The Boredom of Ramfree17

The beauty of being human

Aug 16

ErinRubbish No Comments

I am fond of fantasy games and novels, as well as fiction works. One theme that goes on a large portion of the works that keeps on popping up is the celebration of the human aspect. The authors might be biased because we are human but it has always something to do about the way humans think, how a small action can be interpreted as good or bad depending on who is looking.

According to the bible, man was born with the weakness gene. They succumb to temptation. They get enticed by the ‘dark’ side. They are enthralled by bodily pleasures. However humans have one saving trait, that which makes them weak are also the ones that enables him to triumph and ascend to greatness.

Each man is unique, with a different set of skills and talents that is formidable especially when taken as a whole. Call it God’s will or just plain Karma, but the sum of a man’s traits balances him out. Nobody is without any problems, and each have their own demons to contend with. The person you admire might not be leading a fantastic life.

I remember watchng a show in MTV wherein they showcase the house and other properties of some famous people. The houses were gorgeous, and the things that they collect and own are something that I can only dream of having. But then I begin to think, what happens when the camera goes off? Are these people really happy? Does their gigantic house really make them happy, or is the spacious caverns of each room amplify their loneliness?

We have always heard the phrase ‘Money is not everything’ and ‘Money cant buy happiness’ but having some really goes a long way. There are no hard and fast rules about how much money is needed to make somebody happy, or a part of that happpiness. There are people who are filthy rich but are not really happy while there are those who dont have much but are genuinely content on their daily lives. For me the yardstick of happiness is when a person has already decided that he has enough and learns to enjoy what is already in his possession.

Human nature is a wild beast that whole fields of science are devoted in understanding how it work. They have already come up with patterns and other mumbo-jumbo that explains why certain people do what they do at certain occassions. That sounds amazing and all but I dont think man can really understand the reasons why man does what he does. It is one of the greatest X-Factor that is called LIFE. The unpredictability of humans make life interesting. Putting it in a petri dish that can be dissected under a microscope is something like an impossible dream being chased by many. I admire them for their zealousness but I dont want to be them. It is more fun to stay here in the sidelines and just appreciate life as it goes by one moment at a time.

ciao!

Uneventful but memorable…

Aug 12

ErinGarbage No Comments

Last night, July 11, the host office invited us inpatriates into the all-hands meeting. I thought there were going to be other inpatriates as well but the 3 of us (Francis, Arvin and me) were the only asian inpatriates present. And the whole Finland FS that attended were less than 50. The future plans in the meeting were very positive, and I hope some of those trickles down to the Manila office so we can have some more opportunities to go back here.

After the meeting, and a delicious LTC sandwich, we walked to the docks for the cruise trip. The weather was slight bad because the rain shifted from a drizzle to a light downpour. The ‘cruise ship’ was not what I expected. It’s looks casts a rather dubious note on its sea-worthiness.

After a few minutes, we were off circling around the Helsinki bay area. There was a dining room at the bottom and we were seater beside the singers. They were singing some western song that I could not easily understand. We did not take pictures in the cabin because it might seem inappropriate. We opened the door to the bow of the boat but some requested that we close it because the wind were entering the cabin. I am the one directly positioned on the door but I am not complaining! ;D

After an hour we (the pinoys) went upstairs on the deck and Tomas (our host manager) gave us a running explanation of the “scenery”. It was cold upstairs (around +14 degrees) with 2km/s winds and a slight drizzle and the skies were dark and damp. We were able to get a couple of shots from our service phones.

As I have said, the trip was uneventful but memorable. Why memorable? Because beer and dairy products never went well with my stomach. I ended up with a severe loose bowel movement that I had to use a nearby portalet on the way home otherwise I was going to dirty my pants right there and then.

This is one story that is bound to appear in drinking bouts and kulitan moments. At least I saw the inside of a Finnish portalet. It was clean enough with adequate amenities, but then again I had to drop 50 cents just to get in. And the toilet seat was very cold. Brrrrr! Good thing I have an adequate supply of the ever-trusty polymagma. hehehe.

ciao!

[edit] You can view the pictures in this album. Nothing much as I was only able to take 3 pictures. 😀

I am agnostic?

Aug 10

ErinGarbage No Comments

Whenever somebody asks me what my professed religion is, I always say that I am a NPC; a non-practicing Catholic. It is a simpler way stating that I believe most of what the Roman Catholic church teaches but not all.

But this quiz about what religion fits you produced the following result that seems to fit me:

I think I can use the word agnostic when somebody asks me and see how high their brows arch. Hehehehe. But I am sure my wife is going to skin me alive when she reads this. :twisted-grin:

ciao!

Drivel posts

Aug 10

ErinBackburner, Garbage No Comments

Posting from drivel was more efficient, and the interface was friendlier. But I really need something that is cross-platform. Maybe my own implementation woudl be in order after I finish IS238. This would be a perfect opportunity to learn Python.

Something to chuck in the back-burner.

ciao!

Burned by subtlety: DOM4J vs W3C DOM (Xerces/Xalan)

Aug 10

ErinLaboratory, Technology No Comments

I was tasked to switch a utility from using the DOM4J API to the W3C DOM API because the DOM4J implementation is transforming Scandinavian characters into garbage wihle the XMLSerializer class in Xerces does it without any sweat.

Sounds relatively easy? Not when you are inexperienced in XML programming, Java or otherwise, as well as in XSL and its likes. Another factor is that the code was deeply embedded in the DOM4J API and not all have a corresponding functionality in the target implementation.

Pass forward to 12 working days later, I have almost completed the porting process but the final output has some element starting markups (‘< ', '>‘) escaped. I searched high and low for an answer as well as played with output format options of the Transformer class but to no avail.

Then Francis helped me understand a little bit of XSL, at least he pointed me to where I should start. One man-day and a few online XSL tutorials later, I found out this link that describes my issues perfectly. It seems the interpretation of the contents of the CDATA section is parser-specific. Where was that link two days ago before I started tearing my hair apart? Grrr…

Lesson of the Day: Google might be your friend, but like any friend it can play a nasty and costly trick on you.

Onward to transforming the CDATA texts into xsl:text elements with output escaping disabled and hopefully complete this task today. I will play the good colleague role and put out a note on each stylesheet so the next person who messes with the parsers wont go through the same grief as me.

ciao!