Extracting the Juice Outta Life

Seeing What Files Are Getting Downloaded from Your GitHub Releases

2025-11-05T15:40:00.001+00:00

Ever wondered which of your binaries, installers or assets on your GitHub releases are actually being downloaded? That neat total-downloads badge does its job, but it hides the part many of us really care about: which file, how many times, on each release. Good news: you can pull that info using the GitHub API. Let’s dive in.

The Problem

When you use the standard UI of a GitHub repo, you can see the Releases tab, browse tags, assets, etc. But you won’t reliably see download counts for each attached asset. That means less insight into which asset people pick, and less feedback on what builds or platforms are most used.

The Solution: Using the GitHub CLI + API

Here’s how you can pull download-counts for release assets:

gh api repos/:owner/:repo/releases \
  --jq '.[] | {tag_name, assets: [.assets[] | {name, download_count}]}'

Or just for the latest release:

gh api repos/:owner/:repo/releases/latest \
  --jq '.assets[] | {name, download_count}'

You’ll get output like:

{
  "name": "mytool-linux-x86_64.tar.gz",
  "download_count": 128
}
{
  "name": "mytool-windows-amd64.zip",
  "download_count": 76
}

From there you could feed it into your favourite tool (heck, your Free Pascal CLI) to format a table, generate graphs, etc.

Bonus: Visual Tracking Tools

If you’d rather avoid raw JSON and scripting, there are already web-apps that wrap this API data for you and produce charts/tables. For example:

GitHub Release Stats – a web tool to visualise download counts per release.

Wrapping Up

While the GitHub UI won’t show you everything you might want, the API gives you pretty much all you need to understand what’s being downloaded and how often. Hook up the CLI, parse the JSON, add your own formatting and voilà — insight unlocked. And of course, since you’re all-in on open-source sharing, you could publish your tool or script later so others can benefit too.

If you found this useful, drop it into your blog, share it, tweak it — make it yours. And if you build your Free Pascal version, I’ll definitely want to hear how it went. 😄

On the recent Noso outage

2024-09-01T10:26:00.007+01:00

To me this outage comes with no surprise. To be fair, I'm actually astounded that it hasn't happened before.

You see, the code that drives the entire chain is done in Pascal. Not even in Object Pascal, which is the most recent and Object Oriented Programming version of the Pascal dialect.
It's written in a dialect version of Pascal that has been out of fashion since the early 1990s.
While this is not a bad thing in itself, as can be proven for the more than 4 years of operation of this coin, it's not a good thing due to lack of easy ways to scale it or even maintain it.
And, mainly due to that, no one as ever wanted to actually dive into the code and find any relevant security issues.

Welp... Looks like someone finally said: Hold my beer!!!

I'm not quite sure what that person found that is so easy to attack and provides such a devastating effect, but from my own foray into the code, it's not that hard to find.
All the code was done with standards from the early 70s, which is when the Pascal language started with only the command line as it's target.
Alas, the current wallet is made for a GUI target. And the necessary glue to make it work with the command line in sight, but being a GUI app, was not the best of the glues!!

Now, we all know that we have a very dismissive person at the centre of this all. And we all know that this person's ego will never allow to take the blame for this outage.
Someone else has to be the culprit, just because he can do no wrong.
That person has been saying that another dev has one, or multiple, backdoors in the NosoSova application. This is him trying really hard to set some rumours in order to shift the blame.
But, as we all know, this type of person has glass roofs and is throwing rocks into the air...

Let me tell you about my foray into the code, specifically in the context of backdoors...

One thing that the author decided to add to the wallet is what he calls directives. These are commands that can be activated remotely, by someone that has a master key.
If you look at these lines of code: https://github.com/Noso-Project/NosoNode/blob/4648df5d689c23b5c23c1ba30bd7fd9dd391d15e/masterpaskalform.pas#L585-L587
Those lines of code are constants with accounts that are allowed to perform admin tasks. This in itself doesn't mean that much.
But it is the seed of doubt that most of us kinda don't like:

Why does a wallet have an admin account in it's code?
And what is considered an admin task?
Can this be used to allow remote commands to be run on my node?
How much code is this, and what does it do?

All valid questions when we think that one of the principles of cryptocurrency is decentralisation, right? So, in that context, why do we have a mention to some account as being admin anything?

Well, let me tell you, at least 2 ways, where it's been used, with me actually witnessing it:

Forcing the entire network to issue the upgrade command right after a new release
Forcing the entire network to issue a restart command after an upgrade has been done

I'm not sure both these commands are still in place, but if we analyse the PTC_AdminMSG procedure, located here: https://github.com/Noso-Project/NosoNode/blob/4648df5d689c23b5c23c1ba30bd7fd9dd391d15e/mpprotocol.pas#L952
In that procedure, we see that there are quite a few commands being parsed in the context of them being Admin.
From line 996 of that procedure, we see that we have a list of admin related directives:

UPDATE
RESTART
SETMODE
ADDNODE
DELNODE
ADDNTP
DELNTP
ADDBLOCKED
DELBLOCKED
ADDNOSOPAY
DELNOSOPAY
CLEARCFG
RESTORECFG

For a piece of software that should be as decentralised as possible, having this amount of directives that can only be executed by someone owning the private key of that account present in the AdminHash constant, is rather fishy, amirite?

I've not given you a comprehensive look at more code that exists to serve the author's need for power and control, because most of us just glaze our eyes when code is presented.

Now, all this was a long winded road to get to the matter of things with these rumours of a backdoor on NosoSova.
I can't fully guarantee that there is none, since I've not looked at the code. But one thing sets NosoSova apart from the GUI wallet:

NosoSova only works with outside access to a node, or a set of nodes.
NosoSova does not interact directly with the blockchain, only the wallet does.
Even if NosoSova had a backdoor, it would never be able to mess the blockchain if the main wallet disallows it.

And due to all the above statements, the rumour that NosoSova has a backdoor is kinda moot, cuz the only piece of software that touches the delicate parts is the GUI wallet, not NosoSova!!!

To conclude this, already, long rant, I just want to say that this is something that was bound to happen sooner or later.
It hasn't been done sooner because the coin never quite enjoyed that much attention and the usual bad actors weren't that much interested.
Nonetheless, someone did take the time to sift through a very bad piece of code, with roots in ideas/implementation from the late 70s and look at what could brake.
Then, took the time to tailor some code to actually prove that nothing is safe, especially a piece of code that it's author has a complete nonchalant attitude towards security.

And here we are. The very delicate house made of playing cards comes tumbling down with ease.

Update from the author of the attack (1 Sep 2024)

The author of the attack has made his reasons clear: https://telegra.ph/Lessons-for-Pedro-that-he-likes-to-skip-09-01-2

Official announcement of the 1 Billion Row Challenge in Object Pascal

2024-03-10T05:40:00.002+00:00

This is to announce the official launching of the 1 Billion Row Challenge.

The challenge is starting on the 10th of March and will run through to the 10th of May.

At first I was thinking about making it open ended. But then I realised that some of us still like to work under some pressure. Hence the 2 month period.

I extend to you all the most sincere wishes of having fun in coming up with a solution that will top the charts.

Recentes problemas com os servidores da Embarcadero

2024-02-10T15:07:00.002+00:00

Faz algum tempo que os servidores da Embarcadero, nomeadamente o DocWiki, o Portal de Qualidade e o GetIt para as versões 11 e abaixo. Este ultímo inclui o "Delphi Community Edition".

Entretanto os servidores para a versão 12, DocWiki e Portal de Qualidade já voltaram à vida, deixando somente o GetIt por resolver.

Blogs de interesse com mais actualizações:

Link para monitorização dos servidores da Embarcadero:

Delphi Related Server Uptime

Atualização

20 Fevereiro 2024

O servidor GetIt para as versões 11 e abaixo voltou à vida.

Quer dizer que as pessoas que querem instalar a versão Community Edition já o podem fazer.

Personal Opinion about Getting GIT video series by JMac (Updated)

2017-02-20T19:20:00.002+00:00

Introduction

I've never been a good Versioning System user. That's a fact!

I barely used it when it was SVN and now with GIT and the whole distributed part of it... Well I'm kinda lost.

Enter Getting Git: "A comprehensive video series from git init to Git Master".

When this endeavour, by Jason "JMac" McCreary @gonedark, hit my attention, I immediately followed that link and had a look at it:

JMac was going to release a series of videos about how to get along with the whole GIT thing. He already had the first 2 sections of it released and was in the middle of doing the following one. He was asking $29 USD for it.

My immediate reaction was: YES and yes...

The first yes was for the fact that someone was taking the initiative to do one of these. The second yes was in total agreement with such a low price.

Impressions

First of all I have to apologise to JMac. He sent me a mail asking for some feedback and I didn't reply right away. Being a person that suffers from clinical depression, you know for a fact that you have to be at your fullest when you want to learn something. So this is some sorts of an apology and the mentioned reply.

When I finally was in a state I could fully absorb and retain the content of the video series, I devoured them with much eagerness.

JMac's voice is soothing and there are no hummms and ahhss! He delivers a continuous narrative that is pleasant, as much as it's informative.

My first gripe was due to the fact that the videos were a bit too small and there were so many. But then I realised that this, is not only something that you want to watch once, but, is a resource that you want to come back as many times as needed to fully master GIT.

I watched them in the sequence JMac put them.

Since he has, both, an init and a master version for each command, you can choose to first watch all the init ones and then the master ones. Or like me, watch everything in the init, immediately followed by the master. Or, like JMac puts it: Choose your own adventure.

Mobile devices

While watching the video series, there was a question floating in my mind: Why can't I download the videos so I can watch them offline or on my Nexus 5 tablet?

I, then, went on my tablet and had a go at the site. I was pleasantly surprised that the website did perform quite well and had a very good appearance and good user experience on my Nexus 5 tablet.

My only gripe is with the video viewer from vimeo. My big fat fingers were a bit of a nuisance to get the video to go full screen. But no blame on JMac, here.

I still want to know if JMac is going to release the videos in a downloadable format. Guess I'll have to email him with this question...

Command line prompt envy

While you're watching the videos you can't refrain to get a bit envious of JMac's command line prompt, that displays the current info about the repository you're in.

In light of that, I went and Googled for something I could use on my Ubuntu x64 16.10.

I've found many, but I'm going to list two:

This one is quite simple and light weight: https://github.com/jimeh/git-aware-prompt.
This one is a bit more elaborate and has many prompt bling: https://github.com/magicmonty/bash-git-prompt.

Both play well with my Ubuntu installation and the second one even has themes specifically tailored for Ubuntu.

Conclusion

I would, and most definitely will, recommend this video series to any newcomer to the GIT and GitHub ecosystem!

At the moment of this being posted (Mon, 20 Feb 2017), JMac still has a 4^th section entitled Everyday Git to be posted. He mentions it quite a lot in the series. From my gathering, this will contain tips and tricks, command line prompt pimping and other goodies.

I will revisit this topic in the immediate future and report more on the subject.

So expect some updates to this post.

Update: 2017/02/20 20:50

JMac as confirmed that the next video on the Everyday Git will be dedicated to improving your Git prompt.

Of numerology, patterns, sequences and life.

2013-06-02T17:21:00.000+01:00

Numerology had it right, life's all about numbers. What it got wrong is that one to two digit numbers have no meaning. It's all about big data. And you have to crack the patterns or numbers.

Human brains can grasp/memorize up to 7 numbers. More with some practice, but that's it, it's memory, not associations. For associations, patterns and "big picture" you need more brain power. Easy for autism, real hard for Joe Shmoe, you and me.

People see numerology and patterns as something that will predict a fixed end. Fate, some would call it. The power is not in the fixed numbers, the power is in the equation you can extrapolate from those patterns. An equation has variables, and when you input those variables you get an output dependent on those variables. This means that change is in the system already. You can influence these variables and get different outcomes. Nothing is written in the stars, nothing is written in stone. That's just wishful thinking. If you want, the equations are the written words, etc... But the outcomes are for us to influence, knowingly or unknowingly.

The pursuit of one single something: formula, number, you name it; has been more than proved to be a futile attempt at grasping the whole, with our puny little mind. There is no sequence, equation or whatever you want to call it, that can single handedly govern all things, and, influence, or predetermine intelligent life or it's behaviour.

Be it in whatever level we humans consider intelligent. We, humans, are very intelligent, but that is only one mark on the scale of the entirety of intelligence. There is intelligence below us and above us. And I would even doubt that the scale is bi-dimensional, because sideways is not out of the question. And are we not so blinded by the fact that we perceive our intelligence is above all other living things in this Earth, that we forget to readjust the scale or even try and find other ways of measurement.

On measurement: Do we even agree on how to measure intelligence? I.Q. tests have been the norm, but they are flaky if used across different cultural sections, geographical sections, or even at different decades in time. E.Q. has been the new kid on the block, but I haven't heard much about it, recently. So how are we on measuring intelligence? Beats me, cuz not even the scientists have a firm grasp of it.

We are finally coming out of the dark ages on what we perceive is the human mind. We still have a long way to crawl until the Industrial Revolution, because, that's when Human Kind finally got up to speed on technology. Now... since Moore's Law says technology will double every 6 months, or so, will technology finally be the tidal wave that brings it to the beach? Hope so, because it's all in the big data.

Big data!... the catch phrase of today's tech society. But we've had the savants, the human number crunchers laying around for a while. Shamefully for us, we wanted to study what made them different so we could bring them to "normality", whatever that really means?!?!? We have never tried to understand how they see our boring world through their eyes. Now THAT would be science! Not bringing them into our "normal world"!! That's just our stupid human pride dictating an expected outcome. The relative comfort in what we know.

We fear change. Change is something that's been, firmly, connected to danger and is very embedded into our minds, or even DNA (The experts are still deciding on this one). The only change that's been welcome to us all, is the change that comes with the acquisition of power. We've had one single line on that pursuit, the visible one, and that is money. The more, the better, because there's always power associated with mucho dinero!!

But the one that has always been in the background, is now coming to the light. And that one is the pursuit of information. Some may put the word "knowledge" where I've used "information". I consider them to be opposite ideals, not words... but ideals.

"Knowledge" is for the good of the many, and "information" is for the good of one, or the few. In "information" you can find power. Wayyyyyy more power than in money alone. With "information" you get power, money, more power, more information, more money... well, you can spot the pattern here.

With "knowledge" you have to choose what to do next: choose wisely, and it's for the good of many; choose poorly and you're stuck in the vicious cycle of "information" all over again. That's why "knowledge" has to be protected. But to protect it, you cannot hide it. That gets us back to "information". You have to hide it in plain sight. Put it where everyone, and anyone, can reach it, use it, mould it and mainly, ADD to it.

And that, my friend, is how the world turns. It's all about the choices. Those are the different values you put on those little boxes we call variables. Those boxes are fitted on the equations. Those equations spit out the entirety of the entirety.

Liquids and Mists in Modern Building

2013-04-14T00:53:00.000+01:00

The Show

I've been, recently, watching a TV series produced by the History Channel called Ancient Aliens.

Links:

History Channel
Ancient Aliens on History.com
Ancient Aliens on TV.com
Buy the show
The series start with the theory of the book "Chariots of the Gods?" written by a Swiss author called Erich von Däniken.

In it, through 5 seasons and still ongoing, they try to give you enough insight into a, somewhat, trending new way of interpreting some of the most puzzling clues that mainstream archaeology is still battling with.

Mind you, I'm still in the early episodes of season one, so I'm not doing any profound analysis on the whole series.

Observations

What I want to talk about now, is one small thing they mentioned in episode 1: "To make such precise cuts or joints, one would have to need to liquefy stone and probably use some kind of mould."

That is one of the various answers they spun out. But, somehow, it made me begin to think: How do we do it now?

Amazingly, while I was listing most of the tools that I've used, or dream to use in the future, I realized that there was an underlying pattern. Most of everything we use in our modern society, has been through, either a state of liquid/gel form or has been coated or made of stratifying mists.

Ok, let's do a list of our most basic raw materials and the, summarized, way of making it:

Pottery: (wikipedia) (How it's made?): To make pottery you use clay. To make clay you add a fine powder to water until you have a consistency of modelling clay.
Metallurgy: (wikipedia) (How it's made?): Using intense heat you get the metal into a liquid form and then, shape it into basic forms that other manufacturers can transform into usable items.
Plastics (wikipedia) (How it's made?): Heating the crude oil at a certain temperature and pressure, various elements form with different densities. These deposit into a stratified manner. You then extract plastics from the correct position/height inside the heated container. To then use this raw material, you re-heat it until it's soft enough to force it into moulds.
Concrete (wikipedia) (How it's made?): And finally, we have our own little concoction that passes for liquid rock: concrete. To make concrete you add water to cement, pour it into a mould and then let it dry/cure.

As you can see, all of those raw materials pass through a liquid form at one stage or another.

In our "modern society", most of our manufacturing skills have been perfected to deal with raw material that can be transformed into an easy way of moulding it:

To make all kind of shapes/tools/etc with metal, you pour it into a mould or, like they say: "beat it while it's hot".
The plastic industry is the utmost specialist in terms of moulding.
Ceramic has been around for a long time, but the old and tested ways of manufacturing with clay have not changed that much from the way of our forefathers. The only thing that has changed is the machinery/tools that we employ.

Then there's mist.

We compel some elements/composites into a mist form and then:

Spray the paint.
Deposit fine layers of different elements to form silicon chips.
Create a static charge on something then let the mist coat it for protection.

In the end, after curing, drying or whatever other method you obtain the item one is aiming for. And these are the methods that have been perfected to make manufacturing easy, repeatable and, therefore cheap!

My point

If we as a "modern society" have evolved and perfected our manufacturing and tool making to include a liquid and/or mist form, to ease the process of industrializing our needs, why is it so outlandish that a more advanced civilization choose to avoid it?

It also makes no sense at all that this is not the case surrounding most of our history's most puzzling monuments:

So here you are, there isn't really a conclusion on my line of thought. I still need to investigate a tad more on these subjects. But when I see patterns emerging, things begin to make sense...

Even if I still don't quite buy the whole Ancient Aliens approach.

Until then...

I just want to leave this lying around, since I'm going to finish the whole of the 5 season content. While I'm watching, I will definitely stumble across more mind bending enigmas, and some day-to-day similarities with our society. So, when I have some time, I'll be posting some more about this.

Game Programming, The Journey: Part 2

2012-10-08T09:25:00.000+01:00

The mighty Game Loop

Previous in the series:

Any game should have one, or at least say the experts on the matter. They also say that it's the place to start. But it's really not as simple as that.

A simple implementation of this loop would be as follows:


variable game_is_active of type boolean = True



while game_is_active do

    execute run_game

    execute refresh_display

end



exit

The run_game function is where the logic of the game is processed and the refresh_display function is where the graphical display is updated with the data from the game objects. This is the most broad representation of a game. and the catch is how you will implement each function.

But before anything

One always do a practice run on something else before a big project. So I think I'm going to have a go at a Sudoku clone before tackling the bit RTS project.

Complicating things

"This article by Koonsolo: Game Loop; give much more insight on the matter. He talks about the trade-ins of constant frame rate versus variable one. Also talks about the same issues related to the time allotted to game logic. Concluding with some advice on what to use for different game types."

The first computers were not able to do multitasking like now. This meant the Game Programmer had to devise a way to do many things (Logic, AI, Graphics, Sound), the quickest and still make the user feel enticed in the game-play.

On most of the games you have to consider the proper balance between Game Ticks and FPS. Hardware and Architectural limitations makes it impossible to have the same resource being used at all times by these two aspects of the game. If you devote to many CPU cycles to the processing of the game logic, you will have to compromise on the graphical display of said logic. And vice-verse, obviously.

With the advent of multiple cores to aid in computation, you now can add another degree of difficulty to this, already jam packed, equation: Threads!

With threads you are able to partition some of your number crunching in different loops. Those loops will talk, or synchronize, with each other via messages, locks or even semaphores. While giving a better way to compartmentalize your game it has the downside of complicating things in terms of bug hunting.

Another type of game architecture that has arisen with multiplayer is the server/client approach. The user communicates with a server, where other users are also connected and they all play together.

On online games, this also can mean that your game continues to progress, even if you are not logged in.

What is my present path?

Keeping in mind that I'm mostly interested in an RTS/Simulation game, I've decided that I've got enough experience to tackle Threads head on. This may prove to be a foolish decision, but as I'm just in the beginning, it feels like the proper path to take.

I'm inclined to have a sever/client architecture. The server will have all of the Logic and AI, while the client will display the game and convey the user commands to the server.

I will start my prototyping with the server side on a GUI application that will only display bare stats and unit info. Once I'm pleased with it, I'll pack it on a proper server "enclosure".

I'll detail my mental (as inside my head and not I am mental) model in the next iteration of these series.

Cheers,
Gus

Game Programming, The Journey: Part 1

2012-09-27T16:25:00.000+01:00

Previous in the series: A new long term challenge: Game Programming

When ever I've started a new endeavour I always do some heavy research.

If only for future reference, I'll leave some links to Wikis, Tutorials and other important stuff regarding game programming.

For beginners and up:

Since I'm mostly interested in RTS/Simulation type of games, here are some more specific to the subject:

More specifically for Real Time Strategy:

(I will be updating both these lists as I progress on my reading.)

Feelings after some reading

Coming from a database centric type of programming, once you begin to look at the vast field that is "Game Programming", you can feel pretty overwhelmed!

The subjects are from all the ranges of the Computer Science subjects and you even add some nice two/three dimensional math!

My past track on research for a new thing to do, has to be put aside and rethought. "One cannot simply enter the realm of Game Programming!", as someone would say. It's something that you have to take in with the understanding that it's going to require more than a few week-ends of reading and prototyping to get any good at.

So, in my case, this is going to be a slow rise of knowledge with loads of reading involved. Coding will have to be postponed to a time when I'll feel comfortable enough with the terminology, concepts and lingo, to finally begin to drop some code.

Cheers,
Gus

A new long term challenge: Game Programmer

2012-09-25T15:41:00.002+01:00

I've been pondering on the possibility of doing a game for quite a while. Nothing solid or earth moving came out of it, but it's been on the back burner for a while.

I've been playing 2 games lately:

The Settlers Online

Forge of Empires

Both are of the type RTS (Real Time Strategy) games. The type of game that really interests me. And this is the path I'm going to take on my journey towards a fully playable game.

I've started to do some work on a concept I read about somewhere (I'll update this with a link when I find the article). This concept was about having a system that you could just throw hardware at it to scale, with out the shortcomings of current solutions.

I called it Kullonia.

I really didn't code much of it and I'm quite ashamed of it, since I've let a very dear friend down in the process. I hyped him up with a really good sales pitch and then just didn't deliver. Until this day I'm still pretty ashamed of my actions and don't even try and re-establish contact. Deep inside I know he hates me :(

Probably it was this guilt that made me pursue my current objective. The concept is really great to implement the engine behind the games shown above. And the fact that it's coded in Free Pascal makes it a double whammy of awesome: It's compiled and can be made to suit multiple platforms.

So for the next few postings I'll be ranting about the journey of starting a "One Man Team" Game Programming.

See you in the near future.

Cheers,
Gus

CEO Companion Application

2012-04-24T16:21:00.000+01:00

So I've been playing this little game: The Settlers Online - Castle Empire

It's a game of patience and it won't appeal to all the strategy genre lovers, but it's a dream come through to me. I've been hooked on the "The Settlers" saga for quite a long time, ever since I've had a go at the very first one, in the 90's. So when I stumbled upon this on the Chrome App Shop, I couldn't resist!!

But just playing the game wasn't enough. I had to give something back, to both the people that made the game and the ones that have the same love for it as me. So I decided to create a companion application with some content and the ever useful calculators for the various in-game strategies.

So "CEO Companion" was born!

The application is open source and is still in the early development stage.

You can find,

the project page: here.
the download page: here.
the bug report page: here.

Give it a go and tell me what you think on the comments below.

Cheers,
Gus

'Twas my birthday yesterday...

2012-04-13T18:32:00.000+01:00

So, it was my birthday yesterday... No biggy... Well, apart from the Smashingly Delish cake my wife made:

Delish cake by my baking wonder of a wife!!

Well, got that out of my chest :)

Science versus Religion

2011-12-17T15:36:00.000+00:00

Science and Religion have come a long way since the dark ages and Alchemy.

But to both I present some challenges in order to get it straight:

To Religion:
- Without invoking faith or belief, try to come up with a proof of God.

To Science:
- What causes gravity; What causes magnetism; What causes energy transfer.

While both of these very important fields of knowledge get those challenges right, we all ask of you to do it in a humble way, just like we all live all lives and don't pester one another with provocative attitudes.

I, myself, am in favor of science. But the amassed knowledge of science is still in its early infancy, so a humbling call is really needed for the science persons who think otherwise.

I was brought up in a religious manner but then got through all the dogmatic smoke screen and saw nothing in terms of content. I still think that religion has a place in the world, but in terms of teaching the common ways of being a good person, not the all encompassing and universal glue to all that exists.

So to both I say again, get your challenges sorted out and while you're at it, be humble and don't try and find high horses to climb on. We mere mortals live life like that but we still attain grandeur.

Moving repos and a new project

2011-02-21T14:35:00.000+00:00

As anyone that knows me will tell you, I don't quite finish my projects.

Binky Boink

Never the less, I've started a new one: Binky Boink. It's, yet another BOINC visualizer, the difference being that this one is open-source and comes with a nice ObjectPascal lib you can use on other projects. As usual any help is really welcome to get this project to fruition.

New repositories for old projects

The other piece of information I wish to convey is that I've decided to re-host the following projects under the Google Code umbrella:

StackOverflow Bar: new code hosting.
Dweetta: new code hosting.
GoRAD: new code hosting.
Devony: new code hosting.

Thanks.

I, for one, really welcome our alien overlords

2011-02-14T16:52:00.000+00:00

The human being has this annoying thing about trying to humanify everything. I have to admit that it makes it pretty easy to understand if it looks human. Or has human like characteristics. It, bloody hell, does not justify the abuse of the practice!

For, whatever deity's sake, aren't we Humans!? Aren't we the dominant specie on this Earth!? Aren't we intelligent!?

Well, for the most of us, it looks quite the opposite. We still are very, very afraid of the unknown. If we relate that with the common known fact that some adults are still afraid of the dark, we're back into the animal kingdom accepted phobias, all over again. This has been good when we had flesh eating enemies. That is, however, not the case any more.

Us Humans have to realize that we have to perceive our animal behaviours, keep them on board, but rationalize them into a place it doesn't make us such a bunch of hypocrites.

I have to admit that feelings and art are quite good for the soul, and it testifies for our Humanity. What I don't condone is the fact that we give that as an excuse to do all sort of animal behaviour, just because the other Human does it.

Also, all this hypocrisy, should not be, at all, accepted in some areas of the society.

First area, Politics. Human Nature does not comply with the values needed to make any type of Earth leadership work. There's always one of the many human defects that lingers into the judgement of the person that has the power. I think we should be ruled by robots, but more on that later.

Second area, Science. It's pretty amazing that Science as evolved so much with these Humans doing it! Little, and BIG, power struggles have been going around for so long that one wonders if Science is still what it started off to be. It should be the one only thing that has to be, completely and unequivocally, absent of Human Nature. None the less, it's quite the opposite. All of the principles that have been tried to maintain it - science - scientific have failed. Professors, or generally perceived Erudites, hold the truth about science. What ever new or disagreeing theory is treated with such Human Passion that it's ridiculous.

Humans should not be allowed to man Politics, Science or any other area of Society that takes care of Humans!

Now the BIG Problem here, is that we are unable to not humanize any of our feats.

One good idea would be to be ruled by, and have scientists be, robots. But this idea is still flawed, since it would be Humans that would have to program these robots, and Humanity would taint this programming. Not having enough of the good parts of Humanity, would also be harmful. It would be too harsh for Humans to live comfortably.

So while it would be great to have the good principals, always upheld by one of those robots, with out any fallibility or exception, it would be a nightmare if enough flexibility was not designed into the system. But again, this would be to a human to decide, and I've already talked about us doing decisions...

Looks like the only way we have a shot at this being done right, even, fair and just to all Humanity is to outsource it from outside. It would be a Human Rights person, wet dream, if we could have all parts of Society that affect Humanity as a whole, taken care by someone with all the keyword, cliché, and over-abused words/concepts in place and not deviate from them, or the best interpretation of it, rule us all.

This would be some other thing - Yes, thing - with none of the human flaws and all of our, present and future, qualities. And I have to call it thing, or else, the ones of us that are humans will try and humanize it and foil it all.

Until then, when the Thing, comes 'round, we will have to manage all the {insert very bad adjective} humans that occupy all the key positions in our Society.

The louder you lie, the more truthful it becomes...

2011-02-14T16:01:00.000+00:00

In my native country, Portugal we have a saying: In a blind's nation, the one eyed man is King.

Now, that, is the more accepted version of such an ideal. The one that can see is made the most important in a nation of sight impaired. None the less there is another, twisted, version of this saying that goes: In a blind's nation, the one eyed man is incarcerated... he's just too different.

This last interpretation is more likely to be true in terms of the way, us humans, think. When ever someone is different, that person is most of the times shun away from the other more "normal". Well, whatever is "normal" in that group anyway.

You can argue that all, if not most, of our heroes were different. Yeap, that has loads of truth to it, but I'll bet a limb that just before they were considered heroes, someone would've called that hero a fool, or something even worse. So it's the outcome of some foolish, or less "normal", way of acting, having a good outcome, that defines a hero. Hummm, quite the contradiction here.

Imagine someone from another planet - since from another country or nation they would still be humans - takes a look at all these ways of thinking. They would probably recognise the contradictions immediately and just get really confused about how did we even get out of the oceans in terms of evolution. Unless someone gives them the title of this rant and explains it to them.

Yes, the title of this rant is a bit harsh, but considering some of the Wikileaks provoked stirs, this stands truer and truer every time an "official" person stages up a news presentation.

Along the many years we have evolved as a civilization, we have tried to find the best way to appease the most with many kinds of government philosophies.

We have tried tribal chief - this was good for small groups.

We have tried King/Queen - This seams to still be used, even if they are only useful to parade off the "nobility" of a nation, no power at all.

We have tried Democracy, the Greek Style - Not sure what killed it yet (Yes I do but more on this later).

We have tried Communism - Pretty sound on paper. Dunno what happened to demise it (Well, yes I do, it's still related to something further down).

We have tried Pharaos/Humans as Gods/Totalitarism - Well, no one likes when the guy at the helm behaves like a human when he speaks of being a God....

We have settled in something that we call modern Democracy. The power of the people decides who will take the decisions. Now this is still very good on paper.

None of the ruling philosophies will ever, ever, EVER, work. And there is a simple explanation to it. Yes, quite simple, not one that is full of abstract concepts but one that is the truth. And I'm writhing this in a very low and controlled "voice", this way I will not disturb the wrath of my rant's title.

This truth is one that we all would like to conceal: We are humans, and humans, since conception, have the lust for power. Nothing to be ashamed about. I'd even bet that it's been ingrained into our DNA as a means of making the species progress.

If an element of any species seeks power, he has to prove to be the best. I don't mean the best at juggling bean bags, but the one Nature has thrown many challenges and survived. Yes, this one will be selected as the most fit to procreate and perpetuate the winning genes. This also makes sense, Nature sense, if the descendent of this "leader" would take leadership. He has some version of his dad's winning streak.

This all makes perfect sense if you don't use the abstract as a wrench in the cogs. Civilisation has evolved from what I've said earlier to what we are experiencing now.

We have had, along the years, many versions of the "Son becomes ruler after Father has killed all opposition". Many of them quite overt, some of them a bit more covert and even the ones that we are not sure if it's overt, covert or just plain natural occurring events.

We are now in a situation where we have so many abstractions on top of abstractions, nonsense on top of nonsense and half truths on top of crude lies, that a Sophist would make fortunes once more just by what they were good at in the Greek times: Bend your mind, so twisted, that you would agree with him on diametrically opposite takes of a subject.

Unfortunately, the art of the Sophists is not lost. Once it was a matter of entertainment. Now, it's a way of mass deception, or like some like to call it: Government.

The human being as not changed in the many millennia that he has been on this Earth. The human being is still quite attached to the survival of the Species, but there is a catch: Nature no more takes part of the selection. Other humans do that for "her".

This makes for the situation we are in now. If we believe in the Modern Democracy, we will elect a human being, he will come to power and he will ultimately be the puppet of who really has the power. And, Yes, I'm not shroud enough to have the answer to that question: "So who has the power?"

But ultimately, what rules us all, is our human nature. We were quite fine when Nature still dictated the rules of election. Now that humans have replaced Nature on this role, all is fundamentally wrong.

Nature is neither kind, nor lawful. Those are Human characteristics. But, Nature, has been able to make most advanced scientific breakthroughs. Was able to get a very intelligent species out of the primordial ooze and make it the top of the food chain. Now that it has been replaced, in it's role, by Humans, Nature cannot do much in terms of fine tuning. Humans are doing it, and they are doing a very bad job.

This leaves a power seeking, individualist, selfish, one headed monster with a HUMONGOUS body. Little head, big brawl... Well we all know where that goes.

Many a Humans have realized that we need to have another big step away from the primordial ooze. Those Humans are quite a minority. In our Modern Democracy, the loudest you speak, the better you are heard. Small voices account for nothing, even if all this abstraction we call politically correct is taken into consideration.

So what's all this fuss about this Wikileaks thing, then? Pretty easy! The many bullies have been called in their bad ways and they're not happy. But we don't have an "Adult" to mediate things, since the bully is a group of power seeking "Adults", that have lied their way into the leadership.

So it's a shower of abstract ideas tossed around to see which one gathers more supporters in order to perpetuate the pile of lies. Perpetuate, hide them and ultimately bread them into some more lies. As long as the rest of the specie is tamed and under control, all is fair.

Now my chest is a bit better. Thank you for reading, if you were patient enough to read this far.

Preamble to a GIMP Tutorial: Mock-up Tees with GIMP.

2010-08-07T19:18:00.001+01:00

I could never be considered a design guy. I was always behind a keyboard banging code not pixels or paths around.

Life likes to throw challenges at you just by the simple decisions you make along the way. I decided to give up on my IT job, due to mental illness issues, and pursue a more artistic route. It’s not “outta” the blue. I can talk loads about my mother’s side and the artists that have come out of that branch of the family.

I decided that I like T-Shirts so much I would go in the business of doing my own and, why not, get some extra cash out of the whole ordeal. Being on benefits really doesn’t help went you want to start a business. T-Shirts by the quantity are not that cheap. Fabric paint is not hard to get at, if you are doing a couple of them. If you go mass production, crap, no price/quantity balance at all!!!

Had no problem at all on getting very good at doing vector based images to cut stencils from with Inkscape. Even got quite good at handing the scalpel-like knife that I used to cut stencils with. But wasn’t about to produce a lot of stock, just to show a big number under the stock of a T-Shirt.

So I decided that I needed to get the old computer some millage and began searching the web for tutorial on making mock-up Tees to show off my stencilling prowess.

Being the Open Source lover that I am, GIMP was the only route. No mega bucks for a Photoshop license, actually, not even a average computer to run it on. This is where I got my first challenge: The only GIMP Tutorial on Tee Mock-Ups was on a abandoned domain. Some time ago still active with many GIMP knowledge, but now gone into the Parked Afterlife of some domains that get underfunded.

None the less, Photoshop tutorials were by the dozen and free Mock-up kits are quite abundant if you use the “Dark Side” of digital editing. Ok, so I had to learn the hard way and then do my best to get it on GIMP. I downloaded whatever I could get my hands on of free kits and video tutorials during a whole day. Processed that Information for the next 3 days and got stuck.

GIMP can open .psd files. That does not mean it will render them as the original ones!!!!

Still don’t know how, but I got one of those .psd files to, somehow, render in a manner it was useable. With that one I was able to do my “T-Shirt First Run”. But I didn’t give up on getting it done by my own hand and skill. So more browsing, searching and downloading video podcasts from “Meet the GIMP”, got me busy in the investigation mode for a day or two.

Finally, today, I was able to reproduce what I’ve saw on a kit that i downloaded and had to investigate at a friend’s house (She’s the Photoshop person, I’m just a very bad amateur). I shouted EUREKA, some 20 times to myself and got the wife to inspect my work. She was all compliments.

So, looks like the community has given me some stuff to chew on and I got it assembled in a nice package I can reproduce and even share.

My next post will be with a very detailed tutorial of how one can make nice Mock-ups of Tees in GIMP, not only to impress your friends, but could even get you some cash in your pockets.

Till then, let’s keep sucking the Juice peepz.

Cheers.
Gus

And the sucking commences

2010-06-22T18:12:00.006+01:00

I wanted my first post to be from the command line.
I just love the command line and it will rule forever.

Thanks 4 listening,
Gus