Night shifts and a forthcoming change

My 2nd night at work and I feel like having my 5th, at least. Generally, the 1st night shift is the most difficult. When it hits 2am my head keeps rolling down. After 2 or 3 shifts you can overcome sleepiness. One may think that your work would keep you busy and awake but nothing could be further from the truth. After 2 years on the job all the work seems so monotonous that barely nothing can surprise you. That's the life of the support provider. 24/7.

I hope that the times will get better soon when I change the job position, though the description of the jobs differ slightly. However, more responsibility, greater privileges and higher technical skill demands are going to keep me busy for the following few months. I'm not particularly fond of changes, however life forces an individual to reevaluate priorities and they must do something to change the stereotype. Otherwise you risk a death of boredom and I'm not taking that chance ... well, at least for now.

Connection troubles

I'm really fed up. My Internet connection has been dropping all day. The longest time it stayed alive was about 5 minutes and then it fell again. I gave a call to my provider but they were unable to resolve any problem at their site though they had already had few similar issues reported. I was playing around a bit to find out where the problem could be. I changed the Ethernet cable between my laptop and router, tried another uplink cable, did reset my wireless receiver. Still, it's been no use. The pings are bad and even if they are good browsing is still a nightmare when you have to keep refreshing the page in hope that it loads at last. Should I have a device for measuring cables connectivity it would certainly ease my effort to find out what's wrong. I suspect that the radio-router cable may be cut somewhere. I think I'll leave till tomorrow as it's fair late ... again.

Late night lounge

I've just made another cup of tea. The late night is switching into early morning and I'm hanging around the web. My roommates are gone to town to get the "refreshment" of their likes. No matter, I'm fully satisfied with this state of things. I'm here on my own where's the silence is being interrupted only by the soft noise of the cooler in my laptop. I returned back to Mafia game and spend 2 or 3 hours playing this already old, however still catchy game. Before that I had done a little coding as a preparation for my lesson on handling forms in PHP. It pleased me reasonably as I hadn't done any coding for quite a while. My eyelids are getting heavier. I should disconnect my shared dial-up connection and stretch in the bed. But I know this sleepy state very well. I've never obeyed and gone to bed at once. I always must stay up a little longer. Sometimes it even makes a few hours. Tonight it is not the case. I'm getting up at 9 in the morning so I need to go and get some sleep. It was a fine day, I've had a few lately. I hope it takes a grip and will last a few more days.

The future has come (Utopia)

Imagine a world where scientific and technological advancements allow you to do things you have never dreamed of. Are you fed up with constant waiting for overcrowded vehicles of public transportation which tend to be late during rush hours? Enter to the world where such situations no longer exist. New technology takes us far from this ancient means of transportation, where even flying cars are obsolete. Our scientists have invented a teleporting platform that is capable of transporting people from one platform to another one. These platforms will be placed throughout your towns at every major place and thus allowing you never to be late for work or school any more. Deep studies of particle systems in physics and information technology along with broadening trasfer rates of our wireless networks have been fundamental in research of more versatile means of transportation. The devices have been tested since the very first prototypes were assembled and we are glad to inform you that the tests are turning successful after overcoming early design flaws.

Do you also hate situations when you forget your wallet with your money, ID and health insurance cards and other documents which you cannot otherwise get by without? Our department of nanotechnological research have invented a new way how to make electronic components such as transistors even smaller than never before. These components can be used for building nano implants which could serve as a central storage for all your cards. Software engineers have designed a state-of-the-art software with powerful database system that brings these implants to life. Within these implants all data about your person, your ID, health insurance as well as credit card, will be stored. The places like shopping and medical centers, banks, teleportation platforms and information booths will be equipped with readers with specialized software for each branch. You will no more blame yourself for leaving your wallet at home, as it will always be with you, in your hand. Our security engineers have invented a new cryptoalgorithm to secure your personal data from possible security break. Breaking our brand new cipher would take millenia so the chance of possible brute force attack is put to ground zero.

We hope we will all enjoy our common future with new technological advancements, which are brought to you to make your lives easier.


Jozef Kacer, the President of
Cyberdesign Systems Corporation

We make the progress possible...

So it goes

It is an early morning hour and I am still up. Not that I would want to stay awake over the whole night but I cannot simply sleep. I am going to spend few more moments here. I was reading a book a little to shorten the time of my sleeplessness. The book's title is The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, perhaps the most famous writer of the Lost Generation.

I have plenty of time to prepare for retaking my exam of American literature, which I have failed recently. The results of the test have not been available yet, they should be due to the end of the month. Still, I have a bad feeling, that I have failed it. I was having a conversation with my classmate over the ICQ and I did lots of swearing to filter my nerves. I know this feeling of having failed quite well, one just feels it when it goes wrong. It is then multiplied by the time, mainly over nights, you have devoted to the studies. Although I was scared and afraid of the exam I went there with a moderate smile on my face. I try to take everything with a bit of humour and optimism.

One of the few of books I had been supposed to read as a compulsory reading, and which I had actually read, Slaghterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut, contains two great sentences, which are touching me at my heart, reading: "It's not that bad", and "So it goes". Although both are ironic, or rather sarcastic, related to the cruelty of war they can be applied to one's life, and mine as well. Hm, and I was thinking that reading a book would be useless... Now I am glad to have read it.

These two sentences help me to stand all the bad things happening to me. They are an injection to boost my optimism even further. The burden of the responsibilities in my life seems lighter now. This experience has convinced me that there are classic books worth reading, that not all of them have to be necessarily boring, twisted, and useless. However, there is a question how to find those ones, which might be interesting and bear some truth for me. I think that such books may reveal very much of myself. So I am setting for a quest to find another one that would appeal to me.

Lazyness...again!

The flow of time is unstoppable. Once again we all experienced another year passing by waving us good bye. This is the point where we should think about that year. For some people it may be a start of new life giving resolutions and for some it's nothing more than an ordinary day...

During that year I found out that I'm damn lazy. I have problems to get to my duties and when I finally do, I don't complete them and do whatever possible to postpone them. I should work harder on this...

Well, I'm realizing this is going to be a tough one. I was not even able to finish this short article, I let it be and then went back to it again. I've got a serious trouble. At least I've "sort of" prepared for my exam that I'm taking tomorrow. I'd better spend less time staring at screen and start to do something more useful.

Argh, this damn lazyness makes me really sick now.

Ubuntu translation

Recently, I've joined the Ubuntu translation team with an intention of translating this popular Linux distro into my mother tongue. Though I'm not a great fan of this distro I've taken up the chance to help out a bit. I don't know if there will be any use of my effort. The thought of having our own translation of the popular distro is quite attractive and it may also have a possitive impact on people around who might be distracted from using Linux due to their language gap.

I once contributed on the translation of PHP documentation, however it didn't meet much success for having a very few people on team, lacking spare time and discouraging words of its uselessness. Indeed, people with a fair knowledge of English wanting to get into this language really don't need doubtfull translations. A great factor in this is largely technical language so that previous experience with programming is nothing but inevitable. Though I am done with it I profited in improving language, my acquainting with technical texts and getting insight of how CVS works.

Here I am with another translation credit. It is a good chance to improve on my knowledge of English as well as, considering it more challenging and attractive, to allow people not acquainted with Linux to try it out and see its advantages in comparison with other OS's.

What I like about this translation is the way how the translation is actually being done. It uses Rosetta, a Web-based system for translating open source software into any language. It can be found here. It's really nicely done interface that is fairly easy to use. Another thing I like is the way how Rosetta keeps the status of translation process. In my opinion, the creators of this system really did a great job.

There currently are several translators on our team. Although not all of them have been contributing lately, this project has better outlook than the one formerly mentioned, both being equally extensive.