Shell idea

I was plowing along in school today and had an idea for a shell replacement. What do you usually store in folders? Files related to a project, happening or another common denominator. Wouldn't it be nice if these folders were dynamic, if you put a file in "Project A" and it automatically adds it to related "Project B" and your "This weeks todo"-list.

The basic principle are these
- Files have a number of tags
- The desktop contains a number of searches for a combination of tags
So if you had a number of files tagged "Essay about X" and then a search for the tag "Essay for X" those files shows up in the box. The files themselves are shown as either iconss or small thumbnails.

Random side-ideas
- A new file type for quick notes, originally called "Note". Basicly it's a mix of a document file and an image file with support for quick squibbles. Can be converted to either document or image once one has decided
- Zoom. Searches can contain sub-searches and the user can zoom out to get a good overview or zoom in to see further sub-sub-searches.
- Concurrency. Multiple people can work on different parts of the same desktop, giving project managers or other leaders quick and easy overview of how it's progressing.
- Color coding of both searches and files. Color coding can be read any way the user wants, one way would be to see color as how close the project or file is to deadline, shifting through green->yellow->red as deadline approaches.
- Opacity. Can be seen as how finished the document is.
- Drag'n'Drop between searches, drag a file to add it to the other. Not sure how the search should be modified though.
- Program files can be tagged by name and version by the installer to easily see which files belong to a program.
- Time related parameters to searches, give you files related to this week and similar things.

It's raining deadlines

Been a while since i posted anything here and it has it's reasons. My schedule is just plain chaos at the moment. Taking four courses and the examiner/planner in two of them doesn't seem to grasp the fact that I take other courses at all. A friend of mine calculated the workload for one course during the first two weeks, 35 hours per week. Out of a total of 40 hours per week, add three other courses to that and you got my current situation.

Some of the courses actually might have been interesting or even fun if I didn't have to quickly mash something together just to not get left too far behind. And I'm behind in at least two of the courses, spending the weekend studying to not get left behind in the other two as well.

Haven't really partied for about a month now and it'll probably be another month, haven't got the time to have a hangover since i have to spend the weekends studying. Once I get all my points for all four courses registered I'm going to get paleolithic on a bottle of jäger.

Hopes and dreams

When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock dorrs, shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed.

The True Believer : Thoughts on the nature of mass movements

The old Rabbi

An old Rabbi who once asked his disciples how they could tell when the night had ended and the day began. The disciples thoughtfully considered the Rabbi’s question.

“Could it be,” asked one student, “when you see an animal in the distance and can tell whether it’s a sheep or a dog?”

“No,” replied the Rabbi.

“Could it be,” another asked, “when you look at a tree in the distance and can tell whether it is a fig tree or a peach tree?”

“No,” said the Rabbi again.

“Well then, when is it?” his pupils demanded to know.

“It is when you can look at the face of any man or any woman and see that he is your brother or she is your sister. Because if you cannot do this, then no matter what time it is, it is still night.”

Are you a you or a we?

A couple of weeks ago I had a discussion with a friend and she told me I was one of few people that hadn't remarked on her particular chosen career, a girl working as a tester. We kept going and ended up talking about how a person identifies herself, if it were by how she behaves and thinks, or what groups she consider herself to be a part of.

I'm so very tired of being identified as a geek; quiet, boring, only talks about computers and since that was more or less the only group I considered myself a part of I now consider myself kind of groupless, and quite skeptical of becoming part of a new group. C never really became "my group", I like to just be me, lately I've begun to like being me, it's kinda nice.

Anyway, to the point. I, or we, don't remember, have a theory that people that don't identify who they are through a group have it much easier to accept people that stick out, don't conform to the normal patterns. Girls working as programmers, guys working as nurses.

It has begun

Cry 'Havoc' and let slip the dogs of war.

A vision

I recently got some not very good news and decided to spin a little tale from a couple of years ahead.

"It's an early august morning, the grass still moist from dew and the sun only recently risen above the rooftops. The Zeroes is gathering, nervously eyeing their clothes and each other, each of them had received stern notes about the risk of clothing that might insult, annoy or in any other way affect another person. It was many years since you last saw a guy or girl in a tight t-shirt, showing off their body in all of well cared for glory. If another person had stern religious beliefs they might get bothered and the university couldn't risk that.

After a long day in school full of new knowledge of all the regulations and rules concerning life at the university the zeroes eye the evenings festivities, "Study session 19-22". In the past some students had had trouble keeping up and had dropped out. The university couldn't risk that, students not completely happy might leave angry notes and would mean less money from the state, and had therefore put the mentors and older students in charge of making sure they kept up. The zeroes wasn't too excited about studying even more during the evening, except Tom that seemed to be excited about everything.

So the zeroes called up one of their mentors
- Hi, it's Emma. Me and a few others here wasn't too excited about studying for another few hours and was wondering if any of you had other plans.
- Hello, well there might be another parallell activity. Be behind BK 3 at 19.20 and somebody will meet you there.

The older students had to be cautious these days, letting the zeroes drink alcohol was a major violation and if somebody saw them and reported it they would get yelled at, reported and possibly barred from the rest of the reception activites. If the zeroes drank they might *shudder* get affected. The fact that all these new rules and regulations had done was push the drinking into the shadows where the mentors didn't have control or could keep the ones that seemed to be getting a bit too..festive...in control was a fact the university didn't seem particularly interested in."

But i'm not bitter...

The Moon

A little piece i composed on the way home from a friend, not quite happy with it but it'll do for now.

One should strive to be more like the moon

The sun burns hot
The stars are cold and distant
The clouds darken the sky
Nobody ever complains about the moon

We dance in the moonlight
shining into the dark corners
Telling untold stories

Edit: The last verse sucked, removed

A tribute

Found this nice little piece on a group at Facebook, aptly named "A Tribute to the nice guys". Alot of it fits me regardless of how hard I try not to be too nice.

Here goes:
"This is a tribute to the nice guys. The nice guys that finish last, that never become more than friends, that endure hours of whining and bitching about what assholes guys are, while disproving the very point. This is dedicated to those guys who always provide a shoulder to lean on but restrain themselves to tentative hugs, those guys who hold open doors and give reassuring pats on the back and sit patiently outside the changing room at department stores. This is in honor of the guys that obligingly reiterate how cute/beautiful/smart/funny/sexy their female friends are at the appropriate moment, because they know most girls need that litany of support. This is in honor of the guys with open minds, with laid-back attitudes, with honest concern. This is in honor of the guys who respect a girl’s every facet, from her privacy to her theology to her clothing style.

This is for the guys who escort their drunk, bewildered female friends back from parties and never take advantage of them once they’re at her door, for the guys who accompany girls to bars and parties as buffers against the rest of the creepy male population, for the guys who know a girl is just fishing for compliments but give them out anyway, for the guys who always play by the rules in a game where the rules favor cheaters, for the guys who are accredited as boyfriend material but somehow don’t end up being boyfriends, for all the nice guys who are overlooked, underestimated, and unappreciated, for all the nice guys who are manipulated, misled, and unjustly abandoned, this is for you.

The nice guys don’t often get credit where credit is due. And I wish I could logically explain this trend, but I can’t. Many girls claim they just want to date a nice guy, but when presented with such a specimen, they say irrational, confusing things such as “oh, he’s too nice to date" or “he would be a good boyfriend but he’s not for me" or “he already puts up with so much from me, I couldn’t possibly ask him out!" or “you’re more like a brother to me" or the most frustrating of all: “no, that could ruin our friendship." Yet, they continue to lament the lack of datable men in the world, and they expect their too-nice-to-date male friends to sympathize and apologize for the men that are jerks. Sorry, guys, girls like that are beyond my ability to fathom. I can’t figure out why the connection breaks down between what they say (I want a nice guy!) and what they do (I’m going to sleep with this complete ass now!). But one thing I can do is say that the nice-guy-finishes-last phenomenon doesn’t last forever. There are definitely many girls who grow out of that train of thought and realize they should be dating the nice guys, not taking them for granted. The tricky part is finding those girls, and even trickier, finding the ones that are single.

So, until those girls are found, I propose a toast to all the nice guys. You know who you are, and I know you’re sick of hearing yourself described as ubiquitously nice. But the truth of the matter is, the world needs your patience in the department store, your holding open of doors, your party escorting services, and your propensity to be a sucker for a pretty smile. For all the crazy, inane, absurd things you tolerate, for all the situations where you are the faceless, nameless hero, my accolades, my acknowledgement, and my gratitude go out to you."

Personality type ENTP

I recently found a personaliy type test(swedish) online that was quite spot on. I got ENTP and one part really made me think "hey, it's me they're writing about here

"Following through on the implementation of an idea is usually a chore to the ENTP. For some ENTPs, this results in the habit of never finishing what they start. The ENTP who has not developed their Thinking process will have problems with jumping enthusiastically from idea to idea, without following through on their plans."

I usually have like 3-4 new cool projects i almost can't wait to get started on so when I've done, at most, a proof-of-concept or something like it I move on to the next one.