Fuck People.

I fucking hate group projects. We've just started and already I can't stand my team-mates.
Fucking 275. It's either dead-weights or ego-maniacs. I don't need this shit. The only lesson i'm learning here is that people are stupid. When I see a hole in the road, I don't say "please , if you would be so kind as to swerve, dear sir". No, fuck that. I say "Swerve. Now!". Why do stupid people take offense when you're offering them a better way to do something, but not saying please while you're doing it.
What does "Please" mean anyway? Sounds like a shortcut of what probably used to be "It would please me if you..." -- so how is doing something to please me better than doing it because you're afraid of me. At least while doing the latter you're serving your own interests.
Ask a moron to be consistent with formatting his document and he snaps at you for giving him orders. You say to yourself  "Fine, fuck it." The result: 2 morons working all night doing the same segment. That's what happens when everyone's doing their own thing. Good job Steve, and fuck you too. Imagine what's going to happen when we actually start coding...

Thank god we're not doing any group crap in 376.
I can already imagine my group going on about The Fungus Eater...
Just once I'd like to be in a group where everyone pulls their own weight.

And i'm telling you, them pussycats is quick.

Ok

I don't know if I want to do this anymore. Every time I look at this blog all I see is how much of a bitter douchebag I really am. It's depressing.
If I am to have a shot at self delusion, this blog cannot be.
Anyhows, I think I'm going to drop the Perez Hilton crap and focus on technical documentation and general captain's-log-type comments.
Back to business:
I fiddled around with the system time incompatibilities between linux, osx and windows agian. I now understand it fully, though I have no solution.
Windows uses local time, Ubuntu has an option, and I believe is smart enough to default to local time if it recognizes the windows system as present, which it does. OSX on the other hand is hardcoded to UTC time, and currently increments my bios time in 8 hours every time I boot to it through grub. It's funny that people say with a straight face that OSX is more secure.
Every 3 year old could break that system. It's as easy as installing an unsupported driver. Every driver conflict in OSX causes kernel panic, and your system won't boot until you delete one of the conflicts and reset permissions from terminal boot option.
This is because macs aren't designed to switch hardware during their lifetime, so the OS just breaks on hardware conflicts. Evidently, Apple never found it fitting to design an effective fallback mechanism.
I also find it amusing, while reading the Objective-C tutorials, that macs come with a single-button mouse and an OS designed for right-click functionality. To access the right-click menu you need to press alt click or something. Why use 2 buttons with one hand when you can use a key AND a button with two. I'll try to remember that when i'm designing interfaces. Perhaps the general idea is to keep your limbs excercised to make you a better looking mac person.

I can't believe it's not butter.

I can't believe I'm 6 courses away from graduating. That's 2 easy semesters and at least 3 interesting courses (embedded systems, real-time systems and distributed systems)! Totally doable assuming I don't fail 307 which I hear is brutal. I've been dreading and delaying that course for ages now, but it seems like it's time to confront it.
So now what? Am I ready to face the sharks of the industry? Wear a suit and a tie every day and talk about TPS reports and unparallelized code?
Absolutely! I'm going to do my best to get a RIM co-op (not a RIM job!), cause I only hear good things about them.
Speaking of butter, I hate it. Did you get to see Julie and Julia? Not a bad movie, especially for someone like me who's never heard of Julia Child before. I feel like it filled a huge hole in my education. Only beef (pun!) I have with that movie is that it encourages people to throw even more butter into their cooking.
Butter is not any healthier than margarine, trust me, and it's infinitely more disgusting. Infinitely, that's not a sum to be taken lightly.
What else...
Just completed BOL I, the pre-coop-work-on-your-resume-and-cover-letter mandatory workshop thing on WebCT.
It was kinda fun. All I did was practice my technical writing skills in ongoing forum discussions and got more experience in self restraint when some students wrote about their desire for more "piratical" classes that would prepare them to "piratical" situations.
Come to think of it, I don't remember if ended up commenting or not. Let me check... I believe i pressed cancel... damnit. I did press submit on this:

I definitely agree that the University should have more pirate classes. One never knows when one might encounter a piratical situation in which such skills would certainly be handy ;)

So much for self restraint.

On a side-note, turns out Jared Leto has a band. Who knew.
I just saw the video for Kings and Queens and I must say, against all my better judgement, I actually like this band. There's something very moving about a bunch of misfit weirdos commiting suicide by urban cycling to the sounds of an epic orchestra, riding together against a city that does not recognize them.

Group Projects - Hurray.

I can't say I didn't see it coming.
It's so much fun waiting hours on end for your group members to approve of every little change you make and spending ridiculous amounts of energy trying to convince them of what you think is absolutely straightforward.
I do my best not to insult anyone, but inside I'm frustrated, and my initial response is never a pleasant one.
Yes, group projects are a challenging excercise in self restraint.
What do you do when your team member is set on taking your group down a path you know will lead to failure? How hard are you willing to fight for what you know is right? Wouldn't it just be easier to let him take the lead for one phase, then pick up the reigns after they crash and burn?
Perhaps, but you'll be in that crash right along with them.
Besides, what's to guarantee the rebel has the insight to recognize his error and take responsibility for it when the time comes? If he can't see something as straightforward now, why would he see it later?
These questions always come up whenever I find myself leading a group project. Knowing the right direction isn't enough, you have to find the right way to steer your group into it. Perhaps I need to adopt the Yago approach and let people think the right direction was their idea all along.
I understand that people have an ego, i just don't understand why they let it make their decisions for them. Maybe they actually believe their way is better? But it's so straightforward... Can they really not see it?
The human mind is exceptionally effective at creating alternate realities that justify a false notion. Never doubt people's capacity to fail to see the obvious.

Here's what I consider to be a straightforward example of bad sentence structure (and this is from our project plan, mind you) :

Players navigate through multiple styles of games all following basic elementary level curriculum. With games such as ABC's, Counting and Spelling where players shoot asteroids in order and Math and Trivia where players shoot the correct asteroid answer, players will be captivated not only by the immersive dynamic graphics and fast-paced action but by the diverse and challenging content as well.

I even italicized the especially bad part.
here's my suggested revision that didn't get approved:

Players can progress through varying levels of difficulty, testing and strengthening their knowledge of math, trivia and spelling, mixing the learning process with interactive competitive gameplay, while capturing their attention with immersive dynamic animation and fast-paced action.

If any of my 6 readers thinks the first one is better, please explain why so I may gain insight into the strange machinations of group dynamics once and for all.

Return of the Eve

OK, I've neglected to mention that i've been participating in the Android forums and emailing certain figures at Google, LG Canada and Rogers. This evening I received a promising response from Paul Pike at LG Electronics Canada. Here's what he had to say:

---

Yaniv,

Thanks for your note. LG has been listening to the conversations online about Android based mobile phones including the LG Eve and is currently addressing this feedback in an engineer evaluation of upgrade. Our engineers and development teams have been reviewing the feasibility of providing an upgrade both from a development, deployment and a cost perspective and will be making a decision shortly. As we speak bloggers from around the world are participating in these discussions in Korea.
We are now inviting bloggers from Canada to participate as well. As the evaluation is currently underway, your comments couldn't be more timely and we will be sharing your feedback directly with our engineering and development team. I encourage you to continue to send me your recommendations on the subject to myself and/or Sheryl Davey from our communications agency. Once we have had a chance to fully evaluated all the feedback, you will be hearing from us with our official plans in the next couple of weeks.

Best Regards,

Paul Pike

---

Nicely done, Paul.
Awesome. Too bad I've returned the phone.
In a couple of weeks if they decide to go ahead with the upgrade I'll reconsider repurchasing it.

The Androids of Eve

We've all tried to read an Asimov at one point or another, I sure have and I'm not afraid to admit it. "Robots of Dawn" it was. Not to say it was a miserable experience, but I wasn't impressed. His repetitive explanations bored the hell out of me, and only made me wonder if he's as lost in his own plot as I am.
That terrible novel has nothing to do with what I'm intending to write about today, but the title seemed fitting.
Android is Google's linux based, open-sourced operating system for mobile devices. It has gained momentum in the industry since it's initial release, but evidently the open source evolution has not yet caught up with all stake-holders involved, and here's why:
Rogers is currently offering the LG Eve with very positive promotions that fail to note an important issue. The LG Eve is running Android 1.5 and neither LG nor Rogers is even remotely interested in providing a firmware upgrade to any of versions 1.6, 2.0, or 2.1. Not considering the security fixes and optimization the newer versions provide, some of the newer apps, Google Maps Directions, specifically, won't work on anyting under Android 1.6.
So basically you're getting a great piece of hardware with an obsolte OS and no support whatsoever. It's as if you're given a discontinued model, as i told Vicky from Rogers management (tier 2 customer service) today over the phone.
After some research, i discovered this attitude is not unprecedented. The HTC dream, another model offered by Rogers also sports the not so flashy Android 1.5 with no intention of upgrade. An Android forum opened up trying to get this matter into public attention.
After 3 months(?) they actually managed to get Rogers to issue an official statement promising to exchange every HTC Dream under contract with an HTC Magic, a model that HTC has commited for an upgrade in the coming months.
But before patting Rogers on the back, keep in mind that this is entirely thanks to HTC, who seem to be the only company out there that cares about its customers.
A similar conundrum with the Samsung Galaxy, another of the first Android 1.5 phones resulted in an open pettition dating back to June 2009, and as of today Samsung has no intention of upgrading the firmware or updating the phones.
It seems that the Vendor (e.g. LG) will not commit an upgrade unless the carrier (e.g. Rogers) requests one. However, the official response of BOTH parties is that it's the other party's responsibility to initiate the upgrade. Takes me back to kindergarden when i think about it. This is likely why we're currently seeing the first Google phone - the Nexus-1. Google probably realized this retarded attitude by both vendors and carriers is killing their dream of standardized devices able to run any version of Android. A world in which phones do not become obsolte after a year of use? Not gonna happen. LG would rather push their new model than work on firmware upgrades for an older model. Rogers would rather its clientele bought new phones every year, rather than pay the vendors to commit an upgrade.
Considering the current market attitude, the only way you're going to see Android upgrades is if one company actually makes a commitment to maintain their phones over a period of time -- enters the Google Nexus-1. Now that Google distributes their own phone, there is at least one vendor out there that you can assume to provide proper support for their product. When the other carriers realize that users will only buy supported products, that they themselves do not distribute, one of two things will happen:
1. The vendors and carriers will decide that Android phones are a too costly liability and will cease to produce/distribute them.
2. Both vendors and carriers will adapt to the new market attitude and FINALLY accept their responsibility to upgrade their products.

After reading all this nonsense, i have to ask myself why is it the consumer's responsibility to push the carrier to push the vendor to release what should be basically essential product support? Having to go through the typical corporate runaround with deffered responsibility to no end.
Do they not realize that loss of customers = loss of money?
I, for one, will return my LG Eve today, and wait-out the remaining of my contract with my old phone. Then, possibly, assuming HTC makes good on their promise, get the HTC magic - upgraded, because i do love the Android platform and it's too bad i can't keep the LG Eve. I'd much prefer the physical keyboard, the awesome display, the normal-sized headphones jack and the Android OS, but i will not buy an unsupported product on a 3 year contract.

If you think about it, it's also Google's fault for not setting a contractual obligation on the vendors and carriers to provide consistent firmware upgrades.
Think about this if you're considering an Android. The only vendor that will likely support your product is Google. And in all likelihood the only reason HTC is doing an upgrade is because they're the ones who manufacture the Nexsus-1!

Finally, the plot unravels.

Time and time again.

I take software engineering this term, and for some suspicious reason the instructor wants us to develop for the iPhone. Now, as if that wasn't bad enough, we must develop for it in Objective C, which can only be compiled on a mac system.
Quite redundant, considering a java application would work just as well and can be developed over any platform, meaning i don't have to buy or steal a mac to do so.
Nevertheless, our instructor, in his infinite wisdom argues that in real life one does not always have the luxury of choosing one's target application language, and often must learn new languages for new platforms.
True enough, however, one also has time, energy, and resources to handle the task, not to mention one gets paid for it.
Long story short, it has to be an iPhone app, and it has to be in Objective C.
So after 4 gruesome days, i've managed to get OSX running with some limited functionality on my PC. Problem is OSX changes the BIOS clock to match my selected regional timezone, while Windows reads it once and then compensates accordingly. Switching back and forth results in my time being advanced artificially over and over again. Evidently there is a fix for it, by setting my BIOS time to UTC time, (universal time something that starts with c) and adding a registry 32 bit DWORD :
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation\RealTimeIsUniversal and setting it to 1.
This however causes linux (I have 4 operating systems now) to push my time forward, which means i have to find another solution. Annoying.

new blog ~!

I was about to start this blog with the line "Hopefully, this blog is Googleable..." and then I realized the almost unforgiveable offense I was about to make. Instead, I will merely hope, half heartedly, that this blog is indeed Googleable so that i may use it for documenting installation processes of new hardware/software and minor fixes that i typically deem too simple to be worthy of documentation and later regret not having done so.

A little background for the unsuspecting reader:

Canadian as I may be, I've spent a meager 13% of my life on this continent.
Consequently, English is not my native tongue, nor is it the one I'm most comfortable with.
I don't like paragraphs and capitalizaions, and you would likely find that i sometimes forget to capitalize the I in a sentence. Though i appreciate the language, and frequently find myself reading English litterature, its exceptional nature has not escaped me.
I find that i more respect rules encapsulating common sense, than those based on nothing more than tradition. For example, if i were to walk on a deserted street at 4 in the morning, I would not likely wait for the light to turn green before crossing.
Tradition aims to bypass decision making but can never quite replace common sense.

From a linguistic perspective, being that my native tongue is Hebrew. I am used to a language structure in which everything is pronounced as written. But... (ho ho! my very own But sentence) it has its fair share of excpetion handling. For instance, in Hebrew, every object has a gender reference. There is no neutral "It".
I often wonder how newcomers to the language master the art of figuring out the gender of every single object in the universe, and though there are distinct patterns, having to do with certain letter-sequences, there remain a great many exceptional cases one must memorize.
It is also fascinating to note the typical errors people of a foreign culture make when importing their thoughts into another language, and equally, if not more so fascinating to note the reaction of the natives to the unavoidable flawed result. What i find, personally, and i am sure i'm not alone in this, is that the linguistic difference and traditional litterary influence affects the way we formulate thoughts and the way we express ourselves. Thus, with those grammatic errors, something else transcends the import process, and a careful reader will detect the positive exotic contribution rather than linger on grammatic flaws.

What else is there to say about me... I, like Hemingway, must work very hard to attain something very simple, though it is always what i strive for. And often, I delete and rewrite before i am content with the final outcome. I am comforted by the thought that the process itself, fake though it may seem, serves to inspire me into a state of sincerity, and thus it isn't as fake after all.

I think this is enough for an introduction.
Till the next post.