Princess Chloë's diary

Skyrim sucks...

2011-12-18T21:14:00.001+01:00

...and yet it made US $1.5 billion already. I am left dumbfounded.

Well, it will be quick today because all (and even more) I have to say in Skyrim has already been written. It is in Czech but is so true that I am considering translating it into English and pasting it all over the internet.

"100+ důvodů proč Dan Vávra nesnáší TES V: Skyrim"

Since I was only able to stand the "game" for twenty minutes (the controls were THAT bad, those 20 minutes were torture!), I was able to observe "only" about 35 of the aforementioned reasons for why Skyrim sucks. Oh yes, a couple more dozens are already known from the ages of Oblivion. Bethesda knows how to build on succe-- erm, old bugs.

The trend is clear - Morrowind was great, Oblivion was boring and Skyrim is unplayable. The consolisation of gaming is absolutely detrimental to the quality of everything - graphics, content, gameplay, controls, gui, ... Where will this end?

Now, all good games have come and gone and what is left is rubbish. Now I am really not looking forward to all the "new releases" and have to buy my games at GOG. Maybe, just maybe there will be a new installment of the STALKER series and it will be as amazing as Shadow of Chernobyl or Call of Pripyat. But when it comes to other games, I can just say: "No more sequels, please!".

Next-gen gaming

2011-10-26T21:22:00.000+02:00

Well, well. After playing Dragon Age: Origins I thought that there was still some hope left for new games. But I was woken up from this nice dream by the harsh reality of what I saw today and yesterday.

I am talking about Battlefield 3 and Dragon Age 2. For Battlefield 3, I just watched some gameplay videos from the single player campaign yesterday, after it had been released in the US. Wha... what is this, am I watching Call of Duty: Black Ops? No? But it works the same, I mean - interrogation, then playing "your memories"... whoa. And the gameplay itself is just enemies shooting at you, more enemies, someone grabs, you "PUSH THE MIDDLE MOUSE BUTTON!" flashing, lots of in-game animation playing - to the extent of losing track of whether you are still in control or the game does everything for you. Oh yes, Call of Duty, nice. Except CoD is not nice at all, it is barely a game! I was expecting something like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 but this caught me by surprise. No fun, everything "dead serious" but it is just ridiculous, not realistic. Oh yes, firing the AKS/74U with an accuracy of 20cm at a distance of 20m - just wow. It does not have to be completely realistic but at least a little bit of consideration would help, if everything else is so "serious". No no, I am not going to play that game, thank you.

And what is this? Oh yes, it is the latest greatest RPG - Dragon Age 2! WOW! That must be amazing, DX11 graphics, a successor to DA: Origins... what else can you hope for? I do not know if you can "hope" for this but you start a new game, are given a choice between a warrior, a mage and a rogue (OMG you can EVEN choose your sex!) and you are hurled into the game. Well, "game"... you are shown some weird videos and then an in-game scene with interrogration. Wha... INTERROGATION? AGAIN? Nooooooooo! No no no, this is a joke, right? Unfortunately, not. The guy in that chair is again reminiscing, talking in the same way like the guy in Battlefield - "yeah, I'm cool". Then you get bumped into the game.

I will spare you lengthy descriptions of what can actually be ruined in an RPG. I will just sum it up - from a great RPG with a unique atmosphere, storytelling, dialogues... they just whipped up a terrible modern "action" RPG for consoles - for the masses. Characters talk like they are the "coolest guys" - yes, like the smart-ass you can run into everywhere these days. I do not even like my own character! Even her way of talking is irritating and the movement animations! OMG WHAT is that? I thought I would create a great elven sorceress (well elven, you cannot choose to be an elf in DA2 - and thank the Maker for that! Elves look disgusting in DA2!) but I am playing as a smart-ass modern city girl who is cosplaying as a mage. There goes the immersive experience... oh yes, just add some combo moves in DA3, will you? That will be PERFECT for the target audience.

I forgot to say one thing. One more thing... the gorgeous DX11 graphics. The latest technology, it must look... in some places worse than Origins? Yes, I mean that. And the game is stuttering weirdly even though I am playing at "30 FPS". I guess there are 30 frames per second but nobody cares that two or three of them take 100ms to render (each)? Even the facial generation system was apparently rewritten because I am not able to create such a beauty like in Origins. Basically - beauty is nowhere to be found in DA2 and you are lucky when you manage to create an acceptable face (as long as you do not look at your character's head from the side).

If I take DA2 as a mindless waste of time then yes, it is usable for that purpose. But as a great role playing experience, it fails miserably.

I am shivering already at the mere thought of Dragon Age 3! I will not touch that even with a long stick!

Internet (in)security

2011-09-13T15:37:00.001+02:00

Maybe you have head about the Iranian "hacker" who gained access to several certification authorities and is now issuing certificates any time he wants. Well, maybe it is not one hacker, who knows... but the fact is, people should be really concerned. This incident absolutely undermines the trust anyone has ever put into companies offering SSL certificates. You can never know if you are accessing the site directly or someone is routing you through a proxy and is decrypting and intercepting everything you send and receive. Like your bank account, e-mail... just anything.

Well, is it not a bit surprising? The problem is that this approach to internet security is completely wrong. You download a browser and it already has some root CA certificates installed. Thus, it automatically approves all SSL connection to sites using certificates issued by these authorities. What is even more silly, most "modern" browsers even verify these certificates online, against some database. This goes against all security principles! First, certificates have to be delivered by a separate channel. Or at least certificate fingerprints. A good example (well, the only one I know of) is Fio Bank www.fio.cz . When you open an account with internet banking there, you will get terms of service with the fingerprint of the valid certificate. This document also tells you to check the fingerprint always when visiting the site. Thus, you will know that it is the original certificate and not a fraudulently issued one. But why to do this in such a complicated way? Can the browser not check this automatically for you? Of course it can! You just have to get rid of those root certificates!

Unfortunately, this is not an easy task to accomplish. It differs from browser to browser, some browsers use certificates installed in the OS but usually they are built-in. OMG, built-in certificates! Just HOW can they do something like that? If the certificates need updating, you have to update the whole browser! That is completely stupid. Not to mention the fact, that you are not able to choose which certification authority (CA) to trust. They just force those CAs onto you - and nobody asks you anything. It gets even worse. Not all CAs are included in every browser, in every operating system etc.. This means that some CAs get an unfair advantage over others, just because their root certificates are distributed widely. It makes you wonder whether these CAs give some "generous donations" to the interested parties from time to time...

Since the scheme is so rotten, it is a good thing to get rid of these "authorities" altogether. Again, this is not as easy as it may seem. I am using Mozilla Firefox and I thought that it uses system certificates. That I will be able to simply delete the directory /etc/ssl/certs and be done with it. Wrong! Firefox has certificates built-in! I clicked away through the long list in Preferences, finally clicking on the "delete or distrust" button. Unfortunately, all SSL sites stopped working and Firefox did not give me any option to do something about it. Fair enough, when I opened the Preferences window with certificates again, they were all there! It just distrusted them, it did not delete them! Well, it cannot delete them since they are built-in. I tried various things, even emptying the user-local database with certificates but nothing helped. After half a day of investigating, the answer finally emerged: remove libnssckbi.so. And it works like a charm! Now I am able to approve website certificates myself, SSH-style. When I first open an SSL-enabled website, I get the usual warning page from Firefox, but then I can examine the certificate, check whether I am being redirected and if everything it fine, I download and approve the certificate. When I open up the same site again, Firefox is now happy and everything is fine. If I get the warning page again, it will mean one of two things. Either their old certificate expired and they installed a new one or someone is redirecting traffic and using fake certificates. I can check the certificate saved in Firefox and if it was not nearing its "valid until" date, I can be extra suspicious and careful. Certificates can be downloaded and inspected using the openssl command line tool.

So, everything is working and I can go to sleep. Or is it? It would still have been too simple, I see. So as it seems, Firefox Sync is not working. Probably because of a missing certificate somewhere - but when I open about:config, search for the sync server and try to open it up in Firefox, it does not give me the option to download and approve the certificate. Therefore in this case, you have to do it the hard (manual) way. Using the openssl utility, we can download the certificate like this:

openssl s_client -host server.example.com -port 443

Just copy/paste the certificate between -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- and -----END CERTIFICATE----- (including these two lines) into a text file somewhere and then you can import it into Firefox using the appropriate window in Preferences. But do not forget to change its trust settings and mark it as trusted! I do not know why but Firefox automatically distrusts imported certificates. Do they think I am stupid enough to import a certificate I do not want to trust?

Well, that was it for Firefox. Thankfully, I do not need other web browsers. I just know that Opera has built-in certificates too but it is a big, statically-linked blob so removing shared libraries is not possible in that case and there is no source code available for modification. Maybe someone who is really good can tweak it in a hex editor but I for one will not use such a binary blob.

New developments

2011-08-01T16:44:00.002+02:00

I have not written anything for quite some time but that is merely because I have not been able to organise my thoughts. I wanted to write something a few times but then I realised that I did not know how to begin and what exactly to write about.

Well, I will fix this issue shortly. Today, I will show you some neat developments in my home.

The first thing is (well, was...) a computing "server" with ~7 TFLOPS. It was a pretty weird machine because it was a mix of high-end and low-end components. It had the most crappy AM3 CPU I could buy (Sempron 140 I think), 2GB of DDR3 RAM (just because 1GB modules were out of stock) and a crappy (unfortunately, I found out only after I bought it) 700W Fortron Everest PSU. It also featured a cheap 4 GB USB flash drive. But it also included a fine MSI mainboard with four PCIe 16x-size slots (two of them were actualy 8x but I did not need them and even if I did, it would not have any impact on performance). The most interesting thing about all that were two ATI graphics cards, a Sapphire 5970 and a 5870.

It was running Gentoo Linux, which I pre-compiled and installed on the USB stick on my PC.

At first I had it running with my Fortron Black Power 550W PSU from my PC because it took a bit longer for the PSU to arrive and surprisingly, it worked like a charm. I was really amazed about the quality of the 550W PSU - running the system with those two monstrous graphics cards! However, when I installed the 700W PSU, it was not working as expected. After a couple of minutes running at 100%, the PSU simply shut down. I tried this a few times but it simply would not work. In the end, I took another PCIe power cable from the 550W PSU and installed it into the 700W instead of using a Molex cable and it started working. The conclusion is: The 700W Everest PSU is a piece of crap. How come my 550W PSU was able to flawlessy operate under such high load when the 700W PSU was shutting down in exactly the same cable configuration? The only good thing about this PSU is its design - I quite like the blue/gold colour scheme with a transparent fan, but that is about it.

On to the mainboard. It was an MSI 790FX-GD70 maiboard and its main advantages for me (apart from four full-size PCIe slots) were buttons placed directly on the mainboard. I was not intending to place it in a computer case so this was really something I appreciated. I could conveniently power it on or reset it, even without a case.

I cannot say much about the CPU. It ran well, I manually lowered the voltage but unlocking the second core was not very successful. The whole system was freezing when I ran a kernel compile. I did not really need it, even though sometimes the extra core would have been nice for distcc applications.

And finally, the best part. The GPUs were amazing. They produced so much heat that it was almost unbearable during the hottest days and I had to disable one GPU of the 5970 (that is a dual-GPU card). But I just loved the sound! Unfortunately, it was getting quite noisy when both cards were installed and running (the 5870 was really quiet in comparison to the 5970) so I solved it by placing a 92mm case fan on top of the cards, which was blowing air downwards between them.

After a month and a half, I sold the cards for the same price for which I bought them and I will also sell the rest of the setup after I do some more testing on it (I should test an older graphics card and maybe it will have to serve as a replacement for one of the PCs at home for a few weeks). It was a fun month and I loved the cards but... why did I not keep them? That is simple - because there are almost no games that would be able to utilise their potential. For the time being, the EVGA GTX 460 SC I have in my PC will be more than sufficient for all gaming needs.

What to do with the excess heat? Just defrost some muffins...

The ghost of... what, Fukushima?

2011-04-29T10:03:00.003+02:00

The nature of people is really strange. They are ignorant for years about a topic - and then, suddenly, as something happens, they jump up and start looking very knowledgeable and/or outraged.
People people, what have you been doing?

When I was in high school, I wanted to study nuclear physics and later work at a nuclear power plant. It fascinated me, so I was reading books (and later articles on the internet) about nuclear reactors, radiation, waste etc.. I am also collecting elements from the periodic table, so I have a couple of these "nuclear babies" at home. Nobody was really interested in these topics a year ago, not counting the anti-nuke fanatics who think that we actually do not need nuclear power plants and if we shut them down, we will live a happy life. Please be realistic. There are too many people on this planet for this to be feasible. If you want to shut down nuclear reactors, tell people to have fewer children and in a hundred years maybe, you will be able to start shutting them down.

Well, that is beside the point but I felt I should stress it anyway. What is more important: people are going crazy because there was an accident at the Fukushima I power plant in Japan. People are panicking, thinking that this is the next Chernobyl and what not. But the reality is somewhere else.

The fact is, this cannot be even remotely compared to what happened at Chernobyl. Moreover, the Chernobyl disaster was caused by complete ignorance of safety procedures and a total lack of experience. The effects were then aggravated by the unfortunate construction of the reactor itself. But even though the reactor was poor (even by 1986 standards), such an accident could have been avoided. The reactors in Fukushima I power plant are not very advanced and new but they are of a completely different construction. However, if the reactor vessel broke and the core would be exposed, the radioactive release into the atmosphere would be comparable to Chernobyl. It would still be lower, because there is no graphite inside the reactor, but it would be terrifyingly high and completely on par with Chernobyl.

But the situation in Fukushima is almost laughable when compared to Chernobyl. Many people are very inconvenienced (having been evacuated from their homes) and tens of workers receiving radiation doses higher than they should (which increases the risk of cancer somewhat). The real radiation around the power plant has not been really measured so I cannot comment on that - but it will probably not be that high and the majority of people who were evacuated will be able to return home. This was not the case with people evacuated due to the Chernobyl disaster.

How many people have died because of radiation in Chernobyl, even in the first month alone? How many people were not evacuated in time and subjected to high doses of radiation? When I was small, I thought everyone had died there. Yesterday I learned that actually the majority of people are still alive but... the death toll is huge. Tens of thousands of victims who died and hundreds of thousands suffering effects of radiation. Of course the authorities today will acknowledge and regret the personal losses of people - but when you compare it to Chernobyl (moreover, where the authorities acted as if nothing had happened), it is like a grain of sand. People tend to forget one more thing: Chernobyl was completely fine. But Japan suffered a very strong earthquake and tsunami. We should be happy and say that today's nuclear technology is extremely safe and continue using it while it is needed. For some countries like Japan, there is no alternative. For many other countries, there is no cleaner alternative. If Japan shut down its nuclear power plants, it would be sent back to the feudal times. Unfortunately, there are so many people living in today's Japan, that were this the case, the majority of population would simply starve to death.

What happened in Japan was very unfortunate. But the damage was caused by the earthquake and tsunami, not a nuclear accident! And that, in itself, is quite fortunate - the land will not be inhabitable and people will be able to start their normal lives again, sooner or later.

Oh yes, one more thing. How come, there is no money in the world today to build a containment structure for Chernobyl for one billion dollars, when 18 billion (not counting inflation, which would further increase this number) was spent to build one in 1986? Are we so much poorer, compared to 25 years ago? I do not think so... but money today is wasted in completely idiotic ways. Billions of dollars are being burnt by the war operations in Libya and elsewhere in the world, for example. Sadly, today's world is not too different from what it was during the cold war - in some ways even worse.

The crysis of gaming

2011-04-05T10:22:00.000+02:00

I have recently tried out Crysis 2 and this has led me to write this entry. I am not excited about the game at all. Rather, I am quite worried about the future of gaming in general. You can see it in several places and in several ways. I was looking forward to Crysis 2 because I played the original Crysis and Crysis Warhead and those were reasonably good (except for the boss fights in the end which were simply irritating). And I really loved the graphics. With all the hype around the next incarnation of this series, how could I be not looking forward to it? When the beta (or what was it) version leaked, I did not want to play it because I expected it to be unfinished and it was DX9 only anyway... so I waited for the final game. I tried it and - OMG. Intro totally messed up - it was not that I did not know what was going on (like in Crysis 1), I was majorly confused. Some infection, chaos, then some aliens, occupation, wtf? It did not make any sense. Then I started playing. Hmm, not bad, the lighting is nice. But what are the insane system requirements? How come my "mid-tier" system is giving me over 30 FPS on the max graphics settings? Was not someone from Crytek saying that I would need a really high-end system to be able to play it on max settings? Like SLI, some high-end CPU etc.? Hmm, seems not to be the case. After a while more I finally understood. It was not even making good use of the hardware I had. Mediocre texture detail, (almost?) no normal mapping in the environment, absolutely no parallax mapping, particle systems cheap - they look good only because the sprites are well-made. But they are completely flat. Same with walls and other things. This was to be the ground-breaking new-generation graphics? And the biggest shock came when I turned on status display on my GPU to look at the real framerates and GPU usage. It showed the renderer version too: DX9. You have to be KIDDING! Even Crysis 1 had DX10 support! The only good thing about the graphics are the lighting effects. But of course, because you cannot do much more with DX9 and you have to use workarounds for all complex operations anyway. And come on, that motion blur is plainly disgusting. I turn it off with a 3rd party app and say "much better". Unfortunately, when I looked at distant objects, I realised the true reason behind motion blur. Distant objects are rendered at half the native resolution (in my case 1920x1080). This means they are pixelated and overally ugly! Crysis 1 had amazing detail in distant objects, now what is this?

Well I could get over the lower-quality graphics (even though there had been so much hype about it) but what I cannot digest is the gameplay. It is an astoundingly boring console shooter where you do nothing but get overwhelmed by hordes of powerful enemies, some of which cannot almost be killed and stuck with a nano suit with super-fast energy depletion. The weapons in this game have a nice design but that is all about them. All of them are the same, they behave the same not to mention they are completely useless - high fire rate and laughable damage. Grenades are almost useless because their kill radius is about 1m. They were very weak in Crysis 1 already, but here they seem like a total joke.

The characters in the game are absolutely shallow, not interesting at all and all they can do is get on your nerves. After an hour or two of gameplay, you stop taking the game seriously and just laugh at all the glitches you can find on your way. Oh yes, and you try to sneak around all enemies without firing a shot because that is a complete waste of time.

Crytek screwed this one up. And all because of seeing lots of money being made on console game sales. The original Crysis was not available for consoles, only for the PC because the hardware in game consoles sucks. Console manufacturers update the consoles like once in five to eight years - even I upgrade my computer more often! Consoles are usable only for casual gaming because of their target market: people who just want to buy a "thing which will run games" and do not care about the rest. They do not want to get the best game experience, they just want to have fun. Unfortunately, the number of such people is very high and developers are often blinded by the vision of great income from selling console games. In reality, they need to buy expensive dev kits, licences and a big cut of their profits goes to the pocket of the console vendors. Contrary to what many think, closed platforms are not a gold mine. We can see this situation in portable gaming as well - for example on mobile phones. Even though the hardware is fairly powerful now and even if you do not have powerful hardware available, you can make a fairly complex and compelling game. But developers do not care about this - they see the numbers of smartphones sold, they see a "low level" of piracy and they want to get rich and fast. So they make a product for casual gamers, which in my eyes, is total crap. I try out such games and sooner rather than later, get bored. So even though I have such a powerful device in my pocket, I end up watching anime on it because the games there suck.

And things are getting worse by the minute. With the advent of "tools" like game salad (or what is it called), everyone wants to make "games". The market gets flooded with tons of total crap, just look at the AppStore, the Android Market or look around the web at all the flash doom. Are real gamers doomed? People who want to get into the game, who want to feel like they live there and get absorbed in an another world, do they have nothing to look forward to? I fear so. Maybe there will be a game or two released in a couple of years which will be fairly good but that is all. Call of Pripyat from 2010 was awesome. But another game released in the meantime that I would like? No. Just go out and see for yourself, the mess we gamers are in.

War? No no, we are just destroying things in your country...

2011-03-21T12:27:00.001+01:00

The recent situation in the world is very interesting. We have come to a time when attacking another country, which does not pose any threat to you, without a declaration of war, is completely fine. I mean, this is outright crazy. Just because a civil war erupts where you cannot even say who the "bad guys" are, does this give the world superpowers a right to intervene?

Of course it does, because there is oil in that country. It is not at all about "supporting oppressed people" or some other humanitarian facade. If it were, the great US, along with France and GB (who seem to be very "righteous") would have attacked North Korea a long time ago. People in North Korea are far worse off than people in Libya! Why not save them? Oh of course, there is no oil nor other valuable resources there. And another point - North Korea is dangerously armed and probably has some nuclear weapons in their possession. Nah, NK is out of the question. Let us put out the ruler in Libya so that we can take a nice share of the profits from the oil that is produced there.

What is the UN thinking? Why did other countries not say NO to such an illegal act? How can the US attack a foreign country without the approval of the Congress? The unimaginable has just become reality. I really wonder why, of all countries, did Russia not stop the insanity. Well, probably they just do not care at all. Why did the UN intervene at all? It is not like the army started killing off civilians just like that. No, those "civilians" started destroying property and arming themselves - by stolen weapons from army warehouses. If they wanted war, they have war. They can enjoy it as much as they want.

The rebellion in Libya does not make any sense. The rebels did not even make their demands clear. What do they want? What did they want? Nothing. They wanted the leader to step down and leave the fate of the country in their hands. But why? I really do not know. They probably thought that he had been ruling the land for too long. Or some other such nonsense. Because to be clear, and that pertains to all other arid Arabic countries as well, people there can be glad that someone is taking care of them. Well, "freedom" is a nice thing - but it becomes secondary when you do not have anything to eat and drink, when you have absolutely nothing. Food is subsidised by the state in Arabic countries - if it were not, it would be much more expensive than it is now and people there would starve to death. But the rulers give people some share of the profits coming from oil in form of subsidised food prices. Okay, let us throw that ruler out and put in the great "democracy". Democracy just means that more people get their share of the pie. But on the other hand, nothing will force them to give up their earnings and pay for food for others. I know it from the situation here... people who get to power exploit everything they get their hands on to and other people have to suck it up and pay their debts. They use "state finances" in whatever way they like and it is then up to people who really earn something to pay.

People in Egypt and Tunisia live from tourism. It does not matter who rules there, it will not make much difference. But Libya along with other countries with valuable natural resources, are different. People, blinded by their naive vision of freedom, want to overthrow the rulers. But they do not see far ahead. They do not - and cannot - anticipate the things that will come. So yes, let the US, GB and France invade your country and take the resources there, disguised as an "investment company" who will invest in the oil fields. Such is the reality of this world. It is not about helping the weak, it is only about making more money.

Wrestling with droids 2

2011-02-28T12:25:00.003+01:00

After a few days, I am back with my final words on Android. I really liked the phone, I was trying really hard to overcome all problems. Unfortunately, some issues emerged which could not be overcome. They probably were not fixed in Android 2.3 and some of them cannot even be "fixed" because it depends on one factor - people's behaviour.

There are various issues with applications where you cannot have the work done effectively enough. There are glitches in the system itself - like "media scanning". For example, one time I looked at my picture gallery, all of the pictures were shown twice, even though there was physically only one copy of each picture on the SD card. No matter what I did - unmounting and remounting the SD card, connecting to a computer, etc. - I was unable to fix this issue. However, after I wiped my personal data using the privacy feature in settings yesterday, the duplicate pictures disappeared and all seemed fine again. However, this is not a good behaviour of the OS at all! I know that lots of people are used to such unpredictability from Windows - but I am used to things working as they should. I do not mind that Android is far more complicated than iOS - but it should work just as well, if not even better! Unfortunately, it does not.

But the absolutely worst point of Android is the Market. I know that lots of people complain that the AppStore is full of junk - but those people probably did not see the abysmal Android Market. People who have Android are very varied... and their spending habits are completely different. It means that someone who does not want to spend more than $200 on a phone is equally an Android user as someone who does not mind spending more than $600. People who do not like to spend lots of money on "a phone" are very unlikely to buy any applications. Thus, developers are not motivated to produce higher quality applications because they would not be making any money. Another problem is with the hardware differences between Android phones. Developers want to sell as many copies of their software as possible. This means that if they want to target all Android users, they have to produce a software that will run on slowest, low-memory and low-resolution Android phones. Whereas on iOS, developers can be sure that their customers are running the same hardware and they can create much more sophisticated applications and games. To give you a taste of this, I will provide you with two links to the same game developed by the same company for iOS http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/assassins-creed-altairs-chronicles/id313367811?mt=8 and for Android https://market.android.com/details?id=com.gameloft.android.GloftASCR&feature=search_result

The difference is really extreme. And there is another thing about Android Market which makes it unusable. Tons of rip-off "games" which are in fact only desktop wallpapers or themes! Some "developers" do not even bother stating this fact in the description and if you do not look at the category it is filed under, you may end up as a total sucker. Yes, Android Market sucks! One thing is that Apple can reject your application without any real reason but it is still better because they do a great job at filtering out the absolute garbage and fraudulent "apps".

I was ready to sacrifice lots of comfort and usability to have the Samsung Captivate. But I cannot overcome this. People should wake up and understand what they are doing by buying an Android phone. You are supporting companies who do not care about your needs at all! Forget widgets, animated backgrounds and I do not know what else people like about this Droid. If you do not have the money to get an iPhone, you have probably no choice but to survive this. BUT! I think buying a used previous-generation iPhone is a much better investment than buying a new Android phone for the same money. Or buy a cheap dumb phone and an iPod Touch.

I am a Linux user and I will rather reboot into Windows to run iTunes once in a while than have a phone which is only nice to look at but when I turn it on it just laughs and spits in my face. Now I just have to sell that droid as fast as I can.

P.S.: I used to be reserved about this but now, having first-hand experience, I must say: if anyone tells me that Android is better than iOS, I will think that he is an absolute idiot who does not know what he is talking about.

Wrestling with droids

2011-02-25T13:50:00.003+01:00

There are lots of people who say that iPhones are for "Apple fanatics" and that basically they are useless, overpriced, have poor hardware, are closed, limited etc.. So I decided to try one of the great Android phones. Choice is good so I found a phone which looks great, has decent hadware and runs Android. I chose Samsung Captivate (a Galaxy S variant).

I bought the phone on eBay - because that way I got a practically new phone for 65% of the local price. Not bad. When I unpacked it, I loved the design - the iPhone looks terribly ugly in comparison. It also has a much better feel in hand, the iPhone is like a brick but this just feels hi-tech. It was running the stock Samsung/AT&T version of Android 2.1. The display looked great, GUI was... in some parts great, in other quite bad. Of course, the phone was locked to AT&T and for full access I needed to root it anyway. I was looking forward to full functionality with Linux, lots of tweaking possibilities and flawless operation. So I connected it to my Linux system with USB. Two new disk devices appeared, /dev/sdb and /dev/sdc. But I could not read them, not even the partition table, they seemed dead. I was looking at all the settings in the phone and after some time, I tried turning on debug mode and after reconnecting it, it somehow worked - temporarily. I copied over the update.zip, restarted the device into the bootloader (after finding out how to do that) but could not find the menu entry everyone was writing about in the bootloader. After a few more attempts, I gave up. I found some one-click solution for (what else than) Windows. And here I thought I could avoid using it. Oh well, I rebooted into Windows. Connected the phone and - nothing? I did everything I could with the phone, I downloaded the drivers which were recommended in the forums, I tried it on another machine with a different version of windows - no go. When I tried to run the application, I found it was written in C# and required .NET framework. OMG! .NET framework of all things! So I went to the M$ site and downloaded and installed the required version of .NET. But it was still a no-go. The phone could not be recognised. The problem was, it did not even appear in the device manager, nothing! After an hour I found a working version of those drivers which finally got to recognise the phone - probably. I am not sure because I was desperate and was trying everything - and then it just worked. Oh great, so I rooted it with the one-click software and now what. I wanted to upgrade the OS to 2.2 or 2.3 so I thought a backup would be nice to have. I found an app for backing things up and installing new ROMs. I think it was called Clockworkmod or something like that. I chose to flash the clockworkmod and then chose to back up my current firmware. Well, it rebooted but - I got the standard bootloader screen. Then I found out that sometimes it is needed to choose "reinstall packages" after running it for the first time. So I did that, restarted again and - nothing. I did it a few more times but to no avail. In fact, I tried it LOTS of times, with different versions and all. Because people reported success with an older version - which was unfortunately not available anymore at that time. After more frustration, I was looking at the description in the Market again. The last sentence went like "Samsung users need to download a clockworkmod-compatible kernel. See forums.". OMG what forums now??? So I searched for it in google and found the forum thread. There was a download link for the kernel, hooray! Oops, not working - server not found. WTF is all this s**t?! What is so great about Android now? I cannot even back it up without installing some non-existent custom kernel! This was a lost case so I decided to call it a day.

The next day after coming back home from work, I decided to proceed with the upgrade and not do the backup (which seemed impossible to do). I found out that Samsung has its own software - called Kies, which could upgrade it to official 2.2 firmware. So, I wanted to get rid of iTunes but now I have to use some Kies which is Windows-only. How nice. Downloading Kies was a terrible experience. First, I could not find it easily. And after I finally found it, it was downloading at 20-60 kB/s. Some 60% into the download, it just failed. I tried it again and now it was finally working. I installed the beast, ran it, connected my phone in Kies mode and what? "Your phone is not supported by this version". Now WHAT should that mean? It's like I connected the latest iPhone to the latest version of iTunes and it would say it was not supported on this version. This is hell for users. But somewhere on the net I found the version which last supported the Samsung Captivate - I think it was 1.5.something. I found it, downloaded it and installed it. Wow, it recognised the phone! BUT! It said it was already running the latest firmware. OMG such a piece of crap this is! Okay, so I am "officially" screwed, the manufacturer, Google and anyone else just does not care about me. How nice. So I downloaded some leaked version of 2.2 for the Captivate, installed it - and it worked! Wow. How do companies like Samsung want to compete with Apple if their software is good for nothing? At that point I was really unsure if it was Google who produced such garbage, if it was Samsung, if it was AT&T with their crapware... whatever. The point is, I was the bottom-feeder in this food chain, everyone just wanted the money from me and nobody cared about my needs. Now THIS is why people choose Apple and are happy even if they are very limited in their "freedom". Because I still see more freedom in a system which works than in one which does not work, even though you are theoretically allowed to do anything with it. Oh yes, I am "free" to write my own OS. That is like the only real freedom I have. But I don't care about such a thing.

But enough of my ranting, let's continue with the story. Rooting the new Android 2.2 was not a big issue either and surprisingly, I could manually unlock it. So, after two days, it was finally ready for use. But ready, really? NO! That was just my wishful thinking. First, I had to uninstall the AT&T crapware which was useless anyway since I live in a completely different country with a different carrier. That was easy with some Titanium app. I also had to uncensore the marketplace. However, a few icons remained in the list of installed apps even after being uninstalled. Well, I just moved those to some unused page and started trying out the applications and functions of the phone. What I need the most is e-mail. There were two apps for mail - a default one and a gmail app. The default one was just... terrible. To be honest, that is not the right word but I do not know how to describe it. Completely unusable and super-ugly. A HUGE font, plaintext-only, almost no options, I had enough. And the gmail app? As the name suggests, gmail-only. It looks fine, but: no unified inbox and it seems to be only a web interface (loading the conversations every time you open it). That means - crap. After searching for an alternative, I found K9 mail. It is feature-rich but again - it does not have the user comfort I am used to. I want to have several accounts in it, some of them via push, other syncing when I open up the app. But here? Either you have push, you have periodic syncing or you do not sync at all. Not nice. It means that I have to go to the accounts list, press and hold the account and choose "check mail". Terrible. I partially solved this issue by enabling push on all accounts and disabling notifications on those I did not want to be notified of immediately. What is worse, you cannot individually choose folders for push. You can only choose to push all folders of a certain level. Not nice.

The battery died after four hours of use. I was mostly just browsing the settings, tweaking e-mail etc.. So very light use. However, the battery was probably not fully charged, so we will see the next time. I am afraid that it will be nowhere near the 6-8 hours I get from my iPhone 3GS. I also have to add that I kept all apps closed, no widgets running in background, no wifi, brightness low... and the battery is about 15% larger than in my iPhone. Poor hardware? Poor programming? Both? What is eating the battery life so much? The information in the phone was not very helpful. Display 85% - but that is the total summed consumption of that component over the whole period the phone was unplugged = totally useless. And if it really was the display and the CPU was doing nothing, then AMOLED displays are terribly wrong. Well, they have another glitch. Sure, they have fantastic viewing angles, fantastic colours, amazing contrast. But - when you look at pictures on them, they look like printed in a magazine. Not completely smooth like on an LCD. Maybe Samsung improved this in the Galaxy S II, who knows. But one thing is for sure - iPhone 4's retina IPS display is better than this Super AMOLED. Not to mention that pictures get decoded to a lower resolution - when you zoom them in, they are terribly pixelated.

Finally, it was time to test the video and audio capabilities of this phone. I had read great tales on the internet about playing 720p high profile video, support of dozens of codecs and formats, including ogg vorbis, FLAC, etc.. But the real deal is - it cannot really play better videos than the iPhone. I uploaded a 720p high profile video to it - and? No go. Video not supported. And a video with vorbis sound = video with no sound. Video with subtitles = video without subtitles. How is this better than the iPhone?? I can at least somehow create mp4 files for the iPhone so that it plays the subtitles in it. I know exactly what requirements the iPhone needs for video encoding so that it can play it. With this droid, I know nothing. And the absence of iTunes in this case is even contraproductive. iTunes at least tells me when the video cannot be played on the device. But here I have to spend time copying it to the phone and only then I find out that it simply does not work.

And the final thing - music. I thought I would not need some stupid iTunes-like library, that I would be able to browse and play the music in individual directories because I keep it neatly organised. I do not want to bother editing the ID3 tags so that they are totally consistent. It is a big hassle, I want to play the music like I can on my iRiver Clix 2. Well again, maybe there is an application in the market that can do this. Maybe there is an app in the market which can play videos with subtitles. But why the hell does the OS with its default applications not do the work it is supposed to? Not to mention lots of those apps you need for full functionality are not free. This is not GNU/Linux. This is not open-source. This is not freedom. This is Windows with a Linux kernel.

That said, I am still going to give this abomination one more week of usage. But there are lots of other glitches I find continually. No 2G/3G switch. I have to type a ridiculous code into the phone app and go through a debug menu to do that. No battery percentage indicator. I cannot switch on battery % display - widgets are useless because they add another icon and they eat CPU (really, I checked it). I can download Open Home - supposedly. But it is paid! Battery % is on iOS now available by default and even when it was not (iOS 3), I could download WinterBoard from Cydia for free. This list goes on and on.

Don't get me wrong, I still love some things about this device. Its great design, the battery cover made of carbon fiber, pretty home screen, super-fast web browsing, google places and the picture gallery. But other than that, it is mediocre. Including its battery life. When I do the same things on my iPhone 3GS, it lasts for 7 hours. This DROID lasts only for 4.5 hours! Maybe the display really is responsible for all the energy it consumes but unfortunately most websites have a white background. I will also test its video stamina but I doubt it will be any better. My iPhone gives me 8 hours of watching video. (and if I turn on airplane mode it is more than 10 hours)

So excuse me, I have to go wrestle with droids some more.

YouTube = SlowTube? Even more so on the iPad and the iPhone!

2011-02-14T13:59:00.001+01:00

Many of you have probably noticed that YouTube can be painstakingly slow. But not always - and it is slower on some devices and faster on others. How is this possible?

This issue has been bothering me ever since I bought an iPad. While I had had some problems with it on my iPhone 3GS and sometimes even on my laptop, YouTube on the iPad was absolutely unusable. The issue on iPad was worse than on the iPhone 3GS probably because it was always trying to stream 720p HD video if available. This was not a nice discovery at all since one of the reasons I bought an iPad was watching videos online comfortably. But waiting 6 minutes to be able to start playing a 4-minute video is some really sick notion of "comfort".

After a month of torture, the situation had not improved at all and I was forced to investigate and try to do something about it on my own. First of all, I needed to know how YouTube video streaming works. There are several things I noticed immediately:

1. Streaming works fastest when I try it at work, with the ugly flash player
2. It works generally slowest at times people are at home and awake.
3. It works absolutely slowest when using it on iDevices.
4. iPhone 3GS is faster than iPad because it streams 360p video max.

I found lots of "tips" and "solutions" for slow YouTube but none of them worked. I also tried tweaking my wireless router so that I get maximum transfer speeds on the iPad. But that did not help either - even though I was able to get to full download speed of my broadband connection (15 mbps), YouTube was slow as ever.

I deduced that YouTube must have dedicated servers for various geographical areas. Only then it is possible that the speed of streaming is dependant on the daily cycle in people's lives. But why it works slower on iDevices than when played through the flash plugin on their website? After some more research, I found out that the technology used behind video streaming is different between the flash player and iDevices. iDevices (and maybe other devices too, I doubt Android is running a flash player to play YouTube videos) are using a technique called "HTTP live streaming". Because HTTP streaming (i.e. downloading) is not capable of seeking to other positions in the file, the original file is cut into approximately 10-second tiny pieces which are then streamed to your device one by one. This way you are able to "seek" in the file - in fact you tell the server that you want a different chunk of the original file and it starts sending you the chunks from that position. The downside is, this is not pure streaming, the video has to be processed too. That means, it will inherently be always (more or less) slower. Compression suffers a bit using this approach too but that is not the scope of this article. However, this affects all users worldwide, regardless of their location.

I also noticed that videos with millions of views always played fast, while when playing videos with fewer and fewer views, the probability that the streaming would be slow was higher and higher. Unfortunately, I am much more interested in videos which have a couple thousand views than in those which have millions of them. This suggests two things:

1. High-demand videos are copied over to multiple servers so that YouTube is able to serve them to lots of people simultaneously.
2. Videos are cached on local servers - if someone has viewed the video in your area recently, chances are higher that you will be served it faster
3. Videos are (maybe) pre-processed and cached locally. e.g. If someone is viewing (or has viewed recently) a video on an iPad and you want to watch it on your iPad too, chances are that the stream will be fast.

You cannot really do anything about these, it just means that the more views a video has, the higher chance you have of getting a fast stream. This is even more observable on iDevices, where the content cannot be streamed directly.

There is, however, one thing you can do about the local servers: change your location! Unfortunately this is not too easy and is (in most cases) not a free solution either but it is a possibility. I figured out that since Google was a US company, it will have the most servers and the best bandwidth in the US. And I remembered that I have an unused VPS (Virtual Private Server) with a http proxy right there! I first tried it on my laptop, just changed the proxy setting to the US server. And look at that! Videos that were streaming at measly tens of kilobytes per second are now being downloaded at one megabyte per second or more! That is really neat. I tried it on the iPad, with a similar result - the video was streaming much faster than before. However, the downside (apart from the operating cost of a VPS overseas) is that the latency was increased considerably, slowing down regular internet browsing. I do not want to have to switch the proxy on and off all the time so I just run it in a different browser. One browser for YouTube, the other one for everything else. Not absolutely convenient but a million times better than having to wait 6 minutes for a 4-minute video.

Unfortunately on the iPad, the only proxy setting you have is the system-wide one. You cannot choose a different proxy for the YouTube application and a different one for the browser. So when I know that I would be watching YouTube for more than one or two videos, I switch the proxy on in my wifi settings.

That is all for today. I must stress that I am not a Google employee, never was one and everything here is based on my estimates and intuition. If you have more insight into how YouTube works and why it is so slow, please comment!

I will give you some tuning tips for optimisation of your home wifi router for an iPad as a reward the next time!

iPhone 3GS bluetooth tethering on Gentoo Linux

2011-01-09T23:37:00.000+01:00

Here is a quick how-to, you will not find it anywhere else on the web (at least not via Google):
Pre-requisites: working bluetooth, BNEP protocol enabled in kernel or as a module (in network configuration, under bluetooth)

su root
emerge bluez with the old-daemons USE-flag
emerge blueman (to pair the device, or use something else if you wish)
turn on bluetooth and internet sharing on your iPhone
run the pand daemon: pand -s -r PANU
find out the hw address of your iPhone using: hcitool scan
pair the iPhone with your computer using blueman (or your optional software), then mark it as trusted
cd /etc/init.d
ln -s net.lo net.bnep0
run the pand daemon in connect mode: pand -c E8:06:88:7E:DF:5B -n #replacing that hw address with the address of your phone
maybe you will need to start the interface manually if the internet is not working at this time: /etc/init.d/net.bnep0 start

And that is it! If you have any problems, please leave a comment and I will investigate. I did this today, on my laptop running gentoo-sources-2.6.36-r5 and latest stable (or ~arch in case of blueman) versions of all packages.

The big machine

2011-01-05T14:34:00.000+01:00

Well, it has been some time since my last post but I just felt this morning that I should write another one. I also pondered writing it in Czech but in the end I decided against it. Why should I bother? People should know English fairly well nowadays and if they do not - is there even a difference? I have not had any positive feedback so far, so it really does not matter if I write my posts in Czech or English - I could write them in Spanish and nobody would care either.

But enough of idle banter! I have again matters to discuss. Or to tell you about. This time it will all be about work. Yes, work. Or rather - the whole machine which is called "work" and which I have to spend half of my day at.

To tell the truth, I am fed up with this company. In the past two years, I have found out that it works exactly the same way as political parties - and state, for that matter. The individual - that is, me - is just a grain of dirt under the feet of people whose accounts overflow. And the whole machine is only something intangible, meaning to give excuse for all of the wrongs which are being done and for the incompetency of its leaders.

Those are some big words, you might say. So I will not tire you with those any longer and instead present a compiled list of things which I am hating more and more.

- Lies. They are lying all the time, saying how they are making it a better place, a place where people will like working at. To be honest - all they do is make one tiny change (absolutely insignificant) and proclaim it a huge success and sacrifice. Oh yes, those "new toilets" are so much better than the old ones - they have a different colour. Wow. They changed carpets for new ones - which are exactly the same as the old ones. I could go on but some of those are interesting enough to be mentioned separately and I shall discuss them later.

- Incapable management. The more I look into the workings of this company, the more I see how badly managed it is. Everything is terribly inefficient, extremely expensive and nobody cares. It is getting worse by the year. For example, I have been working here for more than three years. In the first year, there was a small bonus for Christmas. The next year - nothing. I thought it was because of the crisis. The next year - nothing, again. And now, when the "crisis" (everyone has been blaming) is supposedly over, NOTHING. That is really nice, especially when I hear for example from my mother, who is working at a much smaller company that she gets a 13th salary for Christmas. If she works hard and meets the expectations for the month, she gets a bonus. I get nothing, again. But at the same time, the company is throwing away money big time: with massive marketing campaigns, pointless reconstructions of offices, having lots of things "outsourced" for outrageous money, etc..

- Lack of motivation. For starters, see the section above. For more reasons, read on. You could argue that money is not everything - and you would be right. Unfortunately, there is absolutely nothing else than the standard salary I get here. Employee benefits - what a joke. I get 15% off of some "designer jewellery". How useful. I get CZK 50 per day in "meal tickets". That will really save me, especially when other companies offer twice as much. I can buy HP or Dell electronics for "reduced price", which is actually higher than in retail shops. I can buy railway tickets 3% cheaper. Such immense benefits for working here, I tell you! Okay okay, I hear you - the work itself can be rewarding. Yes, it *can*, but certainly not here. The first year was fine - I got to play with some new things and learned about enterprise hardware and other solutions. However, it ended there. My motivation has been slowly decreasing since then and now it just hit rock bottom. Not only my potential is totally wasted here, I have observed that there are too many people working here - about 30% is completely redundant. That means each person has less to do and if they are capable, it means a big problem. They can finish all the tasks in a fragment of the time they have to be at work, they get bored and fed up. Like in my case. If I at least had the freedom to do as I please here, as long as the work is finished. But no: restrictions, restrictions and more restrictions meaning that if I do not know how to at least partially work my way around these restrictions, I would be left here staring in front of my at the wallpaper on my PC. It is only a matter of time until they restrict those too and you would spend your time staring at a huge logo of the company.

- Unpleasant environment. These ugly open-space offices, with people crammed and all noise and bad air being carried through the whole floor of the building. This also makes me want to leave this place as soon as possible, every day.

- No home office. You would think that the unpleasant environment could be solved easily, without an additional cost to the company: by allowing work from home. Even though talk has been going on about it for the whole three years, absolutely nothing has been done, nobody has even lifted a finger. If I could be in a nice environment at home and do as I please when there is no work, I would be much more motivated and willing to tackle any problem presented to me. Well, no go.

- "Health, health, health. Where is it???" The whole company is "supporting" everyone for getting healthier. But how? By getting a puny CZK 200 refund monthly for actively participating in organised sports? So, I should throw out ten times as much to get a puny refund? No, thank you. Besides, I hate those places. And nobody is going to refund me for taking walks in nature (which are far, far healthier than sweating in a stinky gym). But the basis of good health is good food. That, I can only dream of. There is a canteen which is open to the employees of this company only - because you supposedly get reduced prices and it should theoretically offset the tiny compensation of CZK 50 per day you get. The prices would not be bad. If the food were edible, that is. The junk, for a want of a better word, you are being served, is right down inedible. If you want something barely edible, you have to pay twice as much and for that price, you could get a decent meal somewhere else without a problem. Employees have been complaining for years about the food. And the result? It only got worse. The garbage I had for breakfast today was the last drop. I cannot take this any more.

- Colleagues. Same as anywhere else, nobody really understands me here nor is at least trying to learn anything about me. So, that is not a reason for staying here either.

- Continuous flow of stupid "innovation" and increasing bureaucracy. I hate those things - the self-assessment which says absolutely nothing and requires you to be the "best" in sublime notions presented by empty words. Logging your actions everywhere, having to type in the reason when you need privileged account access, planning your vacations for the whole year in advance, using obscure tools which should ease the "work" for managers, etc.. More and more of these things are coming. And as they are coming, I am leaving.

- A big, ugly mess. I changed my name more than a year and a half ago, yet the old name still persists in some systems. It took them weeks to at least change my name in e-mail and other most important systems. And more and more "systems" are being bought, created, implemented and broken. For example, I set the deduction for buying shares from my salary to 0% two months ago. I was shocked to see that the previous amount is still being deducted from my salary every month. Give me my money back!

Theoretically this is capitalism. But in fact, this is in no way better than was communism. It is just called differently. You work for the good of the company and that single thought should keep you going and happy.

The only thing that is keeping me from leaving immediately are those stupid shares which are still being bought. I do not want to pay tax from them when I bought them from my salary after the tax had been deducted already! I have to wait half a year until they are tax-free. But that is the problem of this state and its laws - but see, it just cleanly transcends both realms.

Motion-control madness? (good for flies)

2010-11-23T14:36:00.002+01:00

Surely you must have come into contact (either directly or indirectly) with the new wave of motion controls for game consoles. It all began with Nintendo Wii and now even its rivals (well they are not really in the same league, but... they are game consoles too) have some motion-control offerings. Sony will award you with a super-light-ball-on-a-stick type controller. It glows, it is great. Well there is a camera connected to the PlayStation 3, which scans the position of the glowing ball and you use that for control, along with a few buttons on the controller. How cool is it to duck and snipe in front of the TV with a big glowing ball?

Well, Microsoft brought this madness even further - they thought that any controller would be a waste and they just scan the movements of your body. Is it not great to hold an imaginary driving wheel? Or what about sports? Stomping on one place before the TV as fast as you can gives you a really great experience of running.

The thing that most of the people do not seem to understand is that computer games are not an inprecise simulation of reality. They are a virtual reality - and that is something completely different. Regardless of what you may want to do in the real world, your body is the limiting factor. Computer games take this restraint away and replace it with virtual restraints tailored to the individual game. For example, how many people would be able to fly in a jet plane without a long and hard physical training? How can you fight with a sword if you cannot dodge fast enough and your body just cannot execute the actions your mind wants to make? And this brings us even further. What if you are a bird - or a being with completely different anatomy. How should you control it with your body?

The truth is, computer games give you much more freedom and you may get completely immersed in the game. Computer games and controls are designed in such a way as to remove to all possible extent the need for physically moving your body and let your mind do the job. Keyboard-mouse controls for most games are not the best what you can imagine but they are good enough for players to forget about their hands when they are playing. Their mind is just sending commands to their hands, which move very slightly in response and the player gets direct feedback from the game, not from nerves in the hands. Such feedback is not only much faster but it does not distract you.

For example, imagine that you want to walk forward in a game and then turn left. With traditional controls, this means only holding down one button and then moving the mouse slightly to one side.
With glowing ball controls, you probably have to press a button on it anyway and even though swinging the controller is good for glancing sideways, you would have to hold down another button to tell the game that you do not want to momentarily look there but that you want to stay turned in that direction even after you put the controller back in its central position. Not to mention that you have to stand in front of the TV and your legs will start to hurt in a while.
With body-motion-detection controls, you probably have to "walk" but you cannot - because for that you would need completely different equipment than a static TV and the floor of your room. So you just bring your legs up and down like an idiot and the character in the game "walks". Oh great. And what about turning? Well... who knows what the game developers will want you to do. Maybe extend a hand or something - because clearly you cannot turn since the TV will not turn with you. Not to mention that you will get tired after some time of walking and running - when actually you want to play that tall Elf who can run through the woods all day. No no, you can "play" just the plain old "yourself". And this was relatively simple. Imagine swimming. Will you lie flat on the floor, doing silly moves and getting bruises while trying to break your neck looking upwards at the TV? This is completely ridiculous. Not to mention that you may be whatever you like in a game - a bird with wings. Will you flap your arms to fly? A glowing spirit which levitates above the floor and moves with the power of its will? What should you do then?

I hope this illustrates the ridicule of motion controls well enough. For me, the ideal controller for a game would be a direct interface with my brain, which would scan my neural impulses and control the game without needing to do absolutely anything. No distraction from the world around you - because you are not sitting or standing in front of your computer or TV - you are living in the game.

If you want some exercise, just go for a walk outside to a forest (providing people have not destroyed all forests and nature in your vicinity). Jumping in front of your TV will not give you a good experience of actually doing things in reality and it will not give you a good experience of being in a virtual world either. This is another good-for-nothing idea, like 15 inch notebooks for example. Not small enough to be carried conveniently everywhere with you, not big enough for comfortable use, nor powerful enough to replace your desktop PC. But this is a growing trend in the present: people want to have everything at once, even though it is not possible.

Even so, motion controls seem to be popular with people and evoke a "wow" sensation. Of course, people are becoming less and less able to do complex tasks and lifting a hand is more understandable to them than typing a command or hitting a key combination. Yes, people are going back to the animal level, while their technology is getting out of control because they "want everything". Where this leads, I do not even want to know. I hope I will not be living when the situation reaches its final stages.

OMG! What did I say?!

2010-11-15T09:35:00.000+01:00

How can anyone use google translate to translate my blog when I explicitly WARNED AGAINST USING GOOGLE TRANSLATE TO TRANSLATE MY CZECH POSTS!
The quality of translation is TERRIBLE and it REVERSES the MEANING of whole sentences!

Be warned! Do not attempt to do this!!!

AI - possible?

2010-10-22T11:11:00.000+02:00

    Having dealt with an overdose of ignorance and impudence (in the previous Czech-only post), I can now move on. I shall focus on writing English articles from now on, because a good deal of backstabbing was the only thank-you I ever got for the articles in Czech.
Even though I said that I would not write about serious matter, the thing I wish to discuss today is something I still consider as "serious". Not as serious as the problems plaguing this world but still serious. As the title suggests, we will be talking about an approach to artificial intelligence and its possibilities.

    A lot of things carries a designation of being "intelligent" - even though it is really extreme to use this word in this context. An "intelligent" iron that turns itself off when not in use. An "intelligent" microwave oven which measures the weight of the food and adjusts its settings accordingly. An "intelligent" backup disk which backs up the data from your disk incrementally with the press of a button. Such things, however, are hardly intelligent. They merely contain a simple automated routine and cannot be intelligent per se.
Then we have for example artificial intelligence in games. That is not really intelligence as one would understand from the definition but it is neverthless a higher degree of sophistication than those dumb devices.

    What I want to talk about today is an artificial intelligence for communication purposes with humans. This is not completely equivalent to "normal" intelligence as we are used to it because such an intelligence has several modes of operation at its disposal. First and most important, there is the abstract thinking, which comprises of words, languages, connections and relations between words etc.. This is the basis of all intelligence because without the ability of abstract thinking, we cannot speak of true intelligence but rather than only reaction to stimuli. However, human mind can operate in several other modes. For example, we may use visual data acquired by our eyes as well as data from other sensors on our body to complement the abstract words. Therefore, human mind not only connects words and their meanings together, it can also connect these with data from its sensors and may use these instead of words for thinking. Some problems are solved more easily this way and it expands the possibilities. I have to stress though, that the overall level of intelligence is not increased, it is only expanded to cover more objects of different nature. The problem with artificial intelligence is that it would be very alien to us if we do not make it possible for it to communicate with us. The only "semi-natural" way of computers communicating with humans is via reading/writing. Computers have been designed from the beginning to read written commands, execute them and print the result either on paper or on the screen in human-readable form. Making the computer interact with a person in a different way is inherently difficult. This is also due to the fact, that the enormous computation capacity of the brain is almost exclusively used for processing sensory information. Ordinary computers are still nowhere near the needed speed for processing such a large amount of information. And supercomputers are only slowly crawling towards that capacity. Even if supercomputers were fast enough, nobody in this money-driven society would be interested in using such a terribly expensive supercomputer for the non-profit task of talking to humans. Thus we have to boil it down to the minimum needed for successful communication.

    Let us have a look at written speech. I will be using the English language as an example because it is one of the simplest languages to analyse. Chinese is maybe even better suited for this task but unfortunately, I cannot speak Chinese and there are other problems inherent with Chinese writing systems. So English is a good compromise and it is very widespread in the present world as well. A sentence consists of several words, each of them has a different importance and a different way of relating to the other words of that sentence. A bunch of words thrown together might be understandable with great difficulty but if we employ correct grammar, this will be much easier. Take this for example "Feel me now tired". We might guess what the speaker is trying to say but it is ambiguous and we have to guess based only on the probability and the connection of these words to the present state of things. A computer, however, has no such connection to the outside world. It will have several options to choose from and each will be equally as likely. But if you write "I am feeling tired now.", the meaning becomes very clear. That is thanks to the grammar - a computer will absolutely need to have this additional information to understand the connections between the words correctly. There are already some tools for analysing English grammar - for example ENGCG. This parses the sentence in the following way:

"<*i>"
    "i" <*> PRON PERS NOM SG1 SUBJ @SUBJ
""
    "be" V PRES SG1 VFIN @+FAUXV
""
    "feel"

PCP1 @-FMAINV
""
"tire"

PCP2 @PCOMPL-S @-FMAINV
""
    "now" ADV @ADVL
"<$.>"

    Perfect! Now the computer may know (if programmed correctly, that is), how the individual words are connected and how it should look for the correct meaning of words and their connections in its databases.
    Now, these databases are the heart of its personality and must be designed accordingly. Humans have some innate predispositions but most of their personality is formed gradually as they grow up, gather experience and knowledge. Accordingly, an artificial intelligence needs only the most basic "meanings" of words at the beginning and should create relations among words as it evolves. The innate predispositions can be chosen at random as the aritifial intelligence comes first "in contact" with those concepts - or they may be pre-programmed by its creator if she wants to specifically make it behave in a certain way. What is the most basic and fundamental concept? I would say that it is the attribute of "positive/negative" or "like/dislike". For example, we may say to the AI "I have eaten a chocolate pudding today.". The AI cannot taste a chocolate pudding but that does not matter - until a human first tries a food, we cannot say if she will like it or not. And the outcome appears random for us. Thus the AI can randomly choose the level of "liking/disliking" "pudding modified by chocolate in the context of eating considering myself". As we can see, an entry in the database would consist of a base word, its modifier, the context and the "topic" (the "considering" part). Such an entry would contain the level of liking/disliking of this combination. Later on as the AI evolves, the entries would expand with pointers to other entries in the database, which are connected to this one along with pointer modifiers.
    We may also create several types of AI this way. As I have described above, such an AI would be "decisive". Once it decides something is good/bad, it will never change its opinion. On the other hand, we may create an "indecisive" AI which would change its opinion rapidly and would be easily persuaded. And finally, we can create a "balanced" AI, with each database entry having an additional parameter of how determined the AI is about its opinion on this DB entry. This could be pre-defined by its creator or again, chosen randomly. However, "randomly" is not completely the right term because the AI would look at "closest matches" in its DB when it encounters a new situation. Thus it may modify the choice and it will not be completely random.

    In the end, such an AI would think a bit differently than people - given that it does not have access to any sensory information and can think only in abstract terms but it would present at least some level of intelligence and perceptive people would be able to relate to it.

    I hope this article was interesting for you, see you next time! Also, if you would like to work on such a project, please contact me...

A note to English-speaking readers

2010-10-19T12:00:00.000+02:00

PLEASE NOTE!

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE GOOGLE TRANSLATOR OR OTHER AUTOMATED TRANSLATING SOFTWARE TO TRANSLATE MY PAGE!

I have tried it and it either produces absolute nonsense or it completely reverses the meaning of sentences! If you would like to read some of my previous posts in English, please contact me!

Kam kráčíme?

2010-10-12T08:30:00.007+02:00

    Dnes se podíváme na další stránku společnosti - její udržitelnost. Možná když jdete po ulici ve městě, tak se cítíte trochu nepříjemně a nesví... kolem je všude tolik lidí. Vypadá to jako šílenství - stovky aut projíždějí kolem, tisíce chodců, každý někam pospíchá. Ale proč? Proč je jich tak moc? K tomu jsou dva hlavní důvody.

    Prvním důvodem je nedostatek odpovědnosti jednotlivých lidí. Z pohledu dnešní společnosti existují dva druhy lidí. "Zodpovědní" a "nezodpovědní". Ovšem oba druhy jsou stejně nezodpovědné, i když to společnost vidí jinak. Pravdou je, že oba přístupy jsou špatné. Podívejme se nejdříve na "nezodpovědné" lidi. Je jim jedno, co se stane se světem nebo dokonce s nimi samými za pár let - nebo v některých případech i za pár měsíců - ode dneška. Jednoduše se chtějí "bavit", "užívat si" apod.. To znamená, že všechno, co je zajímá je návštěva klubů, jak se opít, koho dostat do postele atd.. Zajímají je pouze jejich akutní základní potřeby a všechno ostatní ignorují. Společnost si toto částečně uvědomuje, ale v současnosti je tento přístup čím dál více rozšířený. Ale jaká je ta druhá alternativa? Ach, být "zodpovědný". Protože zodpovědní lidé chodí do školy, chodí do práce, kupují si auto, kupují si dům, ožení se, mají děti... (a celý ten čas nadávají na blbou školu, blbou práci, rozbité auto, vysoké splátky, otravnou ženu, drzé a hlučné děti... ale bez zaváhání doporučují tento životní styl komukoliv dalšímu) Ale kde leží jejich odpovědnost? Přemýšlí o svých činech a rozhodnutích a jejich následcích? Přemýšlejí o tom, jaký bude jejich skvělé auto mít dopad na všechno? Co obnáší výroba a provoz auta? Vědí, co způsobí příchod dalších lidí na tento svět? Zajímají se o své geny a jejich účinek na své potomstvo? Ne... je jim to jedno. Pouze "chtějí". "Chci auto." "Chci děti." "Chci tohle a tamto." Jaký to má smysl? Mají falešný pocit, že takové chování je "správné" a že jejich život bude "za něco stát", když ho prožijí takovým způsobem. Smůla je, že za něco stojí pouze lidem, kteří jsou o stupínek více v "potravinovém řetězci". Automobilky prosperují - což znamená, že lidé kteří je vlastní nebo v nich pracují dostanou více peněz. A ti si zase díky tomu koupí více věcí od ostatních. Ale všechna tato potřeba více a více věcí se neobejde bez zvýšené poptávky po lidech a zdrojích... ale to přeci není problém, děti se o tohle postarají až vyrostou. Všichni jsou s touto situací spokojení, s tímto "růstem". Ekonomie roste, zisky společností rostou, všechno "roste". Ovšem dnešní ekonomický ideál přímo vyžaduje takovýto růst. Nestačí jen vydělávat, nestačí vydělávat stejné množství peněz jako minulý rok - taková společnost je "špatná" a cena jejích akcií klesá. Ne, potřebujeme vyšší a vyšší zisky každým rokem.

    Tak, zde máte tu příčinu přelidnění. A ano, skutečně myslím přelidnění - jak jsou na planetě města s více než milionem obyvatel, je přelidněná. Přelidněnost je jedna věc a nebyl by to až takový problém, kdyby zde ovšem nebyl ten požadavek exponenciálního růstu. Země není nekonečná, její zdroje nevydrží nekonečně dlouho. Tento exponenciální růst je cesta k absolutnímu zničení všeho. Jen se podívejte na jídlo, kterým se živíme. Například tady v práci nás krmí svinstvem a ne jídlem. Proč bychom dělali kvalitní jídlo, když potřebujeme zvýšit zisky? Tak použijme nějakou náhražku a zvyšme podíl zisku, to je hodně dobrý nápad.

    Naneštěstí se s tímto setkáváme čím dále častěji. Také jak by ne... nejenom že tady máme potřebu zvyšování zisku, existuje limit toho, co zemědělství a krajina může poskytnout. Jen se podívejte na to, jak se zachází se zvířaty, jak se používají jako stroj k výrobě masa a jiných produktů. Čím je krmí, kde je drží... To proto, že lidé potřebují tolik masa, že není možné dodat takové množství přirozeným způsobem. A rostliny na tom nejsou o moc lépe. Ve středověku zisk z pěstování obilí byl nanejvýše 7:1. To znamená, že z jednoho vysazeného semene jich získali sedm - jedno pro příští rok na setí a dalších šest k jídlu. V moderním zemědělství je tento poměr spíše číslo kolem 200:1!!! Jak je jen tohle možné? Samozřejmě jen díky enormnímu zneužívání zdrojů této planety. Hnojiva, kterých výroba značně zatěžuje životní prostředí. A samozřejmě takové plodiny jsou náchylné k různým nemocím a škůdcům. Insekticidy, pesticidy, fungicidy... všechno tohle se musí vyrábět a jejich výroba spotřebovává velké množství energie, znečišťuje životní prostředí a samozřejmě tyto produkty nejsou zdravé. Žel, jsme krmeni takovýmto "umělým" a "jedovatým" obilím, ovocem a zeleninou... Jsme krmeni masem a mlékem ze zvířat, které musí žrát růstové hormony, antibiotika a ještě horší "jídlo", než jaké dostáváme my. Jak mohou být lidé v takovémto prostředí zdraví?

    Naneštěstí nemohou. V posledním desetiletí se zvyšuje zájem o sporty, alespoň tedy v této krajině. Jednoduše proto, protože lidem všichni říkají, jak zdravé je cvičit. Shodou okolností, nejzdravějším "cvičením" pro lidi je chůze. Člověk se vyvinul k chůzi a to je to, co by měl dělat. Ale téměř nikoho tohle nezajímá - a samozřejmě, i když by ho to zajímalo, kde se mají projít? Podél cesty, vdechovat splodiny z aut? Ach ne, samozřejmě že ne - chytré hlavy vynalezly něco lepšího. Opět koncentrování lidí, kteří chtějí cvičit a vydělávat na tomto masovém cvičení. Různé tělocvičny, "posilky" a další provozovny, aby je udělali "zdravějšími". Samozřejmě, toto není pro lidi vůbec přirozené. Navíc jsou natlačeni do uzavřeného prostranství, potí se a "pracují" naprosto bezcílně. Jen nezapomeňte zaplatit poplatky za "členství v klubu". To je absurdní. Jak mohou být lidé zdravější pomocí cvičení, když jedí, pijí a dýchají takový odpad? Když cvičí, jejich metabolismus je zrychlený a jedy účinkují rychleji. Není se proto čemu divit, že se postupně zvyšuje četnost gastrointestinálních nemocí, rakoviny a dalších "skvělých věcí", které mohou být přímo spojovány se zhoršujícím se životním prostředím.

    A když chtějí lidé vydělávat ještě více peněz na cvičení, zpopularizují ho a vytvoří "sporty". Tento barbarský zvyk přetrval dokonce až do této doby... nicméně hodně barbarských zvyků vytrvalo. Ale vždyť na tom můžeme vydělat! Enormní množství peněz se utrácí za sporty jako fotbal nebo hokej... k čemu?

    Všechno toto znamená, že i když lidé mají skvělý pocit "svobody" v této společnosti, jejich svoboda neexistuje. Jakým způsobem jsou svobodní? Ani nevědí, co to znamená být svobodný a omezují sami sebe, i když si to mnohdy ani neuvědomují. Nebo je omezuje prostředí, na tom už nezáleží. Například lidé říkají, jak hrozné to v minulosti bylo... rodiče vybrali snoubence, ach takový nedostatek svobody! A v dnešní době, i když si mohou vybrat koho chtějí, stále si velmi často stěžují na svého partnera. Toto se mi zdá naprosto iracionální, ale nebudu to rozvádět dále.

    Nakonec mohu pouze zkonstatovat, že lidé se chtějí zbavit své odpovědnosti - nebo ještě lépe, implicitně žádnou odpovědnost nemít. V minulosti se uchylovali k náboženství, aby jim řeklo, co mají v životě dělat, čím je zbavilo odpovědnosti za jejich vlastní činy. V moderní době, odpovědnost už jednoduše neexistuje - nemusíte se ani ničeho zbavovat.

Where do we go from here?

2010-10-12T08:29:00.003+02:00

    As an apology for not having translated my previous post yet, I shall write this one in English first. Well, today we will look at another facet of the society - its sustainability. Maybe when you walk down the street of a city you feel a bit uneasy and uncomfortable... there are so many people everywhere. It looks like madness - hundreds of cars passing by, thousands of pedestrians, everyone rushing somewhere. But why? Why are there so many? Well, there are two main reasons for this.

    The first reason is the lack of responsibility of individual people. There are two kinds of people from the point of view of current society. "Responsible" and "irresponsible". However, both are equally irresponsible, even though the society sees it in a different light. Truth is, both attitudes are wrong. Let us have a look at the "irresponsible" people first. They do not care about what happens with the world or even with themselves a few years - or in some cases even months or weeks - from now. They just want to "have fun", "enjoy themselves" etc.. This means that all they care about is going to clubs, getting drunk, getting laid etc.. They only care about their acute basic needs and disregard everything else. Well, the society recognises this a bit but it is becoming more and more widespread in the present. But what is the other alternative? Oh, being "responsible". Because responsible people go to school, go to work, buy a car, buy a house, get a wife, have kids... (all the time swearing at stupid school, stupid work, car breaking down, high installments, wife being annoying, kids being cheeky and noisy... but recommending such a lifestyle to anyone else in the blink of an eye) But where lies their responsibility? Do they think about their actions and decisions and their consequences? Do they think about what impact is having a car going to have on everything? What does creating and maintaining a car entail? Do they know what bringing more people into this world will cause? Are they concerned about their genes and their effect on their offspring? No... they do not care. They just "want". "I want a car." "I want kids." "I want this and that." What is the point in this? They have the false feeling that behaving in such a way is "right" and that their life will be "worth something" if being lived like that. Unfortunately, it is worth something only to the people who are a notch up in the "foodchain". Car factories prosper - meaning people owning them or working in them get more money. And they in turn will buy more things from others. But all this need for more things needs more people and resources... well that is not a problem, the kids will take care of that when they grow up. Everyone is happy about this situation, about this "growth". The economy is growing, the companies' incomes are growing, everything is "growing". The current economic ideal, however, requires such growth. It is not enough to make money, it is not enough at all to make an equal amount of money as in previous year - such a company is "bad" and its shares drop. No, we need higher and higher profit every year.

    Well, here you have the cause of overpopulation. And yes, I mean overpopulation - as long as there are cities on a planet with more than one million people, it is overpopulated. Well, overpopulation is one thing and it would not be such a big deal if not for the exponential growth requirement. The Earth is not infinite, its resources will not last forever. This exponential growth is a path to absolute destruction of everything. Just look at the food we are eating. For example, here at work, they are feeding us shit instead of food. Why make good food when I need to increase my profits? Well let's use some substitute and increase the profit margin, that's a good idea.

    Unfortunately, this practice is becoming more and more widespread. And how could it not... not only there is the need for increasing profits, there is a limit at what the agriculture and the land can provide. Just look at how the animals are treated, how they are used as a machine for producing meat or other products. What they are fed, where they are kept... that is because people need so much meat that it is impossible to provide it by natural means. And the plants are not any better off. In the medieval times, the gain of grains was 7:1 at most. That means, for 1 seed planted they got 7 seeds - one for the next year for planting and other six for eating. In modern agriculture, this ratio is more like 200:1!!! Now how is that possible? Of course only because of enormous exploitation of the planet's resources. Fertilisers, whose production takes a huge toll on the environment. And of course such crops are susceptible to various diseases and pests. Insecticides, pesticides, fungicides... all of those need to be produced and their production uses up lots and lots of energy, pollutes the environment and of course is not healthy. However, we are fed such "synthetic", "poisoned" grain, fruits and vegetables... We are fed meat and milk from animals, which are fed growth hormones, antibiotics and even worse "food" than we are eating. How can people be healthy in such an environment?

    Unfortunately, they cannot. There has been an increased interests in sports, at least in my country, in the last decade. Simply because people are told how healthy it is to exercise. Coincidentally, the healthiest "exercise" for people is walking. They evolved to walk and that is what they should be doing. But almost nobody is interested in that - and of course, even if they were interested, where should they take a walk? Along the road, inhaling exhaust fumes of cars? Oh no, of course not - clever heads have invented something better. Again, concentrating people who want to exercise and making profit of this mass exercising. Various gyms and other facilities to make them "healthier". Of course, this is not natural for people at all. Moreover, they are cramped in some place, sweating and "working" for nothing. Just don't forget to pay your bills for the "club membership". This is ridiculous. How can people be healthier by exercising when they are eating, breathing and drinking such crap? When they are exercising their metabolism is increased and the poisons are acting faster. No wonder there has been a steady increase in gastrointestinal diseases, cancer and other "great things" which can directly be connected with the deteriorating environment.

    And when people want to gain even more profit from exercising, they make it popular and create "sports". This barbaric custom has endured even into this age... well, many barbaric customs have. But we can make profit from that! Enormous amounts of money are spent on sports like football or hockey... what for?

    All this means that while people have the great feeling of "freedom" in this society, their freedom is naught. In what way are they free? They even do not know what it means to be free and restrict themselves, albeit unknowingly. Or the environment resctricts them, it does not matter. Well, people say how terrible it used to be in the past... parents chose your fiance, oh such a lack of freedom! Today, even though they can choose whom they want, people are still complaining about their spouse very often. This seems completely irrational to me but I shall not elaborate on this further.

    In the end, I can only say that people want to get rid of the responsibility they have - or even better, implicitly not to have any responsibility at all. In the past, they turned to religion to tell them what they should do in life, thus relieving them of the responsibility for their own actions. In the modern day, the responsibility simply does not exist - you have nothing to get rid of.

Ach, ta povaha

2010-09-10T14:12:00.003+02:00

    Dnes mám připravený opět mírně netradiční zápisek do deníčku. Pořád si více a více uvědomuji neefektivnost a nesmyslnost lidského uvažování a jednání. Zajímavé je, že z oblasti působení jednotlivce se naprosto stejný typ uvažování a jednání dostává i na úroveň firemní či státní.
    Lidé jsou čím dále tím více povrchní - kvůli své neochotě a lenosti přemýšlet - a pak také kvůli snaze zbavit se co možná největšího dílu odpovědnosti, přijímají fakta bez toho, aby je jakkoliv podrobili podrobnějšímu zkoumání. Díky novinám, televizi a internetovým zpravodajstvím a diskusím se z každého člověka stává "borec". Média nestydatě podávají všem neověřené, neobjektivní a často hodně zkreslené či pouze částečné informace. Lidé jsou však natolik líní, že se jim o tom vůbec nechce přemýšlet, jestli to tak opravdu mohu být, jak se to tam v novinách píše. "Podívejme... kvůli autům a továrnám se zvyšuje skleníkový efekt a nastává globální oteplování... hmm" Pak takovýto právě zrodivší se "expert" na globální oteplování přijde mezi další lidi, kde bude tento "poznatek" šířit. Vůbec ho nezajímá, jaké jsou všechny možné příčiny oteplování, jestli opravdu má lidstvo až tak velký vliv na to oteplování, které nastává teď, jestli se tomu dá zamezit, co se stalo na Zemi v minulosti a proč... Proč se takovými zbytečnostmi zatěžovat, že? Tady to dávali v televizi, tak to přeci musí být pravda. Ještě si tam na to pozvali i nějakého odborníka, který o tom mluvil.
    Žel, téměř nic není takto černobílé a ani skuteční odborníci nemohou vědět, proč tomu tak je. Časem se budou dát odhady upřesňovat, ale v současnosti to předvídat nelze.
    Pak tady máme také hodně borců, kteří si přečtou, co je nejlepší a když má pak někdo něco horšího, tak mu to hned zkritizují. Sami mají ale často věci té nejlevnější kategorie.
    Také se vyskytují mezi lidmi pořád případy extrémního chování, kdy jeden obviňuje druhého, ale sám na sebe se nepodívá. Například katolická sekta na Floridě, která chce 11.9. pálit Korán. Jistě, Korán tedy není žádná knížka na dobrou noc pro děti, obsahuje šílené věci, které podněcují lidi k agresivnímu chování a netoleranci. Jenže kdyby se pořádně podívali na svou Bibli, tak je výsledek velmi podobný. I kdyby byly útoky 11.9. přičiněním Islámu, když se podíváme do historie, tak ve jménu Křesťanství bylo také vykonáno bezpočet bezpráví, vyvražďování atd.. Tyto dvě skupiny si opravdu nemají co vyčítat, když ještě například přihlédneme k tomu, jak odsuzují homosexualitu apod.. Jako malé děti ve školce: "Nemám ho rád, ukradnu mu jeho hračku a rozbiju ji!" Ubohost.

    Tato naprostá krátkozrakost, jak jsem na začátku uvedla, se žel promítá i do fungování větších struktur ve společnosti, jako jsou například firmy a státy. Kvůli vlastní pohodlnosti odmítají přijmout radikálnější opatření, které by ve výsledku vedly nejenom ke zvýšení efektivnosti, ale také ke zvýšení spokojenosti zaměstnanců. Čím je firma větší, tím více se to projevuje.
    Například velké nadnárodní korporace se snaží zbavit se odpovědnosti tím, že si na všechno možné najímají externí dodavatele. Utrácejí šílené peníze za tyto služby jen proto, že mají zaručená SLA (tj. maximální nedostupnost služby, kvalita a podobně). Rádi platí několikanásobky skutečné hodnoty obdržených produktů a služeb jen proto, aby se o to už nemuseli starat a mohli si tím zjednodušit život. Toto se dohání až k absurdnosti. Ve velké korporaci, která má pobočky po celém světě, vychází globální nařízení a předpisy z nějaké kanceláře na centrále, kde si nějaký "chytrolín" řekne, že to a to bude nejlepší. Setká se s ředitelem HP někde na golfu a při partičce se nezávazně baví. "Podívej Jeffe, co říkáš na naše produkty? To se už od nikoho jiného nevyplatí nakupovat, ne?" - "No, jak to tak vidím, tak za 50% ceny by se to opravdu nevyplatilo..." - "Opravdu? Tak to je perfektní! Dáme vám 50% slevu a budete brát jen od nás." - "Platí! Vydáme korporátní standard a všechny pobočky po celém světě budou nakupovat od HP za 50%." A už to jede. I když jsou například servery od Sun Microsystems lepší pro určité nasazení, tak to nic neznamená, protože korporátní standard bude HP a platí to všude. Nebo skvělé nabídky na "monitorovací software na 3 roky zdardma, pokud se bude používat všude a na všechno". Asi jim nedojde, že když se všechno předělá na tento monitorovací systém, tak už to nikdy nepůjde změnit. A firma si pak může stanovovat cenu jakou chce...
    Vůbec nikomu se nechce platit si vlastní lidi, kupovat komponenty a stavět si z toho vlastní hardware, když si za 140%ní cenu může koupit hotový produkt "se zárukou". A to ještě nemluvím o "maintenance", která se musí platit navíc za údržbu a podporu. Pak jsou také velmi oblíbená "komplexní řešení", kdy si za nelidské peníze koupí hardware i se softwarem jen proto, aby když se cokoliv rozbije mohli volat a stěžovat si: "rozbilo se to, přijďte to opravit, jestli to do hodiny nepojede tak budete platit penále z porušení smlouvy!". Manažer je pak v klidu, protože odpovědnost už padla na někoho jiného.
    Dobrým LOLem jsou také průzkumy spokojenosti zaměstnanců. Když zaměstnanci v takovém průzkumu vyjádří svou nespokojenost, vedení to vyřeší naprosto absurdním způsobem. Například lidé si stěžují, že za dlouholeté působení ve firmě nedostávají žádnou odměnu. Tak vedení přijde s tím, že za 5 let ve firmě dostanou nějakou levnou peněženku a už se o tom píše ve firemním letáku. "Reagujeme na vaše podněty a děláme z firmy místo, kde lidé rádi pracují." Ještě tomu chybí razítko "SPLNĚNO" jako na plakátech aktuální předvolební kampaně jedné z vládních stran.

    A to samé, jen ještě ve větším měřítku platí ve státním sektoru. Odpovědnost házet na někoho jiného, ale zásluhy přijímat na sebe. Tak se to dělá. Předvolební kampaně za desítky milionů nám to říkají jasně: "Jsem hrdá na své město, protože tu mám dobrou práci." Nějak mi pořád nedochází, jak je dobrá práce spojena se zásluhami vedení města? Vždyť dobrá práce akorát znamená, že si tam koupila pozemek firma, postavila si svou budovu a tam zaměstnává lidi, kteří jsou zjevně spokojení. Město má přeci na starosti jiné věci - jestli je ve městě např. dobře fungující dopravní síť, tak to si jisté uznání zaslouží. Ovšem stejně se v naprosté většině případů jedná o projekty, které trvají dlouhé roky a desetiletí a rozhodně je za jedno volební období jeden člověk nezrealizuje. Efektivnost řízení je velmi nízká, stejně jako v případě firem a samozřejmě nikdo s tím nic neudělá. Proti rozsáhlejším opatřením by se každý bouřil, i když by to v důsledku přineslo zkvalitnění života a služeb pro všechny.

    Tak to dnes žel chodí a je to čím dále tím horší... Už je asi úplně jedno, kdo co řídí, protože lepší to nikdy nebude. To by se nejdříve musel nad sebou každý člověk opravdu (ale opravdu) zamyslet.

LOL named Finland

2010-08-19T13:59:00.003+02:00

    Rozhodla jsem se, že budu všechny mé příspěvky překládat i do angličtiny, abych otevřela můj svět vícero návštěvníkům z celého světa. Od teď budou všechny další příspěvky psány jak česky, tak anglicky. Každý příspěvek bude posílán dva krát - jednou v české a jednou v anglické verzi. Také se budu snažit postupně přeložit všechny dosud napsané příspěvky do angličtiny - počínaje nejstaršími. Datovat je budu stejně jako české, takže je najdete vedle jejich českých protějšků v historii.

    I have decided to translate all of my posts into English, so that I can open my world to more visitors from all over the world. From now on, all of my blog posts will be written in Czech, as well as in English. Each post will be published twice - once in Czech and once in English. I will also try to translate all of my posts written up to now - starting from the oldest. I will date them like the Czech ones, so you will find them alongside their Czech counterparts in the history.

    I do not even know when and what I wrote about the last time... so I should resolve this problem. Nothing really interesting has happened since, every week I have to go for a dose of oil containing a strange substance, called estradiol valerate, which affects the mind and body in a variety of ways. In addition to this delicacy, I am taking even more pills than before - well, let us hope that only temporarily. At least the problems with my bowels are gone, that has been cured in the recent year and a quarter and I am not bothered by this anymore. At last, I can eat everything again, like before. Most importantly, I can drink wine... because when there is no quality wine available, things are not sometimes ideal - for example a year and a half old Cheddar really needs this! Well I have another "candy" for you - who knows how much hormones I really have because sometimes I am lactating and because of that I can wear mostly only white clothes. Dirty spots appear on other colours instantly and they have to be washed very frequently. Not great, well I went to get a blood test so we will see how much hormones I have. The doctor was not looking very terrified but I think I have too much of them. But what can I do, when I am getting 1ml injections.

    Absolutely nothing interesting is happening at work - everything goes as usual. Well goes... maybe does not run, depends on how you look at it. I just had some fun at the beginning of July with bossing people around because my boss was on holidays so I was doing his job as the most suitable candidate. All the time, I had to go to meetings, fill out stupid spreadsheets, prepare presentations etc.. Just that the work of a boss is about something completely different from IT, even though she works in this department. But it was beneficial anyway because nobody has such a princess for their boss, so I was exemplarily representing our team!

    Well at the beginning of July, there was a "fun number 2" too - buying an iPhone 3GS from the USA (respectively buying two iBricks). I called them iBricks because at that time there was no available jailbreak for iOS 4 without old SHSH blobs and every user had upgraded to iOS 4. That way, the iBrick was created - it worked only in AT&T newtorks in the USA. In order to use it at least as an iPod Touch, I had to buy an AT&T sim card (again on eBay) for about CZK 80. Well it paid off... because after the jailbreak became available (thanks to comex), it was exploting a bug in the software so it was necessary for the iPhone to be already activated anyway. After jailbreaking, the unlocking was very easy because the baseband version had not changed since the last ultrasn0w release. It was a really good bargain at the right time, well the new iPhone 3GS cost about CZK 6500 and I sold the old iPhone 3G here in the Czech Republic for CZK 7000. How can people be willing to pay so much for that! But if you look at it, the iPhone still does not have a competitor on the same level. The only phone, which can be compared to the iPhone regarding the quality and functionality, is the Samsung Galaxy S. The Samsung Wave is not completely bad either but the new Bada OS is in some aspects still not completely polished and does not have the graphical appeal either... but still a lot better than some Windows Mobile or Symbian. Those are two mobile OSs, which are a complete disaster. We will see how Nokia fares with their MeeGo platform because the Symbian used in their phones is quite a big brake of their development. Graphically, it does not even look like a smartphone but rather like a standard "dumb" phone. Another good LOL is that the new Windows Mobile 7 (in development) is missing some features, which had been criticised by the iPhone antagonists until recently. I wonder what will the fans of mobile carrot (carrot=Windows/Microsoft) say, since it will be worse off than the apple (Apple/Apple products) even regarding those "essential" functions? Regarding MeeGo, I quite like it - even though from what I have seen, at the moment it is in pre-alpha phase. At least I would say so due to the bugs and the lack of features. Even so, the developers from Nokia and Intel have done a great job. If it becomes a fully-fledged Linux and Intel manages to decrease the power consumption of their Atom CPUs to the ARM CPUs' levels, we will surely have something to look forward to. At least myself because even though the iOS is a Unix OS too, it still is not Linux and the worst is, it is very limited. To get a full feature set from the view of a Unix administrator, jailbreaking the device is needed. The apple is trying to prevent it again and again, even though it is completely legal now. But we will look at this policy of the apple some other time. Now I have got some other, more up-to-date information.

    Originally, I was planning on going for vacations to the High Tatras but with my prince, we changed our minds during some 30 minutes and decided that we would go to Finland. Hmm, the plan was as follows: 1. taste the local specialty foods; 2. with the assumed low costs of local ingredients (like fish, berries, Koskenkorva etc.) but them in bulk quantities; 3. cool down (it was very hot here at that time)

    In reality, everything went a bit... well a SERIOUS bit differently. At the beginning everything was great: successfully retrieved baggage in the destination, ticket machines which accept credit cards, no problems finding our way to the hotel. The hotel was really nice for the money. We had been able to see that from the photographs at home already. Even though it only had a 3-star rating, the rooms looked better than in some 4-star hotels and they were equipped on par with 4-star hotels. The only thing which was probably insufficient for the hotel to get a 4-star status was the room sice but that did not matter at all. There was quite enough room - in addition to the bed and drawers, there were three chairs, a little table and a desk. As we got hungry, we were unfortunately put to face the harsh reality. Original Finnish restaurants were nowhere to be found... and all restaurants were 3-4 times more expensive than here in CZ. According to the ticket price, my estimate was that they would be 2 times more expensive and that the local specialty foods would be cheap. So the first meal in Helsinki - Kok Thai ravintola. The food yummy, paid EUR 56 for the food and drinks. I was saying to my self that it was more expensive but that Thai restaurants are more expensive everywhere.

    The second day we had a walk to the port and we went to celebrate my birthday to a special fish (and other sea beast) restaurant. The food excellent, wine awesome too, the service great and nice... well, EUR 175, that tells everything.

    The next day we were in a supermarket and we bought various yummies like mustikka for example, then some teas, salmiakki... I also found siiderit there, which I really enjoyed in the Thai ravintola. But where is the cheap Koskenkorva? We looked everywhere in the shop and nothing... only lots of Czech beers for about EUR 3 a bottle. I could not believe it, I did not even see wine anywhere... absolutely nothing. It was as if alcoholic beverages had not existed. We went through the whole shop one more time but we had really looked everywhere and nothing. A heap of various meat - antilope, bison, pigeon, quail, ostrich, kangaroo, crayfish... so we bought at least some food and we went to a Nepalese ravintola. There were really lots of food, we almost could not eat it all. There better should have been, for EUR 75!

    We stayed up a bit later, we did not feel like sleeping with our bellies exploding, so we did not go to have breakfast in the morning (we got up too late) and instead of that, we went for a walk to look at the shore and we went to a local Siwa shop. Yllätävän lähellä! We bought some yummies which looked like triangle-shaped donuts. They were pretty heavy and one cost only EUR 1 = lihapiirakka. We took four, then some potato chips, a chocolate and some ice cream cones. One of them was fruity with a salmiakki topping. Yummy salmiakki! Who would have thought that a bit of ammonium chloride gives such a great taste to liquorice!

    Back in our room, we found out what lihapiirakka really were. I took a bite from one of them and there was a meat filling inside! But it was delicious, now I really miss it here. One lihapiirakka and the hunger is gone for the whole day! We also managed to find out about alcohol in Finland on one internet forum. It is almost illegal there, it is sold only in special shops which are owned by the state and which are called Alko. Everything containing more than 4.7% of alcohol may be sold only there. But where to find Alko? We went to Kamppi, there is a big shopping centre there but there was no Alko anywhere in the list of shops and we could not find it even after thorough searching. However, we remembered that near the supermarket hidden underground, where we had shopped the day before, was an Alko sign. But when we had been there the day before, we had thought that it had been the name of the supermarket... but probably not. It could mean only one thing - that somewhere near there was an Alko store. So we came there again and finally, we found an Alko store around the corner, behind the supermarket underground. There was really a huge selection of various beverages - but for example Koskenkorva was 2 times more expensive than here in Prague. So I did not buy that. Rather, I bought things, which cannot be bought here - a Puolukka liqueur and Jaloviina... the prince wanted some Sake too so I bought that and we left. At the cash register, we were immediately asked to show our ID cards. In fact, in Finland it is illegal to sell alcohol to people younger than 18... and it is allowed to sell only alcohol under 22% to people under 21. I probably looked too young and the prince too, so ID cards immediately. Luckily, everyone in Finland can speak English very well - and that is due to the fact, that Finnish TV stations never dub their films and shows but they air them in English with Finnish subtitles. As we were strolling through the city with the Alko bag, a lot of people were turning their heads to us. Hmm, who knows what they were thinking - "some drunks they are". :D

    After Alko, we went to have a meal at a Chinese ravintola. That one was quite cheap, I paid "only" EUR 43. But I could drink Jaloviina in the evening, so I was content. The next day there was no more ravintola. We nicely bought some food in a local Alepa shop. Italiansalaatti, vispipuuro, ranskanleipä, ruisleipä, tonnikalapasteija and similar yummies. On Sunday we were in the biggest shopping centre in Northern Europe - Itäkeskus. It was big, but there was nothing really interesting there. Only lots of Arabic and Black Muslims. I do not know what that was supposed to mean, they probably have lots of money now so they go to Finland to spend it because it would be too cheap elsewhere. A funny thing was that I could not pay with my Citi credit card on terminals which required entering the PIN - even though it is a new card with a chip. "Pin blocked", it said - well LOL. I will have to phone the bank to learn what that should mean. So I had to alternate between paying with my Ceska Sporitelna card and the Citi card. I did not have to withdraw cash at all, that was positive. And on Monday we were really not doing anything interesting, we just wanted to visit one more ravintola. They had some Finnish yummies there for EUR 3-4 each. But it was completely full and there were reservations for the whole evening... I was already fed up with other ravintolas so it ended again in Alepa. Ranskanleipä and some pasteija from cod roe.

    The trip back was mainly uneventful... well if you disregard some details. The Helsinki-Vantaa airport (lentoasema) has a really small terminal, everything is cramped there and people almost do not fit inside. The next LOL were the "tax-free" shops. They had "tax-free" and "EU price" prices, they were checking the boarding passes and who travelled to another EU contry had to pay the full price. So no big shopping for cheap alcohol. I just bought a Mesimarja liqueur. CSA prepared an alternate aircraft for us, instead of an Airbus 321 we flew with a Boeing 737-500. It was such an old piece of crap! Considering the state of seats, we thought that we would not even get back to Prague but luckily, the pilot landed perfectly even despite the strong gusts of wind so we survived. What we almost did not survive was the trip by bus from the Ruzyne airport to Dejvice. Another plane landed at the same time as ours - and it was full of Italian people. That was really something! They were making a mess, yelling constantly, they pushed themselves into a completely full bus and moreover, one of them pressed the emergency button. The bus driver had to force his way to the back of the bus to manually open the door where someone activated the emergency mode. That was really a crisis. The bus was leaning dangerously to sides in curves and the indicator of the doors closing was beeping because those "experts" were packed in the bus like sardines in a can and they were pushing the door out with their bodies. The door was not fully closed and it was starting to open in curves as they were pushing against it. I do not know what they had in their heads instead of their brain, the next bus was to run in three minutes. Well, a lot of people has the intelligence of a fly. Moreover, they were talking with the bus driver all the time, which is prohibited. He was turning towards them constantly and I had the feeling that we will not reach our destination again. It was a bit better in the underground, we somehow managed to get home, to the other side of Prague.

So that is how the vacation in Finland was like. Tervetuloa! Hyvä huomenta! What was really cheap there, those were the mobile phone plans and call costs. For example a plan for EUR 2 per month and a call cost of 6 cents per minute. Then everyone was constantly calling and we could only guess what silly things can they be saying all the time since they could not stop. "Well, I'm just in that shopping centre, there's a little lamp for 2000 Euro... well, I'll have a look at what they've got here, I'll just walk around and tell you." Well, maybe not exactly this, but the little lamp for EUR 2000 was really there! Just a ring of white glass on a chrome-plated metal construction. Hmmm.... at that time I was already so deformed due to the high prices that I just walked by and then we were comparing everything to the price of that little lamp. For example a laptop which had the price of a little lamp etc.. We also saw a fake iPhone 4 - signs with iPhone 4 but the phone on display was a 3GS. However, we could try out the real iPhone 4 in another store and its display is really excellent.

That will be all for today. I will just add that at home, a present for my birthday was waiting for us - a bottle of wine Rulandske Sede 2007, late harvest, Sovin. How should I put that... the smell of a nail polish remover, taste watery sweet and sour, with an extreme amount of acids. It was burning in my throat and I felt the acid in my stomach afterwards. And then who is supposed to buy Czech wine...

LOL zvaný Finsko

2010-08-19T13:58:00.001+02:00

    Už ani nevím kdy a o čem jsem posledně psala... tak bych to měla napravit. Mezitím se nic moc zajímavého nedělo, každý týden si jdu na dávku oleje s podivnou substancí, zvanou estradiol valerate, která na tělo a mysl působí všelijak. Kromě této lahůdky beru ještě více tabletek než předtím, no doufejme že jen dočasně. Alespoň ty problémy se střevy už nemám, to se za ten rok a čtvrt spravilo a už mám teď klid. Konečně mohu opět jíst úplně všechno, jako předtím. Hlavně, že si mohu dávat víno... protože když není kvalitní víno, tak to někdy není ono - takový rok a půl starý Cheddar to rozhodně potřebuje! No ještě pro vás mám další bonbónek, kdo ví kolik těch hormonů mám, protože někdy mám laktaci a kvůli tomu mohu nosit spíše jen bílé oblečení, na jiných barvách jsou pak hned fleky a musí se to pořád prát. No nic moc, šla jsem na odběr krve tak uvidíme, kolik těch hormonů mám. Doktor se netvářil nějak že by to bylo něco hrozného, ale já si myslím že toho mám moc. Jenže co už, když to jsou 1ml injekce.

    V práci se vůbec nic zajímavého neděje - všechno jede jako obvykle. Tedy jede... no spíše nejede, tedy jak se to vezme. Akorát jsem měla začátkem července zábavu s šéfováním, protože šéf byl na dovolené, tak jsem ho jako nejvhodnější kandidát zastupovala. Pořád jsem musela chodit na schůze, vyplňovat nějaké hloupé tabulky, připravovat prezentace a podobně. Prostě práce šéfa je o něčem úplně jiném než o IT, i když pracuje v tomto sektoru. Ale bylo to stejně přínosné, protože takovou princeznu nikde jako šéfku nemají, tak jsem náš tým vzorně reprezentovala!

    Vlastně počátkem července byla ještě zábava číslo 2 - koupě iPhonu 3GS z USA - respektive dvou iBricků. iBrickem jsem to nazvala proto, že v té době nebyla možnost jak udělat jailbreak iOS 4, na který všichni uživatelé poctivě upgradovali a vznikl tak iBrick, který fungoval jen v síti AT&T v USA. Aby se dal používat alespoň jako iPod Touch, jsem musela koupit opět na eBayi AT&T sim kartu asi za 80 Kč. No vyplatilo se... protože až pak vyšel jailbreak (díky comexovi), tak využíval chybu v softwaru a tudíž bylo potřeba, aby byl iPhone aktivní. Odemknout už pak šel snadno, verze basebandu se neměnila, takže šlo použít ultrasn0w, který byl v té době k dispozici. Byl to opravdu dobrý obchod v dobrou dobu, totiž nový iPhone 3GS vyšel asi na 6500 a starý iPhone 3G jsem pak v ČR prodala za 7000. Že jsou tady lidé ochotni tolik za to dát! Ale když se to tak vezme, tak pořád nemá iPhone rovnocenného konkurenta. Jediný telefon, který se použitelností a kvalitou blíží iPhonu je Samsung Galaxy S. Samsung Wave není úplně špatný, jenže ten nový OS Bada není po některých stránkách ještě úplně dotažený a graficky také nepůsobí úplně ideálně... i když pořád o hodně lépe než nějaký Windows Mobile nebo Symbian. To jsou dva mobilní OS, které jsou úplně katastrofální. Uvidíme, jak se Nokii bude dařit s platformou MeeGo, protože ten Symbian používaný v jejich telefonech je poněkud velkou brzdou vývoje. Po grafické stránce ani nevypadá jako smartphone, ale jako nějaký "hloupý" telefon. Také dobrý LOL je, že připravovaným Windows Mobile 7 chybí jaksi některé vlastnosti, které donedávna kritizovali odpůrci iPhonu, že v iOS chybí. Co asi budou zástanci mobilní mrkve říkat teď, když na tom bude i s těmi "nepostradatelnými" funkcemi hůře než jabko? Co se MeeGo týče, tak se mi celkem zamlouvá - i když co jsem viděla, tak je momentálně v pre-alpha fázi. Alespoň tak bych odhadla zabugovanost a nedostatek funkčnosti. I tak ale vývojáři z Nokie a Intelu na tom odvedli opravdu slušný kus práce. Jestli to bude plnohodnotný Linux se vším všudy a Intelu se povede snížit spotřebu Atom procesorů na hodnoty procesorů ARM, tak se budeme mít určitě na co těšit. Alespoň tedy já, protože i když je iOS také Unix, přeci jen to není Linux a je hlavně hrozně omezený a aby se dalo dosáhnout plné funkčnosti z pohledu Unix administrátora, je potřeba jailbreak, kterém se jabko pořád znova snaží zamezit, i když už je naprosto legální. Na tento přístup jabka se však podíváme někdy příště, teď mám pro vás jiné, aktuálnější informace.

    Původně jsem plánovala jet letos na dovolenou do Vysokých Tater, ovšem najednou jsme se tak nějak v průběhu 30 minut s princem rozhodli, že pojedeme do Finska. Hmm, plán byl následující: 1. ochutnat místní speciality; 2. při předpokládaných nízkých cenách místních surovin jako jsou ryby, bobule, koskenkorva atd. je nakoupit ve velkém; 3. zchladit se.

    Ve skutečnosti to však všechno probíhalo trochu... tedy o dost jinak. Zpočátku bylo vše skvělé, úspěšně vyzvednutá zavazadla v destinaci, automaty na jízdenky, které akceptují i kreditní karty, bez problémů nalezena cesta do hotelu. Hotel byl za ty peníze opravdu velmi hezký. To bylo ostatně vidět už z fotografií. Sice měl pouze 3 hvězdičky, pokoje však vypadaly lépe jako v některých 4-hvězdičkových a vybavení měl také odpovídající hvězdičkám čtyřem. Jediné, co mu nejspíš k dosažení další hvězdičky chybělo byla velikost pokoje, ale to vůbec nepřekáželo. Místa tam bylo docela dost, kromě postele a skříní se tam vešly ještě tři židle, stoleček a pracovní stůl. Jak nám však vyhládlo, tak jsme byli konfrontování s tvrdou realitou. Originální finské restaurace k nenalezení... a všechny restaurace měli ceny přibližně 3-4 krát vyšší než v ČR. Podle ceny jízdenek jsem předpokládala, že budou jen 2x dražší a navíc že místní speciality budou levné. Takže první večeře v Helsinkách - Kok Thai ravintola. Papání dobré, za jídlo a pití 56 Euro. To jsem si říkala, že je sice dražší, ale že Thajské restaurace jsou obecně dražší.

    Na druhý den jsme se šli podívat do přístavu a oslavit mé narozeniny do speciální restaurace specializované na ryby a jiné vodní bestie. Jídlo vynikající, vína také super, obsluha skvělá a milá... no, 175 Euro, co si budeme povídat.

    Další den jsme byli v supermarketu a koupili jsme různé mňamky, jako například mustikka, nějaké čaje, salmiakki... také jsem tam našla siiderit, který mi strašně chutnal v thajské ravintole. Jenže kdepak je ta levná Koskenkorva? Prošli jsme celý obchod a nic... akorát hromada českých piv kolem 3 Euro. Nemohla jsem tomu uvěřit, nikde ani víno... prostě nic. Alkoholické nápoje jako by téměř neexistovaly. Prošli jsme celý obchod ještě jednou, ale opravdu jsme se dívali všude a nic. Hromada různého maska - antilopa, bizon, holub, křepelka, pštros, klokan, raci... no tak jsme nakoupili alespoň jídlo a šli jsme do nepálské ravintoly. Tam bylo jídla opravdu strašně moc, téměř jsme to nedokázali sníst. No, také aby nebylo, za 75 Euro.

    Zůstali jsme déle vzhůru, nechtělo se nám jít spinkat s plným břichem, tak jsme ráno nešli na snídani (vstávali jsme příliš pozdě) a místo toho jsme zašli k pobřeží a do místního obchůdku Siwa. Yllätävän lähellä! Koupili jsme nějaké mňamky, které vypadaly jako trojúhelníkové koblihy. Byly pěkně těžké a jedna stála jen 1 Euro = lihapiirakka. Vzali jsme čtyři, pak nějaké bramborové lupínky, čokoládku a nějaké zmrzlinové kornouty, jeden z nich ovocný se salmiakki polevou. Mňam salmiakki! Kdo by řekl, že lékořici dodá takovou super chuť trocha chloridu amonného!´

    Na pokoji jsme pak zjistili, co to vlastně lihapiirakka je. Zakousla jsem se do toho a uvnitř byla masová náplň! Ale bylo to vynikající, teď mi to tady chybí. Jeden lihapiirakka a hlad zahnán na celý den! Také se nám povedlo na jednom fóru na internetu zjistit, jak je to s alkoholem ve Finsku. Je tam téměř ilegální, prodává se jen ve speciálních obchodech, které vlastní stát a nazývají se Alko. Všechno, co má nad 4,7% se smí prodávat pouze tam. Jenže kde Alko najít? Zašli jsme do Kamppi, tam je velké obchodní centrum, ale žádné alko nikde na seznamu a ani po podrobném hledání jsme ho nenašli. Nicméně jsme si vzpomněli, že u supermarketu v podzemí, kde jsme předešlý den nakupovali, byla cedulka Alko. Jak jsme tam den předtím byli, tak jsme si mysleli, že tak se jmenuje ten supermarket... ale to asi těžko. Mohlo to znamenat pouze jednu věc - někde poblíž bude Alko obchod. Tak jsme tam došli a nakonec jsme Alko obchod nalezli daleko za rohem supermarketu v podzemí. Byl tam opravdu veliký výběr všech možných nápojů - ovšem třeba Koskenkorva 2x dražší než tady v Praze. Tak to jsem tedy nekupovala. Raději jsem koupila to, co se nedá koupit tady - Puolukka likér a Jaloviinu... ještě princ chtěl Saké, tak jsem koupila i to a šli jsme. U pokladny po nás hned chtěli občanky. Totiž ve Finsku je přísně zakázáno prodávat alkohol lidem pod 18 let... a do 21 se smí prodávat alkohol pouze do 22%. Já jsem měla v košíku Jaloviinu, která měla 38... tak to bylo hned jasné. Asi jsem vypadala příliš mladě a princ také, tak hned občanky. Naštěstí všichni ve Finsku umí velmi dobře anglicky - a to díky tomu, že finské televize zásadně programy nedabují, ale pouští je v anglickém originálu s finskými titulky. Jak jsme si tak šli s Alko taškou venku po městě, tak se za námi hodně lidí otáčelo. Hmm, kdo ví co si mysleli - "nějací ožrani to jsou". :D

    Po Alku jsme zašli ještě do čínské ravintoly. Ta byla docela levná, platila jsem "jen" 43 Euro. Ale večer jsem si už mohla dávat spokojeně Jaloviinu. Další den se už ravintola nekonala. Hezky jsme si koupili v místním obchůdku Alepa italiansalaatti, vispipuuro, ranskanleipä, ruisleipä, tonnikalapasteija a podobné mňamky. V neděli jsme pak byli v největším nákupním centru v severní Evropě - Itäkeskus. Velké bylo, ale nic moc tam opravdu nebylo. Akorát strašně moc arabských a černošských muslimů. Tak nevím co to má znamenat, asi mají už moc peněz tak jezdí do Finska utrácet, protože jinde je to moc levné. Vtipné bylo, že s mou Citi kreditní kartou se nedalo platit tam, kde vyžadovali zadání pinu - i když už je nová čipová. Prý "pin blocked" no lol. Musím ještě zavolat do banky, že co to má znamenat. Tak jsem musela alternovat mezi kartou České Spořitelny a Citibanku. Pozitivní je, že jsem ani jednou nemusela vybírat hotovost. V pondělí už jsme nedělali opravdu nic zajímavého, chtěli jsme zajít ještě do ravintoly, kde měli takové malé finské mňamky za 3-4 Eura. Jenže bylo tam plno a jiných ravintol jsem měla už plné zuby. Takže to skončilo opět v Alepa, ranskanleipä a nějaká pasteija z jiker z tresky.

    Cesta zpět probíhala více-méně v pořádku... tedy až na pár detailů. Letiště Helsinki-Vantaa (lentoasema) má hrozně malý terminál, je tam všechno stísněné a lidé se tam pomalu nevejdou. Další lol byly "tax-free" obchody. Ty tam měly spokojeně ceny "tax-free" a pak "EU price", kontrolovali v nich palubní vstupenky a kdo letěl po EU dostal plnou cenu. Takže žádné velké nakupování drahých alkoholů za výhodnou cenu. Koupila jsem tam akorát Mesimarja likér. ČSA nám přistavilo náhradní letadlo, místo Airbusu 321 jsme letěli Boeingem 737-500. Takový šrot to byl! Podle stavu sedaček jsme si říkali, že už ani nedoletíme, ale naštěstí pilot i v silném nárazovém větru v Praze přistál perfektně, tak jsme to přežili. Co jsme však téměř nepřežili, byla cesta autobusem z Ruzyně do Dejvic. Spolu s naším letadlem přistálo i letadlo plné italů a to bylo tedy něco! Dělali tam bordel, pořád křičeli, nacpali se do plného autobusu a ještě někdo z nich zmáčkl znamení nouze a nešly zavřít dveře, tak se musel řidič prodírat přeplněným autobusem až dozadu, aby je otevřel. Opravdu krize. V zatáčkách se autobus nebezpečně nakláněl a pípalo znamení zavírajících se dveří, protože ti experti se tam tak namačkali, že nebyly pořádně zavřené a v zatáčkách, jak na ně tlačili tak se otevíraly. Přitom za 3 minuty měl jet další autobus... nechápu co mají v hlavě místo mozku. I když hodně lidí má zjevně inteligenci mouchy. Navíc mluvili za jízdy s řidičem, což se nesmí. Ten se za nimi pořád otáčel a opět jsem měla pocit, že nedojedeme. V metru už byla situace o něco lepší, nějak jsme docestovali domů na druhý konec Prahy.

Takže taková byla dovolená ve Finsku. Tervetuloa! Hyvä huomenta! Co tam bylo levné, to byly paušály u operátorů a ceny hovorů. Třeba paušál 2 Euro měsíčně a cena hovoru 6 centů za minutu. Potom tam pořád každý telefonoval a mohli jsme si jen domýšlet, že jaké hlouposti asi musí pořád říkat když s tím nemohou přestat. "Tak právě jsem v tom obchodním domě, je tady lampka za 2000 Euro... no podívám se co tady ještě mají, obejdu to tady a budu ti to říkat." No možná že ne přesně toto, ale lampka za 2000 Euro tam byla! Takový prstenec z mléčného skla na pochromované kovové konstrukci. Hmmm.... tehdy už jsem byla tak zdeformovaná z těch vysokých cen, že už jsem nad tím jen mávla rukou a pak jsme všechno srovnávali s cenou lampky. Třeba notebook který měl cenu lampky a podobně. Také jsme tam viděli iPhone 4 fake - cedulky s iPhone 4, ale vystavený iPhone 3GS. V jednom obchodě jsme si však mohli vyzkoušet pravý iPhone 4 a displej opravdu super.

To bude pro dnešek asi všechno. Akorát dodám, že doma na nás čekal dáreček k mým narozeninám - lahev vína Rulandské šedé 2007 pozdní sběr, Sovín. Jak bych to řekla... vůně laku na nehty, chuť vodově sladko-kyselá, s extrémním množstvím kyselin, že to až pálilo v krku a pak to okyselovalo žaludek. A pak má někdo kupovat česká vína...

Služka vs. předsudky: kdo je silnější?

2009-04-14T11:31:00.006+02:00

Myslím, že budu muset napsat vysvětlující záznam do deníčku po včerejších večerních událostech. Včera jsem byla kvůli faktu, že chci služku nařčena ze šovinismu a machismu. Nevěděla jsem, co to znamená tak jsem to nechala být. Později jsem to však zjistila a s tím rozhodně nemohu souhlasit. Má motivace je úplně jiná a nemá se šovinismem a machismem nic společného. Dále mi bylo vyčítáno, že mít služku je pro osobu, která uznává jistou feministickou literaturu naprosto nemyslitelné.

Dovolte mi uvést tyto mylné předsudky na pravou míru. Nejprve si řekněme o šovinismu a machismu. Rozhodně nejsem člověk, který by ponižoval ženy na úroveň jakýchsi služek pro muže. Žen si vážím a kdybych k tomu přistupovala takto, tak bych byla vlastně proti sobě. Nechci mít služku kvůli tomu, že nad ní budu dominantní a bude mi dělat dobře dávat jí rozkazy. Služku chci přesně kvůli tomu, o čem jsem psala v inzerátu. Nejsou za tím žádné skryté motivy. Kdyby mi ty činnosti někdo dělal dobrovolně, tak by mi to vůbec nevadilo, ovšem v dnešní době zadarmo nikdo ani prstem nepohne. Také už pomalu ztrácím víru v to, že zde mohou existovat vztahy podle mých představ. Zdá se mi to téměř nemožné a proto nevidím nic špatného na tom, že si najmu služku aby mi pomohla s věcmi, které mi chybí. Chci ženu, protože ženská společnost je mi o hodně příjemnější. Je to v podstatě jediné východisko a navíc je plně vyhovující.

Co se týče poslední poznámky, tj. že nemohu nutit druhou ženu mi sloužit - já ji nutit nehodlám. Od začátku bude vědět, co se od ní očekává a v případě, že jí to nevyhovuje tak může nabídku samozřejmě nepřijmout, případně s tím může kdykoliv skončit. Není na tom nic špatného, spíše bych řekla že je to pozitivní pro obě zúčastněné strany jelikož služce vlastně pomohu a pomoc získá tím, že bude pracovat pro druhou ženu, která si její pomoci bude cenit a bude ji mít ráda.

Oproti manželství je to šovinismus a machismus naprosto zanedbatelný. Manželství je vrchol služebnictví, kde za svou práci vlastně služka nedostává vůbec nic a celé se to maskuje jakýmsi abstraktním pojmem "rodiny" a "lásky". To se může prohloubit o další úroveň, kdy rodiče chtějí děti, aby ty za ně naplňovaly jejich touhy, které oni sami naplnit nedokážou. Nutí je žít podle jejich představ a dělat věci, které by samy dělat nikdy nechtěly, samozřejmě bez jakéhokoliv ohodnocení. Není náhodou tohle naprostý šovinismus a machismus? Navíc často je to něco, co by si žena o své vlastní vůli nevybrala - je nucena roky "výchovy" a tlakem rodiny a svého okolí být "normální". Srovnávat to se služkou, která si svou práci sama vybere protože se jí to líbí a je spokojená se svým ohodnocením - ještě si i sama může vybrat, jakou chce odměnu (a není vázaná pouze na peníze)? Můžete sice namítat, že žena je také spokojená, když dělá služku zadarmo - lépe řečeno dostává naprosto neadekvátní protihodnoty, po kterých vůbec netouží. Můžete namítat, že si to sama vybrala protože se jí to líbí a je spokojená. Ale zapomínáte, že od malička žije ve společnosti a v standardní rodině a je vychovávaná k tomu, aby tohle považovala za smysl života a vrchol štěstí. Je to to jediné, co zná a nedokáže si představit, že by se věci mohly mít úplně jinak.

Třeba je mým štěstím, že jsem se nenarodila v ženském těle a tudíž nebyla vychovávaná být "hodnou holčičkou". Na druhé straně pokusy vychovat ze mne "chlapa" také ztroskotaly. Proto si dovolím tvrdit, že jsem svobodnou ženou, která má své vlastní cíle a touhy a není ovlivňována předsudky druhých lidí. Vůbec mi nevadí dělat věci, které jsou společností odsuzované, nevadí mi mít služku a nazývat ji služkou; místo toho, abych měla společensky přijatelnou tzv. "partnerku" - i když ani to není moc přijatelné, společnost by byla nejraději kdybych měla "partnera". Partnerku si nenajdu, protože o "vztah" jaký si představuji nemá nikdo zájem (a nejde zde vůbec o služebnictví) - proto nevidím nic špatného na tom, že si najdu služku. Ano, v normálním "vztahu" jsou nějaké věci navíc oproti vztahu se služkou, ovšem kromě těch pozitivních je tam i hodně věcí negativních. Pakliže nikdo nechce mít vztah podle mé definice, ve kterém je naprostá většina negativních vlivů eliminována, raději si najmu služku než bych se nutila ke kompromisům v "normálním vztahu". Přidaná hodnota oproti služce pro mne nevyvažuje hodnotu "ubranou" kvůli negativním aspektům "vztahu".

V případě připomínek prosím zanechte komentář.

Inzerát

2009-04-13T23:46:00.004+02:00

Docela nezvyk, že píšu nový záznam den po předešlém, že? Ale něco jsem podnikla, takže to sem musím zapsat dříve, než zapomenu podrobnosti. Včera večer jsem si skvěle spravila náladu, i když jsem byla mimo a vůbec jsem to nepovažovala za možné. Čím? No... čtěte:

Hledám služku

Příspěvek od Lady Chloë v 13. 04. 2009, 01:36
Hledám mazlíčka ženského pohlaví, který by se kromě mazlení také vyznal v základní údržbě domácnosti (např. utírání prachu), kosmetické péči (např. česání vlasů, lakování nehtů; styling účesu k dobru) a nalévání alkoholických nápojů. Neměla by mít averzi ke klasické hudbě (Chopin, barokní hudba apod.). Jelikož se na pracovišti vyskytují i nebezpečné látky (jedy, radioaktivní látky, výbušniny, karcinogeny), měla by být poslušná a dbát pokynů a zákazů v rámci zachování majetku a zejména svého zdraví. Věk od 19 do 29 let, BMI 17-20.

Na pohovor se dostavte prosím v elegantních šatech či sukni s blůzkou a slušivých botičkách - třeba lodičky, sandálky... podpatek nemusí být nutně vysoký, ale tak alespoň aby nějaký byl (>=5 cm). Ochlupení by nemělo být viditelné, tj. v případě tmavšího ochlupení na místech, které nezakrývá oblečení je vhodné jej oholit či jiným způsobem odstranit. Celkově by měla být čistotná a při eventuálním výběru parfému ho se mnou předem konzultovat.

Tak co vy na to? Když jsem si to porovnala s jinými inzeráty, tak je jako z jiného světa. Všechny nudné, jeden jako druhý... a teď tohle! I když abych pravdu řekla, vůbec nevěřím, že by se mi na to někdo ozval. Včera večer jsem totiž mluvila s jedním kamarádem a nevím jak na to přišel, ale přesně formuloval koho hledám. Tak jsem to sepsala a ještě trochu upřesnila - no a inzerát je na světě. Předtím jsem si vůbec neuvědomovala, že vlastně chci služku. Pořád jsem se snažila mé představy zařadit někam, na co jsou lidé zvyklí a co je podle nich "normální". Jenže mně by tohle naprosto stačilo a byla bych spokojená. Měla bych někoho, kdo za mnou přijde když to potřebuji, na koho se budu ráda dívat, kdo ke mně bude něžný a kdo mi pomůže s věcmi, které se mi špatně dělají samé. Takové utopistické představy... ale hlavně, že mi to pomohlo a zlepšilo náladu.

Dnes mi bylo docela fajn, i když jsem plánovala spát o hodinu déle, jenže z nějakého důvodu mi dnes ani melatonin nepomohl. Ale i ráno jsem byla v dobré náladě, tak jsem celé dopoledne spekulovala, jestli bych po obědě nezašla na procházku do parku. A po obědě jsem se nakonec rozhodla, že ano. Vypadala jsem dnes totiž příliš krásně na to, abych zůstala zavřená doma. Ehm, počasí bylo krásné také (ale já krásnější). Nemohla jsem se rozhodnout, které boty si mám vzít na sebe. Jedny jsou mi o číslo menší a ty druhé mají zase 10 cm podpatek. Třetí se nehodí k sukni. Z toho jasně vyplývá, že si musím nakoupit další boty... blíží se léto, tak nějaké sandálky ale hlavně aby měly správnou velikost. Raději budu hledat delší dobu, ať v nich mohu chodit kolik chci.

Jela jsem do Holešovic k Výstavišti... divně to tam hučelo. Jen jsem prošla kolem planetária tak jsem si všimla, že je tam nějaká pouť. Vzhledem k úrovni hluku to působilo jako degradace příjemného prostředí. V parku bylo hodně lidí... když jsem si vzpomněla, jak jsem tam chodívala v pátek dopoledne místo přednášek... to tam nebyl téměř nikdo. Teď jsem marně hledala volnou lavičku, abych si mohla sednout a relaxovat, všechny obsazené! Tak jsem prošla až téměř na konec k mému oblíbenému místečku, ale za těch pár let se to docela změnilo. Předtím tam bylo kolem toho travnatého místa křoví, které jej oddělovalo od hlavního chodníku. Teď bylo křoví pryč a tráva v podstatě také, tak jsem se na chvíli zastavila na mostě před potok a dívala se na plynoucí vodu. Pak jsem šla jinou cestou zpátky. Uprostřed parku jsou nějaké bagry a jiné stavební stroje... vůbec nevím, co tam vlastně dělají. Je tam jen rozrytá hlína. Když jsem tak šla parkem, tak jsem si uvědomovala, že všichni lidé tam mají úplně o ničem oblečení. A já jsem se tam procházela v mé skvělé fialové kreaci s novou kabelkou! Každý jen koukal... i když z různých důvodů. Prostě klasika... nějací mladíci co šli proti mně si říkali, že "jestli je to mužskej?"; no a kousek dál nějaká žena s dítětem, kolem které jsem šla "počkej, pozor na dámu.." Opravdu nechápu, proč musí mít v naprosté většině případů muži problém a nedojde jim, že jaksi chlap nejsem. Když mluvím se ženou, tak není problém a zejména ty, které jsou mladší 40ti let vůbec nezaváhají. Na druhé straně když přede mnou šly nějaké dvě holky v obepnutém tričku a staženými džínovými kraťasy, že jim bylo pomalu vidět půl zadku tak se všichni muži dívali na ně a já měla od zkoumavých pohledů pokoj. ;)

Cestou zpátky v metru jsem byla ráda, že jsem si mohla sednout, přeci jen tři kilometry v botách o číslo menších nebylo nic moc. Tedy myslela jsem si, že je to fajn jenže pak si vedle mne sedl nějaký chlap v tílku, kšiltovce a zrcadlových brýlích, který si zjevně myslel že mít nohy rozevřené do 90-stupňového úhlu je "cool". Já jsem na vedlejším sedadle neměla tím pádem žádné místo, sotva jsem se tam nějak vešla. A když jsem vstávala, tak jsem zjistila že mi nohou ještě přisedl sukni. To už bylo vážně moc, byla jsem ráda když jsem mohla vystoupit. Doma jsem už nic moc nedělala, máma se vrátila z Bratislavy a dovezla Lasagne, které tam upekla, tak jsem si je dala na večeři. Nakonec jsem psala deníček... a dokonce se mi podařilo přidat jednu fotku náhodným klikáním na prázdné pozadí stránky bloggeru! No to je krása... spíše by to měli opravit!

Family issues

2009-03-03T20:38:00.003+01:00

    I am not going to write about work today any more, I was a bit calmer due to the more normal clothing of one female co-worker (she had had better clothes yesterday and I was jealous that I could not wear female clothes myself). Anyway, a few busy weeks are awaiting me. I will have to go to Bratislava on weekend, to my father's apartment to pick up my paintings which my sister painted... I will have to go by train in the first class so that there be room to put them (the bigger one is 100x120 cm large). I was trying to find out the ticket price on the internet yesterday and the system responded with an exorbitant price of CZK 2150. I was telling myself that that probably would not work... that I would not be able to pay such a high price for my sister too and I will probably have to travel alone. But then I noticed that the system was not counting with any discount for a round-trip ticket and it merely doubles the price of a single ticket... interesting. My sister went to ask at the station today and thankfully it costs "only" CZK 1500 - that is about the limit which I am willing to pay. So I will take half a day off on Friday so I can go home and change my clothes... I definitely want to show my family my new looks.

    I had to suffer one visit of men's toilet today too since the toilet for disabled was occupied. Luckily, I did not meet anyone there, I just needed to put band-aids on my heels, they are a bit bruised after Sunday.

    That is probably all from the interesting things at work, a fantastic little present had been waiting for me at home in the post, which I had ordered about a week ago from the far-away country of Japan. The original soundtrack from the anime Le portrait de petite Cossette... it completely amazed me with its story, presentation, artistic impression and also with music. Very melancholic music coloured by the sad tones of a violin evokes the feelings from the anime in me and I am experiencing the anime again in my mind. I will have to tell you about it some time in the future, the story is related to me more than one would expect.

    A nuisance had been waiting for me at home too - namely chatting via the internet with my father and telling him that I will come... well great, he will be shocked anyway and he started criticising my figure, that I am too skinny and that I am just trying to lose all of my muscle mass since I have never wanted to do any exercise. I am telling him in vain that my weight has not changed in the past at least eight years, he takes it as a minus anyway and says that "a woman's beauty is not about that". I do not know how he can talk like this about a woman's beauty since I know very well that he dislikes all women who have just a bit more weight than what is considered the minimum for being healthy. Then he even said that due to me showing off my femininity now had been enticing my mother to move and to sell their apartment, even though "the situation is not good for that now and they will get less money". I really do not thing that I caused that and it leaves me calm. It is not very nice but what can I do when he does not leave me to talk it out of him. And I am curious what my grandmother will say about it... but I am not counting any more on the fact that I would be able to become a princess for a week at the Bojnice chateau (we used to go there for holidays)... now I would really enjoy it and I would not even be too suspicious-looking in a princessly dress due to the fact, that the tour guides wear such clothes normally there.

    Tomorrow, I am going to throw away CZK 3000 for the tickets and maybe I will make an appointment at the sexologist for Thursday because I will have other matters to attend to the next week. Do not lose hope, maybe the next time something funnier happens to me. ;)

Rodinné strasti

2009-03-03T20:37:00.006+01:00

O práci dnes již psát nebudu, byla jsem o něco klidnější díky obyčejnějšímu oblečení mé kolegyně. Každopádně mne čeká krušných pár týdnů. O víkendu budu muset jet do Bratislavy, do bytu mého otce vyzvednout a odvézt obrazy, které malovala má sestra... musím jet vlakem 1. třídou, aby je bylo kam dát (větší má 100x120 cm). Včera jsem si zkoušela na internetu zjistit cenu zpáteční jízdenky a systém mi sdělil závratnou částku cca 2150 Kč. To jsem si říkala, že asi nepůjde... že nebudu moci platit tak drahou jízdenku ještě za sestru a asi budu muset jet sama. Pak jsem si ale všimla, že systém nebere žádnou zpáteční slevu do úvahy a jen zdvojnásobí cenu... zajímavé. Dnes se byla sestra zeptat a naštěstí stojí "jen" 1500 Kč - to je tak na hranici, co jsem ochotná zaplatit. Takže v pátek si vezmu půlden dovolené, abych se stihla jít domů přestrojit... před rodinou se už budu prezentovat rozhodně v novém.
Také jsem dnes zažila jednu návštěvu pánského WC, protože pro invalidy bylo obsazené. Naštěstí jsem tam nikoho nepotkala, potřebovala jsem si jen nalepit náplasti na paty, po neděli jsou trochu odřené.
To je asi ze zajímavostí z práce vše, doma mne pak čekal v poště úžasný dáreček, který jsem si asi před týdnem objednala až z dalekého Japonska. Original soundtrack k anime Le portrait de petite Cossette... doslova mne uchvátilo příběhem, podáním, uměleckým ztvárněním a také hudbou. Velmi melancholická hudba podbarvená smutnými tony houslí ve mně evokuje dojmy z anime a v mé mysli to prožívám znovu. Někdy v budoucnu vám o tom budu muset povyprávět, ten příběh se mne dotýká víc, než byste čekali.
Doma mne také čekala nepříjemnost a to nutnost promluvit si přes internet s otcem a dát mu vědět, že přijedu... no bezva, prý se mne stejně lekne a začal kritizovat mou postavu, že jsem příliš vychrtlá a že se asi snažím ztratit veškerou svalovou hmotu, když jsem nikdy nechtěla cvičit. Nadarmo mu říkám, že má váha se za posledních minimálně osm let vůbec nezměnila, stejně to bere jako mínus a prý "ženská krása v tom nespočívá". Nevím, co on může mluvit takto o ženské kráse, když dobře vím jak ženy, které jsou byť i jen trochu při těle odbývá mávnutím rukou. Pak ještě probíral to, jak jsem tím, že jsem začala dávat najevo své ženství tomu, že máma chce prodat jejich společný byt co nejdříve i když teď jsou "nevhodné podmínky a dostanou málo peněz". Opravdu si nemyslím, že bych to tím zapříčinila a tudíž mne to nechává chladnou. Moc hezké to není, ale co se dá dělat, když si to nenechá rozmluvit. A jsem zvědavá, co na to řekne babička... nicméně už nepočítám s tím, že bych se mohla na týden stát princeznou na Bojnickém zámku (jezdívali jsme tam na dovolenou)... teď bych si to opravdu užila a ani bych nebyla příliš nápadná v princeznovských šatech vzhledem k tomu, že takové šaty tam nosí průvodkyně běžně.
Zítra se zbavím 3000 Kč a koupím jízdenky a možná se objednám na čtvrtek k sexuologovi, protože příští týden budu mít další povinnosti. Neztrácejte naději, příště se mi třeba přihodí opět něco úsměvného. ;)

Again at work, again...

2009-03-02T19:02:00.001+01:00

    I am here again! I am not leaving you in peace, am I? But do not worry, that will probably settle after the initial excitement is gone. ;)

    I was at work for the first day after a month and... how should I put it. I have to control myself in everything more than before and it is quite tiring. After that month I almost forgot how it is to be a man for a longer time than visiting a doctor. Not very great. Positive is, that I remembered my log-in password after a month.

    Today, everything went downhill at work... I always go for breakfast at work in the morning - well why get up earlier when I can have breakfast during work hours ;) but - in the morning, the canteen was "due to operational reasons" closed. So I had to go to a healthy diet shop across the street, to buy a tofu sandwich and some cakes. I soothed my stomach and I started going through about 1500 e-mails, which had piled up during my absence.

    "Toilet reconstruction in the building"

    What?? The toilets will be undergoing reconstruction always on one floor and during that time, we should use the toilets located on nearby floors. As if it had not been enough that I use the toilet for disabled people so that I do not have to go to the men's toilet and now I will have to go to another floor! That is not very pleasing...

    "Tax information for holders of company shares"

    What do we have here? Oh, the accountants will not fill out the tax forms for me because the company's donation of 15% comes from the corporation, which has got headquarters in the USA, so it has not undergone taxation and has to be reported as "extra income". To pick up the confirmation of my income from work and of my income from the share donation... fill out the tax forms... you must be kidding! I have always feared that like the devil fears the cross and now I have it on my table. What will I do with this heap of paper, I do not really know yet. In the end, I will fill it out incorrectly and they will fine me for tax fraud. Or they will just send me directly to jail.

    "Message for shareholders"

    And what is Jeff writing about? Well let us have a look, he is lowering the dividend to USD 0.1 per share. All right Jeff, since it is the global crisis now... but just make sure the shares' price goes up again! Or that the price is not dropping anymore at least. If it goes like until now, those USD 0.1 will not be the dividend value, but the value of the whole share!

    "Meeting of the IT team"

    Well, that probably already took place when I was ill... when was it supposed to take place... 2 March - why, that is today!! From 13:00... two hours, that is horrible! These meetings are sucking out the life force approximately in the same way like some all-interesting lectures at the university.

    I have been working on a simple budget, according to which I could go to the nose plastic surgery in September, if I want to buy a digital piano in April or May already.

    Today, I made an exception and went to the canteen to get my lunch there because I had less time due to the great IT team meeting from one o'clock. At least the canteen was already open during lunch and they even had quite edible food there, fried salmon with herb sauce and american potatoes.

    I do not even have to write much about the IT team meeting: it was long, boring, terrible air and since then, my head has been hurting.

    In the end, when I was about to leave, a colleague was bothering me with some things, for example like we would have to "sit" together tomorrow with yet someone else still and discuss some things... he had been bothering me until it was late and my bus had left. I had to go to another bus stop and then take a different bus home. A bill from my credit card had been waiting for me at home, then a Gurman magazine and a package with fytoestrogens, milk thistle pills and melatonin pills for my mother (late birthday present).

    I will have to stop now, I will have something for dinner. After all, the portions in the canteen are so small that even a little woman at work says that whoever wants to lose weight, should go there every day for lunch.

Opět v práci, opět...

2009-03-02T19:01:00.005+01:00

Jsem tady opět! Nedám vám pokoj, co? Ale nebojte, to se nejspíš spraví až odezní to počáteční nadšení. ;)
Po měsíci jsem byla první den v práci a... jak bych to řekla. Ve všem se musím ovládat mnohem více než předtím a docela mne to unavuje. Po tom měsíci jsem pomalu zapomněla jaké to je být mužem na delší dobu než návštěvu u doktora. Ne moc skvělé. Pozitivní je, že jsem si po měsíci pamatovala přihlašovací heslo.
V práci šlo dnes všechno dolů vodou... ráno vždy chodím na snídani v práci - proč také vstávat zbytečně dříve, když se mohu nasnídat v pracovní době ;) jenže - jídelna byla ráno "z provozních důvodů" zavřena. Tak jsem si musela jít koupit tofu bagetku a koláčky do prodejny zdravé výživy naproti přes ulici. Uklidnila jsem žaludek a pustila jsem se do probírání asi 1500 e-mailů, které se mi ve schránce za tu dobu nashromáždily.

"Rekonstrukce toalet v budově"

Cože? Toalety budou rekonstruovány vždy v určitém patře a v době rekonstrukce máme používat toalety umístěné v patrech přilehlých. Jako by nestačilo, že chodím na WC pro invalidy, abych nemusela na to pánské a teď budu muset chodit ještě do jiného patra! To příliš potěšující není...

"Daňové informace pro držitele firemních akcií"

Co máme tady? Aha, účtárna mi nezpracuje vyúčtování daně, protože firemní příspěvek 15% pochází od korporace se sídlem v USA, tudíž nebyl zdaněn a musí být vykázán jako prémie. Vyzvednout si potvrzení o příjmech z práce a o příjmech z příspěvků na akcie... vyplnit daňové přiznání... no to snad ne! Toho jsem se odjakživa bála jako čert kříže a teď to mám na stole. Co s tím štosem papíru budu dělat ještě ani moc netuším. Nakonec to vyplním špatně a dají mi pokutu za daňový podvod. Nebo mne přímo pošlou do vězení.

"Zpráva pro akcionáře"

A copak píše Jeff? No podívejme, snižuje dividendu na 0,1 dolaru za akcii. Tak dobře Jeffe, když je ta celosvětová hospodářská krize... ale hlavně ať začnou ty akcie růst! Nebo ať alespoň dále neklesají. Jestli to půjde takhle dále, tak do konce roku těch 0,1 dolaru nebude hodnota dividendy, ale celé akcie!

"Setkání IT týmu"

No, to už asi bylo když jsem byla nemocná... na kdy to je... 2.3. - vždyť to je dnes! Od jedné... dvě hodiny, to je hrůza! Tyhle setkání vysávají životní energii asi tak, jako některé velezajímavé přednášky na vysoké škole.

Připravovala jsem si takový jednoduchý rozpočet, dle kterého bych mohla jít na rhinoplastiku v září, pakliže si budu chtít koupit digitální piano už v dubnu nebo květnu.
Dnes jsem šla výjimečně na oběd do jídelny, protože jsem měla méně času vzhledem k skvělému setkání IT týmu od jedné. Naštěstí jídelna byla na oběd už otevřená a měli tam docela rozumné jídlo, smažený losos s bylinkovou omáčkou a americkými bramborami.
O setkání IT týmu moc psát nemusím, bylo to dlouhé, nudné, hrozný vzduch a od té doby mne pořád bolí hlava.
Nakonec když jsem byla na odchodu tak mne kolega zdržoval tím, jak si zítra budeme muset "sednout" ještě s někým a prodiskutovat nějaké věci... zdržoval mne, až mi samozřejmě ujel autobus a musela jsem jít na jinou zastávku a pak jiným autobusem domů. Doma na mne čekal výpis z kreditní karty, časopis gurmán a balíček s fytoestrogeny, práškem ze středomořského bodláku a melatoninem pro mámu (pozdní dárek k narozeninám).
Už budu končit, dám si něco k večeři. Přeci jenom porce v jídelně jsou tak malé, že i jedna drobná žena v práci říká, že kdo chce zhubnout, tak tam může chodit na obědy.

The last day before returning to work

2009-03-01T21:29:00.001+01:00

    I was ill for a month and tomorrow I have to go back to work... so I needed to quickly undertake some endeavour. Even despite being on stand-by duty since Friday, I was doing shopping in the city yesterday and today I went to the cinema with my sister. I was interested in the film The Duchess because of beautiful clothes (what else ;) ), so we went to the Slovanský dům - probably the closest cinema, where they are airing it at this time. As usually, three hours of preparations preceded going to the city. Taking a bath, shaving, doing my hair, putting on make-up, getting dressed up... You know, I did not want to stay behind the actors on the screen ;). For the first time in my life I went out to the city in a skirt. I have to say that I really enjoyed it and when I noticed that nobody else is wearing a skirt, it added even more to my already bloated self-esteem. I looked a bit like on the picture but I had my favourite white extravagant blouse and an extravagant coat and a scarf.

    We arrived at the cinema half an hour earlier, because since it is a new film, I was afraid that it would be sold out. Thanks to our coming early, we got tickets to the back row near the centerline, so it was very nice. I had not been in such a huge cinema for ages and I could go up the lit stairs like a princess - of course twenty minutes before the film there was nobody there. The room filled up gradually though. After fifteen minutes of advertisements and trailers of other films the one we had been waiting for finally began. It was watchable, the beautiful dresses really did not disappoint me, I would really love to have especially such decorated nightgowns for wearing them at home - that would be something... Of course it could not do without the for me disliked "love scenes", which were a bit more lengthy than I would have accepted. Well I really do not know but maybe they should just put even shots of the hero sitting on a toilet and trying hard.

    A few weeks ago I saw The Other Boleyn Girl and that was better, especially the story was more complicated and it could not be predicted so easily. Well it does not matter, I could look at the beautiful dresses which I had been waiting for for the most time, so it accomplished the goal.

    On my way home I decided, that I needed to buy tights - another pair desotryed after yesterday. So we went to the Vaclavske square, then up to Marks & Spencer. There I found some usable ones after a little while and then all that was left was to go up to the Museum underground station.

    The last part of my journey took place on a bus, I was in the back and there was a little girl with her grandmother. The girl was watching me carefully and smiling and then she began telling her grandmother how beautiful I was. The grandmother replied "oh yes, she is really chic!" :D Such events always warm my heart.

    My feet were starting to protest after going from the bus stop... how could they not, since my shoes were a size smaller because they did not have my size and I liked them very much so I bought them anyway. So today's balance - a few bruises under the toenails. Better than yesterday's destroyed tights, my feet take it without fuss, they will be fine tomorrow. They will have to get used to it, I do not have an easy life with shoes.

    When I told about the story with the little girl to my mother, she immediately started to persuade me that I should not go to plastic surgeries of my nose and forehead... how great I look. But like it is now, there are always "experts" like the waiter in the pizza yesterday who finally called me "sir" while I was paying. He was probably a bit dumb because I had been talking like a woman all the time (in Czech language there are different ways of talking for men and women). Well what can I do, even such people are among us...

Poslední den před návratem do práce

2009-03-01T21:28:00.005+01:00

Byla jsem nemocná měsíc a zítra se mám vrátit do práce... takže to chtělo ještě rychle něco podniknout. I navzdory tomu, že mám od pátku pohotovost jsem byla včera nakupovat ve městě a dnes jsem šla se sestrou do kina. Na filmu Vévodkyně mne zaujalo nádherné oblečení (co jiného ;) ), tak jsme šly do Slovanského domu - asi nejbližší kino, kde film teď dávají. Jako obvykle výpravě do města předcházely tři hodiny příprav - koupání, holení, účes, líčení, oblečení... No víte, nechtěla jsem zaostat za aktéry na plátně ;).
Poprvé v životě jsem si vyšla do města v sukni. Musím říct, že se mi to hodně líbilo a když jsem shledala, že v sukni nikdo jiný nechodí, přidalo mi to na už tak hodně velkém sebevědomí. Vypadala jsem asi jako na obrázku, ale měla jsem mou oblíbenou extravagantní blůzku a navíc extravagantní kožich a šálu.
Do kina jsme přišly o půl hodiny dříve, protože když je to nový film tak jsem se bála, že bude vyprodán. Díky včasnému příchodu jsme dostaly vstupenky nahoru k prostředku, takže to bylo moc fajn. V takové veliké kinosále jsem nebyla ani nepamatuji a mohla jsem si vyjít po osvětleném schodišti jako princezna - samozřejmě dvacet minut před představením tam ještě nikdo nebyl. Postupně se to ale docela zaplnilo. Po patnácti minutách reklam a ukázek jiných filmů konečně začal ten, na který jsme šly. Dalo se na to dívat, šaty rozhodně nezklamaly, hlavně bych chtěla takové ty noční košile zdobené na doma, to by bylo... Samozřejmě se to neobešlo bez pro mne neoblíbených milostných scén, které byly trochu víc natažené, než bych přijala. Já tedy nevím, ale do příštího filmu mohou rovnou přidat i záběry, jak hrdina sedí na toaletě a snaží se.
Před pár týdny jsem viděla The Other Boleyn Girl a to bylo o hodně lepší, hlavně ten příběh byl složitější a nebyl až tak předvídatelný. No nevadí, krásné šaty tam byly většinu času takže svůj účel film splnil a měla jsem se na co dívat.
Cestou domů jsem se rozhodla, že ještě potřebuji koupit punčochové kalhotky - po včerejšku zničené další. Tak jsme šly pěšky na Václavák, pak nahoru do Marks & Spencer, tam jsem po chvíli našla nějaké rozumné a pak zbývalo jít ještě nahoru na stanici metra Muzeum.
Poslední etapa mé cesty domů byla autobusem, byla jsem v zadní části a seděla tam také jedna malá holčička s babičkou. Holčička se na mne hodně koukala a usmívala a pak začala babičce vyprávět, jaká jsem krásná. Babička na to jen "no jo, je to frajerka" :D Takové příhody vždy potěší.
Po cestě z autobusové zastávky do domu už moje nožky docela protestovaly... také jak by ne, když ty botky jsou o číslo menší, protože mou velikost neměli a moc se mi líbily, tak jsem si je stejně koupila. Takže dnešní bilance - pár podlitin pod nehty na nohách. Lepší než včerejší zničené punčocháče, nožky to berou docela s nadhledem, zítra budou v pohodě. Musí si zvykat, s obuví to nemám snadné.
Když jsem vylíčila příběh s holčičkou mámě, tak mne hned přesvědčovala, jak nemám chodit na plastické operace nosu a čela... jak skvěle vypadám. Ovšem takto se najdou i experti jako číšník v pizzerii včera, který mne nakonec při placení oslovil "pane". Asi byl trochu natvrdlý, protože jsem celou dobu mluvila v ženském rodu. No co se dá dělat, i takoví lidé jsou mezi námi...