (Morihei Ueshiba) had Christianity, Islam or Judaism in mind while creating aikido. The religious aspects were centered around ki/life force and extending love and compassion. Life force. The way I interpret this “life force” is as the spark of life. The willingness to live life. If the ki is weak, then your willingness to go on, and understand the things around you are low. However, if your ki is high, then the exact opposite is true, and you see beauty in living and in the things around you. You don’t really need ki for this interpretation, since one can live life like this anyway, but it certainly helps define what I believe the religious aspects to be. At least for me.

The philosophical side is even more interesting. Ueshiba’s goal was to create an art that practitioners could use to defend themselves while also protecting their attacker from injury. Which relates to the religious aspect, but this is a lot more practical. I don’t think I need to elaborate on the benefits of this, as any half-wit would be able to see them. But yes, this is why aikido seems so appealing to me.

I will not stop my training here, though. I intend to practice jujutsu and kenjutsu some time in the very near future. I want to be well versed in all of these arts.

Ah well, this post is getting long enough. I’ll see you all later. Take care.

Edit: After posting this, I realized that just a wikipedia link to aikido didn’t make me happy. So here is a video I just found that can help some people see what aikido looks like.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, don’t bother reading what I’m about to say. But for those of you felt the profound sadness at the loss of Stage 6, feel sad no more! It’s coming back! No, I’m not yanking your chain, it really is.

However, the service is now called Vreel. Don’t worry, it’s just a new name. I have no qualms with that, after all, Stage 6 was a pretty weird name itself. Regardless, the same service will be back. High definition DivX streaming! Woot! It won’t be the same as Stage 6, but it’ll be pretty damn similar! You can see Vreel here.

Today was the Eurovision finals. “Tonight” if you happen to live in Europe. It was more or less how I predicted it to be. Russia, was going to win, but I thought Serbia would place a little higher. However, 6th place is still pretty good. Especially considering that Serbia has won last year’s competition and is hosting this year’s competition, will deter people from voting for Serbia. But anyhow, after watching the show, I’ve noticed a few things. And I can safely conclude that Eurovision is bullshit.

Am I saying this because I’m a fan of Serbia, and I thought Serbia deserved a higher ranking? No, not really. If you’re a big fan of Eurovision and have been following it for a while now, you probably know what I’m talking about. It’s all about politics. Everything. Take a look at the countries that voted for each other. Take a look at the countries that didn’t vote for each other. Everything is about politics! Sweden, Finland, and other Scandinavian countries always vote for each other. Even if the song the other produces is a steaming pile of turd. Not that it was, this year. The Balkans always vote for Serbia. Montenegro, Slovenia, and Bosnia gave Serbia the maximum amount of points, with other countries giving them lower points, but still giving them something. Then you have the whole Russia, Armenia, Ukraine, Belarus and others, thing going on…who always vote for each other.

It’s politics, and nothing else. Like I said, a country could create a steaming pile of turd of a song, and it would still be voted for by the country’s neighbours/political allies. The favourite going in 2008? Well, it doesn’t take a political science major to figure out that Russia was going to win. Next Eurovision, I think I’m going to accurately predict the results (like everyone else has been doing) just by judging the political ties between the countries. It’ll be interesting to see how accurate I actually am, since I know I’ll be accurate to some degree.

But anyways, if this competition was judged by songs, it would have to go to Oro from Serbia. I don’t say this because I’m Serbian, I say this because it’s the truth. The other songs are jokes compared to it. They aren’t serious, and feel like they’re just happy to be on Eurovision. While Oro has a purpose. Okay, I’m being a little biased, but the Russian victory was well deserved. The Russian guy has an amazing voice. But the song itself was crap. The only other qualm I have about it is…that it was sung in English!

Another big problem with Eurovision. What the hell is the point of having countries, if we can’t even hear a song from that country? This means the song being sung in the country’s official language. Not English. Your own language. Screw trying to reach a larger audience; people don’t care if they can’t understand the song the first time they hear it. They can always look up the lyrics later. When I see a country come up to perform, I expect to hear a little piece of their culture. Their music. That to me is far more interesting than all of this generic Euro trash that is littered across Eurovision. I’m sorry, but it’s true.

Which reminds me, I heard that the French were mad that their performer wasn’t going to be singing in French a few months ago. Good on them! And good on the ranking he got. France didn’t deserve first place this year because they betrayed their country by singing in English. If your own country won’t support you, then you have no chance of attracting attention elsewhere. I think the French-English-singing guy even said something along the lines of “Eurovision isn’t about culture.” What an arrogant ass. It isn’t just about culture, but people would be a lot happier if they saw some of it instead of your garbage.

I’ll summarize. Countries need to start singing in their own language. You can win without singing in English! Just take a look at the video at the bottom of this page, of last year’s Eurovision, where Serbia won. They sang in their own language. By the way, last year’s song kicked this year’s song’s ass. Secondly, showing a little culture wouldn’t kill you. How am I supposed to form a unique opinion of your country? Thirdly, generic Euro trash is boring, and almost everyone does it. Especially when you sing in English. Russia, you have a beautiful language, and you’ve decided to turn your song into crap by employing English, and making it sound very generic and boring. How about a little variety?

Also, here is the best song that has ever been on Eurovision.

It’s now close to 3am, and I should be in bed. I usually don’t stay up this late unless I have something I need to do, or if I was in the middle of something that needed wrapping up. This entire afternoon I have been up restoring my laptop back to the way I want it. With Ubuntu installed, all my apps, libraries, music, and configurations. It’s taken me most of the day, but I’m pretty much done now, so I can do the last thing that I need to do before I hit the hay. Thank Dell.

More specifically, Dell customer service. You see, a month back or so, my laptop screen decided it would never turn itself on again. The backlight was completely dead. I was told that the LCD fuse busted, but that didn’t make much sense to me, and the person telling me this wasn’t exactly a technician. Regardless, everything else worked on the laptop. I even brought an old monitor to act as an external (and main) display. Well, up until recently, I got tired of having a laptop whose screen was useless. So I called customer service, and arranged a date for them to a deliver a box in which I was to put my laptop and send it to them.

I can understand the need of sending a box. After all, if it gets damaged in the transportation, that would kinda suck. And this wasn’t really a normal box. It was so padded, you could have used it as a pillow. A very hard pillow, mind you, but a pillow nonetheless. After receiving the box, it lay in my room for about a week. Yeah, I wasn’t ready to part with my laptop just yet! Actually, I was just really lazy, and kept telling myself that I’d get around to it eventually. Well, this pissed Dell off. They kept calling for the box. Which was good. I needed incentive to send my laptop away finally. After about a week or so, and 4 or 5 calls later, I sent the box with my laptop inside, Tuesday morning.

Then yesterday, I get a Purolator notice that there was a package for me yesterday, but I wasn’t home to receive it, so they’re holding it until I come and pick it up. Which I did so today. Or yesterday, since it’s past midnight. I have been left with my jaw open. They replaced the bottom case (because it had a crack), and replaced my screen with a brand new one. Good thing I was under warranty, that would have cost me a fortune. But back to what I was saying. This was done in ONE day. ONE! I can’t believe it. To recap, I sent my laptop for repairs on Tuesday, I get it back on Thursday, and pick it up Friday. Dell customer service has always been good, but this good? I’m not too sure. I even checked to see if it was the same laptop, knowing that it was.

Maybe I got lucky, and it was the only laptop they had to service that day. Or maybe the queen herself intervened on my behalf. In either case, Dell has just made one customer very happy. A customer that looks forward to doing business in the future.

Let me start off by saying that if you want to support Linux, then use TeamSpeak. But if you’re like me and for some reason you must use Ventrilo, then you’ve come to the right place. Ventrilo can work under Linux using WINE. Quite easily too. That is, if you follow this guide.

Truth be told, I shouldn’t be making this post. The Linux version of Ventrilo is officially “under development” But, between you and me, I don’t think it’ll come out any time soon. So, with that said! Let’s begin. I’m going to assume you have WINE installed on your system, and you’re ready to go. At the time of writing this, the current version is 0.9.57.

• Download the Ventrilo executable from the Ventrilo website. Install it using WINE.
• Try running Ventrilo now. With this WINE version, Ventrilo runs and displays the GUI without any problems. I would expect that future releases of WINE won’t break it.
• Now that you have Ventrilo installed, exit WINE and try to locate your Windows box. There is a file that we need from there. I’ve searched the internet thoroughly, this file is not online! Or at least, I can’t find it. My google-fu ain’t what it used to be. Anyways, the file we are looking for is located at:

C:/WINDOWS/system32/msgsm32.acm

• As far as I know, it shouldn’t matter if you’re trying to get Ventrilo to work on a 32-bit or 64-bit system. I know that there is a “32″ in msgsm32, but trust me, it doesn’t matter. At least for me, anyway. The next step is to edit a WINE file. Open up the file below with your favourite text editor.

~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system.ini

• Next, add this line to the file.

MSACM.msgsm610=msgsm32.acm

• Now WINE should recognize the GSM codec. And that’s it! Ventrilo should work now.

Of course, it’s never that simple. Ventrilo will still get a graphical glitch every now and then. It’s nothing too big, but can be annoying when you’re trying to change channels (they start to look mashed together). It’s also worth noting that while this solution works, currently the push-to-talk feature does not work. This isn’t a Ventrilo problem, but rather a WINE problem. It would seem that WINE does not handle events properly. There is a pretty ugly work around for this located right here. If you’re going to try the fix, do not use characters like ctrl or alt for your push-to-talk hotkeys (they never worked for me). 64-bit systems will also have trouble with the fix.

If you have problems, here are a few links:

A thread about Ventrilo and WINE.
The ugly fix. (Same one as above)
The Wine AppDB page for Ventrilo

If you have any trouble following the fix, just post a comment. I hope this helps someone out!

Finally sat down and decided to review one of my favourite books of all time. The greatest thing about it is that it’s historically plausible. It could have happened. No, this is exactly how it happened. The story is told in a first-person perspective from a character in history we all know. Lancelot. Yes, the Sir Lancelot that is part of Arthur’s round table of knights. But, he doesn’t get his title in this book, nor is he known as Lencelot. We come to know him as Clothar. And Clothar’s tale is among the best I’ve ever read.

Before I go on, I should say that I will try not to spoil the story. I don’t want to give away too much, or you might not end up reading it at all. And believe me, you want to read this book. With that said, when I first picked up this book (which was a little over 2 years ago) I glanced over it, read a few pages, and gave up on it. I scold myself every time I see this book in my bookshelf for having done that. It must have been because I wasn’t mature enough 2 years ago. Maybe. But it sure does attest to the fact that this book is clearly aimed at experienced readers and adults.

The story starts off with a little boy, around maybe seven (or was it 10?) years of age. The boy is indeed Clothar, and he learns a truth that makes the reader automatically like him. He learns it fairly early too. The king, his father, tells him that he is actually not his father, and that he is his uncle instead. His real father and mother are dead. They died shortly after Clothar was brought into the world. The person that killed them was Clodas who sits on his father’s throne even now. Choking back on the tears and recognizing the situation enough, Clothar, still a young boy, vows to kill Clodas with the help of his uncle and rightfully become king – some day. For now, his uncle, Ban of Benwick, sends him off with Bishop Germanus to a school for young boys.

The real story starts here, I guess. One thing you will notice while reading is that this isn’t your typical story. It doesn’t have the rising action – climax – falling action template that everyone is taught in elementary school. It just kind of goes on. That’s the best way I can describe it. It just goes on. Try to imagine yourself sitting by a camp fire listening to a storyteller. It’s kind of like that.

The most memorable thing from this book (and keeping in mind that I read it almost 3 months ago) is that Clothar is so damn real. He isn’t just a character. He is right there with you while he tells you his story. It’s really quite amazing. All the characters are pretty colourful, and realistic. They are all historically plausible, and the history major in you will squeal with joy at the minor characters in Clothar The Frank that lived once long ago. All in all, if you like Arthurian legends, historic Gaul, the Franks, and just history in general, this book is for you.

This book is a testament that history isn’t boring!

It’s time for another book review! I actually finished this one about a month back, so this review is a little late. However, putting the tardiness aside, I still remember this book because it was just that good. Even though this was Ferrari’s first book, I wouldn’t have been able to tell. He spins a tale the likes of which I’ve never seen before. I really hope I see more of his works in the future. Just like with all my reviews, I don’t promise a spoiler-free review, but I’ll certainly try.

I’ll be honest. I don’t know how I bought this book. I mean, for starters, I haven’t even heard of the author before. It would have been different had someone recommended him to me, but no. I just bought it on a whim. I guess it just looked cool. Probably one of the best cover’s I’ve seen on a book. It’s important to note that the author actually designed the cover too. The mini picture up there really doesn’t do it justice.

But anyways, now when I think about it, I know exactly why I bought this book. The story interested me. God and Lucifer make a bet, the same bet they’ve made in the past. However, this time, creation – you, me and everything else – hang in the balance. Interesting for two reasons, and probably more. Firstly, I always wanted to hear a conversation between God and Lucifer. Secondly, you actually get to see them go at it. Yeah, yeah, I know you can read the bible for that kind of stuff, but this is much more interesting than that 2000 page sleeping pill.

The story starts off with a little boy. And damn, is he full of energy! He kind of reminded me of me. He was all over the place. He never stayed in one place for too long. He climbed trees, pretended he was a knight (something I still do), ran all over the place and had a big grin on his face at all times. It almost made me wish I was a child again. But where we differ is that this boy had an enemy. And not just any enemy! Think about all the kinds of enemies you can have. It couldn’t compare to this boy’s enemy. He, had the devil himself breathing down his neck at all times.

And he did nothing to deserve it! It’s only because God had faith in this boy that he would win the bet for him. Before I go on, I should mention that this boy’s name is Joby. It’s a biblical allusion to the story of Job in the bible. No other apparent connections other than the name. Also, that the bet God and Lucifer had was that God was to choose a candidate, and if Lucifer could make that candidate do something really evil, he would win. Well, Lucifer is given 40 years to do just that.

Needless to say, Joby’s entire journey is very entertaining. The characters are colourful, and God and Lucifer are witty. The angels are awesome too, as are hell’s little helpers. It almost made me wish I wasn’t an atheist, because if God really was this witty, then I would convert like that, just so I can have a conversation with him. The story is just so clever in the way it handles our cosmological friends. But there is a different reason this is in fantasy. Sure, it deals with God, but king Arthur is in it too! You’re probably giving me a “huh?” Well, I don’t want to ruin anything, so I won’t say anything. But it’s quite amazing as to how Arthur, God, Lancelot, Joby, Joby’s friends, angels and normal townsfolk come to together. I love the unity. And I love this book!

If you are anything like me, then you did a double take after reading the title of this post. I, myself, still can’t believe it. It seems that Canada is going to get it’s first “all black” school. Now, I’m no racist, but does anyone else see the obvious problems with this?

Canada doesn’t have a single unified culture. While America can be called a Christian nation (and this might be stretching it for some people), Canada can be referred to as a multicultural mosaic. We, as Canadians, are encouraged to express our culture and beliefs. In fact, some of us are even paid to do it. But when you take a public school and start segregating it, then in my opinion you are crossing the line. This idea of an “all black” school would only work if we took a bunch of black kids and taught them “white” history, while taking all the white kids and teaching them “black” history.

However, this school brings far worse problems. How are we ever to achieve a state of equality when we are constantly reminded of slavery and atrocities committed long ago? I agree that we should never forget them (history has forever recorded them anyway), but we live in a society now that frowns upon and even prevents slavery. Why should we view blacks as an oppressed people? Yes, maybe black ancestors were once oppressed, but my current black friends certainly never were. By erecting this school we are stepping back into a more ignorant and hateful time.

This logic can be applied to all different minority groups. Take for example, homosexuals. But wait, the Toronto district school board even has school for them! How are homosexuals ever to be viewed as equals if we keep separating them? How are blacks, and every other group you can think of, ever to be viewed as equal, if we keep separating them?

The answer is, they never will. We will always view them differently. Black History Month does the same thing. During the four weeks of Black History Month we are reminded of Blacks who did great things. We are reminded of “black” history. Firstly, I don’t want to sound rude, but if you want to study history, there are history books that could teach you far more than some “black” month could. And secondly, why on earth are we only honouring people from one type of race during this month? Where is this logic coming from? Oh wait, we have to because the “black” race was once oppressed in the past, and now that they aren’t any more is only makes sense for everyone to reminded of how “special” the entire “black” race is.

I am white. I’m not a racist. I would say out of every 10 of my friends, only 1 is white. And I don’t mind at all. In fact, I love it. I am very grateful for Canada’s multiculturalism. When I am with my black friends, I don’t think about how their race was once oppressed in the past. I don’t know anybody who does. I treat them like human beings, the way I want to be treated. This is all very obvious. I don’t even know why I’m saying this. Everyone knows how you should treat another human being. Having things like this “all black” school and a Black History Month only reminds us of how blacks were once oppressed. I think I speak for everyone when I say this, but, we don’t need to be reminded of that.

Here are some links to articles. [1][2][3]

Edit: I thank you all for the comments. I realize this is a controversial issue, but let me clear up some misconceptions some people seem to be having. I do not think this school was created to further segregate the black community because they were once oppressed. I only said what I said above because by having this school, it inadvertently segregates the black community, whether we like it or not. For more details, read the comments below.