Jabber servers are a bit like babies. Except that:

• they don't cry.
• they do not pee and poo everywhere.
• they are neither male nor female.
• they do not need both a father and a mother to appear.

But you still have to take care of them or they may starve.

More information: Jabber @ Vodka-Pomme.net.

Hopefully I did not expect to have a great time. I didn't.

Usually, receiving friends at home and synchronizing our lives during a midnight conversation is the kind of stuff that makes me shine. I love it.

Especially when it happens earlier than 2am, not after a week full of work, and not after finishing the most frightening and depressing novel I've read for a long time (La ligne noire - Grangé).

Let's say it wasn't the most brightening Friday evening for a little while.

Taking breakfast in bed with friends on a saturday morning always seems to me like a fun way to start the weekend. Actually,it is fun to see how newcomers to my city discover what lies “out there” and need to decide what they want to visit for the day. And it is a pleasure to see that they are able to take care of themselves and actually agree to help me in household duties.

Unfortunately, it becomes somewhat less fun when they start reading erotic magazines and start arguing and bitching about how difficult it is to find a girlfriend, how men should assert their manlihood to attract beautiful women, or how difficult it is to find an interesting country to live in besides the USA.

Then there was the party organized by my company yesterday. The free admission to the Blue man group show in Amsterdam (wonderful light effects, surprising drums), the large room in the Mövenpick Hotel and the after-party were planned to make the day unique in our memories.

I was quite curious about the whole event. The idea of gathering colleagues into a common activity is full of good intention and I appreciate that. Besides, it was the occasion to see people I work with everyday in an uncommon outfit (the dress code was “black tie”) and with a mindset detached from the work environment. That was nice, as well.

And still, I managed to be late and delay the departure to the event. Having left in a hurry, I could not relax during the whole dinner and show, and the stress kept me closed to whatever nice feelings the blue men were trying to shove into their audience. The hotel room was a sterilized palace that kept me thinking about the insane amount of money that was spent, like everything else for this evening, for no purpose other than luxury and social pretense. And the DJ during the after-party was absolutely terrible, preventing me from melting with the music and forgetting about how utterly alone everyone was.

And that is all I remember about this week-end: we just don't connect together.

The unfinishing and unfinished rant of the single heterosexual middle-class males; the morals and priority system of parents; the life projects and value systems of corporate co-workers: I hate them. Having received a good education, I smile and keep up the conversation in a civilized manner; however my forced smile is the upper level of a thick fog of the utter boredom, and I hate them for that feeling too.

And yet, there is hope; for this morning I could feel glowing inside me a burning desire to tear their social exoskeleton apart, blow the dust out of their dormant brains, and shake them until whatever flame of humanity left in their core starts to shine again. And before I opened the curtains and left the grey sky above Amsterdam successfully dim this glow and put me back on the tracks of a featureless normal winter day, I convinced myself that one day, I will try. Somehow.

Now that this new website has been running for a little while, it becomes interesting to see what people enter in search engines to come by...

• The all-time favorites: autotools · passphrase generator · vodka-pomme.net · moria · atchoune
• The expected but not so common: elvish writing · lojban tengwar · villa keops
• The unexpected:
  • porn star galleries — where?
  • triangle des bermudes — that's my secret: visitors come here and can never leave
  • images femmes torturées / supplice du pal — just don't want to know what you had in your mind
  • godemichet au lycee — now, that's something I would not have thought to bring to high school
  • stabilite des sharpies — did I mention I know nothing about boats?
  • caractéristique de la fête devant la télévision — I can find plenty of uses for a tv, but party is not one of them
  • anxiolitique naturel — I'm interested, too!
  • voir une image sol la si do pour la flute — if you believe you can learn to play an instrument on the internet… tough luck.
  • histoire dratique — I have some dramatic stories, as well as drastic stories, but unfortunately dratic are not to be found here (hint: that word does not exist)
  • que dit l islam sur la vodka — I believe it says “no, no.”
  • un morceau d os dépasse de la gencive — hint: you're nearly dead.
  • guronzan et alcool — hint: don't mix those. It's dangerous.
  • introduction to vodka — does it really need introduction?
  • capitalize uncle — what do you want to do to my uncle?!!
  • vodka suicide / poison vodka — that's awful! save the vodka!
  • législation du taravail — I guess taravail is one of those things there are no laws for.

And last but not least, the bizarre: viens dans mon bain a bulle et offre moi ta tentacule. Yeah, right, ET's take baths, too.

What I saw in Shortbus is that it is all about being human. This movie deals with feelings, hardships, love, sex, relationships, and struggles to find a balance between those.

It strikes me a bit after some searches on the web that many people consider this movie as unusual, off-limits or even pornographic. Nonsense! Shortbus is about real life, the one you can see when you open your eyes and look around you.

My favourite character is Caleb. Maybe because Peter Stickles is gorgeous, or maybe because I identify with the role.

Working for a software publisher in the licensing business is like working in a retirement house with the elderly.

They will die soon.

I would take care of them, make sure that they are happy and enjoy the most out of their remaining days, and they will die soon.

I share their concerns, I try to relieve them from the occasional pain, but I let them die.

We have fun together, I help them with their short-term projects, and we spend time together as if it was the greatest of their life. But they will die.

We may not share the same philosophical views; we may even have conflicting morals; but I display a tolerant attitude because they will die soon, not I, because abstract conflicts is not the nicest thing to live at the end of their life, and foremost because I could use their experience, too.

And I am happy that they die soon; for they are not needed any more and would become soon a burden if we let them live too long.

And yet there is hope. Because software companies can change, and rise from their ashes. They die, and then they are born again, younger. IBM did it. Apple did it. I wish I could witness it for myself.

The praying mantis is a small animal with an elegant body.

She stands still, beautiful and fertile; she waits for a mate with courage and strength to approach her. Then she chooses, they mate, and she bites his head off. He dies.

She may feel sad or guilty for a while. However soon enough she will be hunting again.

Nature is full of behaviors considered immoral by humans. We only need to step back and consider ourselves in the greater scheme of things. And she might starve before she can lay eggs.

Cyril is the hurricane that hit the Old Continent yesterday. Plenty of news reports already picture the general situation.

For a deadly hurricane, it was not as serious as what happened in New Orleans. Of course, there were some dead people; but I did not see cars or trees flying, not too much water, and only one house in the cities around lost its roof. However, it was very interesting.

The first interesting bit is how I felt Cyril coming. All the morning long I felt nervous, tense, not able to focus on my work as if I did not sleep properly the night before — although I did. As the wind became stronger and stronger in the early afternoon, I grew restless and was absolutely not surprised when the alert was published and everyone in the office was sent home.

The second interesting bit is how poorly the alert was published and how terrible the situation was, all the afternoon long. Local reports initially explained that the worst part of the storm was coming between 6 and 7 in the evening; so people started going home in the early afternoon. Only after a while did it struck everyone that the real peak was between 3 and 4, when everyone was on the road and stuck in traffic jams. Dumb reporters, useless crisis management system.

The third interesting bit started to show up as Cyril was flying to the East. People started to get out from their homes or relax from the stress. A friend of mine invited me for dinner, and explained later that he himself got many offers to eat with people he wouldn't otherwise relate to. It seemed that everyone was happy to be still there and wanted to share the relief with other humans. Sweet.

Only in the evening did I realize that I did feel scared during the storm; scared that the car I was in would get hit by something; scared that the area would become flooded; scared that I would not get home safe. Very basic feelings, quite irrational, crudely animal. When I recall the deep, flesh-ingrained knowledge that something was coming in the morning, it appears that there is more to me than an ethereal consciousness trapped in a clumsy body. Millennia of fears and instincts rooted in my genes are at work when they become needed.

And that's scary, too.

• go to a gay bar, dance like crazy, hook into a random guy's eyes, exchange two times two stupid^Wsimple conversation lines, kiss, fondle and dance together, play tongue catch with an ice cube, and then leave the place with no real intent to see him again-

check.

Well, I still left him my number. He's cute and kisses well. I would not mind a followup.

Retour de week-end et découverte d'une vidéo sur WebJunkie : « Jésus, c'est ouf ! »

Citations au hasard :

À chaque fois que je fume pas une cigarette, il y a une âme du purgatoire qui va au paradis.

Quelqu'un m'a dit, « Anne-Laure quand tu arriveras au paradis, il y aura plein de petits chinois qui courront vers toi et qui te diront, merci Anne-Laure, c'est grâce à toi que je suis ici »

Seigneur je veux pouvoir recevoir mes frères et sœeurs de toi ce soir. Je veux pouvoir les considérer comme des tabernacles. Des tabernacles, des fois vides et des fois pleins, mais des tabernacles.

Le seigneur passe en ce moment, il vient de libérer un garçon de la masturbation.

Pour un mec, [la chasteté] ça lui demande vraiment d'être maître de ses pulsions.

Cette vidéo montre des choses horribles.

Que les lecteurs ne s'y méprennent pas, je ne suis pas méprisant et je m'associe à un des commentateurs de la vidéo dans l'idée que pour un chrétien authentique « la vrai foi n’obéit à aucune logique, à aucune raison ; je considère [l'action catholique de sauver les autres pour se sauver] comme une manipulation avec soi-même. Le vrai chrétien n’obéit pas à des lois pour le salut de son âme. La vrai foi est dans le coeur. » (je ne suis pas chrétien moi-même, mais je comprends cette valeur)

Cependant, même avec cette état de pensée on ne peut s'empêcher de voir en filigrane (vers la fin du film notamment) la souffrance extrême imposée à ces jeunes par leurs croyances, sans aucune utilité ou bénéfice en retour. Le temps qu'ils devront passer plus tard à réfléchir sur eux-même et sur le monde pour trouver une forme de paix intérieure est un gâchi ; sans cet amas d'idées glauques et malsaines, ils pourraient construire des bases de philosophie personnelle plus solides et qui leurs permettraient d'aller vers les autres, mieux et plus rapidement.

Je suis triste pour ce garçon malheureux qui ne l'est que par une foi mal exprimée et mal guidée. Et je ressens de la colère contre l'institution qui continue encore aujourd'hui à créer ces situations.

I was very interested to read today a number of facts about the C programming languages that tend to escape “common knowledge” over time. For example, did you know that:

• some processors (especially Digital Signal Processors) cannot efficiently access memory in smaller pieces than the processor's word size. There is at least one DSP [...] where CHAR_BIT is 32. The char types, short, int and long are all 32 bits.
• Every bit in an object of unsigned character types contributes to its value. There are no unused or padding bits, and every possible combinations of bits represents a valid value for an unsigned char. There is no other data type in C or C++ that guarantees this to be true. [no, not even int or long]
• SCHAR_MIN must be -127 or less (more negative), and SCHAR_MAX must be 127 or greater. [...] many compilers for processors which use a 2's complement representation support SCHAR_MIN of -128, but this is not required by the standards.
• likewise, the standard requires minimum ranges for short, int and long data types, but implementations can choose any larger size.
• It is int which causes the greatest confusion. Some people are certain that an int has 16 bits and sizeof(int) is 2. Others are equally sure that an int has 32 bits and sizeof(int) is 4. Who is right? On any given compiler, one or the other could be right. On some compilers, both would be wrong. [there is at least] one compiler for a 24 bit DSP where an int has 24 bits.
• on 32-bit platforms, using "%d" [with printf] to print either an int or long will usually work, but on LP64 platforms "%ld" must be used to print a long.
• the relationship between the fundamental data types can be expressed as sizeof(char) <= sizeof(short) <= sizeof(int) <= sizeof(long) = sizeof(size_t).

Sources:

• Integer types in C and C++
• The Unix system - 64 bit and data size neutrality

Monsieur Ratzinger, devenu « pape » sous le pseudonyme de Benoît, était auparavant le chef de l’Inquisition, désormais appelée Congrégation de la Foi. En d’autres termes, il dirigeait la même organisation qui, pendant plusieurs siècles, a conduit au bûcher des millions d’hommes et de femmes sous prétexte de sorcellerie, d’hérésie, de simonie, de sodomie, et d’homosexualité. N’importe quelle autre association héritière de pratiques aussi barbares aurait été condamnée par les instances internationales. Mais il lui a suffi de changer de nom pour qu’on veuille bien oublier ses crimes. Ceux-ci ne seraient-ils pas qualifiables de crimes contre l’humanité, et, par là-même, imprescriptibles ? Si la Mafia se rebaptisait Confrérie de Braves Types, l’absoudrait-on de toutes ses exactions ?

Via Paul Castella

Take for example this summary of a study in the Netherlands:

Holland counts 4 million registered MSN users out of an internet population of 11 million. With 26 million MSN users for Europe all together this puts Holland far ahead of other countries.
55% of the dutch MSN population is younger than 25 years, with a fast growing group between 15-19. With an average of 49 buddies it is not uncommon for dutch youngsters to reach the maximum of 150 peers on their list.

The worst part of it is when I hear people actually tell me “why use anything else when there is MSN?” or just blink a clueless stare when I tell them that I simply do not use MSN because I do not need to.

Today I just dumped some thoughts to fight the monoculture. Here come some guidelines about messaging.

At 6 this morning I woke up panting and sweating from a terrifying nightmare.

It all started with a quite long dream with an intricate story. The dream was about me being on a road trip to reconnect with old friends, and I was on my way back with the updated knowledge that my friends' families were not doing well, and that I should start taking care of my own family to avoid the bleak future my friends are facing.

Not a meaningless dream, but not a nightmare either.

The creepy side of the story started when I arrived at a place were my mother, brother and I were to take tea with an old friend of my mother. The place was this friend's house, on the seaside, with a veranda just above sea level.

While the other people were merrily chatting on the sofa, I approached the window to look outside. Then it struck me that the veranda was flooded where I expected to see dry planks. When I realized that the water level was steadily rising and the house was tilting on the side towards the water, I shouted “everyone outside, now!” and jumped out of the window into the water.

As dreams allow, I was then seeing myself and the landscape from a different perspective. The house I was in was at the top of a dyke which was slowly crumbling. My brother was already out swimming but my mother was painfully trying to push herself out of the window while the water was pouring inside.

The current was intense. Water was flowing freely into the valley behind the dyke. My mum started crying that she was not strong enough to swim. My brother and I swam to her side and held her by her arms, trying to accompany the flow towards the valley.

Then my perspective changed to show me how the landscape was slowly and strongly replaced by the flood. I could see people trying to get out of houses from the windows in the roof, imagining the fate of those people in houses already below water level.

Somehow my family and I managed to land on a dry piece of land. We were in a part of an urban area above water level, but I had no idea of the precise location.

At that point I started to decide that I had enough and that it was time to wake up. But before it happened, I could dream my mother complaining how she needed some medication and food and me having no idea of how to get that in a flooded city.

Waking up was painful : I did not sleep enough and the nightmare left me shocked. I fixed myself a glass of water and a piece of bread, and I tried to sleep again while brooding over how relationships between civilians in a flooded country would be affected by such a precarious situation.

Via Chojin.

Your results:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man 70% Iron Man 60% Robin 60% Hulk 60% Superman 60% Wonder Woman 53% Green Lantern 50% Supergirl 48% Catwoman 35% The Flash 35% Batman 30%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Of course, the title is a misread of a series of recent articles that can be summarized as follows: “researchers already started allowing parents to choose (not) to have children depending on their genes. Like the third movie X-Men, a new study on sheep sheds light on the biological roots of homosexuality. Expectedly, this is also a new open door for discrimination and possibly eugenic selection that already irates some famous people .”

What I see there:

• “X-Men and superpowers in comics heroes can be seen as cryptogay” (... although that's hardly news)
• “new research attempts to raise productivity of rams” (... and decrease biological diversity)
• “parents should have rights to choose their children” (... and make fashion-oriented or phobia-oriented choices)
• “old tennis stars become so desperate of fame after they stop playing that they start having opinions about fashionable cultural issues.”

What a world.

… suivez mon regard.

À propos de regard, c'est bien ce que j'ai trouvé de plus intéressant pendant notre soirée.

En fait, j'aime beaucoup les yeux.

Il y avait ceux marqués par l'expérience et pourtant joueurs ; ceux marqués par une vie de changement et curieux de profiter du moment présent ; ceux ternis de fatigue émotionnelle et pourtant sensibles et dynamiques ; ceux qui se battent à chaque instant entre l'influence de la raison et ceux des sentiments ; ceux qui cherchent leur source de bonheur dans le regard des autres ; ceux qui cachent leur richesse derrière un phlegme bonhomme ; ou encore ceux dont l'esthétique ténébreuse fait fondre au premier regard.

Et pour tous, le dynamisme et la souplesse d'un regard qui apprécie et savoure ces moments privilégiés entre gens bien.