*ahem* part two

and while I'm wiping egg off my face..

actually I am wiping egg off my face, thanks to a magnificent Chalmers raised sundried tomato loaf and some simply stunning local free-range size-huge eggs. This is way more pleasurable than the phrase would suggest.

a few of the smaller zips in my download section were somehow truncated. If someone had emailed me about this, it would have been fixed sooner! The funny thing is, all the while I thought it was the distro machine that was at fault! and this led me to make numerous improvements to the distro machine's internal file handling (insert lots of technical stuff here)

so, in the end, it was quite a good thing, really, I suppose, unless you were one of the downloaders, of course. *ahem* twice.

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

*ahem*

that was, of course, the point at which I realised that I must have, at some stage, introduced a weird bug into cbparser. All the "s" and "m" characters were being removed. weird huh? A thing I'd started, but that was as far as I got. Apologies if you downloaded the bbcode parser last night.

I take liberties with my own site, I know. Even the distro machine is the cutting-edge beta. But then, how better to test stuff?

See, I often get called away in the middle of things. My standard procedure is to save everything, and just do a few apple-z manouevers on return so I'll figure what I was doing, where I was at, continue. This time however, when I returned, my guest had thoughtfully closed all the BBEdit windows, because they were, I quote, "cluttering up the desktop". She's right, clutter is bad.

And the moral is; when you leave a mac alone with someone, LOG OUT! Macs are just too irresistable, even this old Rev D's very curves say "play with me", and now with exposé, it means even infants can't resist uncluttering things for you. Hot corners, very convenient, yes.

In truth, I just forgot about that wee edit when I ran my website-sync, and BANG! you got my latest s&m-less version. What was I saying about it being an adult parser?…

Anyway, for those not wearing their babelfishes, the blog underneath means..

• I got Apache/php running on my old Lappy
• It rocks

If you're a windows user desiring the power of the mighty Apache webserver for yourself, but don't know where to start, easyphp is simply the best thing since sliced-bread. When the french dudes responsible for this incredible package get around to making it Apache2, you will be in win32 http heaven.

A few seconds, a couple of click, and BANG! you've got an Apache/php/mysql web server ready to do your bidding; run you blogs, search your archives, run your image galleries, stream your MP3's, share your files, whatever. If you develop web pages yourself on windows, this is a must. Like all good open-source packages, it is free¹.

Unless you're french (and my blog translation does get a few French hits, so you might be!) you'll need to set the language prefs to your own language. I used it in french for a couple of days before I realised there was a pref for this. I don't use the easyphp system tray menu, though it is rather good.

Importantly I note, apache/php runs on a 133MHz Intel one MMX processor running Windows98se with 16MB ram, along with my textpad and FastBrowser (6 tabs). nae bad, though it is a highly tweaked system. Whole lotta paging going on, though. If anyone has ram chips to fit a Toshiba satellite 440, do contact me! yes today!

The subject of the ABSOLUTELY FREE easyphp will crop up again.

okay, that's it. I keep having to pop in and out tonight, so if you spot any weird things onsite; apart from my text, that is; feel free to clutter my inbox! Always that.

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

ps.. no, this isn't my way of saying I dig "s&m". Though the boots are pretty cool

lappy

w00h00!

I' on the lappy! Yup, it till work , 133MHz of kick-a To hiba power-hou e window 98 MMX fun! kind of laptop you can take ra bling and not worry too uch if it get tood on; it would probably till work, anyway.

okay, blogging fro y laptop i not uch a big thing, in it elf; I've blogged fro here before; but reali e thi ; I a blogging while di connected fro the LAN orany network, or in other word .. the web erver i running on y laptop!

That' right. All 16MB of o-effin-hard-to-find RAM are tuffed to capacity providing all the php-type goodne a obile developer could want, courte y of the (oh an I gotta get religiou about thi ) ea yphp.

I've been e ing with thi on y peecee ince di covering it a couple of week ago; arvellou tuff. in hort, it' a one-click apache+php+ y ql in taller for window . if you want the power of an Apache web erver on your window box, there i no quicker (under a inute) or ea ier (there' a ulti-lingual etup page in ho e) way to achieve it. nothing even co e clo e.

The only fly in the oint ent i that it' apache1, though I i agine they are looking to update that oon enough, urely.

where' all e e e ?

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

Hey! You! Rich Person!

If you're poor, or scraping by, or Just Over Broke, or thereabouts, you'll probably want to skip this shameless scrounge and scroll down to the fisherman story, mind-blowing stuff. This blog is for someone special in the future who just happens across this blog, and just happens to be bloody loaded! and perhaps looking to make a difference in the world..

This is for you, rich person, yeah you! I mean, you've got money to burn. that's pretty cool, good on ya, I don't even know your name. Right, here's the deal; just before you throw your next pile of notes on the fire, you gotta do something for me; consider this..

I live in the slums. I mean, it's my own fault, I moved here, came on a mission, sort of, and learned that some things take time, and of course, money.

Not to mention a lot of work. As well as all you see here at corz.org, I work locally, fixing things, puters, repairing, help and training, all sorts of things. just whatever's needed at the time.

But most folks around here can't even afford fruit&veg, let alone tech support, so I tend to work for peanuts, or nothing, which is just as well because sometimes that's exactly what I have to live on, heh.

When it gets dire, I do commercial work, which generally sucks, and steals time away from my real work, both here and in my community. Those gaps in my blog? yup, mostly.

Fact one: When you are addicted to heroin, even your child's most basic needs take a back seat. Their need to access technology and the internet is possibly somewhere in the boot, the trailer maybe.

Fact two: if you ask an addict what it was that got them back on Heroin (because they've all tried to get off it at some point), they will tell you..

  I was bored

After spending some time here I think I see more clearly what needs to be done, and how these things might be done, my part in it all. Computers can help with this. You can help with this.

I've come to realise, too, that this place has a sort of force-field around it, money doesn't get in or out much, except probably for drugs. I believe the internet can change that, and not just about this place; it's a massive job.

No amount of time, effort, or money would ever be enough; it's a combination of all three things, and a whole lot more besides; challenging, fun, rewarding, thankless work that I'll just get on with regardless, but a nice pile of cash sure would accelerate things, you know. I think you get the picture.

STOP! don't burn them! Send them to me! I'll put every penny to good use, and still wear second-hand shoes, get a pang about even buying a beer for myself, though if you're really well-heeled, none at all about accepting a new AppleMac.

  G5, ta.

It'll do a lot more good than you would sending bags of sugar to the third world, that's for sure.

okay, you know the score.
don't burn it, send it to me.

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

remembering how to learn

I've learned a lot of stuff. No, that doesn't even come close to what I'm trying to convey. I was born on a learning mission, with a will to learn. Possibly we all are, it's just that I never did get distracted from that, as many do. well, okay, maybe I got distracted a few times..

Even the most disastrous "events" in my life; and there have been many; are experienced first from the viewpoint of "learning experience". Everything else comes second¹. I live by an unspoken motto that, if spoken, would probably go something like.. "there will never be an "error", disaster or mistake, that does not contain some useful learning experience, a lesson for my life."

Of course there are other mottos I live by, but this is among the most successful, like that Richard Burton one, not the movie actor, the sufi explorer.. "He noblest lives and noblest dies, who makes, and keeps, his self-made rules". This Earth is a school, no?

By "useful", I do mean "of use", and not trivially, but in some fundamental, life-changing way. I think probably if the things we learn don't change our life, even in a small way, then more likely we just think we learned something. There is a simple test: if you really did learn something, you will now be a different person, changed; crucially, you will do different things.

Even simple, technical truths like never buy desktop hard-drives!² will, once they finally sink into our sleepy brains, have life-changing effects.

I've learned a lot of useful things. Most of it now so instinctive it takes others to spot it, like last week when I was looking for some advice on a poster I'd made. I slapped the thing into her hand and said..

 "What's wrong with it?"

Clever, huh? She thought so too. But, how else do you get an objective, useful opinion outta some one?

See, it only took showing design work to a couple of folks a long time ago, to realise that if you want an honest, objective response, sheepishly asking "do you like it?" is not the way to get it.

Next phase of experiments involved explaining how I am looking for an honest opinion, and could they please try and be objective, and all the rest, more pointless talk. If you show creative work to people you might have tried this strategy, too. of course it's futile; humans generally want to please their friends and will say it's "nice". Even if you offend them first it still doesn't work!

I realised that I would need to focus their mind firstly on finding what they considered not nice, aka "wrong"; cut them straight to the chase. I need their help only in finding the flaws, I can already see the good points!

"What's wrong with it?" works brilliantly. If they can't find something wrong, they consider themselves to have failed, and they keep looking.

If you're a creative sort that gets other folk's opinions of your work, then you've just picked up something valuable, something beyond value, in fact, I've given you a tool, as much as emacs or vi is a tool, which will enable you to get results, save time, and more.

In the future, when folks catch on to our little "What's wrong with it?" ploy, the landscape changes a bit, sure, but we won't get caught out. In the end it'll likely settle into the culture as sort of a useful language construct signifying the need to cut to the chase, get objective minds functioning on the immediate task of criticism. sort of a short-cut. We've got a good few years on the crowd, though.

I reckon this is why emacs and vi (like my blog) are free. They were designed first and foremost with the notion of making tools available. Especially tools that currently are not available, at least, not widely, and not free. An honourable hacker tradition. Of course, if you want to give me a million bucks, I won't say no.

(I'll need another blog for this idea!)

All that code (and particularly with emacs, there really is a lot of it) is there with a purpose, and that purpose isn't "getting rich", which some software "companies" do use as the motive for outputing all sorts of pricey useless shite into the market, which makes finding good tools a challenging task, particularly on the Windows platform, though certainly There's poetic justice in that, don't you think?

So we end up using inferior tools, and paying through the nose for them, which reminds me; something I MUST share; how weird is this..

On a planet (Earth) who's surface is two-thirds water (yup), almost no one knows, (wait for it..) that the best, most tried-and-tested ancient-wisdom way to unblock your nose, is to (drumroll please..) sniff a pinch of water. yup. just a pinch, one for each nostril, bang goes your blocked nose, bang goes your stuffy headache. Thoughtfully, the applicator has already been installed at the end of your arm.

  If you have no fingers, find a raindrop.
  If you have no rain, ask a bird to help.

If you want "advanced" healing, just add a wee visualisation to your water, especially at crescendo, that point where it vapourises on your sinus. ahhhhh.. And it's perfectly harmless to do it just for fun, too, though not more than a few times a day; it's powerful powerful medicine.

okay, okay, I'm an Aberdonian, so saving money on everything, including nasal spray, is normal for me. But more than that; this is what nature intended for me, and of course, unlike pharmaceuticals, it's totally free. All the best healing is..

Know, in the past ten years I have been to see a doctor exactly once, and I have the best doctor in Aberdeen! His advice, by the way, was; "do you drink a lot of coffee?" I switch brands, and all is well, thanks doc!

Drug companies don't want the world to be a better place, or humans to be happier and healthier; they want your money. And frankly, they want you unhealthy, too. You see, they are working on drug-B, which combats the awful side-effects of the current wonder-drug, drug-A. I learned this. Bets are already off for the eventual emergence of drug-C, and another trillion dollars annual profit. Thanks to, well, not me.

This amazing water stuff I'm talking about is the very same substance that falls out of the sky, flows down our mountain-sides and into our rivers and kitchen taps, if we are fortunate enough to have such things. It is also available in wells and bottles and seas, all over the world. Two pinches, bang bang.

Question is; why didn't any of the doctors and nurses and speech therapists, vocal specialists and so-called singing teachers I went to see about this matter as a sinus-troubled young singer, know this? None of them were stupid, but they did lack information I consider vital to their profession.

Ten years from now (me writing this) We'll do a google search for "what's wrong with it?", and another for "yogi sniff water unblock". That'll be interesting. Are you game?

I got the information from an old fisherman, years before, I'd just forgotten it; that area of memory has so many blank bits. They used to congregate at the harbour after a good hawl, at the cornerstone house just up from the sea-wall, along from my home in Sea Lane. I could throw stones into the waves from my window. Strong, vibrant, mostly old men, smoking pipes and drinking spirits, telling stories, laughing. Even the dogs would laugh.

Sometimes, a young me would go along to "help-out", and just hang around. I've had other good stuff pop out of that seam of memory, too. Picture; our young singer is coughing violently one day, and the image flashes before his eyes; auld Donald had started his demonstration with a cough you see, a huge billowing cough that spluttered all the wee conversations wide apart, and made a big space for his big words..

  "Watch" he says, and then demonstrates his proven technique⁴, eyes rolling back to the heavens, once, twice, winks, then goes all quiet and says (except in a broad Johner⁵ twang I won't even attempt to spell, but will simply translate into plain english)..

  "Amazing isn't it, on a planet two-thirds covered in water, almost no one knows that the best way to unblock your nose ..."

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

a secure machine

beta stuff..

corz distro machine v0.7b

new: secure area. I wanted this for my "friends" folder. it's neater, and a wee bit more secure than the old http authorisation methods, which apparently, some browsers aren't doing any more; seems like a smart idea.

We are using POST variables to send our password, which is held as a 32 byte md5, in a temporary session cookie. even the worst case browser scenario should only have the md5 flying around the wires. In other words, it's fairly secure. Essentially it's the same system that we use for the stats page, though they do remain separate.

users are presented with a simple (and quite cute) password dialog. once logged in they can access all your menu systems, files, source, whatever.

don't use a password-protected machine to deliver back-end menu services; it won't. (it's too easy to just chuck another one somewhere for this)

new: the name of the sections is now displayed in the menu itself. you can also now (optionally) have your custom text displayed inside the menu, too, which nicely fills that space on the right!

new: expanded list of downloadables. we now check for, and send mime-types, so mp3's, ogg's, spreadsheets, pdf's and such things can be delivered easily with the distromachine. I'll expand this list as I go along, no doubt. so far..

doc, xls, htm, html, jpg, png, pdf, txt, ogg, mp3,m3u, zip, rar, sit, sitx, tgz, gzip, bz2, arc, bzip, pict, mpg, mov, and others.

so if you use the machine to distribute, say, mp3's, this should cause whatever the user's operating system is set to do with these filetypes, i.e. open the mp3 player.

new: made a few more things customisable. stuff like the main titles. you can have a "foo viewer" menu now, or whatever.

I also improved the overall download handling, there should be less browser stalling, and associated weirdness. we DO send size headers now, too.

I dropped in the code for all this pretty quick, so it's into the beta zone for a while, until it's had some field testing, feedback on the new "secure area" features are especially welcomed.

have fun!

I'm serious about the feedback. After testing the beta on a couple of servers I rashly replaced all the machines on corz.org with it, only to discover that the download function was spectacularly broken. there followed a short burst of swearing and text editing, taking us back to the release version, which is stable, and works.

the beta works great everywhere else I've tried, but I have a hunch that some gzip tweaks I did here at corz.org are screwing with it, I'll hopefully have a mess around with the .htaccess files soon and investigate.

Check out the new stuff at the beta download area. that's right! I'll be using the beta version for my beta download area, too, so if you can't download the latest beta, you know why!

can't stop.
for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

erm..

well, you know, it was the week-end! you didn't really think I was gonna spend it coding did ya! heh, actually, I did get some stuff done this morning, this..

corz distro machine v0.6.4.5

new: added "special link" capability to the source viewer page.

What this means is, instead of the "try out this script" link taking the user to the script itself, it can send them to a different link. I wanted this for my bbcode parser, instead of playing with the one in the scripts folder, I wanted to send folks to the cbparser demo page, which has user comments and stuff on it.

other scripts just won't work unless they are in a specific location, I'm thinking right now that I'll send users to the real rdf newsfeeds for my blog, for instance, instead of the blank page they'd get clicking the "try out this script" link from the source page. neat!

to use:

Simply add a [links] ini section at the end of your readme.txt (or whatever you call it) file, like this (from my "corz function library" folder)..

a growing collection of handy functions for php types

[links]
corzblog bbcode parser.php = /blog/inc/cbparser.php
email-hider.php = http://nospamdudes.org/hider.php

; you can leave comments, too, underneath, with semicolons.

I invented the second entry to show that full, valid URL's are okay too, even linking to another site. I might link to a nuke installation that uses my nuke-rss script, for instance.

you can enter special links for all, or any, or none of your source files. if There's no entry, the "try out" link leads to the source file itself, as usual.

hmm: I used to use readme.html files for apache raw directories, which override the readme.txt files (used by the distro machine), but now I just leave the readme.txt file itself in the folder, and the raw directory viewer..

https://corz.org/source/

shows the preformatted distro machine message, along with the [links] section underneath. cool. most users will figure out that these are links that relate in some way to the scripts they "=" equal!

This also goes down in history as being the first time I conceived, coded and tested a feature in one of my distros and *it just worked*. I even remembered all my semicolons! heh

  to need no debugging
  is coding heaven

fix: following the "back to the source menu" link at the foot of the source-viewer pages now takes you back to the section you were in, as opposed to the main menu. that was poor gui.

fix: the slashes thing in the source viewer, maybe last time I broke, rather than fixed this. I put it back, anyhow. If I find the file source that originally led me to believe there was a bug in the first place, I may delve more deeply into it.

in short, sometimes the php source highlighting function adds slashes where there should be none, or else removes them where they should remain. it's all my fault, of course, and another good reason why users should click the download link rather than copy-and-paste the source from the pages, which I'm fairly sure everyone does, so no harm done.

the reason this version info entry is so long is because I have decided to start putting all my version.info entries into my blog, keep folks up-to-date. or will do, when I'm finished this.

oh, I am!

so there you go.

It would seem logical to have a separate blog for this sort of thing, but I reckon that might spoil the fun a bit, I mean, it's all tech isn't it, and all interconnected in a cor sort of way, If you know what I mean.

I spent a good half-hour last night arguing with someone about fat. This was more than amusing, not least of which because we were both arguing about completely different substances, and both entirely correct. I suspect this sort of thing goes on within the confines of my own thinking processes, too, and often the illumination; and that word needs a blog in itself, no shit; comes from the least expected places..

The real challenge comes in maintaining your position once you realise what has happened, because, well, it's a fun argument. I suspect dudes like Plato; who made their livings standing around all day arguing; came up with their best stuff whilst doing simple things like their shopping list (slaves), or perhaps during seemingly unconnected ramblings to lovers (slaves) and relatives (slaves again).

I don't get to stand around all day arguing, just short bursts here and there, and generally for free, too. Like here, of course, where I can argue with myself all I like. And Version Histories, where the strands of development come together into a better and better product, better software, a better world. Writing stories is important. Making Notes.

There can never be enough distilled, well-written notes. They help us to understand things, especially our own things, help us to see problems back at their source, to see our errors, doing stuff the wrong way just long enough to realise how to do it the right way, or rather; a better way. They allow others to trace the evolution of a thing, which can be in itself entertaining, illuminating, like watching good careers can be. We can learn from others mistakes like this.

And so it is with points of view; opinions. I find it's fun sometimes, though perhaps a little shitty, to argue the polar opposite of your own point of view, particularly with someone who feels the exact same way as you do about something, and passionately. good practice. worst that can happen, they consider you an utter moron, unless of course you end up changing both your points of view, then good on ya!

ahhh… I'd keep a back-up¹ if you jump on today's distro machine upgrade, I'm a wee bit scattered today, you could tell, right? my memory seems to have bits missing. och well.

I suspect in the not-too-distant future we'll be looking to record every little single thing we do, our computers skimming the data for good bits, like that daft song you were singing in the shower the other day, or that world-shattering thought you drifted off to sleep with …

until then, I'll keep notes, and drop 'em willy-nilly right here. en-joy!

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

SssSaturday!

it's been a long week, financially speaking; the savings from my last burst of "real-world" work didn't last nearly as long as I'd hoped. I blame my esspresso addiction. "Internet Developer" I tell the check-out girls when they gaze at all those tins. "Hey! I don't drink it all myself", I tell them, but sometimes I do.

I got some supplies in today. Halleluya!

I'm toying with the idea of micro payments, like a buck per download, or something. I'd have made a few hundred bucks this month, which would have saved me having to eat yet another pair of perfectly good boots. Och, winter's ages away yet, and they were, in fact, tastier than I expected. But that's the Lea&Perrins done! I'll maybe add a (big) bottle to my wish-list -cum- software-license.

Expect less software updates over the next few months; not that I'll be abandoning any of my packages, far from it. I use them all myself, so if something needs fixed, or just needs work, I'll do it, because I like things to be "just so". I will also be making time for all user suggestions, as is my wont. But this will probably be the last weekend I get to "code like a bastard" for quite some time; I got in a couple of extra tins of esspresso, anyway.

  not enough hours in the day?
  then put more in!™

I slept a full eight hours last night, I must have needed to catch up. Makes yer head dull, though, over-sleeping like that. Thank God (and the monks, and the sheep, of course) for coffee! Until it runs out, that is.

I mean, eating boots is one thing, but drinking instant coffee is quite another. I will not go there, so I guess it's back to prostitution for me.

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

introduction: evolution part two

corz.org was created with purpose, and I did a big orange b..

In many ways, this here blog is where I "come out". No, I'm not gay, it's deeper than that; sexuality's instinctive; this is spiritual. though while on the subject I think probably if you're horny enough, you wouldn't care much who owned the mouth. A free mind would be focused on the pleasure. I get a lot of pleasure out of this place.

I'm hacker, which is a state of mind, like heaven. it's not relevant, what work, what task is in hand, the hacker mentality is all-present, all-consuming. even washing dishes, it's there, this approach; sufficants, surface tension, heat, agitation; recipe for "perfect washed dishes" forming, perfecting, and then There's the stacking..

Rewind; ten years old, me with a cushie deal; family; I keep the Oric-1, in return, all I gotta do is keep their garden tidy for the summer while they're away. With the best intentions I said yes; I screamed it, and spent that summer with my nose six inches from a tiny monochrome monitor, coding.

Gardening? Yeah rrRight!

I've blissfully forgotten so very much more than I remember. There were paper-clips with wires on, poked into the Oric's RGB output Din socket thing, twisted together somewheres and fed to a simple SR-58 style coax fitting; or is SR-58 a microphone? same as a cb-radio twig plug, anyway.. It worked; you could tell the difference between red and green on the mono screen. Five inch, corporate surplus¹, worked great, but you wouldn't want to bang it.

Somewhere in my depths of memory, addresses, arcane fruity syntaxes mix, stacks and registers, screen resolutions, all jumble about and spark off each other, meld, god only knows how much of what I do stems from this back-end thought factory. The hacker mindset is applied all-over, even to spiritual matters, perhaps especially that.

A need to know, in the truest and purest sense of the word, I want to know. I want to know how, and I want to know why. There isn't yet an un-crackable man-made system, they can all be levelled, understood, mastered completely, in time. But there is an un-crackable God-Made system. And that is the real hacker challenge, for me.

I started young, and still am. data packe(d)ts with real bits, it's in some of my meta-tags. I aim to deliver on this, over time. There is a voyeuristic streak in you, you can endulge that a little here, watch.

More than half the computer users I've physically worked with don't realise that most software has an "undo" function. it's apple-z, or ctrl-z for intel-type keyboards. that's a fact. Even web browsers do it, even inside forms, like the one I'm blogging into right now. I just used it. I use undo a lot. Like "preview". One letter can make all the difference.

PL-259! och, something like that.

Undo empowers you. it allows you to go back in time, which only a few years ago was thought impossible. there ya go.

So much more is possible than we ever imagined. And computers are an important, a vital part of this. We need tools. So, all this complicated brain-work and invention we latterday humans have been up to, all this amazing technology, what's it really for? for technology's sake? for progress? just because we can?

We are practicing. Human beings practicing and mastering the things we learn, sharing these fruits with a now connected world; creating, distilling. Making Tools, and using them. A world bending its collective mind towards the truth of being, towards the nature of our Universe, towards God. Simple meat folks with big imaginations and bright ideas, asking big questions, and always needing better tools. Poems can be tools, too. Even zeros and ones can be juggled into being tools.

  zero and one,
  that's two useful digits.

The stuff up ahead is way beyond the capabilities of this meaty brain-machine we keep inside these skulls of ours, we'll need computers to help us, doing the bits we could, but won't, because we'll be leaving regular brain-functions behind for this one, calculation would only interfere where we're going.

Leave it to the computers! that's what they're here for! I'll be dropping memory functions for one, they tend to interfere. I rely on the Mac to remember birthdays and such. Let the local webserver handle the documentation, the archives; corzoogle locates!

Objective-C programmers say "… you don't learn objective-c, you look it up!". I'm like that with even the simplest things. If the instinctive mind can't just pick it up, then feck it! keep the data handy, it's all the same, it's right here; we'll be working elsewhere, perhaps with higher functions. today's software is quite capable of choosing thoughtful gifts for distant relatives, etcetera.

I'm a scout of a sort; not that I wear jumpers any more, let alone jumpers with badges on the sleeve, although I certainly did, and had a sewing badge, too, among others; yet another instance where longer arms would have been handy. But so very many of us play a scouting rôle on earth, in one field or another. I follow my nose in stereo, and listen that way too. I don't get lost much, anyway.

When the concept of attraction finally sunk into my brain, I didn't sleep for a week. same with attention, and transistor negative-feedback circuits, Pavlov's dogs, the sudo command, osmosis (though spread out over longer with osmosis, heh), so many things, so it goes..

Our children's mobile phones will make our current supercomputers look like Oric-1's; Toys. The functionality future folks require, the capacity, goes far beyond what we are only now beginning to imagine possible.

Not so far from now, a person, a woman will be virtually, digitally somewhere else, with a colleague perhaps, and she will be so there in that virtual space, that she will, for an instant, actually transfer to that space, there, leaning on the desk, right next to her partner. Neither are aware of the huge significance of this event, she simply suspects that the new TE-5000 virtual presence console really kicks ass, and probably looks forward to testing its adult features.

Some of us have been imagining these sorts of crazy things for a very long time, relatively speaking. And imagining a thing possible is, of course, the first and most crucial step in any real advance. it's a good thing science-fiction writers are better paid these days, that's all I'm saying.

I imagined the internet like the universe is; and computer the means to connect us with the world, with all known things, as brain connects us to mind, to the fabric of universe itself. The simplest stuff provides food for thought. Like, does the penguin species realise its earthly importance? You think maybe one day they'll be looking for royalties? Are they cool with Open-Source? Will future penguins get surgery to increase the size of their eyes? Food for thought.

Probably at some point in every person's existence it becomes obvious that thinking is a fairly dangerous thing to do, and best avoided unless completely necessary, or if you are very skilled in it, and even then you might want to close your eyes. Shit happens, you know.

But things take time "in the world", I mean; even quantum physics hasn't sunk in yet, en mass. Think about it. By the time relativity theory becomes collective subconscious, it'll be superceded! strings or whatever next. The half-life of software technology, and the hardware that runs it, is infintesimaly shorter.

Hackers work longer hours than theoretical physicists, that's for sure. anyways, promoting theories is far more challenging than coming up with the buggers.

Three different things, watch careful now..

• early 90's dial-up surfing, [plug-in], IYEEEEE! hey! cool..
• a sacred herb, ingestion, turmoil, kicks-in, journey..
• life trauma, inner truth, self-mastery, evolution.. I AM!

prefix each statement with "desire".
and at the end place "greater functionality".

process all the same yes, but the effects stretched in and out of time, still the analogy holds, works. Even the smallest bits are packed with analogy, evolution, if we're watching, if we're tuned in. We each are changed, more every single day, some of us even chose the bits. We do all get that choice, though.

This computer screen you're gazing into; presuming this isn't a print-out; is a gateway, a metaphor for our very own brain-mind connexion with the reality of one-ness. It is the metaphor.

More than the tool which enables us, empowers and connects us; computers will free us from the slavery of mental chore, the grunt work involved in creation, in being, which is the real work. More and more there are wee computers everywhere, in your digi-cam, your car, in your fridge even, programmed to do more tasks for us, so we can be.

What used to take me a week-end, a week even in the darkroom, now takes minutes with a computer. okay the selenium toning is out, the print won't be "archival" shit! do I care? this data will outlast all your paper! I'll have the time, thanks, any day. So much of the time-eating part of creativity is like that now, quick, effortless.

My father; I mean my earthly father²; would have had a mighty task ahead of him publishing his raw or even well-crafted thoughts to potentially billions of people all-at-once, something I have just done with a few mouse-clicks. Pretty cool.

  I'm in the google cache.
  Is that like Fame?

Andy Worhol would shit himself if he saw a G5, but after that, the stuff he'd produce … makes ya think, huh. Everything's possible for us, and pretty effin soon, too.

All we need are the tools. And the hackers, as always, are working on these, working very very hard.

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

summer nights

it's not that I find it hard to sleep, I don't. it's just that the air is so warm and sweet, and at the same time, night time air, free of busy thoughts.

Here, I can make a lot of noise, at night; think "above a shop" and you won't be far out. but this is..

I am compelled to announce, for friends, and you either know what I mean by that, or you don't - and whoeverthehellthatwas from 67.71.***.*** sure would like to know but doesn't. but if you do, then I've left a little something for you, in our friendly place; some noise.

It just escaped in the real world, so I thought what the hell! I'll upload one track a night, or thereabouts, en-joy!

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

synchronicity

nah, I'm not going to do a karma-style treatise on synchronicity, well, at least not today; you'll have to wait for that one.

  What?

That was the word, it all happened at once. What! What! What?

An email, a corzoogle, and finally, most importantly.. my random word from corzblog footer. Has anyone noticed this? I thought it would be a cute idea, even though it adds a few milliseconds to page generation times, to throw up a new random word from my blog for each page hit. it's in the footer of my regular pages.

As well as leading folks to my blog, I figured it would make each page hit unique, even repeated hits on the same page. Anyone who knows anything about seo will instantly recognise this as a stroke of genius. A topic I will doubtless cover another day. Genius; kinda like a database it is, anyway..

The email subject was "What?" and it was about my distro machine. I switched to corzoogle to check out if what the email said was true (it was), and there, in the "recent searches", the most recent search.. "What?". Although I mostly don't spot the random word (because I'll be intently looking elsewhere on my pages, working on them) I did this time, and was stunned to see that the random word for this page hit was also.. What.

Of course I said out loud, in astonished tones.. "WHAT!?!"

Which is surprising really, because I've been cool with the incredible synchronicity of the universe since I was but a small child. What astonishes me, and logarhythmically more these last few years, is how computers are becoming part of the pattern. almost as if they have now advanced enough to be fit to play some higher role in the real (and by that I mean spiritual) affairs of man.

The "random word from corzblog" has been pulling off some pretty synchronistic feats these last few weeks, and I urge visitors not to pass over it like the silly add-on it appears to be; so far it has helped my make a few life-or-death decisions, not to mention pick a horse for last saturday's races. I'm kidding about the horse, I don't gamble, generally, but I don't doubt the random word generator is capable of such a thing, either.

I wonder, carelessly, if a system is used for higher things, like rendering my links page, for instance; does that raise the system's potential for revealing; or at least catalysing the realisation of; synchronistic truths, particularly if some form of random function is mixed into the equation.

Maybe I'll get some cannabis,
and do a little more work on this.

what else?

By request, I added an underline tag to cbparser, my bbcode to html to bbcode parser. Just shows you, clearly underlining is something I don't ever feel the need to do, but you can now, if you want to. I believe words underline themselves.

Checking my logs, I see I have updated over 200 separate onsite files in the last week, food for thought. Just as well I've got my website synchronizer script, or else I'd be up ftp creek without a client. If you develop websites, you might want to check that out. Not for windoze users, sorree.

interesting to note, also, that corzblog downloads have shot up since I had my wee rant, below. or was it the bug-fixes? heheh

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org


ps.. careful reader will have spotted that I omitted at least two important pieces of information from the above blog. The first, a physical/technical matter; what was up with the distro machine? And the second; just what was so significant about the word "what"?

Stop Taking The Piss!

Listen here you leeching fuck-pigs! Yeah You! One of the (at least) six corzblog users whom my growing network of spies has grassed-off in the last week for running corzblog with all the links removed. no, I haven't contacted you; I'm waiting for you to get your act together.

Do you think I just tossed this off over lunch-break? No! This software represents hundreds of hours of my time and continued effort, which I give to you for FREE. And all I ask in return is that you leave a link to my site somewhere. you'd think I was asking for blood, you parasitic cunt.

it's not just coding, it's everything. Was I blindfolded writing this? No! I'm not just getting the code right, I'm thinking about YOU! From the smallest widget to the longest help-file, poring over the layout, the words and grammar; is it clear? will language translators handle it okay? will it still make sense? will one control logically flow into another? can it be made clearer? this is a surface scratch on my development process. And all FOR YOU! I think, and I CARE! Which many developers do not; an example..

If a system file is removed from Windows XP, a dialog pops up informing you that a file has been removed and, if you have deleted your system cache (hell yes!) asking if you would kindly insert the XP CD to replace it, as a backup cannot be found. so far so good.

And we wonder, "What file?", "Is it a version crisis?", "is the replacement an newer one?", "is it just gone?", "is it just a date issue?", "has it been corrupted?", "a virus?", loads of questions. Ahh! but there is a button entitled "More Information", so we click it..

..and does it give us all the information we need? no. it goes on to explain how maybe I've inserted the wrong XP CD! hahah! I burst out laughing when I first saw that. Like when I realised that to shutdown a windows machine, I would have to go to the "start" menu!

You just don't get shit like that in my stuff. I spend a good third of my development time conceiving, testing, and implementing better, more understandable and helpful controls.

You think I give a shit if the controls have meaningful names and helpful pop-up tips? I know what all the buttons mean! I FUCKING CREATED THEM!!

I even wrote my own web browser (okay, not a major task with WebKit, I know) that always opens at 800x600 so I can instantly check how a page will look for small-screen users. I'm SERIOUS!

And that goes for all my stuff. I spent my afternoon off a few weeks back, making corzoogle super-easy to customise for your own site, removing the hard-coding and making everything user-variable. Now it's so bloody easy that folks just go all the way and customise out my links while they're at it! You are Fucking Vermin!

AND I KNOW WHERE YOU ARE! I HAVE YOUR URL RIGHT HERE!
okay, maybe not them all, but that's just a question of time.

Some otherwise respectable looking folks are at it, too. One corzoogle user advertises himself as a php developer! so develop your own fucking search engine and stop ripping off mine you twat! Apparently the soon-to-be-released new version of his CMS comes with a "cool, fast site-search facility". oh really? like the one on your own site? *grrr*.

So, am I pulling all my software from public distribution?
nah, don't be silly.

Am I going to obfuscate all my code so no one can mess with it?
nah, how's that gonna help noobie programmers? I do the opposite.

No, I'm just gonna keep on making my shit better, that's what I'm gonna do; I understand Karma well enough. Arse!

And yeah, maybe have the occasional rant.
Ahh, I feel much better.

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

ps.. oh right, license fee in the post; fair enough.

mailing list error!

damn!

apologies to folks who thought they'd added their email address to my "odd mailing list". thanks to my super-clever-clogs update script, the onsite mailing list has been replaced with my local version! this contains email addresses like moo@cow.com, and suchlike; my test list.

The script won't do it again, promise. *cough*

This is a brand new feature, and there were only a few addresses on the list, but if you were one of them, you'll need to add it again if you want to receive my (yet to be conceived, let alone created) "odd mailings".

other news: where was corz.org last night? perhaps my web host is trying to save me some bandwidth or something. Me and all the other sites on this server, including their own effin forum!

It is frustrating, looking at a dead server, knowing that with root access, you could have the whole thing up again in seconds. *grrr*. One day I'll host corz.org here at my workshop, but not today, or the next. Then downtime will be no one else's fault but my own, and the excuses far more interesting.

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

seo results

When I first heard about all this SEO malarkey, as y'all know, I was intrigued. Was it really possible to get your own pages to the top of the search engine results, simply by making certain adjustments to the page contents, titles, anchors and what-not?

The answer is a resounding YES! Not only is it possible, it's easy! This sure is unabashed self-marketing, but the facts remain..

• 25.05.04: corzblog bbcode parser gets a page to itself
• 26.05.04: the content of the page gets my "seo treatment"
• 02.06.04: (possibly before) corzblog bbcode parser is at the Google number one spot for my chosen keywords of "bbcode parser".

it's that easy.

Do I now want to go out and market my seo talents for cash? no. That fragile marketplace doesn't need my competition. Do I have the urge to write a short series of articles along the lines of "corz top ten tips for seo placement" or something like that? Yes! Though God only knows when.

It will probably be called "how to get a top google ranking with less than 4% keyword density", or "packing in keywords, take it to the extreme without taking the piss", or "it's more than keywords, the googlebot is cleverer than you think", or, well, something along those lines.

Oh, I did knock corz.com off the top, too, sorry guys, I had a point to make. I'll cut back a bit now, you guys need the traffic more than I do! heheh

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

sorry google! (heehee)

okay, I'll switch the translation off for a bit; some of my blogs are rather long. weird thing is, it's like they have some sort of limit; for very long pages, only the first half or so gets translated, then it goes all English! Looks like I kicked the style thing, though, sort of.

I'll maybe switch it back on again when no one's looking.

shhh!

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

who would have thought?

well well well

;o)

oh! and the translation!

I almost forgot!

it's not quite 100% yet (more like 30%, hasn't been tested more than briefly, and definitely doesn't work on some parts of the site), and really screws up the css of my blog, too, but if you add -fr, -de, -it, -pt, or -es to the end of one of my URL's, you can get a French, German, Italian, Portuguese, or Spanish version of the page¹, courtesy of google, and some mod_rewrite magic.

I particularly enjoyed the German version of my sign-off, here it is..

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

updates

so many updates...

The main ones, I guess, are the corz distro machine 0.6, which tonight is the same version as the version.info that's been onsite these last couple of days. erm, what can I say? it's been hectic.

corzblog has had another wee update too, stuff the big error mode showed up, nothing major. added a few @'s, no doubt. I noticed (on someone elses corzblog) that the page generation timer was kaput, then remembered, the starter is in this site header! so I added that to corzblog itself, too.

there have been other things, minor updates to scripts, a few foibles, some typos, you get the picture. my contact page is looking pretty cool, just what I was after, at last.

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org