I had an epic dream made up of lots of stories, many of which I don't really remember right now. It started out with this guy, and soon him and a girl he'd met. The went around dealing with people's misfortune, although it started from the misfortune they'd both had. I don't remember what her misfortune was, but his was simple, he'd lost his pants. In the literal sense. Anyway, as the story built up more and more, soon they were traveling around on a ghost ship crewed by goblins who could banish evil. They did various things, like keeping salt water from invading rice paddies and other things..The last story featured a dog they'd helped in one of the earlier stories. It was wandering around and wanted to find them. It was thinking, "I just want to see you again. It's okay, you don't have to respond, I'm no longer in this world." When it found them, the woman and the man were looking at a picture.. like a Polaroid, of the dog as a puppy. They too had died some time ago, and greeted the dog.

I woke up at that moment, but perhaps they boarded their ghost ship one last time and sailed off where ever they go.

I had a dream that I was in some kind of institution (school) with multiple levels of secrets. It was at all levels a defense organized institution, but the outer level was fairly modest. Apparently when certain condition were past, people's weapons upgraded. In particular, I went from having a western style long sword to having two long, dark gray katana, that were both extremely thin and light. At some point some guys in dark red clothes attached, and those at my level, by order of the instructors defended. I misplaced one of my swords at some point and we were told that later that evening something would be returned to us (maybe our clothes would be cleaned, I don't remember the words but that was the feeling of it in my head) and that everything would be explained. Regrettably, I woke up before "later that evening." The only other important detail I remember is that someone called it "the Symmetry Project" I don't really know why...

I think I can recover from one of the things that got screwed up yesterday, but suddenly I can't remember my root password. Of course, trying to remember is just causing me to remember it wrong. amusingly when I forgot I couldn't remember it, I was able to use it to get super user privs for a moment. but that wasn't the problem.. and when I realized I'd used it I went back and boom, lost from memory again. Stupid human brain.

wondering why the Japanese locale pullin is so huge on OpenSuse.

today I had a dream that I lived in a taller apartment building.. at least 6 floors, possibly more. Two people, a black guy and a short haired white woman broke into my apartment and threatened me with gun(s?). I knocked the gun out of one of their hands.. (there may have only been one gun and I'm not sure who was holding it.) Then I held them and called the cops. I was trying to dial 911 but for some reason I dialed some other number.. it took a few tries, it's difficult to read in dreams and actions don't tend to be discrete.
When I called the cops both of them started walking out of the apartment without any great haste. I told them to stop, but since I didn't intend to shoot them they had no interest in following my request. Anyway, by the time the officer showed up they'd already left. I talked to him for a while, gave him the gun (which was rather primitive- not in the looks like it was made in the 1800s way but rather in the looks like it was made by someone skilled out of pipes, fittings, and misc. Oh, by the way, the patrol car was a serious sports car. Serious enough that it was difficult to get in and out of.
After the officer left I went and searched around the apartment building. I saw the girl going into another apartment - apparently as a guest... I called the police again, again having to get past the barrier of wrong number. for some reason when I called 911 I was connected directly with the officer who'd had my case.. I thought this was odd, but didn't think anything more of it than that. anyway.. somehow in the course of the conversation I was no longer sure of where I was in the apartment building.. I think I kept walking and my sense of direction failed. I saw her again at the health facility.. pool.. something. For some reason around half of the women were topless. Not erotically.. more of a personal preference at the beach feel. I thought about calling the policeman again but thought that might trouble my neighbors. Well.. time passes and I am eating at a restaurant. I wasn't sure which one, but she shows up again. I call the police one more time, this time I get the officer's answering machine? in the course of leaving a message he starts talking.. which is strange since it was voicemail? anyway.. wants to know where I am and is telling me I should stop following her. I wasn't, it's just that everywhere I went she crossed my path. He wants to know what place it was.. I didn't really know. I looked though the window for a clue and saw part of the sign.. O'Cools or O'Charleys I think.. not quite sure which anymore. Then I woke up. Not quite sure what the...

free pascal has generics support, and it's getting more support. Generics.. Since I don't delve deeply into the C world, this doesn't mean as much to me as it should, I feel.

I had a dream where there was this photographer who'd been in a lot of things.. various magazines including playboy (I don't know if they generally did nudes or if they did some) who had this idea.. and there was this team of young people (15-25.. I don't know their exact ages) that had to do something.. I don't know the parameters of "had to" - about once a month. anyway, because of the photographer's vision and their effort, they accomplished it.. they gathered up countless identical golden Buddha statues. They were cultural artifacts and there were difficulties in gathering them for that reason.. and there must have been at least hundreds of thoughs of them.

details of the Buddha...
the statues were all identical, made of gold, and stood 12-15 feet tall, each. They were the thinner curly haired Buddha with the hair in a top not sort of thing. Unlike most of the statues I've seen they were standing. Their right hand was held up with the thumb and index finger touching, and the 3 other fingers extended up.. it's left hand held a staff. it was fairly simple, but it was crowned with a "hollow" disk with a + shaped cross in the center, and 4 + shaped crosses up, down, left, and right. They weren't crosses in a Christian sense, but then, I don't know in what sense they were, or the symbolism that was meant by them. In any case, there is no way that such a large number of statues (which must have been no less than tens of thousands) could exist. I feel they were all made of cast gold, and I don't think that amount of cast gold is anywhere on this earth. It wore fairly traditional looking robes, but it was standing, which is kinda unusual in any of the Buddha statues I've seen. They were all about 3-5 feet apart.. I'm not sure exactly the distance, but they were very evenly spaced. They were all facing the same direction.. I think they were facing a mountain that was external to their path.. sometimes they were lined up like they were walking toward something, but other times they were turned the same something.. just all in the same direction no matter where they were on the path.

there was a world, with four "moons" that were north, south, east, and west, and were each the same size, about 1/4th the size of the original, and fairly close to it, with four "moonlets?" also north, south, east, and west, at the same scale and distance as the moons, from the moons. They didn't orbit or anything, the whole system was fixed. There were people living on the moons, and each of them had something that would cause the whole moon to explode that was small and fairly common. There was a guy and a girl who were trying to prevent the destruction. One of the moons was destroyed.. then a second one.. I don't remember how. The guy and girl, along with some others (who weren't a part of the dream) could be teleported. On the 3rd moon for some reason the girl didn't have whatever it was that allowed people to be teleported.. there was a wedding party and they were smacking the thing that would destroy the world. It was attempted to stop them but they "had to hit something as part of the wedding tradition, and it was there.." I don't even remember exactly what it was, maybe a bell. Anyway, it was too late and the girl was about to be killed.. but somehow she ended up in the place with the guy.. for some reason she grabbed her breasts when the world was about to be destroyed.. I think because they were such nice breasts that.. at least, I believe that was her reasoning. Anyway, safe.. it was strangeeee.

The difference between the government and capital driven industry is motive. Industry has a profit motive. Government has a political motive. While government has to put into place purchasing rules in order to assure some degree of (political) fairness, industry is concerned with the bottom line, and will to the best of it's ability make the choices with the lowest cost as a matter of business.

Put another way, in any given industry, cost to consumer will generally be lower, or quality higher, or both, than from a government run industry. If it is not, the difference is political- the government trying to buy the good will of the voter by using tax revenues or profits from sales to other countries in order to offset it's own costs. TNSTAAFL always applies. If you aren't paying for something directly, you are indirectly. If it's not in taxes, it's in jobs.

in Cuba, doctors aspire to work in the tourism industry. The pay is better. Because being a doctor is part of the great socialist machine of the island. Whereas, tourism is more or less the only place where capitalism is allowed. There is only so much of a man's wages you can take away before he no longer has an incentive to work. Overly generous social nets tend to cause industry crippling strikes. Whatever might be said, it's not normal for entire industries to shut down for months on end. Well, perhaps in Holywood.

Sort of.