Looking into something I always wanted to know because it's sort of parallel with how our company works. I always wanted to know how those dudes in kde managed to code and seem to work as a single unit and produce work at such a feverish pace although distance seperates them.
The other thing I wanted to know is how they seem to be able to continously contribute code as in focus in the project without letting small stuff for example their life and jobs get in the way. Well, so far the second question has been answered. Most of the developers are hired by companies such as Mandrake, Suse and others to fully focus on the development of kde !
Yayy !!! New update on gentoo .... it finally works !! I got the stage-3 1.4 gentoo package and now everything *seems* to work fine !! I am running 3.1-beta and everything is so far smoooottheeeee !
Alrite !!
Well to answer a few of the questions that bound to pop up ...
1. Performance - As I have yet to code a script to measure how much time kde starts up ... I have to rely on feel ... Kde feels much faster and more responsive. Sorry for the highly scientific evaluation.
2. Does everything work ??? Sorry to say no. Not everything. Hey ! It's beta code for god's sake. The new multimedia player ( media player for you redmond os users ) doesn't work and still crashes.
I noticed that I have been blogging a lot about running. Hmmm maybe some of those who are unlucky enough to stumble by this blog can actually pick up a pointer or two from here.... so, let me share with these unfortunate souls some tips about running.
SHOES if you liken shoes to your os .... it's like your filesystem ... one of the primary and most important aspect. So for heaven's sake get a good pair. For a good pair be ready to fork out around rm 100 - rm 200. Sometimes you get lucky and get a good pair cheap, but normally these 'sometimes' also you can see pigs smoking grass on trees ! Okay before you even get to buying your shoes, the first thing you got to analyse is wether your feet are overpronating or underpronating. Over@#%$% what ???
Okay it's like this ... when we stand our weight is not evenly distributed on our feet. It's either more on the insole or more on the outsole. ( This is not to say that there isn't anybody who have weight evenly distributed but generally less ).
How can you tell wether you are over or under ? Well, the best tell tale sign is to take one of your worn out shoes and look at the soles. Are they worn more on outside ( near your small toe ) or more on the insides ( insole the area near your angkle ) ? Outside -> Underpronate. Inside -> Overpronate. Check this and I will enlight you on what shoes you need the next post. Cya.
While runs can be really nice and stress releasing ...but then not all runs are peachy ... Here are the top 3 reasons why sometimes I wish while I am running that I am home either watching a really good pron video or just catch some Z's
1. The big cup of coke I just had half an hour before the run is swishing around in my stomach and causing me me to burp every 5 steps with the food slow on an upward spiral up my throat ... yecchss
2. I am running nicely wind in my hair doing great all warmed up sweat nicely pouring out thinking i never have to stop for anything when I notice this incesstant slapping on my on my shoes ... and I noticed that one of the laces are untied !!!
3. During the 3 rd round of a really exhausting interval run I regroup my spirit and try to make this my best run yet when suddenly I notice I forgot to switch chrono on !!!!!! Greaaaaatttttt !!!!!!!!!
Ummm ... this tickling inside of me warrants that I write this next section as it tells me that I should contribute something back to my favourite Linux distro .... and since this is my personal online scratch pad, I am just gonna use this as the place I put all the gentoo tricks I know so that it can be of use to people ( me included when i somehow loose these tricks !! ). I will start with installing quanta on gentoo.
If you try the normal emerge it won't really work ( unless the bug is fixed ) as there is a bug related to installing it. So, what you can try is to do a 'export MAKEOPTS="-j1" ' prior to emerging quanta. This is due to some problem with threads. Hope this helps some of you.
Someone once said Cross country running is every true runner's first love in running. Now I don't really think that this is entirely true because I don't think that there are so called 'true' runners as much as I think there aren't any 'false' runners out there. As long as a person runs even if it's for 5 minutes everday, they are runners .. but I think that there is an ounce of truth in the statement. This article is to estoll all the joys I find in cross country running.
To me cross country running simply means running done in any other envoriment but your safe ashpalt or in town ( Although now there is a form of running called somethin' saki that is something like town cross country where runners run through the heart of a town and treat the obstacle like obstacles in a cross country run ).
I really love cross country running. Somehow, the mixture of running with avoiding tree roots, running around bolders, jumping off fences just gives it an intensity that nothing else can match. It's really thearaputic as it forces your mind to concentrate fully on the run ( if you don't you just might find yourself coming up close and personal with mother nature in a very painful way ). So for those few intense minute of the run your mind is off the problems of the day. That's the idea of running, no ? To blow off some steam and forget about your problems / stress for some time even if it's just a few minutes ? This cannot be said the same for normal running as sometimes when the road is too monotonous, your mind has this habit of returning to the root of all your stress for the day.
Anyways, my favourite running trek is this rough country road along the beach. There are three distinct beaches, so people here calls it first, second and third bay. So my usual run starts on the first bay up a jungle like area, to third bay, turn around and ends back in first bay. I have so much fun on this route that I normally don't notice that by the end of the run even my socks are swimming in sweat. Cool stuff !! Never happens to me anywhere else.
This is not to say that you cannot achieve at least a semi effect of this. My second favourite run is a run that cuts a route through the heart of town. Somehow, running around people and avoiding concrete obstacles has a bit of the effect of cross country running ...
So for all those who find normal running boring .... why don't just run on the road less travelled for your next running outing ??
Today while I was pounding the pavement near my house, I reflected upon
how long this running streak has been going on and the incidents that
happens surrounding this running streak. It often surprises me how such
an unorganised person such as me has managed to keep up this streak for
ummm ... i think 4 - 3 years now. Wow ! Say if everyday I ran for 1 km
minimum i would have ran thousand odd kms in one year !! Step aside
forrest !!
On the quest of maintaining this streak has brought me to :
1. Strange running places - namely a makeshift running pad in my one of
my buddies place with furniture moved to make way for da runners,
kampung areas where cows stare at me increduously as I pass and start to
push aside fears that this cow will gorge me once my back was against it
....
2. Strange running times - I have ran the in every time slot that was
available in 24 hours starting from the wee hours of the morning
starting from 5.30 am to 12.00 am !! This means that I have ran with sun
sets, sun rises, outcast days, days when the sun threatened to fry my
feet .... Nowadays tho' I just run mostly in the evenings unless my
schedule decrees that I have to push my runs to the mornings ...
3. Strange running conditions - I have ran in every running condition (
physical condition ) imaginable. I have ran when I had the flu and the
wheezing in my throat threatened to stop my breathing, I ran when my
body was in total shutdown after a rough day of studying and the only
thing that kept me going was the thought that after this run i was going
to hit the stack hard !! I have ran in torrential rainpour ( strangely
these were and still are my best runs ). Ran barefoot when I didn't have a pair of runners available ...... and the road had stones which could
cut through the tires of cars !!
Well ... and what exactly do I have to show for all these years of
dedication to the sport ? Well this might sound cliche but these are
some of the things that I noticed :
1. Better stamina ... better than some so called 'youngerns' i know
2. Better sense of wellbeing .. nothing like a good session of hitting
the pavement after a rough day at work
3. Better health ... can't remember the last time i actually went to the
doc complaining of anything ... last time i use to frequent the clinics
around kuantan ( for a time cyber mmu ) complaining of flu.
4. Extra efficient sweat glands .. this can be a good thing as well as
bad as .. i sweat in any condition even when the temperature is just a
tad hot and I look like i just fell into a swimming pool.
So, if those for those of you that got inspired ... reading this and
wanna try going for one of these sessions or starting your own streak ..
whadda ya waiting for ... just do it !!
