sjh - mountain biking linux geek spice

[various] Signs and shirts

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:20:00

A few years ago I mentioned a cool t-shirt from a company in the UK called Puzle. I always refer to this as a free ride crossing shirt. However they called it something else (road sign or some such). I never bought one even though I really liked the design as they were far too pricey (something like GBP £25, not including postage). The online store has closed sometime in the past few years.

Since that time the store closed and I was never really able to find the image again. Using my old post, the Internet archive and a Google search I found the page on Singletrack that had copies of the image. They still had the image on Singletrack, so now you too can see the free ride crossing t-shirt including the variety of colours available. Tres cool, almost tempting to print one myself as a one off now I have the image.

What led to the slightly deeper search for the image was that I saw an entertaining quote on an image in an online article yesterday about confusing traffic signs in the US. Their interpretation of sign number 8 was I thought most amusing. "Yield to people doing wheelies, backwards, into traffic." And I suppose you really should yield to a cyclist doing that, if for no other reason than to stare and wonder. Of course it is entirely possible for fixed gear cyclists to wheelie backwards (as you can see 50 seconds into that video) so the idea is not completely out of left field, simply somewhat unusual.

The free ride crossing t-shirt also makes one think of alternate ways highly skilled riders could cross roads. There was the gap jump over the Tour de France a few years ago (2006 Tour I think). Kind of like A and B lines for road crossings.

[various] Silicon Support Bracelet Breakages

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:26:00

Some of my previously broken bracelets (fullsize)

So the good news is that it is October, otherwise known as Breast Cancer Month, which means all the pink ribbon products are in the shops that support the cause. Although I am tempted to buy an entirely pink mountain bike such as is sometimes seen in competitions around this time of year I have instead limited my make a statement style pink purchases to the silicon wrist bracelets.

The photo to the left shows some of the broken bracelets. Strangely they just do not last particularly long. I buy 4 or 5 every year and that pretty much lasts until the following October. Still far more interesting that LAF yellow bracelets IMO and they match a lot of my race gear better. Also they still support cancer so I am not completely deserting the idea behind LAF Livestrong bracelets.

[various] Slightly different weekend

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:14:00

Matilda on the shore of Myall Lake (fullsize)

So the weekend of kayaking turned out a little different to the original plan. We had to leave later than planned on Friday so went to Sydney and stayed at Jane's place. Had breakfast at Badde Manors on Saturday morning with Jane then headed up through torrential seeming heavy rain to Taree. Not wanting to kayak or camp in the rain we stayed at my Aunt's place, had lunch with more family who came to visit on Sunday and finally got down to Myall Lakes on Sunday afternoon to head off to camp somewhere.

The lakes are a gorgeous area and I am hell keen to go back for a longer trip sometime. The weekend on the whole was enjoyable even though it turned out differently to the plan. It may be nice to camp on the lakes at a non long weekend/holiday sort of time (school holidays are on currently) as there would be less speed boats and water skiers around (you can see a speed boat in the photo). The peaceful camping was rather often disturbed by the noise of power boats. Still it was all fun really.

[various] I had a health scare

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:33:00

So I have been thinking whether I should write about this here or not, however I largely keep this diary as a way of reminding me about stuff or looking up things that have happened (a web search-able interface to my memory) and what happened was significant.

I have been a diagnosed Insulin Dependant Diabetic (Type 1) since October 4th 1995. In my case I have 4 or 5 injections of insulin a day and have to monitor my health and sugar levels and my diet and exercise regime to a greater extent than most people.

In the last 13 years I have never had a hypo (not enough sugar/too much insulin) or hyper (too much sugar not enough insulin) that required medical intervention. When I have my sugar levels go low, say overnight, I have always previously woken up with some of the symptoms (sweating, shaking) and have been able to go and get some food.

On Wednesday night this changed, at around 4am I became aware of my surroundings, with my light on, paramedics all around me, a big needle in my right arm and my partner off to one side dressed in work clothes. I had a diabetic hypo that I did not wake up to and was unable to handle myself. I have no memory of any of the goings on (even though I apparently was sort of responding and pointing and sat up for the paramedics and had a needle put in my arm). My partner said I was coughing and she asked if I was alright, I did not respond in a sensible manner and she worked out there was something very wrong with my behaviour and I guess realised I was not aware of myself properly.

Fortunately the paramedics were able to get my sugar level back to normal and I was able to stand up and then go and get some real food to keep the sugar levels up until breakfast time. I was also very fortunate my partner was there and noticed the problem and acted upon it effectively. Yesterday morning I saw my GP, got a referral to see the endocronologist I have always seen, some forms for all the blood tests and other related tests I do at least once a year and I bought myself a new Blood Glucose Meter which is a lot faster to use and requires less blood than my old one.

As for why it happened, and why I did not wake up or respond as I always have previously to my body displaying the symptoms of low blood sugar. It is a combination of things and a mistake I made before bed on Wednesday night. After two tough runs on Tuesday I had been feeling fairly flat and did the medium road bunch ride on Wednesday morning, at the end of what would normally be an easy ride for me I felt absolutely wasted, I felt more run down and unable to ride than I have for many many years. I think I felt worse than I have after 24 hour solo mountain bike races or 2 days of non stop adventure racing.

So I suspect my body was very depleted in its energy stores and needed some time to recover before things functioned normally. I did not head out for a paddle on Wednesday night, however we had dinner as normal and I had baked some yummy chai latte cupcakes. I was feeling bloated and my tummy felt somewhat expanded or sore for most of Wednesday evening, thus although I had a cupcake not long before bed I did not feel like eating more. I should have stopped and done a blood test, however simply skipped my supper, had my night time injection and went to sleep.

The problem there is skipping my supper which is generally a necessary part of my diet to balance the long term insulin I have before bed to last through the night. I do not know why I felt so bloated, maybe it was part of my body reaction to feeling so run down and sore from the exercise strain, maybe it was unrelated. However the combination of my body not being in its normal state and thus probably needing rest and thus not responding as per normal to low blood sugar and forcing me awake so I can get food into myself to counter act a low and the fact I did not eat my supper so I was far more likely to run out of sugar in my body overnight before the insulin ran out combined to make this a problem.

This was definitely quite a nasty experience and also a kick in the pants to make me pay a lot more attention to my diabetes again and work to keep it stable and ensure I stick to my proper eating plan.

[various] Tempting fate

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:38:00

So I know this is unfortunate news for the North Lyneham shops, and I really hope the organic farmers market shop has come through unscathed, however this news item I noticed from ABC makes me wonder if maybe the owners of the fitness centre that burnt down last night were not tempting fate a bit when they named their business "Flames Fitness".

[various] Completely missed the blorthday this year

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:15:00

Though I already have a habit of missing the blorthday by a few days, this year I really put in a good performance and missed it by a few weeks. However back in late August this diary turned 4. Previous blorthday posts exist of course. And in another continuing trend I have been posting less in the past year than previously.

Stats are

[11:37:42] 7 shiva sjh ~/diary/data>find -name '*.text' | wc -l
832
[12:18:41] 8 shiva sjh ~/diary/data>wc `find -name '*.text'`
...
28950  221341 1378957 total
[12:19:10] 9 shiva sjh ~/diary/data>

Only 136 posts since the last look and only another 4000 words or so, not prolific, not even approaching that. I do however still like having this place to write stuff when I want so for now it is staying around.

[various] Possible New Hobby?

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:52:00

So last weekend I purchased 34 pieces of pine, untreated measuring 1.8M by 42mm by 19mm. I need to find the time this evening or tomorrow to cut them all in thirds and sharpen one end of each. Obviously I am taking up the new hobby of vampire slaying. Well that or I need posts I can hammer into the ground to affix signs to for the 8 hour race this weekend at Stromlo. The first option is however so much more fun.

I remember that Kendra had a favourite stake, Mr Pointy I believe. I wonder if all the 102 stakes I make need names. Coming up with 102 names for pointed wooden objects could be a challenge, and possibly boring, of course it could turn out fun, like finding an axe for every letter in the alphabet (oh no that post had Buffy as an inspiration too).

If this is indeed a mountain bike race, and as it is at Stromlo where trees with branches or off cuts sturdy enough to slay vampires with may be rare still it could actually be useful to have wooden stakes easily available at each intersection in the off chance there are vampires that need slaying on the course anywhere. Sure this is only a day time 8 hour race this weekend, however the 24 hour race later in the year may have issues of this nature. Who knows.

[various] Bean Bag Goodness

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:05:00

Square shaped Alta Bean Bag (fullsize)

A little while back I got myself a nice large bean bag so as to have a fun pink relaxing place to sit at home. At the time when I trialled it out in my office and again that night at the Canberra Linux User Group meeting I got to thinking it would be neat to have a bean bag in the office.

As for the pink bean bag at home, I can report that at first it felt a bit over full, the first few days with it I thought it could use less beans, however it has seemed to settle a bit and is more comfortable now for one or two people. I can also say that two reasonably tall people do indeed fit fairly comfortably together on it to watch a movie and/or relax.

A few offices around the building have couches or similar so people can relax on them in order to comfortably read papers or similar (this is a university after all), it sounded like a good idea. So I now have another bean bag, the people at Blob Beanbags suggested another line of bean bags they do called Alta Beanbags, the large pink bean bag was a little bit too big for my office, however the jumbo sized Alta Beanbag fits better.

It seemed a bit harder to fill than the first bean bag, however with help from a colleague and the use of a large cardboard funnel I was able to get 300 litres of beans into it. Initially I thought it was not full enough, possibly due to my first impressions of the pink one being that it was too full. However after looking at the seating suggestions on the website and trying it out in a few different positions I changed my mind. I like the way this can be sat on easily in a number of different ways, the material is slippery, however so long as you sit down in a manner such that the beans and bag support you well it cradles you in that position. I like it, though I almost fell asleep while trialling it earlier so I must be wary not to get too comfortable at work in it...

[various/milkcarton] Tuesday afternoon milk carton blogging

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:35:00

Vitasoy Heart, Yummmmmmmmmm (fullsize)

What do you know, it is Tuesday afternoon and I have a 1 litre UHT container of the yummiest milk sold sitting in my office ready for a bit of Tuesday afternoon milk carton blogging.

They add oats to this soy milk to give us Vitasoy Heart, so most of the Vitasoy milks are already among the yummiest available (definitely superior to So Good), however this one really is fantastic. Now if only more supermarkets stocked it.

[various] Cold typing solution

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:56:00

So the heating is playing up a lot at my place currently, either on hot all night or not coming on and the controller displaying a flashing spanner. All manner of problems that mean the gas bill is stupidly high and yet we are often cold. Last night it was off and thus when I got out of bed this morning it was 9 degrees Celsius inside. Hopefully with some heating technicians coming back and forth, last week, today and again twice next week it will all be working again by the end of next week.

However one thing I discovered this morning, when it is really cold and you have a laptop with aluminium palm rests such as my dell xps m1330, metal can be mighty cold to rest ones palms on when typing. It made typing a little bit uncomfortable. When I mentioned this dilemma to an academic at work he made a rather interesting suggestion. I should simply run some CPU and disk intensive job on the laptop for 20 minutes before I sit down to use the machine, by that point there should be enough heat around the keyboard to use it more comfortably. What a thinker.

[various] Waiting for workmen and trying to offend

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:26:00

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).

[various] Causing scenes

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:50:00

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.

[various] Science Fiction Hands

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:14:00

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.

[various/ilmiwac] Doors? Who needs them

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:33:00

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."

[various] Some furniture to accessorise the laptop

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:23:00

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.

[various] Dinner conversation tidbits

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:23:00

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.

[various/ilmiwac] When you have to suppress your geek side

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:14:00

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".

[various] Not all bumper stickers suck

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 10:54:00

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.

[various/ilmiwac] Vista removal injuries

Tue, 27 May 2008 16:19:00

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.

[various] A a kde/gnome/kernel developer attraction?

Mon, 19 May 2008 18:07:00

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.

[various] Throwing off those childhood lies

Mon, 19 May 2008 16:52:00

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.

[various/ilmiwac] Cheap babies

Mon, 12 May 2008 15:09:00

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)

[various] An unflappable trust of our intelligence

Sun, 11 May 2008 22:13:00

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 :)

[various] The Annual May Zombie post

Sun, 11 May 2008 21:43:00

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.

[various/ilmiwac] Searching for a surface

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:22:00

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?

[various] For those new to world history.

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:03:00

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.

[various] Non dominant hand again.

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:04:00

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.

[various] Great product names

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:01:00

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.

[various] ClapClap is a good read

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:42:00

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.

[various/ilmiwac] Get people to pay attention to communication

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 12:14:00

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.

[various] It's a Political Scandal Suffix Gate

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:09:00

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>.

[various] Memo to Nat Cap Authority: Trains do not tend to float well

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:11:00

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).

[various] Be exact

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:42:00

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...

[various] NYE on an island

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 20:56:00

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.

[various] What a fun show

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 23:00:00

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.

[various] Maybe the good music can justify watching it

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 14:34:00

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.

[various] Practice with the non dominant hand

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:16:00

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.

[various/milkcarton] Tuesday afternoon milk carton blogging

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 17:29:00

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

[various] Keeping with tradition, I missed my Blorthday once more.

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 17:55:00

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.

[various] Yaaaaaarrrr, them Sydney siders beware

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 11:57:00

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.