Thursday, January 17, 2013

Mr.Raţiu or Mr.Palmer?

Yesterday i saw Mr.Raţiu's picture in the newspaper he helped create in Romania, Cotidianul. It was 13 years since his "death".

Lately i've been seing on OPB As Time Goes By. Being gone from Romania for 17 years, i forgot how Mr.Raţiu looked like but when i saw the picture i thought for a second they made a mistake and put a younger Geoffrey's Palmer picture instead with a smile full of confidence in Romania's future made-up especially for us but no, it was Mr. Ion Raţiu, ex-presidential candidate and member of Romania's parliament for a long time. Could it be just because of the bow-tie? Could it be just another switcheroo? I remember now that he wasn't speaking Romanian very correctly when he came, actually he was in England for 50 years or so and nobody who knew him in Romania was alive to recognize him. And his speech the one with the lesson of democracy and of course, the metaphor about the god of democracy. That one is still too deep for me never figured it out.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Dracula And The Ninja Master

I've been thinking for a long time now to write a fantastic novel about a possible confrontation between the two medieval social and cultural remnants, what are known to us as ninjas and Dracula.

The possible inspiration for my novel would be the urban legends with a kernel of truth that circulate nowadays especially on the internet or the hidden, or dark side of the internet.

The whole action would take place somewhere on the eastern Pacific coast.

Jinichi Kawakami is one of the legends and possible inspirer for the main character of my novel.

The other one, of course, embodied by a poor immigrant from Romania who unknowingly acts as Dracula.

The ninja master having as advisers people from that part of the world that give him a continuous stream of information in the psychology of Romanians and locals, as themselves being immigrants in the area where the action takes place.

The ninja master has the advantage of local people helping him, hoping in promoting their ideas through a real time television show publicized in one of those dark areas of the internet mentioned above.

The ninja master and his allies built a whole apartment complex in an area controlled by them in a big city on the Pacific shore. They lure the Romanian guy into one of those buildings with a cheap rent and so the action begins.

But for the purpose of the show, they attributed the ownership of the buildings to Dracula who is un-measurable reach (although he appears as a poor Romanian immigrant) and uses the buildings to lure and rent the apartments to his future victims.

The ninja master occupies himself and controls several apartments in the same building where the Romanian lives. But the viewers, or as the French would say, les voyeurs, think the opposite. (In fact, almost in all situations, everything they think about this show is the opposite of truth, which almost always gives them much sensation). The apartment beneath where the Dracula lives is officially vacated. However, he sometimes hears somebody moving some heavy stuff around. I would later describe the possible purpose of this.

Using his specific training, ninja master dresses and disguises as different persons, men and women, mimicking some average locals living in that type of dwelling.

The building although it looks built in the late 70s has been built more recently using recycled materials from old buildings and old appliances. The ninja master participated himself with the design and actual building of the place, laying all kind of tricks, psychological traps, semi-toxic, addictive, materials and generally all kind of junk and as a retired engineer himself he designed especially the parts that deal with resonance, controlling the levels of ultrasound and infra-sound generated by different appliances, walls, plumbing, roof, etc. By moving heavy stuff (moves usually integrated with the script, so the viewers can applaud them as well) he changes resonance frequencies. In fact, Dracula is always puzzled by the fact that the bedroom's door frame changes shape from one day to another so one day he can easily close and open the door and the other day it gets stuck, unexplained by the change or lack of it in the humidity shown by the weather station)

Here's an example of daily routine. One moment the master leaves the building as a woman in well chosen moments, usually when the Romanian guy is in the kitchen and prepares his meals. Then leaves his car in a well camouflaged hole dug in a hill nearby and comes back five minutes later through a tunnel and leaves again as a different woman from a different apartment with a different car while the Romanian is watching the two persons leaving while eating his dinner and drinking a glass of cheap red wine.

Everybody watches the show on the internet but probably due to some "technical problems" it is not possible to see exactly the beans in his plate, but just some brownish red stuff.

(Usually at this point, a plane would fly above and use a telescope like camera, try to film through the windows what's in Dracula's plate. Dust from the walls is falling due to resonance of the walls with the noise of the plane's phased engines and Dracula ingests some, contributing to the later "lethal" flatulence.
The ninja master waits the moment and when that happens, he appears, starts to, depending of his current disguise, to look dizzy or almost faint, hurrying to his car or apartment. There he will burn some secret ninja stuff engulfing the whole place with protecting smoke that neutralizes Dracula's flatulence and gets Dracula dizzy at least for a while or until he gets an anxiety attack and forgets the whole episode until tomorrow when the master can restart the whole cycle

There are numerous variations on this. Like in the morning after Dracula eating beans, he opens the windows and the ninja master gets out of one of his apartments again as a woman and hurries to his car, unhurt.

The ninja master has on its side an army of extras lent by the greater non-local government that secretly took them from other parts of the world, that in agreement with the local government drive hundreds of cars an hour around the Dracula's place, sort of like circling the wagon in Western movies, with the only purpose of shaking the building and generating those low frequency vibrations i was talking about. The cars, just not to raise suspicions are used cars, bought by the government which spent a few billion dollars to buy them from the people through some sort of cash for junk program, that officially was supposed to bust new cars sales and increasing economy, in fact increasing only the import of cheap cars from master's masters. Some of the cars where fitted with self driving capabilities so they can perfectly time the entrance or the exit in or out of the scene and the engines' rpm. The extras think that are fighting terrorists and so their peace of mind and motivation is assured.

(Actually some of the locals got pissed-off several times and tried to protest initiating street protests name like un-occupy your city, but with not much conviction or success. Some of those protesters are also fake or provocateurs).

The purpose of those low frequencies is clear. To keep Dracula in a state of mind that prevent him from thinking and confusing him and minimize or completely annihilate his biting powers and/or earthquake generating power this newly engineered Dracula has and force him to feed on beans, bread and wine. (Or manipulating the poor Romanian immigrant and continuously literally brainwashing him by vibrating his brain). The other main purpose would be to create fibrillation in Dracula's heart. Not enough to kill him, although later that is clearly on the options' table, but just to raise viewers' hope that he might actually get a stroke (fibrillation is a major risk for stroke). But no, they wouldn't do that without a good reason. Since there are days when he is actually starting to crave his wine because they got him addicted to it, he continuously shakes his leg under the table like an addict. Their sensors pick the vibration and interpret it as yet another attempt to start an earthquake and then they have a reason to complete the cycle and start driving like crazy to create other, better, completely mechanical, engine vibrations.

By getting a stroke, he could have brain surgery, fulfill all the prophecies, have a change of mental status and go ahead and actually officially take over the world. By taking over the world, other prophecies could be fulfilled and maybe even the apocalypse could start, if not started yet, and that could end in viewers' benefit.

Some might even ask, how is that possible, how could some benefit from an apocalypse.

It is very simple. It is written that some would be saved after the apocalypse happens and have eternal life. The Saints. No argue about that.

So if you want to have eternal life, one option is to become a saint and wait for an apocalypse. Or become a saint when an apocalypse is imminent, (this would be a more convenient version). Or become a saint and if no apocalypse is in sight get actively involved into creating one, by letting, helping, hiring or forcing others to sin for you until one is started. In fact there are more versions but i think i shed enough light on the matter for those who never thought about it this way.

One easy way to start an apocalypse would be raising Dracula. The best case scenario (or script) for this show could be, of course, the resurrection and maintaining of the cult of Dracula in the minds and souls of contemporary people who lack entertainment, or are saturated by it. That kind of people that try to forget their own problems by immersing themselves in all kind of living art. Or maybe even ruining the world's economy by people staying and watching the show instead of doing anything else (and/or presenting the buildings as piles of junk with no value) and replacing it everywhere with communism.

For the purpose of the show there are semi-clandestine cameras installed all around but due to the declared "clandestinity" of the show, the local politicians and law enforcement agencies turning a blind eye but not being able to actually officially allow it to happen, "glitches" prevent from viewing parts of the living show, especially the ones that could prove boring and in the same time endangering the authenticity.

Did i mention thought reading devices and trough walls vision systems that the ninja master uses to supervise Dracula?

But then there are the real cameras that film everything and feed their stream into the supercomputers located in a different area of the planet which actually control and rewrite the show as it happens and all the characters have attached tiny earphones that tell them what to do or say. Sophisticated voice synthesizers and voice generators are used for those who don't speak well enough the local language.

Due to the fact that the Romanian guy has been on a similar show on a different location and not being able to understand what's going on for such a long time, he becomes neurotic, and had several nervous breakdowns that put him in the psychiatric wards several times in the past. That helps as well because the mood he is showing must be real.

On occasions, guest stars from Hollywood or other celebs are added to the show, either paid, bribed or blackmailed. Some of them are doing for promoting their religious believes and integrated into the show.

The whole show is integrated with the current political events end especially the economical crisis triggered by the real estate devaluation which they attribute to Dracula. The politicians from Romania as well are being bribed or blackmailed to turn a blind eye. They don't realize or don't care that by doing so they ruin the long term future of their country. Actually some of them participate in the show as drivers from the distance promoting in state jobs on higher levels in Romania only people with names ad Dragoş, Neculae, Nikol, Antonia, Beşescu with all the versions, Lividu, Live-u, Leave-u, etc. But there is also a possibility, in my projected novel of course, that Romania exists only as a fake country and that only for the purpose of the show. After 50 some years of the worst dictatorship the world ever saw, attributed, of course, to Dracula too, it has been taken over by a tribe of monguls, allies of master's masters that occupy all the government positions all carrying the names described above and officially in Dracula's service. Those about 10%  who could not be brainwashed were forced to emigrate. The monguls can shape shift into international divas with infinite legs and attractions that pretend that are remotely controlled by Dracula as well. From time to time, visits of divas from Romania and everywhere are arranged, but the poor Romanian immigrant don't see any, they are directed to the adjacent apartments, controlled by the ninja. Need to tell what happens to them? They probably go to the higher ranks extras that double Dracula from time to time.

Actors and politicians and generally celebs are shuttled into the show from Hollywood or Europe using high speed, semi-classified, supersonic planes. That way they can pretend they never been there since it was not possible due to timing and distance.

Of course, the main attraction of the show is the question, "in the end, who's gone win, the ninja master or Dracula?"

I am writing this because i need help to get more information and documentation into this kind of possibilities to make my novel more credible and attractive.

And here's an idea about the theme song for the show:



Friday, January 4, 2013

Goodbye Windows

Yesterday i tried and chose the option to boot Windows. Because i had a dual Windows and Fedora computer and hadn't done it in a long time. Windows on a set of partitions and Fedora on a different set. After, i spent two hours downloading and installing Windows updates. I mean watch the computer while downloading and installing 138 updates. About 4 times more time than Fedora 17. Then that i tried and launched whatever version of Explorer is the last one for Windows 7 and tried to see my blog in Explorer. But i ran into the problem of having to re-zoom each site cause by default i think Explorer does not remember the last zoom you used for a site.

Then i had sort of a revelation, fueled by and developed in the waiting time. Since most of the employers nowadays let programmers chose whether to use Windows or Linux and some force you to use Linux, i realized. Linux is more productive in an office environment. You get more things done. Is that simple. I couldn't possibly write 277 posts in one year on my blog while pampering Windows and falling in a trance every time seeing the animation at boot time.

 Then, i used a partitioning program, cleaned those partitions and installed Fedora as the second boot. Yes, Fedora 17, for the second time. I spoke before of the advantages. By doing so instead of plainly re-installing you can have a clean install and a very smooth transitioning. You can always choose the old one at boot time. You can share data while transitioning. You can pick only what you need from the mess left behind.

But this time for me it was just for experimenting. What i was anxious about is i could not imagine how you can have on a hard drive two / partitions, two /boot, two /home, etc. and not confuse the two OS.

Here's how it's done. At installation, (i used the live CD), the installer sees only the Linux partitions you just formatted on the free chosen space. The others belonging to the older installation are at that moment just some unmounted partitions on a hard drive. It will also find the other Fedora loader on the other boot partition and add it to the grub boot menu, with a slightly different name (and maybe a warning, i can't remember). After booting one of the two, each will see only its own partitions and the other's will be just unmounted devs with the option to mount them and transfer whatever data you need.

Actually, nothing to do but install the second instance of Fedora.

Actually, i never tried and chose the other, older Fedora from the boot menu. I just did now, after i wrote the first paragraphs, to make sure it works. What happens is because of some minor problem, instead of Fedora animated logo at boot time, i get to see the some messages scrolling while the boot happens. Boot time is the same, it's working the same. With file manager i'm seeing the newer partitions, with their corresponding sizes but not named, as unmounted. But i'm not going to try to fix that one, i don't need it anymore.

1/6/13 5:32 PM PDT. Just fixed the "minor" problem. Manually added the newest kernel entry from the older grub.cfg into the newer grub.cfg. Now i can boot them both with no problem. Two identical OSs on a same computer!

1/6/13 11:12 PM PDT. Thought maybe i should write what i think is exciting about this. Although i accidentally discovered the possibility while trying to learn partitioning with an XP installation disk long time ago, when i installed XP twice (LOL) by mistake and got a menu at boot time asking me which one to boot, i never thought of the advantages until a few month ago.

Any OS, including Fedora, although not nearly as much as Windows, degrades irreversibly in time. Although there are numerous softwares out there that claim that can restore your system as it was when you first installed it (bought it for the most people), the problem is too vast and complex to be solved like this.

Every time you install and un-install software, or work with sizable amounts of data, the hard disk gets fragmented, the registry file gets corrupted and remnants of the older softwares haunt your hard drive. When nowadays on an average computer you have hundreds of thousands of of files, it is very hard for any cleaning software to automatically undo the mess.

And then there's the updates. Every time you update a package, the newer files pile up in top of the others, often leaving your computer with several versions of the same packages, of course, the older ones being useless, but hard to remove due to the precision and the know how required to only delete the useless not the usable or the current version.

And then there's the internet temporary files. Every time you open a site, scores of files are being saved on your hard drive and depending on your browser's settings they are being rolled out like in a first in last out basis. If you don't use administrative measures like i am keeping all of them on a separate partition, they will populate every empty space of your hard drive contributing to the fragmentation.

And on a Windows computer with no separate partitions no matter how big the hard drive is, the mess is unimaginable.

And i am not pretending here to finish the list of problems that add to the cluttering of an OS in time.

That's why among administrators the concept of a clean install has been born. What that means? It means you save whatever data you need, wipe clean the hard drive and install it anew, then the programs and then try to restore everything you added up into a workable status by putting the data back little by little. But this is a very time consuming process, and although you will have a faster computer, you will never have it the same way as it was before you cleaned it.

(Actually that's what i believe cloud computing would be so successful, because it keeps your data away from your own messy computer.)

So why all this talk in this post? Because what i've stumbled upon could bring a totally new prospective into maintaining a computer.

Supposedly you or the manufacturer reserved some space for this purpose when first installing the OS. Supposedly you have all your data separated from the programs in a different partition or partitions (not absolutely necessary).

All you have to do is install for the second time your OS into the reserved space with the programs and try and pick the data from the other partition without deleting nothing on as needed basis while still keeping the option of booting the computer with the old system that might be slow but you are so familiar with. The transition will be much smoother and you can delete the old partition(s) when you feel you don't need them anymore or when you think you need that space for anything else including repeating the above cycle.

And above all, no emotions from the possibility of loosing data while totally and truly renewing your computer.

As an example, what i just did, i installed Fedora 17 and the updates and all the programs for the second times on some free space on the hard drive, creating some sort of a mirroring of the old system, then copied the username directory from the old installation /home into the new /home partition, and voila, all the familiar icons popped on the desktop, and i was ready to go in about 2 hours in total, and this while keeping the option of booting the old system. Everything was done mostly automatically by the Fedora installer (except choosing the free space and partition types and sizes, from the live CD, with only a one time manually editing of the grub.cfg file, as mentioned above.

Dead And Alive

A real actor is definitely not one of those described in Laura Stoica's song, Un actor grăbit. One who like the songs says, tells his line in a hurry, takes or not a bow then leaves for another scene.

A real actor lives you, like Marin Sorescu says. He'll put you in a trance, brother, and leave you with an ache, a little something to add on your baggage of engrams, like in Scientology or repressions, like in psychoanalysis or subconscious sins. Admiration, hate, voyeurism, envy.

A real idol will understand you, will annihilate your will and replace it with a desire to be alike. Like a sort of god. Is it a pure coincidence that in Sanskrit the meaning for the word भरथ, bharata, can be either priest, king, barbarian or actor?

He will leave us with the undetermination of being or not a little like him. Because he's always changing make-ups and clothes and attitudes.

What younger people can't understand is you can never match an illusion. And you will never know what's behind it or motivate it.