Another BottleCap release candidate, this one is Windows compatible out of the box. Just remember to edit bcsettings.py. Get the update and please report any bugs here.
Kind regards, Robert.
I’ve just uploaded another RC. I advise updating as it has a few bugfixes, especially if you’re on windows. Tonnes of work to make pylint happy and adding of docstrings, expect another release soon as I change and add things. I still have to fix the clones module but I’ve made the highlight ban code actually work.
Have fun, stay safe, and feel free to tell me if there’s anything wrong, remember to check the official channel for updates! irc.v8d.org #BottleCap
Kindest regards at this festive season, Robert Small.
I’ve released some more code, it provides a few new features:
I’ll leave it as such, do join the channel (irc.v8d.org #BottleCap) and ask more questions. Since rc1 I’ve added a few little things to allow windows to function better with BottleCap, I’ve not yet given it a full testing, let’s hope it all works soon.
Kind regards, Robert.
People often ask me why I wrote BottleCap, this normally comes immediately after asking what BottleCap is. I might as well answer both. BottleCap is a small modular Python script designed to replace or create a few features I found either partially or completely lacking in XChat. It was primarily designed for Linux but should work on any OS providing it has XChat and python. It provides a fair few things and is in slow development. Some of the features are:
It’s a useful script and to my knowledge there are no ways to exploit it. I’ve mainly written it on request or as I’ve needed it, the regexp banning module is in direct result of an attack levied at a channel I’m op’d in. The attack used stupidly easy to spot nicknames which were rather hard to ban, a regexp did the job wonderfully.
Spelling and grammar correction is mainly to help me when I’m reading certain channels I moderate which are mostly used by children, it takes the strain off reading and deciding what they’re talking about!
There’s more information on this page (http://www.v8d.org/wiki/index.php?title=BottleCap) and please as in #BottleCap on irc.v8d.org for a copy and help getting it working.
If you’ve used BottleCap, or use BottleCap now, please post, I’d love to have a few ‘BottleCap changed my life!’ comments. Any suggestions would be great too.
Kind regards, Robert.
I’m scared. I suppose this doesn’t have quite the impact due to my rather bad paranoia, but it should.
I’ve recently spoken to children who actually told me that they wanted to be stupid. No, I’m not joking. No, these weren’t children who were in any way stupid or mentally challenged. Yes, I really am scared.
How is it that someone could honestly desire to be stupid? Children in Africa pray for school, they love it, they walk miles and miles for school just to learn a little. Apparently it’s out of fashion to like school in the wonderful civilised West. Apparently it no longer matters how we speak on the Internet, we can be guilty of shortening words, of using the wrong words and even worse and it not matter. I beg to differ. Actually, I don’t beg, I differ even if you don’t like it. I despise this ‘phonetic English’, moreover because I do not believe that it’s a true representation of the differences between words. There are many more vowels than there are in the alphabet, or we would have no need for vowel combinations. To simplify the orthographic representation of a language which is already absurdly simplified in it’s correct form must be pure folly. It’s a shame that the perpetrators often do not understand that they use words which already exist and so make their sentences ambiguous, even more that they probably don’t know what ambiguous means.
However, our lingual culture is not the only thing which is being attacked; learning other languages, mathematics, history, the sciences, etcetera. Why is it that we consider it our holy right to force our language on others without even beginning to learn theirs? What’s more it seems we require them - if they are to be foolish enough to stumble onto our Internet - to understand our slang and misappropriation of words. It’s little wonder that French workers are notorious for pretending not to understand English, when they’re having to put up with a barrage of media and culture which gives little heed to them or their wishes and furthermore often uses them and other ‘foreign’ cultures as objects of mockery. In fact, how can we be surprised that this does indeed cause anger and distaste. Just look at the way that many tourists act, many take drunk and disorderly to a whole new level.
Although at times maths is hard, often taxing and mostly seems directly irrelevant to you and the rest of your life it has more benefits than you may have thought. A little thought brings me to the conclusion that you probably already know this, as you are still reading. Doing maths helps keep certain parts of your mind active, those logical parts which help you on a daily basis. If you’ve ever done weights you’ll know that being able to lift heavier weights makes smaller weights a lot easier. The same works with maths, the bigger and more complex mathematics you can do the faster and easier you can do the simple stuff. Those areas of your brain are more exercised and handle the small jobs faster. Not everyone uses all parts of advanced mathematics, but a lot of people use areas of it.
As humans we have a considerable list of large mistakes to our names. Many of them involve not learning from previous mistakes, this is something we’re very good at. The old adage of putting your hand in the fire and not getting burnt may work on an individual basis but does not appear to work on a collective level. In spite of this history is apparently ‘becoming irrelevant to everyday life’, even though watching today’s events we see historic events playing out again. Nationalism becoming support for Nazi-like governments, laws designed to protect us being used against us, and giving up our ‘liberties’ for the promise of ‘freedom’. Until we learn from the lessons of the past we must appreciate that history is a lesson we cannot forget.
We trust scientists and technical engineers for our everyday wants and needs. We trust medical science to keep us alive, we trust mechanical and structural engineers to keep us on the road and from being crushed by our homes and places of work, we trust software engineers with our daily schedule. Why then is it that we still label these people ‘geeks’ and ‘nerds’ and despise them for it? The age we live in is becoming increasingly IT based yet anyone who knows much more than how to turn on a PC can become the target of ridicule. Those who chose to study the area are often lacking in basic skills, take a class of young IT students and ask them to build you a PC and you’ll understand what I mean. How can it be possible that anyone should wish to drop these sciences from our curricular?
I feel that part of the problem could be in the media they are fed, it is considered possible for someone who understands little about life and is in all other fields completely useless to become a ‘celebrity’. This becomes the aim of many people, and so a something-for-nothing culture has become rife. Thank God (or possibly Satan) for Simon Cowell.
So, please, instil in any children you meet a need to push their boundaries and really learn something. Pop stars may have their place, but we can’t all be famous and stupid.
Kind regards, Robert.
The Linux GPS project has been started, it’s aimed at providing useful information about Linux related GPS projects and how to get GPS devices working correctly with Linux. I have a CF based Holux GPS device and a Bluetooth/USB based Holux device, I’ll provide as much information about these as possible.
We hope to provide information on the protocols we come across and the ways they can be made to ‘play’ nicely with Linux. In the end we may develop programs to provide unavailable features to Linux users. Although there are several projects which seem interested in providing GPS support for Linux they seem to lack a central place for a user to start, a place for you to pick what you need and get everything working; Linux GPS is being developed with this in view.
Your support would be appreciated.
Kind regards, Robert.
Morals are weird things. I believe most people’s morals are entirely taken from which angle they’re viewing a situation from. For example, a lot of people will tell you that they are totally against abortion; when you tackle them about it they will either clam up or show that there are ’some’ circumstances under which they will change their mind.
A young mother with four children and one on the way develops leukaemia. The leukaemia treatment will kill or severely maim the child, by aborting the child she would save herself. To save the child she must refuse treatment and sacrifice her own life, there is no way she can be treated after the birth, that is if she makes it that far.
So, as that young mother do you chose to live and be able to bring up your children or do you let the child live with the knowledge that you could never bring it up nor could you guarantee that it’d live if you die before it’s fully developed.
I believe the only solution is to truly take every single case as it comes, never to judge from the other side of the gate and never to presume that you know everything about a situation.
Kind regards, Robert.
While I was in Chicago I went to the musical Wicked with my girlfriend. For those of you who don’t know what it is I’ll give a brief explanation. Wicked is the story of what happened before the story ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and a little more around it. It shows how the witches started off being who they were and why this was the case. What I really liked about it was it’s ability to make me rethink what I thought about all the characters within the story. It’s a severe reminder to those of us prone to judge on what we see not to do so. The whole story is too complex to explain in one go like this, and it’s also too good a story for me to want to spoil it for you.
I’m reminded so often that what we’re forced to act on is so so often a torn scarp of an involved and colourful picture, one side of a dodecahedron. You’d hardly want your case to be heard in court if they refused to let you have more than ten lines of your defence speech. It’s strange then that so often we jump to conclusions, often with less information than that.
Looking at a homeless person you might presume that they put themselves there, that it was entirely their fault that they’re now forced to roam the streets. What you don’t see is what they may have gone through on the way down. On the streets of Chicago there are many homeless who are (or so I’m told) often those with severe mental problems, society - it would seem - has no coping mechanism to provide these people with adequate and viable treatment.
Just as you may be forced to re-look at how people got where they are today on the streets Wicked! makes you look again at how the witches became good or bad, in fact it will certainly shake your view of who was good and who was bad.
The acting was terrific, really, terrific. The costumes were no less impressive, if I tell you that involves people dressed as flying monkeys then you may have some idea. I was certainly impressed by it. One of the things I loved was a mechanical dragon mounted over the stage, this roared and emitted smoke whenever it was appropriate (the exercising of magic, etc). All in all the musical really involved me and drew me into it, I’m generally a pretty harsh critic as I don’t entirely see the point of telling a story using exaggerated acting and singing. This was so well produced and directed that I only had a few little criticisms: one of the solo’s felt a little laboured as it was quite long and; there was a severe pun which I won’t reveal, it just annoyed me.
Over all, if I have the opportunity again I’ll have a second viewing. The acting was incredible, the special effects were wonderful; if you have a chance, watch it! I’m not telling you much because I don’t want to spoil the show.
Do tell me what you think; kind regards, Robert.
I’m currently sitting on the plane back home. This has been a so far uneventful journey with the exclusion of leaving a considerable time after we should have. There’s minor turbulence because we have a tailwind, however this does somewhat speed the journey up. The boys (and girls) in blue didn’t bother me at all at the gate which is nice considering the horror stories people keep telling me.
However, not everything is good, although I’m pleased to be returning home with the view of working on some new projects, seeing my parents again and enjoying some - hopefully more productive* - fishing; I’m not pleased to be leaving my girlfriend and she’s not pleased to have me leave. Luckily for her I left some chocolate and most of a pack of digestive biscuits, luckily for myself my mum sent me a text saying she was making cake. My mum’s cake is good. I predict the next few weeks being taken up solely with comfort eating and work as I did far too little while I was on holiday.
A friend of mine has told me that while going through regular separation I’ll love every little thing that reminds me that we’re together when we are. then when we’re permanently together they’ll start to annoy me. The example she gave me was snoring, my girlfriend doesn’t snore so I’m sure I’m safe from this problem.
(A break of a few hours.)
The plane continues to be involved in quite some turbulence, I don’t mind turbulence unless I’m trying to drink at the same time, then it’s just annoying. One of the things I really enjoy about KLM is the service, I actually get a decent meal with real knives and forks. The dinner was a nice Italian pasta served with cold chicken and rice salad and a nice chocolate cake.
‘Oh the weather outside is frightful,
but the fire inside is quite delightful,
and since we’ve no place to go,
let it snow, let it snow’
This song will definitely bring memories for the next few months, it seems a popular one on US radio and with those creating Christmas CD’s; fortunately I like it. It has a lot of good times from the last month attached to it and I will find it a pleasant trigger to remind me what fun I’ve had.
It’s always sad to leave somewhere you’ve really enjoyed being, I never knew how bad it was to know that you’re leaving someone behind. The last time wasn’t quite so bad, I’d spent a lot less time with her, this time it was every minute possibly. The lesson I’ve learnt is that it’s very important to scope your view on life. You can waste your life looking forward to something which lasts for a few minutes or you can enjoy every moment as it comes. There’s always a silver lining.
Watch The Shawshank Redemption, he crawls through a long pipe of sewage and other undesirable muck and as he exits he raises his palms to heaven basking in the rain and the storm. He is free. If he’d not had that to look forward to he’d never have done that fete of human persistence and perseverance.
What I’m attempting to show is that all the time there’s something to comfort yourself with and drive yourself forward with. Whatever your lot is you have to extract the good bits out of it and live them up. If you don’t scope your life to the good bits and be very careful to always check the bigger picture then you will waste days sitting staring at the wall. I know, I’ve been there. Life is always worse when you don’t have perspective on it, Looking in the short term today I was leaving the arms of my closest and best friend, but put into perspective it’s a brighter day than it may seem. When I return I can contact the American embassy and start applying for a Visa, I can start working harder and get some of the big projects I’m working on up and running. So by going through the tunnel to the light I’m giving myself the ability to stay for more than 90 days and to earn the money to make my stay more enjoyable than it might have been otherwise.
If you ever have anything you want to talk to me about or you’re feeling a bit down in the dumps then please contact me. A lot of people have found it very helpful, but don’t expect to hear what you want because I have no problem with telling you what you need to hear instead of what you want to hear.
I’ll be announcing a few new projects and possibly even some milestones soon, I’m sorry that I’ve neglected nearly everything over the last month. At least I can return to my work totally refuelled and ready to create some great things. I expect the Linux GPS site to be off the ground soon, get your content ready!
Those of you who know about openhardwaredatabase, John has done some incredible work on it. Kudos and a very big thank you to John for this. I’ll be publishing some more about this soon and showing you how it (hopefully) will transform the way you decide which hardware to buy for whatever machines you have. Again John; thanks, great work so far!
One thing I’m loving is having a laptop sitting here running at 600MHz with no fan activity, very little disk activity and averaging just over 7W power usage! Having 1GB RAM does help this, having a system I’ve tuned finely to do this also helps, but I think that my choice of hardware has really helped too.
I’m flying just below the eastern tip of Iceland at the moment, It’s dark, It’s been dark over most of the journey because I’ve been quite northern and it’s winter. Although my ticket says that it’s a windows seat there was someone already in my space so I’m sitting by the aisle, I’m not objecting as my cabin luggage probably weighs about three times the prescribed amount.
People will always ask me - unless their name is James** - what the differences are between England/Europe and America. There are a lot of small ones, all of which seem to boil down to a very close score if someone were to be keeping count. One big difference I’ve noted is that Americans seem to generally be far more patriotic and of the opinion that there’s nothing too interesting out there, Europeans and the English seems to be generally more metropolitan; we realise that there are other currencies and that the world is not completely contained within our country. Please remember that these are generalisations and not stereotypes.
Another difference seems to be the environmental orientation, it could be due to the greater price of fuel or the greater media coverage. This seems to cover cars, lights, heat, and flying.
In England we have pretty boring coffee, it could use some cheering up, some excitement. In fact, the best coffee I’ve had in England would be one I’ve made at home using a percolator or maybe one Lloyd gave me a while ago - Lloyd being rather a coffee nut. American coffee is far more interesting and enjoyable, you can have far more than coffee, weak coffee and milky coffee. I’ve never really bought coffee in Europe, nor have I discussed the practise, it may be different in other countries. Still, I like American coffee.
Clothes are in general somewhat cheaper, however, they don’t come with free medical insurance and all the rest that we get from our heavier taxes. They’re generally the same quality and a reasonably compatible style.
The way that we pay for our medical care is another big difference, I think the standard of care is probably pretty similar, the only difference is the method of payment. In England most people pay for their care from their taxes, in America their insurance. I do like the concept of public health care, I believe that it should be a common human right to receive reasonable medical care, whatever your health or income. One area I can see that this might not be entirely applicable to is cases where people are smoking or drinking and it’s making their condition worse while they’re refusing to be involved in any plan to remove them from their addiction.
I arrived safely at Norwich airport around 9:30AM GMT0 DEC3, this was as far as I’d got writing so I left it as is.
Kind regards, Robert.
* Two fishing trips got nothing.
** James recently asked me if they had eggs in England.
: Sorry it's a shorter list guys, I'll be working on another!
: A wall! To write on! I'm writing on it. And I'll do it again, whenever I feel like it.
: So, I might as well start the wall myself. It's a bit like shout boxes or facebook walls. Feel free to post.
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