The current free ebook is located at this link:
http://haggishell.com/ridgeproject.pdf

For details about the ebook, click here.

150602. The Masked Lua Stories PDF has been updated.

The PDF is a short collection of anecdotes from the life of an IT worker in the U.S. Deep South. This revision adds one anecdote and makes some minor corrections. To download the file, use this link:

http://christfollower.me/topics/maskedlua/Masked_Lua.pdf

The license for the PDF is Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0. For attribution purposes, the rights-holders are the Masked Lua and OldCoder.

150531. OldCoder New York City now includes the Twin Towers, thanks to mccomase. There's a surprising amount of detail inside; come and take a look. The location is:

Server: minetest.org
Port: 30016
Coordinates: -297,3.5,-47

Everybody gets fly and noclip in this world. The K key should turn fly on and off. The H key should turn noclip on and off.

The license for the screenshots is Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0. For attribution purposes, the rights-holder is OldCoder.

150521. A party in Madison, Wisconsin visited the sites yesterday.

The IPV4 was 199.204.56.144. This geolocates to a POP at 43.0286 -89.5181, Midtown Road and South High Point Road, which is 2 miles from the location where my nephew-in-law Eric Holub is believed to reside.

George Kerechanko or his wife Sandy Kerechanko paid me a visit a week ago. Now, most likely, Eric Holub. It appears that this is pseudo-family week.

No further comments tonight. Might add thoughts later on.

150518. For Lord of the Rings and Minetest people, here's a screenshot of the Wookie Warlock's cozy Lord of the Test village and a poem from the same source.

I swim under the waterfall
Not a care at all
What a beautiful feeling
The silence is appealing

I've found the missing link to an island flame
A beautiful paradise calling my name
Beaches and crashing waves
Jungles, mountains, and rocky caves

If you can fly
Don't stop at the sky
I stare into my island's starry afternoon
There's footprints on the moon

But you know I cannot gloat
My heart can't harbor this paddleboat
I'll have to swim back to the shore
Return to real world filled with war

As I walk onto the shore
I realize something I hadn't before
I was feeling alone in the foam
No paradise could keep me from returning home

The license for the poem above and screenshot below is Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0. For attribution purposes, the rights-holder is the Wookie Warlock.

The license for the beach illustration is the same but the rights-holder in this case is tohdaryl. For a larger version of the beach illustration, click here.

150515. For Minetest people, New York City is now up and running.

New York City, my world, was created initially by JP2. This was a year or two ago but due to the Gag Order Cases I didn't have time to set it up until now.

This world is just for show. Since it's a model of the real New York City and we don't want random builds, interact will be limited. But default privs include fly and noclip, so you can fly through buildings to take a look.

The server is minetest.org as usual and the port is: 30016

To get my free MS-Windows Minetest clients, visit: http://minetest.org/

<DI3HARD139> fvkbvbkkvbvbbhalbbkhhfvhbffhkb
<PicklesRGood> blegh
<PicklesRGood> bleh
<PicklesRGood> bleck
<OldCoder> Um
<DI3HARD139> yes?
<OldCoder> Quality of discourse seems low
<DI3HARD139> yup
<OldCoder> Announcing New York City World
<DI3HARD139> gimmie
<OldCoder> Port 30016 on minetest.org
<PicklesRGood> whooo!!!!
<OldCoder> Minetest.Org is Better than Borg :P
<DI3HARD139> This must've taken forever to make
<OldCoder> I think it did
<OldCoder> We need a Zombies mod. A good one.
<DI3HARD139> I know, right?
<OldCoder> Zombies in New York City at Night
<OldCoder> with Bagels and Pretzels all night long
<DI3HARD139> that'd be awesome
<DI3HARD139> this is a beautifuly world
<DI3HARD139> thanks for sharing it
<OldCoder> This is what I am for
<OldCoder> To save that what which needs to be saved

The license for the screenshots are Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0. For attribution purposes, the rights-holder is OldCoder.

150514. A party in Paso Robles, CA downloaded the ebook last night. Note: If you'd like a copy, click here.

The IPV4 was 71.92.227.15. This geolocates to a POP at 35.6268 -120.6901, Park St. and 12th St., which is 3 miles from the Fairway Drive residence of George Kerechanko, my Mother Grace Kiraly's cousin.

It appears that George or his wife Sandy have a copy of the document. This is an interesting development.

George was the son of Edward Kerechanko. Edward's sister was Olga Kerechanko, and Grace was Olga's daughter.

When George Kerechanko and I were younger, he was significant to me. He was more of a symbol than anything else, but symbols are not to be dismissed lightly.

The situation is more complicated now.

George felt that his son Russell Kerechanko, who died in 2013 of an apparent drug overdose, was a loser. My perspective is that Russell had a difficult time settling into adulthood, but was making progress towards the end.

I myself worked my ass off for decades. I didn't have a family. I didn't do much that was interesting. Instead, I just worked and worked.

My reward was to have my own Mother Grace Kiraly assume, after I came down with arthritis, that the arthritis happened because I was lazy. And that if I had difficulty finding work at my level after my company folded and my startup died, it was because, you guessed it, I was lazy.

When I asked Grace to ask her husband to help with a job search, she said, “Is this about money? Do you want money?” I told her, “Absolutely not. I want to work.”

When I noted that I'd been largely without W2 work for years, the type that you need to get medical care, Grace snapped, without hesitation, “Whose fault is that?”

Grace Kiraly is sort of a b*tch. Looking back, she always was.

Subsequently, Grace's husband Jim Kiraly, who had abused her and most of her children, initiated legal actions against me intended to stop my work on a book.

The same book, or part of it, that George or Sandy downloaded last night. The PDF that they have will make up about 1/4 of the final work.

The legal actions started in 2012. George Kerechanko's son Russell was still alive at this point. George never asked me about the cases. Instead, he listened to Grace Kiraly's rants and imagined that I was like Russell, who he viewed as a failure.

I'd worked hard, and done nothing but work hard, since age 9. This was my life. But facts didn't matter. I'd suspected this for years but 2012 was the turning point.

These people, like a cow or hen
Beasts of the field that lack reason
but presume to walk like men
They have human faces
They have human hands
In the inner places
This is not what God demands
They belong to me and it's not Zen
Feasts of revealed track my season

George may like the chapters related to motorcycles. He's mentioned in that context. Both George and Sandy are invited to comment on the work as a whole.

I see that George or Sandy also reviewed the obituary that I wrote for their dead son. If you'd like to read that, click here.

They only spent 4 minutes on that page, though, so they may not have read the letter to Lisa Kerechanko, Russell's sister, that makes up the second half. I'd like them to read the letter as I feel that it addresses everything.

The license for the illustration is Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0. For attribution purposes, the rights-holder is NatSilva.

The legal actions erased my life savings and any dreams that I had left in middle age. The book is most of what is left.

Jim Kiraly resides, if he is still alive (he has had a number of strokes) at 32 La Gaviota, Pismo Beach, CA. I'd like to gather as much information, for legitimate and reasonable purposes, about him before he dies.

People interested in the factors involved in spousal abuse and child abuse are invited to help gather information, for legitimate and reasonable purposes, related to Jim Kiraly, Grace Kiraly, and other parties involved in the Gag Order Cases. Attorneys are asked to review the following document before commenting:

Legitimate and Reasonable Purposes List

150513. For Minetest people, ChainLynx world is now up and running.

ChainLynx was created initially by oOChainLynxOo, who has a large Minetest series at YouTube. This is presently a Creative world. Damage and PVP are enabled. Lots of add-ons as usual. As Deezl says, “dats a lotta mods”.

The server is minetest.org as usual and the port is: 30017

To get my free MS-Windows Minetest clients, visit: http://minetest.org/

The license for the screenshot is Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0. For attribution purposes, the rights-holder is OldCoder.

150509. Sex, drugs, and Rocky Horror Picture Show.

As a Mothers Day special, here's a section of the main book. This is a free 62-page ebook in PDF format:

Click here for ebook   or share this link:   http://haggishell.com/ridgeproject.pdf

The ebook is about High School and U.C. Berkeley students in the 1970s. Sex, drugs, Rocky Horror Picture Show, final exams, autism, model rockets, friends, jobs, motorcycles, and diversity.

Diversity as in blacks being allowed to move into a whites-only city. Women being allowed to work. And gays turning out to be ordinary people after all.

Jim Kiraly and Grace Kiraly at 32 La Gaviota, Pismo Beach, California. Tom Kiraly. Michael Bonetto. Maggie Desmond. They said, in Court, that there was no book. They put the word in quotes like this:

'book'

They were focused, to the point of silliness, on stopping a book. This book. Is it time for these people to eat their sh... shoes, yet? :P

What matters, though, is that we can change things. There's been a lot of progress in 40 years. More is possible. If we try, and we don't ever stop, no matter what those who hate do, we can make a difference.

The photo below is of a young woman at Ridge Project, a student residence of the 1970s. For a larger copy, click here. The license for the photo is Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0. For attribution purposes, the rights-holder is OldCoder.

150506. This is Makita, a Swedish doggie, male, two years old. Is he bold? I don't know, but he strikes me as faithful.

The license for the illustration is Creative Commons BY 3.0. For attribution purposes, the rights-holder is the Cat Ninja.

150502. This is a copy of a letter to attorney J. Timothy Maximoff of Hoge Fenton, a major law firm based in Santa Clara County, California.

Hoge Fenton is said to have been the lead contributor to the Professional Standards used by the Santa Clara County Bar Association. This letter is related partly to that issue.

“Mr. Bonetto” is Michael T. Bonetto, who handled the Kiraly Gag Order cases on Hoge Fenton's side. John Perrott was my own attorney.

The remark “enough of an idiot” is related to Michael Bonetto's attempts to extort my agreement to a gag order related to spousal abuse and child abuse, attempts that lasted about a year and that cost me my life savings, my home of 25 years, and my chances for a life free of pain and fear at last.

“Tim” Maximoff of Hoge Fenton
State Bar Number 126846
311 Navarra Drive (unverified pending confirmation)
Scotts Valley, CA 95066

Cc: John H. Perrott
State Bar Number 213080
4516 Bucknall Road (unconfirmed, pending verification)
San Jose, CA 95130

Note for attorneys: This letter is not confidential. To reassure you of this, it has, in fact, been posted publicly.

Tim, there seems to be a technical issue with your system related to email. Would you or Seth happen to know anything about it?

Is it connected to confusing and unexplained remarks that Mr. Bonetto has made related to email, or to prosecutable crimes, including but not limited to felonies, that he is involved with?

As there seems to be a technical issue related to email, as Mr. Bonetto has made confusing and unexplained remarks related to email, and as multiple legitimate and reasonable purposes are involved:

* Do you object to legitimate and reasonable communications directed to the alternate address listed above?

* If you do object, do you assert that you have a legal basis to object?

* If you do make such an assertion, what are the grounds that you cite?

* As a separate issue, do you object to consensual communications, for legitimate and reasonable purposes, directed to third parties located in the geographic vicinity of the alternate address?

* Do you understand the likely legitimate and reasonable outcomes if you are enough of an idiot to attempt, as another member of Hoge Fenton has been enough of an idiot to attempt, to assert a legal basis for objections to consensual communications with third parties and/or to seek a gag order in connection with the results of such communications?

* Is the alternate address correct?

It's odd to realize that I asked your firm, as a whole, a few sensible questions 2 to 3 years ago, questions that any member of the public would be entitled to ask, that I repeated the sensible questions politely over the years, and yet somehow... after years, your firm has not even stated whether or not it will, or will not, answer the questions; let alone answered them.

Wee-eee doggies, it's downright puzzling :P Well, let's list some of them:

1. Does Hoge Fenton indicate, upon inquiries, case numbers and venues for past legal cases in which specific attorneys at the firm have been involved and, if not, why not?

2. Who, at Hoge Fenton, took the lead in preparing the initial drafts of the Professional Standards that, in theory, apply to all Santa Clara County attorneys?

3. What role does Hoge Fenton, the firm that is said to have written the initial drafts of the Professional Standards, feel that the Standards play in the career of an attorney? Are Santa Clara County attorneys expected to conform to the Standards, to at least know what they say, to be vaguely aware of them, to be able to spell out words in the title, or what, exactly?

4. What is Hoge Fenton's position on violations by the firm's own attorneys of the Santa Clara County Professional Standards that the firm itself wrote? Pro or con?

5. Does the firm provide tangible rewards to the attorneys who rack up the largest number of violations? Or are the rewards intangible?

6. Does Hoge Fenton's perspective depend on whether or not violations are minor and technical in nature as opposed to egregious and unconscionable?

7. What is Hoge Fenton's position on spousal abuse? Pro or con?

8. What is Hoge Fenton's position on child abuse? Pro or con?

Maggie Desmond told me recently that she didn't know what she could say to me. The response I've posted online is that we have decades to find out.

But let's start with answers to the questions listed above.

Warm regards.

P.S. As a courtesy, be advised that to find the online material mentioned above, you may proceed as follows:

Type the first and last name of one of the attorneys and/or other parties involved into Google along with a relevant keyword such as “abuse”, “harlot”, “sociopath”, or “spittle”.

The license for the illustration is Creative Commons BY 3.0. For attribution purposes, the rights-holder is WickedSick37.

150501. This is a letter to Attorney John Perrott. It's a follow-up to the long letter to the California Technology Agency that was sent on 150430. To read the long letter, scroll down.

Note: There are several versions of this follow-up circulating. This was the most recent version as of 150501.

John, my friend:

I reviewed one of the documents that you and/or the California Technology Agency looked at yesterday on the Free Speech Anti-Abuse websites.

I noticed something that I'd missed before. It appears that in mid-2014 you characterized an allusion to your residence address as a “threat” specifically to serve you there with legal papers.

Wasn't this during the discussion where I'd asked you simply to receive subpoenas on my behalf? Something that most attorneys who had not committed felonies would readily agree to do?

Tom Stutzman, the alleged sex offender who has been disciplined for sexual harassment, had stated that he didn't want further communication directed to “this law office”. So wasn't the allusion in question simply about moving receipt of subpoenas to an address that he couldn't object to?

John, you know what? You're an idiot and I assert this publicly as a fact.

During the Gag Order cases, you never even read most of my instructions to you. Did you? You ignored them. You were too busy committing actual fraud. You know, you've never denied telling me that the document you charged me thousands of dollars for was going to get my fees paid in advance. The document that the Court admonished you for. I'm sure that you remember it.

You know where the prosecutable fraud that you committed and have not denied is going to go, in a legitimate and reasonable sense, right?

Warm regards, Robert

P.S. Bacon Brain.

The license for the illustration is Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0. For attribution purposes, the rights-holder is AireDaleDogz.

150430. The link below goes to a PDF that has been sent to the California Technology Agency.

Letter to California Technology Agency

And here is the document in Web format.

Date: April 30, 2015
Subject: Request to speak with CTA
ATTN: Carlos Ramos or his secretary

California Technology Agency c/o California Department of Technology
1325 J Street, Suite 1600
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 319-9223

For attorneys: Nothing in this letter is confidential. In fact, this letter has been posted publicly.

Cc: John H. Perrott
State Bar Number 213080
4516 Bucknall Road (unconfirmed, pending verification)
San Jose, CA 95130

Dear Carlos Ramos (or secretary for related agencies):

Kindly direct this letter to the appropriate admin assistant. I'll provide such additional information as the assistant requires.

I'm writing because the California Technology Agency accessed particular websites today in tandem with accesses by a particular attorney, John Perrott, or by people with whom the attorney in question is associated.

I'm interested, for reasons that will be explained, in the State-level accesses and would like to discuss them with the appropriate parties.

Mr. Perrott or his people accessed the sites late this morning in their time-zone. Two minutes later, the CTA initiated access. Accesses went back and forth between the two visitors for a few minutes. It's my feeling that the accesses are related.

The context is unusual and worth a minute to explain.

I'm an adult survivor of child abuse who is now approaching 60 years of age. In 2012, my abuser and one brother initiated legal actions against me intended to prevent me from “discussing” past abuse with third parties and from working on a book that they feared would mention the abuse.

The word “discussing” is in a proposed Gag Order that has been posted on the sites your people visited today. My abuser was disconcerted that the Gag Order was posted and demanded a takedown. For what it's worth, I'm #10 now in some Google searches related to the law that he tried to use to get the take­down.

The putative cause of action was fear of physical violence. However, I was in a wheelchair at the time, lived 200 miles from my abuser and 3,000 miles from my brother, and was not even asked not to make phone calls. A cursory review of the legal actions will show that the legal actions were not simply abuse of process, but abuse of process of such a degree that they are moderately embarrassing for the attorneys involved.

My abuser and my brother committed multiple felonies in their attempts to stop the book. I won that part but I lost my life savings and my home of 25 years. This is where John Perrott, San Jose Family Law attorney, enters the picture.

I was not lawfully served in the Gag Order cases and learned of them only days before Court. There was no time to find a real attorney. I settled for one who makes a practice of defrauding clients, a practice that he has a specific name for. He refers to it as “client management”.

It should be noted the attorney in question, John Perrott, works for an alleged sexual harasser, Tom Stutzman, who has been disciplined by the State Bar in connection with inappropriate actions related to a female client.

Mr. Perrott made me do much of the non pro-forma work in the Gag Order Cases. But somehow, even though we never went to trial and he did not even attend my deposition, my bills ended up 50% higher than his estimate for everything including the deposition and the trial.

This was due in part to prosecutable crimes that John Perrott is hereby asserted, publicly, to have committed, including, but not limited to, the crime of fraud.

I asked Mr. Perrott to prepare a Motion to Limit Scope for me. It was supposed to cost $150. Instead, he billed me $3,000 to $5,000 for a document that he said would persuade the Court to have my legal fees paid in advance by my abuser. But when I asked John Perrott about the fees, close to Court, he seemed to have forgotten that he had ever talked about them.

The Court was not impressed with the document and admonished Mr. Perrott for submitting it.

I'm autistic and can perceive details better than you can; if I remember to do so, which is not as easy as you might think. When John received the admonishment, I had the distinct impression that he was about to wet his pants.

Subsequently, John Perrott told me that Court had been a rousing success. When I questioned this, he said that I was “depressive” :-)

Another issue of some significance is possible collaboration by Mr. Perrott and Opposing Counsel with the intent to defraud parties to the Gag Order cases out of thousands of dollars. John Perrott is aware that I possess a copy of a letter which suggests that such a collaboration existed. He knows, as well, that I intend to post the letter online and distribute it directly to activist groups and law enforcement for years to come.

As a related point, Mr. Perrott is withholding records that I am entitled to as he fears that they may send him to jail. Or embarrass him. Attorneys know that they are almost never prosecuted. But embarrassment is real to them.

John is not pleased that I call attention, on a regular basis, to his failure to turn over the records in ques­tion.

It is a letter on that precise subject that the California Technology Agency reviewed today.

John Perrott, Family Law attorney, and his sex-offender boss, Tom Stutzman of Thomas Chase Stutzman, San Jose, have tried before to take down websites that discuss these issues. As have my abuser and my brother. In the course of these attempts, these parties have committed or become involved in multiple felonies.

But each prosecutable crime that they commit gets them in deeper. I guess you could describe it as a “Tar Baby” situation.

The heart of the problem, for these people, is that there is little they or other parties who choose to be­come involved can do to prevent me long-term from legitimate and reasonable communications with third parties.

To be clear, *any* third parties, subject to limits that are well below what these people would prefer. I have a right to research the factors that led these people to commit prosecutable crimes, to seek out third parties who can provide information related to such factors, and to write about the crimes that were committed for years to come.

There is a great deal that wealthy attorneys and wealthy abusers can do in the short term. But long term? Against somebody who intends to spend the next two decades on research intended to promote positive social goals such as reducing abuse of women, abuse of children, and abuse of process?

As a note to John Perrott and to the group of people involved as a whole as opposed to other specific individuals: Get real.

For more information related to the arguably protected purposes involved, feel free to visit the sites again.

To see one list of Legitimate and Reasonable purposes, which is not asserted to be complete, click here.

So, who did John Perrott contact at the California Technology Agency, who at the CTA reviewed the current sites, and what is this about?

It's possible that Mr. Perrott has committed additional prosecutable crimes in this context. I'm interested in documenting such crimes.

Let's talk.

Regards, Robert

P.S. to various reporters:

I'm writing to the California Technology Agency regarding an unusual matter. May I send you or other interested parties copies of the current letter and follow-up correspondence? If so, send me the appropriate addresses.

150428. I received a message on Sunday from Pua Aloalo that read as follows:

Robert, I read it front to back. It's an incredibly powerful narrative. I made copies of it, distributed pages here and there around the house, and will be emailing it out to everyone.

I wanted to say thank you. Our collective history of CZ is incredibly sparse and you've made it so much richer. Thank you.

Ms. Aloalo is referring to an ebook that has been written this year. The ebook will be posted here in due course.

This is not the book that the Kiralys fought to stop. It is, however, the core of perhaps one-quarter of the book.

The abuser Jim Kiraly of 32 La Gaviota, Pismo Beach, California; Tom Kiraly, address unknown, but he'll turn up; and other parties tried to suggest repeatedly that a book didn't exist.

When they tried to get a gag order, they put the word book in quotes like this:

'book'

as though adding quotes was likely to change anything. Addressing the group of people involved as opposed to individual parties:

You'll be obliged to eat your sh... shoes, b*tches :-) It was a fair amount of work, but I think you'll agree that it was worth it. The ebook, which is the first part of the 'book', will be posted here in May 2015.

Perhaps on Mothers Day.

The photograph below is an illustration from the ebook. The negative was damaged, so some cleanup was done. If you're interested in image processing, click here for details.

150427. For Lord of the Rings people, here are two screenshots from Lord of the Test.

For LOTT access information, visit: http://minetest.org/

The license for the screenshots is Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0. For attribution purposes, the rights-holder is the Cat Ninja.

150426. This post is for beginner webdevs.

Blue Dream asked for help today with banner CSS code. This is the example that I came up with:

/*
This is a sample  CSS file named "style.css".

This file defines CSS classes that can be used to create a simple hor-
izontal banner consisting of an image plus overlaid text.

1. Remember to check the spelling of filenames.  Both the actual names
of files and the paths that you type into code.

2. This file assumes the following website structure:

    peaceful/              - A folder containing the site
    peaceful/index.html    - The main page
    peaceful/css/          - A folder containing CSS files,  including
                             this one
    peaceful/img/          - A folder containing image files

3. You can use the  "header" and  "headertext" classes  defined  below
like this:

    <div class="header">
        <span class="headertext">Blue Dreams Peaceful Seems</span>
    </div>

This code should go into the body section of "index.html".

4. When you create a CSS class that's going to be used  in a div,  the
class name in the CSS file should start  with a period.  So, for exam-
ple, our code will define ".header" as opposed to "header".

5. You'll  need a  background image for the banner.  This file assumes
that  the image is called  "outside.jpg"  and that  it's stored in the
"img" folder discussed previously.

For a different type of image file or a different filename, modify the
".header" class appropriately.

6. The background image won't  work right unless you specify the other
".header" settings as follows:

For padding-top:  try from 10px to 20px
For height:       try from 40px to 60px
For padding-left: try from  0px to 30px
For width:        try 100%

"height"  doesn't  specify the actual height of the banner. If you add
"padding-top" and "height", this will be the actual height.
*/

.header {
    background-image: url("../img/outside.jpg");
    height       : 42px;
    padding-left : 15px;
    padding-top  : 18px;
    width        : 100%;
}

.headertext {
    background    : #444444;    /* Background color of text */
    color         : #00ccff;    /* Color  of text           */
    font-size     : 20px;       /* Size   of text font      */
    font-style    : italic;     /* italic or normal         */
    font-weight   : normal;     /* bold   or normal         */
    padding-left  : 10px;       /* A little space on left   */
    padding-right : 10px;       /* A little space on right  */
}

150426. Loome, author of the poem Cooking Food, has provided me with the tomatoes photograph below. Note: I don't have attribution information. For a large version of the photo, click here.

Don't they look good? Food is something to be appreciated.

I stopped eating for a year due to fear
Never agains, I eats tomatoes and hens
Thousand-Year Old Eggs on which blogs to pegs
Jim and Grace Kiraly me they tried to starve
Abuse of process up we're going to carve
First let us quench our thirst
Veggies are best and not worst
I'm in the mood for food

150426. When the Kiraly Gag Order Cases hit their peak in early 2013, I nearly died.

It changed me. More than a little.

In a legitimate and reasonable sense, the context being positive societal goals, these people belong to me now.

Everything that I'd started to build was taken from me. Only fragments of Time are left. But I'll do, as I've always done, what's possible.

There are greater projects and lesser ones
Here is a lesser ones that is funs
minetest.org is back though polish it does lack

150426. Here are some more OldCoder Minetest videos produced by Mason.

The first is a YouTube video called OldCoder Lord of the Test: Building a Party House.

I'm not sure that a Party House is consistent with the world's Lord of the Rings theme. But I suppose that flexibility is called for. Perhaps Elves and Balrogs need a place to relax when battles of destiny are done.

The second video is OldCoder Moontest: Mason on the Moon.

Each video is presented below as two pictures. The first picture in each pair is a screenshot and the second is the actual video. To play these videos, you'll need a fast Internet connection and a modern Web browser.

The Moontest video has narration but the soundtrack on the Lord of the Test video is inaudible; I suggest simply muting sound for that one.

All of this reminds me of the times that my brothers and I played with tape recorders, which were hot new consumer electronics gadgets at the time.

Lord of the Test Party House screenshot:

Mason on the Moon screenshot:

150425. This is Sandman artwork that depicts Destiny of the Endless; a Neil Gaiman character. Destiny is the older Brother of Death.

The paths fork and divide. With each step you take through Destiny's garden, you make a choice; and every choice determines future paths. However, at the end of a lifetime of walking you might look back, and see only one path stretching out behind you; or look ahead, and see only darkness.

The license for the artwork is Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0. For attribution purposes, the rights-holder is Daniel Govar. For a larger version, click here.

150419. People deprecate the GIMP. The program deserves more love in some contexts. It isn't as capable as Photoshop and release 2.8 has annoyances. However, the GIMP is free, and with the right add-ons, it gets the job done.

Take a look at the before and after example posted below.

The picture is a door painting or poster (I don't recall which) that was at my U.C. Berkeley student residence in the 1970s. The negative was badly damaged, but I was able to repair the picture using the GIMP.

Most scratches, gone. Embedded dirt, removed. Edges, restored. Check it out.

The rocks are soft in the result, but I don't think they're far off from the original painting or poster. A small part of the past is back.

To do the cleanup, I used primarily these GIMP features and external tools:

* David Tschumperlé's GREYCstoration plug-in. I had to experiment with the plug-in parameters. Additionally, I had to patch the plug-in to make its window shorter; it doesn't fit onto some displays.

However, after I got everything right, this plug-in took out some of the visual noise while preserving details.

* The GIMP Resynthesizer plug-in, by several authors. This plugin is like a can of “Scratches Be Gone” spray. Draw an outline around a scratch, click Heal, and magic happens. I do need to fiddle with the sample range setting sometimes.

* The standard GIMP Blur, Sharpen, and Unsharp Mask commands.

* ImageMagick's convert program. This was used to translate intermediate images quickly and easily into different formats and sizes.

* pnmnorm from NetPBM. This was used to do a contrast adjustment.

The GIMP can adjust contrast, too, of course; but I find that if I use pnmnorm with -bvalue set a bit lower than the program recommends (but not less than 1) and -wvalue set much higher than the program recommends (but not more than 255), the results are often good.

150419. The Sinhalese New Year, widely celebrated in Sri Lanka, was in mid-April. Vibhishana, a friend in that country, sent me the New Year greetings shown below.

The imagery symbolizes changes, renewal, and hopes for happiness. Part of the background story is that the Prince of Peace has come to Earth and that Peace has followed.

The relaxed perspective of the people in the picture, their contentment and faith that all is well, stands out for me.

150418. Xiaoshi is an Asian woman of my generation who is evaluating startup options in the education sector. The photo below is of a meal that I had recently with Xiaoshi and her husband Bridges.

This is from a class of Chinese-American fusion dishes that I refer to as Harmonious Diversity or:

This example consisted of a Tea Egg and a Thousand Year Old Egg (the black one) combined with salami, avocado, onion, and chicken. This was served with white wine. Delicious.

The license for the photo is Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0. For attribution purposes, the rights-holder is OldCoder. For a larger version, click here.

150418. This is a copy of a letter to Xiaoshi:

Xiaoshi, good evening.

The following is an over-simplification. Some of my friends will undoubtedly correct me. However, this is how I see things:

The term “startuper” may be defined strictly or loosely. In a loose sense, a startuper is somebody who'd like to build a venture and to take advantage of opportunities provided by the modern world that allow small projects to scale up to proportions that were unimaginable in the past.

Startupers often think in terms of four things: websites, online communities, developers who work for equity (in other words, for free), and content created by users.

It's possible to make these things part of a startup plan. But many startupers overlook market research, which I define as: “Who's going to give you money?” They think primarily in terms of rapid growth in website numbers. “If there are enough eyeballs,” they say, “Facebook or Google will buy me out. It happened for Instagram.”

In the 1950s, one prospective movie star in 100,000s got somewhere. In the 1960s, one prospective rock-star in 100,000s achieved significant success. In the 1970s, one Steven-King want-to-be in 100,000s had movie producers at his or her door. The odds of Instagram-level success, since 2000, have been little different.

One should not plan on the lightning striking. It's nice to get $1B. But the focus should be on a serious plan.

Startupers tend to disregard other issues as well, such as one that I call Chicken or the Egg. I define this one as: “Your idea is good. But new people are only likely to go to your service if people are already going to your service. How will you get over the hump and get the first 100,000 people to come?”

Startupers dislike this question and some simply wave it away.

But, most of all, some startupers overrate the importance of a good idea and deprecate the importance of resources and of execution.

In your case, resources include experience of different types, credentials, a past patent to show, existing software, and associations that you can build on. You also have more of a plan than most startupers do.

If you consider market research and Chicken or the Egg, and execute one step at one on an Agile basis, creating something useful at each step, you'll build a venture that will bring you some satisfaction.

Regards, Robert (the Old Coder)

The license for the illustration is Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0. For attribution purposes, the rights-holder is Nitroniuminc. For a larger version, click here.

150418. Lord of the Test is one of my more unusual worlds. It is, of course, a Lord of the Rings fan world.

I've let Fishy Wet run the world until now. However, he'll be gone for the second half of the year, so I'll need to become more familiar with the place.

Here are some screenshots taken during a recent visit.

The license for the screenshots is Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0. For attribution purposes, the rights-holder is OldCoder.