Steven
Hanley
About
email: sjh@svana.org
web: http://svana.org/sjh
Other online diaries:
Aaron Broughton,
Alison Russell,
Allan Bontjer,
Andrew Pollock,
Anthony Towns,
Chris Yeoh,
Jeremy Kerr,
Martijn van Oosterhout,
Michael Carden,
Michael Davies,
Michael Still,
Rusty Russell,
Tim Potter,
Tony Breeds,
Links:
Linux Weekly News,
XKCD,
Userfriendly,
Questionable Content,
Planet Linux Australia,
Bilbys,
CORC,
Canberra Weather: forecast, radar.
planet sjh
(online feed aggrgator for all the diaries I read regularly)
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| Jan | Feb | Mar |
| Apr | May | Jun |
| Jul | Aug | Sep |
| Oct | Nov | Dec |
Categories:
- amusing - 33
- comp - 124
- blogging - 6
- blosxom - 11
- design - 5
- email - 7
- hardware - 31
- internet - 14
- ip - 3
- linux - 18
- prog - 1
- schwag - 2
- software - 15
- lca - 45
- leisure - 79
- books - 9
- food - 30
- holiday - 2
- music - 18
- screen - 14
- theatre - 3
- mtb - 289
- events - 51
- gear - 70
- various - 258
- ilmiwac - 37
- milkcarton - 20
- work - 4
- July 2008 (11)
- June 2008 (14)
- May 2008 (30)
- April 2008 (20)
- March 2008 (12)
- February 2008 (8)
- January 2008 (7)
- December 2007 (7)
- November 2007 (11)
- October 2007 (9)
- September 2007 (7)
- August 2007 (7)
- July 2007 (26)
- June 2007 (6)
- May 2007 (19)
- April 2007 (7)
- March 2007 (10)
- February 2007 (7)
- January 2007 (26)
- December 2006 (7)
- November 2006 (10)
- October 2006 (11)
- September 2006 (12)
- August 2006 (18)
- July 2006 (9)
- June 2006 (12)
- May 2006 (23)
- April 2006 (17)
- March 2006 (17)
- February 2006 (13)
- January 2006 (24)
- December 2005 (13)
- November 2005 (20)
- October 2005 (15)
- September 2005 (27)
- August 2005 (34)
- July 2005 (28)
- June 2005 (31)
- May 2005 (12)
- April 2005 (17)
- March 2005 (28)
- February 2005 (38)
- January 2005 (29)
- December 2004 (34)
- November 2004 (38)
- October 2004 (15)
- September 2004 (27)
- August 2004 (9)
Tue, 15 Jul 2008
Waiting for workmen and trying to offend - 13:26
I know of a t-shirt I would love to wear on occasion (say in Sydney this week)
that says
"I
found jesus, he was behind the couch" (that sounds like a very
fafblog sort of thing to say
too). All this reminds me of my
attempt to
really offend some religious types one easter in the Friday morning mtb
email. It amuses me often when I see how far Paul's scripts in Good News Week
go toward trying to offend pretty much anyone. (though the content here is
definitely toned down when compared with most Doug Anthony All Stars material
he dealt with).
Last night for example he was talking about the young priests pinup calendar (makes me wonder more about the WYD stuff when they have such a calendar) and Paul commented it is not so unusual to have pinups, after all Jesus was the first pinup in the church. Oh and more offence against WYD, I liked the expansion of WYD SYD I saw recently, Would You Do Some Young Dude.
On the waiting for workman thing, I know everyone experiences it and has to deal with it, however I was at home for a while today as I had a call from a company coming to look at the heating to learn why it is playing up. I was told sometime between 11am and 1pm, which is kind of annoying when you have to leave work for that period, and many people would need a day off for that sort of gap, and it is no where near as bad as some of the telstra things when they give you a half day period. I got home at 11am, did vacuuming for a while, some other cleaning, lay down and read the newspaper, etc. There are a pile of things to do at work and I was not doing them, though I guess I should have taken a laptop home with me to do some work while waiting. So partly my fault (I thought of that when I got home at 11am, ahh well).
Fri, 11 Jul 2008
Causing scenes - 13:50
This is not an important Internet resource, however it is yet another example
of being able to find out about cool stuff happening elsewhere in the world
thanks to the Internet. I have known about this group and some of their stunts
for a while (2 years or so maybe, though it is fascinating to see they have
been doing this stuff since 2002 or so). I finally felt I should talk about it
here because they just keep doing really cool stuff.
From the title you may have guessed I am talking about Improv Everywhere. The group started in New York, the idea is they think up some harmless but strange stunt to pull in public and then go an do it en masse. The idea is that if you saw one or maybe two people doing this it would not be unusual, however to see 100 people or more doing something strange all at once, with all of them claiming to have no knowledge of the others. That becomes a form of mass performance art.
The recent stunt with twins on a train (hmm they could make a snakes on a plane rip off t-shirt for this stunt) is a fantastic example of being able to think of something unique to brighten the days of many people who stumble upon it, also doing something so unusual as rounding up all those twins to pull it off successfully. Many of their other missions are clever and fascinating to see how they turned out in public. One I thought stood out as well performed and interesting though not on such a grand scale was The Moebius, looping through the same 5 minute performance in public at a Starbucks and seeing how people there notice it as it happens over and over again. I thought my cousin Nick would appreciate this one a lot (though he is likely to enjoy the whole concept anyway).
It is good to note other chapters have popped up around the world (including one in Sydney (I wonder if Nick already participates). Anyway some fascinating things to see that this group has done.
Mon, 07 Jul 2008
Science Fiction Hands - 17:14
So I know I should not throw stones, however I almost can not help this, Mikal
has a recent post with the title "
On the potentially
sorry state of second science fiction hand book stores in Sydney", making
me wonder why you would go looking for a second science fiction hand? Did he
lose his first science fiction hand? I guess when you recall that these are
science fiction hands he is looking for, a book store is as good a place as
any to look for one. (I know Mikal probably meant to say "Second hand science
fiction book store" but who knows, maybe he really has a need for more than
one science fiction hand.)
Of note if Mikal has a day or two spare to spend looking for cool books in Sydney the ultimate second hand book store is the institution known as Goulds in Newtown. I say you newed a day or two as nothing seems to be sorted well, however there are many treasures to be stumbled upon all over the two stores.
As for v4l2 software I also note there are no easy ways to capture images from v4l2 webcams, I can easily capture a video stream with a few applications and than splice it, though trying to do that in headless mode is not as easy. I have a quickcam pro 9000 on my desk to play with and this laptop has a built in uvc based camera, I was contemplating writing an image grabber to use v4l2, however have no real need for the images yet so had not done so.
Fri, 27 Jun 2008
Doors? Who needs them - 14:33
Maybe we really will have to
use
chainsaws to get in. Last week and this week the main entrance doors on
the building I work in have been playing up. For example last week I was
walking out and they seemed to be opening normally, so I kept walking, they
then suddenly stopped and closed a little bit, I whacked one shoulder into
them fairly hard, if I had hit the other shoulder that hard it may have been
damaged again. For some reason uni security decided they would be better left
fully open and turned off during the day yesterday, however they then had to
come along and clamp/bolt them shut yesterday at 5pm.
This morning after 9:30am they still had not come back and unbolted the front entrance doors. After all, who needs doors really? We could just break a window and climb in and out of the building that way. Or maybe we really should let our selves in with a chainsaw. Okay sure there are other doors, however it still amuses me that the main doors are broken. Of course this also reminds me of the quote from the first Back to the Future movie. Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads. We can rework it to "Doors? Where we work we don't need doors."
Thu, 26 Jun 2008
Some furniture to accessorise the laptop - 15:23
 The beanbag to use with this laptop (fullsize) |
Contrary to what may be guessed at by the t-shirt I am wearing in this photo, I
am not trying to make my office just like those on the t-shirt. This new bean
bag is going home, however it really does suit the laptop fairly well doesn't
it?
I wonder what the people in Civic thought of me today watching me walk back to uni from target carrying four 100 litre bags of polystyrene beans on a very windy day. Mikal was somewhat annoyed with me that I did not give him a heads up so he could come and laugh at me doing the walk here. He did however help me fill the bag and take the photo, activities that were in his words either annoying or strangely satisfying at times. The bean bag is a Jumbo sized denim bag purchased from Blob Beanbags, it seems well made, the zip can be pushed up inside a little sleeve so kids can not easily open the bag, also I purchased a liner with it so it is easy to take the beans out and clean the bag. Rather comfortable really, maybe I should actually get one for my office. |
Tue, 24 Jun 2008
Dinner conversation tidbits - 13:23
Last night, out at a post Geoquest dinner with a bunch of ARNutters and others
I was almost rolling on the floor laughing at one of the conversations going
on. A discussion among three of the people at the table about different rectal
flushes in stock and how to use them was indeed most unusual dinner
conversation, it is fortunate the three people in question are a doctor, a
nurse and a pharmacist all of whom work at the hospital. If you did not know
what they did in their day jobs and you overheard the conversation eyebrows
may have been raised...
It was most amusing when Matt and Amanda came back to the table from getting drinks, sat down and upon hearing this conversation thought they had come into it at a bad time, I had to tell them that on the whole there was probably no good time to enter the conversation. Funny though it all was.
Fri, 20 Jun 2008
When you have to suppress your geek side - 12:14
So I had a piece of computer hardware someone had dropped off in my office
that they wanted to know if it was working, they had failed to get it working
(it had shown some failures in windows and did not come online again) in
windows. So I said I would have a quick look in Linux and see if it is
something that could be worked around or fixed up or if it was a real problem
with the hardware. After a quick look I decided it was failed hardware and
thus the item in question is dead.
The geek suppression thing comes along as they guy who had dropped it off is named Jim. Thus I had to stop myself ringing him up and uttering the line "It's dead Jim".
Sun, 01 Jun 2008
Not all bumper stickers suck - 10:54
This afternoon I pulled up at some lights behind a car that had two bumper
stickers I actually sort of liked on the car. Sure my car has a CORC sticker,
however that is really just a logo. On the whole I tend to dislike bumper
stickers as they tend to be boring/banal and uninteresting. Sure I am still
looking forward to seeing someone with a
Baby In Boot
sticker or sign. However until that time I can stay entertained by the
occasional amusing sticker.
The car I saw today had a sticker saying "Weird Load" which I really liked. It played on the wide load signs you see, however it also has a sort of Hunter S Thompson feel to the slogan and to some extent a Weird Al feel. Anyway it made me smile, and thus look closely at what the other sticker they had said. "Engines By Scotty, 0 to Warp 7 in no time" or words to that effect. Which will amuse the inner trekkie in many of us.
Tue, 27 May 2008
Vista removal injuries - 16:19
So it would be funnier to be able to say software removal injuries, however
that is not entirely accurate. Yesterday when I was removing the vista sticker
from the palm rest of my
new laptop,
the sticker came off and there was sticky gunk underneath that was a bit
harder to get rid of. I carefully tried to slice most of it away, which worked
well except for two small scratches, however the last little bit was still
there. So I got a wet cloth and rubbed at it vigorously with my right thumb
knuckle.
I did notice at the time, however around 20 minutes later I felt a burn sort of feel on my knuckle, I looked at it and realised I had a vista removal injury, a bit of skin that had been rubbed away and burnt a bit in he process of removing the gunk. Oops, I wonder if I should not admit publicly I did something this silly. However the concept was too funny to pass up, I have a vista removal injury, more proof that Microsoft products are dangerous and we should stay away.
Mon, 19 May 2008
A a kde/gnome/kernel developer attraction? - 18:07
I wonder if the projects I mention above should try a new avenue to attract
more developers to their projects rather than something with only a few
thousand lines of code. Point out that you will have much more time
for sword fighting if you work on one of
these projects. I guess that is one of the problems with new hardware, modern
it are so powerful you have hardly picked up your sword and the compile is
finished.
Though Anton with his kernel compile speed metric of kernels compiled per second may never have time to get his sword fighting practice. Of course he probably does not need to practice, after all he is Anton Blanchard.
Throwing off those childhood lies - 16:52
I saw a link to a new Paul Graham essay so had a read of it, this is titled
Lies We Tell Kids. Like most
of his essays it is an interesting read, I like that he mentioned none of his
beta readers agreed with all of the content.
I used to wonder somewhat simply about the Santa Claus thing, I thought why are parents not honest about it all. This essay touches on this but fortunately focuses on bigger and more important aspects of the wool society pulls over the eyes of the youth. As for the Santa Claus thing, it may be part of the helplessness Graham discusses, friends with children tell me they love to see their kids eyes light up at all the Christmas stuff and you do not want to see that light disappear from them.
I rang one of my friends who sends his daughter to a religious school, yet both he and his partner are not that way inclined, I was wondering how he dealt with this. For his daughter he had the response that his upbringing was deeply religious and yet he got past it, thus he hopes the same will happen to his daughter.
On the whole question of lies I think one element to keep in mind that for kids at least if they manage to lie it is an impressive intellectual feat (well in the very young). Some research Schneier linked to in February is interesting in that it points out lying is a more advanced skill then telling the truth as you have to conceive of an alternate reality and convincingly sell that reality. Of course as Paul Graham points out almost every adult in a given society is in on the alternate reality being presented to some extent.
Mon, 12 May 2008
Cheap babies - 15:09
Maybe I need to stop my sense of humour grabbing me by the scruff and ensuring
I find things like this amusing, however I could not help myself this
time. When I see the Baby on Board signs on the back of many cars the thought
always crosses my mind, it would be more fun if you could get "Baby in Boot"
signs, sort of like those fake hands poking out of a boot, but far more
horrifying for most people to consider. Thus when I saw an ad on Woolworths
website saying something about Down go the prices on baby care with a cute
little baby in the picture. I could not help but think it would be more
amusing if it said something else. (the drop shaddow on my text is a bit dark
and slightly off colour, but on the whole the change worked)
Sun, 11 May 2008
An unflappable trust of our intelligence - 22:13
The title to this post pretty much sums up the over riding experience I have
of my relationship with my mother. To put it more obviously, Jane and I have
always found mum to be almost unflappable, to the extent that for years Jane
made all manner of statements and claims in an attempt to get a rise out of
her. However along with this calm demeanour our mum has always trusted Jane
and I to have intelligence and think things through ourselves. Even from a
young age she would not often outright tell us not to do stupid things,
instead she would suggest that in her opinion it was ill considered (or
stupid), however she would let us make our own choices and decisions about our
behaviour.
I like to think this trust she has put in our intelligence has gone a long way to making Jane and I the people we are. I like to think we are both well adjusted sensible individuals in this modern society, and so much of this is thanks to mum. I love you mum, and look forward to many more years of seeing if Jane or I will ever get a rise out of you :)
The Annual May Zombie post - 21:43
I missed out on this
tradition
last year, however after a year off from making a zombie related post in May
(tough schedule that...) I was sitting reading the Sunday life (sun herald
magazine) in the kitchen, listening to best of
James, waiting for the
cookies I am
baking to come out of the oven and I stumble across Zombie News.
It appears Sega has released an English teaching game for some Nintendo platform, English of the Dead. You fight off waves of zombies by spelling out words, of course maybe the zombies are just trying to enlarge their next meals...
On the same page of Sunday life I was entertained to see something about Slacker Yoga, you practice this suspended on some form of webbing just above the ground. The guy who created the concept is described as a "ultra-endurance yogi athlete". As much as I enjoy stretching and yoga style activities I think I am happy to refer to myself as a professional geek, or I guess in sports terms as a mountain biker, cyclist, kayaker or adventure racer.
Wed, 30 Apr 2008
Searching for a surface - 22:22
If the camel
disappears there is an obvious need for a surface on which to place objects in
a gravitatively agreeable direction. Where do we find such a surface I wonder,
this may call for some more scientific testing. Get one random object, such as
a keg of beer (though of course if you want higher beer volume, you may want a
shopping
trolley full of beer cans, and really, don't we always want more
beer on our websites) or a
former prime minister (crash test dummy Howard), or the number 17, according
to a math lecturer I had that is the ultimate random number.
That 17 is not an object and instead some quasi thought based construct or something should not deter us, after all the camel was there in the first place simply so we had somewhere obvious and natural to place a blog. This of course brings us to the question of how we can place these random objects, if they are truly random (which brings up problems related to the need for a RNG and some source of real entropy) wont placing them in some order just mess that up. The question of where we place things once the camel escapes is also in need of consideration.
Scientific testing of various new and unknown locations that are more or less not camels will be needed. A table is one such item on which we can place things. A large body of water, such as the pacific ocean is another such object. This has the added bonus that some objects may or may not float. Also some objects may or may not be eaten by sharks, giant squid or a Grue. All these eventualities bring a number of opportunities for betting on outcomes, though if doing so wastes as much paper as the damn form guides that appear in newspapers too often we may need to give up and give the ants a chance at society.
I wonder if a society of ants would have people farms, who knows maybe they already do?
Mon, 14 Apr 2008
For those new to world history. - 12:03
This photo on apostropher today is a surprise on a few levels. For a start the author of the placard has never actually looked at the history of the Olympics, or even bothered to google their placard question. Of course that the placard must have appeared at one of the recent Olympic torch relay protests the even more surprising aspect of this question comes up when you look at the history of the torch relay.
From wikipedia
The relay of the flame from Greece to the site of the modern games had no ancient precedent and was introduced by Carl Diem, with the support of Adolf Hitler, at the controversial Berlin Olympics as a means to promote Nazi ideology.
Heck when the torch came to Sydney in 2000 some students protested the torch relay due to the Nazi origins of the practice.
Fri, 04 Apr 2008
Non dominant hand again. - 19:04
So I am being reminded of my
issues with
using my non dominant hand again. Though this time it is even harder as I
have to keep my right arm immobile. Typing is slow, and today I finally
overcame the difficulty and slobbishness to shower and shave again. Also with
sitting at home a lot I am feeling a need to clean up a bit but really
can't. Ahh well hopefully I will remember better when I get well and am back
to being out doing stuff more than being home.
Steve Barry very kindly visited today (the day before his wedding) in order to give me hand with some tasks around and about today. Very much appreciated friendly gesture there. I hope Steve and Wendy have a great cycle touring south west WA honeymoon next week onwards. Time now to cook some rice to go with a curry I managed to cook (Steve chopped some veggies for me too) today and read more of the newspapers.
Mon, 31 Mar 2008
Great product names - 13:01
I think I noticed this a while back, however did not think much about it apart
from a quick giggle. However I think it is worthy of further notice. Sea To
Summit (an outdoor equipment company in WA) have a product they retail which I
think has one of the most creative but recognisable names possible for such a
product. This is an item adventure racers and other serious outdoors people
really do need when they are in the middle of nowhere.
Go have a
look.
Fri, 14 Mar 2008
ClapClap is a good read - 12:42
The air conditioning has failed at work again, thus the only nice places to be
are the machine rooms (too noisy) or the common room (which strangely stays
cool, maybe serviced by a working air conditioner in the CSIRO side of the
building). Thus I am hiding out in the tea room for a while. While here I have
been reading some more of the ClapClap.org
blog that had the
Hallelujah
analysis I
linked to
last week.
This blog has some really great posts, such as commenting on formulaic structure of House and other US TV, cynicism in The Colbert Report and why it works, that Ugly Betty is mainstream and different and yet works really well, looking at what Ferris Bueller means and a bunch of other good stuff if you read through.
Good stuff. Oh and speaking of House, in a convergence of all this stuff, I wandered into the living room last night catching the last few minutes of an episode of House, it was the episode with the death row prisoner on which they played Hallelujah.
Thu, 13 Mar 2008
Get people to pay attention to communication - 12:14
James suggested I should tell the world about
this theory, I suspect because I am
wearing the
t-shirt, he
thinks I need to live up to it. We were discussing some email James had sent
to a few colleagues trying to arrange a time to do something to their
computers. James was complaining they were busy and tended to ignore the
email.
I suggested we obviously need to use some new more immediate communication mechanism, this "old skool" email thing just was not working. So how about smoke signals, older and slower you may argue, however if used indoors, the fire alarm will be set off and everyone will be aware some form of communication was in progress assuming everyone knows smoke signal communication is in use. Maybe the fear of having time wasted by a smoke signal generated fire drill will mean more attention is paid to the less drastic communication forms. Also most of the rfc's I reference here may not work well for in building communication.
Mon, 03 Mar 2008
It's a Political Scandal Suffix Gate - 14:09
I notice a heading in the CT today mentioning the council scandal happening
in Wollongong currently, the headline refers to the scandal as Gong-Gate
(maybe the journalist is simply a huge fan of alliteration, who knows) and it
occurred to me the use of a -Gate suffix really is a bit too common now days.
Of course there is a wikipedia page on the subject of Scandals with a -Gate Suffix, which I can understand. And if you look at the commonly understood usage, that this is for political scandals, sure okay we can use -gate on the stuff going on in Wollongong, but do people really have to use it in so many silly places?
People using the suffix in relation to BAFTA, Nipple, Diana, Camilla, Martha, Sports issues (Kobe, Granny (Rugby), Skating), etc. I think shows a lack of imagination or a lack of real use of this colloquialism. Bit scandalous really</tic>.
Wed, 27 Feb 2008
Memo to Nat Cap Authority: Trains do not tend to float well - 11:11
I have no idea why I never noticed this before, however driving across the
lake to pick up my time bandit (kayak) this morning (to paddle in the time
trial tonight) I saw an unusual sign as I came off Commonwealth Ave Bridge
towards parliament house exiting to loop around under the bridge and head
toward the yacht clubs.
I did not have my camera with me, however the sign is easy to explain. The text was "Lake Ferry Cruises" (or words to that effect) and there was a small icon of a steam train next to the words on the sign. I understand the Lake Cruise ferry now launches from the Southern Cross Canberra Yacht Club rather than the Acton Ferry terminal it used to depart from.
However my issue with this is the rather obvious fact that trains really do not float particularly well and are not well known lake cruising ability. One would think there is a possibility the National Capital Authority could have gotten a more accurate pictograph for display on this sign when they requested it be put up on the side of the road there. Even more interesting is the fact that the National Capital Authority offices are a few hundred metres from this sign, I wonder if someone there cringes every time they see the sign on their way to work?
On another note, in the bunch ride this morning we had a very negative experience with a car on Belconnen Way. In the fast bunch, while travelling at around 40 KM a short while after crossing through Coulter Drive heading out to the edge of Canberra. A car passed the bunch and then turned left in front of us into their drive way about 30 metres in front of the bunch. We were very close to having a monstrous crash and some nasty injuries and damages to the 18 or so people riding in the bunch, it was a close call.
What in the hell is wrong with a person who would do something like this, recklessly endangering 20 people on bikes at 6:20am in the morning when they should simply have waited the 1 or 2 seconds until we were past their driveway and they could then get into their home. Their address appears to be 39 Belconnen Way and their number plate is YEQ 913 (a dark coloured modern (Commodore or Falcon or similar) sedan). It beggars belief that anyone would drive like this deliberately trying to cause injury to a group of fellow human beings. (in front of their own home too, which would be a rather interesting call for police and ambulances if we had been unable to brake and spread across the road in time to avoid their car).
Tue, 26 Feb 2008
Be exact - 16:42
Maybe I am being pedantic, maybe I am simply looking for an excuse to write a
diary entry, however I found this sort of amusing today.
Someone on irc said "what a f***ing day", which we can of all course assume the intention of the sentence from. However if we assume glob expressions or some kind of regular expressions it could be all sorts of strange kinds of day.
[16:40:38] 53 jackass sjh ~>grep ^f...ing$ /usr/share/dict/words | wc -l 70 [16:40:42] 54 jackass sjh ~>grep ^f.*ing$ /usr/share/dict/words | wc -l 318
The first is of course assuming we are simply replacing each * with some random letter and looking through the dictionary, the second option is treating a * as a sort of glob expressions as a shell might expand it, though more than one * is overkill of course.
I do wonder, maybe the day has been filling up with fooling around filming fishing and farming things...
Tue, 01 Jan 2008
NYE on an island - 20:56
Myself and a bunch of friends ushered in the new year on an island, alas not
some exotic location, we were in the middle of Lake Burley Griffin on
Springbank Island. It was a most enjoyable and relaxed way to bring in the new
year, sitting around talking over wine, beer and a bbq picnic. We all paddled
across in a range of kayaks and a canoe to carry more gear.
Alas for me the experience was marred a little bit by my back hurting, to the extent I am finding it difficult to stand up, walk or even roll over in bed. This is a back pain I have had in the past, most recently was back in March after the Jindabyne Multisport race when I drove from Jindabyne, to Sydney via Canberra and then back the following day. My back muscles were tightened and spasming, which it turns out was due to really tight sciatic nerves. On Sunday I was in a car (without a back support as I have in mine now days) for 4 hours or so the day after a long ride, so this may have helped bring it about.
Trying a few sciatic nerve stretches now and it appears they are playing up again. I guess I can blame a lot of this on the fact I have not been doing my stretching routines over the past two or three weeks since stretching class has not been on and it has not been on my mind. I rang Danealle (a physio friend) and she said Voltaren and copious lying on my back or front were the go and I can hope the swelling and stuff goes down in the affected areas.
Hope it will be better soon and stretching class is back on next week which will be good. Right now I can type on my laptop with it on my lap lying down, but it is not as easy as reading or watching movies.
Sat, 22 Dec 2007
What a fun show - 23:00
I got home from a 17km run and after a shower and dinner actually thought to
myself it may be a good idea to watch some tv. Looking at the guide I was
pleased to see RocKwiz was on. I really enjoy this show due to the fun
atmosphere of it. Sure I love Spicks and Specks too, but this is more fun I
reckon.
Paul Kelly performed his Gravy song on it, the thing that I was most surprised to note there is how old he was looking. Clare Bowditch performed a song with Tex Perkins which was pretty good. Another song they had Tim Friedman on piano and some woman singing a cover of Joni Mitchell's song River. I love this song and have heard some mighty fine covers of it as well as a few originals from Joni. However this was not a good cover, Tim's piano was alright, though a bit powerful sounding, I think that may have had something to do with the audio setup in the theatre though, some other performers were drowned out by instruments a bit too. However the song was appalling, the woman had timing and delivery of the lyrics too far off and out of kilter. Sure I know when covering an artist can and should put their own spin on the work, however in this case I was cringing and had to change channels for a while it was too messed up.
Otherwise today has been kind of cruisy, was meant to go for a nice 90KM road ride this morning with friends, however heavy rain all morning meant that was a no go. I went shopping and grabbed some presents for people, then headed to the boat shed to put my new 6.2 metre long black fast toy in the shed. I had been intending to do the Maladjusted single speed race, however they called it off due to saturated forests and high winds. The run was good to at least get some exercise in, and I had not run since Tuesday due to being busy anyway.
I had been hoping to watch a Billy Connolly in New Zealand show I noticed in the program, however when I could not find it on the tv after RocKwiz I looked again at the guide and realised it was only on a digital channel. My mythtv box could record it for me but I can not be bothered really.
Fri, 30 Nov 2007
Maybe the good music can justify watching it - 14:34
As I mention from time to time I do not tend to watch tv much. The Tour de
France coverage every July and sometimes a movie or similar if it catches my
interest. In the past I have watched a lot of tv shows, I adored The West Wing
for example (well until the end of season 4 when Aaron Sorkin stopped writing
and producing) among others. Jane was telling me throughout the first season
of Heroes that I should watch it as I would love the show, I never got around
to even looking at the tv guide to learn when it was on.
This season I paid a bit more attention and programmed my mythtv box to record it every week. I also happened to notice a new version of the Bionic Woman was airing just before, so I decided to watch both shows. With the mythtv box I can of course simply copy the shows to my laptop and watch them wherever and whenever I get the time which makes it more pleasant than trying to be in front of a tv when they air. Anyway I am still watching both, even though arguably Bionic Woman is kind of average, heck it is no longer being written up at TWOP which generally means it is not grabbing much attention anywhere.
I am still sort of enjoying it for now, I wonder if I can claim I am still watching it for the cool music. A few weeks ago I was pleasantly surprised when they closed an episode with a great Ani song, then the episode that aired last night closed with a Dave Matthews Band song. You would almost think I had set the soundtrack for this show.
Thu, 29 Nov 2007
Practice with the non dominant hand - 17:16
The past few days I have discovered it may be worth spending some time getting
used to using my non dominant (in my case the left) hand to do every day
activities. As I am
unable to move
my right arm around much without pain, especially when it is near my head,
I have had to use my left hand more.
Shaving, cleaning my teeth, eating with cutlery every day activities and yet I am pretty average and uncoordinated when doing these things with my left hand (not of course helped by the painful gouges in my left hand from the gravel). I wonder if it is worth working out what activities I really only do well with my right hand and trying to train myself to use my left reasonably well for them.
Interestingly Sam mentioned since having kids she has become far more able to use either hand for most activities, I wonder if this is common for most parents? I asked my mother and she said she never found that, instead she knows she is heavily right hand dominant and that never changed.
Wed, 24 Oct 2007
Tuesday afternoon milk carton blogging - 17:29
 Milk Carton Cafe (fullsize) |
Wednesday edition:
Further proof appeared recently that LA really can cater to all needs. As much as I dislike the city I was impressed to see there is a Milk carton cafe (sort of) over there. Just the thing to go visit on a random Tuesday afternoon, it would be perfect apart from two things: Today is Wednesday, and there is a slight geographical displacement |
Mon, 27 Aug 2007
Keeping with tradition, I missed my Blorthday once more. - 17:55
Yesterday was once more my
Blorthday.
Though only a day late this year in mentioning it, I am obviously getting with
my trend of not posting on the date of the anniversary of this diary.
This year the stats are:
[17:57:26] 173 oneiros sjh ~/diary/data>find -name '*.text' | wc -l 696 [17:57:28] 174 oneiros sjh ~/diary/data>wc `find -name '*.text'` ... 24060 181077 1143131 total
I have been following another prevalent trend out in diary space (yeah I still hate the term blogsphere) and that is the trend of posting frequency to approach zero over time. I have been posting a lot less this year than either of the previous two years. 148 posts is significantly lower than either 221 or 337. Ahh well no matter, I am sure I will keep doing this for my own reasons, as much as I feel like.
Thu, 23 Aug 2007
Yaaaaaarrrr, them Sydney siders beware - 11:57
I hear there is a atlassian treasure hunt going on around Sydney today, or
maybe cutlassian pirate thing. A warning from the dirty long johns team. If
you see them beware or you may walk the plank.
Mon, 06 Aug 2007
Fix the bugs in my food - 16:03
I was amused to see a reference to a burger king product in Canadia containing
a buildid
http://www.burgerking.ca/en/1158/index.php?buildid=25.
Do they build their food like we do software, so maybe you can check a
specific revision of the food out of version control and build it. Can you ask
for a newer revision of some food with less bugs in it? I am sure they will
claim their good does not contain bugs, we know that claim tends to be wrong
in software so can they really be telling the truth with their food?
Thu, 26 Jul 2007
 |
This gannet is probably not about to attack a piece of pizza, maybe for the
dual reasons that this is a Northern Gannet rather than an
Australasian
Gannet and that Pizza eating gannets from ANU in Australia seem to have
become
extinct
a few years ago.
So what is this gannet thinking as it swoops down, and what is it swooping down upon. I guess it is in a bit of a Batman pose, maybe it after some criminal scum of the (remarkably sunny) night time streets of Gotham. I kind of doubt it though, this is a bird not a bat, and it really does not look much like Dick, Jason or Tim. This is a bird so I am really not sure we need to go far looking for the motivations and deep thought patterns behind what is going on. There is probably a reason for the term Bird Brain being in common usage. Looking closely at the shape of its wings in this photo the gannet looks a lot like what I remember Darth Vader's ship looks like, this Gannet is probably about to say "Luke I am your father... squawk". |
Wed, 25 Jul 2007
 |
Say hello to the Concrete Dude children. Okay so it may not be concrete, it
could instead be marble, or a tasty slab of granite chiseled out to look like
some dead bloke. The real question we need to ask though is what to call him
and what is he thinking. Really it is a bit of a wonder what a half man half
inscribed concrete slab creature could be called. Mermaid/Merman creatures are
half fish, A centaur is half horse. There is no word for concrete slab in
Latin such as Mare, nor is there a creature in Greek mythology, half man half
concrete slab. Really I am at a loss as to what to call him. Thus we will have
to stick with Concrete Dude (with thanks to
Bill
and Ted for the inspiration).
Next we are on to the thorny issue of what he is thinking, if anything apart from what is this Serbian spruce and how did it end up in my hand? Maybe he is hoping he does not fall over, with no legs it will be somewhat difficult to get back up, I wonder what the weight limits on most wheel chairs are, would they be able to support our friendly concrete dude or would they crumple like a crumply thing? The other problem is the severe lack of colour in his outfit, no pink granite or any real variety simply dark grey clothes perfectly matching skin tone. |
Mon, 23 Jul 2007
Security concerns? - 16:53
So I was wondering what to write about today, thinking I should attempt to be
creative and write something for the
ilmiwac category. Maybe if I
could event attempt something in the style of
Fafnir as I have sometimes tried to
in the past. So I went looking for some current issue to think about on the
ABC News website. However I came
across a story I want to comment on, though a little bit lacking in details,
it paints a worrying picture.
The story, in brief, says a class about WMD technologies at ADFA has been postponed due to security concerns. Huh? run that by me again. At the Australian Defence Force Academy, a class that instructs people taking it in ways to recognise and better understand weapons of mass destruction is a security concern? Okay so I understand this is an independent unit at masters level and is open to more than just enlisted personnel and can be taken as a correspondence course. However I find it a little worrying that the prospect that national security personnel and emergency medical and response people who need to know about this stuff as they may actually have to have an informed opinion or ability to deal with it are being told that it is a bigger risk to let the information out to them than to keep it locked up.
This is markedly strange when you take note of the fact that all the information in the course is available to the public in some way already, simply I guess not packaged up in a neat course. Less well informed or informed through unusual sources such as the Internet on subjects such as this when they need to deal with it in their line of work just sounds like yet more anti security for all involved. Just dandy to see any potential Australian Hans Blix style people will need to have been enlisted to get any sort of information out of the people who can pass on the real details about this stuff.
Tue, 17 Jul 2007
Through the pearly gates in a 200 mph fireball - 16:19
Anyone who recognises the quote probably has already guessed I watched
Top Gear last night (the
expression about going through the pearly gates in a fireball seems to be a
favourite of the presenters). I agree with so many other viewers that this is
a funny show. Heck I tend to have an almost negative interest in cars and yet
this show has me laughing along throughout most episodes.
I remember watching the old series with Clarkson in it when I was living in the UK in 1993, though at the time I paid some small interest in cars (such as watching Ayrton Senna in F1 races) I do not recall Top Gear being so amusing. I suspect they really ramped up the humour of it when they changed the format and started the new series in 2002. My amusement at the pearly gates expression has me trying to think of a few expressions for how various people may want to go, somewhat macabre maybe but I am trying to think of it in a similar manner to my Fairy Tales in the key of Klingon post. Alas nothing comes to mind yet.
Mon, 16 Jul 2007
Bad day for the Aussies at the tour - 15:24
Anyone watching the tour coverage last night will have seen some of the bad
news if not all, however as of yesterday three more of the Australians riding
in the tour are out of the race. Michael Rogers was in the break away group
and riding well, he was the T-Mobile leader and it was a little surprising to
see no one was chasing him down. Rasmussen attacked ad bridged across to the
break away group. Michael appeared to be climbing as well as Rasmussen and was
looking comfortable. On the next descent Rogers crashed on a corner and hit
the bitumen hard dislocating a shoulder (plus some scratches around the place).
Rogers tried to keep riding and caught the group on the descent and following flat section. As soon as the road pointed back up the next climb however the fact he could not pull on the bars made climbing too difficult so he had to pull the pin on his tour ride this year. Seeing all this happen was really depressing as Michael is one of the potential GC contenders and he really did look comfortable in the break away group. (also he is from Canberra)
The reason the tour doctor took so long to get up to have a look at Rogers was soon revealed also, he had been back with Stuart O'Grady who had also crashed, badly and was carted off in an ambulance. O'Grady has fractured 5 ribs at the front, 3 at the back, punctured a lung, fractured his shoulder and was damn lucky to escape with no spinal injuries.
The final blow for the Australians in the race came when Robbie McEwan, who has been suffering from the wrist injury due to the crash he had in stage 1 (which he won) was unable to make it to the finish line of the stage before the time cut off so is also out of the race. Of the 6 Australians who started the tour this year only two remain, Simon Gerrans on the AG2R team of Christophe Moreau and Cadel Evans, the other Australian GC contender who appeared to be riding well and within his ability yesterday to stay in contention. (More news on the crashes is available on ABC News)
Fri, 13 Jul 2007
Taking the easy way out - 11:19
Last night I was trying to come up with something to write here, I have been
making more of an effort than most recent months to write here daily. With
nothing coming to mind I decided to do this the easy way and look to see what
was on the ABC News website
with the offbeat tag. I can almost always find something I feel like
commenting on if I look around here. Of course my grand plan fell apart when I
ended up watching that
idiotic
show on ABC last night with one of my house mates. I had to leave the room
a few times as I just could not handle the blind seeming single sided
attitudes of some of the items presented in the "documentary" or some views in
the subsequent panel. Then the tour coverage came on and I pretended to watch
that (when in actuality I fell asleep on the couch until midnight then went to
bed), so I never got around to writing anything here last night.
However I did find a few items of note and I for one welcome our new fungi overlords. I begin to wonder why these events are not more common outside northern Europe? Is that the only part of the world they want to celebrate the ability to carry heavy sacks of grain, or in the modern version see how fast they can escape over an obstacle course with their spouse? Though I do wonder if the couples are really couples or is it open to any mixed team. The races are a bit short though so I doubt these competitors would be able to go the distance in AR or similar carrying a team member around.
Then of course there was this item about a large famous estate being sold in the US for a lot of money. The bit that got me wondering is the mention of the night club in the house, huh what? See I have to admit to only ever having been inside a night club maybe 3 times in my life, however I was under the impression they were kind of boozy dance gatherings for people out on the town. How would a night club work inside a private property belonging to a really rich person? Maybe it is a revenue raiser.... could we all try it, remodel a few rooms in our house, get a liqueur licence and hope the police do not get called out due to the noise of excessively loud techno and screaming customers in the neighbourhood too much.
Tue, 10 Jul 2007
Tuesday afternoon milk carton blogging - 16:38
The above image obviously fits here, if the facts are to be believed. One Holstein cow can weigh between 1100 and 1500 lbs generally. Taking the lower limit in case we have small cows, 1100 lbs is around 498 KG. So to have a Ton of cows we need two of them. These are also the traditionally imagined milk producing cows, thus milk and ton are both in there. All we really needed was a car.
This also opens us up to the idea of needing proof of having Two Cows, of course many other thought exercises are available here. For example these cows are obviously clones, cows are one fantastic example of data storage, their map out a lot of information about Cowness in general, so we have some massive raid array (two cows) of redundant cow information. As Tanenbaum almost said, "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon with two cows hurtling down the highway".
Mon, 09 Jul 2007
Tour time - 22:32
One thing I have noticed fairly often recently is that there is an obvious
piece of sporting equipment that smells worse than smelly cycling gear. Smelly
neoprene paddling gear. In winter cycling gear can often smell worse than
ever, the damp from amounts of sweat not escaping through the more wind/water
proof fabrics getting in the clothing and smelling things up. Sweaty soaking
wet neoprene I think however is even worse, maybe because it holds the smell
so much more. My paddling booties and paddling gloves both leave my feet and
hands with a most unpleasant odour, maybe it is because even when I rinse
them they do not dry fully between uses. Maybe that is yet another reason to
use pogies rather than gloves.
Tonight a housemate and I were watching Enough Rope with the Elton John interview and some car pulled up at the club across the road, the car must have been some silly hotted up muscle car. We could hear some of the youths outside the club cheering on the engine noise as it revved up far too high (seemingly without a muffler to us listening inside). We could no longer hear the tv. If it had stayed any longer I was seriously considering putting in a complaint. Can't these people stay away from suburban houses for their dick swinging contests. The Braddon Friday night booner patrol at least is not particularly close to people trying to relax at home.
Due to seeing a few minutes of some submarine show on SBS waiting for the start of the tour coverage just now, I have been suffering from the xkcd wikipedia complaint during the start of this stage.
Fri, 06 Jul 2007
Sold out movie and some damn impressive abs. - 11:12
A friend and I went into Dendy in Civic to see the movie
I Do (Prête-moi ta main)
tonight. However upon arriving we found it had sold out, I guess we will have
to see it next week sometime. Anyway with no movie to watch we wandered around
and looked in shops and bought some stuff. (some of my purchases include long
handled tea spoons and crockery, see fascinating need to know stuff isn't
it....).
Anyway one of the things I bought was a P!nk dvd from a concert she performed in 2004 in Europe (Try This Tour). I am once again fascinated to listen to some of her lyrics and realise how good they are. Also to hear the influences she mentions and covers (such as Janis Joplin). Rock on.
One other point I feel the need to mention, damn does she have some impressive Abdominal muscles. That is some serious working out going on.
