The Clovers Work!

"Good day to be alive, sir!"
"Good day to be alive," he says...

I just cannot not worry about what the soothing light at the end of my tunnel will end up to be! *shivers with a premonition*

Two Strikes in a Row

This morning, two important events were waiting for me when I got online:

• Google.com were filtered out by some utterly stupid people (I'm running after those guys to take back the IDIOT award to give it to these guys!) but it was restored in less than 12 hours AFAIK.
• Robert Jordan just died! What happens to the Wheel now? :-((

Many Miles

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

This part of a poem by Robert Frost sums up my current situation. I just hope that I don't fall for the woods or sleep.

No Redemption?

With the blood of my slain gods on hands, I stand at the crossroads of hell and heaven.
I was the one who killed them, just as I had made them before. They died so I can start afresh.

Drowning in the Flood

There's no flood, "it's nothing but some feelings," that I "have kicked up."
The night was choking me, this past one. I couldn't sleep, couldn't work, didn't want to think and couldn't stop thinking. I will not write about the "what" of my thoughts, that's for me and I won't forget it, if for nothing else but the words someone told me.
The darkness was pressing against my chest. The man/boy I know as myself was being held up by the throat by some unseen monster. I couldn't breathe. Usually, he finds escape through tears and anger, but not this time. Usually, anger at the world comes first, or pity at him and remorse and shame for what I've done and he has not done. Then comes the decision and resolve, that since this world knows me not, since I know this world not, there can be no decision made and no resolve formed about anything that happens here. Let it throw you to and fro, let it play with me, let it kill him.
After that comes the sleep. The fast, dream-less non-sleep. The one that is so akin to death.
But not last night. Last night the anger and the tears didn't come, neither the decision, nor the sleep. I was being held by the throat by some unseen monster. He was looking for the tears. They didn't come. I listened to Bleu, I listened to Elizabethtown. He imagined Danny playing the piano of the world, but the tears didn't come and the sleep didn't come.
We decided... on nothing. We couldn't agree with us. We didn't know what to do. We will hang by the throat, we will be crushed in the chest, we will be empty in the head. Until one of us knows. Until I open mind for a different view. We don't know...

Bus Trips And Epiphanies

I recently had to travel from Tehran to Mashhad by bus. The reason is not at all funny and not at all surprising to those who know me, but it's out of the scope of this... whatever.
Anyway, after a lot of time spent rushing around Tehran in taxis in vain, I found myself slammed into the first-row seat of a bus which, I imagine, is not a fashionable or desirable seat, since it was left open till almost the last minutes, in which time I bought my ticket.
Anyway, I'm not picky at all when it comes to travel, be it by car or train or airplane or, in this case, bus (I have yet to travel any considerable distance by boat.) As I was saying, I'm quite easy with different means of travel, and don't find non of them unbearably hard. But this time, I had already missed my train, was very tired from gods-know-what, and for the life of me, couldn't find a place to buy cold mineral water. The journey was shaping to become very hard.
The bus I was on was one of this almost-brand-new Volvos, with air conditioning, TV and water cooler (which wasn't working.) I was in the front row, and the driver window occupied most of my field of view. The top quarter or so of the window was covered by a curtain, declaring to the world that the bus belonged to such and such company and it was, in fact a "Volvo." The net result was that the word "Volvo" was in the dead center of my view for a large portion of the 14 hours I was in that bus. I couldn't help but remember this really funny conversation from Blanc:

Mikolaj: Volvo?
Karol: Volvo.
Mikolaj: Burgundy?
Karol: Burgundy.

(I'll have to check the spelling of the names. How do you write "Mikolaj" in Polish? (It turns out that I was right for a change!)) Another byproduct of that big 3x2^m window was that I was staring at the road for the rest of the night. My seat was a little elevated, so I could see from a short distance in front of the front bumper of the bus to about 100 meters ahead. The road signs and the yellow and white bands (stripes?) they draw on the surface of the asphalts and the road itself were lit by nothing but the headlights of our Volvo, and the occasional cars in front of me were only two passing red lines.
I again removed my glasses. I'm so blind! This helps me see better, clearer. The train of white and yellow on black with the occasional red blurred into each other was... mesmerizing - yes, that's the word - mesmerizing. I thought about why I was always happier returning to Mashhad than when I was leaving for Tehran. Why I still think of it as returning and leaving, now that I live mostly in Tehran. Maybe I want is here? Maybe not all I want, but all I need? Maybe the road is not my bride? Maybe all these months of half separation has put me on the verge of learning something, something valuable? I don't know. Not yet.

...And the road becomes my bride,
I'm stripped of all but pride,
So in her I do confide,
And she keeps me satisfied,

...And with dust in throat I crave,
Only knowledge will I save,
To the game you stay a slave,
Rover, wanderer, nomad, vagabond,
Call me what you will.

But I'll take my time anywhere,
Free to speak my mind anywhere,
And I'll redefine anywhere,
Anywhere I roam.
Where I lay my head is home...

...And the earth becomes my throne,
I adapt to the unknown,
Under wandering stars I've grown,
By myself but not alone,
I ask no one.

...And my ties are severed clean,
The less I have the more I gain,
Off the beaten path I reign,
Rover, wanderer, nomad, vagabond,
Call me what you will...

But I'll take my time anywhere,
Free to speak my mind anywhere,
And I'll never mind anywhere,
Anywhere I roam.
Where I lay my head is home...

But I'll take my time anywhere,
I'm free to speak my mind,
And I'll take my find anywhere,
Anywhere I roam.
Where I lay my head is home...

But I'll take my time anywhere,
I'm free to speak my mind anywhere,
And I'll redefine anywhere,
Anywhere I roam.
Where I lay my head is home,
Carved upon my stone,
My body lies, but still I roam...

Wherever I may roam!

Nothing Lasts Forever

I was staring out of a window, above the clouds, without my glasses... everything looked bright white. My whole world was that bright white window. I was wishing that I could stay there, not because it was beautiful and peaceful, but because my mind was blank. I had was thinking about nothing. I don't remember anything about the guy that was sitting next to me. The only thing I was thinking about was... I don't want to write it down. I will remember forever what I was thinking about there and then.
But "Nothing lasts forever, even cold November rain."

War Zone, or Tehran in Unrest

I'm writing these lines among the sound of what I hope is not gunshots being fired. The sounds have moved to a few blocks away now. We are trying to circulate the air in the house to get rid of what I hope is not tear gas. Whatever it is, it burns the eyes and throat.
The fires are still burning in the broken windows of the bank at the corner. The gas station right across the street is all smashed up. The police sirens and car horns and cries and whistles of the people have just gone quiet.
Your shreds of doubt would be stripped if you could see me right now: head wrapped in a dripping wet towel (scarf actually) to fend off the last of the tear gas.
I'm not writing from east of Africa. I'm in Tehran.
It has been one hell of a night and it's not even dawn yet.

Tera Bytes!

Mike's total storage space (hard disks) officially passed one terabytes (also one tebibytes) today!

I have a 120GB, a 200GB, a 300 GB, and now two 320GB disks. My dillema is that my motherboad has only 4 SATA ports and I have 5 fixed disks now. :-(

Experiences in Life

One of the most profound experiences I've had in my life was brushing my teeth while intoxicated! It's amazing how fast your hand works and how normal and efficient the guy in the mirror looks, while your mind wonders in seven different places!

BitTorrent Share Ratio Now More Than Half

I use the BitTorrent network extensively to download stuff, and hopefully to distribute stuff in the future. I'm not going to talk about the merits of BT in comparison with other client-server and P2P technologies (it is better!)
I use Azureus for a BT software (or client?) and I'm fine with it. It has a lot of features that one will use (and some that I don't,) and a plug-in system that I haven't used yet. My only bone to pick with Azureus is that it's a Java program, therefore it's somewhat (a little, really) heavy on resources and supposedly a bit slower than it could have been. But it's the best client I've seen. (It's taking a hideous turn in their new version 3.0 though. Think Windows Media Player 6.4 versus Media Player 10! *shudders*)
Another very good BT software is µTorrent. It is fast, small (think 200KiB!) and it gets the job done. It doesn't even need installation! The only problem is that it's not free software. It's not even open-source! Anyway, I suggest µTorrent to all.
Anyway, the reason that I'm rambling on about BitTorrent is that my share ratio finally crossed the 0.5 point last night. That means the number of bytes that I've uploaded is now more than half of the bytes that I've downloaded (via Azureus only, on Mike.) The numbers are 135.10 GiB for upload and 270.00 GiB for download in 264 days, 20 hours. I know that a 0.5 share ratio is not something to be proud of, but it's at least better than everybody I know about (over here in Iran.) Considering the fact that I'm on an ADSL connection (Assymetric DSL) which has an uplink bandwidth of half of its downlink, I guess my ratio is OK.

On the Road Again

I'm going to be en route again at the turning of this year. Last year I was on the road and I've been back and forth between Mashhad and Tehran (at least 30 times) this past year. I'll have to wait and see what the coming year brings.

ICPC - Tehran Regionals 2006

(Background: I have been a participant in and/or an interested bystander of almost all programming contests in Iran over the past 5 years. The ICPC Regional is the most important such event in Iran on the course of a year. The latest one (2006) concluded this past Friday.) The problem statements seem quite manageable this year (last year's was good too, only a bit numerous at 10.) I really believe 8 to be the ideal number of problems though (this year had 9,) for three-member teams in a 5-hour contest. Aside from the number, this year's was the first time in the past 6 (7?) years that a team solved all the presented problems during the contest. And unfortunately, it wasn't an Iranian team. (Congratulations to the Singaporean team, by the way!) Anyways, since I was not involved in this year's contest in any way, I feel left out! So I've decided to try and solve as many of the 9 as I can, and I'll post the codes here. I have to do it during my really busy days, and I don't think I can do all in less than a week. In any event, I want to try my hand at them before the judge data come out. I'm trying to measure myself, so I won't read any more of the problems, until I have time to implement each one (I have read the first four, oops!) Actually, two of them are already done. I'll post the codes in individual... posts.

Resurrected, Not Quite!

I've been off the net for over a month now. I've not answered (or even read) email, I have not checked the sites and software I check regularly, and I haven't written anything in my blog. Basically, I vanished off the net. Not that anyone should have noticed. I'm not here to explain the reasons. One of them was that I was moving cities, and I wasn't quite settled down till now. The good news is, I'm not back yet! But I'm alive and will be back soon!

Chat Rooms in KOPCS

I've just uploaded the new KOPCS build 1335, and the most notable feature added is a chatroom. I have used a simple AJAX-based model (that's not a good name, because I don't use XML) which is lightweight, but could have been better. I use JSON for data transport formatting, which is way simpler to work with, especially in JavaScript. The chat room still leaves many features to be desired, but it's functional and usable. The first thing that I'm going to add (in a few weeks!) is a "who's here" list. If anybody is interested in the source code for KOPCS, I can provide it. See ya!

Change in KOPCS Judgment Model

For those people who might be interested, I'm going to write a fully automatic, no-supervision-required online programming contest judge to integrate with KOPCS. We had the first full-scale KOPCS-based contest today (rather, yesterday) and while the supervised judgment script worked well enough, I realized the inherent limitation of supervised judgment. This kind of judgement is not bad, it's just limited. The first step in AJK (working title) is going to be writing a jail or sandbox or whatever for executing user programs in. Since I know no way for writing it portable, I'm gonna focus on Linux. I'm going to write this sandbox in C++, but I may use Python for the rest, or I may just write everything in C++. After that, I'll just have to figure out a way to implement a simple but flexible queueing scheme, to allow for all the different situations that arise in a programming contest (for example, KOPCS in its current form, does not provide a way for changing only the input or output of a problem after it's set.)

IAUM CCC 3

As I have mentioned in passing before, we are holding the third "IAUM CCC" this year. Basically, it's a programming contest for individuals who live in Iran (or understand Farsi in general.) The tournament consists of one online round, and two on-site rounds. For dates and info check out the official site. The official website is at http://www.csc.ir/ccc3/, so be sure to check it out if at all interested. Also, you have to signup on KOPCS (the Kludgy Online Programming Contest System!) which is located here.

Winds of Change

OK, I admit. The title is not entirely accurate. Not only because the original thing is "Wind of Change" (singular,) but also because things are not changing, but things are happening.

I know, I haven't been writing anything interesting here for a while (have I ever?) but many things have been happening. Let me give you an overview.

My ADSL was out again. And it happened over the weekend so I just had two days without connectivity. It just came back on!

My phone was out for a month. I just checked and it was back too! Although it could have been back for a week.

My cellphone was disconnected because of a dispute between me and the telecom company. It's not resolved, but my service is renewed (because I paid the damn outrageous bill.)

We are holding another programming contest in IAUM (that's my university.) The contest is called "IAUM-CCC 3". It has three rounds. An Internet-based first round and two on-site rounds at the end of Mordad (second half of August.) Hope to see you then (I will see you then, because I already know every body who occasionally reads my babbling!)

The first part of my graphics programming tutorial is almost finished. It's awful! But I'll post it as soon as I can.

I'm thinking about writing a one-part tutorial about ripping a DVD and making a good-quality DivX file (XviD, rather) out of it. Is there any interest?

I've had several other (two actually) algorithm implementations (a GCD algorithm, and one for finding the nearest pair of points) lined up to post. Hadn't have the time to clean them up and organize my thoughts.

I have also written a cryptography library (a very simple, albeit useful one.) I brushed it up and made a manual for it. I will post more soon. The library is called "yCrypto" by the way.)

Well, that's it. For now. Over and out.

Congratulations, Ehsan!

Yesterday (Friday, Tir 16th, 1385) one of my best and oldest friends got married. The cruel fact of life was that the ceremony was in Tehran, and I couldn't be there, and between my own hectic life and his obviously busy schedule, I couldn't get in touch with him. I know he doesn't read my weblog, and I know the chances for him to someday stumble upon this is infinitesimal, but here's to him:

Howdy old pal! I wish you and your wife a merry life. Sorry I didn't come and didn't call, and generally acted as if I didn't know you!

Congratulations again, Ehsan!

I'm Back (T3 Style!)

I lost my phone connection, Internet access and cellphone coverage in various times during last week and this one, due do a combination of mice and stupid people! (Talk about bad luck!)
My Internet is back while my phone is not quite (they both use the same line. How???!!!) I hope I can get my cellphone back too.
Now the point of all this is that if you tried to reach me in the past days, and you read this blog as well, you now know that you haven't been snubbed!