Shadowlessness

Someone, I don’t know who, is seemingly intent on giving a rating of 1 to all of my posts!
Not that it influences me in the least, but it would be amusing to know whether she is a bot or something or a person, and if it’s the latter, why she hates what I have to say so much?!

Here’s a new idea: listen to Opeth’s “Watershed” album while walking in heavy, dry and driving snow.
You should give it a try sometime.

That’s my birthday, if you where wondering.
(Just a quick fact: this year, due to incompatibility of Gregorian and Persian leap years, and the relative inaccuracy of the former, my birthday was October 27th.
As a friend mentioned, my 28th birthday was not on the 28th of the month. In fact, as she again noted, the first time my age turned perfect after I knew what it was, I lost my perfect birth day of the month.)
Anyway, last year I found out that my birthday is the same with Bill Gates. This year, I was cursing my bad luck when I stumbled upon the fact that I share this birthday with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Sharing anything with the guy is anything but an honor by default!
Here are some fun facts about my birthday:

1. There are 64 days in a year after October 28th!
2. I have the exact same age (±24 hours) with the Czech football player Milan Baroš. I’ve known this for several years now, but I don’t know how. My best guess is IMDB!
3. John Romero is born on this day. Since we are in the same business (behold the shameless arrogance!) I must include him here. I firmly believe that “id Software” would still be making great games (as opposed to great engines only) if he were still with them. (Incidentally, this is one of the few posters that I’d be willing to hang in my room instead of James Hetfield’s Jolly Roger pose poster.)
4. John Locke died on this day. No, not that John Locke, this John Locke! (Sorry, couldn’t resist a “Lost” reference.)
5. A guy named Landon Curt Noll has this birthday too. I knew him from the IOCCC (he is called chongo over there.) (Warning: if you think you know C, and are not ready for a rude wake up, don’t go there! Here’s the Wikipedia page for a milder kick) but apparently he is quite a diverse person!
   Also, we used the FNV hash function (co-authored by him) in the “Silent2″ project (maybe 10 people in the entire world know what that is!) without me realizing who he was. Alas, I had to abandon that project, which I regret to this day, since the concept and opportunity were both very unique.
6. A whole bunch of other stuff have happened on this day, some of the most famous of which can be viewed on or accessed through the Wikipedia page.

I woke up yesterday, 7AM. It’s now 9PM and I’ve just come home, and I’m gonna eat something, and I’m gonna go to sleep after 38 hours. That’s a personal record. And I’ve been at work, non-stop for 27 hours.
And you know what, I’m just feeling conventionally tired and I may even try and work on my own programs a bit. I never thought I would be at work 27 hours and be this happy (well, as far as I get happy, which is not much.)
And my work was hard, at least for someone with my limited practical knowledge (or theoretical, for that matter.) I implemented the whole shadow system for our game project Soshiant from the ground up, after several failed attempts at using Ogre’s shadowing services and several other attempts to figure out the pieces needed to use Ogre’s facilities from other people’s code (nobody seems to have had the problems that we had!) Anyway, me implementing generic shadow-mapping was like a blind man with Parkinson’s trying to fix a deaf and mute man’s teeth: full of screams, blood and gore. But that’s another story for another time.
My pint here is that I was doing something I liked, and that I’m not badly incompetent at, on a project that engaged me, with people that interest me. Therefore, I cannot wait to get more (after I’m rested well enough of course. I’m a lazy slob after all, and nothing can change that.) What I’m saying is that “Give me fuel, give me fire, give that which I desire.”

(Of course I mean on the line!)
A few days back, a friend asked me about my opinions on the online services I use. I think he mentioned hosting services, etc. While I can’t tell exactly, I’m pretty sure he was asking a subquestion of the question: How does one manages her online life?
Now that’s a question to ponder about! Of course, my friend only wanted to know my opinion. He doesn’t want or need a shrink wrapped answer, which I can’t provide anyway. Since when do I have a life, to advise other people about it?!

Anyways, this is a huge subject to begin with, and I have not solved the problems myself. I have some guidelines and opinions that have worked out for me, but no definite answers.
First off, one’s online life concerns at least the following areas, in no particular order:

• Email
• Passwords and Keys
• Bookmarks/Browsing History
• Files
• Calendar and Schedule
• Code
• Contacts
• Online Profile/Social Networking
• Web Presence/Weblog/Journal
• Realtime Communication (Chat/VoIP/Video/Collaborative Text Editing/etc.)

In the course of the rant that will ensue, you will find any and every useless piece of (mis)information that I couldn’t find a more suitable place to deliver. Don’t expect me to stay on-topic and don’t expect composed and well-thought-out literature here!

Let me start with this: It was Roman emperor Nero who burned Rome down (in the 1st century A.D.) and now, it’s the software Nero that is burning ROMs ((almost) Read-Only Memories.) You see how useless and irrelevant it was! Don’t expect it to get any better!

OK, now I’m being serious. What I write about this subject is what I believe to be good and sound ways to lead an online life. Please, correct me if I’m wrong. Help me if I’m mistaken. Guide me if there’s a better (or equally bad) way.

I’ve been getting a lot of spamous(!) comments and track-backs. Therefore, I have taken some measures to alleviate the problem at least partially, without requiring every prospective comment-writer to register at this blog (which would make it really inconvenient) or myself to approve all of the comments before being published (which could, in some occasions, take a couple of days since I’m out of town a lot.)
Now, if I’ve made a mistake in the configuration and you cannot post a comment or some other problem exists, please don’t hesitate to email me at my email address which is equal to the first letter of this site’s domain name at this site’s domain name.
However, if these half-baked measures I’ve taken prove to be ineffective, I will resort to comment moderation. These spam comments are a bother for me (not to mention shameful, sometimes) and for everyone who’s possibly reading this blog regularly (maybe in a sci-fi world!)