January 27, 2008
I'm on my way - I'm off to Waiheke today. Sadly not to rest - property maintenence in paradise - it's a drag.
On my employment front, I have received a notice from the Education Gazette saying I may be havitg trouble with my subscription.... thanks Sherlock! Seems it's my fault for not updating my records when they changed the way their site worked. It also won't recognise my password... so I got them to send a new one to my email.
Oolite ships are proceding - there is almost a full shipset, but I need to tidy up some of the models. Looks like some stray corners in some of them are giving the game engine a hard time.
The Australasian Linux Conference will be in Wellington from Monday 18 January 2010 to Saturday 23 January 2010, Miniconfs on Monday and Tuesday, followed by the main conference of 5-6 streams including Seminars, Tutorials, Lightning Talks and Birds of a Feather.
Bruce Schneier heads this months Cryptogram with an essay on Impersonation
Impersonation isn't new. In 1556, a Frenchman was executed for
impersonating Martin Guerre, and recently hackers impersonated Barack
Obama on Twitter.
This is what everyone else calls identity theft. Good old fraud, renamed to make it look new and, therefore, in need of additional funding. Maybe it is, but not because it's new.
Wify thinks I'm wonderful - because I've installed a dishwasher which has been sitting around for months. Itwas actually installed days ago - and I've been heroically volunteering to do the dishes as well as cook ... it can take a bit for a busy lady to notice these things. Word. (But you have to actually tell her before she figures it out guys.)
I'm going to be gone for a week, with other folk popping around the Orewa house for security reasons. They know who they are. If you see one, be polite - and tell them you are one of the security people. The TV? What TV? Oh... this TV - you're, er, making sure it's secure... that's right!
See you later.
January 23, 2008
Update on the RMS news: it seems I'm a little precipitous announcing the LIANZA thing, as the organizers have not announced anything of the kind themselves.
I can confirm that Richard has accepted an invitation to deliver a keynote speech at a conference in early October. It could be some time before we know for sure. Stay tuned.
My Oolite shipset is pegged for the default build!
This is fairly big, since this would mean Oolite finally leaving Elite behind. Our little foss project is growing up...
My GNU/Linux course at Orewa College has generated enquiries already. I'll have to get off my butt and actually design it! (Well, all right, I will actually do the designing sitting down.) Interested readers need to book in advance to make sure I have the numbers for the course to procede.
Plans are afoot in this household to visit Waiheke Is. for a week - starting next week, prob. Thurs. So I'll vanish for a bit. While there is an internet cafe on the Is. Cathy has plans to keep me waterblasting or carrying rubbish bags. The idea is to try setting things up so we can rent-out the house there.
Barfoot and Thomson have washed their hands of the place. It's turned out to be difficult to let. It's an Initial home (Grenadier floorplan, solid timber walls, shagpile) nestled in the bush (no lawn) on the edge of the forest and bird reserve.
Anyone want a home on a Aucklands resort island - drop me a line. For that matter - a holiday stop...
January 20, 2008
I've been frittering away my time on 3D modelling ... see pic.
So it's time well spent then...
We are approaching term time and I have started receiving inquiries about the Orewa College courses. You guys have to call the college to book the courses... I don't do that. (Though I suppose I should start getting course materials ready.)
The courses will be using Ubuntu as a base platform, and I only have four computers, so please supply your own if you can. If you have, or can get, an old computer (any spec) to donate to HBCLUG - then please do so - bring it along to an installfest or just drop it by my house.
These machines will be reconditioned and given away, so it's a good cause.
On the Free Software front - Richard Stallman's return visit is in the planning stages.
He plans to join the World March for Peace and Non-violence in Wellington on the 2nd of October. He's agreed to be a xeynote speaker at the LIANZA conference in Chistchurch on the 10th. This should allow an engagement in WGT - maybe he can do the tour from bottow to top this time?
January 13, 2008
Woops! This one's late... I've been busy doing my bit cleaning the house under the
command direction of my loving wife. The secret to a clean house folks, is to tidy up more than once every three years.
The movie today was Police Story II - Jacky Chan. Sturdy direction, predictable plot, melodrama acting, wierd dubbing, decent stunts. But all done with the JC flair so it works quite well. I'd still have preferred Cantonese with subtitles.
I finally saw Crystal Skull - it was, well, an Indiana Jones movie. Enjoyable mind candy. I'm glad I didn't see it at the cinima.
The Oolite Neo ships are coming along nicely. I've done the big traders, the Vipers, and starting a Krait. There has been a fair amount of useful feedback, so I've been able to get a feel for the kind of styling that works for the center of the game. This is me putting models with 700-2000 polys in the place of the original ships which use, say, five. You gotta notice the difference.
But I have not been keeping up with my usual news - probably next week.
January 8, 2008
Just a string of achingly beautiful summer days - I keep catching the Sun, making be prickly and irritable. It doesn't help that the week has been spent on housework, though I have discovered that the natural color of the kitchen benchtop is white.
The pool continues green. It seems there is an excess of phosphate floating around creating the bloom... so the algae is growing faster than I can kill it. I have a curious powder the Pool Lady insists will remove the phosphates and starve the algae... worth a try.
The Warehouse is down the road from us, and is having a clothing sale. So Cathy and I paid a visit. You have to be careful clothes-shopping at the Warehouse, or you just end up looking like you Shopped At The Warehouse.
I pursuaded Cathy to go for a peach blouse which brings out the warmth in her skin, and she talked me into some rich blues rather than the blacks and blood-reds I usually wear. I needed new jeans and Ts, Cathy opted for sorts, and splashed out on a new swimsuit ... com tap, figure flattering, and black shorts (saves on bikini waxing).
In Oolite, I managed to get roped in to creating some more ships.
In computers, this workstation stays 8.04LTR ... but my laptop in 8.10. I'll have to update the Ubuntu pages soon. The next Ubuntu release is 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) on the 23rd of April this year. The team are still aiming for speed and web-interoperability. With that in mind, a lot of beta software seems to be getting into 8.10 - creates interesting support requests.
I'm also feeling the new influx of gnu/linux users from Xmas time. More than ever there are a lot of questions from people who are not your usual computer geek. Lots of basic paradigm stuff I've not had to go through for years. Not so much LARTing - there is a definite feeling of "fed up" with Microsoft.
January 4, 2008
Sunburn City - Cathy and I went to Uretiti Beach for the day, and managed to turn bits of ourselves red dispite factor 30 sunblock. It was a bright cloudy day, humid like a sauna, with very diffuse sunlight - lots reflecting off the sand. We took an umbrella for shade, which helped.
Was a popular day, everyone was out. Folks returning south from New Year's holidays managed create a tailback which took us 15mins to pass heading the other way. So, at the end of the day, we took a tour of the coast then stopped off at Waipu cove for dinner.
The restaurant there was relaxed, but swamped. Our dinner took ages, but was worth the wait - we both had the Fish of the Day - which turned out to be John Dory, grilled with the skin on, with a capers-and-cream sauce. Perfection. The weather had turned cool, with a hint of rain coming from inland.
The drive back was misty through the ranges - we treated each other's burns, and snuggled for movie: "The Prestige", which was cleverer than I thought it would be. The films hook is based on the cruel truths behind some magic acts.
This morning I saw a double feature - Night of the Living Dead, the George Romero classic which I have never seen, and "Carnival of Souls" which was plain limp. NotLD was the clear winner of the two, which I chose to view in the original monochrome (there was a cheesy colorised version on the same disk). Surprising considering when it was made and what the budget was.
Today is another achingly sunny day. I'm off to take care of the pool.
January 2, 2009
I have heard back from the two Catholic Schools I have applied to - both have turned me down. I'll have to polish my approach - still not heard from the third one though. New month will see a new Education Gazette and new opportunities. I've been hearing that teaching opportunities are better in the UK, so I could always go back to the old country.
It occurs to me that all the New Zealanders that Kiwis are so proud to hold high had to leave the country to make their acheivements. Oh well.
Still firmly in the grips of silly season - there seems no point attempting anything big. I look look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping, and the ceeling, and there's repairs and painting. I know, I'll repair my car roof.
December saw 1200 unique visitors generating 15000 hits - a bit down on November, which saw a rise for some reason. Most visitors are from the United States, but the vast majority of you are hiding your URLs, an interesting development.
The number of people staying longer than 30mins is up slightly at 16, and the blog is now level-pegging the acer pages in popularity - this is both a decrease in views for acer and an increase in blog popularity. There has been a bit of a change in subject matter this month, but there will be more linuxy things soon.
GNU/Linux and Windows are level with 46% each - most of the rest is Mac. Three of you called from cell-phones, and three from a BSD box. I see, though, that Firefox rulez 67% of you, but I still see 20% still with IE... I guess I'm going to have to push harder! What are you waiting for?
It is interesting to see where referrals come from - last month it was mostly Aegidean (Oolite, Linux Questions, and Linux on Laptops. There was a noteable referral from Notebook Review - probably about that Acer page again.
Over the whole year 2008, the site got a total 166333 hits. Either I'm doing something right or I'm just not stuffing up as badly as I thought I would. Still, as that Acer page is unlikely to see much by way of updates, I'll need another major draw. What would you like to see more of? Use the feedback button...
This month's album is Vibrant by Cargo Cult. Enjoy. As usual, there is an m3u stream as well.
January 1, 2009
The calendar, once more, cycles out the old year and advances that last digit. Just think, next year
a joint US-Soviet space mission flys out to Jupiter to salvage the Discovery, maybe bring the old Hal 9000 back online. Ain't Science fiction wonderful?
Welcome to 2009
Apart from that, we can look forward to a busy year - since, this year, the World will come to an end. This time, they mean it.
This year is the last chance for the coming of the Antichrist, and the second coming of Jesus Christ, according to a prediction, made in 1999, by Rev. Jerry Falwell.
According to Jack Smith, this year will see the start of God's judgement, which is to end in the destruction of the New Roman Empire etc. by 2012. Everybody knows this prediction refers to the inevitable fall of Microsoft corporation and the eventual Rapture as the World migrates to GNU/Linux. Those of us with the Tue Sight know these things.
Friday, 13th of February should be an interesting day: at 23:13 the Unix time number will be 1234567890 seconds ... naturally, the World has to end then. Hence, there is no need to shop for Valentine's day - imagine the saving. A number of channelled entities have predicted the World's demise on this day, at that time. Sunrise should be interesting, get your popcorn ready.
The other favorite date is August 29th. In this case, the prediction breaks from the usual Xian stuff to anticipate a cometary bombardment. We can expect this to be much more spectacular than the dim Xian imaginings, with millions of Comets, some over 600km in diameter, will intercept Earth's orbit.
We should be able to see this one coming - the inner oort-cloud is about 50000AU away, about a light-year. The earliest reference I've found to this comes from 2004, which gives the comets a nice stately sublight speed. By now they should be less than eight light-months out ... so their tails will be forming soon. This should light up the whole sky, another popcorn and feildglasses event for astronomers.
Even with the millions of comets involved in the prediction, the vastness of space means that we can expect only one or two to come close enough to worry about. So sit back and enjoy the pretty lights.
I should point out here that there is no verification for any of these predictions. I got them off the Religious Tolerance website. It has a great list, including last year's. What I'd like to see is a follow-up on those "predictions for this year" by psychics etc that often appear as entertainment in Newspapers.
For example:
Craig & Jane are claiming a hit on their prediction of an Assassination attempt on Barack Obama in 2009 by citing the foiled, alleged, plot in 2008. They claim a hit based on the fact that this happened after the prediction was published. I think this fails on two counts - 1. the date is not correct, a prediction for 2009 has to happen in 2009 to count as a hit; 2. it was not an assassination attempt, even if true: it had not gone further than the "plotting while high" stage. This is not against the law, even in the USA. The plotters were convicted on drugs and firearms charges.
Their other predictions make as much sence, and these folk are about par for the course.
I, for one, plan to celebrate each time Earth "survives" a disaster prediction. Of course, it could be that the Earth really was destroyed, and was instantly replaced by something even more bizzarly inexplicable.
