Homo-ordinator

On my recent post about the victory of David over Goliath, I need to correct a detail. Instead of starting at the age of 14, Goliath turned out to be a homo-ordinator with his first computer at the age of 6 !

David vs. Goliath

A 3rd world country originated student in information science is clearly nothing compared to a long-time experienced geek growing up with his computer since the age of 14. Though people should be modest as wise old people say, I can not really blame Goliath for looking with half-eye to me, the gap is just too much to believe the contrary.

Nevertheless, just as the Bible announced the victory of David over Goliath, I can proudly announce my victory against Goliath this very evening. Not a victory without pain since my Goliath has cost me 3 days of work, of stress, of less-than-5 hours of daily sleep. Funnily, when victory comes after so much pain then the victory tastes even sweeter !

A victory harvested by one word-mistake on the code.

Error is always found where you are not expecting to find one. David was not expecting that Goliath did such a stupid mistake, he was after all the Goliath.

Hash delirium

It would be so wonderful if someone could ever find a dynamic hash function, one such that can send a unique value within a small finite range based on dynamic keys, such as an array of pointers, in a way that two different keys give different values.

Automaton

A great wonder, along with its numerous theories and painful demonstrations, for doing many things such as compressing dictionary and not to mention the joy of calculating more complicated stuffs : pattern-matching, model-checking, etc etc.

A total headache to implement in a language such as C/C++ with more to come hitting your aching head mercilessly when you receive the segmentation fault message.

A reconciliation model between me and my dearest super-geek boyfriend. As, again, people say there is a thin line between love and hate, I found a thin line between love and hate towards my super-geek's geeky abilities.

Nevertheless, I truly appreciate the virtue of pair programming with my super-geek as long as I let him have the control of the keyboard. He is content when he is the driver and I am the navigator and he even let me contribute with my ideas and advices. So be it, and let me finish this hell of work as soon as possible!

Revenge

Most of my female classmates consider me one of the luckiest girls in class for having a super-geek boyfriend. They are right, about the super-geek title he deserves, but not about being lucky.

Today, for example, I am not lucky at all for having this super-geek behind my back while I was working. He literally scolded me at any first stroke I made on my computer keyboard. He did not even bother to hear my explication on why I do this and why I do that on my work. Even a genius can not understand every single thing that exists on Earth, he after all is not a God. Least of all, he can not possibly read every mind!

After a few attempts, I gave up my intention to work on my project because I exploded in anger. Exactly like... right now.

Big head, big brain but even bigger ego, and big pride!

It is a good thing that my super-geek introduced me to the wonderful world of blog because now I can let the whole world read this. A revenge, yes!

Baby boom

At almost 28 years old -I have to emphasize it because I still have at least 2 weeks left before my birthday- it is so common to have nephews and nieces but I was nevertheless so excited at this idea when my brother who got married last year announced it proudly over the phone. I still find it hard to believe, not for having a nephew or a niece since physically there is nothing miraculous about making a baby for couples in their early-30's, but for being an aunt. I mean, me, an aunt!

A couple of weeks later, one of my best friends called to tell me that she is pregnant. She got married equally last year. We did our cry of joy etc and at the same time my brain started to work it out. A extraordinary coincidence but nothing impossible.

The chain gets bigger by the time I write this post. I heard that another friend from school, married last year of course, is 2-month pregnant. But my biggest surprise was to hear that two other couples who, despite of their radical declaration of not having children ever in their life, announced an upcoming baby at their turn.

So married people decided to have babies, and what? And nothing, just the exact timing chosen by everyone seems to confuse me and being a logical person I do not like it when I can not explain certain things. If there is one thing I learn, it is not to say never.

Girl power

Since the last post concern geek-stuff, I think it is about time that Glooby talks about something else. After all, hey, this is the place for Anything on Everything, we have to keep up the reputation right?

What subject attracts most of the very masculin world of information technology? I am not saying that IT world is an exclusive territory for this gender but we have to admit that at least 51% of its population is male. Apart of geek-stuff, I think we can agree that subjects about women attract you -I consider you part of this population since you are reading this- like honey attracts bees.

For the male majority, these creatures are particularly interesting because there are not many of them, at least not in IT. Thus, the economic law of offers and demands which works miraculously for most things in life, applies to the current situation : women in IT hold apparently a certain value or if I might say a certain sort of VIP label.

I have never realized this importance until recently. I overheard these VIP's conversations for more than ten times in a month-time telling one another how they are proud to have made this guy and that guy work for them even without having to flutter their beautifully painted eye-lashes. I did not voice my protest, of course, mind you but I do not want to be accused of being jealous even if I were.

Looking back to my personal experiences, I remember how I was really pissed out when some male geek in my surrounding were sneering at me for trying to compete with them. I swear that I could read the you-know-nothing look in their eyes. And then I met the same regard in one of my professors when I made my project presentation sometime ago. I think I should have made a before-and-after picture of him to let you all know how IT women's skills are underestimated at present time. We ended up in a long discussion about the subject during which I wanted so much to glue up a post-it on his forehead written "macho-man".

What can I say? Whether skills or skills, I am a witness of girl power. But as people say, do not judge a book by its cover, even if very often cover does not lie!

TA is back to life.. in 3D !

I was really fond of Total Annihilation. It was a great game which was far ahead of it's time back then. Even now it's quite enjoyable : not really as eye candy as recent RTS games, but I found it's gameplay really different.

I just discovered TA: Spring. It's really impressive : just look at these screenshots !

It even seems that's they'll release it really soon now.

Stay tuned !

Welcome chez Glooby

Wow, finally I do set up a blog...

Many friends, who are not in the IT business, have asked me why I do not have a blog. This was for various reasons, ranking from "no time" to "I do not know what to say anyway".

So here it is. Let's see what will happen here...